Patch Adams

Now we’re talking!!!!……. Dr. Adam’s was recently here in Portland this February and I had the wonderful opportunity to hear him talk. This is a amazing person. [patchadams.org] He is an example of someone who is true to themself and walks the talk. He talks about intention and creating yourself every moment. A truly lovely human being.

The Meatrix

Watch The Meatrix

Learn about factory farms

Learn about local family farms at www.friendsoffamilyfarmers.org

Check out the Eat Well Guide to find Local Famiy Farms

Slower heart rate = Longer life

Your resting heart rate is a reflection of your fitness/ wellness. The greater your fitness the slower your heart beats on average.

When you first start working out it usually does not take much for your heart rate to increase significantly. As your exercise program consistently progresses you will find your heart rate will actually be slower than it was when you began. Because it is healthier.

It seems contrary. The connection with exercising so that your heart rate increases so that your heart will actually beat slower. But it is just the facts!

According to the Harvard Newsletter “Resting heart rate seems to be a common denominator for various types of heart disease. A tantalizing possibility is that lowering your heart rate could help protect you from heart disease and may even let your heart beat for longer.” (Harvard Newsletter)

Another way to slow your heart rate is learn to meditate and some breathing exercise. Stress in general increases heart rate.

[resting heart rate]

Doctors cite link between food and fatigue

Watch kgw report

What we eat does effect how we feel!!!!!!!!

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Tired all the time, even though you’re getting plenty of rest? It may have more to do with what’s on your plate than how many plates you’re juggling.

Doctors say there is a link between food and fatigue.

“I was sluggish, didn’t want to get out of bed, but you have to – you have to go to work.” Sandi Cauley felt horrible. After surviving a stroke she continued working long hours at a Portland hospital, but made sure she had plenty of rest and ate what seemed to be a healthy diet. Still, she had no energy. And she was gaining weight. She was frustrated.

So she sought help from a Portland area doctor known for promoting healthy eating to treat illnesses.

During Cauley’s first visit to Dr. Miles Hassell, she learned she was consuming a lot of hidden sugars in her favorite foods.

“You think you’re eating healthy, but, in reality, you’re not!”

Those sugars were draining her energy and causing weight gain.

Dr. Hassell, the Medical Director of Providence Saint Vincent Medical Center’s Integrative Medicine Program, helped her cut 500 calories a day immediately.

He simply identified the hidden sugar in her so-called “healthy” snacks. For example, the yogurt she loved contained a whopping seven teaspoons of sugar.

She beams, we cut “500 calories!”

“When we have someone with a fatigue problem the first thing we do is get rid of refined carbohydrates, sugars and white flour.”

Dr. Hassell says the next step is to limit or avoid hydrogenated oils. He also says avoid processed fat-free foods, meal-replacement bars, energy drinks and high fat, preserved meats.

Dr. Hassell explains “the only way to do that is by reading the labels of your foods carefully.” He advises you get your daily allowance of vitamin-D, vitamin B-12 and iron as deficiencies can leave you feeling sluggish.

In his book “Good Food, Good Medicine” Dr. Hassell not only lists energy-zapping foods, but also those that energize you.

He identifies such fatigue-fighting fuels as lean meats, nuts, dairy foods and eggs. He also points people toward unprocessed grains and so-called “good fats” found in avocados and extra-virgin olive oil.

Bottom line, he says “get your sleep, get your exercise especially in the morning, avoid refined carbohydrates… and make sure you’re getting good protein and good fat at every meal.”

A few months after changing her diet, Cauley noticed a dramatic change.

“My whole attitude about life is just different!” No more chronic fatigue and energy to spare. It’s tremendous now!” She works out daily and she’s lost more than 20 pounds.

She says it was simple, “check out what you’re eating!” By AMY TROY

Milk- rBHT (hormones)

Watch this film by Jeffrey M. Smith. Dairy products from cows treated with Monsanto’s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH or rBST) may sharply increase cancer risk and other diseases, especially in children. Already banned in most industrialized nations, it was approved in the US on the backs of fired whistleblowers, manipulated research, and a corporate takeover at the FDA. This must-see film includes footage prepared for a Fox TV station—canceled after a letter from Monsanto’s attorney threatened “dire consequences.” (this info was found on Google video about the it)

Here is  a 9 min You tube video. CLick this to see the 19 min Google video.

Jumping Rope!

Check this out! You to could do this!

We are the music makers

And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

And sitting by desolate streams;—

World-losers and world-forsakers,

On whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

Of the world for ever, it seems.

-Arthur William Edgar O’Shaughnessy (March 14, 1844–January 30, 1881)

Barefeet

In Portland we have at least two major athletic shoe companies. Shoes are big business. Many of us believe that working out barefoot is unsafe. We must wear shoes, right?

I was at a gym early several years ago (I was 19) working out and an attendant came up and told me I had to wear shoes. This was news to me, I wondered is being bare foot it unhealthy? Is it unsafe? In in a gym it is probably better to wear shoes. And as I found out it it the policy.

Why workout barefoot? Our feet tend to be bound up in shoes. Bare feet get a bit of a foot massage with each step. Walking on round rocks is great. Sure at first your feet may be tender, they’ve been in shoes for years, but it is good for them. You also strengthen you ankles and your arches. Arch support is important aka shoes, but just like as being stuck in bed (lack of movement) causes muscles to atrophy, shoes could cause arches to atrophy. It also strengthens you ankles. Your ankle muscles need to work and stabilize, when you are bare foot they do.

A great barefoot start is the beach. As soon as I step on the sand my shoes are off. It is a wonderful foot massage and totally freeing to be barefoot.

Be gradual in working out barefoot. Plantar fasciitis can put a damper on your barefoot exercise. I have worked with allot of people with this. I believe that working out barefoot will actually strengthen you feet and have a positive effect on your whole body.

When I was rock climbing in Eugene (in the ’90s) I was so impressed by the rock climbing genius’s around me. Here I was in boots and a rope climbing this rock. ANd these people were barefoot with no rope climbing rapidly past me. These amazing bare foot spider people. Our feet are sensors they receive information and send it to our brains.

Water Bottles

For every little thing we do, there are always so many things to consider. Like water bottles, are some safer to use than others?

Here is some stuff to consider:

Health [BPA and phthalates]: The chemical known as Bisphenol A (BPA) is found in hard plastic water containers (like the filtered water coolers). The U.S. government’s National Toxicology Program in April agreed with a scientific panel that recently expressed concern about physiological changes that occur in people when they ingest BPA that has leached from plastics into their food (U.S. News). It is a chemical that does not stay put. It leaches out and is found in traces on our bodies. Research on lab rats has shown that BPA can boost fat cell production, mimic the effects of estrogen, disturb our hormones, cause precancerous changes to cells and trigger insulin resistance. It also may cause neurological and behavioral problems in fetuses, babies and kids.

This sounds familiar. What kind of health troubles are common for us? Obesity, diabetes, cancer, hormone imbalances… Hmmmmmm.

BPA is found in hard plastics (usually have #7 recycle symbol). The disposable water bottles we buy at the store (#1 on recycle label) are made of polyethylene terephthalate (PETE or PET) and has chemicals called phthalates. Phthalates can also effect your cells similiar to BPA.

Green reasons:

Bottles water effect the environment. Not only are the plastic bottles overwhelming our landfills and finding their way into our oceans, it actually takes resources to process. It takes a factory and trucks to make plastic bottles, fill them and deliver them to stores.

Ok- So What To Do?

Get a cool metal bottle (Klean Kanteen, SIGG) or use glass (a little less safe if you drop it). These are considered safe. No strange toxins or tastes leaching into your water.

Just filter your own water or use tap and pour it into your lovely water bottle.

Portland’s Water Source:

Our water comes from Bull Run near Mt. Hood (not actually on Mt. Hood). The water in Bull Run is from rainfall (Portland Water Bureau). From there it is treated with chlorine and when it is closer to P-town is treated with ammonia. Our water system is gravity based no pumps.

Our water is considered pretty good. Not perfect. But better than say LA. It is likely better than some of the bottled water we buy in the store.

Bottled Water’s Environmental Toll
Eco Footprint
• The energy used each year making the bottles needed to meet the demand for bottled water in the United States is equivalent to more than 17 million barrels of oil. That’s enough to fuel over 1 million cars for a year.

• If water and soft drink bottlers had used 10% recycled materials in their plastic bottles in 2004, they would have saved the equivalent of 72 million gallons of gasoline. If they had used 25%, they would have saved enough energy to electrify more than 680,000 homes for a year.

• In 2003, the California Department of Conservation estimated that roughly three million water bottles are trashed every day in that state. At this rate, by 2013 the amount of unrecycled bottles will be enough to create a two-lane highway that stretches the state’s entire coast.

• In 2004 the recycling rate for all beverage containers was 33.5 percent. If it reached 80 percent, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions would be the equivalent of removing 2.4 million cars from the road for a year.

• That bottle that takes just three minutes to drink can take up to a thousand years to biodegrade.

(The Reader’s Digest)

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prevention

Beets

Variety is super important when it comes to food. One thing we can do is make a effort every week or so to try something different or something we haven’t had for awhile. Beets are one of those foods that you probably don’t eat alot. (If you do tell me about it) I think the last time I ate beets was a holiday and a restaurant I was at in Vancouver Canada had a really excellent beet with vinegar side dish. That was over a year ago though. If you see beets at the farmer’s market (another great weekly thing to do during the summer) pick some up. Below are some good ways to serve them.

Beets are vegetables that come from the same vegetable family as spinach and quina. It is a Mediterranean plant. It traveled here (US) from Northern Europe. It moved here because it is easily stored it was a very functional food.

There are table beets and sugar beets. The sugar beet was developed for a source of sugar. Just like the sugar we get from sugar cane. The sugar beet is now grown all over the world. It is the table beet we eat whole.

Beet leaves are edible. In many cultures the greens are eaten just as much as the beets themselves. Most of us where force fed beets as kids and now that we are grown we don’t want anything to do with them. These where usually canned beets.

Health benefits:

• High in vitamins B, folic acid (leaves)
• Good for heart,
• May help prevent birth defects
• Source of phytonutrients
• The pigment that gives beets their rich, crimson color-betacyanin-is also a powerful cancer-fighting agent. Beets’ potential effectiveness against colon cancer, in particular, has been demonstrated in several studies.

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just boil them, let them cool, slip the skins off, slice, and add a splash of balsamic vinegar and some black pepper

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A beet recipe:

simmer a reasonable quantity of whole, washed beets in water.
pour off the cooking water and cool the beets in clean cold water.
Slip the skins off with finger pressure.
Dice into cubes of a size you like to see on a fork.
sprinkle with brown sugar and vinegar in a bowl for a few minutes.
heat in a good quality oil, like grapeseed, olive, or red palm oil.
serve.

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matchstick raw beets
matchstick apple or pear
1/4 C feta cheese

Dressing:
juice of one lemon
1/8 C olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

also sometimes add matchstick carrots

Beets, Boiled 1.00 cup 170.00 grams 74.80 calories
Nutrient	Amount	DV (%)	Nutrient Density	World’s Healthiest Foods Rating
folate	136.00 mcg	34.0	8.2	excellent
manganese	0.55 mg	27.5	6.6	very good
potassium	518.50 mg	14.8	3.6	very good
dietary fiber	3.40 g	13.6	3.3	good
vitamin C	6.12 mg	10.2	2.5	good
magnesium	39.10 mg	9.8	2.4	good
tryptophan	0.03 g	9.4	2.3	good
iron	1.34 mg	7.4	1.8	good
copper	0.13 mg	6.5	1.6	good
phosphorus	64.60 mg	6.5	1.6	good

World’s Healthiest Foods Rating	Rule
excellent	DV>=75%	OR	Density>=7.6	AND	DV>=10%
very good	DV>=50%	OR	Density>=3.4	AND	DV>=5%
good	DV>=25%	OR	Density>=1.5	AND	DV>=2.5%

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