Shopper's Rut: Why do I need to avoid this?
Shopper's Rut Defined: buying the same 'ole fruits and veggies every week:
- bunch of bananas
- few apples
- an orange or two on occasion and maybe a pear here or there
- stock of broccoli
- pre-washed & prepared lettuce of some sort
- carrots
- maybe a cuke or bell pepper
- perhaps some celery because it is easy
Why Should You Avoid This Same 'Ole - Same 'Ole Produce Shopping Experience... (Hint: to avoid eating the same things day after day, week after week!)
Shopper's Rut Defined: buying the same 'ole fruits and veggies every week:
- bunch of bananas
- few apples
- an orange or two on occasion and maybe a pear here or there
- stock of broccoli
- pre-washed & prepared lettuce of some sort
- carrots
- maybe a cuke or bell pepper
- perhaps some celery because it is easy
Why Should You Avoid This Same 'Ole - Same 'Ole Produce Shopping Experience... (Hint: to avoid eating the same things day after day, week after week!)
- Variety in fruits and veggies creates variety in the vitamin, minerals, anti-oxidants, and phytonutrients your body is graced with. There are so many nutrients in food that we have not yet discovered. Opting to eat produce that varies with the season opens your body, your body cells, to receiving all of these nutrients.
- Phytonutrients fight oxidative stress, inflammation, and allow your body to heal for disease prevention and disease healing (You want this, trust me and yes, your body is capable of healing from any disease. It is how we are genetically programmed. The "you must take this drug for the rest of your life" medical mentality erases the fact that the body has the ability to heal.).
- Mixing up your fruit & veggies provides your body with different kinds of fiber, the roughage in food. Fiber, complex carbohydrates are good on so many levels. See below for some gut bug info.
- Your taste buds, eyes, nostrils, hands, and brain will be happy for the variation in sensory stimulation. All the colors, textures, smells, and tastes are an amazing way to stimulate your neural pathways. Think of that beautiful summer salad on your plate and then the slow rotation into fall and winter veggies giving us tantalizing root veggie and cabbage slaws. Then there is my favorite winter veggie... beets! A winter, cooked beet salad with walnuts & feta cheese is a taste bud tantalizing change from the same ole - same ole steamed or sauteed broccoli.
Above picture borrowed, with permission, from the website of Martin's Farmstand, Potsdam, NY. Look at the seasonal abundance available in Northern NY! Go to their website and have fun clicking on the "previous newsletter" links. The pictures from the farmstand, the farm fields, and gardens are amazing. Lush and juicy, fresh, local, and seasonal food everywhere! And all this food is tended to with love by wonderful people. For your fall & winter veggies... give them a call.
Looking for a winter CSA in Northern NY State?:
- Kent Family Growers,
- Birdsfoot Farm,
- LittleGrasse FoodWorks OR check out
- GardenShares website to find a farmer close to you that sells produce, meats, cheeses, milk, herbs, spring plants, etc.
Try these ideas to eat more variety in your fruits and veggies:
- Get Creative in the Kitchen
- Eat Seasonally Fruits & Veggies & Naturally Rotate Your Phytonutrients
- Use Root vegetables instead of grains to add plenty of complex carbohydrates and starches to your eating habits. This is good gut pre-biotic food that feeds the gut bugs you want to survive and thrive in your intestinal tract. A healthy gut microbiome is a self-responsibility tool in your personal medicine bag to prevent intestinal disease, auto-immune diseases, cancer, and a host of other preventable human ills. And food is your easy, at home medicine!
- Grate veggies on a grater (or use a fancy spiralizer); use these grated veggies instead of pastas. Depending on the veggie, I use some raw and gently saute' others.
- Learn what fruits & berries grow in your area, what their season is, and freely indulge in them.
More recipes: http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/recipes/
Tip for the Week, Month, & Year: Create seasonal variety in your whole food eating habits not just around the produce you eat. Variety bathes your awesome body cells in different nutrition daily, weekly, and with the seasons of the year.
Your body's health WILL thank you! (Your local farmers will thank you too.)
Bone Broth: What Is the Hype?
Perhaps you remember your mom or grandma feeding you chicken soup when you were ill. Most chicken soup, stock, was made with the bones, cartilage, and the hunks of attacked chicken meat. (If you are vegetarian or vegan… don’t bail on me just yet. I have plant based gut healing suggestions as well. Bare with me on this bones thing.)
Animal bone broths have been used for hundreds of years, thousands really, for their nourishment and healing benefits. People inherently knew the healing benefits of the daily food and life choices they made. Modern living somehow now requires scientific proofthat what we are doing is worthwhile. Research into the benefits of bone broth is available and plenty to satisfy the scientifically inclined.
Jar one: bones soaking in apple cider vinegar
Jar two: finished bone broth
I originally wrote this for the Potsdam Food Co-op's August 2016 Newsletter.
Perhaps you remember your mom or grandma feeding you chicken soup when you were ill. Most chicken soup, stock, was made with the bones, cartilage, and the hunks of attacked chicken meat. (If you are vegetarian or vegan… don’t bail on me just yet. I have plant based gut healing suggestions as well. Bare with me on this bones thing.)
Animal bone broths have been used for hundreds of years, thousands really, for their nourishment and healing benefits. People inherently knew the healing benefits of the daily food and life choices they made. Modern living somehow now requires scientific proof that what we are doing is worthwhile. Research into the benefits of bone broth is available and plenty to satisfy the scientifically inclined.
After the long soak and simmer to make bone broth (recipe to follow), the resultant gelatinous and slightly fatty liquid contains valuable minerals and nutrients in a form your body can easily absorb, circulate in your bloodstream, and be taken in and used by your body cells. These nutrients include amino acids, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, silicon, sulfur chondroitin, glucosamine, collagen, and a variety of trace minerals and other nutrients. The gelatin in bone broth supports gut lining health, gut lining healing, and proper digestion.
Bone broth has been proven to help with infection fighting (why Mom and Gram gave you chicken soup when you were sick with the cold and flu). Bone broth contains amino acids that easily nourish the body on the cellular level. L-arginine and L-glutamine are two nourishing amino acids present in bone broth that decrease inflammation in the gut (and whole body inflammation) assisting the immune system in its never ending job of fighting infections and inflammation. L-glutamine is known for its gut health enhancing properties. L-glutamine helps to heal and seal the lining of the digestive tract, your gut. More L-glutamine information coming up.
Many issues of modern living (antibiotics, hand sanitizers, modern wheat-gluten and dairy, chlorine and fluoride in drinking water, household chemicals, cosmetic chemicals, glyphosphate and other industrial agricultural chemicals… the list is never ending) create inflammation in the gut. An inflamed gut lining creates problems that allow undigested particles of food, chemicals, microbes, etc. to directly enter into the blood stream. This happens because the gut inflammation creates a diseased small intestinal condition medically named increased intestinal permeability.
This dis-ease of the body’s small intestine is more commonly known as Leaky Gut Syndrome. The small intestine has junctions that are very tightly packed together. These tight junctions serve a wonderful purpose by keeping unwanted particles (chemicals, bacteria, viruses…) in the digestive tract to be dealt with and passed out in solid waste OR food digested down to the smallest particles* to be absorbed, circulated, and used for cellular nutrition.
· *Carbohydrates to simple sugars
· *Proteins to amino acids
· *Fats to fatty acids
The issues of modern living, mentioned above, create inflammation that irritates and erodes away at the gut and loosens these tight junctions. When these junctions are loosened all hell breaks loose in the body. The above mentioned substances pass through the now loose junctions directly into the bloodstream. This is not meant to be. The substances are meant to be digested first, cleaned up by the liver, and/or pooped right out of the body. When they slip into the circulation because the junctures are no longer tight to keep them where they belong… your immune system goes postal on them. Antibodies are created to combat these substances that are seen as foreign invaders, antigens. The next time you eat or take in one of these substances, the substance moves into the bloodstream through the loose junctures setting off the immune system (The immune response to this now problem food or substance actually happens before the food even reaches the intestines). This time the immune system has the antibodies ready and war is waged on the substance, the assumed antigen. Over time the body wears down from this cycle of inflammation, gut juncture loosening, seepage of the unwanteds into the blood stream, and a result can be that the body starts attacking itself (auto-immune issues).
Above 2 photos used with permission of Tracy Harrison – http://www.wildlysuccessfulhc.com/ Photo #1 shows tight junctures and loose junctures in a simplistic drawing. Photo #2 inside of small intestine showing a very blown up view of the thousands of villi covered by millions of micro-villi. These villi are where the junctures exist.
My gut story is a very simplistic explanation meant to assist in the understanding of what in the body is going awry. An inflamed gut lining contributes to leaky gut syndrome and the resultant food sensitivities and allergies, auto-immune conditions, and many other inflammatory body issues leading to a host of dis-ease. (Dis-Ease being a lack of ease in the body; lack of health.)
L-Glutamine, contained in bone broth, is a gut junction healer. It helps to soothe the inflamed gut and heal the loose junctions back to their tight junctions. Tight junctions are immune and whole body health enhancing.
Now you know some substances and habits that can contribute to leaky gut issues and how bone broth plays a crucial role in the healing of this condition. It is time to tighten up junctions everyone; time to learn how to make bone broth. (Again, I have added vegetarian and vegan suggestions to mimic, as closely as possible, bone broths healing benefits to your gut and body’s health.)
Making Bone Broth:
By the way… bone broth Cafés are now quite popular in metropolitan areas.
Bone broths are made with fish, chicken, turkey, beef, pork, and lamb bones in water. Different animal bones and tissues have different nutrients and benefits. (Buffalo, venison, rabbit, wild bird bones are fine as well.) Use only bones, cartilage, feet, tails, etc. from pasture raised or wild animals. Never use bones from commercially raised animals (factory farm animals) that are given anti-biotics, hormones, and/or fed genetically modified feed (corn, soy…). You are what you eat and animals are what they eat. If unhealthy substances were used in the raising of the animals, those substances will be concentrated in the animal bones and body tissues, and therefore concentrated in your finished bone broth.
1. Put slightly meaty bones, cartilage, feet, tails, etc. (they do not have to be stripped clean of meat) in a sauce pan or big soup pot (if you have a lot of bones) and cover with water, just enough to cover bones well. I break up the bones as best I can and squish them down into the soup pot bottom.
2. Add a generous tablespoon of raw apple cider vinegar (ACV) and cover the pot. If you are doing a big pot of bone broth use more of the ACV. For estimation purposes I use a heaping tablespoon of ACV for a whole chicken’s pot of bones.
3. I soak the bones in the vinegar water for at least an overnight and then…
4. I slow simmer the bones for hours the next day. I gently bring the bone filled pot to a simmer on the stove top.
5. I then place the pot o’ bones in a pre-heated 220 F oven and leave for 5-6 hours if chicken or fish bones and longer if the harder bones of pork or beef (at least 6-8 hours). Yes, a crock pot works well. You could simmer for hours on the stovetop but I find the oven temp is easier to regulate and keep the simmer from boiling away the broth. Cool fall and cold winter days make for extra warmth in the kitchen with the oven going. Slow roast something for dinner to get extra bang for your buck using the oven for so long.
6. After simmering, I remove the bones with a large slotted spoon. Use the broth as a soup stock or eat the broth as it is, drink it like a morning or evening cup of tea. I add a bit of unrefined sea salt to taste.
7. If making soup, I sauté the veggies and other soup ingredients before adding them to the hot bone broth. This avoids further simmering of the broth.
8. Toward the end of bone broth simmering you can add herbs** that contribute to the anti-inflammatory effects: turmeric & ginger root, rosemary, thyme, oregano… allow the herbs to gently simmer (that 220 degree oven is hot enough) for an hour if a leaf/flower and simmer for 2 hours if a bark/root/seed. (Similar information is the making of herbal tea infusions: http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/making-herbal-infusions-teas/ )
9. When I re-warm the broth for sipping I will sometimes add small amounts of marshmallow root powder, slippery elm bark powder, and/or licorice root powder. These herbs are anti-inflammatory and also contribute to the soothing effect; the heal and seal for the gut lining.
10. Using a large slotted spoon, remove the bones from your finished broth.
Now what to do with it?
- Put into glass canning jars and refrigerate until ready to use.
- Drink one or two cups daily, gently warmed up, like a tea.
- Use it as soup stock.
- Freeze to use later as bone broth tea or soup stock.
I often keep my bones soaking in the vinegar solution for days or weeks. I keep the bones in a wide mouth canning jar in the fridge. I add bones to this jar until I have enough to justify making bone broth and/or the outside temperature is cool enough to be ok with my long oven usage. With fall and winter just around the corner, sorry dear Co-op friends, it is a good time of the year for long cooking of bone broth.
Enjoy making and sipping bone broth.
**This is part of my vegetarian and vegan friendly information for enhancing your gut health through plant based choices…
Thanks for hanging in there and continuing this read. As a vegetarian or vegan you can cook up vegetable broths that are enhanced with the above herbs.
· Slippery elm, marshmallow, and licorice root have coating and soothing effects on the gut lining. I use them in many ways as bonus gut health foods – teas or the powdered herbs mixed into plain/full fat yogurt with added L-glutamine powder.
·Add red cabbage to your soup as it is a plant based source of L-glutamine. Red Cabbage is considered the densest vegetable form of L-glutamine. Making red cabbage sauerkraut is another great way to use cabbage and create a highly bio-available form of l-glutamine.
·Other sources of L-glutamine to help tighten up those junctions: the highest levels found in grass-fed beef, bison, chicken, and free range eggs. Raw dairy products from grass-fed cows and goats are also very high in L-glutamine.
·Plant sources: almonds, pistachios, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, peanuts and peanut butter are all good sources (peanuts can be disturbing to gut health in people with pre-existing gut issues). Dried lentils, peas, and beans contribute L-glutamine as well. Other vegetables sources include spinach, parsley, and beets.
·It is best if these vegetables are consumed raw or fermented in order to maximize their glutamine content and increase bioavailability. Cooking heat, especially high heat, breaks down the L-glutamine.
·A recipe for using raw, red cabbage in fresh slaws: http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/winter-salad/
·Making sauerkraut with red cabbage: http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/blog/2014/02/04/i-popped-the-cranberry-of-fermentation
Conveniently made for you bone broth in Canton-Potsdam area:
- Potsdam Food Co-op in Potsdam carries Pacific Organic bone broths, in aseptic packages, on the grocery shelf.
- Nature's Storehouse in Canton carries Bonafide organic beef broth in their meat freezer.
2 websites for further learning about bone broth and healing the gut lining (type "bone broth" or "leaky gut syndrome" into the website's search bar):
Carrot Cake: Grain Free & Cow's "Liquid Lactation" Free :)
I work with people who have health challenges... sometimes big health challenges:
- auto-immune,
- cancer,
- diabetes, etc.
The ravages of modern living and modern eating raise holy hell with people's bodies creating ongoing inflammation, immune activation, cellular metabolism issues, blood sugar issues, glandular ill health... BUT, people still want an occasional celebratory food to relax into and enjoy.
With above said health challenges; the removal of gluten, grains, and cow's milk dairy (it is a caesin & A1 protein / caesin issue) are imperative (from a functional medicine / natural health perspective) to reduce gut and immune health inflammation and get the healing process rolling.
Read on my friends... recipe is below!
I work with people who have health challenges... sometimes big health challenges:
- auto-immune,
- cancer,
- diabetes, etc.
The ravages of modern living and modern eating raise holy hell with people's bodies creating ongoing inflammation, immune activation, cellular metabolism issues, blood sugar issues, glandular ill health... BUT, people still want an occasional celebratory food to relax into and enjoy.
With above said health challenges; the removal of gluten, grains, and cow's milk dairy (it is a caesin & A1 protein / caesin issue) are imperative (from a functional medicine / natural health perspective) to reduce gut and immune health inflammation and get the healing process rolling.
My son Jakob's birthday is always celebrated twice: once with his summer, Lake Ozonia friends and once with family. Dates and times available never seem to mesh to celebrate with all together.
Summer Friend Birthday Celebration: Bridge Jumping, Jake's On The H2O, & Cake
This year I made him the standard, as close to whole food, Oreo® cookie cake that a mom can muster up in the kitchen. I use Newman's Organic creme filled chocolate cookies. It is year # 6 for this cake, making twice yearly for both sons, and I think I have perfected it.
Now comes the family celebration cake. With health issues to consider, I have opted to make a non-inflammatory cake of Jake's 2nd favorite option... carrot cake. Click carrot cake, back there, for the standard whole food carrot cake recipe. Oh yeah... and enjoy.
Grain Flour Free, Cow's Milk & Butter Free, Gluten Free BUT Yummy Whole Food Carrot Cake:
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup buttermilk (I used raw goats milk soured with 1 tbsp. raw apple cider vinegar)
- 3/4 cup organic coconut oil (melted)
- 3/4 cup sucanat sugar
- 3 tsp. vanilla
- 3 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp. unrefined sea salt
- 3/4 cup fresh ground coconut flour
- 1 cup fresh ground almond flour
- 2 tsp. baking soda
- 2-3 tsp. cinnamon
- 1 tsp. cardamom
- 1 tsp. nutmeg
- 1 1/2 tsp. ginger
- 1 rounded TBSP. baking powder
- 2 cups shredded carrots
- 1 - 8 oz can pineapple with natural juice, no added sugar (I used the organic canned pineapple from the Coop, it is a 14 oz can, i used 1/2+. I will use the whole can the next time I make this yummy cake.)
(All ingredients organic and naturally raised)
Preheat oven to 350 F.
- Beat eggs, then beat in buttermilk, and coconut oil.
- Blend in sugar, vanilla, and spices.
- Mix in nut flours, b. soda, b. powder, and salt.
- Shred carrots on a cheese grater and blend into batter.
- Chop pineapple pieces in blender to a puree and mix into batter.
- Add 1/2 the can's pineapple juice and mix in well.
- Use coconut oil to grease two 8" round cake pans, divide batter evenly between two pans
- Bake for 45 minutes, until cakes is pulling from edge of pans and knife inserted in center comes out clean.
- Allow to cool until just warm and turn out on cooling racks.
- When completely cool, frost the bottom layer, add the top layer, and frost top and sides completely.
Options: You can add the raisins, coconut flakes, and walnuts of the original recipe.
Frosting:
This creates a cow's milk dairy free frosting. Auto-immune conditions benefit from avoiding gluten and cow's milk dairy.
- 2 cups raw unsalted cashews, covered in water and soaked overnight (24 hours is even better)
- 3/4 - 1 cup sheep's milk feta
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 2 tbsp. water (use water from soaking the cashews)
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
- pinch or two of unrefined sea salt
I soaked 2 cups of organic, raw cashews (I think they were free range?) overnight in a wide mouth 3 cup peanut butter jar. Put the cashews in the jar and just cover with enough water to submerge the nuts. They will swell considerably by AM.
- Drain cashews. Place in food processor with remaining frosting ingredients.
- Purée on high. You want all ingredients to blend well together into a creamy consistency.
- Scrape out of food processor into a bowl and freeze for 30 minutes.
- Remove from the freezer and fluff with a fork.
- Freeze again for 15 minutes.
- Fluff up again.
- Freeze for 15 minutes.
- Fluff again.
- Freeze for final 15 minutes.
- Fluff very vigorously until frosting becomes light.
- Frost your carrot cake.
- Refrigerate until serving time.
Summer Veggies & Cheese
Summer time and the living (cooking & eating) should be easy. Produce is abundant everywhere. I advice growing your own or buying from your local farmer who gardens without the use of any chemicals. Summer enjoyment of the bounty needs to be fresh and in simple preparations so we can get back outside ASAP. Grating and quick stir frying veggies is easy and a speedy way to get dinner on the table.
For last eve's quicky, get back outside dinner:
Summer time and the living (cooking & eating) should be easy. Produce is abundant everywhere. I advice growing your own or buying from your local farmer who gardens without the use of any chemicals. Summer enjoyment of the bounty needs to be fresh and in simple preparations so we can get back outside ASAP. Grating and quick stir frying veggies is easy and a speedy way to get dinner on the table.
For last eve's quicky, get back outside dinner:
- 1 medium yellow squash
- 1/2 large red onion
- 3 medium cloves of garlic (yup, dragon breath here I come!)
- Goat's milk cheddar from Nature's Storehouse, Canton, AND from Goats living and lactating in Candor, NY! How awesome is that?
- Goat's milk Manchego cheese from the Potsdam Coop, maybe it was sheep's milk cheese??? That is what wikipedia tells me manchego is made from and who am I to argue with wikipedia?
- any fresh herbs from your garden or your farmer's garden (basil, oregano, cilantro, parsley, rosemary, thyme, sage, lemon balm... use your imagination here to mix and match fun flavors from Mother Earth)
- butter or ghee from pasture raised, lactating animals
- heat an appropriate sized pan for the amount of veggies you are grating to feed the crew who will grace your table
- add some ghee or butter
- chop onion into any size or shape you desire and saute in the above warmed up pan
- while onion is gently cooking, use the above cheese grater contraption and grate the yellow squash
- when onion is soft but not over cooked, add grated yellow squash
- while yellow squash gratings are gently cooking, grate your cheese chunks on same said grater contraption
- peel garlic and put into your garlic press or finely chop garlic
- fine chop the herbs you have gathered
- spread cooking veggie mix into even layer in pan
- sprinkle garlic across top of veggies
- sprinkle chopped herbs atop this mix
- top with cheese
- cover pan and turn off heat; you want cheese to melt but do not want mushy, color drained, over cooked veggies (trust me on this one)
- in 5 minutes or so, uncover pan and place appropriate amounts of food onto the plates of the crew gracing your table
Options to play with this veggie mix:
- use a zucchini in the grated veggies
- use any seasonally & locally available produce in the veggie gratings. If the veggie is not appropriate for grating (tomatoes), then just finely chop them
- try any kind of cheese that you have on hand or suits your fancy
- add chickpeas, lentils, or whatever bean you crave
- add chunks of chicken, sausage...
- toss some raw nuts or seeds on top of your veggies
- sprinkle with unrefined sea salt (depending on the saltiness of the cheese) and fresh ground pepper
- olives?
- roasted red pepper chunks
The North Country & Florida Mesh
I love Indian food. I love the Indian drink Mango Lassi.
Yesterday a dear friend gifted me 2 mangos that came straight up from Florida, picked from the backyard of another fellow Lake Ozonia neighbor. (picked from their Florida backyard... mango trees would suffer in the ADK mountains come winter!)
To feed my clutch of kids this AM, I started them with a mango lassi; melding the best of Florida fresh fruit with the best of the North Country.
I love Indian food. I love the Indian drink Mango Lassi.
Yesterday a dear friend gifted me 2 mangos that came straight up from Florida, picked from the backyard of another fellow Lake Ozonia neighbor. (picked from their Florida backyard... mango trees would suffer in the ADK mountains come winter!)
To feed my clutch of kids this AM, I started them with a mango lassi; melding the best of Florida fresh fruit with the best of the North Country.
- 2 medium ripe Florida Mangos
- 1 cup full fat goat's milk yogurt
- 1 cup full fat raw goats milk
- 1 heaping tablespoon of raw, local honey... thank you very much Mark Berninghausen of Squeak Creek Apiaries out in the Brasher Falls area
- 1/4 tsp. of rose water made from the roses at Old Market Farm in Winthrop
- 1/4 tsp. cardamom
- 3 ice cubes
- garnished with local strawberries fresh off the vines from Martin's Farm Stand, Potsdam
Sometimes I just have to go with the flow and enjoy a melding of local and well, not so local. The Lassi was deeeelish! The kids were happy!
Use this recipe with any fruit combination & enjoy.
Junk Health Food
My Advice: Be Wary... Be Very, Very Wary
I was inspired to write this after shopping in a health food store a couple of hours from home. I am a people watcher and a health educator. I can't help but notice the things people buy. The person in front of me at the checkout had a cart loaded with what I call Junk Health Food: [I observe from a space of love... wanting so badly to reach out and do some community education... but only when asked Paula, only when asked! :) ]
- organic, refined, white flour bread and rolls
- chips of every kind
- natural soft drinks and fruit juice flavored drinks
- organic, sugary cereals
- organic pop tart™ type toaster pastries
Be wary of anything that comes in a box, bag, can, jar, etc. If it is a packaged food product, made in a factory and not your home, be a savvy shopper and consumer. Just because it is sold in a health food store does not mean it is cell nourishing food.
My Advice: Be Wary... Be Very, Very Wary
I was inspired to write this after shopping in a health food store a couple of hours from home. I am a people watcher and a health educator. I can't help but notice the things people buy. The person in front of me at the checkout had a cart loaded with what I call Junk Health Food: [I observe from a space of love... wanting so badly to reach out and do some community education... but only when asked Paula, only when asked! :) ]
- organic, refined, white flour bread and rolls
- chips of every kind
- natural soft drinks and fruit juice flavored drinks
- organic, sugary cereals
- organic pop tart™ type toaster pastries
Be wary of anything that comes in a box, bag, can, jar, etc. If it is a packaged food product, made in a factory and not your home, be a savvy shopper and consumer. Just because it is sold in a health food store does not mean it is cell nourishing food.
WHY?
1. Most food products are manufactured for the corporate bottom line, not your health.
This means that the cheapest ingredients go into the "product" so the company manufacturing this product can make the highest profit margin. Profits before people is the name of this game.
Now keep in mind, there are companies out there creating quality products. Real food, in packages, that are healthy alternatives to what you would make in your own kitchen. These products are sold on the shelves of health food stores, food coops, and in the healthy section of grocery stores.
BUT, just because a product is on the shelves in these healthier places, do not assume that the product is healthy (see below on being self-responsible). Even products you have found to have healthy, 100% whole food ingredients; be aware... the ingredients can be changed. Big corporations love to buy out these smaller "health conscious" companies because the healthier products are money makers. Most people do want healthy food and healthy bodies so the sale of organic, whole, non-GMO foods has soared. Corporate America wants their piece of this pie. But... as soon as a larger corporation owns the food, the food label, the product suddenly changes. Cheaper ingredients are now used to make the very same products. This "ingredient switch" pads the bottom line of the large corporation, not your health!.
You have to be the responsible one in the grocery store... this means reading labels very, very carefully. (This is what I teach in my book and in my workshops; self responsibility around your own health restoration... you healing you!) Read the ingredient list, on anything you are contemplating purchasing, that comes in a package. Your health, your life, depends on this.
Ask yourself questions about the product:
-Is every ingredient in the product a whole food? (organic? non GMO?)
-Could you assemble all the ingredients, in your own home, to make this same food item?
Answering yes to these questions? Then move forward, feeling comfortable that the food will nourish, not deplete, the health of your body cells. Depleting body cells means you are depleting you; creating degeneration in your body.
Answering no to these questions? Put the "product" back on the shelf; your health and your life depend on this.
2. Most manufactured products are full of fake stuff:
Fillers (to enhance textures without using real food, i.e. whole food ingredients. MOST Greek yogurts are one of these filler enhanced foods, read more here: 13 Health Foods That Are NOT So Healthy),
Preservatives,
Artificial colors and flavors,
Fake sweeteners,
GMOs
Fake fats...
the list of fake things, that go into factory made food, is never ending.
Bottom Line: Fake ingredients, factory made substances, do not belong in the human body. They do not create cellular health. Cellular health IS created when we eat whole food.