I still have patients tell me they’re avoiding egg yolks because of the amount of cholesterol and the danger of heart disease. This is unfortunate, because egg yolks are very nutritious, and there is little evidence of any correlation between eggs and heart disease. A just released study has debunked the “eggs and cardiovascular risk” myth once again. The unbiased non-egg industry authors conclude: “Higher consumption of eggs (up to one egg per day) is not associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease or stroke.”
The fact is that eating cholesterol does little to increase the level of cholesterol in your system; saturated fats are a more likely culprit. But both cholesterol and saturated fats are necessary in the diet. Every cell in the body is made up of cholesterol and phospholipids — both abundant in egg yolk — as well as saturated fat, which keeps the cell from collapsing in on itself.
When I use MRT blood test for food sensitivity testing sometimes it can be non-food items that are causing symptoms. If the patient does not experience significant improvement in health after the first week of the MRT/LEAP diet then I instruct the patient to check ingredients in cosmetics, toothpaste, soap, and skin cream. It may be a hard concept to grasp, but sensitivities and allergies can be triggered via transdermal (through skin) route as one doesn’t necessarily have to ingest something to trigger an immune response. A recent interesting Japanese study demonstrates this point very well.
Besides acupuncture one of the big components of my practice is food hypersensitivities which can cause a myriad of symptoms that then drive up our health care costs because doctors are treating the symptoms with medication rather than the identifying the cause. Food hypersensitivities are caused by immune system dysregulation where there is an inappropriate response to foods we eat that then in turn cause an inflammatory response. This inflammatory response is the root of almost all modern diseases and ‘syndromes’.
“There are no studies that show GMOs are harmful to human health.” This is a common statement made by the self-intere$t pro-GMO movement and parroted by our government. However there are no studies of reasonable length (> 10 years) that show they are safe. There is a plethora of compelling data showing that GMOs are a serious threat to our health. Monsanto, Dow chemical and BASF must be stopped from using this technology in our food supply. Else we will have a lot of food that causes inflammatory reactions and is harmful to eat. The effects may not be noticed in a year or several years, but over the course of a couple of decades they will definitely present themselves as they are already.
There is unequivocal evidence that the genetically modified foods that are in our food supply are contributing to the increase in inflammatory diseases we see today. This is especially true of intestinal diseases, asthma, allergies, and likely contributes in some way to the autism spectrum of diseases. I will go out on a stretch and say I wouldn’t be surprised that in 10 or 15 years we find that all these new tick vector diseases and widespread insect diseases are in part because of the GMO crops that lay out in fields for animals,birds and insects to eat causing mutant genes to be expressed.
Jeffrey Smith the direction of the Institute for Responsible Technology has made a stellar film about GMOs. It is available free for the next week. Please take an hour to view it. GMOs in our food supply must be stopped.
Whether you love kale, or hate kale or never tried kale I find that a well made kale salad is akin to say…ice cream. OK a kale salad doesn’t taste like ice cream, but almost everyone loves good ice cream (even if it is unrequited love causing GI distress)…and almost everyone loves a good kale salad. (For those that really love kale and ice cream here is a kale ice cream recipe.)
The raw kale salad variations are endless Here are some of our variation of the 3 recipes below:
Pomegranates mixed in and on top around the December holidays to give it a seasonally festive look.
There was an insightful interview on NPR’s “Here and Now” regarding the corruption within the USDA organic standards. Before the government took over labeling of the organic standards there was no big business involved. It was only small farmers who held the spirit of the organic food movement. Some states had their own labeling. But now that the USDA is involved and big box stores are selling organics, not because they believe organic food is good for you, but in the name of profit, the ‘organic’ standard has become green washed.
(From HealthDay News) — Pregnant women with low levels of vitamin D may be putting their children at risk for language difficulties, Australian researchers report.
Taking vitamin D supplements during pregnancy may relieve the problem, they suggest.
“Adequate vitamin D levels among pregnant women may be important for the optimal development of their baby,” said lead researcher Andrew Whitehouse, an associate professor and reader in developmental psychopathology at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research at the University of Western Australia. “However, it is important for the findings of this study to be replicated before any strong conclusions are made.” Read the rest of this entry
Recipe #1 Black Bean Chocolate Chili Cherry Cookies
There is a great food blog that our neighbor suggested to us after she brought over these chocolate chili cherry black bean cookies (or some permutation on the name). They were wow, delicious!, and packed some punch and good nutrition at the same time.
Sounds kind of crazy, cherry, black beans, chocolate and chili….but it works really well together. Click here for the recipe.
Since Valentine’s Day is upon us it is a good time to bring up chocolate and the moral consequences that goes along with purchasing the majority of chocolate we find on the shelves. Certainly chocolate has a plethora of benefits as can easily be found in research studies. These are often because of the powerful plant chemicals known as polyphenols which are made by the plant to protect itself, however us humans can ingest polyphenols for nutritional benefit. A truly polyphenol rich dessert would be a dark chocolate with Shiraz red wine which will warm and protect your heart.
Yesterday I watched a phenomenal webinar on the effects of food chemicals and child behavior. It was entitled “Driven to Distraction: Food, chemicals and child behavior” and hosted by an organization that is worth knowing, Healthy Food Action. The webinar was recorded and they promise to have it up soon, once they do I’ll post a link.
Today a video with a similar theme was posted on a Functional Medicine listserv I am on. If you want to see digestion of wholesome foods vs. processed foods you need to check out this video. Amazing how long long those Ramen noodles are intact in the stomach. I guess we can also just use a compost bin to compare processed vs. whole instead of expensive technology.
I still have patients tell me they’re avoiding egg yolks because of the amount of cholesterol and the danger of heart disease. This is unfortunate, because egg yolks are very nutritious, and there is little evidence of any correlation between eggs and heart disease. A just released study has debunked the “eggs and cardiovascular risk” myth once again. The unbiased non-egg industry authors conclude: “Higher consumption of eggs (up to one egg per day) is not associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease or stroke.”
When I use 
Whether you love kale, or hate kale or never tried kale I find that a well made kale salad is akin to say…ice cream. OK a kale salad doesn’t taste like ice cream, but almost everyone loves good ice cream (even if it is unrequited love causing GI distress)…and almost everyone loves a good kale salad. (For those that really love kale and ice cream here is a 
High doses of vitamin D prevent fractures in older people – as long as
