Milk is unnatural, slow-poison food for grown-ups.
Mother's milk is a food designed to put fast weight on newborns, making breastfeeding essential. But we are no babes anymore; we are no calves, either. Therefore, we don’t need milk.
Worse: Milk makes us sick. Milk is linked to pimples, obesity, heart disease, dementia, allergies, asthma, cancer, depression, arthritis, autoimmune and a host of other diseases. On top of it, it tastes terrific and is addictive.
Why is dairy linked to so many diseases? It is highly inflammatory, wreaking havoc in your body, in virtually every organ.
I used to admire my vegetarian patients – until I found out that pizza, donuts and ice-cream are considered vegetarian. Nothing healthy in that fare!
When people settled and became farmers, leaving behind the hunter-gatherer days, milk was a life saver - at that time, starvation was the killer number one (childhood infections came later, when communities had grown big enough to have a virus going around for a long time; in the small hordes of hunters/gatherers, viruses had not chance of surviving long). But we long left behind starvation times; now the opposite is the problem: an abundance of calories, the whole day long.
As if the onslaught of calories from dairy were not bad enough, modern milk is even worse because it is greatly adulterated by pasteurizing (perhaps unavoidable), homogenization, adding of vitamins (notably D and A) and, since 1993, growth hormones. Growth hormones help you “grow” (which you might want to avoid) and helps grow cancer cells (which you certainly will want to avoid). Read More
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
Celebrate!
May 22, 2010
Today we celebrate our summer party – a little early this year. Roses and irises honor us by opening this morning for the first time - the garden could not be lovelier!
For a day like this, I want to give you my favorite piece of health advice: On a day like this, go out and celebrate with gusto, eat all the wrong foods – don’t sit around at the party and be on a diet!
This, of course, does not apply if you have food allergies and intolerances. Then you have to stick to your diet, needless to say.
But for all the others of us who just want to get to better health or lose a few pounds – which is commendable! - don’t do it today: Go out and have a good time!
Because, what really counts in the long run, is what you keep in your fridge and in your pantry – not what you eat occasionally when you are with friends - unless you are a professional party-goer, like politicians for instance! If you are, this is a little trick: Don not eat lunch on days when you expect a big dinner. Just skip lunch – you won’t starve. But you will prevent that you look like so many politicians: over-stuffed.
For everybody else: Enjoy the feast! But it would not hurt if you would go through your fridge, freezer and pantry right now and throw out everything that shouldn't be in there: TV dinners, sweets (except for dark chocolate without milk), chips, “nutritional bars, dairy (cheese, yogurt, milk), processed meats (bacon!), instant soups – you probably find more what should not be in there. No regrets, just throw it out! Don 't give it away because it is not healthy for the next person either.
That way you can go to your summer fest and enjoy it – knowing that once you will be back home, only healthy foods will await you.
P.S. If you cheat, observe how you feel afterward, and the next morning. Do you feel great? Lousy? Overhung? Bloated? Achy? Write it down so that you remember why you wanted to live healthier in the first place! Read More
Aging Is Inevitable - Or Is It?
May 21, 2010
Yes, aging is inevitable, but how you age, makes all the difference. You can get a bit stiffer and a bit fatter and a bit more stooped and a bit more depressed every day, or you can embark on an exciting journey starting today that will make you glow with health, sparkle with interest and explode with love.
Will it be difficult? Not more difficult than doing two minutes of exercise every day, eating a bit more reasonably and finding something you love to do. If you start with two minutes exercise a day, you will soon find that your body wants more. What hinders you to get up from your chair right now and do ten belly crunches? Or, if you can't get down on the floor, lifting your knees ten times, then your arms?
Studies done on centenarians – people who made it to 100 – show that it took only surprisingly simple things to keep them alive that long. Good genes help of course, but more important might be staying busy and keeping involved with friends, family, community. Centenarians did not spend long hours at the gym or money for expensive spa vacations or face lifts.
All what is needed are simple, everyday gestures and measures: cleaning out the attic, puttering around in the yard, cooking a meal for a sick friend, knitting a shawl for a grandchild. What centenarians did not do: Sit in front of TV or at the computer. Really, they did nothing spectacular. But the unspectacular made a long, spectacularly fulfilled life. Read More