If you care about your health, want to be healthier, learn something new, or learn a new yummy recipe then read on my friends. Here is an amazing way to feel great, lose weight, and save the planet and maybe yourself!
I have recently become a vegetarian.Now, I am not saying that everyone should become a veg but, it is a healthier lifestyle and is kinder to the animals. I picked up the book, Alicia Silverstone’s The Kind Diet which has a lot of information and amazing recipes.
I thought I would share some of the information I learned and recipes. This diet is great even if you do not want to go over board with the whole vegetarian/vegan thing, if you just want to detox, or if you just want try not to eat meat or dairy for 30 days for a cleanse.
I have chosen to take the next step and go vegan for 30 days. Personally, I am trying to go vegan and see if I get that glowing skin and hair. It is worth the shot!
DIET: (noun) a way of living, or thinking, a day’s journey.
If anyone knows me then you know that I started this whole adventure because of wanting to be healthier and feel good. I was not in it to save the animals but, learning about the cruelty to animals combined with the effects on your body it will make you think twice or maybe not!
I personally like her book because her tone is soft and she encourages readers to flirt with the idea of becoming vegetarian and gives you the power of realizing why eating meat, chicken, dairy, and fish is bad for you.
In fact, her ultimate wish is that we all go beyond Vegan and become “Superheroes”, which is a sort of adapted macrobiotic approach. But Silverstone’s approach is so different…this is the book I would recommend to my non-veg friends who are flirting with the idea. And here are some reasons why:
1. Sharing tough information:
She shares all the same information about health and the environment and factory farming etc., but without the “how could you be such an idiot to put that in your body?”
- She explains one of the most little-known facts of factory farming: How factories maximize milk production from dairy cows. Most of us who have never had a cow probably think dairy cows just produce milk. And then get milked. Relieving them of the milk they were making anyway. And no, that’s not the case. Cows produce milk just like humans do, when there’s a baby to drink it. So dairy cows are repeatedly impregnated, so they’ll keep giving milk. Those babies are taken away to become veal calves or dairy cows themselves. And just like humans, pregnancy and birth is hard on the body. The life span of dairy cows is incredibly short. [You can read more about it at Unhappycows.org.]
- Dairy is linked to diabetes and it is perceived as an attacker. Your body will begin to fight it’s own pancreas and eventually will destroy it’s ability to produce insulin.
- Sugar causes hormonal imbalance, depression, migraines, fatigue, and cancer.
- Anything white like white bread has sugar. Cut out white rice, white bread, and white sugar. White sugar suppresses your immune system. ” When the liver has to much gunk to handle, it deposits the extra toxins in the tissue of your body, leaving a messy toxic situation that weaken your immunity.
- White sugar leaches vitamins and minerals from your blood and bones. Your body gives up vitamin and minerals in order to process all the all the sugars.
- Meat causes cancer, number one killer of women is heart disease, contributes to osteoporosis, hard to digest, believed to exacerbate gout, contribute to rheumatoid arthritis, major factor in kidney stones.
- Eggs increase inflammation
- Meat is hard to digest & meat has no fiber. It gets stuck and causes and acidic environment. High meat consumption is a recognized factor in conditions like colitis, diverticulitis, and even colon cancer.
- Meat is full of antibioticss: Because animals get sick, they are given antibiotics as a preventative measure. It goes to fish, meat, and chicken. Alicia Silverstone says, before yelling, ” Yay! Free Drugs!” you should know a thing or two: When you take unneccessary antibiotics by eating meat, (a) your own healthy intestinal bacteria gets wiped out, making you less able to fight off disease, and (b) the bacteria that the drugs are designed to kill eventually morph into smarter and stronger versions of themselves.”
- Meats carry pathogens.
- Meat is full of hormones: Excess hormones are linked to cancers, including breast and prostate.
- Fish has mercury:Smaller fish and seafood like salmon, cod, shrimp, and trout have lower levels of mercury, while swordfish, tile, mackarel, and tuna have the highest. But they all contain mercury, which has been shown to damage the brain, kidneys, lungs, and is particularly dangerous to pregnant women and their growing babies.
- Meat contributes to global warming and climate change. Meat wastes water, factory farming creates toxic sludge, animals eat a lot of food.
- We’re destroying the rain forest and we are messing the ocean.
- Dairy does NOT prevent osteoporosis-the more you consume the weaker your bones get. Milk does offer calcium, it causes the body to release more of it. So you are actually losing. “Sea veggies, sesame seeds, leafy greens, and beans all kick milks butt.”
- Dairy makes you fat. If a baby calf has a cow’s milk and it is supposed to grow to 500 pounds what do you think it is doing to you?
- Milk underlies asthma and allergies. ” Human immune system recognizes milk from another species as an attacker or allergen.
- Dairy is bad for your heart like meat is full of saturated fat, cholesterol, which clog arteries to your heart.
- Low carb diet will make you constipated & have bad breath.
- Beware of EGG LABELING, beware of “free-range” eggs. Free-range has no legal definition in U.S. The only certifications that pertain to animal treatment are ” Certified Humane Raised and handled” ( beware of imposters; those exact words must be printed on the label) and ” Certified Organic,” which also upholds relatively humane standards.
3. Accommodating and understanding baby steps
Another common theme when I write about veganism is that I think any step an individual takes towards it is better than taking no steps at all. I think that no one is the perfect compassionate-to-all-beings human, not even the Dalai Lama, so until we achieve perfect, it’s better to do what we can until we can do better. Silverstone breaks down the veg diet into three categories, Flirts, Vegans, Superheroes. She shares many tactics for easing into her full-on approach, and she shares the baby steps are important steps philosophy.
4. Emphasizing fresh, whole foods
This book if anything will inspire you to do better, is that so wrong? Particularly with the Superhero section, but also throughout, “The Kind Diet” focuses on really healthy, fresh, whole foods, but works to provide simple ideas about how to make them a part of your daily routine, quickly and conveniently.
5. Recipes that are simple, yet bring something new to the (vegan) table. I will write another blog soon and give some yummy recipes or email me if you want some cb@livreal.com
What food you should buy:
I would recommend to start small.
- Replace milk with soy , almond or rice milk. ( too much soy is not good because it has estrogen)
- Replace white rice with whole grains like: brown rice, quinoa, wild rice, farro, millet, barley, whole oats. soba noodles, whole grain, and cous cous ( gluten free is better)
- Ezekiel bread is great!
- Buy organic veggies and meat
- Try to stop eating fish that are high in mercury
- Start juicingyou will feel great, have more energy, and fight cancer.
- Eat beans, beans, and more beans. Will keep you regular, gives you 25% of calories from protein ( steak is 20%), 5% of unsaturated calories from fat ( steak is 80% from fat and mostly saturated), helps discharge excess hormones, high in fiber, and 70% of calories from complex carbohydrates.
- Sugar products replace white sugar with natural like: Stevia, Agave, Brown Rice Syrup, Barley Malt, Maple Syrup, and Fruit.
- Bread- whole grain like whole wheat sourdough
- Other whole grain like: cous-cous, noodles, and mochi
- Beans: chickpeas, lentils, kidney beans, or any.
- Fruit: Get what grows in your climate.
- Seasonings: unrefined sea salt, shoyu, umeboshi vingegar.
- Oils: olive, safflower, flaxseed
- Snack foods: fresh fruit, figs, raisins, trail mix, edamame, toast, cereal, peanut butter & jelly, soy or rice smoothies, cinammon-raisin mochi, toasted whole wheat tortillas, ramen soups, and anything else that makes your heart sing. Popcorn with melted earth balance butter.
- Vegetables: leafy green, kale, dandelion, onions, cabbage, winter squash, daikon, carrots, lettuce, and cucumbers. ( note: potatoes, tomotatoes, and eggplant are not so good they increase inflammation)
- Tofu-great meat substitute or stir fry with veggies and take a break from meat.
- Fruit-sweetened Jam
- Non-dairy malt-sweetened chocolate
- MAGIC FOODS: Umeboshi Plums- super-sour pickled plums are salted and pressed with shiso leaves, which gives a pinkish red color. Alkalizing to the blood, umeboshi help to buffer excess acidity from white sugar and alcohol and are even helpful against the common cold.They are great fro digestion, diarrhea, and recovery from sugar benders.( check out cure all tea)
- Cure-ALL tea- I LOVE IT!- 1 Kukicha tea bag, 1/4-1/2 umeboshi plum ( pit removed and finely chopped), 3-5 drops of Shoyu ( light tamari soy sauce). This tea is suggested for hangovers, when you’ve eaten alot of white sugar, soothe digetion and release trapped gas, to
learn about the kind diet and ways you can get healthy.
reduce heartburn, for nausea, if you are weak or spacey.
- Miso soup!
- Sea veggies are tumour inhibitors.Hijiki, arame, wakame, kombu, and nori are high in minerals and protein, they are alkalizing and detoxifying to the blood.
O.K., so that was lot of info that I shared maybe too much. I am sharing because I care about all of you and want you to live optimally and a full-life. I will be updating with my recipes, my progress, and some more tips. Also, check out local restaurants that are vegetarian, go to farmer markets, whole food, or try a vegetarian recipe that you find online. You will be amazed that there is a whole world of food and possibilities.
We have all been trained to eat a certain way and if we don’t start the change in our homes the world will never change! Be the change you want to see in the world.
Send me your comments and recipes.
PEACE & LOVE,
COLEY B. ( NICOLE BLOOMEBERG)
cb@livreal.com
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