Make Chocolate Healthy Again: Fast and Easy DIY Homemade Chocolate

Few foods can induce a craving like chocolate. From its aroma to how it melts in your mouth to what it does for your body — the whole experience is heavenly. The effects of chocolate are experienced by everyone, not just chocolate lovers.

In fact, studies have found that the unique smell of chocolate changes our brain activity and makes us more alert. Once the chocolate is consumed, its flavonoids work as prebiotics and improve digestive health. The flavonoids that make it into the blood stream help improve your insulin sensitivity, lower blood pressure, and prevent plaque from building up in your arteries.

Chocolate contains a unique combination of caffeine and theobromine as well. These two work together to protect brain function and improve mood without causing the sleep disturbances or other side effects caused by caffeine consumption.

After reading about all of the good that chocolate can do for us, you may be tempted to head to your corner store and buy some right now. But before you do, it is important to know and understand that most chocolate bars are terrible for your health.

Most Chocolate Bars are Unhealthy

The most popular form of chocolate is milk chocolate. Most milk chocolate bars only contain about 11% cacao with the remaining ~90% of the bar consisting of milk, sugar, and other unhealthy ingredients. If these chocolate bars were named honestly, they’d be called “Chocolate Flavored Sugar-Milk Bars”.

Not so attractive now, huh?

On top of that, the milk binds to cacao antioxidants (including the flavonoids we talked about earlier) and renders them inactive. So when the sugar in the milk chocolate bar spikes your blood sugar and increases inflammation, the flavonoids can’t save you because the milk ingredients made them inactive.

Isn’t Dark Chocolate Healthy?

Most dark chocolate bars are only 60-70% dark chocolate, which means that that the rest of it is made up of processed sugar and other dubious ingredients like soy lecithin and milk solids. Even the 85% or higher dark chocolate bars shouldn’t be considered healthy. They are highly processed and still contain some milk products, sugar, and other additives in an effort to make the chocolate less bitter and more palatable.

If you come across a chocolate bar produced with minimal, unrefined sugar and simple ingredients like cacao and vanilla beans, then at least the chocolate likely has some health benefits — but it will cost you.

These bars are expensive! Plus the processing that they went through before becoming pretty little bars will render some of the antioxidants in the cacao inactive.

After learning all of this, we are left only one good option — to make our own chocolate.

How To Make Your Own Chocolate

That’s right, you can make your own chocolate!

The best part is you won’t need any fancy machinery, and it won’t take up to seven days to make it (like it does in most chocolate factories).

All you need is cacao powder and coconut oil. Look for raw, organic cacao powder for your health, and make sure it’s fair trade for the health of others.

Can’t Eat Chocolate? If you are sensitive to chocolate for any reason or just don’t want the caffeine it comes with, then replace cacao powder with carob powder. The carob-based chocolate will not taste too much like chocolate, but it will make a delicious and healthy snack.

Step 1 — Melt and Mix

Melt the coconut oil in a pan at the low heat. Once the coconut oil is completely liquefied, mix in the same amount of cacao powder until you have a homogeneous chocolate mixture. The lower the heat, the more you preserve the health benefits.

Use a 1:1 ratio of cacao powder to coconut oil.

I recommend starting with a smaller amount like a quarter cup of each. Once you develop a delicious recipe, however, all restrictions are off — make as much chocolate as you want.

Step 2 — Experiment and Solidify

Now that you have your chocolate liquid, turn off the heat source and add in whatever you want to be in your chocolate.

You can put in a sweetener, mix in some nuts and seeds for some crunch, or add in some cinnamon and vanilla powder to make it taste even better. Dried fruit— like dried blueberries, cherries, goji berries, and mulberries — is another ingredient option that will add more flavor and health benefits to your chocolate.

Once you finish mixing in your extra ingredients, pour the mixture into a plate, cookie sheet, or container, and put it in the fridge until it solidifies (2-4 hours).

Step 3 — Eat and Enjoy

Go to the refrigerator, break off a piece of your chocolate, and enjoy.

Why Homemade Chocolate is Much Better Than Store-Bought Chocolate

Although it is easy to make chocolate at home, you may still be tempted to buy the dark chocolate on the grocery store shelves. This homemade variety will not look as “perfect” in that commercial way as store bought chocolate bars. The differing tastes and textures may take some getting used to for some, but it will taste amazing once you get your recipe down, and it will be so much healthier. In fact, if you are a frequent cocoa consumer, you’ll grow to prefer the taste of your homemade chocolate very quickly, and then you will probably despise pretty much everything else out there.

Coconut Oil — One of the Healthiest Sources of Fat

Coconut oil is the perfect fat to use when making chocolate because it solidifies and melts in your mouth like a typical chocolate bar. But this isn’t the only reason why it is part of our chocolate recipe.

Coconut oil has the highest percentage of medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) than any other fat source. But MCTs are technically saturated fat, so doesn’t this mean that they are “unhealthy”? This is where some knowledge of biochemistry comes in handy.

There are many different types of saturated fats, and they are processed by the body in different ways. MCTs (fats with 6-12 carbon atoms) are different from the long chain fatty acids (fats with more than 12 carbon atoms). This is because most of the MCTs are transported directly to the liver after digestion rather than flowing throw the lymph system of the body like long chain fatty acids.

Once the MCTs reach the liver they are converted into energy and other metabolites. These metabolites include ketone bodies, which can be used by the brain and heart as an immediate form of energy. The MCTs in coconut oil can also increase your feeling of fullness for a longer period of time.

Related: 35 Things You Could Do With Coconut Oil – From Body Care to Health to Household

Erythritol — The Safest Sugar Alternative?

Erythritol is considered by many to be the safest low-calorie sweetener. It is a sugar alcohol that is less sweet than sugar (70% as sweet as sugar), so it will not stimulate your appetite as much as sweeteners like sucralose (these artificial sweeteners do far more harm than good). There is debate amongst the natural health community, and within this magazine, as to whether or not stevia is a safer choice for most, or if erythritol is a better option. It likely depends on how you use them and your own gut health.

Studies have shown erythritol can cause nausea and stomach discomfort. These side effects were only found in people that consumed 50 grams of erythritol in one sitting.

To give you some context, 50 grams (about 4 tablespoons) of erythritol has the same sweetness as about 40 grams (3 and 1/3 tablespoons) of sugar. This is 16 more grams of sugar than you will find in a typical 1.55 ounce “Sugar Milk Bar with Chocolate Added”. One to two tablespoons of erythritol should be more than enough to make your homemade chocolate more palatable without getting any side effects.

But this doesn’t mean that you should buy any sugar alcohol or any form of erythritol and assume that it will be safe. Other sugar alcohols like xylitol tend to cause more side effects at lower doses than erythritol, and erythritol is commonly made from GMO cornstarch. If you don’t want a dose of negative side effects, GMOs, or pesticides with your sweetener than it is best to use non-GMO erythritol.

I like to use a small amount of erythritol, a tiny bit of stevia, and some raw honey for sweetening. I also like to mix the chocolate with the carob which has a natural sweetness to it. I don’t like it very sweet, and I like to throw in ginger, cayenne, cinnamon, and/or other herbs that can help keep the gut balanced. I like my chocolate to have quite a bit of kick to it, just like my smoothies. Be careful and patient with the honey. It’s even easier to cook the benefits out of honey than it is with chocolate. I don’t think erythritol is particularly good for you, and while raw honey has plenty of health benefits, for good health it should be eaten in very small quantities. I find the mix of the three works well for my tastebuds and my body.” – Michael Edwards

The Importance of Raw Organic Cacao Powder

Even if you don’t like the taste of chocolate, you may want to consume cacao powder as a way to reap all of the benefits that we talked about earlier in the article.

To ensure that you get all of the health benefits of cacao, it is best to buy raw organic cacao powder. Quality cacao powder is important because most cacao powders (and the cacao used to make chocolate) are processed with heat and alkali, which destroys cacao’s health-promoting antioxidants.

But what do you do if you want to keep caffeine and chocolate out of your diet?

The Many Benefits of Carob-based Chocolate

Although this article praises the medicinal properties of cacao, this doesn’t mean that you are missing out if you don’t eat it. In fact, carob powder may have even more health benefits than cacao powder. For example, carob powder is most well-known for its anti-diarrhea effects, but that is not all this delicious powder has to offer.

Like cacao powder, carob powder contains many flavonoids. One of the flavonoids it contains is quercetin, which is known to reduce allergy symptoms, prevent heart disease (like cacao’s flavonoids do), and protect against cancer. Carob powder also contains a compound called gallic acid which is known to scavenge free radicals and kill cancer cells.

If you compare these benefits with cacao powder, carob powder looks like it could be the winner here. After weeks of experimenting with using carob powder in smoothies and other recipes (that I usually put cacao powder in), I completely agree. Healthy dark chocolate tends to over-stimulate me, but when I use carob powder instead, I feel more satiated and energetically balanced.

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Bumblebees Are Now An Endangered Species

The rusty patched bumblebee (Bombus affinis), once such a common site in North America, is now on the endangered species list. This bee species was once abundant and thriving in 28 states and the District of Columbia. They were common in the grasslands and prairies of the East and the Midwest. Now, the bees that are left are mostly confined to small areas within twelve states and the province of Ontario Canada.

We are thrilled to see one of North America’s most endangered species receive the protection it needs. Now that the Fish and Wildlife Service has listed the rusty-patched bumble bee as endangered, it stands a chance of surviving the many threats it faces — from the use of neonicotinoid pesticides to diseases.” – Xerces Society director of endangered species, Sarah Jepsen

The bee’s population is down almost 90 percent since the 1990s. But other pollinators may reap the benefits of protecting the bumblebee as well.

“While this listing clearly supports the rusty patched bumble bee, the entire suite of pollinators that share its habitat, and which are so critical to natural ecosystems and agriculture, will also benefit. This is a positive step towards the conservation of this species, and we now have to roll up our sleeves to begin the actual on-the-ground conservation that will help it move toward recovery.” – Rich Hatfield, Xerces Society senior conservation biologist

It wasn’t easy getting the bee listed, and there is a good chance the designation of bumble bees as an endangered species will face more resistance from several industries and corporations. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finalized the bumblebee’s listing as an endangered species on January 11th, but it took longer than expected to put the bee on the list of endangered species. The National Cotton Council, the National Association of Home Builders, and the American Petroleum Institute pushed to postpone the decision and Trump’s administration delayed Obama-era regulations that hadn’t yet taken into effect, which delayed the rusty-patched bumblebee from being listed.

The Endangered Species Act was passed by Congress in 1973 and signed into law by President Nixon in December of the same year. The legislation is considered the most significant and powerful wildlife protection act in U.S. history. The Trump administration is interested in gutting or possibly ending the Endangered Species Act.

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Microplastics in Sea Salt – A Growing Concern

When it comes to long-term thinking for the health of the planet, humans often fall short of common sense. Plastic, one of the most durable products in the world, is consistently used for products no one actually wants to last forever, like single-use grocery bags and cheap children’s toys. The ever-increasing amounts of plastics glutting the planet today are leading to dire consequences for many natural spaces, especially the ocean. Worst of all, the overabundance of plastic particles is starting to make it into our diet in the unlikeliest of ways- sea salt.

Related: How to Detox From Plastics and Other Endocrine Disruptors

The Rise of Plastic in the Ocean

Every year, roughly 13 million metric tons of plastic finds its way into the ocean. A study from 2014 found that there are more than 5 trillion pieces of plastic in the ocean, and over 90 percent of them are less than a quarter inch long. Called microplastics, these tiny pieces tend to pose the biggest threat because they are often eaten by plankton and other small creatures and quickly make their way through the food chain to larger fish, birds, and other species.

Previous research on the levels of microplastics in the ocean has revealed that the quantities are unexpectedly high in seafood like fish and clams. However, recent research has discovered that microplastics are also detectable in sea salt.

Contamination in Sea Salt

A survey of 16 brands of sea salt from eight countries revealed to researchers that microplastics were present in all but one brand. Published in Scientific Reports, this research team found trace amounts of the plastic polymers polypropylene and polyethylene. In all, the research revealed that the tested salt contained about 1,200 plastic particles per pound. Most of these particles were found to be fragments of old plastic products, fibers, and paints that were broken down to their small size in the ocean, which ruled out the possibility that the sea salt packaging itself was to blame.

The Impacts for Human Health

In general, sea salt is considered a healthier alternative to regular table salt. Found to strengthen the immune system, improve heart health, and decrease the symptoms of asthma, many people believe that using sea salt is better for their bodies than other, refined varieties of salt. However, the prevalence of plastic in many sea salt brands might be a reason to be concerned.

Microplastics are a threat to organisms because their small size makes it easy for them to absorb organic pollutants and store them in the bodies of those that eat them. Yet there’s little reason for you to worry about the negative health effects of plastic- tainted sea salt, as the amounts of microplastics found in salt are so low that they are not considered a health risk. Researchers estimate that most people swallow fewer than 40 particles of plastic in sea salt every year, compared to the estimated 11,000 particles that shellfish lovers likely consume each year. Somewhat reassuringly, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) classifies polypropylene and polyethylene- based plastic polymers as safe for human consumption at these levels.

The Overall Damage for the Environment

In many ways, the danger of microplastics in sea salt doesn’t come from the risk for your body, but from what they mean for the rest of the planet. Plastic has become so prevalent in the world today that it’s hard to find places without it. From the ocean floor to the ice in Antarctica, microplastics are increasingly polluting natural spaces, and their long-term impacts on the world are still far from understood. If plastic particles can wind up in your salt shaker, there’s no telling where else it will soon be found.

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Can Environmentalists Eat Steak? Is Grass-fed, Free-range Better?

Healthy animals mean a healthy environment, right? What about concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)? These “factory farms” must be cancerous to the environment.

This all seems like common sense, but our common sense can sometimes lead us in the wrong direction.

Gassy Cows and Global Warming

Many studies point to the fact that the production of beef pollutes the atmosphere with more greenhouse gases than the production of any other food. This is because cows are ruminants — a type of animal that acquires nutrients from plant-based food by fermenting their food in a specialized stomach. Because of this fermentation process, cows burp, fart, pee, and poop persistently throughout the day, which adds more greenhouse gases — like methane gas and nitrous oxide — to the environment.

Although fluorinated gases that are commonly used as refrigerants and aerosol propellants are the most potent and longest lasting greenhouse gasses, methane gas and nitrous oxide still have a 25 and 300 times greater impact respectively on global warming than carbon dioxide. Cows and other ruminants also eat plenty of oxygen-producing, carbon-dioxide-absorbing plants.

The Case Against Raising Healthy and Happy Cows

At this point, you may be thinking that cows that live long and healthy lives on pasture are bad for the environment, and you are not alone. Dr. Bill Ripple is a prominent ecologist known for his work researching the roles of large carnivores in ecological systems around the world, and he agrees with you.

Ripple took his expertise to climate change and found that pastured cattle contributed two to four times more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than cows raised in CAFOs.

This isn’t even the worst of it. Cattle have also been found to destroy ecosystems with their grazing. In 1990, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service banished grazing cattle from a 278,000-acre refuge called Hart Mountain to try to restore the ecosystem that was presumably destroyed by grazing cattle. After two decades, trees, shrubs, and flowers flourished providing a beautiful environment for birds, antelopes, and other species to thrive.

This suggests that healthy and happy cows destroy the environment in multiple ways. They produce potent greenhouses gases with their inefficient digestive system and make it hard for ecosystems to thrive. But what do you do if you want to have a big juicy steak and stop global warming?

Bill Ripple’s findings suggest that you should get that steak from a sick and diseased cow that is confined to a jail cell and has a shorter lifespan. Or just give up steak all together and become a vegetarian or vegan. Problem solved!

Hold on, what about all of the cattle? Even if we don’t eat them they will still be grazing, burping, and farting. Should we — dare I say — kill them?

The Bigger Picture: Joel Salatin and Sustainable Farming Practices

The amount of methane emitted by fermentation is the same whether it occurs in the cow or outside.” – Joel Salatin

That’s a brief excerpt from Joel’s rebuttal to the assertion that sustainable grass-fed beef is bad for the environment.

Joel Salatin is the owner of Polyface Farms in Virginia — a farm that produces pasture-raised, beyond organic beef, pork, poultry, eggs, and rabbits.

In his rebuttal, Joel continues by explaining that “…wetlands emit some 95% of all methane in the world.” If you were to fact-check his statement you’d find it to be true, which suggests that if you are going to blame happy and healthy livestock for global warming, you should blame nature as well. Better yet, blame your trash, too — it should know by now not to produce methane gas.

But still, according to Dr. Ripples, findings at Hart Mountain, Salatin’s farm should be struggling to maintain lush green pastures. Although this may be true for other farms that Salatin claims are under “neanderthal management”, Polyface farms uses many different methods like rotational grazing to get the most out of the land while keeping it lush and fertile.

Regardless of what Joel Salatin says, CAFOs are still known to be a much more efficient use of land, and the animals they produce add much less greenhouse gas to the atmosphere due to their shorter lifespans.

Should we just give up on raising happy and healthy livestock?

CAFOs are a NONO

It is a fact that CAFO beef produces less greenhouse gas emissions than grass-fed beef, but this reductionist approach to climate change leaves out many other factors.

For example, animals raised in CAFOs are usually fed GMO soybean, GMO corn, and GMO grain feed. GMOs themselves may not be an issue for the animal (which is debatable), but these GMO crops are covered in pesticides. These pesticides contaminate the meat, the soil, and the water, while the synthetic fertilizers that are used contribute a substantial amount of nitrous oxide — the second most potent greenhouse gas — to the atmosphere.

These growing practices deplete the soil of its nutrients and mycorrhiza ( soil probiotics), which causes us to use more pesticides and fertilizers to yield the same amount of food. These poor farming practices contribute 75% of all the nitrous oxide found in the atmosphere.

The way that animal waste is handled in CAFOs is also a problem that contributes excess nitrous oxide and methane gas to the atmosphere. The manure and urine often accumulate into a “poo lagoon” that contaminates the soil and water with pesticide and antibiotic residues, methane, and nitrous oxide.

When we consider all of the evidence, both Bill Ripple and Joel Salatin are right. Pasture-raised cattle — without a doubt — produce more greenhouse gases than any other animal. But — at the same time — livestock can be raised in a way that is much better for the environment (as a whole) than CAFO-raised livestock.

The beyond organic farming practices that farms like Polyface and White Oak Pastures use are making it possible for this to happen — making it possible to have healthy meat, healthy humans, and a healthy environment at the same time.

Must Read: Understanding and Detoxifying Genetically Modified Foods

The Future of Food Production

Joel Salatin is ahead of his time when it comes to farming. He uses ingenious methods that work together with nature to create healthy meat and a healthy ecosystem.

For example, instead of letting the manure and urine sit in “poo lagoons” and contaminate the water, it is used as a natural soil fertilizer. The bugs and pests that are attracted to the manure and urine are then eaten by the chickens, who act as natural “pesticides”. This helps maintain the health of the soil and foliage while reducing the amount of methane gas and nitrous oxide that is released into the atmosphere. Joel also moves the animals to different pastures so they do not overgraze specific plots of land. By doing things in this way, he maximizes efficiency and maintains a healthy ecosystem.

As Joel Salatin’s methods — and the methods of many other farmers like Will Harris at White Oak Pastures — continue to evolve, we will be able to ensure a happy and healthy life for us, the animals, and the environment without the need for CAFOs and mono-cropping.

But we still didn’t figure out how to stop global warming, and the solution is not to keep cows from burping, farting, pooping, and peeing.

Related: Permaculture Agriculture – The Transition to a Sustainable Future

The Real Cause of Global Warming

Although this article focuses heavily on the effects that meat production has on the environment — here’s the punchline — agriculture (including livestock) only contributes 9% to the total greenhouse gas emissions.

This is why you can’t blame the cow for burping and farting so much — the problem is us.

We dug out fossil fuels that weren’t a part of the environment anymore and added them back to the atmosphere at such rapid rates that we are causing the planet to change just as rapidly. Even 7.5 billion cows burping and farting at the same time couldn’t do that.

The solution to global warming doesn’t solely rely on our meat consumption. Saving our planet requires a multi-faceted approach.

How To Stop Global Warming

It all starts with using less electricity and gas and using more energy from renewable resources. Rather than driving to the gym to get your exercise, combine exercise with other activities you will do anyway. To conserve electricity, use natural light or lights that are powered by a hand crank or the sun.

When it comes to food, buy the highest quality food that is as local as possible. High-quality, bio-dynamic, or beyond-organic foods are much better for your health and the health of the environment, and eating local ensures that less gas will be used to get the food to your house. But what about meat?

When it comes to eating meat, moderation is key. Meat — without a doubt — is packed with nutrition, but most of us consume much more meat than is necessary.

An NPR article from 2012 found that the United States had the second highest meat consumption in the world — consuming 270.7 pounds per person every year. This works out to 3/4 of a pound of meat per day. But how do we know how much meat is enough?

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations — “…to effectively combat malnutrition and under-nourishment…” — they suggest consuming 20g of animal protein per person per day.

This means that eating around 1/4 pound of lean meat or fish or 3 eggs a day is just enough to prevent some vitamin and mineral deficiencies. It would be even better for the environment, however, to limit your consumption of beef and replace it with other animal proteins that have the lowest environmental impact like eggs, mussels, and oysters.

A Better Lifestyle for You and the Environment

Let’s make the complex topic of climate change simple. Here are some practical steps you can use to build a life that is healthy for you and the environment:

  • Source all of your foods from local organic farms
  • Combine your daily exercise with practical tasks to cut down on gas and electricity
  • Get all of your fruits and vegetables from beyond organic and/or bio-dynamic farms
  • Get all of your animal products from sustainable farms like Polyface or White Oak Pastures
  • Limit your animal protein servings to a quarter pound of meat a day
  • Eat most of your animal proteins from animals that have the lowest environmental impact like eggs, mussels, and oysters.
  • Reuse, repurpose, and recycle as many food scraps as possible to limit the amount of methane produced by landfills. To find out how, read our article on how to reduce food waste.
  • Limit your use of air conditioners (especially in cars) and aerosol sprays to reduce the amount of fluorinated gas that accumulates in the atmosphere.
  • When cooking your food, follow the suggestions here, Does Meat Cause Cancer? Yes and No…

By making as many of these adjustments as we can, we will improve our health, animal health, and environmental health — so that we can clean up the mess that we created.

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America’s Largest Organic Dairy Brand Is Not Organic, Study Suggests

Do you really know what’s in your organic milk? According to recent reports, the big organic dairies in the United States may be lying to you. An investigation by the Washington Post into High Plains Dairy in Colorado, owned by Aurora Organic Dairy, found that the farm isn’t complying with organic regulations.

Located in Greeley, Colorado, High Plains Dairy is home to over 15,000 cows, which dwarfs most organic dairy operations by a hundredfold. This dairy behemoth is a major organic milk supplier to national brands like Costco and Walmart, and millions of customers pay twice the price of conventional milk for their dairy products.

A closer look at the dairy farm’s practices has revealed that farm is not organic.

The Issue of Grazing

When it comes to organic milk certification, a key detail is pasture-based grazing. Rather than subsisting on feedlot corn like their conventional cousins, organic dairy cows are required to graze on pasture throughout the growing season. Not only is this more natural for the ruminant stomachs in cows, it changes the chemical composition of their milk to increase the Omega-3 fat content in ways that are more nutritious for humans.

The actual amount of grazing required, however, seems to be subjective. Last year, reporters from the Washington Post visited the High Plains dairy complex eight times and found little evidence of pasture-based grazing. Though the dairy claimed that their cows were constantly on pasture, reporters never saw more than a few hundred cows (less than 10 percent of the total herd) on pasture at any given time. In contrast, the majority of animals appeared to be in feedlots. In response to these observations, the dairy staff reported that their cows were likely elsewhere at the time of the visits, possibly being milked.

As further evidence against their grazing practices, testing done on milk samples by Virginia Tech found that the fat content in Aurora milk was a better match for conventionally-raised animals than organic ones.

Related: Stay Away From This Brand of Organic Dairy

The Costs for Consumers

When it comes to mislabeled milk, consumers are the ones that wind up paying the price. Organic milk usually costs at least double what conventional varieties go for, and skyrocketing sales have turned organics into a $40 billion industry in the United States. However, customers only pay this price because they believe they are getting a superior product in return, so unscrupulous labeling practices only work to discredit the entire organic industry.

The Problem with Big Organic

This kind of controversy for Aurora Organic Dairy is hardly new. The Cornucopia Institute, a strong campaigner for better organic practices, has created lawsuits against the company for close to a decade. In 2011, Aurora committed to improving its organic practices, though the evidence is scarce that many changes were made.

Recommended: Galactagogues Foods, Herbs, and other Ways to Increase Breastmilk Production

Aurora Organic Farms is already the leading organic dairy in America, and it’s only continuing to expand. The refusal of mega farms to fully comply with organic standards also has damaging effects on small organic farms that follow the rules. Because organically grazing dairy cattle costs more, small farms get pinched out of their market share when their competition doesn’t follow the rules. This means that the growth of mega-dairies that cut corners to produce cheaper “organic” milk is crushing smaller dairies and forcing them out of business.

The Takeaway for Consumers: Keeping Farms Accountable

If drinking organic milk is a priority for you, do the industry a favor and seek out the farms that truly follow the rules. As half of the organic milk sold in the United States comes from large factory farms, it’s more important than ever to seek out statistics about each farm to ensure they are living up to organic principles.

It’s time to demand greater regulation and better accountability from our farmers so that we can truly trust what we see on our food labels.

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Does Meat Cause Cancer? Yes and no…

We cannot truthfully say that meat causes cancer.

It’s not that simple.

Although many studies have linked meat consumption, particularly of red and processed meat, to cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity, and a shorter lifespan, this does not mean that meat consumption causes these issues.

It is important to consider the other factors that contribute to these findings, like the fact that meat-eaters tend to exercise less, eat fewer vegetables, and smoke more than vegetarians and vegans — who tend to be more health conscious.

In studies where the researchers accounted for these factors, there was a weak correlation between red meat and cancer and a stronger correlation between processed meat and cancer.  This appears to be the general consensus, though there are some studies that find no association between meat and cancer and others that suggest that meat promotes health.

Recommended: How to Eliminate IBS, IBD, Leaky Gut

For example, one study conducted in Austria found people who did not eat meat to be less healthy (in terms of cancer, allergies, and mental health disorders). Red meat was also found in another study to be essential for maintaining muscle mass and cognitive function in elderly women.

With all of this conflicting information, how can we possibly know if meat is good or bad for us?

The truth is we will never know unless we consider what could be behind the positive and negative findings of these studies. First, let’s start with what meat in its purest form does to the body.

Recommended:  Holistic Guide to Healing the Endocrine System and Balancing Our Hormones

Meat Does Not Create Cancer

Hypothetically, if we ate raw meat from healthy animals that are completely free of all additives, chemicals, and infectious bacteria and parasites then there is no way that it can create cancer.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, meat is an effective way to combat malnutrition and under-nourishment. This is because meat promotes health by providing us with complete proteins, minerals, vitamins, co-enzymes, antioxidants, and fats that are essential for our health. In fact, organ meats from pastured animals like beef liver are filled with more minerals, vitamins, antioxidants, and amino acids than many of the healthiest and most popular plant foods.

But organ meats are a rare commodity now. Instead, we tend to have the least healthy cuts of meat (muscle meat) from sick and diseased animals that are raised in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). This means that the steak that you love so much and the chicken breast that you thought was healthy is coming from the least nutritious part of an unhealthy animal that has trace amounts of antibiotics and pesticides in it from what it was fed.

These antibiotics and pesticides are toxic to the body, but we can most likely handle them in small quantities. What renders the meat cancerous is when we process it and cook it in ways that create highly carcinogenic compounds. These compounds are the main culprit for the association between red and processed meat consumption and cancer.

Related: How to Detoxify From Antibiotics and Other Chemical Antimicrobials

How We Prepare Our Meat Causes Cancer

Heterocyclic amines, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, methyl carbonium, advanced glycation end products, and acrolein are all carcinogenic compounds that are formed at some level when we process and cook our meat. Each compound creates chaos in its own way within the body that can either indirectly or directly mutate genes and cause cancer.

Related: Advanced Glycated End Products

Acrolein and Advanced Glycation End Products Don’t Discriminate

Acrolein, for example, has been found to directly mutate genes, which can lead to cancer formation. Smoking is known to cause lung cancer because acrolein is created when tobacco is burned. The acrolein is then inhaled into the lungs, causing genetic mutations in lung cells that lead to cancer.

Acrolein is also created when we expose carbohydrates, vegetable oils, animal fats, and amino acids to high heat. This partially explains why fried foods and overcooked or burned meat are toxic to the body. Advanced glycation end products are another cancerous compound that is formed when we cook our foods (not just meat) at high temperatures.

Why Smoked Meat, Deli Meat, and Grilled Meat is Bad For You

Heterocyclic amines, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, and methyl carbonium are the carcinogenic compounds that are most often found in processed, smoked, and cooked meats. Heterocyclic amines and polyaromatic hydrocarbons are both formed when the meat is cooked at high temperatures, and polyaromatic hydrocarbons can also be formed during periods of low oxygen exposure. You will find polyaromatic hydrocarbons in high amounts in smoked meats and fish. This makes these popular foods highly carcinogenic.

You may not have heard of methyl carbonium before, but you are probably familiar with its distant relatives, nitrate and nitrite. Nitrates and nitrites are commonly added to processed pork products like bacon to maintain their color and prolong shelf-life, but when these compounds interact with amino acids they can form nitrosamines.

So why does it matter? It doesn’t, especially for the body, because nitrates, nitrites, and nitrosamines aren’t toxic at all. But if nitrosamines degrade any further they become methyl carbonium, which is highly toxic to the body.

Methyl carbonium, heterocyclic amines, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, advanced glycation end products, and acrolein are by no means the only carcinogenic compounds that are created through cooking and processing meat, and some of them can still be found in high quantities in vegetarian and vegan diets. For example, cooked vegetable oils and plant foods can be a potent source of acrolein and advanced glycation end products.

This means that even if you are eating a vegan diet you will not be able to escape from pro-inflammatory carcinogenic compounds that can cause cancer — so what can you do?

How To Make Meat Healthy

It is actually simple and easy to reduce the carcinogenic compounds in your food.

First, marinate your meats in lemon juice, vinegar, herbs, and spices. This acidic marinade helps to prevent advanced glycation end products from forming, while the herbs and spices have a high antioxidant content that will keep the other carcinogenic compounds from forming when the meat is exposed to heat.

When it comes to cooking your food, it is best to replace your frying pan and grill with a slow cooker, steamer pot, or sous vide. Boiling, poaching, stewing, and steaming is the healthiest way to cook your meat, while frying, broiling, grilling, roasting, and smoking renders the meat carcinogenic.

It is also better to cook your meat at low temperatures and consume with other herbs and vegetables to ensure that carcinogenic compounds that are in your food will meet the extra antioxidants from the plant foods.

But it is important to mention that even if your meat contains no cancer causing compounds, it can still lead to the growth of existing cancer cells due to something called IGF-1.

Meat Can Feed Cancer

IGF-1, also known as insulin-like growth factor,  is a protein that has growth promoting effects on every cell in the body. This makes it essential for the growth and development of muscle and brain cells, and the healing of damaged tissues.
When we consume a high amount of complete protein — which is found mainly in animal products — IGF-1 levels will rise accordingly to help our cells use the amino acids from the protein. This is exactly what we need our body to do to maintain the health and growth of our cells, but there is one problem.

IGF-1 does not know the difference between your cells and cancer cells, so it can aid the growth of cancer cells as well. This is why high protein diets are linked to a higher risk of all-cause and cancer mortality — and the high protein content of meat explains why it has been linked to an increased risk of cancer.

This also means that meat is not the primary culprit for the association between cancer and meat consumption. Meat is just pointing to the fact that the combination of high amounts of toxic compounds with high IGF-1 levels will create the perfect environment for cancer to form and grow. In other words, cancer can be created and grown with or without meat consumption. What really matters is how you prepare your food and how much protein you are consuming.
Fortunately, we have already learned how to lower our exposure to toxic compounds in food — and that is relatively easy — but is there a way to hack your IGF-1 levels?

Related: Foods, Vitamins, and Herbs That Kill Cancer

Hacking Your IGF-1 Levels to Starve Cancer

Although low levels of IGF-1 are correlated with lower rates of cancer, IGF-1 is still important to have at high levels at the right time. When we are adults, the right time for IGF-1 to be at high levels is when our cells need to heal from a workout or any other form of physical trauma is done to the body.

This means that if you time your protein consumption in response to when you need it most (before and after resistance training), you will increase IGF-1 at the right time so that you can build the cells that need it the most while preventing cancer cell growth. Although this is just a theory, it may be the best way to get the most health promoting effects from your meat.

On days that you don’t workout, it may be best to consume mostly plant foods and limit your protein consumption to below 20% of your daily caloric intake to keep your IGF-1 levels low and quality of health high. After the age of 65, however, protein seems to be more important for health and longevity — so people in this age group can benefit from consuming more than 20% of their calories from protein.

Increasing your activity levels is also another important tool you can use to maintain lower IGF-1 levels. To do this you can go for walks, take a hike, or do any other form of low-intensity aerobic activity everyday. Not only will this help reduce your cancer risk, it will improve your overall health and reduce your risk of other diseases — like diabetes — as well.

Putting it all Together

The meat we eat and what it does to our body is a complex issue that depends on the individual who is eating the meat, the quality of the meat, and how the meat is processed and cooked — so to say that meat causes cancer or does not cause cancer is an oversimplification. As we understand cancer more deeply and the effects that meat consumption has on our body though, we will soon be able to know who would benefit from eating more meat, who should limit their meat consumption, and if there is anyone that would be healthier by not eating meat at all.

One thing we do know for certain is that the way we cook and process meat can create carcinogenic compounds that directly and indirectly cause cancer. To prevent these cancerous compounds from forming — simply marinate your meat in lemon juice, vinegar, herbs, and spices, cook it at low temperatures, and eat your meat with a variety of vegetables, herbs, and/or fruit. This will allow you to get almost all of the health promoting benefits of eating meat while balancing deleterious effects.

We are also certain that high IGF-1 levels will lead to more cancer growth. Complete proteins — like those found in meat — cause an increase in IGF-1 levels. If we keep our IGF-1 levels low throughout the day, we can prevent cancer growth.  We can do this by limiting our meat consumption to when we need to recover from resistance training and by increasing our levels of low-intensity activity like walking.

We dug deep into the science in this article, but the science has little to say about the effects of 100% grass-fed red meat consumption vs. conventional, GMO grain-fed red meat consumption on human health. We can, however, make some sound assumptions based on the differences between each type of meat.

Does Quality Really Matter?

When researchers compared grass-fed beef to conventional, grain-fed beef, grass-fed beef had elevated precursors for Vitamins A and E, more of the health-promoting fatty acids CLA and Omega 3s, and more cancer-fighting antioxidants such as glutathione and superoxide dismutase. Conventional grain fed beef, on the other hand, has much lower levels of this health promoting compounds, while simultaneously providing us with more inflammatory fats like omega 6s, a small dose of antibiotics, and a higher risk of bacterial infection from salmonella.

This is part of the reason why many studies find meat to increase the risk of cancer because they use meat from sick, fat, and unhealthy animals.

When it comes to promoting health and preventing cancer, 100% grass-fed and grass finished pastured red meat is the best meat to have. Make sure you prepare it in the ways that we discussed earlier in this article to ensure that you don’t have any unhealthy compounds with your healthy meat.

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Homemade Two Ingredient Healthy Fruit and Nut Bars

You can improve your blood lipid level, lose fat, improve gut health, and increase your energy levels with one snack that you can easily make at home. All you need is two ingredients – nuts and dates.

But Aren’t Dates Full of Sugar?

Just one pitted Medjool date contains around 16 grams of sugar, which means that three dates have more sugar than a 12 ounce can of coca cola. Shouldn’t dates be vilified? Hide your kids, this vengeful plant will steal their health!

Let’s See What The Science Says

When healthy subjects consumed 100 grams a day of Hallawi dates or Medjool dates for four weeks, their cholesterol levels and BMI stayed the same, and their triglyceride levels decreased. This is a phenomenon that has never been found to be the case in studies done on the effects of sugar-sweetened beverages like soda on our health.

In fact, people who consume sugar-sweetened beverages regularly tend to have unhealthy cholesterol levels, higher triglyceride levels, more body fat, and high blood sugar. This is why people who are at a high risk for diseases like diabetes are strongly advised to stop consuming sugary beverages.  But what about dates?

A High Sugar Food That May be Good for Diabetics

Even in people with type 2 diabetes, a disease that is characterized by a lack of blood sugar control, the consumption of dates does not cause significant changes in blood glucose levels. This indicates that dates may be a good sugar replacement for diabetics as well as healthy individuals. This finding seems like an anomaly that goes against everything we know about nutrition, at least until we dig deeper into the other components of dates.

“The Best Food for the Future”

In an article published in the International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition, the researchers concluded that “dates may be considered as an almost ideal food.” This is because they contain a high percentage of fiber, fifteen minerals, at least six vitamins, 23 amino acids, and a high antioxidant content. Together, these components help your body use the sugar that is in the dates so efficiently and effectively that when we eat them in small amounts, it only leads to positive health effects.

That’s Nuts!

Yes, it is nuts, especially when you add nuts to the dates. In a study done on overweight adults, one group ate two dried fruit and nut bars that consisted of 340 extra calories, while the other group ate their normal diet. After 8 weeks their weight, waist circumference, blood pressure, and blood lipids were remeasured.

What we’d commonly expect after 8 weeks of eating 340 extra calories per day is a weight gain of at least 5 pounds (and that’s with some modest math). However, the actual results will surprise you. After eight weeks of consuming 340 extra calories from two fruit and nut bars, the study participants had no significant change in weight, waist circumference, blood pressure, or blood lipids.

Even nut consumption alone is associated with a lower waist circumference, lower rate of obesity, decreased blood pressure, and healthier blood sugar and blood lipid levels, which makes them a healthy snack as well. This is because they contain vitamins, minerals, health-promoting fats, and antioxidants that make them highly satiating and even more healthy.

Whatever They Can Do You Can Do Better

Before you run to the store to get some fruit and nut bars or trail mix, it is important to know that many of them have added sugars and oils that can leach positive health benefits from the food.

One of the best fruit and nut bars that I could find is made by a company called LÄRABAR. However, these date and nut bars are much more expensive than if you made your own snacks at home with organic, high-quality ingredients.

And yes, making your own date and nut snacks with organic, high-quality dates and nuts will still be cheaper than buying a box of LÄRABARs that are produced with lower quality and non-organic ingredients by General Mills.

How To Make Your Own 2-Ingredient Super Snack

Just by blending your favorite nuts together with pitted dates, you can create a snack that will indulge your sweet tooth like a dessert and satiate you like a fatty meal, while still being healthier than a store bought “healthy” snack. It will only take you less than a half hour, and after you take your first bite you will be wondering why you’ve never made these before.

Step 1

Start with the ratio of 1 and 1/2 cups of your favorite nuts to 1 packed cup of pitted dates to make whatever amount of date and nut snacks that you would like.

Soak the dates that you are going to use in hot water for 5 to 15 minutes or until they are soft. If the dates are already soft, they may not need to be soaked.

Tip: Save the water that you use to soak your dates and use it to sweeten up your tea or smoothie. It may also contain some vitamin c and b-vitamins as well.

Health Bonus: Use Halawi dates rather than Medjool. Studies have found Halawi dates to have even more health benefits than Medjool dates (and they still taste delicious).

Step 2

Drain and save the date water for later use. Put the dates and nuts in the blender and blend them until the nuts are to your desired particle size and consistency. The mixture should be sticky.

Health Bonus: Use raw organic nuts that are soaked for at least 7 hours. The soaking process will help increase nutrient bioavailability and enhance digestion. Just make sure you dehydrate your nuts (at temperatures lower than 150 degrees Fahrenheit) so that they last longer and don’t mess with the consistency of your date and nut mixture.

Step 3

Take the date and nut mixture and form it into whatever shape you’d like.

You can roll them into little energy balls like these:

Or flatten the mixture into a tray or pan and cut them into bars.

Tip: If you store them in the fridge they will be fresh for 6 months or longer. If you freeze them they will last for about a year.

Health and Flavor Bonus: Cover your date and nut snacks with dried shredded coconut and/or cinnamon. The shredded coconut will add so more healthy fat and fiber with a coconutty taste, and the cinnamon will add some health promoting antioxidants.

Take Them to The Next Level with This Chocolate Snack Hack

If you love chocolate, but just can’t find a healthy way to add it to your diet this snack hack is for you.

Step 1

Put half of a cup of coconut oil in a pan and melt it at low heat.

Step 2

Once the coconut oil is completely liquified stir a half cup of cacao powder into the melted oil until it is a homogenous chocolatey liquid.

Health and Flavor Bonus: Add a quarter of a teaspoon of organic ground vanilla powder to the mixture to enhance the flavor and experience the many health benefits of vanilla.

Step 3

Remove the mixture from heat and cover your date and nut snacks with the chocolate. Sprinkle cinnamon and/or dried shredded coconut on top for a health and flavor bonus.

Put them in the refrigerator to let them cool and harden. In about an hours you will have a delicious solid chocolate covering over your homemade date and nut snacks.

Before You Indulge

Moderation is and always will be a key principle in maintaining your health, and it applies just as much to healthy food as it does to unhealthy food. Just as you can overdo it on sugary beverages and refined foods and destroy your body, you can do the same with these delicious date and nut snacks.

However, dates and nuts are very satiating foods so you will feel much fuller than usual after eating them. Only two to four of these small snacks will do the trick. Enjoy!

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