that white bread was bad for you and lacked nutrition and was higher in “glu” ten..which personally I think is one of the reason so many people have issues with wheat flour. The whole GMO thing, thats another topic.

Then one day doing a little wandering and research I came upon a whole new story on “white.”  I did not even think about the potential chemical additives. Every time I ate bread, I would think of mom in the kitchen baking, the wonderful aroma and the thought of that crunchy crust on the end piece that a few of us would have dibs on. Rare though it is in my life to eat white bread, or bread at all, I will buy focaccia or baguette and they happen to be white, when I have company for dinner.  Well I will think about that a little longer before I do that again, after the shocking information I read.

Why are Refined Grains Harmful?

1. They are excessively starchy.

2. They are practically devoid of natural fiber.

3. There can be up to approximately 25 different chemicals that are added to refined grains and breads products. A few of those are

Azocarbonamide, which is a foaming agent used in plastic manufacturing, as a component of explosives, and also as a treatment of flours, grains, and rice. It is banned in Australia and the UK.

4. Grains are fumigated..

5. They are “enriched” with synthetic vitamins.  Synthetic vitamins are made from coal tar, which your body does not know what to do with.

5. Bleaching chemicals are used.

6. Artificial colorings and flavorings are used.

7. They are nutritionally imbalanced.

Because refined grain products are nutritionally imbalanced, they are responsible for contributing to several degenerative diseases. Because of the altered phosphorous-calcium balance in these products, calcium is leached from the bones and teeth. Sugar and refined grain products are the primary causes for tooth decay in this country, as well as being the major cause of brittle bones in the elderly is the ingestion of refined grains an sugar.

This information and more can be found on Amazing Discoveries

Don’t let yourself be fooled by the labelling on breads and so forth as they will call something whole grain and so many people assume it is healthy. Read the label and you will find that many of these so called healthy choices  are not so healthy and contain refined grains and sugars.

Another manipulation of the food industry to sell you substandard or nutritionally bankrupt. The reason for this is their interest is much higher in shelf life  than selling you something that is actually beneficial to your health.

No wonder it has been suggested that the children of today will not outlive their parents.  Parents, if there is one thing you can control, it’s what your chidren eat. Once they get over the fact that you are not going to give in to the whining , the whining will stop and when they start to get more nutrition, they will feel better and actually start to like it.

What’s more important, giving in, to giving them what is not going to support their health or standing strong in making sure they get the nutrition they need to become healthy , strong young adults that are educated through better nutrition? Giving them a life growing up with good nutrition and supplementation will give them a foundation and increase their odds for good health. This starts with you! If you start your day without, and continue your day with whatever, by the time it is time to drive home from work, you have nothing left to even think of good nutrition for yourself or your kids and then you all end up with days out of the week that are truly not supportive for their long term health. Like a bank account you need to put in more than you take out. So lets try the 80/20 rule at least.

Yippee to better health, eliminating obesity and improving nutrition. Not to mention brains that function better.

Namaste!

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.

Reading a great book that was given to me as a bday gift and each day as I pick it up it is a profound reminder of “something”. It is called The Courage to be Free, by Guy Finley..beautiful.

Remember when your parents would tell you not to hang with a certain group or type of person? We did not get it and probably rebelled at least a little…they did not know really how to explain it to us…they just knew this timeless truth. That trouble would follow those who kept bad company.

Laying this foundation Guy goes on to talk about being aware of the “INNER” company we keep. This company being our own thoughts and feelings. Seeing them as a choosing of the friends we keep really can give us a picture of “choice”. We can choose to hang around with thoughts that are not going to make us feel good or “choose” the thoughts that are going to uplift us and empower us. The mind you thought was you, is not, and you can choose “YOUR FRIENDS”.

Awareness being the first factor and see what friends you are keeping by looking in the mirror. Our friends show up on our face and body with expression…and our outer reality! An example Guy uses is, a mind full of worry and doubt can act to transform the human face into a fearful one-we see eyes full of apprehension, lips pulled back tight, the mouth turned downward. If we are hanging out with friends that are constantly calling us a loser, fat, ugly, bitchy, broke…and much more….think of how powerfully that shows up in life and in our way of being and how thats reflected back on us….WOW…WE CAN CHOOSE!!!! Every time one of those thoughts arises in your awareness say cancel, cancel cancel and then choose a powerful word that will uplift you!!

Being aware of the friends we keep both inwardly and outwardly is a task of vigilance to separate yourself and choose…friends that are going to serve us in  an uplifting, joyous and inspired life.

“What we are now, and the kind of life we will come to know, is very much determined by the “interior” company we are keeping!”

Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

09-13-10

Many people buy organic foods because they believe organic foods have higher nutritional values than their non-organic counterparts. Researchers at Washington State University wanted to find out if these consumer beliefs were accurate. They tested both organic and conventional strawberries grown in 13 side-by-side California fields.

Here are a few of their findings:

- The organic strawberries had significantly higher antioxidant activity and concentrations of ascorbic acid and phenolic compounds.

- The organic strawberries had longer shelf life.

- The organic strawberries had more dry matter, or, “more strawberry in the strawberry.”

- Anonymous testers, working at times under red light so the fruit color would not bias them, found one variety of organic strawberries was sweeter, had better flavor, and once a white light was turned on, better appearance. The testers judged the other two varieties to be similar.

Robin Shreeves blogs about finding eco-friendly food options at www.mnn.com/featured-blogs/sustainablefood.

—

(c) 2010, Mother Nature Network. Distributed by Mclatchy-Tribune News Service.

Kate’s comments…

Thoughts…I have always believed that organic was better. It just makes sense. There is tons of info out there and studies that show both positive and negative. I look at the logic. If a farm is composting and feeding the soil and not killing off the important micro organisms that are so important to deliver the nutrients to the plant, the plant has more to offer. A seed that begets a seed and is used for future generations has the energy of creation. A plant that is manipulated and genetically modified and their seeds are removed or destroyed for future production… the question I ask is what impact does that have on us?

Dr Max Wicha has discovered that chemotherapy and radiation can actually cause more of a problem in the cancer patient as opposed to less.

This information is not coming from the outside fringes of the medical community, but from the founder of the University of Michigan’s Comprehensive Cancer Center and a pioneer in research on why cancers recur and spread to other parts of the body.

Dr Max Wicha reported, “The reason breast cancer and other malignancies often return aggressively after treatment is that when tumor cells die under assault from chemotherapy and radiation, they give off substances that can reactivate a special set of master cells known as cancer stem cells, Dr. Wicha said in an interview Tuesday.”

There is still controversy in the existence of cancer stem cells, but the idea is gaining traction.

In the last 2 months alone there have been  published studies on cancer stem cells in breast, ovarian, prostate and brain cancer around the nation.

Dr Wicha ‘s hope is to eliminate the use of general chemotherapy, with its debilitating side effects and treat cancer with targeted therapies specifically against stem cells.

The above is information reported by Mark Roth of the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette.

My personal hope and belief is that as science has the ability to tap into more and more information on the human body, the gap between alternative and mainstream medicine and science will close. I see that gap closing in our present time and future. As we accelerate in our learning and growth on this planet all things become possible and joining hands on our journey to healing will only make it more exciting and accelerated.