The Carlsen Food Antioxidant Review

Monica Carlsen and her team of 16 made a review of 3100 foods, beverages, spices, herbs and supplements used worldwide to determine antioxidant levels in each. The list below contains what details available in the report published in 22 January 2010 issue of Nutrition Journal. The determination used the modified FRAP (ferric-reducing ability of plasma) assay, which provides a good and fast total antioxidant analysis, although not sensitive to glutathione. Information not mentioned here can be found in my Sun-Star Cebu article entitled "."

BEVERAGES

The study involved 283 products, wet (coffee, tea, beer, wine, lemonades, etc.) and dry (coffee beans, dried tea leaves and powders) products included. Unprocessed tea leaves, tea powders and coffee beans contain the highest antioxidant values.

Those rich in antioxidants include red wine (1.78-3.66 mmol/100g), pomegranate juice, prepared green tea (0.57-2.62 mmol/100g), grape juice, prune juice and black tea (0.75-1.21 mmol/100g).

Beer, soft drinks and ginger ale have the least antioxidant contents. Drinking water has zero.

GRAINS AND GRAIN PRODUCTS

Flours with the highest antioxidant values include buckwheat, millet and barley. Crisp bread and whole meal bread with fiber contain most antioxidants among grain products.

NUTS AND SEEDS

There were 90 products analyzed. Walnuts have the most antioxidant values (33.3 mmol), while poppy seeds the lowest (0.03 mmol/100g).

CHOCOLATES

White chocolates contain the least antioxidant levels (0.23 mmol/100g), while dark chocolates have the highest (14.98 mmol/100g). It vary according the level of cocoa contents: 24-30% (gives 1.8 mmol/100g), 40-65% (7.2 mmol/100g), and70-99% (10.9 mmol/100g).

DAIRY PRODUCTS

Desserts and cakes. Dog rose soup and chocolate cookies have the highest antioxidant levels.

Eggs. Eggs are almost devoid of antioxidants with the highest values (0.16 mmol/100g) found in egg yolk.

Fats and oils. Margarine, butter, canola, corn and soybean oil rank highest in antioxidant content (around 1.7 mmol/100g).

BERRIES AND BERRY PRODUCTS

Those with the highest level of antioxidant contents include Indian gooseberry (261.5 mmol/100g), wild dried dog rose [Rosa canina] (20.8-78.1 mmol/100g), dried wild bilberries [Vaccinum myrtillus, native in Northern Europe] (48.3 mmol/100g), zereshk or red sour berries [from Iran] (27.3 mmol/100g) and fresh dog rose [from Norway and Spain] (24.3 mmol/100g).

Other antioxidant rich berries include fresh crowberries, bilberries, black currants, wild strawberries, blackberries, goki berries, sea buckthorn, and cranberries.

VEGETABLE AND VEGGIE PRODUCTS

Dried and crushed leaves of African baoba tree has the richest antioxidant content (48.1 mmol/100g). Blanched celery contains the lowest (0.0 mmol/100g).

Other vegetables rich in antioxidants include okra flour and artichokes.

Medium contents are in red cabbage, red beets, paprika,

FRUITS AND FRUIT PRODUCTS

The highest antioxidant content can be found in the yellow pith of Spanish pomegranate (55.5 mmol/100g). Lowest content is in watermelon (0.02 mmol/100g).

Other antioxidant rich fruits include dried apples, lemon skin, dried plums, dried apricots, curly kale, red and green chili and prunes.

Medium contents are found in dried dates, dried mango, black and green olives, guava, and plums.

HERBS AND MEDICINAL PLANTS

These are most antioxidant rich category, and also having the largest variation between products. Half of the products have antioxidant values above 90th percentile of the complete Antioxidant Food Table with an average value of 91.7 mmol/100g (mean) and 14.2 mmol/100g (median).

For more information, click these links for my Sun-Star Netork Online articles...

Joy, Temperance and Repose
A Wealth of Antioxidants

The Green Aurora Mystery

Science provides a never-ending source fascination to the mind that awes at the unfathomable beauty of nature. Among those sciences, a few that strike me with wonder are astronomy, archaeology, biology, and medicine. You will notice that these fields covers the full spectrum of science, from the endless expanse of the outer space in astronomy to the microscopic cosmos of medical science. Last January 10, photographer Per-Arne Mikalsen captured a "phenomenon" that may not be fully explained with full certainty... until maybe later in the distant future.

On Jan. 20, 2010, Per-Arne Mikalsen was photographing a vast aurora erupting over the northern Norwegian town of Andenes.

Because solar activity is on the increase, aurora spotters have many opportunities to see the Northern Lights. On this particular night the aurora was intense, stretching toward the southern latitudes of Norway.

In one of the photographs taken by Mikalsen was an "object" that couldn't be identified. Although Mikalsen had taken several images at the same location, just one photo showed a mysterious green parachute-like object hanging with the main aurora. (This time, it appears that the Russian military was not involved in the making of this strange shape in the sky.) Read more.

Health Risk in Boxing Fame and Fortune

Sometimes a person has to choose between health and money, at times life and death in the pursuit financial well-being for self and family. And in the history of world boxing, the cost indeed can be very high.

A slice of Z "The Dream" Gorres' skull remains stored in a biologic refrigeration system at a facility outside San Diego.

The piece of bone, about the size of a man's hand, had to be removed after the bantamweight boxer's Nov. 13 fight at Mandalay Bay's House of Blues. The 27-year-old's battered brain needed room to swell, according to University Medical Center trauma surgeon Dr. Michael Casey.

Had the opening not been made, the swelling within the tight confines of his skull would have compressed his brain stem, shut down his breathing and also his heart. He would have died. Read more.

Related Articles at Sunstar Online and Newspaper January 2010

Jan 27 Ermine of Her Soul (posted 01/26/2010)
Jan 20 A Text of Indifference to Life (posted 01/19/2010)
Jan 13 A Respite to Appreciation (posted 01/12/2010)
Jan 6 A Rendezvous with Alcohol, Fat, and Destiny (posted 01/05/2010)

Homosexuality Is A Way of Thinking

See A Medical View of Homosexuality for the latest research findings.

No matter how you look at it, homosexuality--gay or lesbian--is only a way of thinking reinforced by many years of behavioral preferences. There is no one born gay or lesbian. But there are many who have no good role models of health masculinity or feminity. The role models could either be passive masculines and demanding feminines or oppressive masculines and manipulative feminines or other unknown combinations of certain unhealthy sexuality characteristics. In the same way that a suicidal person is not born depressed as she is raised in a home of depressive atmosphere people with depressed or suicidal role models, homosexuals came to be so because of failure in healthy modelling. With that in mind, homosexuality is essentially a mental problem and not an existential condition.

Studies and observation furnish us a lot of faulty thoughts that bring a person to develop homosexual behaviors, thus changing its "sexual orientation" as far as that person thought it is. The falacy however in this idea of "homosexual sexual orientation" is that what homosexuals claimed as strong sexual feelings towards the opposite sex are actually mental issues that were unresolved and interpreted as a "sexual orientation." The fact that the biological structure of the person cannot support such a "sexual orientation" is proof enough that the person is not born homosexual but either a male or a female.

I don't know how is it to be a male/female. This though is typically among adolescents who are still unsure of what being masculine or feminine is particularly when there is no effective model at home. In a way, homosexuality is a fixation on the confusions of adolescence.

While gender behavior is instinctual among children (male children tends to play rough; female children tends to move slower than the male), exposure to effective role models (parents, siblings, playmates) is needed to strengthen this natural sexual orientation. However, when this role models are ineffective, whether not available (e.g., father is not closely relating to his children, child tends to prefer isolation over socialization with fellow children) or excessive (e.g. mother is domineering while father is passive and not hands-on to raring the children, association mostly with females or sissy children of similar age) this ignorance on how a gender behaves remains, and later on became accepted as a fact of life in the same way that the growing sense of homosexuality is. This ignorance can be so severe that a person may even wonder what should a man do when alighting from a bus; a he knew only of women covering their dress neckline, he too do the same on his polo shirt.

Other thoughts found in studies are often variation of the behavioral ignorance specific to a gender:

• How to feel like a---
• How to think like a---
• How to be interested with (members of the opposite sex)?

Therapy: Rational Emotive Therapy with Behavioral Modification.

What homosexuals don't know is how men behave in certain practical situations and why. This is how far can the ignorance or the damage of environmental factors can go. Homosexuals are either aware of these ignorance or not.

The Ignorants. Those who are not aware will never doubt that they are ignorant in the first place. They simply behave the way they are programmed by their environment. They will not seek to change until this ignorance brings them social and personal problems. In this situation, social pressures in fact are good forces that can help a homosexual redirect himself from that abyss of gender ignorance to living what he really is--a man. Many personal factors often hinder these painful invitations to relearning--pride of being wrong and ignorant; lack of deep prayer life and contemplation; laziness to think this problem through. Most mental health conditions follow the same pattern of development.

The Aware. Those who are aware of their ignorance have two choices to make: learn or stay ignorant. Often their awareness comes from the reaction of other people from a community where homosexuality remains unacceptable. The community in a way provided homosexuals a kind of reality check, and what they receive were negative feedbacks that at time can be very embarrassing and painful to hear and see. The situation forces them to ask the questions--why? (why different? behaving unlike the gender?).

The Aware but chose to stay ignorant. Those who wants to stay ignorant will follow the denial patterns of those who are truly ignorant--too proud to accept their ignorance, too lazy to think ever changing what habits of behavior he has come to use for years. These homosexuals may ask the question why? but that's all they wanted to do. Many times they might not even bother to know the answer, or worse, justify their homosexual behaviors with anything scientific or apparently acceptable to support it.

The Aware but decided to learn. Those who decided to learn go beyond the question why? They also ask the question how? If a male, he will ask: "How should a male behave in this situation?" If a female, "How should a woman behave in this situation?" But even learning cannot ensure a mental redirection of "sexual orientation." The social pressure are not painful enough to motivate change; the personal pain may not be disturbing enough to motivate a change of behavior. Or, the pain from social pressure and personal dissonance are not strong enough so it can simply be ignored.

The Learner who decided to ignore the facts. Those who decided to ignore the facts after learning of their ignorance will simply turn away from social pressure or personal turmoil. At times, homosexuals may have come to enjoy their way of lives to decide instead to stay the they way they are. And oftentimes that's the end of the argument, and they move on to life trying to remove from their mind what they learned about their mental condition.

The Learner who decided to do something. Only those who decided to relearn what he or she relearned from his environment in the past can hope to achieve healing and change in their homosexual orientation. They will learn how their gender think and behave, and with the natural gender-defined behaviors they still use, they reinforce their own gender with behaviors specific to that gender, and eventually their homosexual orientation gradually change into a straight orientation as their natural instincts take over their behavior. These are the people who heal themselves from the mental malady of homosexuality.

Counseling is needed only among those who experience a compulsion to behave homosexually despite the person's effort to change his behavior but failed. The compulsion can be due to the set of behaviors ingrained by habit for so many years. That would not be easy to change without consistent effort from the person. When this compusion becomes difficult to handle alone, a clinical psychologist can help in idnetifying patterns that hinders change and create mental and behavioral modification programs to change it.

Change of Format Starting October 2009

Breakthroughs Today will change its format from a simple blog into a review blog which incorporates the latest in physical and mental sciences for our readers to react with and share their views. Starting October 7, this will be so.

Being a reviewer, it will discuss certain issues brought up in the Breakthroughs articles published in Sun.Star Cebu. However, our content will not limit to that printed updates. Thereafter this blog will be reviewing also recent breakthroughs found in the news even if it has not been covered in the regular Breakthroughs column.

PSA Test Oversold Diagnoses

One great danger about the renowned prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test is its established history of overdiagnosing prostate cancer, a recent study found out. A study conducted by H. Gilbert Welch, professor of medicine at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy, revealed that of the 3.7 million diagnoses of prostate cancer in the US alone from 1986 to 2005, 1.3 million were overdiagnosed. The sad fact is, one million of that 1.3 million have been recommended for radiotherapy or surgery to remove the prostate when that should not have been necessary as the growths it detects are not harmful at all. In fact, according to Welch, the test cannot discriminate the smally minority of cancers that spreads rapidly from the large, slow-growing ones that are not harmful. Click here for details.