2010-12-13

Top 6 Super Foods


Amazing Wheatgrass Juice

Wheatgrass contains most of the vitamins and minerals needed for human health. It's a whole meal and complete protein with about 30 enzymes. It has up to 70% chlorophyll (which builds the blood). It's an excellent source of calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc. Wheatgrass cleanses the body (natural raw detoxer) and it eliminates body and breath odors. The natural value of wheatgrass juice is so high that many people don't feel the "cravings" that lead to overeating. It's great for the skin and first and second decree burns.

Did you know that all grasses are edible and that there are over 400 varieties?

Magic Goji Berries

Tibetan goji berries are extremely rich in anti-oxidants which help protect the cells in our bodies from diseases like cancer. They're also an excellent source of Vitamin C and soluble fiber. They have more amino acids than bee pollen, more beta carotene than carrots, more iron than spinach and 21 trace minerals. Goji Berries contain of 13% protein! It's been used to treat eye problems, skin rashes, allergies, insomnia, liver disease, diabetes, cervical cancer, to lower blood pressure and cholesterol. It's a powerful anti-fungal and anti-bacterial food.
Sexy Maca

Maca is a radish like fruit that grows in Peru. It's one of the top 5 super foods enjoyed by raw foodists. It's extraordinary rich in nutrients: 10% protein, 60% carbohydrate and full of fatty acids, phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals trace.

Maca is famous for its amazing health benefits and used to boost, energy, strength, libido, sexual function and fertility in both men and women. It's a natural viagra with no side effects and it's said to relieve symptoms of menopause within days.

The Peruvian root works gradually, not instantly. You need to eat maca continually to receive the full benefits. For the best results look for organic raw maca powder.

Maca balances the body's systems: it'll raise low blood pressure and lower high blood pressure as needed. Maca boosts immunity and harmonizes the body's overall vitality.
Discover Bee Pollen

Bee pollen contain more than 96 different nutrients, including every single nutrient that you need to live. It's made up of 40% protein. It's a natural energizer, slows down the aging process, and lowers cholesterol levels.

This super food reliefs discomfort from PMS, prevents prostate problems, improves sperm count, boosts the immune system, and detoxifies your body. It alleviates allergies, improves endurance, strength and mental clarity. It promotes weight loss: the rate at which your body burns fat and it reduces cravings. It regulates your mood and helps control stress in your life.
Hemp Seed Secrets

Hemp is one of the purest, most complete plants on earth. It has the perfect balance of Omega 3 and 6 for sustainable human health. This makes raw hemp seeds incredibly powerful against cancer. It might be the single best food to prevent it. It's a high quality, complete raw food protein and has a massive trace mineral content.

It's the only seed that doesn't need to be germinated before eating: it has no enzyme exhibitors. Therefore it's easy to absorb.
Heavenly Chocolate

Although controversial, many find raw chocolate a super food. It's rich in anti oxidants and magnesium. And as long as you're healthy and use is sensibly it's a super, tasty and healthy addition to your recipes.

The benefits of raw chocolate?

* It's a major source of magnesium. Therefore a great laxative, it releases PMS symptoms, it's good for the brain and heart.
* It's the number 1 anti-oxidant source. 30X as much as green tea and 10X that of blueberries.
* It does not contain caffeine.
* However, it does contain theobromine (a sister molecule of caffeine). This makes raw chocolate the best medicine against asthma.
* It contains serotonin and triple defense. Together they protect us from the damage of stress.
* Chocolate is the number one weight loss food. It's so nutrient dense. If you eat a few beans you feel fantastic and satisfied. You won't feel hungry and you can go for hours without food.


TRY IT OUT!
*credits to www.thebestrawfood.com

2010-11-18

Meal Frequency: How often should I eat?

My advice is to eat between five to six meals per day. By eating smaller portions of food more often you will feel less hungry in between meals and not deprived. When people only eat, let’s say, two large meals per day, their bodies go into a starvation mode and try to hold on to calories. By eating every three to four hours you keep your body from storing as many calories (as fat) because your body has a steady supply of food to use for energy. Think of your metabolism as a wood burning fire. If you don’t stoke the fire and add wood at regular intervals, it goes out. The same is true with your body: a steady intake of nutritious fuel at regular intervals keeps your metabolism steady and elevated, your blood sugar stable, and your body operating at maximum efficiency.

Mini-meals should be balanced, containing proteins, carbohydrates and fat. This also helps to maintain steady insulin levels. However, eating more meals is not a license to overeat! Your goal is to eat smaller, nutritious meals that will satisfy your body’s needs. Soon you will begin to notice that you are less hungry overall and you need less food to fill up at each meal.

The easiest way to avoid missing a meal is to have plenty of nutritious foods available such as fruit, yogurt, light cheese, whole grain crackers and bread, and nuts that you can eat when you’re short on time.
Sample day menu

Breakfast

1 egg
1/2 of a whole wheat bagel
2 teaspoons of jam
1/4 of a cantaloupe
1 cup of coffee

Snack #1

Light yogurt mixed with 1/2 cup reduced-fat granola
1 ounce of raw almonds

Lunch
Grilled Asian chicken salad with light dressing
1 small whole grain roll
Mineral water

Snack #2

1 cup minestrone soup
6 whole grain crackers
1/2 cup red grapes

Dinner

4 ounces of broiled fish
3/4 cup steamed green beans
1/2 sweet potato, baked
2 teaspoons whipped butter
4-ounce glass of wine

Michèle Turcotte, MS, RD/LDN
Contributing Expert

2010-02-02

Crash Course on Eastern Medicine, Nutrition and All things Healthy


I've been doing a lot of reading lately and got a hold of this new (actually old) gem:
Daniel Reids' The Tao of Health, Sex and Longevity

This book was written with the purpose of exploring the essence of Chinese medicine including acupuncture, massage therapy, sexual ed, trophology (the study of how to mix carbs, fats and proteins correctly for a better digestion), meditation, and nutrition.

Here's a glimpse of the book:

"Chapter 1

Diet and Nutrition

Food and drink are relied upon to nurture life. But if one does not know that the natures of substances may be opposed to each other, and one consumes them altogether indiscriminately, the vital organs will be thrown out of harmony and disastrous consequences will soon arise. Therefore, those who wish to nurture their lives must carefully avoid doing such damage to themselves.

[Chia Ming, Essential Knowledge for Eating and Drinking, 1368]

One of the great advantages of learning Tao is that the same basic principles apply to everything from the macrocosmic to the microscopic. In the case of diet, the overriding Taoist principle of balance between Yin and Yang is established by harmonizing the Four Energies and Five Flavors in foods.

The Four Energies in food are hot, warm, cool and cold. These categories define the nature and the intensity of energy released in the human system when food is digested. Hot and warm foods belong to Yang; cool and cold foods belong to Yin. The former are stimulating and generate heat, while the latter are calming and cool the organs.

The Five Flavors are more subtle distinctions based on the Five Elemental Activities: sweet (earth), bitter (fire), sour (wood), pungent (metal) and salty (water). Each of the Five Flavors has a 'natural affinity' (gui-jing) for one of the five 'solid' Yin organs and its Yang counterpart: sweet influences pancreas/stomach; bitter moves to the heart/small intestine; sour has affinity for the liver/gallbladder; pungent affects the lungs/large intestine; and salty associates with the kidneys/bladder.

The therapeutic effects of the Four Energies and Five Flavors are as follows:

* Cool and cold Yin foods calm the vital organs and are recommended for summer menus, as well as for combating 'hot' Yang diseases such as fever and hypertension. Yin foods include soy beans, bamboo shoots, watermelon, white turnips, cabbage, pears, squash and lemons.

* Warm and hot Yang foods stimulate the vital organs, generate body heat and are recommended for winter consumption, as well as palliatives for 'cold' Yin diseases such as anemia, chills and fatigue. Yang foods include beef, mutton, chicken, alcohol, mango and chilies.

* Sweet 'earth' foods disperse stagnant energy, promote circulation, nourish vital energy and harmonize the stomach. Corn, peas, dates, ginseng and licorice are examples of sweet foods.

* Bitter 'fire' foods such as rhubarb and bitter melon tend to dry the system, balance excess dampness, and purge the bowels.

* Sour 'wood' foods such as olives and pomegranate are astringent, tend to solidify the contents of the digestive tract, stop diarrhea and remedy prolapse of the colon.

* Salty 'water' foods such as kelp soften and moisten tissues and facilitate bowel movements.

* Pungent 'metal' goods such as ginger, garlic and chili neutralize and disperse accumulated toxins in the body.

Taoists balance their diets according to favorable combinations of energies and flavors and strictly avoid combinations that conflict. They also avoid excessive consumption of any single variety of food-energy. For example, frequent excessive consumption of 'hot' fatty Yang foods can cause fevers, heartburn, congestion, chest stagnation and other unpleasant effects of 'heat-energy excess'. As this excess 'evil heat' seeks escape from the body, carbuncles and absesses may develop. Too much pungent food can cause gastro-intestinal distress, upset the stomach and result in hemorrhoids. Even the freshest, most wholesome foods are rendered nutritionally useless if consumed in combinations that interfere with digestion, cause putrefaction and fermentation, block assimilation and cause internal energy conflicts.

Mother Nature's Menu

When formulating personal dietary guidelines, it is helpful first to determine your own basic metabolic type, of which there are three: vegetarian, carnivore and balanced. The vegetarian and carnivorous types each represent about 25 per cent of the general population, with the remaining 50 per cent falling into the balanced category. These human metabolic types stem from the prehistoric switch by some segments of the human species from a fruit and nut based diet to a meat diet.

Vegetarian metabolisms are 'slow oxidizers', which means that they burn sugars and carbohydrates slowly. Because the body must burn sugar in order to provide sufficient energy to digest meat and fat, slow oxidizers have trouble burning sugar fast enough to efficiently digest large quantities of meat, eggs, fish and other concentrated animal proteins. Consequently, large doses of protein foods tend to make vegetarian types feel tired and sluggish after meals. An easy test for metabolic type is to eat a large steak or a whole chicken and see how you feel afterward. If it leaves you feeling 'wiped out', mentally depressed and lethargic, then you probably tend towards a slow-oxidizing vegetarian metabolism, in which case you should restrict protein and fat consumption and favor vegetables, fruits and carbohydrates in your diet. If a large intake of concentrated animal protein leaves you feeling strong, vital and mentally alert, then you probably lean towards a fast-oxidizing carnivorous metabolism.

Since carnivorous metabolisms burn sugar and carbohydrates very rapidly, excess consumption of sugar or starch tends to make them excessively nervous and agitated due to overstimulation of the nervous system. Fast oxidizers derive energy by digesting large quantities of animal fats and proteins, which are sent to the liver for conversion into glycogen. The liver then dispenses the glycogen into the bloodstream in the form of glucose -- the only form of fuel the body can burn -- in gradual measured doses, as needed. That's why fast oxidizers require a steady supply of protein and fat in their diets and should restrict intake of sugars and starches.

Fortunately, most of us have balanced metabolisms that can handle both varieties of food when properly combined. Although our digestive tracts were originally designed by nature for a diet of fruit and vegetables, our digestive systems have evolved the capacity to produce the gastric juices required to digest the meat that became part of the human diet 50,000-100,000 years ago. If large quantities of animal protein don't leave you feeling depleted, and if large doses of sugar and starch don't make you nervous, then you are probably a balanced metabolizer who needs only worry about selecting wholesome foods from both categories and combining them properly for consumption. In the Tao of diet, however, these are just the first steps in regulating diet. Season and climate, for example, must also be considered in order to ensure that the extreme external cold winter is balanced by the extra internal heat of Yang-foods, hot summer weather is complemented by cooling Yin-foods, dry climates are compensated with extra moisturizing foods, and so forth. Foods consumed out of harmony with season and climate can cause all sorts of problems, including skin eruptions, constipation, gas, fatigue and bad breath.

Taoists tend to favor local produce because it is far more likely to be fresh and brimming with the vitality of its own chee. Today, the modern food-processing industry, in conjunction with high-speed transport, has made it possible to eat Florida oranges in Alaska, frozen prawns in the middle of the desert and all sorts of processed packaged 'junk food' any time of day or night, anywhere on earth. As a result, modern diets are completely out of synchrony with the natural prevailing conditions of geography, season and unseen cosmic forces."

You can buy it online here: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Tao-of-Health-Sex-and-Longevity/Daniel-P-Reid/e/9780671648114/#EXC

Or

Here's a link on all things Daniel Reid: http://www.danreid.org/about-daniel-reid-writer-chinese-medicine-tcm-health-tao-taosim.asp