Re-educating your taste buds and re-programming your dietary patterns is not actually hard to do - if you do it right. One good way to do that - although this may require some preplanning - is to make

• your new food preferences delicious, and
• the experience fun.

Most probably, you don't have the time to:

• go to a library or a bookstore and pick up a few cookbooks, so you could start the program, or
• compile the recipes (if any) to implement the food recommendations.

Therefore, as a result, you may not be able to successfully carry out recommended dietary changes.

More recent research has established that the most beneficial and active of omega-3 fatty acids found in fish are

• DHA - short for docosahexaenoic (DOE-coe-suh-hex-uh-noy-ick) acid, and
• EPA - short for eicosapentaenoic (EE-coe-suh-pent-uh-noy-ick) acid.

Unfortunately, it is estimated that over 85 per cent of people in the Western world are... deficient in beneficial omega-3 oils.

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In order to free yourself of the physical addiction, complete avoidance of all sugar and grains is necessary. Complete abstinence resolves the biochemical addiction, however, it will be very important to eat every two hours during this transition to avoid symptoms of hypoglycemia - a "catch-22" disease where insulin over-counteracts high blood sugar/blood glucose levels, leading to low blood sugar/blood glucose, leading to a craving for… more sugar.

If you do not eat every 2-3 hours your blood sugar may "crash" and you'll feel horrible. This is usually necessary for several days to several weeks.

Both sugar and alcohol are a source of excess calories which are being turned into fat - usually, triglycerides, so the fat levels in your blood go up. But that’s only part of the story.

Researchers have found that apart from adding calories to the diet, alcohol significantly reduces the body’s ability to burn fat and increases the body’s tendency to store fat.

According to a Swiss study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, booze in the bloodstream can slow down fat metabolism more than 30 percent. Plus, alcohol drinkers don’t just drink alcohol – usually, they have it with chips or peanuts.

When alcohol (ethanol) is present in the blood, the liver prioritizes removing alcohol from the blood over other metabolic processes.

Alcohol has a very narrow therapeutic window and too much leads to hypertension and stroke, damages the liver, having an adverse overall effect.

The alcohol itself is actually a neurotoxin having many directly negative neurological complications. In other words, it can poison your brain.

Additionally, alcohol has the strong potential to seriously disrupt your delicate hormone balance. Therefore, drinking alcohol, especially hard liquor, liqueurs and beer, shouldn't even be an issue.

Alcohol reduces the amount of the enzyme that breaks down triglycerides and spurs the liver to make more triglycerides.

Some people have increased susceptibility to developing raised triglycerides in response to alcohol. So if you do not require insulin, or are not diabetic, and consume alcohol regularly, you may be able to lower your elevated triglycerides just by avoiding alcohol.

By taxing the liver and reducing the ability to detoxify blood, alcohol causes more harm to blood vessels. When the liver is busy processing alcohol, it is less able to process cholesterol. As a result, LDL-"bad" cholesterol levels go up.

In addition, alcohol will potentiate the toxicity of cholesterol-lowering medications much more than the drugs would do alone. Actually, this is the major problem with the statins.

By drinking alcohol daily, you may increase your chances of serious statin side effects, especially liver problems. Therefore, to protect your liver, you should go easy on alcohol or avoid it completely while taking a statin.

It brings up two general misconceptions about beer drinking:

• First, that beer is harmless, because it is only 5 percent alcohol, compared to 40 percent for hard liquor, such as whiskey.

Not quite so. Keep in mind, there is more alcohol (0.6 ounce) in a 12-ounce bottle of beer than in a 1.5-ounce shot of whiskey (0.5 ounce of alcohol). Additionally, regular beer contains both alcohol and carbohydrates.

• Second misconception states that consuming the beer over a long period of time will have little effect on your sobriety.

Not so. It takes hours for the body to eliminate even small amounts of alcohol. So, if you are a six-pack-a-day person - an equivalent to a 30-ounce bottle of wine (12% alcohol) - by the time you pop the last can at the end of the day, your blood alcohol level may be dangerously high.

It is believed the antioxidants, called flavonoids, reduce the risk of coronary heart disease in three ways by:

• reducing production of low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (also know as the "bad" cholesterol)
• boosting high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (the "good" cholesterol), and
• reducing blood clotting.

It has been well documented that moderate amounts of alcohol can raise HDL-"good" cholesterol and thin the blood. This is thought to be one of the primary cardiovascular benefits from wine (red and white). Therefore, consuming one drink (defined as a 5-ounce a glass of wine) along with a meal may favorably influence your blood lipid profiles following that meal. But if you drink more than that, the possible health benefits will be lost and your health risks will go up. What matters with wine is the amount of wine you have.

Which wines should you consume to reap the most benefits?
Researchers at the University of California, at Davis have found the highest concentrations of flavonoids in Cabernet Sauvignon, followed closely by Petit Syrah and Pinot Noir.

White wine had significantly smaller amounts than the red wine varieties. The bottom line is the sweeter the wine, the fewer the flavonoids.

Dryer red wines are your best bet for a flavonoid boost.

Recommendations to consume moderate amounts of wine are limited only to individuals with a clean bill of health.

How much red wine should I drink?
A four-ounce glass of wine is equivalent to one serving of liquor. Men may benefit from consuming one to two servings every other day. Women may benefit from one serving every other day.

This is not to say that you should start drinking alcohol if you presently do not!

However, for some people, 1 drink may be plenty, 2 may be too many, and, unfortunately, 3 may be not half enough. (There are people who over-indulge on red wine having a half to full bottle a day!).

If you cannot restrict, for whatever reason, your drinking to light to moderate levels, you should not have alcohol at all.

Is wine good for you? Yes, but in moderation and as part of an overall healthy diet only. And these recommendations are limited to individuals with a clean bill of health. It is also clear that people with health problems, medical and social conditions worsened by alcohol should not consume any alcohol at all.

Hypertriglyceridemia (high blood triglyceride levels), pancreatitis, liver disease, diabetes, uncontrolled hypertension, depression and congestive heart failure (CHF), or heart failure, are diseases that are worsened by alcohol.

However, if you insist on drinking red wine you also need to check on the growing conditions of the grapes and how the wine is made.

The wine should be made with organic grapes - free of toxic agricultural chemicals, synthetic herbicides, pesticides, fungicides or fertilizers.

If it is NOT made from organically grown grapes - and with as little sulfur, synthetic stabilizers, colorings, etc. as possible - the wine may have few, if any, health benefits.

For example, it may contain little antioxidants and/or no resveratrol at all. (Resveratrol is a prostate cancer-fighting compound found in red grapes from which red wine is being made).

You also need to be aware that consuming large amounts of red wine or just grapes - which have a much lower concentration of antioxidants than wine - will increase your insulin levels and eventually have a negative impact on your lipid health due to their high fructose (sugar) content.

Resveratrol (trans-3,5,4'-trihydroxystilbene) is a protective compound produced by grapes and other plants in response to environmental stress. Studies have shown that it has potent antioxidant activity and the ability to inhibit platelet aggregation producing potent anti-thrombotic agents. These actions may help prevent free radical damage throughout the body and provide protective support to the cardiovascular system. Red wine also contains tannins, substances that act as antioxidants, which mop up free radicals - particles harmful to cells.

Unfortunately, there is a great deal of misinformation about resveratrol, so you need to keep the following in mind when reviewing articles and marketing information about related products.

Red wine is a rich source of resveratrol. On average, there is 1.5 to 3 milligrams of resveratrol per liter (a liter is almost 34 ounces). For this reason, many sources reference resveratrol as "red wine polyphenols," "red-wine extract," etc. Actually, some studies focused on its health benefits used much greater dosages of resveratrol than the dosages actually found in an average glass of wine.

As resveratrol is found in the skins of grapes, red wine provides several times more resveratrol than white wine. That is because the longer the skin is kept on the grape during the wine making process, the greater the concentration of resveratrol in the wine. In the case of white wine production, the skin is removed before fermentation, giving white wines a lower concentration in resveratrol compared to red wines.

Also, as resveratrol is produced within the grape skin in response to attack by specific molds, grapes and wine produced in moist, northern climates (where these fungi are more prevalent) yield more resveratrol.

Resveratrol is vulnerable to rapid destruction by light and oxygen. Although storing wine in airtight, cool conditions away from sunlight protects its resveratrol content, the maximum resveratrol potency is available only immediately after a bottle of wine is opened.

Unfortunately, making wine also involves the potential damage from alcohol and preservatives; therefore, many people prefer a dietary supplement source for resveratrol.

The researchers wanted to see if the antioxidant chemicals in red winered wine could offset some of the blood pressure effects of alcohol. So they compared it with beer.

They divided 24 healthy men into four different groups for four weeks:

• Some men drank no wine or beer and served as a comparison group
• Some men drank 13 ounces of red wine daily
• Some men drank 13 ounces of red wine with the alcohol removed to see if the alcohol accounted for any blood pressure effect
• Some men drank 38 ounces of beer daily (just over three beers)

The men made no other changes in their lifestyle other than limiting tea to less than 2 cups a day (since tea can also raise blood pressure) and avoiding antioxidants (to avoid any potential effect on blood vessels).

The men wore blood pressure and heart rate monitors 24 hours a day.

Blood pressure and heart rate climb
Compared with the men who did not drink any alcohol, the red wine drinkers had a nearly a 2.5 point jump in their systolic blood pressure. Beer drinkers' blood pressure rose nearly two points.

Systolic blood pressure is the top number of a blood pressure reading. It measures the pressure in blood vessels when the heart pumps.

While this doesn't sound like much, even a few points can make a difference in people who have borderline or high blood pressure. Ideally, blood pressure should be less than 120/80. Blood pressure between 120/80 and 140/90 is called prehypertension.prehypertension.

Heart rate also rose. The researchers tested heart rate during sleep to rule out any effect of activity. Red wine drinkers' heart rate climbed five points for eight to 10 hours after drinking. Beer drinkers' heart rate rose four points.

Removing alcohol from the red wine did not lower the blood pressure.

The researchers say that the blood pressure effects of red wine and beer appear to be similar.

Since the men in the study did not have high blood pressure, it's unclear how these findings apply to people who do.

We go out for an ice cream on a summer evening. We order something in a restaurant that we're pretty sure is high in sugar. Or someone offers us a soft drink and we accept.

By and large, a dietary slip now and then won't hurt most of us. The problem comes when a transgression from a healthy diet turns into daily transgressions.

These days it's hard to avoid fructose because it's used as a sweetener in a wide variety of processed foods, especially in sodas and other types of soft drinks.

However, a new study in a recent issue of The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (2004:Vol. 89, No. 6) reveals how even moderate consumption of soft drinks causes “a rapid and prolonged elevation of plasma (blood) triglycerides,” also having a profound impact on hormonal balance, hunger, calorie intake, obesity and the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

A soda every now and then that turns into a 7-Eleven's 32-ounce Big Gulp every day or a soda every few hours, is a trend no one can afford to follow.

Although many companies do not list this as a source of carbohydrates, the FDA defines it as a carbohydrate. Glycerol has a very low glycemic index so it does not impact blood sugar levels greatly.

Interestingly enough, there are ergogenic, athletic performance enhancing benefits associated with ingesting glycerol such as

• increasing the amount of water retained in the body and
• enhancing hydration (maybe even enhancing vascularity).

However, in some people, protein bars loaded with glycerol may cause stomach discomfort so unless you want to hit the porcelain throne throughout the day, drink plenty of water with these protein bars.

Other, much less desirable carbohydrate sources in protein bars include corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup (dextrose), rice syrup, maltitol, honey (invert sugar), turbinado sugar, sucrose (which is a combination of glucose and fructose), crisp rice, and fructose.

Fructose (fruit sugar) is added to bars not only to provide a source of carbohydrates but also to sweeten the product as it has a very sweet taste. Fructose is mainly metabolized in the liver and therefore has a lower glycemic index.

The cells that are dividing (multiplying) the fastest have the highest requirement for energy (to sustain such accelerated growth). Therefore, cutting out the source (sugar) is similar to cutting off the blood supply - though not quite as drastic, it's certainly a step worth taking.

It is simply astonishing that this simple knowledge - sugar feeds cancer - hasn't become the basis for Rule One in any cancer fight: Stop eating sugar immediately.

Obviously giving up sugar is not the cure for cancer. But this tactic should be recommended STRONGLY to anyone with cancer or, actually, ANY other illness or disorder.

What about the alternate sweeteners?
You wonder if one of the alternate sweeteners, such as stevia or xylitol, might also feed the cancer cells in the same way sugar does.

Stevia won't, because it is zero-calorie.

Xylitol could be more of a quandary. It does contain calories (about 40 percent less than sugar), and it is labeled a 'sugar-alcohol.' Apparently that status causes a slower release into the body and less absorption. For that reason, it would be less of a problem as it is not as strong as refined carbohydrates. How much less would be controversial, since the sugar-cancer cell growth issue itself is a tough one.

However, keep in mind that the body also breaks down carbohydrates into glucose, so a diet that is heavy with high carbohydrate foods can also fuel cancer cell growth as well as other health problems that are known to be linked to excess blood glucose, including:

Add up all those sugars and some people are eating more than half their body weight in sugars every year.

Consumption has risen every year but one since 1983. The average American consumes 20 teaspoons per day of sugar. The food industry, however, contends that the huge increase in sugar consumption has had no impact on health.

In a paper published in 1999, USDA researcher Shanthy A. Bowman, of the Agricultural Research Service, reported that heavier consumers of refined sugars (more than 18 percent of calories from added sugars) typically consume more calories but less of 15 different nutrients than do lighter consumers (under 12 percent of calories).

The high consumers consumed 15 times more soft drinks and fruit “ades” per day than the lower consumers.

The 158-pound figure, however, represents the amount of sugar that is available in wholesale channels. The actual amount consumed is considerably less. USDA surveys indicate that

• the average teenage boy eats at least 109 pounds per year, while
• the average American eats upwards of 64 pounds.

Because of the sharp increase in sugar consumption — paralleled by a doubling in the rate of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents in the past 20 years - health groups petitioned the Food and Drug Administration in 1999 to set a “Daily Value” for sugar intake and list on food labels the amount of added sugars and the “% Daily Value” in a serving. The recommended Daily Value (the daily limit) should be 40 grams, or 10 teaspoons, the figure recommended by USDA.