The Dairy Calcium Myth Milk is not as high in calcium as the dairy industry would have you believe. In Healthy Vitamins and Minerals by Jane Turner, under the section on Calcium, milk doesn’t even make the first page and sits 35th on the list with 120mg of calcium per 100g.

Some of the foods that beat it by far are sesame seeds (670mg/100g, more than 5 times!), sardines (540), Nori seaweed (470), both more than triple, almonds (240, double!), figs (230) parsley, spinach, watercress, kale (200-170, and these are green vegetables!) even hazelnuts and oysters (140).

More importantly though what little calcium milk actually has is offset by the fact that it is barely absorbable by humans since cows milk is meant for baby cows. Dr William Ellis has conducted thousands of blood tests in people who drank 4 glasses of milk a day and found that they had lower levels of calcium than the rest of the population.
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What are phytonutrients and why are they so important? Phytonutrients are thought to have a variety of beneficial and significant benefits to our health and exist in a kind of limbo between being vitamin and being mineral.They are found in the skins of fruits and vegetables. They are found in supplements that are the extract of pigments where nutrients are concentrated, meaning that they draw the best from antioxidant foods, leaving the calories and sugar behind. Phytonutrients are powerful and healthy substances to include in your diet.They are plant compounds with health-promoting qualities and can also be found in liquid vitamin supplements.

Fruits and vegetables that are high in carotenoids appear to protect humans against certain cancers, heart disease and age related macular degeneration. Elderly men whose intake of dark green and deep yellow vegetable put them in the highest quartile for consumption of these vegetables had about a 46% decrease in risk of heart disease relative to men who ranked in the lowest quartile.While these phytonutrients aren’t essential by traditional definitions, they apparently reduce risks of diseases of aging. This can reduce cardiovascular disease risk by interfering with the clumping of blood platelets-the first stagein clot formation. Lycopene from tomatoes can also be a preventive measure in regards to your health. Lycopene,for example,from tomatoes is in clinical trials for cardiovascular diseases and prostate cancer. A host of fresh fruits, especially berries are rich in disease-fighting phytochemicals. Serious diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, stomach ulcers. More than 80% of all chronic disease is preventable, but only if you know how. Read the rest of this entry »

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There are times when you just have to have that rack of barbecue ribs. Maybe they have been sitting in your freezer since fall and you just can’t wait any longer, you just have to have those ribs. But with the cold of winter set in getting out to the grill is more of an exercise in survival making it hard to truly enjoy the barbecue experience. Throw in some snow and wind and the idea of cooking barbecue ribs on the grill goes out the door.

Now if your are truly hardcore you can put on your snow boots, bundle up in hat, coat and gloves, shovel a path out to the grill, get it lit and hope the wind doesn’t blow it out. The next part may be even trickier; actually grilling the ribs. While barbecue ribs aren’t all that hard to make they do need constant attention. Standing outside in the cold and wind can make this difficult not to mention that it’s either getting dark out or the sun has already gone down. Grilling in the dark, even with a flashlight, is not easy because it’s hard to tell if and when the ribs are done. Read the rest of this entry »

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