There are so many fat-free, low-fat products in the market. Since the government stated that we should cut down on fat to prevent heart disease in 70s,  the gold digger big companies are making “fat-free” and/or “low-fat” yogurt, mayonnaise, cheese, chips, and so on.  Do you think eating these will actually slim you down?

The recent study done by Purdue University found that rats who were fed Olestra (Brand Name Olean – an artificial fat substitute) containing potato chips as part of a high fat diet ate more overall and gained more weight than those who were fed a high fat diet and regular full-fat potato chips.

Susan Swithers, a psychology professor at Purdue University explains, “Our bodies make predictions on what to prepare to digest based on taste and how food feels in our mouth. When something tastes sweet or fatty, our body gears up to digest a high density of calories, stimulating the metabolism and triggering a chain of hormonal secretions to process the fat, calories, and nutrients.” However, “When we get cues that something is fatty, but no calories arrive — like with fat substitutes — our body gets confused,” Swithers said. “This confusion can make the body stop preparing to digest fatty food when it does come.” The researchers found that when Olestra fed rats were switched to regular full fat chips, they can’t stop eating while full-fat chips fed rats stop eating when they get full (or satisfied).  This suggests that eating Olestra was changing the way the rats’ bodies to response to food, interfering with their natural ability to regulate how much fat was “enough”.

Even if you are not eating “Olestra”, you may have purchased other fat-free, low-fat products. For example, fat-free mayonnaise. To make fresh mayonnaise, you need 1 egg yolk and 1 cup of oil, plus some lemon or vinegar and mustard. So, it is 98% fat. If now it becomes “fat free,” what is replacing that volume of oil?  According to Kraft’s Fat-Free Mayo, it contains;

Water, Sugar, Corn Syrup High Fructose, Food Starch Modified, Vinegar, Contains Flavor(s) Natural (Egg(s)), Color(s) Artificial, Calcium Disodium EDTA As Preservatives, Cellulose Gel, Cream (Cream, Soy Lecithin, Tocopherols, Ascorbyl Palmitate), Lactic Acid, Potassium Sorbate, Contains less than 22% of Salt, Xanthan Gum, Beta Carotene color(s), Blue 1, Phosphoric Acid, Yellow 6, Phylloquinone (Vitamin K1), Lemon(s) Juice Concentrate, Di Alpha Tocopherol Acetate (Vitamin E)

So you can see, there are more sugar and starches in this “Fat-Free” mayo. They are the secret ingredients to make non-fat products creamy and oily. Also, there are so many ingredients that you should avoid. You’re better off with a half teaspoon of the real thing than two tablespoons of the fake.

So if you have tendency to buy fat-free and/or low fat products and gorge on them, you may need to stop buying “fake” products and start getting “real” food. Always, always read labels! What they claim in the front of the package may not be so true on the back. Also, if you are worried about fat, check out the serving sizes. The calories on the label may be low but may be for a small serving size which can trick you.

 

All living beings are made up of cells. The adult human body is made up of about 60-90 trillion cells! Our bodies take food, digest it, capture its nutrients, and transport these nutrients to our cells. What we eat becomes the cell structure of our bodies, and the cell structure determines our physical—healthy and unhealthy—nature. If we eat unhealthy foods, we generate unhealthy and toxic cells, which means that our bodies become unhealthy and toxic.

Mitochondria, tiny structures inside our cells, are the powerhouse of our cells. Mitochondria are the biological engines that convert carbohydrates, proteins and fats into the energy consumed by the entire body. Efficient mitochondria provide the energy for our cells and keep our cells healthy. Healthy cells are the key to a whole range of benefits for our brain and body, including increased energy levels. In other words, more healthy mitochondria, more youth you can maintain.

Unfortunately, as we age, our cells die because our mitochondria fail to produce adequate energy molecules. Aging mitochondria are not only less efficient at converting fuel to energy, they can actually produce harmful oxidants. A major factor in the age-related decline of bodily functions is the accumulation of “oxidative damage” in the body’s proteins, fats, and DNA. Oxidants—in particular, chemicals called “free radicals”—are produced when food is converted to energy by mitochondria.

This is why we get less energetic and loses vitality as we age. So, it is a key to have and maintain good amount of healthy mitochondria in your cells for slowing down the aging process.

Dr. Richard Weindruch and Dr. Tomas A. Prolla, professors at the University of Wisconsin have been studying the aging process for more than 30 years and claim that caloric restriction has a definite positive impact on the aging process. They have been doing long-term observations of rhesus monkeys on caloric restriction, The monkeys that were allowed to eat a nutritious, healthy calorie diet aged visibly while the restriced calorie diet monkeys had shinier coats, brighter eyes and more vigor. After clinical evaluation, their organs were considerably “younger” than the control group. How caloric restriction slows aging is that it lowers free-radical production by inducing the formation of efficient mitochondria.

Their findings were so groundbreaking that they are published in the most prestigious scientific journals in the world, such as Science and Nature. Also this study was aired on CNN.

 

 

The major health benefits of caloric restrictions are disappearing triglycerides, healthy cholesterol levels, the elimination of low-level inflammation through the body caused by oxidation damage, lowered and more stable blood sugar, nonexistent cardiovascular disease and even instances of being cured of early stage diabetes.

So, overeating is not just making you fat, its also increasing your chances of developing a degenerative disease and it ages you faster. The researchers suggest that you need to cut down 30% – 40% less your intake of calories over your lifespan; it is macronutrient restriction without micronutrient restriction. So eating fat-free food, or iceberg lettuce isn’t what we call healthy calorie restriction. You need to eat well balanced meals but less. To date, caloric restriction is the only intervention consistently demonstrated in laboratory animals to increase both average and maximal lifespan.

Dr. Prolla says that eating food high in polyphenol and resveratrol such as red grapes, high in epigallocatechin such as green tea, high in quercetin such as onion, pomegranate, and cordyceps can provide similar effect to caloric restriction. He added “ I recommend that people should do caloric restriction diet as much as possible and add scientifically proven nutritional supplements”.

 

 

Source:

The Aging Myth  by Joseph Change, Phd

“Limited Calorie Diets Decrease Muscle Damage”  by Anthony E. Civitarese, Stacy Carling, Leonie K. Heilbronn, Mathew H. Hulver, Barbara Ukropcova, Walter A. Deutsch, Steven R. Smith, Eric Ravussin for the CALERIE Pennington Team

Healthy Mitochondria and Healthy Aging by Dr. Highau Tsang

I confess that I love bread!!! Once I moved to NY, my consumption of bread has definitely increased because they are convenient, there are many great bakeries in NYC, and I am totally fucked on real bagels! However, shockingly, I found out the wheat makes you sick and fat. I don’t have any typical gluten-sensitive symptoms such as weight-loss (I wish!), gastro-intestinal problems, headaches, exhaustion. However, I do have chronic anemia. As I come cross a celiac disease (CD) symptoms, I discovered that there are many serious chronic disease associated with CD. Also, Dr. William Davis, a cardiologist, and an author of New York Times best seller book called “Wheat belly” insists after seeing over 2,000 patients that “wheat is the single largest contributor to the nationwide obesity epidemic – and its elimination is key to dramatic weight loss and optimal health”.

Astonishingly one out of 133 people in US is affected with celiac disease, and 95% of celiacs undiagnosed or misdiagnosed with other conditions. Some of most common symptoms of celiac diseases are

• abdominal bloating and pain
• chronic diarrhea
• vomiting
• constipation
• pale, foul-smelling, or fatty stool
• weight loss
• delayed growth
• irritability
• discolored teeth
• headaches

Instead of these common symptoms, some people with CD have other chronic conditions. They are:

• unexplained iron-deficiency anemia
• fatigue
• bone or joint pain
• arthritis
• bone loss or osteoporosis
• depression or anxiety
• tingling numbness in the hands and feet
• seizures
• missed menstrual periods
• infertility or recurrent miscarriage
• canker sores inside the mouth
• an itchy skin rash called dermatitis herpetiformis

You may not have any of these symptoms but there is a possibility you have celiac disease because some CD patients have no symptoms at all. Yet, people without symptoms are still at risk for the complications of celiac disease. If those people are untreated, they may develop one or more of these related disease: autism, down syndrome, intestinal cancer, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, liver disease, osteoporosis/osteopenia, peripheral neuropathy, sjogren’s disease, thyroid disease, turner syndrome, type 1 diabetes, williams syndrome, and rheumatoid arthritis.

Please be aware that CD/gluten-intolerance is different from wheat allergy. You can have a wheat allergy and not have celiac disease (or gluten intolerance) and you can have CD and not have a wheat allergy.  They are two completely different responses in your body. Celiac Disease is an autoimmune disease that damages the small intestine and interferes with the absorption of nutrients. People with celiac disease can’t tolerate a protein called gluten, which is found in wheat, rye and barley. If they eat foods or use products containing gluten, their immune system responds by damaging the lining of the small intestine, where nutrients from food are absorbed. This damage to the small intestine decreases the absorption of all nutrients On the other hand, A wheat allergy — like most well-known allergies — is the response of white blood cells called basophils and mast cells to something called Immunoglobulin E (or IgE for short). In laymen terms, this is a traditional allergy where you develop antibodies to an allergen, in this case wheat. For example, if you eat a large, dense piece of gluten-rich bread and have immediate reactions, you are more likely experiencing wheat intolerance symptoms or a wheat allergy rather than symptoms of gluten intolerance which specifically represent celiac disease symptoms.

Although the specific causes of celiac disease are still unknown, it is genetically inherited: if someone in your family has it, there’s up to a 15 percent chance you could have it as well. Many times, for reasons that aren’t clear, celiac disease is triggered by pregnancy, viral infection or emotional stress.

So you can find out whether you have celiac disease with blood test or biopsy of the small intestine. You could have gluten-intolerance even though the test result is negative. So the most accurate way to identify and diagnose your gluten intolerance symptoms is to use an elimination diet, a strict diet in which you completely eliminate gluten and gluten-associated foods for a significant period of time.

So why so many people are affected with wheat nowadays?  Dr. William Davis says that the production of wheat has changed in last 3 decades. Here is the article from Macleans:

Interview: Dr. William Davis on why it is so addictive, and how shunning it will make you skinny

William Davis argues in his new book Wheat Belly that wheat is bad for your health—so bad that it should carry a surgeon general’s warning.

Q: You say the crux of the problem with wheat is that the stuff we eat today has been genetically altered. How is it different than the wheat our grandparents ate?

A: First of all, it looks different. If you held up a conventional wheat plant from 50 years ago against a modern, high-yield dwarf wheat plant, you would see that today’s plant is about 2½ feet shorter. It’s stockier, so it can support a much heavier seedbed, and it grows much faster. The great irony here is that the term “genetic modification” refers to the actual insertion or deletion of a gene, and that’s not what’s happened with wheat. Instead, the plant has been hybridized and crossbred to make it resistant to drought and fungi, and to vastly increase yield per acre. Agricultural geneticists have shown that wheat proteins undergo structural change with hybridization, and that the hybrid contains proteins that are found in neither parent plant. Now, it shouldn’t be the case that every single new agricultural hybrid has to be checked and tested, that would be absurd. But we’ve created thousands of what I call Frankengrains over the past 50 years, using pretty extreme techniques, and their safety for human consumption has never been tested or even questioned.

Q: What extreme techniques are you talking about?

A: New strains have been generated using what the wheat industry proudly insists are “traditional breeding techniques,” though they involve processes like gamma irradiation and toxins such as sodium azide. The poison control people will tell you that if someone accidentally ingests sodium azide, you shouldn’t try to resuscitate the person because you could die, too, giving CPR. This is a highly toxic chemical.

Q: Can’t you just get around any potential health concerns by buying products made with organically grown wheat?

A: No, because the actual wheat plant itself is the same. It’s almost as if we’ve put lipstick on this thing and called it organic and therefore good, when the truth is, it’s really hardly any better at all.

Q: A lot of us have switched to whole wheat products because we’ve been told complex carbohydrates are heart healthy and good for us. Are you saying that’s not true?

A: The research that indicates whole grains are healthy is all conducted the same way: white flour is replaced with whole wheat flour, which, no question, is better for you. But taking something bad and replacing it with something less bad is not the same as research that directly compares what happens to health and weight when you eliminate wheat altogether. There’s a presumption that consuming a whole bunch of the less bad thing must be good for you, and that’s just flawed logic. An analogy would be to say that filtered cigarettes are less bad for you than unfiltered cigarettes, and therefore, a whole bunch of filtered cigarettes is good for you. It makes no sense. But that is the rationale for increasing our consumption of whole grains, and that combined with the changes in wheat itself is a recipe for creating a lot of fat and unhealthy people.

Q: How does wheat make us fat, exactly?

A: It contains amylopectin A, which is more efficiently converted to blood sugar than just about any other carbohydrate, including table sugar. In fact, two slices of whole wheat bread increase blood sugar to a higher level than a candy bar does. And then, after about two hours, your blood sugar plunges and you get shaky, your brain feels foggy, you’re hungry. So let’s say you have an English muffin for breakfast. Two hours later you’re starving, so you have a handful of crackers, and then some potato chips, and your blood sugar rises again. That cycle of highs and lows just keeps going throughout the day, so you’re constantly feeling hungry and constantly eating. Dieticians have responded to this by advising that we graze throughout the day, which is just nonsense. If you eliminate wheat from your diet, you’re no longer hungry between meals because you’ve stopped that cycle. You’ve cut out the appetite stimulant, and consequently you lose weight very quickly. I’ve seen this with thousands of patients.

Q: But I’m not overweight and I exercise regularly. So why would eating whole wheat bread be bad for me?

A: You can trigger effects that you don’t perceive. Small low-density lipoprotein [LDL] particles form when you’re eating lots of carbohydrates, and they are responsible for atherosclerotic plaque, which in turn triggers heart disease and stroke. So even if you’re a slender, vigorous, healthy person, you’re still triggering the formation of small LDL particles. And second, carbohydrates increase your blood sugars, which cause this process of glycation, that is, the glucose modification of proteins. If I glycate the proteins in my eyes, I get cataracts. If I glycate the cartilage of my knees and hips, I get arthritis. If I glycate small LDL, I’m more prone to atherosclerosis. So it’s a twofold effect. And if you don’t start out slender and keep eating that fair trade, organically grown whole wheat bread that sounds so healthy, you’re repeatedly triggering high blood sugars and are going to wind up with more visceral fat. This isn’t just what I call the wheat belly that you can see, flopping over your belt, but the fat around your internal organs. And as visceral fat accumulates, you risk responses like diabetes and heart disease.

Q: You write that wheat is “addictive,” but does it really meet the criteria for addiction we’d use when talking about, say, drugs?

A: National Institutes of Health researchers showed that gluten-derived polypeptides can cross into the brain and bind to the brain’s opiate receptors. So you get this mild euphoria after eating a product made with whole wheat. You can block that effect [in lab animals] by administering the drug naloxone. This is the same drug that you’re given if you’re a heroin addict; it’s an opiate blocker. About three months ago, a drug company applied to the FDA to commercialize naltrexone, which is an oral equivalent to naloxone. And it works; apparently, it blocks the pleasurable feelings you get from eating wheat so people stop eating so much. In clinical trials, people lost about 22.4 lb. in the first six months. Why, if you’re not a drug addict, do you need something like that? And of course there’s another option, which is to cut wheat out of your diet. However, and this is another argument for classifying wheat as addictive, people can experience some pretty unpleasant withdrawal symptoms.

Q: For how long?

A: Generally about five days. And once you’re through withdrawal, your cravings subside, your calorie intake decreases and your alertness and overall health improve.

Q: So do you believe food manufacturers are putting wheat into more and more food products, not just bread and crackers, because it’s addictive and stimulates appetite?

A: These are not stupid people. The research showing that wheat stimulates appetite didn’t come from some little alternative health practitioner. It comes from the NIH. It stretches credibility to believe they have no awareness of the evidence.

Q: If there’s all this evidence, why does the government encourage us to “eat healthy” by upping our consumption of whole grains?

A: That’s the million-dollar question. Wheat is so linked to human habit, it’s 20 per cent of all calories consumed by humans worldwide, that I think there was the presumption, “Gee, humans have consumed this for thousands of years, so what’s the problem?” I don’t think the misguided advice to eat more whole grains came from evil intentions.

Q: Wheat is a huge industry. What do you say to all the farmers who grow it?

A: To me, it’s reminiscent of tobacco farmers, who would say, “Look, I’m just trying to make a living and feed my family.” Nevertheless, tobacco is incredibly harmful and kills people. It could turn out that if we wind back the clock 100 or 1,000 years, and resurrect einkorn or some of the heritage forms of wheat, maybe that would be a solution. Of course, wheat products would then be much more expensive. Instead of a $4 loaf of bread, maybe it would cost $7 when grown with heritage wheat. To me, it’s similar to free range eggs or organic beef 20 years ago. Everyone said, “No one will pay a premium for those.” But people do. And when it comes to wheat, my main goal is to inform people, including farmers, that the prevailing notion that cutting fat and eating whole grains will make you healthy is not only wrong, it’s destructive.

In early December of last year, I went to an annual review event at Mount Sinai Children’s Environmental Health Center. At the event, they talked about birth defects, learning disabilities, obesity, and breast cancer from toxic chemicals. The panelists are pediatricians, toxicologist, PhD environmental activists. Those professionals gave us the facts from their studies and experiences that toxic man-made chemicals, endocrine disruptors,  such as BPA, phthalates, pesticides, and perchlorate interfere with hormone signaling. These messages exert powerful control over brain development, body growth, reproductive development, and the timing of puberty. They gave us a tip on which plastics are safe on top of just BPA free products.

However, a recent study has found that nearly all plastic, even that which claims to be BPA-free releases chemicals that have estrogenic activity (EA) and cause hormone disruption.  They tested nearly 500 products which are almost all commercially available plastic products. The study also found that “in some cases, BPA-free products released chemicals having more EA than BPA-containing products.” They noted that “Chemicals having EA reportedly cause many adverse health effects, especially at low (picomolar to nanomolar) doses in fetal and juvenile mammals.”

We use a lot of plastics for food storage and take-out meals, even cooking for some people… The study states that molecules from plastic and additives used to make plastic leach into food at an accelerated rate when the plastic is exposed to common stress like the UC radiation from sunlight, microwave radiation, and boiling or dishwashing. This leaching even happens in the BPA-free plastics. Most of plastic products are made of undisclosed combinations of compounds and resins. Baby bottle, for example, may contain 5-30 different chemicals! And these chemicals can leach into food from the product when it’s stressed. So, we are eating those chemicals when you heat up food with plastic containers!!! Scary… When I think about a baby drinking warmed up milk with plastic bottle, I imagine the baby is toxicaing! The scientists in the study believe that public health practice shouldn’t ignore these findings.

Fortunately, the industry does have access to additives that have no detectable EA and have similar costs. They are antioxidants, clarifiers, colorants, inks, etc. They can be used to make flexible non-transparent or LDPE (#4) plastic items that are EA-free even after exposure to the stressors. But, we don’t know when plastic manufacturers will start changing their formulas. So, we need to think what WE can do now. We can choose to use glass, metal, wood, paper and fabrics instead of plastics for food.  Here is one company that sells great non-plastic products.

I hope this type of products become our social trend and eliminate plastics as much as possible!

Parents talk and share about their kids poops but not their own.  Adults don’t’ talk about bowel movement (BM) with peers so they may not be aware of abnormal BM, only later to find out that they are having some gastrointestinal problems or other serious illness.  Don’t take your poop and BM for granted.

Unhealthy bowel movements are an indication of unhealthy digestion. As they say, “You are what you eat”, but you are also what you don’t digest.

First, we definitely should know what healthy poop is

• Soft, but formed
• Medium-light brown in color
• Consistent shape and color throughout
• Easy to pass
• Natural smell, not repulsive
• 12 inches per day (whether in one big 12-inch poop, two 6-inch poops or three 4-inch poops) 2 to 3 the size of a small banana is perfect!!!
• Floating is the best (but if you are not vegan, you might not see one)

(Type 4 is the ideal one)

How long the transit time takes?

Normally, digested food should move through the colon in approximately 18 hours, from start to finish. However, Dr. Oz says,  “A steak dinner can take you two, maybe three days to get out of your intestine. What that means is the way you digest it is basically to rot it in your intestines. On the other hand, if you eat vegetables and fruits, they’re out of your system in less than 12 hours.”

To check your bowel transit time, a Certified Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Counselor, Alison Anton gives you a tip. “Drink 8 ounces of beet juice or take 2 tablespoons of sesame seeds. Note the time, and check your poops consistently for the next day or two. You should be able to see a reddish hue if you drank the beet juice, or see the little seeds. If you see the evidence well before 18 hours, your transit time may be too quick. If two days have passed before seeing any evidence, you transit time may be too long.”

Also, you need to make sure your BM is consistent.                               Naturopathic Doctor, Sorai Susanne S. Stuart, PhD ND says,  “It may be said that almost every chronic disease known is directly or indirectly due to the influence of bacterial poisons absorbed from the intestines. The colon is a sewage system, your personal garbage disposal, by neglect and abuse it transforms into a cesspool. When it is clean and normal we feel healthy and balanced; allow it to stagnate, and it will distill the poisons of decay, fermentation and purification into the blood thus poisoning the brain and nervous system so that one becomes mentally depressed and irritable; it will poison the heart so that one is weak and listless; poisons the lungs so that the breath is foul; poisons the digestive organs so that one is distressed and bloated; and poisons the blood so that the skin is sallow and unhealthy. In short, every organ of the body becomes poisoned, we age prematurely, look and feel old, joints are stiff and painful; neuritis, dull eyes and a sluggish brain overtakes one’s health, thus the pleasure of living and thoroughly enjoying life is gone.”

A distended abdomen is a definite sign of a more serious large intestinal problem. Obvious symptoms are halitosis, foul-smelling stools, acne, skin rashes and irritations, lower back pain, knee pains, flatulence (gas), diarrhea, headaches, sinus infections, excess mucus, constipation, fatigue, painful joints, insomnia, bladder infections, prostate discomfort, depression, mood swings, low-sex
drive, abdominal bloat, nausea, and anxiety. Autointoxication plays a large role in the development of diseases in the female genito-urinary apparatus; this may be regarded as intestinal stasis. Potential misdiagnosed gallbladder ailments are possibly severe blockages within the large intestinal hepatic flexure. Stuart who specialized in colonics says many symptoms or problems are reduced or possibly eliminated once intestines are cleaned.

So, as I said in the beginning, you can’t ignore unhealthy digestion. Please check your poop every time you have and exam that:

• If Your Stool Looks BLACK, TARRY, AND STICKY It Could Mean:
  Bleeding in your upper digestive tract. The black color comes from digested blood cells.
• If Your Stool Looks VERY DARK BROWN It Could Mean:
  You drank red wine last night or have too much salt or not enough vegetables in your diet.
• If Your Stool Looks GLOWING RED OR MAGENTA It Could Mean:
  You’ve eaten a lot of reddish foods such as beets.
• If Your Stool Looks LIGHT GREEN It Could Mean:
  You’re consuming too much sugar, or too many fruits and vegetables with not enough grains or salt.
• If Your Stool Looks PALE OR CLAY-COLORED It Could Mean:
  Minimal amounts of bile are being excreted, perhaps because of problems with the gallbladder or liver.
• If Your Stool Looks BLOODY OR MUCUS-COVERED It Could Mean:
  Hemorrhoids, an overgrowth of certain bacteria in your gastrointestinal tract, colitis (inflammation of the colon), Crohn’s disease (also known as inflammatory bowel disease), or colon cancer. Red blood usually means the ailment is located near the end of your digestive tract, whereas black blood signals partially digested blood coming from an ailment higher up the tract. Seek medical advice promptly.
• If Your Stool Looks PENCIL-THIN AND RIBBON-LIKE It Could Mean:
  A polyp or growth in your colon that narrows the passage for stool. Or spastic colon. It can also be from a prolapse at either side of the transverse colon constricting the colon and lack of fiber.
• If Your Stool Looks LARGE AND FLOATING, WITH GREASY FILM ON TOILET WATER It Could Mean:
  Malabsorption — your digestive system isn’t getting full nutritional use of food.
• If Your Stool Looks LOOSE AND WATERY, SOMETIMES DIARRHEA WITH UNDIGESTED FOODSTUFFS It Could Mean:
  Possible causes are food poisoning, lactose intolerance, antibiotics, antacids, dietary intolerance, dietary changes, travel, anxiety, stress, inflammatory bowel disease, or irritable bowel syndrome.
• If Your Stool Looks SMALL, HARD, ROUND PELLETS It Could Mean:
  Constipation-even if you’re defecating frequently. Possible causes are eating too much dry food, including protein, and not enough vegetables and raw foods; laxative abuse; worries; or irritable bowel syndrome.
• If Your Stool (Has) ALTERNATING BOUTS OF DIARRHEA & CONSTIPATION It Could Mean:
  Irritable bowel syndrome. This chronic condition can be aggravated by red meat, spices, sugar, alcohol, LACK of fiber, allergy-causing foods, irregular hours, and chaotic relationships.
• If Your Stool (Is) REALLY BAD SMELLING It Could Mean:
  An imbalance of intestinal bacteria or eating too much animal protein, which can putrefy in your digestive tract.

If your stool-watching isn’t winning any awards, you might want to try a Colon Cleanse before joining the ISWA (International Stool-Watchers Association

Have you guys heard or read about The New York Times article, “Bad Food? Tax It and Subsidize Vegetables”? It was in the July 24 Sunday paper. The article is about an idea that the writher, Mark Bittman came up with.  The idea is to link taxes on unhealthy “hyper processed” foods like soda, French fries, and doughnuts, directly to healthy food subsidies — i.e. one pays for the other. Isn’t it a great idea?? Bittman analyzed that a 20 % increase in the price of sugary drinks nationally, could result in about a 20% decrease in consumption, which in the next decade could prevent about 1,500,000 Americans from becoming obese, and 400,000 cases of diabetes, which would save about $30 billion!

Last year, Mayor Bloomberg tried to push the Soda Tax (it wasn’t a perfect package but it was a great start) but couldn’t make it. There are many corporations who do not want to lose their market share from the soda tax. They are only concerned with their own profit. Everything is about them, not us. The concept of protecting large corporations and/or top executives should end soon. Please think globally, as a whole. I am hoping  that the “Bad Food Tax” will become reality in the near future!

Infertility is big business. According to data released in 2008 by Marketdata, an independent market research publisher, the “Baby Business” is worth $4 billion.

Many women (including me) have delayed childbirth to pursue careers and are in need of assisted reproductive technology (ART) procedures such as IVF to get pregnant. However, it is not easy to afford. Each IVF cycle can cost around $12,000 and many women require several cycles in order to be successful. Since only 14 states mandate insurance coverage (2008 report), this is paid out of pocket…” according to Research Director, John LaRosa. I went to see 4 different doctors and 3 out of 4 insisted on IVF without asking my lifestyles and/or diet. The last doctor was a Holistic gynecologist, so she did a lot of blood test on me. Very fortunately, I got pregnant without any treatment.

In December 2007, Newsweek issued an article “Fat, Carbs and the Science of Conception” which  referred to a book, “The Fertility Diet” by Jorge Chavarro MD, Walter Willett MD, and Patrick Skettett. It talked about the importance of eating slow carbs, plant based protein, and full fat dairy instead of low or nonfat one. I totally believe that diet, and eating habits contributes to your fertility.

Moreover, last week, a joint American and Spanish study reported that junk food can make healthy men infertile by damaging their sperm. All the men were assessed to ensure they were in optimum shape and had no other problems that may affect their reproductive system. The sperm of men with poor diets were found to be less likely to survive the journey to fertilize an egg, even if the men were a healthy weight and exercised.

So those men who were tested were not obese (the Newsweek article mentioned that some studies indicate that overweight men aren’t as fertile as their healthy weight counterparts). Even though you are in shape, as long as you are eating “Junk Food”, the success rate is low. I’ve heard often that men don’t want to do sperm test and believe that their partner has the problem. If you are trying to have a baby, the first thing you might need to look into may not be those famous IVF doctors, but your diet.

I know this is something we don’t want to hear but you may need to pay close attention to this fact if you have anemia or low bone density.

Cacao is now treated as one of the very healthy food items. It is high in polyphenol and iron. In fact, pure cocoa powder without any cocoa fat, milk, or sugar, provides the most iron with 36mg in a 100g serving, or 200% of the RDA. That is 1.8mg of iron per tablespoon of cocao powder, or 10% of the RDA. Unsweetened baking chocolate provides 17.4mg per 100g (97% RDA), or 23mg (128% RDA) per grated cup. Most sweetened milk chocolates will provide around 2.4mg per 100g (13% RDA), or 1mg (6% RDA) of iron in an average 1.5 ounce bar.

However, Katherine Zeratsky, R.D., L.D. wrote an article on the Mayo Clinic website saying that, “Chocolate contains oxalate — a naturally occurring compound in cocoa beans — which can inhibit the absorption of calcium. Calcium binds to oxalate in your intestines, limiting its absorption into your bloodstream. People with oxalate kidney stones, which could occur when there is too much oxalate in the urine, should limit the amount of oxalate in their diets.

A 2008 study found that elderly women who ate one or more servings of chocolate a day had lower bone density and strength than did women who ate fewer servings of chocolate. Researchers believe this may be due to oxalate inhibiting calcium absorption — but it could also be due to the chocolate’s sugar content, which may increase calcium excretion.”

Oxalates are also found in spinach, kale, beets, nuts, chocolate, tea, wheat bran, rhubarb, strawberries and herbs such as oregano, basil, and parsley. They are inhibitor foods for iron absorption too. The presence of oxalates in spinach explains why the iron in spinach is not absorbed. In fact, it is reported that the iron from spinach that does get absorbed is probably from the minute particles of sand or dirt clinging to the plant rather than the iron contained in the plant.

The polyphenol in cacao is also a major inhibitor of iron absorption. The Iron Disorder Institution says on their website: “Polyphenols are major inhibitors of iron absorption. Polyphenols or phenolic compounds include chlorogenic acid found in cocoa, coffee and some herbs. Phenolic acid found in apples, peppermint and some herbal teas, and tannins found in black teas, coffee, cocoa, spices, walnuts, fruits such as apples, blackberries, raspberries and blueberries all have the ability to inhibit iron absorption. Of the polyphenols, Swedish cocoa and certain teas demonstrate the most powerful iron absorption inhibiting capabilities, in some cases up to 90%. Coffee is high in tannin and chlorogenic acid; one cup of certain types of coffee can inhibit iron absorption by as much as 60%.   These foods or substance should not be consumed within two hours prior to and following your main iron-rich meal”

So, you can indulge yourself with Chocolate but think about the timing and quantity. Select high quality organic one if you want.

Autumn has begun but it’s been very warm here in NY. It’ss like summer.

The favorite phrase in Japan for autumn is”minori no aki”, meaning ‘the season of harvest’, andAindeed it is!  It is the season tables are laden with a wide variety of delicious things to eat, when rice matures and is harvested, fruit ripens, and fish taste their best. Autumn, the season of harvest that yields the rich variety of nature’s abundance, is indeed the shokuyoku no aki, a season of hearty appetites.  The autumn food from Japan that I miss most is fish, especially sanma (saury). Sanma is a long slender fishshaped like a short sword.  The characters used to write the name are: (literally, ” autumn sword fish “)  Between October and November, sanma put on fat, rising from 8 to 20 percent, making it more attractive to diners. Sanma is usually eaten salt-grilled and eaten with grated daikon and shoyu as condiments. I only see Sanma at the Japanese Grocery Store and is imported from Japan. It seems that Sanma is only found in the Pacific Ocean… (Please correct me if I am wrong!)

Anyway, when you buy fish, make sure you know what you re getting. Asking a few questions can help ensure you get the fish you want.

1. Where does this fish come from? – local is better
2. Has it been previously frozen? – frozen is OK as long as it is frozen on the boat.
3. Was the fish farmed or caught in the wild? – Always Wild
4. Is the coloring of the fish natural? – Of course non-coloring
5. Can I freeze this fish? – better not to

Are you having arthritis or joint pain? Nowadays a lot of people suffer from osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, or other joint problems like gout. The author of The Nightshades and Health, N. F. Childers Ph. D. and a Naturopathic Physician, Dr. Garrett Smith claims that the plants in the drug family, Solanaceae (nightshades) are an important causative factor in arthritis in sensitive people. This family includes potato (Solanum tuberosum L.), tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum L.), eggplant (Solanum melongena L.), tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.), and peppers (Capsicum sp.) of all kinds except the black pepper (family, Piperaceae).

A typical American diet includes a lot of potatoes, tomatoes and peppers. Also spices such as chilli powder, paprika, chipotle, and cayenne all belong to the nightshade family and are consumed in fair amounts in the American diet.  So, what is wrong with the nightshades? Some research says that a particular group of substances in these foods, called alkaloids, can impact nerve-muscle function and digestive function in animals and humans, and may also be able to compromise joint function.

The below is research finding that Childers and Margoles M.D. state  in Journal of Neurological and Orthopedic Medical Surgery (1993) 12:227-231 tells you more detail about the “causes”

“The Solanaceae cause at least two known health problems. They contain cholinesterase inhibiting glycoalkaloids and steroids [6,34,35,36] including, among others, the drugs solanine in potato and eggplant, tomatine in tomato, nicotine in tobacco, and capsaicin in garden peppers. When these inhibitors accumulate in the body, alone or with other cholinesterase inhibitors such as caffeine or food impurities containing systemic cholinesterase inhibiting pesticides, the result may be a paralytic-like muscle spasm, aches, pains, tenderness, inflammation, and stiff body movements [2]. These symptoms may dissipate in a few hours or days if ingestion is stopped; people vary in sensitivity. The second problem is the ability of the Solanaceae (those species analyzed) to develop naturally the very active metabolite of vitamin D₃ (1a25 dihydroxycholecalciferol) that results in calcinosis of soft tissues, ligaments, and tendons, mineralization in walls of major arteries and veins, and osteopetrosis and related pathology [10,14,16,17,18,19,20,28,37] in livestock (Fig. 3). In time, there is progressive lameness and extended uselessness, with eventual death of livestock. Copper deficiency in the liver and other tissues associated with arthritic-like symptoms has also been diagnosed with the livestock disease [18].
There could be other factors such as a saponic-like glycoalkaloid [8], possibly capsaicin [6], causing irritation of the walls of the digestive tract after extended usage by sensitive people, resulting in an ulcer, diverticula, and polyps [2]. The nightshades can cause red blood cell destruction in vitro [8], and the steroid alkanine is readily absorbed by the intestine; this could be responsible for associated nervous symptoms [6,8].”

So, do you need to get rid of those nightshade foods in your diet? If you do have joint related health issues, I highly recommend that you stop consuming them for at least a month. Childers research shows in his survey that those who stuck to an elimination diet, 94% had complete or substantial relief from symptoms. I believe that dairy products contribute to inflammatory disease (autoimmune) as well, so eliminating both would work even better.