Archive for January, 2008

My Vegan Diet Begins

Published
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Joe
on January 31, 2008
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tomorrow, February first, will mark the beginning of my vegan diet. the diet has been planned several weeks ago but has been delayed until my supply of yogurt has been eliminated, which the last of will be enjoyed and ingested tonight. the vegan diet is planned to last for the entire month of February. i have a strong attachment to milk products, so i am not sure i will want to continue the diet after that period of time. the only way to know how attached i really am to milk and milk products would be to go without them for a month, i suppose.

current vegetarian diet update for end of January:

1. removing msg as a spice for my daily tofu meal has resulted in me feeling full after eating the same amount of food. mental clarity is no longer compromised either. excellent! (please refer to this blog entry for history and details of this subject - monosodium glutamate.)
2. my last drink of alcohol was December 23 and i have not desired it since (this blog entry was written while drinking that last glass of wine). now over one month dry, this is the longest stretch in the past ten years in which i have not consumed an alcoholic beverage. i was once a daily drinker.
3. two servings of fish were consumed at the beginning of this month of January. i crave fatty, oily meats every few days. yesterday i purchased some fatty macadamia nuts to help curb my fat craving.
4. my sex drive has decreased. i presume this is somehow a side effect of vegetarianism. it is possible a lack of zinc, due to a lack of ingesting meat is to blame for my drop in libido.
5. although i generally feel in a better mood each day, the degree of mood change is so subtle that i am not sure if it has anything to do with my dietary changes, although, it is possible.

please refer to this blog entry as to why i am embarking on these changes in the first place.

my vegan diet will consist of some foods manufactured on equipment and at facilities that also manufacture products containing milk. therefore, some foods that are vegan cannot be guarantied to be such. i will not focus on such trivial details so to not detract from the overall goal and purpose of this exercise which is to abstain from consuming obvious animal products and byproducts. (it is possible that many vitamins and chemicals i will be consuming over the course of this vegan diet, such as caffeine and B complex may be artificially synthesized or produced by bacteria and yeast opposed to being derived or obtained only from plants. such vitamins obtained in this manor can not technically be considered vegan from my understanding of the definition of veganism, but i must remind myself to focus on the larger picture of this dietary challenge.)

the purpose of adopting this vegan diet to facilitate my development and growth of a higher state of consciousness along with increased mental and physical health through externalizing these internal goals by the use of a vegan diet. by improving my personal environment, along with the food which exists outside my body, i wish to similarly improve my reality within me. the ultimate goal is having the concept of a separation of an internal/external reality (in this case, body/food) dissolving into one total subjective reality, and thus, a higher state of awareness.

family death, & brief notes on spam & veganism.

Published
by
Joe
on January 29, 2008
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. 2 Comments

my grandfather john passed away last night. he lived in west seneca, ny, alone for the last four years or so. his wife, my grandmother, has already passed away. he was fine three days ago; he was able to get up and move around. two days ago he developing a light cough, after which he was unable to get out of bed. then, hours later he died. he was already losing weight and growing weak, so a slight cold seems to be all that was needed to snuff out the light. his 98th birthday is in two weeks. that is quite a long time to live. when he was born, men who fought in the us civil war were still alive and around 85 years old. it’s pretty amazing to reflect back on the era he was born into and the times he lived through. throughout his life he enjoyed ales and cigars and would drink and smoke one or two each night until about five years ago. perhaps the secret to his long life was daily, light alcohol consumption.

he was a hard working individual. he was a notable buffalo-area boxer and once knocked a man out in the ring in merely eight seconds. apparently, the crowd was upset because they paid money to see a good fight, not one that is over in an instant. he was an engineer by trade and an avid sports player too. he played soccer when young and volleyball in his 80’s. my father respected him a great deal. he told me one of the hardest things to accept about his divorce from my mother was breaking off contact with my grandfather. john taught my father how to weld along with other carpentry and mechanical activities that are presently alien to me.

my grandfather taught me how to skate and play hockey some twenty years ago.

my older sister lara is close to him. she is saddened by this event, as am i.

in an unrelated topic, yesterday i received my first five comment spams. this will only pick up as this blog grows. a spam filter or captcha will soon be implemented to catch or restrict spam comments. this should not impact real comments, but as is the case with any filter false positives are inevitable. i will likely manually go through the comments to make sure real ones have not been blocked.

i am almost done with my milk yogurt and chocolate milk. once those are depleted in about three days, my vegan diet will begin.

Be Active, Stay Young

Published
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Joe
on January 28, 2008
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Has a fountain of youth been discovered in our modern age? With all the prescription pills and scientific leaps and bounds we have gained in our recent era, not a single magic pill can halt or reverse the slow, persistent march of age on our hearts and on our minds. But there is one guarantee that will reverse and accelerate aging and it is not in a sugar-coated little pill.

It is already known that a sedentary lifestyle increases the likelihood of scumming to age-related diseases and premature death like diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. But a recent British study that examined 2401 Caucasian twins found that those engaged in an active lifestyle were biologically 9 years younger than those who were not.

The culprit appears to be the length of telomeres. Telomeres appear at the end of chromosomes and act like a lit fuse on a stick of dynamite. When the telomere shortens and eventually expires, the cell auto-destructs. the consequence of this is aging.

The study showed telomere length as being longer in those twins who where physically active (breaking a sweat) at least 3 hours per week. Similar results were found when comparing twins who were physically active to lesser degrees.

The conclusion is that a lifestyle which lacks physical exercise and activity prematurely shortens cellular lifespans, and thus leads to poor health, premature death and age-related diseases. In order to delay the aging process, I recommend breaking a sweat for 30 minutes each day as a result of moderately intense physical activity. Not only will you live a longer, healthier life, your psychological stress will be reduced. This is something we can all use a little less of in our lives.

The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association’s Archives of Internal Medicine.

my experience tonight at the outback steakhouse

Published
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Joe
on January 28, 2008
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today tara and i went out to eat at the outback steakhouse. when she menstruates, she craves blood and warm, rare red meat. she is not the only girl i have known to crave red meat when menstruating. someone i dated a while back claimed to be a proud vegetarian 29 days of the month. during the other days she would eat a pastrami sandwich. so, based on these two experiences, females craving hemo iron is not unheard of to me. as far as iron absorption is concerned, iron from meat is a far better and easier choice than getting iron from plant sources, but discussing that is not the point of this blog. i will talk about that some other day.

tara likes her fillets warm, but rare. and so she ordered steak but i did not. instead, i had two cesar salads and steamed broccoli (salad has cheese and anchovies flavoring, broccoli is in butter). while watching her eat piece after piece of her red raw steak, i was able to reflect on why i ate steak in the past and why i started getting the urge to order a steak for myself during the meal. at once point a few years ago, we ate at the outback several times a week. often after eating steak my stomach felt slightly heavy and my body felt a tad slow, but that is nothing unusual considering the amount of rich foods i consumed. i heard somewhere that during digestion, thirty percent of our energy gets devoted to digestion, thus we become tired. but anyway, my mouth tells a very different story than my body does. the pleasure of having warm, fatty red meat that melts in my mouth is amazing. it truly is a delicious culinary sensation. the simi-raw fatty meat does not need chewing. the juicy fat lubricates the pieces so they can slide down my throat with ease. but instead had my way with cold, crunchy romaine lettuce, creaming dressing with black pepper spice and a side of brocoli. while both were good, they were pale in comparison to the pleasure of warm red, rare meat in my mouth.

as tara ate her last bite, i had a realization.

here are the key i spoke of: sensation and pleasure. for me, eating meat is hedonism.

alarmingly, the kt tunstall song “suddenly i see” played on the over head speakers. that song is about self-realization and empowerment. the video for that song has kt looking and touching at her reflection in a standing mirror. and so i too had a realization at that very moment: i ate steak because of the pleasurable, physical sensation in experience in my mouth. the calorie and nutritional reasons are secondary.

is pleasure good or bad?

i wonder.. what if i choose to give in to temptation and ordered a steak for myself? that song surely would have still played on the overhead speakers at the end of our meal. what would i have thought then? suddenly i see that simply eating steak is ok? or would i still have the epiphany that eating steak is about hedonism?

note: tara received mild stomach problems, food poisoning from the outback steakhouse. this has never happened before, but is always a risk when eating food.

MSG: The Most Savory of Poisons

Published
by
Joe
on January 24, 2008
in health
. 1 Comment

Something weird has been happening to me. After eating a tofu dish with a certain chicken seasoning, I experience a rapid onset of fuzziness in my head along with an inability to focus and concentrate lasting for about fifteen minutes. Then immediately after, a surge of hunger takes over my body. Anything sugary I crave — bananas, fruit juice — the impeding feeling to consume carbohydrates is overwhelming. But at the end of the day, I always remember the tofu dish as being quite tasty. And so the next night or two I make the same dish again. In fact, week after week I consistently find that this certain chicken seasoning is superior in flavor and texture to any other spice or seasoning available to me on my large spice and sauce shelf.
After experiencing this bizarre reaction for two months I narrowed down the cause of the reaction to this seasoning. I took a look at it’s ingredient list. It contains MSG, otherwise known as monosodium glutamate. Interestingly, none of the other spices I use contain it, none of which cause the same reaction either. I determined MSG is the culprit of my adverse reaction to this seasoned tofu.
I remember all the health talk years back surrounding the food additive MSG, but it all seemed to have ceased since I haven’t heard anything about MSG in quite some time now. I figured the health buzz was incorrect. But then I remembered my mother telling me when I was ten to stay away from MSG. Does my mother know something about MSG that I do not? Finally, I decided to do some research on MSG myself. What I learned disgusted me. I promptly threw that tasty seasoning into the trash.

What if I gave you a choice, a choice to eat the most savory food you could imagine, but you would experience fifteen minutes of cellular death in your brain making you unable to concentrate. Would you eat it? What if I gave you a choice to eat most delicious and filling chicken you have ever had, but afterwards you will experience a sore neck, back and arms along with diarrhea. Want a taste? What if I promised you the most tasty chips possible with the only trade off is that thirty minutes later will crave more. What if I promised healthy, prepackaged lunches for your children, but the trade off would be long term emotional instability, mood swings and hyperactivity in your children. Is this tasty, delectable food worth these trade offs? Well, I wouldn’t eat it knowing that. But sadly I have been eating it, unknowingly, and so have each of you.

Do you experience any of the following conditions?

headaches
nausea
depression
mood change
hyperactivity
rapid heartbeat
cramps
bloating
irritable bowel
diarrhea
dizziness
soreness, burning or numbness in neck, back or shoulders
chronic fatigue
sleepiness
blurred vision
eye pressure
tingling face
runny nose
difficulty breathing
dry mouth
difficulty concentrating
poor memory
weight problems
chest pain
sweating

A 1995 FDA-commissioned report acknowledged these symptoms as a result of a reaction to MSG, giving it a label “MSG Symptom Complex.” (”FDA and Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/msg.html ) I will describe to you why this happens.

MSG, monosodium or sodium glutamate, is a flavor enhancer commonly added in many foods. In fact, so many foods contain MSG that in a typical large chain food market it is hard to find packaged foods and seasonings that do not contain MSG. Overall, the majority of all MSG is found in canned soups, beef and chicken stock, potato chips, snack foods, frozen dinners, fast foods, instant foods, flavorings, spices, and sauces. That is just about all of the American food available, isn’t it? But that is not where MSG ends. The FDA only requires MSG to be labeled as “Monosodium Glutamte” when MSG is added to food. Therefore, MSG can be found in the labels ingredient list. However, MSG is sometimes left out in spices, sauces and flavorings simply in error because the manufacturer is unaware of it’s presence in it’s source materials. Pay attention to ingredients that merely state “spices” or “natural flavorings” because that can hide MSG. But other forms of MSG, simply called free glutamate can be present in many other food additives like vegetable proteins, yeast, soy extracts and protein isolate. Also, anything in the ingredient list saying “hydrolyzed” contains free glutamate. In fact, it is far easier to list which foods do not contain MSG: raw fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, meats and organic produced food items with no additives.

Monosodium glutamate is an excitotoxin, just like aspartame (Nutrasweet). Excitotoxicity is the term describing nerve cells becoming damaged or dying off by glutamate and similar substances. These toxins open up nerve cell calcium channels allowing an influx of calcium into the cell creating over-simulation. This activity results in cellular death. Therefore, a diet containing daily doses of MSG creates a potential for long-term neurodegenerative effects, with special alarm for greater potential harm to infants and children. Here are titles and source information of three studies proving this correlation:
1. Meldrum B. (1993). “Amino acids as dietary excitotoxins: a contribution to understanding neurodegenerative disorders”. Brain research. Brain research reviews 18 (3): 293–314.
2. Nemeroff, C. (1980). “Monosodium Glutamate-Induced Neurotoxicity: Review of the Literature and Call for Further Research”. Nutrition & Behavior edited by Sanford A. Miller (U.S. Food & Drug Administration): 177–211.
3. Olney JW, Ho OL (1970). “Brain damage in infant mice following oral intake of glutamate, aspartate or cysteine”. Nature 227 (5258): 609–611.

(side note, aspartate is the amimo acid aspartame (Nutrasweet) is broken down into.)

In another side note, I learned glutamate plays a major role in our memory retrieval. It is not clear if monosodum glutamate interferes in that activity, but I’ll err on the side of caution.

A large insulin response is caused by ingesting MSG. Glutamate receptors exist in the pancreas. MSG is rapidly absorbed by the gut, then tricks the pancreas into flooding the blood stream with insulin causing a corresponding drop in blood sugar levels. This activity increases hunger. Glutamic acid in American diets may be relevant to diabetes. Here is a link to a Canadian research study showing a correlation between ingesting free glutamic acid and higher insulin levels. http://ajpendo.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/278/1/E83

The final issue with MSG deals with obesity. In lab rats, monosodium glutamate decreased the rats thyroid ability to suppress appetite, causing the rats to consume more food. Here is the link to the research proving the relationship between MSG and obesity in rats. The study is titled: Obesity, voracity, and short stature: the impact of glutamate on the regulation of appetite. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16132059

Even the industry sponsored website http://www.msgfacts.com/facts/msgfact12.html state adding MSG to food triggers elderly people to eat more! But what about you? You’re not elderly! Why do you need to eat more food than you need?!

No wonder why more and more Americans are become overweight and obese. We just can’t stop at one MSG-laced snack, chip, or taco. What about the increasing numbers of passive neurological disorders pervading our American society? The hyperactive children, the emotionally unstable adults, the persistent depression in the elderly? Are food additives like monosodium glutamate really safe for long term consumption? All i see around me is our quality of life dropping due to physiological and psychological problems while our access to processed and pre-packaged food increases. I can’t speak for all of you, but starting tonight my future will be MSG free. A life free of food additives is a healthier life, and that I can speak for all of us. Stop poisoning yourself with MSG now.

flowers

Published
by
Joe
on January 22, 2008
in shorts
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it is not flowers that bloom, but our hearts which open reflecting on their beauty of color and shape. to see a blooming tulip is to experience a blooming spirit.

it’s the experience in life that makes each of us bloom.
it’s the hard winter that brings spring into our hearts.

an orchid matures from tender, caring hands.
a gardeners heart blossoms from the experience.

a tulip cannot grow without forethought and preparation,
without a winter, and without a spring.

winter brings spring into our hearts.

a cold winter, a death.
a warm spring, a birth.

a tulip requires winter to bloom in spring. without experiencing cold, dark nights, beauty will not emerge. such is life.

a tulip blooms after a cold, dark winter.
a tulip blooms in the dirt.

“Blossoms are scattered by the wind and the wind cares nothing, but the blossoms of the heart no wind can touch.”
Youshida Kenko, Buddhist Monk, 14th century

Eat Healthy — Be Microwave Free

Published
by
Joe
on January 20, 2008
in health
. 2 Comments

Microwave ovens are convenient pieces of cooking equipment which have revolutionized the modern kitchen. Popularity of these ovens began in the 1970’s and are now found in 90% of American homes. The microwave oven has become a staple in our technologically dependent lifestyles. Wherever we choose to eat, whether at a home or an eatery, there likely is a microwave oven reheating or cooking food. Despite it’s omnipresence in American society, there are several issue demanding a closer inspection into whether this common kitchen appliance is worthy of such a dominant role in our lives. One of which — the destruction of nutrients from “nuking” food — will be covered here.

pizza nuking child

Since being a child I found certain foods such as old pizza tasting better when reheated in a conventional oven rather than the faster, more convenient, microwave oven. Water boiled from the inside of the pizza condensed on the pizza’s surface which created poor texture and taste. Heated pizza in an electric or gas oven evaporated the water and made the pizza dry and crispy, not wet and soggy. Regardless of this major difference in a pizza’s taste and texture depending on the cooking source, I noticed other subtle taste differences of microwaved food from it’s conventionally heated food counterpart. However, the minor changes in texture and taste where not enough for me to toss the techno oven. Over the last ten years i have used a microwave oven to warm water for tea or oatmeal, heating/thawing various foods like pizza and sausages and making popcorn. Rarely did i use a microwave oven for any other food.

how i causally became microwave free

Almost three years ago i moved from an apartment which provided a built in microwave to a home which did not. Even though these ovens are now inexpensive, I never got around to buying one. Perhaps two years ago while at a grocery store around midnight, i found some TV dinners that were on sale at fifty percent off. Maybe for the first time in my life i bought several frozen dinners. Not owning a microwave oven, a unique challenge formed right in front of me: how do i cook a frozen, pre-made dinner contained in plastic without having to break down and buy a cheap microwave? I tried two methods of cooking my food. The first was to cook by floating the food in a container in boiling water on the stove top and the other by leaving it outside in the summer sun. Both methods were a poor replacement for a microwave oven (for reasons of inefficiency i do not use the conventional oven). So i stopped the frozen food dinner experiment and continued on with my life microwave free. For tea I boil water on the stove. Sometimes i warm water in the coffee maker. The only thing i miss about owning a microwave oven is buttery, salty popcorn. And yes, I tried to make microwave popcorn without a microwave oven, but i will save that smoke-filled story for another time.

nuking is not nutritional

As I sit here eating raw cauliflower I am reminded of the negative effects microwaving fruits and vegetables cause to their nutritional content. A microwave oven operates by emitting dense, short waves of energy to excite water molecules. When water molecules become excited, they twist and shout and break bonds with neighboring molecules freeing themselves to become water vapor. This behavior can alter, weaken, and destroy chemical structures. Evidently, other molecules become excited as well. Vitamin B-12 breaks down when microwaved (click for research paper). Also, a study has shown microwaving broccoli destroy flavonoids (click for study source). Flavonoids are chemicals that are abundant in fruits and vegetables. The darker and richer the color translates to a greater abundance of flavonoids. For example, broccoli, parsley and blueberries are rich in these healthy, nutritional chemicals. Flavonoids possess profound health benefits of all sorts, including obscure effects like the improvement of asthma and lung functions by ingesting apples, to the big health benefit — preventing cancer — with broccoli sprouts. Flavonoids, in my opinion are the single, most important reason to eat fruits and vegetables raw. There are so many different flavonoids in a single fresh apple that we have only begun to scratch the surface of their myriad forms and benefits. Simply put, microwaving vegetables and fruits eliminates their most important health benefits by the destruction of natural flavonoids and vitamins. It certainly is possible that similar negative consequences from the alteration and breaking of the chemical structures that make up our food, caused by microwaving, will eventually surface. Keep in mind that microwave ovens have been on sale in the united states for fifty years and are, by all means, safe to use, but not the wisest choice.

reflection

After living nearly three years without a microwave oven, I do not see any reason to acquire one in the future. My life has actually become simpler without one, not more inconvenienced. I eat one warm meal of tofu a day cooked on the stove and fill the rest the day with raw fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts and health bars. Furthermore, without living microwave free for nearly three years i might never have learned about the destructive effects microwave ovens have on our food and, consequently, our health. That in itself has made this nearly three year experience worthwhile.

Now you live without a microwave for a week, or two, or three. Replace those frozen foods with healthier choices or raw food items. Instead of warming up vegetables, eat them raw like i do. Try to compare the taste between foods cooked on the stove to those same foods cooked with microwaves like i have in the past with pizza. Although we may gain time in our life using these modern ovens, I have found satisfaction in my life without one. Is it time to remind ourselves that our ancestors got by just fine without one too? and so i challenge you to not nuke your food, but be microwave free instead.

My Diet For Honest Living

Published
by
Joe
on January 9, 2008
in blog
. 1 Comment

a foundation for personal growth is based on our personal diet. to have a healthy spirit one must first have a healthy vessel to fill.

and so i detail my diet.

last year i saw a t shirt with the message printed in all caps “EAT JUNK, BECOME JUNK.” the truth of that clear and poignant statement really struck home with me. while i later learned that phrase is a title of a music single from the rock band Six By Seven, regardless it tells us of the direct connection between our bodies and the food that we eat. consider the following statement for comparison: rolling in dirt makes us dirty. just as jumping in mud makes the outside of our body dirty, eating poor nutritional quality food causes the inside of our body to become impure. therefore, eating healthy keeps our body healthy. that in turn fosters a healthy mind and spirit, which is the ultimate point of adopting a healthy and conscientious diet.

my current diet (everything but the tofu meal, yogurt, rice bread, rice milk, almond milk, i have followed for years. it is the exclusion of daily meat intake that is the significant change):

1st meal — clif bar, caffeinated beverage such as energy drink, tea, enhanced water.
2nd — protein bar or a tofu dish with celery and ginger either seasoned with spice and salt or mixed with a sugar marination mix like jerk sauce or a southwestern sauce.
3rd — which ever of the two above i did not have earlier.
4th — varies. can be fruit or rice bread or a random health bar.
5th — another clif bar with a protein and sugar containing drink like chocolate milk, whey protein mixed with almond milk, or drinkable yogurt.

note: clif bars are a 70% organic vegan health bar where protein, fiber and carbohydrates are evenly balance giving me three hours of lasting fuel.

additional drinks — water, rice milk, fruit/plant blends, or heavily diluted coffee, tea or juice.

snacks — rice bread with oil spread, or i will chomp on seeds like sunflower or eat nuts like almonds.

once per week i tend to have meat, soup or some other handmade dish that is different from my weekly diet. for example, this week i had an interesting tuna salad flavored with apple cider vinegar. also, i had a awesome smoothie made from two frozen bananas, apple, a huge scoop of blueberries and a big bunch of pressed parsley juice. it was so good!

details of my diet:
nearly all the food i consume is labeled organic and likewise purchased at an organic market. artificially sweeten drinks and refined carbohydrates are both consumed once or less per day. fairly consistently i have been having an energy drink in the morning. since energy drinks i buy often contain Sucralose and Acesulfame potassium it constitutes my one serving of something fake for the day ;) sometimes in replace of an energy drink i will have tea instead. this helps in reducing my daily intake of artificial sweeteners.
artificial sweeteners should be restricted or better yet totally avoided in our diet. there is plenty of literature online from reputable sources indicating health risks or possible health risks from ingesting artificial sweeteners. moreover, paying for artificial sweeteners only pads the pockets of the corporate man instead of the man who farms our land. (not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with corporations ;) for example, many independently funded research studies has linked long term aspartame use to brain tumors, brain lesions, and headaches. industry sponsored research always indicates otherwise. conversely, saccharin has been proved to be safe for human consumption (although it tastes not so great). Acesulfame potassium and Sucralose are probably non-toxic as well.
why are artificial sweeteners used in the energy drinks i buy? because i choose to buy drinks that have no sugar (and also no aspartame). i limit the amount of sugar otherwise known as impact carbohydrates in my diet. i find that impact carbs such as refined sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and refined bread (but interestingly not rice bread or fruit) destabilizing to my body energy levels. when i drink a small beverage containing high fructose corn syrup i become dizzy. in addition to dizziness, the sugar quickly impacts my blood sugar levels sending my energy up and then after those impact carbs burn out i crash. this event strongly effects my mood. from the high of sugar in my brain down to the depression and irritability generated from it’s immediate lack in my system i really have no need for the problems sugar and impact carbs cause to my emotional and physical well being. however, combining impact carbs with fat, protein, or ideally fiber helps in reducing the strong effect simple carbs have on our bodies. this is why fruit — known as a natural carb even though containing simple sugars — is largely ok to eat on an empty stomach.
rarely do i eat more than one slice of rice bread per day. rice bread is a simple item made from ground rice flour and not much else. it does not taste very good. in fact, it’s quite bland. this is why i top out my slice with a tablespoon of delicious oil spread. a daily slice of rice bread is the only instance of refined carbohydrates in my diet. why is this important? because refined carbs have less fiber and nutritional content than the unrefined counterpart. translated they are not the best thing to eat. refined carbs are impact carbs which will quickly effect blood sugar levels.

since i am back to eating meat once per week i will share some things i know about meat and health. it is generally not considered healthy to eat more that once serving of red meat per week. additionally, processed meats such as salami, hamburger, sausage, sandwich meat, pasta meat, hot dogs and even bacon should be consumed no more than once per month. ideally, these processed meats should be completely removed from our diets for the rest of our lives. thousands of studies have shown a direct relationship between red meat and processed meats increasing the risk common colon, breast and lymphatic cancers. the instance of cancer among those eating fifty grams of processed meats daily is alarmingly high to the point where cancer rates are 2x-3x greater than normal. furthermore, processed meats often contain many chemicals (stored in the fat of the meat) from either the doped up beast from which the meat was born (in factory raised animals) or the chemicals that were added later during the manufacturing of the meat itself (like sodium nitrate). it is not unreasonable for a heath conscience individual to consume only lean muscle meat for the purpose of avoiding the chemical ladened fat.
lastly i will explain the reasoning for fruits and vegetables in my diet. one of the mysteries of a diet high in fruits and plants is that there is a reduced risk of cancer, notably colon cancer and no one knows why or how that happens. this mystery seems to apply only to a diet with raw fruits and vegetables — not cooked, simmered, boiled or fried. it is believe to be either the fiber or the phytochemicals found in fruits and vegetables that reduce our cancer risk. in addition to reduced cancer risk, the huge assortment of phytochemicals found in plants and fruits have plenty of other benefits. from the powerful antioxidant lycopene in tomatoes to all the flavonols in blueberries that lower stroke damage, inhibit cancer and protect our brain, there is now clear and strong reason to consume our fruits and vegetables raw because cooking and processing fruits and vegetables removes much of their nutritional value.

it is also known that a diet of fruits and vegetables reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke. the reason why is believed to be because eating fruits and veggies end up replacing or reducing the foods in our diet which increase risks for heart disease. for example, people who tend to eat healthier foods such as apples and salads tend not to eat unhealthy foods such as processed meats. even though a diet where fruits and veggies supplement or instead replace unhealthy foods in our diet, fresh raw fruits and plants have by their own merit a tremendous benefit on our health and well being.

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