Health Care

When you eat breakfast you want to include foods from at least three of the four food groups. When combined this meal should make up about one-quarter to one-third of your total day's nutrients.

Some days you might notice that breakfast is the only meal you eat at home. This means that your breakfast should be loaded with good amounts of fiber, vitamins, and minerals.

Most importantly, your meal should also contain some of the following:

Milk and Milk Products

From this group choose low-fat foods like a tall glass of skim or 1 percent milk or a cup of low-fat yogurt. As an added bonus you can easily add these ingredients into a blender along with some fresh fruit to create some amazing and healthy breakfast drinks. Low-fat cheese can also be considered as a serving from this group.

Meat, Fish, Poultry and Alternates

Once more, choose a low quantity of fat food and be bold. The egg isn’t the only protein food that you have to place on the breakfast table, even though it’s a popular favorite for many families. It’s important that you watch your egg-yolk intake because of the cholesterol content, but you can easily extend your intake by incorporating plenty of egg whites, particularly in omelet’s and scrambled eggs.

Bacon and sausages should be eaten in moderation as well. You should keep an eye on the fat content of the bacon as well as the sausages.

Side bacon is pretty much saturated fat, salt, and nitrites. Back, or Canadian, bacon is a much healthier and leaner choice. It’s okay to eat this bacon occasionally. The same principle can be applied to sausages, which are high in fat. A great cooking tip to know when you’re cooking these meats is to cook them so that the fat drips off.

Have you ever tried fish for breakfast?

If you want some great fish with Omega 3 fatty-acids try different fish like kipper, or albacore tuna. Combined with a thin layer of cheese, or a whole-wheat pita they make an excellent breakfast meal.

Breads and Cereals

As always choose the whole-grain breads and cereals whenever you can. If that’s not an option your second best choice would be to get the enriched versions of refined breads.

Here’s a quick word of word of advice when you’re selecting muffins, quick breads, and breakfast pastries. That mouth watering Danish that you see in the cake section is probably overflowing with fats as well as sugar. This can also be true with many store-bought granolas and for the ridiculous amount of butter you might be tempted to smear on that healthy piece of whole-wheat bread.

Remember, breakfast is supposed to rejuvenate and give you loads of energy for your day. Consuming lots of fat and sugars will get your day off to a sluggish start.

Fruits and Vegetables

A piece of fresh fruit is the supreme choice from this food group. Raw fruit is actually better than juice because of the fiber that you’ll get. If you really can’t start your day without a glass of juice then it’ll be your second best choice. Dried fruits are great to add as toppings to hot or cold cereals, especially for women who are trying to boost their iron intake.

You will most certainly have bad breath if you suffer from active gum disease (bleeding gums), or if you are dieting successfully. Normally you will have diminished salivary flow and be prone to bad breath if you are over 55 years of age, or if you take antidepressants, birth control, sinus, or heart medicines. Others who smoke or drink alcohol will have bad breath too.

A study done by Anne Bosy, co-founder of the Fresh Breath Clinic in Toronto, found that most people with bad breath do not have gum disease. Instead, she found that sulphur-producing bacteria live at the back of the tongue, bedding down under plaque and mucous. These bacteria are a source of halitosis.

If there is a white film covering the tongue then you can be sure that there are millions of bacteria resident there.

Because there is an oxygen-poor environment at the rear of the tongue, the gram negative anaerobic bacteria can thrive nicely there and provide a constant supply to the mouth. Hence it is practically impossible to remove all the bacteria from the mouth.

These anaerobic bacteria are B. forsythus, T. denticola, A. actinomycetemcomitans, P. intermedia and P.gingivalis. They are known to be active in periodontal diseases.

Not only does this plaque on the tongue result in bad breath smells, but gum diseases and tooth problems such as gingivitis and periodontitis readily follow.

85% of all cases of bad breath originate in the mouth, and 90% of those are caused by the coatings on the tongue. It has been shown previously in various studies that the major components of halitosis are the mercaptans and hydrogen sulphide.

Studies into human behaviour have shown that nobody likes to let anybody else know that they have bad breath, not even their closest partners - usually out of fear of embarrassing them.

Fairly shocking news just released connects the bacteria in our mouths to heart disease and other serious diseases.

Under the coating on the tongue are several bacteria, and one of them is the main actor in periodontal disease. When the gums are damaged or bleeding, this bacteria get into the bloodstream and travels through the body. It is thought that it may be causing damage even to the heart.

Several of the bacteria in the mouth have been shown to enter the bloodstream through the gums and cause blood clots and damage heart muscle tissue. Some recent studies have shown that one particular bacteria called Clostridium perfingens, which is very often found in the oral cavity, is suspected of being the major culprit.

Researchers claim that there may be a direct connection between gum diseases in pregnant women and low birth weights of their offspring. They say it could be an effect of the toxic by-products of the bacteria.

Some studies are showing a connection betweem diabetes and periodontal disease.

Bacteria found in the mouth can end up in the airways and increase the risk of complications associated with chronic lung conditions and respiratory disease.

A lot of toxins and metabolic waste is removed from the body while we sleep through the tongue coating, as many people are aware, but do we consider the fact that much of this can be re-ingested with our very first meal of the day!

There has not been a scientifically definitive physiology of female anatomy until quite recently but strange images from its ambiguous history still haunt the common imagination and impact on women's self image. None is stranger than the female womb.

An anatomical "reality" that persisted in Western medical lore since ancient Greece was that the female uterus becomes displeased and displaced, and wanders through the body, negatively influencing the brain (I kid you not!). "Hysteria" is derived from the Greek word for uterus.

In a fit of fury the female uterus went travelling through the body, causing all manner of emotional disturbances – hence hysteria, hysterical – and hysterectomy.

The mental condition of hysteria afflicted legions of women of all ages throughout the patriarchal centuries, and was considered the most common disease after fever. In menopause, specifically, "the belief was that the failure to menstruate caused the uterus to travel around the body, eventually negatively influencing the brain".(Louis Banner In Full Flower)

The descriptions of hysterical patients painted a terrible caricature of the feminine. Old treatments included bed rest, binding, beating, purging, bloodletting, and, in worse cases, hysterectomy and/or clitoridectomy.

A kinder treatment evolved in the 19th century, when hysteria became a veritable epidemic, especially in the white middle classes. The doctor massaged the genitals until there was a healing convulsion and moist spasms (an orgasm by any other name), which relieved the patient for a while – until the next appointment. Hysteria was considered chronic and incurable, requiring ongoing treatment.

Electric vibrators were developed in the mid 19th century to help the overworked doctors and ease the hysterical women. They were even marketed to women at home for self-treatment, and were advertised in consumer catalogues and magazines. (There were vibrators in the house before vacuum cleaners.) However, by 1930 vibrators had gone underground, and were not openly advertised again until they re-emerged as sex toys in the 1960s. (This is according to Duana R Anderson in The wondering Uterus & A Brief History of the Vibrator)

The treatment of hysteria was taken over by psychology, and Freud pretty much evolved his world-shattering theories based on his work with hysterical (and frigid) women. And, well, we should be grateful for that.

He explained hysteria as the physical and psychological expression of inner psychic conflicts about sexuality. (Psyche turned into soma.) He explored his patients' personal history for clues, practised the talking cure (hugely innovative for its time), and developed psychoanalysis.

In my view, these legions of hysterical women were literally quivering with centuries of misogynist repressions, bursting to break out of the traumatized collective psyche; an epidemic erupting out of the universal unconscious where the goddess of myth lay buried.

In the good doctor's own words, "The character of hysterics shows a degree of sexual repression in excess of the normal quantity, an intensification of resistance against the sexual instinct (which we have already met with in the form of shame, disgust and morality), and what seems like an instinctive aversion on their part to any intellectual consideration of sexual problems.

"This trait … is not uncommonly screened by the existence of a second constitutional character present in hysteria, namely the predominant development of the sexual instinct. Psychoanalysis … reveals the pair of opposites by which it is characterised – exaggerated sexual craving and excessive aversion to sexuality."

Modern psychology succeeded in shifting hysteria from the realm of superstition. You could say it cured the mass hysteria; by 1952, it was officially declared a non-disease.

Freud introduced the concept of libido, the psychic energy expressed through sexuality that lies at the root of every living individual, and drives our desires and impulses. It can be repressed, expressed, controlled, or transmuted. But it exists – a priori!

Psychology helped to make conscious the compulsion of instincts hidden in the unconscious psyche. Basically ordinary people could now understand their behaviours and symptoms as expressions of underlying psychic/psychological conflict. Jung introduced the idea of the collective unconscious, which illuminated the universality of dream images and personal unconscious content.

The hysteric's subjugated sexuality was now the very stuff of the modern age, just waiting for the 1960s to burst out on to the world stage of the post-war baby boomers. The sexual liberation of that period was a huge and abrupt cultural change. Perhaps we forget now just how radical and fundamental it was - this sexual break from the past.

However, before we get too satisfied with this development, we need to ask ourselves why, with hysteria safely unplugged, we now have a virtual epidemic of hysterectomies, now the second most frequent surgery among American women, with caesarean section delivery being first. One in three women in the United States has had a hysterectomy by age 60!

If our hysterical uteruses are no longer travelling through our bodies affecting our brains, why are so many women having them cut out?