Embracing My Health

I posted to Kevin & Annmarie Gianni’s Renegade Health blog yesterday. Kevin asked the question which raw foods couldn’t be eaten raw. I mentioned that cruciferous veggies like cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and kale are problematic because of their thyroid suppressing enzymes. (Surprisingly, peaches and pears have these enzymes too.) Also mentioned in my comment were greens like beet greens, spinach and chard, that have oxalic acid. Oxalic acid block calcium and iron absorption and can irritate the mouth and intestinal tract.

It stirred up quite the conversation and confusion with the commenters. It’s understandable. The rub is all of these vegetables and greens are nutritional powerhouses and are valued and renown for their anti-cancer fighting abilities. And who doesn’t want food that has great nutrition and inhibits cancers?

So what do we do?

It’s the age old truism. All things in moderation. And for those who don’t have existing thyroid issues, chance are you will be unaffected by the thyroid suppressing enzymes in cruciferous veggies and greens provided you don’t overdo. For those who currently suffer from hypothyroidism, if you eat a lot of these vegetables and you will likely find yourself experiencing hypothyroid symptoms.

Donna Gates of BodyEcology recommends that, in lieu of cooking them, raw foodists eat raw, fermented cruciferous vegetables. However, Weston A Price’s article on crucifers asserts even fermentation does not get rid of the thyroid suppressing effects. Weston Price’s recommendation:

“An increased dietary intake of iodine compensates for the consumption of moderate amounts of crucifers but cannot reverse the effects of large amounts of crucifers.”

Add natural iodine into your diet with foods like asparagus, dulse, garlic, kelp, sea salt, sesame seeds, and interestingly… check it out… cruciferous veggies spinach, swiss chard and turnip greens. Hmmm… maybe nature was helping us out on those last three.

I found it interesting that the Weston Price article points out that there may be some additional cancer-fighting properties to even goitrogens – although that is still unknown as of right now.

Again, I believe the key is all things in moderation. If you have hypothyroid, you’ll want to be especially careful. The wonderful thing is nature has given us such an amazing diversity of nutritious, cancer-fighting foods… that we don’t have to rely solely on cruciferous veggies. So bottom line, mix these amazing vegetables into your diet, just not too much.

Embrace Love and Life. Embrace Your Health!

So, the l-lysine eliminated or at a minimum kept my abscesses from increasing or getting worse. I had no further pain after taking the lysine from the infection, all the way up to my surgery last Wednesday. I can’t tell you what a life-saver it was. My testimonial: when amoxicillan and clindamycin didn’t help reduce the abscess infections and with it the extreme pain I was experiencing… taking 10,000 mg of l-lysine daily did.

My regimen:  Zinc intake above 150 mg a day begins to be associated with zinc toxicity. Because of this, I took 5,000 mg of Solaray L-Lysine with Vitamin C, B-6 and Zinc. The remaining 5,000 mg a day came from pure Now Foods L-Lysine.

Here’s the skinny on l-lysine. It’s an essential amino acid that our bodies have to have but cannot make. It strengthens our immune systems , increases the body’s ability to manufacture antibodies and has anti-viral properties. (This is my guess as to why and how I personally found relief.)

L-lysine doesn’t stop there. It’s popular for treating and preventing cold sores, is critical for collagen formation (think less wrinkles!), provides energy and more. If you have a deficiency in lysine, these are some of the symptoms you are likely to have:

• bloodshot eyes
• fatigue
• moodiness
• anemia
• problems concentrating
• reproductive issues
• weakened skeletal, circulatory and immune systems
• kidney stones
• inability to breakdown and utilize dietary fat properly
• accelerated aging
• elongated healing processes

Typically, raw, vegan, vegetarians and extreme athletes are most at risk for lysine deficiency. But without a balanced and attentive diet, anyone can become low or deficient. For optimal lysine levels, add lysine in your diet by eating (in no particular order):

• meat
• wheat germ (but not wheat)
• cheese (Parmesan is best)
• eggs
• fish, particularly cod and sardines
• limas
• nuts
• spirulina
• fermented foods like miso and yogurt

If you aren’t getting enough of these in your diet – daily dosage recommendations are 12-30 mg per each 2 lbs of body weight. To treat symptoms: 3,000-9,0000 mg per day divided into doses.

Note: if you have cardiovascular diseases, elevated cholesterol and/or triglyceride levels – work with your naturopath. There is controversy for and against Linus Pauling’s therapy for cardiovascular disease consisting of megadoses of Vit C and Lysine. (Sources to begin your research: http://www.vitamincfoundation.org/vitcheart.htm, http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/vitamins/vitaminC/)

Embrace Love and Life. Embrace Your Health!

• Breakfast: Juice – red leaf lettuce, green kale, cucumber, celery, apple, and lemon
• Mid-morning: Smoothie – arugula, banana, mango and pear (I won’t use arugula again, a little intense for my tastes)
• Lunch: raw borscht soup with flaxseed crackers  (good soup, but also too intense for me.  The cabbage actually hurt my throat by the time I was done.  I’d try the recipe again, but maybe with something replacing the cabbage)
• Snack: banana
• Dinner: Guacamole salad!  Delicious way to end the day — I love this salad.  (And hey, Catherine, lots of cilantro!  )

• Breakfast: Juice – red leaf lettuce, purple kale, carrot, apple and lemon
• Mid-morning: Smoothie – red leaf lettuce, banana, mango and pear
• Lunch: hearty corn salad with portobello mushrooms — AMAZING!  (recipe to be posted)
• Snack: orange
• Dinner: ate out at Taco Del Mar, had two fish tacos
• Dessert: homemade raw strawberry ice cream made with frozen strawberries, coconut meat, coconut water and agave syrup — Yumilicious!

Coming tomorrow: new post titled “Your #1 health builder and weight loss tool: Fiber!”

• Breakfast: Juice: romaine, spinach, celery, apple and orange (won’t do that again, didn’t work so great)
• Mid-morning: Smoothie with mixed greens, spinach, red pepper, red onion, tomatillos, avocado, mango and pineapple.  It totally smelled and tasted like a salsa dip, made me crave corn chips. 
• a chocolate chip cookie
• Lunch: Arroz con Pollo
• Dinner: slice of bread with peanut butter and raw honey
• orange

Day started out well.  I discovered a chocolate chip cookie in our pantry and ate that.  Then, I choose Arroz con Pollo at a Mexican restaurant because I had let myself get overly hungry.  I will say, in the past, I’ve polished off that massive plate of food.  This time, I only made it through about half.  Regardless,  I felt the impact the rest of the day — low energy, sluggish and a bit uncomfortable.  Lesson learned.

• Breakfast: Juice: romaine, mixed greens, celery, apple, and lemon
• Mid-morning: Smoothie: mixed greens and romaine, basil, red onion, lime and avocado (recipe found in Green for Life)
• Lunch: Leftover chicken, rice and pinto beans from Taco Del Mar, steamed broccoli (reheated in coconut oil) and 4 carrot sticks
• Snack: LaraBar Chocolate Coconut Chew
• Dinner: blue corn muffins, spinach with green chiles and goat cheese (both cooked), pineapple/mango salsa salad.
• Dessert: raw key lime pie mousse (recipe to follow)

This recipe, I confess to not having tried yet. I plan to make it this week. It’s a popular one and Carol Alt – who includes it in her book, The Raw 50 — says it’s a favorite of hers.

• 3 cups raw pine nuts
• 3⁄4 cup cold-pressed, extra virgin olive oil
• 2 whole lemons, zested, then peeled and quartered
• 1 medium shallot
• 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 2 teaspoons whole black peppercorns
• 1 garlic clove
• 3⁄4 cup purified water
• Salt to taste
• 1 medium or 2 small red beets
• 3⁄4 cup fresh tarragon leaves
• Cracked pepper to taste

Directions

• Soak the pine nuts in enough purified water to cover them for 1 hour. Drain, put the pine nuts in a food processor, and add the olive oil, lemon quarters, shallot, and zest. Process for about 8 minutes until the mixture is well combined and clumps together.
• Pour half of this mixture into a blender and set the rest aside. Add the yeast and 1 teaspoon of the peppercorns to the mixture in the blender and blend on medium speed for 2 minutes, until thick and smooth. Transfer the “goat cheese” to a bowl and refrigerate, uncovered, for 1 hour.
• Meanwhile, place the reserved pine nut mixture in the blender. Add the remaining teaspoon of peppercorns, the garlic, and the water, and blend on high speed for 1 minute, until smooth but quite liquid. Add the salt, and set the sauce aside.
• Roughly chop the tarragon and fold 1/2 cup of the leaves into the cheese once the cheese has completely chilled. Add salt to taste.
• Peel the beets and slice paper-thin. Lay out half of the slices on a clean surface. Spoon about 1 tablespoon of the cheese onto each slice, then top each with a second beet slice. Arrange on a baking sheet in a single layer, sprinkle with salt, then store in the refrigerator.

To serve, pour the sauce onto a deep serving platter and arrange the ravioli on top. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 cup of tarragon leaves, and salt and cracked pepper.

I’m going to start including the day’s food – so you can get a sense of how rigorous (or not!) I am with my menus.  Today:

• Breakfast: juice made with romaine, mixed wild greens, cucumber, apples, and lemon
• mid-morning: green smoothie made with mango, pear, and romaine lettuce
• Lunch: herbed goat-cheese and broccoli lasagna with brown rice noodles
• afternoon: a glass of chocolate hempmilk and later an orange
• Dinner: a few bites of Amira’s left over salmon patty and cooked broccoli
• later: cherry, pear, wild greens, romaine, and ground chia seed smoothie

Sort of an odd mish-mash day – but there you go.

Who doesn’t love Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup?  I mean, what’s not to love?  Oh, wait, let’s read the label…

Ingredients:  High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Water, Cocoa, Sugar, Potassium Sorbate – Preservative – 2% or Less, Salt – 2% or Less, Mono and Diglycerides – 2% or Less, Xanthan Gum – 2% or Less, Polysorbate 60 – 2% or Less, Vanillin – Artificial Flavor – 2% or Less

There is three different kinds of sugar in Hershey’s Syrup… the largest amount (as well as the #1 ingredient), high fructose corn syrup, being the absolute worst for you.  Most of us are learning just how bad high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) really is for us.  The word is getting out so much so that the Corn Refiners Association has started putting out advertisements trying to convince you that it is actually natural and good for you.

Don’t buy it.  These ads are akin to the tobacco ads of yore where a kindly and smiling doctor with a stethoscope around his neck advised you smoke a cigarette to reduce stress and improve your health.  Yeah, not so much.

HFCS is used because it is… cheap!  Food manufacturers like cheap because it improves their bottom line.  But, let’s be clear, it does not, will not, and cannot improve your, um, bottom.

There are lots of easy, quick,  and healthier chocolate syrup options out there for you.  Recipes like this one eliminate the HFCS, corn syrup and preservatives and still provide you with a tasty chocolate syrup… that’s cheaper than buying the Hershey’s brown bottle to boot.

And if you want to forgo the sugar but still have your syrup too… there are several raw chocolate syrup recipes out there that are delicious and dangerously close to being… *gasp*… good for you.  Here’s just one example of what I found: (more can be found searching for chocolate sauce recipes online)

The below recipe is sweetened with agave syrup.  Agave is wonderful because of its low-glycemic impact!  A great sweetener option!

Deep Dark Delicious Chocolate Sauce

2 T raw cacao powder, either ground from raw cacao nibs or purchased as powder (I like Nativas Naturals or Green & Black’s.)
2 T raw agave syrup
1/2 t coconut oil or other organic raw nut oil

Mix the agave syrup and the oil or water together.

Slowly whisk (do not use your blender) the raw cacao powder into the agave syrup mixture, mixing it in until well-blended into a smooth sauce. The amount suggested is a rough guideline. How much cacao powder you will ultimately use depends on the consistency you want.

(recipe source: AdventuresInRawFood.com)

Enjoy!!

I’m LOVING my green juice breakfasts.  This morning’s breakfast: romaine, celery, parsley, spinach, carrot, apple and lemon.  Yum!