Posts Tagged ‘Janice Stanger’
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 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…)
Tags: getting healthy, high blood pressure, Janice Stanger, nutrition facts, Plant-based nutrition, salt, sodium, vegetables, whole foods
Posted in Plant-based nutrition | Comments Off on Limiting Salt to Just the Right Amount
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
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…)
Tags: getting healthy, horticulture therapy, Janice Stanger, permaculture, Plant-based nutrition, San Diego Botanical Gardens, vegetables, whole foods
Posted in Green spaces | 1 Comment »
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
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…)
Tags: Dr. Dean Ornish, Dr. John McDougall, Dr. Lawrence Kushi, Dr. Mark Messina, Dr. Neal Barnard, getting healthy, Janice Stanger, lose weight, nutrition facts, PCRM, Plant-based nutrition, process of change, vegetables, Vital Signs workshop, whole foods
Posted in Plant-based nutrition | 1 Comment »
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.
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…)
Tags: antioxidants, free radicals, getting healthy, Janice Stanger, nutrition facts, Plant-based nutrition, skin, vegetables, whole foods, wrinkles
Posted in Plant-based nutrition | Comments Off on Eat More, Wrinkle Less
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.
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…)
Tags: getting healthy, global warming, Janice Stanger, making a difference now, Plant-based nutrition, reverse chronic disease, travel, vegetables, whole foods
Posted in Plant-based nutrition | 1 Comment »
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 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…)
Tags: getting healthy, Janice Stanger, lose weight, nutrition facts, Perfect Formula Diet, Plant-based nutrition, process of change, reverse chronic disease, weight loss
Posted in Plant-based nutrition | 5 Comments »
Saturday, March 20th, 2010
Bill McKibben and 350.org Can Magnify and Speed Their Impact
Bill McKibben, leading the international climate campaign 350.org, urged an attentive audience at Natural Products Expo West to make a difference for the future of the planet. Over 5200 demonstrations, which circled the globe in 181 countries on October 24, 2009, show grassroots understanding of the need to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide to no more than 350 parts per million. The current level of 390 parts per million, rising with no end in sight, spells catastrophe for life on earth as we know it.
The most significant part of the talk was McKibben’s answer to an audience question. One woman asked why 350.org does not include a truly sustainable diet as a critical action item in the campaign. She pointed out that a recent analysis by Worldwatch Institute demonstrates that 51% of greenhouse gases are directly traceable to raising animals for food.
The effect of these native ruminants, in an intact ecosystem, on greenhouse gases is in no way like the impact of cows
The obvious solution to getting at least halfway to the goal of stopping climate change is simple, rapid, and no cost – eat a plant-based diet.
In his response, McKibben acknowledged that factory farming animals is a huge cause of climate change. However, he was not advocating immediate action to change diet. Instead, he advanced the idea that a carbon tax, once enacted, would make factory farmed animals so expensive that meat would be priced out of the range of most people. This would happen because people in the animal foods business would have to pay the “true cost” of their carbon impact.
McKibben also theorized that “grass fed cattle” could actually be helpful in reducing greenhouse gases. The theory is that, as large animals roam and trample vegetation into the soil, the ground itself stores carbon and keeps it from (more…)
Tags: 350.org, Bill McKibben, Climate change, environmental degradation, global warming, greenhouse gases, Janice Stanger, making a difference now, Natural Products Expo West, Plant-based nutrition, process of change, water pollution, water shortages, whole foods
Posted in Climate change | Comments Off on Every Bite of Food Pushes Greenhouse Gases Up or Down
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
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
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…)
Tags: environmental degradation, getting healthy, Janice Stanger, making a difference now, Natural Products Expo West, Plant-based nutrition, whole foods
Posted in Plant-based nutrition | Comments Off on Can “Natural” and “Product” Really Coexist?
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?
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…)
Tags: getting healthy, healthy desserts, Janice Stanger, orthorexia, Plant-based nutrition, reverse chronic disease, weight loss, whole foods
Posted in Plant-based nutrition | 2 Comments »
Saturday, March 6th, 2010
“Global Warming” is Real, But The Reality Goes Far Beyond Warming
With a frigid winter chilling much of the country and heavy snows setting new records, people have an easy time concluding that global warming is just a myth. Maybe you, or people you know, think it’s a scientific theory that did not pan out.
Record snows lead the way in climate change
In fact, once you understand global warming, you may be alarmed that all the snow so far is just a taste of what is to come over the next decade. “Global warming” indicates that the earth’s temperature, on average, is rising. It does not mean it will always be hotter in every location on each day of the year.
“Climate destabilization” and “climate change” are both more accurate descriptors of the weather shaping up worldwide. Average temperature, evaporation, wind and ocean current patterns, and forests, among many other factors, determine the complexity of weather day by day. Over time, weather on each day forms the overall pattern that is climate.
We are used to a specific climate pattern throughout the year in different parts of the globe. As those patterns shift with rising greenhouse gas concentrations and subsequent higher average temperature, weather will become more extreme. Hot places will get hotter, but the cold will get colder. Droughts and floods will (more…)
Tags: global warming, greenhouse gases, Janice Stanger, making a difference now, Plant-based nutrition, snow, whole foods
Posted in Climate change | Comments Off on Heavy Snows Are Signs of Climate Destabilization
