Nutritional Supplements- Get Informed and Make Good Choices

Nutritional-Supplements
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Winter is approaching, the
holidays are here, and many of us are thinking about whether or not we should
be adding any nutritional supplements to our diets in order to strengthen our
immune systems, manage stress, and curtail the winter season flu. The multi-billion-dollar
nutritional supplement industry is counting on it! But the truth
is, many people have no idea whether their bodies truly need the supplements
they are buying. Nor do they know whether the supplements they buy are
actually working for their bodies they way they should be.

I have broken down some basics about nutritional supplements, to
make it very easy to decide when you may want to consider supplementing, and
how to understand your supplement labels, so you can decide if the
supplements you are choosing are the best fit for your needs.

Here are Some
Possible Reasons to Use Nutritional
Supplements:

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5 Plant Based Thanksgiving Recipes from My Whole Dish Recipes

A Healthy Variety of Plant Based Thanksgiving Recipes
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Did you know that I have been blogging about healthful, clean whole foods
since long before I became a nutritionist? All these plant based Thanksgiving
recipes are original, whipped up in my kitchen and quickly photographed with
my iPhone. The idea is, if I can’t devise the recipe pretty easily, make it
taste great and produce a good image, it doesn’t get published. The hopeful
result is a great collection of fairly simple recipes that you can count on
to be super nutritious, clean, and beneficial to your body in the ways nature
intended!

Here are some that I’d love for you to try at your Thanksgiving
table this year. If you are trying to keep your Thanksgiving healthier, and
even plant based, think about switching out the processed Tofurkey and making
whole vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts, and grains the star of the
table! Read More

Gluten Free Pasta Alternatives to Try Today!

gluten-free-pasta
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Guess what? Not all gluten free
pasta is created equal. And, just because something says, “gluten
free” does not mean it’s necessarily any good for you. Pasta can be made
from a variety of foods free of gluten: beans, grains, vegetables, and more,
and each one offers something unique in providing your DV of needed
nutrients. In fact, the most popular go-to gluten free pasta made of quinoa
and-or brown rice is just a fraction more nutritious than the traditional
pastas made with semolina or wheat flour.

What happens with most gluten free diets is that people run to the
first substitute they can find that looks and tastes as close to the real
gluten filled product as possible. Take gluten free bread for example. How
many gluten free breads are really that great tasting? Not many, from my
experience. But, when you forget about the old product altogether, and give
yourself a chance to explore an entirely new context of enjoying pasta and
other gluten free alternatives, that is when a whole new world of superior
nutrition and great flavor comes to life. So, here are some of my favorite
pastas Read More

Vegan Protein Shake Hacks Without the Powder

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Vegan protein shake formulas
are becoming very popular in the marketplace. Every time I look, I see
companies, who formerly stood firmly on their whey protein claims, quickly
introducing vegan protein products into their product line. This article is
not to sway you from using a protein powder, especially if you have one that
you love. Plant based protein powders are known for their nutrition
efficiency and digestibility. In my opinion it is a great way to get
convenient protein.

But what if you don’t have a good vegan protein shake mix on
hand? Or what if you are on a strict budget, or you simply aren’t ready
to dive into a month’s supply of supplement purchases? Or what if you are
just overwhelmed with all the information and options, and want to make sure
you are getting the right product for you? Well, that’s cool, because you can
still find plenty of high quality plant based protein in everyday food
ingredients, that can add a meal’s worth or more of complete, efficient
protein Read More

Brussels Sprouts with Hempseed & Lemon Zest

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Brussels sprouts, you either
love them, or you hate them. I have both prepared, and eaten Brussels sprouts
many different ways: steamed, sautéed, braised in oatmeal stout, grated raw
in salads; some preparations good, some not so good. So who knew that the
quick and easy, clean and vegan preparation would turn out to be so
delightful? Well, not me, but now I am sold. This dish provides the
devout vegan with essential B12 from the nooch, essential fats, and a
complete amino acid protein profile from the hempseed. But don’t let the word
“vegan” put you off. This is absolutely delicious, light, and
satiating and can be enjoyed on just about any diet or lack
thereof.

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High Alkaline Foods For Everyday Diets

high-alkaline-foods-for-everyday-diets
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Alkalizing has become a well
known word in the nutrition world. If you do a little research, you will
soon discover that there are many different versions of theories as to why a
person might want to add more high alkaline foods to their diet. So what’s
the deal with alkalizing? Is it just another fad, or is there some good
science behind it?

If you want the simplified answer, here it is: Yes the
general consensus is that putting more high alkaline foods into your diet is
a good idea, if for no other reason than the fact that most high alkaline
foods are very nutritious and efficient for your body to digest and to use,
and generally free from any controversy of being allergenic, hard to digest,
or cause for any major health concerns.

But there is more to alkalizing than that. Having balanced
pH, a pH reading of 7.365, is essential Read More

Is Coconut Oil Good For You?

is-coconut-oil-good-for-you
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Okay, the coconut oil
debate has finally gotten under my skin. I think it was an article
that popped up a couple days ago, written by a “nutrition expert”
who was boldly defying any health concerns about coconut oil, and basically
claiming it to be a miracle cure-all for everything from hair growth to jock
itch. Anytime someone takes a hard nosed position like that it makes my
eyebrows raise up a bit. I think the article popped up on my Facebook news
feed, and today, I honestly couldn’t tell you who wrote it. But, it did
motivate me to see if I could get to the bottom of this question:
“Is coconut oil good for you?”

Food trends, especially health food trends, come and go with the
tide, but sometimes we can get caught in a virtual rip tide of
information. When this happens, it is hard to take the necessary time to
really get the information we need to make an informed decision about what is
best for our basic, whole food nutrition needs. It becomes almost impossible
for the average person to distinguish between product
marketing, and nutrition facts. So, I
decided to break down the skinny on coconut oil and hopefully make it
easy to understand.

In summary, you could say that coconut oil provides
some health benefits, but at the end of the day, it is still 90%
saturated fat. We’ll get into the details of coconut oil’s fat make up in
this article. But suffice Read More

A Superfoods List for Your February Grocery Shopping

superfoods-list
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I love following seasonal foods.
And, I try to fit a seasonal food article into the mix before each season
passes. Being it February, there are plenty of nutritionally wealthy fresh
foods that you can add to your February superfoods list the next time you
head to the store.

The key to incorporating a good balance of superfoods into your
diet is not to go crazy buying tons of trendy seeds and exotic juices with
flashy packaging, but to learn how to tap into natures own virtual
nutrition “power plant.” Yes, that is a pun, to make the point that
there are dozens of nutritionally awesome plant based foods out there that
you might already be eating every day, or that are sitting right under your
nose at the market.

A Superfoods List of Some Easy To Find Winter
Foods

The word “superfood” is actually a marketing word, and
not really scientific at all when it comes to nutrition, as explained in this
Wikipedia
link. So why do I use the word? For one thing, to get you to read
this article. Ha! See I am even on the wagon. But seriously, I understand
what you are really looking for when you pay attention to the word
“superfood.” So, my goal is to teach you how to actually get all
those outstanding nutrients, instead of being taken for a ride by some food
manufacturer. The key is to shift your thinking from “I need a
specific product because it’s a superfood” to
“I get plenty of super foods in my natural, delicious,
seasonal diet every day.”

The fact is, many of the most common fruits and vegetables
that we all grew up eating can be  Read More

How to Detox Your Body Every Day

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Have you thought about doing a
detox but don’t know where to start? The word detox is flying around quite
loosely these days. People are talking about it a lot! The word
“detox” gets almost 30,000 internet searches a month! Many of us come
to think that “doing a detox” is some kind of big thing that we
have to endure for a week or a month. There are certainly many detox methods
out there that would require this kind of mindset. But what if I told you
that our bodies were already designed to be in a perpetual state of healthy
detox, and all you have to do is make some choices each day to support your
body to do what it was naturally designed to do? Sounds to good too be true,
right? It’s not! You and anyone can learn how to detox your body in your
everyday life just by employing these simple habits, principals, and
more.

8 Tips on How to Detox Your Body Every
Day

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