Queen to lead giant jubilee flotilla in London

LONDON (Reuters) - A flotilla of 1,000 boats will sail London's River Thames on Sunday in a spectacular highlight of four days of nationwide celebrations marking Queen Elizabeth's 60 years on the throne.

Around one million people are expected to line the 7-mile (11 km) route of the armada accompanying a royal barge carrying the 86-year-old monarch, her husband Prince Philip and leading members of the royal family.

Up and down the country hundreds of thousands more will take to streets adorned in red, white and blue "Union Jack" flags for diamond jubilee parties to honour the second British monarch to mark the milestone.

The only other was her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria in 1897, and while Britain is no longer a superpower whose empire straddles the globe, surveys show the royal family is enjoying its strongest public support in decades.

The Saturday-to-Tuesday holiday comes just over a year after the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton, an extravaganza of pomp and pageantry that led news bulletins the world over and boasted a global audience of up to two billion people.

The queen kicked off the jubilee celebrations with a visit on Saturday to the Epsom Derby in southern England, indulging her life-long passion for horse racing, and a special gun salute boomed from the historic Tower of London.

On Monday the monarch hosts a pop concert outside her London residence Buckingham Palace, where Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder will be among the acts. Madness are set to take to the roof of the famous landmark to belt out hit song "Our House".

The long weekend concludes with a service of thanksgiving at St. Paul's Cathedral on Tuesday followed by a carriage procession along the broad Mall leading to Buckingham Palace where the queen will wave to the crowds from the balcony.

QUEEN RIDING HIGH

Not everyone supports the royal family.

The small yet vocal republican movement, which plans a protest during the flotilla, called the jubilee "a celebration of inherited power and privilege, and those celebrations have no place in a modern democracy".

But a poll published last month in the Guardian newspaper showed 69 percent of respondents thought Britain would be worse off without the monarchy against 22 percent saying it would be better off.

"(The republicans) know they can't beat it, the combination of her own sense of duty and hard work and this sort of undisputed mother figure status," royal biographer Robert Lacey told Reuters.

Many Britons are simply indifferent -- 2 million people are leaving the country altogether to make the most of the extended public holiday.

The queen ascended the throne in 1952 on the death of her father King George VI when she was 25 and Winston Churchill was British prime minister.

She has since attended thousands of official functions as the head of state of the United Kingdom and 15 other realms, and is generally seen as a hard-working and uncontroversial figurehead who has been able to adapt to the times.

It has not always been easy. In the late 1990s, the monarch had to guide her family through a slump in popularity over its handling of the death of the hugely popular Princess Diana in a 1997 Paris car crash.

Yet by her Golden Jubilee in 2002 the monarch had regained much of the lost ground, and 10 years later the nation looks ready to throw a party in her name.

For the police, Sunday's flotilla, the largest of its kind since 1662 and the reign of King Charles II, presents a new security challenge.

"We're treating it as a unique event, to have that many dignitaries on that many boats moving along the Thames," London police's Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stephen Kavanagh said.

"We've had officers searching under the water, on the water, in the air and on the land," he told Reuters.

Police have not identified a major security threat, but acknowledge that attention-seeking stunts could disrupt big set-piece events. The weather also threatens to put a dampener on proceedings -- some rain and cool temperatures are forecast.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Ralph Gowling)

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Siamdevil Susan B. Dopart, MS, RD, CDE: 5 Myths About - LiveJournal

When it comes to nutrition, sometimes it?s hard to tell the fact from the fiction. Certain foods get a reputation as ?bad for you,? whereas others get promoted as ?natural? or ?good for you? when they are really not.

Sometimes myths about foods are based on urban legends that just get perpetuated for years until we actually believe they are research-based. Other myths are based on old research that was not done in a scientific manner. Whatever the reason, here are some claims around a few popular foods that need to be debunked.

1. Cheese is bad for you

I hear this one every day of the week. The answer lies in the type of cheese you eat. There is packaged, processed cheese and then there is artisan/European and grass-fed cheese. The European/grass-fed cheese is higher in omega-3 fats (anti-inflammatory) fats that are good for you. Cheese is also a good source of protein and calcium. Eating cheese from cows that have been fed growth hormones and antibiotics, and that contains multiple ingredients, fits the myth and should be avoided. You can find imported European cheese in the deli section of your grocery store.

2. Eggs make your cholesterol go up

It?s beyond interesting to me that many people will avoid an egg yolk but will eat several packaged cookies during the day! Long-term studies found no relationship between egg consumption and heart disease. Studies do consistently link heart disease with a higher intake of trans fat, which is used in packaged foods to increase shelf life. However, the fat in eggs is mostly polyunsaturated and monounsaturated, and the yolk is an excellent source of the antioxidant lutein, which can lower certain inflammatory responses in the body. Eggs easily fit into a healthy lifestyle, so enjoy an omelet for breakfast and see how satisfied you are the rest of the day.

3. Drinking juice is healthy and a good way to get your fruit

Many people love their morning juice! But experts say drinking juice is equal to the same amount of sugar as drinking a glass of soda. Dr. Charles Billington, a researcher on obesity at the University of Minnesota, states that juice is ?pretty much the same as sugar water.? Think of all the oranges or apples you would have to squeeze to obtain a cup of juice. You are drinking all the sugar from the juice, minus the fiber that helps stabilize your blood sugar when eating the fruit. Skip the juice and eat a few pieces of fruit per day to improve your health.

4. Avoid avocados since they have too much fat

Avocados do contain fat, but it is the healthy monounsaturated kind, which does amazing things in your body. This is a food you want to include as part of your daily diet. Eating avocados can help with increasing the HDL (the happy kind of cholesterol), which you want higher since it helps with lowering heart disease by getting rid of bad cholesterol. Also, having healthy fats in your diet assists your health in multiple ways, including helping your skin and hair stay healthy and vibrant, providing adequate lubrication for the gut to help with normal digestion and absorption, and assisting with making hormones essential to the manufacture of sex hormones.

5. Agave is a natural sweetener

Agave, which comes from the cactus and has been used to make tequila, hit the market a few years ago. You can find agave as a sweetener in most products found in health food stores? but is it really a health product?

Using high-fructose corn syrup is a cheap way to sweeten foods. It was developed to help food companies cut costs. Whereas real sugar is 50 percent glucose and 50 percent fructose, high-fructose corn syrup is approximately 45 percent glucose and 55 fructose, and not the natural kind like in fruit. With agave, the percentages are altered more significantly ? the syrup is 85-90 percent fructose and 10-15 percent glucose. When you consume a large percentage of this type of fructose, it gets processed directly by your liver, which not only increases your triglyceride levels, but causes fatty liver, increased hunger levels and a plethora of other health issues you would rather avoid. The agave plant goes through heavy processing in order to concentrate it into a sweet syrup. Rather than being natural, as we?ve been led to believe, it is actually a processed food, often with few quality controls.

As with everything diet-related, moderation is key, but don?t be afraid to add European-style cheese, eggs and avocado to your shopping list. Drop the juice, add some fruit instead, and use honey instead of agave to sweeten your morning beverage. The result? A delicious, satisfying breakfast and a healthier you!

Susan is the author of ?A Recipe for Life by the Doctor?s Dietitian.? Her new book ?Healthy You, Healthy Baby: A mother?s guide to gestational diabetes? will be out in June 2012. For more information, visit susandopart.com.

For more by Susan B. Dopart, M.S., R.D., C.D.E., click here.

For more by Susan B. Dopart, M.S., R.D., C.D.E. on HuffPost, click here.

For more on diet and nutrition, click here.

Flickr photo by Ella es Tanya

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