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Muscle Building Through Nutrition: You Should Consider This

Eating right is just as important to building muscle as exercise: it depends on what you eat and when. You can read here what else you should pay attention to when it comes to your diet.

Muscle building through diet: Eating healthy is important

Muscles grow when you challenge them in training. However, it is also important to eat a diet that provides the body with sufficient energy and the necessary material. Otherwise he cannot build new muscles.

To build muscle through nutrition, you need the following nutrients in particular:
Proteins: The amino acids in the proteins are the building blocks of the muscle cells.
The minerals zinc and magnesium: They support the development of muscles.
In order for your body to be able to complete the training workload, it needs energy and all the essential vitamins and minerals:

Carbohydrates: They provide the energy for driving the body.
Minerals and water: Do you sweat out when you are physically active? Your water and mineral balance should always be balanced.
Vitamins and fats: They round off a healthy diet and ensure that you feel good in your body.
Scientists advise amateur athletes to eat a balanced and varied diet: it should be rich in carbohydrates but low in fat. Whenever possible, use food from organic farming and from your region. They are not only healthier and free of pesticides – you also contribute to climate protection by supporting short transport routes.

A healthy diet supports muscle building: It creates resilient muscles that can fulfill their natural tasks. Well-trained muscles are not only a visual stimulus, but also important for your health, for example for the trunk muscles. By building muscle, you prevent back pain and reduce postural damage to the shoulders and neck. These complaints are widespread today: Anyone who has to sit for a long time, for example at a desk in front of the computer, neglects their core muscles and needs a balance.

Building muscle with a high-protein diet

Proteins contain essential amino acids that you need to build muscle. However, the following formula does not apply here: A lot of material also helps a lot. The Apotheken-Umschau explains that a protein-rich diet only helps to build muscle if you train at the same time. During training, the body has an increased need for proteins and also uses them to build muscles. Without training, he excretes the excess proteins unused.

According to a study, the protein requirement for active athletes is between 1.2 and 1.4 grams per kilogram of body weight. With intensive weight training, the value can rise to 1.8 grams per kilogram of body weight. In comparison: the average daily protein requirement is around 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight.

Do you need animal protein to build muscle?

According to nutritionists, it is not the pure mass of the proteins that is decisive for building muscle, but their biological value. The biological value states how high the proportion of proteins from food is that the human body can actually utilize.

In this respect, the proteins of livestock are ahead – but meat and sausage often contain saturated fatty acids that put a strain on the body. Experts therefore generally recommend a mixed diet of vegetable proteins and animal foods that contain little fat. These include dairy products, lean meat or eggs.

At PETA, vegan nutritionists have their say. For them, plant-based protein sources have an advantage because they provide a nutrient combination of carbohydrates and fiber. For example, legumes such as beans, lentils and peas contain all the important nutrients for muscle building. This makes them a power food for athletes.

Other plant-based protein sources include:
Soybeans, including tofu, soy drinks or seitan and tempeh
Nuts such as Brazil nuts, peanuts, almonds or cashew nuts
Whole grains and pseudo-cereals like hemp and amaranth

Minerals also play a role in building muscle through nutrition

In order for the body to be able to process the amino acids from the proteins, it needs zinc and magnesium.

Zinc: Is directly involved in building muscle cells.

According to the medical portal Onmeda, the recommended requirement for men is 11 to 17 milligrams per day. For women it is slightly lower, at 7 to 10 milligrams per day.
Your body gets new zinc from dark meat (e.g. lean beef), dairy products or eggs.
It’s also vegan: legumes, tofu, nuts and whole grains also contain zinc. Attention: In some cases, the body is less able to absorb zinc from plant sources. Fruit acids and the fermentation or roasting of food help him to do this.
Magnesium: Ensures that the muscles can work optimally. It is also involved in energy metabolism and the body needs it to process protein. Magnesium is therefore indispensable for building muscle through nutrition.

According to Onmeda, the daily requirement for men is about 350 milligrams. Women get by with 300 milligrams.
Magnesium is abundant in plant foods. These include whole grain products, oatmeal, nuts, sunflower seeds, legumes and green vegetables.

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Cooking Tips

Freeze Pumpkin: You Should Pay Attention to This

Freezing leftover squash is quick and easy. Just follow this step-by-step guide. We also reveal what you should consider when freezing pumpkin.

Before freezing: cut the pumpkin into pieces

Before you freeze the squash, you should break it up into small pieces. This way you can defrost it later in portions. All you need is a sharp knife and a cutting board.

To prepare the squash for freezing:
Halve the squash lengthwise.
Use a spoon to scoop out the soft insides and seeds.
Depending on the variety, you may need to remove the skin.
Halve the halves again lengthwise and cut into small pieces.

Freeze the pumpkin so it doesn’t stick together

If you freeze the squash straight away, the pieces may stick together afterwards. You can prevent this with the following trick:
Spread the pumpkin pieces on a baking sheet.
Place the tray in the freezer for a few hours.
You can then transfer the pre-frozen pumpkin pieces into freezer-safe containers.
Put the containers in the freezer.
It’s a good idea not to cook the squash before freezing, otherwise it will become mushy. Alternatively, you can boil the pumpkin, puree it and freeze it in the jar.

Depending on the variety, the pumpkin changes its consistency in the freezer. If you need extra crunchy pumpkin for a recipe, it’s better to use a fresh one. Since pumpkin can be stored well, you can buy it regionally until the end of winter.

Freeze squash as a soup

If you freeze the squash as a soup, the consistency does not change and you have a quick meal for cold winter evenings. It is best not to use any spices – you can add them to the warmed up soup if you like.

Tip: If you freeze the pumpkin soup in portions in glasses, you also have a healthy and quick lunch for work. Just take out the glass the night before and warm it up on your lunch break.

It is best to use up the entire pumpkin

Pumpkin is versatile: You can not only prepare it as a soup, but also as a smoothie, spread or any other pumpkin recipe. You don’t have to throw away the skin – depending on the type of pumpkin, you can eat it too. The cores don’t have to go in the trash either. You can roast the pumpkin seeds – this turns them into a delicious snack.

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Cooking Tips

Baking Bread Rolls: This is How Bread Rolls From The Day Before Become Fresh Again

When you bake buns, you save valuable food from being thrown away. It only takes a few minutes and rolls from the day before taste fresh again. Here you can find out what to look out for when baking bread rolls.

Bread is one of the oldest staple foods in the world. According to the WWF, 90 percent of Germans eat it at least once a day.

Baked goods are also among the most frequently thrown away foods: According to the WWF, more than a third of the production ends up in the garbage. In the supermarkets, rolls that are more than three hours old are no longer considered fresh. In addition, many people do not want to eat soft rolls from the day before. It is very easy to bake bread rolls and save them from the dustbin.

Bake the buns in the oven

How you store bread and pastries is crucial to help them last longer. Bread and pastries are best stored at room temperature and protected from air, for example in a bread bin. In the refrigerator, on the other hand, the baked goods quickly harden.

You can simply bake them in the oven so that your rolls still taste fresh from the baker later:
Brush the buns with a little water using a kitchen brush. If you don’t have a kitchen brush, run the buns under running water for 1-2 seconds.
Place the wet buns on a baking sheet.
Bake the rolls at 150 degrees Celsius for five to eight minutes until they are crispy again.
Allow the baked buns to cool briefly on the baking rack before serving.
This method is suitable if you want to bake a larger quantity of rolls. Avoid heating the large oven for just a bun or two to conserve electricity.

Bake the buns with the toaster

Many toasters have an attachment for baking buns. With a toaster, you can therefore bake small amounts of bread rolls, saving time and energy.

How to bake your rolls with the toaster:
Place one or two buns on your toaster’s raising device.
Choose the highest temperature and bake the buns for two to three minutes.
Then flip them over and bake for another minute or two. Then they are crispy on the other side too.
After you’ve baked the buns, serve them immediately.

Bake hard buns

You can also re-bake older, hardened rolls instead of throwing them away. If they are already too hard, you can use them for other things, such as breadcrumbs.

In this way, hard rolls taste fresh again:
Soak a tea towel in water and wring it out well.
Wrap the bun in the damp cloth and let it soak up the moisture for 2-3 minutes.
You can then use either of the two methods described to crisp up the moistened bun

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Food

Triticale: This is What Makes This Type of Grain so Special

Triticale is a cross between wheat and rye. It combines the positive properties of the grain variety and is suitable for soil-friendly agriculture.

What is triticale?

Triticale is a type of grain and belongs to the grass family. It is a cross between female wheat and male rye. The name is derived from the Latin names of the two types of grain: Triticum aestivum L (wheat) and Secale cereale L. (rye) become triticale.

By crossing the two types of grain, triticale combines the positive properties of wheat and rye. In practice, there are over 30 different varieties. The characteristics vary depending on the variety: some varieties are more like wheat, others more like rye. This makes it difficult to spot triticale at first glance.

Use of triticale

In Germany, triticale grows primarily as fodder for animals. More than half of the harvest is used as feed grain. Since the grain is very rich in protein, it is a good “concentrated feed”.

Along with other grains, triticale is also baked into baked goods. However, pure triticale flour is less suitable for baking. The grain contains many amylase enzymes, which cause the flour to become heavily gelatinized. To prevent this, the flour is mixed with other types of flour for baking. In a small amount, triticale is a good binder.

Bioenergy is produced from a small proportion of triticale, for example in biogas plants. Since triticale contains a lot of starch, it can also be used to produce bioethanol.

Benefits of triticale

Triticale combines the positive properties of the two types of grain, wheat and rye:
Wheat provides high yields and has good baking properties
Rye has low demands on soil and climate
As a result, triticale delivers good harvests even in poor locations. On very nutrient-poor soils, however, rye yields higher yields – on good soils, on the other hand, wheat. Triticale therefore grows mainly in the low mountain ranges. In this climate, its characteristics bring the best yields.

Triticale is also suitable for soil-friendly agriculture. A study by the University of Göttingen has shown that triticale yields a higher yield when the soil is not ploughed. This reduces the risk of agricultural soil eroding or silting up. In addition, the soil life is not destroyed and the soil remains fertile in the long term.

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Food

Postelein: This is How You Plant and Use The Healthy Herb

Postelein is a hardy leafy vegetable and provides you with valuable vitamins even in the cold season. Here you can find out how to plant Postelein yourself. We also show you a simple recipe for salad with Postelein.

Postelein is a healthy leafy vegetable for the cold season. That is why the plant is also called winter purslane, although it is not related to purslane itself.

Postelein belongs to the springwort family and is also known as common plate herb. The annual plant originally comes from North America, but has also been cultivated and valued in Europe for many years.

Postelein has been somewhat forgotten in recent years. The regional leafy vegetables are easy to care for and provide you with vitamins even in the cold season.

Postel in your garden

You can easily plant Postelein in your garden. The lettuce is easy to care for and particularly suitable for the winter. Postelein withstands cold temperatures down to minus twenty degrees.

You should consider the following points so that Postelein thrives in your garden:
Location:
Postelein prefers a sunny to half-shady site.
Since the leaves don’t take root very deeply, you can grow the leafy greens on the balcony.
Floor:
Postelein thrives best in well-drained, humus-rich soil.
Before you start sowing, you should loosen the soil well and enrich it with some ripe compost.
Sowing:
The optimal germination temperature for Postelein is below twelve degrees. You should therefore only sow Postelein from the cool days of September. Depending on the temperature, sowing is possible until March.
To do this, make a groove about one centimeter deep in the soil and scatter the seeds densely. Then cover them lightly with soil. If you create several rows, you should keep a distance of four to six inches between them.
At eight to twelve degrees, the seeds need about two to three weeks to germinate.
Care:
Like spinach, Postelein is one of the so-called weak eaters. If you enriched the soil with compost at the beginning, you do not have to fertilize the plants additionally.
Postelein is sensitive to drought. Make sure the soil is always moist.
Harvest:
You can harvest Postelein for the first time after six to eight weeks. Cut the leaves about an inch off the ground.
Similar to arugula, the leaves grow back – so you can harvest regularly.
From April, Postelein will sprout small white flowers. It is then no longer suitable for consumption.
Caution: In the flowering period, Postelein likes to multiply itself and spreads widely. Cut off the flowers early to avoid this.

Recipe for a delicious salad with Postelein

The thick, heart-shaped leaves of Postelein are characterized by their mild, slightly sour taste. The winter salad provides you with something in the cold season

Vitamin C,
iron
and calcium.
Postelein is usually prepared as a salad. Older leaves can also be steamed like spinach. We present you a simple recipe for the tasty winter salad:

Ingredients:
200 g Postelein
1 ripe pear (alternatively 1 apple)
optionally 1 ripe avocado
1-2 cloves garlic
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
Salt
pepper
a handful of walnuts
Preparation:
Wash the Postelein thoroughly and pluck the larger leaves into small pieces.
Also wash the pear and cut it into small cubes.
Divide the avocado and cut the flesh into cubes.
Peel the garlic cloves(s) and cut them into fine pieces.
Mix all ingredients in a suitable container.
Season your salad with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper.
Garnish with walnut pieces before serving.

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Food

Red Potatoes: This Distinguishes Them From Other Potato Varieties

Red potatoes bring variety to your plate both visually and in terms of taste. In addition, the dye it contains is said to be beneficial for your health. We will give you all the information and tips on how to prepare it.

There are not only the classic yellow potatoes: in addition to purple potatoes, red potatoes are particularly popular.

Red potatoes are by no means new. Most of them are old varieties that have almost been forgotten. In conventional agriculture, the cultivation of rare varieties is hardly worthwhile. Modern potato cultivation focuses exclusively on high-yielding varieties that can be stored well.

Red potatoes: varieties and growing tips

Like the yellow potatoes, their red relatives also come from South America, but you can also plant red potatoes yourself in this country. They also grow here in Germany and the cultivation hardly differs from conventional potatoes.

However, the yellow potatoes are much more robust than the red varieties. Good care is important for a rich harvest: Enrich the soil well with compost and provide the plants with sufficient water, especially during flowering.

There are some red potato varieties that are also suitable for your garden. Basically, you can distinguish between two categories:
Potatoes with red skin and light flesh
Laura: It is a very popular red variety because it stores well. The variety is predominantly waxy and retains its consistency. The peel is very fine, so you don’t need to peel it.
Linzer Rose: This variety is particularly common in Austria and is characterized by its creamy flesh. It can also be stored well and germinates late.
Desiree: The Desiree red potato produces large lush tubers that cook floury.

Red potatoes – particularly healthy thanks to their colour

The potatoes get their color from the plant pigment anthocyanin, which is one of the flavonoids. In 2017, the Food and Nutrition Research team did a comprehensive study of the phytochemical and its health benefits. The dye works, among other things:
antioxidant
anti-cancerous
antimicrobial
preventive against cardiovascular diseases
against obesity
This makes the colorful tubers even healthier than their yellow relatives. Otherwise, they hardly differ from conventional potatoes in terms of their nutritional values. The tubers are high in carbohydrates, but due to their high water content, they are low in calories compared to other carbohydrate sources. Some red varieties contain slightly more starch than their yellow counterparts.

Prepare red potatoes

Red potatoes add variety and color to your plate. In terms of taste, they are often described as nutty and spicier than yellow potatoes. Here, too, the taste varies depending on the variety. As with yellow potatoes, a distinction is made in the preparation according to the consistency:
Waxy potatoes are particularly suitable for:
fried potatoes
potato salad
homemade fries
You use floury potatoes for:
baked potatoes
Mashed potatoes
potato casserole
The anthocyanin contained remains even after cooking, but the color fades slightly because the dye is water-soluble. The following tips will help you to preserve the color:
Boil the potatoes whole with the skin on. You only need a little water for this. The peel protects not only the color but also the nutrients.
Alternatively, you can steam cook red potatoes. With this gentle preparation, nutrients and color are particularly well preserved.
The potatoes also keep their color well in the oven.

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Food

Are Rowanberries Really Poisonous? This is How You Can Use Them

The assumption that rowan berries are poisonous persists. We explain the actual connections and how you can use rowan berries.

Rowanberries are not poisonous

According to the Nature Conservation Union, the bright red rowan berries along the way are not poisonous – but you should only eat the tart wild fruits cooked. This is because the bitter parasorbic acid becomes easily digestible sorbic acid.

A special form of the rowan berry from Eastern Europe is the Moravian, also known as the sweet mountain ash. The bitter-free cultivar has such a high sugar content that you can eat it straight from the tree. Its berries are up to 1.3 centimeters thick. Moravian also grows here and is actually one of the most popular rowan berries.

The very sour and bitter-tasting fruits of the local mountain ash are rich in vitamin C (80-100 milligrams per 100 grams of berries). According to the Federal Center for Nutrition (BZFE), rowan berries also contain provitamin A, which is important for the visual process after it has been converted into vitamin A in the body. It also contains essential oils and fiber such as the gelling agent pectin.

A puree of rowanberries (see instructions below) is said to help against loss of appetite and indigestion. In folk medicine, rowan berries are also known to help with colds, gout and rheumatism.

For a long time, rowan berries had another medical benefit: a certain type of sugar, sorbose, used to be used as a sugar substitute for diabetics. Today it is produced industrially as sorbitol.

Non-toxic: rowanberry jam

Rowanberries ripen in October. According to conservationist Sönke Hofmann, the best time to harvest is after the first frost, as the fruits develop their sweet and tart aroma afterwards. You can boil the red rowanberries with apples and lots of sugar to make them edible.

However, if you wait too long, you can be unlucky that the animals have already eaten most of the berries.

You can make the following delicacies from rowanberries, as confirmed by the Federal Center for Nutrition:
You can use the berries to make jam or jelly for your breakfast.
you can make a sweet rowanberry syrup or juice yourself.
If you want to make a special drop, a liqueur or brandy made from rowanberries would be an innovative idea.
A chutney made from rowanberries, for example, goes well with a soft cheese. You can use onions, tomatoes, raisins and peppers in it.
Rowanberries also taste good in pastries and cakes.
For rowanberry puree, you should soak the fruit in water with a dash of vinegar overnight. You can then pass them through a sieve and mix them with mild-tasting fruits such as apples, quinces or pears. Cinnamon and cardamom are suitable spices.
You can also add the dried berries to fruit or herbal teas.

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Food

Sorghum: Uses and Benefits of This Type of Millet

Sorghum is a millet genus that is one of the most important staple foods in the world. It is also used to produce biogas. You can learn more about sorghum here.

Sorghum: Diverse genus of millet

Sorghum is a husked grain from the grass family, which also includes wheat and corn. It designates a special genus of millet, which includes around 30 different types of millet – including sorghum bicolor. This is the most economically important species and one of the most important cereals in Africa and southern Europe. Sorghum bicolor is commonly called sorghum millet

Millet types are divided into two main groups according to the texture of the grains:
Sorghum millets: These types of millet have significantly larger grains and deliver a correspondingly higher yield.
True millet: The grains of these types of millet are much smaller than sorghum grains and the yields are correspondingly lower. A representative is, for example, Teff.
Sorghum is not only a global staple, it is also used as animal feed and can be turned into bioethanol fuel

Sorghum: grain for dry regions

Originally from Ethiopia, sorghum is now grown all over the world. In 2016, millet took up the fifth largest area under cultivation among all grains, after wheat, corn and rice

Sorghum can grow anywhere that has semi-arid to arid conditions. The plant has leaves and stems coated with a waxy coating. As a result, it is long enough to store water even during longer periods of drought and when it is very hot. This makes sorghum interesting for agriculture in many dry countries around the world.

Sorghum as a nutrient-rich food

Especially in Africa, Central America and South Asia, sorghum is one of the staple foods:
There, sorghum is processed into porridge, groats or flatbreads. In parts of India, the flat cakes are often served as an accompaniment to vegetable curries
The millet is also used to make beer
Sweet sorghum, a variety of the sorghum genus, is processed into molasses and has many uses.

Sorghum: nutritional values ​​and nutrients

Sorghum has the following nutritional values ​​per 100 grams:
Energy: 329 kcal
Egg white: 10.62 g
Carbohydrates: 72.09 g
Fat: 3.46g
Sorghum is 70 percent starch, making it a good source of energy. However, in the unprocessed grain, the starch is not easily digested, so it must be steamed, puffed, boiled, rolled, or ground and baked. However, one advantage of sorghum is that it does not contain gluten. The many dietary fibers in the grains keep you full for a long time and are easy to digest. Sorghum also provides a good portion of vegetable protein.

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Lifestyle

Combining Food: This Speaks For and Against The Diet

Find out here what food combining is and what advantages and disadvantages the diet offers. In the end, you can decide for yourself whether food combining makes sense for you or not.

What is food combining?

The basic principle of food combining is very simple: during the diet you must not eat carbohydrates and proteins together. This means that you have to change your diet: because you can no longer put cheese on bread and you can no longer eat legumes because they are rich in carbohydrates and proteins.

The background: The inventor of food combining, William Howard Hay, believed that carbohydrates and proteins are processed differently by the digestive system. By eating them separately, Hay says, you give the proteins and carbohydrates an optimal environment to digest. This is supposed to relieve the burden on the intestines.

In concrete terms, this means: Proteins need an acidic milieu, carbohydrates a basic milieu. According to Hay, carbohydrates are less digestible when they enter the intestines together with proteins. Because the acidic milieu of proteins is opposed to the basic milieu of carbohydrates. This leads to gas, bloating and weight gain. Conversely, the solution for Hay is: food combining.

What are the advantages of food combining?

Food combining should not just be a diet, but a complete change in diet. The separate intake of nutrients is said to help against feelings of fullness, flatulence and stomach pain. According to the proponents, food combining also has the following positive properties:
helps to lose weight,
balances the acid-base balance,
delivers more energy
provides a lot of vitamins, trace elements and minerals,
good for allergy sufferers.
Note: There must be at least four to five hours between meals. This gives the enzymes enough time to be absorbed by the organism and not to get in each other’s way.

Disadvantages: What speaks against food combining?

It has not been scientifically proven that carbohydrates and proteins can only be digested separately. In addition, many foods contain both proteins and carbohydrates. The body can still process them.
With food combining there is also a risk that you will eat an unbalanced diet and eat too many grain products.
If you stop eating rice with your vegetables from now on, your body will need other filling foods. This is often meat, fish or high-fat foods such as avocados. The food combining diet quickly gets a miserable ecological balance.
Of course, nobody wants to live exclusively on cabbage and do without potatoes in winter either. A diet based on seasonal and regional foods is therefore complicated with a food combining diet.

Losing weight through food combining?

The fact that you can lose weight through food combining is not due to the way you eat. Rather, you automatically eat more fruit and vegetables with food combining. Because of the waiting times between meals, you simply eat less throughout the day. This saves you calories, which leads to weight loss. There is therefore no direct connection between weight loss and food combining.

In view of the poor ecological balance, food combining is not recommended per se. In principle, however, an alkaline diet is not bad and if food combining helps you personally, it can make sense for you. Experts recommend, however, to lose weight carefully and not to force the weight loss radically.

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Food

Drying Thyme: This Way You Can Use it For Longer

If you want to dry thyme, you can do this very easily in the air under the right conditions. It’s worth it, because thyme has a very long shelf life when dried, so you can use the spice for a long time.

In order to be able to use thyme for as long as possible, you should preserve it. The best way to do this is to dry it. In the dried state you can use it for seasoning, for example for potatoes, tomato sauce, various soups and vegetables such as eggplant or zucchini. You can also use dried thyme as a tea. Thyme tea is said to have a positive effect on colds. Simply pour hot water over the thyme. This works with both fresh and dried herbs.

Thyme is at its most aromatic when you harvest it just before it blooms, between May and September. You can also create your own small herb garden, there is even enough space on the balcony or windowsill.

Drying Thyme: Instructions

To dry thyme, use scissors to cut off several branches of the plant. If your thyme is outside, it is best to choose a day when it is not raining. Because if the thyme is very damp, the risk of mold increases. That’s why you shouldn’t wash the thyme if possible. If there are wilted leaves on the branches, remove them before drying.
Now take a piece of twine and tie several sprigs of thyme together in bundles.
Hang the bundles so the thyme hangs upside down. Choose a warm, dry place to hang. This place should be as dark / shady as possible. Make sure the bunches of thyme aren’t hanging too close together so they get enough air from all sides.
After two to four weeks you can remove the thyme, it is then well dried. You can tell by the fact that you can easily crumble the leaves between your fingers.
Separate the leaves from the stems and fill them in screw-top jars.
Store the spice jars in a dark and dry place. This way you can use the thyme for several months.

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