Archived News of the Week

Guidelines to Healthy Living #5
Glycemic Index, Food Combining, Tips, Treats and a Recipe

Regarding the Glycemic Index

This refers to how foods turn into sugar in your body. I suggest that you familiarize yourself with the glycemic index of most foods and eat on the low side. For example, a white potato has a glycemic index of 100, just like white sugar, so you would not want to eat a bowl full of mashed potatoes every day. As you might imagine, vegetables mostly have a low glycemic index.

There are bad guys called AGE, (Advanced Glycation End Products) which tend to build up as we age. What these AGE guys do is scorch your arteries causing what I call, a "crème brulee-ing" of the most interior and vulnerable layer of your arteries, the intima. Then what happens is a multitude of awful things. First of all, arterial wounds occur which your very best friend, cholesterol, races to fix. However, cholesterol patching, slapped down hastily and often, is done rather poorly and then, like a dry cuticle, will snag particulates as they travel through your blood stream. This build up of arterial junk can, in turn, cause atherosclerosis or a narrowing of the arteries. This will then allow particulated blood clots to build up which then might block an artery and cause a heart attack or a stroke. It's a heinous cascade of events that we want to avoid if at all possible. So, start with reducing your sugar and all foods that turn into sugar. Sugar is worse for you than fat and sugar and fat together? A really lethal combination.

Regarding Food Combining

I have found this extremely valuable with my own health. Some of us just don't have the digestive fire that others have and must be more careful about how we eat and how we combine our foods. To put it very simply, you can't combine proteins and grains and you must eat fruit separately. Another way to put it: You could eat a meal of vegetables and grains or a meal of vegetables and proteins, but a meal of steak, baked potato and broccoli might not be as easy to digest. I just imagine the steak competing with the potato in my stomach for the appropriate enzymes and when one wins over the other for digestion, the sore loser (probably the steak) will just sit there putrefying. The steak just sit in your stomach, undigested, and get you right where it hurts with that full and burning feeling that those of us with inadequate digestive fire experience if we don't behave ourselves. Meat sandwiches are out as well (animal flesh and grains together are a no-no) but a sandwich of avocado, tomato, sprouts and other veggies would be fine. Eat any fruit at least ½ hour away from a meal of protein or carbs, as fruit fights with everything. I have a chart that you can have about this. Just ask me. I have seen food combining work miracles with digestion-impaired patients.

Last Words on Guidelines to Healthy Living

Plan, plan and plan some more. Sit down on Sunday, for example, and decide what you will be eating for the next few days. No question that you will have to work on this for awhile, until it becomes second nature to you, especially if you don't like to cook or like reading cookbooks. Go shopping and get your food either Sunday or Monday. Have plenty of healthy cookbooks to refer to as you make out your menu plan and maybe write down 15 of your very favorite meals and incorporate these recipes in your weekly strategy session. The worst thing for your new way of life is to be unprepared and hungry. Your car will, with a mind seemingly of its own, veer off into the Macdonald's Drive thru and you will be gobbling down a Big Mac and fries before you even know what hit you, the Secret Sauce oozing down your chin as you come out of your fugue state and back to the reality of the food sin you have just committed.

You must know what you will be eating at all times and have the food either prepared or ready to prepare so it's not a huge deal when you come home from work or you will just snack your way to bedtime. It's best also to take any food that you are going to eat to work, so as not to lose control of your eating situation when confronted with bags of pretzels, birthday cakes or God forbid, fast food, satan's gifts to humankind.

Crock pots are wonderful for busy people. You can throw beans or meat into the pot in the morning or the night before and you will have a fully prepared meal when you come home from work. A good crock pot recipe book is Judith Finlayson's The 150 Best Slow Cooker Recipes. I have also found that Suzanne Somers' cookbooks are good too, (heavy on the meat, however) and will also teach you about food combining.

Be kind to yourself. You will slip up occasionally and that's O.K. Don't use this as an excuse to stop entirely. Just forgive yourself and move on. (Read "Stay" in the Archived Hot News Section)

So, you want a treat, huh?

Since you can't nosh on cookies, crackers, popcorn or the like, what do you do? Nuts, nuts and more nuts, although you must keep in mind that they are little balls of high caloric fat so if you want to lose weight, control yourself. Walnuts are good for the heart, almonds are alkalinizing and Brazil nuts are full of selenium. Eat at least a handful of a variety of nuts every day.

I also suggest that you have plenty of cleaned, prepared raw vegetables to grab out of the fridge and maybe some hummus for dipping. Those bags of baby carrots are great. Of course you have already thrown out all the cookies, chips, etc, so you will not have a choice. It is very important that you get rid of the forbidden foods, so you won't be tempted. I don't know anyone strong enough to make the correct choice between a few baby carrots dipped in hummus and an Oreo cookie or fourteen. Don't set yourself up for failure.

I can also suggest a nice dessert: Some kind of good organic plain yogurt (Stoneyfield is good) sweetened with Nu-Naturals stevia and vanilla extract. You might add some berries, or dip apple or pear slices in the yogurt. This is not food combining, (milk and fruit eaten together will often fight) but not everyone needs to do that for digestive health.

Chia seed pudding is also very good. See my Archived Hot News on "Chia Seeds." You will find a recipe there. Following is a tasty recipe for Breakfast Bars, all nuts and seeds, almond flour and a bit of agave. Eat judiciously when that sweet tooth beckons.

No statement or content in this web site shall be construed as offering diagnosis, cure, mitigation or prevention of any disease. Anyone having questions regarding the content of this site should contact their own health care provider for verification.