Six rules to help you avoid consuming partially hydrogenated oils.

Here are six rules to help you avoid consuming partially hydrogenated oils. Don't think for one minute that this is all you need to do for your heart and your health. Eliminating partially hydrogenated oils from your diet is just one piece of the puzzle. This is not the place to educate you about heart health and other medical issues. But if you don't understand heart health, then learn about it - please - for your own and your family's well-being. And if you are avoiding squarely facing up to the issue, and possibly kidding yourself, then go to a cardiologist for a checkup if you haven't already done so. That applies to women too. Heart disease is the number one killer of women in the United States.

Six rules to avoid eating bad fats
(and don't be deceived by
"cholesterol free" products)

1. Don't eat any product which has the words "partially hydrogenated" or "shortening" in the ingredients list.
2. If the label says zero trans fats, don't believe it. If the words "partially hydrogenated" or "shortening" are in the ingredients list, it DOES contain trans fat.

3. Be careful when consuming products with labels from outside the United States. Sometimes they contain partially hydrogenated oil but it's not on the label.

4. In restaurants, bakeries, and other eateries, ask whether they use partially hydrogenated oil for frying or baking or in salad dressings. If they say they use vegetable oil, ask whether it is partially hydrogenated. Don't be shy about asking. Assume that all unlabeled baked and fried goods contain partially hydrogenated oil, unless you know otherwise.
5. Keep saturated fat intake low too. This is very important.
6. Remember that polyunsaturated fat and monounsaturated fats are good fats.
To learn more about good and bad fats, click here. 
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See also 

The Approval Trap: How to Ditch the Fear You Didn’t Know You Had So You Can Find Your Inner Authority

When my daughter was two years old, she loved to draw. The funny thing is, she never asked me if it was okay to draw on the walls. She assumed it was fine. White wall, colorful crayons, good idea. She had inner authority: she didn’t stress about it; she knew just what she liked. She never second guessed herself, wondering if she was good enough. She certainly didn’t wonder if she was smart enough, attractive enough, or funny enough. She assumed that she was all of these things and more, and most importantly, she was undeterred in accomplishing whatever she set her mind to.

Read More from Positively Positive

The Davis Autism Approach

Disclaimer: This Blog is posted for interest only; this post does not advocate any particular treatment.

Within the Davis Autism Approach, in our aim for simplicity, we have chosen to use ‘Autism’ as the umbrella term for Autism, Asperger Syndrome (AS), High Functioning Autism (HFA) or Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS). We hope this is acceptable to you.

The Davis Autism Approach is a non-invasive, gentle approach designed to allow autistic individuals to participate more fully in life. 

This one-on-one program can be conducted by a Davis Autism Approach Facilitator or by a parent or loved one who can be trained and mentored by a Davis Autism Facilitator-Coach.

Read More from the Davis Autism Approach

Can Autism be cured

Disclaimer: This Blog is posted for interest only; this post does not advocate any particular treatment.

Things are heating up. Last week I posted Vaccines DO Cause Autism, but That’s Not The Point, and things got ugly. But I’m not going to stop there. It’s the month where everyone lights it up blue… and there’s nothing wrong with that. But I think we need to focus on more than blue lights. We should be asking the question: can autism be cured?

According to many of your recent comments, autism cannot be cured. You say that autism is a genetic, neurological disorder that some children are born with.

Well, I hate to disagree… but, I disagree.

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Psychiatric nurses threaten strike over staffing shortages

The Psychiatric Nurses Association is to vote on proposals for industrial action over staffing shortages in the profession.

Delegates at the association’s annual conference in Co Cavan voted to put a proposal for a ballot on industrial action to a special executive council meeting next month.

The union says up to 1,000 new nurses are needed to fill 600 current vacancies and to replace retiring staff across the mental health services.

General secretary Des Kavanagh said the association could not trust the HSE to guarantee a proper nursing workforce was in place. Nurses had no faith that the strategies being pursued by the HSE to recruit and train nurses would meet the “chronic shortages” faced in the coming years, he said.

More from the Irish Times

Permission granted for national children's hospital

An Bord Pleanála has granted planning permission for the new children's hospital on a campus shared with St James's Hospital in Dublin.

The project will bring together the three existing children's hospitals - Temple Street Children's University Hospital, Our Lady's Children's Hospital, Crumlin and the National Children's Hospital, Tallaght.

There has been much controversy of the suitability of the site

Read more from RTE

Meet Your Second Brain: The Gut

Most of us can relate to the experience of having butterflies in our stomach, or to a visceral gut-wrenching feeling, and how often are we told not to ignore our “gut-instinct” or “gut-feeling” when making a decision.
Even from our simple slang, it’s clear just how symbolically connected the gut is to our emotions. Now, there’s tangible proof to support these popular metaphors.
We all have a microbiome, and they are as unique as our neural pathways
Research has shown that the body is actually composed of more bacteria than cells. We are more bug than human! Collectively, these trillions of bacteria are called the microbiome. Most of those bacteria reside in our gut, sometimes referred to as the gut microbiota, and they play multiple roles in our overall health.
The gut is no longer seen as an entity with the sole purpose of helping with all aspects of digestion. It’s also being considered as a key player in regulating inflammation and immunity.
Read more from mindful.org

The Cancer Whisperer

Perhaps the only dreams that die are the ones that come true. They cease to exist in the very instant that they pass from imagination to reality. Until then they live on in the recesses of your mind,veiled by disappointment and hopelessness, like old love letters tied up in red ribbon and left in an antique box in the attic. Forgotten and unfulfilled.

Sometimes it can take a near-catastrophe to pull your dreams back into the forefront of your consciousness and convince you to dust off all the reasons you abandoned them. Sometimes you need to teeter on the rim of death to put them back into play.

I wrote The Cancer Whisperer last summer because cancer had dropped my neglected dream of being an author into my arms like a newborn baby, wide-eyed and irresistible, demanding my complete attention. I barely had a choice in the matter. It just wanted out.

Read more on the website Sophie Sabbage: the Cancer Whisperer

5 Truths Only Depressives Understand & How to Fight Back

There are some things that only depressives understand. It’s hard to describe to people who have never experienced it before and most of the time too painful.

But today, I’m going to try.

As someone with clinical depression, I fight these truths on a cycling basis. After years of healing and proactive recovery, I’ve grown to be a pro at pulling myself back out of the darkness. As strong as I’ve gotten, however, I still get hit with these issues when I least expect it.

It’s a battle to open up about what we’re feeling or thinking because a part of us believes our distortions are true. To say it out loud would surely break us.

I’ve learned that by letting the people I love in, I give myself permission to heal, and so do you. We get nowhere with silence.

Depression isn’t something to grit your teeth and bear; it’s a malady only love will heal. [tweet it]

It’s my hope that sharing these truths with you, the depressed or the compassionate, will either help you feel less alone or better understand a loved one in your life who can’t speak up yet. Below each truth, I offer how I fight back against the distortions, and also how you as a supporter might be able to support someone who’s going through a low point.

Here are the 5 truths only depressives understand (and how to fight back).

Read more from the blog 'Strong inside out'

Newly published charter of rights for people with dementia

Former president Mary Robinson has said a newly published charter of rights for people with dementia would help society view the condition in a new light.

Ireland’s first such document is the culmination of work carried out by the Irish Dementia Working Group and the Alzheimer Society of Ireland (ASI).

The Charter of Rights for People with Dementia stresses the need for a parity of rights for the 48,000 people estimated to have the condition in Ireland.

Specifically, it highlights policy gaps in the areas of stigma and the “inadequate and inappropriate” nature of services.

Read more 

Remedies for Your Anxious Mind

This week's theme: Soothing an anxious mind.

When you're antsy, jumpy, or feeling anxious, a walking meditation can be the best thing to help transfer all of that inner movement into focused attention.

Sometimes, simply pausing, taking five deep breaths, expanding the inbreath and slowing the outbreath, can steady us, and give us a moment of open awareness.

One of the best ways to soothe the nerves is to find other people to be with and talk to, which is how we discover that most people feel anxious to some degree—it isn't just happening to us.

Here’s hoping you all find moments to enjoy being mindful this week

Taken from Mindful Newletter extract

Three Simple Mindfulness Practices You Can Use Every Day

Every minute of our lives serves up something new and gives us an opportunity to learn. But when it comes to the usual ways of learning—reading, writing, and listening to others—we often lose the freshness of direct experience and instead just shovel information into our brains. Mirabai Bush suggests how to learn more deeply and with more enjoyment.

Read More from Mindfulness.org