Food & Nutrition

The case against swigging soda just got stronger. A large systematic review reveals clear associations between consumption of nondiet soft drinks and increased calorie intake and body weight.

Full-calorie soft drinks are also linked with reduced intake of milk and fruit and increased risk of type 2 diabetes. “Recommendations to reduce population soft drink consumption are strongly supported by the available science,” concludes the review of 88 studies. The American Beverage Association, however, presents a different view on its Web site. “It is not feasible to blame any one food product or beverage as being a sole contributor to obesity …. No science supports such a claim.”

Carbonated soft drinks are the single largest source of calories in the American diet, according to a 2005 report called “Liquid Candy,” produced by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). Companies annually manufacture enough soda pop to provide more than 52 gallons to every man, woman and child in the United States.

(the rest of the article is here.)

This article continues with even more of the evidence strongly connecting the consumption of soft drinks to Type 2 Diabetes.

It points out that this liquid actually increases the desire for sweets, yet the individuals consuming it are also eating less fruits and fibers … which is a BIG concern when it comes to CHILDREN’S consumption of so much soda.

I, for one, would like to hear more about the evidence that exists with the sugar-free as well as the full calorie sodas, for even these low calorie drinks are known to increase one’s desire for sweets, and it is doubtful that the individuals consuming large amounts of diet sodas are consuming the fruits and fibers either!

Water is what the body needs to perform every function … including weight loss. And any drink that contains “other things” in it require an equal amount of crystal clear water (at LEAST) to help to remove these “other things” … and ends up leaving the body at a loss for its own water needs!

So drink water … at least 64 ounces of it … on TOP of your ounce-per-ounce match of water consumption for every other drink consumed.

From coffee, tea, soda, or diet drink, they all require additional water for the body to be able to process them.

Enjoy that crystal clear water like you would looking out over a crystal clear lake vs. a lake with anything floating in it!!! Your body prefers this too!!

I am often asked about resources on nutrition. People are looking for the straightforward scoop in a very confusiong world.

Those of you who know me, know that I don’t believe in a “quick fix” or a fad diet in any way. So here are a few books that can help you to get there:
My favorite (so far) is a book called You on a Diet: The Owners Manual for Waist Management by Drs Roizen and Oz. They are very balanced in their approach, plus it is a very easy read that will stick with you because they make it such fun to read.

Another book I found very informative that stayed with me afterwards is: Healthy at 100 by John Robbins … yes, the very same family that invented Baskin & Robbins ice cream, but no, you will NOT find him recommending that you indulge in this American treat! He does a wonderful job of searching the world for results, and this was what I wanted to know.

And the final book that was eye-opening to me, is one called The China Study by Campbell and Campbell. The depth of research behind this book is impressive. But don’t let the word “research” turn you away. It’s a very easy read, from a man who is a caring father who has now changed the way his whole family eats because of his exposure to all of this information.
The combination of these three books can help you to understand more about how “incorrectly” we eat in so many ways. And the way to eat correctly is easier than we think!

Most importantly, in our culture, food is available to an unbelievable degree, so knowing the importance of WHAT to eat is a topic about which everyone needs more information!

We hardly stop to think about the repercussions of a hearty work load.

This is not just about stress.

The multi-layered effects of reducing your hours of sleep goes even deeper than the lethargy, the yawning, or even the unrecognized connection of sadness that may come as time continues to go by when a person is just not getting enough sleep … at night … and in the dark!

Dr. Razavi has a good article written about this on her blog, called Sleep More, Weigh Less.

T.S. Wiley has written a very readable book, called Lights Out about the very credible research connections that exist between our industrial age of the modern lightbulb and the many chronic health issues that now exist.

Getting more sleep is not the ONLY answer to any weight loss issue you might have, but it is actually a very POWERFUL one that can help you to connect with your deepest brainwaves. This alone can help you to better function by exerting more control over the other areas of your multi-dimensional body … and thereby affect your multi-dimensional life!

Tara Parker-Pope’s story in the March 20^th issue of Wall Street Journal was titled “The Case Against Vitamins.” And like so many newsworthy items that go against mainstream thinking, it may be that you find articles like this more confusing than comforting.

My words may not give you a complete understanding either, but I am determined to try to explain it in a way that makes ‘sense.’ There are many others who know the depth of this even more than I, but some day, when mainstream thought process catches up, then everyone will be saying “why of course!” So in the meantime, just look at this as something that is a bit more intuitive than you might first think.

The human body is made up of completely natural ingredients that can be found in a handful of dirt and a container of water. Nature intended for all these different bodies to be fueled by supplying abundant food sources in many shapes and sizes that come and go throughout the year. For the sake of making my point, let’s just call them all ‘whole foods.’

Your body takes each whole food that you ingest and uses it in an unbelievably complex manner because it knows how to supply itself literally with everything it needs. We scientists of course like to study these ‘complex equations’ and put them all down on paper, one-by-one, in a linear fashion. But in reality, the body is actually performing this ‘magic’ in a much more holistic manner than we could EVER capture in THOUGHT, much less document all of it on paper!

And how do we study all this? Well, we grind, freeze, distill, boil, dissolve, chromatograph (don’t even ask!), and ‘identify’ all that we can ‘see.’ Of course Nature only knows how many of these ingredients have been ‘destroyed’ by any of these processes. And we think processed foods are only found in the packaged isles! Ha ha.

So where this linear thinking has taken us over the years, is that we like to pull out some of these identified ingredients so that we can feel better about giving them to ourselves and gaining their benefits. The problem is that our linear thinking ‘forgets’ that there is a completely ‘invisible’ holistic process going on that we will some day accept that man can’t touch in his/her ability to understand!

We would LIKE to grasp it all. And some might say that we are just ‘arrogant’ enough to think we can someday do it … or even worse … that we have already done it! But the danger really only occurs in this kind of thinking when we try to do it BETTER than what Nature has already intended for us in the first place.

This is when we end up looking for a ‘magic pill.’ And since we really want to feel as if we are doing something special for our bodies, we take a few supplements. But the truth lies in the understanding that perfection can already be found in our whole foods, and it’s the processing of these foods that ‘unbalance the balance.’ Rather than think that this answer is “just too simple!,” we really need to really understand the fact that everything in the world is already in perfect balance, just as it is!

Now some people will point out that our soils are depleted, and that is true! But rather than try to replenish individual ‘ingredients’ of what a food might be lacking by taking a few ‘vitamin’ and ‘mineral’ supplements each day, we need to be more conscious of the fact that this in fact only puts our bodies more OUT of balance. So for the best of reasons, these supplements are sometimes adding to the problem.

So, the bottom line? You are better off simply eating more of the whole vegetables in the world so that you receive their complete complexities by cooking them less … or perhaps even crunching on a few more!

I got some great questions from my teleseminar last night, so here are a few of them … with my thoughts:

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Diet soda, diet jello and other diet products are processed. Does that mean they have no place in helping to lose weight?

Unfortunately, they do NOT help your body to lose weight very well. They are low in calories, yes, and that DOES help you VERY much.

But you also need to be aware that the sugary taste still just “tells” your body to respond by storing up the other foods you eat (especially those eaten in close proximity with these foods). It is much better to teach your body not to “need” the sweet taste all the time. And then by all means, have these sweet things as a “treat.”

Now if you are the type who has always had dessert after a meal … and seem to need it almost to let yourself know that you’re “done” with eating, then start to  rely on smaller amounts of that sweet … like just a bite or two … and see if this won’t help you as you begin to reduce some of this desire.

But you might like to know that just a bite or two of deep dark rich chocolate or even a rich dessert may even be BETTER for your weight-loss efforts than things like processed lo-calorie foods! The importance is in being able to STOP with just a bite or two. And this IS THE truly important step. But you CAN do it when you “know” in your mind how the body is interpreting the food. So you decide what you truly ENJOY, and then your body will in fact feel “more treated” and “less cheated” by your choice!

The constant message that your body receives from things like diet soda all day long are REALLY hard on your body’s ability to feel “safe” enough to let you lose weight. So find ways to give up that soda. I have suggestions in this blog you might try, as well as the tools you can find in The LAST Thing This World Needs Is ANOTHER Weight Loss Program.

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Are there any cheeses that would be considered a whole food or are they all considered processed?

This is a great question, and one that I still ask myself! I like to use raw cheeses, which you can get at the health food stores and many gourmet shops. However, I never use MUCH cheese … except as an enhancer rather than the main protein choice of my meal, because as you guessed rightly … the whole act of making cheese unfortunately makes it “processed.’

Cheeses do not digest all that well. And cheese is NOT the great source of calcium that we are led to believe because in fact, your body needs to put your blood’s pH back to “normal” after digesting cheese, and what it usually needs to do to PUT it back to “normal” … is to TAKE calcium out of its bones to do so!!! Dark greens turn out to be the MUCH better choice than ANYTHING ELSE for getting calcium INTO your bones. The calcium in dark greens is more “available” and more easily digested in a way that is just “perfect” for your body’s needs.

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What guidelines should be followed for washing fruits and veggies? Is a rinse or scrub with water enough to decrease pesticide or other bacterial residue?

The sad thing about pesticides etc., is that NO rinse or scrub is going to be able to remove what enters into the cells of the fruit or vegetable. When you eat the skins of a fruit or vegetable (which you should as often as possible), you might want to choose organic for them. The tropical fruits (such as bananas), where you don’t eat the skins, you can save yourself the money by NOT NECESSARILY choosing organic.

So what I do is add chlorella and spirulina to my day. These are the natural seaweeds that we USED to have access to and consume long ago. These things act like a “sponge” for the “bad” things that are in our foods. That’s not to say that you should now consume all the pesticides and bacteria in the world, but your body is very incredible and can handle SOME of these things with the right “help” of the right foods. I also eat my own plain yogurt that we all love. The freshness helps me to know that I am getting wonderfully live cultures, and the absence of sugar is under my control. Just as with raw cheeses, I also LOVE to make it with raw milk whenever I can, although the same thing applies: the heating process you use to MAKE yogurt ruins a lot of the benefits in raw milk too. The difference with yogurt is that you are benefiting from the “unprocessed” production of that wonderful HEALTHY bacteria which supplies your body with essential B vitamins and lots of other great things!

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I love to bake. Is there no healthy way to bake breads or cookies?

I too absolutely LOVE to bake. Which is a good thing … because some of the “healthier” breads and cookies take a little more “work” than the “unhealthier” ones. I have a great bread recipe that I make, which uses sprouted wheat berries. It takes a few days to make because of this. But I do like to experiment, and would love to hear from YOU if you do find some “healthier” versions of things that use NO white flour, white sugar, or even much of the other natural sweeteners like honey. It’s not that honey is “bad” for you, but your body still “responds” to too much of a sweet taste, AND like anything else, honey loses all those “fragile” nutrients when you cook or bake with it.

My book has a few of these recipes in it that I eat in moderation and call them “mini-treats” so that they don’t have to “count” as a “real treat” when you are on the program.

It will help you a lot when you find a “treat” that you can depend on to satisfy you. But first and foremost, it will help your weight loss efforts if you allow your “unhealthy sweet tooth” to diminish.

You might be a person who is concerned about the amount of cholesterol in your blood stream … and if you do have high cholesterol, you should be!

The confusion, however, comes from a widespread misunderstanding of how the food we eat PUTS cholesterol there, and of course what a person can do about it.

You might think that the cholesterol and fat content of your food is the problem. And although reducing the fat and cholesterol of your foods may help you a LITTLE bit, your BODY in fact makes PLENTY of cholesterol on its own … which contributes to the cholesterol in your blood … even if you don’t add ANY cholesterol and fat from your foods!

It is the OTHER factors in the foods you eat that have a much greater impact upon blood cholesterol. And although it may seem rather complex, it is all quite easy to understand if you just put things into a perspective of “speed!”

Quite simply … Your body likes things that go “slow:”

1. Foods that slow digestion naturally are good: like olive oil and vinegar on a salad!
2. Whole foods like oatmeal, brown rice, or barley are high in fiber and slow digestion, so they are good!
3. Even whole foods like raw nuts are high in fiber and slow digestion, so they are good!
4. Raw vegetables and fruits with skins and seeds are high in fiber and slow digestion, so they are good!
5. Meats that are cooked rare to medium rare are much better for proper digestion and so they are good!
6. Mild exercise actually slows down your digestion, and is therefore very good!

Your body does not do well with things that “speed” it up:

1. Anything sweetened by sugar (or even “artificial” sweeteners) speeds up digestion and is therefore NOT good!
2. All heavily processed foods made of flour digest too quickly and are therefore NOT good!
3. Dairy products of milk and cheese are heavily processed foods too, so they are NOT good!
4. Meats that are cooked medium to medium-well are too “processed” and so they are NOT good!
5. Caffeine speeds up digestion too, and is therefore NOT good!
6. Cooked root vegetables like carrots and potatoes digest too quickly, and therefore they are NOT good!
7. A sedentary body has nothing better to do with its energy than to put it into digesting any food rather quickly, so therefore this is definitely NOT good!

I hope this helps you to see that blood cholesterol issues have much more to do with factors that speed up or slow down your digestion of ALL cholesterol and fat that happens to be in your body.

Cholesterol itself performs some WONDERFULLY important purposes for optimal health. So choose your foods wisely. Cholesterol is one of those EASY things to keep out of your blood stream and where it belongs … just with the right foods and a little exercise.

Give these lifestyle changes a try on a consistent basis; and if you are on cholesterol medication, please monitor your situation carefully, because you really don’t want your cholesterol levels to drop too low. And you definitely don’t want to be taking medication that is really hard on your liver if you find that you no longer need it after all!

There really are some rather simple things you can do to “kick-start” your progress in weight loss.

1. Eat at least a few bites of raw vegetables every day. Their ‘negative’ calories do wonders for your body. But it really is MORE than just the negative calories. These raw nutrients seem to speak to your body in every way that encourages it to “let go” of old fat storage.
2. Log everything you eat into a small, personalized food journal. It helps to log the emotions you are feeling too, but simply the act of logging the food will make you more conscious of what is going on with your body.
3. Structure your meals so that you’re getting those bigger meals in the morning and smaller meals at night is important, but eating NO food at LEAST 3 hours before bedtime (and more hours is even better), will almost insist that your body lose weight!
4. Randomize your calorie intake by splurging in an occasional treat meal during the week. This keeps your body from going into any kind of starvation mode or “limited thinking!”
5. Get MOVEMENT into your day. Only you will know what works best for you, but find movement that you enjoy … and is EASY to add into your day!
6. Get a good night’s sleep every night!!! The hormones that you produce at night and in your sleep are essential to weight loss … AND positive emotions too!
7. Surround yourself with others to HELP you keep your mind on the positive things you are now attempting to do in your life. (I think you had better read the motivational blog on this date to read more about this one. The link is on the menu to the right, or simply put the following into your browswer: www.thelastthingthisworldneeds.com/wordpress

The most important message you want to communicate to your body in order to achieve weight loss is the message of “abundance.” And this happens in many ways. Your body will almost die trying to hold on to its fat stores if it thinks there is a LACK of abundance, in the hopes of helping you to “hang on” until the abundance of Spring and all of its welcoming green colors find a way to return to your world.

1. So, the first way to communicate abundance is through nutrients. If you consume processed foods, filled with empty calories, your body will continue to store.
2. It’s already been mentioned as to the importance of breaking your night’s fast with a healthy breakfast …
3. Add to that the fun and joy your body receives in your message of abundance when it “hears” that you are giving it another small gift of nutrients every three hours! Yes, you must eat some mini-meal or snack every three to four hours because this is the amount of time it usually takes for your stomach to have processed the last gift. Your body is just like a “child” … and wants constant attention!
4. Another way to signal abundance is to “share” your foods … with another person or package it up for your self … to be had later in the day. At least this “child” is the type who really does LIKE to share!
5. Abundance also means being able to eat when you’re relaxed and can savor every bite. If you are able to relax, then the body can relax too and get rid of its fat stores.
6. This message is also given to your body when you eat only when hungry and stop eating when you are full. Because think about it: When there is truly abundance, a person can reach down at their fingertips for MORE food ANYTIME one wishes to eat! So if there are abundant food sources, why WOULD one wish to eat when they are NOT even hungry? Eating when you are NOT hungry only tells your body that you’re concerned about the future … (perhaps about stocking up for winter?) … and so your body will then do everything it can to HELP you stock up!!!
7. And finally, the body feels abundance when it gets lots of fresh water … not stagnant water with anything in it (like sugar or many of the other things we put into it!) … but fresh, clean, crystal clear water!

Give your body all these messages of abundance and you will DEFINITELY lose excess weight, and be able to return your body once more to its perfect balance!

It may be hard to understand how the body takes food and distributes it, but in fact, your body does not take the fat you eat and convert it directly into fat storage cells waiting in your body.

Good fats actually HELP your body to lose weight, for some of these fats are actually nutrients that your body is HAPPY to see coming in … because these “good fats” are the ones your body cannot manufacture on its own.

Some fats even serve to add satisfaction and slow down the process of digestion. The bigger culprit for telling the body to convert ANY TYPE of food being eaten, is a processed food that is too easily being converted … and therefore it goes right into storage! The body thinks these processed foods are pitifully empty, and so the body assumes that there must be a scarcity of nutrients … a lack of food … a CRISIS if you will … and so it tries to “rescue” you and keep you “safe” with the intention of letting the crisis pass, when the ever-cyclical-springtime of fresh greens and abundant nutrients is sure to return!

So go ahead and eat SOME fats … and you’ll likely need less of the food to feel satisfied! But you won’t even KNOW this unless you stay aware of your body’s needs and responses as it communicates to you.

Choose fats that come pure, like olive oil and fish or cod-liver oil. Eat high fat foods like flax seeds, walnuts (or raw nuts in general … yes, even coconuts!), and if you CAN get that raw milk or cheese I just talked about, then go ahead and consume the “whole” milk varieties. But again, pay attention to just how little you need to feel a wonderful sense of satisfaction just waiting for you in all of Nature’s whole foods!

Yes, raw milk is a much healthier food than our available pasteurized food. I know that I was shocked when I first learned of this too. Yet it’s not that difficult to understand when you think about how and why the pasteurization process has worked.

At one time, in the days of poor refrigeration and poor bacterial testing techniques, pasteurization provided a wonderful way to assure the buyer that what they were getting was safe to be consumed.

Now, however, pasteurization is simply cooking all the wonderful but fragile nutrients out of milk at a high temperature. And what is left is not much more than the milk fat and the milk sugar of maltose. There’s a reason why you can find milk on your grocer’s shelves WEEKS after it’s been collected. Understand that anything which increases shelf life, however, actually decreases your own!

Although raw milk tastes and is good for you, government regulations have made it rather difficult to come by in America. You may be lucky and find a source like I did through www.realmilk.com, but know that sometimes you even need to co-own part of a cow in order to be able to drink its milk. There is no law against drinking the milk … there is only the various state laws against selling it.

It IS often somewhat easier to find raw cheeses in gourmet sections or even health food stores though, and these are wonderfully creamy and rich. You should give them a try and see if you don’t find that you become spoiled and choose never again go back to anything else.