Monday, November 23, 2009
GOBBLE!! GOBBLE!! ...please pass the pesticides & the antibiotics...
Well, turkey day is around the corner. Whether it's chickens or turkeys you gobble, you'd better beware of the antibiotics.... and ponder the pesticides consumed by your bird. Consider its living conditions. Was your bird free, able to peck around and poke at the grass.... and the bugs? Or, did your bird simply exist, day after day, in sardine-like conditions.... unable to move.... to breathe. And YOU eat this bird.... hmmmm.... yummy.... or not?
BECOMING CONSCIOUS of YOUR CARCASS
In the Jewish religion, animals are killed humanely, in a KOSHER manner, swiftly designed to cause the least pain. One biochemical reason to back this thinking is ADRENALINE. When an animal fears the end is near, you can bet adrenaline will be pumping. Adrenaline flushes the system and "poisons" the meat.
Here's something else to consider: fear is lodged in the memory banks of our cells. When we eat an animal that has been in fear and has lived in horrid conditions, we are eating the muscle that contains those cell memories. It affects us on an energetic level. It messes with our consciousness, which is all about energy. So, if you have a lot of fear, and don't know why, try switching to free range chicken or organic chicken to be sure your bird was tweeted right!!! ...I mean, treated right. lol.
WHAT WAS YOUR BIRD EATING?
If the birdie's gruel was laced with pesticides, then they will be inside you! It's that simple. These petrochemically based substances are stored in fat cells. They hang out for a very long time. When we burn a fat cell laced with these chemicals, they are released into our system. They have an inflammatory effect, which is not such a good thing. Best thing to do, is read the labels carefully, to discover whether or not its diet was pesticide-free.
DECREASING IMMUNITY TO ANTIBIOTICS
ADMINISTERED BY YOUR M.D.
Something else to consider... if you continually eat birds boosted with antibiotics, when you REALLY NEED the antibiotics.... and your doctor prescribes them, they might not work as effectively. If you are continually exposed to antibiotics through food, those little buggers - viruses - become immune to meds. And, you'll need a more powerful version. When it comes to antibiotics: LESS IS MORE, people!!!
TOFU TURKEY IS YET ANOTHER OPTION!
Okay, so you may not want to have it as THE ONLY OPTION, but, as an alternative choice, it might just fly! Perhaps it is an acquired taste. I'm not sure. It's been a while since I've eaten one. But, I DO remember LOVING it !!! But, then, again... I'm an Organic Soy Maniac. So, I'm a bit biased.
WATCH THE DOSE!
Remember, all that tryptophan in the turkey will be raising serotonin. When you get a tidal wave of that stuff in your system, watch out!!! Because, the first couch or chair you see will find you in it! It's ALL ABOUT THE DOSE. If you want to stay alert, just go out for a walk, and get that circulation pumping. You'll snap back into shape in no time....gobble...gobble!!!
Tweet, Tweet!! I'm Twittering.
My father "crossed over" seven months ago. Writing has been the last thing on my mind. Throughout his long arduous struggle with Parkinsons, PTSD and severe back pain, my focus was more on healing him, than on writing, blogging, vlogging and the rest.
Diving into TWITTER [ http://twitter.com/healthypeople4u ] ...and FACEBOOK [ http://facebook.com/healthypeople ], has allowed me to discover the AMAZING healing power of social networking!! I have been connecting with people I haven't spoken with in over 30 years. I find my Self tweeting fascinating messages to the World in the middle of the night. I find my Self reaching out to others, and learning something new, every day.
Now that I am FINALLY back into the groove of reviewing CONSCIOUS CUISINE & THERAPEUTIC CUISINE, I thought you might like to view my tweets at http://twitter.com/healthypeople4u
I've had SO much fun with it... and tweet about a variety of topics.
So check it out!!! And, I'll follow you back, if you have an account.
Well... speaking of BIRDS....
HAVE A PEACEFUL, INSPIRING & AMAZINGLY GRATEFUL THANKSGIVING!
And, remember that life, truly IS OUR GIFT.
Olive Oil 101
Olive oil is rich in Omega-9 fatty acids. Omega-9's are truly non essential since your body manufactures them. However, getting your daily dose appears to assist in maintaining a healthy weight and managing blood fats, like LDLs [Low Density Lipo-proteins] and triglycerides. Roughly two tablespoons per day, for most women, would do the trick. Depending on how active you are, or your gender, you might need 4 or 5 tablespoons of oil each day.
OIL is NOT CREATED EQUALLY
Refined oils have been heated at extremely high temperatures. This process creates FREE RADICALS, "peroxides", which attack cells, and steal electrons, causing those cells to become unstable. This domino effect creates inflammation in your system, which is at the root of all diseases. However, EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL is unrefined. It is mechanically pressed. The first pressing is called "Extra Virgin" and is the most therapeutic in nature. Once you heat the oil, its therapeutic properties are destroyed.
TINTED BOTTLES
Olive oil in clear bottles is exposed to light in the store, creating more free radicals as it sits on the shelf. If you can't find any oil sold in green or brown tinted bottles, you can transfer it into bottles you have saved at home. It's important to store your extra virgin olive oil in a tinted bottle to prevent sun light from breaking down the oil, causing it to become rancid, more rapidly.
KEEP IT COOL
Generally, you want to keep most cold pressed oils, like flax, hemp, grapeseed, in the refrigerator to retain the shelf life. If you use Olive oil, often enough, you can keep it in a cool spot in your pantry if you prefer. Storing it in the fridge will solidify it a bit, and you'll have to take it out ...and leave it out for at least 15 minutes to get it back into it's liquid state.
POUR IT ON... DON'T FRY IT!
If you fry with olive oil, you'd be better off with organic butter or coconut oil. It's okay to have a pinch of saturated fat. 5% of the calories in your diet can come from saturated fats. The point is, these fats have high melting points. They will not create the free-radical chain reaction that happens when you fry with vegetable oils. The wiser option is to pour the olive oil over warm foods to retain its therapeutic properties, instead of frying.
So, the next time you see a health expert doing a demonstration on television, and he or she is frying with olive oil, you can be sure they aren't quite up to speed with current thinking in Nutrition Education.
OIL is NOT CREATED EQUALLY
Refined oils have been heated at extremely high temperatures. This process creates FREE RADICALS, "peroxides", which attack cells, and steal electrons, causing those cells to become unstable. This domino effect creates inflammation in your system, which is at the root of all diseases. However, EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL is unrefined. It is mechanically pressed. The first pressing is called "Extra Virgin" and is the most therapeutic in nature. Once you heat the oil, its therapeutic properties are destroyed.
TINTED BOTTLES
Olive oil in clear bottles is exposed to light in the store, creating more free radicals as it sits on the shelf. If you can't find any oil sold in green or brown tinted bottles, you can transfer it into bottles you have saved at home. It's important to store your extra virgin olive oil in a tinted bottle to prevent sun light from breaking down the oil, causing it to become rancid, more rapidly.
KEEP IT COOL
Generally, you want to keep most cold pressed oils, like flax, hemp, grapeseed, in the refrigerator to retain the shelf life. If you use Olive oil, often enough, you can keep it in a cool spot in your pantry if you prefer. Storing it in the fridge will solidify it a bit, and you'll have to take it out ...and leave it out for at least 15 minutes to get it back into it's liquid state.
POUR IT ON... DON'T FRY IT!
If you fry with olive oil, you'd be better off with organic butter or coconut oil. It's okay to have a pinch of saturated fat. 5% of the calories in your diet can come from saturated fats. The point is, these fats have high melting points. They will not create the free-radical chain reaction that happens when you fry with vegetable oils. The wiser option is to pour the olive oil over warm foods to retain its therapeutic properties, instead of frying.
So, the next time you see a health expert doing a demonstration on television, and he or she is frying with olive oil, you can be sure they aren't quite up to speed with current thinking in Nutrition Education.
Friday, April 17, 2009
UNDER CONSTRUCTION: The USDA Food Pyramid !!!
Every five years, the USDA revises the Dietary Guidelines For Americans. Here are my recommendations submitted today, to update The USDA Food Pyramid, a.k.a, "My Pyramid".
------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee Members:
Please allow me to introduce myself. As a registered dietitian [Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, 1984], I have practiced medical nutrition therapy for over 25 years. I am also a health reporter and publisher of healthypeople.com
I do believe the predicament with The Pyramid is grains at the bottom. Thankfully the solution is simple: place VEGETABLES at the Base of The Pyramid …especially, the leafy green ones to help manage inflammation and pH Balance within the system. Simply shift this paradigm.
We have medical visionaries amongst us. Pioneers in Integrative Medicine, such as Andrew Weil, M.D., Dean Ornish, M.D., Christiane Northrup, M.D., Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr. M.D., T. Colin Campbell, M.D., Neal Barnard, M.D., all of whom would agree USA’s health care dilemma stems from diseases of lifestyle. Since inflammation precipitates most medical conditions, it stands to reason if we manage inflammation we can manage any chronic condition. This includes heart disease, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, hypertension, cancers, immune disorders, depression, etc.
Thanks to these integrative medical pioneers, we now know the basic challenge for us all boils down to condition coined by Andrew Weil, M.D. as “low grade inflammation”. And, we can measure our progress with periodic hemoglobin A1C tests.
The question is: How do we manage inflammation?
Part of the answer is consuming alkaline foods [like green leafy vegetables] and alkaline beverages [like green drinks, phyto-plankton based beverages], or consuming foods which break down into an alkaline ash [e.g., like grapefruits].
Including Omega 3 fats or foods rich in Omega 3 fatty acids [unprocessed soy, salmon, walnuts, grass-fed meat and “Omega-3 rich” eggs, flax seeds, hemp seeds, hemp milk, grasses, etc.] is another method to manage inflammation.
Naturally occurring COX 2 inhibitors: Some foods, like black cherries, manage inflammation with COX 2 inhibitors. Cannabis also contains COX 2 inhibitors, which is why marijuana pills are now being prescribed for chronic pain.
Consumption of antioxidants and phyto-nutrients is yet another strategy to control inflammatory reactions. Most fresh or frozen fruits, vegetables and whole grains are naturally rich in phyto-nutrients and antioxidants.
Another priority is to identify foods, beverages and other variables which aggravate inflammation. Refined oils and sugars, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides all trigger inflammation. Cookware can be toxic, such as heated plastic which seeps into foods and beverages. Or, Styrofoam molecules which float into hot coffee or tea via osmosis. It does not take a rocket scientist to decipher that petro-chemically based ingredients [like artificial colors] and plastics ingested will aggravate inflammation …or that rocket fuel in our water is not such a good thing. It is not just about what we eat, but how we live.
Education is the key. We must educate the public [employees, patients, children, parents, students, the elderly, etc.] on a variety of timely topics:
- Manage pH/Acid-Base balance with leafy greens and alkaline.
- Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load as tools to manage blood sugars. Excess sugars and starches trigger inflammation, as well as insulin and hyper-triglyceridemia. They should be considered key contributors to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cancers, etc. The more nutrient-dense versions of carbohydrate will contain vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients and antioxidants which helps compensate for the inherently high glycemic index, and can be consumed with protein-rich cuisine to slow the rate carbohydrate will enter the bloodstream.
- Most artificial sweeteners have a high glycemic index and elicit an insulin response, even though they contain very few Calories. [By the way, Stevia is not an artificial flavor. It is a sweet tasting herb which contains no carbohydrate, so does not trigger insulin response.]
- Processed oils trigger inflammation. Learn to select raw nuts, expeller pressed or unrefined oils not subjected to extreme temperatures. Oil in clear bottles exposed to light accelerates rancidity, creating more peroxides (free radicals) further igniting inflammation. Recommend oils be stored in tinted glass bottles (instead of plastic, which seeps into the fluid it contains, especially when temperatures rise.)
- Petro-chemically based ingredients must be managed: artificial food colors and dyes, fungicides/herbicides/pesticides all trigger the inflammatory process and be monitored by parents concerned with ADD/ADHD.
Well… this should keep us busy for the next five or ten years… until the next big breakthrough on the final frontier of Integrative Medicine comes to light.
Respectfully submitted,
Helene Berk, M.Ed., R.D.
Registered Dietitian, Health Reporter, Publisher of healthypeople.com
--------------------------------------------------------
Here's the link to see other people's comments:
http://usda-cnpp.entellitrak.com/etk-usda-cnpp-2.8.0-prod/tracking.dashBoard.do
------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee Members:
Please allow me to introduce myself. As a registered dietitian [Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, 1984], I have practiced medical nutrition therapy for over 25 years. I am also a health reporter and publisher of healthypeople.com
I do believe the predicament with The Pyramid is grains at the bottom. Thankfully the solution is simple: place VEGETABLES at the Base of The Pyramid …especially, the leafy green ones to help manage inflammation and pH Balance within the system. Simply shift this paradigm.
We have medical visionaries amongst us. Pioneers in Integrative Medicine, such as Andrew Weil, M.D., Dean Ornish, M.D., Christiane Northrup, M.D., Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr. M.D., T. Colin Campbell, M.D., Neal Barnard, M.D., all of whom would agree USA’s health care dilemma stems from diseases of lifestyle. Since inflammation precipitates most medical conditions, it stands to reason if we manage inflammation we can manage any chronic condition. This includes heart disease, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, hypertension, cancers, immune disorders, depression, etc.
Thanks to these integrative medical pioneers, we now know the basic challenge for us all boils down to condition coined by Andrew Weil, M.D. as “low grade inflammation”. And, we can measure our progress with periodic hemoglobin A1C tests.
The question is: How do we manage inflammation?
Part of the answer is consuming alkaline foods [like green leafy vegetables] and alkaline beverages [like green drinks, phyto-plankton based beverages], or consuming foods which break down into an alkaline ash [e.g., like grapefruits].
Including Omega 3 fats or foods rich in Omega 3 fatty acids [unprocessed soy, salmon, walnuts, grass-fed meat and “Omega-3 rich” eggs, flax seeds, hemp seeds, hemp milk, grasses, etc.] is another method to manage inflammation.
Naturally occurring COX 2 inhibitors: Some foods, like black cherries, manage inflammation with COX 2 inhibitors. Cannabis also contains COX 2 inhibitors, which is why marijuana pills are now being prescribed for chronic pain.
Consumption of antioxidants and phyto-nutrients is yet another strategy to control inflammatory reactions. Most fresh or frozen fruits, vegetables and whole grains are naturally rich in phyto-nutrients and antioxidants.
Another priority is to identify foods, beverages and other variables which aggravate inflammation. Refined oils and sugars, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides all trigger inflammation. Cookware can be toxic, such as heated plastic which seeps into foods and beverages. Or, Styrofoam molecules which float into hot coffee or tea via osmosis. It does not take a rocket scientist to decipher that petro-chemically based ingredients [like artificial colors] and plastics ingested will aggravate inflammation …or that rocket fuel in our water is not such a good thing. It is not just about what we eat, but how we live.
Education is the key. We must educate the public [employees, patients, children, parents, students, the elderly, etc.] on a variety of timely topics:
- Manage pH/Acid-Base balance with leafy greens and alkaline.
- Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load as tools to manage blood sugars. Excess sugars and starches trigger inflammation, as well as insulin and hyper-triglyceridemia. They should be considered key contributors to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cancers, etc. The more nutrient-dense versions of carbohydrate will contain vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients and antioxidants which helps compensate for the inherently high glycemic index, and can be consumed with protein-rich cuisine to slow the rate carbohydrate will enter the bloodstream.
- Most artificial sweeteners have a high glycemic index and elicit an insulin response, even though they contain very few Calories. [By the way, Stevia is not an artificial flavor. It is a sweet tasting herb which contains no carbohydrate, so does not trigger insulin response.]
- Processed oils trigger inflammation. Learn to select raw nuts, expeller pressed or unrefined oils not subjected to extreme temperatures. Oil in clear bottles exposed to light accelerates rancidity, creating more peroxides (free radicals) further igniting inflammation. Recommend oils be stored in tinted glass bottles (instead of plastic, which seeps into the fluid it contains, especially when temperatures rise.)
- Petro-chemically based ingredients must be managed: artificial food colors and dyes, fungicides/herbicides/pesticides all trigger the inflammatory process and be monitored by parents concerned with ADD/ADHD.
Well… this should keep us busy for the next five or ten years… until the next big breakthrough on the final frontier of Integrative Medicine comes to light.
Respectfully submitted,
Helene Berk, M.Ed., R.D.
Registered Dietitian, Health Reporter, Publisher of healthypeople.com
--------------------------------------------------------
Here's the link to see other people's comments:
http://usda-cnpp.entellitrak.com/etk-usda-cnpp-2.8.0-prod/tracking.dashBoard.do
Prohibition of Stevia is Finally Lifted!!!
Well, stevia is finally legal!!! The FDA has proclaimed we can safely use this herb as a sweetener for foods and beverages. Yet, the politics around it continue to emerge. According to Cargill, inc., the manufacturers of Truvia, "Only the rebiana component of the stevia leaf is legal to use as a sweetening agent on a food label". Truvia is made from erythritol, [a carbohydrate found in low glycemic fruits], stevia [a sweet tasting herb free of carbohydrates] and "natural flavors".
On the other hand, President and founder of Wisdom Natural Brands and the SweetLeaf trademark, James May, says "this is just another marketing ploy to spin the truth". May states the entire stevia leaf is now legal to include as a source to sweeten foods and beverages. He also goes on to mention that the process Cargill uses includes an alcohol extraction step which renders the plant as processed, and in my mind... less therapeutic.
On the other hand, President and founder of Wisdom Natural Brands and the SweetLeaf trademark, James May, says "this is just another marketing ploy to spin the truth". May states the entire stevia leaf is now legal to include as a source to sweeten foods and beverages. He also goes on to mention that the process Cargill uses includes an alcohol extraction step which renders the plant as processed, and in my mind... less therapeutic.
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