I doubt that either you or your fiance can compel your parents to do anything they don't want to do, so my advice is: you go and apologize to your in-laws and have your husband come to your house and apologize to your parents. Then you both come back to your homes and placate your own parents further. You and your husband-to-be need to be on the same page on this issue instead of taking the side of one set of parents over the other.

Fact or Fiction: Raw veggies are healthier than cooked ones
Do vegetables lose their nutritional value when heated?

By Sushma Subramanian

April 7, 2009


Cooking is crucial to our diets. It helps us digest food without expending huge amounts of energy. It softens food, such as cellulose fiber and raw meat, that our small teeth, weak jaws and digestive systems aren't equipped to handle. And while we might hear from raw foodists that cooking kills vitamins and minerals in food (while also denaturing enzymes that aid digestion), it turns out raw vegetables are not always healthier.

A study published in The British Journal of Nutrition last year found that a group of 198 subjects who followed a strict raw food diet had normal levels of vitamin A and relatively high levels of beta-carotene (an antioxidant found in dark green and yellow fruits and vegetables), but low levels of the antioxidant lycopene.

Lycopene is a red pigment found predominantly in tomatoes and other rosy fruits such as watermelon, pink guava, red bell pepper and papaya. Several studies conducted in recent years (at Harvard Medical School, among others) have linked high intake of lycopene with a lower risk of cancer and heart attacks. Rui Hai Liu, an associate professor of food science at Cornell University who has researched lycopene, says that it may be an even more potent antioxidant than vitamin C.

One 2002 study he did (published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry) found that cooking actually boosts the amount of lycopene in tomatoes. He tells ScientificAmerican.com that the level of one type of lycopene, cis-lycopene, in tomatoes rose 35 percent after he cooked them for 30 minutes at 190.4 degrees Fahrenheit (88 degrees Celsius). The reason, he says: the heat breaks down the plants' thick cell walls and aids the body's uptake of some nutrients that are bound to those cell walls.

Cooked carrots, spinach, mushrooms, asparagus, cabbage, peppers and many other vegetables also supply more antioxidants, such as carotenoids and ferulic acid, to the body than they do when raw, Liu says. At least, that is, if they're boiled or steamed. A January 2008 report in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry said that boiling and steaming better preserves antioxidants, particularly carotenoid, in carrots, zucchini and broccoli, than frying, though boiling was deemed the best. The researchers studied the impact of the various cooking techniques on compounds such as carotenoids, ascorbic acid and polyphenols.

Deep fried foods are notorious sources of free radicals, caused by oil being continuously oxidized when it is heated at high temperatures. These radicals, which are highly reactive because they have at least one unpaired electron, can injure cells in the body. The antioxidants in the oil and the vegetables get used up during frying in stabilizing the cycle of oxidation.

Another study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry in 2002 showed that cooking carrots increases their level of beta-carotene. Beta-carotene belongs to a group of antioxidant substances called carotenoids, which give fruits and vegetables their red, yellow, and orange colorings. The body converts beta-carotene into vitamin A, which plays an important role in vision, reproduction, bone growth and regulating the immune system.

The downside of cooking veggies, Liu says: it can destroy the vitamin C in them. He found that vitamin C levels declined by 10 percent in tomatoes cooked for two minutes—and 29 percent in tomatoes that were cooked for half an hour at 190.4 degrees F (88 degrees C). The reason is that Vitamin C, which is highly unstable, is easily degraded through oxidation, exposure to heat (it can increase the rate at which vitamin C reacts with oxygen in the air) and through cooking in water (it dissolves in water).

Liu notes, however, that the trade-off may be worth it since vitamin C is prevalent in far more fruits and vegetables than is lycopene. Among them: broccoli, oranges, cauliflower, kale and carrots. Besides, cooked vegetables retain some of their vitamin C content.

Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=raw-veggies-are-healthier

I am pretty conservative so when I had my kids, I was very particular about seeing female doctors. But the day I found a lump in my br3ast, I ran to the doctor's office and saw the male doctor who was available. He poked around, and made his diagnosis and then sent me for a mammogram, again done by a man. At the end of the day it wasn't as bad as I imagined. I think it should depend on your wife's comfort level and not yours.

My son is 4 years old. When I load the dishwasher, I hand him the dishes and he puts them in. When I unload, I hand him the dishes and he stands on a stool and puts them in the cabinet.

My daughter is 7; she vacuums and mops the floor, and also dusts the furniture on the weekends.

They both make their beds, clean up their room, and set the table for dinner.

They actually enjoy doing chores. They follow me around on the weekend when i'm cleaning copying everything I do.

With my first child I also breastfed her till she was a year old. To wean her, I had to literarily hold her for three days straight while she cried and kept saying no, no, no when she tried to suckle. Boy was is painful - for both of us - but it worked. After the third day she just stopped asking and starting eating solids.

First time on this thread. I've lost 23 pounds since mid-June sticking to a 1,200 calorie a day meal plan. Attached is a sample for anyone who is interested. Note that it may be better suited for those abroad, otherwise you will have to substitute some items. Also, though my overall goal is 1200 calories, I plan for less, and then make up the difference with fruits and vegetables.

Is the child with you in Nigeria? If so, i'm not sure why she would need the SSN. Why don't you ask her what she needs it for?

If you're looking fo a polite way to decline, you can tell her you don't want the baby's SSN on record anywhere until he/she's old enough, because you are concerned about identity theft.

OMG! I thought I was the only one. I always ask him - do you really think there is a man standing outside, holding binoculars, just waiting for me to open the window so he can sneak a peek? Here I was thinking my husband was paranoid, and it turns out all men are .

@Poster, no one here can tell you with certainty whether or not your wife has changed. The thing about love is - it is always a risk. You make yourself vulnerable to someone else and hope it works out. By God's grace, it can - even with the history that you have with your wife.

Commit this matter to God and pray your heart out. Eight months ago, I thought I would be stuck in a loveless marriage for ever. But God restored those feelings to my heart. That is the thing about Godly love; it transcends all human circumstances and conditions, and can only be demonstrated supernaturally by the grace of God. It is easy to love someone when they are wonderful, but your vows were for better, for worse, and it is at those bad times that you really need the grace of God to carry you through.

God hates divorce for good reason - everyone, and particularly the children, suffers for it. If it is within your power (and for now, it is), don't add to that statistic. Like CC said, I am sure if you search your heart, you will find things that you could have done better too. Give it another shot. It is a risk, yes. But God will reward your faith and your desire to please Him.

All the best.

I think there is a bit of double standard on this thread from the women on NL. Regardless of all other issues (and there seems to be a lot of them), if a woman came on this site and said her husband slapped her on four different occasions, the women here would be saying - run away and don't look back. But now, you all seem quick to say - forgive and forget.

@ Poster, I have been where you are - when you think there is no love left in your heart to give, but pls give it a shot for the sake of your son. That way you will know that you have given it your all, even if it doesn't work out, and you won't have to wonder ten years from now if you made the right decision.

I see you are a Christian - pray to God about how you are feeling. I have been there, and God can restore those feelings.

All the best.

I loved birthdays in my house. Eeveryone got up before the birthday boy/girl and then woke them up singing 'happy birthday to you' and bearing gifts/cards. Even when you woke up first on your birthday, you pretended to be asleep so the whole family could surprise you .

Okay, this is going to be a bit long, but I hope it helps.

I was in this space a while ago. I've been married 8 years, and the first few years were pretty good. But like others have said, then the kids came, my work involved a lot of travelling that took me away from home for days at a time, and then about 2-3 years ago, my husband did some things that caused me to lose respect for him, and diminished him in my eyes. It was like all of a sudden, all I could see were his faults. And when he tried to touch me, I would cringe, make faces, excuses, etc.

I got to the point where I thought I was destined to live in that situation for the rest of my life (I don't believe in divorce). The first breakthough for me was when I started to pray about the situation. I went to God and laid my complaints exactly the way I felt. I basically poured out my heart in prayer and asked God for help. Next, I started to remember the way we were when we first met - MEMORIES are a very powerful tool - especially if you chose to meditate on the good ones and not the bad. The more I remembered how good he had been to me, the less angry I felt.

Next, God made me realize I was holding unforgiveness in my heart. Everytime I got upset, I would dredge up issues 3-5 years old and think about them until I was almost bursting with anger all over again. I had to let go of all old issues - whether they had been dealt with or not.

And then, i made a conscious effort to be more spontaneous and romantic. This was hard for me, but I worked on it. I'm more like a man than a woman in that area - I can be an island on my own and not need anyone, but I consciously started to lean on my husband more, open myself up to be more intimate with him, and gradually things got better.

Something happened a few days ago. We had dinner with a couple - the wife and I are colleagues. As we started to talk about the people at work, my husband was contirbuting to the conversation as if he works there. The other guy looked at him in amazement and said - how do you know all these people? My husband said, my wife talks to me about them. The guy replied - my wife talks too, but I don't really listen. That was enough to keep a smile on my face for a good two days. I have filed it away in my memory hard drive and if he does something to make me angry in the future, I will drag it out and remind myself what a great guy my husband is.

BTW, i've quit the travelling job - in my experience, absence does not make the heart grow fonder.

I use one because I don't want to come home from work and start tryng to figure out what to cook.