The All Natural Fad

So as happy as a I am that eating all natural healthy food is going mainstream, it also means it’s turning into a fad. Just like the low fat fad and the no carb fad. It gets taken out of context and the next thing you know, you’ll find snickers bars with a label saying “all natural” or “filled with omega 3s”…Excuse my language, but it’s complete bs…

Processed food 99% of the time is not all natural. Sure it might have some so called natural ingredients, but chances are that it’s filled with chemical preservatives too. There’s not much regulation when it comes to labeling food, that’s why you’ll find all natural labels on some ridiculous items. Just go to your grocery store and keep an eye out for all natural labels and see what you find.  Then take a close look at the ingredients.  If there are ingredients that you have no idea what they are or if there’s a long list of ingredients chances are they contain chemicals.

Another way to get the all natural label is by using an ingredient that at one time came from something natural but has been concentrated in a lab to become completely unnatural.  For example, high fructose corn syrup originally came from corn.  Corn is all natural and isn’t bad for you, right?  But when the sugars from corn are extracted and concentrated in a lab to become more potent to produce high fructose corn syrup, then that’s definitely not at all natural.  This is just one example, but there are countless other natural occurring ingredients and plants that have been manipulated in lab to create something quite unhealthy.

Eating all natural is supposed to be exactly that…eating unprocessed foods like vegetables, fruits and whole grains.  The only time there is an occurrence of an all natural processed food is when you’re buying real whole grain bread or shredded wheat from Trader Joes for instance.  The only ingredients in the shredded wheat is whole wheat and vitamin e.  The bread contains organic high protein sprouted wheat berries, honey, filtered water, wheat gluten, fresh yeast, soy lecithin, and sea salt.    So what makes this bread okay to eat and not others?   It’s made from organic wheat berries which means none of the nutrients have been stripped and the rest of the ingredients are pretty straight forward.  The only questionable ones to me are wheat gluten and soy lecithin because I’m not familiar with them.  But I did do some research on both.  Wheat gluten is basically what’s left of the wheat after all the starch has been washed out of it, leaving a gummy textured gluten which I’m assuming is used as a binding agent.  The soy lecithin is an extract from soy normally used in very small amounts to act as a emulsifier and is generally “supposed to be harmless and maybe even good for you”.  Well, I guess it’s hard to find completely all natural processed food unless you make it from scratch yourself.  Regardless, this bread is probably way healthier than anything you’d find in the mainstream supermarkets.

Bottom line, don’t fall for the all natural labels.  Research and read the ingredients.  Try to shop at Trader Joes or any local health food store, as they usually have higher quality food than large grocery chains…but regardless, still read the ingredients!  Lastly, make the bulk of your diet real food like veggies, fruits and unprocessed whole grains.

Vegetarian Vs. Vegan or Gasp…Neither?

In the past year and a half I have gone from heavy meat eater to light meat eater to vegetarian to vegan (tried for three days) to pescatarian ( no meat, just fish). Yes, I have tried it all this past year and learned a lot. It gets pretty confusing with all the information out there about eating vegan and getting my emotions involved about not wanting to kill animals…ughhh…but you know, I’ve been thinking about it and here are my final thoughts.

The main reason I don’t eat meat is because there’s just so much evidence out there linking meat with diseases like cancer and heart disease. We all know Americans are huge meat eaters. Most people have it at least everyday, if not in all three meals. I used to eat meat in almost every lunch and dinner up to about a year ago. Then I educated myself on eating healthy not just trying to lose weight. Every book I read said to limit your meat intake, not necessarily exclude it all together.

I also became sort of obsessed with adopting the same diet as those communities that have a high number of active, healthy older generations and centenarians (those over one hundred years old). In these communities it is normal for people to live up into their 90s doing what they’ve always done like gardening, cooking, cleaning, being active outside, etc. Then I compared that to what is normal for people here in the U.S. which is by the time they get into their late 70s, early 80s, most Americans start to develop major health problems and many cannot care for themselves.

So after reading many books on these subjects it became evident to me that your diet affects the quality of life you will have when you get old. The Standard American Diet in mainly protein from meat, little carbohydrates and little veggies and fruit. If you want to take it even further, The Standard American Diet is full of processed foods with chemicals and preservatives. Compare that to the long living cultures I read about who ate a diet mainly of veggies, fruits, whole grain, little fish, little diary and very little meat. You see, these cultures pretty much grew everything themselves, fished themselves, and slaughtered the meat they ate. They truly had to work for what they ate, here we have everything in abundance available to us. But just because it’s there, doesn’t mean you should eat in abundance…

So here’s my dilemma. I read about all of this and my decision was to eat mainly whole grains and veggies, cut the meat intake down to about once a week and no junk food! So I did that, lost 10 lbs within a month that I didn’t even know I had to lose and I felt great. I’m cooking all the time and I’m loving it. Then, I see the movie Fast Food Nation. Have you seen it? Needless to say, it’s about the f***** up meat industry. Great movie, very interesting and I’m glued to the T.V. watching it. Then the last scene comes and it’s real footage of a cow getting slaughtered and they show everything. Everything you don’t want to think about when you bite into a hamburger.

After seeing that, I decided I just couldn’t eat meat. You see, before when I ate meat I would just look at it for what it was, a piece of meat. It didn’t even cross my mind that what I was eating used to be a living, breathing cow. Now when I look at meat, all I see is the animal it used to be. So after seeing the movie, I went to the PETA site and watched Meet Your Meat, a short documentary on the meat industry. This introduced me to all the abuse towards the animals before they’re even killed. Not to mention, how the dairy industry totally supports the veal industry. I felt so bad for the animals that I went from being a vegetarian for about a day to being a vegan.

Well that didn’t last long. Being a vegan is definitely difficult. Pretty much forget going out to eat. And on top of that, all that soy vegan food that supposed to taste like meat is full of chemicals and preservatives. So I think I was a vegan for about 3 days. I decided to stick with just being vegetarian at that time, but I still felt like my body was missing some key nutrients. I was getting my protein from combining foods, but I was easily getting sick and didn’t feel that full of energy.

The thing is, the healthiest my body felt throughout this whole process was when I was eating a MAINLY vegetarian diet, but with a little fish and meat every once in awhile. So lately I’ve been reevaluating my reasons for not eating meat. Number one is that I don’t think our bodies were meant to eat a lot of meat. First of all we are not made to attack an animal like others do in the wild, but we are smart enough to hunt and slaughter an animal. I do believe that for most people it’s okay to eat meat once in a while meaning no more than twice a week. For me, I eat it about once a month or so just because I’ve pretty much lost my taste for it. The only time I truly eat it is if someone I know has worked hard on a meal that includes meat like on Easter or Christmas. Then I’ll eat it, but only if it’s organic.

I’m not totally against eating meat, but I am totally against factory farming and the amount of meat that most Americans eat. If I’m going to eat it, it has to be from a organic free range farm. I don’t believe animals should live their lives in cages only to be slaughtered so people can have their bacon and hamburgers. I’m all about the natural circle of life. Some animals are meant to eat only meat, others only grains and veggies. Us humans are naturally meant to eat mainly grains and veggies with a LITTLE protein from fish and animals. There is so much written evidence of this…check out the books The China Study, The Okinawa Program, 50 Secrets of the Longest Living People…they all have real studies on real thriving communities that have eaten like this for centuries. Now think about all your grandparents or great grandparents…how many of them have lived well into their 90s or longer with no major health problems and have died peacefully because of old age. I can tell you none of mine have. We are taught that living into our 80s is old. These books beg to differ saying the maximum human life expectancy could be up to 120 years if we treat our bodies right with balance diet.

So I’ve come to the conclusion that eating a little bit of meat is okay as long as you know where it comes from. Therefore, if you don’t know where your meat is from, I wouldn’t recommend eating it. I’m still very passionate about animal cruelty and it might sound like I’m contradicting myself, but I’m trying to give my body what it needs as a human. I think instead of giving up meat altogether, that if most people limited their meat intake, it would make a major difference in the meat industry, the environment and our health.

Why Got Milk Sucks

As long as I can remember there as always been Got Milk ads.  When I was young, the ads showed a little kid growing bigger and bigger into a strong healthy adult because he drank milk.  Now since our society is so celebrity obsessed, the ads have shown countless celebrities with milk mustaches.  While the ads are cute, the notion that milk is actually good for you is a total hoax.

I don’t know if you know this, but milk is really not good to drink as an adult.  Let’s just use our common sense here; what other mammal naturally drinks milk as an adult?  None!  No other animal drinks milk after they are weened from their mother’s milk.  Naturally after animals are weened, they drink water.  So why the heck do humans drink milk?

The only reason we drink milk is that we are able to raise livestock.  This is an industry that makes a lot of money because they’ve convinced most Americans that milk is actually healthy, that you need milk to get your calcium.  Actually dairy clogs up our system and can cause a lot of harm.

Why is milk not healthy?

According to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, milk is the number one cause of allergies in children.  Dairy produces mucus in humans and can lead to chronic colds, asthma and coughing.  Studies have shown that children with allergies that removed milk from their diet eliminated their allergies.

According to the American Journal of Nutrition, a study of children in 40 countries showed that the high the consumption of dairy and other animal products including cow’s milk, the higher the risk of getting diabetes.

75% of the world’s population is lactose intolerant.  Being lactose intolerant means that you do not have the lactose enzymes in your body to digest milk and dairy products.  Really the only people that genetically  have these enzymes are Northern Europeans and other parts of Europe, although many people in the Mediterranean are lactose intolerant.  Most people lose these enzymes after weening which is completely normal.

Milk does not have any nutrients that cannot be found in healthier food.  Milk has not been proven to prevent osteoporosis.  There are many countries in the world that eat very little dairy and have much lower rates of osteoporosis.  More and more studies show that a high protein diet like we eat here in the U.S. is a major cause of osteoporosis.  Animal products, including dairy and milk, have no complex carbohydrates and are filled with saturated fats which leads to heart disease and cancer among others.  No wonder there are such high rates of these diseases because here we are told since we are kids to drink milk and get your protein from meat.  What a fraud.

The thing that kills me the most is that we are all brainwashed by this multi-billion dollar industry that it’s actually healthy when there’s so much evidence that it’s not.  Instead of listening to nature and using our common sense we drink milk because Beyonce said it makes her a strong woman.

Not only is cow’s milk not good for humans but the process in which we get it very abusive to cows.  Female cows are artificially impregnated over and over again to produce unnatural amounts of milk.  Their babies are taken away to veal farms to be slaughtered.  But all we see are the glamorous ads with some celebrity we admire saying “Got Milk?”

I’m sure everyone knows there are so many alternatives to cow’s milk, the best being soy milk.  Let me tell you, soy milk tastes soooo much better than real milk. It’s so much better for you too. You will be doing your body a world of difference if you cut out cow’s milk and limit your dairy.

For more info on the harmful affects of cow’s milk check out milksucks.com.

Sweet Health Benefits of Honey

Honey is has so many health benefits, it’s hard to believe.  It’s good for your insides, good for your skin and taste delicious.  I used to just eat honey because it tastes good, but after doing something research it’s clear that’s it’s much more than just sweet.

Honey has been used for years as an antibacterial medicine and to treat burns.  Before modern medicine people had to find things in nature to treat ailments.  Honey was one nature’s go to medicines and it’s still a healthy alternative to use today.

Burns and cuts

Back in the day before modern skin grafting, when people got burned they would apply honey to the burn and cover it with a bandage.  How does honey help?  First, honey is antibacterial and antimicrobial so bacteria cannot grow in it.  Second, honey absorbs excess water from inflamed tissue which reduces swelling.  Now, if you get a serious burn, by all means go to the doctor, but for a little burn or cut, try using honey to heal it.

Anti bacterial qualities

Honey’s anti bacterial qualities are twice as effective when diluted with water.  Honey actually helps your teeth believe it or not.  It kills dental plaque bacteria and blocks growth of new bacteria.  Have a sore throat?  Drink a hot cup of honey and water to sooth inflamed throat tissue and kill bacteria.

Skin Care

Honey has been used since the ancient times for skin care.  Ever notice all the skin care products available with honey in it?  Why not go straight to the source instead of spending a ton of money on a product that you already have in your kitchen pantry?

Use honey to wash your face.  I know this sounds kinds of funny, but yes, you can use honey to wash your face day and night.  Honey removes dirt from your pores, kills bacteria that causes acne, reduces redness and inflammation and leaves your face glowing.  It literally gets rid of blackheads too, it’s amazing.  You can leave it on for 5 to 10 minutes as a mask and just rinse it off.  Depending on the time of the year, you might not even need a moisturizer after.

There are so many homemade facial recipes out there that contain honey.  For example you can use honey with oatmeal as an exfoliator or honey and cucumbers for a extra hydrating mask. Another good one is honey and milk which gets rid of dead skin due to milk’s natural alpha hydroxyl acids.  But there are soooo many other combinations out there you can find by googling “honey facials”.

Other Benefits

Honey is great for treating allergies, soothing an upset stomach, is easy to digest, cleanses blood, clears conjunctivitis, reduces stress, helps with insomnia, lowers bad cholesterol, prevents osteoporosis, helps with infertility by increasing sperm count, and lowers blood pressure.

And just a word of advice, it is common knowledge never to feed honey to infants under a year old because it can cause infant botulism (food poisoning).  Check with your doctor to see when it’s okay to start feeding your children honey.

Also, only buy cold press raw honey which retains all of it’s natural nutrients.  Buy organic honey if possible. Most honey sold in stores has been heated which kills the beneficial nutrients of honey.

Benefits of a Mediterranean Diet

Mediterranean food is probably my favorite kind of food.  I eat it everyday and I don’t get sick of it.  And it’s really, really good for you!

The Mediterranean consists of Spain, Southern France, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria and Morocco.  All of these countries border the Mediterranean Sea and it connects Europe, the Middle East (part of Asia) and Africa together.  It’s such a diverse area, but at the same time the food from all these countries have a lot of similarities.

In countless studies, the Mediterranean diet has been proven to lower blood pressure, lower bad cholesterol and raise good cholesterol, lower the risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity and extends your life.  If you’re looking for a way to lose weight and be healthy, it might be a good idea to eat a more Mediterranean based diet.

What’s consistent throughout the Mediterranean diet is fresh fruit, veggies, whole grains, fermented dairy, fish and a little meat.  Traditionally many of the people in this area grew their own food and raised their own meat.  Because they couldn’t just go to the store to buy steak or chicken, red meat was eaten maybe once or twice a month and poultry once a week.  This is actually very beneficial because it limits their intake of saturated fats (bad fat) significantly.

To get their daily intake of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats (good fats) people in this area eat a lot of olive oil and fish.  Olive oil has been known to lower cholesterol and blood pressure.  I pretty much use it on everything from my brown rice bowls to pasta to fish to sauteed veggies to sandwiches.  It’s also an excellent substitute for butter.  Since the area of the Mediterranean is surrounded by water, fish high in omega 3 fats are eaten multiple times a week.

The bulk of this diet though is veggies and whole grains.  Remember that most of these people back in the day grew all their own food and didn’t have much money so they were pretty much forced to eat a lot of veggies.  All for the best though because we all know how good they are for us!  There are such a variety of veggies and the things you can make with them too that you should try to eat them with every meal.

Whole grain bread has been a staple in this diet along with whole grain pasta and brown rice.  Legumes are another staple and can be used as a side dish or mixed with veggies or brown rice.  Use yogurt for your dairy and mix it with fruit for a dessert, delicious.  Cheese should be limited, but a little bit is okay.

Wine is also very common in the Mediterranean diet, but only moderate consumption!  So don’t go throw back a whole bottle of wine thinking you’re doing yourself a favor.  It was hard for me to find a consistent answer for just what is moderate.  There are some sites saying you can have a glass every night and then others saying two to three times a week.  I’m guessing it might be different for everyone so you’ll just have to judge for yourself.  For me, probably no more than three times a week, but I’ll keep you posted.  Maybe I’ll do an experiment!

I hope I’ve given you an idea of how balanced and good for you the Mediterranean diet is.  Along with the diet, people in the Mediterranean spend a lot of time with their friends and family and are also active everyday.  So go eat, drink and be merry!

Eat Your Antioxidants

When you talk about anti aging, antioxidants is where it all starts.  In short, free radicals are what cause aging.  Antioxidants stop free radicals from doing damage to our cells.  It’s so important that we get a steady amount of antioxidants each day.  According to renowned anti aging expert Dr Richard Cutler, “The amount of antioxidants that you maintain in your body is directly proportional to how long you live.”  So what exactly are the best sources to get your antioxidants?

Well there are a variety of foods that contain antioxidants, but some are definitely better than others.  Believe or not, dark chocolate almost has the highest content of antioxidants, but it also has a high amount of sugar and saturated fat.  I would definitely not depend on chocolate to get my daily antioxidants (even though I love it!).

Acai has by far the highest content of antioxidants.  In case you haven’t heard of acai, it’s a berry from the amazon rain forests in Brazil.  In the last couple of years it has become very popular here in America thanks to being one of Oprah’s super foods.  Here’s the lowdown; you can’t eat the acai berry as a whole.  The skin is the only edible part and it has a very bitter taste so it is used in a sorbet form in Brazil.  Now there is a company called Sambazon that makes that sorbet available here in the U.S.  It is delicious, but again I wouldn’t recommend eating everyday to get antioxidants because it does have a lot of sugar in it.  A better way to get the benefits from acai is through supplements.

I think the best way to get your antioxidants is eating a diet full of fruits and veggies, basically 7 to 10 servings a day.  Yes, that may sound like a lot, but that’s what it takes!

My personal favorite fruit I try to eat every day are prunes.  Now I think prunes get a bad rap.  Most people think of prunes being what old people eat when they can’t go to the bathroom and that is so unfair!  Prunes are awesome!  They have more antioxidants than any other whole fruit available here in America.  Did I mention that they taste like candy?  My favorite brand is Paul Newmans because they’re organic and free of preservatives like sulfates.  I eat them with raw almonds and it’s delicious.  Now, don’t go overboard if you decide to try them, you only need like 5 a day.

Other great sources for antioxidants are green tea, white tea, black tea, berries (especially blueberries), oranges, grapes, cherries, avocado, grape fruits, kiwis, kale, spinach, brussel and alfalfa sprouts, broccoli, beets, peppers, onions, garlic, corn and eggplant.

With all those options, it shouldn’t be hard to get your antioxidants from a diverse diet.  And if you know of any other great sources that contain antioxidants, let us know!

Healthy Lunch Ideas

Here’s some healthy lunch ideas I came up with in the last week.  They’re quick and easy to make.

Mini Nan Pizzas

Have you ever had the Indian naan bread?  If you go to an Indian restaurant, they usually serve naan bread before a meal and it is so delicious.  It’s a flat skinny bread, little on the sweet side and when it’s warmed up it’s so soft and melts in your mouth.  I think usually they only put butter and some herbs on it, but I decided to make a healthy pizza with whole wheat naan. First I preheated the oven to 325.  I started the naan pizzas by putting marina sauce on the bread and then some canned artichokes that I chopped up.  I sauteed some mushrooms and spinach with some olive oil and placed it on top of the artichokes.  Then to finish it off I put Gorgonzola crumbles on the top.  I put the naan pizzas in a glass baking dish and put it in the oven for about 5 to 7 minutes.  You have to keep a close eye while they’re cooking because they heat up really fast so unless you want them crispy, I think 7 minutes is enough.

When they’re done the bread should be very soft and hot.  Soooo good.  The great thing about these naan pizzas are like any pizza, you can put whatever toppings you want.  I just happened to have those ingredients around so that’s what I used.  But I imagine they would be delicious just brushed with olive oil topped sauteed shallots, garlic and olives.  Mmmmm, I’m going to have to try that.  If you come up with any good combos, let me know, I’d love to try them out.

Creamy Tuna Mushroom Whole Wheat Pasta

This week for some reason, I was really craving a creamy pasta.  I don’t normally make pastas with cream sauce because of their high saturated fat content but I figured out a way to get around it.  Usually creamy pastas are made with cream, butter and may some sort of cheese.  So I figured, if I don’t use cream, what’s a creamy healthy alternative?

Soy milk!!  I tried it and yes, it works.  I recommend using unsweetened soy milk.  The one I used is from Trader Joes and the ingredients are literally filtered water and soy beans.  All I did was saute the mushrooms and tuna in soy milk and olive oil on a low heat.  Add some powdered garlic and herbs to spice up the taste or else it will end up pretty bland.  Saute it for awhile and be sure to scratch the cooked soy milk and oil from the bottom of the pan because there’s so much flavor in those brown bits.  You might have to add some more soy milk during the sauteing process because it can evaporate rather quickly.

Add the cooked pasta to the pan and cook the pasta with mushrooms and tuna for just a couple more minutes.  Once your done, you’ll have a semi creamy pasta that tastes a lot like tuna casserole, but without all the bad saturated fat.

What’s funny is while I was making this last night my boyfriend and his buddy were like “You’re making pasta with soy milk?  Gross!”  And then guess who kept trying to eat pasta off my plate?  Both of them and they kept saying how good it was   So, yes, it’s a little strange to use soy milk instead of cream, but it works.

Alternative Sources of Protein

When most people think of protein, we usually think of fulfilling our protein quota with meat, usually beef or chicken. While meat is definitely a source of protein, ideally it should only be eaten about 1-3 times a week. From the research I’ve done, many societies that have consistently produced centenarians or people living an active life into their 90s (for more info on these societies check out this post), have treated meat as a treat. The reason being that those societies rely on growing their own food and killing their own meat and do not have the array of meat products available to them like most of us do. They had to get their daily protein from other sources.

Most of us don’t need to eat as much protein as we think we do.  To find out how much protein you need multiply your recommended body weight by 0.36 (taken from the Okinawa Program).

Ex:    If your recommended body weight for your height is 120 then your daily protein intake should be 43.2 grams of protein.

120 x 0.36=43.2

There are plenty of alternative sources of protein to choose from in addition to meat that you may not know about.

Avocado: Not only is avocado a source of protein, but it also contains all eight essential amino acids.  Avocados are high in antioxidants, monounsaturated fats (otherwise known as good fats) and fiber.  And who doesn’t like guacamole?

Whole grains/beans or legumes:  If you’ve been reading my blog, then you know how much I love brown rice and how good it is for you.  You might also already know that brown rice mixed with beans or legumes is a complete protein also high in fiber.

Nuts and Seeds:  Nuts are an awesome protein to have as a snack.  I try to have unsalted almonds everyday for a snack.  If you choose to use nuts as a protein source, try to stick to raw unsalted nuts which have the most nutrients.  Another way to eat nuts is through peanut or almond butter, but make sure it’s the kind with no added sugar!

Fish:  Pretty much everyone knows that fish is a great source of protein.  My favorites are salmon, tuna, and sardines.  Not only a good source of protein, but a great source of good omega fats.  I try to include fish in my diet about 3 to 4 times a week.

Soy:  Another source of protein that everyone should know.  There are so many so products out there now, that it can get a little over whelming.  I like soy milk as an alternative to cow’s milk.  There’s a ton soy substitutes for meat like soy dogs or soy patties.  Also don’t forget edemame, which is the actual soy bean.

Hummus and Whole Grain Bread:  I love hummus!  Hummus is a dip made of chickpeas.  When eaten with bread it contains all eight essential amino acids and it’s also full of fiber.

So there you have it.  Healthy sources of protein full of other benefits like antioxidants, good fats and fiber.
Photo Source/Chris 27

My Evolution Part II

My Evolution; there are two major times in my life when I knew that I was mistreating my body and I had to make a change. The first time was when I was severely fatigued for about two months with a bad cholesterol count of 270 at the age of 18. I changed my diet, but I still really had now idea what eating healthy was.

In My Evolution Part I, I described as how a teenager all I ate was junk food all the time which resulted in me getting sick.  Well, if my teenager years were all about eating crap, my  early to mid 20s were about drinking and partying (like most people I assume).  I really didn’t think I was doing my body any harm, I just thought, this is what you do in your 20s; get drunk and binge on pizza and burgers.  Now is the time to do just that, right?

I guess you could say, I didn’t really learn my lesson. And aside from the partying I was doing, I still didn’t know what the heck a good diet was.  I was forcing myself to eat a ton of protein and little carbs in hopes of losing the belly I could never seem to get rid of.  The low carb diet was in, so cut out bread, pasta and rice in turn for chicken and steak.  Man, what a scam that diet is!  Sure, you may lose weight to begin with but you’ll gain it back with the first piece of bread you eat, not to mention how unhealthy it is to eat like that.

So in my quest to lose my little belly that wouldn’t go away, I decided the whole eating a ton of protein wasn’t working.  I was forcing myself to eat a ton of meat which I didn’t even like and nothing was happening.

Well, one weekend I was visiting my parents and they were raving about this book called the Bragg Healthy Lifestyle.  “Oh, you have to read this book!  I drink their apple cider vinegar and I’ve never felt better!”  On and on about this book.  So I decided to read since it did sound interesting and I was wanting to lead a healthier lifestyle.

This book changed my life.  First of all, it made perfect sense.  It was common sense!  I don’t know why it took me so long to realize it.

This was my second awakening: eat a diet that was grown out of the earth; fresh veggies and whole grains.  This book was saying I didn’t need to force myself eat meat to get my protein.  I could get my protein from rice and beans, nuts, and veggies.  It may sound stupid, but I never really thought of that before.  I thought I had to eat meat to get my protein and cut out any carbs.

So I tried this new diet and I never felt better.  I limited my meat intake to about once a week and focused on eating whole grains (brown rice, whole wheat or spelt pasta and whole grain bread), veggies, and beans.  I lost about 10 lbs in a month that I didn’t even know I needed to lose.  I feel it was like my body was telling me, yeah these 10 lbs are all the toxins you’ve been putting into your body and now you’ve finally flushed them out.

The strange thing was not only physically did I feel and look better, I also felt happier.  I really think cutting meat out of my diet and eating food that we as humans are meant to eat made me feel more connected to the earth.

I also continued to research eating vegetarian diets.  There have been so many studies out there linking high meat intake to cancer and heart disease.  There are also plenty of studies done showing that people who eat a mainly vegetarian diet in most cases live longer and healthier lives.  Two books that I love and recommend are 50 Secrets of the Worlds Longest Living People and The Okinawa Way.

So now a year later, I’ve cut out meat completely with the exception of fish about twice a week.  I’ve done a lot of research on fish and it seems to be highly beneficial.  I stick to mainly tuna and sardines which are some of the best fish to eat because a. they are high in Omega 3 fats and b. they are some of the fastest reproducing fish so they don’t seem to be affected by overfishing (for more info check out overfishing.org).

For more information on eating a healthy vegetarian diet and natural nutrition check out these sites:

goveg.com

youngwomenshealth.org

bragg.com

10 Reasons to add Brown Rice to your Diet

I’m going to start documenting all the brown rice combos I come up with. Brown rice is like the best staple you can eat. And it’s extremely versatile. So I’m officially promoting brown rice!! It’s awesome, eat some! Eat it once a day or maybe every other day.

So you might be thinking, “what is so great about brown rice? It actually sounds really bland and boring…” Well, brown rice by itself is pretty boring…but when you add all sorts of great veggies and olive oil it can be one of the best tasting things ever!

For instance today, I heated brown rice and kidney beans together, then added raw chopped cabbage, artichokes, kalamata olives, Gorgonzola cheese, and olive oil. So good! So satisfying!

I could go on and on about brown rice, but I’m going to keep it short and sweet. Here we go, 10 reasons to add brown rice to your diet.

1. It is extremely high in both insoluble and soluble fiber which helps rid your digestive track of toxins.

2. It contains selenium, a trace mineral that has been proven to help prevent colon cancer.

3. Brown rice helps you lose weight because it is a unrefined whole grain full of fiber. Unrefined grains go through our systems much easier than refined grains, like white rice, which are much harder to digest. I lost 12 within about a month of a half of consistently eating brown rice and other whole grains.

4.The oil in brown rice helps lower LDL (bad cholesterol).

5. Brown rice contains magnesium which lowers blood pressure reducing risks of heart attacks and strokes.

6. Brown rice is a gluten free food.

7. Brown rice when combined with beans or lentils contains all eight essential amino acids. These proteins are essential for life but we cannot make them in our bodies, therefore we need to consume foods containing these eight amino acids. These are the same proteins found in meat, but without all the bad saturated fats that come along with eating red meat.

8. The effects of asthma can be reduced with brown rice because the anti inflammatory compounds it contains.

9. Because of it’s high mineral and vitamin content, it keeps our hair, teeth and nails all nice and pretty.

10. It’s easy to make!! I don’t care what you say, this is one of the easiest meals to make. Why? Because now they have frozen organic brown rice! So I just pop it in the microwave for 3 minutes and it turns out perfect. Look, I don’t know how to cook rice and I eat it almost everyday, so no excuses!

50 Secrets of the World’s Longest Living People

50 Secrets of the World’s Longest Living People by Sally Beare is one of my favorite books to read over and over again to remind me of the right way to eat when I fall off track.  I ordered it from Amazon last year when I became interested in why certain cultures have lower disease rates than others and how some people can live into their 90s and longer and still lead an active life.

This book follows 5 different societies where the majority of people live virtually disease free until the end of their lives.  It shows us how common diseases like cancer and heart diseases are highly preventable with a healthy lifestyle.  The communities she covers are Okinawa in Japan, Symi in Greece, Campodimele in Italy, Hunza in Pakistan and Bama in China.  She goes in to detail of what these communities eat and how their lifestyle keeps them young.

The second part of the book goes into the secrets these societies use to keep them virtually disease free.  They’re really not secrets though, it’s common sense, but most of use don’t understand what good nutrition really is with all the conflicting information out there.  This book does a great job of organizing all the secrets in a easy to read fashion while still giving plenty of details to why these secrets work.

Another reason I love this book is the author gives us her background and why she decided to devote her life to nutrition.  She was like any typical American or in her case a Brit, in that she really had no idea how to eat well.  She kept keeping sick and felt tired all the time until her friend suggested she go to a nutritionist where she learned that it was what she was eating (or not eating) that made her feel so ill.

You see, most of the common diseases that we have today in the U.S. can be prevented with diet.  The pharmacuetical companies spend millions of dollars trying to find a cure for cancer, but the best cure for cancer is preventing it in the first place with a healthy diet and lifestyle.  Our bodies need certain vegetables and protiens to keep our bodies running smoothly.

This book changed my life.  I mean, it really opened my eyes about what good nutrition and how amazing our bodies really are.  I’ll be going into more detail in future posts on what exactly a healthy diet is, but in the meantime I suggest checking out this book and get started now.

What I had for lunch today…

I was starving by the time I got home for lunch today and now I feel so satisfied   I made my typical beans and rice bowl that I probably eat more often than anything else.  The great thing about beans and rice is that they go with anything so you can make a different combo everytime.

I recommend always eating brown rice, definitely not white rice.  Brown rice has both insoluble and soluble fiber that cleans your digestive track of toxins, it’s gluten free, and served with beans provides our bodies with all eight essential amino acids.  I eat brown rice almost everyday with beans to get part of my protein since I don’t eat animal meat.  Also, if you don’t want to spend the time cooking rice, you can buy frozen organic brown rice at Trader Joes.  I haven’t looked, but I’m sure you can find it at one of the large grocery chains and definitely at any health food stores.  Just make sure that the only ingredient is brown rice and that it isn’t loaded with preservatives like a lot of the instant rice brands have.

Today my rice bowl consisted of:

Organic brown rice, lentil beans, cabbage, avocado, olive, sardines, salsa and olive oil…yummy!

I also had an open face sandwich of whole grain bread, avocado, sardines, olives and olive oil.

I am such a sucker for olives.  I love them!  I probably eat too many of them, but I’m sure there’s worse things I can eat too much of.  Everything in my lunch today was non processed with the exception of the bread.  Still, the bread is about the healthiest, grainiest bread you can get.  My body feels so much better when I eat this way.  If you have any good rice bowl combos, let me know, I’d love to try them.

My Evolution Part 1

I haven’t always been concerned about health. I would have to say it wasn’t until about a year and half ago I started to get serious about it. I want to tell you about the first time I realized that what I put into my body actually affects me and how I feel. Now, some of you might be thinking, duh, of course what you eat affects you…well, I think there are so many of us that get caught up in these fad diets that we really didn’t know how to eat healthy. For Example:

The No Fat Diet-so millions of people go on this diet thinking fat is really bad for you, having no idea that some fats are actually great for your body and are essential for our health. Now it’s common knowledge that trans fat and saturated fat are bad, monounsaturated (olive oil and nuts) and polyunsaturated (fish oil) fats and the good ones. Back then, most people didn’t know that.

The No Carb Diet-another diet that is so black and white when in reality there are so many gray areas. We need carbs, bottom line. Cutting out carbs completely is sooo bad for you. What about brown rice, veggies, and whole grain bread? These are all carbs and are absolutely necessary for good health.

The Exercise and You Can Eat Whatever You Want Diet-This might work for some people, but for most it doesn’t. Eating right is the most important step to losing weight, but it’s even more important for good health.

When I was in high school I ate horrible. I mean, it was bad…soda (never water), peanut butter sandwhiches (with refined flour bread), cookies, pizza, candy. I knew I was eating bad, but I never gained a pound. I was on the swim team so I just figured, if I was swimming two hours a day it shouldn’t matter what I ate. Well, I ended up getting really sick after I graduated. I felt super fatigued and tired all the time and the doctor couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. I went in for some blood tests and my cholestoral came back at 270. 270 at eighteen!

So I didn’t gain any weight, but I had super high cholestoral and felt like crap. I cut out the junk food, but it still took me years to figure out what to feed my body. The moral of the story is, fad diets don’t work. Eating right is the only way to lose weight and be healthy at the same time.

My First Blog

So…where do I begin.  This is the first blog post I’ve ever done and it’s taken me a couple days to even get this far.  I’ve been scared and to be honest, a little overwelmed by all the blogging options out there; tagging, rss feeds, etc…There’s so much to know, but I’m slowly but surely learning.

What is Sweet Fuzz about?  Well, actually it’s about what I’ve learned so far in life, specifically about leading a healthful lifestyle.  I’ve learned alot over the past couple years that I’ve been wanting to share with people for some time now, so here I am…

I’m not a doctor, or a nutritionist, but I am an expert…on me.  On what’s good for my body.

I didn’t learn this stuff in a classroom.  I’ve learned it by seeing how my body has changed from treating it like it’s indestructible  (which I’ll explain more later) to actually learning and caring about what I put in, around and on me.

I do a heck of a lot of research in my free time.  I love researching this stuff; skincare, eating right, disease prevention, different cultures around the world, centenarians, the environment, green eco friendly products…basically anything that contributes to the fountain of life.  And I’m not talking about some fantasy skin cream that makes you look 20 years younger in two days.  I’m talking real life daily habits.  It’s not easy or a quick fix…but it is magical.  Hell, I’m 29 and I get mistaken for 24 or younger all the time so I figure I must be doing something right!

So since I love, love, love digging up new info I’d thought I’d share it with you.    I’ll be sharing tips, products and books I like, and just good old information on what’s good for you and what’s worked for me…