Clean Diesel

I receive a ton of questions about all of these new “energy” drinks that have hit the market over the last few years. They seem to be all the rage, especially with the youth, and they promise you the world with outrageous claims of all of the super energy that you are going to have, and how you’ll be crushing the competition in your sport, and so on.

So a couple questions arise:

Are these “energy” drinks really any good for you? Do they actually increase your energy? Do they really have some sort of magical energy formula? Will they help you lose weight?

First of all, let’s look at what most of these energy drinks are usually made of. Most of them are simply carbonated water loaded with gut-fattening high fructose corn syrup, caffeine, the amino acid taurine, and a few random B-vitamins thrown in for show to trick you into thinking there’s something healthy about these concoctions.

Let’s start with the high fructose corn syrup. Well, here we’ve got empty calories that will go straight to your belly fat, and that are actually even WORSE for you than plain old refined sugar.

Ok, so you say that they have low-sugar or sugar-free varieties as an alternative to the HFCS-laden energy drinks. Yes, but now you have the problem of the harmful chemicals in the artificial sweeteners.

Another problem with artificial sweeteners is that there are some researchers that believe artificial sweetener use leads people to inadvertently consume more calories and gain more weight in the long run. I won’t go into the details on that because that would fill up an entire discussion by itself. Just trust me that artificial sweeteners and artificial chemicals in food in general, are all bad news for your body!

What about the caffeine? Well, first of all, caffeine in itself doesn’t provide “energy”. Technically, the only substances that actually provide energy are calories (from carbs, protein, and fat).

However, caffeine can be an aid for livening or waking some people up, by means of stimulating the central nervous system. Keep in mind though, if you’re a regular coffee drinker, you’re probably addicted to caffeine and probably wouldn’t receive too much benefit from the caffeine in an energy drink anyway.

Besides, instead of caffeine added to some carbonated drink, I’d rather get my caffeine from a natural source like green, white, or oolong teas, which actually provide healthful antioxidants too!

Now what about that so called magical blend of taurine and B-vitamins that they load into these energy drinks? Well, big deal…you can get taurine in almost any protein source. And the vast majority of those B-vitamins are simply coming right out into the toilet in your pee. Vitamins are best obtained naturally from real food sources, not artificially added to some carbonated drink. Your body just doesn’t use fake sources of vitamins as readily as natural sources from real food.

So as you can see, in my opinion, I give all of these energy drinks a big time THUMBS DOWN! You’re better off mixing up your own homemade energy drink with some iced unsweetened green, white, and oolong teas, a little bit of 100% pure berry or pomegranate juice, and maybe a touch of a non-denatured whey protein.

Well, I hope this article cleared up some of the confusion about these energy drinks that are being so heavily marketed these days, and will help you make more informed decisions for your health.

THOMPSON STEPHEN
http://www.articlesbase.com/wellness-articles/energy-drinks-do-they-give-you-energy-or-just-a-fat-692662.html

Plenty of people will provide an Earth 4 Energy review saying the product is great, but few actually tell us why or whether it can really benefit our efforts to take advantage of wind and solar power in the home.  For those of us who are prospective buyers of this type of product, often one of the foremost questions we have in our minds is ‘will this really give me the information I need to get the job done?’.  The reality is, a lot of the online ‘tutorial’ type packages are a bit light on when it comes to the all important details of actually purchasing and installing the necessary components to a wind power or solar energy system.

Click Here To Read More About Earth 4 Energy & How To Make Your Own Solar Panel

Without wanting to sound too much the cynic, if I purchase a guide on how to build a windmill…I want a guide on how to build a windmill, not a fluffy overgeneralized guide which blankets basic info with unpersuasive propaganda about how good I should feel for ‘doing my part’ for the environment.  Not that saving the planet isn’t high on my agenda…it is, but I want to make sure that any info product I purchase showing me how is worthy of the investment.

Fortunately, Earth 4 Energy is one of the guides which doesn’t skimp on the details.  In fact, it’s positively brimming with info and that is one of the major reasons it tops our product list.

Earth 4 Energy is a downloadable ‘ebook’ and video product which primarily comprises a 70+ page pdf document and associated tutorial video’s.  Ahhhhh video’s…thank goodness for videos.  It is quite literally a step by step, fully integrated guide to purchasing and installing alternative energy systems and if the vids aren’t enough the book is fully illustrated to help the handyman handicapped among us.

What immediately impressed us was the ease of use of the guide, and the emphasis on affordability of alternative energy systems.  It literally takes a step by step, paint by numbers approach to to the task of implementing solar and wind power supply using readily available materials.  For those living outside the States (like me) you’ll need to make the odd metric adjustments, but one other huge benefit of Earth 4 Energy was the provision of exact specifications and material requirements.  Did we mention we loved the video’s?  Anything that lets us be a home hardware expert by mimicry alone gets our thumbs up.

We’re not left in the dark wondering which battery we need, guessing what the appropriate height of our wind tower should be, or how to set up our relay to figure out whether they are actually charging and saving us money or whether we’ve simply constructed an expensive garden ornament.  Those with a bit of technical knowledge will probably want to skip over some of the more obvious guidelines, but can still benefit from the designs.

Maureen Smith