Archive for February, 2008

Q: Dear GreenSmoothieGirl, what’s a good probiotic/enzyme you recommend?

A: Probiotics and enzymes are two different things.  I like Pharmanex’s probiotic called ProBio because their scientists, whom I know and trust, have isolated a proprietary strain that supports all the others.  I can obtain these at wholesale cost for anyone who writes me, because I have an ID to get the wholesale prices.  If you are eating fermented foods regularly, don’t have digestive problems, and don’t get sick often, I don’t think you necessarily need to take a probiotic.  I also really like Pharmanex digestive enzymes, which have the entire range of necessary enzymes.  My second choice for enzymes would be to get some containing papain from papaya at your health food store. 

The next three days, I’m going to post some Q&A on subjects related to my recipe collection.  These are questions some truth-seeking readers have asked:

Q: ABOUT KEFIR GRAINS: I understand they are “friendly bacteria” that “keep on giving.”  They ferment milk into living organisms right?  Therefore, do they live indefinitely, and can they be “killed” by certain processes (heat, cold)?  Do they rate as probiotics? Can you eat too much? (I can easily drink a quart a day.)  Am I supposed to be washing these grains periodically?

A: Kefir grains look like gelatinous blobs.  They live indefinitely, and multiply, and can date back many years.  (My mother gave me mine, which have grown and multiplied and provided grains to other families, and she said they originally came from Australia many years ago.)  Yes, they ferment milk, preserving it with lactic acid.  Fermentation predigests the milk proteins, making digestion easy and colonizing your gastrointestinal tract with the healthy organisms that keep the bad organisms at bay.  You can kill kefir grains with excessive heat, but I believe you can freeze and thaw them at room temp.

Yes, kefir is very possibly the best probiotic, and unlike with yogurt, you can use raw milk with its enzymes intact.  I don’t know if you can drink too much—a quart, wow!  If your body responds well to it, do it.  But for others reading, you don’t NEED that much; I personally have been putting 2 Tbsp. daily in my hot-pink breakfast smoothie.  Those of you doing 12 Steps to Whole Foods, we will spend the month of August making and using fermented foods.

I wouldn’t worry about drinking too much, although I try to keep animal proteins under 5 percent of my family’s diet (per The China Study).  No, you don’t need to wash the grains.  Just scoop them out and keep them in the fridge until the next time you want to make kefir.

Every semester, I have my Management Communications 320 students do an online writing assignment on a company discussion board.  I give them a case involving discussion of an elementary school’s parent-teacher organization’s proposal for a new hot-lunch menu sponsored by fast-food chains.  This case is based on my own real-life experience with my children’s charter school.  (The students are supposed to be learning about communicating through conflict and diverse opinions in the workplace.)

The various stakeholders in the case have interests in (a) fundraising for the PTO, (b) an easier schedule for busy parents who don’t want to make lunches, and (c) a vociferous minority concerned about the kids’ nutrition. My students (who are bright upperclassmen accepted into a top-tier business school) inevitably write about kids being “hyper” in the classroom and rotting their teeth.  That’s all most of them seem to know about nutrition, I find as I grade dozens and dozens of papers.

An article on Reuters yesterday says U.S. and Canadian researchers studied 425 autopsies in Minnesota over the past 23 years, of young people dying “unnatural” causes (suicide, accidents, etc.).  According to the joint effort by the Mayo Clinic and the University of British Columbia, over 83 percent of them had the beginnings of heart disease!  Just in case that didn’t impact you, let me say again (louder) that OVER 83 PERCENT OF THEM HAD HEART DISEASE.  And over 8 percent of them were in an advanced stage of heart disease, as published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois editorialized on the study: “It was more or less a perfect storm.”  He blames that perfect storm leading to very young people with heart disease on four things: a sedentary lifestyle caused by computers, fast-food chain growth and larger portion sizes, reduced physical education in schools, and increased consumption of high-fructose corn syrup.  “It led to this explosion of obesity,” Olshansky said.

I believe that other factors are at work as well in the “perfect storm.” First, in addition to corn syrup, MSG has become pervasive in the food supply, causing damage to metabolism and overwhelming cravings for more junk food.  Second, as more and more people gain weight, overweight people and junk food everywhere have become the “new normal.”  A size 12-14 is now average (considered “healthy” by many) for women, which is a first in history.

Dr. Philip Mellen is another researcher in Mississippi whose work is published in the same journal.  His team surveyed health and diet statistics of a large federal study and came to similar conclusions as the Mayo Clinic group. “In our study, the youngest age group was the age group with the worse disease,” Mellen said. “This age group will have major problems as they continue to age.”  Mellen states that his research shows the American diet has dramatically deteriorated just in the past 15 years.

Our children’s diet high in refined fats, sugars, and animal products, and low in raw fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and whole grains, are causing problems much more significant than dental decay and hyperactivity.  Researchers in the Minnesota study predict a rise in heart disease as this generation ages.

Start where you can in helping and encouraging a whole-foods, plant-based diet for families and children—your own and anyone else’s you may help and influence.  We shouldn’t have young people with heart disease.

Today was Go to Junior High With Your Child day.  It’s hard to describe the level of enthusiasm Kincade expressed when I told him I was going to spend my birthday with him at his school, but I’ll try: eyes rolling, mouth hanging open, slumping.  “No! Seriously? Mom! You wouldn’t!”

I have developed a rather thick skin from having two teenagers who think I am essentially mentally retarded.  So I went anyway, assuming that it’s Kincade’s job at this age to act embarrassed of me while secretly adoring me.  As I sat at a lunch table with about 12 8th-grade boys, I discovered the reason there were shockingly few other parents hanging out: most parents were apparently more influenced than I by their children’s lack of enthusiasm about Parents’ Day.

Anyway, I got to experience first-hand how the kids tease my son about the big bag of veggies he eats (along with several sandwiches, which crack them up even more).  And in addition to the flashback opportunity to hear 30 beginning trumpet players butcher “Greensleeves,” one at a time, I also got to experience . . . school lunch.  Pizza, chocolate milk, canned fruit, cookies—but they did have a salad (that had a couple of pieces of spinach in it), and a baggie of broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower, so it was cool.

It could be worse, I guess.  My kids asked what I was going to do tonight for my birthday, and I said, “I think we’re going out for all-you-can-eat crab.’”  (I know, it’s not my usual thing, because I’m all about plant food—but it’s once a year, and what can I say—I grew up near the Chesapeake Bay!)  My kids stared at me in astonishment, as if to say, “Who are you, and what have you done with our mother?”

I found out later they thought I’d said I was going to spend my birthday with “all-you-can-eat crap.”  They were having a hard time bending their minds around the image of me pounding the Ding Dongs, Twinkies, soda, and potato chips from breakfast till bedtime.

But it’s a good day.  Maybe even great.  Even though I took it upon myself to ask a group of 9th grade cheerleaders if any of them “like” Kincade’s friend Jantzen, Kincade kept putting his arm through mine and laying his head on my shoulder and introducing me to his “peeps.”  Doesn’t get any better than that.

I have a cold.  And I’m happy about it.  Lest you think I’m sick in more ways than one, let me explain.

Many experts say you need to get a cold now and then (once or twice a year), so you don’t need to think of getting a cold as a failure of your immune system.  It’s your body’s way of flushing itself out, ridding itself of toxins.  You produce a lot of clear mucous that is a natural, very effective way to cleanse.  The problem is when that mucous becomes yellow or green, and thick–a sign of a highly acidic host for lingering (worse) infections.

I hadn’t been sick in at least 18 months, so I was due.  I’ve tried various natural cold remedies to work with my body’s immune system, and these are my faves (in addition to drinking lots of water):

1.  Zicam–a homeopathic gel using zinc that you spray or swab in your nose–it has worked every time I’ve used it, making a cold less severe and shorter in duration.  Get it from any pharmacy and use it immediately when you notice symptoms starting.  Since the cold hit last night, I’m grading papers today and did an hour on the Stairmaster at the gym, even though I feel a little run down and might take a nap later.

2.  Colloidal silver–sure, the FDA doesn’t endorse it.  (The FDA doesn’t test or endorse much of anything that isn’t a drug.)  Keep in mind that the guy with blue skin (argyria) currently getting attention from Mercola, People Magazine, etc., drank home-brewed, strong silver by the glassful, every single day for 14 years.  (More isn’t always better.  He still swears by silver and uses it, BTW.)  I find it to be very effective–just a spoonful, a few times a day, for a few days when you’re feeling ill.  Get a controlled concentration at the health food store–15 ppm is good.

3.  Vitamin C, garlic, and goldenseal (an herb) are other things I’ve found to be effective.  Other things I’ve tried I haven’t seen results, but the things I’m suggesting work with (not against) your immune system.  With goldenseal, take it for no more than two weeks at a time when you have any kind of infection.  It’s a natural antibiotic and kills viruses as well as bacterial infections.  I have had excellent results with it.

Use these things, and you may feel for the first time that you have effective natural cold remedies and can avoid the risks and side effects of pharmaceuticals.  Here’s hoping you sail through YOUR next cold!

I’ve had three people email me the past week to ask why you’d blend smoothies, rather than juice your fruits and vegetables.  So here’s why, for anyone else wondering.

First, on a practical level, if you’ve ever operated a juicer, you know what a mess the cleanup is.  Even those of us quite dedicated to our family’s health usually throw in the towel after a while.  Most of us “health fanatics” (myself included) have a Champion juicer collecting dust on the shelf.  It does come in handy for making almond butter, though.

Second, while juicing got us lots of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals, a glass of carrot juice is still the sugar of 6-8 carrots . . . but without all the great insoluble fiber that slows down that sugar’s impact on the bloodstream.  (Studies show that even high-sugar fruits don’t lead to diabetes or blood sugar imbalances, largely because of the fiber and other elements in the whole food.)  With juicing, you’re throwing away all that fiber that your body needs for absorbing toxins, moving food and waste through the digestive system, improving peristalsis, preventing colon cancer, and more.

With blended green smoothies, you’re eating ALL the fiber that the old method of juicing threw away—and your food is broken down, partly predigested.  That’s why I call juicing “so 80′s.”  Drinking vegetable juice is great.  It helped my grandmother eliminate her deadly cancer—after all, they didn’t have BlendTecs back then.  (She also turned orange from consuming so much beta carotene!)  But the turbo blender we can have in our kitchen now is a HUGE improvement in getting raw, whole plant foods in our diet.  Check out my “best blender” page for six reasons why I like BlendTec even better than its main competitor, VitaMix.