What Are Triglycerides

What are Triglycerides?

You hear a lot about good cholesterol and bad cholesterol, but what about triglycerides? Is that number important? You bet it is and if you keep reading you’ll find out why.

Triglycerides

This is the unknown fat, the dark horse if you will. We are so concerned with HDL and LDL that we forget there is a third number in the mix that also requires our attention. Normal triglyceride levels are below 150 dl/ml. some say below 200 dl/ml but under 150 keeps you in good standing.

Triglycerides are fats. It is the form of fat that is most prevalent in your body. They, like cholesterol lipids, are found in blood plasma.

The fats in your foods are turned into triglycerides and stored as fat. When the body needs additional fuel sources, it uses those stored fats.

The problem comes in when there are too many triglycerides. We eat too much fat and don’t do enough exercise. More triglycerides are floating around in the blood. Combine them with some cholesterol and they form very low density lipoproteins (VLDL), another bad cholesterol character.

Since we know what LDL does, VLDL does it more. Too many triglycerides can form plaques, narrowing the opening in blood vessels and increasing blood pressure and the risk of heart disease.

Lowering Triglyceride Levels

If your triglyceride number is over 150 dl/ml, it is time to work on lowering it. When high triglyceride levels are present usually there is not much HDL, or good cholesterol. This is particularly bad. HDL helps lower bad cholesterol but it needs to be present in high levels to work properly.

How do you lower your triglycerides?

• Control your diabetes. Uncontrolled diabetes can lead to many systemic problems including high triglyceride levels.
• Cut the calories. Triglycerides come from fat in the food we eat. Limit the fat (remember not all fats are bad so know which ones need to be limited) and the overall calories to lower your outside contribution of triglycerides.
• Lower alcohol consumption. Too much alcohol impairs the liver. The liver processes triglycerides and it can’t do that if it’s destroyed by alcohol.
• Lower other risk factors. If you aren’t exercising, get going. It doesn’t take much to make a difference in your life. If you smoke, work on quitting. It weakens blood vessels that can further be affected by a buildup of triglycerides in the body.

So, the next time you get your blood cholesterol levels checked, don’t ignore that last number. Triglyceride levels are very important. When out of control, they act as co-conspirators with bad cholesterol to increase your risk of heart disease. Help them stay in check.

Egg Shell Contamination Leads To Recall of Millions of Eggs

Yet another recall!  Now it's eggs.  If you are already purchasing organic eggs, free range chicken eggs, you have nothing to worry about.  However, if you are purchasing regular eggs from the store, you need to know if your eggs are a part of the millions of eggs being recalled. Millions of eggs are being recalled because of salmonella contamination that has sickened hundreds.

Read more: http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/eat-safe/wright-county-egg-recall-0818?src=nl&mag=tdg&list=nl_dgr_gfd_non_081910_egg-recall&kw=ist#ixzz0x4btKc9R

Bacterial contamination on modern industrial-scale chicken farms (factories, really) is a growing problem. Cramped conditions are breeding grounds for disease. Widespread use of antibiotics is creating drug-resistant strains of bacteria. Salmonella in eggs only emerged as a problem in the 1980s, several centuries after humans started raising chickens for food. According to the New York Times:

The company behind the recall, Wright County Egg, of Galt, Iowa, is owned by Jack DeCoster, who has had run-ins with regulators over poor or unsafe working conditions, environmental violations, the harassment of workers and the hiring of illegal immigrants.

One antidote to the problem of industrialized agriculture is to choose locally sourced eggs from farms that allow their chickens to run free. Though be aware that the label "free range" doesn't mean what you might think.
See a photo tour of a free-range chicken farm.
Here's a list of the brands involved in the egg recall:

Egg Recall List

Albertson Bayview Boomsma's Dutch Farms Farm Fresh Glenview

Hillandale James Farms Lucerne Lund Kemps Mountain Dairy

NuCal Nulaid Pacific Coast Ralph's Shoreland Sunshine Trafficanda

Egg Recall Numbers

The recalled Eggs are packed in 6- 12- or 18-egg cartons with Julian dates ranging from 136 to 225 and plant numbers 1026, 1413 and 1946. Dates and codes can be found stamped on the end of the egg carton (see photo at right). The plant number begins with the letter P and then the number. The Julian date follows the plant number, for example: P-1946 223.
Consumers should not eat the eggs, and should return recalled eggs to the store where they were purchased for a full refund.

Salmonella Poisoning Symptoms

Within 6-to-72 hours of eating an egg, you may experience lower abdominal cramps, diarrhea (sometimes bloody), vomiting, fever, chills, malaise, nausea or headache. Symptoms may persist for as long as a week. While most people recover without treatment, some patients require hospitalization.
Among the 21,244 cases of foodborne illness reported outbreaks in the United States in 2007 (the last year for which data is available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), Salmonella was the No. 2 cause of illness, causing 27% of foodborne illness outbreaks, including 55% of multi-state outbreaks, and 81 illnesses attributed to Salmonella in eggs; five deaths resulted from Salmonella-contaminated food. The two biggest foodborne illness outbreaks that year were caused by Salmonella, in hummus and frozen pot pies.

Read more: http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/eat-safe/wright-county-egg-recall-0818?src=nl&mag=tdg&list=nl_dgr_gfd_non_081910_egg-recall&kw=ist#ixzz0x4bgwIC9