Why might oysters on the half shell be a good addition to a raw food diet?
1. They are raw, which means they still have their enzymes. 2. One of the highest sources of B-12. One cup has 112 mcg and 1870 DV%. That’s more than liver.
3. You can go out to a seafood restaurant. Sometimes the raw food diet can be socially restrictive.
4. Bivalves don’t have a central nervous system and are generally not considered sentient by traditional criteria.
5. Leafy greens, dairy, and poultry are the top causes of food borne illness, not mollusks. Yet, we don’t hesitate to consume more spinach. These statistics likely refer industrialized food sources. Disclaimer: I don’t believe the dairy statistics can be compared to local, antibiotic & hormone free, grass-fed raw sources of milk.
6. Oysters are a sustainable source of seafood. 95% of the world’s total oyster population is farmed. They don’t rely on wild fish for food, and their filter-feeding design actually benefits the surrounding water. They are considered “Best Choice” by Seafood Watch.
–> Today I went on a really cool hike with my soon-to-be mother in law, Tazmin. We started at the Los Liones Canyon and took the East Topanga Fire Road Trail and saw some amazing views. You can see the ocean, the buildings downtown, and the Pacific Palisades Mountains. I highly recommend it for an inexpensive healthy way to spend the morning.
Hiking is really great, not just for your legs, but also as a way to catch up with family and friends. For me, having the support of your loved ones in pursuing a healthier lifestyle is extremely important. Yes, it is possible to do it on your own, but it will be really difficult if you live in an environment that isn’t supportive of this change. When I first started eating healthier, my fiancé started dieting too. He didn’t do exactly what I was doing, but the fact that he was on his own journey towards health, made mine feel less lonely. I feel like this support is such a beautiful way of showing someone how much you love them.
I’m slightly embarrassed to say that I do enjoy watching The Biggest Loser. I’m a sucker for any motivational story and throw in a makeover towards the end and I’m sold. On this show, the really successful people have their family exercising and dieting at home. I think when your loved ones make your priorities theirs as well, then that relationship is really solid. After all, people change all the time, but in order to keep the relationship healthy I believe changing together is key.
I found this article in the research section of Nutra-Ingredients.com: Good bacteria may wipe out antibiotic-resistant pathogens: Study that I feel deserves significant attention. Unless you have been living under a rock, you are aware of the problem with antibiotic resistance, and it’s potential effects on our ability to perform even the simplest procedures successfully. Dr. Oz recently aired an episode about this problem and The New York Times addressed this problem in an article about Antibiotics and the meat we eat. I won’t go into all the details of how dangerous the overuse of antibiotics is for our health, as you are most likely already aware of it. Instead, I want to talk about how good bacteria, particularly from food, will likely be part of the solution to our problem.
As I’ve recently started growing good bacteria in my kitchen for kefir, I’ve had first hand experience how strong these cultures can be. I’ve spent the past couple days with the worst case of detox symptoms I’ve had yet, so much so, that I was wondering if I had the flu. That’s right. I had a sore throat, running nose, cough, acne, chills and hot flashes, which might have been a fever if I had bothered to check. Since I was starting to worry … and I had gotten some Easter treats in the mail and my sugar addicted brain can’t resist it when it’s in the apartment, I decided to try an experiment and see if my symptoms would disappear. I started eating sugar again and stopped my glass of kefir a day. It worked! I felt immediate relief from my fake flu, and a couple days later it’s almost completely gone. Right now I’m taking a break from my kefir until I feel back to normal, and then I’ll build up a tolerance to the stuff until I can drink a full glass a day again without feeling horrible. I had heard about how pathogens will die during the fermentation process, and I had read about how important probiotics are for the immune system. However, until I experienced this detox, I had never truly understood how incredibly powerful they could be.
What can we do to protect ourselves?
1. Buy locally, especially animal products. A lot of these antibiotic resistant bacteria is coming out of the industrial food complex. The animals are pumped full of antibiotics because their living conditions are so disgusting that the animals would get sick and die before they could sell them. Water and soil from nearby farms may be affected as well so even vegetables can get contaminated.
2. Check Food Saftey News for recalls. They have an app for the iPhone, which makes checking easy even from the grocery store.
3. Avoid hospitals by leading a healthy lifestyle. Hospitals have tons of sick people and lots of antibacterial soaps and sanitizers, which do not necessarily kill all the the bacteria, especially the antibiotic resistant strains. If you wish to clean or sanitize make your own natural products.
4. Grow and eat your own fermented food. This food has a rich and long history of bringing health to many cultures. I bought my bacteria at GEM cultures, but if you know someone they may be happy to share. They tend to grow quickly. Plus, you don’t have to repurchase if you continue to feed it … like a pet.
For those out there with Hulu Plus, you can now stream the documentary May I Be Frankhere. I wanted to see this movie for a while, and it definitely lived up to my expectations. For those of you who don’t know what this movie is about here is a trailer:
When I found out Cafe Gratitude was opening in Venice, I was so excited because I had heard about this documentary. This place is officially my favorite vegan and raw food restaurant in LA, the only downside is that the bill can add up if you get a drink or juice, appetizer, and desserts. Their raw desserts are insane. When I was eating sugar, the coconut date mousse was my favorite. Lately, I stick with the kale salad entree, which is surprising filling. That is by far one of my highest complements. I hate when healthy food comes out in small portions. It’s hard enough to be satisfied by healthy choices, but when a tiny plate of healthy food comes out I get really frustrated. I need volume! I’ve gone out for Chinese and eaten a plate of steamed veggies meant for a family. No joke.
Besides my obvious love for Cafe Gratitude, I love how this movie isn’t just about the food. He does affirmations, he purges his kitchen and closet, he does colonics, and most importantly, he works through his emotional baggage. I think there is a lot to learn from Frank’s process, and how hard it is to work through ALL of our pain.
Although I personally love these kind of documentaries, I think we need to remember that these are still entertainment, and don’t necessarily contain accurate or up to date information. When I first started changing my diet, I had just watched Food Matters and I was so excited about the concept of taking control of my health. I went raw for a couple months (not long I know) and thought I knew best and everyone else was doing it wrong. It’d true that going raw will help a people out there and that it is way ahead of the standard American diet, but like most diets, it has some major flaws.
The biggest flaw in my opinion is too much sugar. When I was on this diet, my naturopath recommended I reduce the amount of fruit I was eating. I was eating a ton of greens in the beginning but my weight kept dropping, which is not good for me because I am already thin. Plus, I had tons of cravings so I used fruit to satisfy those cravings. Which sounds healthy, but I was eating enormous amounts of fruit. Plus a lot of raw desserts use raw agave, or if they are not strict vegans they will use raw honey. This can be harmful if you have any dangerous bacteria in the gut. You want to them die off, not feed them so they can grow stronger. Even if you don’t have a bacteria or yeast problem, sugar can affect your hormones, your blood sugar, and insulin. This is bad news for people with heart problems, diabetics, obesity, and even acne problems. Now when I go to Cafe Gratitude, I steer clear of the sweets and enjoy an amazing salad with some herbal tea.
Do you need some saturated fat while your on a diet and trying to lose weight?
YES!!!! Sorry for the enthusiasm.
Saturated fat from a good source is good for metabolism. You technically don’t need it to lose weight, but it can help you lose weight and is essential for your health. I like cold-pressed raw coconut oil and eggs from my farmer’s market that are fed sunflower sprouts. The egg yolks are a gorgeous bright orange and I usually prepare them sunny side up or over easy. I don’t want to damage the nutrient content of the yolks so I keep them really raw. I threw them in a shake a couple times but it seemed like a waste of something so delicious. I always cook them them in coconut oil since it’s a very stable cooking oil.
Avoid trans fats, even if the label says 0g trans fats look for hydrogenated vegetable oils and vegetable shortening in the ingredients list and avoid that product. It still can contain up to a gram of trans fat.
Sugar and carbs are the real problem and cause you to gain fat (not fat), which is why people lost weight on Atkins. Not that I’m advocating that . You’re not just what you eat, but what your food eats. So saturated fat from an industrialized meat source, which is fed subsidized crap and given hormones and antibiotics will likely cause you to gain weight.
Check out the books Know Your Fats and Wheat Belly for good sources of information on fats in your diet.
Check out this post over at Kristen’s Raw. I think it takes a lot of guts to be open about her health issues, especially since she has cookbooks, a youTube channel, and a blog focused around vegan and raw food. I think it’s important to continually research your diet and keep updated on the latest news and books, even if they are about foods you no longer eat. Raw SOS, which was mentioned in the bestseller Wheat Belly, also has a page for vegans that describes the difficulties she had with her own diet, and what precautions to take if you wish to continue being vegan.
Since I’ve personally done raw vegan for about two months, then vegan, and have recently been experimenting with some animal-based foods, I can understand how difficult it is to change up your diet. When you start to make exceptions, it’s harder to maintain willpower. It’s also difficult to explain to your family and friends what diet you follow, and can bring on cravings that can be difficult to control. With all the conflicting recommendations it can be confusing. My advice is to take everything with a grain of salt and a little bit of faith, and remember to keep doing your homework.
