Healthy choices

I have a guest writer today - Allison Brooks from Florida :)

Color Coding Food:

Easy way to develop healthy eating habits

When presented with a huge array of food, it's easy to feel overwhelmed by the variety. For someone who is trying to eat healthy, this can be even more frustrating. Who has time to look at the back of every nutrition label to make the healthiest choice, especially when time is short?


Massachusetts General Hospital may have found the solution. They conducted a study recently, with the intent of determining whether patrons of their cafeteria, when advised of the healthiest choices, would choose those items. The method of identifying healthier choices and ranking them was simple: color-coded labels. Green labels indicated the healthiest choices, yellow labels indicated foods that were less healthy and red labels indicated foods with little nutritional value.

The experiment began in March 2010 and ran in two phases. During the first phase, the labels were assigned to the different foods found in the cafeteria. Signs were placed in the cafeteria to advise patrons of their choices, explained the meaning of the different color coding on the labels and encouraged customers to make healthier choices. The registers were programmed to identify the foods by their codes so that data could be tracked.

During the second phase, the products available were rearranged according to behavioral marketing information. For example, healthier choices were placed at eye-level, where people are more likely to shop, according to marketing research. This phase primarily focused on the foods that people tend to grab when they are in a hurry, such as pre-made sandwiches, beverages and chips.

The researchers found that sales of the foods with green labels increased significantly, while sales of products with red labels languished. The numbers were compared to sales in the other on-campus cafeterias where products were neither labeled nor rearranged. The changes in the cafeteria where food was labeled were dramatic compared to the other cafeterias.

The researchers credit the success of the program primarily to its simplicity. With almost no effort at all, consumers were able to easily identify their healthiest choices and, in fact, were led to make the healthier choice. The cafeteria labeling system at MGH is going to remain in place, and the hospital actually extended the program to the other cafeterias in the hospital system.  

Many cancer facilities are slowly adopting this color-coding system to push healthier eating during treatment. Since healthier foods and foods loaded with phytochemicals promote better survivability, patients with aggressive cancer like pancreatic or mesothelioma cancer, need to eat healthier. And since a mesothelioma life expectancy could only be four months eating healthy and strong treatments need to be priority.

The doctor who led the study, Anne Thorndike, also pointed out that the changes were easy to make and could be applied to nearly any quick-service food environment. 

Change your lifestyle, don’t just diet.

Overweight and ill

It’s pretty clear that as a population, we in the developed world are losing the Battle of the Bulge.  Despite promotion of whole foods, organics or healthy food choices, the modern diet of marketed junk is winning. But maybe our past can shed some light (and weight).  The real answer may just be in our pre-urban societies. They appear to hold the key for an easier, more universal way to lose weight and perhaps theirs is the best diet for good health, weight loss and on-going lifestyle.  Or at least we can borrow heavily from traditional eating practices.

A major issue with food today is that we are breeding our cultivated, domesticated foods to be high in sugar – sweet corn, sweet tomatoes, sweet snow peas, sweet potato, and fruits are all sweet from bred in elevated levels of sucrose.

Without bitter principles in foods our digestive enzymes are less stimulated and sugars, fats and proteins are all processed less efficiently. Then, without micro-sugars, beneficial phytonutrients also get absorbed less. Luckily, antioxidants are the cure.

It has been estimated that 70% of visits to the family doctor are for conditions with a nutritional cure. Additionally, the Australian Cancer Council states that most diseases, including most cancers can be avoided with good nutrition. We now suffer from metaflammation or systemic inflammation, brought on by inducers such as consumed and environmental chemicals; internal and external stresses; exercise (too much or too little); poor diet; inadequate sleep; smoking or excessive drinking.

Food grown for profit, not nutrition

Modern foods are 1/20th as nutritionally rich as wild foods (high in many and varied

antioxidants) and most of us eat 1/10th the number of foods as did our ancestors.  What modern foods do provide in abundance is energy which is sometimes called empty calories. It’s like having fuel for your car but no oil to lubricate the moving parts.

Additionally, potatoes, beans and grains (PBGs) are probably the worst foods on which to build a nutritional framework and yet most of us, from villagers to city-dwellers, rely on eight basic foods which nearly all fall within this group.  So going back to our ideal diet, we need to get around 65% of our energy from proteins as did most hunter-gatherers and cut way back on the potatoes, beans and grains. Add back nutritionally dense foods with which we evolved which means sourcing some wild or near-wild fruits, herbs, tubers if possible and certainly game meats and seafood. Research into wild foods is proving their extreme antioxidant richness so these must be part of our optimum diet. The attempt to create a healthy diet exclusively using the foods we can find in supermarkets today is useless in protecting us from obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, mental disorders, chronic fatigue and more. Our nutrition must be supplemented with natural sources of antioxidants from some wild or minimal agriculture foods.

We also know that living a sedentary life is killing us. Fortunately, in regards to exercise, we can also borrow from our ancestors and look to short duration (5 - 10 minute) high intensity exercise 3 times a week. Ideal exercises include rowing (on a machine is easiest and engages the whole body), cycling, swimming or running.  Some weight lifting or resistance training is also recommended to stimulate joints and maintain the calcification of bones.

The Four Horsemen of the Dietitians Apocalypse

There are four things you should avoid/minimise in your diet:

1.       Processed flour – white bread, white pasta, white rice

2.       Trans fats – fried foods, processed

3.       White sugar – replace with natural sweeteners like honey, maple syrup.

4.       Soft drinks/sodas – full of sugar

Replacing tablets with Wholesome Foods (just as nature intended)

Vitamin Pills certainly have their place in our modern-day lives, particularly to fight off acute illness and nasties, but wouldn’t it be great if we could get enough nutrients from our food alone so that we didn’t have to take handfuls of vitamin pills each day?  It is possible to reduce your intake & replace some tablets & capsules with alternative high nutrition food.

Unfortunately, due to poor farming habits and over-farming to produce higher yields of crops, the soil is diminished of minerals and nutrients that need time to be replaced, and in turn the produce is less nutritious.  This is why it is best to buy organic produce and even better, local produce from small organic farms, as their farming methods are more sustainable and yield highly nutritious fruit & vegetables, so you get what you pay for.

What you may not be aware of, is that tablets and capsules are often made with binders, fillers, disintegrants, colourants, flavours, sweeteners, preservatives, lubricants, glidants, coating agents & emulsifying Agents! Yikes! These are added for a variety of reasons, and do not necessarily need to be declared on product labels. Not to mention, they are more expensive to make and buy than alternative powdered and liquid supplements.

If that isn’t enough to convince you that liquid, powdered nutrients and foods are our best bet, then take note. Capsules and tablets are not always absorbed in our digestive tracts.  Occasionally hard-pressed pills do not break down and disintegrate properly, especially in a weak or compromised digestive system.  It is best to take nutrients that are broken down into small molecules that can pass easily through our gut lining and be utilised by the body in its metabolic processes.  If you must take capsules, try to choose vegetable caps, made from vegetable cellulose they will break open after about 20 minutes of being in contact with your stomach acid, but will not be absorbed by the body and will be expelled. They are also less likely to contain the binders & fillers that tablets contain. if you are unsure, always ask companies what type of capsules they use. 

Why Superfood smoothies

1. Convenience - they're quick to make
2. Digestive ease
3. After a workout blood needs to be at extremeties, delivering oxygen and cleaning up lactic acid, not
    rushing to your digestive tract to digest heavy food
4. They can provide a lot of hi-quality plant based proteins easily and other foods from one source.
5. You don't crave much because you have received nourishment and are rehydrated.

Dr Pratt's Superfood principles

Principle 1: SuperFoodsRx is the best diet in the world.
Sophisticated computer analysis has enabled researchers to determine which populations are the healthiest and live the longest. Highly respected database studies and sets of recommendations including those of the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, and the National Cancer Institute have looked at the same information. The data shows the particular foods eaten by these healthiest populations. Superfoods show up over and over again when you look at these diets.

Principle 2: SuperFoods are whole foods.

There will always be some disagreement regarding the term wholefood. But in general, whole foods are those that are unprocessed or are minimally processed in such a way that none of their nutritional characteristics have been intentionally modified. Whole foods are complex. They contain hundreds of unidentified compounds and nutrients. A growing body of research from laboratory and human studies suggests that these nutrients work best in concert with each other. Moreover, just as the nutrients in a particular food team up to work better, nutrients from a wide range of foods also work together to promote good health.

Principle 3: SuperFoodsRx equals synergy.

Food synergy is critical to health. Food synergy refers to the interaction of two or more nutrients and other healthful substances in foods that work together to achieve an effect that each is individually unable to match.
Nutrients work in a precisely calibrated relationship the kind of relationship that nature has provided when the nutrients are obtained from food. There are, after all, thousands of chemicals present in food and researchers have only identified a fraction of this number. Surely with this many chemicals present, interactions are taking place that science doesn¹t fully understand. You simply can¹t shortcut your way to good nutrition; you must rely on a variety of wholefoods.

Principle 4: SuperFoodsRx are simple and positive

A healthy diet is the essential core of a healthy life. We all live busy complicated lives. Nutrition recommendations that are complicated or challenging can't become a regular part of our routine.
The best approach to any health change is one that is positive. Diets that forbid foods or make eating satisfying meals a challenge are counterproductive. Once most people understand the SuperFoodsRx principles, they feel liberated. It¹s not about what you shouldn't do it's about what you should do.

Great health tips from a recent seminar

I attended a seminar hosted by American Tyler Tolman the other night – Live Healthy, Be Happy.  Thought I’d summarise the key points for you:

“The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest her or his patients...in a proper diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.”  Thomas A. Edison

Self-care is the answer to living a life of health and vitality and avoiding disease.

It is certainly possible to cure and regenerate the body, as food enhances bodily functions.

Disease is nutritional deficiency and toxicity.

Nutritional guidelines by the American Cancer Society states to be healthy: drink 6-8 glasses of water, 5-7 servings of fruit and veges, 30 mins walk 5 days per week.

Food additives - no 1 Cacogenic: chemical preservatives, food colouring, artificial sweeteners, partially hydrogenated oils (trans fats), MSG.

Doctrine of signatures: food symbolism – foods appearance affects that particular part of the body – i.e. Walnuts aid the brain.

Some concepts to consider – ‘there is a lot of money in sickness’ and we need ‘a war on drugs’ (synthetic solutions – people become dependent on them – residual income for pharmaceutical companies)

Supplements have little effect on the body.

Diabetes is the world’s fastest growing disease and is curable naturally.

Applying substances to the exterior of the body is absorbed through the skin.  ‘If you can’t eat it, don’t put in on your skin.’  Sodium Lauryl Sulfate is particularly bad.

In an oxygenated and alkaline environment disease cannot survive.

7 areas to consider for your health: Air, water, sunshine, exercise, whole foods, passion and relationships.