FMTV Live - A free Food Matters event - continued

I have put up to posts for this live event, covering Day 1-8, here's the last two days of this event:

Day 9 was Hungry for a change, a really great documentary. I have seen this before but it was great seeing it again. They start it off like most of us do, get up to the sound of our alarm, to then have to get ready and go to work. They talk about how sugar is in so many things, and it's so addictive. Kris Carr is in this, and if you don't know who she is, she's really incredible, she has a few books and her own documentary of her journey of cancer. Jon Gabriel says something that is so true "You can eat up to 10,000 calories in a day and if your not getting the specific nutrients your body needs in a way they can digest and assimilate, then your starving on a nutritional basis, and as long as your starving on a nutritional basis your body is going to stay hungry to get those specific nutrients".  They talk about how a lot of us work behind a desk, and we eat to many calories with little nutrients. They discuss how aspartame is in so many foods, and it can cause migraines, seizures and can lead to certain types of cancers, and more. Another eye opener that they mention is about high fructose corn syrup, it comes from corn, but it's concentrated and refined so much that it's no longer healthy. For example the coca leaf is perfectly safe and healthy, you can drink it as a tea, it's not addictive or anything but if you change that coca leaf  and refine it into cocaine, then it's no longer healthy for us. So high fructose corn syrup is like snorting cocaine, and has the addictive quality to it as well. If you take sugar, is extracted from beets or sugar cane, white flour is a pharmaceutical carbohydrate, and like cocaine is extracted from the coca leaf, so all three of these are on the same category, and they cause imbalances in the body and lead to a host of problems. Then they go on in explaining how we will feel so much better by eating healthy, like vegetables that come from the garden. We need to eat a lot of vegetables, they are loaded in nutrients. This is another really great documentary to watch, very motivational.

Day 10 was a live Q&A with Jon Gabriel, he was in Hungry for a change, and he has his own book, which I have and read, and it's really good. He just created another book on visualization, and I did listen to one of his, and it works pretty well but I haven't stuck to it, and I should try it again.
He talked a lot about digestion, and that we need live enzymes to help our digestion. Live foods are more digestible, as well as fermented foods, they have friendly bacteria that we need. It's not about calories, it's about the right fat, it's the best thing you can put in your body as well as live foods (raw), and your body will lose weight naturally. He didn't diet when he lost 220 pounds, he said that as you get healthier you want healthier foods. At the beginning he kept having food cravings for pizza, chocolate and all the other junk food, but he kept adding more and more live foods, and after a while he no longer craved the junk food. Nuts and seeds need to be soaked before, add superfoods and greens, and the weight will fall off. If you have seasonal allergies, he said it's related to digestion issues, and your immune system might be low, so concentrate on digestion, best thing is to take probiotics, which you want 10 different strains of bacteria in it. Omega 3 is really good for the circulotary system, therefore good for people with heart condition, so to have things like chia seed oil, flax seed oil, and lots of greens, cold water fishes, will help a lot. A question was asked about tofu, if it's good for us, and he said it causes problems with digestion, even soy, especially when it's not organic, it elevates estrogen levels (not good at all for endometriosis) so to stay away from it, but tempeh, miso and tamari are the best, it's fermented and good for us. He also talks about how you need to take care of your emotional/stress issues in order to lose the weight, if you don't your body will always stay in a stressful state and will hold on to the weight, his book is really great at explaining this. Another great question was asked is when is the best time to take a probiotic, he said that some say that it's best on an empty stomach, before bed or first thing in the morning. but some say you need to take it with food because it helps the probiotics to get through, he said no one really knows so he does both, on an empty stomach, and then again with food. I always took it on an empty stomach so I think now I'll try both. This was another really great live Q&A, so much great information.

The next three days they will have replays of all the documentaries and live Q&A, but other then that, nothing else new from this live event. I'm really glad that I was a part of this, it was really amazing. I did ask questions in regards to endometriosis but didn't get any answers, as there were so many questions coming in every few seconds. I did sign up to FMTV online, which gives me access to so many documentations, interviews, recipes and exercises, so I'm really excited to get to learn a lot more, and I'll keep sharing more information on my blog.

I have been wanting to post a recipe that I tried out about a week ago, and it was delicious! So I will share that on my next post, but not tonight as it's getting late. Hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween!

FMTV Live - A free Food Matters event - continued

My last post was Day 1 to 4 of the free food matters event, so now to continue because this is a 10 day event, here is more great documentaries and live Q&A information:

Day 5 was the super juice me documentary. I haven't seen this one either, and at the beginning Jason Vale dedicates this to his mom who passed away from lung cancer. For this documentary he got 8 people with 22 different diseases between them, and they will drink only freshly made juices for 28 days. They mentioned one good point, when something says fat free, what ends up making that food taste good is they put a lot of sugar in it, when it says sugar free, they put artificial sweeteners, and both have an addictiveness to it and makes you want to eat more of it, and it causes us to gain weight and not feel so good. I love how they put in a commercial of a medicine stating how it can cure this but it isn't for everyone because there are so many side effects, and one important one saying it can be life threatening, meaning death, and Charlotte Gerson goes on and says and people go out and buy this because they are looking for relief of their symptoms, but all it is, is a quick fix, not a cure. They had all 8 people look at the side effects of their medications and it was shocking the horrible side effects you can get. Look for no label food, because it's all natural, not processed. Meat is fine to eat, but make sure it's a good quality meat, meaning grass fed beef,  and free range chicken. After 28 days, absolutely amazing results, but you must see this documentary for yourself, another absolute must see. Very inspirational, and lots of great information.

Day 6 was a live Q&A with Jason Vale. He was very close to his mom, and she believed in healthy eating, and it's been many years that he wanted to do a documentary to help others change like he did. He first suggested to juice half an apple with an inch of ginger and drink that every morning. A question was asked if you can juice a large batch of juice and freeze it and use it at a later time, and he said yes you can, absolutely. Another question was asked if anyone can go on many days of just juice, or if we should check with our family doctor, and he had a very good point, no one asks permission to eat chips, chocolate, and other unhealthy foods, but to ask permission to have what your body needs which is fruit and vegetable, it makes no sense really to have to ask for your doctor's permission. After a juice program, you want to eat low human intervention (LHI) foods, so things like fruit, vegetables, grains, legumes, nuts/seeds, and to keep eating that way to stay healthy. Jason's challenge for any juice skeptic; if you are thinking of doing it, go for it, because something is always going to come up, but your body is the most important thing, so your 28 days away from being the best you can ever be. If it doesn't work you can go shout at him. Take the challenge and write to him after to tell me how you feel! Jason Vale is really amazing, he provided a lot of great information.

Day 7 was the Carb Loaded documentary.Starts off by talking about a guy that weighs the same weight since high school, he goes to the doctor's and finds out he has diabetes, with no family history and with what he thought was a good diet. With advances in medicine it would seem that people should be healthier now then ever before, however it starting to appear that the opposite is the case and most experts agree that we have a serious problem. They go on explaining what diabetes is and it is the 8th leading cause of death world wide. Our food portions have gotten so much bigger! So many products contain carbohydrates, and they explain about high fructose corn syrup, making it sound like it's healthier because it's lower in fat, but it's high in carbs, but it really isn't healthy. We need fat, but healthy fat. They explain how people say healthy food is expensive, but in the long run, it's not that expensive "Pay the farmer now or pay the doctor later" so yes you might not spend much on food now but later on you will pay so much in medical bills, so it's best to spend a bit more and eat healthy. You want complex carbs (fruits, vegetables, healthy grains) in your food not high glycemic load (white flour, white sugar, processed foods). Just eat real food! This documentary was very good, and also helps open your eyes more to how eating healthy is so important.

Day 8 was a live Q&A with Dr. David Perlmutter. He had a part in carb loaded and he has a book called Grain brain, because food has a huge impact on brain health. If you have type 2 diabetes, you increase your chances of Alzheimer. Autism is a gut disorder. An autistic brain, is a brain that's inflammed, so it's all about the gut. Use probiotic and fermented foods to help. Most issues with the brain will be cured by curing the gut. Yes you can eat grains, but make it healthy grains, but watch your carbohydrate intake, and that it's not GMO grains. Fermented foods: it's a process that happens in nature that we adopted. It is a positive event, it helps grow positive organisms, and has an important role in healing the gut. Fermentation is something we really need to revisit. How to heal your gut? By eating lots of fermented drinks/food, taking a probiotic, or probiotics through enemas, or you can do a fecal transplantation (from someone who is healthy). We should be eating fats, it's so important, have some extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil (mostly saturated fat, but it's vegetarian so it does not contain cholesterol, so it's very healthy), nuts/seeds, meat should be grass fed, avocado. Butter? Grass fed organic butter is good, don't go crazy, but you can have some. Fruits are good for us but be restrictive, because it does have sugar in it, healthy sugar, but still shouldn't eat to many in a day, especially dry fruit, it increases inflammation. Dr. Perlmutter suggests we have the following on a daily basis: Probiotic, some form of DHA (fish oil), tumeric, good fat, and vitamin D (starting at 5,000 units). If your vegetarian, include B vitamin, and iron. So much information was provided, it was amazing.

There's still 2 more days to go on this free Food Matters event, I will post the last two days on Thursday. Hope everyone is enjoying all this great information like I am.

FMTV Live - A free Food Matters event

I joined Food Matters on Facebook a while back, and I noticed a post about FMTV Live. It was free to sign up and here's the way they set it up:

Day 1 it was Food matters, a documentary providing amazing information. They talk about our food, that local is better because when it gets shipped to us, it can be days or weeks before we actually eat the food which by then the food loses a lot of nutrients. One thing they mention that really makes you think is in a 23 year study, there are 2,438,000 people that died from a drug reaction (medical prescriptions) but only 10 people have supposedly died from having a reaction to vitamins. That's a huge difference!  And the word supposedly is used because it was never proven. There's so much more information provided in this movie. I love this documentary I have watched it a few times, and if you haven't watched it, I highly recommend it!

Day 2 is a live Q&A with Dr. Andrew Saul. He has his own book called Doctor yourself (natural healing that works). He started by saying how vitamins can be used to cure disease and food does matter but vitamins as well. Niacin (B3) was mentioned many times in helping lots of things like anxiety, depression, heart disease, high cholesterol, and many more, but it has to be a no flush niacin, which I didn't really understand what that meant, but I plan to look it up. The way they had this set up, is they were taking questions through facebook, and I posted my question since I felt like I was catching a head cold, so asked what's best to fight off a cold, and here's what he said; to take some Vitamin C, and everyone is different on how much to take. Juicing is very good as well, and cut down on food, liquids are best. Something he also mentioned is that most people fall short in the following vitamins: Vitamin C, Vitamin E (100 units a day), B complex (especially when under stress). There was a lot more information provided, but it was really amazing and glad I was able to take part in this.

Day 3 is Love Bomb, another documentary, that I have never seen before. They started with talking about 9/11, and the awakening that can happen in the wake of  something like 9/11 can encourage us to want to do something more positive with our life. Rhea Zimmerman Komarek knew that she can help more by becoming a chiropractor to help others around the world. 3 people set out in 2012 to Peru to help them, and once they got there, they got started right away. They explain how chiropractors can help, and also about their journey there, showing beautiful people and beautiful views of Peru. Everyone explains and sees love in many ways, and when we love we release a chemical called dopamine and growth hormone and that's what gives nourishment and maintenance to the cells and at the same time we release oxytocin, all those chemicals say bond, stay together, and it's nature's way to say that she really wants us to be in love. Love causes us to be at our best. I recommend you watch this documentary, it was very inspiring.

  Day 4 is a live Q&A with Dr. Rhea Zimmerman Komarek. At 9 years old her dad was diagnosed with cancer, and that's where her life changed. She decided to live life to the fullest, and had a spark before 9/11 that change her life. 9 months before she quite her job, she got into a mountain bike accident, had no use of her left arm, and reached out to a friend, and went to see a chiropractor, and she just knew that's what she wanted to do. There were quite a few questions that were asked and one was about if yoga and just moving/stretching has the same effect as going to see a chiropractor? Her answer was no because with a chiropractor they go within, at the spinal cord, and you just can't replicate that, it's a big force and big adjustment, and you won't know if you need an adjustment until you get checked. Someone else asked a great question, which I replied to saying I would love to know as well, which is would a chiropractor help a child that is autistic and she said yes that there's a  positive response with autism. Another questions was how often and do I have to have something wrong in order to see a chiropractor?  No you don't have to have something wrong, you can see one to see if you need it, to make sure you have a great working spine. And how often; the chiropractor will know your case and will tell you how often you would need to go. Dr. Rhea's documentary was released 3 weeks ago, and she's hoping for community screenings with volunteer opportunities, and they do have love bomb t-shirts on their website. She is so amazing and it was great to be part of this live Q&A.

There's still more documentaries and Q&A's coming up (10 days total), I will put them on another post to share some great information, and hopefully get you watching these amazing documentaries.

Thanksgiving

I'm overdo with this post, but last weekend was Thanksgiving, and I had my dad over for supper. My brother went hunting so we are going to his place tomorrow to celebrate. Since we were just three people for supper, I got the smallest turkey I could find, which was 8 lbs.

To start, I got my desert ready first, and made my absolute favorite, apple crisp. I'm pretty sure it's my sister in law that found this recipe, and it was so good that she shared it with my mom and I, and we would each make it from time to time and it would disappear fast.When it was everyone together, we would triple this recipe, and since we were going to be three I decided to double the recipe because I'm completely fine with having some left. Here's the recipe:

3 cooking apples
2 tbsp of water
1/2 tsp of cinnamon
Dash of salt
3 tbsp of soft butter
1/2 cup brown sugar (used Demerara sugar)
1/3 cup flour (used spelt, and some oats)

Heat oven at 350 F. Butter casserole dish. Peel and slice apples into casserole. Sprinkle with water, cinnamon and salt. Blend remaining ingredients to make a crumbly mixture. Sprinkle over apples and pat down lightly. Bake for 40 minutes.

 

You can make changes to this recipe, you can use whatever flour you would like, but a healthier one is for sure recommended. You can also use oats only, and the sugar you can always use different ones as well, like coconut sugar.

If your wondering what Demerara sugar is, here's a great explanation:

"Demerara is a light brown, partially refined, sugar produced from the first crystallization during processing cane juice into sugar crystals (this process is similar to what happens with naturally evaporated cane juice). Unlike brown sugar, which has the added molasses flavor, Demerara has a natural caramel-like flavor that hasn’t been refined out. This lends warm caramel notes to whatever you add the sugar. Also, Demerara sugar is also referred to as Turbinado sugar in many markets, which has more to do with how the sugar is processed in turbines, than where it originates."

So not the healthiest sugar, but tastes great in this recipe.

Next on the list was getting the turkey in the oven. For my marinate I used the turkey rub from Epicure and added onions and chicken stock. I then prepared my garden salad.

I used romaine lettuce, grape tomatoes, red onion, cucumbers and radishes. We of course had to have stuffing so I created my own and it turned out really good. The bread I often buy from Farm boy had gone dry, so it was the perfect way to use it up rather then let it go to waste, so I chopped up the bread into cubes

Then I diced up some celery and an apple, and used the sage and apple stuffing seasoning from Epicure

I boiled up some water and added the spice, celery, apple, and bread and mixed it up. I added it to a dish and roasted it in the oven

Once the turkey came out of the oven I did used some of the juices at the bottom and made a gravy using arrowroot to thicken it. Which I of course also made some mashed potatoes. Here's our supper

We did also have an Ontario red wine with supper. It was absolutely delicious!

What did a do with the left over turkey, well I made a wonderful soup that we love, and we also had some turkey sandwiches. Other great things to use left over turkey is to create a turkey pot pie, or you can add it to salads, stir fry's, and so much more.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Foods to avoid...

I got a really great question from my aunt, what foods should I avoid? So I'm going to talk about that today. There are quite a few foods out there that is best to avoid, but having it once in a while is ok. What I aim for is eating healthy 80% of the time, and the other 20%, it's fine to have that treat. What makes it better though is by making that treat yourself so you have control over the ingredients.

I will start by adding the following link from Food Matters. If you haven't seen the documentary, I highly recommend that you do. The link I have added is for the top 10 food additives to avoid. There's a lot of great information, and they do talk about the following topic.


Artificial Sweeteners: There are so many artificial sweeteners out there, and they do have that addictiveness to them, which makes you want more. So here's a list to avoid, Aspartame, sucralose, high Fructose corn Syrup, white/brown sugar, Agave Syrup, brown rice syrup, and Xylitol. I'm sure there's more, but if you do a search online you will get a lot of information.

Here are the healthy sugars, you should be having: raw honey, maple syrup (the real stuff, not the fake one), dates, stevia, yacon, coconut sugar, and molasses. Here's a great site from the wellness warrior that talks about all of these.

Next food is Trans Fat which is used to extend the shelf life of food products. You can find trans fat in deep-fried fast foods and some processed foods. Trans Fat increases LDL (bad cholesterol) and decreases your HDL (good cholesterol), so please read your labels.

White flour/bread/pasta and white rice: This does not have any nutritional value at all. You should be eating whole grain or whole wheat bread instead. It contains fiber and will keep you feeling fuller longer. There are so many healthier options like brown rice, quinoa, amaranth, barley, buckwheat, bulgur, millet, spelt and wild rice.

Soda: Pop is loaded with sugar. And if you have ever read the book The Cure by Timothy Brantley you then have read a story he writes about. He explains how when he was a kid, he was helping his dad in the garage, and he was using different harsh chemicals to clean a car part, but nothing was working on getting it clean. Then his uncle comes over, and tell him no, all you need is Coke, so he pours the soda and it cleans it off like nothing. So if very harsh chemicals couldn't clean it but soda could, imagine what it's doing inside you. We have very delicate organs, so pop really is not so great for us. What should you drink, well water is always the best. Our bodies consists of mostly water, so we need to stay hydrated. Another great drink option is creating your own smoothie or vegetable/fruit juice. With a juicer or blender, you can create amazing drinks, and it will provide you with so much nutrients!

Margarine: This is man made, with a list of ingredients so long it's crazy. They make you believe that it's better then butter, but it really isn't. Butter has one ingredient, milk, so I don't know about you, but I rather go with the one ingredient.

Processed meats: Found in beef jerky, hot dogs, and processed lunch meats. These contain nitrates and a lot of preservatives. As in my previous post about Aubrey's it's best to pick quality meats, where beef is grass fed, and chickens are free range. I know that the meat market I go to, create their own sausages that are free of preservatives and nitrates. Want to eat a sandwich/wrap, then boil or bake some chicken, turkey, beef, pork and shred it up or cut it up thinly, or pound your meat so it's nice and thin then cook it up.

Lastly, baked goods! So many of them contain white flour, margarine, and sugar. You can still have dessert just make it a healthier version. I have posted a few healthy snacks and desserts, and I have even taken recipes and substituted healthier ingredients. Example: Brown sugar or white sugar, use coconut sugar, maple syrup, or any of the ones I listed above. White flour, use spelt flour, oat flour, buckwheat or any other grains I mentioned above. Any grain can be turned into flour, all you need is a food processor or blender. Now a days though, you can buy it already grounded for you.

Now having listed all of this, it's fine to have the occasional treat, but don't go overboard because that is when you will get into some problems with your health. Try to eat all sort of colors, the more color the more nutrients you consume. Every day I try to have lots of vegetables, some fruit, healthy grains, and occasionally meat. I think it's good for us to eat vegetarian from time to time (especially if you have endometriosis). Explore with your food, and create different meals, and have fun!