Yoli was a huge hit at the OC Throwdown in Orange County, CA.  This was a CrossFit competition.  Hundreds of athletes were consuming Yoli throughout the day.

Check out some of the footage from the event below…(watch closely for a couple of Yoli sightings in the the competition area.

Scotty “The Blast Cap King” Lawrence represented Yoli in the masters division at the event. He tied for 1st place in his division. I think the 4 Yoli Truths per day had something to do with his win…

Here a few photos of the many athletes and CrossFit enthusiasts that were enjoying Yoli.  They were all looking forward to getting their hands on some Yoli Fun Sports Blast Drinks…

Scott and I had a great time and I was able to meet so many wonderful people at the event.  Scott and I plan to continue to use CrossFit events to share Yoli with the masses.  They certainly love it.  It should be even more exciting once we can get our hands on Yoli Fun the new Sports Drink.

After attending this competition, I fell in love with CrossFit.  I’m going to start training this way in 2010.  Awesome fun!

Disclaimer: Yoli products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Scientists have proved for the first time that fructose, a cheap form of sugar used in thousands of food products and soft drinks, can damage human metabolism and is fueling the obesity crisis.

Fructose, a sweetener usually derived from corn, can cause dangerous growths of fat cells around vital organs and is able to trigger the early stages of diabetes and heart disease.

Over 10 weeks, 16 volunteers on a controlled diet including high levels of fructose produced new fat cells around their heart, liver and other digestive organs. They also showed signs of food-processing abnormalities linked to diabetes and heart disease. Another group of volunteers on the same diet, but with glucose sugar replacing fructose, did not have these problems

This study takes its place in a growing lineup of scientific studies demonstrating that consuming high-fructose corn syrup is the fastest way to trash your health. It is now known without a doubt that sugar in your food, in all it’s myriad of forms, is taking a devastating toll.
And fructose in any form — including high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and crystalline fructose — is the worst of the worst!

Fructose is a major contributor to:

•    Insulin resistance and obesity
•    Elevated blood pressure
•    Elevated triglycerides and elevated LDL
•    Depletion of vitamins and minerals
•    Cardiovascular disease, liver disease, cancer, arthritis and even gout

A Calorie is Not a Calorie

Glucose is the form of energy you were designed to run on. Every cell in your body, every bacterium — and in fact, every living thing on the Earth–uses glucose for energy.
If you received your fructose only from vegetables and fruits (where it originates) as most people did a century ago, you’d consume about 15 grams per day — a far cry from the 73 grams per day the typical adolescent gets from sweetened drinks. In vegetables and fruits, it’s mixed in with fiber, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and beneficial phytonutrients, all which moderate any negative metabolic effects.
It isn’t that fructose itself is bad — it is the MASSIVE DOSES you’re exposed to that make it dangerous.

There are two reasons fructose is so damaging:

1.    Your body metabolizes fructose in a much different way than glucose. The entire burden of metabolizing fructose falls on your liver.
2.    People are consuming fructose in enormous quantities, which has made the negative effects much more profound.

Today, 55 percent of sweeteners used in food and beverage manufacturing are made from corn, and the number one source of calories in America is soda, in the form of HFCS.
Food and beverage manufacturers began switching their sweeteners from sucrose (table sugar) to corn syrup in the 1970s when they discovered that HFCS was not only far cheaper to make, it’s also about 20 times sweeter than table sugar.

This switch drastically altered the average American diet…

By USDA estimates, about one-quarter of the calories consumed by the average American is in the form of added sugars, and most of that is HFCS. The average Westerner consumes a staggering 142 pounds a year of sugar! And the very products most people rely on to lose weight — the low-fat diet foods — are often the ones highest in fructose.
Making matters worse, all of the fiber has been removed from these processed foods, so there is essentially no nutritive value at all.

Fructose Metabolism Basics

Without getting into the very complex biochemistry of carbohydrate metabolism, it is important to understand some differences about how your body handles glucose versus fructose. I will be publishing a major article about this in the next couple of months, which will get much more into the details, but for our purpose here, I will just summarize the main points.
Dr. Robert Lustig[i] Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco, has been a pioneer in decoding sugar metabolism. His work has highlighted some major differences in how different sugars are broken down and used:
•    After eating fructose, 100 percent of the metabolic burden rests on your liver. But with glucose, your liver has to break down only 20 percent.
•    Every cell in your body, including your brain, utilizes glucose. Therefore, much of it is “burned up” immediately after you consume it. By contrast, fructose is turned into free fatty acids (FFAs), VLDL (the damaging form of cholesterol), and triglycerides, which get stored as fat.
•    The fatty acids created during fructose metabolism accumulate as fat droplets in your liver and skeletal muscle tissues, causing insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Insulin resistance progresses to metabolic syndrome and type II diabetes.
•    Fructose is the most lipophilic carbohydrate. In other words, fructose converts to activated glycerol (g-3-p), which is directly used to turn FFAs into triglycerides. The more g-3-p you have, the more fat you store. Glucose does not do this.
•    When you eat 120 calories of glucose, less than one calorie is stored as fat. 120 calories of fructose results in 40 calories being stored as fat. Consuming fructose is essentially consuming fat!
•    The metabolism of fructose by your liver creates a long list of waste products and toxins, including a large amount of uric acid, which drives up blood pressure and causes gout.
•    Glucose suppresses the hunger hormone ghrelin and stimulates leptin, which suppresses your appetite. Fructose has no effect on ghrelin and interferes with your brain’s communication with leptin, resulting in overeating.

If anyone tries to tell you “sugar is sugar,” they are way behind the times. As you can see, there are major differences in how your body processes each one.

The bottom line is: fructose leads to increased belly fat, insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome — not to mention the long list of chronic diseases that directly result.

Panic in the Corn Fields

As the truth comes out about HFCS, the Corn Refiners Association is scrambling to convince you that their product is equal to table sugar, that it is “natural” and safe.
Of course, many things are “natural” — cocaine is natural, but you wouldn’t want to use 142 pounds of it each year.
The food and beverage industry doesn’t want you to realize how truly pervasive HFCS is in your diet — not just from soft drinks and juices, but also in salad dressings and condiments and virtually every processed food. The introduction of HFCS into the Western diet in 1975 has been a multi-billion dollar boon for the corn industry.
The FDA classifies fructose as GRAS: Generally Regarded As Safe. Which pretty much means nothing and is based on nothing.
There is plenty of data showing that fructose is not safe — but the effects on the nation’s health have not been immediate. That is why we are just now realizing the effects of the last three decades of nutritional misinformation.
As if the negative metabolic effects are not enough, there are other issues with fructose that disprove its safety:
•    More than one study has detected unsafe mercury levels in HFCS[ii].
•    Crystalline fructose (a super-potent form of fructose the food and beverage industry is now using) may contain arsenic, lead, chloride and heavy metals.
•    Nearly all corn syrup is made from genetically modified corn, which comes with its own set of risks.

The FDA isn’t going to touch sugar, so it’s up to you to be proactive about your own dietary choices.

What’s a Sugarholic to Do?

Ideally, I recommend that you avoid as much sugar as possible. This is especially important if you are overweight or have diabetes, high cholesterol, or high blood pressure.
I also realize we don’t live in a perfect world, and following rigid dietary guidelines is not always practical or even possible.
If you want to use a sweetener occasionally, this is what I recommend:
1.    Use the herb stevia.
2.    Use organic cane sugar in moderation.
3.    Use organic raw honey in moderation.
4.    Avoid ALL artificial sweeteners, which can damage your health even more quickly than fructose.
5.    Avoid agave syrup since it is a highly processed sap that is almost all fructose. Your blood sugar will spike just as it would if you were consuming regular sugar or HFCS. Agave’s meteoric rise in popularity is due to a great marketing campaign, but any health benefits present in the original agave plant are processed out.
6.    Avoid so-called energy drinks and sports drinks because they are loaded with sugar, sodium and chemical additives. Rehydrating with pure, fresh water is a better choice. (It’s simple…drink more Yoli)

Disclaimer: Yoli products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Compared with soda, juice carries more calories and as much sugar. There’s also evidence that high consumption increases the risk of obesity, especially among kids.

By Karen Kaplan

November 8, 2009

To many people, it’s a health food. To others, it’s simply soda in disguise.

That virtuous glass of juice is feeling the squeeze as doctors, scientists and public health authorities step up their efforts to reduce the nation’s girth.

It’s an awkward issue for the schools that peddle fruit juice in their cafeterias and vending machines. It’s uncomfortable for advocates of a junk-food tax who say they can’t afford to target juice and alienate its legions of fans. It’s confusing for consumers who think they’re doing something good when they chug their morning OJ, sip 22-ounce smoothies or pack apple juice in their children’s lunches.

The inconvenient truth, many experts say, is that 100% fruit juice poses the same obesity-related health risks as Coke, Pepsi and other widely vilified beverages.

With so much focus on the outsized role that sugary drinks play in the country’s collective weight gain — and the accompanying rise in conditions including diabetes, heart disease and cancer — it’s time juice lost its wholesome image, these experts say.

“It’s pretty much the same as sugar water,” said Dr. Charles Billington, an appetite researcher at the University of Minnesota. In the modern diet, “there’s no need for any juice at all.”

A glass of juice concentrates all the sugar from several pieces of fruit. Ounce per ounce, it contains more calories than soda, though it tends to be consumed in smaller servings. A cup of orange juice has 112 calories, apple juice has 114, and grape juice packs 152, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The same amount of Coke has 97 calories, and Pepsi has 100.

And just like soft drinks, juice is rich in fructose — the simple sugar that does the most to make food sweet.

UC Davis scientist Kimber Stanhope has found that consuming high levels of fructose increases risk factors for heart disease and Type 2 diabetes because it is converted into fat by the liver more readily than glucose. Her studies suggest that it doesn’t matter whether the fructose is from soda or juice.

“Both are going to promote equal weight gain,” she said, adding that she’s perplexed by the fixation on the evils of sugar-sweetened beverages: “Why are they the only culprit?”

OJ FOR THE MASSES

Juice is a relatively recent addition to the human diet. For thousands of years, people ate fruit and drank mostly water.

But in the early 1900s, citrus growers in Florida were harvesting more oranges than they could sell. Then they had an epiphany: promote juice.

“You consume more oranges if you drink them than if you eat them whole,” said Alissa Hamilton, author of the book “Squeezed: What You Don’t Know About Orange Juice.”

The U.S. Army was instrumental in turning orange juice into a commercial product.

It originally served a powdered lemonade to ensure soldiers got enough vitamin C, but it tasted “like battery acid,” Hamilton said. So, during World War II, the Army commissioned scientists to invent a system for freezing OJ in a concentrated form. The patent wound up with Minute Maid, which sold cans of frozen juice concentrate in grocery stores.

In the 1950s, pasteurization technology developed by Tropicana made orange juice even more consumer-friendly because it could be sold ready to drink in cartons, like milk.

TV fitness pioneer Jack LaLanne and other health experts touted juice as a natural medicine, and decades of advertising helped secure its place at the breakfast table. Today, roughly half of all Americans consume juice regularly, according to NPD Group, a market research firm.

The Juice Products Assn. emphasizes the value of the vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients in juice, especially when so many Americans eat so little fresh produce.

“If someone can add a glass of fruit juice at breakfast, that’s an important addition to the diet,” said Sarah Wally, a dietitian for the trade group.

But scientists are increasingly questioning whether the benefits outweigh the sugar and calories that come with them. “The upside of juice consumption is so infinitesimal compared to the downside that we shouldn’t even be having this discussion,” said Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at UC San Francisco.

WEIGHT FACTOR

Researchers haven’t published head-to-head comparisons of how juice and soda contribute to weight gain, but there is evidence that high juice consumption increases the risk of becoming overweight or obese, especially among kids.

One of the earliest studies, in 1997, examined 168 preschool-age children in upstate New York. Kids who drank at least 12 ounces of juice a day were 3 1/2 times more likely than other kids to exceed the 90th percentile for body mass index, qualifying them as overweight or obese.

A 2006 study of 971 low-income youngsters found that each extra glass of juice a day caused children who were already overweight or obese to gain an extra pound each year.

The link between juice and weight gain isn’t always found, however. In a 2008 review of 21 studies, six supported the connection and 15 did not.

In fact, several researchers have linked juice to healthier diets and lower weights. A 2008 report of 3,618 children ages 2 to 11 found that kids who drank at least 6 ounces of juice a day consumed less fat and more vitamins and minerals than kids who drank no juice at all.

But many experts say the data simply reflect a correlation between juice and healthful diets, not a causal relationship.

“Kids who drink more juice are more likely to be eating breakfast, and kids who eat breakfast tend to weigh less than kids who don’t,” said Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University.

There’s also concern that children who drink lots of sweet beverages such as juice will develop a lifelong preference for sweeter foods. A 2004 Dutch study found that 8- to 10-year-olds preferred sweeter drinks after consuming a sugary orangeade for eight days. They also drank more of it as they acclimated to its sweet taste.

Doctors and health officials have been persuaded to de-emphasize juice in recent years.

The American Academy of Pediatrics’ nutrition committee revised its policy in 2001 to recommend that children ages 1 to 6 drink no more than one 4- to 6-ounce serving of juice a day and older kids have no more than two.

“Because juice is viewed as nutritious, limits on consumption are not usually set by parents,” the committee wrote in “The Use and Misuse of Fruit Juice in Pediatrics.”;107/5/1210 “Like soda, it can contribute to energy imbalance,” causing the weight gain that leads to obesity.

The government’s 2005 dietary guidelines recognize that juices can be good sources of potassium, but recommend whole fruit for the majority of daily fruit servings to ensure adequate intake of fiber.

In October, the federal Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children introduced vouchers for fresh produce and reduced the juice allowance. That’s a change Billington and his colleagues in the Minnesota Medical Assn. had been pushing for since 2006.

“Having apple juice and eating an apple are not the same,” he said.

CONCENTRATED SUGAR

Indeed, as scientists zero in on the causes of rising obesity rates, sugary drinks have emerged as a primary culprit.

Calories consumed in liquid form don’t give stomachs the same satisfied feeling as calories eaten in food. People offset an afternoon snack by eating less at dinner, but they don’t do that with beverages.

“The studies are pretty clear,” said Dr. Barbara Dennison, a research and policy director at the New York State Department of Health in Albany. “You just don’t compensate for those calories.”

Making matters worse, the human body is ill-equipped to process the sugar that is concentrated in a glass of juice.

When fructose is eaten in a piece of fruit, it enters the body slowly so the liver has time to convert it into chemical energy. But a single glass of apple juice has the fructose of six apples.

“If you overdose on fructose in a liquid, the liver gets overwhelmed,” Lustig said. As a result, he said, the fructose turns to fat. “Eating fruit is fine. Drinking juice is not.”

Still, the halo surrounding juice remains strong.

As soda is singled out for its role in the rise of obesity, juice is offered as the sensible alternative. In Los Angeles and elsewhere, it is taking the place of soft drinks in school vending machines alongside water and milk.

Brownell of Yale has waged a high-profile campaign to fight obesity with “sin” taxes on soda and other sugary drinks. It’s already an uphill battle, and he said he’s loath to provoke the tens of millions of Americans who consider their morning juice sacrosanct.

Dr. Frank Greer, who spent 10 years on the American Academy of Pediatrics’ nutrition committee, said he “can’t imagine” the group would ever downgrade juice to the status of soda.

“It’s such a normal part of the American diet,” Greer said. “A glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice for breakfast, my goodness!”

Disclaimer: Yoli products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

With study after study coming out and exposing the truth in the beverage industry it’s easy to see why so many Americans are looking to Yoli’s Blast Cap technology and healthy drinks as an alternative to the sugary beverages in the marketplace these days. New York City has been working hard to educate their citizens about the negative impact of sugary beverage consumption. The video below says it all…

The NYC Department of Health’s newest anti-obesity advertisement makes their last fat-in-a-cup subway ad seem mild.

As you may recall, in August the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene rolled out subway billboards that showed a soda bottle pouring globs of human fat into a drinking glass, with the intent of shocking New Yorkers into choosing low calorie beverages over soda and sweetened juices.

Now, they’ve gone one step further and put the ad in video form.

While those who saw the subway ad may have gagged at the thought of someone lifting the fat-filled glass and taking a sip, those who see the latest ad now are able to watch it happen.

The video, posted on YouTube and the Department of Health website, shows a smiling man pour a soda can full of fat into a large drinking glass and then chug down very realistic blobs of fat, which drip down his face.

The short clip appears again and again between bits of information about how many calories are in an average can of soda (300) and how many teaspoons of sugar can be found in a 20-ounce bottle of soda (16).

The grand finale gives viewers a sense of what ten pounds of fat look like, not on a human body, but on a dinner plate, in case we were wondering.

Cathy Nonas, director of the Health Department’s Physical Activity and Nutrition Program says the intent for both ads, was to do something “hard hitting.”

“We’ve been wanting to call attention to a very real problem,” she told NBCNewYork.com. “We did have a very small very graphic poster in the subways but we couldn’t afford to bring it out as much as we wanted to.”

The new YouTube ad was made possible by a small donation and is expected to make its way around the Internet for a fraction of the cost of the subway ads.

The campaign is part of a larger anti-obesity initiative that includes calorie-posting regulations, physical activity requirements at daycare centers, fruit and vegetable carts in under-served areas.

“Sugary drinks shouldn’t be a part of our everyday diets,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, New York City Health Commissioner. “This video is playful, but its message is serious. Sugar-sweetened beverages are fueling the obesity epidemic, and obesity is disabling millions of New Yorkers.”

My good buddy and Yoli partner, Dereck Arreguin, was out in Utah to meet with the founders during the early days of Yoli when they were still getting everything dialed in. Dereck had Rick Eisele, founder and Chief Operations Officer at Yoli, give you the grand tour of Yoli’s headquarters in Jordan Utah.

Dereck had a great time, learned a lot about Yoli as a company and met the staff leaders at Yoli. Good times…

November 13th, 2009 – Will the Soda Pop?

November 2nd, 2009 – What Soft Drinks are Doing to Your Body

October 21st, 2009 - Sweetened beverages linked to weight gain in girls

October 7th, 2009 – Watchdog bans ‘keeps you perky’ vitamin water adverts

September 24th, 2009 – Big growth forecast for US children’s healthy drinks market

September 17th, 2009 – Bubbling Over: New Research Shows Direct Link Between Soda and Obesity

September 8th, 2009 – Obama Says New Tax on Sugary Drinks Worth ‘Exploring’

August 31st, 2009 – New York City Campaigns Against Coke and Other Sugary Drinks – NYTimes.com

August 26th, 2009 – New Report Highlights Role Of Drinks In Daily Calorie Intake

August 24th, 2009 – American Heart Association says soft drinks and other sugar-sweetened beverages are the number one source of added sugars in the American diet.

Disclaimer: Yoli products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

With Yoli bringing their signature Truth Citrus Health Drink to the marketplace, the data continues to stack up against the sugary beverage market.  Stories, studies and governments abroad are finally catching on to what all these beverages that are loaded with sugar and fructose are doing to our bodies.

FRIDAY, Oct. 30 (HealthDay News) — Here’s a new reason to put down that sugary soft drink: Research suggests that a diet high in fructose, a common sweetener, boosts the risk of high blood pressure.

High-fructose corn syrup is found in many processed foods and beverages. Americans consume 30 percent more fructose now than 20 years ago, and researchers have linked higher fructose consumption to the growing obesity epidemic. But scientists weren’t sure if a connection existed between fructose consumption and high blood pressure.

In a new study, Dr. Diana Jalal, of the University of Colorado Denver Health Sciences Center, and colleagues studied 4,528 adults without a history of high blood pressure. They examined their fructose intake and found that those who consumed more than 74 grams of fructose per day — that’s the equivalent of the amount in 2.5 sweetened soft drinks — boosted their risk of high blood pressure by 28 percent to 87 percent, depending on the level of hypertension.

“These results indicate that high fructose intake in the form of added sugars is significantly and independently associated with higher blood pressure levels in the U.S. adult population with no previous history of hypertension,” the study authors wrote, adding that future research is needed to determine if lowering fructose intake will also lower blood pressure.

The study findings were scheduled to be presented at the American Society of Nephrology’s annual meeting, held Oct. 27 to Nov. 1 in San Diego.

Disclaimer: Yoli products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

One of the great scams of the industrial food cartel is the so-called “fresh” orange juice sold in supermarkets.

Some reality checks:

1. There is more vitamin c in a single orange than in a full glass of industrial orange juice.
2. Truly fresh orange juice only lasts a few days. It if last for weeks (or months), it’s an industrial product.
3. Until the Florida orange growers launched a campaign in the early 20th century to deal with their surplus crop, the only people who drank orange juice were Floridians who had a tree in their backyard. There is nothing particularly healthy or natural about drinking orange juice — and the industrial product is a total waste of money.

Dr. Mercola’s Comment on Orange Juice

It may come as a surprise that your carton of 100% pure, not from concentrate orange juice is nowhere near akin to sticking a straw in an orange and taking a sip.

Many popular orange juice brands have to be chemically altered using ethyl butyrate — a compound that’s added to perfume as well as orange juice — in order to make it taste and smell like oranges!

Further, many commercial orange juices are contaminated with mold from damaged fruit that is processed. So if you drink commercial orange juice regularly you will be exposed to these mold toxins.

You know you are buying a heavily processed juice if the “Best Before” date is 60 or more days in the future. Real fresh-squeezed orange juice will only last for a few days.

So if you simply must have orange juice, squeezing your own at home would be about the only way to get the real thing.

But drinking orange juice, whether fresh-squeezed or not, is not as healthy as it sounds. In fact, orange juice is actually one of the top five “health” foods I recommend avoiding.

Why Orange Juice is Not Healthy

Many people start their day off with a glass of orange juice, typically thinking the vitamin C and other nutrients it contains are a smart and healthy choice.

But a glass of juice, whether fresh-squeezed or not, has about eight full teaspoons of sugar per eight-ounce glass! This is nearly as much sugar as is in a can of soda (one can typically has 10 teaspoons of sugar).

When the sugar is combined in its natural form in the whole fruit it causes far less of a problem as the fiber tends to slow its absorption and prevents over consumption.

But process the fruit sugar out of the fruit and remove the fiber and you have an entirely different setup.

The sugar in orange juice is typically a fruit sugar called fructose, which many mistakenly believe is a “healthy” form of sugar. But fructose is every bit as dangerous as regular table sugar since it will also cause a major increase in your insulin levels.

Fructose Will Spike Your Insulin Levels Upward

You should certainly be aware of the dangers of high fructose corn syrup, well please understand that simple fruit sugar extracted from fruit has virtually identical side effects and negative effects on your biochemistry.

The starch-derived (corn) fructose used to sweeten soft drinks and all kinds of processed foods is refined, man-made and metabolically different than the natural kind already in fruit. That’s why your body converts the starch-derived fructose in processed foods to brown adipose tissue and trigylcerides that contribute to diabetes, hypoglycemia, obesity and cardiovascular disease.

On the other hand, fruit fructose, along with all the nutrients, vitamins, minerals, water, other mono-, di- and olgio-saccharides and fiber found in fruit, are converted to blood glucose.

This does not mean it is “healthy,” however, because it will cause a major spike in your insulin levels. This is important because elevated insulin levels are one of the primary drivers for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and weight gain.

This may be why drinking fruit juice has been linked to an increased risk of diabetes, while fructose itself has been shown to increase your triglyceride levels. In one previous study, eating fructose raised triglyceride levels by 32 percent in men.

Triglycerides, the chemical form of fat found in foods and in your body, are not something you want in excess amounts. Forty years worth of research has confirmed that elevated blood levels of triglycerides, known as hypertriglyceridemia, puts you at an increased risk of heart disease.

Whole Fruit is a Better Choice than Juice

If you love orange juice, a healthier choice would be to eat a fresh orange rather than drink the juice. (or try the Yoli Truth Citrus Health Blast)

If you are overweight, have diabetes or high blood pressure, however, you are best off avoiding fruits or limiting them to a small handful of berries a day. If you are currently healthy, a small amount of fruit should not be a problem as long as you follow the guidelines of your nutritional type. (again – Yoli Truth is a better option as it has no sugar)

Another study…

Since we’re not big juice drinkers in our house, OJ usually only makes its way into our fridge when guests come to visit. Even then, it still takes us a few weeks to polish off the carton. I never thought much about keeping the OJ for a few weeks. After all, it still tastes good—and we usually finish it before the expiration date. Then I read this study that showed opened OJ loses all antioxidant benefit after just one week! Seriously?

Sometimes there are clues when a food passes its prime: lettuce wilts, bananas turn brown. Other foods will look and smell OK long after their health punch has dramatically declined. “Certain nutrients are unstable when exposed to oxygen (from the air), heat (from cooking) and light,” says Carol Johnston, Ph.D., R.D., chair of the Department of Nutrition at Arizona State University. Keep track of how long you store the following nutrient-rich foods.

Orange juice: 1 week
One cup of OJ can offer a full day’s dose of vitamin C. But OJ that has been opened loses all antioxidant benefit after just one week. To get the most vitamin C, buy frozen concentrate and drink within a few days. Frozen concentrate is exposed to less light and air.

Justin’s comment…

I think its clear that big industry has been pulling the wool over our eyes or years. This is exactly why Yoli has come to market. To expose big industry’s deception and to give you and I a REAL healthy alternative to the beverage options in the marketplace today.<

Disclaimer: Yoli products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Soda, pop, cola, soft drink — whatever you call it, it is one of the worst beverages that you could be drinking for your health. As the debate for whether to put a tax on the sale of soft drinks continues, you should know how they affect your body so that you can make an informed choice on your own.

Soft drinks are hard on your health

Soft drinks contain little to no vitamins or other essential nutrients. However, it is what they do contain that is the problem: caffeine, carbonation, simple sugars — or worse, sugar substitutes — and often food additives such as artificial coloring, flavoring, and preservatives.

A lot of research has found that consumption of soft drinks in high quantity, especially by children, is responsible for many health problems that include tooth decay, nutritional depletion, obesity, type-2 diabetes, and heart disease.

Why the sugar in soft drinks isn’t so sweet

Most soft drinks contain a high amount of simple sugars. The USDA recommendation of sugar consumption for a 2,000-calorie diet is a daily allotment of 10 teaspoons of added sugars. Many soft drinks contain more than this amount!

Just why is too much sugar so unhealthy? Well, to start, let’s talk about what happens to you as sugar enters your body. When you drink sodas that are packed with simple sugars, the pancreas is called upon to produce and release insulin, a hormone that empties the sugar in your blood stream into all the tissues and cells for usage. The result of overindulging in simple sugar is raised insulin levels. Raised blood insulin levels beyond the norm can lead to depression of the immune system, which in turn weakens your ability to fight disease.

Something else to consider is that most of the excess sugar ends up being stored as fat in your body, which results in weight gain and elevates risk for heart disease and cancer. One study found that when subjects were given refined sugar, their white blood cell count decreased significantly for several hours afterwards. Another study discovered that rats fed a high-sugar diet had a substantially elevated rate of breast cancer when compared to rats on a regular diet.

The health effects of diet soda

You may come to the conclusion that diet or sugar-free soda is a better choice. However, one study discovered that drinking one or more soft drinks a day — and it didn’t matter whether it was diet or regular — led to a 30% greater chance of weight gain around the belly.

Diet soda is filled with artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, sucralose, or saccharin. These artificial sweeteners pose a threat to your health. Saccharin, for instance, has been found to be carcinogenic, and studies have found that it produced bladder cancer in rats.

Aspartame, commonly known as nutrasweet, is a chemical that stimulates the brain to think the food is sweet. It breaks down into acpartic acid, phenylalanine, and methanol at a temperature of 86 degrees. (Remember, your stomach is somewhere around 98 degrees.) An article put out by the University of Texas found that aspartame has been linked to obesity. The process of stimulating the brain causes more cravings for sweets and leads to carbohydrate loading.

Carbonation depletes calcium

Beverages with bubbles contain phosphoric acid, which can severely deplete the blood calcium levels; calcium is a key component of the bone matrix. With less concentration of calcium over a long time, it can lower deposition rates so that bone mass and density suffer. This means that drinking sodas and carbonated water increases your risk of osteoporosis.

Add in the caffeine usually present in soft drinks, and you are in for even more trouble. Caffeine can deplete the body’s calcium, in addition to stimulating your central nervous system and contributing to stress, a racing mind, and insomnia.

Skip the soda and go for:

• Yoli
You knew I was going to add this…Incorporating wholesome Vitamin C and a proprietary blend of some of the most popular ingredients of the day: acai, goji, pomegranate, resveratrol, white tea extract, Alkaplex, a ph enhancing ingredient, plus live probiotics and enzymes, Yoli Blast Caps deliver to the market a healthy alternative to all of the nutrient deprived, sweetened beverages most people are consuming nowadays.

• Fresh water
Water is a vital beverage for good health. Each and every cell needs water to perform its essential functions. Since studies show that tap water is filled with contaminants, antibiotics, and a number of other unhealthy substances, consider investing in a quality carbon-based filter for your tap water.

On the go? Try using a stainless steel thermos or glass bottle, filled with filtered water. Enhance the flavor of your water with a refreshing infusion of basil, mint leaves, and a drop of honey.

• Fruit Juice
If you are a juice drinker, try watering down your juice to cut back on the sugar content. Buy a jar of organic 100% juice, especially cranberry, acai, pomegranate, and then dilute three parts filtered water to one part juice. You will get a subtle sweet taste and the benefit of antioxidants. After a couple of weeks, you will no longer miss the sweetness of sugary concentrated juices.

• Tea
Tea gently lifts your energy and has numerous health benefits. Black, green, white, and oolong teas all contain antioxidant polyphenols. In fact, tea ranks as high or higher than many fruits and vegetables on the ORAC scale, the score that measures antioxidant potential of plant-based foods.

Herbal tea does not have the same antioxidant properties, though it is still a great beverage choice with other health benefits, such as inducing calming and relaxing effects.

If tea doesn’t satisfy your sweet tooth, try adding cinnamon or a little honey, which has important health benefits that refined sugar lacks. Drink up!

I hope you find the ways and means to avoid soft drinks. I invite you to visit often and share your own personal health and longevity tips with me.

May you live long, live strong, and live happy!

Disclaimer: Yoli products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Junk food is almost as addictive as heroin, scientists have found.

A diet of burgers, chips, sausages and cake will program your brain into craving even more foods that are high in sugar, salt and fat, according to new research.

Over the years these junk foods can become a substitute for happiness and will lead bingers to become addicted.

Dr Paul Kenny, a neuroscientist, carried out the research which shows how dangerous high fat and high sugar foods can be to our health.

“You lose control. It’s the hallmark of addiction,” he said.

The researchers believe it is one of the first studies to suggest brains may react in the same way to junk food as they do to drugs.

“This is the most complete evidence to date that suggests obesity and drug addiction have common neuro-biological foundations,” said Paul Johnson, Dr Kenny’s work colleague.

Dr Kenny, who began his research at Guy’s Hospital, London, but now works at Florida’s Scripps Research Institute, divided rats into three groups for his research, due to be published in teh US soon.

One got normal amounts of healthy food to eat. Another lot was given restricted amounts of junk food and the third group was given unlimited amounts of junk, including cheesecake, fatty meat products, and cheap sponge cakes and chocolate snacks.

There were no adverse effects on the first two groups, but the rats who ate as much junk food as they wanted quickly became very fat and started binging.

When researchers electronically stimulated the part of the brain that feels pleasure, they found that the rats on unlimited junk food needed more and more stimulation to register the same level of pleasure as the animals on healthier diets.

Why junk food really is addictive

Ice cream and chocolate bars are addictive because the mix of ingredients in them activates our “bliss point”, according to Professor David Kessler, a leading scientist.

Snacks, cereals and ready meals can trigger the brain in the same way as tobacco, according to the former head of America’s food standards watchdog.

Professor Kessler, ex-commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), claims that manufacturers have created combinations of fat, sugar and salt that are so tasty many people cannot stop eating them even when full.

He argues that manufacturers are seeking to trigger a “bliss point” when people eat certain products, leaving them hungry for more.

“It is time to stop blaming individuals for being overweight or obese,” he said. “The real problem is we have created a world where food is always available and where that food is designed to make you want to eat more of it. For millions of people, modern food is simply impossible to resist.”

While at the FDA, Prof Kessler was well known for his criticism of the tobacco industry, which he accused of manipulating cigarettes to make them even more addictive.

In a new book, The End of Overeating, he suggests precise combinations of fat, sugar, salt and texture have been used by foods manufacturers to make products “hyper-palatable”.

Heinz tomato ketchup and Starbucks white chocolate mocha Frappuccino are cited as examples of the thousands of modern foods that have been engineered to stimulate feelings of pleasure.

“The right combination of tastes triggers a greater number of neurons, getting them to fire more,” he said. “The message to eat becomes stronger, motivating the eater to look for even more food.

“Many of us have what’s called a ‘bliss point’ – the point at which we get the greatest pleasure from sugar, fat or salt.

“As more sugar [and fat or salt] is added, food becomes more pleasurable until we reach the bliss point, after which it becomes too sweet and the pleasure drops off.”

Prof Kessler, who ran the FDA from 1990 to 1997 and is now professor of paediatrics, epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, added that at the optimum point, food stimulates many people’s appetites instead of suppressing it.