live it up

why wouldn't you....it's the weekend!

that print needs to live in my house....and that wallpaper too....

*images courtesy of walking around/ dazey chic etsy, semigloss chic, high street market

shop like a blogger....

you would think since i have had this blog for a little over two and a half years, i would be a little more computer savvy....not so much!! just ask averill! who was sweet enough to ask me to do a guest post on her beautiful blog odi et amo. luckily, after about ten emails, i figured out how to send her my post. so if you are interested in how i shop, head on over......

*thanks again averill for all of your help and patience :)

Grains as Food: an Update

Improperly Prepared Grain Fiber can be Harmful

Last year, I published a post on the Diet and Reinfarction trial (DART), a controlled trial that increased grain fiber intake using whole wheat bread and wheat bran supplements, and reported long-term health outcomes in people who had previously suffered a heart attack (1). The initial paper found a trend toward increased heart attacks and deaths in the grain fiber-supplemented group at two years, which was not statistically significant.

What I didn't know at the time is that a follow-up study has been published. After mathematically "adjusting" for preexisting conditions and medication use, the result reached statistical significance: people who increased their grain fiber intake had more heart attacks than people who didn't during the two years of the controlled trial. Overall mortality was higher as well, but that didn't reach statistical significance. You have to get past the abstract of the paper to realize this, but fortunately it's free access (2).

Here's a description of what not to eat if you're a Westerner with established heart disease:

Those randomised to fibre advice were encouraged to eat at least six slices of wholemeal bread per day, or an equivalent amount of cereal fibre from a mixture of wholemeal bread, high-fibre breakfast cereals and wheat bran.

Characteristics of Grain Fiber

The term 'fiber' can refer to many different things. Dietary fiber is simply defined as an edible substance that doesn't get digested by the human body. It doesn't even necessarily come from plants. If you eat a shrimp with the shell on, and the shell comes out the other end (which it will), it was fiber.

Grain fiber is a particular class of dietary fiber that has specific characteristics. It's mostly cellulose (like wood; although some grains are rich in soluble fiber as well), and it contains a number of defensive substances and storage molecules that make it more difficult to eat. These may include phytic acid, protease inhibitors, amylase inhibitors, lectins, tannins, saponins, and goitrogens (3). Grain fiber is also a rich source of vitamins and minerals, although the minerals are mostly inaccessible due to grains' high phytic acid content (4, 5, 6).

Every plant food (and some animal foods) has its chemical defense strategy, and grains are no different*. It's just that grains are particularly good at it, and also happen to be one of our staple foods in the modern world. If you don't think grains are naturally inedible for humans, try eating a heaping bowl full of dry, raw whole wheat berries.

Human Ingenuity to the Rescue

Humans are clever creatures, and we've found ways to use grains as a food source, despite not being naturally adapted to eating them**. The most important is our ability to cook. Cooking deactivates many of the harmful substances found in grains and other plant foods. However, some are not deactivated by cooking. These require other strategies to remove or deactivate.

Healthy grain-based cultures don't prepare their grains haphazardly. Throughout the world, using a number of different grains, many have arrived at similar strategies for making grains edible and nutritious. The most common approach involves most or all of these steps:

• Soaking
  
• Grinding
• Removing 50-75% of the bran
  
• Sour fermentation
• Cooking
  

But wait, didn't all healthy traditional cultures eat whole grains? The idea might make us feel warm and fuzzy inside, but it doesn't quite hit the mark. A recent conversation with Ramiel Nagel, author of the book Cure Tooth Decay, disabused me of that notion. He pointed out that in my favorite resource on grain preparation in traditional societies, the Food and Agriculture Organization publication Fermented Cereals: a Global Perspective, many of the recipes call for removing a portion of the bran (7). Some of these recipes probably haven't changed in thousands of years. It's my impression that some traditional cultures eat whole grains, while others eat them partially de-branned.

In the next post, I'll explain why these processing steps greatly improve the nutritional value of grains, and I'll describe recipes from around the world to illustrate the point.


* Including tubers. For example, sweet potatoes contain goitrogens, oxalic acid, and protease inhibitors. Potatoes contain toxic glycoalkaloids. Taro contains oxalic acid and protease inhibitors. Cassava contains highly toxic cyanogens. Some of these substances are deactivated by cooking, others are not. Each food has an associated preparation method that minimizes its toxic qualities. Potatoes are peeled, removing the majority of the glycoalkaloids. Cassava is grated and dried or fermented to inactivate cyanogens. Some cultures ferment taro.

** As opposed to mice, for example, which can survive on raw whole grains.

*heart*

i love this quote....it's often easy to get distracted by the the obstacles that surround us but when i read this, i kind of feel like i could be a super hero and conquer the world...watch out :)

*images courtesy of fern and feather, robot heart, little green notebook, black eiffel

Membuat Animasi Dengan Motion Twinning II

Belajar Komputer | Untuk langkah-langkahnya tidak jauh berbeda dengan tutorial yang pertama bos hanya saja kali ini animasinya menggunakan teks. gmana ya? pnasaran kan. mari kita lanjutkan bos.

Langkah pertama yang jelas dibuka dulu dunk flashnya, tutorial ini menggunakan Adobe Flash CS3 Professional...maka akan muncul jendela seperti ini.















nah setelah itu pilih menu File - New

many, many thanks

for being such a wonderful support system. it seems like these days my life consists mostly of pregnancy issues vs. beautiful design stories....but to be able to have people understand where i am coming from is a huge sigh of relief. i can't thank y'all enough, really. i passed my second round of tests so no gestational diabetes here. does that mean i can get that pound cake out of the freezer now??

*images courtesy of fern and feather, thom filicia, gary spain

Membuat Animasi Dengan Motion Twinning I

Belajar Komputer | Langkah pertama yang jelas dibuka dulu dunk flashnya, tutorial ini menggunakan Adobe Flash CS3 Professional...maka akan muncul jendela seperti ini.



nah setelah itu pilih menu File -- New atau bisa juga dengan shortcut CTRL+N.. maka akan muncul jendela baru lagi seperti dibawah ini.



mari kita lanjutkan lagi....setelah itu pilih yang paling atas ja..alx kita baru blajar

i'm a hoarder...

it's official...i am a hoarder. not in the sense of dirty garbage taking over my house...but rather, i'm a hoarder of ideas, fabrics, and pictures. i hold onto them forever, contemplating what i am going to do with them (drives my husband batty). this addiction applies only to my own house and decorating it. i finally made a decision for taylor's room. i am using quadrille's paradise background. done, no take backs!! now, i just need to decide how i am going to use it. she has two twin beds in her room. i am thinking bed canopies.....and i kind of want to tackle it as a diy project (have any of y'all tried this). so as a confessed hoarder, here is my collection of bed canopies.....i am leaning towards pic #1.

*images courtesy of ruthie sommers, pieter estersohn, palmer weiss, katie ridder, tom scheerer, house to home, mmr interiors, my fabric

ARCVIEW GIS 3.3

ARCVIEW GIS 
Belajar Komputer | Sekarang giliran belajar membuat peta pake Arview GIS 3.3 bos.....ternyata keren juga, walaupun baru pertama buka hehehehehehehehh. Oke dech bos aku sharing ni sedikit ni tentang pengertian Arview yang udah q dapet dari dosenq bos...kurang lebih seperti ni dech "ArcView  yang  merupakan  salah  satu  perangkat
lunak  Sistem  Informasi  geografis  yang 

Aljabar Linear

Belajar Komputer | Wah sekarang da tambahan matakuliah Aljabar Linear nich….ya lumayan udah dapat sedikit ilmu ttg operasi-operasi dasarnya bos.!
Ni ada sedikit contohnya skalian buat belajar bareng dech bos…

x + y + 2z = 9
2x + 4y - 3z = 1
3 + 6y - 5z = 0
nah matrik diperbanyaknya jadi seperti ni boz…


Nah Setelah itu mari kita ikuti langkah2nya bos...!









Dengan susah payah setelah

FAILED.

i failed a test. it's not the first time it's happened in my life...i use to have my fair share of fun in college, i'm sure i didn't study for a pop quiz or something. it really shouldn't come as a surprise- i failed the same test 3 yrs ago. but it still sucks none the less. b/c to retake the test you have to drink 3 big bottles of the sweetest, thickest, syrup like concoctions known to man....in three hours after fasting for a night. i think i would almost prefer a piece of paper w/ a big fat F written across it....

*images courtesy of chocolate therapie, oak management, it's mary ruffle

yesterday, warren and i looked at each other at 6:00 and said "let's just go to bed and start this day over".....sometimes days just don't go exactly as planned. so today i am starting off w/ this quote...

{update} apparently this magical quote works.....my fairy godfather (aka the fed ex man) has rung my doorbell twice this AM: once he delivered a basket full of bath beauties and once w/ a pound cake. this day is already much better :)

*images courtesy of most beautiful darling, a diary of lovely, in the fun lane, ehouse studio

Cegah Tulang Keropos & Penuaan Dini dengan Rosella


Tulang Keropos (osteoporosis) dan penuaan dini merupakan momok yang menakutkan bagi hampir setiap orang dewasa ini. Tulang keropos dan penuaan dini dapat dipercepat prosesnya dikarenakan pola makan yang tidak sehat, kekurangan kalsium, merokok, gemar minum alkohol, jarang berolahraga dan stres. Proses penuaan dini dimulai pada sekitar usia 25 tahun dan pada usia mendekati 40 tahun, kalsium serta mineral lainnya didalam tulang berkurang lebih cepat daripada seharusnya. Pada wanita menurunnya hormon estrogen menjadikan pengeroposan tulang menjadi lebih cepat.


Penuaan dini juga ditandai dengan kerusakan kulit, kulit tampak kusam dan berkerut serta muncul flek-flek hitam. Hal tersebut dikarenakan kurangnya vitamin C dalam menghadapi radikal bebas yang bisa merusak kulit. Untuk mencegah tulang keropos dan penuaan dini, kita perlu mengkonsumsi kalsium dan vitamin C dalam jumlah yang tepat. Tanaman Herbal Rosella (Hibiscus sabdariffa Linn.) yang mulanya berasal dari Afrika & Timur Tengah, memiliki khasiat utama sebagai antioksidan pencegah pengapuran tulang, penuaan dini, memperlambat menopause dan mengurangi dampak negatif nikotin. Herbal Rosella banyak mengandung Kalsium, Vitamin C, D, B-1, B-2, Magnesium, omega-3, beta- carotene dan 18 asam amino essensial untuk tubuh diantaranya lysine dan agrinine. Tiap 100 gram kelopak rosella segar mengandung 260-280 miligram vitamin C, vitamin B1 dan B2. Kandungan vitamin C yang ada, 3 kali lipat anggur hitam, 9 kali lipat dari jeruk sitrus, 10 kali lipat lebih besar dari buah belimbing.


Herbal Rosella Tea Dr.Liza berasal dari 100 % kelopak bunga rosella yang dikeringkan dengan teknologi suhu rendah dan tidak mengandung zat kimia tambahan. Kelopak bunga rosella mengandung banyak antioksidan dan kaya akan nutrisi yang sangat berguna sebagai bagi keseimbangan tubuh manusia. Senyawa antioksidan yang ada pada Herbal Rosella Tea sangat berguna dalam menangkal radikal bebas, mencegah pengapuran tulang dan penuaan dini, memperlambat menopause, memperlancar sistem sirkulasi, menguatkan pembuluh darah dan mengurangi dampak negatif nikotin.



Herbal Rosella Tea diproduksi oleh PT. Liza Herbal International (Dr. Liza), perusahaan herbal berdomisili di Bogor, Jawa Barat yang telah berhasil memproduksi produk-produk Herbal Alami unggulan yang telah terdaftar di Badan POM, Dinas Kesehatan, mendapatkan Sertifikat Halal dari MUI, mendapatkan penghargaan Juara I dari Pemda Propinsi Jawa Barat dan telah melalui test serta supervisi para ahli dan profesor dari Lab IPB Bogor. Produk-produk herbal berkualitas Dr. Liza diproses dari 100% tumbuhan herbal alami Indonesia tanpa bahan pengawet dan zat aditif.

Jika berminat utk pesan herbal rossela ada 3 jenis produk :
1. Kapsul serbuk bunga rossela, harga 50rb/45 kapsul
2. bentuk kering bunga rossela, 50 ribu/toples
3. bentuk teh celup bunga rossela, 35rb/box

Pemesanan : budiprakoso98@gmail.com atau 081310343598

Diet Bagi Penderita Asam Urat


Dulu, umumnya orang menderita penyakit yang disebabkan oleh infeksi, namun sekarang, penyakit yang banyak diderita oleh masyarakat umumnya disebabkan oleh gaya hidup. Asam urat adalah contohnya. Penyebabnya dapat bermacam-macam. Penderita asam urat tinggi memang harus hati-hati terhadap makanan. Salah satu cara yang dapat dilakukan untuk melakukan diet bagi penderita asam urat ialah dengan: membatasi konsumsi makanan yang mengandung zat purin, banyak minum air, mengatur asupan kadar karbohidrat, protein dan lemak sangat penting dilakukan.

Penderita asam urat tinggi, memang harus hati-hati terhadap makanan. Diet yang dilakukan, harus memenuhi syarat sebagai berikut :

Pembatasan purin
Apabila telah terjadi pembengkakan sendi maka penderita gangguan asam urat harus melakukan diet bebas purin. Namun karena hampir semua bahan makanan sumber protein mengandung nukleoprotein maka hal ini hampir tidak mungkin dilakukan. Maka yang harus dilakukan adalah membatasi asupan purin menjadi 100-150 mg purin per hari (diet normal biasanya mengandung 600-1.000 mg purin per hari).


Kalori sesuai kebutuhan
Jumlah asupan kalori harus benar disesuaikan dengan kebutuhan tubuh berdasarkan pada tinggi dan berat badan. Penderita gangguan asam urat yang kelebihan berat badan, berat badannya harus diturunkannn dengan tetap memperhatikan jumlah konsumsi kalori. Asupan kalori yang terlalu sedikit juga bisa meningkatkan kadar asam urat karena adanya keton bodies yang akan mengurangi pengeluaran asam urat melalui urin.


Tinggi karbohidrat
Karbohidrat kompleks seperti nasi, singkong, roti dan ubi sangat baik dikonsumsi oleh penderita gangguan asam urat karena akan meningkatkan pengeluaran asam urat melalui urin. Konsumsi karbohidrat kompleks ini sebaiknya tidak kurang dari 100 gram per hari. Karbohidrat sederhana jenis fruktosa seperti gula, permen, arum manis, gulali, dan sirop sebaiknya dihindari karena fruktosa akan meningkatkan
kadar asam urat dalam darah.


Rendah protein
Protein terutama yang berasal dari hewan dapat meningkatkan kadar asam urat dalam darah. Sumber makanan yang mengandung protein hewani dalam jumlah yang tinggi, misalnya hati, ginjal, otak, paru dan limpa. Asupan protein yang dianjurkan bagi penderita gangguan asam urat adalah sebesar 50-70 gram/hari atau 0,8-1 gram/kg berat badan/hari. Sumber protein yang disarankan adalah protein nabati yang berasal dari susu, keju dan telur.


Rendah lemak
Lemak dapat menghambat ekskresi asam urat melalui urin. Makanan yang digoreng, bersantan, serta margarine dan mentega sebaiknya dihindari. Konsumsi lemak sebaiknya sebanyak 15 persen dari total kalori.


Tinggi cairan
Konsumsi cairan yang tinggi dapat membantu membuang asam urat melalui urin. Karena itu, Anda disarankan untuk menghabiskan minum minimal sebanyak 2,5 liter atau 10 gelas sehari. Air minum ini bisa berupa air putih masak, teh, atau kopi. Selain dari minuman, cairan bisa diperoleh melalui buah-buahan segar yang mengandung banyak air. Buah-buahan yang disarankan adalah semangka, melon, blewah, nanas, belimbing manis, dan jambu air. Selain buah-buahan tersebut, buah-buahan yang lain juga boleh dikonsumsi karena buah-buahan sangat sedikit mengandung purin. Buah-buahan yang sebaiknya dihindari adalah alpukat dan durian, karena keduanya mempunyai kandungan lemak yang tinggi.


Tanpa alkohol
Berdasarkan penelitian diketahui bahwa kadar asam urat mereka yang mengonsumsi alkohol lebih tinggi dibandingkan mereka yang tidak mengonsumsi alkohol. Hal ini adalah karena alkohol akan meningkatkan asam laktat plasma. Asam laktat ini akan menghambat pengeluaran asam urat dari tubuh.
Sumber : www.keluargasehat.com

Penggunaan herbal seperti tanaman seledri dan sidaguri juga bisa menurunkan kadar asam urat. Mekanisme yang dilakukan ialah dengan cara melancarkan aliran di pembuluh darah serta meningkatkan pembuangan asam urat melalui air seni. Dapatkan manfaat seledri dan sidaguri berkualitas dari Herbal Dr. Liza, Cellery capsule dan Sidaguri capsule dengan email budiprakoso98@gmail.com atau 081310343598. Harga herbal masing2 50rb/45 kpsul ( ongkos kirim jabotabek free utk pembelian min.2 btl).

there are many reasons.....

why i love being a girl.....

* images courtesy of la belle vie/frou frou fashionista, caitlin wilson design, , little french nest, dwell studio blog, seen and said

Dinner with Taubes, Eades and Hujoel

Gary Taubes gave a lecture at UW last Thursday. Thanks to all the Whole Health Source readers who showed up. Gary's talk was titled "Why We Get Fat: Adiposity 101 and the Alternative Hypothesis of Obesity". He was hosted by Dr. Philippe Hujoel, the UW epidemiologist and dentist who authored the paper "Dietary Carbohydrates and Dental-Systemic Diseases" (1).

Gary's first target was the commonly held idea that obesity is simply caused by eating too much and exercising too little, and thus the cure is to eat less and exercise more. He used numerous examples from both humans and animals to show that fat mass is biologically regulated, rather than being the passive result of voluntary behaviors such as eating and exercise. He presented evidence of cultures remaining lean despite a huge and continuous surplus of food, as long as they stayed on their traditional diet. He also described how they subsequently became obese and diabetic on industrial foods (the Pima, for example).

He then moved into what he feels is the biological cause of obesity: excessive insulin keeping fat from exiting fat cells. It's true that insulin is a storage hormone, at the cellular level. However, fat mass regulation involves a dynamic interplay between many different interlacing systems that determine both overall energy intake and expenditure, as well as local availability of nutrients at the tissue level (i.e., how much fat gets into your fat tissue vs. your muscle tissue). I think the cause of obesity is likely to be more complex than insulin signaling.

He also offered the "carbohydrate hypothesis", which is the idea that carbohydrate, or at least refined carbohydrate, is behind the obesity epidemic and perhaps other metabolic problems. This is due to its ability to elevate insulin. I agree that refined carbohydrate, particularly white flour and sugar, is probably a central part of the problem. I'm also open to the possibility that some people in industrial nations are genuinely sensitive to carbohydrate regardless of what form it's in, although that remains to be rigorously tested. I don't think carbohydrate is sufficient to cause obesity per se, due to the many lean and healthy cultures that eat high carbohydrate diets*. Gary acknowledges this, and thinks there's probably another factor that's involved in allowing carbohydrate sensitivity to develop, for example excessive sugar.

I had the opportunity to speak with Gary at length on Thursday, as well as on Friday at dinner. Gary is a very nice guy-- a straightforward New York personality who's not averse to a friendly disagreement. In case any of you are wondering, he looks good. Good body composition, nice skin, hair and teeth (apologies to Gary for the analysis). Philippe and his wife took us out to a very nice restaurant, where we had a leisurely four-hour meal, and Dr. Mike Eades was in town so he joined us as well. Mike has a strong Southern accent and is also a pleasant guy. Philippe and his wife are generous and engaging people. It was a great evening. The restaurant was nice enough that I wasn't going to be picky about the food-- I ate everything that was put in front of me and enjoyed it.


* I'm talking about prevention rather than cure here. I acknowledge that many people have had some success losing fat using low-carbohydrate diets, including two gentlemen I met on Thursday.

peaceful....

after getting zero sleep last night, these images seem simply perfect to me right now. i can't get enough of the first image- perfection.

hope you have a peaceful weekend...

*images courtesy of laura day living (2 images), urban electric, atlanta homes magazine

Copper in Food

Sources of Copper

It isn't hard to get enough copper-- unless you eat an industrial diet. I've compiled a chart showing the copper content of various refined and unrefined foods to illustrate the point. The left side shows industrial staple foods, while the right side shows whole foods. I've incorporated a few that would have been typical of Polynesian and Melanesian cultures apparently free of cardiovascular disease. The serving sizes are what one might reasonably eat at a meal: roughly 200 calories for grains, tubers and whole coconut; 1/4 pound for animal products; 1/2 teaspoon for salt; 1 cup for raw kale; 1 oz for sugar.

Note that beef liver is off the chart at 488 percent of the USDA recommended daily allowance. I don't know if you'd want to sit down and eat a quarter pound of beef liver, but you get the picture. Beef liver is nature's multivitamin: hands down the Most Nutritious Food in the World. That's because it acts as a storage depot for a number of important micronutrients, as well as being a biochemical factory that requires a large amount of B vitamins to function. You can see that muscle tissue isn't a great source of copper compared to other organs.

Beef liver is so full of micronutrients, it shouldn't be eaten every day. Think of it in terms of the composition of a cow's body. The edible carcass is mostly muscle, but a significant portion is liver. I think it makes sense to eat some form of liver about once per week.

Modern Agriculture Produces Micronutrient-poor Foods

The numbers in the graph above come from NutritionData, my main source of food nutrient composition. The problem with relying on this kind of information is it ignores the variability in micronutrient content due to plant strain, soil quality, et cetera.

The unfortunate fact is that micronutrient levels have declined substantially over the course of the 20th century, even in whole foods. Dr. Donald R. Davis has documented the substantial decline in copper and other micronutrients in American foods over the second half of the last century (1). An even more marked decrease has occurred in the UK (2), with similar trends worldwide. On average, the copper content of vegetables in the UK has declined 76 percent since 1940. Most of the decrease has taken place since 1978. Fruits are down 20 percent and meats are down 24 percent.

I find this extremely disturbing, as it will affect even people eating whole food diets. This is yet another reason to buy from artisanal producers, who are likely to use more traditional plant varieties and grow in richer soil. Grass-fed beef should be just as nutritious as it has always been. Some people may also wish to grow, hunt or fish their own food.

how to get inspired....

i love the intensity of this color and the details that make each of these pictures stand out in my mind: the striking awning that could be interpreted into a window treatment, the simple band of trim that really makes the upholstery and draperies pop, the double mirrors that replace a wall mounted one, the graphic small-scale wallpaper that expands a narrow space, the detail of the headboard that accentuates the classic fabric, and the unique monogram found on the bed shams....all of these details are worth taking note of.

*images courtesy of shine, plum interiors, thom filicia, lonny mag #3, little big house

please excuse me....

while i put on this necklace and then take an afternoon ride on this amazing beach cruiser....

i always feel it's important to match your accessories with your bike :)

*images courtesy of fric frac, it's mary ruffle

not your little girl's pink....

although it might not appeal to everyone's palette, i think the color pink is fantastic. in fact, if taken seriously, it can completely transform a room into well..... perfection.

*images courtesy of kelly green interiors, little green notebooks, ruthie sommers (2 images), sally steponkus, shop gramercy