For the Body

You are what you eat?

I think so. Maybe our hearts save room for forgiveness but our bodies will reflect reality, often too late for reversing poor effects. So with care and discipline: Faites-attention, as the French say (pay attention it means) to what you eat!

I came across Natalia’s raw food diet by accident months ago, and it was not until I committed to a juicing diet that I decided to learn more about her ways. She has several books in print. First I read “The Raw Food Detox Diet”, followed by “Raw Food Life Force Energy”.

Her writing style is very simple, conversational and a similar style expected from any diet or nutrition books. Natalia’s book takes you through the effects of a poor diet, sadly nicknamed as the American diet, and the pre-mature aging you can cause your body by the poor choices you make in every occasion. The core of her message is detoxing our bodies with a more raw food diet and as a result, clarifying our minds.

The weight loss and feeling fabulous follows naturally as a consequence of eating a more raw food diet and drinking green juices. [Read more…] about Natalia Rose: “The Raw Food Detox Diet”

It is best to be reading Wuthering Heights in the cold of winter. Perhaps when and where we read our classics and our favorite novels makes them particularly memorable to us years from now. I read Emily Bronte’s brilliant singular novel this winter, a few days short of Christmas. I already knew the story, all the main characters, and had watched the movie. Yet the reading of the book was every bit as tantalizing as reading the world’s greatest novel. Even in my exciting and thrilling life, every cold evening, I would psyche myself to the excitement awaiting me as soon as I scurry under my covers. I would exclaim loudly, to no one in particular, “Goodnight – I am going to bed with Heathcliff”! [Read more…] about Emily Bronte: “Wuthering Heights”

Just finished a delicious green smoothie using my brand new Vitamix that I simple ADORE! In the 2 months we have had it, we have at least used it 800 times! The Vitamix makes the best green smoothies which are essentially raw foods. I have broken a lot of blenders in my time, and if I had only bought the Vitamix to make my green smoothies from Day 1, I’d have actually SAVED money. Can you believe it?

Moving on to the green smoothies, I feel refreshed enough to write a review on the quick and life-changing Victoria Boutenko’s book, “Green for Life”. In 2007, after a long agonizing month in the hospital for my dad, I started a journey to pure health. It has been an eye-opening one even for a casual health nut such as me. Sometimes I have set-backs but I always find my way back to developing healthy habits and feeding my soul with the perfect right food.

One favorite green smoothie:

Recipe: 1 large banana, 1 cup of frozen strawberries, 2 cups of fresh baby spinach, (if desired, add 1/4 to 1/3 cup of filtered water).

I had been juicing vegetables for a month now and entertaining ideas of a partial raw foods diet oh but the troubles with fighting those cravings! My intentions on what I want to get out of this book were clear to me: I do not plan to follow the Boutenko family diet of raw non-solid raw foods. I intend to pick up additional healthy ways to boost my diet.

I read this book in 2 days and found it to be very inspiring. The Boutenko family story is a sad one and indeed, their struggle for finding the right diet for them results in a worthwhile discovery to share with the rest of us. I would have never imagined making a green smoothie by mixing greens with fruits, much less blending them together. I love fruits. I love greens. I love vegetables. I usually crave each separately. I particularly do not care for fruits in my salad. What business do cherries and apples have in a salad? Still, I wanted to be open to new ideas so I read on.

Soon, I was nearly convinced that we would find the most nutritional value possible, along with countless health benefits, in a green smoothie. The combination of the pulp and the fiber, the latter of which is removed in the juicing process, contains the nutritional enzymes that together with the juice are absorbed better by our body cells. It is also easier to follow a diet based on a green smoothie than on juicing for any extended period of time. Green smoothie is also thicker, much lower in sugar, and more filling. Also the blending process is much easier than juicing.

I tried two very simple green smoothie recipes: Lettuce and bananas first, spinach and bananas next. I first made them in my old blender so I would say you ABSOLUTELY need A NICE expensive blender for this process. Why? Because the fruits and veggies get stuck together and you have got to use the Vitamix stick to keep churning it. If you don’t have this, then you have to STOP the blender, get a spoon, stir, start it up again, repeat until you are so tired of it you lose your appetite.

As to the mixing of fruits and vegetables, I admit it was not easy for me to mix those two ingredients but to my surprise, the blended concoction was a light green color with a delicious smell of banana. The texture came out creamy. The taste was the best part – unlike a fruit only version, it is not very sweet or carry a high amount of fructose. A green smoothie blended with vegetables provides the perfect balance and cuts the sugar level. It is surprising how delicious it tastes but the green thick concoction can turn heads and raise eyebrows, so be ware of just how unique you are!

Boutenko’s recipes left me desiring for more. Her measurements are not exactly accurate. What is one cup of spinach? The only way to be sure is to weigh the fruits and vegetables. The green smoothie recipes in the book are fine but they didn’t blow me away. Instead, she spends a lot of time explaining benefits and sharing testimonials about benefits of green smoothies. I would have liked to learn more about options on how to incorporate the green smoothie in a vegetarian diet, a raw food diet, instead of learning about it only in the context of her own raw non-solid diet food.

Also she is remiss on defining what a raw food diet means to her and her family so the baseline will not be the same for every reader. But I digress as that may not have been the real intent of her book. Her book has given me an amazing new habit to develop and explore, and I am delighted to have read it.

Best to be paranoid about protecting that which is most valuable and priceless in our lives than regret later what we could have done with the abundance of information, knowledge and tools at our feet, when it is too late to take any repercussions for lost time and declined health.

Drinking a green smoothie will enhance your life, your energy, your whole being, beyond what you can imagine – just as juicing vegetables can. They are also simply delicious. I invite each and every one of you, at any stage of your life, to take serious care of your health so serious problems can stay far away.

The “Perricone Prescription” started out very interesting, as Dr. Perricone shares the depth of his research on aging, skin care, cause of wrinkles, and his secrets to looking fabulous. His research results can be summarized in one short snap: Inflammation is at the root cause of all our perils of aging. Inflammation can be caused, as he explains, in large degrees by what we eat, and by the measure of our hygiene and personal care. His diet recommendation, likewise, can be summarized in one single phrase: Eat Wild Caught Salmon! A lot of it. [Read more…] about Nicholas Perricone: “The Perricone Prescription”