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These yummy treats are vegan and nut‐free, and pack a wonderful nutritional
punch. Excellent for the lunch boxes of grown‐ups and kids alike!

Once again, thanks to Daryl Cronin for an awesome recipe!
Ingredients: Makes 24 muffins

• two 397g cans of plain pumpkin, or 3 cups fresh pumpkin puree
• 1 cup apple sauce
• 2/3 cup water
• 2/3 cup grape seed or almond oil
• 4 tbsp ground flaxseed
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 3 1/3 cup spelt flour
• 1⅔ cup raw sugar or maple syrup
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 ½ tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp nutmeg
• 1 cup non‐dairy chocolate chips
• 1 cup hemp seeds

Directions: Preheat the oven to 350°. Line a muffin tin with muffin cups and set aside. Put the pumpkin, apple sauce, water, canola oil, flaxseed and vanilla in a large bowl and mix with a hand mixer until well blended. Set aside.
In a separate large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add the pumpkin mixture and stir until well blended. Fold in the hemp seeds and chocolate chips. Distribute the batter evenly amongst the muffin cups and bake for 35 ‐ 40 minutes, until tops are golden and a toothpick inserted in centre of muffin comes out clean. Let cool for a few minutes in the pan, then remove from pan and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

These are delicious warm, but even better when allowed to sit, refrigerated, over night. This gives the flavours a chance to blend.

Enjoy!

Posted in our Oct 2011 Newsletter  (http://www.rhealth.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/RCIM_Fall-2011_news_letter-size_Sept-27.pdf)

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Here is a really interesting video by Dr. Stuart McGill on how to stabilize the spine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=033ogPH6NNE&fb_source=message

Thanks to Dr. Erika Zippel – Chiropractor for this post.

University of Waterloo kinesiology professor Stuart McGill is one of the world’s foremost experts on spine biomechanics. Here, he discusses several pervasive myths about back injury, exercise, proper lifting, and strengthening the core. Plenty of exercise and movement demonstrations teach you better ways to keep your back healthy for a lifetime.

Those who participate in rHealthChallenge.ca  Assessments  (not only benefit from Posture analysis), but sure some of you probably cringed at the site of the ‘Wooden steps’ for the cardio test in the background of this video !-)

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Have you ever wondered if your organization’s efforts to increase employee engagement are worthwhile? Research carried out in conjunction with Aon Hewitt’s Best Employers in Canada study shows a link between highly engaged employees and improved health and overall well-being.

To analyze the data, organizations were grouped as high-, medium- or low-engagement employers based on their scores in the Best Employers study. Employees at these organizations were surveyed to determine correlation between engagement levels and various measures of health.

Those working at high-engagement organizations reported better physical health—56%, versus 47% for employees at organizations with moderate engagement and 41% at low-engagement organizations. Job stress levels were lower, too: 28% of employees at high-engagement locations reported high job stress, versus 33% at moderate-engagement firms and 39% of those at low-engagement workplaces.

Those at high-engagement workplaces reported an average of 2 days off annually due to emotional, physical or mental fatigue. That number was 2.7 for those at moderate-engagement organizations and 4.3 for employees at low-engagement companies. In addition, high-engagement organizations experienced fewer long-term disability claims and lower workers’ compensation premiums. The cost savings in workers’ compensation alone are significant: an average of $246,000 per year for a 1,000-employee organization.

“Organizations with high engagement scores are also more likely to proactively encourage employee health. Many offer health management tools and resources, including health risk assessments, screening, health coaching and education.“

Additionally, many of the high-engagement companies in the Best Employers in Canada study offer extra perks to promote a healthier workforce. According to an article in Maclean’s, where the 2011 Best Employers list is published, some examples of these are:

• funds for employees to spend on wellness-related expenses, be it on running shoes or ski passes;
• on-site yoga and fitness classes;
• the opportunity to meet with a personal health and wellness consultant on company time;
• healthy cafeteria menus;
• coverage for naturopaths, acupuncture and registered dietitians; and
• lunch-and-learn seminars on health and nutrition topics.

While not all of these initiatives are financially or logistically practical for every organization, the range of activities covers a variety of cost points. And employees are more likely to respond to perks if the employer seems excited about offering them: 65% of employees surveyed at high-engagement organizations indicate that they take full advantage of their organization’s health and wellness initiatives, compared with 53% at low-engagement employers.

But while implementing initiatives to support employee well-being can clearly help to create a healthy, engaged workforce, research reveals that the key ingredient may be the people, not the programs. Findings from employee focus groups conducted subsequent to the study show that caring managers who are tuned in to the health and well-being of their team, and who provide appropriate levels of support and flexibility, really make the difference.

Give us a call 519-746-0770  or drop us a line info@rhealth.ca to learn how we can help your workplace improve health & productivity.

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‘Saving Brains‘ is a federally-funded $10million Canadian initiative to assess the long-term impact of early childhood development.

Malnutrition limiting human potential, be it via poverty or disease is evident throughout all countries.

This Globe and Mail article presents a great case for enhanced nutrition in early childhood:

“Decades after ending in ‘disappointment,’ Guatemalan study of infant brains inspires Canadian follow up”

Exposure to atole before 3 years of age significantly raised wage rates by US$0·62–0·67 per hour.

Atole is a gruel-like drink made from Incaparina (a vegetable protein mixture), dry skimmed milk, and sugar that provided 6·4 g protein and 380 kJ (91 kcal) energy per 100 mL.

In the other ‘Control’ villages, residents were given fresco, a drink that contains no protein, and 138 kJ (33 kcal) per 100 mL from sugar.

This and other studies suggest that prenatal and neonatal nutrition has a positive correlation with future wage rates and cognitive skill.

Click here for the full research paper published in the Lancet 2008.

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This article reflects reflects the reason why we started rHealthChallenge.ca - where you can track your 4 most influential health factors in 1min/day.   By tracking your small but vital initiatives, week by week, your will improve your health and performance, while staving off disease.  Health informatics and self-tracking help you control your health.

Article:  Our Data, Ourselves.  “Self-Tracking” enthusiasts collect 
data on every aspect of their lives. If digital navel-gazing goes mainstream, 
it could transform medicine.
   Discover magazine.   By Kate Greene; Illustrations by ilovedust.   Accessed Jan 3 2012.

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“NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – The digital age has left men’s nether parts in a squeeze, if you believe the latest science on semen, laptops and wireless connections.

In a report in the venerable medical journal Fertility and Sterility, Argentinian scientists describe how they got semen samples from 29 healthy men, placed a few drops under a laptop connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi and then hit download.

4 hours later, the semen was, eh, well-done.

A quarter of the sperm were no longer swimming around, for instance, compared to just 14 percent from semen samples stored at the same temperature away from the computer.

And 9% of the sperm showed DNA damage, three-fold more than the comparison samples.

The culprit? Electromagnetic radiation generated during wireless communication, say Conrado Avendano of Nascentis Medicina Reproductiva in Cordoba and colleagues.

“Our data suggest that the use of a laptop computer wirelessly connected to the internet and positioned near the male reproductive organs may decrease human sperm quality,” they write in their report.

“At present we do not know whether this effect is induced by all laptop computers connected by Wi-Fi to the internet or what use conditions heighten this effect.”

A separate test with a laptop that was on, but not wirelessly connected, found negligible EM radiation from the machine alone.

The findings fuel concerns raised by a few other research teams.

Some have found that radiation from cell phones creates feeble sperm in the lab, for example. And last year urologists described how a man’s sitting with a laptop balanced on his knees can crank up the temperature of his scrotum to levels that aren’t good for sperm.  (Click here for our blog on Dr.Oz’s recommendation of cell phone use.)

So between the heat and the radiation from today’s electronic devices, testicles would seem to be hard-pressed.

…Earlier this month, a report in Fertility and Sterility showed that men who eat a diet rich in fruit and grains and low in red meat, alcohol and coffee have a better shot at getting their partner pregnant during fertility treatment.”

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Exercise can reduce the obesity risk (30%) of even the most genetically susceptible (FTO gene).   More support for genes not being deterministic.  Lifestyle therapeutics modulates gene expression.

“The genetic predisposition to obesity due to the ‘fat mass and obesity associated’ (FTO) gene can be substantially reduced by living a physically active lifestyle according to new research by a large international collaboration, led by Ruth Loos from the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit, in Cambridge, UK, and published in this week’s PLoS Medicine. The researchers found that the effect of the FTO gene on obesity risk is nearly 30% weaker among physically active than in physically inactive adults.

This finding holds an important public health message relevant to health care professionals and the wider public as it challenges the widely-held view that obesity ‘is in my genes’ and not amenable to lifestyle changes. On the contrary, this study shows that even those genetically predisposed can reduce their risk of becoming obese by being physically active….”

Read more here:   http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/plos-par102511.php

Or the full Article here:   http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001116#s4

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(Click on image to see & print coupon.)

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RCIM_Fall 2011 NEWSLETTER