Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Helpful Juicing Tips

Fresh juice will start to deteriorate, losing enzymes, after just 15 minutes so you never want to juice more than what you are going to immediately drink. If you are new to juicing you should start with about 8 oz. and work up to 16 oz, each day adding a little more. You might have loose bowels for a few days- that's completely normal. Your body will adjust. It depends on how big the carrots are, so you'll have to experiment, but usually a 16 oz. glass of juice contains about 6 carrots, 1/2 med. sized beet, 2 handfuls of spinach and 1/2 cucumber. Of course other than the carrots, you can use different vegetables. What I do is buy 25 lbs. of carrots at a time (it's much cheaper to buy a 25 lb. bag of #2 juice carrots) and wash them all with a brush and vegetable soap, cut the tops off and then bag them in 2 gal. sized ziplocks. If I can't fit them all in my refrigerator, I put them in the garage where it is cooler. Carrots keep real well and you'll use up 25 lbs. in about 10 days if you're just juicing for yourself. I do the same with all of my juicing vegetables so it isn't such a task each day to juice. I just reach in and grab my clean vegies and juice away so my only real job is washing the juicer, which is easy. Something that's very nutrient rich and high in protein to add to your juice is 1 teaspoon of nutritional yeast, and 1 teaspoon brewers yeast.

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Thursday, March 15, 2007

How Many Fruits & Vegetables You Should Eat Each Day

Try to include in your salads at least 12 different vegetables. At Safeway now they have an organic spring salad mix (comes in a box) that includes about 10 different greens. There should always be at least one thing sprouted - of course more is better. If you are buying sprouts, Safeway also has a fairly large selection of sprouts so having several different types of sprouts in your salad is good. My favorites are sunflower and pea sprouts.

Another good thing to do is make a list of all of the vegetables that are good to put in a salad so you can have a good variation from day to day. Here's my list: salad greens including spinach, chard, kale, sprouts, cucumbers, tomatoes, avocados, onions, peppers (red, green, orange & yellow), carrots, celery, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage (green & red), jerusalem artichokes, corn (raw, cut off the cob). I also usually throw in some type of soaked chopped nut. Another good rule of thumb is your salads should be very colorful, because every color contains a different variety of nutrients.

Your daily count of raw fruits and vegetables should be no less than 15, which is not as difficult as it sounds, especially if you eating the mixed salad greens and juicing each day. Try to eat 3-4 different fruits (different colors) in the morning. This can include dried fruits but those should be kept to a minimum because even though they contain natural sugars, they still register as a sugar in your body, and dried fruits have a much higher concentration of sugars. I like to throw them in for flavor, like a handful of raisins, or my fave - mango.

Your fresh vegetable juice should contain at least 4 different vegetables with carrot always being your base (75%). An excellent detox combination is: carrot, beet, cucumber and spinach. A really good book to buy is "Fresh Vegetable and Fruit Juices" by N.W. Walker D. Sc., as he gives a lot of different combinations, and what is good for which ailment (example: for arthritis, a combination of carrot, beet, cucumber, spinach and celery is good).

Well, those are my tidbits for the day.

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Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Red Meat

Namaste Sumara...
I also thought of a question regarding the eating of red meat; The heath food store owner mentioned this. He read an article that said you need to eat some red meat because it contains nutritional elements that important to human health that are not found in a vegetarian diet. I have heard this before. I would appreciate a factual statement that I could respond with.
Thank you....Oh, I'm a bit hyper, talk fast, and nervous due to the medication. Will the diet help with this?
Thank you .

Love and peace,
Bets

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Health Issues

Hi Sumara,

Regarding health issues...Had a stroke in 1991; mainly affected brain function. I have short term memory loss and difficulty with focus and attention. TMJ. Dry eyes, and small cataracts. I have arthritis (ankylosing Spondylitis), which is causing problems in neck and spine. (bone spurs in neck with compression of nerve.)I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome which is much better now due to treatment by alternative health physician (neurofeedback, acupuncture, counseling and spiritual counseling). Pain is spread out over the body including head) Oh, I received head injuries in an auto accident in the 70's. I am taking antidepressants which I disllike taking and pain medication with codeine in it which I seldom take. I have problems with my stomach. Better now than earlier last year. It was discovered that I had h. pylori which was treated with antibiotics. I still have a problem with urinary track infection which is much better now. I was treated with antibiotics. I am now eating yogurt, saurkraut, Natto and taking Siberian pine nut oil to restore the flora in stomach and intestine. I drink very little coffee. I drink soda moderately. I drink mostly water and fruit juices in small doses. I drink green drinks containing green vegies, chlorella and other good things. Thank you for your interest. Love and peace, Elizabeth