The Health Blog: Free Health & Nutrition Information

As I often do, I’m reviewing expenses with my wife, and we’re considering cancelling our gym membership.

We got it because we not only wanted a good gym to exercise at, but we also wanted affordable child care. (Since we both exercise at the same time, we put our two children in the “Kid’s Club.”)

But there’s a problem. While my wife and I are exercising, our daughter is vegging out in front of a TV for 90 minutes!

The Kid’s Club has videos playing constantly. My son is immune at this point. He just plays on the slide. But my daughter can’t resist watching cartoons. So she gets a whopping 90 minutes of viewing time two or three times a week.

That’s a lot of TV.

This right now is a big factor in our decision. Because while the gym is healthy for us, it’s not healthy for my daughter. Something to think about…

Eeek! You may all want to look in your pantries for jars of Peter Pan or Great Value brand peanut butter. If any of your jars of either of these brands have the number 2111 on them, please take the product lids back to the store for a full refund.

You’ll never guess what they found in them… salmonella. Who would have thought it! Salmonella in peanut butter. It has made around 288 people sick all over the country. The largest cases have been in New York, Virginia, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Missouri. Thankfully, there have been no deaths to date.

It just makes me sick to think of all the little children who eat tons of peanut butter every day.

The symptoms of salmonella: diarrhea, vomitting, abdominal pain, fever and dehydration.

So hurry and be sure to check your peanut butters! Thankfully we don’t eat peanut butter much anyway, and we’ve never bought either of those brands because of the transfats in them. (Another post for another day). :)

Full article here: http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/02/15/salmonella.outbreak.ap/

The people you spend the most time with profoundly impact your life. If they make more money than you, chances are your income will rise. If they make less than you, chances are your income will fall.

It seems to me the same principle holds true with physique. If the people you spend the most time with are health conscious and fit, then you will likely become more fit. But if they are lazy and overweight, then you will likely become lazy and overweight, too.

One exception to this rule: If you are already healthy and fit, you will probably be unaffected by spending a little bit of time with a friend who is the polar opposite of you. In fact, by the power of contrast, it may motivate you to be different.

I’ve found this to be true in my own life. After spending time with someone who is well on their way to achieving an overfed, middle-aged suburban physique, I feel motivated to act and behave differently so I don’t wind up in the same place.

Ask yourself: Am I spending too much time building wrong relationships? Am I spending too little time nurturing right relationships? (Of course, when you consider these questions, it’s important to weigh many different factors, not just health habits.)

For those who think I’m nuts for going on a diet of raw fruits and veggies, I have an interesting little article to share with you:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6248975.stm

This article chronicles a little experiment that was done in a zoo in the UK. They took nine people, aged 36-49, and literally put them in the zoo for twelve days, in an enclosed tent right next to the apes. :) Oh, and they filmed the whole thing on TV.

The point of the experiment? They put those volunteers on a diet consisting only of fresh fruits and veggies – things they normally feed the apes. (Otherwise known as, the raw vegan diet – little do they know that there is a growing revolution of humans doing this on a regular basis! Like me!) They wanted to see what this diet would do for the volunteers’ cholesterol levels and blood pressure.

Here’s a list of the foods they fed the volunteers for those 12 days.

5kgs or 2,300 calories of fruit, vegetables, nuts and honey
On a 3-day rota, typically:

Broccoli, carrots, radishes
Cabbage, tomatoes, watercress
Strawberries, apricots, bananas
Mangoes, melons, figs, plums
Satsumas, hazelnuts

(Then, small amounts of cooked fish in the 2nd week, to imitate a hunter-gatherer lifestyle).

Anyone want to take a wild guess at the results?

Cholesterol levels and blood pressure levels were definitely reduced. But what really caught my interest was that the tv crews were primed to capture lots of unhappy and grumpy moments over the 12 days, but to their surprise, after a brief period of getting through caffeine and other food withdrawals, the participants were in a great mood and happy throughout the experiment.

Amazing how you feel, even mentally, when you eat a simple diet of whole, fresh foods that were designed specifically for your consumption!

I encourage you to read the article, it really speaks for itself and has some very interesting anecdotes and stories.

Back in September, I mentioned that my husband and I had purchased a set of DVD’s called, “Making Friends with Your Food” by Dr. Doug Graham and his wife, Professor Rozi Graham. In this post, I also said that as soon as we were done watching the DVDs, we were going to embark on a raw food diet – and not just any raw food diet, but a healthful, low-fat diet with a ratio of 80-10-10 (carbs:protein:fat) – a phrase coined by Dr. Graham.

Well, we had great intentions, (remember, I said I was going to blog about it here and all…) but the holidays snuck up on us and we had a big lack of self control. We made some half-hearted false starts but they never really got anywhere. In December, we ate pretty badly and not only put on some weight, but our bodies started protesting as well.

I really wanted to start 2007 off well, however, and finally, in the middle of January, I finally pulled myself together and did it. This is my 16th day eating ONLY raw, ripe, whole, fresh fruits and vegetables. No salt, dressings, condiments, sweeteners, sauces or spicy herbs like onions and garlic. I have been eating mostly fruit, and a large helping of vegetables – especially green leafies, in the evening.

Along with that, I am also trying to get more physically fit because I now fully realize that just diet alone will not give me the vibrant health I desire.

And guess what? I’ve been blogging about it. Every single day since I started. To help myself, but also to potentially help others who may be interested. So I’ve decided to share that link with you – click here. I would have shared this link sooner but I wanted to make sure that I would stick with it first.

So…wish me luck, and if you’re curious, I invite you to catch a glimpse into my life for the last 16 days and counting! :) The link again: http://sarah811.blogspot.com

Note – this blog used to have a different url. In 2005, I embarked on a raw food journey and blogged about it then too – but I made MANY dietary mistakes which eventually led me to fall off the diet. If you’re extremely curious, you can go back to the beginning and see how different my raw diet was then compared to what I’m eating now.