What Do YOU Desire?

With it being Valentine’s Day and all, I figured it is a good time to contemplate desire. This video will impact your life, no matter what you do!

I am so fortunate to be following a career path which I am passionate about. Are you doing what your heart desires?

Food Industry EXPOSED!

If you care about your health, you should watch this!

Quote of the Day: Emerson

Is your health your FIRST priority?

Demand to know what’s in your FOOD!

“FOOD”

Here’s a little sarcasm to jump start your day 🙂

Get Your “Sunshine” On!

New research suggests that more than 70% of Americans are Vitamin D deficient. It’s a Pandemic! Receiving adequate sun exposure prompts our bodies to make Vitamin D which is why it’s known as the “Sunshine Vitamin.” But at this time of year and with skin cancer on the rise, taking a supplement form of the vitamin is imperative!

Many of us may be deficient in Vitamin D and not even know it!

The reason for  this deficiency is clear enough.  While our ancient ancestors spent a large amount of time in the sun doing their hunting and gathering thing, then farming, nowadays most of us (who am I kidding, practically ALL of us)  live and work indoors (gotta love those 9:00-5:00’s), and thus receive comparatively insufficient amounts of sunlight. This is notably true at this time of year when good sunlight is minimal!  Factors such as aging, dark skin, and obesity also lower one’s  Vitamin D levels even more than the average person.

According to new studies, Vitamin D deficiencies are progressively blamed for everything from cancer and heart disease to diabetes and depression. Another reason it’s called the sunshine vitamin…it makes us happy! 🙂  Not only is Vitamin D vital for building and maintaining strong bones through calcium absorption, but it has also been proven to counteract autoimmune diseases, chronic diseases,the flu, and mood disorders,etc…

Getting enough Vitamin D in your diet is rare as food sources are minimal. The main dietary sources are fish, egg yolks, cheese, and beef liver. Therefore taking Vitamin D supplements are extremely important. Vitamin D3 is the optimal form of the vitamin to take.

A daily dose of 2,000-5,000 I.U of Vitamin D3 is now recommended as an ideal target dose. It is very important to buy superior brands of vitamins, as many of them on the market are not properly absorbed in our bodies. I love a good bargain and buy my D3 from this website:    Get your D3 50% OFF!

Once I started taking Vitamin D3 supplements, I felt energized and renewed!

Start taking Vitamin D3 supplements and you’ll be WALKING ON SUNSHINE (and don’t it feel good…hey!)

Are you POURING on the Pounds?

According to a recent study, drinking just ONE regular soda a day equals FIFTY POUNDS of sugar in a year, leading to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease! If you’re a soda drinker, try swapping it for water and watch some pounds fall off!

DIET drinks are NOT any better…they contain ASPARTAME which acts as a neurotoxin and is linked to CANCER.  Studies have found diet sodas to cause migraines and increase risk of obesity and heart disease.

Go KRAZY for KALE

Up until about a year ago I didn’t even really know what kale is and now I strive to incorporate it into my lifestyle on a daily basis.  I just cannot get enough of the leaf! I juice it, add it to my green smoothies, create salads with it, and even make delicious kale chips! The benefits of kale are HUGE so make an effort to eat it as much as you can! Does anyone have any awesome kale recipes they would like to share?

Here’s a quick and easy Kale chip recipe: All you have to do is place kale leaves on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil, spray with olive oil and top with sea salt and fresh ground pepper.  Cook at 375 degrees for about 10-15 minutes or until they are brown on the edges (you want them crispy but not burnt).  Also try spicing them up by seasoning with some cayenne pepper.

Make your own Natural Pesticide for your Garden/Plants

No one wants their freshly planted garden ruined by some annoying bugs like these. Do not fret because you can make your own natural pesticide in a matter of minutes and at minimal cost!

What you need:

1 spray bottle

Water

5 garlic cloves, roughly chopped

1 Tbs. chili powder

1 1/2 Tbs biodegradable dish soap (such as Murphy’s oil soap)

Combine all ingredients into spray bottle and fill with water. Allow to sit overnight then strain out liquid portion to discard garlic and chili powder chunks.

And “Ta-Da”  It’s that simple, you have yourself an Organic pesticide to use on your garden to keep those pesty bugs away!

**I would recommend using any natural pesticide sparingly as it kills off beneficial bugs as well. Try and use it only when needed by treating infected plants!

Eat your Greens, Change your Genes.

**(Check out this article from ScienceDaily…just one more reason to drink your green juices and smoothies!)

ScienceDaily  — A long-held mantra suggests that you can’t change your family, the genes they pass on, or the effect of these genes. Now, an international team of scientists, led by researchers at McMaster and McGill universities, is attacking that belief.

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The researchers discovered the gene that is the strongest marker for heart disease can actually be modified by generous amounts of fruit and raw vegetables. The results of their study are published in the current issue of the journal PLoS Medicine.

“We know that 9p21 genetic variants increase the risk of heart disease for those that carry it,” said Dr. Jamie Engert, joint principal investigator of the study, who is a researcher in cardiovascular diseases at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) and associate member in the Department of Human Genetics at McGill University. “But it was a surprise to find that a healthy diet could significantly weaken its effect.”

The research, which represents one of the largest gene-diet interaction studies ever conducted on cardiovascular disease, involved the analysis of more than 27,000 individuals from five ethnicities — European, South Asian, Chinese, Latin American and Arab — and the effect that their diets had on the effect of the 9p21 gene. The results suggest that individuals with the high risk genotype who consumed a prudent diet, composed mainly of raw vegetables, fruits and berries, had a similar risk of heart attack to those with the low risk genotype.

“We observed that the effect of a high-risk genotype can be mitigated by consuming a diet high in fruits and vegetables,” said Sonia Anand, joint principal investigator of the study, and a researcher at the Population Health Research Institute and a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University. “Our results support the public health recommendation to consume more than five servings of fruits or vegetables as a way to promote good health.”

“Our research suggests there may be an important interplay between genes and diet in cardiovascular disease,” says the study’s lead author Dr. Ron Do, who conducted this research as part of his PhD at McGill and is now based at the Center for Human Genetics Research at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. “Future research is necessary to understand the mechanism of this interaction, which will shed light on the underlying metabolic processes that the 9p21 gene is involved in.”