Showing posts with label vegan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vegan. Show all posts

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Want Strong Bones? Eat More Greens


A new study funded in part by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) suggests that an alkalizing diet may be an important key to reducing bone breakdown, or "turnover," while aging. The study comes on the heels of several ARS-reported studies suggesting that consuming more-than-recommended amounts of calcium may not be the main answer to protecting bone.
The study was led by physician and nutrition specialist Bess Dawson-Hughes at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, Boston, Mass. ARS is a scientific research agency in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Fruits and vegetables are metabolized to bicarbonate and thus are alkali-producing. But the typical American diet is rich in protein (meat and dairy) and cereal grains that are metabolized to acid, and thus are acid-producing. With aging, such diets lead to a mild but slowly increasing metabolic "acidosis." The researchers conducted a placebo-controlled study involving healthy male and female volunteers aged 50 or older. Key measurements were taken at the beginning and end of the intervention, which lasted three months. A group of 78 volunteers had been provided either of two bicarbonates-potassium or sodium-along with their usual diet and exercise regimes. Key bone mineral nutrients were controlled to reduce variation in study outcomes. The bicarbonate groups consumed an amount of bicarbonate equivalent to about 9 servings of fruits and vegetables daily. This allowed the researchers to look at possible acid-neutralizing effects from an adequate alkali load. The results showed that the 78 volunteers in the bicarbonate groups had significant reductions in biomarkers that are associated with bone loss and fracture than the 84 in the no-bicarbonate, or control, group. The authors concluded that increasing the alkali content of the diet, for example by consuming more fruits and vegetables, merits further study as a safe and low-cost approach to improving skeletal health in older men and women.

Alkaline Food Diet (taken from eating-veggies.com)

When alkaline foods are eaten in abundance, they become the true nourishment needed to calm the unending urge to eat. When your body thinks that it is starving, it will conserve fat and began to signal the brain to activate your appetite. Veggies and fruit are full of the vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients that we need to live. And still we continue to eat the same acidic, lifeless foods everyday, slowly starving our bodies cells. And the body continues to store this food as fat everyday.

Many plant foods are anti-inflammatory foods, which means that they can help reduce the inflammation found throughout the body. Much inflammation is the result of a poor diet high in pro-inflammatory foods. Many alkaline foods are anti-inflammatory. Some researchers believe that inflammation is the root cause of most disease suffered by people in the modern world.

The cure for many sick and overweight people in the modern world may be an alkaline foods diet that contains live enzymes.

Eating cooked vegetables and other cooked alkaline foods is better than not eating any veggies at all but eating an abundance of living raw foods is the key to healthy living. The optimal strategy for good health is a 50-80% alkaline foods diet daily. Eating alkaline foods in their raw form is best for rejuvenating your body. Live enzymes are found in raw plant food. Enzymes are essential in building and maintaining health. These living microscopic structures are in all fresh, raw fruits, nuts, seeds and vegetables and are necessary to help digest food when we eat it.

Digestive enzymes are used to break food down into its nutritional component parts so that our bodies can sort out the nutrients and utilize them throughout the body for repair and maintenance. However, cooking alkaline foods also destroys enzymes. While trying to digest cooked food, our body has to rob enzymes from our own enzyme reserves, ultimately depleting them and weakening our immune system and decreasing our ability to fight off unfriendly bacteria and viruses. What was once a living alkaline edible substance becomes totally dead very rapidly with exposure to high heat.

Eating mostly cooked acidic food every day is not helping to improve our health situation. Actually, it is beginning to age us very quickly. Today, doctor's are treating children for diabetes, juvenile arthritis and other degenerative diseases that used to afflict people in their older years. Almost all non-genetic diseases are a result of lack of digestion of raw, alkaline foods and improper elimination of the foods we eat. Plant foods that are high in fiber should become an important part of your diet. Some people go an entire day without an elimination and in most cases, this is not healthy. Eating processed, lifeless food stuffs in huge amounts every day is draining you of your life-force. Alkaline foods contain the life giving properties that we need to help pH balance.

In order to live long healthy lives, humans must eat plenty of living, alkaline foods at every meal. Enzymes are the life force of all people and can be found in raw, plant foods. If we do not eat enough enzymes, more digestive enzymes must be taken from our bodies own dwindling enzyme reserves. Over time our enzyme reserves are depleted and our immune systems become weak and acidic, which in turn leads to diseases such as cancer, diabetes, arthritis, and most non-genetic diseases known to man.

* Cooking destroys the enzymes we need to live and slow aging.
* COOKED FOOD is DEAD FOOD!
* Eating an abundance of nutrient dense foods such as green, leafy veggies can slow aging.
* Alkaline foods are needed to prevent the leaching of calcium from our bones and teeth.
* Enzymes are needed to help prevent body toxicity. (waste backup)
* Un-eliminated waste poisons the body and weakens our immune system.
* Acid-forming foods such as meat and dairy are aging us quickly!
* Our bodies prefer a slightly alkaline pH balance.
* We must eat meals rich in live, alkaline foods everyday.

Eating a plant-based, high alkaline food diet is best for the human race and the more plant foods you eat, the better you will probably feel. Alkaline foods are essential to a healthy lifestyle! Your body needs plant enzymes from green, alkaline foods to help regulate every biochemical and metabolic process in your body. Cooking food destroys the very force that keeps us alive and healthy. When eating to improve your pH balance, always eat a diet high in raw fruits and veggies.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Green Leafy Vegetables - Nutritional Powerhouses Eat Your Greens! By Laura Dolson, About.com


A nutrition professor once told me that it was common for our ancient ancestors to eat up to six pounds of leaves per day. He imagined them walking along from one place to another, just picking and eating leaves as they went. Can you imagine eating a grocery bag full of greens each and every day? Few of us even eat the minimum USDA recommendations of 3 cups of dark green vegetables per week. And yet, these veggies deliver a bonanza of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients.

Dark green leafy vegetables are, calorie for calorie, perhaps the most concentrated source of nutrition of any food. They are a rich source of minerals (including iron, calcium, potassium, and magnesium) and vitamins, including vitamins K, C, E, and many of the B vitamins. They also provide a variety of phytonutrients including beta-carotene, lutein, and zeaxanthin, which protect our cells from damage and our eyes from age-related problems, among many other effects. Dark green leaves even contain small amounts of Omega-3 fats.

Vitamin K:

* Regulates blood clotting
* Helps protect bones from osteoporosis
* May help prevent and possibly even reduce atherosclerosis by reducing calcium in arterial plaques
* May be a key regulator of inflammation, and may help protect us from inflammatory diseases including arthitis
* May help prevent diabetes

An Apple A Day!!


An apple a day. Our doctors urge us all to eat at least 5 fresh fruit and veggie servings per day—and they are on to something big! On a very basic level, research shows that cooking produces free radicals, cancer-causing agents in the cells. Eating more raw fare not only eliminates these cooking-generated cancer-causers, it also boosts your immunity and healing time, reverses the progression of chronic degenerative disease, facilitates the elimination of toxins, and has a radiant effect on your skin.