Vegan Nutrition

Osteoporosis is a very serious disease of your bones that can lead to breakdown of the bone density, causing it to be weak enough that it is susceptible to breakage.  People sometimes do not believe osteoporosis to be serious, since it is a gradual disease with a gradual onset of symptoms. In other words, nobody that gets osteoporosis is metaphorically hit over the head with a crux of issues all at once.  Unlike cancer or another serious illness, there is no immediate life-threatening problem when one develops osteoporosis.  However, being diagnosed with osteoporosis can truly remove the quality of a person’s life. Luckily, there are precautions that can be taken to prevent the development of this disease which generally affects the elderly. It is very important to take measures early in life so as to avoid this progressive disease later on.

Exercise is a great way to fight osteoporosis early in life.  Believe it or not, exercise is critical for the prevention of weak bones and, besides its other positives, this is just another reason why exercise should be a daily part of your routine.  Any weight-bearing exercise is particularly good for osteoporosis, such as weight training, running, or other high-impact sports and activities.  While you have probably heard that running is hard on the knees or hips, in reality your bones are getting stronger the longer one continues this type of activity.  The striking and impact of your foot on the pavement or hard ground actually works to harden the bones to breakage over time.

Weight training is another very popular exercise that is good in preventing osteoporosis.  Weight training has become increasingly more popular over the years, and gym memberships have risen drastically as men, women and children alike can now be found lifting weights for good health.  Weight training also helps to increase bone density, as well as improve your posture, improve your mood, and many report an improvement in self-confidence.

Other than exercise, you can help prevent osteoporosis with certain supplements.  Some of the most common supplements for the prevention of osteoporosis are calcium and vitamin D.  Most people are aware that calcium is important for strong bones and teeth.  They hear it on commercials and their parents tell them from the time they are little to drink their milk. However, most people probably do not take it as seriously as they should.  It really is a good idea to supplement with calcium every day to help prevent osteoporosis down the road.  Calcium supports bone density and bone healing.

While it is true that milk and other dairy products are a good source of calcium, you may not be getting all the calcium you need from these sources.  If you are a vegetarian or vegan especially, who does not consume any dairy products, it is especially important for you to take a calcium supplement.  Broccoli and fortified orange juice contain good amounts of calcium, but you probably cannot stomach enough broccoli to make it worthwhile.

Vitamin D occurs naturally with sunshine, so getting your exercise outdoors can help provide you with the vitamin D you need.  Remember to wear your sunscreen, of course. While outside activity in the sun can be a wonderful and fun source of Vitamin D, you will likely not get enough of it without supplementation.  Some areas of the country are sunnier than others, and then there are the winter months to consider when people tend to stay indoors more often.  With the amount of Vitamin D supplements available, it can easily be incorporated into your daily routine.

In keeping up with your protein consumption, and also increasing your Vitamin C and Vitamin K intake, you can also help keep your bones stronger and prevent osteoporosis.  Again, you can do this by supplementing if you are uncertain as to whether your diet provides sufficient amounts of these important vitamins.

A supplement called glucosamine chondroitin, which is actually two supplements generally sold in a compound as one, is very helpful with joint pain associated with age and increased activity level.  While not directly helpful for the prevention of osteoporosis, it is used to treat osteoarthritis.  You may want to consider adding this supplement to help prevent the aches and pains that sometimes occur in your bones as you age and try to maintain the same level of activity and fitness.

Supplementing with these vitamins, minerals, and aminos can be very beneficial when used in combination with a healthy lifestyle and diet.  Make sure to keep your alcohol consumption in moderation for healthy bones as well as cut out any smoking habit you may have, since smoking and heavy drinking both increase the risk of osteoporosis.  Follow these simple rules and you will increase your chances of having strong, healthy bones for life.

Technorati Tags: Beauty, Exercise, Fitness, Goal Setting, Happiness, Health, Illness, Medicine, Nutrition, Pregnancy, Stress Management, Supplements, Vitamins, Weight Loss

Tags: vegan nutrition by admin
No Comments »

More that a million Americans die of heart disease each year. One of the major causes of this heart disease the high cholesterol levels in the blood.
Cholesterol plays a central role in many biochemical processes, but is best known for the association of cardiovascular disease with high levels of
cholesterol in the blood.
Konrad Bloch and Feodor Lynen shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1964 for their discoveries concerning the mechanism and regulation of the cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism.
Cholesterol is a sterol (a combination steroid and alcohol) and a lipid found in the cell membranes of all body tissues. It is transported in the blood plasma of all animals. The average amount of blood cholesterol varies with age, typically rising gradually until one is about 60 years old.
In recent years, the somewhat imprecise term “bad cholesterol” has been used to refer to LDL (low density lipoprotein) which, according to the lipid hypothesis, is thought to have harmful actions, and “good cholesterol” to refer to HDL (high-density lipoprotein), thought to have beneficial actions.
The American Heart Association provides a set of guidelines for total blood cholesterol levels and risk for heart disease. The desirable LDL level is considered to be less than 100 mg/dl. However the 1987 report of National Cholesterol Education Program suggest the total blood cholesterol level should be less than 200 mg/dl normal blood cholesterol, if the cholesterol level is between 200 and 239 mg/dl it is considered borderline-high, and higher than 240 mg/dl is considered high cholesterol level.
Conditions with elevated concentrations of oxidized LDL particles are associated with fatty deposits forming on the walls of arteries, a condition known as Arteriosclerosis, which is considered the principal cause of coronary heart disease and other forms of cardiovascular disease.
In contrast, however, if LDL particle number is low and a large percentage of the HDL particles are high, then fatty deposits forming on the walls of the arteries are usually low, and can even be negative, for any given total cholesterol concentration.
Cholesterol is found in animal fats: all food containing animal fats contains cholesterol. Plants have trace amounts of cholesterol, so even a Vegan diet, which includes no animal foods, has traces of cholesterol.
Cholesterol is not necessarily dietary in origin, it can be turned into cholesterol by the liver from unburned food metabolites. The liver converts unburned food metabolites into very low density lipoproteins (VLDL) and secretes them into plasma where they are converted to low-density lipoprotein LDL) particles and fatty acids, which can affect other body cells. There appear to be seasonal variations in cholesterol levels in humans because of the unburned food metabolites the amount of cholesterol is higher in winter.

Cholesterol is required to build and maintain cell membranes; it regulates membrane fluidity over a wider range of temperatures. Cholesterol also aids in the manufacture of bile (which stored in the gallbladder and helps digest fats), and is also important for the metabolism of fat-soluble vitamins, including vitamins A, D, E and K.
Cardiologists suggest that the public need to change its diet. To reduce cholesterol levels by lowering saturated animal fats and increasing polyunsaturated fats. Lowering cholesterol is a good start but it is far from all that is needed.
Common Vitamins and over the counter products can help with High Cholesterol such as Vitamin C, Lecithin, Pectin, Garlic, EPA, Niacin and Phytosterols.
Vitamin C has been shown to combat the development of cholesterol deposits in the arteries. Within a few hours after receiving vitamin C patients showed a sharp decline in the cholesterol levels of the blood.
Lecithin has the potential to protect against fat clogged arteries when take daily.
Pectin limits the amount of cholesterol the body can absorb. High pectin count in apples may be why “One a day keeps the doctor away”.
Garlic counteract the usual result of high fats in the diet and to help reduce high blood pressure.
Studies of the Greenland Eskimos lack of heart attacks have show that Eico-Sapentaenoic Acid (EPA) lowers blood cholesterol considerably, even more than polyunsaturated fat does. It also triggers a major drop in triglycerides. Salmon Oil is one of the best known sources of natural EPA.
Niacin is the closest thing available to a perfect treatment that corrects most causes of coronary heart disease. Niacin blocks the release of fatty acids from fat cells. Niacin plays a critical role in energy production, gene expression, and hormone synthesis. You cannot live without it. Niacin also tends to shift LDL particle distribution to larger particle size and improve HDL functioning. The intake of 3 grams Niacin for as little as two weeks can reduce serum cholesterol by 26 percent.
Phytosterols is found in flax seed and peanuts, which are suggested to help lower serum cholesterol.
Always consult your doctor before using this information.
This Article is nutritional in nature and not to be construed as medical advice.

Technorati Tags: Cholesterol, Diseases, Health, High Cholesterol, Nutrition, Supplements, Vitamins

Tags: vegan nutrition by admin
No Comments »

Even if your reasons for turning toward a vegetarian lifestyle are moral, ethical or religious, it is common to miss the taste of meat especially when you first start your walk as a vegetarian. The first rule to enforce is not to feel guilty about that. Just loving meat doesn’t make you a bad thing. After all, most of us are raised eating pork, chicken, beef and other meats and if our parents did not have scruples about meat consumption, you have that as part of your upbringing.
The good news is there are lots of substitutes for meat and wonderful recipes you can use so you can eliminate meat from your diet and not feel like you are “going without”. The added benefit is that vegetarian eating is much healthier for your body than a diet where meat is a common ingredient. Meat carries such a higher incidence of calories and fats that are harder for your body to digest and assimilate that you are doing your body a big favor switching to a meatless lifestyle.
One way to still enjoy some of the aspects of meat but eliminate the actual animal part is to go with meat substitutes in traditional meat meals. Many restaurants serve veggie burgers where you get the good taste and familiar meal that we all like about hamburgers but you are still staying totally vegetarian. By shopping at markets and groceries that are supportive of the vegetarian lifestyle, you can often find other traditional meat meals prepared entirely without actual meat to help you get past missing that source of protein.
A staple of vegetarian diet planning is Tofu. Tofu is made from Soya beans so it is totally natural and a good fit to your vegetarian meal planning. But it is full of proteins and it is a very flexible ingredient for vegetarian recipes because it reflects the flavors of other foods and herbs and it works well in dishes that use sauces so it can almost be mistaken for a meat dish.
As you set about building your library of vegetarian recipes that are designed to take meat out of the equation, you will often find Tofu as one of the ingredients. That is because it works so well in lots of different recipes and responds well to grilling, baking or any other preparation method. Just be sure you take the time to dry your Tofu by putting it on a towel and removing the excess moisture before using it.
If your commitment to vegetarian living also meals the elimination of animal products such as milk and cheese, soy milk has become increasingly popular in the last few years with vegetarians and meat eaters alike because if its health and diet benefits. Not only is it delicious to drink as a beverage, it can replace milk in recipes just as successfully.
To eliminate animal based cheese from your diet, you might try a product called Tofutti. They offer many varieties of vegan chesses including cheddar and mozzarella so you can enjoy that flavor with a clear conscience. You can even find good substitutes for yogurt that is made from tofu or soy milk so you don’t have to cut popular tastes from your diet entirely.
Tofu is such a great meat substitute and an outstanding nutritional source that you can even use it in traditional egg dishes such as quiches, custard, omelets or any other meals that would emphasize an egg taste. If you mix pureed tofu with your recipe, you could virtually serve an egg dish even to a meat lover and they would not be able to tell that you had them eating vegetarian.
As you continue to explore vegetarian cooking, there are a number of other meat replacements that do well in various cooking contexts.Tempah comes from a soy bean that has been fermented. Tempah works well once you braise it in a sauce for about an hour. Once prepared it can be fried in flower and served with a sauce for flavor and be very satisfying.
One of the big projects of making the change to a vegetarian lifestyle is learning ways to substitute healthy alternatives such as we have discussed to take meat and meat products out of your diet. It will take some learning but that learning can be fun as you reinvent cooking and shopping to fit your new passion for vegetarian eating

Technorati Tags: Diet, Earlyplanet, Fitness, Food, Health, Nutrition, Tradeplanets, Vegetarian, Worldadvertisingpages

Tags: vegan nutrition by admin
No Comments »

Because the younger generation is often more in touch with world culture than adults, teenagers are in general more attuned to the environmental movement, to issues involving organic farming and with the reasons for becoming a vegetarian.So as more and more teenagers experiment with vegetarianism, the better informed they are about what it really means to live meat free, the better. Then even if they do not continue their lifestyle as a vegetarian, their experience was an educational one and they will be well informed should be chose to continue as a vegetarian in later life.
For parents of teenagers who wish to explore the vegetarian lifestyle, there are more reasons to celebrate than worry. There are numerous health benefits to developing a vegetarian diet and if their new passion reduces the amount of fast food and junk food they eat, that’s a good thing. You will naturally worry if your teenager is getting enough protein if they forgo the eating of meat. By helping them learn about a well rounded vegan or vegetarian diet, they can derive all of their nutritional needs from natural foods and realize the many benefits of a vegetarian life along the way.
A basic level of knowledge your teen should become educated about early on is the various scales of severity that they can “go for” in their move into a vegetarian lifestyle. Many times a teenager just wants to be able to stake the claim to being a vegetarian. In that case, simply giving up meat may be sufficient. It is possible to design a program like that and still enjoy cheese, eggs, fish and diary and the transition to such a diet is not as extreme.
Another word of caution that your teen may take to heart if they seek adult counsel about trying a vegetarian lifestyle is the difficulty of making the transition. Teenagers are naturally impulsive and extreme so they may just “go vegetarian” in one day so they can go to school and lay claim to the title. But they can still have that reward and plan to ease into a vegetarian discipline and avoid the problems that an extreme change of diet can cause, especially for active teen bodies. For example, even if the new teen vegetarian just excludes meat from one meal, that still counts as starting their path toward a meat free life. And if that is not sufficient for your youngster, just cutting meat out of lunch and dinner may be enough.
One of the biggest concerns that you should help your teen be ware of is their vitamin needs in any new diet program. While a switch to a total vegetable diet will have many positive influences, you should make sure they are getting enough protein and other essential vitamins that they used to get from meat in their diet. Calcium, B12, zinc and iron are all essential vitamins especially to young people that must be found elsewhere if they decide to stop eating meat. You can help your teenager enjoy a successful exploration of the vegetarian lifestyle and not face health risks by just being aware of their vitamin needs and making sure they get those vitamins in pill form until their food replacement program gets them way they need.
It’s a tricky walk to guide a teenager through an interest in a vegetarian life because it is possible that many of the new foods they will have to get used to may not have the right tastes which will tempt them to give up the program. While as a parent you can have an influence over making their home life vegetarian diet a success, you may need to help them understand that their choices are limited when eating out so they are prepared to make the sacrifice for the sake of staying within their vegetarian guidelines.
Even though teenagers are compulsive and extreme, deep down they do not want to get sick or eat the wrong things. It’s a balancing act to allow they to try things like becoming a vegetarian and for us as parents to both do all we can to make it a good experience but also to bring the wisdom they count on their elders for so they can explore the vegetarian lifestyle fully and then walk away form it if they wish and have learned a little bit about vegetarians along the way.

Technorati Tags: Diet, Earlyplanet, Fitness, Food, Health, Nutrition, Tradeplanets, Vegetarian, Worldadvertisingpages

Tags: vegan nutrition by admin
No Comments »

This interview is an excerpt from Kevin Gianni’s Renegade Roundtable, which can be found at http://www.RenegadeRoundtable.com. In this excerpt, Dhrumil Purohit shares on his journey to a raw food lifestyle, including the benefits and the challenges.
Renegade Water Secrets with Dhrumil Purohit, the lead contributory, visionary and creator of welikeitraw.com and giveittomeraw.com.Kevin: Well, let’s get right into it. For those people who have never heard of you, they soon will, and why don’t you just tell us a little bit about how you started into
this and how you got to where you are now.Dhru: Sure. First of all, again, thank you for having me here. And everybody who’s listening in, it’s an honor to be here. The thing that I enjoy the most is connecting with other individuals, and that drives everything that I do. So to connect and build communities, that’s been such an important part of my journey and that’s actually how I got started.
My dietary journey started where at a conference I heard Ingrid Newkirk. She’s the president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. She was talking about milk, blah, blah, blah this, and dairy cows blah, blah, blah, that and at that time my level of consciousness wasn’t hip to maybe the plight of certain animals. But she mentioned something that really hit me, she said, “Blah, blah, blah, if you get rid of milk then you might see your acne go away.” I was in high school at the time, I’m trying to talk to girls, I’m trying to be a more social individual, but even though I had been raised vegetarian, coming from an Indian background, I always dealt with acne. So when she said that I said, “Ok, you know what, she say’s that in about a month’s time you can start to see a major difference, so let me get rid of the dairy in my diet.” So when I got rid of the diary in my diet, naturally people ask you, “What the heck are you doing?” So you have to read up on it and you have to get educated a little bit and that’s when I finally started to understand and make the connection, that even though I was brought up vegetarian I had never really understood fully the connection between food and health.
Then once that started, for a year and a half, as many people there have kind of gotten their start, I was a processed vegan. I was eating soy burgers and tofutti and carbitarian totally all the way. The finally one day at a health food store, in the aisle, I’m shopping for my produce and I see this guy who I’ve seen like a hundred times before shopping at the same organic co-op. And I always noticed that the whites of his eyes are really white, he was a very fit gentleman, he looked fairly young as well.
So I went up to him and I finally said, “Hey bro, what is it that you actually do? What is it that you eat?” And he was like, “Oh, man I’m into raw food.” And I was like, “Raw food, what is that?” And over the next 40 minutes, this gentleman, who’s name is actually Nature Love, kind of over the next 45 minutes gave me a full breakdown of the relationship between food and why raw food matters and how it can improve the health. And from that day, which was the year 2001, that’s when my journey really began. It was on that day.Kevin: Wow, that’s pretty nice. Let’s just get right into it here. What are some of the biggest challenges that you encountered from that day till now that really stand out in you head, that say, “This is what happened, here’s how I dealt with it and here’s how I’m better because of it?”Dhru: Sure, absolutely. Well one of the things that I talk about a lot is the physiological challenges and I noticed that… I’ll give you a specific example, when I first started my journey after meeting Nature, the next day Nature, after I met up with him in the aisle, he came over to my place to show me and my roommate a little bit about raw foods. And when Nature told me that he was 40, and this guy literally, like… there’s photos of him on our website, welikeitraw.com, you can see how fit he is, how young he looks. When he told me he was 40-years-old I totally flipped. I was like, “OK, I’m doing this today.”
So that was the first biggest challenge that I faced, I went 100 percent overnight embarking on raw foods. And what kept me going solid 100 percent for the first 8 months was discipline and excitement. Sheer excitement because I was looking forward to the future. I kept on thinking that in the future this will all be worth it and I’ll be at some place where my health and everything else will click and it won’t be as tough as it is now. And then discipline, which is simply one desire that’s trumping another desire. I had this desire to look fit, to be energetic, to be healthy, and then I also had this desire to eat a donut or eat this, or eat that.
But my desire for being fit and healthy was strongest. But the challenge with discipline is, after a certain time, because discipline comes from a place of desire, discipline will always fail you. At some point in time discipline will always fail you because resisting your desires is… well it’s resisting your desires. It’s still a desire that’s inside of you. So for eight months solid I was going through the physiological challenges of wanting to stick to this thing, I felt good, but I had all these desires inside to try different foods, to eat different things.
And it was right around that point, that after I, at the time I considered it “‘failing.” I failed on my raw food diet by yo-yoing back and forth; I realized that there was a better way, a smarter way, a more intelligent way to approach diet. And, yes there were some very practical things that I did to improve my relationship with food. Having more green smoothies, having some transitional foods, things like that.
But overall I saw that the biggest shift, the thing that benefited me the most, and now I’m seeing that it’s benefiting so many other people as well too, is that to actually ask yourself, “Why am I doing this in the first place? Am I waiting for the future to be better than the present moment? Am I doing this because someday I think things will be better?” It’s all right to have goals, it’s all right to have health goals, it’s all right to build a foundation, but the biggest challenge that I see is that a lot of people have, regardless of whatever dietary regimen they’re trying to follow, if they’re trying to just eat healthier, or exercise more, they are their biggest enemy because of these physiological battles they play with themselves back and forth.
It’s easy to open up a book and know what to do. There are so many nutrition books and websites that are out there that give you great information now, especially with things like Goggle. And you can see what you can do.
The same thing goes with exercise. But when you look at it, it’s not that people have a problem with information they have this physiological battle with identifying themselves with certain goals and living in the future instead of bringing their attention back into the present moment.Kevin: So you said in that first eight months you were living in the future, correct?Dhru: Yeah, I was living in the future. I was just constantly thinking that things will be better, it’ll be easier. I’m eating towards some future goal; I’m eating towards some future goal of being fit in my ideal version of what I had as fitness in my head. And then also along with that I was identifying with something, my ego was identifying with the concept of being 100 percent raw.
Which, I’m sure Kevin, you’ve seen with the excellent work that you do, a lot of people probably write in to you that say they need to be 100 percent raw but they can’t. And that’s just some arbitrary goal. That doesn’t mean that I was actually any healthier, I was just fixated on this concept of being 100 percent raw.
So instead of being 100 percent healthy and just enjoying and having a beautiful relationship with food, I was focused on this arbitrary idea of being 100 percent raw because I thought that it would bring me something that wasn’t something that I had with me right then and there at that moment. I was looking to diet as a way to fulfill me, which is an exact example of people that have really bad challenges with food. They’re looking to food for fulfillment. People that go through, I don’t want to speak personally, because I haven’t gone through this, but from what I’ve read, individuals that suffer through bulimia and other eating disorders, often what they’re looking for in certain ways is that they treat food as a vehicle to fulfillment, to fulfill them even if they don’t want to eat it. They’re rejecting food as a way to fulfillment with something to fulfill themselves with something that isn’t with them right then and there.
I know it starts to become really abstract, but the easiest way to say it is that just take a look at anything that you’re doing in your life right now. And if you’re running off of shear discipline, if you’re running off the hope that someday in the future that you’ll make it, the chances are that you’re going to face so many more struggles along your journey.
As opposed to the flip side is, everybody wants a challenge, everybody is down for a good challenge and the difference between a challenge and a struggle is the added dimension of resistance. When you go through a struggle, when you’re yo-yoing in your diet, when you can’t stick to your exercise plan, when you’re having a hard time doing something that you want to do, that’s a struggle.
And what accompanies a struggle is resistance. You’re resisting something; you’re resisting something that you’re not ready to be at a level that you want to be at. Maybe you need to go slower. Whatever it is that you’re resisting, because you’re resisting it you’re using discipline as a way to kind of mask that, to kind of keep your eyes not focused on the total picture. And then you end up sending yourself back further because you haven’t actually taken baby steps to build a proper foundation in whatever journey you’re trying to make progress in.

Technorati Tags: Health, Nutrition, Raw Food

Tags: vegan nutrition by admin
No Comments »