Did you know that at least one-third of all cancers are caused by poor diet? Definite health benefits come from centering your diet around vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and legumes. This combined with regular exercise, a healthy weight, alcohol used only in moderation, and avoiding tobacco are the fundamentals for disease prevention.
Many experts believe as much as 50-60% of degenerative disease is due primarily to dietary factors! Here are some tips that will maximize your protection.
Eat 8 to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. If you have trouble getting this much in, cover your bases with a whole food concentrate to make up for the nutritional shortfall.
Eat dark green leafy and cabbage family vegetables daily. Try to include a wide variety - broccoli, spinach, kale, chard, mustard greens, collards, bok choy, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, turnips, and others.(more…)
The nutrients in plant foods are called phytochemicals. Phyto means plant, so these are just plant chemicals. Plant foods contain many thousands of these health-promoting substances. They include enzymes, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and many other protective chemicals.
Only plants, including vegetables, fruit, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, contain these healthy chemicals. And research shows that the more plants foods you eat, the lower your risk of cancer and other diseases.
Consider Your Diet
Beyond eating plenty of plant foods, variety is important for optimal disease prevention. If you just stick with familiar foods, you miss out on nutritional benefits many other foods offer. When was the last time you ate kiwi or cherries? How about mango and guava? Do you eat fresh pineapple? What about papaya?(more…)
Do you eat lots of brightly colored fruits and vegetables? The colors correspond to different plant chemicals or phytonutrients. Many fruits and vegetables contain flavonoids, a very large and diverse family of antioxidant phytochemicals.
Blueberries are the richest sources of potent antioxidants in our American diet, but the following foods are also high in flavonoid life-preservers:
Our diet and lifestyle have direct effects on the amounts of good and bad bacteria in our gut. Intestinal microflora can be adversely affected by stress, medications, poor diet, disease, aging, and a variety of other factors.
Probiotic bacteria require food to thrive and their preferred diet is dietary fiber. Fiber is a component of plant cell walls that lends form and structure to the plant. There exist many types of fiber and it’s primarily found in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, seeds, and nuts.
When probiotic organisms digest fiber, they produce acids that keep the pH of our gastrointestinal tract low (acidic). Beneficial bacteria thrive in an acid environment while harmful bacteria thrive under alkaline conditions.
People who eat mostly refined and processed foods with very little roughage sometimes suffer from bacterial dysbiosis - an under population of beneficial bacteria along with an overgrowth of harmful bacteria. Subsequently, health problems can ensue from an overpopulation of disease-promoting organisms.(more…)
Frequently supplements are needed to make up for what’s missing in the diet, repopulate after antibiotic therapy, or to improve the health of our digestive tract.
Following are some very different probiotics which contain greater viability and larger numbers of colony-forming-units than most of what you can find on the shelves in drug and health food stores.
Human Micro Flora
Seroyal is the U.S. provider of HLC High Potency and other probiotics made by Pharmax in the United Kingdom. The original samples of hundreds of different bacterial strains were originally isolated from healthy human intestinal walls in the 1940’s. Human formed colonies have been shown to grow and establish themselves faster in the intestinal mucosa and with longer lasting results than those grown from dairy or animal strains.
Four varieties of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium are used in all of the HLC products. Lactobacillus predominates in the upper portion of the small intestines, while Bifidobacterium colonizes the lower portion.(more…)
Human white blood cell destroying pathogenic bacteria
Part I of a 4-part article.
Did you know that over 400 species of microorganisms call your digestive system home and the majority are not only beneficial, but are absolutely essential for good health? Until we are born, we are completely sterile of microbes, but once outside the womb, we rapidly accumulate bacteria and possess approximately the same ratio as an adult by age four.
Bacteria Outnumber Body Cells
In fact, scientists believe that 100 trillion microorganisms reside within the human body - as much as 10 times more than our actual body cells! In other words, 90% of the cells within the human body are from single cell organisms who reside primarily in the mouth, gastrointestinal tract, and vagina.
If you wonder how this can be possible, it’s because our body cells are so much larger than microbes. For example, red blood cells are approximately four times the size of intestinal bacteria and some of our individual muscle cells take up more space than thousands of microorganisms!(more…)
Breast cancer is the second leading cause of death due to cancer worldwide. (Lung is first, primarily due to smoking). The American Cancer Society (ACS) recently released a report declaring that at least half of all cancer-related deaths could be prevented through lifestyle changes and earlier detection.
Dairy and Legumes
Consuming 2 to 3 servings of low-fat dairy each day is linked to lower breast cancer risk, according to ACS research that studied a group of postmenopausal women. Similar reduction was not observed among those who took calcium supplements.
Eating a couple of servings per week of beans and lentils appears to significantly lower breast cancer risk, according to research conducted at the Harvard School of Public Health. This is believed to be due to their high content of antioxidant flavonols. Legumes are also rich in both soluble and insoluble fiber.(more…)
Next to the thyroid gland, iodine is most concentrated in breast tissue where it helps to normalize the impact of estrogen. Iodine effectively turns off estrogen receptor sites in the breast. When iodine is insufficient, breast tissue overreacts to estrogen and this can result in cancer promotion.
Unfortunately, depletion of iodine in soils as well as low consumption of iodine-rich sea vegetables and seafood has led to nationwide suboptimal intakes. Try including varieties of sea weed in your diet. Wakame is good in soups with miso (fermented soybean paste). Kombu is often cooked with beans and is reputed to make them more digestible..
Hijiki and Arame are tasty when soaked in warm water for a few minutes and then cooked briefly with some chopped onion and carrot slices sauteed in sesame oil. Add a few slivered almonds and a little soy sauce for a dish that’s a perfect accompaniment to fish.
Dulse is good in salads and the powdered form can be sprinkled over vegetables, rice, or any food that can be enhanced by its salty flavor. Nori is used in making sushi rolls (see my Recipes page). Oriental stores also carry seasoned Nori strips that are good eaten alone or with other foods.(more…)
The skin problems plaguing many of us - like acne or blotchy complexion - are frequently secondary symptoms of poor nutrition. Regular cleansing, toning, and moisturizing with quality products is important, but inner health is the biggest factor in the appearance of your skin.
The old adage “you are what you eat”, literally applies to how our skin looks and feels. As our largest organ, the integrity of our skin benefits from the same foods that have a positive effect on our heart and other organs. In fact, research suggests that eating foods rich in antioxidants can provide powerful anti-aging effects.
Skin Regeneration
New skin cells are created at the lowest, or basal, layer of skin and gradually push their way up to the next layer, known as the granular layer. Within four weeks of their creation, new cells come to the surface layer, called keratin.
Cells from the keratin layer are constantly being sloughed off. But when excess toxins due to poor diet, lack of exercise, or disease, buildup in the body, it begins to show in your skin. A dull, pasty complexion, acne, blotches, and exema are some of the typical symptoms of compromised health.(more…)
Iodine and Sea Vegetables
The skin problems plaguing many of us - like acne or blotchy complexion - are frequently secondary symptoms of poor nutrition. Regular cleansing, toning, and moisturizing with quality products is important, but inner health is the biggest factor in the appearance of your skin.
