Monday, 29 June 2015

Healthy foods and drinks that turn out to be not so healthy.

Fat Free Foods.

















Fat Free products can be deemed as being healthy for you but this doesn't mean to say they are. The fat extracted from fat free products is replaced with a load of sugar to help improve the flavour. So your intake of calories when eating these "fat free foods" stays the same if not becomes higher as does the levels of sugar in your body. 


Dried Fruit.



















When fruit is dried out to keep for a longer period of time it looses a lot of valuable vitamins and minerals. The dried fruit is seasoned with sugar to hide the original bland taste of the fruit. Dehydrated fruit does not provide your body with the vitamins and minerals it needs whilst at the same time increasing your sugar levels. Better off sticking to a fresh piece of fruit.


Granola.



















This cereal filled with oats, nuts, honey and rice will increase your diet with a load of sugars and Trans fats. Large portions of Granola over a period of time is not good for your health and can increase the risk of you having heart disease or a stroke.


Diet Drinks.



















Instead of sugar, diet drinks are filled with artificial sweeteners which can mislead people into believing that diet drinks can help you loose weight and should prevent diseases like diabetes. But this is not the case. Artificial sweeteners triggers the body to release insulin which can lead to weight gain rather than weight lose. Diet drinks are also very acidic and can cause irreversible damage to the enamel which protects your teeth from harmful chemical and high temperatures. A study published in 2008 followed 9,514 people around for 9 years who drank diet drinks. The study showed that people who drink artificial sweetened drinks have 36% more risk of becoming diabetic.


Health/Energy Bars.











Thought to be the perfect workout snack some health/energy bars are good for us while a lot of them aren't. Some contain very high sugar levels along side saturated fats which can clog up arteries. Specifically meal replacement bars contain these high levels and are best to be avoided.


Energy Drinks.



















Energy drinks such as Monster, Red Bull and RockStar contain certain herbs and vitamins that can cause long term side affects on your body which aren't fully understood yet.The most common ingredient found in these drinks is caffeine, too much of it can cause heart palpitations and can create a irregular heart beat. Some people can even become tired after consuming too much energy juice due to the body constantly producing energy. High sugar levels are also found in these drinks increasing the risk of diabetes. So long as energy drinks are used responsibly these side affects are most likely to be avoided. I know of two older men who had a bet on with each other that one of them couldn't drink 6 large cans of Monster in under 1 hour. The man who accepted the challenge had drunk 4 cans of this energy juice in about 30 minutes and began to complain that his heart beat was racing uncontrollably and that he thought he was going to die. I watched him do this first hand advising him with other people not to go ahead with this. He went to a local chemists/ Drug store to see if there was anything he could take or do to slow down the rate of his heart. Unfortunately for him there was nothing and he had to deal with what he had just put in his body. Luckily enough the effects died down and he regained full control of his body. This stuff in my opinion should be totally avoided and has to be taken very seriously.


Frozen Foods.





















Food can be frozen to help increase the products life span. During the freezing process foods loose a large amount of vitamins and minerals. So if you are on a strict diet of frozen fruit and veg it is suggested that you also take vitamin supplements along side your meals. It is usually frozen fruit and veg which cause the most problems in our diets. Many frozen meals also have small amounts of calories which can lead to unhealthy snacking and may cause difficulties in controlling your weight size. If you use frozen foods it is recommended that you should avoid low calorie frozen meals or if you do choose to buy them make sure that they are low in sodium (salt). High amounts of salt in your diet can cause your body to hold extra water it doesn't need causing high blood pressure which may lead to heart disease or a stroke.


Fruit Juice.



















I'm sure if you were to go into a shop and pick up some juice labelled 100% Fresh you would assume it was good for you. Tropicana for example is a huge leader in producing orange juice. How can every single bottle they produce be fresh? Well hears the secret. After the oranges have been squeezed dry the fruit juice left over is stored in massive holding tanks where the oxygen is removed from the juice to increase the time it can be held for. After a period of time the juice left in the tank starts to taste very bland so "flavour packs" are added to the mixture. Flavour packs are made from orange essence and oils and are made by flavour and fragrance companies, the same companies who make perfume for Doir and Calvin Klein. The flavour packs are added to the tanks to enhanace the flavour of the juice making it seem "fresh". You would be better off just eating a bit of fruit instead of drinking fruit juice. Fruit juice can contain just as much or sometimes more sugar and calories than fizzy/soft drinks. The large amounts of sugars out way the small amounts of vitamins and minerals our body receives when we drink fresh juice.

Saturday, 6 June 2015

The Veil Nebula.


Western Veil Nebula














A massive cloud made of super heated gas and dust found in the constellation of Cygnus located around 1,500 light years away from Earth. A supernova remnant between 5,000 and 8,000 years old. Made up mostly of Sulphur, Hydrogen and oxygen the image was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope but was first discovered by William Herschel on the 5th of September 1784. The veil nebula is so large that it has been broken down into three separate visual component parts, the western veil, the eastern veil and Pickering's Triangle all together make up to be one of the brightest features in the sky .

Eastern Veil Nebula















Pickering's Triangle













Thursday, 4 June 2015

Nicolas Louis de Lacaille - The French Astronomer



























Nicolas was born on the 29th of December 1713 in Rumigny, France. He attended a school in Mantes-sur-Seine in France and later was to become a member of the French Abbey. Nicolas always had a strong attraction towards science and astronomy so he set out in 1739 to remeasure the French arc of the meridian which was the length of France from one point to another. This of coarse was a huge accomplishment at the time therefore Nicolas was rewarded to attend the Royal Academy of Sciences and was appointed Professor of Mathematics in the Mazarin College at the University of Paris. He published a number of popular textbooks at the time but set out on a adventure in 1750 to the western cape of South Africa where he was helped by others to construct a observatory on the flattened top of a mountain. After two years of studying day and night Nicolas catalogued over 10,000 stars,42 nebulae and introduced 14 new constellationsIn 1754 
Nicolas was elected as foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and was also a dedicated member of the Academies of Saint Petersburg and Berlin, the Royal Society of London and the Royal Society of Gottingen. In 1762 Nicolas died of natural causes and was buried in the vaults of the Mazarin College. It is said that he made more observations and calculations than all astronomers of his time put together. There is even a crater on the Moon named after him named La Caille.

Wednesday, 3 June 2015

The Red Spider Nebula.

















NGC 6573 located 5,000 light years away from earth found in the constellation of Sagittarius. A White Dwarf Star sits in the centre of the Nebula releasing strong winds at over 300 kilometres per second, forming shock waves over 100 billion kilometres high. The White Dwarf Star emits gas and energy from either side of it poles, this along side the stars core releasing strong winds forms the shape of the Nebula. The Star is said to be between 250,000K 500,000K putting it among the hottest White Dwarf Stars known.
NGC6573 (The Red Spider Nebula) was captured by the New Technology Telescope at La Silla Observatory situated on the outskirts of the Chilean Atacama Desert.