4 Healthy Eating Ideas for 2011 From My Friend Julia

 
1.   Eat raw foods in place of cooked or processed

What kind of idea is that?  Read about the benefits as well as the cautionary notes of  a raw food diet at this about.com link.

Is there anyone who actually does this and has lived to tell the tale?  Yes.  In addition to thriving vegetarians and vegans, there are now thriving raw foodists or living foodists (as some call themselves). Julia is among them.

There are magazines, institutes and even restaurants dedicated to raw foods.

Want to find out what it's like to go on a raw-food diet? Check out blogger Steve Pavlina's post  30 Days Raw .  In this post, he shares his day by day experience of going completely raw for 30 days.

And finally, you might take a peek at the green smoothie recipes, products and events available at Raw Family, or the miracles being performed daily at Tree of Life.

Here's how I incorporated raw food elements into my diet.  Feel free to follow my lead:

• Breakfast - I have my coffee - can't do without that....but instead of typical breakfast foods such as cereal, or eggs & sausage, I eat 2  ounces of nuts and raisins.

• Mid-morning - I have a cupful of chopped fruit and raw veggies - typically baby carrots, celery & apple, sometimes other veggies thrown in - plum tomatoes, orange and yellow bell peppers, broccoli.

• Lunch - a Mozarella cheese stick (the processed kind) and a power home-made smoothie which I make with yoghurt, soymilk, frozen strawberries, spinach, avocado, banana and an orange.

• Dinner - normal - cooked  - small quantity.

Does that sound impossible?  Confession. I am faithful to this regimen only half of the time.  I eat normally when I go out to restaurants and other people's homes.

If you want to experience the benefits of going raw, start out small and go from there.  Just go raw for one or two meals, once or twice a week.  And do let me know you fare so I can let Julia know.


2. Sugar is nasty, sugar substitutes not nice either


You already know the lowdown on sugar. When it comes to creating a Halloween Fright Fest in your body, refined sugar is a ghoul dressed as an angel.  It looks and tastes so good  (those cookies, those candies, those cakes and those sweets). But it's a health ghoul and will transform you into a ghoul  over time.  With rotting teeth, high blood sugar, insulin resistance, diabetes and autoimmune diseases such as such as arthritis. 


What I didn't know, and I have to thank Julia for, is the scoop on artificial sweeteners.  They aren't terribly good for you either.

Starting with cyclamate (now banned), saccharin and aspartame, artificial sweeteners have been mired in controversy. Natural sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup have been mired in controversy as well.

You can pooh pooh this, of course.  After all, saccharin and aspartame still have the FDA stamp of approval (as this October 2009 article from Time Magazine testifies).  But why take chances. When it's so easy to train your tongue to getting de-addicted to sweetness.   Start with drinking your tea and coffee plain.  And go from from there.

Of course, nowadays there are many more sugar substitutes for you to choose from - natural and artificial. Splenda and Stevia are two of them.

Whole Foods Market has this guide to natural sweeteners on their site which has helpful information.


Pay attention to the sugar in your diet. It is one of the best things you can do for your body. Start today.  Start now.


3. Banish transfats from your diet


Way way before transfats became a hot topic and states began to pass bills to outlaw or regulate their use in restaurants and school cafeterias, Julia alerted me to how bad transfats were for your health.

This information which I was privileged to get from Julia a decade ago has now become public knowledge - we should all be grateful for that.

Transfats unfortunately lurk in some of the commonest everyday foods that we eat and use.

Foods such as margarine -- which I used to think was a healthier alternative to butter. And cooking oil. And potato chips.

If you go raw, you can avoid transfats altogether.  But if not, all you have to do is to start reading food labels to avoid the beast.

If you see the words "hydrogenated" or "partially hydrogenated" on a food label, it's your cue to avoid that food - whether it's a cooking oil, a protein bar, or a bag of potato chips.

Now when it comes to restaurants,  you are on shakier ground.

But fortunately several states have moved to outlawing the use of transfats in restaurants and school cafeterias. You can read how and when California became one of them here.

Why are transfats bad?  In layman terms, because your body does not know what to do with them. You can read the full scoop on why you want to avoid them in this Mayo Clinic article.

4. Drink more tea to give yourself a healthy dose of antioxidants


While there are many ways to glug your antioxidants - coffee, red wine and pomegranate juice among them, Green Tea offers the most benefits for the lowest price with the least harmful effects. 

You can find out more about the health value of antioxidants by reading this article Food Choices The Best Source for Antioxidants published by Mayo Clinic in their Medical Edge newspaper, or by reading this article Go Green Tea published by Whole Foods Market on their blog.

If after reading these articles, you are convinced about the benefits of Green Tea, head to Teavana  or Whole Foods Market to steep yourself in the Tea Movement, or survey the choices available at your local grocery store, which include Liptons Green Tea and Arizona Green Tea, both of which are excellent choices.

Happy New Year to You & Wishing You a Year of Healthy Eating!

Credit for the ideas in this post go to my friend Julia Kaplan.  Julia has done her Masters in Chemistry and  is also a certified nutritionist.  If you need simple advice on improving your diet and nutrition, Julia can help you.