Snack Treat!

Due to the extreme pastuerization that takes place in all our dairy products, I advise people to stay away from dairy more often than not.  More on that later.

[But who am I kidding, I'm a latte LOVER and staying away from milk to sip on one of those is always tough.  Personally, I keep my latte buys for Saturdays and Sundays when I can sip it in leisure while reading my favorite book or talking with a good friend.]

It's about progress, not perfection. 

Trying to be perfect in any area- especially your lifestyle diet- will most likely come around to bite you.  So eat those healthy, life-giving foods most days.  Choose your foods one meal at a time.  And if you take a step back to drink a latte on a Sunday morning, no one is going to fault you.  Savor every sip.  RELISH in it! 

Simple Recipe for a Dairy-Free Yogurt Treat:

 Coconut Yogurt by SO Delicious.  I advise getting the plain flavor as it has less sugar.  You can purchase this yogurt from your local Whole Foods or Sprouts.  Throw some in a bowl and then add...

Lime.  Yep, a lime! Cut up some fresh lime wedges and squeeze over your yogurt.  A trick: sometimes limes can be incredibly hard to squeeze and they can seem practically juiceless!  Throw your cut lime in a small dish and pop it in the microwave for a handful of seconds. This will get the juices out.  And the bowl will keep it from dripping all over your microwave.


Honey.  Drip some honey over the yogurt.  My favorite brand is Honey Pacifica made fresh & raw by a man in Long Beach. (http://www.honeypacifica.com/) You can purchase this honey at the Friday Farmers Market in Huntington Beach, online, or at your local Whole foods or Mother's Market.  He infuses his honey with all natural flavors such as mango or sage.  My favorite is the mango. 


Almonds (or nuts of choice).  Toss a handful of some shaved almonds or pecans of walnuts atop your yogurt.  I am always looking to add crunch to my foods!  The nuts will also add good fats to your snack and keep you fuller, longer.


See...healthy foods actually taste GOOD.

Coconut Oil

Stop cooking with olive oil... STOP! Right now!  


WHY?Due to the molecular structure of olive oil (and a whole host of other "cooking" oils) its structure breaks down in the high heat, causing it to be susceptible to oxidative damage.  And oxidation means free radicals.  Free radicals in the bloodstream is a no, no. 

 I only use 2 oils in my food preparation.  Extra virgin olive oil, which makes a great salad dressing,  and coconut oil to cook with.  

My favorite brand.

Here's why:

If you cook with oils like safflower, canola, soy or sunflower, THROW THEM AWAY.  The high omega 6 content in these oils makes them more susceptible to oxidative damage than any other.  And besides, most of the oils are GMO (genetically modified) and frankly we are about real food, not the scientific stuff.  Don't cook with them.  I repeat DON'T!

So what's the big deal with coconut oil?

Coconut oil has a secret ingredient known as lauric acid.  50% of the fat content in coconut oil is lauric acid.  So what, right?  Well, lauric acid has many unique health promoting benefits.  Your body converts lauric acid into monolaurin, which has anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties.  In your regular daily diet, you don't get much monolaurin (there aren't many natural ways of getting it).  But the benefits don't stop there.  

Coconut oil is about 2/3 medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs). These types of fatty acids produce a whole host of health benefits.  In comparison, the most common vegetable and seed oils contain long chain fatty acids (LCFA's) which are: 

•   Much more difficult for your body to breakdown.
• They are predominately stored as fat
• They are hard on your liver, pancreas and digestive system
• They can be deposited in your arteries forming what you know as cholesterol

 It may be surprising for you to realize that the naturally occurring saturated fat in coconut oil actually has some amazing health benefits, such as:

• Promoting your heart health
• Promoting weight loss, when needed
• Supporting your immune system health
• Supporting a healthy metabolism
• Providing you with an immediate energy source
• Keeping your skin healthy and youthful looking
• Supporting the proper functioning of your thyroid gland

Wait a minute, did you just say SATURATED FAT?  Yep. I did.

I know, you've been duped.  Not cool, huh?  Educate yourself now and learn the truth and you'll be on your way to better health in no time.  Here are just some of the benefits of saturated fat: [1] 

1) Improved cardiovascular risk factors
Saturated fat plays a key role in cardiovascular health. The addition of saturated fat to the diet reduces the levels of a substance called lipoprotein (a) that correlates strongly with risk for heart disease. Research has shown that when women diet, those eating the greatest percentage of the total fat in their diets as saturated fat, lose the most weight.

2) Stronger bones
Saturated fat is required for calcium to be effectively incorporated into bone. According to one of the foremost research experts in dietary fats and human health, Dr. Mary Enig, Ph.D., there’s a case to be made for having as much as 50 percent of the fats in your diet as saturated fats for this reason.

3) Improved liver health
Saturated fat has been shown to protect the liver from alcohol and medications, including acetaminophen and other drugs commonly used for pain and arthritis.

4) Healthy lungs
For proper function, the airspaces of the lungs have to be coated with a thin layer of lung surfactant. The fat content of lung surfactant is 100 percent saturated fatty acids. Replacement of these critical fats by other types of fat makes faulty surfactant and potentially causes breathing difficulties.

5) Healthy brain
Your brain is mainly made of fat and cholesterol. The lion’s share of the fatty acids in the brain are actually saturated. A diet that skimps on healthy saturated fats robs your brain of the raw materials it needs to function optimally.

6) Proper nerve signaling
Certain saturated fats, particularly those found in butter, lard, coconut oil, and palm oil, function directly as signaling messengers that influence metabolism, including such critical jobs as the appropriate release of insulin.

7) Strong immune system
Saturated fats found in butter and coconut oil (myristic acid and lauric acid) play key roles in immune health. Loss of sufficient saturated fatty acids in white blood cells hampers their ability to recognize and destroy foreign invaders, such as viruses, bacteria, and fungi

If you live in America, you have a 70% chance of becoming overweight.  

 One of the benefits of coconut oil is to help stimulate your metabolism.  In fact, the ability of MCFAs (like we talked about above) to help stimulate the metabolism and be turned into energy has entered the sports arena. Several studies have now shown that MCFAs can enhance physical or athletic performance. [2]

Coconut oil also increases the activity of the thyroid. And you've probably heard that a sluggish thyroid is one reason why some people are unable to lose weight, no matter what they do.

The benefits of coconut oil are too many to mention here.  It can be used to cook with, on your skin, in your hair, or as a great post-beach day/sunburn salve. 

TIP FOR COOKING:  If you like roasted veggies, try this.  Throw some asparagus and chopped zucchini on a baking tray.  Melt some coconut oil and slather it!  Grind up some fresh ground pepper, throw on some garlic, squeeze some lemon and toss in your oven broiler (or BBQ) until bright green and slightly roasted (but not mushy!) and relish in the the flavor!

Delicious.

Footnotes: [1], [2]- Dr. Joseph Mercola

Go on a Diet.

Have you ever heard (or uttered) those 5 little words, "I'm going on a diet."  Or perhaps you've only thought of slightly modifying your diet, "I should eat more of this and less of that..."  Either way, I think we could agree that the word diet provokes a negative response in most of us.  We flinch at the thought of going on one, we dread it, we don't see any fun in it, and we think it's only for overweight people.

We couldn’t be more WRONG.

The word diet comes from the Greek word diata, meaning a way of life; a mode of living.  So you see, we are all on a diet of some sort.  What you eat right now, day in and day out, is your diet;  your mode of living.  Interesting, your mode of living. What does this even mean?  Have you ever thought of what you eat as a mode of living?  Sounds much more significant than the tainted word "diet," doesn’t it?

For most of us, we eat not just because we're hungry, but because our appetite is telling us to; because we crave a certain food; because we tell ourselves we deserve it; because it's a reward for a "job well done;" because we're bored or lazy or entitled.  We have a relationship with food.  Have you noticed what yours is?  Do we eat, and only eat, to give life to our bodies and our well-being?  Or is the main purpose of our diet for personal gratification founded on convenience alone?

Whatever your case may be, if you plan on a diet change, it's in your best interest to plan for much more than just simply eating different. Sure you can white-knuckle it and try to just "be better," but as you will learn, a diet change is a lifestyle change.  And if you try to white-knuckle a lifestyle change, you'll fall short and lose your fingers.

A mode of living simply means a manner, a way, or act of doing things.  It's a given condition of functioning; a status.  What is the status of your diet?  Is it (are you) functioning in a healthy manner? If not, how come?

Just because you are at a weight you’re happy with and you don’t have any current health problems doesn’t make you healthy.  Shocking, I know.  It’s the simple law of cause and effect.  What you eat has an effect on how your body (and mind) performs and maintains its health.  If you aren't reaping the effects of your diet decisions now, in time you will.

You reap what you sow.  If you don’t pay your bills, you go into debt.  If you don’t go to work, you lose your job. If you don’t put gas in your gas tank, your car runs out of gas.  Catch my trite drift?  What you do- and don’t do- has consequences...eventually.  If we believe these general laws when it comes to everything else, why don’t we believe them when it comes to our diet of food? Eat crap all day, feel like crap all day. 

Now don't get me wrong, I am all for enjoying your food.  I LOVE food.  I savor it. I like variety. I like color.  I like taste and flavor.  I'm not advocating that you eat raw fruits and vegetables for the rest of your life.  But in the words of Dr. Jordan Rubin, "Let's get real; too many Americans are exiting fast-food restaurants, ice cream emporiums, and supermarket checkout lines with processed foods pumped with calories like weight lifters on steroids."[1]

Unfortunately, our culture has gone in to overdrive with all our in-vogue diets.  We have numbed and dumbed people down to a point where each new diet that hits the market we ignore as just another marketing scheme. We’re afraid that it will get crammed down our throats that inevitably causes us to feel guilty (or defensive) about our diet. 

A healthy life has become a chore; a discipline we don’t have time for or desire.  We have beat people over the head with every new diet plan under the sun.  So much so, people hop from one plan to the next, never finding one that really works for them CONSISTENTLY and so they give up.

What if there were a  way to maintain a healthy mode of living that was consistent, steady, reliable, and valuable?  What if you didn’t have to eat nuts and berries for the rest of your life and you could actually enjoy your food- without feeling guilty- while reaping the benefits of it’s delicious nutrients?  What if your perception shifted and you came to value a healthier lifestyle?  Like I said earlier, you can’t white-knuckle “just being healthy.”  If you don’t value it, you’ll always fall short and you'll constantly see it is a chore, boring, weird, and too hard.  Your weight loss and health are downstream for your values.  You must (and I repeat) you must imply intrinsic excellence or desirability on a healthier way of living or else your habits and attitudes will remain what they’ve always been.

Footnotes: [1]The Great Physicians Rx for Diabetes- by Jordan Rubin