I just learned about a new documentary film that exposes the truth behind the junk and processed food industry and the effect on our children. It’s called ‘All Jacked Up’ and features interviews with both top health and nutrition experts as well as real teenagers as they share their traumatic experiences with living on junk food. More on All Jacked Up: The Junk Food Movie Food Companies Don’t Want You To See
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February 4, 2008
Pass on Meat and Soda To Avoid Heart Disease According to Study
Not surprisingly, new research from the University of Minnesota show that consumption of red meat and soda significantly increase the risks of heart disease.
More on Pass on Meat and Soda To Avoid Heart Disease According to Study
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One of the few purely ‘whole food’ companies in the market today, WholeFoodFarmacy, has been granted Organic Certification on three of their popular foods, Phi Plus, Cranberry Phi and Coco Cherry Phi.
Organic certification means that all ingredients are sourced from foods that are grown naturally and free of pesticides and chemicals.
WholeFoodFarmacy is a great example of how food companies can encourage healthy living habits and provide products that support their vision. The company believes strongly in the benefits of whole foods and only supplies products that are minimally handled and contain only whole food vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, herbs, spices and natural grains. Here’s a little more directly from their mission statement:
“The ingredients to health, happiness, vitality, and longevity are no secret. Every major non-profit health organization in the world has been offering the same advice for many years. Eat more fruits and veggies, drink more water, exercise on a daily basis, lose weight if you need to, don’t smoke, avoid toxins, & reduce stress.
To that end, we have combined delicious, healthy foods, with convenience and affordability. Our salon quality personal care items offer superior results without the toxic chemicals.
Nothing short of a consumer based, grass roots return to healthy choices and lifestyles can steer our children, and future generations, in a healthier direction.”
They plan to continue the Organic Certification of the balance of their products and provide only the best foods available.
Personally, my family enjoys the foods and many of the natural personal care products. In fact, one of their 13 day programs, the Tri-Decathlon, helped many family members, friends and readers lose excess weight, regain their health and their tastes for a more natural, whole food diet. I often recommend these programs to those looking to make an improvement in their health, be it losing weight, overcoming a health issue or just wanting to improve their diet.
The reason these foods work is because you eat only whole foods for the 7 or 13 days and your body regains its natural taste for fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and natural grains. They are conveniently packaged and the program is easy to follow (eat as much as you want!). Once you lose the ‘addiction’ to the Standard American Diet (SAD) of fats, clogging dairy products, heart un-healthy meats and processed and junk foods that a majority of Americans (and now becoming the world) eat, you regain your body’s natural taste for what nature intended. You start eating more fresh fruits and vegetables in combination with the WholeFoodFarmacy foods and snacks. In this way, changing your habits is much easier since you are not fighting with the taste addictions (cravings) that cripple many diet efforts and makes it much easier to regain your health, your optimal weight and just feel better all around. The foods are convenient, mostly uncooked, tasty and made from all natural whole foods, nothing else.
And regardless of the fact the New Year is upon us when many of us look to make healthier choices, any time is a great time to take back your health, your body and continue a path to your best health for life. You only have one, why wait?
Visit the WholeFoodFarmacy for more information.
To your best health!
Mark Idzik
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Processed Foods Put Children at Risk of Liver Disease
New research is now showing that eliminating processed foods from your diet, especially your children’s diet, will help avoid liver disease. The disease, normally found in adults, has started to be found in children as young as 5-7 years old.
A research study at Children’s Hospital Boston showed that eating processed, high glycemic foods created livers with high fat content (double the normal levels), high blood fat and overall higher body fat.
Examples of processed, high glycemic foods include white rice, foods with white flour as well as processed grains. Most snacks, candy bars, baked goods, pastas… most anything sold in a box or pre-prepared in a restaurant, grocery store or factory is a processed food. Low glycemic unprocessed foods include fresh vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and natural whole grains.
The study results recommend concentrating on a diet of low glycemic foods to avoid liver disease, obesity and all of the side effects.
Since this disease in children is hard to detect, it’s considered a ’silent killer’ and the effects of liver disease may not show until the children grow up when it may be too late.
Many people consider switching to unprocessed foods an inconvenience. The inconvenience unfortunately will lead to poor health and disease, lower quality of life and eventually a shorter life span… all in the name of convenience. What is your health worth? What do you have in life without your health?
And our children will suffer most. Being a good example is the best way to show them how to eat a proper and healthy diet and can change their lives. Watching shows like “Fat Camp” make me sad, where children have obviously not been taught the benefits of eating mainly whole foods and normally eat snack and processed foods out of habit, convenience, example and the seduction of chemicals found in most processed foods that make you want to eat more and more (and bypassing your natural instinct to stop eating).
Transitioning to an unprocessed, whole food diet is not difficult, or inconvenient. You can prepare most freshly made meals in minutes since no cooking is normally necessary and preparation is minimal. Snacking on fruits, nuts and seeds is easy, just wash (and peel if necessary) the fruits, eat and enjoy!
You can also find healthy minimally processed whole foods from the WholeFoodFarmacy which has a large selection of healthy, delicious and convenient foods for you and your family (check out the great snacks, your kids will love them too!).
To your best health!
October 9, 2007
Are You Following These Keys To Optimal Health?
Dr. Weston Price was a dentist in the 1930’s that decided to research the health of cultures world wide. He traveled all over the world interviewing, examining and photographing, and since he was a dentist, he also was interested in their teeth. What he found was profound and undisputed even today. Here’s what he learned.
In native cultures that were thriving with good health, what he found these things in common:
- they ate natural foods that were not processed, without any additives like sugar
- the foods were organically grown locally and eaten seasonally
- they ate fermented foods and some ate unpasteurized dairy foods
- apparently they ate animal foods, including animal fat
[The one area that I digress from Dr. Weston’s findings is consuming animals foods. The research I have reviewed (and my personal experience) is that especially with the way animals are raised today (they were raised differently in the early 1900’s, without the factory farming, drugs and automation of today’s farming business), there are more risks than rewards in eating animal foods.]
He also found that in these thriving cultures, their teeth were healthy and strong - no cavities. He thought of the mouth as the window to the body and the health of your teeth normally indicated the health of your body.
In the cultures where health was declining, including poor dental health with rotting and missing teeth he noticed that they all had one major thing in common - the introduction of processed foods into their diet. He noted that it was plain to see that shortly after a culture was introduced to processed foods, their health progressively declined.
Dr. Preston’s finding are documented in his book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.
Another doctor, Francis Pottenger is famous for his 10 year nutritional study on the effects of cooking food. He studied hundreds of cats and fed them different ratios of cooked vs. raw foods. What he found was that those cats on a primarily cooked food diet didn’t make it past the third generation. Their health deteriorated and they could no longer reproduce. Those cats feed 100% raw foods thrived. You couldn’t tell the difference between one generation and the other, they were all in great health.
Both doctors research hasn’t been refuted and if you reflect on their findings, you’ll notice the same affects of the diet on our population today. More and more women are unable to conceive and fertility clinics are everywhere using drugs to stimulate what nature can’t. Obesity and related diseases are growing daily. What also has increased is the amount of processed, modified and denatured foods that we eat every day. Children are being introduced to fake, processed foods and grow up believing that is normal and then continue by passing it on to their children. It’s a never ending circle that will continue forever and lead to a very sick society, or worse.
Actually, we’re already there as America is last among developed countries in health with more disease and health problems than any other. Obesity alone is responsible for over $100 billion dollars a year in health care spending. And America is mainly responsible for introducing and exporting most of the processed foods overseas. The statistics show that when fast food was introduced in foreign countries, their health progressively declined, and continues today. Do we want to pass this on to our children?
Let’s think about it this way for a minute.
If you agree that your body is natural (you weren’t created by a machine or some un-natural method) , why would eating something un-natural, processed, modified, created in a laboratory or grown/filled with chemicals or additives be good for your body (most food packaged or served in a restaurant is processed)? Why would you want to eat something that isn’t natural knowing this?
Here’s something that may also shed some light on this. Did you know that your body automatically rejects anything that it doesn’t recognize as natural? One way we found this out is by researchers looking through the waste from portable toilets. In sifting out the waste, they found thousands of almost whole vitamins and pills (among other things) that were passed almost whole through the digestive system without being absorbed. In analyzing these tablets they found them all to have been created (in a laboratory - most vitamins are made this way) and not a whole food vitamin (whole natural foods condensed into a tablet).
Only you can change this declining trend by realizing that the only way to gain optimal health in all areas of your life is by eating fresh, unprocessed, organically grown foods. Eating primarily a diet of foods that are raw and a small percentage dried, steamed or lightly cooked.
The video goes into more detail and is inspiring.
To your best health!
Mark
If you’re looking for a way to add whole foods to your diet, learn about the convenient, delicious and healthy foods available to you, without leaving your home. And read about the life altering changes others have experienced.
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Dangers Secretly Hidden In The Food We Eat
You may not know this but most of the processed and packaged foods as well as those foods you select when eating out are most often filled with a dangerous substance that’s not only hazardous to your health, but is secretly counterproductive if you’re trying to lose or maintain your weight. It’s often hidden or disguised and rarely, if ever called by it’s real name: MSG.
Watch this video to learn more about this hidden, silent killer found in most processed foods we eat every day.
To Your Best Health!
Mark
P.S. Avoid MSG completely by choosing convenient, tasty, whole, organic foods… now available for snacks, meals, lunches and more. Check out what thousands are saying as they regain their health, shed pounds and just feel great.
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Do You Eat Like Most Families Throughout The World
TIME Magazine recently ran a photo story portraying the weekly diets of 15 families around the world. How interesting it was to see what other families throughout the world eat, and how much they pay for their weekly groceries.
I noticed something interesting throughout the photos.
Most all the families included soda in their diets, even families in Cairo, Egypt drank some type of soda. Notice also how much packaged food most families eat, it’s amazing. But the most interesting fact was the TINY percentage of fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds most families included in their diets. I was surprised to see this, noting that even families in Greece (who are normally known for their healthy Mediterranean diets) were eating ‘Frosted Flakes’ and stocking up on the soda. It’s America exporting it’s ‘SAD’ diet throughout the world, and not surprisingly, the health problems associated with them.
View the TIME photo essay and see for yourself.
Is it me, or do you notice a difference in how healthy a family looks compared to their diet?
Our friends, the Talifero family decided to include themselves in this photo essay. Notice the difference in what they eat and how they look compared to the other families.
If only 1 in 10 families would increase the amount of fresh produce in their diets, it would automatically better their health and reduce the amount of packaging and waste they go through every week. Start with a goal of 50% and work your way up to 80%, or ideally 100%. For some 100% may be unrealistic… just make it a goal to eat most of your diet consisting of fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. What a difference that alone would make. What can you do?
To your best health!
Mark
Your Health and Weight Loss Coach
Diets Don’t Work
http://www.HealthyLivingTalk.com
Here’s a quick way to jump-start your health. Learn about the delicious. healthy, organic and convenient foods that you can take with you anywhere… and keep you smiling, satisfied and healthy. Guaranteed. Work, school, car, bag lunch, snack, kid’s lunch box… Learn more about healthy organic food and snacks now.
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