Does Eating Vegan, Organic, or Gluten-Free Make You Healthier?

There are many different trends now in the food industry. Many Americans are becoming more aware of the current state of public health in this country, as well as of the numerous issues surrounding conventional and factory farming. As a result, they have begun to buy more foods that are labeled all-natural, organic, vegan, non-GMO, vegetarian, and so on. Others are required to buy foods with these healthier-sounding phrases on their labels because of medical concerns such as Celiac disease.

Gluten-Free Foods

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease triggered by the consumption of gluten, which causes permanent damage to the intestinal villi. This negatively affects the body’s ability to absorb vital nutrients.This condition is diagnosed now more than ever before. Its prevalence has spread awareness about gluten in general since many people never even knew what gluten was before Celiac became such a buzzword. Non-diagnosed people have also begun to experiment with reducing or eliminating gluten from their diets to see if certain symptoms improve.

At first, gluten-free food choices were hard to come by in stores and restaurants. One could only find them in a tiny spot in the frozen-foods section or the pasta aisle in health food stores and healthier grocery stores like Whole Foods Market or Trader Joe’s. The prices were exorbitant. However, people paid them and began to demand more gluten-free foods. Consequently, the supply increased, and now many regular chain grocery stores feature gluten-free aisles. In addition, certain restaurants, like PF Chang’s, offer gluten-free menus. Even fast food chains and stadiums have caught on—Domino’s Pizza now advertises gluten-free pizza and many stadiums sell gluten-free snacks. While prices for gluten-free foods have come down due to increased supply, they are still quite expensive.

Vegetarian and Vegan Foods

The majority of people interested in healthier eating, as well as animal rights, have seen the horrific videos about the treatment of animals in conventional factory farms. If you haven’t seen them, simply do a search for factory farming and you will get pages upon pages of graphic images and videos from organizations like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and others who have exposed the truth of what actually goes on in these facilities. These images and videos have successfully turned many former meat lovers into hardcore vegans.

Cruelty aside, these videos and images have also exposed the truth about many issues including:

• The lack of sanitation in these facilities
• The rampant spread of disease among the animals
• How meat from diseased animals is still processed and allowed into the American food supply

The media also now focuses more on the many benefits of plant-based diets. Multitudes of books, doctors, celebrity nutritionists and endorsers, documentaries, and other forms of media illustrate how consuming less (or no) meat can reduce obesity and improve many health conditions.

So whether it’s for the love of animals, for fear of eating chemically-altered food from diseased animals processed in filthy conditions, or for the love of clean arteries, more and more people are choosing to ditch meat or animal products altogether and eat only plants.

Organic, All-Natural, Non-GMO

Awareness continues to spread about how toxic pesticides, antibiotics, growth hormones, steroids, and genetically-modified foods are to nearly every system of the human body. Accordingly, more people now choose to alter their families’ budgets in order to accommodate the lofty cost of organic, all natural, and non-GMO food  and other products.

Soy is Not a Healthy Alternative

Many vegan and vegetarian foods contain high contents of soy. Soy appears on food labels as many different names (soy protein, hydrolyzed soy, soy lecithin, etc.), and many mistakenly believe it is a healthy alternative to dairy and animal products.

The soy industry has convinced the general public that soy is healthy. They point to Asian cultures, which have regularly eaten soy for thousands of years and look how healthy they are! This is only part of the story. These cultures have indeed consumed soy for thousands of years in their traditional diets. Those who have maintained these traditional diets do have higher levels of health and longevity. However, those cultures do not drink soy milk, eat soy burgers, soy cheese, tofurky, or other processed foods using soy products as binders, fillers, and protein substitutes. They eat small quantities of traditionally fermented whole soy foods like tofu, miso, tamari, natto, and seitan—the key words being: small quantities, fermented, and whole.

The highly processed soy food-like substances that would-be health-conscious Americans now massively consume are not healthier choices for the human body than the foods they are attempting to replace. According to Dr. Kaayla T. Daniel, author of The Whole Soy Story, “hundreds of epidemiological, clinical, and laboratory studies link soy to:

• Malnutrition
• Digestive distress
• Thyroid dysfunction
• Cognitive decline
• Reproductive disorders
• Infertility
• Birth defects
• Immune system breakdown
• Heart disease
• Cancer”

So What’s a Health-Conscious Person to Do?

Healthy eating is not necessarily about reading labels on packages. It’s more about avoiding the packages in the first place by choosing whole, real foods that you prepare yourself. Michael Pollan’s words “eat food, not too much, mostly plants” really sum it up. The “eat food” part refers to actual whole foods that are part of nature: foods that grow, run, swim, or fly. Chemically-altered food-like substances that sit in boxes on shelves for five years are not included in this description of food.

If you choose a gluten-free diet, eat whole grains that don’t contain gluten like quinoa, amaranth, millet, and buckwheat. If you are a vegetarian or vegan, don’t eat “veggie” burgers from box in the frozen section. Instead you can easily make your own from wonderful nutrient-rich plant foods like whole grains, mushrooms, beans, and chopped veggies, and bind them together with cooked grains like millet or quinoa. Don’t use soy milk as a substitute for dairy. It is healthier to get your calcium and vitamin D from plant sources and small amounts of sunlight. Instead of “healthy” sodas and sport drinks, just drink water or freshly brewed teas or fresh juices.

If you eat meat, research where your meat comes from and how it is processed. Look for the words “organic, pastured, grass-fed” for beef and lamb and look for “organic” and “pastured” for poultry. If this type of meat is too expensive or is not available, then you should either get the very best you can afford and consider reducing your meat intake.

If you have a busy schedule (and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t), learn to plan ahead. Make big batches and freeze meals in healthy portions so that the frozen foods you take to work are ones you made yourself with ingredients you can pronounce.

It’s a wonderful thing that more people want to live healthier lives. Gluten-free, vegetarian, vegan, and other diets can be healthy. Reading food labels and knowing what the long words mean is a daunting task. Why not just avoid foods that need labels in the first place? That is the best way to start living a healthier life.

My personal desire for a very simple life without clutter aside, I cringe when I think about the masses upon masses of pure plastic junk that is produced in our country year after year after (gift giving) year and despite the fact that I’ve made it a pre-holiday tradition to express to family members and close friends that I would love to enjoy a simple holiday gathering without the {near insane} hassle of obligatory buying for everyone, we still manage to drive home every year with a car-load of ‘goods.’

A few years ago, I accompanied a friend to their family’s holiday gathering.  Since I wasn’t really close to any attending family members, gift exchange was nowhere near the front of my mind.  Mid-way through the festivities, people began breaking out beautifully decorated packages~ I was so happy and content to sit back and simply watch.  My friend’s aunt (who I adore and who was also hosting the party) quickly noticed my non-participating stance and, wanting me to feel ‘a part’ of the exchange, grabbed a nearby snoring Santa statue and~ to my {slightly amused} horror~ presented it to me as a gift.  Naturally, I graciously accepted ‘snoring Santa’…and, to this day, my friend and I still occasionally indulge in a hearty laugh over the whole ordeal.  ‘Snoring Santa’ found a new home with the quickness.;)

Gift-giving. Rarely do we engage in an activity that solicits such a tangle of thoughts and values.

Of course, ‘snoring Santa’ hasn’t been the only gift that I’ve rerouted under-the-radar. There have been countless gifts from countless holiday gatherings that have failed to make it inside our home. Many (if not most) find a new home almost instantly. My personal desire for a very simple life without clutter aside, I cringe when I think about the masses upon masses of pure plastic junk that is produced in our country year after year after (gift giving) year and despite the fact that I’ve made it a pre-holiday tradition to express to family members and close friends that I would love to enjoy a simple holiday gathering without the {near insane} hassle of obligatory buying for everyone, we still manage to drive home every year with a car-load of ‘goods.’

How important, really, is gift giving? And, HOW MUCH do we really need?? One of my favorite memories as a child was listening to my mom read The Little House on the Prairie book series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I was drawn to a simple way of living even then and vividly recall Laura’s description of their family’s Christmas. In general, after a long trip to the nearest town, ‘Pa’ would typically have enough left over, after buying needed supplies, to bring each child a stick of candy…and there was one Christmas, in particular, where they were snowed in for months—receiving makeshift gifts and finally enjoying their Christmas meal months later. It was all accepted with a spirit of appreciation for what they did have and the time that they were able to spend together. I adore this variety of rustic gratitude…{much so.}

Now, instead of waking up on Christmas morning to a new pair of socks or a bag of rock candy, children fully expect to be greeted by a slew (a fairly LARGE slew) of bags and boxes.

{sigh.}

On one hand, obligatory gift buying and giving long ago crossed a boundary into a consumer-centered, wasteful holiday tradition that is in desperate need of a lil’ shape-shifting.

The desire to delight your child, grandchild, niece or nephew with the latest and greatest game or toy runs right up against the {very likely} scenario of the toy in consideration being poorly made in another country, lacking in long-term play value, and being composed of umpteen plastic parts (most of which will be eaten by the vacuum or end up in the nearest landfill by the following month).

On the other hand, it is such a pleasure to make or buy a special gift and give it to someone you love with the purest desire to do so.

Either way, even if the act of wildly exchanging gifts is unlikely to change any year soon within your ‘circle of giving,’ there is one strategy that can cut through the conflicts of gift giving and make for much less of a burden~ both for recipients who might not share your unique tastes, and for our planet! This particular purposeful focus hums to the subtle tune of simplicity and freedom from choking consumerism…and~ just as diggable~ makes shopping more enjoyable…in one word:

Consumables!!!

A consumable gift is one that will be used up, one that is not ‘stash-able’ until the next yard sale or thrift shop drop-off…it is not a material thing, a ‘keepsake,’ decoration, trinket; it is not on the fast and savvy track to adding to the clutter section of one’s sacred space. A consumable is anexperiential gift. It is something that will be enjoyed by the recipient…yet, will have an end;). Something to eat, something to read, something to bake, somewhere to go……

Let’s begin with the little ones. I know from experience that a huge plastic art set lacks the play miles that come along with a simple pad of drawing paper and a nice set of colored pencils. Likewise, instead of a huge ensemble of toy pots, pans, pretend food and packaging, go for a baking mix or a certificate for a mom & daughter cooking class. Books are always a perfect gift for a child~ they can be read over and over, supporting quality family together time and, when no longer enjoyed, can easily be donated to the local library or thrift store.

Edibles are a no-brainer. The holiday gift industry is well aware of the ‘for everyone appeal’ of themed packaged food. However, before dishing out for a box of stale crackers, spread and salty meat~ consider creating your own bag of fresh and natural eats…or even a food share at a local farm or farmer’s market.

For your parents? Forget passing along more ‘crafty pieces’ for their already full house. Give them tickets to a play, movie or a certificate for dinner at a local restaurant. Candles, note cards & stamps, soap, lotion, supplies for a project they’ve wanted to complete are all good ideas…or maybe a membership to a fitness center or ‘food/wine/fruit/chocolate of the month’ club.

For a close friend or lover~ get creative! Plan an entire night or outing, include a massage, yoga session or other stress-relieving engagement—or simply orchestrate a relaxing evening at home.

Package up homemade trail mix, fresh fruit or an assortment of teas for colleagues and friends.

Again, think experience! The possibilities are endless and it’s typically much more satisfying (for all involved, really) to piece together unique, useful offerings than it is to pack the trunk full of highly commercialized, ‘one size fits all’ gift bombs.

Cheers to preserving both our planet and our sanity…one [small, consumable] gift at a time 😉 .

I am the chief editor of Organic Lifestyle Magazine. And I’m fat. I am not fat like I used to be. At my peak I weighed 368 pounds with a 56 inch waist. I was a big boy back in the day. I was 17 when I started losing weight. I didn’t do it right, but I had great motivation. I wanted to get laid. Julie was my motivation. She was gorgeous, and way, way out of my league, and I knew I would have to get in shape to have her.

The first time I saw Julie I was the fattest I had ever been. Then I started exercising like crazy and I followed the food pyramid diet. I felt like crap half the time but teenage hormones and the desire to lose my virginity were my fuel.

How I Lost the Weight

I was weightlifting five days a week, I played basketball for ninety minutes a day and ran 6 miles a week once a week. Can you imagine a guy as out of shape as I was playing basketball for ninety minutes without sitting out a game? Like I said, I was motivated.

When I was around twenty-four I ballooned back up to 280 pounds. I was with a woman who was a bit of a chubby chaser who loved to eat and never seemed to gain a pound herself. I fed her and fed myself. We ate. I got fat. She didn’t mind at all. I didn’t even notice.

How I Lost the Weight the Second Time

I lost that weight when I was incarcerated for 18 months for a crime I did not commit. I came out at 210 pounds. In jail we were not allowed to run but I had a workout group that went up and down the stairs repeatedly, did bodyweight exercises, and we made water weights out of trash bags and weightlifted. In prison I ran, played basketball, and used 110 pound floor buffers tied together to make 220 pound free weights for squats and bench.

I am six feet three inches. Right now I weigh 220 pounds. I am stronger than the average person, I can do around 15 chinups, 45 pushups, and I squat 255 and deadlift 345. I can run a few miles and I can ride a bicycle at least 100 miles on level ground.

I’m in decent shape, but nowhere near where I want to be. I want to be the kind of fit that you would expect a health nut to be in. I want a six pack. I want to squat 400 pounds. I want to be able to do more than 100 pushups and more than 50 pullups. I want to be able to complete a hot power yoga class. I want to be able to realistically consider doing a triathlon.

But I’m fat. If I weighed 180 pounds I would have no fat. That means I have 40 pounds of blubber.

Loose Skin

Plus, since I used to be so overweight I have loose skin. Actually, I don’t have loose skin. I have lots of empty fat cells. I have loose fat.

It is a common misconception that people that lost some weight have loose skin. You may, but if you eat right and you are healthy your skin should tighten up. The problem is that when fat is burned it’s not burned like layers being stripped away. It can be kind of random. Imagine a honeycomb, with each cell being filled with fat. A cell here, and a cell there gets burned as you exercise.

Six Pack

The way you get the six pack, the rock hard abs, the tight skin, is to get your body fat very low, like under 7%. Then, if you want to be a little fluffier, a little softer, you can add more fat, and it is added in tight layers as opposed to the flabby jelly I have now.

So here it is. My “before” picture, which is current as of this post, 10/27/2011, here below.

I’m embarrassed. I’ll probably get a bunch of comments that say, “Hey man, don’t be embarrassed…” and I’ll get a few that say, “You should be embarrassed…” But I’m embarrassed. I’ve let this go too long. I want my rock hard abs. I want to be lean. I want to be stronger. I want to be in shape. I want to take off my shirt and impress people.

So I’m putting it out there. I will get in shape. The holidays are going to be tough. I do love to eat! On the next update. I will also tell you all what I am doing and how I am doing it.

My Goals

• Bench 300 pounds
• Squat 400 pounds
• Deadlift 500 pounds
• 50 pullups
• 100 pushups
• 34 inch waist
• 6% body fat
• Visible six pack

I will achieve my goals with weightlifting and High Intensity Interval Training and cardio. I will also add bicycles and yoga when I get closer to my goals.

If you are looking to get in better physical condition, leave your goals and plan of action as a comment below!

We are the 19%

Driving my daughter to school early one morning, I was thinking about suffering. Real suffering. I was thinking about a story I recently heard about mothers in Somalia who embark upon a two-week trek to reach food and water. Along the way, a child becomes too weak to walk any further. The mother is forced to make a decision between 1 child and her remaining six. Does she stay with the 1 child, a decision that will ultimately result in the death of all her children? Or does she leave that one child behind, to die alone, sparing the lives of the other six? This story is stuck in my head. It doesn’t go away. Sometimes, I’ll just be watching my kids eat breakfast

and get overwhelmed with gratitude for being born into a life so abundant with food, water, and shelter. I’m grateful that I am not one of those mothers, yet pained by the fact that I feel absolutely helpless and powerless to change their circumstances.

How is it that we can extract oil from the other side the world, transport it across an ocean to refineries that turn it into a substance that can power millions of vehicles, yet we cannot get these starving children food and water?  Why can’t we get transportation for these mothers and their children who are walking for two weeks and dying along the way?  How is it that we can land on the moon and travel through space, but not get food and water to a country here on our very own planet?

How can we look at ourselves in the mirror and still want more, knowing that there are people in this world whose basic needs are not being met? As a mother, how can I want more, knowing that another mother has to leave her child behind to die to save her other children?

We are occupying Wall Street by the thousands. We are occupying Wall Street because our way of life has become threatened. We have lost our jobs. We have lost our homes. Our cars have been repossessed. We can’t afford to shop at Hollister; we have to settle for Target instead. We scrape the bottom of our purses looking for change to purchase our $2.45 cup of coffee from Starbucks; no more venti caramel macchiatos. We are not the 99%. We are the 19%. The majority, 80%, live in varying degrees of starvation, malnourishment, and extreme poverty, while 1% keep the 19% drunk on material wealth and gorged on stuff, stuff, and more stuff. The 80% are out of sight and out of mind. Industrialized agriculture has stolen their food and killed their soil. Manufacturers in search of cheap labor have polluted their air and water. Corrupt governments have raped their land of natural resources. ALL OF THIS is done so you and I can have more stuff. WE, the consumers, are the problem. WE, the consumers, have ALL THE POWER. If tomorrow, everyone in support of occupy Wall Street spent NO MONEY, and demanded that somebody, somewhere get those mothers and their babies in Somalia some food and water before we will spend another penny, we would see change happen fast. Yes, we might have to get a little uncomfortable. We might even have to get a little hungry for a few days, but WE would know our power and we would never forget it, nor would the corporations or the 1% whose very existence relies on the certainty that tomorrow you and I will wake up and at some point throughout the day, we will spend money.

Interested in giving cloth diapering a try? Good for you (and your little one(s)!)

Cloth diapers dramatically cut down on diapering expense, free up tons of space in our landfills, they’re healthier for your baby, and chances are potty training will go much quicker!

Most people are not fond of daily dealings with diaper full after diaper full~ which explains why disposables have become a multi~million dollar business. However, cloth diapers are making a comeback with some really convenient and effective designs. The fold~and~pin variety of diapering system that many people are used to still exists, but new all~in~one cloth and cover designs are popping up everywhere. Velcro and snaps have replaced sharp pins and the diapers are fitted with elastic around the waist and legs to hold in contents. A few people are turned off by the cost of each diaper- which can run anywhere from $5 to over $20 a dipe. While I understand that the initial cost can be a distraction, doing the math for the entire length that your little one will be in diapers instantly turns that frown upside down;). After trying several when my daughter was first born, I settled on buying only 6 ‘Bum-ware’ all-in-one diapers. These were the most incredible diapers~ I paid a total of $132 (plus I continued using a few of the ‘trial diapers’ mentioned above.) They lasted through 2 children. It costs, on average, about $1,600 to diaper one child for two years in disposable diapers- about $66 a month. Many children are in diapers for longer than two years. That comparison is a no-brainer.

Varieties of rash creams are staple on store shelves and on baby~shower lists. I don’t know of many parents who even have to invest in these products while using cloth diapers. True, rashes may develop from constant wetness against the skin…but, deeper thinking into what disposable diapers are made of leaves any inquisitive person wondering…

Both of my children are past the diapering years, and while I was intuitively drawn to cloth diapering without much further investigation, I never looked much into the chemicals that disposables contain. It didn’t take much searching to track down a few: first on the list: traces of dioxin. Dioxin is an extremely toxic by-product of the paper-bleaching process. It is listed by the EPA as the most toxic of all cancer-linked chemicals. It is banned in most countries…yet, is in full swing here in the U.S.. Disposable diapers contain Tributyl-tin (TBT)- a toxic pollutant known to cause hormonal problems in humans and other animals. And, lastly (for this write~up, anyway…I’m sure that I’m missing a few) disposables contain sodium polyacrylate~ a type of super absorbent polymer- the substance that becomes all gel-like when wet (anyone who as used disposables is familiar with sodium polyacrylate.) A similar substance was used in super-absorbency tampons until the early 1980’s when it was discovered that it increased the risk of toxic shock syndrome by increasing absorbency and creating a nice environment for the growth of toxin-producing bacteria.

We move on to the environmental aspect of diapering. The Real Diaper Association- an advocacy group founded in 2004- estimates that the U.S. uses 27.4 billion disposable diapers each year. The EPA further translates this into more than 3.4 million tons of waste dumped into our landfills. Add to this mix the amount of petroleum, chlorine, wood pulp, water and energy that it takes to produce disposables…

The one plus that disposables have going for them is convenience. Admittedly, while we had visitors staying with us and when we traveled, we traded in the Bum-ware for seventh generation brand disposables. Even with those exceptions, we saved a ton of money and, more importantly to me, a *crap~load* (laughing) of diapers from reaching the garbage.

Using cloth diapers is an amazing thing that you can (now easily) do for your baby’s health, the environment, and your budget. The moment you throw away your last gel-filled disposable and wrap your little one in soft, warm, (safe) cotton, you’ll understand why cloth-diapering mamas are so ‘crazy’ about cloth!

Happy diapering!

(a handful of diapering companies worth looking into-> bum-ware.com, fuzzibunz.com, happyheinys.com, bumgenius.com and betterforbabies.com)

Environmental Issues are taking a toll

Take for example the issue of global warming. For years those of us who believed in global warming were laughed at and berated. Year after year we watched our ice caps melting while government officials and the scientific community claimed climate change was fiction. Study after study was ignored, but videos of glaciers breaking up and polar bears drifting on blocks of ice finally got through to the general population. Common sense prevailed. Science caught up.

So now we face another critical situation. Our food and water is being poisoned. Genetically modified foods are contaminating our food supply both through processed foods and by cross pollination. Our water is fluoridated even though studies show fluoride is toxic and doesn’t necessarily prohibit tooth decay. Our food is poisoned with herbicides and pesticides. We now grow foods with built in pesticides. We feed cows, pigs, and chickens antibiotics, hormones, and genetically modified feed. We allow companies like Monsanto to do their own safety testing. Our food supply has become one huge, dangerous scientific experiment. Cancer, auto-immune disease, asthma, ADHD, autism, obesity—they all tell us we are in deep trouble.

And yet, so many people believe our food is good for us. That poisons don’t affect us. That our government protects us.

We have to keep spreading the word, educating Americans about how big business is destroying our health, our soil, our seed supply, and our food supply. We have to make our leaders accountable. Our voices are growing stronger. We are beginning to turn the tide. If we persevere, one day we will tip the scales.

We need to realize the power we hold through consumerism. Buy organic. Stop supporting big business, especially those businesses that are destroying our food supply. Make noise. Spread the word. Share a link to Organic Lifestyle Magazine with all of your friends.

As our numbers grow and we demand healthy food along with our right to alternative health care, our leaders will have no choice but to listen. And suddenly the idea of eating untested genetically modified foods along with herbicides and poisons or eating meat full of hormones and antibiotics from animals raised on feed their bodies cannot properly digest will be seen for what it is, suicidal behavior. When our numbers grow, common sense will prevail. We can do it. We can tip the scales.

This 1985 Toyota MR2 gets 30 mpg and is still running fine. It derserves some recognition.

In a sea of larger, seemingly much more imposing cars the 1988 MR2 sticks out like a sore thumb hitchhiking back to a time only recently forgotten, the bike rack, a flag it waives unabashed, with a youthful vigor that contradicts it’s retro style.

The car shouts “I’m over here!” with unequivocal confidence in the otherwise quiet graveyard of larger but comparatively complacent and submissive automobiles.

It’s ready. It’s waiting. It’s beckoning. It needs to be driven. Stepping into this car gives one the feeling of transformation to an unbridled state of mind. This car is not controlled by the driver any more than the driver is controlled by the car. Instead a symbiotic relationship is formed where the driver intuitively understands the need to get squirrely on every single corner with little regard to speed or traction.

While not particularly powerful or commanding, persuasiveness is unquestionably one of the prevailing virtues of the MR2. Driving with pure abandonment of any consideration towards opinions of onlookers, this vehicle long ago put away any pretense of shame or self-consciousness.

After the ride, upon exiting, with no remorse, this car tosses you out awkwardly, pouts, taps, and hisses relentless with indignation. It will not rest for long.