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Posts tagged ‘Vitamins’

Jan 23

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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

May 4

5 Comments

Myth busting – Part 8

Myth: We must eat vegetables to be healthy, but we can live without meat.

 

Truth: Actually, it’s the opposite. We can live on animal foods alone, but it’s very hard to live on plant foods alone.

This myth-busting series is in danger of becoming a manifesto for meat eaters, and that is not my intention!! I feel the need to state – I love vegetables!!! I still recommend the MND target for vegetables and fruit intake is 17-a-day! And I am not trying to put a downer on the vegetarian choice!

But the truth is this, while half the human race are intolerant or sensitive to gluten in one way or another, I’ve never met a single person intolerant to chicken. I’ve never heard of anyone with a salmon intolerance. I’ve never heard of anyone allergic to mackerel.

Some people are intolerant to eggs, and many people are intolerant to dairy (food Mother Nature evolved for baby cows, not for adult humans) but very few healthy people have any kind of intolerance to meat, poultry or fish.

Following on from Myth busting – Part 7

You see, once we get through the claws, teeth and fur, that animal is all done with the whole ‘defending itself’ thing and Read more

Dec 23

13 Comments

White Refined Sugar is an Anti-nutrient

What this post is about:

  • Eating refined sugar actually does you more harm than good
  • Refined sugar costs your body small amounts of certain micro-nutrients
  • If you tried to live on just refined sugar, you would almost certainly become very sick in surprisingly little time, and eventually die
  • 5-a-day is just not enough! And most people are not eating 5-a-day!
  • Sugar is a poison
  • People think healthy food is boring, because it tastes bland - but only to their palate which has been poisoned by sugar and salt - when people tell me they think vegetables taste boring and bland, I know it’s the PERSON that is ‘broken’ not the vegetables
  • A diet high in sugar and processed foods, and low in fresh vegetables, is likely high in processed carbohydrates and processed sugars
  • Such a diet is causing low-level nutrient deficiencies and vast swathes of our population are suffering poor health as a result

White refined sugar

If you follow this blog on a regular basis, you will by now know that I have a real issue with white refined sugar, and in my opinion, MotherNaturesDiet ranks refined sugar as public enemy #1 in the health world. shutterstock_160886558 I have written lots about sugar before (from here on, when I use the word ‘sugar’ in this post, I am referring to white refined sugar, good old table sugar, or the modern mass-produced sugar-syrups that are used as ‘sugar’ in modern food manufacturing, such as HFCS and similar compounds that come under so many names) and I shall endeavour not to repeat myself too much in this post. If you are interested in reading more about the evils of sugar, go to www.MotherNaturesDiet.me and find the little ‘search’ box a short way down on the right hand side of the page, type in ‘sugar’ and hit return, and you will find lots of posts about sugar. Today, I want to draw your attention to the subject of sugar as an anti-nutrient, and the implications this has for the rest of your diet, and how it impacts the Recommended Daily Amounts (RDAs) the government suggest you consume of various vitamins and minerals. As you read, you will see how this all ties together. As with most of my other long posts, I will try my best to keep the science to a minimum, so that this article makes sense to everyone. I will purposefully over-simplify the science, and write this in pretty plain English, so that the article is of interest to the widest possible audience. Scientists and nutrition experts please forgive the simplicity!

Sugar as an anti-nutrient

Read more

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

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 5

5 Comments

How eating an extremely nutrient rich diet can help you resist the signs of ageing

I’m putting my opinion and belief out there today. I’m stretching the ‘100% proven’ science a bit here, piecing together facts and theories. Why? Because I believe I’m right, and I think there is value to you in sharing these thoughts.

WHY is nutrient dense food important?

This is an important point that so many people - particularly YOUNG people - overlook. JUST having enough of a certain micronutrient to sustain function is one thing, but having enough LEFT OVER for non-essential jobs inside your body, that’s another thing altogether.

Now, if you are a qualified nutritionist or doctor, just bare with me for a moment, I’m going to massively over-simplify the world of nutrition here for a moment…you won’t like it, but stick with it and you can comment at the bottom if you think I’m wrong.

So there are these RDA’s - Recommended Daily Amounts - of vitamins and minerals. It is suggested that we take these amounts in order to maintain energy, combat disease and stay generally healthy.

Now let’s just take 1 micronutrient, say, Vitamin A (A seems like a good place to start!). Vitamin A does a massive amount of things inside your body - among them, there is thyroid function, skin growth, eye function, protein synthesis, immune system function, calcium assimilation (for bone growth) and much more. 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 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

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