Eat It to Beat It

We all know that tension can wreak havoc on our eating patterns. But the right (healthy!) foods can often help tame mindless munching and cravings and, better yet, actually lower overall anxiety and its symptoms. Eight of our favorites:

Dark Chocolate

High in flavonoids, which are lauded for their relaxing properties (chamomile tea is another great source), chocolate also contains phenethylamine, a chemical that enhances your mood. The darker the chocolate, the more healthy substances you’re getting in your diet, so look for bars that are 70 percent cacao or higher.

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8 Foods that Fight Stress on Yahoo! Health.

That won’t be as easy as it sounds.

Senate Republicans have indicated they will use any and all legislative tactics in order to slow — even stop — the reconciliation bill from passing.

President Obama is expected to sign the health care bill Tuesday at the earliest. Only then can the Senate begin dealing with the reconciliation package.

According to Senate rules, members are allowed to offer unlimited amendments and challenges to the reconciled bill.

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Health care reform now faces Senate challenge – CNN.com.

WITHIN A YEAR

- Would provide a $250 rebate this year to Medicare prescription drug beneficiaries whose initial benefits run out.

90 days after enactment:

- Would provide immediate access to high-risk pools for people with no insurance because of pre-existing conditions.

Six months after enactment:

- Would bar insurers from denying people coverage when they get sick.

- Would bar insurers from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.

- Would bar insurers from imposing lifetime caps on coverage.

When health care bill’s provisions would take effect | McClatchy.

With the 219-to-212 vote, the House gave final approval to legislation passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve. Thirty-four Democrats joined Republicans in voting against the bill. The vote sent the measure to President Obama, whose yearlong push for the legislation has been the centerpiece of his agenda and a test of his political power.

After approving the bill, the House adopted a package of changes to it by a vote of 220 to 211. That package — agreed to in negotiations among House and Senate Democrats and the White House — now goes to the Senate for action as soon as this week. It would be the final step in a bitter legislative fight that has highlighted the nation’s deep partisan and ideological divisions.

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Obama Hails Vote on Health Care as Answering ‘the Call of History’ – NYTimes.com.

By a vote of 219 to 212, the House passed the bill after a day of tumultuous debate that echoed the epic struggle of the last year. The action sent the bill to President Obama, whose crusade for such legislation has been a hallmark of his presidency.

“This isn’t radical reform, but it is major reform,” Mr. Obama said after the vote. “This legislation will not fix everything that ails our health care system, but it moves us decisively in the right direction. This is what change looks like.”

Minutes after the bill was approved, the House passed a package of changes to it and sent it to the Senate. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, has promised House Democrats that the Senate would quickly take up the reconciliation bill with the changes in it, and that he had secured the votes to pass it.

But while the Senate is bracing for a fierce floor fight over the reconciliation measure, the landscape was permanently altered by passage of the original Senate bill. Should the reconciliation bill, which cannot be filibustered, collapse for any reason, the core components of the Democrats’ health care overhaul would move forward. Indeed, Senate Republicans were quickly faced with a need to recalibrate their message from one aimed at stopping the legislation to one focused on winning back a sufficient number of seats in Congress to repeal it.

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House Approves Health Overhaul, Sending Landmark Bill to Obama – NYTimes.com.

Confused about the healthcare reform effort? Don’t worry – you’re not alone. By the time it comes up for a final vote this weekend, health legislation will be twice as long, and half as intelligible, as Tolstoy’s masterwork “War and Peace.” And news coverage of healthcare reform has focused as much, or more, on political wrangling than on substance.

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Health care reform bill 101: Who must buy insurance? / The Christian Science Monitor – CSMonitor.com.

Experts say there are two basic categories of foods that can be considered “keeping it off superfoods” because they fill your tummy without piling on the calories: fruits and vegetables. For example, two whole cups of steamed broccoli packs a measly 87 calories. Or how about two cups of strawberry slices? They’ll add only 99 calories. Even a denser vegetable, steamed carrots, has only 140 calories per two cups. And two cups of a denser fruit, apple slices? That’s only 130 calories.

If fruits and vegetables are the “keeping-it-off superfood groups,” fiber may well be the “keeping-it-off supernutrient.” (Incidentally, the two-cup servings of fruits and vegetables mentioned above all contribute from 5 to 9 grams of fiber.)

Protein is another supernutrient. It’s becoming more scientifically accepted that protein may help to curb appetite. But whether we need more than 0.4 grams per pound of body weight is still up for debate among many researchers.

“Eating enough protein-rich foods of low energy density [calories per portion] is a good strategy for increasing satiety, especially if you are trying to lose weight,” says Barbara Rolls, PhD, a researcher at Penn State University and author of the book The Volumetrics Eating Plan.

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR MEDICINENET.COM): 9 foods that can help keep the extra weight away.

The agreement still needs to be approved by the 193 nations gathered here.

The accord addresses many of the issues that leaders came here to settle — and if signed, will represent an unprecedented effort by the nations of the world to take concerted steps to address global warming.

But the agreement appeared to leave many of the participants unhappy.

Even an Obama administration official conceded, “It is not sufficient to combat the threat of climate change, but it’s an important first step.”

“No country is entirely satisfied with each element,” the administration’s statement said, “but this is a meaningful and historic step forward and a foundation from which to make further progress.”

The statement added, “We thank the emerging economies for their voluntary actions and especially appreciate the work and leadership of the Europeans in this effort.”

But many of those emerging economies are likely to express displeasure. Europeans said the deal does not require enough of the United States, China and other major emitters and could put European industries at a competitive disadvantage because the European Union is already subject to a carbon emissions constraint program.

FOR CONTINUATION OF ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES: Climate Deal Announced, but Falls Short of Expectations – NYTimes.com.

Ministers urged action as Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen dropped plans to present his own proposed draft texts which had stalled the process for more than 24 hours — developing countries had insisted everyone should be involved.

“The United States is prepared to work with other countries toward a goal of jointly mobilizing $100 billion a year by 2020 to address the climate change needs of developing countries,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a news conference.

The European Union has proposed a $150 billion global fund, and the head of the African group of countries Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi on Wednesday supported climate aid for the world’s poorest of $100 billion.

Agreement on a climate fund could add political drive to the U.N. talks which meant to agree a host of other measures on Friday, from saving rainforests to boosting carbon markets and stiffening global carbon emissions cuts.

Denmark’s Rasmussen removed one obstacle to the talks on Thursday, withdrawing his disputed plan to nominate small groups of countries to storm through complex texts littered with long lists of options.

Negotiators have nearly run out of time to present world leaders with intelligible drafts to sign at the end of the December 7-18 meeting.

“The conference is now at a critical juncture and we have now agreed how to proceed,” said Rasmussen. “We now rely on the willingness of all parties to take that extra step to make that deal that is expected of us.”

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS STORY, CLICK THIS LINK FOR REUTERS: U.S. backs $100 billion climate fund | Reuters.

But then things got messy. The company revealed that its preferred method of cooling the power plants would consume 1.3 billion gallons of water a year, about 20 percent of this desert valley’s available water.

Now Solar Millennium finds itself in the midst of a new-age version of a Western water war. The public is divided, pitting some people who hope to make money selling water rights to the company against others concerned about the project’s impact on the community and the environment.

“I’m worried about my well and the wells of my neighbors,” George Tucker, a retired chemical engineer, said on a blazing afternoon.

Here is an inconvenient truth about renewable energy: It can sometimes demand a huge amount of water. Many of the proposed solutions to the nation’s energy problems, from certain types of solar farms to biofuel refineries to cleaner coal plants, could consume billions of gallons of water every year.

“When push comes to shove, water could become the real throttle on renewable energy,” said Michael E. Webber, an assistant professor at the University of Texas in Austin who studies the relationship between energy and water.

Conflicts over water could shape the future of many energy technologies. The most water-efficient renewable technologies are not necessarily the most economical, but water shortages could give them a competitive edge.

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS STORY, CLICK THIS LINK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES: A Western Water War Slows Some Solar Projects – NYTimes.com.