Archive for the ‘Vegan Diet Tips’ Category
Healthy Eating Or Green Living – Tips To Buying Foods
Thursday, September 17th, 2009Welcome back!
Whether You Call It Healthy Eating Or Green Living Here Are Some Tips To Buying Foods
Locally grown food is a great place to start when you are trying to follow healthy eating or green living lifestyles. Both lifestyles will benefit from eating organically grown foods from a local farmers market. You benefit in many ways including buying locally so that the local economy prospers from the fruits of the local farmer’s labor. Green living advocates will love the fact that organically grown food is done in a way that is environmentally friendly using only biodegradable pesticides and no toxins.
There is nothing quite like being able to talk to the person who grew your food to be sure that it was grown without harmful pesticides! It is also nice to be able to say thank you to the local grower who has provided you with fresh fruits and vegetables.
The number of farmers markets increased 2.5 fold between the years of 1994 and 2006. According to the USDA farmers markets account for approximately $1 million in local food sales. A significant part of local food sales is organic or natural foods. Looking at total foods sold, organic or locally grown foods probably only account for 5% or 6% of the total retail food market. This share will continue to grow as more individuals become aware of the benefits of buying from local food markets, including farmers markets. Typically producers of local foods are from smaller farms.
One reason people are choosing to buy locally grown foods is because they can purchase fresh, local foods that taste better than that found in grocery stores. Who hasn’t purchased a rotten, or wilted piece of produce from the store? The food you buy at a store is considered to be ‘industrial food’ because it follows a system designed to be economically efficient by producing foods that can be harvested mechanically, then packed and shipped long distances while still retaining a long shelf-life in the grocery stores. To achieve this long shelf life quality clearly equates to appearance of the food and not necessarily the quality of the nutrients and condition of the food.
Food safety is another reason why consumers are choosing to buy locally grown foods over commercially produced and distributed foods. This concern is what has driven the popularity of natural or organic foods higher as more people are learning about pesticides and hormone and antibiotic use in commercial foods. Individuals who buy food locally expect the produce to be free of the potentially harmful chemicals and biological residues found in industrial foods.
The American public are being educated through books and Websites about how commercially produced food is deficient in everything except calories and toxins. Commercially prepared foods have also been accused of false advertising, of using too many artificial ingredients and us using potentially harmful agrichemicals and food additives in order to prolong shelf life and keep profits high.
Scientific studies seem to confirm these consumer fears regarding industrialized food safety. The fears have as much to do with what has been taken out of foods as what has been added to them. Recent research has revealed that industrial foods are indeed lacking in nutrient density, meaning lacking in essential vitamins, minerals, or other nutrients that are a necessary part of a healthy diet. Such deficiencies in nutrients are linked to diet related diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. When researchers compared nutrient density between industrial foods, organic foods, and foods prepared pre-industrial foods (1950s) they found that there is a link to the foods density and the changes in farming practices after the 1950s. These changes in farming practices have to do with standardization, consolidation, and industrialization of American agriculture.
These studies add credibility to the push to buy locally grown produce for those who desire healthier eating or green living lifestyles.
Living With Milk Allergy
Thursday, September 10th, 2009Living With Milk Allergy
It is not easy living with milk allergy because there are so many foods that contain milk and milk products that avoiding them can be difficult. Having a guide can relive some of this anxiety.
If you love to bake or cook, you can easily substitute for milk in recipes. You can substitute equal amounts of water or fruit juice in must recipes that call for milk.
There are lots of food items that you would not necessarily think of as ‘milk or milk product’ and also you must be careful of purchasing from a deli counter as sometimes cheese and meats are sliced on the same deli meat slicer machine and you may inadvertently get some milk product in with your meat.
Certain brands of canned tuna fish contain a milk protein called casein (a milk derivative). Check tuna can labels carefully for this ingredient if you or someone in your family is allergic to milk. There are other non-dairy products that contain casein. Food manufacturers put the casein into their products as a binding agent. You will want to check the following products for casein: breath mints, coffee whiteners, fortified cereals, high-protein beverage powders, ice cream, infant formulas, nutrition bars, processed meats, salad dressings and also whipped toppings.
When dining out, ask if the meat is prepared with butter because some restaurants will put butter on the steaks after they grill them to add extra flavor. You cannot tell that butter is on the steak because it melts and is invisible.
If you accidentally ingest milk or a milk product you are likely to experience sneezing, wheezing, vomiting, or hives.
Get in the habit of checking food labels before buying or eating a product. While out dining as if the dishes you are ordering contain milk or milk product or are prepared using milk or milk products. The same goes when you are eating at someone’s house or at a party. Ask the host or hostess about milk or milk products in a discreet and polite manner, explaining about your food allergy to milk.
Individuals with milk allergy will need to speak with a nutritionist or registered dietician so that a diet that avoids milk and milk products will still provide adequate sources of calcium and vitamin D. Foods that will be added to your diet will be broccoli, spinach, and soy products.
Those who are having an anaphylaxis reaction to milk may experience swelling of the throat or tongue. You may start to wheeze or have trouble breathing. You may experience feeling sick to your stomach, and even vomit. You may feel faint to the point of passing out. Someone having an anaphylaxis reaction to a food allergy can be in serious trouble and may even die if immediate medical help is not rendered immediately. Call 911 if you notice anyone having an anaphylaxis reaction.
Individuals with milk or any other food allergy should always notify those they are close with family and friends that they have the allergy in case they are unable to communicate in an emergency.
All About Veganism
Monday, September 7th, 2009All about veganism
There are many different sub-groups of people that feel that vegetarianism is the proper path for man to follow. There are several different beliefs prominent in the world of vegetarianism, and many people choose to undertake a vegan lifestyle in order to reap numerous health benefits while helping to fight animal cruelty. In this article, well work towards giving you a better idea of what exactly veganism is, showing how it is different from standard vegetarianism and giving you some insight as to why people make the decision to go vegan.
All vegetarians make the decision that eating the meat of animals is a poor idea in terms of health and animal cruelty. The difference between a normal vegetarian and a vegan lies in the fact that vegetarians still allow themselves to eat foods that are made by animals, while vegans do not. That means that vegans avoid foods such as eggs, milk, or fish. People may choose to go vegan for several different reasons, and many make the decision because they feel that cruelty goes into creating any animal product. Others choose to opt for the vegan diet for health reasons, as numerous studies have shown that the vegan diet can have positive effects on an individuals health. With heart disease being the number one cause of death in the United States as well as many other industrialized countries, becoming a vegan can really be a positive step to take for your personal health. Still others choose to become vegan in order to help to decrease the amount of impact that they have on the planet. These vegans stress that the trophic levels of the food chain state that less and less energy is passed on when animals eat plants and humans eat the animals. Also, an individuals carbon dioxide footprint can be greatly decreased by deciding to become a vegan, which many people find beneficial as it may help to decrease problems with global warming.
Those who choose to become vegan often need to make several changes to their diet in order to accommodate for their nutritional levels. Most vegans focus on diets that are based around foods such as tofu which can help to provide the protein that their bodies need in place of the protein that would be provided through eating animal meat. In addition to ensuring that they receive the proper amount of protein, vegans also need to make sure that they get enough vitamin B12, vitamin D, calcium, and iodine, as many suffer from decreased levels of these nutrients when abandoning a diet that contains meat products. A lack of these key vitamins and minerals can lead to several different debilitating health problems, including, but not limited to anemia, rickets, or hyperthyroidism. Luckily, supplementation can easily take the place of animal products when it comes to maintaining a diet rich in these nutrients.
Adopting the vegan lifestyle can be a difficult task, but the benefits that it offers to your health and the environment can be well worth your efforts. Learn all that you can about the vegan diet before making the change so that you will know some of the obstacles that you will need to overcome when removing animal products from your diet.
Cabbage Soup Diet
Monday, February 9th, 2009It’s very easy to describe the cabbage soup diet, it’s FAKE. There’s no need to know anything more about this ridiculous diet. For the sake of filling time, more information is presented.
Nobody knows who created the cabbage soup diet. Like a chain letter or junk e-mail it was sent from fax machines to fax machine in the early 80s. The diet went under many names, often using a part of the name of a well respected institution such as the Russian peasant diet, or the St. Jude’s diet. Needless to say, the diet has no relation to any of the institutions, nations, or people used in these names.
The cabbage soup diet calls for drinking nothing but water or unsweetened fruit juice on days when juice is allowed. In general this is the diet.
Day one — cabbage soup and any fruit except bananas.
Day two — cabbage soup plus vegetables, which could include a half baked potato with no butter.
Day three — cabbage soup and any vegetable or fruit except bananas or potatoes.
Day four — cabbage soup 8 bananas and skimmed milk.
Day five — cabbage soup, six tomatoes and up to 20 ounces of beef.
Day six — cabbage soup, unlimited beef, and any vegetables except potatoes.
Day seven — unsweetened fruit juice, vegetables except potatoes, brown rice, and of course our friend cabbage soup.
The cabbage soup diet claims that people can lose 10 pounds in only one week. Unfortunately that would be 10 pounds in water weight. It’s impossible to lose 10 pounds of fat in a week. But given a week the cabbage soup diet could make someone seriously ill from malnutrition.
In addition the cabbage soup diet isn’t easy. Not because it’s too complicated, but rather because seven days of cabbage soup becomes monotonous. Many people who have started the cabbage soup diet quit after only one or two days. There were even attempts to spice up cabbage soup recipes but they failed.
In general nothing quite as extreme as the cabbage soup diet is needed to lose weight. Exercise more and cut out calories in order to accomplish a goal.
Grapefruit Diet
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009The grapefruit diet is one of the earliest known Hollywood fad diets. It first came to fame in the 1930’s when many stars used it. It became part of photocopy lore, faxed from machine to machine, in the 1970’s. The diet has been described as bad by the Mayo Clinic, often associated with the diet.
Originally the grapefruit diet was an Atkins style diet that added one half grapefruit before each meal. The diet only allows three meals each day, with no snacking in between meals. The diet claimed that people could lose 10 pounds in 10 days, or 5 pounds in five days. The distribution was just as far fetched, no weight loss for four days then five pounds lost all on the fifth day. It was based on the claim that grapefruit contains fat burning enzymes, something that has never been proven.
Researchers showed that the diet may work in a 2004 study. Eating just ½ grapefruit prior to meals helped people in the study lose 3.6 pounds in twelve weeks. Drinking the juice from the grapefruit led to only slightly less weight loss. Many of the participants lost more than 10 pounds in 12 weeks. The doctor who conducted the study found that the grapefruit diet seems to reduce levels of insulin. But the study didn’t limit people to just diet, they also exercised more which may have resulted in the weight loss.
Here’s a typical grapefruit diet:
- Eight 8 ounce glasses of water each day, this is a must.
- Eat until full.
- Eat all the food listed at each meal, skipping food interferes with fat burning.
- Grapefruit is the key so eat that as specified.
- Try to avoid coffee, but if drunk consume only three cups a day.
- No snacking.
- Butter is OK.
- Avoid sweets and starches such as bread and potatoes.
- Protein and vegetables are fine.
- Eating more will actually result in more weight loss.
- Follow the diet for 12 days, skip two days, then start again.
- Grapefruit with each meal is ½ or 18 ounces of juice.
