Vegetarian Summer Grilling
By Sarah Kruse

Nothing says summer more than grilling outside. Buts what’s a health-conscious, vegetarian or vegan supposed to do? Join right in, of course!

Forget the standard, boring vegetable kabobs or fake “meat” products. Here are a couple of inspiring options.

For the traditionalist: Try a homemade veggie burger. Kristin has several yummy recipes in her cookbook and I’ll share my secrets for grilling success.

First, you need some fat. That’s often the missing ingredient when it comes to cooking veggie-based burgers. After I form my patties, I spread some coconut oil on both sides. The reason I use coconut oil is because it’s solid up to 78 degrees F and can be spread onto the patty without making it a soggy mess.

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Getting Dinner on the Table Fast!
By Sarah Kruse

Shortcuts are hard to come by when you’re committed to a whole-foods based diet, eating for health or on an allergy friendly diet. Take out, fast food and frozen entrees may save you time or money, but the cost to your health isn’t worth it.

Here are some tips for busy people to get a wholesome dinner on the table quick.

Planning and Prep Work
1. Plan the menu for the week. Not only does this help with grocery shopping, but it eliminates the frazzled “what to do for dinner” question at the end of a busy day. Confession: I personally have a hard time adhering to this tip, partly because I shop at the farmer’s market on Sundays and receive my CSA produce on Wednesdays. Still, I usually jot down a rough meal plan once I have my produce, centering the meal around a fresh vegetable. Friday or Saturday night is usually reserved as stir-fry or soup night (explanation to come). (more…)

How to Manage a Special Diet by Sarah Kruse

When we finally figured out that my son, then 14 months, couldn’t tolerate dairy or gluten, I was relieved and guilt ridden. Relieved that I finally had a reason why his little body had patches of bloody, oozing eczema, but guilt ridden that it took so long to pinpoint the cause. The remedy was simple enough: eliminate gluten and dairy from his diet.

No problem, I thought. Here I was a certified natural chef; quinoa, millet and amaranth already sat in my pantry. Going gluten free would be easy. My dairy was limited to butter, cheese and yogurt. Going dairy free would be even easier.

How wrong I was! Sure, it was easy to avoid the obvious items like bread, pasta, butter and cheese. But when I started reading every single label, I was discouraged and overwhelmed. (more…)

Don’t believe me?  Watch this video…

http://www.icyou.com/topics/health-wellness/nutrition/dangers-trans-fats-partially-hydrogenated-oils-trans-fatty-acids

Things you can do to avoid trans-fats:

1.  Shop the perimeter of the grocery store

2.  Choose foods in their whole food form

3.  Avoid fast food such as fried chicken, biscuits, french fries, and other fried foods

4.  Avoid processed foods such as crackers, most cookies, baked goods, junk food

5.  Read ingredient labels.  Even if it says there are zero grams of trans-fats you still need to check the ingredient list.  If you see the words ‘Hydrogenated oil’ or ‘Partially hydrogenated oil’ that means it does contain trans-fats.  Don’t buy it.

6.  Cook at home.  Most restaurants use cheap oils.  Steam or lightly cook your foods over medium heat with olive oil, coconut oil, or sesame oil.  Also eat plenty of raw fruits and vegetables too.

Doing this may seem hard at first since many foods contain a small amount of trans-fats.  But a little adds up to a lot!  And trans-fats stay in the body for months after you consume them, damaging your arteries and putting you at risk for heart disease and stroke.  But if you make an effort to avoid trans-fats you will be eating a lot less junk food and hopefully replacing those foods with real foods like beans, lentils, whole grains and fresh fruits and vegetables.

Off you go!

First of all- you will need to forget everything you ever learned from the corrupt dairy industry that milk ‘does a body good. ‘  That couldn’t be further from the truth!  Milk is full of unhealthy fat, cholesterol, hard-to-digest protein, cancer-promoting IGF-1, and does NOTHING to prevent osteoporosis!  In fact, if you look at any study that WASN’T funded by the dairy industry you will see the truth.  In countries where people drink the most milk and eat the most cheese- they have the highest rates of osteoporosis!!!  How could this be?  Let me tell you…

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If you have the time get in the practice of soaking your nuts, seeds, grains, beans and other legumes before consuming. This may sound complicated but once you get the hang of it it’s pretty simple.  It just takes a tiny bit of planning ahead…

Here is a little more info on how to do this (from FoodMatters.tv)

Why soak nuts, grains and seeds?

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Thanks to Josh and the Folks at Pangea Organics for listing 10 easy things we can do that will have a beneficial impact on the planet and our wallets!  www.pangeaorganics.com

1.  Give Up Using Paper Napkins, Paper Towels, Or Both. Get (or make!) a few sets of organic cloth napkins. Do your cleaning with old towels and/or t-shirts cut into smaller pieces.  They are super-easy to throw in the washer to clean!

2.  Use Low-Energy Light Bulbs. Switch to energy-saving light bulbs. They may cost a bit more, but can save you up to 10 times the price over their lifetime and use at least two-thirds of the energy of standard ‘incandescent’ bulbs.

Read this article by George Lundberg, MD, former Editor in Chief of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) for 17 years, and the past President of the American Society of Clinical Pathologists. He is an outspoken critic of how medicine is currently practiced. He calls for sharp curtailment of heart surgery, mammograms, PSA testing, and much more in order to save money and lives.   (www.drmcdougall.com)

Seven Ways to Reduce Unnecessary Medical Costs— George D. Lundberg, M.D.
I believe that there are still many ethical and professional American physicians and many intelligent American patients who are capable of, in an alliance of patients and physicians, doing “the right things.” Their combined clout is being underestimated in the current healthcare reform debate.
Efforts to control American medical costs date from at least 1932. With few exceptions, they have failed. Health care reform, 2009 politics-style, is again in trouble over cost control. It would be such a shame if we once again fail to cover the uninsured because of hang-ups over costs.
Physician decisions drive the majority of expenditures in the US health care system. American health care costs will never be controlled until most physicians are no longer paid fees for specific services. The lure of economic incentives to provide care that is unnecessary, unproven, or even known to be ineffective drives many physicians to make the lucrative choice. Hospitals and especially academic medical centers are also motivated to profit from many expensive procedures. Alternative payment forms used in integrated multispecialty delivery systems such as those at Geisinger, Mayo, and Kaiser Permanente are far more efficient and effective.

Fee-for-service incentives are a key reason why at least 30% of the $2.5 trillion expended annually for American health care is unnecessary. Eliminating that waste could save $750 billion annually with no harm to patient outcomes.
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Why We Should All Eat More Organic Food (Organic Consumers Association)

Organic Food is More Nutritious

Organic foods, especially raw or non-processed, contain higher levels of beta carotene, vitamins C, D and E, health-promoting polyphenols, cancer-fighting antioxidants, flavonoids that help ward off heart disease, essential fatty acids, and essential minerals.

On the average, organic food is 25% more nutritious in terms of vitamins and minerals than products derived from industrial agriculture. Since on the average, organic food’s shelf price is only 20% higher than chemical food, this makes it actually cheaper, gram for gram, than chemical food, even ignoring the astronomical hidden costs (damage to health, climate, environment, and government subsidies) of industrial food production. Levels of antioxidants in milk from organic cattle are between 50% and 80% higher than normal milk. Organic wheat, tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage, onions and lettuce have between 20% and 40% more nutrients than non-organic foods.

Organic food contains qualitatively higher levels of essential minerals (such as calcium, magnesium, iron and chromium), that are severely depleted in chemical foods grown on pesticide and nitrate fertilizer-abused soil. UK and US government statistics indicate that levels of trace minerals in (non-organic) fruit and vegetables fell by up to 76% between 1940 and 1991.

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Follow the link below to find local, sustainable and organic farms, markets, and restaurants near your house!  And check back often because more places are added each week!  It isn’t hard to eat healthy once you know where to go.

http://www.eatwellguide.org/i.php?pd=Home