How to Make Jollof Rice Crude Nigerian Style

Jollof rice is a spicy, traditional dish of West African origin. While it is prepared differently in various countries, this article outlines the steps of making Nigerian-style Jollof rice.

Ingredients

• 2 cups of rice
• 1 onion
• 1 red bell pepper / tatashe
• 500ml chopped tomatoes
• 100g tomato purée
• 2 scotch bonnet
• 100ml vegetable oil
• Maggi
• Salt to taste
• 1 teaspoon curry
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger
• 2 cups water or stock

Steps

1. 
   
   Blend your tomatoes, scotch bonnet and tatashe together. Chop your onions and keep them aside.
2. 
   
   Put your rice into a bowl and soak with hot water. Allow this to soak for 10-15 minutes. Then, wash with warm water and keep aside, or parboil your rice and wash. This is important as you will get rid of excess starch in the rice.
3. 
   
   
   Put your oil in a pot and allow it to heat up.
4. 
   
   
   Add your chopped onions and allow to fry, but be sure not to burn them.
5. 
   
   
   Add your blended ingredients and purée and allow to fry, just until you get rid of the sour taste (about 10-15 minutes).
6. 
   
   
   Add your maggi, garlic, ginger, curry, thyme and salt and mix together. Be careful with your maggi as you do not want it too salty (2 maggi cubes for a cup of rice). Add your stock or water, and mix too. Taste to adjust to any seasoning.
7. 
   
   
   Pour your rice into the pot and mix together, making sure it is covered in the tomato sauce.
8. 
   
   
   Cook on low medium heat. Check your rice after at least 10 minutes, using a wooden spatula to dip into the rice. This helps with getting the sauce to get the bottom of the pot, so that it does not start burning when the rice is not cooked.
9. 
   
   Cook until soft. Do not overcook your rice or get your rice too soggy. When rice is soft, lower the heat and allow to simmer so the water will get completely dry.
10. 
    Rice is ready to serve. Serve with fried plantain and your choice of meat, if desired. 
     
    Culled from wikihow.com
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Eating Disorders & Treatments

Definition

There is a commonly held view that eating disorders are a lifestyle choice. Eating disorders are actually serious and often fatal illnesses that cause severe disturbances to a person’s eating behaviors. Obsessions with food, body weight, and shape may also signal an eating disorder. Common eating disorders include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder.

Signs and Symptoms

Anorexia nervosa

People with anorexia nervosa may see themselves as overweight, even when they are dangerously underweight. People with anorexia nervosa typically weigh themselves repeatedly, severely restrict the amount of food they eat, and eat very small quantities of only certain foods. Anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any mental disorder. While many young women and men with this disorder die from complications associated with starvation, others die of suicide. In women, suicide is much more common in those with anorexia than with most other mental disorders.
Symptoms include:

• Extremely restricted eating
• Extreme thinness (emaciation)
• A relentless pursuit of thinness and unwillingness to maintain a normal or healthy weight
• Intense fear of gaining weight
• Distorted body image, a self-esteem that is heavily influenced by perceptions of body weight and shape, or a denial of the seriousness of low body weight

Other symptoms may develop over time, including:

• Thinning of the bones (osteopenia or osteoporosis)
• Mild anemia and muscle wasting and weakness
• Brittle hair and nails
• Dry and yellowish skin
• Growth of fine hair all over the body (lanugo)
• Severe constipation
• Low blood pressure, slowed breathing and pulse
• Damage to the structure and function of the heart
• Brain damage
• Multiorgan failure
• Drop in internal body temperature, causing a person to feel cold all the time
• Lethargy, sluggishness, or feeling tired all the time
• Infertility

Bulimia nervosa

People with bulimia nervosa have recurrent and frequent episodes of eating unusually large amounts of food and feeling a lack of control over these episodes. This binge-eating is followed by behavior that compensates for the overeating such as forced vomiting, excessive use of laxatives or diuretics, fasting, excessive exercise, or a combination of these behaviors. Unlike anorexia nervosa, people with bulimia nervosa usually maintain what is considered a healthy or relatively normal weight.
Symptoms include:

• Chronically inflamed and sore throat
• Swollen salivary glands in the neck and jaw area
• Worn tooth enamel and increasingly sensitive and decaying teeth as a result of exposure to stomach acid
• Acid reflux disorder and other gastrointestinal problems
• Intestinal distress and irritation from laxative abuse
• Severe dehydration from purging of fluids
• Electrolyte imbalance (too low or too high levels of sodium, calcium, potassium and other minerals) which can lead to stroke or heart attack

Binge-eating disorder

People with binge-eating disorder lose control over his or her eating. Unlike bulimia nervosa, periods of binge-eating are not followed by purging, excessive exercise, or fasting. As a result, people with binge-eating disorder often are overweight or obese. Binge-eating disorder is the most common eating disorder in the U.S.
Symptoms include:

• Eating unusually large amounts of food in a specific amount of time
• Eating even when you're full or not hungry
• Eating fast during binge episodes
• Eating until you're uncomfortably full
• Eating alone or in secret to avoid embarrassment
• Feeling distressed, ashamed, or guilty about your eating
• Frequently dieting, possibly without weight loss

Risk Factors

Eating disorders frequently appear during the teen years or young adulthood but may also develop during childhood or later in life. These disorders affect both genders, although rates among women are 2½ times greater than among men. Like women who have eating disorders, men also have a distorted sense of body image. For example, men may have muscle dysmorphia, a type of disorder marked by an extreme concern with becoming more muscular.
Researchers are finding that eating disorders are caused by a complex interaction of genetic, biological, behavioral, psychological, and social factors. Researchers are using the latest technology and science to better understand eating disorders.
One approach involves the study of human genes. Eating disorders run in families. Researchers are working to identify DNA variations that are linked to the increased risk of developing eating disorders.
Brain imaging studies are also providing a better understanding of eating disorders. For example, researchers have found differences in patterns of brain activity in women with eating disorders in comparison with healthy women. This kind of research can help guide the development of new means of diagnosis and treatment of eating disorders.

Treatments and Therapies

Adequate nutrition, reducing excessive exercise, and stopping purging behaviors are the foundations of treatment. Treatment plans are tailored to individual needs and may include one or more of the following:

• Individual, group, and/or family psychotherapy
• Medical care and monitoring
• Nutritional counseling
• Medications

Psychotherapies

Psychotherapies such as a family-based therapy called the Maudsley approach, where parents of adolescents with anorexia nervosa assume responsibility for feeding their child, appear to be very effective in helping people gain weight and improve eating habits and moods.
To reduce or eliminate binge-eating and purging behaviors, people may undergo cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which is another type of psychotherapy that helps a person learn how to identify distorted or unhelpful thinking patterns and recognize and change inaccurate beliefs.

Medications

Evidence also suggests that medications such as antidepressants, antipsychotics, or mood stabilizers approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may also be helpful for treating eating disorders and other co-occurring illnesses such as anxiety or depression. Check the FDA’s website: (http://www.fda.gov/ ), for the latest information on warnings, patient medication guides, or newly approved medications.
Culled from www.nimh.nih.gov
more health & Nutrition matters @whatUate.blogspot.com 

Probe Importation Of ‘Cancer-Causing’ Tomato Paste by Reps.

Written by:

Bode Gbadebo, KAUTHAR KHALEEL

 

 

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The House of Representatives yesterday mandated its Standing Committees on Health Services; and Drug and Narcotics to investigate the reported importation of a substandard tomato paste into the country, which is said to be dangerous to public health.
The committees are to report back to the House for further legislative input within one week.
The resolution of the House was sequel to the unanimous adoption of a motion sponsored under matter of urgent public importance by Hon. Ossai Ossai at plenary.

 

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The lawmaker while moving the motion had referred to a newspaper publication of May 9, 2016, which alleged that there was a cabal who have boasted that nothing can stop them from importing the fake and substandard tomato paste into the country.
“This ugly development of importation of cancer infested tomato paste is killing a lot of Nigerians and it is reported that this mafia group are collaborating with few indigenous manufacturers in Nigeria who are being used as a cover up,” he said.
Hon. Ossai expressed worry that the “Fake, Substandard, Cancer-causing Tomato Paste” has flooded the Nigerian markets with low prices which has compelled the closing down of local tomato companies in the country.
Culled from http://leadership.ng
more health news @whatUate.blogspot.com

The Little You Should Know About Malnutrition

Definition and Magnitude of Challenges
Malnutrition
Malnutrition is a general term meaning literally "bad" nutrition. It encompasses both undernutrition and overnutrition. Undernutrition refers to a lack of one or more nutrients - reflected in anthropometric measurements (such as height and weight), in clinical signs, or through biochemical tests. (These are discussed further in the session "Nutrition Assessment and Indicators.")

Overnutrition, which includes both overweight and obesity, is increasingly common in the developing world.
Over-consumption (of calories and/or specific nutrients) can lead to high blood pressure and stroke, diabetes, heart disease,
and certain kinds of cancer.

Countries with large prevalences of both undernutrition and overnutrition are said to experience a double burden of malnutrition. Some families even experience this seeming contradiction within their households, with some members suffering from undernutrition while others are overweight or obese.

Nutrition indicators of primary interest in the developing world still focus overwhelmingly on those related to
undernutrition, particularly for young children and women in their childbearing years.

(Sources: EC-FAO Programme on Linking Information and Decision Making to Improve Food Security 2007; The World
Bank 2006)

Exclusive Breast-Feeding Saves 800,000 Under 5 Year Children in Nigeria.

Six months of exclusive breast-feeding will save 800,000 under five children from childhood killer diseases, expert has disclosed.

Speaking at a two-day training for media champions, organised by the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC, in collaboration with Partnership for Advocacy in Child and Family Health, PACFaH, in Kaduna, the Programme Officer PSN, Abuja office, David Akpotor, said saving 800,000 through breastfeeding will amount to 12 percent drop in child mortality in the country.

Akpotor explained that the training, which was attended by 15 media organisations, was aimed at advocating and demanding accountability in child and family health issues across PACFaH focal states of Bauchi, Sokoto, Kano, Kaduna, Nasarawa, Lagos, Oyo and Abuja.

According to him, the most recent Nigerian Demographic Health Survey, NDHS, showed that 128 children, in every 1,000 birth, die before their fifth birthday.

He said pneumonia and diarrhoea accounts for 14 percent and nine percent of under-five mortality rate in the country, respectively.

By Suzan Edeh and Gabriel Olawale

The Health Benefits of Onion and Carrot

Onions and carrots supply phytonutrients and other essential chemicals.

Onions and carrots are excellent choices for improving your diet because of their nutrient content. These versatile vegetables are available throughout the year, and you can eat them raw in salads or cook them into soups. You can also be a little more creative and increase the nutrient content of dishes such as meatloaf by cooking grated onions and carrots into the recipe.

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Vitamins C and E

A cup of raw onions provides 12 milligrams of vitamin C, or 20 percent of the daily value, and 1 cup of raw carrots supplies 7 milligrams, or 12 percent of the daily value. Vitamin C is an antioxidant that may help lower your risk for heart disease because it helps your body metabolize cholesterol properly, according to the Linus Pauling Institute Micronutrient Information Center. Vitamin E is another heart-healthy antioxidant vitamin, and each cup of carrots provides 0.8 milligrams of vitamin E, or 5 percent of the daily value.

Vitamin A

Carrots are known for their high amount of vitamin A, and a single cup of chopped, raw carrots provides 21,384 international units of vitamin A, or 428 percent of the daily value. Vitamin A plays a role in the visual cycle, and it is necessary for maintaining healthy vision and preventing night blindness, according to the Linus Pauling Institute Micronutrient Information Center. Inadequate Vitamin A intake can make iron-deficiency anemia worse. Onions do not provide vitamin A.

Allicin

Onions and carrots provide some nutrients that are not essential components of your diet, but these phytochemicals, or plant nutrients, may lower your risk for cancer and heart disease, according to the University of Michigan Health System. Onions and garlic provide a phytochemical called allicin, which has a white color and is also in garlic. Allicin may have antioxidant activity and lower your risk of having a stroke because of its anti-clotting actions, according to the Linus Pauling Institute Micro-nutrient Information Center.

Additional Nutrients in Onions and Carrots

Onions and carrots are good sources of dietary fiber, with 2.7 grams in 1 cup of onions and 3.6 grams in 1 cup of carrots. Fiber helps lower cholesterol levels, and the daily value for a 2,000-calorie diet is 25 grams. A cup of onions has 234 milligrams of potassium, and each cup of carrots supplies 410 milligrams. Onions have only 64 calories and 6 milligrams of sodium per cup, and each cup of carrots has 52 calories and 88 milligrams of sodium. Both vegetables are fat-free and cholesterol-free.