RECENT ARTICLES

Helping Hispanics With Diabetes Enjoy Healthy, Traditional Foods

Viable Alternatives to Discriminatory Anti-Gang Laws

Remittances to Mexico Fall for First Time

Low-Carbohydrate Diets Recommended for Hispanics

U.S.-Born Children of Undocumented Parents Sue Obama

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Helping Hispanics With Diabetes Enjoy Healthy, Traditional Foods

New tools are available to help Hispanics enjoy healthy versions of their favorite recipes and control portion sizes, all designed to reduce their risk of developing diabetes. The recipes and other materials are part of a campaign called “Más Que Comida, Es Vida“, which means “It′s more than food. It′s life.”

The campaign was developed by the National Diabetes Education Program, a joint program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.

“Más que comida, es vida” provides new tools to Hispanics to prepare traditional foods in a more healthy way. A few simple adjustments can make these dishes healthier and lower in fat and calories,” said Betsy Rodríguez, public health advisor of the National Diabetes Education Program′s Hispanic/Latino Work Group.

“Más que comida, es vida” features materials written in English and Spanish, including a recipe booklet called Ricas recetas para personas con diabetes y sus familiares (Tasty Recipes for People with Diabetes and Their Families), that offers food ideas specifically designed for the Hispanic palate. Among the delicious and healthy recipes included in the booklet are: Spanish omelet (tortilla Espanola), turkey stew (carne guisada de res o pavo), Caribbean red snapper (pargo rojo caribeno), two cheese pizza (pizza de dos quesos), and avocado tacos (tacos de aguacate).

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Source: www.emaxhealth.com

Viable Alternatives to Discriminatory Anti-Gang Laws

In Washington DC the gang “Mara Salvatrucha” M-13 has consistently made the front page of local newspapers with traumatic headlines.  Here and all over the nation, the public has responded to this kind of media coverage by passing anti-gang legislation. 

There is good news however– studies conducted by several Juvenile Justice Organizations have revealed falling youth homicide and youth crime rates. In light of these results, lawmakers and affected communities should carefully consider the implications of anti-gang laws, as they often disproportionately discriminate against youth of color. If anti-gang laws stereotype youth based on skin color and neighborhood, they may over time have the undesired effect of driving youth back to gangs where they feel they can belong.

To learn more about successful alternatives to anti-gang laws, visit NCLR’s site by clicking here .

Remittances to Mexico Fall for First Time

The amount of money that Mexicans working in the U.S. sent back home dropped 3.6% in 2008.  It was the first decline in remittances recorded since Mexico began tracking money flows from abroad 13 years ago.

The drop to $25 billion from $26 billion in 2007, reported Tuesday by Mexico’s Central Bank, could foreshadow a bad year ahead for Mexico.  After oil, remittances are Mexico’s second-biggest source of hard currency. 

The reduction in remittances will be felt more regionally than nationally and is particularly relevant for Mexico’s central and southern states, which receive the majority of remittances. Economic growth in Mexico’s North has averaged between 4 percent and 5 percent since 1995, compared to growth of between 1 percent and 2 percent in southern states.

This trend is continuing and is largely due to the northern regions’ industrial economies that are based on maquiladora exports to the United States. In contrast, the central-southern state of Michoacan, one of Mexico’s least-developed, receives more than 10 percent of Mexico’s remittances — about $615 per person, with approximately one out of 10 households receiving payments.

Remittances keep many families in Mexico’s less-developed regions afloat. If Mexican President Felipe Calderon does not create jobs for these communities, slowing migration and fewer remittances will tighten family budgets while increasing the number of unemployed, mostly younger males who would otherwise have migrated to the United States. While tightened budgets and rising unemployment might not spur a large social uprising, they could lead to increases in crime and general discontent, not only in poorer states but also in larger cities that might experience population increases if migration to the United States slows.

Read full article here. 

Source:  www.stratfor.com

Low-Carbohydrate Diets Recommended for Hispanics

DALLAS, TX. (ConCienciaNews) – Dr. Jeffrey Browning decided to carry out a study on how to prevent fatty liver disease, after noticing that the majority of Hispanic women encountered while he was working at the Dallas Public Hospital, suffered from the disease.

A fatty liver is not only the result of alcohol consumption, but may be caused by obesity and is often aggravated by diabetes.  It is the second most frequent chronic hepatic disease diagnosed in outpatients.

Browning began to research ways to prevent fatty liver disease, which affects more and more obese young people each day. He found that those with fatty liver should concentrate on low-carbohydrates diets instead of low-calorie ones.

“Instead of looking for drugs to fight obesity and the diseases it brings, maybe the optimization of diet not only helps manage and treat this disease, but also to prevent it,” Browning said.

Although this study was not initially meant to determine which type of diet was most recommended for weight loss, on average subjects who monitored calorie consumption lost five pounds after two weeks, while subjects who monitoring carbohydrate intake lost an average of nine and a half pounds.

Glucose, a form of sugar and fat, is an energy source metabolized by the liver using the body’s energy.

“We saw a drastic change in how the liver produced glucose, depending on the diet,” Browning said.

The greatest finding in the study, which included the participation of 14 obese people, was that in the low-carbohydrate diets, more glucose was produced than in the low-calorie diet.

According to Browning, this is one way that the liver produces glucose under certain types of diets, thus regulating metabolic disorders and preventing fatty liver disease.  For example, people on low-calorie diets received 40% of their glucose from glycogen, which results from carbohydrate consumption and is stored in the liver while the body has a need for it.

Those on the low-carbohydrate diet obtained only 20% of their glucose from glycogen. Instead of looking in the glycogen reserves, this suggests that the fat stored in the liver is burned off to obtain energy.

Fatty liver disease is on the rise and is believed to affect at least one of every three adults in the United States. This condition is associated with metabolic disorders such as insulin resistance, diabetes, obesity, and consequences may include liver inflammation, cirrhosis or liver cancer.

“The energy produced is important to the liver,” Browing said. “This proves that the liver must burn off excess fat to meet the energy needs of people with a low-carbohydrate diet.”

For more information visit:  www.conciencianews.com

U.S.-Born Children of Undocumented Parents Sue Obama

The lawyers for over 600 American-born children filed a lawsuit against President Obama to suspend the deportation of their undocumented parents until there is immigration law reform.

American Fraternity Inc. filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Supreme Court to demand that President Obama stop the deportations of the children’s parents.

Two of the children said they started a hunger strike to ask that their mother not be deported to Nicaragua.

The organization’s executive director Nora Sándigo, who is the children’s legal guardian, told BBC Mundo:

“Some of the kids are children of persons with a court date and imminent deportation proceedings, others have one of their parents in jail with a date for exiting the country already set. But there’s also children who were left here when their mother or their father was deported some time ago, and others whose parents, knowing they do not have documentation and aware that the same will happen to them if Immigration catches them, joined (the suit) as a preventative measure.”

All the minors are U.S. citizens, they live in a number of American states and their families trace their roots to various Latin American countries, the BBC’s Carlos Ceresole noted.

Nora Sandigo, of Nicaraguan origin, is CEO of American Fraternity, a pro-immigrant organization based in Miami, filed the lawsuit before the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Children continue to suffer by being separated from their parents because of deportations that the President may be able to suspend.” Sandigo asserted. She also explained that filing this lawsuit is not because she or these children are against him, but to use his authority and urge him to issue an executive order to stop the deportations, and adopt new immigration laws.

Read more about the lawsuit here.

Source:  Feet In 2 Worlds