BiG TeA PaRtY

THE GROOVE IS IN THE HEART

Article By ELIZABETH FIEND

You go to the doctor. First thing, a nurse takes your blood pressure, then makes a face and leaves the room. Most of the time they never tell you the numbers. Infuriating! You should always ask what your numbers are. It’s a pet peeve of mine that you even have to do this — the nurse or doctor should automatically tell you, but mostly they don’t. I’ve found that a lot of people don’t really understand what their blood pressure readings mean or how having high blood pressure might impact your health. So, here’s a primer on blood pressure: what the numbers mean, and how you can improve them through natural methods.

The Big Picture

Your heart contains a muscle that works like a pump. It begins the cycle of pushing blood throughout your body bringing nutrients like oxygen, amino acids or glucose to all your organs. Arteries are the muscle-men of blood vessels; they push blood away from the heart. When your heart beats, which is really a contraction of the muscle, it pumps blood to the arteries and creates little bursts of pressure in the artery walls. This is what we call blood pressure.

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Low Carb, Without the High Protein:

The Glycemic Index

By ELIZABETH FIEND

The Glycemic Index could save your life — literally. It could make living with diabetes easier. Or prevent diabetes in the first place. It can reduce your risk of heart disease. It will lower your cholesterol. It will make you thinner. It might even get you laid.

The Glycemic Index is a scientific measurement of how rapidly foods release their sugars into your blood. It’s an invaluable, easy-to-use tool for maintaining or getting to a proper weight. Forget diets. Get jiggy wit’ the GI instead.

Research on the Glycemic Index originally began as a way to pin-point the best foods choices for diabetics; to help them better control their blood sugar and therefore insulin production. But soon it became apparent that the Glycemic Index was a great tool for people to use to control their weight.

The concept was popularized in diets like Atkins, The Zone and The South Beach Diet which center around the philosophy of low-carb/high protein. The problem with these diets is that they rely on too much protein and not enough fruits and vegetables to keep you healthy in the long run. Carbohydrates are found in foods like bread, pasta, cake and fruit as these foods contain sugars. Foods that are low in carbs are fish, meat, cheese; these foods contain fat and protein.

The Glycemic Index was built by sitting down 10 people and measuring their blood sugar after feeding them a specific food — and then measuring their blood sugar again two hours later. Days later, the process was repeated and the numbers were combined and averaged. So yeah, they made a list checked it twice, and found out which foods were naughty or nice.

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Soy to the World!

BY ELIZABETH FIEND

You wait and wait, eagerly anticipating your favorite time of the year, and suddenly, it’s here! April is National Soy Month, the most delicious month of the year!

Soy is one hell of an amazing plant, one that’s been part of the human diet for over 5,000 years. But it’s much, much more than just veggie burgers. The soybean is also used as food for livestock and it has all the properties of petroleum — except unlike petrol, soy is biodegradable.

Wow, doesn’t knowing that you could fuel up your car or feed your cow with it make soy even more mouth-watering, appetizing and desirable to you?

This bean’s potential is astounding.

Ben Franklin was so intrigued by the story of a “cheese” made from a bean he acquired some seeds, soybeans actually, and sent them to his West Philly homey John Bartram’s estate. Ben also sent along directions on how to turn the beans into curds, aka tofu.

Despite Ben’s efforts, soy never really caught on in Ye Olde America, and was primarily grown for livestock feed and oil until food shortages during WWII stimulated interest in the plant as a source of food for human beans.

Tofu, which had Ben so jazzed up, wasn’t sold in an American supermarket until 1958. Not coincidentally, I made my own debut that year.

Franklin was only one great thinker (and eater) who was intrigued by the potential of the plant from Asia. Both George Washington Carver and Henry Ford donated a great deal of their lives to this marvelous bean.

Carver, the African-American educator and agricultural genius, began investigating soy in hopes it would become a crop newly-emancipated slaves might use to gain financial independence. His soy products include candles, soups, coffee, cheeses, ice cream, flour and oil. (Click to see my in-depth article on GW Carver.)

Henry Ford also had a million projects going on involving soy and dedicated the last two decades of his life to the bean. Among other things, he unveiled a car made with soy-composite body parts in 1941 and was known to be out and about town in a suit spun out of soy.

As a food, soy can’t be beat. It’s packed with more protein than any other bean. In fact, the soybean is the only plant food source that contains ALL of the nine essential amino acids, making it equal to the protein from animal sources. But unlike animal products, soy has no cholesterol and is much lower in saturated fat.

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ALLERGIES ARE THE LIES THE BODY TELLS ITSELF

BY ELIZABETH FIEND 5/8

What do vaginal dryness, lousy driving, methamphetamine, cocaine, steroids and Kleenex all have in common? You guessed it: this article is going to be all about seasonal allergies.

Allergies are caused by a body’s misplaced, overblown reaction to something that in reality isn’t harmful. When this happens the culprit is called an allergen. Pollen is an allergen, though it’s a harmless substance, not poisonous in any way to humans. But for a growing number of people, pollen, mold, animal fur and dust mites trigger an unnecessary, and unfortunate, attack by their immune system. The result of this attack is an allergic reaction — nasal secretion, itchy throat, eyes, and ear canals, sneezing, tearing eyes, stuffy nose and ears. Allergies also make some people tired, cranky, impair memory and concentration and prevent sleep.

More and more people are becoming allergic, to food, pollen and — crazy as it sounds — there’s currently a boom in allergies to ladybugs! As for hayfever, at least one in 10 people will suffer from hay fever at some point, and that number is growing.

If one of your parents has allergies you’re at a 50 percent risk of developing allergies yourself. If both of your parents have allergies, you’re screwed — there’s a 70 percent chance you will, too. Strangely enough, even birth order seems to have an influence on who develops allergies: If you have three or more older siblings, you might get off Scot free (presumably due to the fact that your parents gave up by the time you came along and you were exposed to more immune system-building germs than your sibs). Breastfeeding also gives a child an edge over allergies. Allergies can get worse as you age because your system is more easily traumatized and overreacts, even more, to allergens.

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Spring Cleaning

The Problem With Cleaning Products

By ELIZABETH FIEND 4/10/8

When the earth is tilted so that the sun is directly over the equator at high noon, this is the vernal equinox. In this momentary balance of light and dark, we are halfway between summer and winter. Mid-points have been celebrated through out the ages and around the world. In ancient Babylon, the New Year occurred at the spring equinox. The ancients of America oriented their giant earthwork mounds to equinox sunrise points. Celtic Pagans lit fires at dawn to cure ills, renew life and protect crops. Today, we party in Cancun.

Or we clean.

This season of renewal brings with it the tradition of spring cleaning, making now as good a time as any to switch to all things natural. I’m talking about cleaning products — for your home and your body. All types of non-toxic cleaners for your home are now available in conventional supermarkets: glass, drain, dishwasher, dish soap, laundry, shower, even toilet bowl cleaners. Most are competitively priced or cost just a tad bit more than chemical-based cleaners. Theses natural cleaners are conveniently located right next to the toxic ones, or maybe on a shelf not quite at eye level.

Instead of the toxic, nonrenewable or harmful-to-the-environment ingredients like petroleum, butyl cellosolve, chlorine bleach, and the cancer-causing fragrance ingredient phthalates, the new non-toxic cleaners are made from ingredients like corn, grain alcohol, palm kernel, and citrus and coconut oils. And they really work. Hypo-allergenic, with no perfumes or dyes, they smell nice too. To my nose, they smell way, way better.

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