Weight Loss Tips

A friend has wondered if I had any dieting tips. So I will tackle the subject, but not head-on. Have you noticed that our rebel bodies don’t like to be told what they can and can’t eat?!?!? So you have to bypass that. Seriously. Don’t tell your body what it can and can’t eat. It doesn’t like that.

This article lists some of my tips, as follows:

• Eat a Nutrient-Dense Breakfast
• Let Soups Fill the Belly
• Eat Natural
• Exercise
• Say your prayers

Eat a Nutrient-dense Breakfast

I start my day with flax seed and my “green goo”. I use either Vitamineral Green, a good product, or Garden of Life’s supplement, called Perfect Food. I use a little electric coffee-grinder for my flax seeds, to whir a tablespoon or so into powder. (Already-ground flax seed is probably rancid- don’t bother with it.) I add the ground flax seeds and the green stuff to a pint container, add a cup or so of water, shake well, and drink.

There are many reasons for this ritual. The flax-mix is certainly not the most appetizing thing (as the texture becomes a bit strange as it sits). But what a great way to start out! If I can start out with the flax and the green powder, suddenly something like plain oatmeal with dried fruit and toasted pumpkin seeds seems like quite the treat! Actually, ANY thing seems especially tasty after my flax-ritual. But what a great way to break the corruption of our taste-buds. Man-made foods, with all that extra salt, grease, sugar, and synthetic flavorings, only serve to pervert our senses to the point where we can’t appreciate the real food that God created for us.

Let Soups Fill the Belly

More hot tips: I eat a lot of homemade soups, without salt. Bean soups, vegetable soups, with brown rice, etc. I’m convinced that the salt corrupts my taste-buds and often makes me eat more than I meant to. I generally eat more simple foods earlier in the day (like the soups, fruit, cereals, etc.), so that if I splurge on some salty, cheesy, meaty thing for dinner, it doesn’t set me off course for the rest of the day. I even have dessert on occasion, but usually only if it’s super-deluxe, home-made, fresh, and excellent. Why waste calories on something less than the best?!

I also keep a back-up supply of my favorite soups in the freezer. Junk food starts sounding pretty good when I’m getting desperate, but when I remind myself that I can warm up a bowl of Black Bean Soup in the microwave, suddenly I don’t feel like I have to go off on some unhealthy binge…

Go Natural

I bet America might trim down if it started making food from scratch. My husband says, “It might starve!” But the idea is to eat our food closer to its natural state; it’s truly more nutritious and satisfying. Junk food is typically not all that satisfying. Either you still want more, or you ate too much and wish you had less.

I generally don’t use convenience foods or store-bought dressings, and I find that I have a better appetite for the healthy stuff that way. Even oil and vinegar on a salad can be a treat, letting the flavors in the salad come through. Something as simple as olive oil is full of wonderful flavor, but the modern-day palate has indeed been overwhelmed by all the man-made foods. Beware!

Whoa- enough about food.

Exercise

Walking and gardening are wonderful exercises. There are a whole lot of other options, but I do find that those two things are quite stress-relieving and calming. So if nothing else, you gain a little peace of mind!

Say Your Prayers

Start with some scripture: “Your body is a temple for the Holy Spirit.” 1 CORINTHIANS 6:19
When we meditate on that scripture, we realize our bodies can reflect God. It’s an opportunity. We can witness to others in many ways, and one of those ways may well be to let that fruit of self-control manifest in our bodies. A desire to “run the race to get the prize”, as Paul describes, ought to inspire us to eat those foods that will make us most healthy and full of life for His purposes. But again, let’s not tackle “WEIGHT” head on, because weight is not at all as important as the things that stand between us and God. (Which may not be weight at all.)

C.S. Lewis wrote on gluttony, saying that even a skinny person might have the sin of gluttony if all he does is think about food all day. The time spent thinking of food (whether it’s eaten or not) is time not spent thinking about God and His goodness. We must break free from bondage to food thoughts, and get out of the “Diet” rut!

God in His goodness provides for our every need, and we hardly have to think about it. When I have faith in God’s provision, I discover He always has the perfect food for me, even if it’s just a perfectly ripe piece of fruit. And, when I ask God to bless my food, my food tastes so good! I don’t have to be held hostage to some diet plan that dictates every move, overwhelms my thoughts, and leads to obsessing.

I have experienced just about every diet plan there’s been. Beverly Hills, The Zone, The Macrobiotic, Dr. Atkins, Low-Fat, Hi-Fat, Low-Carb, Hi-Protein, Body-Type, Allergy Diets, Fasting… need I say more?! With that experience, and knowing a bit about nutrition, I’ve drawn some conclusions, which seem to keep me fit and slim without obsessing about it.

Remember: We can’t tackle this head-on. If our only goal is to get as skinny as so-and-so or whatever, we may be doomed. How would God be in that?! God doesn’t want us to try to be anyone else. He created us uniquely, to be who He made us to be. And that may not be twiggy-girl. But where’s our head- in the pantry? That might be the problem. If our mind is focused on all that is awesome and wonderful (as Philippians 4:8 tells us to do), we will be right where we’re supposed to be.

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Shop at PCCuisine: Healthy cooking supplies, gifts for cooks, and more.

Order Jen’s cookbook At Winepress Books.

Get recipes at pccuisine.com

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“Cleansing Diet”

OK, I guess it’s official, now that Oprah did her 21-day cleansing diet… It makes the whole idea legit, right? Sounds like Oprah figured it would help with weight control; being diagnosed with hypothyroidism last year, perhaps she’s been hoping her guide-book, Quantum Wellness by Kathy Freston, will address the issue.

I’m sure she imagines that this program will be the pathway to health, but others might dispute that. Her 21-day cleansing diet is vegetarian but it’s loaded with soy products. Most of us who have done any research know that’s a recipe for disaster for people with low thyroid. But maybe the experts will soon enlighten Oprah concerning this…

I started in on a cleansing program in April, one that I found quite effective, so I thought I’d throw my feedback from that in for the record. There was a pre-cleanse for three days, where I gradually decreased the quantity of food I ate. I eliminated all the refined stuff (sugar, flour, etc), the dairy products, the meat. I basically ate an all-organic diet of plenty of fruits, salads, and cooked vegetables, with a bit of nuts, seeds, cooked grains, and beans thrown in, plus plenty of spring water, and a cup of herbal tea per day, that had just a bit of green tea in it. I didn’t have a personal chef (like Oprah can afford!) to make me “strawberry rhubarb wheat-free crepes”, but I still didn’t feel like I was suffering. It’s been my experience that when you start eating healthy, you develop an appetite for healthy foods. I focus on what I can eat, and tend to get more creative than usual. I start realizing there are so many whole foods I generally neglect to prepare, out of habit. Also, I usually have a better appetite on these cleansing diets; that’s a positive way of saying, “I’m hungry!” But the beauty of getting hungrier is that the natural, wholesome foods taste even better.

The pre-cleanse prepared me for my five-day “colon cleansing”, which would limit me to even less food. Using a program put together into a package by BlessedHerbs.com, I took a prescribed amount of their all-organic supplements. I totally recommend the company. It’s a bit of an investment if you purchase the entire program, which includes an “Internal Cleansing Kit” as well as the “Colon Cleansing Kit”. In the future, I may economize and just go for the colon cleanse, as it’s more affordable. The initial cleanse lasts only five days, but it’s very effective.
The theory behind the five-day colon cleanse is that by limiting your food intake, the supplements you take will more effectively attach to the stuff clogging your intestines, eventually getting taken out by that lovely process of elimination. If you eat your regular diet (even a healthy one), the supplements will tend to bind to that fiber instead, never really doing the job of attaching to and eliminating that “mucoid plaque build-up” that accumulates on the walls of the colon over the years.

So I went hard-core, realizing the beauty of an all-out juice fast. I consumed eight ounces of freshly-juiced organic apples, five times daily, mixed in with packages of powder supplied with my kit, followed by sixteen ounces of water. The package included psyllium seed husks; the fiber in the husks increases one’s regularity, which helps move toxins out. It also included Bentonite clay, which is an absorbent. It can absorb more than forty times its weight in toxins. Go clay, go! There was some apple pectin in the package as well, which likes to bind to fatty acids and triglycerides. Ah, and the ginger that was included helped allieviate digestive discomfort and bloating (due to the psyllium…). I didn’t even feel hungry on this program; the fiber in the package gave me that sense of fullness. I had an occasional pity party, thinking of how that was all I would be ingesting that day, but the party didn’t last long. Twenty or so minutes later, I’d get a renewed burst of energy, and things would be looking up again.

There were a few additional supplements taken at various points in the day as well. Like I said, the colon-cleanse was effective. I had never seen my stomach so flat, and definitely got rid of some excess intestinal baggage. Yeah!

After concluding the five-day cleanse, I slowly re-introduced the foods of my pre-cleansing diet, starting with a well-chewed apple to break the fast. After taking a seven-day “rest”, I then entered into the second phase: The Internal Cleansing. I could eat my usual “Cleansing Foods” diet; quite the improvement from just apple juice!

The Blessed Herbs Kit for the internal cleansing was quite impressive, full of various herbal supplements and tinctures designed to target different glands at different phases of the cleanse. It also included a parasite-cleansing, followed by a friendly bacteria replenisher (to establish friendly bacteria, which helps produce B vitamins and cut down on yeast/fungi).

Ever since my dad was diagnosed with rectal cancer after a colonoscopy last fall, I started thinking proactive: What could I do to improve my own prospects? Given that I’ve got minimal health insurance coverage, I wasn’t real keen on spending the thousands it might cost out-of-pocket to get a colonoscopy. Having just turned fifty, I do need to seriously consider my alternatives. Doctors suggest the colonoscopy once a person hits fifty. Looking into it, I discovered I could take a home-test at an affordable price. Although they say the home test won’t be as conclusive as what the doctors would do, at least it does show whether there’s blood in the stool, which is a primary symptom of polyps and other potential problems.

We all would do well to take a “pro-active” stance when it comes to our health. It’s no picnic, literally, to clean out the old baggage. It can be challenging to start nourishing our bodies with wholesome foods. But when we start feeling that glow of health, it all seems worth it.

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Jennifer Cote’s cookbook, From the Land of Milk and Honey, is available online at Winepress Books. (Or at Amazon.com)

Sign up for Jen’s newsletter at the PC Cuisine Home Page.

Jen also blogs about her Christian walk at Recipe for Life.

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Die to Diet

It’s no fun to feel like we have to die, in order to diet. I can’t tell myself I’m going to “diet”, or I will get that feeling of impending death… My mind goes beserk, trying to sabotage my efforts. I start craving food worse than ever. Food suddenly exerts more power over me than it ever does when I’m not dieting. Forget that!

But when I tell myself I’m going to start eating to nourish myself, I have a much better attitude. It seems that when we’re truly nourishing our bodies, our bodies start cooperating with us. We might want to be in shape, but the body might scream, “Well, what have you done for me lately?!” I don’t think it’s our body that craves the junk food. It’s probably our mind that needs something. But feeding the body what the mind wants is like pumping water into our car because our plants are thirsty. It doesn’t work well!

I’ve mentioned how I start my day with a heavy-duty, nutrient-rich breakfast. By lunch-time, my organic salad with olive oil and a touch of sea salt really hits the spot. I usually add plenty of nuts, or beans, or avo, plus herbs and what have you. It’s so good. And then, by dinner-time, the heavier whole-grain dishes, full of stir-fried veggies (and meat or beans or whatever one chooses for protein), really hits the spot again. I’ve been eating very satisfying portions, yet staying slim. I think my body is truly cooperating with me; I’ve got more energy, and my tummy’s content.

I’ve heard a lot of moms express a certain dilemma: What to do about the fact that we have to prepare food for the whole family? We can’t be making two different menus, right? I’ve also heard complaints about the expense of having to buy “Jenny Craig” special dinners, Nutrisystem, etc. Well, I’m making the family the same food, and it’s been working quite well. I don’t add the sour cream and cheese to the top of my whole wheat tortilla filled with plenty of healthy goodies, but I add it to the guys’ burritos, and they don’t think twice about chowing down. I haven’t been eating the meat part of the dinner lately, but if I’ve served a bit of meat along with everything else, no one else feels cheated. It saves on grocery bills too, to be serving less meat.

The whole family could stand to get in shape anyway, right? There are a lot of out-of-shape people in this world, and they’re not all moms. I’m not saying everyone should be waif-like; just healthy. The doctors are saying childhood obesity is practically epidemic. So should moms be concerned that their children might suffer if they serve too much healthy food? I figure it’s not going to hurt anyone if I’m serving more portions of freshly-prepared veggies, whole grains, and salads. Even kids and dads can stand to eat healthy. I don’t want my husband dying at an earlier age due to health complications that could have improved through diet! So I will continue to serve healthy foods to all of us.

I’ve also heard people say, “But everyone else craves the junk food. I have to keep some on hand.” But, mothers have the awesome privilege of providing those things that will truly nourish. When we had a chocolate habit going on, I always had chocolate on hand for us to munch as we watched a bit of TV after dinner. When I got on my health kick, I started slicing up fresh, crisp apples, or preparing dishes of fresh pineapple or what have you, and the rest of the family almost didn’t miss the chocolate! Note that I did say, “almost”. Because, at first, anything that’s become a habit will be missed. But give any new habit 30 days, and you will be transformed. Our son, who whimpered some when the chocolate supplies dwindled, has grown accustomed to his new fate. Maybe it’s because he’s feeling healthier! It’s hard to complain when your body is happy.

There’s probably a lot of people who think they can eat the average American diet, pop a few multi-vitamins, and be covered. But I question that; it didn’t work for me. God made natural foods with countless qualities, only some of which have been defined by scientists. I can’t take the currently discovered vitamins in an isolated form, without suspecting that I might be missing something. Synergy is a scientifically accepted term to define “the phenomenon in which two or more discrete influences or agents acting together create an effect greater than that predicted by knowing only the separate effects of the individual agents”.

In simple terms, I’m going to nourish my body with the natural, whole foods God gave us, and I will feel blessed. When we start a new habit of healthy eating, and give it a full thirty days, we can reach that point where we appreciate healthy foods. We won’t have to “die” when we diet. We can die to the efforts of going on stringent diet plans eating boxed, prepared “diet foods”, but we don’t have to “die”!

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Jennifer Cote’s cookbook, From the Land of Milk and Honey, is available online at Winepress Books. (Or at Amazon.com)

Sign up for Jen’s newsletter at the PC Cuisine Home Page.

Jen also blogs about her Christian walk at Recipe for Life.

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Corn Bread w/Apple and Sage

With a month-long dietary cleanse going on, focused on organic veggies, fruits, nuts, and whole grains, I began to appreciate the vegetarian’s dilemma. While fresh, organic vegetables can be so flavorful, it’s also nice to offer a well-seasoned treat on occasion, to go with the beans or tofu. Another feature: This recipe is gluten-free, with no refined sugar. Yes!

I made the following recipe using whole grain, organic corn flour from the health food store, and I even substituted some of my coconut milk for the buttermilk; either one works just fine. The addition of some maple syrup and frozen apple juice concentrate eliminates the need for refined sugar, while adding extra flavor and moistness. Serves 8 as a side dish.

In a 12″ skillet, grill the following in a dash of olive oil, until translucent, about 10 min.: > Half of a medium onion (about ¾ c.), chopped > ½ c. celery, minced

To the cooked onion and celery in pan, add: > 1 med. apple, peeled, cored, and diced (about 1 c.)

Cook the apple/onion mix just a minute or so. Turn off heat and add: > 2 TBS. fresh chopped sage (or 2 tsp. dry)

In a separate bowl, beat: > 2 eggs

Also add to the egg bowl: > ¼ c. frozen apple juice concentrate > ¼ c. maple syrup > ¼ c. olive oil > ¾ c. buttermilk (or substitute regular milk w/lemon added, or coconut milk) > ⅓ c. golden raisins

Mix the dry ingredients separately: > 1 ½ c. corn flour, not degerminated (find at health food stores) > 4 tsp. baking powder > ¼ tsp. salt

To the egg bowl, also add: > The grilled mix > The dry ingredients

Mix everything up, stirring just until smooth. Add a splash of olive oil to the iron skillet, and pour the batter into the skillet. Bake at 375° for 20 min. or so, until golden. Serve warm or cooled off. It’s good either way!

 

 

Jennifer Cote’s cookbook, From the Land of Milk and Honey, is available online at Winepress Books. (Or at Amazon.com)

Stop by Jen’s complete recipe blog at PC Cuisine, or sign up for her newsletter at the Home Page.

Jen also has a few extra devotional thoughts at Recipe for Life.

Coconut Bark

If you start researching, you’ll find that coconut’s got a lot of great, healthy qualities. The oil is great for cooking, as it can take the heat well for stir-fries and the like. It’s very stable, lasting over a year at room temperature without going rancid. It’s also good for the metabolism, and for fighting off viruses. I started ordering “Coconut Cream Concentrate” by the quart, from my favorite coconut suppliers (Tropical Traditions), after discovering the stuff adds plenty of flavor to smoothies and rice dishes. Check out my blog at PC Cuisine, for a great Hawaiian Rice Medley recipe.

Lately, I’ve been melting about a cup of coconut cream concentrate, setting the jar in a pot of simmering water (with a rag at the bottom of the pot to keep the jar from breaking), until I’ve got a cup or so of it melted. I then mix it with a cup or more of each of the following: Nuts, dried fruits, and cacao nibs. My favorite combo lately is: Macadamias, dried cranberries, pitted dates, and cacao nibs. I press it into a loaf pan, chilling it until firm. Then I run hot water over the loaf pan to get it back out, and slice it up. It’s been the perfect between-meal snack for my husband and I. I was really surprised he liked it, since he doesn’t like cacao nibs by themselves. Now we’ve both got a tasty treat to munch on, and it’s so healthy too. The cacao nibs are another superfood that you can order from Sunfood Nutrition. They’re particularly good in vanilla ice cream, if you’re trying to be only half-good. Sometimes you have to work yourself up to the hard-core stuff, like eating the nibs straight out of the bag… Oh, by the way, when warm weather hits, keep your bark in the refrigerator, or it might have a melt-down!

I also discovered that I could make a batch of coconut milk out of the coconut cream concentrate. It’s better than the canned stuff, and even the frozen stuff, which may still contain additives (some labels might have additives but not mention it, if it’s below a certain level). Yeah, if you’re looking for pure, organic, unadulterated coconut milk, try making your own out of the coconut cream concentrate. After I’d melted some of it for my coconut bark recipe, I had some melted, left-over cream still in the jar. So I started adding water to it, a little at a time so I could mix it in well. I added quite a bit of water to it, and it still made a very rich-tasting coconut milk that’s been working for oatmeal in the morning. I love replacing my husband’s typical dairy products with something more healthy and flavorful. So far, so good!

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Shop at PCCuisine: Healthy cooking supplies, gifts for cooks, and more.

Order Jen’s cookbook At Winepress Books.

Get recipes at pccuisine.com

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What’s For Breakfast?

People have asked my husband and I, how do we stay so trim while surrounded by food all day long? For me, perhaps it starts with my breakfast. I have to nourish this body of mine, and the more high-quality nutrients I get in each day, the better. It’s just good fuel. So I start the day with my Flax Seeds, ground in my little coffee grinder (this way the flax meal is fresh/ no rancid oils). Everyone knows how Flax Seeds are loaded with that alpha linolenic acid (ALA), right? It’s an omega-3 fat much like the form of omega-3 found in fish oils (called eicosapentaenoic acid or EPA). Most people can convert the oil found in the flax seeds, into a useable form of omega-3 (although diabetes and alcohol can interfere with that conversion). So you can generally substitute flax seeds for fish oil, if you’re not a big fish eater, and still get plenty of health benefits. Flax Seeds have such a great effect on health, I can hardly list all the positive effects, but you can…(Click here for a great reference page.)

By the way, if you’re shooting for healthy, make it worth the effort. Get one of those ten-dollar mini-coffee-grinders (as pictured above, on the left), and grind your flax seed up fresh. The oils are so delicate, and can go rancid fast, making a pre-ground flax seed meal less that ideal. Also, the seeds themselves are just a bit too tough to break down well if you ingest them whole, so don’t bother with that either! Go for fresh-ground!

I put my ground flax seeds in a container with a lid on it, along with my “VitaMineral Green” (Order it here). This green powder is loaded with super foods (no man-made vitamins included)… I add a cup or so of water, put the lid on, shake, and drink. A few friends were watching me drink this green goo for breakfast last weekend at a women’s retreat, and wondered… “Why?!” I had to explain about my propensity for anemia, and all that entailed. My prenatal doctor (twenty-some years ago) prescribed an iron supplement for me that did no good at all; I have since learned that iron is often ill-absorbed by many of us. Those iron pills often have annoying side effects (like constipation) as well. But this prenatal doctor was quite concerned that my iron levels weren’t going up. So I consulted with my friend at the health food store. She put me on a diet rich in dried apricots and beet juice crystals… My doctor was amazed! Ever since, I’ve looked for ways to get natural forms of iron that will be readily absorbable. The green stuff fits the bill! Not that it’s the tastiest thing in the world, but it’s very nourishing, and it also doesn’t corrupt my taste buds. Just imagine how good the next healthiest foods taste, after downing that!

I top off that power drink with some Mangosteen Juice. It’s not cheap, but the Adams’ brand (check their site here) gives you the most for your money. It’s straight Mangosteen juice (yes, with the pericarp included), and for the same price as other brands, you get a pure, undiluted product, not blended with cheaper juices. Oh, and, “Why Mangosteen?” you may ask. You can look it up, but to sum it up, it’s off-the-charts loaded with antioxidants and other nutrients. Like, more so than pretty much any other food you could eat. Talk about “super food”. I love it!

I used to imagine that nourishment could come easily. I wanted to take a “One Daily” Multi-vitamin/mineral supplement, and be done with it. I have since found that, even with whatever health complications any one of us might suffer, or be genetically disposed to, there’s not much that can compete with excellent nutrition, as a proactive step we can take. With the toxic environment we’re so often exposed to, the food we put in is one thing we can personally have some control over. Now that’s a comforting thought.

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Jennifer Cote’s cookbook, From the Land of Milk and Honey, is available online at Winepress Books. (Or at Amazon.com)

Sign up for Jen’s newsletter at the PC Cuisine Home Page.

Jen also blogs about her Christian walk at Recipe for Life.

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Enough Protein?

A friend was just asking me what I knew about getting enough protein as a vegetarian…

As far as getting enough protein, I have read up a bit on it. Seems like you really can get enough protein, even as a vegetarian. The fruitarians even say you can get enough protein from a fruit diet! Not that I’m going to do a fruit diet indefinitely, but… I have come to believe that all the studies get somewhat skewed. If you take your average, McDonald-chowing, red-meat-happy person and start them on a diet of veggies, their body probably won’t be used to converting what they eat into high-octane fuel. But take a person on a real healthy diet, and test out how many nutrients they get out of their food, and perhaps you’ll find they’re quite well-nourished. I think our bodies are capable of extracting quite a bit of nutrition out of foods, but we corrupt our appetites and affect the way our body was naturally designed to process food. Calcium is a great example. Milk companies would have you believe that they put “X” amount of calcium in the milk, and that you’d need to consume “X” amount of milk or what-have-you to get enough calcium. But perhaps that’s because the calcium is in a form that’s not readily convertible into use for our body. But the calcium found in unhulled sesame seeds and dark, leafy veggies may be easily usable.

OK, so I guess I could sum up my thoughts on protein-consumption by saying: The closer we get to God’s ideal way of eating, the better we can probably process the nutrition we do take in. Thirty years ago, I really got into a study of vegetarianism (Diet for a Small Planet, and all that). Basically, we can get so much protein just by including a bit of beans, or nuts, or seeds and the like, in with some of the whole grains we may eat. The foods become complete proteins when certain levels of amino acids found prevalent in one food, can complement another food with a deficiency of those certain amino acids. It’s kind of like how God has set up everything else in this universe: Things are designed to complement each other. The people making up the body of Christ are designed to complement each other. God doesn’t want us to be an island unto ourselves. He’s designed nature perfectly. We just have to seek to get into His plans for us, even with our diet! It’s as simple as eating a few beans in with that bowl of brown rice. Or throwing some sunflower seeds or nuts onto our salad… It’s not rocket science!

Now, plenty of people do just fine on meat. I’m not saying meat is the devil. Of course, there are the studies that show how red meat slows the transit time of food in the colon, potentially leading to colon cancer. I’m going to take that into account. I am, afterall, fifty years old, self-insured, and not able to really afford a colonoscopy. I can’t afford to assume doctors will be able to take care of any problem that comes up. I have to do my absolute best to hopefully insure that I have decent health. I have to use whatever means I am able to control at my own expense, because I really can’t afford not to!

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Jennifer Cote’s cookbook, From the Land of Milk and Honey, is available online at Winepress Books. (Or at Amazon.com)

Sign up for Jen’s newsletter at the PC Cuisine Home Page.

Jen also blogs about her Christian walk at Recipe for Life.

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Water- Fit To Drink?

For those of us who are more sensitive, water may be an important part of our health regimen. I’ve never tolerated chlorine (it freaked my skin and eyes out, so that was my first clue). And until my dad’s recent baseline blood test, with its elevated cancer-related blood marker, our family wasn’t too overly-concerned with our state of health. Now, my dad and I have been researching like crazy.

Kevin Trudeau, author of the best seller, More Natural Cures Revealed has some ideas, and for $10/month, you can subscribe to his “naturalcures.com” newsletter and get a few more answers. Or you can do like me and research your way around paying that $10. (It’s not that I’m so cheap, but after my word search about “naturalcures” revealed a few disgruntled customers, I’m a bit wary.) In any case, I really just wanted someone I trusted to point me in the right direction concerning water. It took awhile, but I finally got to the bottom of the issue, at least to my satisfaction.

I read a lot of Trudeau’s book, and he appears to make many excellent points. But I did feel that following all his prescribed routines would make me border upon obsessive/compulsive; plus, I don’t have the time or money to follow such routines. Can I just get to the bottom of what kind of water to drink?! Kevin’s book said I could find out what kind of water to drink, if I paid that $10 and got that subscription, but I sleuthed around and discovered which water he was talking about on my own. I also discovered that, unless you can afford to specially treat your tap water, the water to drink is “Fiji” water. When my husband informed me that the cost was about eight times more than for any other bottled water, I had to reconsider.

I found the most information on a website by “Citizens Concerned about Chloramine” (CCAC). Let me just sum it up for you. In the Bay Area, and a few other places around the country, they disinfect the water with chloramine, which poses some unique problems. When chlorine is used, you can usually find a water filter to get most of that out. Some filters will tell you, “Removes chloramine odor, and removes chlorine”. They won’t say they remove chloramine. That’s because it’s quite a process to get that chloramine out. The CCAC says an effective whole house filtration system could cost between $10,000 to $15,000 with $1,200 maintenance per year. OK, so maybe they sound alarmist, but… maybe not.

These guys say that you might as well not worry about the drinking water, because your skin (being the largest organ in the body) absorbs an excess of the chloramine every time you shower or bathe. Quite disturbing: the chloramine molecules evaporate, going into the lungs, in a form that easily ends up in the blood stream. That explains the expense of the filtration system; you can’t just filter the drinking water. And they say the water speeds out of the shower spigot too quickly to be able to be filtered at that point, so… yeah, it’s gonna cost you. If you care.

If I had perfect health already, I may not care. The fact that I had to use eye drops all day long, every day, seemed an indication that something was irritating. Most sites say it’s because of failing eyesight or allergies, but mine have been like this for ages, even when my eye sight was 20/20, and even when on strict allergy diets, and in any given off-allergy season. There may be multiple causes, for sure. I noticed that blinking more helps, as I get too intent when I’m focusing and might forget to blink enough! But I am attributing some of this condition to the long, hot soaks Ive been prone to take in my chloramine (and previously, chlorine) bath tub. My latest solution is to use less time and water in cleaning up, lessening my exposure.

And I’m back to drinking my Crystal Geyser bottled water. I started feeling guilty; my carbon footprint was getting bigger, right? All that gas it takes to transport all those bottles into my kitchen… Well, our health may be at stake here, and in an environment where we’re constantly exposed to toxins, perhaps it’s crucial to limit them where we can. A friend had recommended Crystal Geyser; they have a good reputation, and there has been a lot of noise about unscrupulous water bottling. Some of the labels even tell you flat out, it’s tap water!

So here’s your water solutions: You can get a filter in many cases, to get rid of a lot of the bad stuff. You can even get a filter for your bath/shower water faucet, to get rid of chlorine. But if you’re in an area like ours, with chloramine, well… you may have to take more drastic measures! A friend had me convinced for awhile, that our tap water wasn’t so bad. He said the Bay Area’s known for its good-tasting water. Part of the reason the water district likes to use chloramine is because it doesn’t have that chlorine smell. It’s rather odorless. Is that a good thing? I can’t smell the chemical, therefore it’s good?! Not to mention: Chloramine is a combination of chlorine and ammonia. And it would kill my fish. We have to treat our pond water before we can fill it, as that chloramine would wipe out our fish. Dang.

After all that, I could begin to feel overwhelmed. This world can do that to you. So many things, out of our control! But that’s OK. We have a bigger God, who IS in ultimate control. This planet is pretty messed up, and if it was my final stomping ground, I might get really obsessed with all this. The beauty of it is, despite how badly we’ve messed up our environment, God still promises us a better eternal home. I’m going to pick up my glass of bottled water and say, “Cheers to THAT!”

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Jennifer Cote’s cookbook, From the Land of Milk and Honey, is available online at Winepress Books. (Or at Amazon.com)

Sign up for Jen’s newsletter at the PC Cuisine Home Page.

Jen also blogs about her Christian walk at Recipe for Life.

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A Faith Philosophy on Diet

I reviewed plenty of good looking food pictures for this post, but ended up with this picture of a fun day on the beach.. After all, do we all agree on what is healthy food? One person thrives on one thing; someone else thrives on another. God gave us all different bodies. With enough insight to realize that we won’t all be exactly the same, perhaps we can be more tolerant of each other’s differences.

The Bible gives us a good perspective about our eating. 1 Corinthians 8:8 says, “But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.” Let us not think that food is our god; a means to salvation! I like to think of eating as an opportunity to enjoy one of God’s blessings, and a chance to nourish the body. After all, you ought to take good care of it; as 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, “… your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God… Therefore honor God with your body…”

Paul also mentions, in 1 Corinthians 8:13, that we should not place food as more important than our brothers. He says, “Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall.” Hopefully, we don’t have to be so hung up on what we eat that we freak other people out. Hopefully, through our actions, we might encourage others to take good care of their bodies as well.

So, what’s the recipe for health? I suspect it’s a bit different for each individual. We all have our genetic predilections, and ought to structure nutritional plans accordingly. And yet, as healthy as any one of us may eat, isn’t it interesting (as some know all too well), that we can’t always improve our health enough through nutrition alone? I personally have found that, above all, an active, living relationship with Jesus has kept me connected to the vibrancy of life God has designed for us.

I worked at a health food store for years, reading every health book in the store’s library, trying many panaceas, adopting many nutritional programs, applying many diet plans… And yet, perfect health illuded me. After twenty-some years of trying to improve my health naturally, I realized some things are out of our control. Like our genes…

At the age of 48, I woke up one morning from a dream about death. I had dreamt that I was sinking in a pile of quick sand in the back yard… I “heard” my thought: “If only I don’t move at all, I will survive.” Another audible voice (God’s?) said, “That would be near impossible.” The next day, I went to the doctor, who discovered that I had the worst thyroid levels he’d seen in thirty years of practice. He said, “I’m surprised you can even walk around.” He set me up with thyroid pills, which made an amazing difference in my life. No amount of “perfect” nutrition on my part had been able to resolve my thyroid problem. But a simple thyroid pill worked wonders.

A simple (but scary) dream woke me up from a belief that I could resolve my health issues on my own. A simple (but scary) dream saved my life. God doesn’t want us to think we can solve all our problems on our own. I thank Him that He used a dream to literally “speak” into my life. We may dream of being able to assert ourselves, proactively seeking the best excercise program, eating the best foods, taking the best supplements. But sometimes, we need to wake up from that dream. After all is said and done, our very lives are in the hands of our Maker. First and foremost, we’d best look to Him for some answers, above all else.

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Jennifer Cote’s cookbook, From the Land of Milk and Honey, is available online at Winepress Books. (Or at Amazon.com)

Sign up for Jen’s newsletter at the PC Cuisine Home Page.

Jen also blogs about her Christian walk at Recipe for Life.

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