Pickle Blogs

Acid reflux, or commonly known as heartburn, is a burning pain in the part of your chest, usually in the area of your heart (That’s why it got its name!). The pain is stinging and burning, beginning at the breastbone then towards your throat.

Heartburn occurs when the acid in the stomach backs up to your esophagus. Regularly, sphincters, a band of muscles, keep stomach acid from back flowing to your esophagus. However, there are times when this muscle weakens or abnormally relaxes, allowing stomach acid to reflux and cause heartburn. That is why lying down or bending over may cause heartburn.

Do you have a healthy relationship with food? With numerous people giving advice on what to eat, it’s so much easier to just avoid a particular food or food group and label it as black or white, either good or bad. If you see yourself obsessing on categorizing food items as permitted or not permitted to eat, you are not alone.

The famous medical aphorism, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” has been around in our society for several decades. Its first appearance originated in Wales in 1866 as “Eat an apple on going to bed and you’ll keep the doctor from earning his bread.” The advice was then revised in 1913 in its current form. The current version is now shorter and much easier to say. No wonder that this might be the first health advice a child will hear from their parents and teachers. Apple is widely used as an epitome of healthy eating habits as well as education that we normally see in various public health messages. With the increasing doctor consultation fees and medicines, people are obsessed with keeping away from the doctors and being healthy. With a very simple advice of eating a fruit, this should be strongly advocated if held true.

Have you ever noticed yourself feeling sad or burned out while mindlessly eating a slice of cake or a cup of ice cream just to feel good about the day? Well, we all know that our moods largely affect our choice of food. But the connection of food to medical mood disorders such as depression, is still less clear. A new field of nutrition called ‘Nutritional Psychiatry’ studies mental health in relation to food choices. This discipline aims to study the connection of food intake to potentially improve one’s mental health.

Every function in your body needs fluid to perform seamlessly. It is crucial to keep hydrated for many reasons as fluid helps to regulate body temperature, deliver nutrients to all parts of the body, keep our joints lubricated, and stabilize our mood and mental capacity, to mention some.

World Health Organization defined Coronavirus-19, or more famously known as COVID-19, is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus. Most people who contacted this disease experienced mild to moderate respiratory illness and recovered without requiring special treatment.

A healthy, balanced diet can protect you from infection and other diseases!
With the current COVID-19 situation in the country, we should be at most vigilant for our health. And one way to do this, the most obvious, is to eat healthily and boost our immune system. A healthy immune system can defeat invading pathogens or, at most, hasten your recovery after an illness.

How did Chef Joseph Viel lose weight without giving up his favorite foods?

With all the uncertainties brought by the coronavirus pandemic, it is hard to focus on tasks. Planning on what to eat becomes your wits’ end that was once a piece of cake. The feeling is very overwhelming that we all have to deal with stress. In the past, foods are relatively accessible. You can quickly go to markets with the help of public transportations, and it is more manageable with stable income. Now, there are many barriers to easy food buying, and I know you experience many than few. No doubt that eating healthy during this time is uniquely challenging.

Food safety is not a popular topic compared to calorie monitoring. People are more concerned about making a well-balanced meal or on what food that will make them better in sports performance. However, food safety is as important as the topics mentioned above. Safe food preparation is the foundation of a healthy meal. The nutrients you opt to consume from food will be put to waste if you cannot eat the meal due to food safety concerns. Rotten or bad food shows that the nutrients are already lost. Thus, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends these easy ways to ensure that the food you prepare are safe for consumption.

It is very easy to understand that our planet’s environmental state affects the type and source of ourfood. The more we do not take care of our planet, the less food that we can produce and consume. But, have you considered that the food you eat affects the world’s resources management? Think about this, if we opt to produce more beef for consumption, more resources are needed to produce this food item. It takes more grains, water, and land to produce a pound of meat than it does to produce the same amount of calories from grains and plant-based food. Aside from this, animals belch out carbon dioxide while plant-based food items help in cleaning out our air. A new perspective, right?

The month of July is all about health and nutrition. This year’s theme: promotion of physical activity. Of course promotion physical activity is not just a one month thing. Physical activity should be a daily routine for an individual. Engaging in physical activity is one of the best gifts that you can give to your body. But, is there something lacking in your exercise routine?

Excessive calorie intake surely leads to unwanted weight gain, especially when these are not compensated with physical activity. Each of us is responsible for how much we eat, yet social norms and culture play and important factor in keeping your food portions in the right proportions.

Rainy season is here! Rain is a mixed blessing when it comes to our health. Positive ones are related to the country’s food supply, while the negative is associated with cold- and flu-related illnesses.

We cannot stay-away from the rain forever, thus the best way to combat these diseases is to boost your immunity. Immunity or the capability to resist infections or toxins is one of our innate abilities as human beings. Our bodies are capable (and are doing a great job!) of protecting ourselves from harmful organisms or substances that can cause diseases.

Making wise snack choices is part of maintaining balanced, and healthy meals. Snack is very important in controlling you mid-morning or -afternoon hunger pangs. Some even think that skipping snacks can make them lose weight. Well, this strategy may work for others, but for some people (like me) this may be torture. Feeling hungry at certain times will keep you unfocused and irritated.

Every function in your body needs fluid to perform seamlessly. It is crucial to keep hydrated for many reasons as fluid helps to regulate body temperature, deliver nutrients to all parts of the body, keep our joints lubricated, and stabilize our mood and mental capacity, to mention some.

They say that this is the best time to be alive. With developed technology and unlimited information, one can easily acquire knowledge with just a snap of a finger. Yet, with overflowing data, it would be hard for you to judge which is a true, especially in the field of nutrition. In this article, we will discuss seven nutrition myths that still in exist in our society, and just won’t die.

Today, a good night’s sleep is used as a vital sign of health by medical professionals. Sleeping is one of the activities we are looking forward everyday as this, same as food, energize us for our planned activities. We spend almost one-third of our lives asleep. Yet, others may not have this luxury. Some people have thought of taking medications to help them sleep, but these drugs have side effects. There are other ways to help you sleep better.

Every one of us wants clearer, acne-free skin! Who doesn’t? Regardless of our skin color, blemish-free skin can boost our self-confidence. However, most of the good skin regimes needs a good fortune. And some people who tried and tested these many anti-acne products, may still be wondering why are these not working for them? The problem may not be your skin, it may be your gut! And the answer to your skin problems may just be sitting inside your fridge!

They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but is there really any truth to that saying? Most people, especially those who are very busy (or late for work!), skip breakfast altogether. Today, we examine how eating breakfast can affect your eating habits and your health in general.

You might have heard about body mass index or BMI, for short. With the increasing health-conscious population, most people have already know their BMI like it is their favorite song. But in case you do not know, BMI can easily be calculated using this formula:

When you are diagnosed with diabetes mellitus, being physically active is one of the best things that you can do to your health. Decreasing overall sedentary lifestyle is one of the keys in managing diabetes mellitus. Exercise poses several health benefits particularly improving insulin sensitivity, promoting energy expenditure, building muscle, and being fit. Yet despite its scientifically accepted truth on keeping your sugar under control, many people are reluctant to engage in exercise.

Our bones are living tissue. They develop, grow, and have the ability to repair itself during injury. We are born with 300 bones, and as we grow old these bones become harder and fuse together, leaving the adult skeleton with 206 bones. Our bones are responsible for structural support and protection of vital organs. It also provides spaces where blood cells are produced and where minerals are stored. The ability of our bones to withstand stress is due to its protein framework made from collagen, and to its hard matrix made from calcium phosphate.

Do you know that packaging goes beyond the aesthetic function of showcasing a food product. It contains a very important information that will help us to develop good eating habits to keep us healthy. Part of food packaging is the nutrition facts. Nutrition facts is the tabular figure normally found at the back of food packaging, indicating the number of calories, carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and micronutrients in a food product. With these numerous information, consumers often ignore these very small, yet very powerful nutrition education tool.

Eating is a pleasurable activity. But when you have heartburn, this joyful experience can turn into a fiery, uncomfortable feeling. And this is the last you want to remember from having a great meal!

Though it is called heartburn, this has nothing to do with your heart. Heartburn is the burning sensation you feel in the middle of your chest up to your throat due to the digestive acid in the stomach. Heartburn, or also called gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) or acid indigestion, is a condition in which partially digested food mixed with digestive acid backs up into the esophagus, irritating the upper gastrointestinal (GI) tract.

Yes, you heard that right! Unlike the popular belief of avoiding cholesterol-rich foods, cholesterol is one of the key ingredients in making hormones (i.e. testosterone and estrogen), in producing Vitamin D for bone structure, and in creating new cell in our body. But what is exactly is cholesterol?

They say that man was created to be active.

We hunt our own food or use our legs to move places. But as time goes by, our society is re-designed in ways that minimize human movement and muscular use. Not only does it limit physical activity but also prolong sitting—when we are working at the office and at home, commuting in public and private cars, or doing requirements in schools and universities. Watching shows on TV, the most favored leisure activity of Filipinos, is also done sitting down.

Fiber, also known as roughage or bulk, is a type of carbohydrate composed of many sugar molecules. Unlike other carbohydrates like table sugar and white rice, fiber is indigestible in the human body. Fiber are held together by chemical bonds that digestive enzymes cannot digest. It mostly passes through the human body without giving off energy.

It’s February, and you know what that means? Valentines day is here! It’s that time of year where people pour their heart out for their special someone. However, not everyone’s so lucky to find their “forever” and some of us experience heartaches. Not to worry though, we’ll help you prevent getting heartaches but not that kind of heartache. We’re talking about heart disease. In this article, we’ll be giving tips on how to keep your heart healthy and strong, so you won’t be heartbroken, medically speaking.

With the start of a new year, people are craving to change or to remove something in their lives. No wonder Marie Kondo’s series in Netflix about tidying adventures is a hit to a lot of people. Diet is no different. Losing weight and resetting the body is one of the many new year resolutions and one way to do this is to cleanse.