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Posts tagged ‘Nutrition’

Sep 28

Smokescreens, lies and marketing bull…

There is a lot of disingenuous, deceitful and totally misleading information being promoted online in the name of so-called healthy living.

Let’s start with a hypothetical example.

Imagine a bodybuilder who built a huge, powerful, heavily-muscular physique over a period of years taking anabolic steroids, growth hormone and weekly testosterone shots. After a decade of this, he quits all the drugs and goes clean. Six months later he does a photo shoot and interview for a magazine, posing his huge muscles and claiming “See what clean, natural bodybuilding looks like!” and the interview is full of talk about how he is ‘clean’ and doesn’t take steroids. The interview conveniently neglects to talk about his decade taking steroids, and focuses instead on how he is ‘natty’ or ‘clean’ and doesn’t use drugs. The interview implores young lifters reading that they too can look like this guy if they lift hard and stay away from steroids.

Of course, the ‘stay away from drugs’ message is great, but the article is bullshit, outright lies. The guy is promoted as ‘clean’ when his physique was built on a decade of steroid use, and there is no way other lifters could ever reach his size without the same level of ‘chemical enhancement’ that he used.

Now, this is a hypothetical example, but the reality is that these disingenuous marketing tricks are used in diet and health promotion every day. You might say ‘sure but what harm is it doing…promoting the no drugs message is good, so why not let it be?’ and of course I would agree that promoting the ‘no drugs’ message is good. But that same magazine packs every other page with adverts for protein shakes and other supplements, selling these products to readers who want to emulate the physiques they see in the articles. It’s selling false promises, in my opinion.

No smoke without fire

If someone smoked for 40 years, then felt rough one day and decided to quit, then three years later was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer…well, would you blame the smoking? Right, of course you would. He or she may not have been puffing on a cigarette during the 15 minutes before being told the fatal diagnosis, but anyone can see the 40 years of smoking, despite the three years they quit, is the likely underlying cause.

Yet we see this flawed logic being used every day to promote certain diets, lifestyles, supplements and so on.

Let’s check out a great real life example.

The vegan bodybuilder

In 2014 PETA, the sometimes-infamously-aggressive People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (as it goes, I am very much in favour of treating animals ethically) started using a vegan bodybuilder by the name of Jim Morris to advertise the health benefits of a vegan lifestyle.

They photographed his lean, muscular 77-yr old physique and made posters proclaiming Read more

Aug 23

The role of dairy foods in your healthy lifestyle

I’ve put together an educational webinar for you to answer all the questions I get around dairy foods.

There is so much misinformation circulating online about diary foods that we need to cut through the nonsense and get to the facts.

In this webinar we look at the role of dairy foods in a healthy diet. We answer questions that include:

  • Are dairy foods ‘natural’ in a human diet?
  • What about animal welfare?
  • Should I eat dairy foods for calcium?
  • Will drinking milk help me have strong bones in older age?
  • Is their cruelty in dairy farming?
  • I saw a vegan video saying drinking milk is like drinking pus, is this true?
  • What do they mean by ‘pus’?
  • Is milk full of antibiotics?
  • Do I need dairy in my diet for protein?
  • Is milk full of growth hormones that they feed to the cows?
  • What’s the difference between dairy in the EU, the UK, and the US?
  • What is pasteurisation, and why do they do it?
  • Is raw milk safe to drink?
  • Should I go for grass-fed cheese, butter and milk?

All these questions and more are answered in this comprehensive webinar.

You can watch the full webinar here.

A free bonus, no sales pitch, just free.
Please let me know if you have any questions, or if there are confusing topics you would like me to cover in future webinars.

Aug 21

Chill out…have an ice cream…then get back to your vegetables

It’s summer, hoorah! The sun is shining and I hope you are enjoying the holidays.

Mother Nature’s Diet incorporates Core Principle 12 - the 90/10 Rule.

In rough terms, this means ‘get it right 90% of the time, and chill out over the last 10 percent’.

This doesn’t mean ‘take a cheat day’ or ‘eat well Monday round to Friday lunchtime, then blow it all over the weekend. It means 90% of the calories you consume should work within Core Principles 1-to-11, and then you can relax over the last tenth.

I’ve been away on holiday with my family last week. One particular day, we went for a seven mile walk along cliff tops in the sunshine, we had fresh air, exercise and sunshine, and we picked and ate fresh blackberries along the way. Getting teenage kids to put their iPads down and go for a walk is always a challenge, so several hours out in nature counts as a major win in my book!

It’s been a hot sunny day, and when we finished our walk, the kids wanted an ice cream. There is a quality boutique ice cream parlour just about a mile from where we finished our walk, and it was on our way back, so we stopped by on the way.

I had an ice cream too. It’s summer, it’s a lovely day, I enjoyed my little ‘off-plan treat’ without a hint of guilt.

It got me to thinking, when I eat an ice cream or a soft warm bread roll, or some chocolate, people freak out. I get “Oh but you’re Read more

Jan 14

Part 7 – New tests & treatments

Continuing in our 10-part mini-series looking at the human microbiome and gut health, today our friend Dawn, from New Dawn Health, will explain what tests and treatments are now starting to become available and even commonplace as we understand more about the microbiome.

Dawn writes:

The microbiome is like a barometer – it reflects if all will be calm or if a storm is brewing. Today’s post looks at some of the tests and treatments currently available.

The most common way to assess your microbiome is via a comprehensive digestive stool test. It can be done privately, and your GP can order one for you (with good clinical justification). This will give you a thorough overview of the health of your gastrointestinal tract. It evaluates how well you digest and absorb your food; it identifies some of the yeasts, bacteria and parasites and what short chain fatty acids they are producing. It also reports on levels of gut inflammation, pH, food fibres and if there is blood in the stool. I use this private test regularly in my Nutritional Therapy work. Clients find it very helpful to see for themselves the microbes they have and how well their gut is functioning. They are also very reassured to see how those markers of gut health improve with nutritional interventions.

The very latest private stool testing identifies microbial RNA (ribonucleic acids) produced from anything and everything living in the gut. It uses new technology called metatranscriptome sequencing. Compared to older technology, this can identify all the bacteria (not just some) plus the yeasts, bacteriophages, parasites, fungi, and viruses, (and names them for you), which older stool testing doesn’t. In addition, the test identifies all the metabolites being produced and the ones missing. The app-based report gives dietary recommendations and foods for improving your unique gut health based on the results. I am about to do this test on myself, so I will keep you posted!

shutterstock_163451942

As you now know, the vast majority of microbes should be in your large intestine, or colon. However, in some people with upper abdominal bloating, feelings of fullness, pain and fluctuating stool (all very common symptoms) there is a test to see if large amounts of colonic microbes have moved upwards into the small intestine. The test is called a Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) test and you can do it yourself at home. It’s a breath test to capture the gases (hydrogen and methane) given off by the bacteria after a test drink. This is not a test commonly done on the NHS.

Have you heard of faecal transplants?  Hospitals are now transplanting filtered faecal microbes from healthy individuals into those with diabetes, obesity, Crohns and ulcerative colitis (UC) to rapidly improve their microbiomes. The results to date are very promising and this is likely to be a fast-expanding field of gastroenterology. I know, you think it sounds rather yukky, but anyone with debilitating Crohns or UC will tell you, if it offers relief from a lifetime of pain, steroids and drug side effects, it’s more than worth it.

I appreciate the sometimes awkward, personal side of bowel and digestive issues, and I know it can be difficult to talk to people about such problems. If you have any concerns, you can talk to me, I am a trained and qualified Nutritional Therapist, as well as being a practising osteopath for 24 years.  We can talk in total confidence, and trust me, I have heard it all before and I just might be able to offer an understanding ear and some helpful advice. If you are at all interested and want testing, please contact me and I’ll arrange to have tests sent out to you at home, and I’ll explain to you how testing is quick and easy.

Look out for Part 8 tomorrow, when I’ll explain the difference between probiotics and prebiotics, and how and why you need both in your diet. See you then.

Original Post on NewDawnHealth.me here.

- Thanks Dawn!  🙂

 

Jan 23

1 Comment

Vitamins, minerals and orangutans…

The Mother Nature’s Diet healthy lifestyle is built around the 12 Core Principles, an easy-to-follow set of nutrition and lifestyle guidelines - not hard rules, but guidelines to help you find the optimum diet and lifestyle for you, so that you get the best results.

In conversation recently, someone asked me ‘Why Core Principle 3, why do we have to cut down, or cut out, processed foods?’

I’ll answer that question now. Firstly, one reason we strive to minimise processed foods in our diet is in order to help us comply with Core Principle 1 (grains and excess starchy carbs) and Core Principle 2 (refined sugar).

We can walk the aisles of a modern supermarket and succumb to the illusion of choice - row upon row of different shapes, sizes and flavours; all the brightly coloured attractive packaging; it’s easy to think the 50,000 foods in a modern supermarket are all different. But in reality, many of them are actually just variations of the same thing. The truth is that a lot of processed foods are made from a basic starch (wheat, corn, rice, oats) with added soy and sugar. Then oils are added, such as palm oil or various vegetables oils, and then small amounts of other ingredients are added and finally artificial flavours, colours and preservatives round out the manufacturing process to create the final ‘food’.

It’s only in this final stage - adding the artificial colours, flavours and individual shapes and sizes, that many of these foods are differentiated from each other. There may appear to be 138 different breakfast cereals in your local supermarket, but if you break them down and look at them nutritionally, they are Read more

Sep 22

1 Comment

The One Diet to Rule Them All…

Which diet is best for you?

I have recently been reading a lot of ‘diet books’ and related blogs and looking at some of the most popular diet programs currently in vogue.

Within the space of just a few days:

  • I read an excellent report on the benefits of ketogenic diets for type-2 diabetics and people suffering from neurodegenerative disease. The article was written by someone knowledgeable, intelligent, published and well-respected, and backed up by plenty of examples of people who have enjoyed success with ketogenic diets (personally, I know several who get great results!)
  • Then, without looking for it, the very next day I happened across a well-reasoned argument against ketogenic diets, again written by a knowledgeable trainer with a long track record of client success stories. He warned of the dangers of low carb diets negatively affecting thyroid function, and he shared many anecdotal stories of female clients who have suffered hormone disruption through trying ketogenic diets. He also argued convincingly that ketogenic diets can cause some people to suffer sleep abnormalities, hormone problems, mood swings, anxiety and misery (life without carbs – not much fun!)
  • Ummm, one blog full of reports of people going super low-carb and finally ditching that stubborn belly fat they wanted to get rid of. The other blog full of reports of people feeling tired, run-down, burnt out on ultra low-carb, who then ate more carbs and felt strong again and saw that stubborn belly fat finally melt away! Confusion much!
  • Then I was reading a book about the benefits of intermittent fasting and the health benefits of fasting in general. Again a well-researched and well written book, lots of scientific references and plenty of anecdotal references too. Mental benefits, fat burning benefits, metabolic benefits, weight loss, improvements in blood sugar management, insulin sensitivity and more
  • I had a look around online and found many blogs and groups proclaiming the benefits of intermittent fasting diets, full of weight-loss success stories…and I found a similar number of blogs and groups bemoaning that ‘intermittent fasting diets don’t work’ or that as soon as they returned to eating ‘normally’, these people regained any weight they had lost - “it’s just a fad” they proclaim
  • I read a wonderful book a couple of weeks ago about some of the newest research into the effectiveness of Paleo diets and how many people enjoy weight loss results on a Paleo-style dietary regime. Then I read a series of very confusing blogs, and it became clear to me just how muddled the Paleo message has become, which is kinda sad. Some people seem to interpret Paleo as meaning ‘fairly low carb’, and some seem to think it means LCHF (low carb, high fat) and some seem to eat lots of carbs. Some think ketogenic diets are an extension of Paleo, while others look at hunter-gatherer tribes eating high carb diets (many roots and tubers) and argue that Paleo is actually pretty high carb
  • Oh the glorious confusion! I found stories of folks getting weight loss results and improved health from all variants of this Paleo interpretation! These people were all following variations of what they believe to me a Paleo diet, some very low in carbs, some really quite high in carbs, and all achieving weight loss results or health improvements. Then I searched around and found opposing legions of people complaining Paleo is too hard, Paleo is too restrictive, Paleo doesn’t work and they failed to lose weight on a Paleo diet!

Now let’s just see – Read more

Apr 4

3 Comments

Should we all be cutting back on starchy carbohydrates?

I have seen a lot in the press recently about type-3 diabetes, the proposed alternative name for Alzheimer’s disease.

This is not particularly new, Type-3 diabetes has been offered as a name for Alzheimer’s for over a decade now, but it does increasingly seem to be coming to the fore and reaching mainstream discussion more recently.

It makes me wonder how many more people are starting to see that high refined carbohydrate consumption is not our long-term historical norm. Now, I didn’t just write “humans are not supposed to eat carbs.” No, that’s not what I said. Humans have always eaten carbohydrates, just not is such great quantities, and not refined and processed, the way breakfast cereals, sliced bread, quick-cook pasta and baked goods are today. These refined carbs (sugars!) and all highly processed grain products (bread, pasta, cereals) are a relatively new addition to our diet, and in such bulk, they seem to be causing some serious problems.

And with all the increase in grain consumption, we are seeing an increasing rise in the human consumption of glyphosate, the highly controversial herbicide from Monsanto. This is of great concern to many - the numbers reported in that link are certainly ringing alarm bells.

It seems there are plenty of good reasons to look at consuming fewer foods made from processed grains, and fewer refined carbohydrates in general.

Low-carb diets have become amazingly popular in recent years, first it was The Atkins Diet, and more recently the Paleo movement.

And there are increasingly many reports of low-carb diets helping people, with challenging health problems such as type-2 diabetes and advanced renal failure. Indeed, I have had plenty of people email me over the last five years to tell me that they follow the MND lifestyle and they have controlled their type-2 diabetes or even reversed it and come off their medications. I have had some emails from people exclaiming “you’ve cured me!”

I do not actively promote Mother Nature’s Diet as a low-carb diet. MND as a way of living includes eating plenty of carbs every day, we just like to eat the most nutritious carbs we can, such as sweet potatoes and squash, rather than bread, pasta and cereals. These vegetables tend to be lower in calories and higher in fibre - in my opinion, much better choices. I promote MND as a healthy-carb diet, rather than a low-carb diet.

The 12 Core Principles of Mother Nature’s Diet do steer you away from high carbohydrate consumption.

Core Principle 1 states “Eliminate processed grains and starches from your diet”

What’s the point here?

In very broad general terms, there are five key reasons why we avoid eating grains and processed starchy carbs when living the Mother Nature’s Diet way.

1: For the vast majority of people, unless you are an athlete, then you just don’t need lots of bulky starchy carbs in your diet. The truth for most people is that eating lots of these starches provides a lot of calories they don’t need, and that can lead to a gain in excess body fat.

2: Grains cannot be digested unless they are processed or fermented, and in the natural order of things, way back in evolution, these foods would not have formed a major component of our diet.

3: Most of these foods (grains) naturally contain compounds that are not good for a lot of people. These foods contain gluten, phytates and other chemical substances that can cause digestive problems for a lot of people.

4: Grains and starchy carbs – the way they are consumed in the typical Western diet – tend to supply lots of bulk and lots of calories, without supplying much in the way of micro-nutrients – vitamins and minerals. In terms of eating foods that fill your plate, there are much better choices.

5: Modern large-scale industrialised agriculture, particularly grain (wheat and barley, also maize, rice and soya) agriculture, is a major source of topsoil erosion and greenhouse gas emissions.

If you would like to read a little more detail, just click here.

We are not excluding an entire food group “from all people, in its entirety, at all times” just because “grains are bad for you” as there is much more to it than that. The reality is that for many people, the popular foods made using grains and other starches, sold en masse in our supermarkets, which form a bulk part of the typical modern Western diet, are feeding people large amounts of easily-digestible calories, eaten rapidly in large quantities, eaten too quickly, too easily, too eagerly, too often, and these foods tend to be of a fairly low overall nutrient density.

In all, this ‘consumption pattern’ seems to be a major contributing factor to growing obesity levels, it seems to be a major contributory factor to the rising type-2 diabetes problem, and it seems to be a major contributory factor to the sub-standard level of micro-nutrients in the modern Western diet.

Additionally, people tend to eat these grains and starchy carbs as ‘the bulk’ element of a meal (think cereals and toast for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, pasta, rice and spaghetti for dinner) and this can often lead to over-eating large quantities of these foods. Because of this issue of quantity, these grains and starchy carbs tend to contribute a substantial proportion of the calories in a person’s diet, but comparatively little micro-nutrients (vitamins and minerals). This can contribute to weight gain.

Eating the MND way, we swap out those processed starchy foods for better options, namely fresh vegetables. The vegetable still offer some carbohydrate, but they are also offer more fibre, more micronutrients, less starch and fewer calories. For most people, this helps with weight loss and a healthier, more nutritious diet.

Eating the Mother Nature’s Diet way, in Core Principle 2 we also “Eliminate refined sugar, and limit natural sugars” and this further reduces the heavy carbohydrate load in the typical Western Diet.

So MND is not a low-carb diet per se, but it’s a healthy carb diet. It balances good choices of carbs, with good fats, varied proteins and plenty of micronutrients.

Try implementing the MND way into your life, just try it for 90 days, and see if it works for you.

Dec 6

Are we normalising obesity?

The rising obesity problem is a subject that is constantly in the news these days. As with every ‘latest thing’ that comes in and out of the public consciousness, when a topic is hot, we find every journalist and blogger out there writing about it, and opinions become varied, multitudinous and often contentious. And so it is with obesity.

In recent years we have seen many opinions about obesity, and read much shared research. We see that obesity can be blamed on genes, and we can read that childhood obesity is down to parenting, not junk food. We might read in the news that obesity could be classified as an eating disorder, or the next day the news will tell us that obesity is caused by poverty. We read that in the US, obesity is being treated as a disease, and we see obesity being blamed on something called obesogenic environments. Another day we may read about the obesity-promoting role of hyperpalatable foods, and we are constantly reading that sugar is to blame for obesity, and other addictive foods. We see the obesity epidemic blamed on the giant corporations of the food industry, and we may have even read that obesity is socially contagious.

Amid all this, while many derogatory words have been written about obese people over the years, now we see the tide turning. Many journalists and bloggers are now reporting that fat shaming does no good, it only makes things worse, it hurts people, and it’s time to stop blaming obese people for their condition; we must be more understanding and supportive. It is suggested that obesity is actually just a learned set of behaviours. We are seeing new reports that obese people are treated differently, to their detriment, by the doctors, and some experts are saying that if you put together everything above, then it plain isn’t your fault if you are fat.

Normalising obesity

It certainly is a contentious topic. I’m not going to go through all those news articles linked above and address each one of them in turn, giving my analysis and opinion on them all, that would take many pages of writing. Suffice to say that some of those articles I broadly agree with, some I largely disagree with, and most, or perhaps all of them, I would say contain some truth, but not ‘the only truth’.

The weight problem in the UK is accelerating rapidly. Official data from 2013 shows that 26% of men in the UK are obese, and 67% of men in the UK are either overweight or obese. For women, those figures are 24% and 57%, respectively. Of all the large, populous nations in Western Europe, the UK is the fattest. In the United States, the problem is even worse, with 71% of men and 62% of women overweight or obese.

To give that data some context, 50 years ago, in the mid-1960s, obesity in the UK stood at around 1.5% (1.8% men, 1.2% women, in 1965).  Read more

Apr 25

Myth busting – Part 2

Myth: Cholesterol is bad for you

Truth: Cholesterol itself is a naturally occurring compound, an essential part of YOU! Only high LDL and VLDL cholesterol is associated with heart disease risk factors.

Whole books have been written about ‘the cholesterol myth’, lots of them, and I’ve read several. The truth that I always come back to is this – cholesterol is a naturally occurring sterol lipid (that’s a fancy name for a fat-based chemical compound) that is an integral part of every cell of every animal on Earth. Your body needs cholesterol to maintain cell integrity for all cells in the human body. Cholesterol is also an essential precursor in the production of a number of hormones, and it has other functions in our bodies too.

Cholesterol is an essential element of all cells in all animals. Your brain and nervous system, organs and muscles, none of them would work without cholesterol. It is so important, that if you don’t ingest any from dietary sources, your body can make its own.

So I think: if cholesterol is so important, vital to all animal life and so omnipresent in all animal life forms, how on Earth Read more

Jul 2

1 Comment

Training in hot weather, hydration and electrolytes

I’m either seriously self-motivated, or seriously crazy!

Yesterday, which was probably the hottest day of the year so far in this country, I trained an hour of killer hard high-intensity bodyweight drills between 1pm and 2pm, the hottest part of the day, with the temp showing as 34.8. I trained outside, no cover, in a field at my local rugby club, crawling around in the dirt and doing sprints and push-ups and lots more.
Alone.
That kind of intensity takes some motivation!

Phew! It was hot!…IMG_1714
 But then I love training in the heat, and I am conditioned and used to it - but I don’t recommend everyone trains outside in such heat!

Hydration is crucial…but so is getting your electrolyte balance right. I drank around 2 litres of water throughout the morning, and then had a half litre just before training. When I got back, over 40 minutes I had at least another litre, and then I drank around 2 more over the rest of the day.

But just drinking water can actually make things worse, not better. Water rehydrates your body, but if you sweated out lots of ‘salts’ (electrolytes - sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium) then you need to put them back in with the water - otherwise the water replacement simply dilutes your remaining electrolytes even more.

So after training I immediately made lunch - which contained 9 servings of green leafy vegetables and a large portion of mackerel. Oily fish and leafy green veggies are rich sources of potassium, calcium and magnesium. I also added a ton of quality Himalayan rock salt, replacing my sodium. All my electrolytes in large quantities in one meal. By the time I got to bed last night, my body was fully hydrated and my electrolytes in balance, so I had no twitchy restless legs, I wasn’t waking with cramp in the night, or waking with a sore throat feeling thirsty. And not a supplement or sports drink in sight! IMG_1721

Additionally, all that good quality food also provides many other valuable nutrients that would have been depleted by hard training in hot weather - such as vitamin C, zinc and iron.

Yesterday was a bonanza day, I hit big numbers on my fruit and veg intake, even by my standards! I had 6 servings for breakfast, 2 servings of citrus fruit mid-morning, 9 servings of green veggies for lunch and another 8 for dinner. 25-a-day, that’s close to a record even for me! And the good thing is, 90% of it was all home-grown, 100% organic, super fresh, from stalk or stem to my belly in under an hour.

This nutrition thing, I got it nailed! Boom!

It’s hot out there folks, watch your hydration AND your electrolytes!

Jan 9

What oil to cook with?

Here is a real quick post - people ask me all the time what oil I cook with. It’s very simple:

  • Pork dripping for cooking
  • Extra virgin olive oil for cold applications (such as on salad)
  • Grass-fed butter for my morning eggs

That’s it!

Simples!

Here is a super short video for you:

http://mothernaturesdiet.tv/2014/10/28/mnd-tv-episode-11/

 

 

Dec 31

3 Comments

We NEED to educate people

Recently, a friend of mine blogged and his thoughts whipped up quite an interesting exchange of opinions.

In short, he basically noted that in the days after Christmas, ‘everyone’ was moaning of coughs, colds, bad guts, headaches, tiredness, gas and feeling bloated, and he commented that he tries to tell people that they are stuffing themselves with junk, and that leaves them feeling ill, but he said ‘people get so easily offended’. Then he said ‘we need to educate people’ and this use of the word ‘need’ whipped up some very interesting feelings and thoughts.

Serving ego

Others felt the use of the word ‘need’ was an ego-driven emotion, “we need to educate people”, suggesting that he was holding some kind of higher moral ground. I have seen this discussion crop up a few times before…and I find this a very interesting topic. There certainly is an element of the health and fitness industry who take this moral stance, they tend to be young, male and stacked with bulging muscles (but not always fitting that precise stereotype!) and they often treat others with a somewhat condescending attitude. They do assume some kind of “I have a right to educate you, whether you asked it or not” as if having muscles and a 6-pack makes you a ‘better person’ than someone overweight or out of shape.

However, I actually do think that ‘we’ (those enjoying abundant good health) do ‘need’ to educate those with health challenges, we just have to do it without the ego, the attitude and without giving anyone the feeling that we are trying to take some kind of moral stance, judging them for the mistakes they may or may not have made.

I believe that many people unwittingly fail to understand that their food and lifestyle choices are hurting them. Read more

Dec 10

MND TV Episode 6 - Fat makes you Fat! No, It’s the SUGAR! Just eat your 5-a-day!

MND TV Episode 6 – a very brief word on some of the ever-changing advice out there in the land of diets, health and fad diet sales tricks!

“Don’t eat fat it will make you fat!”

“No, no it’s not the fat now, it’s sugar – just don’t eat sugar, it’s the cause of rising diabetes and the obesity epidemic.”

“Just eat your 5-a-day!”

“Oh no it’s not 5-a-day anymore, it’s 7-a-day, you must eat your 7-a-day to combat cancer and other diseases!”

Why these gems of wisdom are not helping, and society as a whole seems to be suffering more ill health despite decades of this advice.

http://mothernaturesdiet.tv/2014/09/16/mnd-tv-episode-6/

This Episode is short and is really just a follow-up to MND TV Episode 5.

Dec 6

Anti-aging benefits of less sugar and more vegetables

My friend shared this interesting article with me:

http://www.drperlmutter.com/low-glycemic-diet-slows-progression-age-related-macular-degeneration/

The article explains how our eyes work and what macular degeneration is, and then goes on to the findings of a new study.
Here, quoted, I picked out what I believe to be the most relevant and interesting part:

Quote < < “Each participant’s diet was assessed in terms of a scale called dietary glycaemic index. The food choices with a high glycaemic index are those which raise blood sugar significantly and for a longer period of time. As you would expect, these are food choices that are higher in sugar and carbohydrate.

What the researchers found was quite compelling. Those individuals whose diets had higher levels of high glycaemic index foods had a dramatic increase risk for progression or worsening of macular degeneration. Read more

Dec 4

Do you want to learn it all…or just DO?

MND TV Episode 5 – what is MND and MND TV all about?!?!?

This video will help to explain what MND is all about, and what MND TV is all about…I talk and write about lots of different things, this short MND TV episode will help you to see what it’s all about and how it all connects together! Mother Nature’s beautiful world and our health and longevity is all one big holistic picture!!

I talk about and write about many different things, this video explains why I cover so many things.

http://mothernaturesdiet.tv/2014/09/15/mnd-tv-episode-5/

This video also explains that if you DON’T want to know all the complicated science and if you don’t want to read all my long blogs and watch all my videos, then just LIVE the 12 Core Principles and don’t ask any questions!

Watch the video and see how it all makes sense!

 

 

Sep 23

2 Comments

MND home cooked food on a budget

What is this post about?

- Eating the MND way on a budget

- Cooking ‘real food’ when away from home with restricted resources

- Managing with only the most basic cooking facilities

- Travelling and still eating healthily - and affordably

- Eating to fuel lots of exercise

MND on holiday!!

‘Team MND’ recently took a holiday - a week hiking in the French Alps. We rented a small and very basic apartment and went hiking every day,  which was great fun. I’ve not got time to write an extensive trip review, and I don’t suppose you want to read it anyway! So I’ll stick to the relevant and interesting stuff.

We hiked for 5 days, covering between 11 and 17 miles per day, and climbing an average of 4500 to 7000 feet per day. On average, we spent about 10 hours out on the hills each day, and our average daily mileage was 14 miles, and 6000 feet of ascent, 6000 feet of descent. Read more

Sep 19

4 Comments

The drugs don’t work and you can’t trust the media!

This is important.

YOU REALLY NEED TO READ THIS.

It you have ever been prescribed statins, or if someone you love is taking statins, you DEFINITELY need to invest half an hour of your day into reading this post and watching this important and educational video.

This is a fascinating watch, well worth 18 minutes of your life.

I posted a slightly controversial post on our very active MND Facebook page the other day, in a nutshell I was saying “We seem to have more medical science and nutrition knowledge and qualified experts than ever these days, yet in general the whole of society is fatter and sicker than they have ever been before. Are we getting lost in the detail, buried in science, digging too deep and missing the bigger picture? Is all that science being hijacked by companies trying to sell us stuff, supplements, compression clothing, training programs and exercise equipment? Maybe all we need is to get back to nature, use some common sense, live more naturally and shun some of the endless modern inventions.” I have spoken extensively about this here: http://mothernaturesdiet.tv/2014/09/01/mnd-tv-episode-1/ That was the thrust of my post - but it’s a highly relevant thought to keep in your mind as you watch this video and read this post.

Now watch this video

Truth That Lasts: David Newman at TEDxColumbiaEngineering: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCk_vTkS6bU

The first 6 minutes Dr Newman explains how “scientific research” showing truly miniscule results, really imperceptible results that actually aren’t results at all, ends up reported in the popular media as “fact” which is “proven by science” and people believe it and spend years basing their behaviour on these reported facts. Read more

May 17

4 Comments

Back off those carbs!

One of the things I am most often asked about eating the MND way is why I suggest not eating starchy carbohydrates, particularly grains. I just want to cover that briefly today.

Summary:

  • Why we should avoid eating grains, processed carbs and starchy carbs in general
  • New research indicates that maintaining a fairly high-protein diet reduces signs of frailty in old age
  • Basically, those eating a diet higher in protein, maintained ‘strength’ longer, and those eating a diet lower in protein, reported more signs of frailty in older age
  • It doesn’t seem to matter if that protein comes from veggies or meat or fish, just so long as you are eating one or all of those things
  • Eat the MND way for a nutrient-packed diet with no need for nutrient-poor starchy carbs
  • Just eat plants and animals

MotherNaturesDiet (MND) is a fairly-low-carb diet. MND includes masses of vegetables, many of which provide carbs, so I do not promote MND as “low-carb” strictly, more I promote MND as “no-processed-carbs”. See MND Core Principle 1 - no processed grains, and MND Core Principle 2 - no refined sugar.

Why should we avoid carbs? Why no grains?

Living the MND way involves avoiding all those starchy carbs that other people eat - bread, cereals, pasta, white potatoes, rice, spaghetti, pastries, cakes and so on.

There are many reasons for this.

All grains are members of the ‘cereal crops’ family of plants. These are all a type of grass. Grasses are cellulose plants that humans cannot eat, and these foods are not digestible without processing.

I think Mother Nature designed animals to eat the grasses, then we eat the animals.

Ruminants (cows, sheep, goats, etc.) have a stomach (the rumen, hence their genus name) designed to act as a fermentation tank. Once fermented, they can then extract nutrients from these foods. Humans do not have a rumen and cannot digest grains, hence grains have to be processed in order for us to digest them.

Personally, I think it’s healthier and more natural to let the cow do the fermenting, and then I eat the cow.

The food chain

In Mother Nature’s grand design, it’s a form of ‘upregulation of energy’ - the sun falls on the huge flat surface of the earth, helping the grasses to grow, they absorb the suns vital energy. Cows eat the grass and upregulate the output of the sun’s energy into muscle, or beef, as we like to call it. We eat the cow. We die and our blood and bones and flesh put carbon, phosphorous, potassium, nitrogen and many other minerals back into the soil, to help feed the insects and bugs and help grow more plants, and so the whole cycle repeats.  Read more

May 11

3 Comments

I’m not fat, so I can eat what I like! My food choices don’t affect my health!! (And other bullsh*t beliefs!)

Forgive me going off on a bit of a rant today, but I was just having this conversation with a friend and I thought I would share this with you, as it’s a relevant ‘case study’ and applies to loads of people.

What is this post about?

  • There are a LOT of people around who are not over weight, so they take an ‘I can eat whatever rubbish I like’ attitude to their diet
  • This is deep-held belief that people have, that if they are not grossly over weight, then there is no further connection between diet and health
  • Last time I checked the scientific literature, slim people still get sick. Slim people still suffer coughs, colds, flu. Slim people still suffer chronic fatigue, tiredness, skin conditions and bowel conditions. Slim people still get heart disease. Slim people still get cancer. Slim people still die! Last time I spoke to one of my Doctor friends, I don’t recall “Not being over weight” as a cure-all solution to living forever and never getting ill.

Conclusions in this post:

  • There are many factors involved in whether or not you are over weight
  • Body fat serves numerous function in your body, some of them are involved in keeping you healthy
  • Eating a diet high in junk food affects your health in many ways above and beyond whether or not you carry excess body fat

Read on to learn more.

I’m not fat, so I can eat what I like! My food choices don’t affect my health!!

I hear this one a LOT. I could write an entire book (seriously, 100,000 words, 200 pages, no problem!) just tackling this myth and all the threads and sub-topics that come off this. In the interests of time and sanity, I will try to keep this post brief, as you and I don’t have time for a whole book today! Read more

May 9

Orthorexic control freaks…and other symptoms of quitting sugar

What is this post about?

  • A lady quit sugar for one year, and wrote a book about it
  • A reviewer slated her behaviour as orthorexic and obsessive!
  • That same reviewer, on other days, writes recipes for biscuits and pizza

Main conclusions:

  • In my opinion, they are both trying to sell stories to their readers, when they should focus on natural healthy living
  • MND circumvents all this bullshit, and just get’s on with abundant healthy living

shutterstock_160886558

Read on to learn more.

So a lady wrote a book “Year of No Sugar” which seems pretty sensible to me - for MND I preach ‘no sugar’ for life, so one year seems like a good starting point.

She seems like a nice and genuine lady, you can visit her blog here.

However, the book received this utter slating of a book review, titled ‘Year of No Sugar Reads Like a How-To Manual for an Eating Disorder’ - frankly, harsh! Read more

May 8

1 Comment

Real world, real workouts, real nutrition - keeping it simple and REAL with MND

As I wrote earlier this week, to help you get through my long posts, from now on I will put bullet points at the start, telling you in brief what the post is about, and in brief, the main conclusions or points that I come to.

This way, if you are short of time, you can read the bullet points, which only takes 30 seconds, and it should tell you the essence of the post – if it sounds interesting, you will find the 5 minutes you need to read the whole thing, but otherwise, the bullet points tell you enough to get the main idea.

I will try to remember to summarize all future posts this way. I hope this is helpful!

What is this post about?

  • We live in a time when we are drowning in information, the Internet offers more health, diet and fitness advice than you could ever read
  • The trouble is, most of it is rubbish!
  • The vast majority of diet and fitness information online, is unnecessarily complicated, usually because someone is trying to sell you something
  • I see far too many people wrapped up in all this time-wasting, complex detail, and yet they don’t have ‘the basics’ covered

Main conclusions:

  • In my opinion, the basics are simple things we can all do - eat real food, stay well hydrated, and demonstrate a solid. basic level of strength and fitness that can be adapted to all sports and fitness programs
  • Be able to run a few miles, do a few push-ups, lift your own bodyweight on a chinning bar - this is simple, basic stuff

Read on to learn more.

The diet and fitness industry online

In recent days, I’ve spent a few hours reading a variety of ‘health and nutrition’ pages on Facebook. I don’t want to put anyone else down, and I’m not trying to blow my own trumpet (well, maybe a bit, MND is the best page on Facebook!!)…but I have to say, there really is a total load of rubbish out there. There are loads of sites promoting supplements, loads focussed on weight loss, loads for body building, there are ‘disease-specific’ support groups, there are ‘tone up your tummy’ type diet pages, but there is an overwhelming amount of noise, with very little practical advice and sales-pitch-free useful information lost in the general hubbub of attention seeking marketing.

I’m not saying MotherNaturesDiet is all things to everyone, but this page is about REAL world stuff. I’m not a personal trainer, fitness model, yoga goddess, body builder or some other health and fitness professional. I’m a ‘normal’ guy, I have young kids, a day job and a busy life. I was fat and unhealthy for 20 years and I smoked and drank and made poor choices. But after 2 decades of making those poor choices, I figured out how to be healthy, and now I am sharing what I know with YOU. Read more

May 7

1 Comment

Are all calories created equal?

As I wrote yesterday, to help you get through my long posts, from now on I will put bullet points at the start, telling you in brief what the post is about, and in brief, the main conclusions or points that I come to.

This way, if you are short of time, you can read the bullet points, which only takes 30 seconds, and it should tell you the essence of the post – if it sounds interesting, you will find the 5 minutes you need to read the whole thing, but otherwise, the bullet points tell you enough to get the main idea.

I will try to remember to summarize all future posts this way. I hope this is helpful!

What is this post about?

  • So-called ‘flexible eating’ seems to be the latest popular diet fad
  • The idea is that you can eat pretty much whatever you like, providing you still burn more calories than you eat, so you don’t get fat
  • Here at MND HQ, I think that is downright wrong, and down right ignorant
  • This post looks at the main arguments, between ‘flexible eating’ - “a calorie is a calorie”, and ‘clean eating’ - “all calories are not created equal”

Main conclusions:

  • In my opinion, all calories are NOT created equal
  • Many factors affect your body’s absorption of the calories you consume, and the speed of that absorption, and the chemical make-up of those calories, affect HOW your body absorbs those calories
  • In my opinion, this ‘flexible eating’ is just the latest modern version od calorie counting

Read on to learn more.

Paleo diet, flexible dieting and clean eating

In 2013, the most searched for ‘diet’ online was the Paleo diet. In 2014, I am seeing a rising trend in ‘flexible dieting’ or ‘flexible eating’.

I’m very active in a number of online discussion groups, and in one of those online groups, the subject of flexible dieting comes up as a regular topic. It’s an area I have been looking at for some time now.

The main point of the flexible dieting fraternity is “a calorie is a calorie” and you can eat roughly what you like providing you stay in caloric deficit, then you won’t get fat. They do ‘mostly’ suggest you eat ‘mostly’ good real foods, but there are many proponents of flexible dieting out there suggesting you can eat pizza, chips, ice cream, chocolate bars, white bread, cake and more on a regular basis, daily indeed, providing you stay in caloric deficit - I.E. you burn more calories that you eat. I’m not a fan of this way of thinking, as you know. Read more

May 6

3 Comments

Why it’s important to be a balanced, big picture thinker

I know I often write long posts, and you might not have time to read them. So I will put bullet points at the start, telling you in brief what the post is about, and in brief, the main conclusions or points that I come to.

This way, if you are short of time, you can read the bullet points, which only takes 30 seconds, and it should tell you the essence of the post - if it sounds interesting, you will find the 5 minutes you need to read the whole thing, but otherwise, the bullet points tell you enough to get the main idea.

I will try to remember to summarize all future posts this way. I hope this is helpful!

What is this post about?

  • Some people are obsessed with clean eating, while the rest of their life is in a mess!
  • Some people are obsessed with weight training or a certain sport, but pay little attention to good diet
  • Some people eat well and exercise, but the allow other areas of life to stress them out, having a negative impact on their lives
  • Some people do so much endurance sport they never allow time for recovery - and an excess of almost anything can become unhealthy eventually
  • I meet a lot of folks who put in killer workouts and intense training sessions, but then they are ill with colds and flu every few weeks

Main conclusions:

  • You have to be a big picture thinker
  • Take a holistic approach to optimal good health
  • Balance is essential - train with weights, train aerobically, have heavy days, and easy days, eat well, de-stress and look to ensure there is happiness in your life…all these areas are equally important

Read on to learn more.

You have to look at the bigger picture

I see lots of people fixated on just food or just exercise, but I fear they are failing to look at the bigger picture. Supreme good health and abundant energy does not come from putting ALL your attention on just one thing, you have to think holistically.

I often meet people who obsess over ‘pure clean eating’, they are fanatical about eating raw, organic, vegan, local, seasonal and only grown in countries that ban GMO crops. They know a million reasons why you mustn’t cook with a certain oil, because heating it produces some ghastly carcinogenic chemicals, they will tell you that it’s like cooking your dinner in toxic waste! They will tell you everything there is to know about sprouting beans, fermenting vegetables, home made sour dough bread and the nutrient profile of certain seeds. Read more

May 4

2 Comments

Is the food we eat today, nutrient depleted?

Should we take vitamin and mineral supplements?

I was asked the other day, if we are eating fruits and vegetables from depleted soil, and therefore they do not contain enough vitamins and minerals, and therefore should we all be taking a daily multi-vitamin/mineral complex as a supplement?

If you read my blogs on this site on a regular basis, then you will know that I am broadly against taking dietary supplements, I just think that the majority of people, the majority of the time, don’t need them.

To be clear, there are times when supplements play an important role, particular when someone is deficient or ill, then supplements can be used to restore good health. Often supplements are a “useful tool” in repairing a damaged body. If there is a problem, supplements can help enable or support one function or process, in order to support growth or repair in another function, process or system.

So supplements have a place and many nutritional therapists and other practitioners correctly use supplements to fix deficiencies and restore normal function. Read more

Apr 17

3 Comments

Carb Blocking Pills - another chemical abomination of the diet industry

I was in Boots the chemist a few days ago, and I saw this garbage on the shelf.

It absolutely breaks my heart to see this in the UK’s best known high street pharmacy - where ‘Joe Public’ places his trust.

So the idea is, rather than educating people to just eat real food, we let them carry on chomping processed grains, but then they take a “carb control” tablet to help their body NOT to absorb the carbs, to help them poop out the undigested foods instead? Oh my Lord that’s so screwed up. 

It physical hurts me inside, I find this chemistry-class bullshit so offensive that it actually makes me ache to my core, I want to scream and shout. 

EVERYTHING about this is wrong. The way for ALL OF US to enjoy fantastic abundant good health, is to go in the polar opposite direction to this ‘nutritional madness’ way of thinking. 

I could rant for hours about this stuff, it makes me so mad. If someone can’t stop munching ‘carbs’ to the point that they know they are harming their own health then they need to address the underlying psychological issues, not take more pills.

Authority figures 

Members of the general public PLACE THEIR TRUST in “perceived authority figures”. This is an important point. 

Imagine our anonymous person, Joe Public, he is overweight, unhealthy, middle aged, confused. He has spent years trying to lose weight, yo-yo dieting, but ‘nothing seems to work’. He looks around and sees all these diet books and self-proclaimed experts (people like me, perhaps!), he will see the Doctor saying one thing, the Pharmacist saying another, this diet book says low fat, that diet book says low carb, this online expert says get more exercise, that nutritional advisor says eat more fruit - these conflicting opinions go on and on, and the poor guy (or gal) ends up feeling lost and confused. Out of that confusion, MOST people chose to place their TRUST in the figures they perceive as respected, ‘legally recognised and respected’ authorities. They tend to TRUST the Doctors, and big companies like food companies and drug companies and Boots the chemist. Because these are established legal entities, his brain says “Well they wouldn’t be allowed to sell this stuff unless it was good for us” and that’s who he decides to trust. 

But here is the problem:

  • The Doctors are not trained in nutrition. They are not actually trained in HEALTH they are trained to TREAT DISEASE and INJURY - there is a big difference. They are trained to treat and relieve symptoms
  • The Food companies “wouldn’t be allowed to sell that stuff if it was bad for us” - errr, hello, companies still sell cigarettes? Right, that’s flawed logic - much of the food in our supermarkets is garbage, but ‘they’ are legally allowed to make it, promote it and sell it
  • The drug companies - they are in it to treat symptoms and make money. They are not in the “Healthy” business, they are in the making money business. If no one got sick any more, there would be no business for them. I’m not saying that I believe the whole conspiracy theory idea that ‘they’ have the cures for all ills but they are holding back on us in the name of profit. IF a drug company came out with a ‘miracle cure pill’ tomorrow that could reduce and eliminate 90% of cancer tumours, they would patent that drug and make trillions for the next 25 years - if they had it, they would do it. BUT, if the ‘cure’ was to help people not get cancer in the first place, just through natural healthy living…well, then they wouldn’t be so keen to promote that would they, as that is not something they could patent. I think it’s a case of ‘Drug companies are not in the business of stopping illness from occurring in the first place, they are in the business of selling pills to treat symptoms of illness.’

 

So Joe Public places his trust in health care professionals and big corporations, because among all the ‘noise’ and people like me (who am I? Who is MND, just another guy ranting online…not ‘qualified’ to tell anyone what to do…) he doesn’t know who else to trust. More books, articles and blog posts come online every single day than anyone could possibly read, so among the mass of conflict and confusion, people place their trust in the ‘perceived authority figures’. 

And companies like Boots the Chemist are the kind of company that the public trusts. Boots has been on Britain’s High Streets for 50 years or more, longer than anyone can remember - it is a 150 year old company. Flawed logic says “if they have been around that long, they must be good guys, I can trust them”. 

It’s actually quite hard to write about this publicly without looking like I’ve jumped on “the conspiracy theory bandwagon”. I don’t think there is a ‘big evil man in a black suit with a bald head and a diamond encrusted eye patch, with scars on his face and stroking a white cat planning the end of mankind’ - I don’t think these food companies and drug companies are inherently evil and laughing at ‘our’ demise as we all get fat and sick and die young. It really isn’t like that. I think it’s the system, it is flawed from the outset, there is no commercial connection between the National Health Service, the food companies and the drug companies. Unless government (the ultimate high level power that we place our trust in, right?) do something to instigate change, then the system is likely to remain broken. Because all these entities are operating alone - there is no mechanism that connects them.

If government was a bit more forward thinking, they would see that the tax dollars they are getting from the sale of sugar and junk food and diet pills, is a drop in the ocean compared to the rapidly booming cost of treating a nation of obese unhealthy ageing people. The NHS is set to collapse under it’s own lack of funding in the next 20 or 30 years, IN OUR LIFE TIMES, causing dramatic problems for OUR old age, and our children and grand children.

BUT if we could get people educated how to be healthy from the start - so they don’t need pills, powders, potions, so they don’t get obese and ill, then we could reduce the future burden. It needs someone directing national policy to understand that the sale of processed foods laden with salt, refined sugar and processed oils, is making the population sick. If they then used tax mechanisms to promote healthy food choices (tax breaks for organic farmers, tax BURDENS on the advertising of foods with added refined sugar) and if the NHS allocated some budget to national education, then we might make some progress on these problems. It’s all about fixing the cause, not waiting to try to patch up the effect.

The 12 Core Principles of MotherNaturesDiet are a 90% fix for 90% of problems for 90% of people. Not 100%, I don’t suggest this is a cure-all, it’s a way to live to be healthy, not a “can fix all ills” solution for people who are already sick - they need individualised attention to fix individual problems. But MND is a healthy natural lifestyle, it’s an abundant healthy way to live to stop people getting sick in the first place.

I shall continue ranting til the cow comes home, til people listen! I’m on a mission!!!!

Back to the carb blockers

So that is why it breaks my heart when I see this company selling ‘carb blocker’ pills on the shelf next to SlimFast garbage. I am afraid we have ended up in a world where people are being treated as UTTERLY STUPID. “They” have made “us” believe that health is a great, vast, mystical, complex problem, and you need their help to sort it out - ‘they’ now sell magazines to teach you how to ‘walk quickly’??? Really - https://mothernaturesdiet.me/2014/03/18/has-anyone-got-a-copy-of-this-months-how-to-breathe-magazine/ 

“They” would have YOU believe that you NEED to spend your MONEY (folks, sadly, it ALL comes down to money) on a magazine about walking, on carb blockers, slimming powders, fat blocking pills, meal replacement shakes, expensive lycra clothing and minimalist running shoes that seem to cost more for less materials than normal shoes? How figure?  Pills prices

Just look at the prices of these pills. Remember - this is a product you are expected to pay for, to eat AS WELL AS the food you pay for, this is not instead of, but on top of, your food. So these tablets, that contain a type of sugar, maltodextrin, that are designed to stop you absorbing sugar…and they cost 30 quid for a small box. What’s that work out at pound-for-pound? The shelf labelling says they are 42pence per tablet. The tablets weight less than 1 gram each. So let’s just say 1 gram, and I’m being generous. That means this product costs £420 pounds per KILO!!!!

Organic broccoli in Waitrose is £4:14 per kilo.

Go figure which is best for you!!!!!!!!!!

People are being ripped off in a way that offends me to my very core!!!!

One MND follower told me that the waste which comes out of you, if you use these tablets, it thick black, runny, stinky and disgusting. I have no knowledge of that myself, but I do not like to think of what these chemical concoctions do inside your digestive system. You want to know why I call this ‘nutritional madness’? These pills are designed to stop your body from absorbing carbs - carbs, once they get down into your intestines, are forms of sugar. Look at the ingredients. Basically, the tablets are made up of some proprietary blend of glycoproteins (that’s proteins with sugars chemically added?), and an anti-foaming agent, to stop you bloating and farting like crazy. Then they contain a bunch of compounds that are hard to pronounce, including maltodextrin (a carb) and something that says cellulose (starchy carbs you can’t digest) and some silicon, salt and talc. Sounds delightful.

carb control

It makes me sick. I believe that “an overwhelming majority” of the entire health, wellness, diet, slimming, beauty industry is a TOTAL RIP OFF. Companies charging a fortune for powdered supplements - https://mothernaturesdiet.me/2013/10/12/beware-of-health-and-wellness-industry-rip-offs/ 

I may be an unqualified heretic, a quack, a charlatan, whatever the people making these tablets would call me, but the point is, MND is the best way to live for supreme good health - no pills, no powders, no bullshit. 

Pills are not the answer!! - https://mothernaturesdiet.me/2013/12/10/pills-are-not-the-answer/

They should print health warnings on junk food - Health warnings on foods containing sugar and artificial additives

SlimFast and other Meal Replacement Drinks – the Bad, The Worse and The Plain Ugly

MND - plain common sense.

Just eat real food, move your body, spend more time outside, get sunshine and fresh air, drink more water. Good health can be so simple.

 

Apr 5

4 Comments

Eating the most nutritious meat…but on the smallest budget

This is a fantastic lunch recipe, super nutritious and very tasty. Please see pictured lambs kidneys and lots of green veggies - yum yum! This meal contains 250 grams of lambs kidneys, lots of green veggies – organic broccoli, cabbage, green pepper, tomatoes, mushrooms and spinach, and an assortment of spices – coriander, cumin, paprika, black pepper and chilli flakes.

 

Lean white skinless boneless chicken breasts

For most of the last 40 or 50 years we’ve been told that fat is bad, especially saturated fat from animal sources, and we should all eat a lean low-fat diet. This has resulted (at least here in the UK) in an obsession with skinless lean filleted chicken breast. People have been educated to ‘obsession point’ that fat is bad and even the skin or the ‘brown’ thigh meat is considered too high in fat. This has led to a scenario you are probably familiar with, stories of ‘abused broiler chickens’ - chickens bred for the size of their breasts. I am sure you have heard about the speed of their growth, how they live in cramped smelly barns and their bodies grow so fast their legs can buckle beneath them.

While European countries generally maintain better standards of animal husbandry than in the US, these issues are still a huge concern. They certainly bother me. Read more

Apr 4

11 Comments

7-a-day offers health benefits and protection from cancer. Eat the MND way and get 17-a-day

Earlier this week, there was a lot of noise in the press concerning news released by University College London (UCL) about a study they conducted, the findings of which suggest that the UK guidelines for eating fruit and vegetables should be raised from 5-a-day to 7-a-day. I am sure you have heard about this in the press, so I just thought I would share a few of my MND thoughts with you.

Summary of this post:

  • Eating much more veg could CUT a QUARTER of all CANCER deaths
  • Vegetables are much more beneficial than fruit
  • The UK government should subsidise organic vegetables through tax breaks, and add tax on to sugar and junk food
  • MotherNaturesDiet offers ALL the benefits you need – lots of vegetables and good protection from cancer and heart disease
  • I personally eat an average of 17 per day, if you follow MND in full, you should too

Firstly, there seems to have been a lot of resistance to this new proposal, many members of the public complaining that they don’t like this idea. I find such resistance strange – I mean, why don’t people want to know how to be healthier, not get sick, and live longer? I would welcome any advice in those areas, not reject it. The results from the report conclude: Quote “Eating seven or more portions reduces the specific risks of death by cancer and heart disease by 25% and 31% respectively. The research also showed that vegetables have significantly higher health benefits than fruit.”

WOW, just WOW. I don’t see any reason why people are not leaping up and down with untold joy at this information. Cancer and heart disease are the two biggest killers in our society. Cancer is an utter scourge on humanity, it wrecks lives and hurts us all, we all know someone, we’ve all lost someone we love to cancer. And here, research proves almost beyond question, that ensuring you eat lots of vegetables is one way to STOP a QUARTER of all cancer deaths. HOLY SHIT BALLS. You know how “Cure cancer” is one of the great quests of the human race – EAT VEGGIES. That’s a quarter of the problem already solved. WOW, be excited, isn’t that an AMAZING conclusion!!!

It’s incredible!! If a drug company patented a new drug tomorrow and took it to market claiming “Will cure 25% of all cancer over the next 4 decades” they would make BILLIONS from it and every doctor in the land would be prescribing it, and every cancer patient or pre-cancer scare/high-at-risk patient would want that drug. Well, that drug is here, and it’s called broccoli. It’s called kale. It’s called cabbage. Just eat your veggies. Read more

Mar 18

4 Comments

Has anyone got a copy of this month’s ‘How to Breathe’ magazine…?

I stopped in at Sainsbury’s the other day to buy a bunch of flowers, and I spotted this magazine on the shelf - ‘Womens Walking’

What? Does someone think women need a bi-monthly magazine to tell them how to walk now? Is this a joke? Is it April 1st?

Look, I don’t want to put down anyone who engages in physical exercise - walking is the #1 best exercise going and we should all walk every day and I regularly encourage you to get up, get out and go walk. So I am not down on walking, and not criticising anyone who pro-actively makes an effort to get out and walk more often. BUT, I think this is a classic example of the complete rip-off of the ‘diet and health industry’ that they try to cash-in on healthier lifestyles, by trying to convince people there is some kind of science around going for a walk. There isn’t, don’t fall for it. I did NOT look in the magazine, it would have likely wound me up too much…but what comes next, I can imagine, you probably need special shoes that cost £130 quid, and you need nutrition tips, a hydration pack, blister-resistant socks, a training plan?

IMG_1912The articles  - kit guide, events, routes, weight loss. Folks, please don’t be fooled by the over-complication and over-scientific-complexity of going out for a walk…just walk! Any time, any place, any weather, just go for a walk. Do you think you need a ‘kit guide’ for that? Let me help:

Hydration - take a bottle of water.

Really long walk - take 3 bottles of water.

Fuel on long walks - take some food, carrots, apples, hard boiled eggs.

Lots of water and food to carry - get a rucksack - tends to have an opening at the top, you put stuff in then close it up and carry it.

Looks like it might rain - take a jacket.

Routes - find a hill, woods, a forest, a coastal path, looks for signs that say ‘Footpath’ - and go explore. Buy a local map.

Really, I just don’t think it needs to get any more complicated than that. You don’t need to spend a load of money. Read more

Mar 7

1 Comment

Spring Special Offer - Get Excited Now!

Seasonal discounts available NOW on range of MND health and fitness products.

The sun is shining!!! Wooohooo!! The ceaseless rain in the UK seems to be coming to an end, and as spring is coming, here at MND we want to help put a spring in your step!

So grab yourself a bargain right now!

First on the list, we can offer you our revolutionary new health product called ‘Air’! This little beauty offers you a simply life-saving range of health benefits, just look what this fantastic ‘Air’ can do for you:

  • Without this, you’re dead in just 5 minutes! Boo yah, beat that SlimFast!
  • Research shows that every living person on Earth, now and EVEN back in the ‘Golden Era’ of the Paleolithic period, they ALL breathed Air! Boom! Take that ViSalus!
  • Suitable for vegans, vegetarians, pescetarians, breatharians, gnashing meat-eaters, cannibals and pretty much everyone else alive! Kapow! Who’s ya daddy now Multi-Vit tablet? Read more

Feb 28

3 Comments

What’s gone wrong with our food?

What’s gone wrong with our food? Why are we so obsessed with nutrients?

For tens of thousands of years we humans were quite happy and quite healthy (and of mostly fairly normal body weight) just eating real whole foods, namely plants and animals.

Then ‘they’ came along and started poking around with microscopes and test tubes and Bunsen burners, and suddenly everything was broken down into science, and eventually they vilified animal fats. So everyone cut out animal fats, and fat was labelled bad, but the finger pointed specifically at saturated fat from animal sources. So people ate less red meat, and they cut out butter and in response the food companies made margarine, and started adding lots of extra sugar (because with no fat, the food tasted bland) and these odd ‘engineered chemical fats and oils’ to various foods. Then after a decade or two eating those, as people got fatter and diabetes and heart disease rates soared, then they changed stance, and now trans fats and cheap vegetable oils are vilified as the baddies, so we should all go back to butter and ditch the margarine.

And the people asked “But we stopped eating animal saturated fats, years ago, because they were bad…right?”

The people wanted to know “what is it that is supposed to be so wrong with animal foods? How come all that research linked high rates of disease to the consumption of animal foods?” Read more

Feb 2

3 Comments

Statistics can be misleading

Here’s a miscellaneous thought for you.

In my constant pursuit of greater knowledge and understanding of all things related to living a long healthy life, I read a lot of scientific research articles, blogs, books and papers. The more I read and learn, the more I have come to the conclusion that if we wanted to, we could twist almost any data to present almost any conclusion we want.

Often times I find an article that appears, from a quick read-through, to be intelligent, well written, lacking any obvious bias and backed up by solid references. Then I dig deeper on topics within such articles, and find all kinds of conflicting research elsewhere and then I start questioning the author, and the motive behind what has been written. We (authors) all have a ‘motive’ when we write something. It may be to find a cure for an ailment, it may be to help people lose excess weight, it may be to sell a supplement, it may be to resist the signs of ageing, it may be to sell a piece of sports equipment, it may be to oppose an opinion the author read elsewhere, it may be to convince the readers to see things the way the author sees them. Read more

Jan 19

37 Comments

Eating to Fuel Endurance Training and Long Distance Races

A subject I am often asked about is ‘what is the best food to eat for marathon training, ultra-marathon running, Ironman training’ and so on. I have lots of friends involved in endurance sport, and I have a reasonable amount of experience myself, and there is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about fuel for endurance sport. Personally, I have been in long distance endurance events with far more experienced runners than myself and seen them fail and drop out because they ‘got it wrong’ with their fuel, yet in my own experience, such problems are entirely avoidable most of the time.

This post will explain:

  • Why complex carbs are not the best fuel for endurance races
  • Why complex carbs are not required in great quantities pre-race (carb loading)
  • Why gels and bars are not the best fuel to consume during a race
  • How to be ‘a fat burner’, not ‘a sugar burner’
  • Understand how to unlock thousands of calories of energy for long races

Read more

Dec 31

2013 Popular Posts #1: How does juicing fit into a paleo diet and lifestyle?

Here it is! Number ONE, the top spot, the most popular post I have written on MotherNaturesDiet.com all year - by a LONG way, this post has been viewed THOUSANDS of times, more than twice as much as the post in second place!

Green juiceI am often asked -

  • Is juicing healthy?
  • Are we supposed to consume calories in liquid form?
  • Should I take vitamin and mineral supplements?
  • Are vitamin pills good value for money?
  • Are the foods we eat today nutrient-depleted? Is the soil nutrient deficient?
  • What’s the difference between juicing and blending?
  • Will juicing help me lose weight fast?

This most-popular post answers all these questions and more.
Read more here - https://mothernaturesdiet.me/2013/05/26/how-does-juicing-fit-into-a-paleo-diet-and-lifestyle/

Nov 3

5 Comments

Sugar and the Insulin Response - in plain, simple English

A friend asked me to explain the whole sugar-insulin response thing.

So, to answer that question, I searched for some good explanations online, to send my friend links, but I couldn’t find any really straight-forward writing, so I thought I would write it myself!!

I am purposefully over-simplifying this here and keeping any kind of ‘science talk’ out, or to a minimum.

In short, layman’s terms, it goes like this:

You eat food with sugars (or carbohydrates) in the food, they go through the stomach and reach the duodenum, where the pancreas senses that there is sugar present, and releases insulin into your system.  Read more

Sep 18

9 Comments

Avoiding ‘Diet Perfectionism’ and the trap of crippling inaction

This post is about the pursuit of ‘diet perfectionism’

  • There is so much conflicting and confusing ‘diet advice’ around these days, that it can be really hard to know what to do to genuinely make the best healthy choices
  • Many well-intentioned nutrition and wellness ‘experts’ promote ideals of healthy eating that are virtually impossible for ‘the rest of us’ to live up to
  • A lot of people get caught up in trying hard to do “the right thing”, following all the fads, the latest craze, the health warnings and shopping for the latest superfood being promoted by some A-list celebrity
  • It can be so hard to navigate the endless advice and warnings, that many people suffer the “paralysis of analysis”, so fearful of taking the wrong action, they end up taking no action at all
  • This blog will help you not to get too caught up in the world of ‘diet perfectionism’, and help you to see that if you just focus on making the big changes you need for a healthy lifestyle, the detail can drop into place later

Read more

Feb 28

4 Comments

Sugar is Public Enemy #1 - stop blaming meat and fat!

A friend of mine shared this link with me this morning:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/its-the-sugar-folks/
Just read the article, it's pretty clear, even though the smart ones among us have known for years that refined sugar is bad news, here is yet more evidence, but will anyone listen?

Read more