BREAKFAST

The importance of breakfast


It is the most important food of the whole day, because it reconstitutes the energy reserved used during night, what means to stop with an 8 to 12 hours fasting. Furthermore, it helps to re-establish the functions of the digestive system and to accelerate the metabolism. When breakfast is omitted our body has to use internal sources of energy and nutrients, what implies metabolic changes that can affect the normal function of the organism.

Recent investigations demonstrate that breakfast improves the diet quality and the ingestion of nutrients. By another hand, it increases the evidence that forgetting this food can affect cognitive function and academic performance, especially in kids (the majority of children that don’t have breakfast can’t recover its wanting nutrients with the other foods of the day).

What’s more, to do any kind of physical activity breakfast is the best alternative to have a good performance. For sportsmen as for active people, the best fuels are nourishments high in carbohydrates and one of the best ways to obtain them is through morning meal.

Studies have also proved that a breakfast low in fat and plentiful of fibre contribute to reduce the ingestion of fat during the whole day and can help to reduce levels of cholesterol in blood.

The composition of nutrients in breakfast doesn’t differ significantly from that in other foods. Complex carbohydrates have to predominate, contribute with high quality proteins, be full of vitamins, minerals and dietetic fibre and a low contribution of fat.


Breakfast and apprenticeship


Many studies have evaluated the impact of breakfast in a great variety of cognitive functions. Studies on children had been done since the 30 decade, evaluating there behaviour in class, abilities in school and physical work. Those investigations seemed to suggest that there was a benefit in breakfast, but there were no definite conclusions that could be concretised because there were failures in the designs of the experiments, little sizes of samples and a not rigorous measure of the variables.

Now, new statistics from experimental studies with very strict scientific methodology have cleared the panorama of the effects of long fasting in the cognitive function and in many specific affected proceeds. This finds have served to elucidate biochemistry and physiologic process of this effects at the same time that they have helped to resolve the influence of the nutritional state of the individual in response to such process.

The omission of breakfast can be very pricey, particularly for children. The child who omits it is not so efficient in the selection of relevant information for the solution of problems. Between the most affected functions we also find the ability to remember and use new information, verbal fluidity and control of attention. Bad nourished children as well as good ones experiment these effects.

The importance of breakfast on cognitive functions has also been demonstrated in young adults and elder people. Investigations of the role that breakfast performs in mental performance have found that the levels of glucose are associated to the proper function of memory. Cerebral function is very sensitive of the variations in the immediate access of nutrients and energy. So far, it has been scientifically proven that breakfast is, and will continue being, the most important food of the day for the multiple benefits it aids.


Personal translation from an article of the “Almanaque Mundial 2006”

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That breakfast is the most important food of day is an old myth that many people have stopped to believe because they thought it was only that, a myth. But several experiments have been tried to demonstrate that this legend was, actually, a fact. And if so many researches have proved its positive effects it’s because they’re true.

Even though, people don’t care about breakfast. For example, in my school there is a high percentage of children who don’t breakfast anything. And this really affects their performance in classes, which are all day long. If they hadn’t had a good breakfast they stay like zombies, which reduce their learning intensity.

Furthermore, children think they replace a good breakfast with a chewing-gum, a chocolate and a pile of candies that they buy at the kiosk. This is a wrong concept that must be changed. In my opinion, school should help with this change by making campaigns of consciousness or by ruling the kiosk to sell not only candies but also food.

It’s said that when a concept is incorporated into a child that child will never forget it and will accept it as a natural thing. So, if you teach children that they must breakfast those children will do it, because they get used to that idea. It’s more difficult to change an attitude in an adult than in a child. And having breakfast is a very positive action, so teach children to do it. For adolescents we should think of the way to convince them to change the attitude they have acquired. But it’s not difficult; we only have to do it.

Children are the base of society. If you teach them they will teach their parents. It’s like that. When they learn something at school they are so excited that they want to do it all day, and that’s the way they influence their parents. When parents have changed, and also have children, this problem would disappear and society would be more effective and live a better life.

Another point to review is what the kiosk sells. Many children buy lollipops because there isn’t any apple. Very few nutritive foods are sold, if not any. Maybe only cereal, but that’s not enough. The kiosk should have a menu for those who want to eat real food, not only for breakfast but also for lunch. And there should be posters where it’s said what food it’s appropriate to eat and all the detailed information.

As a conclusion, I think that the change is possible; we only have to start it. Breakfast is an important item to consider about because it affects our daily life. Let improve our life and future generation’s.

Raquel van Gelderen

Raquel Van Gelderen is a painter from Tucumán. Two weeks ago we went with Leti, Flor and Lauri to see her exhibition in “Casa de la Cultura”, but I’ve already seen one with ValeBe in “Timoteo Navarro”. The advantage of the second visit was that we had the opportunity to talk with her.

I think that the most important idea she expressed was about nature. Nowadays we are in the boom of an ecology tendency. We are worried about environmental problems: pollution, contamination, destruction, deforestation,… We have an example at school: the garbage treatment project.

Yeah… Everyone cares about not throwing papers to the floor, but no one cares about admiring nature.

Protect. Help. Danger. Pollution. Rubbish. Devastation. Clean. Save. Help. Clean. Rubbish. Those are daily expressions. How about: Enjoy!

People are so worried about preserving the environment that they forget to see nature. Cleaning is as important as appreciating. Nature is beautiful, spectacular, gorgeous!

She made me realize this and I totally agree with her.




Another impressive thing from Raquel is that she has a positive view of life. Leti told us that she was discovered to have cancer. When she first found out she was gloomy, and that melancholy was showed in her paintings: she used dark colours.

But she has changed now. Her mind has made a click. Unfortunately, she still has cancer, but her view has changed to positive. Instead of paying attention to the negative aspects of life she sees the happy ones. Her draws are now full of colour and positive energy.

She is an exemplar. I think that we should always see the positive side of thing; the vessel middle filled than middle empty (“ver el vaso medio lleno antes que medio vacío”).

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One day, a shoe company sent 2 businessmen to make a review of the market situation for there production in Africa.
One of them said in his report that their industry had no future in Africa because no one used shoes.
But the other businessman said that Africa was the best place to put their factory because no one had shoes.




If you’re positive you will be happy. Enjoy life!



SMILE



=)

Reaction Paper
Radio Programme: “Dr. Keirstead’s stem cell research”

Stem cells are very powerful biological tools because they can replace any destroyed or damaged cell in our body or well slow down the progression of diseases and biological disorders.

Paralyzed people who thought they would never walk again have recovered their hope. Scientists working with Dr. Keirstead have probed the effect of stem cells in animals. They introduced the cells in the spinal chord of paralyzed rats and 6 weeks later these animals could move their tail and then walk. But there are al least 5 to 10 more years to wait to finish the studies before trying this technique in humans.

This project was delayed because it is very expensive and George W. Bush has banned the federal funds destined for it. He took this decision because he extremely opposes to the methods practiced in the project. In order to obtain stem cells human embryos have to be destroyed. These cells are subtracted from embryos 5 days after fertilization and transplanted into humans. Although, in California, 5 million dollars of private money has been invested in order to avoid the stagnation of researches.

But yet moral concerns cause lots of strong discussions, also between scientists. In one hand, Dr. Keirstead was criticized by some scientists, and in the other hand, he was prized for his work. Many scientists think stem cells are the solution to some incurable diseases as heart-attack or diabetes. They tried them in sick mice and after 6 weeks these cells had replaced the damaged ones.

But above all, Dr. Keirstead does not think that what he is doing is morally incorrect. He values life and he thinks this treatment is a responsible thing to do. “Don’t throw embryos away, use them,” he says. Maybe, with this phrase he refers to embryos used for in-vitro fertilization. In this method, for each mom several embryos are fertilized. They use one or two and the others are frozen. After several years being kept freeze they are throw away because their parents have forgotten them. What Dr. Keirstead proposes is to use those embryos to save or improve human life instead of wasting them.

Another advantage of steam cells treatment is that it does not consist of a big operation. Patients go out of hospital very fast and with a band aid only. Although they haven’t tried it in humans yet they know that they require 20 million cells to introduce per person. Short term paralyses are going to be treated firstly.

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I think that this treatment is wonderful because it improves human lives. Although stem cells are subtracted from human embryos, in my opinion this does not have any negative moral implication.

If you have a cow ovule fertilized with a bull spermatozoon in a Petri dish and beyond it another dish with a human in vitro fertilized ovule, would you see any difference between them? They are both products of technology. Those ovules need to be implanted in a womb to live; if not, they will never evolve; they will never be a human being or a cow or anything.

Many people question their selves if in-vitro fertilization is right. We tend to think it is correct because its reason is correct, though the words “artificial manipulation of embryos” sound like something bad. This technique is normally required when a mother and father need help to become pregnant. As said before, popular opinion perceives this as a good cause to manipulate embryos. But they are still technology and would continue being if not introduced in a womb.

With stem cells is the same process. We use technology to join a woman’s ovule with a man’s spermatozoon and produce an embryo. That embryo can become a baby born in a family or can be used to save people’s life. To save people’s life is not immoral, and even less if we do it with technology.

Totally immoral would be if we took the embryo naturally conceived of the womb and kill it to take stem cells. That can be consider a murder, because that embryo is alive and it is going to become an entire human being. But you are not doing this, you are using technology to obtain stem cells and that’s not a murder.

I think that the ethic and moral of an action depends on its intention. The purpose of stem cells is to improve people’s life, not to kill. That’s why for me it’s not immoral the use of stem cells to save people.