In honor of National Peanut Butter Day, we suggest paying homage by adding a scoop of your favorite childhood snack to your protein shake. Perfect for those looking to add muscle, two tablespoons of peanut butter contains on average eight grams of protein, which helps to build muscle. It also contains six grams of carbs, which helps your body utilize that protein. Studies have also shown that the saturated fats found in peanut butter can reduce your risk of heart disease. Besides boasting numerous health benefits, it also adds flavor and thickness to your post-workout shake. Whether creamy or crunchy is a better option; that debate still rages. Read More

“Good things come in small packages” is a commonly used reminder to not overlook something that may be small in size. But despite it’s good taste in a small package, salt should remain overlooked when it comes to mealtime, simply because of its high levels of sodium. Kidneys maintain the right amount of sodium in the body. It’s a task of great importance because sodium helps transmit nerve impulses, influences contraction and relaxation of muscles and maintains the necessary amount of fluids in the body. When there is too little sodium in the body, the kidneys hold on to it so the aforementioned tasks can be accomplished. But when your sodium levels increase, the kidneys eliminate the excess through urine. If too much sodium is consumed on a regular basis and the kidneys can’t excrete all the excess sodium, a domino effect begins, wreaking havoc through your body. When excess sodium isn’t excreted, it accumulates in the blood, and since sodium retains water, the blood volume increases. Increased blood volume causes the heart to work harder, which increases pressure in the arteries. Over long periods of time those effects can lead to congestive heart failure, chronic kidney disease and stroke. But cutting down on sodium doesn't mean cutting out flavor. Read More

If you were a child of the 1980s you may remember the anti-drug PSA, “This is your brain on drugs” where a man cracked an egg onto a sizzling pan. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is utilizing the same shock tactic, but they've added some cheese to that omelet, to tackle the 21st century obesity epidemic. The PCRM has strategically placed two billboards in Albany, New York with one displaying a picture of a shirtless man's enormous gut with the caption, “Your abs on cheese.” Another billboard with an obese woman squeezing her thighs, states, “Your thighs on cheese.” Albany has been targeted by the PCRM because of the local obesity problem representative of the nation as a whole, with 60 percent of its adult residents considered overweight by the state Department of Health. To stymie a future epidemic, the billboards are being utilized in a plan by the PCRM to call for the minimization of dairy-based products in the Albany school lunch system. But Albany isn't the only target of the PCRM's war against cheese. Read More

Despite everything going low-fat and low-calorie, and every campaign imaginable dedicated to educating people about the value of good nutrition and exercise, the United States obesity rate hasn't budged. One in three adults and one in six children and adolescents are still obese. And this is good news? "I think this is a kind of encouraging finding, given all the efforts we have been making," Dr. Youfa Wang, head of the Johns Hopkins Global Center for Childhood Obesity told Reuters. "The general public for sure nowadays has become more aware of the health consequences of obesity, and industry has been heavily influenced by all the efforts." Indeed, the number staying steady between 2007 and 2010 is actually a vast improvement from the '80s and '90s when obesity rates were rapidly increasing. Experts had predicted the numbers to continue rising. However, 35 to 36 percent of adults and 17 percent of kids are still obese in America, compared to 22 to 24 percent of adults in England and less than five percent in Japan. Read More