Eating Well Through Cancer

This was the first book that I found on the subject of eating for health one day while sitting with Nani in the chemo office. It is full of recipes to "help" people get through chemo so they can keep their strength and calorie intake up. Before I rip this book to shreds, I would like to say that it is complements of Merck Oncology. Merck, as you may or may not know, is one of the big pharmaceutical companies that creates the chemo drugs that millions of people are given to "cure" cancer. Notice the lovely fruits and vegetables on the cover.

Now I'll tell you what they are advocating cancer patients should eat (this is just a sampling not the entire list):

• Eat between meals with high-protein diet supplements, milkshakes, puddings or nutritional energy drink supplements. SUGAR & FAKE NUTRITION
• Add cream or butter to soups, cooked cereals, and vegetables to increase calories. Add gravies and sauces to vegetables, meat poultry, and fish until weight loss is no longer a problem. FAT & ANIMAL PROTEIN
• Add extra protein to your diet by using fortified milk, peanut butter, cheese, and chopped hard boiled eggs ANIMAL PROTEIN
• Be creative with deserts. SUGAR
• Try drinking lemonade. MORE SUGAR!
• Increase the sugar in foods to increase their pleasant tastes and decrease salty, bitter, or acid tastes.
• Use extra sugar with many deserts to improve the taste or to provide its accustomed taste. A teaspoon of sugar added to cooking water or glazing vegetables such as may help improve vegetable flavors. INCREASE THE SUGAR!!!
• Fresh vegetables may be more appealing than canned or frozen ones. FINALLY!

Food Staples:

• refrigerated biscuits SUGAR
• butter or margarine FAT
• fruit
• reduced fat cheese FAT
• skim milk DAIRY
• sour cream DAIRY
• fresh vegetables
• fat free yogurt DAIRY
• white bread SUGAR
• pasta SUGAR
• pizza crusts SUGAR
• white rice SUGAR
• cake mixes (chocolate, yellow, & white) SUGAR
• instant pudding SUGAR
• sugar & artificial sweetener SUGAR
• reduced fat creamed soups WHO THE HELL KNOWS?!

Recipes for the day of chemo:

• cinnamon rolls
• blueberry pancakes
• berry french toast
• baked french toast
• apple lasagna
• egg noodle casserole
• yam biscuits
• chess pie (butter, sugar, white flower, eggs)
• lemon angel food cake
• chocolate eclair

ALL SUGAR!!!!

OK ready? First of all I appreciate the tidbits of fruit and vegetables that are scattered across these pages. More importantly though, the majority of this book is filled with white flour and sugar. THE ONE THING THAT FEEDS CANCER IS SUGAR! HOLY S-H-I-T! This book is basically advocating eating a low fat diet that is high in sugar- which the last couple decades of American's fat free psychosis has proven  a disaster. 

How is any of this food going to help the chemo get rid of the cancer that this food is actively feeding?

Where did these people get their information? Actually, did they even research anything about what feeds cancer? and what prevents disease? Surely not! I really feel for people who take information like this at face value. Just because it is published and backed by a huge company like Merck doesn't mean it's good information. Besides Merck doesn't want cancer to go away. Then they would be out of business.

In my humble opinion, people who are dealing with cancer should be eating a plant based diet with tons of fresh fruits and vegetables in the form of salads, fresh juices, smoothies, with whole grains, beans, nuts, and seeds. Someone with cancer should NOT be eating deserts!!!

Ugghhh! 

Please if you or someone you know is dealing with cancer, the best thing you can do for yourself is change your diet. If you have any questions please email me at jessicageier@gmail.com. 

I knew I should have paid attention in high school

I never thought that I would ever use the public school education I received in high school. We read all this "classical" literature BS... which I never enjoyed. We had to interpret what authors meant by their Old English gibberish... over my head. I learned about shale... still have yet to use my knowledge about that particular rock. We dissected frogs... definitely NEVER going to use that!

The one thing I just started researching that I know I definitely learned about in high school is pH balance and the acid/alkaline scale. Vinegar is acidic and milk is alkaline, but as it turns out it is far more complicated than that because a naturally acidic food can have an alkalizing effect in the body (i.e. citrus fruit). Apparently, this is pretty important when it comes to understanding how well your body can fight off infection/cancer/disease, etc, etc.

Here are the basics from The Body Ecology Diet :

• Just as our normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees F, there are other measures of a normal condition or homeostasis within the body. The levels of sugar, oxygen, and carbon dioxide in the blood must all be stable; and the pH (the balance between acid and alkaline) of the body fluids, including the blood, should be 7.4, slightly alkaline.
• An imbalance toward too much acidity allows yeast, viruses, rebellious (cancer) cells, and various other parasites to thrive. Acidity also leads to conditions such as chronic fatigue, arthritis, and allergies. 
• If you have an acidic condition from eating an acid-forming diet, your body is constantly trying to return to a more balanced state by calling on your stored reserves of alkaline minerals: sodium, calcium, potassium, and magnesium. If you continue eating foods that are highly acid forming, over time it can create a mineral deficiency. 
• The typical American diet is high in foods that cause our bodies to become acidic- sugar, candy, sodas, white flour products, beans, soybean products & tofu, wine, beer, saccharin, NutraSweet, alcohol, commercially refined vinegar, all processed foods containing preservatives and chemicals (ingredients you cannot pronounce)
• There are acid forming foods that we should be eating- animal foods such as beef, poultry, eggs, fish, and shellfish, buckwheat, organic, unrefined oils, and Stevia. 

I bought some pH test strips a few months ago and I have been testing my urine (I know I'm weird, don't judge). I definitely noticed a pattern:

• When I eat a mainly whole food diet (whole grains, vegetables, fruit, with a small amount of animal fat & protein) my urine is pretty alkaline.
• When I feel stressed no matter what I eat I am acidic
• When I drink coffee it immediately makes my pee acidic but then goes back up rather fast
• When I go out and drink on the weekends, on Monday I will be almost off the charts acidic. It takes me about 2 full days to get back to alkaline. By Friday evening my pH is in the optimal range and I am ready to destroy it all over again- old habits are hard to break.

The moral of my story is that by monitoring your pH you can get a glimpse of what is going on inside your body. It is really amazing to monitor what goes in your mouth and what comes out the other end (#1 not #2). Your body is a machine far more complex and intelligent than any computer on the face of this Earth, and it responds 100% of the time to what you feed it. It is not necessary to know the ins and outs of all these complex processes that take place when you put food in your mouth. It is important thought to understand that the quality of the food you put in your mouth makes a measurable difference.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!

5 Ways: Quiche

One of my goals this year is to complete my book. I started with the idea of writing a book a little over a year ago. Last year I spent a lot of time researching, cooking, and cleaning up what I ate. Throughout this process, the scope of what I want to turn into a book changed a few times because I wasn't satisfied. I always felt like my idea wasn't complete. Well nothing is ever really complete because everyday I learn something new, however, I feel now that I have a "mostly complete" idea.

In a nutshell, I am going to be putting together a step-by-step guide on how to de-junk your diet while still being able to eat very tasty, healthy, and seasonal food. It is about what to throw away, what to buy when, and how to make easy, relatively fast meals. Seasonal fruits and vegetables are the basis of this (and the newest addition) which is why I think it is so important to write a guide. How many of you can take butternut squash and turn it into 5 completely different tasting meals? How many of you know what to do with cranberries (besides cranberry sauce)? How many of you know why apples are so abundant in the fall? and why it is so important that we eat tons of them while they are ripe?

Working out weekly meal plans including mostly seasonal fruits and vegetables is what I am going to be working on, because fruits and vegetables are available at certain times of the year for a reason, and that is when we should be eating them- when they are in season. Plus it is cheaper to eat seasonally, and easier to eat locally because farmer's markets are becoming more and more popular.

So expect a lot of 5 Ways in the future.

This first one is quiche. This is just as easy as making an omelet, but tastier. The key is to either find a pie shell with healthy ingredients or make your own. Last weekend I had to make 3 of them for my BF's sister-in-law's baby shower so I bought some at Whole Foods.

Pre-made pie crusts should be made with real ingredients, unbleached flour (whole wheat would be best), and butter or palm shortening. If it is made with "vegetable shortening" it's no good- it's made with soy shortening.


Pie Crust (makes 2 shells or a shell w/ a top)

• 2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 stick organic butter, room temp.
• 1/2 cold water

1. In food processor (or with a pastry blender or fork), put dry ingredients & butter.
2. Slowly add in cold water until mix turns into a dough ball. Then stop even if you have water left over.
3. TIP: wiping the counter top with a wet sponge will prevent the wax paper from slipping.
4. Roll the dough in between flowered wax paper sheets. 

pastry blender

Making a quiche is simple...buy or make the shells, beat 8-9 eggs per shell, add the toppings to the eggs, fill shells, bake in 350 degree oven for 55 minutes. That's it!

Asparagus 

Spinach & Feta

The BF's Sun-dried Tomato & Eggplant

Broccoli & Cheddar

(source)

Goat Cheese & Artichoke

(Source)

What is your favorite quiche to make?

OMG I want to eat LIVER!

Well, I've gone and done it again. Just when I think I know enough to make informed decisions about what I am eating I learn something new that totally blows my mind and makes me rethink what I have been doing.

New year's night I ate dinner at my Aunt's house and liver and onions came up in conversation. We aren't weirdos...my grandmother used to eat it all the time. As soon as I heard that my face scrunched up and I got that feeling like "I could never eat organs!" Hahaha like it's any different than eating muscle (which is what meat is).

Anywho, I was just listening to a lecture by Sally Fallon of the Weston A Price Foundation on "what a healthy diet is". In a nutshell, Weston Price (who was a dentist) saw his patients coming in with awful teeth. He knew that diet had something to do with it so he set out to study a bunch of isolated "primitive" cultures around the world. They are referred to as primitive because they have no interaction with the "civilized world". His goal was to examine their teeth, their overall health, and the foods that they ate.

He went to each culture and did just that. He examined everyone from the elders down to the infants and found, to his astonishment, that the majority (99%) had perfect teeth and were generally of good health. Their babies were healthy, the old people were healthy. Then he recorded their diets. He set out thinking that their diets would be vegetarian. On the contrary they ate everything from raw milk to organ meats to fish heads (yum!).

What these "primitive" cultures ate depended on what they had available. There was a group of people in Switzerland that ate mainly raw milk products and a dense sour dough bread.

You ask...how is that possible? I thought carbs and dairy were bad?

Well the bread and cheese those people ate were completely different than the bread and cheese that we eat today. They did not pasteurize their milk which kills everything beneficial that raw milk has to offer, and the bread that they made was made in such a way that is easily digestible.

 There were a lot of similarities between how these "primitive" people ate but here are the few that intrigued me the most:

• they ate what was available to them (whether it was dairy, or bugs, or fish, or grains) 
• they ate entire animals/fish
• they ate the fattiest parts of the animals

How does this relate to liver and onions? Well until just recently it was common to use most parts of an animal. Two generations ago, people ate liver. And this is in New Jersey, not some isolated valley in Switzerland.

liver & onions courtesy of The Food Network

Since then, the no-fat/low-fat health claims have twisted us into thinking that we are healthier without all the fat. But these isolated "primitive" cultures around the world have proven otherwise. These cultures have been eating traditionally for hundreds if not thousands of years (depending) because it has allowed them to thrive and survive in their particular surroundings. They do not need doctors and scientists to tell them what nutrients are in what. They ate liver not knowing it is very high in Vitamin A & D. They did not explicitly know that Vitamins A & D are fat soluable (which means they need fat present to be absorbed). The liver is a fatty organ. They did not explicitly know that Vitamins A & D are important in that they allow all of the rest of the vitamins and minerals to be absorbed and utilized properly, as well as play a huge role in the proper functioning of hormones. Their animals were raised on a pasture, which in turn produces meat that is high in Vitamin D.

They weren't screwed up about what they should eat. 


Why do we (Americans) think we know it all? Why in a relatively short period of time have we screwed it all up? Who do we think we are?

After listening to this lecture, I got the uncontrollable urge to try liver. I heard horror stories from my mom and aunt about liver and onions, but I have a feeling that if I use enough butter and make a pate it will be delicious. I mean if the French can eat it (and a lot of it) why can't I?

Coming Soon...liver pate... are you yay or nay?

*By the way... if you were like me and against liver (or other meat) you can take a cod liver oil supplement, but not without butter!!! Butter makes everything better.

FACT: Nuts are good for you

Nuts have gotten a bad wrap over the past few decades because they are high in fat. Which is true. However, they are a whole food that contain protein, fiber, various vitamins, minerals, and many other important things that we probably aren't even aware of. 

Here's another tid-bit of information: they improve your mood. Two handfuls of cashews have been shown to have the same effect as taking Prozac. What? You heard me. Chemically, nuts have the same effect as anti-depressants. So if you're feeling a little blue try incorporating a variety of nuts into your diet. 

Almonds are high in B vitamins, vitamin E, and magnesium. Peanuts (technically a legume) are rich in folate and antioxidants. Pistachios are a source of chlorophyll and potassium. Hazelnuts are full of compounds that help your heart and brain. Pecans (pi-cons) apparently have more antioxidants than wild blueberries (supposed to have the most according to what "we" know now). Walnuts are high in omega 3 fats and vitamin E. 

What is the easiest way? Trail mix...I know it's not sophisticated, or classy, but it's easy and gets the job done. You can make it in big batches, carry it with you in you car, your purse, keep it at work...where ever!

• almonds
• cashews
• pistachios
• walnuts
• pecans (said pi-cons, not pee-cans)
• hazelnuts
• raisins
• dried apricots
• dried cranberries
• dried cherries
• dried gogi berries
• dried dates
• dried banana chips
• raw cacao nibs
• granola chunks

The problem is you can get carried away, and then the amount of fat in them becomes an issue. Also, if you are looking for granola that is healthy, you aren't going to find it very easily. Most of the store bought kinds are LOADED with sugar. At least if you make your own, you can control how much sweetener you put in and what kind (I use agave nectar usually).

*The nutritional info above is what we know now. The science of nutrition is in its infancy in my (humble) opinion. We have only scratched the surface as far as how our body utilizes everything we get from whole foods. That is why it is so important to be eating a diet primarily based in whole foods and not processed foods. 

This "Health" Food's SOYld Reputation

By the way...if you haven't noticed I'm becoming obsessed
with Natalie Dee's comics

Yesterday I wrote about why I eat canned salmon instead of canned tuna- it is because I have not found a brand that doesn't have soy in it. I know that I have mentioned before that I read a book about the dangers of soy and immediately after embarked on a personal mission to cut all soy out of my diet. Let me explain to you why I was compelled to cut out this so-called health food.

Everyone is in a soy-frenzy and it has become the new "healthy" choice. It seems like a great option for vegetarians and vegans. How would they get their protein anyway? That's what I used to think.

Well the book I read was The Whole Soy Story by Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN. It is a thick book, almost 400 pages with another 40 pages of end notes. This is not a light read. I was getting the "Why the hell are you reading that?" looks from EVERYONE! So here it goes...I am going to try to condense 400 pages into a few paragraphs...

• A brief history of soy in the east...The soybean is one of the five sacred grains along with rice, millet, barley, and wheat. However, the soybean is a legume not a grain, and it was originally not used for food like the other sacred grains. Farmers originally grew soybeans as "green manure"- as a cover crop plowed under to enrich the soil between plantings of food crops. Soybeans are very good at capturing nitrogen from the air and delivering it to the plants roots in the soil. Soy went from fertilizer to fermented food about 2500 years ago. Until then the Chinese considered soybeans inedible- they were only found edible after the discovery of of processing methods that could largely deactivate an anti-nutrient found in soybeans known as the trypsin inhibitor. Trypsin inhibitors are chemicals that reduce the availability of trypsin, an enzyme essential to nutrition of many animals, including humans.

• The process of fermentation uses bacteria, fungi, and other beneficial microorganisms to help breakdown complex proteins, starches, and fats into highly digestible amino acids, simple sugars, and fatty acids. The ancient Chinese originally used this process to preserve fish, shellfish, game, and meat. Then came chiang (the original form of miso), soy sauce, natto, tempeh, but not until after the 4th century AD. As some of you may know, there are records of the Chinese culture that go back 5000+ years. The ancient Chinese did not eat soy. The fermented products we know now like miso and tofu did not come about until a few hundred years ago. 

• Since the 1950's the market for processed foods has seen explosive growth- most of them containing soybean oil. The industry found itself saddled with leftover sludge (yum) from soybean oil manufacture which it could either dump or promote. Which do you think it did? "The quickest way to gain product acceptability in the less affluent society," said a soy-industry spokesperson back in 1975, "...is to have the product consumed on its own merit in a more affluent society." Enter: imitation meat, milk, cream, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, candy bars (I think she means protein bars), smoothies, breads, infant formulas, chocolate, and meat extenders to name a few. 

• For years, the soy protein left over from oil extraction went exclusively to animals, poultry, and, more recently, fish farms. Today the industry aggressively markets soy protein as a people feed as well. Soy is now an ingredient in nearly every food sold at supermarkets and health food stores. The industry also makes a profit off of other waste products, most notably soy lecithin (an emulsifier that replaced eggs), protease inhibitors (digestive distressers sold as cancer preventatives), and isoflavones (plant estrogens promoted as "safe" hormone therapy, cholesterol reducers, and cancer cures). 

• Soy is now genetically modified which is monopolized by Monsanto. If you haven't ever read anything on GMOs please read my post.

• This is so typical of the US FDA..."While the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a heart healthy claim for soy protein, the agency also lists soy in its "Poisonous Plant Database." A search of the word "soy" in the database reveals 256 references, including studies that warn about goiter, growth problems, amino acid deficiencies, mineral malabsorption, endocrine disruption and carcinogenesis.

• All soybeans contain anti-nutritional factors (which is the opposite of what you want to eat) and toxins. Mother nature put them there to block seeds from sprouting prematurely and to harm insects and other predators (humans) that would otherwise eat too many of them. Unfortunately, they can harm us as well unless the soy beans are properly processed to neutralize them- i.e. fermentation. 

• Soy's other "healthy" effects on the human body:
• can lower testosterone levels in men
• can cause allergic reactions...soy is one of the top 8 allergens
• goitoestrogens damage the thyroid
• lectins cause red blood cells to clump together and may cause immune system reactions
• oligosaccharides are the pesky sugars that cause bloating and flatulence (farts)
• oxalates prevent proper absorption of calcium and have been linked to kidney stones and painful disease known as vulvodynia 

• phytates impare absorbson of minerals such as zinc, iron, and calcium
• isoflavones are phytoestrogens (plant estrogens) that act like hormones and affect the reproductive and nervous systems
• protease inhibitors, most notably trypsin inhibitors interfere with the digestive enzymes protease and trypsin. This can lead to gastric distress, poor protein digestion and an overworked pancreas
• saponins bind with bile. They may lower cholesterol and may damage the intestinal lining

Fermented soybean products enjoy high honor throughout Asia as digestive aids, potent medicines, powerful energizers, stamina builders and longevity elixers. Treasured as more valuable than gold, the molds and cultures used to make miso, shoyu, natto, tempeh and other fermented soybean products are often heavily ensured and safeguarded in vaults. Those, along with soy sauce, are the only acceptable ways to eat soy. Soy protein is notoriously hard to digest unless enzymes and microorganisms go to work on it first. These tiny workers not only predigest the soybeans, but deactivate the powerful protease inhibitors that inhibit our digestive enzymes and overwork the pancreas. 

A WARNING ABOUT SOY SAUCE: The soy sauce-like products most commonly sold in American supermarkets and used in Chinese restaurants are commonly made in 2 days or less. This process is not the traditional fermentation and uses hydrocholoric acid to break down the soybeans, followed by sodium carbonate to neutralize the brown liquid. Sugars, caramel coloring and other flavorings are added before further refinement, pasteurization and bottling. A true soy sauce should say "naturally brewed, fermented for over a year", and should also only have a few ingredients- soy, water, salt and possibly wheat.

Long soy story short, all of the soy products that appear in our foods are not natural. They are heavily, heavily processed. The soy products show up in most processed food as: soy protein isolate, soy protein concentrate, soy flour, soy oil, hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated soy oil, textured vegetable protein,  textured soy protein, soy lecithin, hydrolyzed vegetable protein (PS..that's MSG).

Here's a fun fact about soy protein isolate. Before 1958 it was only used as an industrial product to bind and seal paper product. Think about that next time you open up a fresh ream of computer paper. That glue that is holding the packaging on there is quite likely the same stuff that is in your protein shake. 

I know this was a long one with a lot of information, but hopefully you are taking something away with you (that you are never going to buy anything with soy in it ever again!). I would not have spent weeks reading this book, hours and hours scouring my grocery store for products without soy in them, and probably hundreds of dollars of donated food (from my pantry) if I did not believe 100% that the soy that we are being told is healthy for us is actually poisonous to our bodies. 

There....I've said my piece.

Collards

Collard greens to me were always a vegetable that southern black people and Paula Dean simmered down with lard and served with cornbread and pulled pork. Low and behold they can be very healthy for you. Who-da-thunk-it? They are actually part of the dark green 4-some that I rotate into my smoothies (the other 3 are spinach, kale, and Swiss chard). 


So I bought a bunch the other day to make wraps with (learned it from Lisa). The first try was a messy failure so I put part of the bunch back in the refrigerator and the rest in the freezer for my smoothies. This morning when I woke up, still reliving memories of the White Castle episode the other night, I decided to try the wraps again. 

I tried to make my hand look graceful, but it just wasn't happening
from this angle. 

Much better. I made a salmon salad and wrapped it in cucumbers and the collard leaves. In the salmon salad was:

• Bumble Bee canned salmon (skinless boneless- you could pretend it is tuna and no one would know the difference)
• Spectrum canola mayonnaise 
• spicy brown mustard
• 1/2 green apple
• 1 yellow onion
• 1 stalk celery
• turmeric
• black pepper

Let me explain a little about the ingredients in this salmon salad. First of all, I use canned salmon instead of canned tuna because they put soy in the tuna. I am not sure if it is in the watery broth or if they use it as a filler so they don't need to put as much fish in each can. My guess would be the latter. (P.S. you know the frozen hamburger patties you buy? They have soy as a filler too...it's common practice these days.) That would also explain why a can of tuna is so much cheaper than salmon.  

Secondly, you might be asking why I put turmeric and onions and black pepper in this salad. It is because this trio has been shown to magnify the healing effects of the others. Turmeric is a powerful spice that has been used for centuries. It has anti-inflammatory effects on the body, as well as: 

• natural antibiotic
• anti-oxidant
• helps aid in digestion
• maintains & improves intestinal flora
• purifies the blood
• reduces gas and bloating

This is just a snippit of the long list of turmeric's healing properties. It is well known that  humans however, cannot fully absorb turmeric unless it is in the presence of black pepper. I also just recently found out that if turmeric (and pepper) are paired with raw yellow onions, its healing effects are multiplied. So next time you make chili, add some turmeric and pepper and top with raw yellow onions. 

In the meantime, try out collards as wraps. In this meal alone I ate 1 fruit and 4 different vegetables. That was after my morning smoothie. I'm already up to 10 fruits and vegetables and it isn't even dinner yet. If you are looking for another way to substitute refined carbs with vegetables try RAW: Zucchini. 

I should have been born French

I recently watched the movie Julie & Julia (I know it is a few years old) and was instantly enthralled by Julia Child. Honestly I could have done without the Julie character and her story (although that was a great accomplishment to have her blog turned into a major motion picture). They should have just done the movie about Julia Child. Anywho. Julia Child had spend years and in France "mastering the art of French cooking" which coincidentally is the name of her two volume masterpiece. I have not read it yet, but I am going to buy it and start working through it. She also has another book Julia's Kitchen Wisdom: Essential Techniques and Recipes from a Lifetime of Cooking which I think might be right up my alley. 


The real reason I am writing about this is because it occurred to me that she lived to be 92, and, from what I saw and know of her recipes, ate a high fat diet full of pastries and duck, beef and butter (among other things). This was back in the 1950's until the time she died in 2004. I do know that she used real, fresh, quality ingredients, and lots of love. She LOVED to cook and figure out the best ways to prepare any dish. A woman after my own heart. 

This raises the question... do the ingredient matter as much as the quality?


Let's take butter for instance. It is quite possibly my favorite fat and I will put it on anything that I can. According to SELF Magazine's Nutrition Data Website it is 99% fat and 1% protein. It is very inflammatory probably because it is a saturated fat from an animal source (I assume that they are rating this as bad as they are because it is high saturated fat and everyone is under the impression that saturated fats are bad- WRONG - unnatural fats are bad). It has upwards of 20% RDA of Vitamins A, D, E, & K as well as being a complete protein (a complete protein is a source of protein that contains an adequate proportion of all nine of the essential amino acids necessary for the dietary needs of humans or other animals).

So in butter's case, it is the saturated fat and cholesterol vs. all 9 essential amino "fatty" acids and 4 vitamins. Now obviously you can find these vitamins elsewhere in a wide variety of vegetables. The essential fatty acids are another story.


Two things:

• The complete proteins are called "essential" fatty or amino acids because our body cannot make them. We need to get them from other sources, and our bodies will not function properly if we are deficient.   
• The word "fatty" means they come from FAT. Therefore, you will be deficient if you eat a low fat diet. That means, if you only eat egg whites, boneless skinless chicken breast, no butter, and no meat you are running the risk of becoming deficient in one or several of the 9.

Yes you can find some of the 9 amino acids from other sources (legumes, grains, and vegetables) but they tend to be limited in the number of amino acids. Some are notably low, such as corn protein. Hmmmm, didn't I just find out that corn in the United States is genetically modified and shows up in a lot of the processed foods Americans buy? 

These are the foods naturally containing all 9 amino acids:  amaranth, buckwheat, hempseed, meat, poultry, soybeans, quinoa, seafood, and spirulina.


How many of those can you say you eat on a regular basis? Personally, I can say 1 regularly (seafood) and 5 occasionally. The three that I have never used in my cooking so far are amaranth, buckwheat, and hempseed. 


It is easy to get all of the essential amino acids if you eat a wide variety of unprocessed foods, but how many of you can say that?


So with all that technical stuff aside, let's get back to quality. After everything that I have read on the science of fats, dairy, the dairy industry, sugar, the sugar industry, soy, the soy industry, etc, it is my humble conclusion that the quality of the fats, sugars, and proteins are more important than the amount of saturated fat in something or the amount of carbs in something else. 

Instead of counting calories and grams of fat, try focusing on these few things that will make a tremendous improvement in your life:

1. Buy organic egg and dairy products. If you are lucky enough to live in a state or country that allows the sale of raw dairy take advantage. The packaging must say "without antibiotics and growth hormones" and would be a HUGE plus if it says "comes from grass fed/pasture raised animals". Cage Free is does not mean that the chickens live on a farm. They are given slightly better living conditions than normal (which isn't saying much). If you want to know how "conventional" animals are raised look up some videos on YouTube...a lot of it is worse than your wildest imaginations.
2. Buy meat from "humanely raised" animals. Grass fed is good too, but the regulations for raising grass fed animals go against what is natural for those animal. Animals eat other things than grass in nature. Organic means nothing unless it also says humanely raised or grass fed.
3. Don't buy processed soy UNLESS it is soy sauce, tofu, tempeh, or miso. Check all ingredients though because manufacturers sneak in bad ingredients to cut costs. 
4. Cut out as much refined sugar as you possibly can. Fruit sugar is different. We are meant to eat fruit. It has fiber in it which slows down the absorption into our blood stream. Fruit is also bursting with vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants, and cancer-fighting nutrients. 
5. NO TRANS-FATS. Partially hydrogenated and hydrogenated oils make up this category. They wreak havoc on your bodies in many different ways. 

Long story short...EAT LIKE JULIA DID...REAL, HIGH QUALITY FOODS COOKED WITH LOVE.

She was funny too!

Pyramid or Plate...it all sucks if it comes from the US Government

Why people look to the government for advice on nutrition is beyond me- like they are the end-all and be-all of the "right" information. Since I started the health coaching classes a few weeks ago, I have been immersed in holistic experts' knowledge and opinions on the state of our health as a nation. As you can imagine, it does not look good. People are eating cheap highly processed foods that have been subsidized and pushed on us as "healthy" by our government.

"In America, and therefore in the world, we have domination of nutrition by the USDA. They are the people who create the food pyramid, and the USDA has two main responsibilities. #1 is to ensure the success of the food producers of America. Fruit, vegetables, milk, meat, corn, packaged goods. Their job is to ensure their success, business profit, get subsidies for them, corporate grants, and promote the farm bill. The #2 responsibility is to protect the American consumer, make sure they are eating well, that they have a healthy diet. Which of those priorities is more getting done?" 

"In 1991, Dr. Neil Barnard, head of Physicians Committee for responsible medicine, successfully sued the USDA showing that 6 of 11 board members had financial ties to the meat, dairy, and egg industries, and that the recommendations were influenced by their affiliations. It’s not often that an individual can successfully sue the American Government and win. He showed that through secret meetings and secret documentation the priority of those pyramids was to continue to promote food products that were not necessarily in the interest of the American public. Since that time, in a way it has gotten worse. Political appointees with backgrounds in the Agra-food industry continue to use their positions at the USDA and the FDA to advance their industry interests. In case of the USDA it is often at the expense of the small farmers, consumers, and the environment. So in our opinion, the food pyramid has less to do with sound nutritional advice and more to do with appeasing food producers. For example, you will find that they add foods in rather than take them away. Like they will say eat more lean meat. But you will never hear them say avoid red meat. It would just never pass in congress. The senator from Texas who was like “over my dead body”. It’s a political document, but the world sees this as scientific document, and because it is a scientific document in America, you can go all over the world and see this. But government has a hard enough time doing government. I don’t think government should be involved in science. But because it is we have a problem." from Joshua Rosenthal's lecture on the USDA Food Pyramid and My Plate.

1991 USDA Pyramid

 The first food pyramid (above) was issued right in the middle of the fat free craze that was propagated by bad science and politicians. I actually remember looking at this when I was younger (I was 9 when it was issued) and thinking, how the hell am I going to eat 11 servings of bread in one day? I am sure that many people did try to eat off of this guide, and as a result we have a nation of obese and severely sick people. The truth is when you cut fat out of your diet you add in more carbs by default.

There are many problems with this food pyramid. There is no distinction between bad carbs, good carbs, bad fats, and good fats. Everything is lumped together. If I know there are good and bad oils, and you know there are good and bad oils, what are the chances that the USDA knows there are good and bad oils?


So in the USDA's eyes, eating a loaf of white bread and a bowl of brown rice are the same thing. Metabolically, they are quite different. Also, eating red meat and fish are the same thing. We know now that eating fish is far superior to eating red meat in terms of the type of fats found in either. Another thing that is troublesome is nuts and beans are in the protein group which are given the same value as red meat and cheese. Nuts, beans, and legumes are very healthy sources of good fats, protein, vitamins, and minerals. To lump them in with red meat is just plain wrong.

2005 Food Pyramid

This newer edition of the pyramid is even more confusing and misleading than the first. Lets look at it left to right-

• The ambiguous man is conveying the necessity to be more active. I would say that is a positive addition. 
• SO it looks like grains and dairy are the same size now (I guess we know who has the most lobbying power). By the way Triscuits are not a necessity, nor are they a healthy option.
• It looks like fruits and vegetables combined make up the largest portion of the pyramid- that's an improvement. 
• Fats, the thin yellow line, are even smaller than before, which the test of time has, in my humble opinion, proved everyone wrong. High carbohydrate (by default highly refined), low fat diets do not work. Go to any public place and compare the thin-normal people to the overweight-obese people. This is why- sugar (more specifically high fructose corn syrup) has replaced fat.
• Meat and beans are still lumped together, and fish is not even mentioned.
• I find the layout of this even more confusing than the original one. 

Now we have My Plate which is the most vague of all- probably for the better. There is no reference to any of the different types of foods, just a recommended portion size. 

My advice...DON'T GET YOUR NUTRITION ADVICE FROM THE GOVERNMENT. Do a little bit of research on your own, use your noggin, and start eating more fruits, veggies, whole grains, nuts, beans, fish, eggs (basically whole foods that are not highly processed and/or stuffed with sugar and preservatives). 

MOST IMPORTANTLY start listening to your body. The government's general suggestions as to how many servings of bread we should eat are a great way to spend our tax dollars, but they do not take into account that each one of us is different. Some people can eat whatever they want and still have a beautiful body. Some people look at a piece of pizza and gain weight. Only after I started paying attention to what I was eating and how it made me feel did I see how important food is. It can make or break you. 

The only way you are going to figure out how great you can feel is to start cutting out the junk and replacing it with real, nutritionally dense foods. 

Tomorrow....my last weigh in of my smoothie challenge!

Easy Eggs Benny

My favorite breakfast meal by far. I usually get it without the hollandaise sauce because most places make it from a powder- yuck! And I'm positive that powder has all sorts of terrible food like substances in it. So, I was inspired to make my own.

This meal actually took me less than 15 minutes to make start to finish. Put the bread in the toaster. Heat up 2 pans, one for the eggs and one for the spinach. Follow recipe below for the hollandaise sauce. Coat pans with butter. Saute spinach and cook eggs at same time- both should finish at the same time. Top with hollandaise, salt & pepper. Eggs Bennys in my mouth!

Hollandaise Sauce

• handful raw cashews
• juice from 1/2 lemon
• drizzle of olive oil
• water to desired consistency (should not be too runny)

Mix in blender (for small things like this I use the Magic Bullet- you can get them at Costco). It doesn't taste exactly like traditional hollandaise, but it achieves the same creamy effect and adds a healthy fat to this dish.

For any leftover hollandaise, you can mix with apple cider vinegar and some more olive oil to make a creamy salad dressing.

CHALLENGE Day #21- Woohooo!

a beautiful surprise delivery

This week's weigh-in really clarified for me what my body is capable of if given the proper food- and I even had to weigh-in a day early.

My notes are scribbled. My body fat need to be in the low 30's and kept
under 28% of my total weight.

This is what I have learned and observed:

• I didn't loose any weight, actually I gained half a pound, however, I lost 2.3 lbs of body fat and I gained 2.8 lbs of muscle! 
• The one thing that I did differently was I ate more protein. I still ate fruit and vegetable smoothies for the first half of the day with a cooked dinner consisting of either fish or eggs with veggies and/or carbs. 
• I went to my trainer 3 days which equates to 3 hours of working out last week.
• It's nice to be complemented by my trainer for a job well done!
• I DID NOT EAT LOW FAT ANYTHING, in fact I ate full fat foods like butter and olive oil. 
• I ATE A LOT OF FRUIT. 
• I ate homemade bread. 
• I DRANK WINE, not a lot, but a few glasses on a few different occasions. 
• I have had 2 cups of coffee in the last 2 or 3 weeks. This is amazing because I used to start every morning off with at least 1 huge cup of coffee. It wasn't a morning if I didn't have my coffee. 
• I did not try to loose weight.
• Protein powder does not taste good in fruit and vegetable smoothies.
• I'm still just as enthusiastic about using coconut oil instead of lotions and creams.

I'm pumped!

I wrote in my last update on CHALLENGE Day # 14 that I bought a brown rice protein powder to see about adding it into my morning smoothies. Well, protein powder and fruit just don't mix in my opinion. I tried and no matter what I did all I tasted was the vanilla flavor protein. I did however come up with a smoothie that I'm sure is not new, however I had forgotten about how much I loved it.

PROTEIN SMOOTHIE

• 2 heaping tbsp. natural peanut butter
• 1 frozen banana
• 2 fresh bananas
• 1 heaping tbsp. raw cocao nibs (a powerful anti-oxidant)
• 1 tbsp. brown rice protein powder
• coconut water to desired consistency (you could also use almond or rice milk)

So good!

Have a great weekend!

CHALLENGE DAY #14: This week was a tough one!

Sometimes you just need a pat on the back and a "Cheer Up!" or in my case "Snap the eff out of it!" The past week was a blur. I wish I could say that I spend it partying and the blurriness was from too many drinks, but unfortunately I cannot. This is what I have learned:

• Emotions are a force to reckon with
• I am not an emotional eater until I am emotionally exhausted 
• I have some decent smoothie recipes (see below)
• The more bananas you put in a smoothie the better they taste
• My cravings for salt virtually disappear when I eat alot of vegetables
• I have not eaten many carbs and I am craving them. 
• I found a raw grain based form of protein to try in my smoothies

I started my day as usual- making a giant batch of smoothie to bring to work. Aside from being emotionally drained and I feel pretty good physically. Then off to the trainer to have the machine tell me how good or bad I did this week. Results:

Overall I lost a little over 1 lb in the past week. But what is really important is that I lost more fat than muscle, where as the week before I had lost more muscle than fat. Ideally you want to build muscle and loose fat, which I have only had the experience of happening one week a few months ago when I worked out 5 days and ate alot of protein. Last week I really made an effort to eat more protein. This week I spoke with my health coach who suggested a grain-based protein to put in my smoothies. I bought one that consists of brown rice protein- vegan, gluten free, soy free. It is a little weird tasting I'm not going to lie. I put 3 spoonfuls in with my favorite smoothie (see below) and it doesn't taste like fruit...it tastes a little gritty. I need to experiment with using a little less. We will see next week how my body reacts to more protein.

I am happy with the slow progress though. I have done binge workouts before (by that I mean 2-3 hours a day 5-6 days a week- UNSUSTAINABLE!). I would lose weight quickly but get burnt out on working out and get sick of having no life, and then digress back to my old ways and ultimately gain all of the weight back. I am more interested in making lifestyle changes that I can stick with. All in all, I am slowly loosing weight and not really trying right now. The only big change is that I am making smoothies every morning and eating alot more fruits and vegetables. Pretty good right?

Here are some good smoothies:

• handful green grapes
• 2 green apples
• 2 bananas
• juice from 1/2 lemon
• 1 kiwi
• handful spinach
• handful kale
• water
• ice

-----------------------------

• 2 peaches
• 3 bananas
• handful spinach
• 1/2 cucumber
• 1 green apple
• water
• ice

-----------------------------

• 1/2 cucumber
• handful baby carrots
• handful spinach
• handful chard
• red apple
• peach
• 3 bananas
• water
• ice

and still MY FAVORITE:

• 1/2 pineapple
• 2 bananas
• 1 peach
• 1 mango
• coconut water
• ice

Remember: toxins are stored in fat. Juicing fruits and vegetables will help your body excrete the toxins and breakdown fat. If you are concerned with the amount of protein you are eating, buy a protein powder to add to your smoothies. Just beware of soy protein isolate (toxic) and whey protein (many people are allergic because it is dairy based). There are other kinds of proteins like hemp protein. The one I bought is brown rice protein. Just read the ingredients. You should not be buying any proteins that have digestive enzymes in them. You should not be taking digestive enzymes unless prescribed by a doctor. It can seriously eff shit up by taking them unnecessarily. 


This weekend...work...cook...work. Hopefully I will have some easy and healthy bread recipes for you. Happy Friday!

The Prevention Hit List

The more I read about what to eat and what not to eat, one thing becomes clearer to me. Humans are supposed to eat food- that is whole foods that come from the earth. If you are confused as to what a whole food is here is a sampling:

• raw broccoli (not frozen covered in cheese sauce)
• cheese (made from animal's milk not in powder or squeeze form)
• tofu (made by fermenting soybeans, not soy protein isolate made in a factory)
• corn on the cob (not high fructose corn syrup)
• strawberries
• carrots
• beans
• oatmeal (the kind where the only ingredient is oats, not like Quaker's Instant Apple Oatmeal with 
   WHOLE GRAIN ROLLED OATS, SUGAR, DEHYDRATED APPLES (TREATED WITH SODIUM SULFITE TO PROMOTE COLOR RETENTION), SALT, OAT FLOUR, CALCIUM CARBONATE, GUAR GUM, NATURAL FLAVOR, CARAMEL COLOR, REDUCED IRON, NIACINAMIDE*, VITAMIN A PALMITATE, PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE*(WTF IS THAT?), RIBOFLAVIN*, THIAMIN MONONITRATE*, FOLIC ACID*.)

Avoid the following food like substances and ingredients at all costs:

High Fructose Corn Syrup

There are more studies than I could count or include in this post (it would bore you) that study the effects of high fructose corn syrup on how the body functions. Some deal with testing on animals, some form their conclusions based on the sheer numbers of overweight (65%) and obese (30%) people in this country vs. a few decades ago before the use of HFCS. Dr. George Bray is a professor of medicine at Louisiana State University, and has looked at whether HFCS in beverages has played a role in the increase in obesity in the U.S. He says that two-thirds of the high-fructose corn syrup Americans consume is in soft drinks. If you add a single soft drink to an otherwise balanced energy level [meaning you are burning as many calories and you are taking in] everyday for one year you will accumulate an additional 15 pounds, says Bray. (source) If that isn't motivation to cut this food like substance out of your diet I don't know what is (other than the possibility of giving yourself Type 2 Diabetes or cancer).


Just about everything processed has HFCS in it. My rule of thumb is to ask myself...Can I make it myself in my kitchen from other whole ingredients? Would I find this in nature? NO? Then don't eat it.


Hydrogenated/Partially Hydrogenated Oils

Another heavy hitter to our poor health. Hydrogenated oils do not occur naturally. They need to be pumped with hydrogen in order to exist. This process increases the shelf life and stability of the fats which would otherwise go rancid faster than it takes to manufacture, transport, sell, and eat. The modern marvel of our 1st rate food manufacturing/distribution system had to overcome the time delay from farm to plate, or from bakery to plate. Enter hydrogenation. A quick list of what hydrogenated oils (trans fats) contribute to:

• Alzheimer's 
• Diabetes
• Cancer- increases inflammation
• Heart Disease
• Increases LDL (bad) cholesterol and lowers HDL (good) cholesterol
• Clogs arteries

You may be young right now (as I am) but one day you will be old (and statistically speaking chronically sick). Make the changes now while you still have the time. Processed foods pumped with these food like substances are making everyone sick and fat. 

Tip: You can also add up the amount of fat in a product (saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated), provided the amounts are listed, and compare the total with the total fat on the label. If they don't match up, the difference is likely trans fat, especially if partially hydrogenated oil is listed as one of the first ingredients.

Aspartame
If you are trying to cut down on the sugar that you eat in your diet there are much better ways to do it than substitute with artificial sweeteners. Here is a list of reasons why not to use artificial sweeteners:

• cancer
• diabetes
• obesity
• headaches
• seizures
• Alzheimer's 
• Parkinson's
• Multiple Sclerosis
• ADHD

There are actual negative neurological effects to our brains when aspartame is introduced into the body. If you want to cut down on the amount of sugar in your diet, cut out all of the processed foods. Do not substitute sugar for an artificial sweetener.

MSG
A.K.A aspartame (hmm, go figure), casein, caseinate, glutamate, anything hydrolyzed, autolyzed yeast.

Soy Protein Isolate
"Soy protein isolate is mixed with nearly every food product sold in today's stores- energy bars, muscle-man powders, breakfast shakes, burgers, and hot dogs. SPI is also the major ingredient in most of today's soy infant formulas. Consisting of 90-92% protein, SPI is a highly refined product processed to remove "off flavors," "beany" tastes and flatulence producers, and to improve digestibility. Vitamin, mineral, and protein quality, however, are sacrificed."

"The manufacture of SPI has always been a complicated, high-tech procedure. There's nothing natural about it- it takes place in chemical factories, not kitchens."

There you have it from Kaayla T. Daniel, Phd and author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's favorite health food (a link to her book is on the right side of this blog). Now this is only a tidbit of the vast amount of science she writes about in her book. I read it cover to cover, and you know what I did after that? I cut everything out of my diet that contains soy products. It was challenging at first because soy is in EVERYTHING! But now when I read labels I skim for "soy" (as well as HFCS and hydrogenated oils).

Soy is only healthy for humans after it has been fermented for a long period of time using traditional Asian methods to produce foods like tofu, miso, tempeh, natto. But watch out for even these foods may contain soy protein isolate her in America. Also watch out for soy flour, soy protein concentrate, textured soy protein.


Anything You Cannot Pronounce 
Do I really have to explain this one?


I challenge you to go to the grocery store and read labels of the foods that you buy. Go up and down each aisle and only put in your cart items with the following criteria:

• less than five or six ingredients (all of which you know what they are)
• no soy ingredients, no HFCS, no partially/hydrogenated fats
• ingredients that you can pronounce

I did this one day not too long ago, and I was shocked. I already know that what would end up mostly filling your carts are fruits and vegetables, meat, some dairy, nuts, and MAYBE some breads if you are at a really good high quality grocery store. Although even Whole Foods junks up their breads with soy and about 10 other ingredients that do not need to be in bread.  

All in all, I feel better at the end of the day knowing that I did not put anything into my body that was made in a chemical laboratory. And if cancer prevention is at the top of your list as it is mine, I would suggest doing some more research on these food like substances if you are not yet fully convinced.