Eat Your Eggs Darling!

I've never been so much of an egg lover. Through my twenty years of existence I never had an egg in any form that was not dough.
Now that I'm trying to shed the extra kilos gained through the winter I discovered that eggs can not only help you get fitter, but are great complements of a healthy lifestyle!

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Let's see what eggs can do to you!

• they contain lutein, which protects our eyes from oxidative stress, and high-energy protons, thus preserving healthy eyesight
• they contain protein and amino-acids, essential for our bodies
• they contain vitamin D, which protects healthy bones
• they are low on saturated fat

These benefits are great, but I initially started this little research on eggs because I wanted to get rid of that winter fat. 

If eaten for breakfast, they can stop you from consuming up to 400 calories that you would otherwise eat. They will make you feel fuller so you will feel less hungry and eat a smaller lunch.

Also, eggs contain leucine, an amino acid that regulates a protein synthesis which will help your body burn the stored fat.

How to have an egg breakfast?

There are tons of ways really. My preference is hard-boiled because I don't like the hassle. Also, this is the healthiest because there is nothing added to the egg. You can eat them scrambled or as an omelet. My newfound personal favorite is the sweet omelet! If you want to sin a little during your diet, try to whip your egg with sugar or vanilla sugar, and it will be super delicious. Also you can add roasted peanuts or walnuts, prepare it as you would your favorite pancake. The possibilities are endless!

I've been having two hard-boiled eggs for breakfast for the past few days and I have to say it really satiated my hunger.

Also a tip: if you want to make your eggs super easy to peel (and why wouldn't you) add a tablespoon of salt to the water.

How to buy eggs in Hungary

Here in Hungary there is a huge variety of eggs in grocery shops. These days, prices have risen, partly because Easter is near and there is a general increase in prices also.

You should pay particular attention to the number codes on the packaging, because on the tray there is often pictures of green fields and happy chickens, but the reality is that those poor things never saw such a landscape. If you can afford it, support farmers who produce eggs in a way that is not cruel to the animals.

There are also special types of eggs, such as the kind that has a yellower yolk, and also a type which is enriched with omega 3 fatty acid, that can potentially protect you from a range of illnesses ranging from cancer to cardiovascular disease. These types of eggs are on the pricier end of the scale.

Also, in Hungary there are still lots of opportunities to buy eggs directly from the farmers. This way you can get great quality eggs for the same or even lower price. (Otherwise big store-chains would buy eggs from farmers and sell them for a topped-up price. In these big stores you can usually find poorer quality, cheaper eggs too.)

Farmers markets are great places to find such produces, and in Budapest and all over the country you will be able to find them easily. Click here to find the list of the markets of Budapest.

Related articles

• Egg Recipes, Deviled Eggs & Eggs Benedict (williams-sonoma.com)
• April 9 - National Egg Salad Week - Egg Recipes (budgetcouponcooking.wordpress.com)
• Quick Tip #5: Hard Boiled Eggs! (confectionerydiva.wordpress.com)
• Cookin' Up Perfect Hard-boiled Eggs (cookinfood.com)

Love Your Morning Drink On The Go? Try This!

In Hungary there is not a real, established culture of bringing food and drinks to work or to school in reusable mason jars. Although, in other parts of the world, environmentally-conscious people do it, and this great little invention I stumbled upon today helps just that.

Cuppow.com

The Cuppow is a reusable lid that can be used to turn your regular mason jar into a travel mug! Great, isn't it?

Coffee, tea or whatever you like, spill-safe, on the go!

It is plastic... But guess what? It's BPA free! Plus, recyclable! My "health and environment conscious consumption sense" loves it!

Although the shipping cost to Hungary seems a little high ($12 compared to the actual cost of the product $7.99), I'm planning to team up with a few friends to share the cost.

If I have one, I'll post a review for you!

Have Healthier Hair and Scalp While Spending Less on Shampoo!

Many of us suffered from dandruff at least once in our life. When it gets a hold of our scalp, it is a pain in the neck (or scalp) to get rid of. Apart from dandruff we have many problems with our hair: split ends, dryness, no shine and so on. We try to improve the appearance of our strands with various products, mainly shampoos. Sometimes  this is the problem that leads to many others.

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To understand what we do to our hair, we need to have a brief look into shampoos and how our scalp works. The glands in our scalp produce oil and sweat just like on any other part of our bodies. When there is too much oily gunk stuck to our hair, we feel the need to wash it. For that, we need a solvent that will clean our hair and make it oil free again. This solvent is Sodium Laureth Sulfate.

What is SLS?

Sodium Laureth Sulfate is a strong cleansing and foaming agent, surfactant and detergent that is used in our shampoos because of its ability to dissolve oil. It is a very cheap substance that can be found in the majority (close to 99% percent according my experience) of shampoos.
It can also be found in dish soaps and car shampoos.

It effectively removes the oily dirt from our hair, but the problem is that it is such a strong detergent that it destroys the protective layer of the skin and dries it out. Ta-dah you have dandruff. Sometimes people even try to treat their dandruff with shampoos containing SLS. A vicious circle.

I'm sure you have felt the sting when shampoo got into your eye. Guess which substance is responsible for that?
There are many more claims about what SLS does, but for me this was enough already, thank you very much.

A safer alternative

When I realized that my problems were caused by sulfates, I immediately started looking for a sulfate-free shampoo. What I found was that there are shampoos especially for colored hair (as sulfates "clean" even the color out hair) for more than 2000 HUF/250 mls. I was hesitant to spend that much on a shampoo that I'll finish in two or three weeks, but I ordered one. Thankfully, when I went to pick it up, it wasn't in the hair salon from which I ordered it. I just went across the street into a drug store, and started going through each shelf, checking all the shampoos, all the ingredients, and then I found it. A sulfate free shampoo for 400 HUF/250 mls.

Choose the baby shampoo

It was a baby shampoo called babylove by Drogerie Markt (one of the leading drugstores in Hungary), and the reason that it was so inexpensive is because it is of the own brand of the drugstore. No advertising money built into the price of your fancy L'Oreal or Tony&Guy shampoos. My face was just as happy as the baby's on the bottle when I bought it.

I started using it immediately, and I could instantly feel the difference. My tormented, scratched scalp was not irritated by the sulfates, and it was an enormous relief. A few weeks into using it and my scalp and hair was very thankful for the new shampoo.
Also, there is panthenol in it (which is basically vitamin B5) and chamomile extract, which will keep your hair shiny and your scalp healthy. No preservatives, no colorant, no ingredients made from mineral oils. It sound so good it makes me want to wash my hair!

The 250 ml bottle shampoo costs 400 HUF, the bigger bottle which is labeled as "wash gel head to toe" is basically the same but seems to be even milder to me.

Click here to find Drogerie Markt stores in Hungary! Enter Budapest into the search box and click the only search result to see all the stores in Budapest!

Try this product if your scalp is irritated or you want to switch to a safer alternative, and feel free to share your experience in a comment!

Stay tuned for my post about German natural products, drugstores, and the general German attitude towards natural and safe cosmetics and other goods!

Related articles

• The Facts Behind Sodium Laureth Sulfate (bellasugar.com)
• Your Shampoo May cause Infertility, Heart Failure,Diabetes. (ramanan50.wordpress.com)
• Love: Sulfate-Free Shampoo (lovehaircare.wordpress.com)
• Four Steps to Healthy Hair (mensjournal.com)

To Tan or Not to Tan?

Now that the sun is beginning to give us its first rays of warm light again, we feel that this was the thing we've been missing since fall set in. It feels great to spend a little time in the sun, and some even start about wondering whether it is time to begin tanning.

Tan skin is pretty much a stable thing in the commercial beauty ideal. It has been around for years, and I'm quite sure that paleness won't take its throne in the near future. While it certainly doesn't look bad at all, is it really good for us? In this post I am going to introduce you to the other side of tanning.

Look at that and you'll never want to be tan ever again

What exactly tanning is?

To put it very simply, the radiation of the sun consists of two components, infrared and ultraviolet radiation. Infrared radiation warms up the earth, and our skin when we let the sun shine on us. Apart from being nice and warm, infrared radiation is harmless.
Ultraviolet rays on the other hand, raise some concerns. The three kinds of ultraviolet radiation are:

• UVA
• UVB
• UVC

All of them can be dangerous and can cause problems. Now let's have a closer look!

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UVC radiation is almost completely filtered by the Earth's atmosphere so this one is the least dangerous. In comparison to that, UVA and UVB radiation reaches the surface of the Earth in considerable amounts and can be blamed for 90% of the problems in connection with sun exposure.

UVB radiation is responsible for sunburn. It affects the outer layers of the skin and it can cause direct DNA damage. 

UVA radiation is the one that can penetrate deep into the skin, and by producing free radicals it can cause indirect DNA damage.

What many people don't realize is that when our skin becomes tan, it is actually a defense mechanism for it, triggered by the damage that has been caused by the harmful rays. A tan skin is one that is not benefiting from tanning but rather screams for help and tries to defend itself.

For the above reason ultraviolet radiation is considered an environmental carcinogen, because by direct or indirect DNA damage it can cause cancer.

If this is not enough, you should know (perhaps from my previous post) that free radicals make our body age. As UV rays penetrate our skin they produce free radicals which, in exchange, make our skin wrinkly and inelastic. You may be surprised, but among the factors of what make elderly people's skin wrinkly, UV rays are number one. Just imagine that all the wrinkles of your grandparents are not simply products of old age but actually sun-damage!

Common Myths About Tanning

• If it's not excessive, it is not harmful.

Wrong! Even the tiniest tan is the sign of your skin being damaged, just as I said above! It is like saying that if someone shoots at you with a machine gun, it is okay if some bullets reach you. While sunlight is necessary for D-vitamin production, there are many more, safer sources for that.

• In winter or when it's cloudy, the sun can't harm us

Wrong! When there is visible light from the sun, we can be sure that there is ultraviolet radiation too.

• A sunbed is a safe alternative for tanning

Very wrong! Sunbeds are even more dangerous as they bombard you with many times as much radiation as the sun would, in a short time and very concentrated. Have you ever seen an over-tanned lady whose favorite pastime activity is to lay in a sunbed? Have you seen those nasty wrinkles already developing? Think about that when you are using a sunbed next time!

If you want to delve further into the topic, watch this eye-opening interview with the beautiful (and pale) Nicola Roberts and watch the documentary with her, "The Truth About Tanning" shown on BBC Three!

Stay tuned for my post about how you can protect your skin from the sun!

Related articles

• Melanoma Rates Skyrocketing in Young Adults (webmd.com)
• 5 Tanning Myths You Can't Afford to Believe (bellasugar.com)

5 Tips to Be a Health Conscious Consumer

Reading the first two posts in this blog may have urged you to wonder what steps you should take to gather knowledge about everyday healthy living, and to become more conscious about preserving your health. Accepting that more products are bad for us than we ever imagined, will be quite difficult. Below I'm going to give you some advice to transform your thinking and to tune it to healthy habits.

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    1. Be Curious

If you are still reading, than chances are that you are curious enough to make the change. For me it was easy as I am a naturally curious person. I don't know if it is possible to train yourself to be curious, but maybe the next steps will help you pique your curiosity.

    

    2. Be Concerned About Your Health

You can have anything you want, but at the end of the day you will eventually realize that your most precious property is your health. You should do everything to protect it! Unfortunately, for some reason nowadays it is considered snobbish and pointless to be health conscious (at least here in Hungary).

    3. Don't Trust Commercials or Claims by Companies

When you become curious and research, you will notice that commercials are almost always packed with false claims. No matter how appealing they sound, doubt them, always! A little research won't hurt you, but a dangerous product could. You should always know the compounds you consume. Always research the ingredients that you are not familiar with, and make sure they don't present a threat. (See "Useful resources" below!)

    4. Transform Your Thinking

At first it won't be easy to be conscious about your decisions. You will be tempted not to bother with thinking about and checking a product, and sometimes you will feel the urge to say "whatever, I'm going to buy this anyway". Sticking to your newly accepted principles will be harder than it seems.

It may help you to realize that when you used to shop, cute packaging and commercials gushing forth from your subconscious made decisions for you. Take that control back! When you put more and more products back to the shelf because you realize they are not good for you, you will see the ridiculous amounts of lies companies dump on us.

    5. Be an Advocate

Naturally, the health of your loved ones is one your priorities too. Help them to be healthier, and while doing this, you will reinforce your principles in your mind as well. It will be mutually beneficial: for your loved ones and for you. (I am noting this because you will need to convince yourself from time to time that the effort is worth it and it helps to put your life and health back into your hands.)

Useful resources:

www.ewg.org/skindeep/ Excellent website to research cosmetics and their ingredients, complete with scientific research studies cited. I highly recommend this!

www.consumerreports.org/ For any kind of product

If you speak Hungarian: 

antalvali.com/ The biggest consumer safety site in Hungary