The Dbottino Weblog

The Diet industry is a multi-billion dollar market. Each year thousands of brand-new diet merchandises strike the market claiming to be the solution to all of your weight problems. The enormous majority of these diet products are garbage. No sugars, maple syrup / lemonade / cayenne pepper cleanse, cabbage soup – all rubbish.

They may aid you shed a a couple of pounds, but the instant you even conceive of consuming anything that isn’t part of their diet plan, you gain back all of the weight and then some. Dieting fads don’t work! We all desire some marvelous pill to melt the fat away, but there is no such thing. So how does the diet industry continue to prosper and thrive? Who buys in to all of their gimmicks and advertising ploys? Women!

That’s correct ladies – you are the number one demographic that support the diet industry raking in the dough. It’s true – don’t try to refuse it. Each time you’re at the market, you casually stroll down the weight management and dieting department and discretely eye the new-sprung products. Despite intelligence and common sense, a part of you still wonders, “Was that truly how Anna Nicole lost all that weight?”

The response is NO! There is no magical pill, powder, or diet book. The first step to reaching your goal is to stop kidding yourself and get real. Total Body Solutions can aid you to find the real deal. The solution to your weight trouble doesn’t lie in the diet section – its hiding in the back of your cupboard.

Break out those running shoes from the rear of your cupboard ladies! The only proven and capable way to lose weight and keep it off is exercise.I know it isn’t the response you want to hear, but you know its true. It may not be the easier resolution, but it is the only real solution.

Burning Off calories through exercise and being in a caloric defecit throughout the day is the only concrete way to drop pounds for good. It takes hard work and commitment, but don’t all pleasing things? Personal trainers will help you attain the answers that you want in the most effective means possible.

Rhubarb is known as the pieplant. It is bright in color, red and pink all the way to green. It is thin and crispy in a stalk like shape. They should always be nice and crispy and not flimsy, if they are not crispy it means that they are not all that fresh, as fresh as they could be. It is best to use the freshest rhubarb possible because it affects the final flavor. If you have to end up storing the Rhubarb make sure to use plastic wrap, you can keep it for a few days in the refrigerator without it going to flimsy. It goes best with sweets, and if you have a thing for sweets you might want to take the appetite suppressant acceletrim so you don’t eat as much or even has the desire for it. Rhubarb can be used with baked pies, cakes, and other baked desserts. Some of the best fruits to use with Rhubarb are apples and pears. It can also taste good with almonds, hazelnuts, and cheeses. If you choose to eat it with a protein, then salmon or char are a great choice. Once you test around and find the perfect recipe to use Rhubarb you will end up using it over and over again. It is in season right now and if you love Rhubarb, now is the time to cook with it.

In today’s fast paced, fast food world, most of us need to improve our
daily diet by eating more vegetables. For optimum health that means 3
to 5 servings a day. Try these twelve ways to easily (and deliciously)
incorporate more veggies into your meals and snacks.

1. In the winter, make one pot meals, like soups, stews, and chowders.
Use a combination of fresh and frozen vegetables. Turnips, parsnips,
and other vegetables you might not enjoy on their own are quite
satisfying in a hearty winter soup or stew.

2. Make a simple tossed salad part of your dinner every night. No need
to wash and cut up veggies. Buy salads already prepared, so all you
have to do is open the bag, put the salad in a bowl or on a plate and add
some low-fat or low-calorie dressing. Toss in a few sunflower seed
kernels, dried nuts, or sprouts for extra crunch and additional nutrients.

3. Trade potato chips and other high fat, high calorie snack foods for
matchstick carrots. Again, buy the carrots already washed and prepared.
They may seem a bit expensive but there’s no waste (if you actually eat
the carrots and don’t leave them to rot in the crisper of your refrigerator).

4. Make at least one stir-fry meal a week. Experiment with various stir-
fry recipes to come up with your favorite variation of vegetables,
seasonings, and a small amount of meat. Use fresh veggies, or try some
of the many frozen varieties of stir-fry mixes available at the
supermarket.

5. Try a chicken and veggie fajita for dinner or lunch at least once a
week. Simply cook diced chicken and chopped onion in a few
tablespoons of oil. Add seasoning (look for fajita seasoning in the spice
section of your supermarket). When the chicken has cooked all the way
through, and the onions are translucent, add chopped green, yellow,
and red peppers and continue cooking until they soften. Put a couple of
spoonfuls of the cooked veggies and chicken in the center of a flour
tortilla, add some shredded cheese, and fold as you would for a burrito.

6. Add shredded carrots or zucchini to meatloaf or meatballs.

7. Instead of a “meat lover’s pizza,” order (or make) a “veggie lover’s
pizza” once in a while.

8. Serve low calorie dips with fresh veggies instead of chips and
crackers.

9. If you get tired of salads, try slaw. Browse cookbooks for recipes that
include red cabbage and interesting ingredients besides the ordinary
green cabbage and carrots.

10. Experiment with vegetable casseroles. Broccoli and Rice is an easy
one that most families will eat. You’ll find recipes for some variation of
this in many cookbooks, or try the all time kid’s favorite, Green Bean
Casserole.

11. Make a simple and satisfying veggie quiche for dinner once in a
while. Use a frozen pie crust and all you’ll need to prepare is the filling.

12. Drink vegetable juice for a morning or afternoon snack. Also add it
those hearty soups and stews you rustle up for dinner.

Once you start thinking about it, you’ll find it really isn’t that difficult to
incorporate more fresh and frozen vegetables into your daily diet.

Suzanne Lieurance is a freelance writer, children’s author, and owner of
the Three Angels Gourmet Co. Read her daily food tips at
http://www.threeangelsgourmet.blogspot.com or visit
http://www.threeangelsgourmet.com for “heavenly gourmet mixes.”

People often ask me what supplements does P G take? First, let me explain who P G is to those that have not met him or competed against him in power lifting competitions around the country. P G has been a friend and customer for 11 years. His physical strength is amazing. He blows out his competitors with numbers like: 1085 lbs. dead lift, 1015 lbs. squat, and 735 lbs. bench press.

P G keeps is very simple. He trains 3 days per week, eats home cooked food and takes supplements.

P G’s Supplement Program

The foundation is a food based multi-vitamin complex. It hits the bloodstream in 28 minutes – Takes 3 Daily.

Second – Amino Acid Complex 2200 grams per tablet – Takes 5 before training and 5 after training. Hits the bloodstream in 15 minutes.

Third – Plant sterols – Super Sterol Complex – helps with building mass. Takes 6 daily.

Forth – Digestive Enzymes – helps food digest faster. Takes before meals.

Fifth – Colon cleanser – Cascara – keeps toxins out the system and provides more energy. Takes as needed.

Notice I did not mention protein shakes or creatine. I have never seen P G drink one protein shake, not one in the 11 years I have known him and has not supplemented with creatine in years. He eats a lot of tuna and eggs for protein and simple carbohydrates such as home cooked biscuits, say 10 at once with 12 pieces of bacon. I wouldn’t try the biscuits if I were you, unless you got the muscle to burn’um off and are taking cascara to blow’um out.

I have talked to P G many times about how supplements help him win competitions and it always boils down to these five supplements. When he talks about these 5 supplements, he does it with fire in his eyes as he laughs at those that make light of them.

P G is not a sucker for the latest, greatest, cutting edge new thing on the block that boasts suckers claims that only suckers believe. The bodybuilding supplements industry has led body builders away from the basics of supplementation. What a shame! I does me good when I talk to P G after a competition and ask him, “Did you gett’em.” His answer is always the same, ” Yea, I gott’em.” To make it even better, P G is a very humble man that does not want to be recognized for his accomplishments. He usually gives the prize money to the organization for special needs kids that he works with.

Fred Fishburne and his wife are owners of ProHealth Nutrition, Inc., a very successful health store in McDonough, Ga. since 1994. Visit them at: http://prohealthnut.com or http://stores.ebay.com/ProHealth-Nutrition_Body-Building_W0QQcolZ4QQdirZQ2d1QQfsubZ12QQftidZ2QQtZkm

We all know the importance of eating healthy foods for their vitamin and mineral content. However, in recent years, scientists have discovered that there are hundreds of substances in food that have healing and disease prevention properties.

So why, if there are foods that will heal many of our common ailments, have we not heard more about them? Maybe it’s because, just as we’ve become a fast food society, we’ve also become a fast cure society. We’re always looking for the easy way to cure and prevent diseases by just popping a pill.

Just look at the increasing number of ads on TV and in magazines for drugs. Often the side effects are worse than the disease they’re meant to prevent or cure!

Wouldn’t it be better to use natural remedies? Remedies with no side effects, to cure and prevent diseases? Of course it would! That’s why I decided to write this article. Here’s to a healthier life!.

Perhaps as a child you were told by your mom to eat all your carrots because they were good for your eyes? As you grew up, you may have cynically been told by others that this was just an “old wives tale”. Guess what, recent studies have shown that Mom was right! Foods can prevent eye disease, heart disease, arthritis and much more.

Some Basic Science:

In recent years scientists have discovered that foods contain “phytochemicals”, which is a fancy name for naturally occurring chemicals. This is not the same as nutrients, which we all know are the substances necessary for sustaining life.

Phytochemicals have properties that can aid in disease prevention and cures. Scientists have identified thousands of these chemicals in the foods we eat and a single serving of fruit or vegetables can contain as many as one hundred different phytochemicals.

The most commonly known phytochemicals are the antioxidants. Antioxidants protect our cells from damage by toxic substances and free radicals (a by-product produced by our bodies which converts oxygen into energy). Free radicals can damage cells in our bodies which can lead to disease. Antioxidants protect the body from oxidation and reduce the risk of acquiring many common ailments.

The full article is a big one and covers:

Fruits and Vegetables
 Healing Properties Of Fruits
 Healing Properties Of Vegetables
 Seeds, Nuts, Oils and Fish
 Healing Properties Of Seeds, Nuts, Oils and Fish
 Grains
 Healing Properties Of Grains
 Healing Properties Of Beans and Lentils
 Healing Properties Of Herbs and Spices
 Healing Teas
 Other Healing Foods

Hit the link below to continue reading it.

Edwina Hanson has made available the entire article at Eat Healthy Foods

I read a lot about the
topics of health and especially diets. I have been experimenting with
diets since 1990 and keep journals about my
observations. Over time I tried several very different diets – ranging
from the politically correct ones to highly controversial, along with diets
of my own design. My general observation is that a healthy diet plays an essential
role in the overall scheme of well being.

Why eat healthy?

Eating the natural foods humans are well adapted at utilizing, enhances
ones ability to cope with the reality of every day life. This in essence
improves the probability of living a longer, healthier life. Quality food consumption becomes
especially important in the present world of high stress and pollution -
making a healthy diet an essential aspect of modern self health care.
(Although food is not the only aspect contributing to health or disease, it
is significant enough to consider it’s effects seriously.)

I think anybody who seriously tried living healthier through a better diet,
proper physical activity, adequate rest, and by addressing mental and
spiritual factors have experienced a vast range of natural health benefits.
Common benefits are overall better health and a sense of well being, better sleep,
improved physical endurance and strength, sharper mental abilities and lower
sleep requirements. Further more, no or little time and money and energy is
spend on doctors, hospitals and health insurance bills.

What is a healthy diet?

Since this article deals with healthy eating, a question remains
to be answered: what constitutes a healthy diet? Unfortunately, there are
more opinions about this than there are health experts. To further complicate
the matter, dietary concepts change over time, leaving most people confused and uncertain
about what or whom to trust. One solution to this problem is to become sufficiently
knowledgeable about the relevant subjects and rely on common sense to draw basic
conclusions. Along with personal experimentation, such an approach will
enable one to establish healthy eating habits. This takes time and energy, but considering
the long lasting benefits a healthy diet can provide, the effort is more then well worth it.

In order to determine the minimal basic requirements of a healthy diet, I
concluded that it is safe to start with the following two objectives:

1. examine human diet over time – the foods humans consumed since the arrival of our species.
2. examine diets of ethnical groups known for their good health.

Looking at the type of diets humans lived on through out pre-history, provides good
insights into the kind of foods human body should be well adapted at utilizing and dealing with.
Further, the diets of certain ethnical groups that are well known for good health -
the people of Okinawa(Japan), traditional cultures in the Mediterranean region and many hunter-gatherer
societies – suggest certain health promoting dietary habits. Upon closer examination, two main
denominators emerged:

• diets are based on natural, whole or minimally processed foods in accordance to heritage.
• diets are lower in calories compared to a typical western diet.

In the context of present time, one can therefore make two general assumptions in regard to
the question of what constitutes a healthy diet: 1) generally, the less a food is processed the better.
2) eat less – eat what is adequate, do not over eat.

Generally, the less a food is processed the better

The reason for this is simple. For 99.9% of human existence, our species
lived on foods that were either raw or minimally processed. The technology
needed to increase food processing did not exist until very recently.
It is therefore reasonable to assume that our bodies are best adapted at
utilizing and dealing with the raw or minimally processed foods which sustained
us for hundreds of thousands of years: fruits, vegetables, meats, nuts and seeds.

Often, the more recent the food is, the more likely it is to be less beneficial
or even directly harmful – possibly due to lack of full adaptation to such foods.
For example, it is estimated that food cooking started about
500 000 – 250 000 years ago (depending on the source, the range may vary). During
this time frame, it is likely that human species have at least adapted in some way to cooked
animal and vegetable foods. On the other hand, the beginnings of grain consumption
are much more recent. Evidence of earliest known, systematical collecting of grains
for food goes back to about 23 000 years ago – giving less time for
adaptation to grain based foods.

Now, let’s fast forward to recent times and consider all the new, human invented,
highly processed foods so common today: fast foods, pizza, sweets, chips, convenience
foods, canned foods, etc. along with the dramatic rise in heart attacks, high blood pressure,
stroke, cancers, diabetes, kidney problems (and all the complications that arose from these
conditions) during the past 100 years or so.

Considering the declining health of most western
nations as opposed to good health of the ethnical groups described above, it seems reasonable
that the most recent food inventions are directly harmful to human health.
Further, it has been repeatedly observed that as ethnical groups around the
world adopt the modern western diet, their health dramatically declines and they develop
the same diseases that are so common to westerners. Not to mention the fact that
the above mentioned diseases were far less common among westerners
themselves barely 100 years ago.

The more a food is processed – through excessive cooking, pasteurization,
homogenization, high heat, mechanical processing, etc, – the less natural and nutritious it becomes to a point
of becoming a harmful burden to the body, rather then a useful and health promoting food. Some
industrial processing practices deprive food of their nutrients to such a high degree that the food
has to be “enriched” by artificially adding some nutrients back into the food. This is especially
true of flours where vitamins are added back in after the processing is done.

A good diet is based on natural, whole or minimally processed foods. A large portion
of it should consist of foods that can be eaten raw, such as fruits and vegetables.
Fermented or cultured, unpasteurized foods such as kefir, yogurt, cheeses, miso, sauerkraut and pickles
are considered highly beneficial. Cooking should be minimal and only applied to foods that
must be cooked in order to be edible. Ancestral heritage also plays an important role
as certain foods may need to be excluded or emphasized.

Eat less – eat what is adequate, do not over eat

During the past several decades, food in the western and westernized nations became
increasingly affordable and more readily available then ever before in
human history. This very fact combined with the enjoyment food consumption brings,
results in all too frequent over eating. Which again leads to the above mentioned health
problems.

In the past, as in the traditional way of living among the ethnical groups mentioned
earlier, food consumption has always been significantly lower. Food quality, on the other
hand, has always been higher. Resulting in a lower food intake, but of nutrient dense foods.

Finally, as an interesting note, it has been repeatedly confirmed through laboratory experiments on animals,
including monkeys, that cutting down calories considerably lowers their susceptibility
to diseases and prolongs their life up to 50%. It is believed by many,
that life long caloric restriction can have similar effects on humans.

Health promoting eating habits

Over time, through reading and experimenting, I gradually arrived at several
basic health promoting habits that in my experience are the most important:

Avoid or minimize:
• Avoid all junk, sweets, canned and convenience foods – including
  all foods with added sugar: most commercial yogurts, kefirs and juices, fruit and soft drinks.
• Avoid all refined or overly heated fats: margarine, any oil that is not cold
  pressed, leftover fat from cooking, all foods that contain hydrogenated or
  partially hydrogenated fats and trans fatty acids (read the labels). Such
  fats are considered to be among the most health damaging foods.
• Avoid consumption of fish and water animals unless certain they came from unpolluted waters.
  Especially predators should be avoided as the toxins accumulate in them in
  far greater quantities.
• Keep the intake of foods high in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) low – mainly
  nuts and seeds and any products made from them (mostly oils). PUFAs are unstable,
  they oxidize readily resulting in harmful free radicals. High PUFA intake have
  been repeatedly linked with cancer, heart and inflammatory diseases.
• Do not cook meat or fat at high temperatures while exposed to air. Such practice
  will avoid fat and cholesterol oxidation – believed to be responsible for build up
  of arterial plaque and injury to arterial cells. Grilling and frying is especially
  harmful. Boiling is probably the safest way of cooking meat.
• Minimize or eliminate consumption of foods frequently contaminated with mycotoxins: alcoholic beverages,
  wheat, rye, barley, corn and peanuts. Mycotoxins are poisonous substances produced
  by certain molds and fungi which cause a wide range of health problems including cancer,
  asthma, multiple sclerosis and diabetes.
Emphasize and do:
• The more natural and less processed the food the better. Emphasize whole, fresh foods.
  Replace white rice with brown rice; white bread with whole grain bread; sugar with
  small amounts of raw honey or dry fruit; pasta with millet or whole grain pasta; canned
  foods with fresh; candy and other sweets with dry or sweet fruit;
  etc. Organic foods are best as they are higher in nutrients and do not contain
  harmful pesticides, hormones or antibiotics found in conventional foods.
  Always choose fresh over frozen, dried or canned foods. Fresh foods taste better,
  have more nutrients in them, have no added salt, sugar or unhealthy additives.
• Enjoy simple meals. Generally, the
  simpler the food preparation the more nutrients are preserved and the easier it is to
  digest. Simple meals are easy and quick to prepare and use fewer
  resources like electricity and water – thus are more environmentally friendly and less costly.
• Only cook foods that need to be cooked in order to be edible (beans, grains and some vegetables).
  Foods that are edible in a raw state (fruits, most vegetables, sprouts, nuts and seeds)
  should be consumed on a daily basis and preferably with every meal. Raw foods are higher in nutrients,
  which to some degree get lost during cooking, and are easier to digest. At least 50% of
  the diet, by volume, should consist of raw foods.
• Steam vegetables that need to be cooked – steaming preserves more nutrients which
  when boiled leech into the water. Do not overcook. Cooked vegetables should be crunchy
  when you eat them, not soft.
• Chew food well (simply chew it longer) and eat at a comfortable pace. This improves
  digestion which already starts in the mouth while saliva gets mixed with the food.

• Variety in diet is very important – to prevent allergies, malnutrition and to lower
  exposure to natural and man-made toxins found in many natural foods.

• Always properly wash fruits and vegetables before consumption. This lowers the
  exposure to agricultural chemicals (used to cultivate conventional plants) and harmful microorganisms.
  Peel the skin if washing is not sufficient.

• Nuts and seeds should be soaked before consumption – to lower or eliminate natural
  anti nutrients like enzyme inhibitors. Soaking makes them much easier to digest.
  Do not eat more then a few handfuls a week as they are high in PUFAs and difficult
  to digest.
• Grains (except amaranth, millet and rice) and beans must be soaked before
  consumption. This lowers or eliminates anti nutrients like phytic acid which inhibits
  mineral absorption that can lead to mineral deficiency.
• Fruits are best eaten alone as a snack between meals. To improve digestion only eat
  one type of fruit at a time.
• Regularly consume unpasteurized fermented/cultured foods like sauerkraut, miso,
  pickles, kefir, yogurt, etc. These are pre-digested foods that are high in
  probiotics (friendly bacteria) and enzymes which provide numerous health benefits.
  Start with what your ancestors consumed and later experiment with other foods
  as well.
• Regularly consume enzyme rich foods: sprouts, raw honey, grapes, figs, avocados,
  bananas, papayas, pineapple, kiwi, mango and fermented/cultured
  foods (see above). Enzymes obtained from raw foods ease the digestion by reducing
  the body’s need to produce digestive enzymes.
• Consider the diet your ancestors ate for thousands of years – you will most likely
  do very well on such a diet due to the long period of adaptation to it.
  For example, the traditional Chinese diet is high in carbohydrates and low in fat and protein;
  Europeans, on the other hand, have been eating less carbs and more protein and fat;
  North American Indians did not eat grains.
• Drink adequate amounts of liquid through out the day. Water is best. Under normal conditions,
  most people need 2-3 liters of liquid/day.
• Unless very hungry, do not eat for 3-4 hours before bedtime. That way the nightly fast
  can be prolonged considerably. This gives the body more/adequate time and energy to perform the
  countless nightly tasks that are so essential to good health. (Rather then digesting the
  just eaten meal)
• Eat only when hungry and do not overeat regardless of food. I found this to be among the
  most important of all health promoting habits.

Good sources of protein:

• any meat that comes from organic, free range animals that are fed their natural diet (hard to find)
• when not organic: lean poultry meat (high fat cuts are high in polyunsaturated fatty acids which oxidize readily during cooking and in the body; toxins accumulate in the fat)
• beans
• fresh, soaked or sprouted nuts and seeds
• raw fermented milk products: sour milk, kefir, cheeses, etc (hard to find)
• wild game
• eggs

Most commercial meats including pork and beef, unless organic and not fed corn/grains/beans,
contain antibiotics, hormones and too many polyunsaturated fats – thus should be avoided.

Good sources of carbohydrates:

• vegetables
• fruits
• whole or minimally processed fresh and mold free grains: rice, oat, amaranth, millet, barley, wheat, etc.
• beans
• potatoes

Good sources of fats:

• avocados
• butter
• fresh, soaked or sprouted nuts and seeds (mostly source of omega 6)
• coconuts or coconut oil
• full fat raw milk products (cheese, milk, cream, etc) from pasture fed cattle
• olives or first cold pressed (extra virgin) olive oil

Shopping

I always try to find organic foods to avoid harmful substances like hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, etc.
The most contaminated fruits are: raisins, cherries, peaches, strawberries, mexican
(winter) cantaloupe, apples, apricots, Chilean (winter) grapes. And the most
contaminated vegetables are: spinach, celery, green beans, bell peppers, cucumbers,
cultivated button mushrooms, potatoes and wheat. Lean poultry is probably the safest meat
to eat if not organic.

Meal examples

What follows are weekly meals that closely resemble my diet at the time of this
writing. When planning meals, the key idea is to have variety in diet and to rely on
food combinations that agree with ones digestion.

TBS = table spoon
tsp = tea spoon
/ = or

• any fruit eaten alone
• 0.5L sour milk, 300g potatoes, fennel
• 0.5L kefir, 50-100g oatmeal, 25g raisins
• 0.5L plain yogurt, 300g grapes/2-3 bananas
• 50-100g oatmeal, 1-2TBS honey, cinammon
• salad head, 1-2 tomatoes/pepper fruit, cucumber/squash, 1-2TBS olive oil
• medium avocado, 1-2 bananas, cinammon
• 50-100g brown rice, 1-2 hardboiled eggs, 2-4 radishes, 25-50g leeks, 1-2TBS ground flax seeds, 50g sprouts
• 50-100g amaranth, 1-2 steamed parsnips, 1 steamed onion, 1-2 steamed carrots, celery stick, 1tsp freshly grated raw ginger, parsley, 1TBS olive oil
• 200g mung bean sprouts, 1-2 carrots, 25-50g leeks, 25g soaked pumpkin seeds/almonds/sesame seeds
• steamed broccoli/cauliflower, 1-2 tomatoes/pepper fruit, squash/cucumber, 150g turkey/chicken breast, 2-3 cloves of minced garlic, 1TBS olive oil
• 100g buckwheat sprouts, 2 carrots, florence fennel stick, 25g sprouted sunflower seeds, 25g raisins
• 50-100g amaranth, steamed onion, steamed asparagus, florence fennel stick, 1tsp freshly grated raw ginger, parsley, 1TBS coconut oil
• 50-100g millet, celery stick, 2-4 radishes, 25-50g leeks, 25g pumpkin seeds

I plan meals loosely, 1-2 days ahead. The meal preparation is very simple: meat and
eggs are boiled in water, vegetables that need cooking are steamed. Since certain food vitamins
become more bioavailable once exposed to low heat cooking, it is a good idea to alternate
between cooked and raw vegetables. For example,
Bio-carotene found in carrots becomes more absorbable after light steaming.
I adjust the quantity of food according to how physically active I am during the day.

In addition to the above foods I also take vitamin and mineral supplements and
drink bottled water. I use spices and salt. Kefir and sour milk are made at home
from organic full-fat, unhomogenised pasteurized milk. Sprouts are home grown as well
for maximum freshness. Both are very easy to make and require only few minutes of
daily attention.

Final thoughts

Although a healthy diet can enormously improve ones health, it is only one essential part
of healthy living. The other parts are proper and adeqaute physical activity,
mental and spiritual well being, and adequate rest. All need to be addressed in order to
achieve better health.

An important thing I learned while experimenting with diets and other health
related approaches is to always pay attention to the signals from the body. It is essential to
do this – in order to maintain good health – and adjust accordingly. As one gets
better at reading the body, it becomes natural to self diagnose a lot of minor problems (which can
become major if not paid attention to) and remedy them by simply adjusting the diet or other aspects of life.
Finally, we are all different – what works for one person may not work for another – thus it’s
important to experiment with ones diet to find out what works and what doesn’t.

Disclaimer: This article represents personal views and should
be treated as such. Implementation of any ideas contained
herein can only be done at own risk.

(If you found this article helpful, you may return the favor by buying a poster of one of my images at www.art.eonworks.com/gallery/gallery.html.)

Copyright © 2005 Dawid Michalczyk. All Rights Reserved. This content
may be copied in full, with copyright, contact, creation, information and links intact, without specific permission, when used only in a not-for-profit
format. Author’s email: dm@eonworks.com

Dawid Michalczyk is a freelance illustrator and an artist. He enjoys learning
about health, anthropology and computers. He loves to ride a bicycle
and does it almost every day. To see examples of his work and other writings
visit his website at http://www.art.eonworks.com. He can be reached at dm@eonworks.com

There is a growing interest in food intolerance testing in the UK. This can be partially explained by the concern amongst the country’s leading nutritionists that the increasing amount of chemicals in our food is causing new conditions like IBS and chronic fatigue. Many of these problems cannot be resolved with traditional medicine. Therefore a number of people are looking for other answers, and food intolerance testing is a popular one.

In recent years the sheer number of chemicals in food has risen dramatically. Indeed, in the UK there are 10,000 additives in our food chain that were not present fifty years ago. The emergence of the organic food market is indicative of the increasing concern that many people have about this trend.

However, for some, eating carefully is essential to their sense of wellbeing and not just because it seems wise to do so. This is because certain people are intolerant to specific foods and when they ingest these foods they feel unwell.

This can range from slight bloating to more serious problems like migraines and irritable bowel syndrome. The trouble is that not everyone knows which foods make them feel unwell. Food intolerance testing is a quick, cost effective and easy way to find out which foods a person is sensitive to.

I believe that a skin prick test is the best type of food intolerance testing available; and the one that I recommend to my clients is the York Test Food Intolerance Indicator Test. This test assesses a person’s reaction to certain foods to identify whether or not he or she has a food intolerance.

As different foods produce different reactions in people, it is not enough to simply follow the latest diet trends in the hope that they will make you feel better. Instead, if you suspect that food sensitivities might be at the root of your problems, I would strongly advise that you arrange food intolerance testing. By identifying your food intolerances you will be able to enjoy an enhanced feeling of well being and enjoy what you eat knowing it won’t make you feel ill!

Elizabeth Harfleet, a UK based nutritional therapist, sells food intolerance testing kits via her website.