Healthy Tips

Once a month we will be offering advice, recommendations and informatin on nutrition and supplements, giving tips and recipes to hopefully help guide you in making better choices. We always encourage you to do your own research and continue educating yourself when it comes to what you put in your body. And, remember always consult with a physician before starting any new diet or supplement regiment. See our recipes!

This month I want to focus on two very important products:

Whole-food Supplements &
Vitamin C

Whole-food Supplement

Whole food supplements are not synthetic vitamins and minerals. They are "concentrated real food". They contain nutrients, living enzymes, life force energy, in the exact proportion that nature intended...Remember your body is deficient in nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and various cofactors. This is the fact. There is no way that you can get all the nutrients you need by eating food. You would have to eat ten to twenty times the amount of food as you are now, and it would all have to be organic for you to meet your minimum nutritional needs. Nutritional deficiencies cause disease. Having the proper amount of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and cofactors allows your body to operate as it was designed and can prevent and cure almost all disease including cancer.

Chlorella is an excellent whole food source. It is simply a plant that is in concentrated form containing massive concentrated vitamins, minerals and enzymes in the exact proportion nature intended. Spirilina, blue-green algae, and hydrilla are all excellent whole food sources. They contain protein, enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and cofactors.
-Kevin Trudeau, Natural Cures

Examples of whole food supplement ingredients may include carrots, broccoli, kale, alfalfa, wheat grass, acerola cherry, cauliflower, kelp, wild pansy, spirulina, bovine liver, bovine kidney, radishes and quinoa.

Food researcher Vic Shayne, PhD, writes, "Since the above types of food ingredients are natural, they contain a host of nutrients that exist within a "complex." A food complex includes not only vitamins and minerals, but also many cofactors (helper nutrients) that are found in nature's foods as a result of the evolutionary process. Cofactors and food complexes therefore cannot be made in a laboratory nor can they be duplicated by scientists. Many nutritional doctors and researchers conclude that cofactors are often more valuable than vitamins and minerals, and that food cannot be duplicated due to its complexity, dynamism and energy. Cofactors within nature's foods (which are found also in whole food supplements) include, but are not limited to: vitamins, minerals, terpenes, trace mineral activators, enzymes, co-enzymes, chlorophyll, lipids, essential fatty acids, fiber, carotenoids, antioxidants, flavonoids, pigments, amino acids, whole proteins and more.

"The human organism is biologically suited to ingest and utilize nature's whole foods for its sustenance, including the optimal functioning of cells, and for the processes of healing and prevention. Because vitamin and mineral pills are merely comprised of isolated chemicals, the body often regards these as foreign invaders. Many vitamins, minerals and amino acids produce toxic side effects ranging from skin itching and flushing (niacin, for example) to liver impairment (vitamin A palmitate, for example)." (http://www.answers.com/topic/whole-food-supplements)
back to top

Vitamin C

Those deficient in this nutrient bruise easily and their blood vessels are so weak that their gums bleed when brushing them even lightly. Vitamin C is an antioxidant that stimulates the adrenal glands to manufacture cortisone, which is involved in healing and helps to combat stress. It supports immunity by stimulating the production of white blood cells and fights viral and bacterial infections. Vitamin C normalizes blood pressure, lowers cholesterol, thins the blood, and protects you from atherosclerosis and other forms of heart disease.
-Don Lemmon's Know How, The Truth About Exercise & Nutrition

Add lower blood pressure levels to the long list of benefits derived from vitamin C. High blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart disease, the leading cause of death in both men and women in the United States. Close to 50 million Americans have high blood pressure. The study of 45 people with high blood pressure (hypertension) had the levels fall by about 9.1% if they consumed a 500-milligram supplement of vitamin C each day for a month.

Vitamin C, a potent antioxidant, may lower blood pressure by protecting the body's supply of nitric oxide. Nitric oxide relaxes blood vessels, contributing to healthy blood pressure levels. Studies have also shown that vitamin C may help protect against certain cancers and chest pain when consumed as part of a healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables.
-www.mercola.com

The two products that we, at Stacy's Fitness, sell and take ourselves are:

Vitamineral Green
Truly Natural Vitamin C

Both these products are by a company called Health Force Nutritional, www.healthforce.com
back to top

Vitamineral Green:

Besides being an excellent whole food supplement, Vitamineral Green, contains a wonderful mixture of digestive enzymes and probiotics*. To read more about Vitamineral Green and its contents go to http://www.healthforce.com/vitamineral_green.htm

Probiotics*:

You probably don't think about your gut very often but this may make you start--the bacteria in your bowels outnumber the cells in your body by a factor of 10 to one. This gut flora has incredible power over your immune system, which, of course, is your body's natural defense system that keeps you healthy. In other words, the health of your body is largely tied into the health of your gut, and it's hard to have one be healthy if the other is not.

One of the reasons why your gut has so much power has to do with the 100 trillion bacteria--about three pounds worth--that line your intestinal tract. This is an extremely complex living system that aggressively protects your body from outside offenders.
However, if you are eating as many sugars as the typical American (about 175 pounds per year) then you are feeding the "bad" bacteria, which are more likely to cause disease than promote health, rather than promoting the "good" bacteria that help protect you from disease. Exposure to chemicals will also contribute to this disruption in your gut microflora, and over time the imbalance will lead to illness.

A large part of the influence of the "bad" bacteria is on the intestinal lining (mucousal barrier) that is over 300 square meters, or about the size of a tennis court.

Beneficial bacteria in your gut can help to boost the immune system, prevent allergic inflammation and food allergy, clear up eczema in children and heal the intestines from a variety of ailments.

Fortunately, you can influence the composition of the good and bad bacteria in your gut by optimizing your diet and supplementing it with a high-quality probiotic, or good bacteria. As written in a report in the October 2003 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, "probiotics can act as partners of the defense system of the intestine."

The typical American diet is so full of sugar and grains that--although I don't often recommend supplements--nearly everyone can benefit from probiotics.
By Dr. Joseph Mercola
with Rachael Droege
back to top

Truly Natural Vitamin C:

This is one of the most natural forms of Vitamin C available. To learn more about Truly Natural Vitamin C and its contents go to http://www.healthforce.com/vitamin-c.htm

RECIPES

The trick in using Vitamineral Green is to shake not stir
For health enhancing, antioxidant benefits,
add 1 teaspoon Truly Natural Vitamin C powder to any of the following recipes

Pure Blend
Using a jar or glass with a tight-fitting
lid, mix and shake:
10 oz filtered or distilled water
1 tablespoon Vitamineral Green
4 - 6 drops of liquid Stevia (natural sweetener)

For Starters Blend
Using a jar or glass with a tight-fitting
lid, mix and shake:
1 tablespoon Vitamineral Green
½ cup pure, filtered water
½ cup organic apple juice

Apple-Banana Froth
Mix in blender at high speed:
1/8 cup raw almonds or cashews*
½ cup pure, filtered water
½ cup organic apple juice
When mixture is smooth, add and blend at high speed:
½ frozen banana
1 tablespoon Vitamineral Green (1/2 serving size for children)
Vanilla or almond extract to taste
Cinnamon to taste

Apple Berry Jumble
Mix in a blender at high speed:
1½ cups organic apple juice
½ - 1 cup frozen blueberries
1½ frozen bananas, cut in pieces
1 tablespoon Vitamineral Green

Citrus Medley
Mix in blender at high speed:
1/8 cup raw almonds or cashews*
½ cup organic orange juice
½ cup organic pineapple juice
When mixture is smooth, add and blend at high speed:
½ frozen banana
1 tablespoon Vitamineral Green (1/2 serving size for children)
Vanilla extract and nutmeg to taste

Go Mango
Mix in a blender at high speed:
1 cup organic mango juice
½ cup organic apple juice
Splash of lime juice
2 cups seeded, cubed, and frozen watermelon
1 tablespoon Vitamineral Green

Tropical Delight
Mix in blender at high speed:
¼ cup raw almonds or cashews*
1 cup organic pineapple juice
When mixture is smooth,
add and blend at high speed:
½ frozen organic banana
1 to 2 tablespoons organic coconut milk
1 tablespoon Vitamineral Green

Berry Happy
Mix in blender at high speed:
1 cup pure, filtered water
½ cup frozen berries
½ frozen banana
1 teaspoon Organic Honey
1 tablespoon Vitamineral Green
Just Peachy Froth Mix in blender at high speed:
¼ cup raw almonds or cashews*
1 cup pure, filtered water
When mixture is smooth,
add and blend at high speed:
½ cup pineapple juice
½ cup pure, filtered water
½ frozen banana
½ cup frozen peaches
1 tablespoon Vitamineral Green
Vanilla or almond extract to taste

Melon and Mint Pleasure
Mix in blender at high speed:
1 cup cut-up cantaloupe
1 cup cut-up honeydew melon
1 cup cut-up watermelon
½ cup pure, filtered water
10 mint leaves
3 ice cubes
1 tablespoon Vitamineral Green