Wednesday, February 16, 2011

5-Step Animal Welfare Rating System Now at Whole Foods!

Whole Foods is starting a new program in their stores to inform the consumer through a new rating system of exactly how the animal they are about to purchase lived their lives. I'm so excited to find this out because as many of you know, I only eat animals that lived their lives happy and natural. I can't wait until I'm able to head to Nashville to check this system out! Here's to hoping that this system will begin to be the norm instead of the alternative!

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Food Matters Official Trailer

Food Matters

Okay, so I'm going to have to get back up on my soapbox and talk about yet another documentary that I just watched. I know - NERD! Seriously, though, I've found a love for documentaries because inside these hour and a half gems of film you can find information that is not being readily offered to you. Actually, a lot of this information is being purposely hidden from the general public because it would hurt one industry or another.

I recently watched "Food Matters." For those who have Netflix, it's available to stream to your computer or TV. It's not even a full 90 minutes, so you should watch it when you get time. I highly recommend it. To tell you more about the film, I went to the film's website to get their description:

"With nutritionally-depleted foods, chemical additives and our tendency to rely upon pharmaceutical drugs to treat what's wrong with our malnourished bodies, it's no wonder that modern society is getting sicker. Food Matters sets about uncovering the trillion dollar worldwide 'sickness industry' and gives people some scientifically verifiable solutions for overcoming illness naturally.

In what promises to be the most contentious idea put forward, the filmmakers have interviewed several leading experts in nutrition and natural healing who claim that not only are we harming our bodies with improper nutrition, but that the right kind of foods, supplements and detoxification can be used to treat chronic illnesses as fatal as terminally diagnosed cancer."

That's right - cancer. In this film, there were many doctors who have been treating patients for 25-30 years with high doses of vitamins (mostly vitamin C) and nutritional therapy - mainly a high fiber, vegetarian, organic diet. Many of these patients were terminally ill cancer patients who had tried chemotherapy, surgery, radiation - all the "treatments" modern medicine can offer for this disease. Within months, these patients had reversed their cancer...some were completely cured. And that's just cancer.

The whole film embarked on this quest to not use pharmaceuticals. We live in a society where there's a pill for every illness. Yet, studies have shown that nutritional therapy and the use of vitamins can prevent and reverse many illnesses. Of course, these studies are not published for the public to see because then the drug companies would be out of business. These therapies are not even being taught to doctors, so they don't even know how to prescribe natural healing because medical schools think this type of therapy is a crock. Let's face it - there's no money in being healthy!

Another incident I found interesting was the use of antidepressants. Everyone knows that antidepressants don't make a person better. The side effects alone sometimes make the person suicidal. Yet, psychologists continue to prescribe them. In one incident, one of the doctors from the film had a patient who was a wife in her mid-fifties who was seriously suicidal-depressed. Her family came to him, needing answers for why she was not getting better after being on Prozac for some time. He told them about his research he had found from previous doctors (one being the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous) using Niacin (vitamin B3) to treat depression. She began taking 11,500 mg of Niacin a day. She was not depressed anymore. Yet, once her therapist found out, the therapist suggested that might be harmful and suggested they not do that form of therapy, so they stopped. She was right back to being depressed again.

I know...that much of Niacin in your body can make you sick right? Well, not at all actually. The cancer patients I spoke about above were receiving thousands of milligrams a day of vitamin C, and the only adverse affects were thirst and head wooziness. No nausea, no hair falling out, no sickness.

Just to offer up some statistics that I took from the film: every year, 106,000 people die from complications with prescribed pharmaceuticals. Over a 23 year period, only 10 people have allegedly (not proven) died from too much vitamins. So, over a 23 year period - 2,438,000 die from pharmaceuticals; 10 from vitamins.

What this film is trying to show is that we're doing it wrong. Even with the type of medicine we have these days, more and more people are getting sicker each year. There's no denying that. Thankfully, there are people out there who are going against the grind and realizing that we don't always have to do things the way they're always been done. It's definitely something to consider the next time you get a common cold. Go see a doctor, or eat really well and take a load of vitamin C for a couple of days. I, for one, have seen the effects eating well can have on your body, and I'm not even eating everything organic like I should.

Okay, I'm off my soapbox now. Hope you all have a great rest of the weekend! Oh and for those interested, I included some links at the bottom for more about this stuff.

Gerson Therapy (cancer treatment spoken about in this film):
http://gerson.org/


Food Matters website:
http://www.foodmatters.tv/

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

1st Month Anniversary!

So....today has been my one month anniversary of not eating factory farm meat. I am proud to say that I am 100% positive I will be sticking to this - dare I say - lifestyle choice. I have never felt better in my life physically. I also have no guilt when I do decide to eat meat because I know that it is coming from an animal that was treated humanely, was fed the right diet, and was not pumped full of hormones or antibiotics. Not to mention that I've lost 5 pounds since I began this diet! Woohoo!

I decided this was going to be my New Year's resolution and figured I'd keep it up as long as I could. I knew that I wouldn't be able to have meat any time I wanted, and I was really worried about that drastic change. However, I can honestly say not eating meat every day really hasn't fazed me. I know I could never go full on vegetarian or vegan because I do love me some steak! : ) But, through this way of eating, I've found a solution to eat what I want without guilt but also what my body needs.

As hard as it was to be made aware of how food gets from the field to the plate (I can assure you - it's not a pretty process), I feel in control of my life now because I get to choose what I put in my body instead of just relying on the food industry to have the consumer's best interest at heart. I'll let you in on a big secret they don't want you to know - THE FOOD INDUSTRY IS ONLY CONCERNED WITH MAKING MONEY. PERIOD. They do things the cheapest and quickest way possible, which never fares well for the animal/crops or the consumer. Like I've always said, I'm not going to preach or try to change anyone's mind. I do, however, urge you to do your own research, so that you will be aware of how things go on and you can make your own decision. Thanks for reading!