Drink wine, eat well, live longer. Really




A toast to your health: moderate wine consumption can actually benefit your system

Wine has long been known to have health benefits and the festive season is an ideal time to try the ones that do us the most good. Professor Roger Corder explains how

Wine drinkers are generally healthier and often live longer. This is not wishful thinking. I have spent many years researching the health-giving benefits of wine and have found that wine drinkers are less likely to suffer from heart disease, diabetes and dementia in old age.

Is this because of the wine, their diet or their lifestyle? It is probably a mixture – and in the Wine Diet, I’ll be showing how you can integrate all three to get the greatest long-term benefits for your health.

For many people, living life at their ideal healthy weight is a constant struggle. Yet conventional weight-loss diets are frequently lacking in essential nutrients and put people at risk of becoming ill. Many overweight people are suffering from a type of malnutrition – living on processed, calorie-rich food that is deficient in minerals and vitamins – and crash diets usually make this worse.

The Wine Diet is different. It is not about calorie counting; it provides a fresh outlook on how to stay healthy. Some of the world’s longest-living people – from Sardinia, Crete and rural south-west France – lack basic health services, yet they live to a ripe old age because they take care of themselves in a fundamental way. They eat fresh or unprocessed foods – and drink wine every day.

The Wine Diet will provide you with nutritional advice to improve your health and tell you how to get the best from regular wine consumption. If followed carefully, you should lose weight in the process and you will also get the greatest long-term benefits of health and longevity.

Daily consumption of wine can be part of a healthy diet. Unlike other diets, the Wine Diet doesn’t tell you to cut out alcohol in order to save a few hundred calories a day. In fact, today I’ll be looking at exactly how red wine can boost your health and teaching you how to pick the best wines.

Numerous scientific studies have shown that red wine helps protect the long-term wellbeing of our hearts by preventing the build-up of fatty deposits in the arteries (atherosclerosis). But some investigations have found that not all red wines have this protective effect.

This fact made me wonder what it is about red wines that makes some of them beneficial. If it was a particular substance in red wine that is protective, then some wines might contain more of it than others. Knowing the active component might eventually make it possible to produce red wines optimised for these properties, or even to produce non-alcoholic alternatives containing them.

So what are the substances in red wine that have this beneficial effect? The answer is polyphenols – the chemical compounds found in the grape skin and seeds that are the main contributors to the colour and taste of red wine.

The most common polyphenols in wine are flavonoids, of which the most significant are known as procyanidins. These are what cause that mouth-puckering astringency in young red wines. Polyphenols are effective anti-oxidants, which disarm the damaging chemicals formed when fat is metabolised, and protect the lining of blood vessels from LDL cholesterol (“bad” cholesterol), which is a key trigger for heart disease.

But for me, the most important breakthrough in our understanding of how these polyphenols protect against heart disease came when studies showed that red wine and grape extracts caused blood vessels to dilate, so helping to reduce blood pressure and protect against hardening of the arteries.

If you are a red-wine drinker and also eat two or three portions of fruit a day, it is likely that you are already consuming 1-2g of protective polyphenols a day. The proportion of these that are procyanidins may vary considerably, but the ideal daily target to aim for would be 300-500mg of procyanidins (I’ll be telling you which foods contain procyanidins tomorrow.)

A word of warning. Traditionally made red wine often has noticeable tannins (a type of procyanidin) and is best enjoyed with food.

However, demand for red wines that are suitable to drink at any time and are less astringent means that many wines now contain fewer procyanidins and so have reduced health benefits.

That said, there are plenty of wines that fall somewhere between the two extremes.

So how do we recognise which wines are richest in procyanidins? The factors affecting the amount can be broadly divided into three areas: the vineyard environment, the grape and the winemaker.

In the vineyard, key factors that determine a high level of polyphenols include well-established vines, long, slow ripening, high altitudes and low yields. Established vines are better because they generally do not need much water as their roots reach deep into the soil; irrigation may increase the amount of wine you can make, but it also dilutes it.

Slow ripening boosts the levels of all polyphenols and two key enzymes involved in polyphenol synthesis are increased by ultraviolet (UV) light. So grapes grown at higher altitudes, where there is more UV exposure, could potentially contain higher levels of procyanidins.

Exposure to direct sunlight would have a similar effect. Low-yielding vines generally give the best-quality wines. I have also noticed that wines made from old vines often have a higher procyanidin level than wines made from younger vines from the same winery.

I don’t know whether this reflects a genuine difference in the quality of the fruit coming from older vines, or whether it is because older vines are frequently used to make a winery’s top wine, so more care may be taken at every stage.

Grape variety can also make a big difference – the smaller the grape and the greater the number of seeds per berry, the higher the potential number of procyanidins. In my experience, the grape yielding the most procyanidin-rich wines is the Tannat, one of the traditional varieties of south-west France. Cabernet Sauvignon also has small berries and a high ratio of pip to pulp.

When I compared Cabernet Sauvignon with Malbec wines grown in similar conditions in Argentina, the Cabernets tended to have more procyanidins. Among others, I was impressed by Nebbiolo, one of the classic grapes of north-west Italy, Sangiovese – the grape of Chianti and a number of other Tuscan wines – and Aglianico, an ancient grape variety grown in southern Italy.

The most important aspect of the winemaking process for ensuring high procyanidins is the contact time between the liquid and the grape seeds and skins; less than seven days will mean a relatively low level of procyanidins, while wines with a contact time of three weeks or more have the highest.

Good wine merchants know which wines are made this way – so ask! Winemakers may also filter their product to make the wine clear and stable and to reduce harsh tannins. This may mean the amount of procyanidins in a wine are substantially reduced.

Whenever possible, choose wines that have been allowed to settle naturally; these may eventually develop a small but harmless deposit in the bottle.

Deciding how long to keep a wine before you drink it can also influence the amount of procyanidins. Long ageing is probably not in your best interests from a health point of view – neither will it do much for the taste of inexpensive, everyday wines.

Communities known for their longevity or exceptional good health traditionally drink their local wines young – usually no more than three years after the vintage – often drawing them straight from the barrel.

The decrease is a gradual process; if a wine has a high level of procyanidins when it is first made, it will still have good levels at five years old. But differences are likely to be greater after 10 years.

When I first started wine research, I hoped I might be able to demonstrate that inexpensive wines were just as beneficial to health as higher-priced ones. Once I realised that it was the traditional long fermentation and maceration of grape seeds and skins in the juice that made the most procyanidin-rich wines, I saw that I might be promoting a style of winemaking I have seen described on French wine labels as vinifié à l’ancienne sans compromis – winemaking the old-fashioned way.

However, as I taste and analyse more wines, I realise the situation is not simply old versus new. Many winemakers combine long fermentation and maceration with modern techniques to improve overall quality.

Their wines retain decent amounts of procyanidins. I am sure such wines will become increasingly popular as consumers recognise how well they go with food. And although wines are not yet analysed routinely for their procyanidin content, there is a fairly simple test to measure the total content of polyphenols.

Winemakers are increasingly quoting IPT (from the French Indice des Polyphénols Totaux) in their technical data, which can often be found on the internet and in wine magazines.

In general, the higher the IPT, the greater the amount of procyanidins in a wine. I have created a rating on a scale of * to *****, where most red wines achieve at least a * rating. A 125ml (4 fl oz) glass of super-rich ***** wine typically contains at least 120mg procyanidins, and often more; a glass of procyanidin-rich *** wine will typically provide 60–90mg of procyanidins; an average wine may contain 30–45mg of procyanidins.

So one important advantage of choosing wines with a high procyanidin level is that less needs to be consumed to achieve the optimal health benefit. The best results I’ve had in my laboratory have been from Madiran wines.

These have some of the highest procyanidin levels I’ve encountered, as a result of the local grape variety, Tannat, and the traditional long fermentation and maceration. In contrast, mass-produced, branded wines sold in many wine bars and pubs generally have disappointingly low levels of procyanidins.

They are also often deceptively high in alcohol. I believe that the types of wine that are best for health are those designed to be sipped as an accompaniment to food, not those made for casual quaffing.

With many thousands of wines being made around the world each year, and with so many variables, a dedicated laboratory would be needed in order to analyse wines systematically.

I can’t give you enough examples to cover what you might want to drink every day, but in the Wine Diet I have analysed many of the red wines I have enjoyed drinking and this should give you a good idea of the types of wines that are likely to be most beneficial.

I see no reason why in the future it should not be a legal requirement to include a statement of the procyanidin content; I predict that sooner or later we will be told exactly what health benefits we can expect from a glass of wine.

Ref: telegraph.co.uk

The Wine Tasting Or, Should We Say, Wine Smelling Experience

The practice of wine tasting is the sensory examination and evaluation of wine, and a tradition as ancient as wine itself. Wine tasting and how you taste wine could just as well be called wine smelling based on the physiology of the process, according to Jordan Ross, enology expert with YourLoveofWine. Jordan would be quick to point out that when it comes to the practice of wine tasting, taste and smell are often confused, and when one talks about the taste of a wine we are referring to sweet, sour, salt, bitter and umami – all picked up by taste receptors on our tongue. But much of what is called taste – spice, cherry, red currant - is actually our sense of smell.

Umami?

Umami is a Japanese word meaning “savory” or “deliciousness”, and applies to the sensation of “savoriness”, one of the five basic tastes sensed by the human tongue’s specialized receptor cells, specifically the detection of natural amino acid, glutamic acid or glutamates. Umami is often described as the overall reaction or feel of the palate to certain foods and beverages, and is associated with the sense of ripeness and developed flavor of some foods including vegetables (such as ripe tomatoes), meats, cheese and other protein-heavy foods. Cells respond to umami taste by secreting the neurotransmitter ATP (adenosine triphosphate; ATP transports chemical energy within cells for metabolism) and serotonin (a neurotransmitter produced in the brain known to influence the functioning of the cardiovascular, renal, immune and gastrointestinal systems) in a mechanism exciting sensory fibers that convey taste signals to the brain. Umami flavor is strongest when combined with aromas. With wine, the adjective applied is “texture”.

In the early 1900s, Japanese Professor Kikunae Ikeda first identified umami and believed it to be one of only two senses, the other being sweetness, which is perceived by the palate as pleasant. The significance of umami in food and wine pairing demonstrates why some wines, especially those that are more complex and mature, are naturally better food complements. The more umami a food contains, the more it disturbs the wine’s flavor/acidity/fruit balance, and the addition of acidity and salt into the food will correct this imbalance. Once you understand the concept of umami and how it influences the wine tasting experience, you can successfully pair any wine with any food

Retro-nasal smell

When sniffing a wine, the smells reach the wine taster’s olfactory receptors that are one square inch in size, located at the top of the nasal cavity through the nose. But smells also get there by an alternative route - an internal chimney called the "retro-nasal passage" which connects the mouth to the nose. As you swallow, your mouth is closed, forcing you to exhale through your nose. The swallowing process aides the retro-nasal olfaction by carrying the residual wine vapors in the mouth - retro-nasally - to the smell center because of the connection of the mouth to the nose via the retro-nasal passage. The result is you smell, as well as taste, the wine. This is why wine tasters gargle the wine in their mouths.

Smell, emotion and memory are linked and affect the wine tasting experience.

The wine taster processes smell, memory and emotion together in the brain. The primary olfactory cortex receives information about smells from nerves in the nose, and links directly to the amygdala, which controls expression and experience of emotion, and the hippocampus, which controls the consolidation of memories. Memories that are triggered by smell often seem more intense than other memories because they appear to be more emotional than memories triggered by visual or audio stimuli, explaining why smells in a wine can send a tingle down the spine, or transport us back to a long-forgotten childhood memory. The smell sense can recreate significant past episodes in your life!

Why we don’t all like the same taste in wine

A common generalization is that people don’t like the same foods nor share the same taste in wines. Could it be that different people taste things differently? Experiments have shown that people do taste things differently and that some of these differences are genetic. Smell and taste are regulated by around 1,000 genes, over half of which are totally inactive. A study published in the journal Nature Genetics by Israeli researchers identifies at least 50 of these genes, active in some people and not in others. This may explain why some of us adore some smells and tastes while others are incapable of smelling them. Researchers at Israel’s Weizmann Institute say their study shows that each human displays a unique pattern of active and inactive odor-detecting receptors. These receptors determine how our brain interprets flavors and smells in food. To some degree, we each live in our own sensory world.

Wine tasting jargon - why it’s difficult to describe what we smell

There is a lot of uncertainty in wine tasting when it comes to naming smells. The nose is good at detection but bad at recognition or naming. Smells are conceptualized, owing to the fact that there are very few terms to describe them. We can describe smells only by analogy. The language of smell does not have a precise or exact descriptive domain unto itself like colors as visual descriptors. Memory plays a major role as a means of aiding our recognition of smells. While we can recognize thousands of different smells in our everyday lives, we cannot normally recall them independently of external stimuli. Smells are virtual symbols in that they act as representations of representations in our minds. Often people are unsure and unable to recognize even a common smell like grapefruit and other familiar odors when they are separated from their sources. Smell memories are individual and personal and subject to an almost infinite set of variable factors relating to conditioning, culture, and contextual experience. These factors, in turn, influence the wine tasting experience.

Ref: scribd.com

เบบี้เฟซ คืออะไร

HEALTHY TIPS
BEAUTY KNOWLEDGE

เบบี้เฟซ คืออะไร

เบบี้เฟซ เป็นกรรมวิธีการลอกหน้าโดยใช้สารเคมีทำลายผิวหนังชั้นนอกให้หลุดออกไป เซลล์ผิวชั้นล่างซึ่งอยู่ในสภาพดีจึงขึ้นมาแทนที่ ทำให้ผิวหนังดูเนียนกว่าเดิม สารเคมีที่ใช้ในการทำเบบี้เฟซมีหลายชนิดได้แก่ ฟินอล กรดซาลิก กรดแลกติก และ กรดไกลคอลิก เป็นต้น การทำ เบบี้เฟซมี 2 แบบ คือ การลอกหน้าชนิดตื้น และการลอกหน้าชนิดลึก ซึ่งต้องทำโดยแพทย์ผู้เชี่ยว ชาญเท่านั้น เนื่องจากต้องพิจารณาเลือกใช้ชนิดและปริมาณของสารเคมี ตลอดจนระยะเวลาการทำเบบี้เฟซที่เหมาะสม หากมีอาการแทรกซ้อน หรือเกิดอันตราย แพทย์จะสามารถวินิฉัยและรักษาได้ทันที

ปัญหาที่เกิดจากการทำเบบี้เฟซ

การทำเบบี้เฟซอาจทำให้ใบหน้าไหม้หรือเป็นแผลได้ เนื่องจากสารเคมีแทรกซึมลงสู่ผิวหนังลึกเกินไป และสารเคมีที่ใช้มีอันตรายโดยเฉพาะฟินอลซึ่งเป็นสารที่นิยมใช้มากที่สุดอาจมีผลต่อการทำงานของไตและหัวใจ นอกจากนี้ผิวหน้าที่ดูเนียนกว่าเดิมจะเป็นอยู่เพียงระยะหนึ่งเท่านั้น เพราะร่างกายจะสร้างผิวหนังขึ้นมาทดแทนต่อไป และเมื่อผิวได้รับแสงแดด ก็จะเป็นฝ้าได้ง่าย เนื่องจากผิวหนังที่ขึ้นมาทดแทนมีความบอบบาง

Positive Thinking Quotes and Saying