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Friday, 13 May 2016

Meal Plans for Food Lovers

Planning meals and snacks can be tricky if you absolutely love food. A hearty appetite can make it easy to down too many calories with junk foods and sweet treats, so you need to anticipate what you’re going to eat and carefully study ingredients and nutrition fact labels to make smart, healthy choices.

Meal Plans for Food Lovers


A woman looking at a list on her smartphone while grocery shopping. Photo Credit LDProd/iStock/Getty Images.

Nutrition Information

Knowing more about the type of nutrients that fuel your body effectively can help you plan smart meals and snacks. Soft drinks, candy bars, chips and other junk foods contain high amounts of sodium, cholesterol, saturated fat, simple carbs and sugar, which don’t provide lasting energy or meet your body’s nutritional needs. When you read food labels, look for high amounts of whole grains, dietary fiber, low-fat protein, vitamins and minerals and low amounts of added sugar, fat, cholesterol and sodium.

Energy Density

If you like to eat often, one helpful tip is to seek out foods with low energy density levels. According to MayoClinic.com, such foods have high amounts of fiber and water and low calorie and fat counts, and they are ideal for weight loss and healthy weight maintenance. Examples include fruits, vegetables, whole grains and nonfat dairy products. Focusing on such foods in your meals and snacks can help you keep your daily calorie totals under control and get a maximum amount of healthy nutrients.

Sample Plan

A healthy meal plan that allows you to eat often might include five or six small meals per day instead of three main meals and snacks. Try choices such as a small egg-white omelet with vegetables, wheat toast with nut butter and fresh fruit, a high-protein smoothie, broth-based soup, a green salad with nuts or seeds, lean meat with steamed vegetables, hot whole grain cereal with milk and fruit, a vegetable wrap, rice pilaf, low-fat casserole or nonfat yogurt and granola. For snacks, consider fresh veggie sticks and hummus, whole-grain crackers and low-fat cheese, low-fat granola bars, pieces of fresh fruit or single serving containers of yogurt or milk.

Considerations

When your goal is to eat healthfully, planning can make a world of difference. Grabbing fast food or restaurant meals may be more convenient than making food, but according to HelpGuide.org, prepared items have greater amounts of fat, sodium, calories and cholesterol than homemade foods, so it’s worth the time and effort to create your own grub. Try shortcuts such as making extra food in advance, using frozen or canned fruits and vegetables and buying healthy, mobile snacks that you can take with you on the go. To make food that tastes great without excessive calories and fat, flavor items with fresh or dried herbs and spices instead of using liberal amounts of butter or oil.
www.livestrong.com

LIGNITE

Lignite, often referred to as brown coal, is a soft brown combustible sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It is considered the lowest rank of coal due to its relatively low heat content. It has a carbon content around 60–70%. It is mined all around the world and is used almost exclusively as a fuel for steam-electric power generation, but is also mined for its germanium content in China. As of 2014, about 12% of Germany's energy and, specifically, 27% of Germany's electricity comes from lignite power plants, while in Greece, lignite provides about 50% of its power needs.



Lignite and Lignite briquette.

Characteristics
Lignite is brownish-black in color and has a carbon content around 60–70%, a high inherent moisture content sometimes as high as 75%, and an ash content ranging from 6% to 19% compared with 6% to 12% for bituminous coal.
Strip mining lignite at Tagebau Garzweiler in Germany.
The energy content of lignite ranges from 10 to 20 MJ/kg (9–17 million BTU per short ton) on a moist, mineral-matter-free basis. The energy content of lignite consumed in the United States averages 15 MJ/kg (13 million BTU/ton), on the as-received basis (i.e., containing both inherent moisture and mineral matter). The energy content of lignite consumed in Victoria, Australia, averages 8.4 MJ/kg (6.5 million BTU/ton).
Lignite has a high content of volatile matter which makes it easier to convert into gas and liquid petroleum products than higher-ranking coals. Unfortunately, its high moisture content and susceptibility to spontaneous combustion can cause problems in transportation and storage. It is now known that efficient processes that remove latent moisture locked within the structure of brown coal will relegate the risk of spontaneous combustion to the same level as black coal, will transform the calorific value of brown coal to a black coal equivalent fuel, and significantly reduce the emissions profile of 'densified' brown coal to a level similar to or better than most black coals. However, removing the moisture increases the cost of the final lignite fuel.
Lignite mining in Western North Dakota, United States (circa 1945)

Uses
Because of its low energy density and typically high moisture content, brown coal is inefficient to transport and is not traded extensively on the world market compared with higher coal grades. It is often burned in power stations near the mines, such as in Australia's Latrobe Valley and Luminant's Monticello plant in Texas. Primarily because of latent high moisture content and low energy density of brown coal, carbon dioxide emissions from traditional brown-coal-fired plants are generally much higher per megawatt generated than for comparable black-coal plants, with the world's highest-emitting plant being Hazelwood Power Station, Victoria. The operation of traditional brown-coal plants, particularly in combination with strip mining, can be politically contentious due to environmental concerns. An environmentally beneficial use of lignite can be found in its use in cultivation and distribution of biological control microbes that suppress plant disease causing microbes. The carbon enriches the organic matter in the soil while the biological control microbes provide an alternative to chemical pesticides.
Reaction with quaternary amine forms a product called amine-treated lignite (ATL), which is used in drilling mud to reduce fluid loss during drilling.
Geology
Lignite begins as an accumulation of partially decayed plant material, or peat. Burial by other sediments results in increasing temperature, depending on the local geothermal gradient and tectonic setting, and increasing pressure. This causes compaction of the material and loss of some of the water and volatile matter (primarily methane and carbon dioxide). This process, called coalification, concentrates the carbon content, and thus the heat content, of the material. Deeper burial and the passage of time result in further expulsion of moisture and volatile matter, eventually transforming the material into higher rank coals such as bituminous and anthracite coal.
Lignite deposits are typically younger than higher-ranked coals, with the majority of them having formed during the Tertiary period.
Resources

The Latrobe Valley in the state of Victoria, Australia, contains estimated reserves of some 65 billion tonnes of brown coal. The deposit is equivalent to 25% of known world reserves. The coal seams are up to 100 metres thick, with multiple coal seams often giving virtually continuous brown coal thickness of up to 230 metres. Seams are covered by very little overburden (10 to 20 metres).

Types
Lignite can be separated into two types. The first is xyloid lignite or fossil wood and the second form is the compact lignite or perfect lignite.
Although xyloid lignite may sometimes have the tenacity and the appearance of ordinary wood, it can be seen that the combustible woody tissue has experienced a great modification. It is reducible to a fine powder by trituration, and if submitted to the action of a weak solution of potash, it yields a considerable quantity of humic acid. Leonardite is an oxidized form of lignite, which is also contains high levels of humic acid.
Jet is a hardened, gem-like form of lignite used in various types of jewelry.
Production 
Lignite mined in millions of metric tons
Country19701980199020002010201120122013
 Chinan.a.24.345.547.7125.3136.3200.9
 East Germany261258.1280
 West Germany108129.9107.6
 Germany167.7169176.5185.4183
 Soviet Union145.0141.0137.3
 Russia87.876.176.477.973
 Kazakhstan2.67.38.45.5
 Uzbekistan2.53.43.83.8
 United States542.879.977.67173.471.670
 Polandn.a.36.967.659.556.562.864.366
 Turkeyn.a.14.544.460.969.772.66663
 Australian.a.32.946.067.372.17173.563
 Greece23.251.963.956.558.761.854
 Indian.a.5.014.124.237.742.343.545
 Czechoslovakia82.087.071.0
 Czech Republic50.143.846.643.540
 Slovakia3.72.42.42.3
 Yugoslavian.a.33.764.1
 Serbia and Montenegro35.5
 Serbia3841.13840
 Kosovo8.798.7
 Macedonia7.56.78.27.5
 Bosnia and Herzegovina3.45.66.36.3
 Slovenia3.744.14
 Montenegro1.922
 Romanian.a.26.533.72931.135.534
 Bulgarian.a.3031.526.329.437.132.5
 Albanian.a.1.42.13014920
 Thailandn.a.1.512.417.818.321.318.3
 Mongolian.a.4.46.65.18.58.39.9
 Canadan.a.69.411.210.39.79.5
 Hungaryn.a.22.617.3149.19.69.3
 North Korean.a.1010.67.26.76.86.8
Source: World Coal Association.  U.S. Energy Information Administration· 1970 data from World Coal (1987)
(n.a.) no data available, (–) country did not exist yet or does not exist anymore
Gallery 


References 


  1. a b c Kopp, Otto C. "Lignite" in Encyclopaedia Britannica
  2. ^ "Statistics on energy production in Germany 2014, Department of Energy (in german, lignite = "Braunkohle")" (PDF). 2014-10-01. Retrieved 2015-12-10.
  3. ^ Ghassemi, Abbas (2001). Handbook of Pollution Control and Waste Minimization. CRC Press. p. 434. ISBN 0-8247-0581-5.
  4. ^ George, A.M.. State Electricity Victoria, Petrographic Report No 17. 1975; Perry, G.J and Allardice, D.J. Coal Resources Conference, NZ 1987 Proc.1, Sec. 4.. Paper R4.1
  5. ^ "Hazelwood tops international list of dirty power stations". World Wide Fund for Nature Australia. Retrieved 2008-10-02.
  6. ^ "The Greens Won't Line Up For Dirty Brown Coal In The Valley". Australian Greens Victoria. 2006-08-18. Retrieved 2007-06-28.
  7. ^ "Greenpeace Germany Protests Brown Coal Power Stations". Environment News Service. 2004-05-28. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-06-28.
  8. ^ Jones, Richard; Petit, R; Taber, R (1984). "Lignite and stillage:carrier and substrate for application of fungal biocontrol agents to soil". Phytopathology 74: 1167–1170. doi:10.1094/Phyto-74-1167.
  9. ^ Blatt, H., Middleton, G. and Murray, R. (1972). Origin of Sedimentary Rocks. Prentice-Hall Inc., New Jersey. ISBN 0-13-642702-2.
  10. a b Department of Primary Industries, Victorian Government, Australia, ‘Victoria Australia: A Principle Brown Coal Province’ (Fact Sheet, Department of Primary Industries, July 2010).
  11. ^ Mackie, Samuel Joseph (1861). The Geologist Original from Harvard University: Reynolds. pp. 197–200.
  12. ^ Tan, K.H. 2003. Humic matter in soil and the environment: principles and controversies, CRC Press, 408pp.
  13. ^ "World Coal Association – Resources". World Coal Association. 2014. Retrieved 2015-12-22.
  14. ^ "Production of Lignite Coal".  U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2012. Retrieved 2015-12-23.
  15. ^ Gordon, Richard (1987). World coal: economics, policies and prospects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 44. ISBN 0521308275 OCLC 506249066.

Wikipedia 

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