HealthyLife is a part of www.WeRIndia.com, an all India – centric website (https://healthylife.werindia.com) and is solely owned and operated by WeRIndia.com. It is a Indian nutritional portal providing educational articles.This nutritional port was launched on February 5th, 2015.
Recipe for Sathyanarayana Prasadam
In India, people often perform Sri Sathyanarayana Puja at homes and temples. People gather to celebrate the puja and offer a special dish to Lord Sri Sathyanarayana. It is a unique and delicious sweet dish prepared using coarse wheat, sugar and ghee. The dish which is offered to Lord will be served to all devotees at the end of the puja in small amounts. People wait to have this Sathyanarayana prasadam (dish after offering to God).
With the beginning of the New Year and to celebrate the festival of harvest, try this special traditional sweet dish at home. Recipe is simple, easy and quick to prepare.
Ingredients:
Chiroti rava or medium rava (coarse wheat) – ¼ cup (Also known as semolina or upma rava)
Sugar – ½ cup
Clarified butter / ghee – ¼ cup
Boiled milk – ½ cup
Raisins – Few
Cashew pieces – Few
Water – ½ cup
Banana – ½ (big banana)
Cardamom powder – A pinch
Saffron – Few strands
Method:
Heat a pan on medium heat and add little ghee. Add raisins and cashew pieces and fry.
Add rava to pan and fry rava till it releases fragrance and turns slightly golden brown.
Meanwhile boil milk and water in separate containers.
Add boiled milk and allow rave to cook in the milk on medium flame
Once the rava cooks in milk, add sugar, chopped banana, little water and remaining ghee and continue mixing the rava.
Add cardamom powder, saffron and mix well. Turn off the heat when get that divine fragrance from the Naivedya that you are going to offer to God.
With age, our mind and body both tend to lose focus and balance. Body of course, slowly will lose its flexibility and strength. This is where practicing yoga helps. It is never too late practice yoga to achieve overall wellness. Start with basic poses and once you understand how to get into pose properly, then with proper guidance you can move to advanced pose. Ashtavakrasana or Eight angle pose is an advanced pose that needs lot of concentration, focus, strength and flexibility. While practicing this pose one can also achieve balance and perseverance. While performing this pose, most yogi’s get frustrated as it is a bit difficult pose. But learning eight angle pose helps us to develop patience and insight with strength and flexibility. – Healthy life
LEVEL : Advanced
Anatomy : Abs, Arms, Feet, Hands, Legs
Pose Type : Arm Balance, Twist
Sanskrit : Ashtavakrasana(AHSH-tak-vah-KRAHS-anah) shata = eight vakra = crooked, bent
BENEFITS
Strengthens the inner thighs, triceps, and pectorals
Tones and stimulates the abdominals organs
Strengthens the spinal rotators
Strengthens the forearm, wrist, and hand musculature
Improves balance
CONTRAINDICATIONS
Hip pathologies
Shoulder pathologies
Wrist injury
Carpal tunnel syndrome
Avoid straining the elbows and low spine
HOW TO
Start in a seated position. Bend your left knee and ground your palms down into your mat with slightly bent elbows. Draw your right knee over your right shoulder as high as possible.
Cross your left ankle over the right and press the feet together to bind.
Inhale, ground your palms, and bend your elbows—making sure they don’t splay out to the side.
On an exhale, begin to draw your body forward and lift your hips, feeling the weight transfer into your hands. Allow your elbows to bend deeper to bring the chest parallel to the floor.
Squeeze your thighs together to hug the upper arm, and press through your heels to extend the legs.
Stay in Eight-Angle pose for 5-10 slow breaths.
To exit the posture, exhale and slowly draw your body back to a sitting position. Gently release your legs. Repeat on the opposite side.
MODIFY OR REPLACE
If triceps strength is an issue, place a block underneath the bottom hip and outer leg to give you extra lift into the arm balance.
Practice lifting the hips and transferring weight into the palms.
Adding vegetable to rice is one way to consume vegetables to keep our self healthy.
One easy, fast, delicious recipe helps us to eat varieties of vegetables is “Veg Fried rice”.
Call it Indian or Chinese or Indo-Chinese veg fried rice (it depends on the ingredients), veg fried rice is always delicious and yummy.
It can be prepared in less time and needs less effort.
All you need is couple of ingredients that you need to grab from super market –Soy sauce and vinegar – if you have it in your kitchen, then you are good to go!
Try Veg Fried Rice for lunch, breakfast or dinner.
Ingredients:
Basmati rice – 2 cups (you can use long grain rice too)
Wash and cook rice with little oil. Addling little oil helps rice to be lose and not sticky.
Heat oil in pan and add chopped garlic and saute for a minute.
Add chopped vegetables and green peas- except bell pepper and fry them for couple of minutes. Add bell pepper and fry for few seconds.
Add vinegar, soy sauce and salt to fried veggies and mix.
Add cooked rice and pepper powder and mix well on medium heat.
Garnish with cilantro and spring onion.
Serve hot fried rice with your choice. Generally side dishes like chutney, sauce, gobi Manchurian, chilli-pepper fry or raita goes well with Veg fried rice.
One the pressing issues for people who suffer from diabetes is risk of foot ulcers. Nearly 15 % of people with diabetic condition suffer from diabetic foot ulcer. It is an open sore and commonly located in bottom of the foot. It can result in hospitalization of the patient. If not taken care properly it can result in greater risk. Keeping this in mind, diabetic people must pay special attention to their feet.
Some of the foot care tips that should be included by diabetic patients in daily routine are as follows:
Inspecting feet daily: Nerve damage caused by diabetes is called neuropathy. It can cause numbness that makes it difficult to feel when there is lesion in lower extremities. For this reason, one should check for cracked skin, sores, discoloration in the feet. Use a hand mirror to see the bottom of the feet and between toes as thorough examination needed to see every bit of feet.
Protect feet: Avoid walking barefoot outside especially. Indoor wear proper home foot ear. Wearing diabetic shoes helps in protecting from nicks, cuts, splinters and scratches. The small injuries that go unnoticed and neglected can become big problem. With neuropathy, these small injuries can be not felt and lead to severe issues – infection and amputation.
Keep feet dry: The space between toes should get more ventilation. This is the area where bacteria and fungus hide due to moisture accumulation. More ventilation means, space between toes dries. It is airtight moisture skin breakdown leading to infection. To prevent infection towel off feet thoroughly after showering and washing legs. Use talcum powder between toes. Don’t wear wet and sweaty socks.
Less and non-impact exercise: Active life style is important for diabetes. However, it is also important to go with activities that is harmless for feet. Avoid workouts that include lot of jumping, leaping as these types of exercises can damage nerves and increase risk of feet injury. Best exercises are yoga, Pilates, walking and tai chi.
Orthotics: Sometimes depending on how severe is diabetic condition is, basic foot care might not be enough to defend against diabetic foot ulcers. Orthotic footwear is prescribed to people with peripheral neuropathy and it helps to increase blood flow to extremities.
Buy the Right Shoes :
According to NIH, it is important for people with this condition to protect feet from any injury byselecting shoes that are snug fitting. It should not be too tight.
Do not buy shoes thinking shoes will stretch eventually
Tight shoes causes blisters – to avoid this buy snug fitting shoes
Wear new shoes one or two hours per day for first couple of weeks and breakdown shoes slowly
Change shoes often – wear another set of shoe after four or five hours to reduce risk of ulcers
Examine the insides of shoes to ensure that there are no pebbles, objects, stones or loose particles that could rub on skin causing wounds.
Avoid shoes that are create pressure points.
Wear clean and dry socks
Orthopedic shoes or inserts can improve blood flow to feet and increases nerve response – talk to your doctor about orthopedic shoes
Be aware of fatal symptoms associated with diabetic ulcer and improper foot care. With diabetic it is important to take precautions of all wounds and ulcers in the feet. Talk to your doctor if you see any wounds or abrasion in your feet. Make changes in your foot care by talking to your doctor.
Hummus is a famous, traditional Middle Eastern dish and commonly served with pita bread. It is made of chickpeas. Garbanzo beans is another common name for chickpeas in Western market. Chickpeas available cooked in cans in salt water. One can use these chickpeas or soak dry chickpeas to prepare dishes. Hummus being so popular because of its somewhat bland taste is available in market with different additional ingredients – cilantro, garlic, bell pepper, mint hummus etc. Roasted red bell pepper hummus is slightly darker color and has a tangy taste to it. It is easy to prepare.
Chickpeas serve plant based protein in good quantity and is a good replacement for meat. It also known to contains less calories and good for heart health. It has good fiber content. It also supplies iron, phosphate, calcium, magnesium, manganese, zinc, and vitamin K all contribute to building a proper body structure and helps in overall health.
Recipe for Roasted bell pepper hummus
Ingredients:
Chickpeas (cooked) – 1 cup
Cilantro leaves – 1 Tbs
Parsley leaves – 1 Tbs
Red pepper – 1 medium size
White sesame seeds – 1 Tbs
Cumin powder – ½ tsp
Lemon juice – 2 Tbs
Olive oil – 1 Tbs
Garlic clove – 1 or 2
Red chilli powder – ¼ tsp
Salt – as required
Method:
Soak chick peas till they expand. It might need overnight soaking or 8 to 10 hours soak.
Cook soaked chick peas in pressure cooker, drain water and keep aside
On medium heat / flame, burn (roast it using tong ) the red pepper until skin turns slightly black on all side. Open and remove seeds. Cut bell pepper into small pieces.
Roast sesame seeds on low flame.
In a food processor or mixer puree chick peas and add roasted bell pepper, cilantro, parsley, garlic cloves, lemon juice, roasted sesame seeds, cumin powder, olive oil, red chili powder and salt.
Grind all ingredients until it becomes smooth and fluffy.
Transfer the content into a bowl and keep in refrigerator for an hour or so.
Before serving sprinkle little chopped cilantro leaves.
Serve red bell pepper hummus with pita bread, bread, roti, veggies like cucumber, carrot, celery or give with crackers.
It is a good side dish or dip for lunch items too!
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Author: HealthyLife | Posted on: December 26, 2017
Firefly pose is an advanced yoga pose that needs both focus and strength. Watching someone doing this pose looks scary. But with practice one can perform the pose. Both arms must be strong enough to hold the entire body to keep from falling. While doing this pose fear must be released from mind and tension should be released from hips. This is the advantage of doing this pose. Pose encourages focusing and willpower to hold. It tests the patience and decreases the anxiety. It is best to flex hamstring and stretch hip region. Abdominal muscle becomes strong by practicing the pose. Sanskrit name for this is Tittibha which means firefly. Like firefly the illuminates, this pose helps to bring the inner awareness and recognize once ability and gives confidence. – Healthy Life
Today we are presenting you a very simple and quick recipe. Pasta with grilled vegetables salad. Call it Grilled Veggie Pasta salad. It is tasty, delicious and easy to prepare. Pack it for lunch for kids or serve it as an evening snack item.
Ingredients:
Pasta – 1 cup
Zucchini – 2 cups (cut round or into 1 inch pieces)
Bell pepper – 2 cups (get three colors – orange, green and red)
Cherry tomatoes – 2 cups (cut into half or use Roma tomatoes)
Asparagus – few
Onion – half
Olive oil – 2 Tbs (or your choice of oil)
Salt – as per your taste
Crushed pepper – 1 tsp
Vinegar – 2 Tbs
Lemon juice – 2 tsp
Ginger zest – 1 tsp
Sugar – 1 tsp
Preparation:
Cook pasta as per the instructions and keep aside.
Place a pan on medium heat, add zucchini, bell pepper, onion, asparagus and sprinkle salt. Fry these vegetables until they turn brown (it may take about 10 mins)
Add tomatoes and slightly sauté them for couple of minutes. Make sure not to overcook tomato.
Babies cry a lot when they have gas trouble and tummy ache. When there is gas babies cry, fart, stomach bloats, tummy hardens and baby becomes fussy and cranky. To give relief from the gas for baby parents can think of giving following remedies.
Try these preventive measures:
Burps: Burping during and after feeding can help release air. Lift baby and hold her close to your chest and slowly move your hand on her back. She will burp and feel better. Burping midway through the feeding and afterwards will help.
Gentle massage: Give massage onbaby’s tummy. Take little baby oil or coconut oil and apply on tummy. Slowly, gently move your hand on tummy. Do it 2 – 3 times a day & you will see a smiling baby!
Settle bottle: If you are feeding baby with bottle, chance of baby ingesting bubbles is more. Before keeping bottle in baby’s mouth, allow bottle to settle down. Tilt the bottle at an angle so that milk fills the bottle nipple area too. This way air does not go inside baby.
Holding baby in proper angle: When you are feeding baby, hold baby’s head higher than stomach. This helps liquid to settle down in tummy and the bubble rise on top. Later you can make her burp.
Baby’s diet:Read label to understand the contents of baby’s formula. If any ingredients makes it hard for her digest, it can cause gas too. If you are breast feeding, watch what you eat. Your milk carries those food to baby. If you eat gas producing food, then baby will be end up in gas and stomach ache.
Peddling legs: Put baby on a mat or let her lay on your extended legs. Then pump her legs gently – in bicycling peddling motion. It relieves gas and gives little leg exercise too!
Gentle massage: Give massage on baby’s tummy. You can take help of good oil for this. Baby oil, coconut oil and mustard oil – all three are good for baby. Apply one of this oil on the tummy and slowly, gently move your hand on tummy. Do it 2 – 3 times a day & you will see a smiling baby! Massaging using oil not only gives relief from gas, also helps in sleeping.
Feeding method: Do not rush while feeding the baby. Sometimes the semi solid and solid food that we feed in a hurry can sit in baby’s system for longer hours and can cause indigestion and lot of gas that hurts the little one. Go slow, take your time and make sure baby is relaxed while you feed. Don’t forget to burp her.
Culprit can be bottle too: Change the bottle, nipple and use fresh, recommended bottle for baby.
Other remedies: Some of the popular traditional remedies for babies gas and farting are given below. These remedies for babies 6 months and above only. Contact your doctor (pediatrician) before proceeding with these remedies.
Carom seeds: Boil few carom seeds in water and give half a teaspoon to baby. Do this few times (3-4 times) a day.
Asafetida:Mix pinch of asafetida (hing) in coconut oil. Heat few seconds (12 seconds in microwave). Check the temperature and apply it around baby’s belly button. Asafetida known to reduce gas in adults when taken with buttermilk. However baby should not be given asafetida through mouth. So, apply on tummy.
Cumin water: Boil ½ tsp of cumin in a 1.5 cups of water. Filter and give ½ tsp of cumin water. This reduces bloating and reduces gas.
Gripe water: It is one of the alternate preferred medicine by parents from decades. It contains dill oil and sodium bicarbonate. It is used for gas relief, reflux in babies. Talk to your pediatrician before giving gripe water to baby. In case your doctor recommends, look at the ingredients and make sure it does not contain alcohol and sugar in it.
If none of the remedies and recommendations did not work with in few hours means time to talk to pediatrician.
Grandma’s remedies: www.healthylife.werindia.com
Image credit: Image by Pexels from Pixabay (Free for commercial use)
Author: HealthyLife | Posted on: December 15, 2017
