Hungry For Change REMINDER!

A few posts ago, I blogged about the upcoming "Food Matters" documentary, "Hungry For Change." It's finally here, and you can watch it for free until March 31st.

 If you're fat, wonder why you can't ever lose weight, sick, depressed, and addicted to food, caffeine, and (DIET) soda, you MUST watch this video! If that's a little too blunt for your taste, I don't apologize:) I love it when people can honestly feel good from the inside out. Our bodies are incredibly amazing machines and if we treat them right, they are good to us in return. If you've never truly been healthy, then you don't know what you're missing. Just imagine if you could wake up everyday feeling great and love the person that you are. Or wouldn't it be even better if you didn't need to take any of those pills anymore? If you're a younger person and don't take pills yet, you are doing yourself a favor to start caring for your body now before it's too late. I can honestly tell you from my own personal experience as a registered nurse that the majority of people with diseases are obese, eat poorly, don't sleep enough, and don't exercise. Now of course maybe there's a few that sleep all the time and maybe take walks, but that means nothing if their diet is lacking! Processed foods are loaded with addicting chemicals that make you want more, so educate yourself and stop the dangerous cycle. For all of you out there reading this, I want for you to be able to enjoy your life and be healthy doing it!

One of the things that I hate to hear people say is, "XX disease is the leading cause of death among women today" or "XX disease is the leading cause of death among men." OK, so you get it right? Well, these XX diseases are not actually the leading cause of death. Processed food, sugar, and poor nutrition intake is actually the leading cause of death among all people. If we would just put good healthy foods into our body, XX disease would never get out of control in the first place. It's poor food choices that lead to XX disease and then to death.

If what you're doing isn't working, try something else. Another "diet" is not the answer, change your life. Start today!!!! All righty then! I'm going to step off my soap box and let you watch for yourself!! Use the link below to view "Hungry for Change" free. Enter your name and email address in the box at the top left corner of the screen and press, "watch now!"


www.hungryforchange.tv

Hungry for Change

It seems like I've been waiting forever to watch the new Food Matters documentary, "Hungry for Change."  It's still not available in it's entirety yet, but the trailer is very exciting. It has a great group of nutritional experts, including my very favorite, David Wolfe! I so desperately wish that people would be more willing to educate themselves on the topic of health and natural medicine. Statistics are showing that people are fatter, sicker, and more unhappy with their bodies every day. It's pretty sad when I'm more shocked to hear that patients I see are on no medications rather than on multiple medications. It's becoming the norm, and that is scary to me. So, stop dieting and make a lifestyle change!

Education is key, so watch the trailer! I can only hope it will excite and motivate you as much as it does me!

www.hungryforchange.tv

DON'T FORGET TO SIGN UP ON THE  MAILING LIST (RIGHT SIDE OF SCREEN) TO BE ONE OF THE FIRST TO SEE THIS DOCUMENTARY. IT'S 90 MINUTES IN LENGTH AND WILL BE SHOWN MARCH 21-31. YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS THIS!!!!!

Documentary Day #3

KILLER AT LARGE: Why Obesity is America's Greatest Threat.

A film by Steven Greenstreet

This documentary starts out with Brooke, a 218 pound, 12 y/o girl that wants lipo suction. Her parents don't want her to be made fun of and she wants to fit in. They end up going through with the lip suction and remove 16 liters of fat from this child. She lost 35 pounds in one treatment of lip suction. Her parents seemed to be very supportive. She got down to a weight of 155lbs on the show. The biggest concern was if Brooke would be able to keep the weight off.  Unfortunately, 7 months after the procedure she gained the weight back. Brooke's mother was interviewed and didn't think that the weight gain was emotional, but genetic. How can she be in such denial over her own child's struggles? It blows my mind and makes me so sad. One of my largest concerns with allowing a 12 y/o to have lipo suction is that it doesn't address the underlying problem, nor does it teach her proper eating habits, nutrition, and exercise. It's allowing her to temporarily run away from a problem that really hasn't been solved. 

Some of statistics that were discussed were mind blowing and proved that the United States is struggling with an "epidemic of being fat". 2/3 of the nation's people are overweight, which leads to so many diseases. Diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease etc. And even worse is that more than 9 million children are seriously overweight. The diabetes rate is increasing drastically d/t children being overweight. They are predicting that 45% of our children will be insulin dependent in the next 10 years. 

In comparing our current situation with the past, millions of years ago a large amount of time was spent collecting the food supply where as today, there are fast food restaurants and large fat supplies in the food. One doctor explained that he thinks the overeating that people do has an underlying problem besides just self-control. Sometimes more of our decisions in a day are made about food than anything else. There are heavy marketing techniques used to promote unhealthy food and, it's so readily available to us. Everywhere you look there's some sort of food, vending station, advertisement, etc.

Speaking of self-control, people also tend to overeat d/t the portion sizes that are served or bought. We tend to think that if it's served to us, it's the appropriate serving size. 

Barry Glassner, author, says there are many things contributing to obesity. Social factors, genetics, stress patterns, etc. Stress can cause cravings to food and a large portion of humans are under some kind of stress. Your body loses the ability to burn fat efficiently as well, when under stress. We tend to work harder, sleep less, and fill our lives with non-stop activities. Stress can also be caused by the "scare factors" used in the news. There were several clips that were so familiar to hear. 

A Rabbi on the documentary explained that super thin is just as dangerous, which I believe is true. There needs to be a happy medium. Curves used to be so attractive and our culture has gotten away from that. "Thin is in." I think it's more about a healthy lifestyle than about a weight. If you're making healthy choices, you won't need to worry about being overweight.

President Clinton was also interviewed and talked about his upbringing, being overweight, and eating too much. He underweight cardiac bypass surgery and has since learned to choose healthier options. So, just because you've learned something a certain way doesn't mean you have to continue down those unhealthy paths. It's a choice to change your life!

There were also a few interviews with young people that grew up being overweight. They talked about being made fun of as they grew up, the massive amounts of food that they ate, and how their upbringing influenced them. At some point, someone down the line has to decide that they are going to make some changes and, then they can pass those healthier choices on to their families and friends!

So, this is just a portion of the documentary. There's lots more in this one that is worth hearing. I really liked it alot and felt that it kept my attention, so if you have some time to watch it, it's a good one. Watching videos like this can always help to motivate and reinforce the benefits of healthy living!!

Happy watching:)

Documentary Day #2

FED UP! (57 minutes)

This documentary isn't all about eating raw and how great it is for you, but it does have some good educational points to think about when purchasing your food.

The first half was my least favorite, but it actually got interesting as I kept watching. It talked a fair amount about genetically modified products and how there really is no control over cross pollination of the genetically engineered products with other non modified products in nearby fields. Although there are no policies about drifting of genetic material, there are some policies out there about pesticide drift.

They covered one specific bacteria called Bacillus Thuringiensis (BT). BT is a bacteria that is engineered into certain plants to act as an insecticide. It's residue has been found up to a year after the genetically modified plant has been removed from it's growing spot. Apparently, non-targeted insects, like the monarch butterfly, are killed by BT. I personally don't understand how you can target a specific insect and exclude others in the first place. That's why I'm not a biotech expert! Anyway, along these same lines, they mentioned how some of these engineered products have become tainted. They have found some targeted insects (and weeds too)  that have actually grown resistant to these insecticides. The most astounding thing I heard was that in California there is one product that has actually shown spermicidal properties. That's not very cool!

There's a certain corn called, "Starlink" that is only approved for animal consumption, that has been found in human food. These foods were recalled because the EPA couldn't support or approve it's safety. This just made me sad that they think it's ok for animals. I love my puppies.....most of the time:)

If you haven't ever heard of "golden rice," you'll want to watch the video yourself. There's a fair amount of information about this topic. The "golden rice" was modified version of rice by a bio tech company to contain high amounts of vitamin A. One anti-biotech gentlemen that was interviewed believes that the biotech industry did this just to get the sympathy of others as opposed to really wanting to help with a nutritional problem. Marina McGloughlin, director of biotech at University of California said, "adding this capability is helping people considering we need to eat healthy foods to stay healthy instead of always running to the doctor for a cure, although biotech has an answer for that as well, but much cheaper and healthier to eat better in the first place." If this is the case, why not just eat organic unmodified whole foods? I personally have a difficult time understanding how insecticides added to foods can be helping people. That's just me though!

The last part of the video was my favorite. They interviewed a couple of smaller organic farmers. I absolutely love small farms, mostly because it reminds me of growing up in the country. I used to help my dad in the garden alot when I was a kid. Fun times!! They talked about going to local farmer's markets, which is one of my favorite things to do in the summer. They were encouraging the community to get involved in CSA's, farmer's markets, and even visiting local farms to see where your food actually comes from. Buying direct from a farm is a great way to know exactly where your food is from and how it's produced.

On a separate note, tonight is raw food night at the Green Owl Cafe, so I'll be posting the results of my dining next week:) I'm looking forward to catching up with a friend tonight over raw food. It's her first time, and she's not a raw foodie so I'll let you know how it goes!!

Documentary Day #1

DECONSTRUCTING SUPPER

If you've been following me for a while, you know that the two documentaries, "Food Matters" and "Food, Inc." are two of my very favorite documentaries. They are also probably two of the most known documentaries, and maybe you've even watched them yourself. I've decided to take some time each week, provided that I have the time, to inform you of some other wonderful documentaries that aren't as common.
If you can spare just 48 minutes of your time over this next week, let's start with the documentary, "Deconstructing Supper." It's about a chef, John Bishop, from Vancouver who goes on his own journey to "deconstruct supper." His restaurant guests began to ask him questions he could not answer like, "What's in your food?" "How's it grown?" "Are chemicals and pesticides used?" "Does your food contain GMO's?" In fact, not only could he not answer these questions about the food that was in his very own restaurant, he didn't even know what GMO's were.

Here's a basic overview from Wikipedia.

A genetically modified organism (GMO) or genetically engineered organism (GEO) is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. These techniques, generally known as recombinant DNA technology, use DNA molecules from different sources, which are combined into one molecule to create a new set of genes. This DNA is then transferred into an organism, giving it modified or novel genes. Transgenic organisms, a subset of GMOs, are organisms which have inserted DNA that originated in a different species. GMOs are the constituents of genetically modified foods.


The documentary goes on to explain that large biotech companies combine organisms of different species, plants, animals, insects, fish, bacteria, and viruses that wouldn't naturally breed.


John goes to Aventis, a biotech company in Saskatchewan, and meets with the head scientist, Dr. Malcolm Devine. Dr. Devine tells John that even though foods aren't labeled as containing GMO'S, 60-70% of processed foods do contain some sort of GMO. One comment made by Dr. Devine about their process of getting GMO's at Aventis really stood out to me: "We have to do a whole bunch of little things to get it in the right form so it meets our needs." I'm wondering who's needs he thinks he's meeting because it's definitely not mine:) John ends up going to the grocery store with Dr. Devine and picks out a variety of foods that all contain GMO's. He then makes a meal for the two of them. During dinner, Dr. Devine explains that, "Genes makes special proteins that are very specific. It's toxic only to certain classes of insects. It kills those insects, so it protects the corn from insect damage." Coming to an obvious conclusion, John asks, "So are these toxins still in the food?" Dr. Devine's response was this, "In the processing, almost certainly, the toxin is degraded." Almost is just not good enough for me!


After hearing the biotech companies view on GMO's, he goes straight to the farmers next. One such Canadian farmer, Percy, had been growing canola for over 53 years, growing the best seeds, with the highest yield, the most disease resistant, and those best suited for the local land. One day in 1997 he found a genetically modified plant, made by Monsanto, in his field. Despite the fact that Percy wanted nothing to do with Monsanto's GMO's he was later sued by Monsanto for having their product in his field. There's more information on this part in the video, but one of the main points taken away was this, "whoever controls the seeds and land controls the food supply, and whoever controls the food supply, controls what we eat. This should be the consumers choice and not a large companies. 


John attempted to interview Monsanto himself, but was declined an interview. He found two journalists that, years earlier had had the opportunity to interview Monsanto, Jane Akre and Steve Wilson. They were interviewing Monsanto in regards to their bovine growth hormone that is liberally injected into cows, and there for our dairy products. So, milk was actually the first genetically modified product on the market. The journalist thought it only right to have such dairy products labeled as containing BGH, but apparently the charges were not thoroughly tested by the FDA and not labeling was never allowed. The U.S. in the only major industrialized country to approve consumption of BGH, which has been linked to colon and breast cancer. 


He then met with Luke Anderson, an activist and author out of Great Britain, to talk about our rights and how to get things done. His suggestion was public pressure, and you can watch more about this on the video. 


Lastly, John went to India, where they actually campaigned against  roundup. In the 60's, the range and selection of crops diminished drastically d/t the addition of chemicals and pesticides on their fields. They are now working to improve that damage and encourage free exchange of seeds. The first scientist interviewed said it well, "Manipulating plants isn't about farming." Hear more by watching the video. 


So, personally, I think that buying local and organic as much as possible will help us to support what is true and healthy for our bodies.  Buy less processed food, but most of all make an informed choice about your food!!