Posts Tagged ‘getting healthy’

Limiting Salt to Just the Right Amount

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

Sodium Demonstrates That More is Not Always Better

In April, an Institute of Medicine (IOM) report once again highlighted the health consequences of eating too much salt. The report’s recommendation that the FDA should regulate salt in restaurant and processed food is news. Repeating information that the sodium in salt worsens high blood pressure merely reinforced what the majority of people likely already had heard.

The most important lesson hidden in the IOM report is the message that, in achieving ideal nutrition, more is not always better.

You can grind gourmet or specialty salt, but these have just as much sodium as regular salt

You can grind gourmet or specialty salt, but these have just as much sodium as regular salt

You may not realize that you do need some sodium, an essential mineral, in your diet.

When dissolved in a fluid (as it is in your body), sodium becomes electrically charged and is called an electrolyte. Sodium is essential for muscle and nerve function. If you lose too much sodium (for example, through heavy sweating), you may experience weakness, nausea, vomiting, cramping, and seizures.

Barring major sodium loss, you don’t need to worry about getting enough of this mineral. In fact, although the USDA recommends maximum amounts of sodium to eat, they do not even bother to suggest a minimum amount. You will get all the sodium you need on just about any reasonable diet.

Your kidneys actively regulate the amount of sodium and other electrolytes in your blood. When you eat too much salt, you make your body’s task of regulating these substances way more difficult, and health consequences may be serious. Cells are damaged by either too much or too little sodium in the fluid surrounding them. We all understand and accept the fact that, for salt, more is not always better. But you might not know that this general principle applies to all nutrients. The fact is, your body is an exquisitely delicate and complex system designed to work within narrow limits. Your body wants to maintain (more…)

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Move Over Drugs – Horticulture Therapy is Green Healing

Saturday, April 24th, 2010

A Garden Boosts Both Nutrition and Health

June can’t arrive soon enough for me. I signed up for an introductory permaculture class held June 2nd and 5th at San Diego Botanic Garden in Encinitas. Permaculture is an approach to growing food that works with nature. Instead of attacking and attempting to overpower nature – always futile and destructive in the long run – permaculture works in harmony with natural law.

Sunflowers combine the cheerful beauty of flowers with a delicious crop

Sunflowers combine the cheerful beauty of flowers with a delicious crop

The result is food for people and habitat for birds and wildlife.

Permaculture seeks to connect people and nature in a seamless web. Horticulture therapy takes advantage of this principle as well, This therapy treats a variety of patients and ailments using gardens and gardening. The lush colors and textures of plants is a welcome respite from a sterile, institutional health care setting.

For example, hospitals may bring patients into the outdoors to tend plants as part of their rehabilitation program. Elderly nursing home residents gain strength planting, weeding, and cutting flowers. Mental health settings can incorporate gardening into group therapy. Even Alzheimers disease patients become less anxious and more focused when engaged with nature.

You don’t need to wait until you are a patient to take advantage of the healing power of gardening. Growing plants is therapeutic for many reasons. First, and most obvious, is the exercise. Gardening may involve walking, lifting, bending, stooping, digging, and other physical tasks. Even tasks that are not strenuous add up when you do them frequently or over a (more…)

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Linking Nutrition and Health: 25 Expert Tips

Saturday, April 17th, 2010

Useful News from the Vital Signs Workshop

Five pioneering researchers with one critical message shared their knowledge at the Vital Signs workshop on April 10, 2010. This event, put together by the awesome nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) was packed with compelling new information in nutrition and health.

A food as simple and tasty as oatmeal with fruit, nuts, and dairy-free milk will set you strong on the road to health

A food as simple and tasty as oatmeal with fruit, nuts, and dairy-free milk will set you strong on the road to health

Here are highlights of five useful tips from each of the five presenters. If you missed the workshop and want to learn more, PCRM has generously posted the slides.

Lawrence H. Kushi, Sc.D. summarized the findings of thousands of studies.

1. The American Cancer Society emphasizes whole plant foods (including five or more servings daily of fruits and vegetables), exercise, and a healthy weight to prevent cancer.

2. The World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research report reinforces the importance of a varied whole foods, plant-based diet, physical activity, and lean weight in preventing and fighting cancer.

3. This report also recommends avoiding red meat, processed meat, alcohol, and salty foods.

4. Eating lots of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains helps prevent obesity and weight gain.

5. It’s silly to put meat and beans in the same food group. You are best off just eating the beans. We (more…)

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Eat More, Wrinkle Less

Sunday, April 11th, 2010

Prevent Wrinkles with Whole Foods – And Protect Your Health in the Process

Your skin, your largest and heaviest organ, mirrors the health of your body. Your 20 pounds or more of skin protect you, regulate body temperature, make essential chemicals, and allow you to feel touch, temperature, and pressure.

Changes in skin with aging are normal. Premature wrinkles, though, can be a marker for a poor diet.

Changes in skin with aging are normal. Premature wrinkles, though, can be a marker for a poor diet.

The complexity of your skin is dazzling and important to appreciate. In just one square inch of skin you have about 500 sweat glands, 1,000 nerve endings, yards of tiny blood vessels for nourishment, 100 oil glands, 150 pressure sensors, and millions of cells. This intricate structure is separated into an inner and outer layer of skin. Each layer, in turn, has its own distinct architecture of many additional layers.

The deeper skin layer has both tough and stretchy protein fibers. As you age, your skin becomes thinner and less elastic. The protein fibers have less ability to bind water to keep your skin plumped.

Wrinkles form. While these marks of long life can be beautiful, the larger concern is that premature skin aging signals poor eating habits that can impair longevity and enjoyment of life. A diet rich in whole plant foods shields your skin from damage that can lead to wrinkling. Here’s why.

Radiation from the sun or a tanning booth causes free radicals to form. These are electrically charged particles that can damage cells in your skin.

Note free radicals emerge as part of normal metabolism, so all your cells (skin included) are bombarded by these hazardous particles even without (more…)

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10 Tips for a Healthy Foods Diet When Traveling

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

Enjoying Whole Foods on a Trip Does Not Have to be Difficult

While some people find travel to be the high point of the year, others loathe it as a necessary evil. Regardless of where you fall on this spectrum (I’m about in the middle), you may dread the hunt for healthy food when traveling. You may be tempted to just grab

You may be traveling far from home. You can do a lot better than the usual airline or airport food by bringing your own.

You may be traveling far from home. You can do a lot better than the usual airline or airport food by bringing your own.

whatever is convenient, even if you are usually on a whole foods diet.

At home, you have all the advantages. You’ll probably get hungry at predictable times, and can stock your pantry and refrigerator in advance. You know where to shop to get the vegetables, fruits, beans, potatoes, and whole grains that are the foundation for satisfying whole foods throughout the day. You can cook in familiar surroundings with all the pots, pans, and kitchen knick knacks you want. Your favorite restaurants with the food choices you like are nearby.

You may think it’s not a problem to just eat whatever is handy when away from home. The thinking is that the trip is only temporary, so you will restart healthy eating when it’s convenient. The problems with this reasoning (more…)

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Science-Based Nutrition and Health

Saturday, March 27th, 2010

The Perfect Formula Diet and Why It Works

Your body operates according to biological laws you can’t simply wish away. All the food plates and pyramids, diet books, and media outlets in the world cannot change the fact that you are meant to thrive on a whole foods, plant-based diet. Good nutrition is simple, just the way nature meant it to be.

Burritos andbrown rice are great whole foods on the Perfect Formula Diet. Enjoy.

Burritos and brown rice are great whole foods on the Perfect Formula Diet. Enjoy.

Every trip to the supermarket or restaurant gives you three choices. You can select animal foods, manufactured foods, or Perfect Foods.

  • Animal foods are the muscles, organs, reproductive materials, and secretions of animals
  • Manufactured foods are factory products made by processing or genetically modifying plants. Some manufactured foods skip the plants altogether and are simply chemicals
  • Perfect foods are whole plant foods in their natural form or else cooked and combined in someones kitchen

The Perfect Formula Diet gives you a specific method to combine six kinds of whole foods to assure (more…)

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Can “Natural” and “Product” Really Coexist?

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

Natural Product Expo West Is 300,000 Square Feet of Contradictions

The Anaheim Convention Center is host this weekend to Natural Product Expo West, an extravaganza of almost 2,000 exhibitors capitalizing on people’s desire to reconnect with nature and save the planet. While consumers have pure motives, the marketers and their offerings are a contradictory group.

This is nature

This is nature

I attended the Expo to see if the concepts of “natural” and “product” can really be married. After all, natural is from nature – that much is obvious. But a product, by definition, is manmade and saleable. So it seems a natural product would be an oxymoron.

This is nature packaged

This is nature packaged

The exhibitors with the easiest job of realizing the natural product concept were the clothing companies. Humans do need to wear clothes to survive in most climates (and avoid arrest). The range of organic cotton, hemp, and other plant fibers was heartening. Hopefully we will find more choices made from these fabrics in mainstream clothing stores.

The range of personal care and cleaning products made solely or mostly from natural ingredients (as (more…)

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Whole Foods: The Secret You Discover for Yourself

Friday, March 12th, 2010

A Healthy Foods Diet Doesn’t Stoke Industry Profits, Hence the Orthorexia Label

Vegetables. Fruits. Tasty beans. Satisfying baked potatoes and whole grains. Crunchy fresh nuts. Fragrant herbs and spices. Are you forming a picture of a delicious day of eating? Are you imagining vibrant health, a trim figure, and a sustainable garden or small family farm?

Wouldn't you think this is a healthy, delicious choice?

Wouldn't you think this is a healthy, delicious choice?

Well, according to certain “experts,” this kind of diet is downright sick. Believe it or not, there is increased media attention on a fake “eating disorder” called orthorexia. Sufferers of this “disorder” are accused of eating the most unprofitable foods – fresh from the soil, cooked at home, simple and naturally appealing. Such whole foods provide little opportunity for big business to make a buck on your ruining your health or big pharma to make a buck (or several billion of them) selling you the pills to fix the effects of the manufactured foods.

When I first read about this “disorder,” quite honestly I thought it was a joke. However, although not an official medical diagnosis, medical sources do discuss and debate orthorexia and (more…)

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Whole Foods for Health and Weight Loss Make All the Difference

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

Kathy’s Weight Loss Success Can Be Yours Too

At age 65, Kathy Keller is more active than many people half her age. Although recently retired, she rarely takes time to pause. Her pursuits include chasing after her energetic 3 year old granddaughter, overseeing a major remodeling project, frequent travel, and almost daily volunteer commitments.

Kathy describes the typical foods she grew up with as “the standard American diet of the Midwest.” Her childhood staples included white bread, whole milk, meat, fried chicken, eggs, Velveeta, canned fish, ice cream, and pies. She also developed a taste for some

Kathy is an inspiration for the power of commitment

Kathy is an inspiration for the power of commitment

healthy foods, though, in peanut butter, home grown vegetables, and salad.

In the late 1980s, Kathy’s teenage son became vegetarian, and she decided that was the food path for her to follow as well. Six years ago, she discovered macrobiotics and became “more rigorous” about a whole foods diet based on organic, locally grown food and including miso, umeboshi plums, and sea vegetables. Here, in Kathy’s words, is how lifestyle choices impacted her health and weight.

“My health has been generally good since becoming vegetarian 22 years ago. However, having a sedentary/high stress lifestyle while I worked (retired 2007), over-indulging my sweet tooth, continuing to eat fish and dairy foods, not getting enough exercise, and aging all contributed to a 30 to 35 pound weight gain over the last five years. The Perfect Formula Diet has been instrumental in reversing this negative trend. I lost 10 pounds in my first three weeks of following this diet scrupulously… With The Perfect Formula Diet, I’ve lost weight that I needed to lose; I enjoy what I eat and am more satisfied after eating; I no longer get ravenously hungry between meals; I take pleasure in cooking for myself and others; and I feel good about the food choices that I make.”

Commitment has been absolutely critical to Kathy’s success. She makes sure she always has whole plant foods available and charts her success to maintain her resolve.

Kathy’s caring for others shows up in her food choices as much as in her service in a soup kitchen for the homeless. “Our small planet is burdened in so many ways: lower yield per acre than is optimal to feed an ever-growing population; environmental damage from (more…)

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Green Recipes for Health and Weight Loss Success

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

Convenient Ideas for Endless Great Eating With Whole Foods

Whole foods are so tasty that, if you are not into cooking, you can still have excellent not-meals with little kitchen time. For example, after work, one of my favorite quick dinners is green lentils with vegetables on a whole grain tortilla.

The lentils cook from their dry form in about 40 minutes. I mix them with freshly steamed or leftover brown rice or some frozen organic corn. Then spoon onto the whole grain tortilla with some chopped leafy greens, salsa, and/or spices. Steamed fresh vegetables round out a super simple but yummy and filling start to an energetic evening.

Sometimes, though, I want a more elaborate taste experience. Just as important, I find chopping and mixing colorful whole foods to

Working with beautiful whole foods is fun and relaxing

Working with beautiful whole foods is fun and relaxing

be relaxing and fun. If you never liked cooking before, you may change your mind when you go the whole foods route.

Want cooking ideas? An unbeatable site for thousands of whole foods recipes is fatfreevegan.com. This super blog is friendly, fun, and overflowing with enough recipes to keep you happily hanging around your kitchen for years.

This site features food photos that will make you hungry if you aren’t already. The advanced search function helps you find a recipe to use up ingredients that are filling your garden or refrigerator. The home page has an extensive, convenient list of five star recipes.

Cooking ideas are conveniently grouped into categories either by ingredients (such as beans (more…)

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