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Natural Health feed!
Natural Health feed! I noticed that there is not a feed to talk about health food, supplements, natural beauty, organic food, GMOs, etc. I think about this topic a lot, and wondered if any other CBers were into that type of thing. Don't get me wrong, I love cookies, bacon (we actually raised our own recently and are eating that), pancakes, cheeseburgers, and all other junk foods too. But I hate being sick, I feel tired frequently, really don't want Cancer or diabetes, and have ADHD, so any foods that can help me be happy and well (and look better haha) are awesome. Feel free to talk about any health related thing you want! Talk about medical conditions you are finding natural remedies for, natural skin and hair, natural weight management, anything ya'll want!
Subject to approval by Admin.
submitted by Pearl , age 13, My stomach
(February 22, 2014 - 1:24 pm)
(February 22, 2014 - 1:24 pm)
Living where I live (Hippie Central), there is a lot of this stuff floating around, and many people eat organic and homegrown foods. The only supermarketish store in the entire town is a health food store, and there is a farmer's market once a week when there isn't two thousand feet of snow out side.
(February 22, 2014 - 3:24 pm)
So is your family into it, or is it just big all around you? My family lives in the middle of Monsanto-world (aka The Midwest), and it's actually picking up speed here, surprising as it is. We have one Organic health food store in our whole town (roughly 35,000 ppl), but it's a pretty good one. Our Schnucks has a pretty reasonable selection of organics, and we have a good farmers market from April to October. Still pretty sad how many people don't realize what they're eating, but with all the things that are costing astronomical amounts of cash these days, people don't really want to spend more money than nessecary on anything, especially going from ice-cream to "icky" green smoothies. My grandma (in her late 50's) was feeling old, weighed 180 or so and was just having aches and pains like an 80 yr old. We told her to watch "fat, sick, and nearly dead" (about two guys doing long juice fasts), and she turned her life around. She only drank (freshly juiced veggie) juice for 50 days, and after that is gluten-free (she has gluten sensitivity), almost dairy-free and almost vegetarian (she only eats locally raised meat and dairy, mostly from my family's farm). She tells anyone she can about her experience, and a few people have even tried it! She now weighs 125, and feels no older that 30.
(February 23, 2014 - 9:50 am)
I've been vegetarian nearly all my life (I cheat on fish now and again), and my family is really into healthy eating: Organic, non-GMO, all that kind of thing. My mom is also kind of gluten intolerent, so we once went on this month-long, no dairy, no wheat "diet" and I can tell how eating cleaner makes you feel better. I must say I looked better than I usually do (no bragging intended!), but it is kind of hard to keep it up. There are a lot of fun people who do blogs where they post healthy recipes--I found one person in Britian who has this awesome recipe for chocolate cake made with sweet potatoes instead of eggs. I'm definitely going to try that one out!
(February 23, 2014 - 12:57 pm)
My family tries to stay away from conventional meat, but we've never been vegetarian. We have free range hens and meat birds (occasionally), grass-fed beef, a big garden, and pork. We know that our meat is how God intended meat to be (and meat has been for thousands of years), so we feel comfortable eating it, but to each his own. If we didn't have such a healthy, affordable, good source of meat, we might be vegetarian too with all the animal cruelty and bad diets in the meat industry. We eat a lot of veggies and fruits too, and barely eat/drink any soda or other diet fillers.
(February 23, 2014 - 6:04 pm)
So this is totally up my alley.
My mom is very... healthy.
Vegetarianness:
My mom and dad raised my brother and me with no meat (no fish, meat, or poultry) and no soft drinks (only carbonated juice sometimes). They felt that we could decide for ourselves when we got older and more knowledgable whether we wanted to be vegetarians, without having to break a lifelong habit of eating meat. I am grateful for that, and still vegetarian (except for one crumb of bacon - it smelled so delicious! - and a few bites of fish, which I do not like). The idea of eating an animal that once had a beating heart, with blood and ... aliveness.... It just grosses me out. Please don't argue that I eat plants, too, and plants are living things, blahblahblah, because it's just not the same. Plants have no blood or guts ( though they do have photosynthesis which serves the same purpose).
Allergies:
My brother. mom and I are allergic to wheat, soy, and cow's milk. My brother and mother are also allergic to corn, rice, oranges (including clementines, mandarins, kumquats) and goat's and sheep's milk. My mom is sensitive to nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers) and oats. I think that's it. I may have forgotten something. We don't eat peanuts either.
So, you wonder, "What do you EAT?!"
Oatmeal for breakfast, sometimes brown rice with almond milk, warmed, for me. Smoothie for mom. We usually sprinkle lots of toppings on our hot cereal. Golden raisins, nuts, chia seeds (good source of fiber and minerals), hemp seeds (good source of protein), honey.
For lunch, a delicious meal prepared by our wonderful mother, who, fortunately, cooks our food (except for breakfast, which I or my brother prepare) from scratch. Sometimes we have leftovers. Some lunches are: lentil salad; bean soup; greens soup; lentil soup; soup; soup; soup; -What? we've been having a lot of soup, okay? You don't have to be so judgmental about it.....
For dinner, more soup. It is good soup. We don't really only have soup. We have cauliflower and chickpea salad, cooked in the oven, with arugula; quinoa (mainly my brother eats it, my mom and dad and I don't much care for it); brown rice; steamed or roasted broccoli (with garlic, yum).
Diets
We don't ever have any eat-less diets, just an eat-differently diet. It's that cleanse Gwyneth Paltrow went on, the Clean cleanse. My mom and I do this cleanse every once in a while. I only follow the dietary restrictions, my mom does the whole thing. You shouldn't do the whole cleanse if you're under 18.
When I'm on the cleanse I can't have oranges, nightshades, grapes, strawberries, dairy, eggs, white rice, oats, gluten, soy, peanuts, refined sugar, white/brown sugars, maple syrup, high fructose corn syrup, evaporated cane juice, Splenda®, Equal®, Sweet’N Low®, juice concentrate, agave nectar, brown rice syrup, honey, or processed foods.
The cleanse is to help you look and feel better and identify what foods you're sensitive to by taking out all possible "toxic triggers" for three weeks, then reintroducing them one at a time. It does not make you eat less than is satisfying, except that ther's a 12-hour period between when you eat dinner and breakfast (sleeping between) . My mom found out that she's sensitive to nightshades after the Clean cleanse.
Supplements, Herbs, Healing.
We take liquid vitamin D every once in a while.
My mom knows about using herbs and common weeds for healing and supplements. Sometimes we have a nettle infusion , which has an amazing amount of vitamin A, D, E, and K, and calcium. It tastes all right. Susun Weed (the wise woman) has a recipe on her website, if you care to find out how.
When I get hurt (which happens at least once a year), my mom will put a yarrow leaf poultice on my wound to stop the bleeding. If it is not bad enough to require ER, she puts a plantain (plantago) or violet leaf poultice on it to help draw out any dirt or germs that got in. Sometimes we soak the wound in a tincture.
If you want to learn more about healing with weeds, you can read Susun Weed's book, Healing Wise, which includes chapters about dandelion, violet, and plantain. She takes you on an herb walk, tells you about the plant from the plant's perspective, and then straightforwardly tells you the use of the weed. Be warned: The dandelion's monologue is written entirely in a French accent.
Another warning: DO NOT put any plant in your mouth unless you are absolutely sure what it is and that it is not toxic.
(February 23, 2014 - 8:13 pm)
Wow, your mom is very healthy! I agree about 'eat less diets' vs 'eat differently diets'. We generally get bored with restricted diets, so the diet that you and your mom did would probably kill me with boredom, but kudos to you!
(February 23, 2014 - 11:33 pm)
There are a wide variety of recipes that fit into the diet, pretty delicious, but you do have to be willing to spend alittle time on them, making them. I get what you mean about how you would be bored, though. It cuts out alot of food most people eat all the time.
(March 15, 2014 - 11:43 am)
I'm against GMO foods and try to stay away from them as much as possible. I don't normally bring it up with my friends because "our food is all happy happy joy joy". Monsanto is the best, we can trust it! That's what I saw at school, and it makes me sick. Monsanto doesn't care about us or our well-being. Now, some may say there's no proof of what I'm saying. Which isn't true. Look over the web! Articles stating that in studies, rats stomachs get all messed up when they eat GMO foods long term. Animals stay away from GMO foods... h'm, wonder what that means *sarcasm in voice* All in all, I don't think GMO is safe.
(February 23, 2014 - 9:05 pm)
Hi Moss! I totally agree about Monsanto and their not caring about humanity. Have you seen the stuff about how Monsanto's cafeterias serve GMO free food? I think that everyone should care about GMOs regardless of whether or not they are "Heath freaks" or not, because it just doesn't make sense. If you are vegetarian, that is your choice, but people have been eating meat without direct harm for thousands of years. If you are gluten free, it's because you feel as if that's the best choice for you, or, more likely, you have celiac or gluten sensitivity. If you avoid either of those things or others, you have an allergy or a preference against those things. But with GMOs, they're just plain toxic. Just twisting and mixing the genes of plants to make them tolerate pesticides or kill bugs can't be good for humans.
(February 23, 2014 - 11:26 pm)
I agree with you, Moss, GMO's are definitely bad, for both us and the environment. I once saw a documentary about this guy who was taken to court by Monsanto for "growing their new plants without their permission" (or something like that) when all he did was live somewhere near them and some seeds had blown over to his property. He hadn't even wanted to grow them, and may have been treating them as weeds, I don't remember exactly. I think he may have lost the case.
Ah, I've found the right word for GMO's and Monsanto: an atrocity.
(February 24, 2014 - 11:55 am)
I saw that documentary too!
(February 25, 2014 - 8:59 am)
Yeah, the meat industry is really heinous, how they try to trick everyone into thinking their practices are humane or at least tolerable, but they treat the workers, animals and basically all their consumers terribly. I saw this documentary called Food Inc. that was really eye-opening about the whole meat industry in general. I always had a hazy sort of idea about it before, but after seeing that, I could never eat meat again.
(February 24, 2014 - 8:35 pm)
I only eat certain kinds of meat, like grass-fed meat. Not McDonalds burgers or anything :P And I don't have it often either.
(February 25, 2014 - 7:03 am)
Yeah, we watched food inc. when we were just getting started farming, and Joel Salatin was a farming god to us. Our farming practices are a lot like his (daily chicken coop moving, moving our cattle around to new pasture daily, etc.) because we felt that meat was something we should continue eating, but we wanted the healthiest, happiest meat, from the healthiest, happiest animals. I also feel like people are realizing the truths of the meat industry, but they don't really want to stop eating meat all together so we provide a safe (non- GMO), healthy (eating just grass, which makes sense considering that cows are meant to be herbivores their stomachs are made to process only grass) alternative. I really believe that you don't have to cut out a any whole category of food (carbs, dairy, fat) just to be healthy, But I respect all vegetarians because I realize it's tough to get good quality meat in this Walmart world. I realize this is a tough topic considering there are lots of vegetarian on here but I'm just trying to explain that we do eat a healthy diet, but all diets are different. I'll post a sample meal plan on here sometimes :)
(February 25, 2014 - 8:44 am)
I am gluten-free (celiac disease) and so I don't eat oats, wheat, barley, or rye. I also am not allowed to have anything sugar-free (meaning FAKE sugar), unless I buy it myself. So, if I want to buy sugar-free gum that has artificial sweeteners, I have to buy it with my own money. Same goes for sodas and other foods like that.
My family has organic everything. Organic milk, cheese, chocolate, pasta, everything. I like it, though. It tastes the same.
Breakfast - usually gluten-free cereal with organic milk, or organic yogurt, or sometimes just a banana if I'm in a rush.
Lunch - usually some time of gluten-free sandwich with apple slices and gluten-free organic pretzels.
Dinner - usually meat, fish, gluten-free pasta, or gluten-free pizza with veggies.
Snacks - crispy rice treats made with organic sweetener, NOT marshmallows. Sometimes some gluten-free pretzels or occasionally something unhealthy like candy, if it's a special occasion.
Soooooooooooooooo...yeah!
(February 25, 2014 - 7:41 am)