MAKE SURE YOU READ YOUR LABELS AND use common sense. Locally grown, sustainable agriculture still trumps organic.
See what tricky stuff you need to watch out for even at Whole Foods. Some "organic" foods are being sourced from China where all bets are off:
Cholesterol is not the bad guy!
No really, it's true. Cholesterol is the duct tape of the body. It is for patching up holes (damage) to blood vessels and internal organs. Cholesterol is actually a structural material for maintaining integrity of vital body parts like your arteries, veins, liver cells, brain cells, and much more. Here are just a few other things for which cholesterol is needed:
Adrenal and sex hormones are made out of cholesterol
The myelin sheath that protects the brain is made in large part of cholesterol
Every single cell requires cholesterol in its wall or it gets leaky
What causes damage to blood vessels, brain cells and other internal organs? Think toxins and inflammation. Car exhaust, solvents such as industrial and household cleaning products, Febreze, paints, heavy metals found right in our food, water,and air on a daily basis. Not to mention that aluminum in the Tums or baking soda or table salt.
I'm much more concerned about a person's anti-oxidant status, levels of vital detox nutrients and nutrients for balancing inflammation than I am about their cholesterol levels. It's also about balance of essential fats in the diet. A person on a statin to bring down their cholesterol is still not addressing the reason their cholesterol is high in the first place.
Statins may be called for in cases where cholesterol is extremely high (i.e. over 350 or so), where there is advanced or unstable plaque in the arteries, or where triglycerides are very elevated, but this is not the average person you find on a statin.
Think deeper America...
OK - fibroid and anxiety sufferers close your ears, but the rest of you, check this out, fresh off the Medscape press.
The best part of waking up...is reducing your risk of neuro-degeneration. And depression, and cancer, and cardiovascular disease... It's becoming increasingly clear that coffee is more than just a morning routine. The body of data suggesting that the world's most widely used stimulant is beneficial in a variety of mental and medical conditions is growing at a staggering rate. A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that coffee consumption lowered all-cause mortality by over 10% at 13-year follow-up.
Coffee has been shown to:
Contain anti-oxidants that prevent oxidation of LDL ("bad" cholesterol"), which is associated with lower risk of heart disease. Moderate consumption (2 cups per day) has been shown to reduce stroke risk 22-25% in women, reduce the risk of Type II diabetes, reduce the risk of many different kinds of cancers (uterine, prostate, skin and head and neck cancers), and reduce risk of depression by 15-20%.
So enjoy the morning routine!
A recent study published on Medscape confirmed that people who eat a diet high in junk and processed food have a higher risk for developing depression. Processed foods include pastries, dairy products, fried goods, breakfast cereals, and sugary snacks.
Even though these foods may feel rewarding in the short term, the reaserch shows that frequent consumption of processed food to obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and even depression as this study shows.
One patient put it this way:
If it has more than 5 ingredients or anything you can't pronounce, don't eat it. If it comes out of a box, think twice about eating it.
Take the time to nourish yourself and your family with home-cooked food prepared from scratch. For info on where to get locally grown pasture fed, grass fed and free range meats, visit http://www.eatwild.com/