This article is awesome.

I love how the photos show you the sugar content equivalents of each drink.
Some drinks you'd expect to be high in sugar but many drinks are marketed as "healthy" and many are marketed to kids.

Here are the carbon savings that could be achieved in the USA through a reduction in meat consumption:

Researchers can take fat biopsies off the hips or waist and tell where it came from – pork, dairy, chicken, olive oil, etc.  The fat you eat is stored in the exact form in which you ate it!

Dr. Joel Fuhrman suggests that the reason is that calories from carbohydrates are not as easily converted to fat as calories from fat.  Studies show that when people eat a very low fat diet, about 15% calories from fat, more calories are burned to convert carbohydrates into fat, so the body cannot store fat as easily.  The body has to burn about 23% of the calories consumed in order to convert glucose into fat, but it converts dietary fat into stored fat more easily.  100 calories of fat can be converted to 97 calories of stored fat, burning only 3 calories.  Converting ingested fat into stored fat is so easy – the process doesn’t even change the molecules. 

Your appetite is controlled by fiber content, nutrient density and caloric density.  The single most overriding factor in fullness is the stomach being full.  The stomach holds one liter of food. 

Following is the caloric density of a stomach full of food (from Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s book Eat to Live):

    Oils                   4100 calories
    Potato chips    3000 calories
    Meat                 3000 calories
    Cheese            3400 calories
    Chicken           1500 calories
    Fish                 1400 calories
    Beans                500 calories
    Fruit                   300 calories
    Green Veggies   200 calories

The bottom line is that when you consume complex carbohydrates (fruit, veggies, whole grains), you can consume so much more food and you will never be hungry.  This makes losing weight and maintaining optimal weight easy!

Dr. Fuhrman's ANDI Scale is a chart that lists the nutrient density of whole foods.  (see pic) The higher in the list the whole plant-based food is the better it provides nourishment and gives you a feeling of being "full." When you feel hungry, your body is really telling you that it needs nutrients, not bulk, which is why when you choose to eat a bag of potato chips to quiet your hunger pains, you end up being hungry again very soon...because you did get the nutrients you needed.

My personal choice is to purchase organic produce from local farmers, either at my farmer's market or from a great LOCAL DELIVERY service like ALBERT & EVE, who carefully source from and support local farmers.  Where your food comes from is important especailly if you are concerned about the environment and energy conservation. The carbon footprint of food grown locally is much better for the planet!

Many people across the US do not have as many fresh produce choices as I do living in California, which is why Whole Foods Markets are great for many healthy organic products. If you don't want your food shipped from China or New Zealand or Chili, then just don't buy it.

I have a friend who works for Whole Foods, and she shared this insight about the quality of Chinese organics:

Organic products from China can absolutely be certified organic to the exact same standard as domestic products. While China has had a number of food quality issues in the news in the past year, it does not mean everything grown in the entire country is unsafe. Since 2002, the USDA’s National Organic Standards have governed exactly what can be sold as organic in the US – how it’s grown, processed and handled - regardless of where in the world it’s grown, INCLUDING China. Organic integrity is ensured every step of the way. For example, a broccoli grower in China must be visited and certified to the USDA organic standards by a certifying agent that is approved and supervised by the USDA. If that broccoli is processed in a packaging plant, that plant must also be visited and certified by a certifying agent, who verifies that the handling and ingredients of the product comply with the standard.

This structure is the backbone of organic integrity under the USDA organic standard – everyone who grows or handles organic food must be certified and audited by a USDA-accredited certifier. The USDA then provides audits and oversight of the certifiers to ensure that they are enforcing the standard and upholding organic integrity.

I feel a keen sense of urgency to help people "wake-up" to the health crisis in this country and help those I can reach by educating on the benefits (and miracles really) of a plant-based diet.

People always ask me...Where do you get your protein?
This is the big question I get about being on a raw food living diet.

My answer is this: I get more than enough protein from whole, plants-based foods like greens, vegetables, seeds, nuts, fruits and grains in their raw and un-cooked “living” form.

I start my day with a green smoothie: 1 bunch of fresh kale or spinach, some fruit and water in a blender. Pound for pound Greens have more protein than chicken. Greens of all kinds (lettuces, kale, chard, bok coy, spinach, arugula, beet greens, carrot greens, parsley and endive to name some) have an abundance of high-quality protein that allows for a slow and steady synthesis of new proteins, which is the healthiest type of protein to eat because your body can actually USE it.

So for example, in my green smoothie today, I had:

Plants            Grams of protein

2 cups Kale             5
2 cups Collards       8
2 cups Chard          6
2 bananas               2
1 cup blueberries    1
1 apple                    2

Total grams of
Protein                  24

A women needs only 30 grams of protein per day, so before lunch I’m 80% to my daily requirement! A man needs only 40 grams per day.

I also love to snack on sprouted and dehydrated sunflower seeds which I spice-up with a yummy sweet curry seasoning. 1/2 cup of this snack packs 16.5 grams of protein!

My point is, it’s very easy to get well over 40 grams of high-quality plant-based protein each day my just eating fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds!

The idea that “high-quality” protein is only found in and is synonymous with "animal meat" is a myth and marketing concept that we’ve all been “sold” for decades, if not centuries!  Now that I'm all veg, I actually have much more sustainable energy and strength throughout my day, which includes more energy in my workouts! Before adopting a raw plant-based diet, I was a self proclaied "meat-girl"! So that fact that I don't eat meat anymore is shocking to me. But without the animal fleah, I feel much more "powerful" in every way. If you think about it, many of the strongest and muscular animals, such as horses, also eat only plants!

I don't "miss meat", either. Reading Doctor T. Colin Campbell's Book The China Study taught me about all the bad, disease-causing stuff that comes with animal protein.  What's that phrase?....Ignorance is bliss? Well, I'm not ignorant anymore, so I can't blissfully enjoy a steak, hamburger or peice of crispy bacon ever again...not now that I am informed. I highly recommend this book. It changed my life and I even went so far as to get Plant-Based Nutritiion Certified through Dr. Campbell's graduate program taught by Cornell University.

I love Broccoli! In fact, I eat this creamy raw broccoli soup at least once a week.

Many fun classes offered at BioFuel Oasis

What a great way to spend a morning!

They also teach Urban Farming: raising chickens and bee keeping!

I loved that the tea was served with fresh raw goat's milk from a BioFuel peeps' goat!

Benefits of Kimchi

Replacing missing dietary nutrients may be necessary – and good business – but it may also be more problematical than it sounds. In the China Study Dr. Campbell, contends that “isolating nutrients and trying to get benefits equal to those of whole foods reveals an ignorance of how nutrition operates in the body”. His argument is not that these nutrients aren’t commonly deficient or that they are unimportant – he agrees they are essential – but only when consumed as food, not supplements.

Dietary supplements are intended to supply nutrients – such as vitamins, minerals, fatty acids or amino acids - missing, depleted or consumed in insufficient quantity for health.

With rising awareness of widespread micronutrient deficiency and concern for the health affects of resulting imbalances, dietary supplementation has become big business. In 2004, there were 1500 manufacturing and repacking facilities for dietary supplements in the US producing about 29,000 unique formulations packed into more than 75,000 distinctly labeled products (1). The industry represents $4.7 billion dollars, and is expected to grow to $6 billion dollars by 2011 (2).

Though the medical utility and regulatory status of dietary supplements remains controversial, two-thirds of 700 physicians attending a 1994 meeting of the American College of Cardiology to discuss this issue acknowledged using daily supplements themselves (3).

In 2002, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a review that more officially condoned supplementation. Summarizing 30-years of articles relating vitamins and chronic disease, the Harvard researchers concluded that general vitamin deficiency put most Americans at heightened risk for osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and cancer (4). They went further to recommend that: “all adults take one multivitamin daily.”

Still, there is clear consensus that people are deficient (or imbalanced) nutritionally, and marginal deficiencies – aside from being associated with cancer, heart disease and neural tube disorders (5) – may have much more subtle ill effects, gradually impairing cell metabolism and becoming evident only after years or decades (6).

So the allied questions of how to replace these missing nutrients, and how they came to be so lacking or out of balance in the first place, are paramount to national health.

As you consider the supplements you have taken (or are taking) and why you were convinced you needed them,
I would love to hear your perspective on these issues!

1. Life Sciences Research Office Report. Recommendations for Adverse Event Monitoring Programs for Dietary Supplements. June 7, 2004.
2. Nutritional Supplements in the U.S. http://www.marketresearch.com. 2006.
3. American College of Cardiology meeting. Family Practice News. March 1, 1994: 10.
4. Fairfield K, Fletcher R. Vitamins for Chronic Disease Prevention: Scientific Review and Clinical Applications. Clinician's Corner, JAMA, 2002; 287: 23.
5. Stampfer MJ, Willit WC. Homocystein and marginal vitamin deficiency. JAMA. 1993; 270: 2,726-2,727.
6. Zimmerman M. Burgerstein’s Handbook of Nutrition. NY, NY: Thieme: 2001

If you like (or LOVE, as in my case) tomatoes and eat them all year round (thanks to our Mexican Neighbor Farmers) then you will be thrilled to know, how fabulous they are for you!

Tomatoes rank number 16 on the ANDI Scale and can be whipped up into a delicious raw soup in 5 minutes!

Tomato Facts

A laboratory study found that lycopene has a similar effect to the cholesterol-lowering drugs, statins.

Tomatoes contain high levels of beta-carotene, an antioxidant that supports the immune system and helps maintain healthy skin and tissue lining.

They are packed with antioxidant flavonoids and vitamin E, both of which are essential for heart health, and are a good source of potassium.

One medium-size tomato provides 50 per cent of the recommended daily dose of vitamin C.

Analysis of the Mediterranean diet suggested that cooking tomatoes with olive oil further improves their potency.

Lycopene and beta-carotene are broken down by heating, and are soluble in oil but not water, so cooking tomatoes in olive oil prepares these beneficial chemicals perfectly for absorption by the body.

Other research suggests that lycopene may enhance chemical communication between the cells, which helps to regulate unusual cell growth and may even reverse the process by which a tumour becomes malignant.

Tomatoes are also rich in the antioxidant lutein, which is believed to protect the retina from free radical damage.