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Low Carb Foods List-10 Choices for an All Natural Low Carb Diet

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:28:13 +0000

Searching for all natural, low carb diet foods is like searching for fresh air in Los Angeles. Many of the products available are not natural, but fake, chemically enhanced versions of foods we already like. This is a good list of low carb foods to refresh your memory about some all natural choices you may have forgotten about. Anyone can experience better overall health and fitness with the complex carbohydrates in these all natural foods, whether on a low carbohydrate diet or not.

1. Lettuce, spinach and other leafy greens are first on our low carb foods list because they offer some of the highest quality nutrition for a more natural low carb diet. About a cup and a half of these fiber rich foods deliver only 3 grams of carbohydrates, and those are good carbs, complex carbohydrates. Red or green cabbage adds about 5 grams to a low carb diet, but also offers healthy fiber.

2. Tomatoes are pleasantly low in carbohydrates and can be enjoyed raw or cooked. For example, 1 medium size vine ripe tomato includes 7 grams of carbohydrates. Now, that may alarm some of the fanatical low carb diet food tabulators, but think about this, how many times do you eat a whole tomato in a serving? Most of the time when you eat tomatoes, you are only getting about 3 or 4 grams of carbs, and again, those are complex carbohydrates, so you have to keep it in perspective. Also, It has been reported that a man’s prostate health will benefit from stewed tomatoes.

3. Carrots pack so much nutrition in so few calories that you have to include them in any low carb food list. 1 medium, raw carrot about 7″ long yields 8 grams of carbohydrates. If you are only eating part of the carrot, subtract accordingly for your low carb diet. Of course, carrot juice is an excellent health drink, offering fiber and essential vitamins and minerals.

4. Broccoli is a super healthy member of our natural, low carb food list. This is one fantastic, all natural, low carb food that Mother Nature intends for you to eat all the time, even if you are on a low carb diet. 1 whole medium stalk of broccoli serves up only 8 grams of very high quality, complex carbs from a whole food source. Add to that the benefits of a high fiber food with all the other nutrients in broccoli and you have a winner.

5. Green beans are the among the lowest of the low carb foods in the bean category. While black beans, red bean, Garbanzo beans, and lima beans pack almost 30 grams of carbohydrates into a serving, green beans weigh in at only 5 grams of carbs per 3/4 cup serving. So, keep your beans green to be a lean, mean, low carb diet machine.

6. Green peas, snow peas, and sugar snap peas are relatively low in carbs for natural foods with so much flavor. You may enjoy a half-cup of green peas, a full cup of snow peas or a cup of steamed sugar snap peas and stay in your l0ow carb diet limits with only about 10 grams of carbohydrates per serving, plus fiber, which is also important.

7. Cucumbers are ideal low carb foods for salads and sandwiches because they are easy to clean, cut, and eat. One-third of a medium size cucumber includes only about 3 grams of carbs.

8. Bean Sprouts are perfect for salads and in Chinese food. Even a low carb diet will allow you to gobble up a full cup of bean sprouts with only 6 grams of carbs and again, some useful fiber.

9. Celery is great for the fiber, the nutrients, and the benefits it offers for cleansing bad breath. Also, celery is a natural, low carb food with only 3 grams of carbohydrates in 2 medium stalks.

10. For our final entry on this all natural low carb food list you have to change your thinking about nutrition and the way you approach a low carb diet. Modern technology has made it possible for you to consume natural, low carb diet foods and health drinks.health drinks that are concentrated with nutrients from Mother Nature and pre packaged for easy, convenient use. These innovative formulas are perfect for a low carb diet and made entirely from food grade herbs, not medicinal herbs, so they are very safe. You will not find these all-natural low carb foods or health drinks at the grocery store or your local health food store, but they are available from cyberspace right to your door, thanks to the Internet.

So, the thing to remember from this low carb food list is to stay closer to nature. If you can avoid the low carb, junk food aisle you will be that much closer to perfect health and fitness. A low carb diet does not mean you should eat nothing but protein and pre-packaged foods. Get whole foods with complex carbohydrates, natural antioxidants, fiber and plenty of nutrition from Mother Nature.

Gaining Better Health Through A Raw Food Diet

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:29:46 +0000

Chances are that you’ve probably heard people talk about a raw food diet and how healthy it is for you, but did you ever wonder exactly what it is they’re talking about? Perhaps you envisioned raw oysters and beef on your dinner table. That doesn’t sound too appealing doesn’t?
In fact, a raw food diet is simply eating food in its natural unprocessed state. You probably already are on part of a raw food diet. If you snack on fruits and vegetables without cooking them, then you’ve eaten raw food.
Raw food, or unprocessed food is much better for you because the act of processing the food strips it of a lot of its vital nutrients. You’ve probably heard that cooking vegetables can leach out a lot of the vitamins and it can also destroy the important food enzymes as well. Packaged foods, that you find in the grocery store like potato flakes to make mashed potatoes and other foods that have been processed in some way to make an easy package meal not only have little nutritional value, but your body simply isn’t made to process these foods.
If you think about raw foods as being the natural foods the way that they come from the earth, then it makes sense that these are easier for our bodies to process as these of the foods are great ancestors ate and there really hasn’t been that many generations since grocery stores, and therefore prepackaged foods, were invented.
Raw foods are packed full of vitamins, minerals and food enzymes. These food enzymes are important, although you don’t hear a lot about them. One of the things they do is help you digest your food and getting enough enzymes can help your body with the digestion process which takes a lot of energy, and if your body is spending less energy on digestion it will have more energy for you to do the things you like. Did you ever wonder why you feel so tired after you eat a big meal of cooked foods? One of the reasons is because food enzymes are destroyed by cooking, so there are no enzymes to help your body digests that big meal you just ate.
People in a raw food diet eat about 75% of their food as raw and whole foods. This includes fruits, vegetables, sprouts, raw nuts, seaweed and other foods in their natural form.
Raw foods can be prepared in a couple of ways. One of the most popular is juicing. Many people go on a juice fast where all they do is drink the juice of raw organic fruits and vegetables. Even just drinking fresh juice in the morning can give your health a boost.
Another way that people eat raw foods is to use a food dehydrator. This takes all the moisture out of the fruits and vegetables so they can be easily stored for long periods of time without going bad. A food dehydrator uses hot air to dehydrate the food but it keeps the temperature under 116°F so that the vital food enzymes are not destroyed.
Of course, you can simply eat your fruits and vegetables the way nature intended picked straight from the tree. Nuts can be a great raw food that you eat for snacks as well, but be careful because most of the nuts you find in the grocery store are cooked. You need to make sure you get raw nuts which you probably will have to buy either online or from a health food store.
You don’t have to all of a sudden start eating 75% of your foods as raw foods in order to enjoy the health benefits of the raw food diet. You can gradually increase the amount of raw foods you eat as time goes on and you will notice how much more energy you have and how healthy you feel. Remember, you are what you eat!

Do Grains, Breads, And Cereals Have a Place in the Natural Human Diet

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:44:06 +0000

Unfortunately, humans have been so far removed from their natural environment and living conditions for such a long time, that most people have a hard time determining what the natural human diet would include.
We know that humans can survive on all kinds of different foods, but the valuable thing to consider is to what degree are humans surviving and with what quality of life? The rates of cancer, heart disease, arthritis and blood sugar disease are clear indicators that something has gone awry where human nutrition is considered. The Kleenex box has become a standard household item, but it doesn’t mean it’s supposed to be this way.
Taking a stroll through the local “natural health food” store doesn’t bring us much closer to understanding either, because you’ll quickly realize that the majority of the foods are no different than the kinds of things you find in your average grocery store. They’ve just come up with more “wholesome” or “organic” versions of standard fare, but the aisles are as littered with packaged foods as any supermarket.
An astounding proportion of the foods that pack these shelves are breads, crackers, cereals, granola bars and other grain products. But do these foods have a place in the natural human diet?
Whether we’re talking about grains or any other element of the human diet, it serves us to ask these three very important questions to determine whether a food is “natural” for human consumption.
1. Does it make sense?
2. Is it enjoyable in its natural state?
3. Does it bring positive results when we apply it as a diet?
Put yourself in a field of wheat and just try and make a meal out of what you find around you. Chances are you’ve never actually seen wheat in its unrefined state, but unless you’ve got a gizzard, it’s going to be an awfully hard thing to eat! It would take you hours to produce a handful of grains, and then once you had them, what would you do with them? They’re not naturally very tasty. Nor would you, surrounded by wheat plants, be naturally drawn to chomping on the stalks and spitting out the hulls.
Grains in their natural state are completely indigestible to humans, and while we have managed to do all manner of magnificent works of art with grains, it doesn’t make it any more naturally a part of the human diet.
1. Does it make sense? No!
2. Is it enjoyable in its natural state?
Well, if the above mentioned chewing on stalks got you salivating, then you may be in luck. For the rest of us however, chances are good that grains and cereals in their natural state leave MUCH to be desired.
Even when grains have been stripped of the hulls and stalks we find them with in nature, most grain meals are drenched in salted and spiced sauces to make them more palatable.
So again, a resounding “No!” to question number two!
Which brings us to question number three:
3. Does it bring positive results when we apply it as a diet?
“Grain Damage”, by Dr. Doug Graham, is a helpful booklet on the subject of grains and the human diet. In it, he identifies over 12 chemicals in grains that behave similar to opiates in the human body. These chemicals are undoubtedly the cause for the very addictive quality of breads and cereals. Further proof lies in the fact that many people experience relief from chronic irritability and mood “disorders” when grains and breads are eliminated from the diet.
Could it be worse?
Well, YES!
Phytic acid is found in grains and is known to bind with existing calcium in the body during the digestive process. It does this as a means of reducing the acidity that is caused by consuming grains in the body. To what degree the consumption of grains can contribute to conditions like osteoporosis would be very hard to determine because of the fact that there have never been any long term nutritional studies that have eliminated grains and cereals as a variable.
We know that they’re not particularly high in nutritional value, being very low in Vitamins A, B and C. They are a solid source of carbohydrate, and we need carbohydrates, but we can get them in sufficient quantity and much greater quality in fresh, ripe fruits!
Though we’ve been taught that whole grains are a great source of fiber, the fact is that the fiber found in grains is very irritating to the intestines. Many sufferers of Irritable Bowel Syndrome know this intimately, and the prevalence of grain consumption in our society is likely one of the major contributing causes of IBS.
Many children who suffer from concentration difficulties and irritability have experienced tremendous relief by eliminating these foods from their diet. Tonya Kay is a perfect example of someone who suffered with severe forms of “bipolar disorder” for 7 years and simply by switching to a raw food diet completely “cured” herself of the need to continue consuming toxic medications.
Are Sprouted Grains Any Better?
Well, as far as I’m concerned, NO! First of all, I could never imagine myself foraging for sprouted grains to make my daily meals.
While some people claim that the release of enzymes and digestion of natural sugars and vitamins makes grains more digestible, I don’t believe it makes them any more naturally adapted to the human diet.
We see the effects that these foods can have on people with eating disorders, emotional instability and obesity. I don’t believe it serves us to keep them in the diet. In fact, I believe it’s one of the very first things that should be eliminated from the diet of a person who wishes to improve their health, energy and general mood and outlook on life.
“What?! No Breads, Cereals or Pasta!!! What Am I Going To DO?!!”
Naturally, for people who are used to eating cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch and pasta for supper, the idea of eliminating grains from the diet can seem nearly impossible and definitely a bit frightening!
Relax. No ones going to make you give up your noodles until you’re ready. But in the meantime, here is a valuable Step-By-Step approach to helping you made that happen:
A Step-by-Step Approach To Eliminating Grains from Your Diet
In order to start yourself on a progressive gradient of eliminating these foods from your diet, consider the following steps.
1. Start by eliminating the glutinous grains.
If you’re not ready to make the jump to a full fledged raw food diet that is high in fresh, ripe fruits and vegetables, then at least start to move toward the grains that do not contain gluten. Because of the prevalence of gluten-intolerance in our society now (Celiac’s Disease) it is quite easy to find rice pasta in most food stores.
Gluten contains a chemical that behaves much like morphine, and frankly PMS will become a mysterious thing of the past when you get these nasty little niblets out of your diet for once and for all!
Eliminating glutinous grains from the diet does wonders for that “little rounded belly” most women tend to develop after a while. That lump of indigestible guck in the intestines virtually disappears after 3 days of eliminating grains and cereals from the diet!
2. Eat more sweet potatoes, and cooked starchy vegetables.
Fall in love with different kinds of starchy vegetables that have far fewer negative consequences to their consumption. The chances of finding a finding some potatoes in nature and sparking up a primitive fire are not impossible for me to imagine. While it’s certainly not as easy, practical or nearly as tasty as plucking a fresh mango from a tree and losing myself in its sweetness, I can still imagine the possibility. Cauliflower and celery root make wonderfully creamy soups (without the cream, of course)!
So if you’re not quite ready to eliminate cooked foods and go for the juicy trail of fruits and veggies, well, at least get off the grain train by transitioning yourself to more cooked, starchy vegetables.
3. Continue to increase the quantity of fresh fruits and veg in your diet.
It’s not hard to substitute a breakfast of cereal or toast for a fruit smoothie packed with bananas. Instead of pasta at supper, go for a baked potato with a BIG salad! Continue with this gradient and you will immediately start to experience the benefits of a diet that is higher in fresh fruits and veg. That little bread belly will disappear, your moods will stabilize and you’ll just start feeling better and better all the time!
Who knows, before long you’ll be signing yourself up for the 30 Day Body Enlightenment System and declaring yourself a Raw Foodist for LIFE!

Buying Health Drinks is Not Always That Healthy, Especially When Choosing an Alkaline Food Diet

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:57:00 +0000

Look at the ingredients in most commercially advertised sport drinks and vitamin waters, and you will quickly see they are far from being health drinks. If you are trying to stick to a diet high in alkaline foods, then these drinks are even more detrimental to your health.
Here are a few things to avoid the next time you are shopping for health drinks, especially for those on an alkaline food diet.
· High Fructose Corn Syrup – This is concentrated sugar that contributes to weight gain and abnormal blood sugar levels, which can also lead to diabetes. Excess sugars have no place in health drinks, and you certainly won’t find processed sugar in any alkaline foods.
· Phosphoric Acid is just what it says it is – acid. It is often defined as, “A clear colorless liquid used in fertilizers, detergents, pharmaceuticals and food flavoring, irritating to the skin and eyes and moderately toxic if ingested.” When your diet is supposed to be 80% alkaline foods and only 20% acid forming foods for proper pH balance, this really puts you upside down quickly.
· Artificial Flavors – Some experts call them, “Excito-toxins!” When artificial flavorings are in health drinks, they begin to resemble soft drinks and candy. These artificial substances interfere with your pH balance and force you to consume more alkaline foods to neutralize the acid from the toxins in your blood.
· Artificial Sweeteners – These are so unnecessary in health drinks today. In addition to the acid forming properties of artificial sweeteners, nutritionists express concerns about their effects on the human body. Many consumers now believe that artificial sweeteners may play a factor in diseases of the brain, such as Alzheimer’s. That is one reason why corporations such as Pepsico and Coca Cola are beginning to market health drinks and other products containing Stevia, an all natural sweetener that is actually beneficial. You can learn more about Stevia Sweetener and discover alkaline foods for pH balance by taking the Alkaline Food Test at BestHealthFoodStore.net.
· Isolated Vitamins – When isolated, processed, heated, liquefied and bottled, vitamins and minerals break down before your body can use them. You need vitamins and minerals from whole foods, not from so called health drinks that are really bottled, heated, highly processed waters with colorful dyes and artifical ingredients.
Someone showed me a well-known sport drink the other day and I couldn’t believe the ingredients! This tropical mango flavored health drink didn’t mention mango anywhere in the ingredients, but let’s take a look at what it did list, along with some things to think about when choosing health drinks:
· Sucrose Syrup (this is sugar)
· High Fructose Corn Syrup (more sugar) – A total of 56 gms of sugar
· Phosphoric Acid (the opposite of alkaline foods)
· Glycerol ester of wood rosin (acid forming)
· Modified Food Starch (how was it modified?)
· Natural and Artificial Flavors (your guess is as good as mine)
· Yellow 6, Yellow 5 and Red 40 (artificial dyes)
Another bottle of this not so healthy drink says “Specially Formulated for Tiger Woods” with the same ingredients, but blue dye instead of yellow. I guess that secret blue stuff is what makes Tiger play so well. In fact, experts could argue that Tiger’s recent knee problems are because of too many acid forming foods and not enough alkaline foods in his diet. Many medical and health specialists now believe that an acid/alkaline imbalance can contribute to weak bones and damaged joints.
When shopping for a good health drink, here are some important considerations to keep in mind.
· Is it liquefied, pasteurized or otherwise heated in the bottling process? If so then the enzymes have been destroyed and the nutrients will not easily be absorbed by the body.
· Does it give you chlorophyll from plants to help your cells absorb more oxygen?
· Does it provide natural antioxidants to destroy free radicals? Natural antioxidants are essential for anti-aging.
· Is it made with whole food ingredients like real fruit or other alkaline foods?
Now, let’s take a different look at health drinks on the market today that are not advertised with flashy TV ads or filled with colorful dyes: Here are some of the characteristics of these truly healthy drinks:
· Not liquefied or bottled, but in powder form
· Processed at low temperatures
· Contain live enzymes from whole alkaline foods and chlorophyll from plants
· Complex structures of the whole food ingredients are fully intact
· Loaded with natural antioxidants to combat free radicals
If you buy your health drinks in a convenience store, a grocery store, or in the health food store at the mall, then you are falling short of a truly beneficial alkaline food diet. You will find far better choices online by Googling all natural health drinks.

Natural Diet Pills

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:35:42 +0000

The diet pills associated with appetite suppression deliver nutrients designed to quell your desire for food. The obvious benefit of this being, the less you consume the less you will gain, affording you the opportunity for weight loss.When you have the basics right. You see, most diet pills will contain natural antioxidants or diuretics that will help cleanse your system of waste products and toxins. Research shows that these are the things that usually slows down our rate of fat loss, however riding these toxins will not get rid of the fat, and that’s where you have to focus on the basics, you guessed it…diet and exercise.One natural appetite suppressant to consider is Hoodia Gordonii. And if you’re thinking Hoodia diet pills, think again. You’ll find Hoodia in all kind of products today. You’ll find it in tea, coffee, syrup, protein powder shakes, fruit and protein bars, sprays, and now yogurt!Depending on their mode of action, modern diet pills work by suppressing appetite, accelerating the body metabolism and interfering with the absorption of certain nutrients in consumed food. Many diet pills prevent the absorption of fat into the body. If the patient habitually consumes foods with excessive fat levels, such diet pills are certainly useful. However, they work by short-circuiting the body tendency to store fat in its tissues. This is an important metabolic function that can be disrupted safely only for limited periods. Therefore, using diet pills is not a long-term weight loss option.If you’ve done any research on diet pills you’ve heard of Hoodia, or specifically Hoodia Gordonii. Another strong appetite suppressant is Caralluma Fimbriata. Both of these natural supplements are known as famine foods. For centuries they have been used by tribal hunters to stave off hunger before going on a long hunting trip. Recently researchers discovered these plants and they have become widely used to curb our appetites.Clenbuterol is the name of the drug that the size zero diet pill employs to create rapid weight loss. It is manufactured as a medicine to combat asthma in horses but bodybuilders found that it caused them to lose fat whilst putting on muscle and so it caught the attention of the celebrity crowd in Hollywood who are always on the look out for the next big thing in weight loss.Our bodies are masterpieces and will usually let you know when something is wrong! In the case of male impotence, you are not getting enough circulation to the member downstairs and most likely the rest of your body. Fortunately, you can cure this problem with a simple impotence remedy that pumps circulation downstairs through effective natural health body tips.Diet pills are only diet aids. They are made to supplement or help your efforts to lose weight. Truly the only way to lose weight, and keep it off is to adopt a healthy diet and include exercise as part of your weekly routine. Is this really such a bad thing? You can take accountability for your own weight loss but you can also get some help to be successful.Hoodia is a plant that grows in South Africa. Hoodia contains properties that are powerful in controlling appetite and hunger. This can help dieters to feel full so that they don’t eat, and at the same time it also increases your metabolism.

Read about weight management supplements . Also read about herbal weight loss supplements and garcinia cambogia

Health Supplements: Complement to Your Diet

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:28:44 +0000

In the quest for a healthy life style, people have become more health conscious these days. The health supplements are now getting huge popularity among the youths and adults. These are specially designed pills, powders or syrups that provide extra nutritions and other health benefits to the persons who use them. These supplements are taken in addition to a healthy diet so that the users could get maximum benefits.

Health supplements are normally made from natural ingredients that minimise the possibility of any side effects. The ingredients include natural herbs, minerals, vegetables, etc. One can get a lot of benefits by using these supplements. These are useful in skin care, body building, anti-stress therapies, etc. As per many scientific researches, these products are very effective and usable by anybody. However, one should consult a doctor before taking up such products.

The youths of today (especially boys) want to have a strong physique and therefore they go to gym and take exercises rigorously. Apart from good food, they need health drinks too in order to give their muscles enough strength. Generic Viagra is such a supplement that is very popular these days. It is the alternative of well known drug “Viagra”. In scientific terms, it is also known as “Sildenafil Citrate”. The problem of erectile dysfunction is commonly found in men and this drug gives an effective solution to the disease. The Generic Viagra can be found in different medical stores, general stores or any other grocery centres. The online shopping websites are also the common places where it is available. One can get many attractive offers and deals on these portals that make shopping cost effective.

It goes without saying that healthy body and a sharp mind can be maintained by having a proper exercise and diet. One can get all vitamins and other minerals from the health drinks. These enhance our stamina for daily work out. A lot of companies have come into the markets that provide the supplements under different brand names. These companies provide many lucrative offers with their products to the users so that the overall sales could increase. The online websites are the places where these products can be easily found. The specifications, users’ views and other details of the nutrients are given on these portals. One can read these details and make a decision to purchase the products suitable to his or her requirements.

People are facing various health problems now a days like heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, high blood pressure, obesity, cancer, etc. A nutritious food habit is required to avoid such diseases. Since one can not get balanced diet all the time, the health drinks and supplements become very important. These items fill in the nutrition gap caused by poor diet. The health drinks making companies provide the products to the people of all ages. One can find separate products for children, teenagers and adults. Since the nutrition requirements are different for every one, the calories provided by them differ from person to person. One of the important factors for the success of any health drink is its packaging. Attractive packaging catches the attention of the customers. Products are available in jars, bottles, boxes, sachets, etc. A lot of innovative packaging are expected to be seen in the near future.

The health supplement Products are recommended for everyone, especially those who work under stress. People who want to build up an athletic body are also recommended to take such products. In a busy lifestyle, these supplement products give proper nutrition as people do not get time for daily work out in gyms. One not need physically visit the medical stores to find these supplements. Instead, you can get them on the shopping portals. These websites deliver the products to the customer’s place within a reasonable time. The customers are informed about the upcoming products by these portals through telephonic calls, reminders, mailers, emails, etc.