Eat Slower

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/07/16/five-powerful-reasons-to-eat-slower.aspx

"What Have They Done to Milk?" video

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/07/05/what-have-they-done-to-milk.aspx

Healthy Food in Health Care

http://www.noharm.org/us/food/pledge

Berkey Sport Bottle for Water

Wow, look at what I just found! I had no idea something like this existed: http://www.jamesfilter.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=20

Pricey, but convenient; definitely something to keep in mind. Could be worth it.

From my calculations, it looks like it works out to be a little cheaper than buying filtered water at 25 cents a gallon (like we do now). And buying 25 cent/gallon water is much cheaper than buying bottled water (usually about 25 cents/BOTTLE, at the cheapest), not to mention better for the environment. This would also be very nice to have with us for travel. Hmm, very interesting ....

Hospital Food

"...why is sugar fed to people that are trying to get well? And margarine and creamer/milker were on the menu each day. No butter or cream here! Important to get your daily dose of trans fats and hydrogenated oils, after all. Much better choice than saturated fat, which our bodies need to get the vitamins and minerals into our cells. Oh yeah. Food cooked to death so I guess there are no vitamins left to transport. No worries then - no transportation needed. By offering up trans fats, cell messaging will be blocked instead. That will help people heal...."

Read the full article online at Vreni Gurd's blog: http://blog.wellnesstips.ca/blog/index.php/?p=158

Also see this link of an Oregon hospital making big changes in the food it serves: http://www.foodalliance.org/newsroom/articles/2006/This%20is%20hospital%20food%20(The%20Oregonian)%2003-07-2006.pdf

White, Dark, and Red Meats

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/11/01/what-s-the-difference-between-white-and-dark-meat.aspx

Fast Food's "Healthy" Salads

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/10/22/the-truth-behind-fast-food-restaurant-s-soft-and-fluffy-claims.aspx

Interesting Website

http://www.oldwayspt.org/

Very interesting! (On Sugar and Sweets)

http://www.dld123.com/sweetsavvy/newdirection.html

Sugar

"On some level most of us know that sugar is not healthy, but I don't think the majority of us have any idea truly how devastating sugar is. "

Read the entire article online at http://www.wellnesstips.ca/sugar.htm

GMO Foods

A list of processed foods and brands which contain GMO ingredients (and alternatives which don't!):
http://www.truefoodnow.org/shoppersguide/guide_printable.html

Eggs and Diet Soda (but not together -- in fact, enjoy one and avoid the other!)

"Slowly the evidence is mounting that there is absolutely no need to be afraid of eating eggs, despite the fact that they are high in cholesterol."

"The other interesting study that was publicized this week noted an association between soda pop, both diet and regular, and metabolic syndrome and heart disease. The association for regular pop is a no-brainer, but that diet pop is also problematic is surprising, as diet pop contains no sugar nor high fructose corn syrup, so why would such an association exist?"

Read the entire post online on Vreni Gurd's blog:
http://blog.wellnesstips.ca/blog/index.php/?p=116

What the World Eats

Fascinating!

http://v.mercola.com/blogs/public_blog/What-the-World-Eats-21099.aspx

Primitive Diet

Here's a video posted on mercola.com. Of course I don't agree with the evolutionary part of this video, but the experiment and results (9 volunteers in a zoo for 12 days, eating an "ape-like" diet) are really neat! I enjoyed watching this.

http://v.mercola.com/blogs/public_blog/Can-Eating-Like-an-Ape-Change-Your-Health-in-12-Days--23880.aspx

Apples - Peel and all

Traditionally, apple peels have been considered healthy because of their fiber content, as the peel contains about 75 percent of the dietary fiber in an apple. But a recent study has shown that the peel also contains most of the beneficial phytochemicals responsible for apples' anticarcinogenic effects.

Scientists processed more than 200 pounds of Red Delicious apples, and extracted phytochemicals from about 24 pounds of peel. They screened the compounds for anti-cancer effects in laboratory cultures of human liver, breast, and colon cancer cells, and identified a group of compounds with potent anti-cancer properties.

Specifically, 13 triterpenoids from the peels of Red Delicious apples were identified and confirmed to be highly effective against cancer. Exactly how and why these biochemicals seek and destroy cancer cells is still unknown. Apple consumption has previously been linked to a reduced risk of lung cancer, heart disease, and stroke.

Hidden Story Behind Baby Carrots

Hmm, didn't know this .... (from mercola.com)

"Baby" carrots are not actually young carrots, or even carrots that are grown specifically to be small. In fact, the concept of the baby carrot was born 21 years ago by a California farmer wanting to sell more of his carrots that he was throwing away due to imperfections -- they were too knobby, twisted or broken. After cutting the less-than-perfect carrots down to a uniformly smaller size, they were fed through an industrial potato peeler to smooth the edges and remove the skin. This marked the birth of the "baby" carrot market.

The success of baby carrots may be a reflection of the desire for food that is uniform in appearance and taste, and for food that is sterile, prewashed, and prepackaged.

Is Organic Good Enough?

An article from mercola.com:

http://www.mercola.com/2007/mar/20/is-organic-good-enough.htm

Ginger

Some info on the health benefits of ginger:
http://drbenkim.com/ginger-health-benefits-ginger-ale-recipe.html

"Fats: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly"

A must read: http://www.wellnesstips.ca/fats,%20good%20bad%20and%20ugly.htm

Why Sourdough? (Health Benefits)

I found this info helpful to understand better about the health benefits of sourdough. There's a lot I still don't understand, but I thought I'd share:

(from http://www.angelfire.com/ab/bethsbread/WhatisSourdough.html)

The history of "sourdough" is as old as the history of leavened bread itself. Way back in ancient days (around 6,000 years ago, some say) humans first figured out how to promote the fermentation and leavening of grains to first be brewed into beverages and then, later, to be baked into bread. This probably happened by accident time after time, until someone smart figured it out. Next our ancestors figured out how to save a portion of the fermented grains to use to "start" the fermentation of their next batch of bread. Since that time, humankind has been using and making "sourdough."
That fermented mix of grain and water that was saved and used to start the next batch of dough is what we now call a "sourdough starter" and bread made from such a starter, "sourdough bread."
From a scientific perspective, a sourdough starter is a natural leaven - a mixture of grains and liquid (usually flour and water) inhabited by so-called "wild" yeasts and bacteria which leaven and flavor bread dough. These yeasts are the yeasts that thrive naturally on the surface of grains, fruits and vegetables, in the air and in the soil. The bacteria are certain strains of the so-called benign or "friendly" bacteria Lactobacillus, rod-shaped bacteria that can convert simple sugars into lactic and other acids.
To understand more of what a sourdough is, we need to understand what yeast is. In simplest terms it is a plant. More specifically a fungus, a one-celled life form which digests sugars (such as those contained within the starch in flour) and produces a bit of ethanol (alcohol) and some carbon dioxide (which is what causes the bread to rise). The natural yeasts in a sourdough starter are strains of a yeast family whose scientific name is Sacchraromyces exiges. They are of the same family of yeast as commercial bakers' yeast, whose scientific name is Saccharomyces cerrivasae. The two have what might be called a distant family relationship but differ in one important way. Commercial bakers yeast cannot survive in a very acidic environment whereas natural yeast is very happy to live in such an environment. This is important because the lactobacilli in a sourdough culture produce a lot of lactic and acetic acids (which are what gives sourdough bread its flavor). The acids create an environment too acidic for commercial bakers' yeast, so only natural yeast can live with them.
In a healthy sourdough starter, yeast and lactobacilli thrive in a harmonious symbiotic relationship. This means that they do not compete for the same food and the yeast may actually help feed the lactobacilli. In turn, lactobacilli produce an acidic environment that the yeast like but which is inhospitable to other organisms. Thus the acids in the culture act as a sort of "antibiotic" so that lactobacilli contribute by providing a protective environment for the yeast.
Lactobacilli help bread rise, too. Just like yeast, they digest simple sugars found in flour and produce ethanol and carbon dioxide. In addition, the lactic and acetic acids that they produce flavor the bread with a rich complexity of flavors, sometimes giving it a sour tang.