Posts Tagged ‘whole foods’

Justice and Sustainability on Martin Luther King Day

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

Dr. King’s Great Words Bolster Commitment to Healthy Eating for All

Great leaders inspire great effort. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a profound and moving orator. His speeches inspired millions to rise above their own limited concerns and work for the greater good, for justice, liberty, and equality.

If you are seeking change for the better in your own life, think about Dr. King’s words, “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”

Another inspiring Dr. King quote is “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”

The most fundamental justice is to ensure that all have the basic necessities. As long as some are not adequately fed, those who care must be committed to end this injustice.

Nourishing food for hungry people...or wasted as animal feed?

Nourishing food for hungry people...or wasted as animal feed?

In October 2009, the United Nations estimated over a billion people were undernourished, with the number not having enough to eat rising every year. At least five million children a year die from the effects of too little food. The desperately poor cannot afford food when its price increases by an amount that would be insignificant to wealthier people.

You may be wishing you ate a healthier diet, but have not quite gotten around to consistently basing your meals on whole plant foods. Paradoxically, the best way to build commitment to your own well-being is to look to ethical concerns and purpose outside yourself.

When you eat animal foods, such as meat, milk, and eggs, there are two to sixteen pounds of plant foods hidden in every pound of the animal food. Most of the nutrients in these plants, including protein, vitamins, minerals, and calories, are lost when the plant is eaten. Animals use these nutrients for their own metabolism and survival. The meat is a pale remnant of the whole plant food the animal ate. All the phytochemicals – beneficial plant nutrients (more…)

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Healthy People 2010: The Decade that Wasn’t

Friday, January 8th, 2010

Let’s Reach Our Goals, Not Lower Them

Imagine you are on a team that is not winning nearly as many games as you’d like to. So you set some goals that will get you to first place if you achieve them. But your team has no game plan and just practices at random. When the big game comes, your score has actually deteriorated.

What do you do now? Revisit how to achieve your goals? Set up a realistic plan? Imagine that instead of continuing to pursue your dreams, you decide to simply pick less able teams to play against so your problems won’t be so obvious.

Few would want to play on such a lackluster team. This strategy of diminishing goals does seem to appeal to the nation’s health navigators, though.

Every ten years, the federal government sets health goals for the upcoming decade. From 2000 through 2010 though, the country did not fare very well in getting to optimum health. In fact, only about one in five of the goals for Healthy People 2010 appears to have been met.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, responsible for the Healthy People program that started in the 1970s, will likely set lower goals for 2020 than it did for 2010. This is the official response to the nation’s poor performance in achieving the targets set for 2010.

Our children rely on us to point the way to lifelong health and vigor

Our children rely on us to point the way to lifelong health and vigor

As a country, we ended up going downhill on critical goals. Most importantly, obesity increased from about a quarter of all adults in 2000 to 34 percent in 2010. Obesity is the result of poor food choices, and there is no coordinated effort to educate people on the power of whole foods.

Our children are relying on us to shoot for optimum health. Let’s aim high and make a plan to get there. Plant-based nutrition is a major part of the solution, and would address virtually all goals to reduce chronic illness and risk factors. With such a straightforward way to get to the top, why settle for anything less? In the meantime, why wait for the government to wake up. You can move forward and improve your health, and your family’s, today.  Your next meal is the starting point for your own Healthy People program.

Intrigued? Now you can use our Whole Foods Blog Finder to target informative, fun postings on plant-based nutrition. Quick information at no cost!

Blog by Janice Stanger, Ph.D. Janice authored The Perfect Formula Diet, a nutrition book built on sustainable food choices. Enjoy six kinds of whole foods for permanent, hunger-free weight loss and health.

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A Whole Foods New Year’s Tradition that Tastes Great

Friday, January 1st, 2010

Black-eyed Peas and Greens Are Fun and Healthy

The Southern tradition of eating black-eyed peas and greens on New Year’s Day is now widespread. Prosperity and luck throughout the year are the promised benefits. The peas (actually a kind of bean) symbolize coins, while the greens stand for dollars.

Eating this combo at New Year’s started about the time the Civil War was ending. Union soldiers spared the humble black-eyed peas as they confiscated or destroyed other crops in the South.

Black-eyed peas are the stars on New Year's

Black-eyed peas are the stars on New Year's

Had the troops understood the outstanding health benefits of black-eyed peas they might have targeted this food as well. This legume shares the same health benefits as other beans, filling you up and satisfying your appetite. The beans are a nutritional powerhouse, rich in minerals, complex carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins, protein, and phytochemicals.

Just as important, black-eyed peas and greens are easy to cook and there are so many fun variations on the basic dish. Here is the recipe I made for 2010.

Any Day of the Year Black-Eyes Peas and Greens

The ingredients are: (more…)

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Thanksgiving: A Time for Gratitude and Feasting

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

Whole Foods at the Holidays Show Love and Abundance

Thanksgiving is a time for abundance. While many may find Thanksgiving without turkey to be lacking, an animal-free holiday maximizes love, caring, and great food.

My favorite celebration is an annual Thanksgiving potluck in a casual San Diego home. The hosts are committed to a plant-based diet; so the many choices people bring are animal-free. Some of the dishes crowding every corner of three large tables were Tofurky® (of course) with gravy, several kinds of potatoes, large pans of stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce, quinoa salads, polenta with pesto sauce and tomatoes, vegetables of all types,

Polenta topped with pesto, tomato, walnuts, and peppers was a huge hit at our animal-free Thanksgiving

Polenta topped with pesto, tomato, walnuts, and peppers was a huge hit at our animal-free Thanksgiving

yams, pasta dishes, garlic bread, rice paper rolls with spicy sauce, and way more. Too much to even take a forkful of everything.

A separate dessert table tempted with about eight pies of all types, several kinds of cookies, brownies, and cakes.

I basked on a sunny deck with dozens of relaxed friends, all enjoying the food, weather, and each other’s company. Laughter and quiet conversation created a pleasant background. A few dogs, ranging from an American bulldog to a standard poodle to a tiny Katrina rescue, roamed from person to person looking for pets and approval (and maybe a bit of Tofurky®).

For most of my life, I would have shuddered at a turkey-free Thanksgiving. I was the one who ate mounds of meat at dinner and nibbled at the leftovers for days.

Now I revel that Thanksgiving is animal-free. I LOVE a turkey-free thanksgiving. Then I can truly be grateful for the wonderful gifts in my life without damaging my own health or the planet. The food that would have gone to feed the turkey is now available to others, hungry and less fortunate, who deserve their own abundance. And I can eat way too much of the tastiest foods on earth – without guilt.

Intrigued? Now you can use our Whole Foods Blog Finder to target informative, fun postings on plant-based nutrition. Quick information at no cost!

Blog posting by Janice Stanger, Ph.D. Janice authored The Perfect Formula Diet, the smart person’s nutrition book built on sustainable food choices. Enjoy six kinds of whole foods for permanent, hunger-free weight loss and health.

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