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Friday, 13 September 2013
Raw or Cooked Food
The article below is by John Douillard and discusses raw and cooked food in relation to our biological development. A great read, here is the link for his website http://lifespa.com/the-raw-and-the-cooked/#.Ui-23eDrZFI
In Michael Pollan’s new book, Cooked, he makes the case that Homo sapiens(that’s us) are here because we learned how to cook.
About 2 million years ago, with the emergence of our predecessor Homo erectus, there was a change in the size of the brains and guts in the Homo genus. Homo erectus had a smaller jaw and gut and a bigger brain compared to their mostly plant-eating ancestors.
To survive, our plant-eating ancestors—much like today’s gorillas—had to eat about half their body weight in plants each day, leaving little time for anything other than chewing.
According to Pollan, Homo erectus with their bigger brain and smaller gut figured out how to use fire to cook, allowing them to digest more nutrient-dense cooked foods quicker, leaving more time to use that bigger brain. Food was now being cooked over a fire rather than in the digestive tract, making a more moderate-sized gut plausible.
Cooking hearths dating back 1 million years BC have recently been found in Africa.
Raw foodists, Pollan claims, have difficulty keeping weight on. He goes on to cite one study that recorded menstruation cycles of women on a raw food diet, and found that half of them had stopped menstruating.
The main premise here is that we have evolved away from eating a solely raw food diet, and without blenders and juicers we would have a difficult time getting the nutrients we need.
Ayurveda, which is perhaps the oldest system of medicine still practiced today, also suggests a diet of mostly cooked foods. The cooked foods recommended are always fresh, unprocessed, and slowly cooked over a low flame.
It should be noted that in the warmer climates south of India, more raw foods and fruits are consumed as the warm sun ripens the fresh, growing food “on the vine,” making it much easier to digest. At the same time, the traditional diets of the north almost always include more cooked foods.
To be clear, neither Pollan’s book nor I suggest a diet of just cooked foods. As I discussed in my book, The 3-Season Diet, I find it hard to ignore nature’s harvest cycles and the natural shift from more cooked foods in the winter to a more raw food diet in the spring and summer, when more fresh, “cooked on the vine” produce is available.
Monday, 24 June 2013
Printing Kidneys? Printing onto humans!?
Check out this Ted talk for more information.. this is crazy/remarkable!!
1 Minute Muffin
I also hate wasting things so I used the left over almond pulp from my homemade almond milk (in previous post) to make a healthy banana coconut muffin!
Ingredients:
- 1/4 cup almond meal or the pulp if you've made the almond milk
- 1 egg
- 1/2 banana
- 1-2 tablespoons desiccated coconut
- 1 tbs vanilla essence
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
-1/2 tsp baking powder
- drizzle olive oil
- drizzle maple syrup
Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and put in the microwave for 1 minute, top with cinnamon, a bit of maple syrup and fresh banana.
This recipe is quite versatile so try it with berries, dates, nuts, cacao, chia seeds, gogi berries.. :)
DIY Almond Milk
I made my own almond milk today and it was so easy and delicious! This is a great option for those of you that are lactose intolerant and it doesn't have any other additives that a lot of the commercial almond milks have.
1. Soak 2 cups of unsalted almonds in purified water overnight
2. Drain the almonds and place in a blender with 4 cups of purified water
3. Blend on high for about a minute, until its quite fluffy
4. Drain liquid with a nut milk bag (from health food shop) into a bowl by squeezing the nut bag. This is the vegan version of milking a cow, you'll see what I'm talking about when you give it a go.
Enjoy your homemade milk! It should last up to 3 days.
Ps if you want to be really cool, you can add vanilla essence, cinnamon or a sweetner of your choice (raw honey, organic maple syrup, stevia).
1. Soak 2 cups of unsalted almonds in purified water overnight
2. Drain the almonds and place in a blender with 4 cups of purified water
3. Blend on high for about a minute, until its quite fluffy
4. Drain liquid with a nut milk bag (from health food shop) into a bowl by squeezing the nut bag. This is the vegan version of milking a cow, you'll see what I'm talking about when you give it a go.
Enjoy your homemade milk! It should last up to 3 days.
Ps if you want to be really cool, you can add vanilla essence, cinnamon or a sweetner of your choice (raw honey, organic maple syrup, stevia).
Qi Organic Green Tea Detox
In love with this tea! It puts a little twist on the pure green tea by including many detoxing herbs such as dandelion root, milk thistle, peppermint leaf, licorice, ginger and fennel seeds. Don't let these (lovely) herbs turn you off, you can't even taste them! The tea includes natural lemon and orange so it has a refreshing citrus flavour. You can even get it from commercial supermarkets.
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