Posts Tagged ‘nutrition facts’

Three Reasons To Read Whole Now

Tuesday, May 21st, 2013
This ironic sign embodies the reductionist world view. This supermarket is giving away free Lipitor, and advertising this bounty on a sign right next to a promotion for a sale on meat, chicken, and processed junk food

This ironic sign embodies the reductionist world view. This supermarket is giving away free Lipitor, and advertising this bounty on a sign right next to a promotion for a sale on meat, chicken, and processed junk food. Yet no one realizes the connection between the two signs

Why Whole Is the Must-Read Nutrition Book of Our Century

If you read only one book for the entire rest of your life, Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition, should be it. T Colin Campbell, PhD, the book’s pioneering author, shatters the current ways of thinking about nutrition with a compelling blueprint for a revolutionary alternative.

Here are three reasons to put aside whatever else you are working on, go out or online and get hold of Whole now, and read this groundbreaking work.

WHOLE WILL TRANSFORM YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF NUTRITION

At its core, Whole aims to revolutionize your understanding of (more…)

Seven Dangers of Eating Eggs

Sunday, February 3rd, 2013
You no longer need to wonder whether the chicken or the egg came first. They are interchangeable. An egg is a disassembled baby bird just waiting to form into a miraculous being.

You no longer need to wonder whether the chicken or the egg came first. They are interchangeable. An egg is a disassembled baby bird just waiting to form into a miraculous being.

It’s Not Just the Cholesterol That Scrambles Your Health

One of my most stomach-churning childhood experiences was cracking an egg for cooking and finding a partially formed chick fetus inside. I screamed in horror and threw it in the trash. No one else was in the kitchen with me. I learned at that point that it’s pointless to ask “which came first, the chicken or the egg?”

In fact, chickens and eggs are interchangeable. An egg is a disassembled chick, since everything needed to form the baby bird is inside the egg. The shell forms (more…)

Why Meat Can Magnify the Dangers of Alcohol

Saturday, December 1st, 2012

Your liver is a vital organ that is essential for health – and for survival. Drinking to excess can injure and eventually destroy your liver.

Wine and Cheese May Be a Particularly Toxic Combination

Drinking too much over a period of years is even more deadly than smoking. Alcohol can damage your brain, liver, digestive system, and other body systems. A recent study found that death rates were twice as high for alcohol-dependent men and almost five times as high for alcohol-dependent women, compared to the general population. Some studies have found small amounts of alcoholic drinks to be protective of heart health, although this may be due to beneficial phytochemicals in the plants the drinks were made from.

You should consult your physician to determine the amount of alcohol (if any) it’s best to set your limits at. The information in this article is educational and not intended to tell you whether you should drink or (if you do) how much; only a licensed health care professional who is familiar with your health history can do that.

Whatever your choice on consuming alcohol, you should know that that animal foods, such as meat and cheese, may boost the normal dangers of drinking by accelerating (more…)

The Paleo Diet Dangers and Distortions

Saturday, September 15th, 2012

Early cave men did not look like this, and they did not eat the Paleo diet either. But good myths are hard to get rid of.

Still Another “High-Protein” Diet Threatens Your Health

The Paleo Diet can hook you with its story. This “cave man” diet promises to reunite you with your ancestors from 2.5 million years ago through the simple act of eating meat. In this complex era of busy lives and disconnected community, this is an appealing picture. Agriculture, which began 10,000 years ago, is the story’s villain, supposedly leading people away from the hunt to an unnatural diet.

Loren Cordain, PhD and professor at Colorado State, launched the Paleo Diet with his book of the same name. This restrictive eating plan forbids all grains, potatoes and legumes (peas, lentils, beans) as well as dairy and processed foods (including processed meats). You eat all you want of meat, fish, vegetables, and fruit. Bone marrow, animal organs, and meat from wild animals are all on the menu.

The book represents that you can cure just about any chronic illness, from heart disease to cancer, by eating this way because it would match the way your distant ancestors ate for over two million years. You are also supposed to (more…)

The Truth About Whole Grains

Thursday, August 23rd, 2012

Whole grains are lovely as they grow. You can clearly see in this picture that the grains of wheat are seeds that form in a cluster on a grassy plant.

A Seed by Any Other Name is Still a Seed

Real world studies of what people eat show, over and over again, that if you consume whole grains you will be healthier and thinner. Yet outlandish statements in the popular media, and even “nutrition” books, may keep you from enjoying and benefitting from these most basic of all foods. When you know the facts, you won’t deprive yourself.

Whole grains are seeds. You might hear silly statements such as “Whole grains are not healthy, but quinoa is because it’s a seed.” If you hear anything like this, you know whoever is telling you knows zero about plants or nutrition, and you can boost your health by tuning out.

Another mundane myth is that people did not start to eat whole grains until these plants were domesticated about 10,000 years ago. Why would people have gone to all the trouble of deliberately cultivating a plant that they never ate before? Were our ancestors that misguided? The truth is that people ate wild grain seeds long before they started to plant them. In some parts of the world, wild grains still (more…)

Fish Contains Worm Larvae

Sunday, October 2nd, 2011

This beautiful fish enjoys her ocean home, just as nature intended

Ten Reasons Seafood Is Not Safe or Appetizing

Government, media, and even health professionals flood you with advice to load up your diet with fish and fish oil. The alleged health benefits of eating fish center on a two nutrients: omega-3 fatty acids and protein.

Don’t be fooled by industry and government hype. Plants are the base of the food chain on planet earth. Plants are nutrient factories, while animals are nutrient consumers. Fish are animals, and as such get all their nutrients from plants or from (more…)

Five Ways You Thrive with Flax Seeds for Pennies a Day

Sunday, September 4th, 2011

Flax seeds are tiny, but contribute much to a whole foods, plant-based diet.

Why Consuming Fish for Omega-3s Is Like Eating Radioactive Vegetables

You can’t eat a single nutrient in isolation. This includes overhyped omega-3 fatty acids. Whether you get these nutrients from food or pills, they’re part of a package.

Here’s an illustration. Just imagine for a moment you want to get more fiber into your diet and decide vegetables are the way to do this. So you buy some veggies, but they were grown near Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and have low levels of radioactivity. Not enough to kill you right away, but enough to raise (more…)

The Secret to Ditching Your Prescription Meds

Sunday, July 24th, 2011

Dustin will be teaching us some much needed lessons in getting healthy without drugs

Dustin Rudolph Shares a Pharmacist’s Take On Whole Foods, Plant-Based Diets

Dustin Rudolph is a pharmacist who prefers plants to pills. His transformation began in February 2009 with a routine visit to his podiatrist, Dr. Sal. He ended up in a discussion on health care reform with this fellow medical professional. He was both confused and intrigued by Dr. Sal’s statement that legislation would really not have a fundamental impact on the nation’s health care practice.

Dustin ended up reading The China Study at Dr. Sal’s suggestion. At first the book’s plant-based diet approach seemed farfetched. Dustin had grown up in rural Montana on a diet heavy with animal foods. He’d also spent six (more…)

Six Reasons to Make Pineapple a Favorite Fruit

Saturday, July 2nd, 2011

The pineapple is an attractive fruit growing on a four foot high plant. Don't you just want to grab it and bring it home?

A Special Enzyme in This Unique Food Has Profound Health Benefits

Although only four feet high, the pineapple plant grows a powerful fruit. This tropical plant, native to South America but now found in warm places around the world, blooms with red or purple flowers. The many small flowers meld together as they produce fruit. So a large pineapple is really a fusion of many smaller berries around a central stalk.

Bromelain is an enzyme that distinguishes pineapples from all other fruits. This enzyme, which your body can absorb intact, has unique and powerful effects to support your health. Pineapple is a special piece of the puzzle in putting together your ideal whole foods, plant-based diet.

To reap the advantages of bromelain, be sure to eat pineapple raw. Cooking or canning destroys this enzyme. An electric knife makes cutting whole pineapple a breeze, or you can buy fresh fruit that is already cut into chunks.

For more bromelain, eat the whole pineapple (minus the skin and leaves). The tougher circle of cells at the center of these fruits (which is actually the central stalk or stem) has more concentrated bromelain than the surrounding tender fruit has.

You can cut the stalk into small pieces or put it into a smoothie where it will be ground up. If you just (more…)

Six Reasons Portion Control Will Make You Overweight

Sunday, May 15th, 2011

Why Serving Sizes Undercut Health and Weight Loss

Meals limited by portion control can feel so skimpy.

Run-of-the-mill diets focus on controlling the amount you eat by limiting portions. This is an attempt to fit a manmade, arbitrary concept (“serving size”) into a natural biological system (your body). While this strategy may work for some people for a short time, the long-term outcome is often counter to health and weight goals.

The USDA’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010 is typical. Some of the serving sizes this report lists include:

• Bread: one slice

• Cooked rice: half a cup

• Cut up vegetables: half a cup

• Fruit: one medium piece

• Cooked beans: half a cup

• Milk: one cup

• Cooked meat, poultry, or fish: one ounce

• Soft margarine: one teaspoon

• Sugar: one tablespoon

Here are six reasons that portion control ultimately will not succeed in getting you to a trim weight and (more…)