Planning Diets Natural Nutrition

Sometimes we get lucky: even in the deep of winter we often have brilliant sunny days. These bright days can make us feel better, but even a sunny winter day won’t help us catch up with our vitamin D needs.

It is estimated that over half the US population is deficient in vitamin D. The more we learn about it, the more we realize how important vitamin D is, and that we get less of it than we think. We call it a vitamin but it is actually a hormone. Vitamins and minerals are found in the foods we eat; our primary source of vitamin D is the sun. Only a few foods have it naturally, and even then in small amounts. Read the rest of this entry →

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In our diet and weight conscious culture, carbohydrates are often considered the biggest culprit and even a curse against losing excess weight-thus the plethora of no carb or low carb diets.

Here’s a very simplified description of what happens when you eat carbohydrates: Our pancreas secretes the hormone insulin which controls blood sugar. During digestion, carbs are broken down to the simplest sugar-glucose. How much glucose stays in the blood and how much goes into the cells is regulated by insulin. Our blood sugar levels can shift erratically when insulin levels are too high or too low. Diabetes is the consequence of high blood sugar levels (hyperglycemia). Headaches, spaciness, shakiness, muscle weakness and mental confusion are some of the symptoms of low blood sugar (hypoglycemia). Read the rest of this entry →

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A lot of people think that meat is the only real source of protein. Therefore, these same people think that a vegetarian diet is unhealthy. This is far from true. If it were, why are vegetarians so healthy? Why do they have lower blood pressure and cholesterol? They look better, feel better, and in a lot of cases live longer! There are many vegetarian sources of protein.

The recommended daily allowance of protein is not as high as some people think. It varies, depending on certain factors, but on average it is 50 grams for females and 63 for males. Most of us consume almost twice that amount. And then there are some elderly and vegans who do not get enough. Read the rest of this entry →

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While some people may think that being a vegetarian seriously limits your options for dinner, that’s not the case at all! Vegetarians have just as many options for good tasting, healthful dinners as anyone else. For the vegetarian looking to introduce some Asian flare into their kitchen, some popular vegetarian recipes follow.

Spicy Confetti Noodles

3 mdm green onions, cut into thin strips
2 mdm bell peppers, cut into thin strips
2 medium carrots, cut into thin strips
2 packages (10 oz. total) Japanese curly noodles or uncooked spaghetti
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Ganymede, the Trojan youth who was abducted and conveyed by an eagle to Olympus to become cupbearer to the gods, was made immortal by a drink containing tansy. Indeed, the word “tansy” has its root in the Greek word anthanasia, meaning immortality. From this legend came the tradition of carrying the herb to lengthen one’s lifespan. Carrying the herb may lengthen one’s life, but consuming tansy could shorten it as the essential oil contains thujone, a convulsant narcotic that is toxic and potentially fatal. However, an old legend maintains that a small piece of tansy placed in your shoe will cure a persistent fever.

In the garden tansy will flourish in almost any soil. A hardy perennial, growing to four feet, with clusters of attractive yellow flowers and fernlike, strongly aromatic green leaves, it makes an engaging backdrop to blue and grey herbs such as sage. The herb’s resinous scent blends pleasantly with floral and spicy fragrances in your flower garden. It is advisable to keep tansy away from your vegetable garden however because it can be invasive with its creeping rhizomes and it appears to attract both cabbageworms and aphids. Conversely, the herb is an effective repellant to moths, ants and cockroaches and is used as a strewing herb in areas where these insects are a pest. Another common name for tansy is “ant fern”.
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Of the three macronutrients, protein is the most important for health and achieving the body you want. The bottom line is that protein is the ONLY nutrient out of the three that restores and repairs every single cell in your body. Now, every day your body with its trillions of cells is constantly being broken down and being rebuilt. In fact every 7 years you are literally a completely new person - there is not one cell in your body that was there 7 years ago. To stay alive we need enough protein to grow new cells to replace the old ones. It’s that simple. With our hectic modern lives, the breakdown is even greater and so to stay healthy we need to make sure we are getting enough each and every day. Individual requirements will vary however a good minimum is anywhere from 1.5-3 grams per kilo of bodyweight when you are exercising depending on your specific goals and needs. This amount is necessary because as you exercise you breakdown a great deal of protein in the body to train it to adapt and grow new muscle that will fire up your metabolism and help you burn more body fat. Read the rest of this entry →

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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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There is strong epidemiological evidence that olive oil offers significant cardioprotective benefits. In plain English, olive oil is good for the heart.

Heart disease. Like all vegetable oils, olive oil is 100 percent fat, and fat is a prime contributor to heart disease and cancer. So how could olive oil be good for the heart? The reason appears to be that it is neither saturated, like the fats in meats, butter, and dairy products, nor polyunsaturated, like the fat in many other oils. It is monounsaturated. Greeks and Italians consume almost as much total fat as Americans do - most of it in the form of olive oil - but have heart disease rates considerably lower than ours. In fact, Americans should eat like people in those Mediterranean countries. It was argued to junk the USDA’s new Food Pyramid, which recommends meat and dairy products two or three times a day, and replace it with a Mediterranean Pyramid, which discourages meat and dairy foods and promotes a semi-vegetarian diet with olive oil as the major source of fat. Of course, like any fat, olive oil should be used sparingly in the context of a low-fat diet. But recent research suggests that this tasty oil is a real healer. Read the rest of this entry →

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