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09.06.2007 = JAYPLAY
health
goodforyou/badforyou
IS SMOKING HOOKAH WORSE THAN SMOKING CIGARETTES?
As you stroll down Massachusetts Street, it's not that hard to hear the sound of Middle Eastern music and endless amounts of laughter coming from establishments that provide hookahs. It's speculated, partly because of the tasty tobacco concoctions you can create with hookahs.
with hookah that smoking the international delight is not as bad as taking a drag from a cigarette.
At the base of the hookah apparatus is a smoke chamber filled with water and people tend to think that because the smoke is filtered through the water, it's safer.
However, according to the World Health Organization, a one-hour hookah session has 100 to 200 times the smoke volume than a single cigarette.During one sitting at a hookah bar, people inhale far more smoke, thus inhaling more nicotine and other carcinogenic compounds. VERDICT----BAD FOR YOU.
Chris Horn
■health tip■
HOP ON THE HONEY WAGON
Swap honey for sugar. Make that plastic bear in your cupboard your main squeeze for an all-natural, healthier substitute to sugar."Honey gives you vitamins and minerals, where with white sugar you get nothing but calories," says Gina Fisch, owner of Perfect Balance Weight Management in Lawrence. To get similar sweetness in recipes, use one-half to one-third the amount of honey as the amount of sugar called for, "depending on your sweet tooth," Fisch says. Just one tablespoon of honey will give you doses of calcium, iron, potassium and other helpful nutrients, so make a beeline to this golden goodness next time you're whipping up something sweet.
■Megan Hirt