Whole Food Living and Learning

Whole Foods? Isn't that what I am already eating?Want to consider a whole foods movement? My inspiration on this came from a local, Amber Thiel. go to her website: www.amberthiel.com (The Healthy Edge can be searched as well.)

The more we learn about nutrition, the more it seems we should eat the way people did a hundred years ago. Recent research appears to be pointing us in the direction of eating mostly "whole foods" – that is, foods that are as close to their natural form as possible.

This could mean eating:

• Whole grains instead of refined grains whenever possible. 
• Fruits, vegetables, and beans instead of supplements to provide the fiber and vitamins they contain. 
• A skinless chicken breast cooked with healthful ingredients instead of chicken nuggets processed with added fats, flavorings, and preservatives. 
• A baked potato with chopped green onions and light sour cream instead of a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips. 
• Fresh berries with breakfast instead of raspberry toaster pastries or breakfast bars. 
• A blueberry smoothie made with blueberries, yogurt, and a frozen banana instead of a blue-colored slushy or icee. 

Many health experts believe that eating more whole foods is our best bet for improving health and preventing disease. Whole foods – like vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts, and legumes -- retain their fiber as well as the whole portfolio of beneficial phytochemicals and nutrients that are often removed in processed foods.

The idea of whole foods is catching on the popular imagination as well. Consider the now ubiquitous Whole Foods Market grocery chain, which started in 1980 as one store in Austin, Texas. Its mission was simple: "to provide a more natural alternative to what the food supply was typically offering at the time."

Whole Foods is now the world's leading retailer of natural and organic foods, with 184 stores in North America and the United Kingdom. Their 2005 revenue was $4.7 billion, and they have 78 new stores in the development pipeline between now and 2009. (Taken from the WebMD)

Whole Foods website has a weekly meal plan you can download at no cost as well.

5-2-1-0 Rule for Children and Information and Myths about High Blood Pressure

5-2-1-0 RULE & BP INFORMATION

5 OR MORE SERVINGS OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLES PER DAY
Fruits and vegetables contain many nutrients that a child’s body needs, and they should take the place of high-calorie foods from a child’s daily food menu. Children who eat five or more servings of fruit and vegetables a day are significantly less likely to become overweight or develop obesity than children who eat less than three servings per day. In addition, high fruit and vegetable consumption decreases risk of cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Ensure that your child eats fruits and vegetables at every meal and as a snack.

2 HOURS OF SCREEN TIME OR LESS PER DAY
Children who watch more than two hours of screen time (TV, computer, video games) per day have double the incidence of obesity when compared to children who watch less than one hour per day. Limit screen time to two hours or less per day and keep children physically active. Children should not be allowed to watch TV before 2 years of age, and there should be no TV in a child’s bedroom, no matter what the child’s age.

1 HOUR OR MORE OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY PER DAY
There is significant improvement in both physical and mental health when children and teenagers obtain their required 60 minutes of physical activity per day. Encourage your child to be active! Have a goal of 60 minutes a day of moderate physical activity such as playing outdoors or biking.

0 SUGAR SWEETENED BEVERAGES PER DAY
An easy way to help is to reduce consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages such as soft drinks, fruit drinks, punches, flavored milks, sports drinks and flavored coffees. These beverages are liquid candy and should rarely be served. One hundred percent pure fruit juice does not contain added sugar but may well contribute to excess weight gain, and portions should be limited.Provide your child with plain milk and water to drink. Give your child fresh fruit instead of juice. Pack water or milk in your child’s school lunch instead of a juice box.

(Taken from Oregon Health and Science University)
You may pick up some snack ideas from the Parish Nurse on Sunday between services or at the information desk.
Stay tuned next week for other ideas for healthy eating on this blog.

BP Clinic March 2nd!
PS Don't forget March 2nd we have another BP Clinic. Don't get your Blood Pressure checked regularly come and see where you register. You never know how you could catch something before a medical event affects you permanently. Age doesn't matter. Many people have high blood pressure and aren't even aware.

The myth of symptoms

There's a common misconception that people with high blood pressure, also called hypertension, will experience symptoms such as nervousness, sweating, difficulty sleeping or facial flushing. The truth is that HBP is largely a symptomless condition. If you ignore your blood pressure because you think symptoms will alert you to the problem, you are taking a dangerous chance with your life. Everybody needs to know their blood pressure numbers, and everyone needs to prevent high blood pressure from developing.

(Taken from the American Heart Association)

Why Eat Healthy at the Table, Food is Fuel

February Theme: Eat at the Table

The "electrolytes"

Sodium, chloride, potassium, calcium and magnesium are known as the "electrolytes" as they are minerals which dissolve in water and form electrically charged particles called "ions". Those ions are essential for transmitting electrical impulses along nerves and for muscle contraction. So how do they work? They create electrical impulses that let cells in our body to send messages back and forth to one another (cell communication) and through this, you can perform all the "bioelectrical" functions such as thinking, moving and seeing and so a healthy body needs electrolytes.

Salt (sodium chloride or NaCl) is one of the electrolytes that we all know very well. When salt is dissolved in water, the ions become separated. They are involved in fluid (water) balance in our body, if the balance is off, your nerves and muscles can suffer.

As well as the salt content of your bodily cells and surrounding fluids, calcium, magnesium and potassium are also important in fluid balance of your muscles. Therefore, if your balance of electrolytes is off, you can get muscle cramps because the impulses are not firing correctly and the muscles contract in spasms. This means that fluid balance is important for us so we need correct amounts of electrolytes in our body.

When the levels of sodium are too high, the body retains more water, which also raises the blood pressure (hypertension) as the increased water makes the heart work harder. Think of your home central heating system - if you topped up the water in the system too high, the pressure gauge will go up.

Under normal circumstances, there is more potassium than sodium and chloride in the fluid inside your cells. That means there will be the opposite concentration in your blood system which surrounds the cells (more sodium and chlorine and less potassium outside your cells). The concentration of those electrolytes affects the water content of your cells (diluting or concentrating it). If you become dehydrated (less water in the body cells), there will be more electrolytes in your blood system (outside the cells), which is picked up by your thirst receptors hence why you become thirsty. A hormone (known as the antidiuretic hormone a.k.a. ADH) is also released to prevent further dehydration, it works by reducing the amount of urine being produced by the kidneys, thereby preventing further water loss from our body.

• Did you know? Salt intake makes you thirsty as it makes your blood more concentrated and so we drink more water/fluid so that excess salt can be processed by your kidneys and passed out through your urine.
• Did you know? Chlorine is actually a green gas which is poisonous, but when it is combined with sodium (a soft metal), the combined chemical is known as sodium chloride (a.k.a. salt)?
• Did you know? Food labels which give you the sodium content of the food are not telling the full story? Sodium appears in food labels instead of salt itself so when reading sodium on a food label you have to multiply it by 2.5 times to get the actual salt content. [1]

Minerals [2]

How often do we hear of the need of the body for specific minerals? The body needs calcium, magnesium, iron, phosphorous, sodium, iodine, etc. Minerals have three primary functions within the body:

• They provide structure in forming bones and teeth.
• They help maintain normal heart rhythm, muscle function, neural conductivity, and acid-base balance.
• They help regulate cellular metabolism by becoming part of enzymes and hormones that modulate cellular activity.

Note: I provided this information to give you the opportunity to view information from various sources to help make it more meaningful. This is by no means all inclusive.

Why do I Care?

You care because much of how we feel has to do with what we do and don’t ingest. If your body never has enough water it can’t get rid of the toxins it needs to excrete from your system.

You care because missing out on essential nutrients can cause poor mental function, exhaustion, confusion, poor physical capacity and so on.

You care because God says your body is His temple and we are to care for it.

I challenge you to try to make a change, big or small. Your body will thank you. Change is not easy and to make it a habit you need to make a change for over 21 days before it becomes a habit. Try it out and see if increasing a more balanced diet has you feeling better. –Nurse Doyle, signing out.

[1] Taken from Eat Balanced website.
[2] Taken from Hallelujah Health Website