Fish oil - Yeah, you need it
Mary Poppins knew it. Your grandma knew it. Now scientists are coming around to the fact that fish oil is the best way to get your Omega 3 fatty acids. Omega 3 compounds can be found in many foods, but there are important differences in the bio-availability.
First of all, if you have access to grass fed beef, chicken, eggs and other meats you will be getting healthy Omega 3's. Once the animal's diet shifts even a little to grain, the levels of Omega 3's drop quickly. This has to do with the animal needing the Omega 3's itself to combat the damage that the rich grain diet does to the animal's physiology. But most of you are not as lucky as I am with a freezer full of grass fed Milking Devon beef. Grass fed meats are more and more available. You can ask at your local farmers' market to see if you can find a farmer.
Second, stay away from vegetable based Omega 3 products. Yeah they have Omega 3, but it's not in a bio-available form. Your body must first convert the plant based Omega 3 to a form your body can use. Sounds innocent enough, however your body is particularly inefficient at making this conversion. Women convert about 14 percent and men in the neighborhood of 7 percent. This, coupled with the fact that the plant based products, (flax oil, hemp oil, etc.) contain Omega 6, which in excess, counters the effects of Omega 3, you may actually be worse off than not taking any supplement at all.
Second, stay away from vegetable based Omega 3 products. Yeah they have Omega 3, but it's not in a bio-available form. Your body must first convert the plant based Omega 3 to a form your body can use. Sounds innocent enough, however your body is particularly inefficient at making this conversion. Women convert about 14 percent and men in the neighborhood of 7 percent. This, coupled with the fact that the plant based products, (flax oil, hemp oil, etc.) contain Omega 6, which in excess, counters the effects of Omega 3, you may actually be worse off than not taking any supplement at all.
Vitamin k
August 01, 2011 Filed in: Supplements
Since the amount of vitamin K1 in typical diets is ten times greater than that of vitamin K2, researchers have tended to dismiss the contribution of K2 to nutritional status as insignificant. Yet over the last few years, a growing body of research is demonstrating that these two substances are not simply different forms of the same vitamin, but are better seen as two different vitamins: whereas K1 is preferentially used by the liver to activate blood clotting proteins, K2 is preferentially used by the other tissues to place calcium where it belongs, in the bones and teeth, and keep it out of where it does not belong, in the soft tissues. Acknowledging this research, the United States Department of Agriculture, in conjunction with researchers from Tufts University, finally determined the vitamin K2 contents of foods in the U.S. diet for the first time in 2006.
Buying local food v. buying cheap
August 01, 2011 Filed in: Food
Even though a blind faith in buying everything local is not healthy for an economy, it makes sense in certain situations. Food is one such example. This "action alert" from the Weston Price Foundation is a perfect example of why.
The USDA is now implementing a rule that will require all RAW domestic almonds to be "pasteurized," using either a toxic and carcinogenic fumigant (propylene oxide) or a steam-heating process, to eliminate possible bacterial contamination. This is an effort to make nut production "safe" for industrial-scale farms with literally thousands of acres of production. We are now headed down the slippery slope-if agribusiness players have their way, almost all fresh fruits, nuts and vegetables will be treated with chemicals, heated or irradiated. We need to draw a line in the sand here and now!
It's a rough and tumble world in business. Big agri-businesses will work to stifle their competition, such as this move by "big almond". It the reason why today it is exeedingly difficult to get raw milk. The same thing happened to the milk industry in the 1950's and that's why you cannot buy raw milk, even though it's much healthier for you. It's also the reason why you should be terrified about a powerful central government deciding what you can and cannot eat.
If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny. - Thomas Jefferson
And if you are a little bit worried about the government dictating the type of almonds you can eat, you should be terrified about what the government will decide is good for you if they are in charge of your healthcare.
Summer is over
August 01, 2011 Filed in: Farm
The days will quickly shorten now and the plants will put all their energy into fruiting. It will be all we can do to keep up with the harvest until the first frost kills everything off. But that's a ways off yet. Now is the time of good eating
Nitrients in food
That said, I cam across an interesting article about cooking methods and nutrient retention in broccoli. (It wouldn't be too much of a leap to assume that the same goes for other vegetables as well.) The bottom line is that stir frying is perhaps the best method for locking nutrition in the broccoli. With microwaving, you lose nutrients, mostly vitamin C because it leaches out with any water you cook. I assume that steaming and boiling vegetables does the same thing. That's why the water has that green color when you are done! I suppose you could drink that water or put it into soups instead of pouring it down the drain. And one last thing, stir fry with heat resistant oils like extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil or lard. Some of the other oils don't lock in the nutrients as well and the high heat chemically changes most vegetable oils into toxic compounds.
Have you done your health chores?
Several generations ago there was no need to exercise. Churning butter, washing clothes, kneading bread was enough to keep her arms from getting flabby. Similarly, she didn't worry about getting enough sleep. When the sun went down, not a whole lot could get done by candlelight, and nobody had to stay up to watch David Letterman's top 10.
Although modern life has made work less odious, the cost is that we now have to add new chores to the age old list.Here are the top five modern health chores.
1) Exercise - some type of strenuous weightlifting that leaves you huffing and puffing and sweating (I recommend a book called The Power of 10."
2) Sleep - your body requires 7-9 hours minimum a night, more during the winter. Why do you think nights get longer in Winter? Mother Nature hates you?
3) Cook and eat real food - for your great grandmother there was no option. Now you can go weeks without eating real food.
4) Drink clean water - do I really have to explain this one?
5) Get a life - a social life that is. iPods, Nintendo, computers, home work, and big houses with individual bedrooms have all conspired to separate us. Families and friends used to sing together, play together, fight together, eat together, dance together (Can you imagine going to your child's high school dance? Neither can I). We don't even do therapy together anymore
The Autumn Exuinox
August 01, 2011 Filed in: Supplements
You have two choices to replace you vitamin D stores:
#1 Vacation
# 2 Take a vitamin D3 supplement
Composting inside and out
Your internal composting happens primarily in your small intestine. There you have vast number of microorganisms that compost the food you eat so that the nutrients can be absorbed. If the internal conditions aren't right, like the compost bin under the tree, you won't get full nutritional value from the food you eat.
