Easy Steps To A Healthy Diet

Sharing a great article from my friend, Irina Wardas, website. Please click on the hyperlinks below each topic, for more great info from her website.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.-- Annie Dillard

1. COOK AT HOME

The food we take into our mouth goes into our stomach where it gets digested and eventually assimilated into the bloodstream. Our blood is what creates our cells, our tissues, our organs, our skin, our hair, our brains and our thoughts and feelings. Learning to cook high quality food for yourselves and those you love can change everything.
Healthier Substitutions for Your Recipes
Soup Time to Feel and Look Fabulous
Asparagus, Beets and Chicken Salad Recipes
Sweet Eats for More Energy

2. EAT THE RIGHT FOODS

- drink more water;
One Extra Glass of Water to Drink and Extra 500 Calories to Burn the Easy Way
- start with a breakfast
Video Tip: How to Make a 3-min Nutritious Breakfast to Feel Fabulous All Day
Healthy Breakfast to Feel and Look Fabulous
Healthy Pancakes
- incorporate more fruits, vegetables, legumes, beans, grains, nuts, seeds, herbs and spices into your diet;
4 Reason to Eat Apples
"11 Reasons to Eat Beets
Eight Reasons to Eat Squashes
Detox, Weight Loss, Glowing Skin and Other Reasons to Eat Radishes
Heart Healing Foods
Immunity Boosting Spices Recipe
Simple Detox with Cleansing Herbs
Lentils Recipes to Fight Seasonal Depression
- switch to only healthy fats with omega-3 fatty acids you can find in olive oil, salmon (chose fish carefully because it can be highly contaminated with toxic chemicals like mercury and PCBs), walnuts, flax seeds;
Salmon and Avocado Recipes

3. WATCH WHAT YOU EAT

Avoid super unhealthy processed foods which add more stress on our system and are super harmful for our health.
Super Foods to Avoid in Order to Stay Healthy
Listen to Your Body and Be Crave Smart

4. READ LABELS

We read all labels carefully looking for ingredients we cannot pronounce or don’t know the meaning of. There are too many preservative, chemicals, artificial colors we must avoid in order to stay healthy. Even more careful we have to be with labels on meat and diary products because most of the terms mean not exactly what we think.
Sugar and Caloric Overload Foods
How to Read Labels and Find Hidden Sugar
Video Tip: Sugar Surprise – How Much Sugar You Think You Eat

5. GO U.S.D.A. ORGANIC

Did you know that the worst toxins we can ingest are put into our foods as additives and preservatives? Organic foods are supposed to be produced without synthetic growth hormones, genetically engineered organisms, antibiotics, chemical fertilizers or chemical pesticides.
Why Strawberries, Peaches and Cherries Can Be Dangerous for Our Health
Is Your Mouthwash Cancer Proof
How You Can Reduce Your Risk of Cancer

6. GO LOCAL & EAT IN SEASON

To eat local and in season means that food was stored for less time and traveled not far. You get it fresher and more nutritious. Did I mention, that it will be cheaper?
Go local and find Farmer’s Markets near you at www.LocalHarvest.org

7. DE-STRESS

Stress is #1 cause of all our illnesses. If we want to be healthier, sleep longer and feel better we need to take care of out stress overload first.
Video Tip: Simple Exercise for Detox, Weight Loss and Better Sleep-Part I
Foot Massage for Detox, Stress, Sleep, Constipation and Headaches
Instant Mood Boosters – MP3 mini-class
Video Tip: How to Fall Asleep Faster and Sleep Longer
What Sex, Garlic and Swearing Have in Common
Video Tip: Three Instant Mood Boosters that Work

8. DETOX

Toxins can be poisons, heavy metals, pesticides, fungicides, cleaning solvents, smog, and many substances that we don’t even know are leeching into our bodies via our clothing our furniture, and even out carpets. We need to detox with the seasonal fruits and vegetables to stay healthy. It is also very important to avoid chemicals and pesticides not only in foods but also in skin care products, make up, cleaning products, etc.
Simple Detox with Cleansing Spices
Spring Detox and Beauty Recipes
Three Detox Recipes
Video Tip: Detox Recipe: Super Simple and Healthy Turmeric Dressing
Detox Recipe: Kale with Cranberries and Sesame Seeds
Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.–Winston Churchill
If you feel you might need help with one of my Holistic Health and Nutrition Programs for Women, let me know, and let us talk…

And don’t forget to always breathe, smile and try to be happy.
© Irina Wardas, HHC
Women’s Holistic Health, Nutrition and Relationship Expert
NaturalCounselor.com

Not All Fruits & Veggies Are Created Equal

Ahhh, Spring has Sprung ! And with Spring, comes fruits and vegetables.... EVERYWHERE !!

With the availability of many gorgeous fruits and vegetables, a lot of us start looking to increase our daily intake of these wonderful natural products. Not just because they taste so good, but because we know they are good for us and most are low in fat and calories.

But, there's "the other side" of the story to these beautiful creations. And that being that usually all fruits and vegetables are treated with pesticides and some of them have a very high level of toxins, which can be dangerous to our health? Yes, there are also toxins in the cleaners we use, the air we breath, but today I just thought I'd focus on fruits and vegetables.

Some of them we can eat in large quantities and be happy about it, but some of them it is better to avoid eating non-organic because they can do more harm than good for our health.

Have in mind that organic produce doesn’t mean pesticide free. Organically grown fruits and vegetables are grown on better soils and have less pesticides level. Well, and these pesticides are less dangerous to our health, but they are still pesticides, maybe only better quality.

So as you can see, it is very important to know which fruits and vegetables are less desirable, (less beneficial to our overall health). If peaches, strawberries, cherries contain a very high level of pesticides, we have to think twice before buying them non-organic. Would you like to add more dangerous toxins to your system? I don’t. There are always other choices: you can buy organic only a smaller amount (if the price is high), you can buy local (if you know that the farm is small and they care about their produce), or you don’t buy at all.

So, to help you to remember why not all fruits and veggies are equal, here is a list of the “dirtiest” and the “cleanest” fruits and vegetables for 2009 based on an Environmental Working Group Survey.

In 2009 these fruits and vegetables you should buy organic:

1. Peaches 100

2. Apples 93

3. Bell Pepper- 83

4. Celery - 82

5. Nectarines - 81

6. Strawberries - 80

7. Cherries - 73

8. Kale - 69

9. Lettuce - 67

10. Grapes - Imported from outside U.S. - 66

11. Carrot - 63

12. Pear - 63

This is a list of fruits and vegetables you don’t have to buy organic:

Onion - 1
Avocado - 1
Sweet corn - 2
Pine Apple - 7
Mango - 9
Asparagus - 10
Sweet peas - 10
Kiwi - 13
Cabbage - 17
Eggplant - 20
Papaya - 20
Watermelon - 26
Broccoli - 28
Tomato - 29
Sweet Potato - 29
Grapefruit - 29
Honeydew Melon - 30

I first learned about this subject from reading my friend, Irina Wardes' blog. (Women’s Holistic Health, Nutrition and Relationship Expert). She graciously granted me permission to use portions of her blog post, so I could pass this information along to others like you. Please go to her wonderful website and blog for tons of more great health information like this!

The Demise of Organic Foods With HR 875?

A bill has been introduced into Congress (HR 875), which will more stringently regulate farming practices. That's all well and good, except the fact that HR 875 could essentially put the small farmer out of business and more specifically, organic farming!

Congressional Bill HR 875 was introduced by Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, whose husband Stanley Greenburg works for Monsanto. Ummmm, Monsanto, need I say more?

Dr Merola's website poses some interesting questions and facts regarding this Bill. Read through his comments and watch the video below which talks about it.