Monthly Archives: May 2014

Today, vegetables taste bland because lack of minerals in the soil. Then a lot of chemicals added to make it taste delicious and preserve it.

Why are they salty? Because salt (sodium chloride) helps prevent spoiling by drawing moisture out of food, so bacteria cannot produce. Salt also kills existing bacteria that might cause spoiling. At one time, salting was one of the only methods available.

Additionally, the food that has processed contains a lack of enzymes. Every metabolic activity in the body and every chemical reaction that keeps us well helped by enzymes. Enzyme is a catalyst, use to makes something work more efficiently. The oil in the automobile engine is a catalyst. Although the engine runs on gasoline, how helpful would it be without oil? This is an example of how catalyst helps reactions take place more efficiently.

Without enzymes, there is no life. Enzymes maintain the body. Every day the body burns, enzymes to nourish the organs like the heart, liver, kidneys, pancreas, as well as the trillions of cells that carry on life. Those enzymes need to be replaced as the body uses them up.

The body re-supplies enzymes by manufacturing them or by receiving them from an outside source. They come from raw foods - vegetables, fruits, and even meat. They can be converted for bodily needs.

When there are not enough enzymes available on a daily basis, one body begins to cut off from various bodily functions. For instance, hair may become dry nails may crack, and skin may become dry - giving the appearance of an older person. Then more serious, the liver will not be able to handle the excretion of waste products.

Fifty percent of all enzymes burned by the body used in digesting food. When restricted enzymes are available for the digestion system the body steals them from other organs. Evidence, the high number of indigestion aids sold and the fact that one feels sleepy after a meal. The body is stealing energy (enzymes) from other bodily functions. Without these enzymes and lack of them in the food we eat average person only digests about 30 to 70% of what they eat.

Processed foods and most all packaged foods do not contain active enzymes. When any food heated over 112 degrees Fahrenheit, the active enzyme activity destroyed.

The bottom line is that when we eat foods that are void of adequate nutrition and void of any enzymes into the body, we finally go down.

The elimination of active enzymes does not allow the food to be thoroughly digested. The immune system becomes weakened, and we get degenerative diseases.

Practical Tip
All of these compounds, just to look and taste as close to normal as possible. Why not get totally, real food and not all these synthetics?

Get the right food with the real benefits! How to avoid processed food while living an active lifestyle

What are Processed Foods?

Processed foods are foods that have compromised by the addition of hormones, additives, preservatives, synthetic genetic material or other chemical or heat treatments that alter or destroy the natural healthy, enzymes, fatty acids, vitamins and minerals.

The main source of food processing is to increase the shelf life of foods so that larger amounts can be sold over time.

In contrast, whole foods are simple and straightforward. Whole foods require no processing - they are ready to eat off the vine or off the fire; whole foods age as like us, and they must be eaten while fresh.

A List of Processed Food
Ever notice that the sources of the ingredients in processed foods shrouded in mystery? Food manufacturers even patent some of the processing methods they use. The process for making Splenda, an artificial sweetener, is a big secret and patented with the US Government.

Seems to me that if one has to follow the procedure for how food made a big secret, it probably means that if most people knew the process, they would not eat the food.

Here’s, a short list of some common processed foods (most have unusually long shelf lives):

•White wheat flour, typically bleached white flour.
•Refined sugars (crystalline fructose, malt dextrin, dextrose, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, sucrose, maple syrup, date sugar, cane sugar, brown rice syrup, corn sugar, beet sugar, agave syrup, etc..)
•Margarine and other hydrogenated vegetable fats
•Refined vegetable oils
•Artificial sweeteners
•Food additives
•Canned foods
•Boxed foods such as meal mixes, cereal and pasta
•Soft drinks and sugary "fruit" drinks, which loaded with white sugar, high fructose corn syrup, artificial colors, flavors and other food additives.
•Fast food, which is a source of Trans fats
•Cheese food, packaged cakes and cookies, chips, snack food crackers and other junk food
•Processed meat products (sausage, bologna, bacon, packaged ham, and salami) if they contain artificial colors and soy fillers.
•Frozen foods such as TV dinner meals, fish sticks, pizza rolls and similar foods
•Soy products such as soy milk, soy cheese, soy protein isolate, and other processed soy foods. Natural soybeans taste horrible; it is Nature's way of warning about the dangers of soy. In order to make soy products edible, soy manufacturers have to add large amounts of sugar, MSG and other flavorings and spices.
•Powdered milk and eggs: Commercial milk powders contain ox sterols (oxidized cholesterol) in excessive amounts. The ox sterol free radicals have suspected of being initiators of atherosclerotic plaques. Powdered eggs contain even more ox sterols.

As a general rule, processed food has changed extensively from its natural state.

Other Less Obvious Processed Foods to Avoid
•Avoid non-organic pasteurized, homogenized milk and products made from it. Many commercial dairy farms manage their dairy cows with recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), which made from genetically modified organisms. It increases the production of milk but also sickens the cows, increasing udder infections and lameness by 40-55%.

The use of rBGH has banned in Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan and every other industrialized country except the United States.

The proteins in pasteurized milk have altered from the high heat applied, and the useful digestive enzymes and vitamins have destroyed. Without the beneficial enzymes, milk is a lot harder to digest, and "lactose intolerance" is the result.

•Do not buy meat, pork and poultry from commercial factory farms. Here's, why: The animals raised in these factory farms confined, abused, fed food which makes them sick (genetically modified soybeans and corn, other extinct animals, bakery waste, manure and other nasty things), and many become seriously ill from this treatment.

They then injected with bacterial killing drugs, further polluting their flesh. Worse, this reliance on drugs contributes to the development of new and lethal bacteria strains resistant to modern antibiotics. Read this article about the resistant bacteria MSRA found in commercial pork products. It already killed 19,000 people, but the FDA is choosing to ignore the problem.

Choose grass fed organic meats and chicken instead.

Processed foods made for convenience and long shelf life, and have completed short-changed in nutrition while using these methods to create foods.

The relationship between processed food and health is not a favourable one. On top of the loss of nutrients during the manufacturing process, most convenience foods recommend using a microwave oven to make them, which further deteriorates the nutritional values.

Genetically Engineered Foods
Here, a sobering factoid: it estimated that nearly 75% of the processed junk foods found in local grocery store contain corn, soybean or canola ingredients which have engineered from genetically modified organisms. This includes bakery products, salad dressings, corn products, baby food, infant formula and other products.

In addition, vegetables like tomatoes and potatoes genetically modified as well. That is another compelling reason to grow own vegetables. Recently, the biotech companies have applied genetically to alter fish.

The adverse health effects of these foods well known in relation to the animal kingdom.
•Farmers have reported that if given a choice, cattle will ignore genetically engineered corn in favor or naturally raised corn.

•Dairy cattle get sick when injected with rBGH, a genetically engineered hormone used to increase milk production, and still, this hormone used widely in the commercial milk industry. Fortunately, many grocery store chains have pledged to avoid selling milk tainted with rBGH.

Now all of this information is by no way "scientific", but common sense tells me that if cows will not eat genetically engineered food crops, and insects die after interacting with these food crops, it would be wise to avoid them as much as possible.

The human body did not change eating these technological foods, and the adverse health results have documented in studies.

Remember that by avoiding processed junk foods, we will automatically avoid most genetically engineered foods.

Vitamin D is one of the most important ones. Vitamin D is very commonly known as the 'sunshine vitamin'. The reason for this is that vitamin D is produced in the body as a result of direct exposure to sunlight. The main purpose of vitamin D in the body is to make use of the calcium available in the diet to strengthen the bones and teeth.

Deficiency of Vitamin D Causes

  • Rickets: This is one of the biggest problems. Weak bones that get hurt easily or fractured regularly are one of the biggest effects vitamin D deficiency causes. The prevalence of hypovitaminosis D is seen mostly in elderly people.
  • Skin pigmentation: If a person regularly notices pigmentation on their skin, it is very likely that this is being caused by an acute lack of vitamin D. Depression as a result of this.
  • Inflammatory bowel disease: People experiencing inflammatory bowel movements must also be wary, as this is also widely recognized as one of the most common symptoms of low vitamin D level in the human body.
  • Obesity: People who are obese must also be very careful about their intake of vitamin D, as obese people are more prone to it.
  • Other problems include knock-kneed appearance, low blood calcium levels, high blood pressure, tuberculosis, depression, bowed limbs, chronic fatigue, type I diabetes and chronic bone pain, muscle pain or joint pain.

Reasons that lead to the presence of these symptoms.

  • Lack of foods rich in vitamin D in your diet.
  • Minimal exposure to sunlight.
  • Failure of kidneys to convert vitamin D to its active form.
  • Dark skin shade in people.
  • Inability of digestive tract to absorb vitamin D.
  • Using too much sunscreen.
  • Age and hereditary conditions.

Vitamin D is naturally obtained through exposure to sunlight and from foods such as oily fish, eggs, fortified fat spreads and some fortified breakfast cereals. But it’s difficult to get enough from food alone.

Avoid becoming Vitamin D deficient by ensuring that you include Vitamin D rich foods in your diet each day. Foods that contain a good amount of Vitamin D are: salmon, mackerel, tuna, eggs, milk, and shitake mushrooms.

Though vitamin D deficient hair loss is often overlooked when it comes to the symptoms of being Vitamin D deficient, it's important to know that it is a rather common side effect of not including this essential vitamin in your diet.

The Hair follicle cycles (The anagen phase is when your hair grows, the catagen phase is when your hair stops growing, and the telogen phase is when your hair reaches it's dead state.) can become interrupted or altered. For instance, one phase may become longer while another is dramatically shortened. This can lead to Vitamin D deficient hair loss, as the phases of hair-follicle cycling are being impeded.

If you think that you might have Vitamin D deficient hair loss, then you should begin taking Vitamin D supplement or eating vitamin D rich foods, and schedule an appointment with your doctor.

My Comments:

It is not difficult to try, 1 item per month for 3 months and a health body.

 

What is Intermittent Fasting?
Intermittent fasting (IF) is a pattern of eating that alternates between periods of fasting (usually meaning consumption of water only) and non-fasting. A specific form of IF is alternate day fasting (ADF), which is a 48-hour routine typically composed of a 24-hour fast followed by a 24-hour non-fasting period. (ADF is also sometimes referred to as every other day (EOD) fasting, or sometimes every other day feeding (EODF).)

There is some evidence that intermittent fasting may have beneficial effects on the health and longevity.

 

3 Health Habits to Try (and Maybe Continue)

Some friends and I predicted that the gym would be packed for the first three weeks of January, and drop off from there. It didn’t even last two weeks this year. While some may forgo their resolutions of being healthier, losing weight, or having more energy, these all can be achieved without going to the gym (though, that addition can certainly help). Unlike many fitness experts, who’ll list a thousand ways you can be healthier (all of which would deplete your energy levels while you try), I’ll list three health habits to change for the next three months. The key: do only one at a time for a month before moving on to the next. If you try each for three months and you see no results, discontinue it (the try-it method).

1. Give up sugar. Don’t indulge from time to time. Don’t come up with excuses why you’re not going to try. Just give it up. Sugar doesn’t give you more energy; it actually steals energy from you by giving you a short burst of energy with a rush (hello dopamine) and then a crash. But we don’t need a short burst of energy – we need energy that lasts and lasts and lasts. Sugar fails.

And the news on grows worse for sugar consumers. Not only does sugar give you a quick rush while taking away your long-term energy, it alsotends to increase your calorie consumption(ie: appetite). In other words, sugar addition makes losing weight seem like an impossible goal.

2. Intermittent fasting. To an outside observer, this almost sounds like a religious practice, but it isn’t. Here’s some research on alternate day fasting (ADF):
· In male humans only, insulin sensitivity seemed to increase after three weeks (insulin sensitivity makes it easier to lose fat and gain muscle).
· In male humans, triacylglycerol concentrations decreased; in female humans, HDL-cholesterol increased.
· In animal studies, ADF showed positive effects against cancer. However, the human studies were too short to state either way (this also applies to blood pressure – the study was too short to indicate any long term results).

Before anyone cries “correlation is not causation” (for the record, the actual truth regarding correlation is that correlation may or may not be causation), keep in mind that many intermittent fasting studies have lacked significant length. This favors the try-it method: if it works for you, then continue doing it. If it doesn’t, discontinue.

3. Eat more fruits and vegetables. Cliché, right? Except I’m not going to ask that you eat 5-7 servings. Instead, eat one fruit and one vegetable a day and do it for the next three months. You can add more if you want later (and are feeling the results), but setting a small habit of a fruit and vegetable will establish an important routine while adding a nutritious source to your daily diet.

Also, make things easy on yourself regarding the fruit and vegetable. If you love taste, eat your favorite tasting fruit and vegetable. If you love convenience, eat the most convenient fruit and vegetable to you. If you like nutritional value, eat what you consider to be the most nutritious fruit and vegetable. What you select should reward you.

You won’t feel as overwhelmed by doing one of these resolutions for a month before moving on to the next one as you would if you tried going to the gym, eating healthy, and cutting back on food. Meet small goals that equate to large results over the long run (like giving up sugar) and you’ll find that your energy levels increase to where meeting difficult tasks becomes easy. In other words, these are the 20% of solutions that will give you 80% of the results. You can focus on the other 80% later.

Timothy Smith writes about fitness, health and nutrition at the Smashion Babble. He is also an expert on the Millennial generation and writes about them at The Echo Boom Bomb (and written several articles for Peter on Millennials).