Celebrity Bethenny Frankel has said that she’s raising her new baby as a vegetarian. Many people flock to “follow the stars”, but is this a case of an action that could harm your baby?

One of the most oft heard concerns about avoiding meat products in your baby’s diet is that if you don’t feed a baby meat,  he won’t get enough protein for proper growth. Many people feel that meat, particularly red meat, is the only real source of protein. This is false. There are two main sources of protein; meat and plants. At face value, though, you might see why people would think that – the main element in meat that is essential would be all nine amino acids, and no one plant offers all nine. However, by eating combinations of vegetables and grains, you can combine the amino acids to form a complete protein. 

It’s important to realize, though, that many of us overestimate the amount of protein needed for proper nutrition. Current recommended values are approximately one gram of protein per pound of body weight during the first year of life, with the ratio dropping to half a gram of protein per pound in the second through fifteenth year.

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I’ve often thought, purely out of speculation, that the difference between food and drugs is a fairly fine line. Sure, the side effects can be drastically different (I’m not saying heroin and candy bars are virtually the same thing), but that there’s so much emphasis on the use of certain drugs that people completely ignore the fact that foods are chemicals, and therefore have an effect on your brain in a similar way.

“The distinction of what is a drug and what is food is blurring completely. Natural things are also drugs,” said Gary Wenk, a professor at the Ohio State University and Medical Center and author of the new book Your Brain on Food: How Chemicals Control Your Thoughts and Feelings.
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“How much protein should I eat?” Have you found yourself asking this question? Well, the recommended daily value for protein is 50 grams. For those of us that exercise and push the body to the extreme, we need a few more grams per day. If you are exercising at a moderate to high intensity level, I recommend consuming 0.8 grams of protein for every pound of your body weight.

For example: if you weigh 150 pounds, then you should be consuming 150 x 0.8, which is 120 grams of protein per day. Be careful and don’t over-do it though; protein is broken down into amino acids and excess amino acids are converted to fats and sugars and then stored in the body. Below are a few examples of the best sources of protein!
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Trick uh till uh mania… Trichotillomania is traditionally one of the most difficult psychological disorders to say, one that is difficult for many to understand, and one that has been difficult to treat. Research published this month in the Archives of General Psychiatry introduces a possible new treatment that is currently available over the counter as a vitamin supplement.

Trichotillomania is classified as an impulse control disorder in the DSM-IV; however, some consider it self-injury, a tic, or an obsessive-compulsive disorder. When someone suffers from trichotillomania they experience urges to pull out their hair; this can be hair from the scalp, eyelashes, eyebrows, or any body hair. Generally sufferers experience tension building with a desire to pull that is relieved once they have pulled the hair out. Pulling tends to increase during times of high stress and may disappear entirely during times of low stress. Pulling can result in bald patches or complete absence of hair in certain areas of the body. In some cases sufferers are also driven to bite the bulb at the root of the hair, chew on, or even swallow hair.
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