I have learned a lot about my body and I keep finding little things out.

I have learned that my body reacts to processed food adversly and that I NEED to have my veggies everyday.

I have learned that I need some cranberry juice and lots of water everyday.

I have learned that I probably have trouble with gluten but I don’t feel poorly enough to do anything about it right now.

I have learned that I shouldn’t have citrus fruits but I like them the best.

These aren’t the same for everyone, this is just my little list of food quirks. We all need different things to keep our bodies running at its optimum.

Maybe this could be an invite for you to get to know your body a little better.

This post should actually be called “The Politics of Nutrients.”

The reason for that is that food isn’t considered food anymore, so far as the media or governments or nutritionists are considered. At least that is what In Defense of Food states. Food has been deconstructed down to the point that oranges aren’t oranges anymore. Rather they are a source of Vitamin C. And tomatoes are a source of lycopene.

This technical terminology is used for a very important reason. The reason being that food, especially meat, can never been accused of hurting someone.

For example, cookies and crackers don’t cause cancer and heart disease. Oh no, it’s the trans fat in them. It’s a way of diffusing the blame.  Like, “that murderous thief isn’t bad, they just have a hard heart.”

In Defense of Foodstates that this all started in 1977 when a Senate Select Committe on Nutrition put out a report on health and diet. The research team had recommended that meat consumption be reduced since they had found that meat was the cause (at least a significant cause) of heart disease and other chronic diseases and cancers.

Senator George McGovern decided that this recommendation could not be released (he was, of course, highly influenced by the many meat farmers in his constituency) and formed his own reviewing committee that consisted of lawyers and journalists.

The report was retooled and released with the recommendation to reduce meat intake replaced with a recommendation to limit Saturated Fats.

Frankly, as well read as I am, I can never keep the fats straight. Polyunsaturated, trans, mono saturated, hydrogenated… it’s enough to make the head spin. So now consumers hear that saturated fats are bad for you but where do you find those? How do you keep them straight?

Wouldn’t it be easier to just say ‘meat causes heart disease” or “tomatoes help iron absorption”?

But that’s what those invested in meat or margarine, or Kraft Diner or whatever want you to think. If you are confused then you keep buying what you used to buy. Plus they use that ploy in another way. Have you ever seen eggs enriched with omega fatty acids? Or cheese with probiotics? Enrich something and the public will think it’s good for them. You could enrich cola and see “health conscious” people start drinking cola.

The benefit is never the same from eating an enriched product than from eating the real deal. If you want real vitamins etc. then eat your damn veggies. And, remember that there is nothing that our bodies need in meat. It is a nutritionally void food that raises the pH of your body and makes you more likely to get cancers or diseases. If you think that protein is an important enough reason to keep eating meat than keep eating yourself into a coronary! Cultures and countries that do not eat meat are much healthier and do not not suffer from heart disease and other diseases of affluence.

Another interesting factoid from the book was that in the last world war there was a ration on meat. When that happened the rate of heart disease and stroke etc. went down. Then when the war was over and meat consumption returned to normal the rates went back to their usual trend.

Food for thought…and only that! I certainly wouldn’t consider meat to be food for the body!

Oh my good god!

I was just two chapters into the book No More Bull! by Howard F. Lyman when I added it to my Amazon book list. If you thought that artery clogging and cancer causing were bad enough consequences of eating meat think again.

Lyman talks about the way that the US Government has lied and manipulated the public into thinking meat tainted with BSE is safe.

I had a friend who used to ask the waitresses if the burgers or whatever he ordered were BSE-free. I use to elbow him because really, do you think the waitress knows? But reading this book makes me wish I had been more concerned.

Lyman states that BSE is equivalent to Jakob-Creutzfeld Disease and that this disease (which can be caught from BSE) can be delayed in showing symptoms. So you could have ate one bad burger and get diagnose with JCD twenty years later!

He also states that all of that garbage about the muscle being safe because BSE is in the brain and spinal cord is just that, garbage. In the slaughtering of the animals this is all cross contaminated. Like he says, did all those Europeans that caught BSE really sit at home eating cow brains? Read the book. When you find out what meat is consistently tainted with it will turn your stomach. Ugh!

Plus, the BSE tests in the US are far from being state of the art. England and Japan test ever animal and do so with a much more sophisticated test. This is also at a lower cost overall. So why won’t the US and Canada follow suit? They likely don’t want to know that their animals are diseased.

Not to mention the effects it has on health. I just love this quote: “Thoughtlessly, we kill animals, cut them up, and consume them. It shouldn’t be surprising that there’s something equally violent and thoughtless about the way we cut ourselves up in the hopes of curing ourselves of the diseases caused by eating animals…The animals will have their revenge.”

When the meat that makes up so much of the Standard American Diet (SAD) is subsidized and protected by your Government even at the expense of health and security it really makes you wonder if this is really just a slow execution.

The meat and dairy industry must make a fortune in order for the governments to keep encouraging us all to eat meat even when our hospitals are filled with poeople suffering from diseases and cancers associated with meat and dairy products.

I won’t go into this a whole lot right now because I have beat this drum a hundred times already. Just look at some of my posts on The China study.

Anyway, some food for thought…and there’s lots to think about here.

I can see how confusing it is when you get thrown all sorts of gargle at you. Everyone has ideas about how to get this mineral or vitamins or how to combine foods to get the best phytonutrient absorption. For Pete’s sake, just relax!

Here are what I think are the most basic of health principles.

1. The closer the food is to it’s original form the more healthy it is for you. When you eat whole foods you give your body the maximum nourishment available. Even eating more raw food will help you reap the total benefits of the food you eat. Heat can often times kill or deactivate enzymes in our food.

The bottom line is: when you are adequately nourished you will consume less and maintain a healthier weight. So make your meals from scratch and stop eating out of a can or a box!

2. Artificial sweeteners etc. do not stop you from losing weight. Studies show that artificial sweeteners actually cause weight gain. When you eat garbage like diet pops you are assaulting your digestive system and that affects how your metabolism works. You will gain weight and could cause damage to your body. There have been studies that show that when rodents are exposed to artificial sweeteners they develop tumours and have babies with birth defects.

You can read the article and view the comments on my artificial sweeteners article for starters.

3. Try to eat less sugar (even natural sources of sugars (not including fruit)). Sugar suppresses your immune system and makes you more likely to get sick. It also affects your mood in a negative way. You’ll be happier without that box of chocolate chip cookies. Trust me.

Cut out all forms of sugar for a week or two and you’ll be able to eliminate the craving. If you choose to do that just be aware that there is sugar in all  sorts of items you wouldn’t automatically think of…like bread for instance.

4. Watch your portion sizes. Meat is one of the items that is often over eaten. I am quite serious when I say that meat will kill you. You would be better off switching to plant sources of protein. These help fight disease instead of encouraging it’s growth and will help keep your digestive system more regular and healthy. Try to incorporate more vegetables into your diet. These are your disease fighters! Plus they keep you regular and that is a major component to good health.

5. Make better choices by reading labels. Let’s say you really want a salty treat. Potato chips are out. See my post on MSG. You can substitute with some tortilla chips (I choose one that uses organic corn because I try to avoid GMO when I can) and some homemade or organic store bought salsa or guacamole. I really try to advocate for making your own food but certified organic can be almost as good since they can not use chemical preservative etc. When it’s organic it has to be food! You can’t have organic chemicals.

Just find a better alternative to your craving. An organic dark chocolate bar instead of a Snickers, a cup of fruit juice instead of pop.

6. Get some fresh air and sunshine. This will make you happier and therefore healthier.

7. Try to use less chemicals in your home.  I have been cleaning with lemon juice, baking soda, vinegar and cream of tartar for over a month now and it works just as well. If you clean with vinegar though, make sure you air out the room before you have company over. The smell does linger a bit. But it’s still better than that stinging Windex smell to me.

But most importantly, just enjoy your food. Don’t get frustrated that you don’t know which salad to eat. Just take it one day at a time.

The raw food movement has been picking up speed. Although I don’t eat more than about 30% raw I still believe that it has merit.

The point of eating raw is that you are eating foods in the form that contains the most enzymes. Enzymes are beneficial in helping your body digest food and absorb nutrients. Raw foodists also believe that you get more nutrition from food in its raw form. While that is true, there are some nutrients that are unlocked with small amounts of heat.

I believe that when tomatoes are heated slighted that their lycopene becomes more easily digestable.

So I suppose the healthiest way to eat would be to eat raw and cooked. Don’t overcook your veggies though. You can leach the nutrients out of your food by overcooking. I tend to leave my carrots etc. a little crunchy on the inside.

One of the easiest things to eat raw is smoothies. I am, of course, talking about smoothies that don’t have ice cream and junk like that in them.

One of the simplest smoothies is just a banana, some strawberries or whatever frozen fruit you like and a bit or water or juice. I like to add EFAs and hemp protein powder to mine as well.

Another easy raw snack is granola bars. Experiment with these to find the flavour and texture you like.

I made a batch tonight that has dates (soaked), rolled oats, sesame seeds, flax seeds, some strawberries, carob powder and sprouted buckwheat. These are bit sticky so I am going to let them sit overnight to dry up a bit.

I also made a batch that has peanut butter, peanut oil, honey, cashews, almonds, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, sesame seeds, peanuts and raisins. They are quite crumbly so I will try to add a little something extra into the chunks tomorrow morning if they haven’t solidified a bit better. And if that all craps out, I’ll cook it in my oven and make a tasty granola!

These are healthy, packed with nutrition!

Yesterday I was out and about and managed to snag myself some nifty green deals.

The first was a green cleaning book from Chapters. It was in their clearance section for about six dollars. I have been wanting something concrete with recipes (since I make notes from websites and magazines but it is such a pain in the butt to look for them that I just keep reaching for my Seventh Generation all purpose cleaner) for all sorts of cleaning  needs. They cover everything from floors to pests to shoes to tubs to pans.

These recipes are made with baking soda, citrus juice, borax, vinegar and other natural substances. Even with the natural/eco-friendly cleaners you still get far to many chemicals. Granted they are worlds better than Windex and Mr. Clean but they still aren’t the safest!

I am looking forward to replacing all of my cleaners with homemade ones!

The next green deal I found was a ceramic coated frying pan made by EarthChef. It’s non-stick like Teflon pans are but made from non-toxic ceramic.  Teflon is notorious for being toxic. Especially if it gets too heated. But who wants to cook something delicate like polenta in a stainless steel pan? Enter ceramic cookware.

I have had a chance to try mine on something very sticky and it was just as good if not a bit better than Teflon. Yay to non-toxic food!

I can’t say if it’ll stand up as well as my Lagostina pans but I can’t imagine that the ceramic would start to wear faster than the Teflon. The EarthChef pans come with a lifetime manufacturer’s warranty so I would infer that the ceramic is pretty resistant.

Plus, they are quite inexpensive. I bought a small pan for $7 or $8 at Sears! The big ones were a mere $30.

So here’s to healthy eating and non-toxic homes!

1. Reduce the amount of unnecessary items we purchase. Every few months I go through my whole house and send about two bags worth of stuff to my sister or Goodwill. This is a clear indicator of how we consume too much stuff. In many places of the world there are people who are barely surviving on less than what would be allocated for one person. Yet in the U.S. (Canada ranks a tiny bit better) people consume ten times what is allotted per person. I am sure that if you just take a look at your house you can see thousands of dollars of worth of rarely used items. Not only that, but most of those items are likely purchased using credit. This is a very unstable existence!

2. Borrowing more books/movies etc. from the library instead of buying them. Same premise as #1.

3. Reducing the amount of dining in/take out we participate in. Take out food is over-packaged with materials that aren’t always recyclable. This contributes to overfilled landfills. Also, any form of eating out is often unhealthy (especially compared to home cooked wholefoods meals) and far more expensive.

4. Trying to unload my plastic junk. Now this one requires some buying but it is a long term investment that is good for the family. Plastic is horribly toxic stuff and the sooner I can get it out of my home the better.

5. Using my computer and TV less and lowering my heat in the winter. This little effort can save hundreds of dollars over the course of a year. It’s funny that what benefits the environment often benefits my budget. I can’t lower my heat too much with a new baby in the house but I do try to lower it during the day. I also plan on spending much more time outdoors when it gets warmer out and that will mean a lot less time when the TV is on. We don’t have cable but we use it for watching movies and as a CD player these days.

6. Going fully vegan. The only vice left is cheese! We have given up all meats, eggs and all dairy except cheese. This will need to be a slow transition if we are going to stick to it but we will get there, so help me, by the end of 2009. The meat and dairy industry uses up piles of land and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions tremendously through all the different attributes of farming (from cow farts, to transportation of goods, to processing, to packaging).

7. Not eating any processed food. This is one that won’t be very hard for us to acheive. We didn’t eat much before. The processing of food often exposes it to chemicals and other garbage. It also reduces the nutritional value of many food items and makes them higher on the Glycemic Index scale. This means you aren’t nourished adequately and your body sends you signals to nourish it causing you to overeat and gain weight. Eating fresh foods means less packaging and less of a carbon footprint from all the over-packaging and processing.

8. Eating/buying items locally. Also buying organic food. I already boycott anything from Mexico (because of the pesticides) and try not to eat things from the USA either because of the GMO. The hardest will be giving up avocado but, I will likely allow myself to indulge in the healthy fruits and veggies. I want to start shopping at the Farmer’s Market more often too.  This also means that I’ll have to stop shopping at Wal Mart. Ha ha ha. I have hated shopping there but it is the closest store to my house and the prices are often what we can afford as a family of five living off of one income. But I am hoping that we can save a lot of money by changing our buying habits and can afford to shop in more local shops. Organic farming is much easier on the environment and the fruits/veggies from organic farms are often more nutritious and contain less pesticides. Another perk is that they cannot contain any GMO’d products.

9. Getting back to using cloth bags instead of taking plastic ones. We are pretty good about this one. When we do forget and are only buying a few, easy-to-carry items we often decline a bag and then just bag it in the car with one of our reusable bags. My goal for this year is to stop forgetting to bring the bags!

10. Streamlining our errands (ie. wasting less fuel because we go out to go get one container of soy milk).

Other, more personal goals:

1. Cheap dates. There are so many activities that are considerably cheaper than a dinner and a movie. We have thought of going swimming, going for walks on walking trails and playing tennis. There is also dancing at a latin club (we are taking lessons in the spring). These activities have the added benefit of offering quality time together and making our bodies healthier.

2. Exercising regularily and losing my baby weight.

3. Clearing out debt and not buying any large items with credit. Learning to have patience and save for the items we need.

4. Being more involved in my children’s education (see last post for details.

As much as the New Year is about setting new goals for ourselves it is a time for reflection.

When I sit back and think about the goals I had for myself for 2008 I realize why so many people don’t bother with resolutions.

In 2008 I wanted to eat healthy, lose weight and run the yearly marathon in my city. I did none of those things. I cheated on my vegan diet, I didn’t lose weight and I didn’t run any races at all. To be fair I found myself pregnant in February and up until that point I was working very hard and was on the right track for meeting ALL of my goals.

My goals for this year are pretty much the same. I want to eat vegan, exercise daily, lose weight, make better consumer choices (better for my budget, my health and the environment), and run that marathon.

I have also added some parenting goals. Like actively being part in my children’s education. All three are too young for school (my eldest is only three and a half) but I figure that they are never too young to be taught at home especially since they will be unschooled at home anyways.

I want to spend more time working on the alphabet with them and reading to them. I want to take them on nature walks (where they can collect nature samples, paste flowers into their Nature Journal and take pictures of the things that are either alive or too big to fit in the box) and I want to take them to different educational venues like the Space and Science Centre, local protests, the library, the museum, ethnic restaurants and such.

I want to limit their movie viewing time and increase the amount of free-play they get. I want to increase the time they get every week for making art (using watercolour and acrylic paint, wax and pencil crayons, sidewalk chalk, bathtub crayons etc.), singing songs and playing with musical instruments.

I know they will only truly grasp a new concept when they are ready to and therefore is no sense in torturing them to listen to a “lesson” on grammar. But just because their schooling is unstructured and unconstrained doesn’t mean that I can be lazy about it. The earlier that I allow them to follow their natural thought processes, the earlier I will be able to see some results. Children, even toddlers, are much more capable than we give them credit for so long as we allow them to take risks and learn from the outcomes. I don’t know why people insist on doing everything for their children. Even if you know their tower of blocks will fall over don’t interfere. They don’t know that it will fall over and when it does they’ll have learned something!

I am also trying to allow them to share stories and ask questions more and more often. This is very hard when I am busy and would rather say, “That’s nice sweety. Now please go away.”

 

So far in the year I have failed pretty miserably at most of my goals. I have had cheese and junk food. I have not excersized every day and I have forgotten to bring my cloth bags with me to the grocery store (which we were so proficient a remembering until the last month or so)! But I am going to keep trying and when my husband gets back to work tomorrow it should help us get out of our lazy holiday slump and back into our healthy routines! *Knock on wood.* Ha ha ha.

I started looking up some of the online stores that sell Waldorf toys a few days back. There are some great ideas that would be simple enough for us to make ourselves.

My husband is a cabinet maker and would be more than capable of doing some of the projects on these sites. Things like building castles, lace-up cheese, teethers etc.

I can sew and would be able to make dolls, dress up clothes, play scarves etc. I have even been fortunate enough to find instructions for making Bambolettas. They are so beautiful but quite pricy (which is fair considering the price of the materials (wool batting etc.) and the time required to make them.

The upside to making my own, besides saving money and personal pride in my work, is that I can make it out of cotton instead of wool and make it vegan-friendly while still staying true to the doll.

Anyways, I am having so much fun making toys and planning for the next ones. I can’t wait to make it to the wood shop soon and buy some more wood trinkets for my next project!

Who knew that making my own toys could be so much fun for me and for the kids? Not to mention how much healthier these toys are for their bodies and minds.

I apologize for being so long without writing. I had a baby on November 30th and haven’t really found the time to sit down since then.

Lately I have been thinking more and more about the fact that my kids have way too much plastic in the house. And I have made it clear to my family that if they buy plastic toys for our new little one I am not giving them to her. It makes me sick that people give their infants plastic teethers and let t hem drink  warm formula from plastic baby bottles.

I watched a documentary by CBC called “The Disapearing Male.” It explored the horomone disrupting capabilities of  the chemicals in the toys we give to our children. Not to mention the crap we spray on our countertops or the stain resistant finishes on our clothes and furniture.

The result has been a lowering male birth rate and an increase in male reproductive problems. Things like low sperm count, testicles that get stuck in the body (raised testes) etc.

So I have been talking to my husband about downsizing the kid’s toys. He feels somewhat bad because most of that toxic plastic were gifts from well-meaning people. But he has agreed to let me get rid of anything that doesn’t have an educational value since he thinks they have way too many toys anyways.

We are going to replace them with cotton and wood.

I asked my mom to buy toys made from natural fibres. So she spent extra time looking for a doll for Anna. It said on the box that it was safe for asthmatic kids. So she assumed it was made from safe stuff. It’s made in China (Boo!) and has a soft plastic face (read Phalates) and a polyester body (read synthetic fibre). Why is it so hard for people to get the wood and cotton thing???

Anyways, not that I have been much better. So far I have bought just a few things for Anna. A fleece (made from recycled pop bottles (read plastic)) sleeper, a fleece blankie and some cotton socks. It is hard to break bad habits but I am trying very hard to stick to natural fibres and wood toys. Not only as these healthier but they are also better for brain development. Generic toys (which are common in wood toys) encourage children to use their imagination. We are learning more about Waldorf learning these days and finding that we like the theory of  it.

Sure, wood blocks may harbour bacteria better but we aren’t scared of dirt. Just hormone disrupting toxins! 

We are also replacing their sippy cups and plastic food storage containers with stainless steel ones. We are trying to make the change all over the house. Most people are well aware that even if you live in downtown Toronto that the indoor air pollution is worse than outside. The reason is because of plastics and foams and cleaners and all that other crap in our homes that leeches toxins into the air. I spend most of my days inside and I want that environment to be as healthy as possible.