nutrition and diet

MONTREAL – Conventional political wisdom holds that the island of Montreal is the exclusive domain of the federal Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois.

Other parties — like the NDP with its lone seat in Outremont — are really just interlopers, whose time and money are better spent elsewhere.

The Conservatives, though, have just made clear their intention to rewrite such hard-and-fast rules of Quebec politics.

Their new star candidate, Sen. Larry Smith, will not only seek election on the island but will be gunning for Lac-Saint-Louis, arguably one of the staunchest Liberal strongholds in the country.

The Liberal margin of victory over the Tories was 52 percentage points in 2004, 21 in 2006 and 22 in 2008.

The Conservatives are hoping Smith can provide a beachhead on the island that will herald a larger blue invasion, the likes of which hasn’t been seen in these parts since Brian Mulroney was prime minister.

It is a tall order for Smith, a political novice with more experience in boardrooms than the nitty-gritty of local electioneering.

But the West Island, and Lac-Saint-Louis in particular, have many of the attributes that appeal to Conservative strategists.

It is a suburban area, largely anglophone, that has seen an influx of new Canadians in recent years.

In that respect it resembles some of the ridings in the 905 area code around Toronto, where the Conservatives managed an upset win in a byelection last month in the Liberal fortress of Vaughan.

Taken together it may mean the Liberal incumbent in Lac-Saint-Louis, Francis Scarpaleggia, is facing his toughest campaign yet.

But Scarpaleggia, who has represented the riding since 2004, claims his preparation will be no different against Smith than it was for his other opponents.

He nevertheless wasted little time trying to take the sheen off the former CFL star.

“The fact he’s running here is a sign to me it’s a Hail-Mary pass,” Scarpaleggia told The Canadian Press on Wednesday.

“I live in my riding, I live in my community, Larry Smith doesn’t. His candidacy did not come from the community.”

Smith lives in nearby Hudson, which is located in a riding where a Bloc Quebecois MP has recently brought down big-name candidates, Liberal and Tory alike.

Scarpaleggia suggested West Island voters wouldn’t take kindly to Smith being appointed to the Senate on a Monday and then announcing his political ambitions the following day.

“Stephen Harper is using the Senate as a plaything for his ambitions,” Scarpaleggia said.

The Liberals are hoping to characterize the showdown in Lac-Saint-Louis as a fight between Smith, the glossy outsider, and their hard-working but little-known MP.

Beyond this clash of personalities, though, Liberal organizers are confident recent demographics play in their favour.

Smith’s supporters are fond of pointing out to skeptics that during the Mulroney years, the area was held by the Progressive Conservatives.

If it voted blue once, goes their reasoning, there is no reason it can’t do so again.

Liberals counter that Lac-Saint-Louis’s precursor, Lachine-Lac-Saint-Louis, had vastly different boundaries.

They say the bulk of PC votes at the time came from Lachine, which is no longer part of the riding.

“For people here, it’s not about the Liberal brand per se,” Scarpaleggia said. “They simply embrace traditional liberal values.”

Gerry Weiner, a cabinet minister in Mulroney’s government and a one-time West Island mayor, believes real momentum is building for Smith and other Conservative candidates on the West Island.

“In the past year, several ministers have come through to help build campaign teams,” he said.

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We’ve all seen the blockbuster movie “The Bodyguard”, where Frank Farmer (played by Kevin Costner) offers his services, even his life, to protect Hollywood celebrity Rachel Marron (played by Whitney Houston) from a crazed killer. Every woman has dreamt of having a devilishly handsome man protect her from the bad guys and who is even willing to die for her. Here’s a little secret; you CAN have your own bodyguard, in fact, you can have as many as you like and they will die protecting you. All you have to do is make some wise choices about the food you put in your mouth! Your bodyguard isn’t known as Frank Farmer, he’s known as Antioxidant!

Your body faces being attacked about 10,000 times per day. Not by physco killers, but by something almost as dangerous; Free Radicals. Let’s start by defining exactly what a free radical is and what it does to your body.

Free radicals area unstable oxygen molecules that have lost an electron through exposure to sunlight, pollution and everyday wear and tear. These volatile molecules cruise around your body trying to stabilize themselves by stealing electrons from other molecules. When they succeed, they create still more free radicals, damaging healthy cells in the process. Damage from free radicals can lead to a long list of health issues including…

High Cholesterol – Free radicals damage artery walls and allow LDL (bad) cholesterol to adhere to them. This in turn leads to hardening of the arteries and heart disease.

Cancer – Damaged DNA inside your cells can lead to mutations. The result? Possible cancerous cells may form.

Vision Loss – Cataracts and macular degeneration (the leading cause of blindness in people over 50) may be due to a free radical attack on your eyes.

By this stage you may be thinking you will need to live in a bubble for the rest of your life. But never fear – your bodyguards are here! Embrace a diet rich in colourful fruit & vegetables (maybe not as enjoyable as embracing Kevin Costner, I know) and you digest a massive army of protective antioxidants who travel through your body, neutralising free radicals by offering their own electrons. Your body does produce its own antioxidants, but exposure to our environments ever increasing pollutants like cigarette smoke, car exhausts and sun exposure can overwhelm and deplete your little bodyguards. You need to have a back-up of ammunition and you do this by eating the abundance of foods that are packed with antioxidants (found mostly in fruits and vegetables). Evidence proves antioxidants are the masters of fighting disease and it seems scientists agree we should ALL make sure we are getting enough. So we know all fruits, vegetables and nuts are great sources of antioxidants, but let’s compare the good to the best!

½ Cup Broccoli (cooked) supplies 37mg Vitamin C and 1.0mg Beta-carotene

4 Brussels sprouts supplies 36mg Vitamin C and 0.3mg Beta-carotene

½ Cup Butternut Squash (cubed) supplies 15mg Vitamin C and 4.3mg Beta-carotene

1 Sweet Potato (baked) supplies 28mg Vitamin C and 15mg Beta-carotene

½ Cup Red Pepper (chopped) supplies 95mg Vitamin C and 1.7mg Beta-carotene

½ Cantaloupe supplies 56mg Vitamin C and 2.6mg Beta-carotene

1 Kiwifruit supplies 89mg Vitamin C and 0.1mg Beta-carotene

1 Navel Orange supplies 80mg Vitamin C and 0.2mg Beta-carotene

½ Papaya supplies 94mg Vitamin C and 0.3mg Beta-carotene

½ Cup Strawberries supplies 42mg Vitamin C

1/3 Cup Watermelon (cubed) supplies 8mg Vitamin C and 0.2mg Beta-carotene

There are 3 antioxidants we should all hire as our ultimate bodyguards and they are known as…

Vitamin C – When we think of Vitamin C, we label it the “cold and flu destroyer” and rightly so. But this vicious vitamin does so much more for your body. It protects any part of your fluid filled body parts (think heart, arteries, and eyes). This antioxidant sails through your waterways launching a missile attack on any free radical in its path. Maintaining your levels of Vitamin C will protect you from cancer and heart disease and is a great defense for smokers or those who live with one. And for the vain amongst us, you might be excited to know Vitamin C can protect us against possibly the scariest fight of all – AGEING!

Vitamin E – We know the external benefits of a daily moisturiser enriched with Vitamin E. It is particularly good in preventing skin damage caused by sun exposure. But it’s ability to dissolve in fat makes this one of your best internal bodyguards against one of the leading killers in the world; heart disease. Vitamin E plays a powerful role in keeping your LDL (bad) cholesterol from sticking to artery walls. Another exciting discovery is the research showing women who maintain healthy levels of Vitamin E significantly reduce their risk of developing breast cancer. The trouble is getting enough Vitamin E can be difficult due to its lack of presence in foods. Your best natural sources come from cooking oils, wheat germ and sunflower seeds.

Beta-Carotene – This pigment which gives fruit and vegetables their yellow-red colour, is possibly the ultimate bodyguard. These awesome antioxidants protect us from the worst of the bad guys; cancer (lung, stomach, esophegous, mouth and ovarian), heart disease, ageing, and cataracts, just to name a few. Beta-carotene does have outstanding antioxidant properties, but it doesn’t deserve all the credit. It is a member of the Carotenoid family and other members, including alpha-carotene, lycopene, zeaxanthin & letein, are just as important.

While we have looked at the three key players, they are only a small part of a huge list of antioxidant compounds found in plant foods. By eating 5 serves of vegetables and 2 serves of fruit each day, you ensure your ammunition is piled high and ready to defend you till the death. Move over Frank Farmer!

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Healthykiss.com was created to provide people with Simple Health Solutions for anything Health, Beauty or Fitness related.

It is our ambition to remind people of the simple pleasures one feels from improving their lifestyle, just by looking & feeling their best; the importance of being a healthy role models to our kids; and what we should consider a privilege, not a chore, to living each day in good health.

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