Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating, Eat This
Many years ago, I had the good fortune to visit Eigensinn Farm, a dining experience that sits in the top ten best of my life. Eigensinn is the brainchild of Michael Stadtländer, a Toronto chef who moved to a farm near Collingwood, Ontario in … Read more
Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating, Eat This
Chew your food. Mom’s been telling us this since our first teeth came in, yet, like a lot of what mom told us, we’ve forgotten this golden rule of digestion. Whether it’s because we’re always in a rush or we’re suffering from low blood sugar and thus starving when we finally sit down to eat, many of us aren’t properly chewing our food.
Although it may seem a nit-picky subject to harp on in a nutrition column, chewing is a very important, although often overlooked, part of healthy digestion. The drill is simple – put the food in your mouth, chew it a few times and swallow, right? So why aren’t we doing it?
“OK smart guy, first you tell me my dream of a cookie diet is a bad thing, then you go on at length about the fact that I’m probably riddled with hidden food allergies and now you’re telling me I don’t know how to chew?! So what’s the proper way?” While some health professionals recommend a specific number of times food should be chewed, you know how I feel about mixing math with eating. Nothing takes the fun out of eating more than counting; be it calories, grams of carbs or number of times you’re chewing.
Continue reading Chew Your Food, Be Nice to Your Digestive System
Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating, Dear Healthy Foodie
Dear Healthy Foodie,
I’ve recently had an allergy test done and my diet now is free of the foods I’m allergic to but now I’m wondering how important is food combining? Is there a basic rule to follow when combining foods?
Thank you,
Corina
Hello Corina,
Food combining is an important step on the road to your ideal state of health, but in my opinion, it isn’t something one should be required to do forever. Certain concepts from food combining should carry over into your daily meals, but I see strict food combining as a nutritional therapy and something not necessary for everyone all the time.
Food combining is a term used to describe an approach to eating where foods that require different digestive environments are eaten separately. Your body processes protein, carbohydrates and fats, as well as acidic foods and alkaline foods, differently. In order to have truly efficient digestion, these different types of foods need to be eaten separately so that they don’t interfere with each other’s ideal digestive environment. Eating bad combinations of foods can lead to gas, upset stomach, heartburn or even diarrhea.
Continue reading Why a Food Combining Diet Makes Sense: Six Dos and Don’ts
Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating, Eat This
Last week I suggested, chlorella as a great green way to nutritionally participate in St. Paddy’s Day (particularly to detox after too much green beer), and in continuing with our green theme, I would like to introduce a favourite leafy green: swiss chard.
Swiss chard is actually a member of the beet family, although, unlike beets, we only tend to eat the greens rather than the root. Swiss chard is an excellent source of manganese, magnesium, vitamin K,vitamin E, folic acid, selenium and has about as much vitamin C as an orange. It’s also a good source of calcium, potassium, iron and zinc. Swiss chard is a good source of the B vitamin niacin, which is helpful in keeping that cholesterol count low and those energy levels up.
Leafy greens, including Swiss chard, are great sources of a phytonutrient category called carotenes. This includes beta-carotene, a precursor to vitamin A and an antioxidant in its own right. Swiss chard also contains the carotene phytonutrients zeaxanthin and lutein, both vitally important for eye health and found to decrease chances of suffering macular degeneration. Lutein has been shown in studies to prevent and reverse, to a certain extent, issues with immunity, cancer and cardiovascular disease.
Continue reading Swiss Chard: A Leafy Green Packed With Nutrients
Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating
The Dietitians of Canada have declared March to be “National Nutrition Month“. Now I’m not one to argue that more education in nutrition is desperately needed on the planet right now. But unfortunately, not everyone defines nutrition, and more importantly, health, in the same way.
There is a relatively wide schism between how a holistic nutritionist like myself sees healthy eating and how a dietitian sees it. So while this month will probably see food pyramids taped on to school walls with their one-size-fits-all approach to eating being firmly ingrained in the minds of our nation’s youth, I’ll be questioning whether this style of eating is actually right for anyone.
The holistic approach to nutrition looks at the entire person as an individual, seeing the challenges unique to that individual and where that person is going out of balance. One problem with the Canada Food Guide is that there is no differentiation between the needs of individuals. I’m not going to thrive on the same food you’re going to thrive on. That’s just the facts – we’re different, our body chemistry is different, we come from ancestors who ate differently and thus we have different nutritional needs.
Continue reading Why I Dislike Food Pyramids: What ‘Real Nutrition’ Looks Like
Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating, Dear Healthy Foodie
I’ve had a couple of questions from readers lately regarding nutrient degradation from cooking or chopping. Here are a couple:
…I’ve been buying purple potatoes lately with the thought that the purple colour connotes amazing nutrient goodness. However what about the fact that (in my case) they are baked in the oven? Is there still antioxidant effect after baking or would the chemical not degrade?
Daniel
…Do I destroy too much of the nutrients from (kale and rapini) by chopping them so finely and simmering them in water?
Vera
Every time you chop, cook, boil, soak, peel, blend or apply any other food preparation method, chances are there is going to be some nutrient degradation. Does this mean that we should strive to process our foods as little as possible in order to preserve the maximum nutrients?
The fact is, that unless you have access to all your foods fresh out of the ground or off the tree, nothing you’re eating has 100 percent of its nutrients intact. By simply sitting on the grocery store shelf, fruits and veggies lose some of their nutrient content. And as soon as you cut into something, you’re exposing it to air which starts it oxidizing. Antioxidants present in the food are used up with greater oxygen exposure. Some foods are more susceptible to this than others, mind you.
Continue reading Does Cooking Kill Nutrients? 5 Ways to Preserve Nutrition in Your Food
Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating, Eat This
The fact that St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner provides two great reasons to write about chlorella. 1. This superfood is the greenest of greens. 2. It’s a great detoxifer and thus, if you are into green beer, you might benefit from a dose of it the morning after St. Patrick’s Day.
Chlorella is a single-celled, fresh water algae that is sold in dried form as a powder you can add to water or a smoothie, or put into capsules to be taken as a supplement. And let me tell you, this is one food deserving of the name superfood.
Interest in chlorella first appeared in the late 1930’s when researchers were looking for a cheap, nutrient-dense whole food source to accommodate the expected massive population boom to follow in decades to come. Because of expected food shortages, chlorella looked like it could become a viable primary food source for the population since meat is costly and took up too much space. Why was chlorella such an attractive food in this context?
Continue reading Chlorella: A Superfood Great for Detoxing and Healing
Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating, Eat This
A new study published in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Journal has found that a fatty acid found in fish oil has anti-cancer effects. The omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) which is present in fish … Read more
Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating, Eat This
Due to a large campaign by cereal companies back in the ’70s and ’80s, pretty much everyone knows how important fibre is in the diet. Fibre is the bulk component found in all plant foods that does not get digested when eaten. It is necessary for pushing the digested portions of food through the digestive tract. Getting enough fibre is associated with lower cholesterol levels, lowered incidence of colon cancer and
It is recommended that we get a minimum of 35 grams of fibre every day, but the truth is, we could do with a lot more than that. It is estimated that paleolithic man, existing before farm and therefore before grains made up a staple of his diet, ate up to 100 grams of fibre daily.
Continue reading Benefits of Soluble Fibre: Find Out if You’re Getting Enough of This Essential
Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating, Eat This
One of the more frequent topics I get asked about is sweeteners. Sweet, it seems, is a very comforting flavour. It seems a cruel joke that sugar, the very essence of the sweet flavour, is so detrimental to our health; implicated in everything from obesity to tooth decay and many disorders in between. Artificial sweeteners are really no better as, although controversial, much of the science on them shows they are extremely toxic.
I’ve advocated for using raw honey and maple syrup in moderation in the past, but the fact is, they’re still sugar and are just as susceptible to abuse. Recent reports on agave point to the likelihood that it’s not a healthy sweetener at all, but is really on par with high fructose corn syrup. The jury is still out on this one, but I’ll be avoiding agave until a reliable answer comes.
So what is one to do? Are we doomed to never have a sweet indulgence that isn’t accompanied with a side of blood sugar spikes, not to mention a heaping portion of guilt? Stevia is a great sweetener, but it does have a different sweet flavour; almost artificial in character (even though it is completely natural). In some applications it’s fine, but some people find it hard to get used to.
Continue reading A Sweetener With Health Benefits: Best Sugar Substitute
Filed under: Advice, Health, Healthy Eating
Some people seem to have issues with the idea that emotions are associated with disease. Admittedly, the realm of emotional healing tends to bring to mind New Agey weirdos wielding crystals rather than hard science, but there is no denying that emotions have very real, material effects on the body and science is backing it up.
What we tend to feel as emotions are actually the effect of chemical cascades that visit cells in the body, signaling them to cause different responses. These chemical messengers have physical effects on the cells telling them to produce certain substances, retain vitamins or minerals or even turn on or off certain genes.
For example, stress causes the release of cortisol from the adrenal glands which activates the cells of the nervous system, getting the body ready to deal with stress. Chronic stress, which the body was never designed to accommodate, leads to the constant bombardment of the cells by cortisol leading to an inflammatory response which is implicated in many disease states (including arthritis, cardiovascular disease and even Alzheimer’s disease).
Continue reading Stress and Cancer: Relationship Between Emotions and Disease
Filed under: Advice, Health, Healthy Eating, Dear Healthy Foodie
Dear Healthy Foodie,
I’m a pretty healthy person. I eat really well and take vitamins and eat superfoods and drink smoothies and so on. Overall I would say I’m healthy 80 percent of the time. Now, what I want to know is, do I really have to beat myself up and feel bad about the other 20 percent? Cheesey, carby pasta dinners at nice Italian restaurants, an afternoon of beer and nachos at a pub, a vacation where fresh veggies are hard to come by? As long as I’m healthy most of the time do I really have to obsess? Can’t the occasional indulgence be OK?!
Thanks,
Jen
Hi Jen,
There are many ways that you could approach this question, but really what it comes down to is what your goals are. If, for example, you’re trying to deal with candida overgrowth and 80 percent of the time you’re sticking to the protocol but the other 20 percent you’re indulging in sugar, flour products and booze, you’re not going to get anywhere with your goals. Similarly, if you’re trying to lose weight and are on an anti-inflammatory diet, but you’re “cheating” 20 percent of the time, you may never see any results.
Continue reading Is It OK to Eat Unhealthy Sometimes?
Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating, Eat This
Saturated fat has been the demon of the Western politically correct diet for the majority of the last century, but perhaps this new century will finally see it vindicated. A new study out of California has found that there is no link between saturated fat and cardiovascular disease (CVD), coronary heart disease (CHD) or stroke. The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, pooled data from 21 different studies, looking at almost 350,000 subjects and found no relationship between heart disease and saturated fat consumption.
“Our meta-analysis showed that there is insufficient evidence from prospective epidemiologic studies to conclude that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CHD, stroke, or CVD,” writes Dr. Ronald Krauss, lead researcher from Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute in California.
This is not really news in most holistic health circles. Pundits in the health community have been pointing to the health benefits of saturated fats for years. For example, fat researchers Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, Phd., explain that our ancestors ate lard, butter, meats, and dairy products and yet heart disease was an extreme rarity before 1920. On the other hand, our modern diets are rife with polyunsaturates like corn, soy and cottonseed oil, (used and processed incorrectly), all of which are oils that we are told are “heart healthy,” and yet we see increasing rates of diseases of the heart. To summarize, the consumption of animal fat between 1910 and 1970 decreased by 21 percent, and yet heart disease rates increased exponentially. There’s clearly something wrong with the saturated fat/heart disease hypothesis.
Continue reading Saturated Fat Not Bad for the Heart
Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating, Eat This
It’s often touted by the holistic nutrition pundits that North America is a starving continent. It seems paradoxical that nations that have an out-of-control obesity problem could be said to be suffering from starvation, but there is logic behind the statement. With our nutrient-depleted foods coming from mineral-depleted soils, the over-processing of our foods and the artificial ingredients that replace real ingredients, the Western world is suffering from a starvation of nutrients!
In fact, it’s reasonable to assume that this starvation is partially to blame for the obesity epidemic. People who eat nutrient-depleted food need to eat an excessive amount of it in order to satisfy the body’s needs (although, it’s usually a distended abdomen that stops a person from eating, not a true feeling of satiety). Ultimately, we eat excessive amounts of poor quality food in an effort to compensate for our cravings for nutrients and thus are gaining weight as a result.
Continue reading Multivitamins for Weight Loss: Why it Makes So Much Sense
Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating, Holistic Recipe
On the road to an ideal state of health, people often have to make rather large changes in their diets. This can be a traumatic experience when many of our favourite foods need to be tossed to the wayside; sometimes this is only temporarily, but often for good. Lactose intolerance, for example, brings with it a whole list of foods that need to be avoided. Happily, many people find that when they give up dairy products their overall health and well-being improves. Many of us have minor hidden intolerances that are affecting our health without our being aware of it.
This recipe was created out of a need to make some substitutions for a client’s state of mind: She loved creamy sauces but had to give them up when she found that dairy was no longer agreeing with her and this left her quite depressed. I came up with a way to give her what she wants with a dairy-free substitution.
This recipe uses coconut milk instead of dairy. While it’s not a foolproof substitution, it is quite delicious. Plus the saturated fats in the coconut milk are healthy, energy delivering medium-chain triglycerides, which are also incredibly valuable to the immune system.
Recipe for Dairy-Free Creamy Chicken after the jump.
Continue reading Healthy Coconut Chicken Recipe: Great for Dairy Intolerance
Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating, Eat This
A reader recently wrote to me, “my brother in law has lung cancer and I have read a diet high in vitamin C and beta-carotene is NOT recommended where lung cancer is involved as it seems to aid the cancer to metastasize”. I get messages like this … Read more
Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating, Dear Healthy Foodie
Hi there, I’ve just started drinking smoothies every day and I’d like your advice. Currently, I put frozen fruit, yogurt, orange juice and two scoops of protein powder that I bought at Costco into my drinks. Does this seem like a good mix? Am missing … Read more
Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating, Eat This
One of the great things about superfoods is the fact it’s relatively easy to add them to your existing diet to boost the nutrient density of your meals: toss a few goji berries onto that salad to up the vitamin C value; add chlorella or spirulina to your morning smoothie for magnesium; sprinkle some bee pollen on that bowl of oatmeal to turn it into a nutrient-dense, super breakfast. This is one of the reasons the superfood chia seeds have quickly become one of my favourite superfoods to add to daily regimen – they’re so easy to incorporate.
Chia seeds? Yes, they are indeed the very same things we smeared on the outside of a clay sheep to watch it grow green and fuzzy. But the use of chia seeds as a novelty toy is actually only a minor blip in the rich history of this superfood.
For centuries chia seeds have been used as a staple food by the Native Americans of the south western U.S. and Mexico. These tiny seeds were once so highly prized by the Aztecs that they were used as a form of currency and offered as a tribute to the rulers.
Historically, chia seeds were used as a high energy food. It is said that Aztecs on long journeys would subsist on nothing but small amounts of the seeds, and yet their energy levels never waned. Modern health-minded distance runners have found similar effects and value the seeds for their stamina-inducing qualities. This is hardly surprising given the sheer nutrient density of these little seeds.
Continue reading Chia Seeds Superfood Not Just For Novelty “Pets”
Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating, Eat This
Looking for a cheap, easy, and natural way of clearing clogged arteries and correcting cholesterol levels without any side effects? A new study a study presented by the American Heart Association back in November has found that vitamin B3, or niacin, is more effective than cholesterol drug Zetia (also known by the generic name ezetimibe or its sister drug Vytorin). The study was simultaneously published online in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The small study of 208 people, used ultrasound to examine the state of the arteries of the subjects. The study found Zetia to be far inferior to niacin at clearing congested arteries. Perhaps even more significant, those subjects taking niacin were found to have fewer heart attacks and were less likely to die from heart disease than those taking Zetia. According to Forbes.com, it is unusual for a small study to show a significant difference in heart attack rates, but because it was a small study, this finding should only be considered “hypothesis generating, according to the researchers.
Vitamin B3 is relatively infamous for causing a flush, or reddening of the skin shortly after being taken. Unsuspecting people often mistake this for an allergic reaction, wondering why it suddenly feels as if they have a sunburn. This flush is because niacin is a vaso-dialator – it causes the capillaries to expand and fill with blood. This mechanism is likely behind the clearing of cholesterol build-up found in the study.
Continue reading Vitamin B3 More Effective than Cholesterol Drugs
Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating, Eat This
When we think of vitamin C we usually think of oranges. But, with the dogged pursuit of new superfoods, many foods are dwarfing orange’s paltry 50 milligrams per 100 grams. In fact, on a ranked list published on Wikipedia, oranges just barely make it into the top 25. Here now are a few of the chart toppers.
Kakadu Plum – Native to Australia, chances are you won’t find these plums in Canada. But their remarkable vitamin C concentration of 3200 to 5000 milligrams per gram of fruit is the highest known on planet Earth.
Continue reading 10 Foods to Help Boost Your Vitamin C