General Article

Detox – Diet For A Day Each Week

Whether we are extremely busy, sit on the couch a lot, or absolutely anywhere in between, we can benefit from a simple, fairly effortless weekly health detox by doing a healthy diet for a day every week. Our bodies need vitamins, minerals and nutrients that most of us really need much more of. Many of us eat foods that do more damage to our bodies than they do good. Give your body a boost by doing a healthy diet for a day each week. Your body will start to feel much better and your normal eating habits may even change to become healthier without you even noticing as your body begins to crave the more healthy food. It’s generally our eating habits and cravings that cause us to feel unhealthy, tired and be over weight. Making a start with a diet for a day every week may open the door to a new, more healthy lifestyle and a new, more healthy you.

So, what should you include in your diet for a day? In short…healthy stuff. Raw, natural, unprocessed foods are best. The more different types of healthy foods you eat, the more benefit you and your body will get.

Raw nuts and seeds are great. They contain many good things and they can very be filling. Make sure to eat them raw because eating salted, roasted, honey roasted and spiced nuts, etc defeats the purpose of eating raw nuts and seeds. You can buy raw nuts and seeds at bulk food stores, healthfood stores and supermarkets everywhere. Walnuts, almonds, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds all contain dietary goodness that your body will love.

Raw, plain fresh fruit is also great snack. Although bananas contains plenty of calories, they will provide you with the energy you need when you need it. One banana on your weekly diet day is plenty. Other mainstream fruits you should eat are apples, grapes, oranges, plums and nectarines. Lemons are good for you too, you should squeeze half of a lemon into a glass of water, adding ice makes it nice and cool. Dried fruit can contain loads of sugar so avoid eating it and choose fresh fruit instead.

Don’t give up eating for a day! The reason for doing a diet for a day each week isn’t to starve yourself. The purpose of the weekly diet day is to eat healthy food for a day each week and to cut out bad fat, salt, sugars, preservatives, oils, and bleaches (used in white rice and flour) to give your body a much needed break. One day a week certainly isn’t too much for your body to ask for, is it?…

Healthy Food Low Budget? Try Pulses

So you want to eat healthy food on a low budget? Well who wouldn’t? – But in these hard times that’s not so easy is it? If money is tight and time to prepare nutritious family meals is limited, it’s all too easy to get drawn into buying unhealthy high fat pre-packaged foods. These often look like the cheapest option – but is that really the case, and what is their true cost in terms of our overall health and well-being?

Pulses are an excellent way to improve the quality of our diet, and the great thing is they also allow us to save money into the bargain. Pulses are the family of foods that include dried beans, dried peas and lentils. They are high in fiber, high in protein, low in calories and can help to lower cholesterol, so all in all they are simply a great health food which is also satisfying and cheap.

But surely dried beans take an age to prepare with all that soaking and boiling? – That’s certainly true, but these days all good supermarkets stock a wide range of tinned pulses which are equally nutritious, still very cheap and also very quick to prepare. For example, my own Easy Bean Stew Recipe from preparation to on the table takes me no more than half an hour (see link below).

It would be quite wrong however to discount dried beans and pulses just because of the preparation time, after all they are so cheap that I always keep a stock of various types in my store cupboard for when I’ve had the time to plan meals ahead. Planning is the key point here, if I know I’m going to make a bean dish tomorrow, I just put the beans in a bowl of water before I go to bed. As soon as I get in from work the next day, I change the water put them on the cooker to boil and they’re ready to incorporate into my meal by the time I’m ready to start the main preparation. Really easy, but just needs a little forethought.

Aside from their inherently healthy properties, pulses also improve our diet in other more subtle ways. Pulses are generally very filling, so to balance that out we are usually inclined to need less meat in the dishes we create with pulses. This can reduce the overall bad-cholesterol quantity in the meal, but also by bulking out stews, soups and casseroles, pulses can also make the same amount of expensive meat fill more plates which is again no bad thing. Taking this a stage further, pulses have traditionally formed the basis of some of the very best of vegetarian dishes, so if you’ve been looking for a way to cut down on, or cut out meat completely, pulses are the way to go to achieve this.

If like many of us you are currently struggling to make ends meet, and the weekly …

Growing An Aquaponics System Inside Your Home

Plants growing in the home have been known to have a positive effect on people. Plants are great at producing oxygen and just their beauty is known to lift peoples moods. There is no question why house plants are so popular in most homes. There are some people who are discovering that many plants that grow food will do well in the house.

It only makes sense. If you are going to grow plants, why not grow plants that will create other benefits, like fresh food. They can produce free fresh vegetables and at the same time, decorate your home. Aquaponics allows you to do this very effectively and without the hassles of potting soil, fertilizing and watering.

Aquaponics combines plants with another common home decoration, a fish tank. Fish, like the rest of us, produce a lot of wastes. Fish wastes are full of the nutrients that plants love. In a typical fish tank, the water is circulated through a filter that removes these materials from the water. Otherwise they accumulate to levels that can be toxic to the fish. Plants love these substances, but fish don’t.

So one day someone go the brilliant idea of growing plants in the nutrient rich fish water. That worked great for the plants. But it just happens that the plants do an amazing thing. They filter the water and make it clean for the fish. So with this type of system, the water can be recycled over and over. The fish continually fertilize the plants, while the plants clean the water for the fish.

This is easy to do in a soil free system. Plants don’t really need soil to grow, they just use soil to get the water and nutrients out of it. So if you give them the water and nutrients directly, you can bypass soil and all the work involved, like digging, conditioning, getting your hands dirty, etc.

This kind of system is very common for a greenhouse, or outside if the climate allows. It also works great indoors. An advantage of an indoor aquaponics system is the ability to control the climate. When outside, the weather will determine when and what you can grow. But inside, you control the temperature and eliminate common garden pests. No more slugs, snails, gophers, weeds or any of those things that take the fun out of gardening.

With these systems, you can grow more food in a smaller space. You can alternate young crops with older crops that make a nice contrast that can be quite decorative in your home. And imagine being able to pick fresh organic produce right out of your living room.…

Reasons to Avoid Sugar

Unfortunately, in today’s society we have been brought up with a high sugar intake from a young age. This does not necessarily mean we eat lots of sweets; sugar is present in a lot of the processed foods we consume. This includes things we eat every day, like bread, mayonnaise and peanut butter. Here are a few reasons why we should be more careful with what we eat:

Sugar has the potential to cause greater problems

If you are taking in more sugar than what your body is supposed to have, you are at risk for diabetes, which is a lifelong irreversible disease. Many people do not know that high sugar intake causes cholesterol. By not knowing you have high cholesterol and not starting a proper diet you stand a chance of having a heart attack.

Sugar can make you sick more often

By eating a lot of sugar it weakens our immune system, which means if there is a nasty bug going around the office, the chances are higher of you getting sick. Vitamins are always good to take, irrespective of how much sugar we eat.

Sugar causes weight gain

Unfortunately, the chocolate you just ate is going to sit on our hips. We don’t like to think of these things, but the fact is refined sugar is scientifically very bad for us. Weight gain is also extremely bad for your health.

No more energy

By eating too much sugar in your day without a balanced diet can cause you to have decreased energy levels. Many people think that eating a chocolate bar will provide them with energy, but actually the opposite is true. It gives you a quick rush of energy only to have it taken away drastically; you will feel lethargic.

Aging twice as fast

Sugar can literally make you age twice as fast. If you are eating too much sugar it can causes wrinkles faster than when you are limiting it in your diet.

Something extra to note

Sugar does not necessarily have to be cut out completely; it can be eaten in moderation as a treat with friends. If you cut it out completely, people will just crave it more and find others way to have it, like binge eating or eating in secret. This can have far worse consequences, so make sure to balance your food choices and limit your sugar intake. Healthy food with enough vitamins and minerals should out way the amount of junk food consumed. If people are exposed to too much junk food and not enough healthy food they can experience vitamin deficiencies. You will be surprised at how bad this can be, especially young children.

What you should be doing

It is highly important that you include all food groups in your meal. This can seem very hard when you are currently not following any healthy eating plan. It is beneficial for the entire family but most importantly for a growing child to receive the …

Get Healthy the Right Way – Start Today

Many people are hopping on the health bandwagon as of late. It could be because more and more people are realizing that they need to stay in shape if they want to extend their lives. Then again it might be an increasing awareness of obesity in the world, and many people don’t want to end up with a weight problem. This is perfectly understandable, but if you are one of these people, you need to lose your weight the right way, without resorting to ‘quick fixes’ or the so called modern miracles.

There are supplements out there that will aid in losing weight, and there are more than a few that will work, but there are also those that are way off track. In other words they tend to include only a small amount of the main ingredient, the company having spent the majority of their funding on advertising. If at all possible it would be a good idea to stay away from supplements and other chemicals.

Instead you should focus on losing weight and getting in shape by yourself. It might seem like a hard concept, but our bodies are well equipped for the task. Choose a diet that promotes weight loss and even integrate an exercise program into your daily life. Once you change your lifestyle and become fully acclimated to the changes you need to make, you’ll start living a better life. It won’t be long before the past is behind you, you’re in shape, and you’re performing like never before.

A couple of snack that you can incorporate into your daily routine are: almonds, fruits like cantaloupe, nectarines, and plums, all different kids of nuts like pine nuts, cashews and walnuts, cracker with hummus, fresh berries, avocado and even a smoothies.

Another thing to keep in mind is that if you want to lose weight more effectively, you have to eat more often throughout the day. Now, we’re not talking about fast food here, you have to eat healthy food. Also, you may not believe that eating more often does lead to weight loss because it goes against what you have learned about the whole concept of dieting, but it really does work.

Trying to lose weight by just dieting puts a great deal of stress an a person emotionally and physically. Most people that lose weight by excessive dieting usually gain it all right back, and even more. Because of this reason, exercise has to be a part of your program.…

Healthy Eating For Kids

Healthy eating for kids can be tricky… what do your kids like to eat on a regular basis? Most parents say that their kids prefer to eat the junk food: macaroni and cheese, candy, chips, cookies, and any other treats that they can find. Even though your kids want to eat these things, it is important to remember that you should teach your kids about healthy eating habits.

Start out by talking with your kids about the benefits of eating healthy foods. Help them to understand why it is good to eat whole foods and what those foods do to help their bodies. Explain how healthy foods provide our bodies with the nutrition that we need to grow, repair, and be strong.

Include your kids in the food planning processes. Let them help to plan the menus, and then take them grocery shopping. The grocery store is a great place for children to learn about all of the food options that are available. Walk them through the produce section and explain why fruits and vegetables are better than candy and sweets.

Another great way to help your kids eat more healthy foods is by having them help with meal preparation. Even little kids can help by standing on a chair and do small tasks. Show them how to prepare healthy meals, and they will feel pride in their work as they are helping to prepare the family dinner.

Focus your families eating habits around healthy foods, but it’s OK to allow them to have a treat every now and then. Talk to your kids about how it is OK to eat treats occasionally, but most of the time they should be focusing on eating healthy foods that will provide them nutrition.

Your kids may be resistant to healthy eating, so keep in mind that it takes time! Be patient and continue to work with them, and over time you will find that healthy eating for kids is easier than you originally thought!…

Beauty is More Than 30 Minutes of Make Up

Do you ever wonder how Hollywood celebrities always seem to manage to look camera ready? I guess you could just say that if you’ve got tons of money you can have hairdressers, makeup people and everything else you need to look your best before you even head out to the corner store, but the real answer is probably a little more complex.

If you want to have a perfectly sculpted body that only bulges in the right places you are going to have to work hard for that. But if you want to have that healthy glow that you only get from good skin, shiny hair and that bounce in your step that comes from feeling fit and healthy, than proper nutrition is the key. Eating right is not work, it is a lifestyle.

Although calorie requirements will change with your age and with the level of your daily activity a general rule of thumb is that teenage girls and young adult women need about 2,200 calories per day to meet their nutritional requirements. Teenage boys and young adult men need about 2,800 calories per day. Again these are very general rules. As your weight and level of activity increases your need for calories increases also.

Do not go by calories alone. You also need the right kind of fuel to be sure that your body is getting all the nutrients that it needs to make a healthy you. Things like candy bars, potato chips, and soft drinks have a lot of calories but very little nutritional value. Healthy foods packed with nutrition include fruits and vegetables, whole grains, most dairy products, lean meats, fish, chicken, beans, nuts and other proteins. Fruits and vegetables are like bonus foods. They contain a lot of water so they tend to make you feel full when you eat them. And since they are relatively low on calories to begin with you get a ton of fiber, vitamins and minerals and do not go away hungry looking for another snack.

If you had a personal trainer and a personal nutritionists like some of those Hollywood celebrities you could have your daily menu planned, prepared, and laid out for you at just the right times of the day. That ain’t gonna’ happen, however, so all the planning and preparation is up to you. If your schedule permits it eating small portions of the right kinds of foods five to nine times a day would keep you slimmer and also help reduce your risk of many diseases and also help in the prevention of infections and colds.

You know what the right foods are from the short list above. But if you do not know which fruits and vegetables you should be eating, the answer is simple – you want the widest variety you can get. It’s easy with fruits and vegetables because they come in almost every color. You can create variety in your diet just …

Deuteronomy: Healthy Eating Habits

The book of Deuteronomy is one of those books that most of us overlook. It’s filled with a bunch of do’s and don’ts that really doesn’t seem to apply to most of us. It is a book inspired by God and written by Moses as a guideline for Godly living. But, is it for us as Christians?

The Jews include this book as part of their Torah. The Torah consists of the first five books of the Old Testament. This is what they go by and they use it in their daily living. So, is Deuteronomy just for the Jewish community? Or should we, as Christians, apply it to our lives, too? It’s in the Bible for a reason. I’ll let you decide.

(Read Deuteronomy Chapter 14)

This chapter contains a list of foods that was commanded of God to eat and not to eat. It was intended for the new Israelites that Moses led from Egypt to the promise land. As with all commands, if you didn’t apply it and do it, there was a consequence.

Proper eating habits should be a concern for all of us. If we eat the wrong foods, our health could be at risk. Ask any doctor! Many patients that have heart attacks or high blood pressure have something in common: a poor diet.

What if Deuteronomy Chapter 14 was also a food menu for healthy living? We could apply it to our lives and live better. Take a look at it and let me know what you think:

Meat You Can Eat

A. Animals that have a split hoof divided in two and that chew the cud

• Ox

• Sheep

• Goat

• Deer

• Gazelle

• Ibex

• Antelope

Exceptions: Camel, rabbit, pig and coney (type of rabbit or rodent)

Notes:

• Cows didn’t make the list and it is one of the major meats we eat. It can be added because a cow has 2 hooves and chew cud.

• As a Redneck, I am thankful that the deer made the list. However, I am disappointed that rabbits and pigs didn’t. According to many healthy diet sites, pork is bad for you anyway.

B. Creatures living in the water

• All fish that have fins and scales

Exceptions: Anything that does not have fins and scales

Notes: A catfish would not fall into the ‘To Eat’ category. If you really think about it, a catfish eats off the bottom of the water and there’s no telling what they eat.

C. Birds

• Any clean bird

Exceptions: Eagle, vulture, kite, falcon, raven, owl, osprey, cormorant, stork, heron, hoopoe, and bat

Notes: Chicken and turkey are considered ‘clean’. That’s a good thing because we eat a lot of chicken. Probably because its one of the foods that we can afford at the grocery store.

D. Winged creatures

• Any winged creature that is clean

Exceptions: All flying insects that swarm

Notes: This category doesn’t create any problems for …

Healthy Food Sources Of Good Cholesterol You Should Consider To Prevent Heart Disease Or Stroke

The long-established link between high cholesterol and heart disease is undeniable, and one of the primary sources of high cholesterol is food. So adopting the healthy food sources of good cholesterol is paramount, if you are to achieve any success at achieving healthy cholesterol levels.

While cholesterol is needed by the body, for important functions like hormone creation and cell membrane protection, high levels of LDL cholesterol (bad) or low levels of HDL (good), put you at risk of developing coronary artery disease, or having a heart attack or stroke.

When LDL levels become too high, the excess LDL fixes itself to the arterial walls, causing plaque to accumulate, which in time, causes blockages in the coronary arteries feeding the brain and heart. A partial or full blockage can cause a stroke or heart attack.

The same is true of HDL, as high levels of HDL are needed to counteract the actions of too much LDL, through its role of removing the excess LDL levels and bringing them to the liver for excretion.

Choosing healthy food sources of good cholesterol will most likely include some diet and lifestyle changes. These kinds of foods help lower LDL cholesterol, and at the same time, increase HDL. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the healthy food sources of good cholesterol:

Fruits * grapefruit* blueberries* apples* cranberries* avocados* olives* pears* tomatoes* prunes* raspberries* grapes

Vegetables* spinach* onions* carrots* cauliflower* garlic* artichoke* broccoli* brussel sprouts* kale* leeks* watercress * eggplant

Others* almonds* oats* walnuts* whole wheat bread* green tea* salmon* tuna* beans* legumes* olive oil* red wine

You should try to incorporate as many of the above healthy food sources of good cholesterol into your daily diet as possible.

You also need to avoid, or at least limit, any foods that are high in saturated fats, trans fats and cholesterol, as those foods will cause your LDL cholesterol levels to elevate to potentially dangerous levels.

Make sure you get enough omega 3 in your diet, as omega 3 is very beneficial for lowering high cholesterol. If you are unsure about eating fish, then choose a good quality natural fish oil supplement.

While we are on the subject of supplements, adding a cholesterol supplement, with natural ingredients like policosanol, D-limonene, theaflavins, lecithin and phytosterols, will go a long way to helping you achieve optimal cholesterol levels.

Those ingredients have achieved amazing success at lowering LDL and triglycerides and raising HDL too.

Now you have a better understanding of the healthy food sources of good cholesterol, which will prove beneficial in helping you to make good food choices, even when eating out.

If you are ready to achieve optimal cholesterol levels, for outstanding heart health, then visit my website today, where I share what I personally successfully used, and continue to use, for healthy cholesterol levels and super heart health.…

Supplements Vs Raw Organic Superfood

In today’s society our culture has completely embraced the idea of supplements. The term multivitamin is a common little pill that many people start off their day popping into their mouthes.

There are so many questions that I have about these little pills in plastic bottles. First of all, where are these vitamins coming from? Secondly do I really need them? If I take vitamins that I don’t need will this have a harmful effect on my body? I guess most people’s mentality (including mine) is that you can’t really go wrong if you add them in. Who was it that came up with the “you will just pee the ones you don’t need out” idea? Is this really true? If we take too much calcium for example, will our bodies pee it out or will it start to deposit on our bones as bone spurs, or osteoarthritis? I am not a dr. or a scientist, so I have no idea what the answers are to these questions, but I do find myself wondering all the time.

It’s common known fact now a days that most of our soil is depleted and the vegetables that we are eating don’t have as many vitamins and minerals as they used to. If this is indeed the case, then it does make sense to me that the average person is probably depleted in at least a few core vitamins or minerals. If this is the case, what do we do? Should we start taking a cocktail of supplements just to be sure or should we investigate further and pick and choose our supplementation.

I think for starters, what we can all start doing is spending a little bit more money and buy organic superfood. It would also be a good idea to start incorporating vegan raw foods into your daily routine. If you purchase organic food you will be eating food that comes from sustainable farming, which means there isn’t all kinds of pesticides, fungicides and insecticides in your food. This also means that the soil has been naturally fertilized and will contain a much higher density of nutrients.

For those of you who have access to a good dr. and healthcare, or the funds to pay for a blood test, I would highly recommend that you go out and have your blood tested. A few months back I asked my dr. and he was happy to test my blood for any core vitamin and mineral deficiencies. I was concerned about my Vitamin B levels due to the fact that I no longer eat meat. My tests came back great, I had no deficiencies which was a good thing!

I also think you can’t go wrong with the intent to get your nutrients from food. When you think of a vitamin or a mineral you think of one molecule only. The biochemistry industry would say that in it’s molecular form this vitamin is just as beneficial as eating …