Zumba fitness - a trend reached Graz

Are you ready to dance yourself into shape?

The Zumba® programme was created in the 1990s by Colombian native Alberto "Beto" Perez, a celebrity fitness trainer and choreographer for international pop superstars. Inspired by the traditional cumbia, salsa, samba and merengue music he grew up with, Beto paired his favourite pulsating Latin rhythms with the red-hot international dance steps that his clients loved and created the Zumba® Fitness-Party.

Since Beto brought the Zumba® Fitness programme to the U.S. in 1999, it has become a huge fitness success, with people of all ages falling in love with its infectious music, easy-to-follow dance moves and body-beautifying benefits.

More information: http://www.zumba.com/ 

bit and its initiative fit@bit organize a course with 10 weekly sessions starting on March 20, 2012. 


 

as promised - some salads

One of our project topis is healthy food.

Well, in the last meeting in Oristano, Sardinia, we went ONE time to a pizzeria. Quite fair in Italy, hum?
As a picture of myself pretending to help baking pizzas got quite popular on Facebook I had promised to publish some salad recipies. Well - not really recipies, for this I would need to be professional and I am not, it's more a description of self-experience.
Once my wife helped, but two times it was just me!

Here we go:

We start with green salad, washed and picked in parts by hand.

Olive oil and some garlic give a nice base for shrimps.

And now all together with some (bought ready made) salad of celery. Delicious!

Number two: now me alone:

The salad is a combination of (okay, same package of bought ready made) celery salad, together with cleaned and cut pieces of two oranges and raisins.
The fish is a "Sarda", a blue fish, with lots of those Omegas. 3 or 6 of them. It got some slices of lemon into its belly before it went in the grill-pan.
The green side dish is cabbage, which entered a pan where I had roasted onions and garlic in olive oil, calmed down with some white wine (it's the one visible in the picture, in fact a "green wine" Quinta da Aveleda from the north of Portugal). I still had a piece of ginger, which I cut and added.
Well, this happens if the boy is alone at home :-)

And number three: A sign that I did not forget my Austrian origin, very simple, but really healthy and perhaps a little exotic for some of you: green salad with pumpkin seed oil from Styria.

Please have a look for this oil when you visit Austria, especially Styria (Graz is the capital of Styria). If you cannot come, please ask somebody to bring some of this very special oil. It's made of the seeds of pumpkin which are cleaned, roasted, and pressed to relieve their "green gold". (just one example without meaning it as advertisement or advice: http://www.pumpkinseedoil.cc/ )

Two practical advices:
- it might happen that your lips get a little green after enjoying this oil, don't forget to use your napkin ;-)
- if you get a spot of pumpkin seed oil to a piece of your clothes, washing will perhaps not help. But the spot will disappear if you let the piece of cloth in sunlight for a while.


Well, as you see I am not a professional cook (trying to use what I have, not providing real recipies, perhaps comitting big sins in cooking, etc.). I don't know, and - to be honest - I don't care too much :-)
I just try to cook some healthy things (and eat a pizza all 3 months) and I want to encourage you, dear reader, to try to cook some healthy things, too.

And - please - if you want to publish your creations here, please don't hesitate to ask me for a author's permission or send me the article (with at least one picture! :-) )

Project meeting in Oristano, Italy

Agne Banaitiene made a video presentation about the meeting in Italy mainly for their school in Lithuania.
Maybe you'll enjoy seeing it too! (please click on the image to start the video)

 

Tea time - Oristano

Rosemary and lemon tea

Boil the water and then add the fresh rosemary and lemon scoze for 7-8 minutes.Strain and add honey to sweeten.

ROSEMARY

Rosemary is a stimulant which helps in cases of general weakness and fatigue. It is employed to relieve stress from overwork, both physical and intellectual. It’s an antineuralgic and it also has antiseptic properties. It helps recover from flu and fever and soothes the respiratory tract in people suffering from asthma and cough. Futhermore it is beneficial to the digestive system, in fact it is a cholagogue (it helps the production of bile), a stomachic (it aids digestion) and a carminative (it relieves colic and helps bowel movements). Finally it helps bone problems such as rheumatism.

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Bay leaves and orange tea

Boil the water with the bay leaves and orange peel for 10 min. Strain and serve with honey to sweeten.

BAY LEAVES

Bay leaves are mostly used to flavor dishes such as stews, soups, roasts and fish, but also have many beneficial properties that make them even more useful. Its oil is useful for the treatment of the nervous system, rheumatism and sprains. Above all bay leaves are good for the stomach. They help digestion, alleviate pain, and they reinforce the walls and protect the gastric mucosa.

The intercultural understanding

I have always been expressing that the LLP project is the greatest gift to Europe and the European Union. It is a kind of medicine against racism and xenophobia when they are dramatically in the community. This video shows that an important adialogue and a good friendship among the different cultures. I hope our project will become a shining star of the city and the most recent example of this .. by Mustafa Can HİÇYILMAZ

Green Tea - Home Remedies

The claims for green tea include reducing the risk of cancer, preventing or alleviating rheumatoid arthritis and eliminating heartburn. But green tea is perhaps best known for its high levels of anti-oxidents. This is especially of use to those with active lifestyles as anti-oxidents help reduce the level of damage caused by free radicals.

However, if you try it, you will find that green tea is more than just a tasty, hot beverage. Green teas have become an integral part of home remedies everywhere, from skin and teeth care to general preventative measures.

Enjoyment

Perhaps the most important benefit of green tea is the sheer enjoyment that goes along with a soothing cup of green tea. It has a light, delicate flavor and its ability to complement breakfasts, lunch and dinner make this drink a favorite.

Energy

In addition to enjoyment, another benefit of green tea is the energy factor. Like coffee, green tea has caffeine. Although there is less caffeine contained in green tea, the tea can still go a long way to getting you over that late afternoon hump. In actual fact the reduced dose of caffeine is yet another benefit of green tea -- while the caffeine is just enough to give you a boost, for many people it does so without creating the jittery, anxious feeling that other caffeinated beverages can cause. So the next time you make your way to the coffee machine in your office, consider instead pouring a hot cup of water and dipping in a bag of green tea. 

Essential Health Benefits

Enjoyment and energy are two of the great benefits of green tea.  But perhaps the greatest of the green tea benefits are the health benefits that are becoming increasingly more associated and recognized in general with drinking green tea. Green tea is chock full of antioxidants, those wild little particles that counterbalance free radicals. Free radicals are produced as a result of our bodies’ natural metabolic processes, and can cause damage to our cells. By counterbalancing these free radicals, antioxidants prevent some of this damage. 

Green Tea and Weight Loss

Perhaps unusual to think of green tea as having weight loss properties but there now exists a green tea diet and many people swear by green tea extract as part of their weight loss programme. In fact you will find that green tea extract is contained in proprietary fat burning supplements. The green tea extract is used to increase metabolism without increasing your heart rate. A common side effect  of other weight loss supplements.

 Green Tea and Skin Care

Green teas have been found to have positive effects in the arena of skin care. Two specific areas include acne and eczema. For acne, this tea makes a great, cheap alternative to expensive toners or astringents. Simply drinking green tea has also worked for some to decrease the presence of acne, although you do have to be careful of increasing the intake of caffeine in your diet, as this has been linked to an increase in breakouts. 

 Homemade Mouthwash

In addition to skin care, another benefit of green tea claimed by manufactuers is that it can be used as part of a homemade mouthwash. So what property of this light drink helps keep your teeth healthy? It’s the presence of fluoride that helps prevent tooth decay and strengthens your teeth and gums.

More Health Benefits of Green Tea

A regular daily intake of green tea or green tea extract is also thought to help your overall health and well-being. The tea is full of antioxidants that bind free radicals in our bodies; these free radicals can often cause damage to cells.

Source: http://www.greentearesource.com/

Chemicals in fast food wrappers show up in human blood

Friday, January 06, 2012 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer

Toxic chemicals used to line fast food wrappers migrate easily into human blood, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Toronto and published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

Oily foods such as fast food and microwave popcorn are regularly packaged in paper or cardboard coated with polyfluoroalkyl phosphate esters (PAPs), which prevent water or grease from leaking through the packaging. A prior study by the same research team confirmed that PAPs can migrate from packaging into food, and thereby be ingested. This is an issue of particular concern, because the body can metabolize PAPs into a highly toxic class of chemicals called perfluorinated carboxylic acids (PFCAs). 

The most infamous PFCA is perflurooctanoic acid (PFOA, also known as C8) the active ingredient in Teflon. PFOA and other PFCAs have been linked to a wide variety of health problems including changes in cholesterol and sex hormones. They have produced tumors and even infant death in animal studies.

"PFOA used in non-stick pans (fast-food containers, carpets, furniture and a host of other everyday household products) accumulates in the umbilical cords of babies and is retarding their growth and brain development, according to two new studies published in the prestigious journal Environmental Health Perspectives (August 2007)," notes Andreas Moritz in the book Timeless Secrets of Health & Rejuvenation.

"Babies whose umbilical cords had the highest concentrations of PFOA were born lighter, thinner and with smaller head circumferences than others."

In the new study, researchers exposed rats to PAPs and confirmed that they were indeed metabolized into PFOA.

"This discovery is important because we would like to control human chemical exposure, but this is only possible if we understand the source of this exposure," researcher Scott Mabury said.

He noted that the findings refute attempts "to locate the blame for human exposure on environmental contamination that resulted from past chemical use rather than the chemicals that are currently in production."

Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/034578_fast_food_wrappers_chemicals.html#ixzz1invj0QL9