Food Choices | Mark Moxom

Do I Need to Eat Breakfast?

by Jan Michael | Apr 5, 2013 | Food Choices, General Health, Low carb diet, Sensible Eating | 0 comments

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Do you really need to eat breakfast everyday? Well, the short answer is no, you don’t despite the common myth that so many people are trying to tell us that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It’s better really to only eat when you’re hungry.

Now whether you’re hungry when you wake up depends on well, quite a number of factors such as what you ate the night before. Now if you were out at a meal with friends, say and you had a nice big dinner, well you may not be hungry when you wake up; it’s as simple as that, or you could have spent your time on the couch in front of the tele just giving in to temptation and snacking away on all sort of things. The point is whether you eat or not first thing in the morning really depends on a whole host of different things.

Hunger just may not be instant when you wake up. Many people are like that. Some morning when I get up I don’t want to eat a thing. Other mornings I wake up and the first thing I want is bacon and eggs so I’ll have bacon and eggs, it’s as simple as that.

For some other people it might not trigger until you’ve done some exercise. Now that can be as simple as walking to work or going up the stairs when you get to your office or whatever it might happen to be. The point is that if you are hungry first thing in the morning; don’t go too long before you start eating otherwise there will be a tendency to overeat. In the west in particular we have been stucked in a conventional timetable about when we should eat whereas really spreading what we eat throughout the day is probably a much better idea if you were on a conventional diet of course.

The bottom line is for most of us, what you eat really should suit the healthy eating plan that you’ve decided to embark on. So at the end of the day, is it better to eat breakfast or not? Well that really depends on you. If you want to have breakfast, have breakfast. If you’re not hungry, leave it till a bit later in the day. You’ll enjoy your food a lot more that way.

The Sweet Side Of Health – The Benefits of Natural Sweeteners

by Jan Michael | Apr 1, 2013 | Artificial Sweeteners, Diabetes, Diet, Food Choices, Natural food, Nutrition, Obesity, Sugars | 0 comments

Here’s a short but informative article by Chris Haro found on the Kwik Med site where he talks about artificial sweeteners and how that they are simply yellow, blue and pink packets of chemicals.

There’s a link to the full article at the bottom of this page and I have left in just the natural sweeteners that he has tried for himself to great effect. Do take the time and read his article.

Natural Sweeteners to Consider

Local Honey

Honey is simply one of the best natural sweeteners you can use. Not only does it not raise your blood sugars like other sugars do, it is a whole food that comes from plant nectar. Honey contains many health benefits. It has vitamins and minerals, such as vitamin A, B2, Vitamin C, Biotin (Vitamin H) and rutine. It also has calcium, magnesium potassium, iron iodine, copper and zinc.

Honey is also a natural “healing” food. Honey has been used as an antiseptic, antimicrobial, and antibiotic. Many will also use local honey to help with allergies.

Agave Nectar

Agave Nectar is another plant-based natural sweetener derived from the plant used to make tequila! It is very sweet and can be used in both your drinks and food. Native Americans have been using agave for many years as both a sweetener and healing agent. In terms of the glycemic index, Agave nectar is extremely lower than other sugars. Sucrose for instance will come in on the GI as an 83, high fructose corn syrup comes in at 89, while the agave nectar comes in at 27! Agave is also known to have health benefits such as having inulin, which can be beneficial in weight loss, decrease appetite and keep blood sugars at bay. Agave nectar also has immune system health benefits, and the Aztecs used the agave as an antibacterial agent.

Other great natural sweeteners to consider are raw maple syrup, date sugar, coconut palm sugar and Stevia, which is becoming a more and more popular in the natural health community.

If you are wanting to keep the bad sugars away, yet not throw down chemicals in your body, give these natural sweeteners a try. They can all be added in many recipes, and are wonderfully useful not just for your taste buds, but also for health.

Link to the article

Fruit flies fed organic diets live longer, study finds

by Jan Michael | Mar 29, 2013 | Diabetes, Diet, Digestive system, Food Choices, General Health, Natural food, Nutrition, Research, Sensible Eating | 0 comments

It seems everywhere we turn we’re encouraged to eat organic yet many people who I have spoken to wonder if eating organic is actually any good, whether it makes any difference to our overall general health.

Here is an interesting study from the Southern Methodist University in Dallas where biologist Johannes H. Bauer ran a study on fruit flies and he found that the fruit flies that were raised on organic diets performed better on several tests for general health than those that were raised on non-organic diets.

The study itself is quite interesting and if you are a little bit technical, well worth viewing.

Simply follow the link below.

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Link to the article

Cutting Out the Sugar Cravings in Your Diet

by Jan Michael | Mar 28, 2013 | Artificial Sweeteners, Cravings, Diabetes, Food Choices, Obesity, Sugars, Weight Loss | 0 comments

Some food manufacturers engineer products to contain (from their point of view) the optimal balance of sugar and high fructose corn syrup. Then when you eat them you feel maximum crave and keep eating, drinking and buying more of their products. Its what they call your bliss point!

They aim for that sweet spot that keeps you coming back for more. Its why you’ll find sugar in spaghetti sauce, peanut butter, ketchup, yogurt and (watch out for this!) low-fat, processed, frozen foods that say healthy or lean on the package.

But what can you do about it? see here

Cancer and cooking: How my low carb diet is helping me to fight this disease

by Jan Michael | Mar 27, 2013 | Diet, Evolutionary Diet, Food Choices, General Health, Low carb diet, Natural food, Nutrition, Questions about low carb, Recipe | 0 comments

Diagnosed with cancer in 2011 Hannah Bradley has undergone treatment to reduce her tumour.

This treatment has been very succesful and has lead to Hannah making lifestyle changes, including switching to a low carbohydrate diet with no sugar.

Link to Hannah’s blog

Alzheimer’s disease and meat

by Jan Michael | Mar 22, 2013 | Food Choices, Low carb diet, Sensible Eating | 0 comments

It’s a shame the good doctor wasn’t a little bit more specific. It’s actually heavy metals such as mercury, lead and other more exotic types and also the lighter metals such as aluminum that are the real cause of the problem.

Iron as you may well know is something that the body uses in fact you can become quite ill if your body doesn’t have enough iron and as for red meat having more iron though we need it – that in itself is a very foggy statement as the amount of iron each person needs varies not just from person to person but from day to day too and there are many in the natural health industry who will tell you that the official daily recommended amount for iron is possibly anything up to 500 times too low particularly for some people.

Fish and dairy may indeed be a problem if you’re not getting them from certified organic sources. That is simply because certain fish such as red snapper have been found to contain high levels of heavy metals particularly mercury.

Dairy of course can also have a very similar problem but that is only if it is from commercially produced herds. One of the reasons they have very high or higher levels of mercury is the fact that they’re given so many antibiotics and growth hormones and one of the preservatives that are used in both those products is, well you might have guesses it – mercury!

But frankly the amount of mercury contained in even the meat of commercially produced beef is nowhere near as worrying as the amount of hormones and other drugs that are passed through to us as we eat the meat.

That’s one of the reasons why I firmly believe it’s far better to make sure that you choose your meat and your fish from certified organic sources. In fact from a point of view of general health and well being, it’s best to try and get as much food as possible from certified organic sources. That way you won’t have any problems at all about eating any diet and particularly low carb

Hope that helps,

Mark

This is actually a response to a low carb foum post about Alzheimer’s disease

Here is the link to interview of Dr. Neal Barnard on The Dr. Oz show