Archive for the ‘Health’ Category
Saturday, May 7th, 2011
This microgreen forest rewarded my gardening efforts only 5 days after I had planted the seeds.
An Indoor Microgreen Garden Can Be Inexpensive and Fun
Microgreens are the perfect crop to bring nature into your home – and with tasty results. Microgreens are very young vegetable and herb plants, usually an inch or two high and with one or two sets of leaves. You usually have to wait only a week or two from the time the seed first starts to grow until the time your crop is ready to eat.
You can raise these nutritious, pretty young plants to garnish almost any food. For example, sprinkle some on soups, salads, cooked grains, sandwiches, wraps, and beans. Microgreens add elegance and color as well as (more…)
Tags: getting healthy, horticulture therapy, indoor gardening, Janice Stanger, Mark Mathew Braunstein, microgreens, Plant-based nutrition, whole foods
Posted in Health | 3 Comments »
Friday, April 22nd, 2011
Dr. Wallace Sconiers, vegan almost 30 years, devotes his time to teaching others about health. I'm happy to welcome him as a San Diego County neighbor!
Dr. Wallace Sconiers Helps Others Discover Health
Dr. Wallace Sconiers has a firm handshake and energetic speech that makes you want to hear what he has to share. His youthful skin, lively eyes, and radiant health at age 61 are proof that getting older does not in any way need to equate with medical issues. I was fortunate to meet him when he came over to say hello to a group of us giving out veg literature for a meat-out event.
Vegan for almost 30 years and vegetarian for 41 years, Wallace embraces a whole foods diet. His plant-centered path started, surprisingly, on a Navy (more…)
Tags: Dr. Wallace Sconiers, getting healthy, Janice Stanger, Plant-based nutrition, reverse chronic disease, whole foods
Posted in Health | 4 Comments »
Monday, February 21st, 2011
Until we change the way we eat, getting health care costs and the deficit under control will be a losing struggle.
Surging Health Care Costs Come Right Out of Your Pocket
The health care costs draining your personal budget come in two pieces: the amount you see directly as health care, and the hidden costs embedded in taxes, salary you don’t get, and the cost of virtually everything you buy. Health care costs gobble one out of every six dollars of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product), with that percentage rising every year. Even Warren Buffett, the wealthy business man, called health care costs a “tapeworm” dragging down the economy.
The direct costs are obvious. Milliman, a leading actuarial firm, reported that health care for a family of four in 2010 in the U.S. averaged a staggering $18,074. Of this, employers paid an average (more…)
Tags: budget definit, cardiovascular disease, Congressional Budget Office, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Dr. Neal Barnard, family, getting healthy, health care costs, Janice Stanger, making a difference now, Plant-based nutrition, T. Colin Campbell, Warren Buffett, whole foods
Posted in Health | 1 Comment »
Saturday, February 5th, 2011
The USDA should be teaching Americans that healthy food is also appetizing and delicious.
You’ll Need Bigger Clothes If You Follow the Government’s Advice
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) launched their Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010 with great fanfare. Mostly, the Guidelines are more of the same wimpy advice that has been making Americans fatter and sicker for the last several decades.
The 2010 Guidelines does have a new twist, though. The USDA makes a half-hearted effort to lay out a 100% plant-based eating plan. Appendix 9 of the Guidelines is labeled “Vegan Adaptation of the USDA Food Patterns.”
What a silly task, to “adapt” plant-based eating to a framework built on animal foods that create obesity and disease. This is like writing Shakespeare by (more…)
Tags: 2010, Dietary Guidelines for Americans, getting healthy, inflammation, Plant-based nutrition, reverse chronic disease, USDA, vegan, vegetables, weight loss, whole foods
Posted in Health | 4 Comments »
Saturday, January 22nd, 2011
This Misnamed Essential Can Accumulate to Dangerous Levels
This is the first-choice source of vitamin D for most people. The sun, which powers life on earth, also energizes your skin to manufacture vitamin D, which is better understood as a hormone than as a vitamin.
To understand how to get enough vitamin D without poisoning yourself with too much, first you need to realize that this essential is not a vitamin at all. By definition, a vitamin must come from what you eat. Yet vitamin D is scarce or nonexistent in virtually all foods, unless artificially added.
Nature intended that humans manufacture their own vitamin D when certain ultraviolet rays from the sun strike skin. How do we know this? Because your skin cells have the ability to make D, and will do so whenever you allow them to. Humans thrived for eons before vitamin D supplements were available, so clearly these are not necessary for healthy life.
Vitamin D is actually a hormone, a necessary substance your body makes by itself. This essential was misnamed back in the 1920s, when researchers were first discovering (more…)
Tags: antioxidants, getting healthy, Janice Stanger, Plant-based nutrition, rickets, vitamin D, whole foods
Posted in Health | 3 Comments »
Friday, December 31st, 2010
Learning to eat the healthiest diet is like learning to read. It's a process that takes time and patience. If you keep moving forward, you will succeed.
The Secret to This Journey Is One Step At a Time
Change is a learning process, not unlike mastering reading. You may remember developing your own reading skills, or maybe you’ve watched a child enjoy their increasing proficiency as they moved from one grade to another.
Generally, the student starts with learning the alphabet, reciting all the letters from A to Z. Then the child is taught the sound each letter makes. From there, he or she can start sounding out or recognizing simple words.
The child advances from kindergarten picture books to Shakespeare, but the process takes time, patience, and motivation. Certainly some ultra-gifted students can read difficult literature right after learning their ABC’s, but the vast majority of us can’t. We need to learn one step at a time.
Just as you became skilled at reading, you can master an eating plan that supports your health and a trim figure. Understanding and moving through five successive actions (more…)
Tags: Dr. Neal Barnard, effective action, getting healthy, Janice Stanger, lose weight, Plant-based nutrition, stages of change, weight loss, whole foods
Posted in Health | Comments Off on Five Actions You Must Take Now for Healthy Eating Success
Sunday, December 19th, 2010
Both smoking and animal foods can damage your heart and the arteries that feed it. Whole plant foods nourish your heart. Should be a simple choice.
And Two Important Ways They Are Different
The Surgeon General’s December 2010 report, How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease, is a gift for anyone interested in health. Of course, everyone knows that smoking is “bad.” This 727 page masterpiece vividly describes exactly how and why.
The Surgeon General has yet to release a report on the perils of animal foods. Yet compelling evidence shows striking similarities between smoking and eating meat, fish, dairy, and eggs. Here are twelve parallels between these dangerous habits.
1. Both smoking and animal foods damage your body through multiple mechanisms, including causing genetic changes, inflammation, and an increase in the free radicals that cause oxidative stress. Chronic illnesses, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, reproductive problems, and aggravation of diabetes are (more…)
Tags: cardiovascular disease, cigarettes, getting healthy, inflammation, nutrition facts, Plant-based nutrition, reverse chronic disease, Surgeon General's report, tobacco, whole foods
Posted in Health | 1 Comment »
Saturday, November 13th, 2010
You Don’t Need Fat From Dead Fish to Be Healthy
Every fish taken out of the sea by people can disrupt ecosystems. Dolphins and other animals and birds that must eat fish may then starve. Modern fishing practices are simply not sustainable.
Fish and fish oil hype is everywhere, inundating news stories, ads, and doctors’ offices. The fatty component of dead fish is touted as the magic bullet for just about any health concern, from cardiovascular disease to poor memory.
There’s only one problem with these claims – they are not true. However, the fish and fish oil ballyhoo does hold a core of important information. If you want to benefit, it’s critical to sort the fact from the fiction.
Here’s the deal. You need two types of essential fatty acids: omega-6s and omega-3s. These substances are called “essential” because they are necessary for health and you can get them only from food.
Omega-6s are generally pro-inflammatory. Inflammation is a normal body function necessary for survival. Acute inflammation fights off (more…)
Tags: essential fatty acids, fish, fish oil, getting healthy, hype, Janice Stanger, marine algae supplements, omega-3 fatty acids, omega-6 fatty acids, phytochemicals, Plant-based nutrition, whole foods
Posted in Health | Comments Off on Seven Reasons Omega-3s From Plants Clobber Fish and Fish Oil
Saturday, October 23rd, 2010
The Land of Sandy Autos: A Fable
If you pour sand in your engine, expect to spend a lot of time and money on car repair
People in the Land of Sandy Autos (LSA) start each morning taking care of their cars. The usual routine, which 99% of men and women embrace, is to mix a teaspoon of sand into a car’s fluids.
Each person has their own opinion of the best method to use, and the media buzz with experts. Some pour the sand directly into engine oil. Others swear it’s better to put the sand into the fuel tank, the brake fluid, transmission fluid, or some other target. A common strategy is to vary each day where to put the sand.
Car repair costs in LSA are out-of-control, increasing at a rate far higher than salary increases. As you are reading this, (more…)
Tags: getting healthy, Janice Stanger, Plant-based nutrition, reverse chronic disease, whole foods
Posted in Health | 1 Comment »
Saturday, October 16th, 2010
Vivid Orange Food that Is Fun to Play With
Pumpkins have a strong association with the supernatural. Yes,they are supernaturally healthful.
The traditional instruction from parents to “eat your food, don’t play with it” was not meant for pumpkins. These giant fruits, each with its own distinct form and personality, light up October with fun.
It’s hard to look at a pumpkin without smiling. These special plants give you something to smile about, because pumpkins are healthy in at least three ways.
First, pumpkins fascinate with their vivid color, intriguing forms, and range of possibilities. The idea of carving a jack-o-lantern brings out the kid in people of all ages. So pumpkins stimulate creativity.
Often the carving is a family project, an innocent way for parents, kids, siblings, and friends to work together cooperatively. The whole process ignites active engagement, fine motor skills, artistic talents, and joy. Contrast this with the passive and sedentary ways so many kids now spend much of their time. So pumpkins enhance (more…)
Tags: gardening, getting healthy, Halloween nostalgia, healthy Halloween, jack-o-lantern, Janice Stanger, nutrition facts, phytochemicals, Plant-based nutrition, pumpkins, vegetables, weight loss, whole foods
Posted in Health | Comments Off on Three Ways to Enjoy Healthy Pumpkins
