Author Archive
In Conversations with God, Book 1, we learn that “…all illness is self-created. Even conventional medical doctors are now seeing how people make themselves sick.”
Let’s look at what you need to do in order to get healthy, stay healthy, and stop making yourself sick.
There are three basic steps you have to take for stellar holistic health. If you are vigilant and careful, you can improve your own health, reduce occurrence of illness, heal yourself, and start feeling great! First you must cleanse and detoxify your body, inside and outside. Get rid of the toxins that are hanging around in your intestines, clogging your arteries, wearing out your organs, and causing symptoms. You must also detoxify your mind, thoughts and relationships. Second, you must learn to avoid toxins in everything possible from food, beauty products, air, water, household cleaners, emotions, and thoughts. Finally, you must nourish your body with good, clean, whole food and subject your body to nutrient-dense foods, exercise, positive thoughts, actions, and activities.
Today in Part 3, we will look at nourishing your body with everything it needs to run perfectly.
Your Food
In order to nourish your body in every way, you need to avoid toxic foods and indulge in nutrient-dense cleansing foods. Foods that don’t build your cells are dry or dead. They are animal-based or processed foods. These foods are high in sugar and laden with chemicals used to flavor, color, sweeten, or enhance. These are the foods in boxes and bags that are advertised most on television. Marketers love to target children for these foods too.
Nourishing foods build your body up and make you feel good. Nourishing foods are alive or as close to alive as possible. Nourishing foods are hydrating and pure, they are free of chemicals and are in a natural state or close to it. Nourishing oils are cold-pressed, non-chemically expelled oils such as olive, coconut, nut oils.
In order to nourish your body and systems, you need to decide that you will seek pure, whole foods whenever you can. You will not find these foods at fast food joints or at most restaurants. If you do eat at restaurants talk to the staff and find out what kinds of ingredients are used and how they are prepared.
Keep vegan snacks in your refrigerator such as homemade hummus, salsa, guacamole, fruit and vegetables salads. You will be tempted to eat whatever is most available, so keep healthy whole, pure foods available at all times and already prepared.
When you fix a plate of food, make sure that you build it by selecting the vegetables (all colors), beans and legumes, and fruits first. Add some whole grains if you want. Then add a small amount of animal product if you choose. Eating this way will guarantee that you will stay healthier and avoid chronic disease. If you are already sick or healing, consider eliminating all animal and processed foods completely.
Your Skin
Anything that touches your skin can be absorbed directly into your blood. This is why prescription drugs are administered often using patches. Make sure that anything that touches your skin is made from clean, pure, non-toxic, natural ingredients. This includes household cleaners, fragrances, makeup, soap, and hair products.
Your Mind
In order to nourish your mind and emotions, there are hundreds of things you can do. I’ll make some suggestions and you pick a few you want to try first.
Slow down, meditate or do some yoga. Detach from the everyday pressure you normally put on yourself and think about your priorities. Engage in the positivity that comes into your thoughts and ignore the negativity. Do what you need to do to improve your self-esteem. Get help for your addictions. Learn some humility. Stop getting involved in everyone else’s drama and let the world happen on its own. Stop judging other people and look at yourself. Love yourself and give your time and resources freely.
Enjoy your pets. Walk your dog. Take a nap. Call your mother and ask her how she is doing. Have lunch with a friend. Hold hands with your partner and take a walk together. Think about fun times you had when you were a child. Stop thinking and talking about politics and religion. Participate in your own community. Do some volunteer work. Make a list of nice things you can do for other people that you would enjoy. Whenever you have negative thoughts, do one of your items.
Work to fix old relationships that are strained. Make amends with people you have hurt. Is it really a big deal to admit you might have done something wrong or hurtful? Identify your own character defects and give them up too. Be who you want to be. It all starts in you. Let go of all of your expectations and your attachments to material things and outcomes.
Eating, touching, and thinking clean, natural, and pure things will make you healthier in every way. You can make a big difference by doing one thing at a time, one day at a time, and building your life from the inside out!
(Beth Anderson is a certified Holistic Health Coach and founder of the Holistic Health Hotspot in Evansville, Indiana. She is also the author of “The Holistic Diet: Achieve Your Ideal Weight, Be Happy and Healthy for Life.” Beth received her training from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Beth is helping people improve their lives through nutrition and lifestyle education, health coaching, and by helping others to learn to make informed choices. Beth continues to spread understanding of the connection between body, mind, and spirit and encourages all to discern the truth about food, consumer products, environment, and life choices. You can find Beth on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/HolisticHealthHotspot or email her at beth@holistichealthhotspot.com)
In Conversations with God, Book 1, we learn that “…all illness is self-created. Even conventional medical doctors are now seeing how people make themselves sick.”
Let’s look at what you need to do in order to get healthy, stay healthy, and stop making yourself sick.
There are three basic steps you have to take for stellar holistic health. If you are vigilant and careful, you can improve your own health, reduce occurrence of illness, heal yourself, and start feeling great! First you must cleanse and detoxify your body, inside and outside. Get rid of the toxins that are hanging around in your intestines, clogging your arteries, wearing out your organs, and causing symptoms. You must also detoxify your mind, thoughts and relationships. Second, you must learn to avoid toxins in everything possible from food, beauty products, air, water, household cleaners, emotions, and thoughts. Finally, you must nourish your body with good, clean, whole food and subject your body to nutrient-dense foods, exercise, positive thoughts, actions, and activities.
Today we will look at avoiding toxins in your food and environment.
There is no way to completely prevent toxins from entering our system through food, air, water, environment, and thoughts. If we aren’t careful, we will ingest large numbers and amounts of toxins that will build up and make us unhealthy or diseased.
Food
First of all, learn what is actually in the food you are eating. Processed foods contain many chemicals and synthetic substances used to flavor, color, preserve, or even make you addicted. Sugar is hidden in products you would never suspect, such as tomatoes or beans, toothpaste, ketchup, and canned fruit. Excitotoxins are regularly added to foods to make you crave them or continue eating them after you are full. Oils are partially hydrogenated, which causes trans fats to form. Big agricultural farms douse your produce liberally with pesticides and herbicides, and worse yet use GMO seeds.
The best way to avoid toxins in your food is to increase the amount of food preparation and cooking you do at home for yourself. When you go to a restaurant, you don’t know what kind of oil in which the food is cooked, whether the ingredients are organic, or what additives have been included. Stop buying processed foods when at all possible. Processed foods are anything that is pre-prepared, or in a box or bag at the grocery store. I consider deli and restaurant food “processed” as well because they are constructed from processed ingredients instead of homemade ones. It’s pretty safe to assume that anything that has a commercial on TV is a processed food.
Stop drinking bottled beverages, sodas and diet sodas, or restaurant offerings of tea or coffee, and just drink water. Carry a water bottle with you at all times and drink water all day long. You will flush out your system and prevent new toxins from entering your system. As a bonus, you will save a lot of money.
When eating animal products, know where it came from and how they were farmed. Big farms use antibiotics and a host of chemicals to promote growth and appetite, and the animals are processed in horrible conditions. Check that fish hasn’t come from an area that is known to be contaminated. Environmental groups recommend that you avoid Atlantic halibut, king mackerel, sea bass, shark, swordfish, tuna, and farmed salmon among others.
Environment
Your skin is the largest organ in your body and anything that touches your skin is absorbed into your system. In order to avoid toxins in the future, be aware of what household products you use to clean, such as bathroom, oven, drain, and detergent cleaners. Even many “green” products contain toxic substances. Some of the most damaging chemicals are in fragrances which don’t legally have to be identified as anything except “Fragrance.” Many detergents still have phosphates, surfectants, and petroleum-based ingredients which have been shown to cause cancer.
Consider making your own cleaning products from simple ingredients such as baking soda, vinegar, lemon juice, and borax. And again, you will save money!
Surprisingly, you are also exposed to toxins in many health and beauty products like soap, hair products, skin products, makeup, and perfume. Look for ingredients such as synthetic color, DBP, Triclosan, DEA, TEA, metals such as titanium or aluminum, Petrolatum, fragrance, parabens, benzophenone, ceteareth, and more. Don’t buy products with poisons in them. Great guides to find out whether your health and beauty products are toxic can be found on Environmental Working Groups website www.ewg.org.
Before you use a product, ask yourself this question: Would you give this to a baby? If not, then don’t use it on yourself either!
Emotional
Your thoughts, behaviors, and relationships can add to your stress and disease! If you have regular negative thoughts or an involved in toxic relationships, if you repeat destructive behaviors or participate in “office gossip” or triangulation, you are adding negativity to your health bank.
Reduce your own stress and toxicity by replacing your negative thoughts with positive ones. If a negative thought pops into your head, ignore it and move on to the next thought. Or better yet, intentionally replace it with a positive version. Don’t allow yourself to talk about other people or hurt other people even indirectly.
If you identify that you are a negative person or you keep ending up in negative situations or relationship, ask for help from positive family, friends, or seek the help of a counselor. You will be much happier and your health will be better.
What’s Next?
We have examined how to detoxify yourself and how to avoid toxins. Next time, we will look at nourishing yourself with nutrient dense foods, positive thoughts and behaviors.
(Beth Anderson is a certified Holistic Health Coach and founder of the Holistic Health Hotspot in Evansville, Indiana. She is also the author of “The Holistic Diet: Achieve Your Ideal Weight, Be Happy and Healthy for Life.” Beth received her training from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Beth is helping people improve their lives through nutrition and lifestyle education, health coaching, and by helping others to learn to make informed choices. Beth continues to spread understanding of the connection between body, mind, and spirit and encourages all to discern the truth about food, consumer products, environment, and life choices. You can find Beth on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/HolisticHealthHotspot or email her at beth@holistichealthhotspot.com)
In Conversations with God, Book 1, we learn that “…all illness is self-created. Even conventional medical doctors are now seeing how people make themselves sick.”
Let’s look at what you need to do in order to get healthy, stay healthy, and stop making yourself sick.
There are three basic steps you have to take for stellar holistic health. If you are vigilant and careful, you can improve your own health, reduce occurrence of illness, heal yourself, and start feeling great! First you must cleanse and detoxify your body, inside and outside. Get rid of the toxins that are hanging around in your intestines, clogging your arteries, wearing out your organs, and causing symptoms. You must also detoxify your mind, thoughts and relationships. Second, you must learn to avoid toxins in everything possible from food, beauty products, air, water, household cleaners, emotions, and thoughts. Finally, you must nourish your body with good, clean, whole food and subject your body to nutrient-dense foods, exercise, positive thoughts, actions, and activities.
Today we will look at cleansing and detoxifying your body, mind, and relationships.
How To Cleanse and Detoxify Your Body
Detoxifying and cleansing your body can promote weight loss, boost your energy, and help your body heal itself naturally from many symptoms including digestive problems, acne, and inflammatory issues. Detoxifying isn’t anything new, the ancient Eastern medicines have been promoting detoxification for thousands of years.
In order to effectively experience a detoxifying cleanse, you need to relieve, clean, and nourish your body starting from the inside! Once your internal organs have experienced this refreshing break, they can work more effectively to do their jobs – and heal the body naturally.
During a detox, the blood, intestines, and liver are cleansed by using fasting, stimulation, elimination, and nourishment. You can detox for a day or two, or for weeks, depending on your needs and goals. You should ask your doctor first if you have any kind of compromising condition such as pregnancy, chronic disease, or cancer.
We are surrounded by toxins everywhere and in everything from our air, water, and food to our health and beauty products, household cleaners, and work environment. The body stores the toxins it can’t get rid of and will eventually have symptoms such as infections, fatigue, skin problems, mental fog, or even weight gain.
During any kind of detox, you should avoid coffee, alcohol, refined sugar, smoking, and household poisons. Get plenty of rest and quiet time, and eat light foods. Avoid meat and fatty foods.
Water Cleansing
A great way to detox your gut immune system is to do a hot water detox. For 1-2 weeks, simply drink a mug of heated water (plain – no lemon or flavors) every hour or so. The hot water will open up the drainage in your gut and allow toxins to flow out. Repeating this every hour or so for a few weeks will completely boost your immune system naturally!
For a gentle daily detox, drink a large glass of lukewarm water with lemon when you wake up. Give your body a half hour or hour before eating breakfast. This habit will help you rehydrate your body after sleeping and will wake up your digestion so it can perform its work later.
Detoxifying Foods
Many foods can assist your body in naturally detoxifying. Raw fruits and vegetables provide the most cleansing, especially greens such as broccoli, kale, swiss chard, dandelion, turnip, or beet greens. You can also do a 5-day juice-only fast and consume water and juices of fruits and vegetables only.
Herbal and Special Detoxification
You may also choose to use an herbal supplement that will promote gentle cleansing and elimination. Be sure to use completely pure herbal cleanse products without fillers, gluten, chemicals, and artificial color or flavor. Look for a product containing psyllium husk, marshmallow and licorice root, bitter gourd, and slippery elm bark.
After you complete a digestive cleanse/detox you may wish to do a liver cleanse as well as a gallbladder cleanse, especially if you have suffered from headaches, mental fog or confusion, or lethargy. The best liver detox products will contain bio-available turmeric and milk thistle. There are also total cleanse products that are packed with bio-available chlorella, spirulina, or other algaes, and probiotics that can do wonders for your system and energy level!
Detoxify Your Mind
You must also detoxify your mind, thoughts and relationships. Negative thinking and attitude, gossiping, judgmental thinking, and toxic relationships are planting the seeds of disease in your system.
A great way to start thinking more positively is to try affirmations. You can choose a daily affirming statement about your body, health, love, peace, or any area you need to work on being positive. For instance if you suffer from anxiety, use the affirmation “I am at peace.” Just thinking or meditating on affirmations can start reprogramming your mind.
If you are a negative person, try to identify your negative thoughts, stop, and reword the thought into a positive one. Doing this day after day will help you to become positive instead of negative. For instance, if you think about a part of your body you dislike such as your nose or your stomach, think about all of the good things that body part does for you instead of your thoughts about the bad side. Your thoughts about how big your stomach is can turn into “My stomach helps me daily to digest healthy food and make me heal.” You might even start eating more consciously with thought like that!
As far as relationships, if you are spending time with toxic people you have two choices: 1) Work to fix the problem, or 2) Eliminate the problem. Toxic relationships can take a toll on your health and it’s not worth it to maintain unhealthy relationships.
Now you are on your way to detoxifying your body, mind, and spirit! In Part 2, we will examine how to avoid toxins!
(Beth Anderson is a certified Holistic Health Coach and founder of the Holistic Health Hotspot in Evansville, Indiana. She is also the author of “The Holistic Diet: Achieve Your Ideal Weight, Be Happy and Healthy for Life.” Beth received her training from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Beth is helping people improve their lives through nutrition and lifestyle education, health coaching, and by helping others to learn to make informed choices. Beth continues to spread understanding of the connection between body, mind, and spirit and encourages all to discern the truth about food, consumer products, environment, and life choices. You can find Beth on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/HolisticHealthHotspot or email her at beth@holistichealthhotspot.com)
People seem confused by the term “holistic health.” Maybe it’s because businesses are using the catch-phrase inappropriately. Holistic practices aren’t presented thoroughly or followed by some “holistic practitioners” as they prescribe the same old pharmaceuticals without another natural approach first. So what do I mean when I say holistic health? I’ll tell you!
Holistic health includes all aspects of the person – psychological, physical, social, and spiritual otherwise known as mind, body, and spirit. Whatever words you want to use to describe holistic health, it includes all aspects of well-being in you. To be holistically healthy, you must care for your body, your relationships, work and purpose in life, and your spirituality. You care for yourself, your friends, and your community. In order to do that, you avoid toxins in your food, environment, emotions, and life. You nurture your body with nutrient dense foods, relaxation, sleep, and exercise. You attempt to keep yourself healthy proactively through foods and natural healing, and you incorporate the same practices when dealing with an illness or disease. Don’t get me wrong, we need our medical doctors – our trauma care and advanced medical practices are necessary when other things don’t work or aren’t appropriate!
But let’s try to allow our body to heal itself when we can!
Holistic Health is nothing new. Ayurvedic medicine has taught us for thousands of years that we must treat the whole person to avoid illness, cure disease, and have a happy life without suffering. Through Ayurveda you learn to balance your biological tendencies, metabolic activities, and body functions using diet, sleep, activity, and sex. For instance, using Ayurveda you choose your food based on your imbalance, the taste, preparation, combination, quantity, and time to rebalance your body based on your constitution or symptoms. Here in the USA we eat at fast food restaurants, eat processed foods without paying attention. We eat fast food, junk food, and nutrition-less food and then take expensive vitamins and supplements.We eat fiber-less white bread and white flour in everything, but we take expensive fiber supplements.
So, in Holistic Health we look at the Whole…… the whole person.
In order to be whole and healthy we need to change old attitudes and pay attention to the following aspects:
• Remove from and avoid toxicity in the body, food, relationships, daily life, and thoughts
• Increase nutrition and positivity in food, emotions, priorities, exercise, positive mental energy, relationships, spirituality, and purpose in life or job
• The result of the above will be a less stressful, more comfortable happy life full of meaning, health, and happiness
With all of this being said, I also believe that no one has all of the answers. Therefore we are open to and experiment with all kinds of healing through
• Tasty, fun, and healthy food
• Healing foods
• Spices, herbs, natural remedies
• Physical activity
• Natural healers and practitioners
• Energy work
• Emotional Health
• Connection
• Drugless practitioners
• Alternative healing methods
• Alternative Medicine
• Spirituality
The list goes on.
Are you healthy as a whole? Think about the areas you need to change based on what I have shared with you. Any positive change you make in any area of your life will surely improve your overall holistic health.
(Beth Anderson is a certified Holistic Health Coach and founder of the Holistic Health Hotspot in Evansville, Indiana. She is also the author of “The Holistic Diet: Achieve Your Ideal Weight, Be Happy and Healthy for Life.” Beth received her training from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Beth is helping people improve their lives through nutrition and lifestyle education, health coaching, and by helping others to learn to make informed choices. Beth continues to spread understanding of the connection between body, mind, and spirit and encourages all to discern the truth about food, consumer products, environment, and life choices. You can find Beth on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/HolisticHealthHotspot or email her at beth@holistichealthhotspot.com)
I live in the Midwest amongst huge corporate farms full of beautiful fields of grains and beans. Well, at least they LOOK beautiful at times. I’m not so sure I am willing to eat the stuff. From what I understand a huge majority of what is grown around me is genetically modified GMO produce.
Many people (even here!) here have no idea what is happening or that anything potentially dangerous is being grown in their own backyard. For hundreds and maybe thousands of years, people have been genetically engineering foods. We have trees that grow both lemons and limes. We have new fruits and vegetables made by crossing two plants together such as loganberries and limequats. We have selectively promoted different strains and species based on their color, taste, and growth patterns.
But the kind of GMO manipulation that is going on now just isn’t safe. At least it hasn’t been proven safe. Studies around the world are linking it to cancer and many other health issues. There are too many correlations between these GMOs and food allergies in children (and adults). Doesn’t it seem strange that dozens of countries overseas have banned our GMO produce based on their own scientific health studies? Is it a coincidence that since GMOs have been heavily marketed there are huge spikes in children’s food allergies, along with the severity of the allergies? Doesn’t it seem strange that SOMEONE is profiting off of these GMO seeds and it isn’t the farmers, but instead big businesses?
There are two types of GMO that I am most concerned about.
The first type is GMO seeds that are herbicide resistant. Supersized companies have engineered grains that don’t die when they are doused with toxic herbicide. This means that the farmers can spray as much herbicide all around the crops to kill off every weed and stray plant, but the produce won’t die! This is one sure way to guarantee that you will be ingesting much more pesticide than you would have before. Does this sound safe to you?
The second type is GMO seeds that have pesticide DNA built into them. There is a toxin that causes pests stomach’s to explode when they ingest it. This is the pesticide that has been genetically “built-in” to your GMO grain. They have found this pesticide in the stomach of pregnant women. If it kills bugs by making their stomachs explode, what does it do to humans?
If you haven’t heard yet, there are dozens of countries around the world that have banned the import our GMO grains. They have banned it because they have done scientific studies linking GMO to cancer and other diseases. You would be surprised to find out that the same GMO grain is in hundreds and thousands of your grocery products, but how would you know? They certainly don’t tell you on any label. The vast majority of grains that are grown in the USA by big agricultural farms now are GMO, which means the vast majority of ALL grains grown in the USA are GMO. Try to find out if your crackers, chips, cereals, even tofu have GMO grain/soy in them!
I recommend buying products that are clearly labeled “No GMOs” or “Organic”, as organic products cannot contain or come from animals who are fed GMO. Let’s get healthier by protecting ourselves against what hasn’t been proven safe!
(Beth Anderson is a certified Holistic Health Coach and founder of the Holistic Health Hotspot in Evansville, Indiana. She is also the author of “The Holistic Diet: Achieve Your Ideal Weight, Be Happy and Healthy for Life.” Beth received her training from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Beth is helping people improve their lives through nutrition and lifestyle education, health coaching, and by helping others to learn to make informed choices. Beth continues to spread understanding of the connection between body, mind, and spirit and encourages all to discern the truth about food, consumer products, environment, and life choices. You can find Beth on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/HolisticHealthHotspot or email her at beth@holistichealthhotspot.com)
You can change one simple habit and it may change your whole life. It doesn’t cost anything, plus you’ll end up eating less and feeling more energetic. You may even have less anxiety and a new appreciation for life and the world.
The next time you eat, count how many times you chew each bite before swallowing. Most people chew their food only a few times before swallowing which results in gulping down entire meals in just a few minutes. Swallowing large chunks of food can cause you to eat more, have digestive issues, and be tired after eating! Slow down and chew more.
The Macrobiotic lifestyle recommends chewing your food up to 100 times; however, I have found that nearly impossible. Try chewing your food 30 or 40 times before swallowing. The food should be completely liquefied and mixed with important digestive juices before it reaches your stomach. By the time you finish a bite of food, your dining companion may have eaten 3 or 4 bites.
Chewing more enables you to eat less. It takes your brain 10 – 20 minutes after filling your stomach to realize that it has had enough food. Chewing your food 30-40 times will slow down your eating and your brain will tell your stomach it is full while it has less food in it. Chewing more and slowing down will enable you to eat much less food and feel the same satiety.
Chewing more helps alleviate digestive issues. By chewing your food completely and liquefying it before swallowing, you have mixed the proper digestive juices completely with the food before allowing it to enter your stomach. This means your stomach will have less work to do. Many times this can relieve digestive issues such as pain, bloat, gas, and other nasty annoyances.
Chewing helps you feel less tired after eating. Since your stomach has less work to do, you will have more energy after eating that can be devoted to other things. If you frequently feel overtired after eating, simply chewing your food can be a big boost to your energy level.
Slowing down will allow you to enjoy your food more. You may not have even paid attention before to the beauty, taste, smell, or texture of your food. You may not have observed how it makes you feel, and how much you can enjoy a fresh strawberry or a cup of green tea. Once you appreciate your food and what you are eating, you may start eating healthier food.
Slowing down and enjoying your food may cause you to relax and think about slowing down and enjoying life more. You may realize that life isn’t about rushing around, getting lists of things done, and stressing yourself out anymore. The simple act of slowing down at meals may allow you to extend the principle into your whole life. May you will slow down and enjoy your children, or enjoy talking to a friend instead of rushing off to work.
Chew your food more. From the simple act of chewing your food, you may eat less, feel better, enjoy life more, and get healthier. You may end up noticing and nurturing the beautiful people and things that were right there all the time.
(Beth Anderson is a certified Holistic Health Coach and founder of the Holistic Health Hotspot in Evansville, Indiana. She is also the author of “The Holistic Diet: Achieve Your Ideal Weight, Be Happy and Healthy for Life.” Beth received her training from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Beth is helping people improve their lives through nutrition and lifestyle education, health coaching, and by helping others to learn to make informed choices. Beth continues to spread understanding of the connection between body, mind, and spirit and encourages all to discern the truth about food, consumer products, environment, and life choices. You can find Beth on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/HolisticHealthHotspot or email her at beth@holistichealthhotspot.com)
Sugar has been around for thousands of years in one form or another. People love sweet tastes and indulging in sugary treats. But there is a huge difference between using raw sugar cane stalks and using the white refined sugar that we are so familiar with. Refined sugar is so processed and concentrated that it doesn’t seem to be a food at all.
Sugar cane contains high concentrations of sucrose and is usually used to make refined sugar. Sugar cane looks like a thick stalk of bamboo, and the sap is stored in the stalk. A harvested stalk of sugar cane will yield 10-15% of its weight in sugar. Sugar cane is burned, harvested, chopped, cleaned, washed, and the juice extracted, filtered, and purified into a juice. The juice is boiled and evaporated into thick syrup, then crystallized, centrifuged, dried, and packaged. This all sounds fine until you take a closer look.
Sugar juice is purified using calcium hydroxide to coagulate particles. Then the clear juice is separated through a carbon sedimentation process before evaporating and boiling to reduce it to about 1/3 of its original volume. Sugar is crystallized by seeding it with sugar grains and mixing it with methylated spirit and glycerine to grow crystals. The crystals are separated by centrifugal force. You would think that the sugar is done now, but it is not. This raw sugar is then melted before refining into syrup, washing, and clarifying it with phosphoric acid and more calcium hydroxide. Then it is concentrated further by boiling again, and making white crystals. This all sounds like a science experiment to me, not a food preparation!
Ten pounds of sugar cane goes into one pound of white sugar. After processing and refining the sugar cane, there are no vitamins, minerals, or nutrients left in it. The extreme concentration of sugar causes huge spikes in your blood sugar – first by making it rise abnormally high and then by causing a large drop. This is why you might experience all kinds of health symptoms from eating sugar from hyperactivity, headaches, mood swings, depression, and fatigue. Concentrated sugar triggers the same part of the brain that is stimulated by addictive drugs. Sugar also causes diabetes, obesity, binge-eating, and fuels chronic inflammation and disease. Why do this to yourself?
Just for today, try to replace sugar with a natural non-chemical sweetener. I recommend honey, agave nectar, stevia, date sugar or coconut sugar! Once you switch to natural sweeteners, your taste buds will readjust and you will enjoy the natural flavors instead of the intense concentrated sugary taste.
(Beth Anderson is a certified Holistic Health Coach and founder of the Holistic Health Hotspot in Evansville, Indiana. She is also the author of “The Holistic Diet: Achieve Your Ideal Weight, Be Happy and Healthy for Life.” Beth received her training from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Beth is helping people improve their lives through nutrition and lifestyle education, health coaching, and by helping others to learn to make informed choices. Beth continues to spread understanding of the connection between body, mind, and spirit and encourages all to discern the truth about food, consumer products, environment, and life choices. You can find Beth on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/HolisticHealthHotspot or email her at beth@holistichealthhotspot.com)
If you are tired, irritable, stressed out, sleep-deprived, burned out, or exhausted, there are quick changes in food and behavior you can implement to reduce your symptoms, heal yourself, and, in the long run, prevent disease. Stress causes and accelerates chronic and terminal diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and depression. Chronic stress will give you adrenal fatigue and make you feel like you are always either exhausted or wired or alternating between both!
The stress of daily living has an enormous impact on your physical and emotional health – both good stress and bad stress. If you are experiencing back pain, dizziness, heart palpitations, low stamina, chronic infections, poor sleep, or food cravings, you may have adrenal fatigue. The adrenal glands sit on your kidneys and control hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. If your adrenal glands aren’t working properly, your thyroid and immune system will not function correctly. You may get infections repeatedly. You may lose your immune system function and your energy level may plummet.
Here are 7 things you can do to reduce your stress level:
1. Get enough sleep and sleep regular hours without exception. Go to bed at a decent hour every night. Go to bed at about the same time every night.
2. Re-evaluate your priorities.Do you need to work after normal work hours? Do you need to check your email and smart phone constantly? Do you have normal conversations and relationships with people, or are you living on electronic and social platforms? You may have relationships, family, children, and friends who miss you and want to spend time with you relaxing and sharing. Slow down and enjoy life! Figure out what life is about – is it about money and “things”? Aren’t the people in your life worth more than things? Don’t forget about your pets!
3. Eat whole foods – fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, and grains. Eat only 100% whole grains and don’t consume bleached, refined, or processed flours.
4. Cook at home as much as possible. Your recipes should be built by combining foods that just have one ingredient in them. This will automatically replace your consumption of processed foods with whole, healthy foods. You will know exactly what you are eating.
5. Eliminate sugar, syrups, and artificial sweeteners. Drink water or green tea unsweetened instead of sodas, sweetened drinks, or coffee. Sweeten drinks with stevia extract – it is a natural super-sweet plant that has no calories or chemicals! Eat fruits instead of sweets. Start reading your food labels and figure out how much sugar you are really eating! It’s okay to eat 20-30 grams of sugar a day if you are healthy, but you might be surprised to know that there are 65 grams of sugar in that 20-ounce bottle of soda or sweetened drink.
6. Eliminate or reduce coffee consumption. Eliminate caffeine altogether or, if you must, limit it to a cup of coffee in the morning. Be aware of everything you consume that contains caffeine. Carry fresh water with you at all times and drink it instead of anything else.
7. Do an emotional cleanse. Most people benefit from digestive cleansing, but an emotional cleanse can also help dramatically. A Harvard study showed that men who are angry are three times more likely to develop heart disease. UCLA has found that stress seems to reprogram immune cells into more toxic cells that feed disease. An emotional cleanse can allow the body to reduce stress and toxicity. The most prominent stress-causing emotions are guilt, anger, shame, and negativity. Start doing self-reflection and identify the causes of these feelings if you have them. Work to rid yourself of the negativity, and if you need help, seek help from friends, support groups, or a counselor. While you are ridding yourself from the negative emotions and thoughts, replace them with positive ones that appeal to you – family, pets, friends, hobbies, work, art, anything that you love.
Try one or more of these quick fixes and let me know how your stress level is!
(Beth Anderson is a certified Holistic Health Coach and founder of the Holistic Health Hotspot in Evansville, Indiana. She is also the author of “The Holistic Diet: Achieve Your Ideal Weight, Be Happy and Healthy for Life.” Beth received her training from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Beth is helping people improve their lives through nutrition and lifestyle education, health coaching, and by helping others to learn to make informed choices. Beth continues to spread understanding of the connection between body, mind, and spirit and encourages all to discern the truth about food, consumer products, environment, and life choices. You can find Beth on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/HolisticHealthHotspot or email her at beth@holistichealthhotspot.com)
Kombucha is a fermented probiotic health beverage made from sweetened tea, yeast, and bacteria. It is considered to be a longetivity drink and has been consumed globally for thousands of years. Kombucha has been growing in popularity in the western world because of its health benefits:
– Acids and B vitamins which assist the body in the detoxification process
– Beneficial bacteria which assists the gastrointestinal process
The specific benefits that you will receive from drinking kombucha result from the body working more efficiently and healing itself, but people I know who drink kombucha have reported that it helps with digestion, acne, immune system, allergies, and more! If your gut flora is lacking, this is the perfect way to increase the good bacteria and get your body in shape to heal itself.
If your gut flora is compromised, you may experience symptoms such as digestive issues, immune system weakness, infections, and even neurological or psychological issues. Our gut flora becomes low from drinking baby formula instead of human breast milk, antibiotics and other drugs, sugar, alcohol, and processed foods. Improving your gut flora can make you feel much better in a short time. By the way, kombucha is not an alcoholic drink even though some people believe it is. Kombucha can contain trace amounts of alcohol, but never more than .5% because it is brewed open to the air. Any alcohol that forms in the brew evaporates.
You can buy kombucha in most health food stores and some groceries, but it can get a bit expensive. I recommend brewing your own – it’s not difficult. You can brew a continuous batch and add flavors when you pour or bottle it – ginger, fruits, and greens add great taste and variety.
I grew my own SCOBY from three ingredients – one bottle of store-bought original plain raw kombucha, a cup of strong tea, and a tablespoon of organic raw unprocessed sugar! I covered it with a cloth and left it undisturbed for two weeks. When I discovered that my SCOBY had grown successfully, I felt like I had given birth.
I started my first batch with 2 gallons of brewed organic black tea and 4 cups of raw organic cane sugar. After brewing the tea, I added the sugar and stirred until it was dissolved. Then I let the tea reach room temperature before pouring it into my brewing jar. I added my SCOBY with its liquid, covered the top with a cloth, and let it brew away for a little over a week. Now I regularly take 3-4 16-ounce bottles of the brew, cover tightly, age at room temperature for 2-3 days, and refrigerate. I also replace whatever tea I remove with new room-temperature sweet tea. I keep the tea between 70 and 80 degrees with a 10-watt heater, and I test the pH of the tea before drinking to make sure it is between 2.5 and 3.5.
It’s hard to believe that one drink can change your health, but I recommend trying kombucha if you haven’t yet. Drink 8-16 ounces every day for a week and then let me know what you notice. You can drink it before or with breakfast every day. You can sip on it from a wine glass in the evening. Kombucha is great anywhere or anytime.
(Beth Anderson is a certified Holistic Health Coach and founder of the Holistic Health Hotspot in Evansville, Indiana. She is also the author of The Holistic Diet: Achieve Your Ideal Weight, Be Happy and Healthy for Life.Beth received her training from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Beth is helping people improve their lives through nutrition and lifestyle education, health coaching, and by helping others to learn to make informed choices. Beth continues to spread understanding of the connection between body, mind, and spirit and encourages all to discern the truth about food, consumer products, environment, and life choices. You can find Beth on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/HolisticHealthHotspot or email her at beth@holistichealthhotspot.com)
Everyone seems to be tired, stressed out, fatigued, lethargic, or burned out today. We work too much, become caregivers for parents or children, and spend way too much time worrying about others instead of ourselves.It’s time to focus on YOU and making yourself feel better. Let’s start by looking at what is stealing your energy and vitality from your system!
There are four kinds of stress that will deplete your energy store – chemical, emotional, mental, and physical. Here are some examples of each type of stress and what you can do about it.
Chemical stress can come from your food, air, water, and environment. You ingest hundreds of chemicals daily simply from the food you eat. The more processed foods you eat, the more chemicals you ingest. By processed foods I mean foods that have been changed or transformed from their original state in nature, packaged, and sold to you through a grocery store, restaurant, or shop.
You are eating food coloring, artificial and “natural” flavoring, artificial sweeteners, and preservatives in every bite of your pre-prepared foods. You eat pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers in your conventional and GMO foods. You drink in the water pollutants in every soda or glass of unfiltered water. You are surrounded by air pollution in your workplace, airport, and even outdoors depending on where you live.
Read your food labels when you buy food products. If the ingredients list is long, has confusing words or unpronounceable words, or has recognizable chemicals in it, don’t buy it. Make it yourself. Cooking isn’t that hard and doesn’t take that much time. If you can’t cook it, get it from a place where you know who made it and what went in it. For today, just make a better choice. Try to drink filtered or purified water when you can, and get outside in a clean natural environment whenever you can.
Emotional stress can come from toxic relationships, caring for children, or lack of boundaries. There have been many studies done that show that the better your relationships are, the healthier you are and vice versa. If you are stuck in an unhealthy relationship, either figure out how to improve it or leave it behind. You can do this by setting healthy boundaries for yourself even if it is your own children you are dealing with. Learn to say no, and teach people how to treat you by letting them know what is not acceptable, enforcing your boundaries and following through.
Mental stress can come from your work environment, school or education pressures, and especially self-inflicted standards and expectations. If you take your work home with you, work at all hours, check your emails or are on call while you are “off,” or can’t stop studying, then you probably need to look at your standards and expectations. Set a time when you are truly off work. For example, after 7:00 p.m. stop checking your email, stop studying, and stop beating yourself up in general for not being perfect. If you don’t start taking care of yourself, no one else is going to do it for you.
Finally, physical stress can result from your immediate environment – loud or constant noise and lack of sleep are some great examples. Try to get some quiet time daily and make sure your sleep schedule is regular and enough. Most people need 7-8 hours of sleep a night. If you sleep less on a regular basis, you might need to make some changes in your schedule. Too much partying or alcohol can also put your body in a state of physical stress.
The biggest and most common source of physical stress on your body is a lack of nutrients. There are no nutrients in packaged cereals (except what they fortify it with after removing the natural nutrients!), fast food, processed foods, sugar, alcohol, white flours and rice, and much more of what we eat on a regular basis. Try to start eating whole foods – foods with one ingredient. Cook more of your own food with whole ingredients. You will at least know for sure what is in your food!
Take a look at what kinds of chemical, mental, emotional, and physical stress you are putting your body through and start making changes here and there to improve your life. You will end up with more energy!
(Beth Anderson is a certified Holistic Health Coach and founder of the Holistic Health Hotspot in Evansville, Indiana. She is also the author of The Holistic Diet: Achieve Your Ideal Weight, Be Happy and Healthy for Life.Beth received her training from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Beth is helping people improve their lives through nutrition and lifestyle education, health coaching, and by helping others to learn to make informed choices. Beth continues to spread understanding of the connection between body, mind, and spirit and encourages all to discern the truth about food, consumer products, environment, and life choices.)
