Not all kids are fond of eating fresh fruits and vegetables and a lot of parents get frustrated and worried about their child not having healthy eating habits. The key is to introduce nutritious foods in their daily diet in creative ways. One such way is by serving them yummy smoothies with fresh fruits and vegetables in them – then they’ll know that eating healthy isn’t so bad after all!

The Classic Banana Smoothie (With a Veggie Twist!)

One of the easiest smoothie flavors to have children drink is the classic banana smoothie with its naturally sweet taste and creamy texture. Bananas are one of the most widely consumed fruits in the world not only because of its taste but because of its nutrient content. They’re an excellent source of fiber and potassium and are known to reduce the risks of asthma and even cancer. And the icing to the cake is that they’re available all year round!

Just the banana alone can make a sweet treat but if you add other tasty ingredients (including vegetables!), the mixture will be even better.

Try these ingredients together:

• Banana
• Cauliflower
• Rolled Oats
• Peanut Butter
• Yoghurt
• Milk

The Berry Healthy Smoothie

Berries are considered to be a superfood. Not only are they low in calories and high in fiber but they’re also loaded with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Berries are good for the hair and skin and have powerful anti-inflammatory properties.

Kids are attracted to them too – they come in vibrant colors and they’re super yummy, too! Because of the strong colors, it’s easy to sneak in a few vegetables to berry smoothies, making the drink even more nutritious!

Try these ingredients together:

• Blueberries
• Strawberries
• Cucumber
• Broccoli (Steam first!)
• Milk
• Plain yogurt
• Vanilla

The Tropical Paradise

Citrus fruits such as orange, pineapple, grapefruit and lemon are one of the best sources of Vitamin C which helps boost energy (which young ones need a lot of!) and strengthen the immune system. It also contributes to hair and skin health.

But these nutritional powerhouses also contain plenty of other essential nutrients like B Vitamins, copper, potassium and magnesium.

Most kids love orange juice, so it shouldn’t be too hard to convince them to drink this tasty smoothie (and they’d never know there are veggies in it!)

Try these ingredients together:

• Mango
• Orange
• Pineapple
• Carrot
• Courgette or Zucchini (peeled)

Once your little one gets fond of drinking healthy smoothies, you can mix and match more fruits and vegetables.

Tricking the mind to lose weight is very much important, as it helps you control over your eating habits. Thus, mindful eating is a must that does miracles and helps you get the outcomes of your efforts. Yes, change in your eating habits may do wonders and help you lose healthy weight in a very short span. If you want to know about some tips, take a look at the following ways to do so.

• Eat When You Are Hungry: There is a difference between hunger or craving and you need to understand it, to eat the portion necessary for your body, not more than that. Make sure you have your meal when you are actually hungry and not when you are simply craving, as it may slow your metabolism and zero your efforts of weight loss.
• Leave The Technology Aside: Nowadays, we all are obsessed with technology like television, phones or laptops, which trick our mind and we end up having more than what our body requires. All these gadgets will distract the mind and never let it get the signal that you are full, and at last you devour more calories than usual, which increases your weight. Therefore, keep them away and focus on your food to maintain a healthy weight.
• Watch Out Your Portions: To trick your mind, it is compulsory to pay attention to the portion you are having. Thus, it is recommended to use small plates, as it tricks your mind that you have had enough of your meal and now you are full. It sounds silly, but proven to be very effective and result-oriented. So, make sure, the very next you keep this in mind that you need to eat, how much you need, not how much you think you should.
• Don’t Be Stuffed: Instead of having three large meals, it’s good to break it into six portions; it’ll trick your mind and boost up your metabolism as well, which further help you drop some extra pounds. Also, it prevents you from overstuffing that could be the reason of your day by day weight gain.

These are some of the common ways you can trick your mind to eat mindfully. These tips may help you achieve your weight loss goals in no time. Always remember skipping a meal is not necessary to lose weight, but eating mindfully is, so, you should adopt such habits to lose weight in a healthy way.

About Alabama Red-Bellied Turtles?

The Alabama Red-Bellied Turtle (Pseudemys alabamensis) is usually a species found solely in the state of Alabama. In fact, it is the official state reptile of Alabama.

Their head, neck, and legs are often marked with yellowish stripping. And as you might have guessed from the name, their belly, or plastron, has a tendency to possess a redish hue on it. There may also be dark markings occasionally.

These colorings are especially intense in adolescents.

Where Can Alabama Red-Bellied Turtles Be Found?

Before we dive into what do Alabama red-bellied turtles eat, we first must understand their habitat. Generally speaking this turtle enjoys freshwater canals, lakes, bayous, and swamplands. Overall they prefer shallower waters.

This turtle species was once common through the entire lower part of the flood plain of the Mobile River system in Baldwin and Mobile Counties, Alabama. Possibly at times, as far north as southern Monroe County.

However camping sites, and off-road vehicles have all but destroyed their last known large scale nesting sites. Camp lights, human disruption, and high noise is believed to be causing heavy reproductive failure.

What Do Alabama Red-Bellied Turtles Eat?

You’ll find that Alabama red-bellied turtles tend to prefer a plant based diet.

In The Wild:

These kinds of turtles are referred to as herbivores and since they are generally seen in small rivers and ponds, they have a tendency to stay with low lying vegetation including:

Aquatic Plant life, Eel-Grass, Hydrilla, Brushy Pond-Weed, etc.

Although, they’ve been known to also eat Crayfish, Bugs, and small fish.

In The Home:

Although endangered, Alabama red-bellied turtles have been seen to become pets for various reasons.

When thinking about what they eat as pets, you will find that most of the same items found in the wild can be a part of a pet turtles diet. You are able to feed them:

Earthworms, Lettuce, Carrots, Moss, Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Algae, Fruit, etc.

It is critical to remember that, similar to most aquatic turtles, Alabama red-bellied turtles don’t always get 100% of the needed nutrients in the food they eat. Due to this it is wise to do your very best to include a multi-vitamin supplement within their meals.

In captivity Alabama red-bellied turtles will readily eat many of the commercially accessible aquatic turtle foods as well.

That being said, it’s always best if you provide your pet turtle with as varied a diet as possible to ensure good health and proper nutrition.

Things To Avoid When Feeding Alabama Red-Bellied Turtles?

As with every pet, you should ensure that your Alabama red-bellied turtle will be as healthy as possible. Additionally you want to make certain your household is as healthy as it can be at the same time.

Here are a few helpful tips to balance the both of best worlds.

No Fried Foods: Avoid giving your turtle any sort of oily food. No fried potatoes, donuts, onion rings, etc.

No Sugary Foods: No candy, chocolate, or other type of sugary foods. As well as being unhealthy for a turtle, these kinds of foods tend to be hard and can pose a choking hazard for your little friend.

No Dairy Foods: For example milk, cheese, butter, etc. Turtles do not have the necessary enzymes to properly digest lactose.

No Sharing Foods: Avoid sharing foods or snacks with your turtle. Many turtles, like most aquatic animals, carry salmonella bacteria. Salmonella does not affect them as it does humans.

No Kissing: No seriously, don’t kiss your turtle. Although they are certainly cute while they are young or small, they carry salmonella and the last thing you want is to become sick from your turtle.

No Dirty Hands: Whenever you handle your turtle be sure you wash both your hands thoroughly with anti-bacterial soap.

The topic of emotional eating hits home for so many people. It’s very common, so don’t feel ashamed if this is a problem for you. It is important to not beat yourself up over anything while you are working on making improvements.

Emotional hunger is different from physical hunger, but it can be difficult to tell the difference between the two. Emotional hunger can cause these symptoms:

• Feelings of pain in the heart

• Feeling that something in your life is missing

• Feeling of needing comfort

• Needing to fill a void in your life

This is different from physical hunger, which commonly feels like:

• Emptiness in the stomach

• Weakness

• Lack of energy

• Grumbling noises

It is important to ask yourself before you eat whether you feel physically hungry. If you realize you aren’t, you need to figure out what it is you are actually feeling that is causing you to want food. Here are some feelings that can cause people to want food: sadness, anger, confusion, fear, depression, boredom, disappointment, upset, moodiness, irritation, feeling unsure, bothered, perplexed, procrastination, stress.

The process of eating is supposed to be enjoyable, but eating in order to cope with an emotion or fix something in your life is not going to work. Food may comfort you for the short-term, distract you from the pain, or even numb you with a food hangover, but when you are done eating not only is the root problem still there, but now you probably feel guilty for eating all the food. Each emotion or problem has a solution.

If you have used food to cope with emotions, it is important to recognize this and to be gentle with yourself. Let go of any guilt or shame you feel or have felt about turning to food for happiness. Dieting is another thing that leads to emotional eating-dieting messes with your emotions, so not only do you binge from the overpowering biological drive to eat, but you eat to comfort yourself from the pain of dieting!

Here are 3 ways to work towards overcoming emotional eating:

1) Ask yourself: Am I physically hungry? If the answer is yes, then ask yourself what you want to eat, and allow yourself to eat! Honor your hunger and fullness. Eat until you are full and know that you nourished your body. If the answer is no, then go to step 2:

2) Ask yourself: What am I feeling right now? When you realize you are not biologically hungry, take a time-out instead of reaching for food and look deep to see what you are really feeling. This may not be an easy question to answer, especially if you are out of touch with your emotions. However, if you know that you aren’t physically hungry and that you are turning to food for another reason, this is a great place to start! Pat yourself on the back for being aware that there is another reason you want food.

3) Ask yourself: What do I need? Many people eat to fulfill some unmet need. If you figure out the emotions you are experiencing, try to figure out what you can do other than eat that actually addresses the problem at hand.

Emotional eating can be a dangerous thing if it gets out of hand. Not only does it lead to weight gain, but it can cause you to become sick and avoid the emotions that are causing you to turn to food.

Birds eat all kinds of food items, some of which very much appeal to our own palettes, particularly things like fruits berries, nuts, corn, and maybe even fish, crabs, mollusks, and crustaceans. However, aside from sushi lovers, most of us prefer these later types of food in at least a partially cooked format. Then there are those birds that eat things nearly everyone finds to be downright repulsive.

It’s doubtful that you know even a few people who salivate over raw meat of any kind or have an appetite for insects or slimy invertebrates, let alone carrion. Sure there are lots people in this word that eat road kill and other things firmly planted in the category of weird, but generally speaking we can chalk this up to cultural differences or isolated oddities of the world.

One thing that a few birds are known to eat that we humans simply do not consume, at least not as food, is wax. Wax in the naturally occurring and general sense, refers to a class of organic compounds that are insoluble in water, solid and breakable when cold, solid but malleable at ambient temperatures, and which melt into a low viscosity liquid at higher temperatures. Wax consists of long-chain fatty acids and is very difficult for most organisms to digest. Aside from its limited appearance in things like chewing gum or for wrapping some types of cheeses, wax is just not something we eat, but rather something we have found all sorts of creative practical applications for. Birds can always be counted on to defy basic logic or provide exceptions to general rules, and eating wax is no exception.

There are actually several groups of birds that purposely eat and are able to metabolize wax. Many seabirds, for example, like petrels and auklets, indirectly derive energy from the wax found in the crustaceans they eat. Then there are a handful of terrestrial birds, like certain warbler and swallow species, that gorge themselves on waxy berries. The digestive tracts of these odd birds are characterized by higher concentrations of gall bladder secretions, greater concentrations of bile-salt in the intestines, and a relatively slower passage rate of lipids acquired from food items. There is also some evidence that these birds are kind of like ruminators, like cows, such that partially digested wax compounds somehow return to the gizzard from the small intestine for a second or third round of digestion.

Amazing as all that is, none of these birds are eating straight up wax, they are just kind of forced to consume it because is an unavoidable part of the actual food items that they prefer. Enter the Honeyguides (Indicatoridae), a Family of 17 species found only in Africa and classified in the same order as woodpeckers (Piciformes). Fairly unspectacular in appearance and basically about songbird size, these birds are mostly insectivorous, but they are famous for their curious behavior of eating the pure wax of honeycombs. Furthermore, these weird birds solicit the help of honey loving animals like honey badgers and even humans by calling their attention to the location of a beehive so their assistant will open the hive to take the honey and leave the waxy comb and bee larvae to the honeyguide.

It’s a galaxy eat galaxy Universe, where small galaxies collide and merge to create the large magnificent galaxies that we see today. It is well-known that our barred-spiral Milky Way Galaxy attained its majestic size this way, devouring smaller galaxies floating around in its own general neighborhood, thus growing ever larger and larger. The relics of such terrible feasts can still be observed in the form of star streams that are the sad remnants of those dwarf galaxies that our Galaxy devoured long ago. Indeed, a duo of irregular dwarf galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, were in the midst of merging into a single larger galaxy when they tumbled into our own. In August 2018, a team of astronomers announced their new findings that this duo of galactic dwarfs contain enough gas to replenish 50% of our Milky Way’s supply of star-birthing fuel–thus providing the seeds for the brilliant birth of future baby stars.

The new study is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (U.K.), and it sheds new light into the way that large galaxies like ours are able to gravitationally snatch this gas so easily. The scientists simulated the collision of a duo of distant dwarf galaxies in order to understand how their gas gets dispersed during the merger process. In their simulations, they watched the bigger galaxy, NGC 4490, steal gas from its smaller sibling by way of a gravitational effect resulting from their lopsided difference in size. As the duo circled ever closer and closer and closer to one another in this remarkable celestial ballet, the smaller galaxy’s tail of gas was swept ever farther and farther and farther away. This finding supports a study published earlier in 2018 that managed to fingerprint the gas streaming from the Magellanic Clouds into the Milky Way as belonging to the Small Magellanic Cloud.

A Tale Of Two Galactic Dwarfs

The Magellanic Clouds are a pair of nearby, small, and irregular satellite galaxies in orbit around our own–they are also the brightest of our Milky Way’s small galactic satellites. The shapeless duo puff clouds of gas both ahead of and behind them in a long ribbon that is appropriately dubbed the Magellanic Stream. The Magellanic Stream is a long streamer that reaches almost half way around our Milky Way, and performs a rippling dance beyond our Galaxy’s edge. Most of the ribbon was ripped from the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) approximately 2 billion years ago, but a small cloud of gas formed more recently from the gas belonging to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC).

The LMC and SMC got their names when the explorer Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) mistook them for clouds–and the pair of so-called “clouds” were named in his honor.

The LMC is only about 158,200 light-years from Earth, and the SMC is not much further than that at approximately 199,000 light-years. For comparison, our entire Galaxy is about 100,000 light-years across, and it is about three million light-years away from the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), which is another large spiral, as well as the nearest large galactic neighbor of our Milky Way.

More than twenty small satellite galaxies orbit our own, but only the Magellanic Clouds sparkle brightly enough with brilliant starlight to be observed from our planet with the unaided human eye. The Magellanic Clouds–in contrast to our Galaxy’s other orbiting satellites–are filled with gas. Gas is the precious stuff that galaxies use to create bright new fiery baby stars.

The people of several ancient cultures were aware of the existence of the Magellanic Clouds. Probably the most ancient continuous extant references to the duo of “clouds” were made by observers from the Khoisan culture of Southern Africa. The ancestors of these people apparently lived separately from all other living human cultures for thousands of years.

Another lengthy history of cultural association may have re-emerged with the migration of humans south from the Middle East reaching Australia about 50 to 60 thousand years ago. These ancient migrating people were the ancestors of the modern Aborigines, whose various cultures have produced a variety of fascinating myths and folk-tales about this pair of starlit nearby galaxies.

The ancient Polynesians also knew of the existence of the Magellanic Clouds, and they served as important navigation markers. Taken together they were also known to the Maori of New Zealand as Nga Patori-Kaihau or as Te Reporepo. The ancient Maori people believed that the two “clouds” were predictors of winds.

The Magellanic Clouds have been known since the first millennium in Western Asia. The first mention of the LMC is by the Muslim polymath Ibn Qutaybah, in his book on Al-Anwan (stations of the Moon in pre-Islamic Arabian Culture).

The people of ancient Sri Lanka referred to the Clouds as the Maha Mera Paruwathaya (the great mountains). This is because they thought that they looked like the peaks of a faraway mountain range.

In Europe, the Clouds were first reported by the 16th century Italian authors Peter Martyr d’Anghiera and Andrea Corsali, and both were derived from observations on Portuguese voyages. Subsequently, they were reported by Antonio Pigafetta, who was a member of the expedition of the explorer Ferdinand Magellan on its circumnavigation of the globe (1519-1522).

The LMC and its sibling, the SMC, are both conspicuous celestial objects in the southern hemisphere of our planet. The duo of “clouds” look like separated chunks of our Milky Way to the unaided human eye, and the true distance between them is approximately 75,000 light-years. Until the discovery of the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy in 1994, the pair were the closest known galaxies to our own. However, in 2003, the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy was discovered to be even closer to our Galaxy, and is currently considered to be our nearest galactic neighbor. The total mass of the duo of Clouds is uncertain.

For some time, many astronomers proposed that the Magellanic Clouds had orbited our Galaxy at approximately their current distances for eons. However, new evidence now indicates that it is rare for the duo to travel as close to the Milky Way as they are now. Both observation and theory suggest that the duo have both been significantly distorted by tidal interactions with our much larger Galaxy as they wander closer and closer to it. The LMC displays a very clear elegant and orderly spiral structure in radio-telescope images of neutral hydrogen. Ribbons composed of neutral hydrogen tie them both to our Milky Way and to each other. Both members of the duo look like disrupted barred spiral galaxies. Their gravity has also influenced our Milky Way as well, distorting the outer limits of the Galactic disk.

In addition to their differing structure and smaller mass, the pair of Clouds differ from our Milky Way in two important ways. First, they are more metal-poor than our Galaxy (in astronomy a “metal” is any atomic element heavier than helium). Second, they are heavily laden with gas; a greater percentage of their mass is hydrogen and helium compared to our own Milky Way. Both members of the duo display nebulae and youthful populations of stars. However, like our own Galaxy, their stars range in age from stellar babies to elderly stars. This suggests a long star formation history.

The Primordial Birth Of Galaxies

The Universe was born approximately 13.8 billion years ago in the exponential inflation of the Big Bang. Many scientific cosmologists propose that it started off as an exquistely tiny speck, that was smaller than a proton, only to attain macroscopic size in the tiniest fraction of a second. It has been expanding at a much more stately pace ever since–and it has been cooling off as well. The primordial Universe was much smaller and more crowded than it is today. Primeval protogalaxies were closer together when our Universe was young. For this reason, the ancient galaxies had a considerably greater chance of bumping into one another and merging to form ever larger and larger galaxies.

The first protogalaxies probably were born when the Universe was less than a billion years old. The most widely accepted model of galactic formation proposes that the majestic, large galaxies were uncommon in the ancient Universe, and only eventually reached their enormous sizes after they had snared smaller galaxies and then merged with them.

The star-blazing galaxies of the Cosmos switched on at the end of what is called the Cosmic Dark Ages, and brightened up what had previously been a dark and featureless swath of unimaginable blackness. The first light-emitting objects brought the Cosmic Dark Ages to an end when they sent their newborn light streaming out into Spacetime..

Most scientific cosmologists propose that the first galaxies to be born in the ancient Universe were opaque, dark, and shapeless clouds composed mostly of hydrogen gas. These primordial clouds had silently, slowly gathered within the secretive hidden hearts of dark matter halos. These newborn protogalactic clouds composed primarily of pristine hydrogen gas gravitationally snared the first generation of brilliant, gigantic baby stars. The brightly shining neonatal stars and extremely hot gas then lit up the ancient Cosmos.

The dark matter is a mysterious form of matter–it is not composed of the “ordinary” atomic matter that we are familiar with. Indeed, dark matter is transparent and invisible because it does not dance with light or any other form of electromagnetic radiation. Many scientists think that it is really there because it does exert gravitational effects on objects that can be seen.

Star Birth

For a long time after NGC 4490 collided with its smaller sibling, SN 4485, and merged with it to create a single galaxy, their gas continued to expand. The astronomers who performed the new study found that in another five billion years, the colliding galaxies’ tails of gas will extend over an impressive distance of about 1 million light-years–this amounts to almost double its current length.

“After five billion years, 10 percent of the gas envelope still resides more than 260,000 light-years from the merged remnant, suggesting it takes a very long time before all the gas falls back to the merged remnant,” Dr. Sarah Pearson noted in an August 9, 2018 Columbia University Press Release. Dr. Pearson is now a fellow at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics (Simons Foundation) in New York City.

When the scientists compared their results to the real telescope observations of NGC 4490/4485, the results they obtained matched their simulations. This provided a strong indication that their model was accurate.

The new findings also are consistent with what astronomers know about how gas is recycled in the Cosmos. As clouds of gas grow increasingly extended, the gas becomes looser. This makes it easier for a larger galaxy to meet up with the cloud and eat it for dinner. The simulation indicates that this spreading out process has enabled the Milky Way to effectively strip gas from the SMC. Furthermore, this means that this sort of gas-transfer may be a frequent occurrence throughout the Universe.

“Our study suggests that similar dwarf pairs exist out there. Because their gas is so extended, if they fall into something like the Milky Way, their gas is easily shed,” Dr. Pearson explained in the August 9, 2018 Columbia University Press Release.

In addition, the new study suggests that the declining density of the gas on the outer limits of colliding and merging dwarf galaxies makes it difficult for new stars to be born–a conclusion matched by direct observations. The astronomers plan to continue studying other duos of dwarf galaxies in the process of colliding in order to refine their new model.

The other authors of the study are George Privon (University of Florida), Gurtina Besia (University of Arizona), David Martinez-Delgado (Astronomical Calculation Institute), Kathryn Johnston (Columbia University), R. Jay Gabany (Black Bird II Observatory), David Patton (Trent University), and Nitya Kallivayalil (University of Virginia).

The new study is published in the July 3, 2018 edition of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society under the title: Modeling the Baryon Cycle in Low Mass Galaxy Encounters: the Case of NGC 4490 & NGC 4485.

Top Places to Eat in Thessaloniki

The international gastro-bistro trend gains ground around Greece and of course also in Thessaloniki. The menu in this kind of restaurants focuses on the modern Greek cuisine giving it creative dashes. Mavri Hina, Haroupi and Nama are some perfect examples of what can be created when an inspired chef meets a nice place, inviting us to dine in a romantic setting in a comfort-oriented style. Small dishes, ideal for sharing are amazing for group of friends that want to have fun and eat deliciously at affordable prices.

Emerging is also the city’s brunch scene in relaxing, pleasant spaces to combine breakfast and lunch at weekends. For example, Koukou, serve egg-based street food with many sweet and savoury French toast selections.

Another trend in Thessaloniki as well as in whole Greece is healthy eating with gluten-free dishes and offerings with no added sugar or preservatives. In a super retro décor, Exereton is a top choice to eat healthy and enjoy its innovative touches proving that healthy can also be delicious.

Thessaloniki is a seaside town, and thus, seafood is its specialty. Coquille Seafood is located on the waterfront and has a magnificent view of Thermaic Gulf. Ouzeri Arodo serves seafood mezedes ideally accompanied by ouzo, and emphasises in low-fat creations and fresh ingredients.

Ladadika was always the best district to visit and understand the culinary culture of Thessaloniki. The area near the port is a famous nightlife spot full of small, local taverns where you can taste the cuisine of Thessaloniki and relax drinking wine or ouzo. Ano Ladadika was until recently a lesser-known part of Ladadika, but nowadays Verias Street is the new talk of the town, being established in the drink- and dining map. Maitr and Margarita is one of the leading bistros of Thessaloniki that transformed this neighbourhood. This transformation was followed by the opening of cocktail bar Gorillas, which stocks more than 200 labels, as well as Mahalo with street food, such as Hawaiian burger with grilled beef, pineapple and caramel sauce.

For the meat lovers, there are many meat-focused restaurants and taverns in the city, such as Brizola or Tzaki ‘Ho, which is located in a formet industrial space. What you have to keep in mind is that in Thessaloniki, you can eat either fresh fish or quality meat that will make you understand why Thessaloniki is considered the food capital of Greece.

The cuisine of Thessaloniki, the culinary capital of Greece

If you have booked your stay in Thessaloniki, be prepared to live an abundant culinary experience and enjoy Greek cuisine at its best. Thessaloniki is considered as the culinary capital of Greece thanks to its traditional cuisine that combines Eastern and Western elements and has strong influences from the Turkish cuisine due to the refugees that came from Minor Asia in the city in 1922 bringing their secrets of a delicious gastronomy. Thessaloniki was the first place in Greece that brought the traditional taverns with the various mezedes where people can eat many different dishes and feel like being in a gastronomic paradise.

The best district to visit and understand the culinary culture of Thessaloniki is Ladadika, the area near the port, which is now a famous nightlife spot full of small, local taverns where you can taste the cuisine of Thessaloniki and relax drinking wine or ouzo. However, the whole city is a heaven for food lovers. As you walk around Thessaloniki, you are pulled in every direction by the smells of the bakeries, pastry shops and restaurants that prepare dishes and delicacies, which come directly from Turkey, Istanbul, Pontus and Asia Minor. The culinary repertoire is great, the local wine delicious and the desserts one of a kind.

Modiano Market is a complex of five arcades with a façade and a glass roof, which houses small eateries and shops selling spices, vegetables, fruit, meat and fish. Time has stopped in this traditional market that reminds of the oriental bazaar, and the variety of culinary temptations is just amazing.

Soutzoukakia is a famous dish from Smyrna that came in Thessaloniki and then became part of the Greek cuisine. Meat balls with various spices, tomato sauce, souvlaki pita and yoghourt dip create the perfect nutritious plate, while Tirokafteri is also a starter that now is part of every Greek menu. It is a creative combination of feta cheese, olive oil, paprika and spicy peppers. Generally, the cuisine of Thessaloniki is characterised by many spices and herbs that give its dishes a unique aroma and taste.

Thessaloniki is also famous for its sweets that are popular all over Greece. Tsoureki is a kind of sweet bread with aromatic spices, mastic and mahlab, but in Thessaloniki, you can find various versions of tsoureki with chocolate, vanilla, chestnut and other ingredients that give it a special taste. Bougatsa is made with filo pastry and filled with sweet cream and cinnamon comes from Istanbul, but today, Thessaloniki is considered its hometown. The first thing you should do when you visit Thessaloniki is to taste bougatsa and get lost in its delicious world. Trigona Panoramatos are filo triangle pastries, whose preparation began decades ago in the district Panorama of Thessaloniki Town. They are soaked in syrup and filled with rich and creamy custard. You just can’t stop eating them!

Read on to Find out Why You should Eat Home-Cooked Food

Thanks to our increasingly hectic lifestyle, eating has become one of the lesser priorities in life. For example, we eat only when we are meeting someone in a lavish restaurant or snack mindlessly while watching a movie. When was the last time you took out a couple of hours only to prepare food and to relish it leisurely? When was the last time you put “LUNCH” on your daily to-do list? However, eating home-cooked food is one of the healthiest habits one can cultivate. It has multiple positive effects on the body as well as on the mind.

Nutritious:- Restaurant and other commercially prepared foods are notoriously high in fat, salt and sugar. Home-cooked meals, on the other hand, are free from these and also have the option of replacing certain items with their healthier alternatives. Eating home-cooked meals regularly prepares our palate for simpler and more wholesome foods in the long run, which eventually start reflecting in our trimming waistlines and overall health.

Hygienic:- A recent video allegedly showing a worker of one of our favourite dhabas kneading atta with his feet had us all squirming in our seats. While not all restaurants follow standards like these, it is extremely difficult to maintain desired levels of cleanliness and hygiene while preparing food at an industrial level. However careful food handling and cooking techniques generally found at homes tend to keep the meals healthier and our stomachs happier.

Appropriate portions:- Since childhood, we all have always been taught never to waste food. I followed this rule from childhood and still do, even while eating out with my friends. However, restaurants are famed for their large portions, which ultimately became one of the prime reasons for my overeating and subsequent health issues. While the entire earth is moving towards the Japanese “Hara Hachi Bu” (Eat till you are 8/10th full), it is high time that we, too, make a paradigm shift and change our eating habits. Eating at home gives us the luxury to customise our portion sizes according to our needs, exclusively.

Increased knowledge of food:- Do you know which food you should eat when you feel low after those boring day long meetings? A large plate of French fries and a medium portion of rice and dal will have different effects on your body, mind and soul. Since food is our main source of energy, it can have a filling, healing or even negative effect on our bodies. Since home-cooked food is generally nourishing and made from much lesser ingredients, the taste and effects of each ingredient can be thoroughly savoured.

Builds healthy habits:- Eating home-cooked meals jump-start a lot of good habits which prove to be beneficiary throughout the life.

Easy on the pocket:- Read any book or article on “money saving hacks” and this one comes at the top. Eating home-cooked food more often is one of the biggest and easiest ways of saving money. Even eating out from your neighbourhood thela is a costlier affair in the long run.

Of course, cooking food is not everyone’s cup of tea. A lot of factors like being pressed for time, being bone lazy after a long day and ineptitude to cook well come between us and a delicious and nutritious meal often. For my brethren who still long for some simple homely meals but are unable to find some, let me show you the light to the dark path.

Do you often feel as though you are eating as healthily as you possibly can, but yet you are still gaining weight? Are you fed up and frustrated with dieting because nothing seems to help you reach the weight you desire? â € ¨If so, it is understandable you would be frustrated. Eating healthily takes work, and when you are fighting food cravings, you want to know you are getting something out of it.

Here is what to know about this issue …

1. Healthy Foods Still Contain Calories. First, note healthy foods still do contain calories, and that is why it is possible to gain weight eating them. If you eat too many healthy foods, you still can have the issue of taking in more energy than you burn off over the course of your day and that is what causes you to gain weight.

To lose weight, you need to do one thing: burn off more calories than you consume. It has nothing to do with eating healthily or not. It is easier to lose weight generally speaking if you eat healthily because those foods tend to be more satisfying, but this is not always the case.

2. Calorie Dense Healthy Foods Should Not Be Eliminated. Next, note calorie dense foods should not be eliminated from your diet plan. Sure, you should restrict the high-calorie dense ones like nuts, oils, avocados, and so forth. Eat smaller servings of these items but still include them because they provide you with a wealth of proper nutrition.

3. Using Volumetrics Is Key. Finally, also note volumetrics is key if you want to lose weight while eating healthily without calorie counting. Volumetrics has been proposed as being an innovative way of appetite control

This is mainly eating foods that contain few calories for how much of the food you can eat. For instance, take popcorn. You can load up and eat five cups of popped plain popcorn for about 100 calories. Eat the same amount of potato chips, however, and you would be easily 750+ calories. And remember foods, for example fruit or soup, hold a lot of water and have a low density. That is, has few calories per pound.

If you focus on this while trying to lose weight, you will find your journey is more comfortable and satisfying.

So keep these points in mind. You definitely should be eating healthy, but there is more to losing weight than just this alone.

Today obesity is a common cause of concern all over the world. Processed food, fast food, and frozen foods have taken over our eating habits. As we grapple with weight issues, we are becoming prone to lifestyle illnesses like high blood pressure, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. There are three primary reasons for gaining weight, which are as follows:

• Sedentary lifestyle and decreased physical activity

• Eating processed food

• Low metabolism due to genetic factors

Your mirror or even your weighing scale will tell you that you have put on weight but what are you doing about it? Weight management is in your hand. Make sensible lifestyle changes! Start by getting onto a treadmill and as you sweat, begin to eat right.

Did you know that the humble chana dal is a great calorie buster and helps to reduce weight? Also known as Bengal Gram, it is high in fiber and has a low glycemic index making it easier to digest. Chana dal has a nutty taste and a soft buttery texture when cooked. Use the organic chana dal variety for a healthier option and get ahead in the weight loss race.

Make the right choice:

Bengal Gram is an excellent choice on your journey to weight loss, and organic chana dal is even better as you are sure it is free from pesticides and grown without any chemicals. Eat it regularly and reap its vast array of benefits.

Lose weight

Bengal Gram is loaded with both soluble and insoluble fiber facilitating excretion of bile leading to proper digestion. The insoluble fiber bulks up the food preventing constipation and easing the digestive process. Fibre keeps you feeling full thereby curbing hunger pangs. Eat cooked dal or drink it in liquid form to enjoy all its benefits.

Boost your immunity

The presence of iron, manganese, phosphorus and magnesium in chana dal not only increase your energy levels but increases your resistance too. This helps you fight diseases while staying fit and healthy.

Fight diabetes

Bengal Gram comes with a low glycemic index and complex carbohydrates. Thus, it digests slowly regulating insulin and maintaining and reducing blood sugar levels. High fiber along with high protein also helps to manage diabetes better.

A healthy heart

With antioxidants, phyto nutrients, magnesium, and folate bengal gram is perfect for cleansing and strengthening blood vessels and lowering cholesterol levels. Eating bengal gram reduces the risk of heart attacks and strokes. The superior dietary fiber prevents the formation of clots.

Benefits for women

Plant hormones and antioxidants are plentiful in chana dal thus lowering the risk of breast cancer. It also helps in protecting against osteoporosis and counters hot flashes in the postmenopausal phase in women. It is beneficial to pregnant women too as it prevents miscarriage.

Keep a healthy gut with Bengal Gram:

The presence of fiber in chana dal helps maintain a healthy gut by reducing constipation and easing the digestive process. It also cures diseases like dysentery and diverticulosis. So make sure to include chana dal in your diet.

Get a glowing skin from Bengal Gram:

It is called besan which has been used extensively in skin care since ancient times. Use facial and body packs made from besan to get smooth blemish free skin. Our skin is subject to environmental pollution every day making it dull. Besan packs cleanse the skin leaving it fresh and soft. Use organic chana dal to make homemade besan and use it to make your skin glow.

Use good quality organic chana dal in your life changing healthy meal plan for effective weight loss and weight management. Cook the nutritious chana dal with spinach or tomatoes; or add boiled dal to salads, curries, and soups; or eat roasted chana dal as a snack on your way to your ideal weight.