Saturday Morning Junk Food Commercials

Do you remember watching Saturday morning cartoons when you were a kid? The best thing about it sometimes was watching all of the different commercials for candies and cereal. Times have not changed much. Many parents still use the boob tube as a built in babysitter on Saturday morning. However unlike back when we were kids it is not so permissible diet wise to consume so many sugary foods. Yet these commercials play endlessly on Saturday mornings so your kids will bother you to eat some.

According to the Cleveland Health News most of the programming your kid's watch on Saturday morning is for foods that have lousy nutritional content. Researchers at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, (known as the Food Police) and student researchers the University of Minnesota studied a sample of 27.5 hours of show directed at pre-school and elementary school-aged children. They found four straight hours of what your kids could watch on Saturday morning was nothing more that food commercials. The programming sample came from the major networks so it is likely that they were watching what every kid in America watches on a Saturday morning. Talk abuts brain washing!

In fact, they found that 49 percent of the 4 hours of advertising was for food, and that 91 percent of food ads were for foods or beverages high in fat, sodium, or added sugars, or low in nutrients. These included advertisements for everything from potato chips to dessert items to soups.
Of the 281 food ads included in the sample, 59 percent were for products with higher levels of added sugar. One in five of the foods advertised had higher total fat content, levels of saturated plus trans fat, and sodium. As you may have guessed a lot of these ads were for take out food places like MacDonald's, Taco Bell and the like.
The food police concluded that this advertising mainly promoted unhealthy nutrition and that there were next to no ads marketing fruits, vegetables, low fat dairy products or whole grains. This of course may solve the mystery as to why our children seem to be so out of it when it comes to eating healthy food and so wildly desirous of junk foods, potato chips, creamy foods and snack foods.

One of the things that are sad about all of this is that it is just as easy to make an apple look 'sexy' to a child, as it is a Big Mac. The problem is that there is no money or motivation to make health foods look good to your kids on television. Psychologically these junk food ads can do a lot of damage as they train your kids to desire the wrong types of foods. They create cravings where they need not exist and once your kid gets the food they then create physical cravings for sugar and fat as well. Seeing the imagery for the food is what initiates the whole toxic cycle in the first place. Perhaps in Canada they have the right idea by getting these commercials banned in the first place.

Anti-Flu Juices and Broths

Inspired by the last blog I decided to come up with my own Anti-Flue Juicing Recipes.

Here are some juicing recipes that can help treat the symptoms and causes of the flu –

Immune System Builder Tonic

The garlic and Vitamin A content help restore lost minerals and electrolytes to the body.

Handful of parsley
1 garlic clove
5 carrots
3 stalks of celery

Bunch up the parsley and push it through the hopper of your juicer with the carrots and celery and drink immediately for best results.

Potassium Broth

Sometimes a person with the flu can tolerate lukewarm broths better than sweet or salty juices. This is a juice that can be served hot or cold that is valuable when it comes to replacing fluids that have been lost through diarrhea or through a high fever.

Handful of parsley
Handful of spinach
4 to 5 carrots
2 stalks celery

Push parsley and spinach leaves and push them through the juicer hopper. The juice the carrots and celery. Drink immediately or warm in a saucepan and serve as a clear soup.

Anti-Dizzy Tonic

The flu can make people dizzy either due to dehydration or to congestion. The following recipe contains ginger root juice, which is the classic remedy for dizziness.

¼ inch slice of ginger root
4 to 5 carrots
half an apple, seeded

Push the fruits and vegetables through a hopper and serve as immediately for best results.

Fever Fighter

The cucumber is a vegetable with a cooling effect on the body.

Cucumber with skin removed
Dash of salt

Juice cucumber and serve as is to fight dehydration.

Sinus Clearing Tonic

Radish is traditionally used to clear phlegm from the body.

2 whole red radishes
1 tomato
2 celery sticks
2 carrots'
handful of parsley

Push ingredients through the juicer's hopper and serve immediately. Even holding this juice in one's mouth for one or two moments will increase its effectiveness.

Body Rebuilder Juice

This vegetable cocktail contains a lot of greens and sprouts which contain all types of enzymes that can help clear and rebuild a body that has been battered and weakened by a bout with a cold or flu.

1 cup alfalfa sprouts
½ cup cabbage sprouts
½ cup asparagus stems
5 kale leaves
1 medium carrot

Push all ingredients through the hopper of your juicer. Drink immediately. For optimum results hold the juice in your moth for a few moments so that the enzymes can accomplish their beneficial work.

Flu Prevention Cocktail

The grapes have potent antiviral and antibacterial activity.

2 apples without seeds
1 large bunch of grapes, off the vine
1 lemon

Juice all of the ingredients. Serve as is or over ice.

The key to getting a sick person to drink juices is to serve them with plenty of water in case the taste is too strong. Also drinking juices with small sips is better then drinking no juice at all if the person is having trouble keeping juice down