Thursday, September 4, 2014

Six Recommended Habit Changes For the Average Consumer


Drink enough water. 
Enough= least recommended for your body type, you can drink more.
If you find it hard to get enough water in, find a vessel for your water that is convenient and motivating to drink from. It might sound silly, but sometimes that stainless steel or glass tumbler will make you drink twice as much water as a regular glass! Especially the ones with straws! This is also a good tactic for motivating kids to drink water.

Drinking enough water will help your digestion, mood, energy, skin, and dark circles, just to name a few of the immediate results you will notice. The goal with drinking enough water is to not only benefit from immediate results but to help you add the good and not need soda, juice and synthetic hydration. If you drink enough water your body wont crave fluids, however, some drinks like diet sodas can make you have ‘withdrawals’ and cravings. If you are ‘addicted’ to diet soda please learn more about the dangers of aspartame containing drinks and food like diet soda at the links below.

Cancer.org warns about unreliable data on use of Aspartame; message, there isn't enough data to prove its safe so just avoid Aspartame to be safe.


Start adding plant based only dishes to your meal plans. Including seeds, grains and nuts.
Adding vegetarian dishes will help improve your diet habits over time. This does NOT mean you have to abandon your meat habits or label yourself a vegetarian. Many vegetarian resources and websites are very health minded and helpful with recipes.

Vegetables are a very lean and nutritional; you can get Omega’s, protein, fiber, iron, magnesium as well as several vitamins vital to solving health issues by eating more veggies. If you feel sluggish every morning, find it hard to drop the kids off at the pool or crash throughout the day switching to a more veggie heavy diet will help because a lot of  plant based ingredients like beans, nuts and seeds can be very high in Omegas, fiber, magnesium, iron and protein.

One sign of how healthy vegetables are for you can be found in your pans. Compare a taco dinner night with ground beef to a taco dinner night with marinated jackfruit; the beef pan will be filled with grease/fat and it won’t rinse clean, (you won’t even want to rise that grease down your drain right?) (Provided it’s not burnt) You will be able to rinse the vegetable preparing pan clean with no scrubbing and no grease to deal with. Why is that significant? Because the residue left on the pans is exactly what is being processed by your body and like the faucet and kitchen plumbing, your body & intestines will have a hard time flushing those beef tacos clean.

Flax Seed has the highest content of Omega 3’s. Other beneficial seeds, grains and nuts include hempseedsesame seedalmondsamaranthquinoa, and chia. Nutrition information can be found at each of those links.
For those looking for Omega intake, check this graph for the highest containing Omega 3 foods (spoiler: Flax is #1.) This article will provide you with many angles to explore on vegetable based meals. Turn to edamame, lentils, beans and leafy greens for lean protein.

Follow our page for future recommended recipe sites and resources if you don’t have any favorites already, or add your favorites in our comment section!

Find your local farmers markets and begin all of your grocery shopping at them!
Especially for more of those plant based only meals. What you don’t find at the farmers market you can venture to the store for. Shopping at farmers markets will not only allow you to meet your farmer and ensure you agree with their farming practices but you will also be making a change to support our environment. Local organic farmers use natural derived pest control practices, don’t use GM seeds, don’t deforest, don’t destroy soil quality and don’t pump pollution into the atmosphere to move their crops from the farm to several hundred retail distributors.

Stop eating at fast food chains. 
Fast food meals contain the most additives and preservatives to help keep the already low quality, high processed food items from going bad. The cheaper it is to make and the longer it lasts, the cheaper the menu item. Steer clear of any drive-thru and dollar menu establishments.  
  
Avoid harmful additives by reading ingredients lists. 
Ingredients listed as artificial flavors, natural flavors, hydrogenated oil, and differing forms of benzoate are a few to always avoid. Food additives have been linked to several health concerns so starting to become aware of these ingredients and their possible side effects will help you on your path to staying healthy. Processed foods have the highest contents of additives and preservatives. If your diet is mainly deli meats, chips, convenient pre-cooked & packaged food than you are exposing yourself to a lot of chemical additives. Also check foods labeled 'Organic' or 'All Natural,' if they aren't labeled 'Certified Organic' they may only contain some organic ingredients or are not a  certified organic establishment. As well as the possibility that they also contain 'natural flavors,' which "MSG, Aspartame and bugs in your food are all considered "natural flavors" and "natural colors," as stated in this article.
Here is another less detailed introduction article on food additives

Limit your contact with plastics and Teflon by switching to cast iron, glass and stainless cookware.

We don't intend for you to avoid plastic altogether. Understandably, you will come across utensils, piping (PVC plumbing, fridge water system, Keurig systems,) water bottles, cups and all the like made from plastic. Our water undoubtedly travels through plastic before it ends up in our system.  The truth of this matter is you will be overwhelmed with articles surrounding BPA, plastics and Teflon if you do a Google or Bing search of ‘leaching cookware.’  How ‘safe’ plastics are because our contact with them is too small to cause an issue is a common theme of the website still promoting these items. Which raises that “‘un-science’ of common sense” theme found in Dr. Sears approach. Why not just avoid plastic and Teflon when possible to remove any risk? 

Read the Environmental Working Group article on what to use instead and why. If you want to learn more about cast iron, this article is specifically on cast iron cookware, which we highly recommend. By limiting your contact to things outside of your control, like the plumbing and passing of the water though fridge piping, you are limiting your risk of using a plastic material that could end up being the next BPA warning.

Let us know what you think of these seven habit changes. Are they relevant to your needs and concerns?

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