Another reason for sprouting...

When it comes to Breast Cancer and our health in general, we know that hormones play a vital role in our well being. We as a western society are most definitely being infused with many environmental estrogens that come in many forms. It is thought that one of the largest influencers on our hormone systems is pesticides which mimic estrogen once entered into our bodies, and secondary is our meats such as chicken, beef etc pumped full of growth hormone for faster development. Each of these (and many more toxins) enter our bodies...and what is happening after that is likely not in our best interest. Girls are developing and experiencing puberty several years earlier than the previous generation and male sperm count is thought to have reduced up to 50%.

There are steps that can be taken to reduce the amount of xenoestrogens introduced to our systems. Xenoestrogens are non-natural hormones entering our bodies from outside sources. One thing that I recently started doing is soaking my veggies in a bowl of water containing 1/2 tsp of aluminum free baking soda. Baking soda is alkaline and will neutralize the pesticides. There are other options for cleansing veggies you could research including apple cider vinegar, alkaline water and food grade hydrogen peroxide.

Another step I take is to purchase AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE natural meats. Our chickens recently died, so now I am buying free range organic eggs, its a bit more expensive but worth the cost. We grow our own grass fed beef (don't buy organic beef, in order to be marked organic it must be grain fed...not good for you, I'll post more on that later,) and I try to buy chicken free of hormones (chicken is harder to find hormone free.) Most milk these days (including Costco's) are marked hormone free...the farmers *pledge* not to feed their cows hormones....but I would love to see a brand "certified" hormone free. One item I haven't found anywhere to be hormone free is cheese, I guess sour cream, yogurt and cottage cheese fall into this category too. I hope, as people become demand more pure products, we will be able to find them more easily.

So....how does all this tie into sprouting?

A diet rich in phytonutrients is thought to be protective to our hormone system. Phytoestrogens are natural plant based substances found in soybeans, licorice, yams and alfalfa (and lots of other foods,) that are thought to bind estrogen cell receptors and protect them from accepting the more damaging xenoestrogens (which come from our environment like pesticides, hormone infuse meat, milk and eggs.)






One good reason to sprout and eat a cup a day of alfalfa sprouts!!! The possibility of protecting our delicate hormone system...potentially avoiding hormone fed cancers (breast, ovarian, testicular etc) and other hormone balanced functions like the metabolism and thyroid.

Juicing for health

Green juice doesn't sound too appetizing to most...but I've learned to love it and my body craves my yummy veggies every day.

I get a lot of questions about juicing and why I do it.

Why not just eat lots of raw veggies? When vegetables are juiced it increases the boiavailability of the nutrients the vegetables have to offer. When our bodies process fruits and vegetables we have eaten, it has to digest the food including the fiber before it can access all of the nutrients. Many of our bodies aren't very efficient at digestion due to our largely processed diets. By juicing, the fiber is already broken down and makes available more nutrients than you would normally get otherwise. Juicing should not replace your daily servings of vegetables, just add juicing to the vegetables you already include in your diet daily.

Juicing helps in the Absorption of Nutrients – If your digestive system is less than optimal, it can be difficult to absorb all of the nutrients when eating greens. Juicing will break down the cell walls of vegetables so that they are pre-digested for you. This means that all of the nutrients go straight into your system.

Juicing Means that You Can Eat More Greens – You probably aren't going to eat a whole head of celery in a day…but you can easily drink a whole head of celery juice. Juicing also allows you to consume a wide variety of greens all at once. You most likely wouldn't have kale, cucumber, celery and parsley for breakfast, but you can enjoy it as a juice.

Juicing is a Great Way to Get Loads of Chlorophyll, which is the building block of our bodies. Chlorophyll is what makes plants green, and it is perhaps the most powerful element that exists in the universe. It is medicine for our bodies. It increases the flow of oxygen to all parts of the body, which means we release more carbon dioxide, toxins and stress. Plenty of oxygen means that our bodies become an aerobic environment where disease cannot live. An anaerobic environment is where disease thrives.

Green Vegetables contain Nearly all of the Trace Minerals we Need – Most people are seriously lacking in essential minerals which mean that our bodies are not equipped with the necessary resources to fight disease and feel fantastic. Green juice is a great way to get all of the vital minerals for vibrant health.

Green Juice Provides us with the Enzymes that we need to cleanse, detoxify and renew at a cellular level. Enzymes are also needed to digest food. We cannot have amazing health without enzymes. Cooking and processing of any type destroys all enzymes, so raw food, especially greens, is absolutely essential to maintain healthy enzyme levels. A daily green juice is a sure way to maintain enzyme levels.

Juicing Makes Greens Taste Great – As mentioned above, juicing can make greens more palatable. This is because they can be sweetened with an apple or carrot. I personally don't add fruit to my juice very often, but I always add carrot...which can go a long way to making your juice sweet and tasty.

Dr. Mercola, a MD specializing in a natural approach to health and disease treatment and prevention recommends drinking a quart of freshly juiced veggies per day to help prevent cancer.

How does juicing prevent cancer? As mentioned above it is beneficial to help cleanse and detoxify on a cellular level. Also very important...adding oxygen to our cells encourages health and vitality and dismissing disease. Much more can be found online about juicing, health, disease prevention and cancer prevention...one great place to start is juiceladyinfo.com.

Benefits of coconut oil...

The health benefits of coconut oil is obvious to anyone who has studied the health of those who live in traditional tropical cultures, where coconut has been a nutritious diet staple for thousands of years.

Back in the 1930's, a dentist named Dr. Weston Price traveled throughout the South Pacific, examining traditional diets and their effect on dental and overall health. He found that those eating diets high in coconut products were healthy and trim, despite the high fat concentration in their diet, and that heart disease was virtually non-existent.

Similarly, in 1981, researchers studied populations of two Polynesian atolls. Coconut was the chief source of caloric energy in both groups. The results, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition,[2] demonstrated that both populations exhibited positive vascular health.

In fact, no evidence exists that the naturally occurring high saturated fat intake had any kind of harmful effect in these populations!

That's not what you expected, is it? Based on 60 years of negative public policy towards naturally occurring saturated fats, you would expect these cultures to be rife with clogged arteries, obesity and heart disease.

It may be surprising for you to realize that the naturally occurring saturated fat in coconut oil actually has some amazing health benefits, such as:

Promoting your heart health
Promoting weight loss, when needed
Supporting your immune system health
Supporting a healthy metabolism
Providing you with an immediate energy source
Keeping your skin healthy and youthful looking
Supporting the proper functioning of your thyroid gland
But how is this possible?

50 percent of the fat content in coconut oil is a fat rarely found in nature called lauric acid. The only other place that lauric acid is found is in mother's breast milk. Your body converts lauric acid into monolaurin, which has anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-protozoa properties.

Monolaurin is a monoglyceride which can actually destroy lipid coated viruses such as:

HIV, herpes
Measles
Influenza virus
Various pathogenic bacteria
Protozoa such as giardia lamblia.

Lauric acid is a powerful virus and gram-negative bacteria destroyer, and coconut oil contains the most lauric acid of any substance on earth.

Capric acid, another coconut fatty acid present in smaller amounts, has also been added to the list of coconut's antimicrobial components.

Coconut oil is also about 2/3 medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs), also called medium-chain triglycerides or MCTs. These types of fatty acids produce a whole host of health benefits.

Coconut oil is nature's richest source of these healthy MCFAs which our bodies immediately burn for energy instead of storing it as fat.

Your body sends medium-chain fatty acids directly to your liver to use as energy. This makes coconut oil a powerful source of instant energy to your body, a function usually served in the diet by simple carbohydrates.

Coconut oil does not produce an insulin spike in your bloodstream. Coconut oil acts on your body like a carbohydrate, without any of the debilitating insulin-related effects associated with long-term high carbohydrate consumption!

Diabetics and those with pre diabetes should immediately realize the benefit of a fast acting energy source that doesn't produce an insulin spike in your body. In fact, coconut oil added to the diets of diabetics and pre-diabetics has actually been shown to help stabilize weight gain, which can dramatically decrease your likelihood of getting adult onset type-2 Diabetes.

One of the best benefits of coconut oil lies in its ability to help stimulate your metabolism.

Back in the 1940s, farmers found out about this effect by accident when they tried using inexpensive coconut oil to fatten their livestock.

It didn't work! Instead, coconut oil made the animals lean, active and hungry.

However, many animal and human research studies have demonstrated that replacing LCFAs with MCFAs results in both decreased body weight and reduced fat deposition.

In fact, the ability of MCFAs to be easily digested, to help stimulate the metabolism and be turned into energy has entered the sports arena. Several studies have now shown that MCFAs can enhance physical or athletic performance.

Additionally, research has demonstrated that, due to its metabolic effect, coconut oil increases the activity of the thyroid. And you've probably heard that a sluggish thyroid is one reason why some people are unable to lose weight, no matter what they do.

Besides weight loss, there are other advantages to boosting your metabolic rate. Your healing process accelerates. Cell regeneration increases to replace old cells, and your immune system functions better overall.

Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the U.S. And heart disease is often a silent killer. The first sign of cardiovascular disease is commonly a heart attack, and sadly, over one third of heart attacks are fatal.

And despite the propaganda, the truth is this: it is UNSATURATED fats that are primarily involved in heart disease, not the naturally occurring saturated fats, as you have been led to believe.

Plus, the polyunsaturated fats in vegetable and seed oils encourage the formation of blood clots by increasing platelet stickiness. Coconut oil helps to promote normal platelet function.

Coconut Oil in Your Kitchen

I only use two oils in my food preparation.

The first, extra-virgin olive oil, is a better monounsaturated fat that works great as a salad dressing.

There is only one oil that is stable enough to resist mild heat-induced damage, while it also helps you promote heart health and even supports weight loss and thyroid function -- coconut oil.

So, whenever you need an oil to cook with, use coconut oil instead of butter, olive oil, vegetable oil, margarine, or any other type of oil called for in recipes.

The medium-chain fats in coconut oil are considered so nutritious that they are used in baby formulas, in hospitals to feed the critically ill, those on tube feeding, and those with digestive problems. Coconut oil has even been used successfully by doctors in treating aluminum poisoning.

Coconut oil is also very hormone balancing (thus it's ability to aid your metabolism,) again, do just a little research on your own and you can find many more advantages to incorporating coconut oil in your diet.

Remember, our bodies function as a whole, there are many pieces of the health puzzle that have to come together to create a whole picture. None of the things that I post on this blog are a miracle cure or can or should act alone, but in conjunction with many other puzzle pieces to complete your health. This post is also not intended to diagnose, prescribe or to take the place of medical advice, but to add to your tool box of healthy habits. Cami

Broccoli sprouts anyone???

A chemical in vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage, as well as another one found in fermented soy, can increase DNA repair in cells. This could prevent them from becoming cancerous.

Links have already been established between eating certain vegetables and a reduction in cancer risk. These findings suggest a mechanism for why that might be the case.

Vegetables such as broccoli contain a compound called IC3.

This chemical increases the amount of BRCA proteins present in cells. These proteins prevent damaged genetic material from being passed from one generation of cells to the next.

Cancer cells typically contain low amounts of BRCA proteins, and faulty BRCA signaling heightens one's risk of some cancers, including prostate, breast and ovarian. - BBC news 2006

Brittish Journal of Oncology

This study made me really excited...as it was one of the real pieces of tangible information that gave me some level of hope that I didn't have to fall victim to my genetic mutation. That being said...I am not a believer of one particular thing, either life style or diet that is a cure all. As you read throughout my blog you will see (as I have time to post) that I do MANY things for my health and this is just one piece of the puzzle.

In this study, if you have the time and patience to delve into it, you will see that the amount of cruciferous vegetables one would have to eat to affect a mutated gene is quite large...more than most could eat in a day.

However, if you eat broccoli sprouts, because they are so concentrated with IC3, you would only have to eat an ounce a day to get the recommended amount of IC3 for the genetic impact.

I have become quite the sprouter at my house...not just broccoli, but alfalfa and mung beans and others.

Do some research on sprouts, they are an amazing super food that everyone should grow and consume. They should also be an important part of your food storage in case of drought or hardship...In just a few days you can grow an amazing pure super food vegetable in your kitchen for pennies.

Broccoli Sprouts and Cancer

Why Sprout