Healthy Sugar Substitutes

My kids have sweet tooths and so do I and my husband. Still we all know how sugar is supposed to be bad for you.
The first thing that you have to do is cut the level of refined sugar that you take on board every day. This means that you must cut right back on sugar rich foods such as cakes, cookies, candies, chocolate, jellies and the like and if you currently ladle sugar all over your breakfast cereal in the morning, stop doing it right now.
In addition, if you take sugar with your tea or coffee, try to wean yourself off sweetening your drinks or if this is something that you cannot imagine doing, try a natural sweetener like stevia or sucanat as alternative.
The first of these natural sweeteners is somewhat controversial in that it is approved by the FDA as a dietary supplement but not as a sweetener. Nevertheless, even though it is a little expensive, the extreme sweetness of stevia means that a little goes an awful long way, so the cost per cup of tea or coffee is probably no different to cost of the sugar you are currently buying.
On the other hand, sucanat is a one-for-one direct replacement for processed sugar and as always, there are plenty of places on the net where you can obtain both of these substances.
The point about having too much sugar in your diet is that not only does all of that instant energy tend to get piled on as fat if it is not used, processed sugar is bad for your immune system and particularly for your skin. Consequently, if you consume too much processed sugar or products made from sugar, it is pretty much a given that you are going to suffer boils and other skin problems.
Of course, this does not necessarily mean that you have to cut all sweet foods from your diet, but what you should do is replace the sweets that you used to use with natural sweet substances wherever possible. For example, eating plenty of fruit and vegetables is an essential of any well-balanced diet, and if you want to boost your immune system, then you can replace some of the sweetness that you have lost with the sweetness of fruit.
Furthermore, there are lots of other entirely natural sweet substances that you can use to satisfy your sweet tooth. The sweet syrup that is commercially extracted from Agave comes in three different variations, ranging from a ‘light version' that has little traceable taste of the plant (just sweetness) to the version that carries a noticeable taste of the plant itself.
You then have reliable old standbys like maple syrup as well as less known but entirely natural sweeteners such as barley malt, date sugar, fruit juice concentrate and sorghum syrup.
There is also honey with some varieties such as manuka honey from New Zealand having acknowledged antibacterial qualities as well as being stunningly sweet as well. Indeed, as you can read on the website, the antibacterial qualities of this particular honey are so pronounced that you can even apply it to wounds for its antibacterial qualities!

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Lancing Your Teenager’s Pimple

Sometimes it becomes time to pop that pimple. It's an ugly job but someone has to do it. However the secret is to do it without creating infection.
The secret when treating a big red cyst like pimple at home is to start the treatment process as soon as possible, preferably at the first sign of the boil developing.
At this point, there will be no white area in the middle as that develops later as your body starts to fight back, but it is at this point that you should start trying to treat the cyst on the basis that the sooner you can start, the quicker it will go away.
The first thing to know is that the application of heat to the affected area will draw out the pimple more quickly as the heat encourages your body to send the necessary white blood cells and antibodies to the boil area more effectively by improving your blood circulation. This is why at the first sign of a pimple developing; you should start to apply a hot compress to the affected area as soon as you possibly can.
One option for applying localized heat to the affected area is to buy commercially produced heat pads that generate the heat either through a chemical reaction or electricity. However, as it is extremely easy to make a highly effective hot compress at home, there really is no sensible reason why you should spend money on heat pads unless you have tried compresses before and found that they are not effective for you.
To make the compress, take a small tea towel or some other cloth and soak it with water that is as hot as you can stand.
Some people recommend adding salt or vinegar to this water as they find that this helps the process, so this may be something that you want to try, but the main thing is, applying a hot compress in this way will draw out the infection far more quickly. It is therefore something that you should do every few hours, not least because many people find that it helps to relieve the pain associated with pimples.
Keep the compress applied to the infected area until the heat has gone out of it, at which point you can either re-soak it in water or in your favored mixture, or you can heat in the microwave for 10 seconds or so, but make sure that if you do so, you don't burn yourself.
When the pimple is still red and the ‘head' (a noticeable white or off-white pustule at the top) has not yet developed, you should not be tempted to release the pressure by puncturing the boil even though it is extremely painful.
At this stage when it is still firm and relatively undeveloped, trying to drain the pus.
After a few days, the head will develop which means that the cyst is ready to be drained. By applying further hot compresses, you can often encourage the acne to burst so that the pus can start draining away without any further encouragement from you.
In this case, make sure that the infected area is completely clean afterwards by using antibacterial soap to wash your skin as a way of minimizing the risk of the infection spreading.

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