We have all heard about all the pesticides, insecticides and herbicides sprayed on our fruits and vegies. According to Peter Greenlaw and his research, if we eat the recommended number of fruits and vegetables for good health, we will have ingested 1 gallon of pesticides each year.
If you have thought in the past you would love to eat organic and you find it is not in your budget, here is some help.
There has been a list created called The Dirty Dozen and now a new list comprised called The Clean Fifteen. This list was comprised and is updated regularly as things change by the EWA Environmental Working Group.
The Shopper’s Guide will help you determine which fruits and vegetables have the most pesticide residues and so are the most important to buy organic. You can lower your pesticide consumption by nearly four-fifths by avoiding the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables and instead eating the least contaminated produce, according to EWG calculations.
I have attached this list below if you would like a download and printable version click here
So the next time you shop for fruits and vegetables and you are not in the head space or budget to buy organic, do yourself a favour and buy from the 15 clean and avoid the Dirty Dozen. When you click on the link to download there is also an app you can add to your phone so you never have to forget what is on the list.
Happy Shopping!!
Namaste:)
Food Cravings, Satisfaction and Healthy Weight Loss
March 21, 2011
I just got this great list of food cravings and what the body really wants. Its a great education, but who when they are craving a chocolate bar is going to vear away from the candy counter and head out to the grocery and search out raw nuts and seeds, legumes or fruits so they can get the magnesium their body really wants. Some may, but most will fall for the craving time after time. This is one of the big reasons there is so much obesity happening in North America.
Our food is missing the amount of nutrition our body needs and therefore its natural to crave, but we are so out of touch that we don’t even know what it really is. We are also surrounded by fast food outlets that make it even more difficult to get our nutrition and the added chemicals for flavouring, and for increasing the addictive qualities compound the issues, weight gain, and more cravings. Its a vicious cycle.
If you want to break the cycle and start to get some clarity around what your body really wants and lose some unwanted pounds and inches in a really healthy way, then nutritional cleansing may be the kick start you need as it supports the body’s natural cleansing process by feeding it with all the nutrition the body needs to support both Phase 1 and Phase 2 detoxification. Simply put, Phase 1 with the help of enzymatic function changes non water soluble chemicals into water soluble chemicals and Phase 2 then elminates the toxins. To get an over view of this and the impact of toxicity on our health and weight gain and weight loss get the scoop on Nutritional Cleansing. One of the really cool things about this is, you don’t have to wait for 3 months to burn fat, build muscle or feel and see change.
Give it 4 days is the new line on a brochure and if you do the program and follow it and it does not make a difference, return the product within 30 days and get your money back. Whats there to lose but the cravings, inches and some unwanted weight.
Learning about Love
March 15, 2011
“Bring me a Higher Love. All We Need is Love. Love conquers all. “
All familiar lines and songs and how do we understand them?
In the past when I have been asked,” Do you love yourself?” I would respond almost indignantly, “Well of course I do.”
As I learn and grow and experience life, I see it differently. I recognize that I searched for love outside myself. If there was no one outside myself to “love” I would feel as though something was missing in my life. My relationships were a form of validating my existence. If you remained worthy of being loved and you could fulfill that need in me, it was all good. As it was never a state of internal love flowing from source there was never any real satisfying, lasting relationship with self or otherwise.
On my journey of life and the desire for fulfillment I have found a space of love I have never known. I knew it existed and so I sought it but did not capture or understand and so did not know what I was seeking. I just knew and ached for something I did not have.
About a year and a half ago a friend of mine on the same journey of seeking said to me and I paraphrase; I have come to realize that my seeking of that relationship I desire, outside myself can never fulfill me. That desire is truly that of having a relationship with God, spirit, higher self or whatever you would feel comfortable calling it. That is the only relationship that can satisfy this need.
I take that a step further. Connecting with that love, that spiritual love is the flow, but if you miss the self love aspect, you’ve still missed the boat, for then the seeking never stops. For there still seems to be this outside of self, greater than self, separateness. When the self love can come from the same well of endless love, everything changes. Then the love you have to give does not count of specific behaviour. You can love regardless of that. Think of Mandela and Gandhi. Do you think they had self love and were connected to the ocean of love that is available to all of us? How else could they have walked through the persecution they endured and come out and delivered peace and love to the world and had the kind of impact they had.
Does this love mean that you stay in a place or relationship that is destructive? No it does not, but leaving it does not mean that love cannot be present. If being in an environment is destructive to your health and well being then you choose the action that is necessary. And you can still love!!
A great book I have recently picked up with the recommendation of Mike Dooley is Love for No Reason by Marci Shimoff.
I breathe in love and and breathe out gratitude, is my mantra to centre, ground and open and see the world in a whole new way!
Namaste!
Looking for Satiety- feeling full or satisfied?
March 10, 2011
TIP #1
There are plenty of diets out there. They don’t work. One of the problems is its based on the ides of temporary. Ok, diets over, lets go eat… whatever you want. The weight comes back and then some…eek!! Again!!!
Sick of hearing about long term lifestyle change. Well thats where its at baby, like it or not. Have fun with it, cause guess what? You do it, there s a payoff. Look good, feel better. You have enough to deal with in your life, with fast paced living and stress and finances. You don’t have to add the stress you are adding by eating like crap. Oops was that my outside voice? Oh you eat like crap and you feel fine? That will only last a certain amount of time before the sh…..t hits the fan. Low vibrational, nutritionally bankrupt food, what I call negative nutrition, fast food etc. has cumulative results.
I like to describe it like this. Put a frog in boiling water and what happens? It jumps out and survives. Put a frog in cold water and slowly bring it to a boil and it dies. Eating consistently poorly I liken to putting a frog in cold water and bringing to a boil!
So lets add one healthy thing to daily habits, starting today!
Welcome to the apple. The glorious fruit of Eden. Eat an apple a day and not only have you had a satisfying snack, but with important nutrients, vitamins and minerals. Mmmmm and they taste so good. Oh and they can help you eat less calories in the course of a day.
An apple a day may keep the fat pants away. This portable fruit is the perfect snack, with a high water content and both kinds of weight-busting fiber: soluble, which helps prevent blood sugar spikes that lead to cravings, and insoluble, which helps fill you up. “A medium apple is about 85 percent water with 5 grams of soluble fiber, making it a snacking powerhouse,” says Elisa Zied, M.S., same calorie level. To sweeten the pot, apples also contain quercetin, a flavonoid shown to help fight certain cancers, reduce cholesterol damage and promote healthy lungs.
TIP:
Try buying the organic, if for no other reason than the fact that conventional commercial apples have made the dirty dozen list. They contain more pesticide residue than fruits that you peel like oranges and bananas. As the skin is thin, the pesticide residue has been found going deep into the flesh, so peeling them you would still have the pesticide residue to contend with.
Also with half the fiber and most of the iron, magnesium and vitamin C, you definitely want to eat that peel to get the full slimming benefits.
The mentality that eating well, healthy, clean or lean is boring is sooooo outdated and passe. Come eat at my house, I’ll show you. Yummy!!! Lol even if I do say so myself.
All we need is Love…
March 8, 2011
Where there is enough love, there is no fear! When fear is present, it squeezes love out.
Underneath it all, there is Love and there is Fear. Each decision we make comes from one place or the other.
This morning I was reading from a wonderful book called, Love for no Reason, by Marci Shimoff. In this book she has interviewed what she calls Love Luminaries. The book is filled with amazing stories of life altering events through the practice of unconditional love.
When we love from a healthy unconditional state, there is always more love that flows.
“When we live with an open heart, we effortlessly radiate love because the channel connecting you to the love at your core is unobstructed. You’re able to give and receive love as freely and naturally as you breathe in and out. Kindness compassion, forgiveness and gratitude become second nature, and hostility, hurt, indifference and loneliness dissolve.
While the rest of the energy centres of the body have to be healthy to keep your heart open, they are the supporting actors in this particular play. The heart, the star of the show, is where love is actually felt, received and expressed. If the heart centre is not open, love simply can’t flow.
Strengthening this centre of the love-body paves the way for you to experience love in connection to others and the world. It’s the path to true benevolence, heartfelt service, and healthy relationships.
To make sure this Doorway of Openness is flung wide, you have to clear away the blocks.”
I find when I am in a state of love there is this hum in my whole being; that I experience. A sense of fullness and calm. A real sense of joy. There is no attachment this space and then I know I am being in a clear state. I recognize this is not always so and am willing to practice it.
One practice I would like to share today, is practicing acts of kindness. As you go through our day, smile at others, open doors, say thank you, good morning, let that person in as you are driving! If you want to have an added bonus feel loving as you do that. Sound corny? Try it and see what the impact is on your day and how you feel.
Let me know what you notice!! Would love to hear from you.
Light,
Kate Unger
