Vitamin D History 101

Vitamin D is key in the metabolism of calcium. In fact the migration of early marine life onto land was only possible because Vitamin D made the development of strong bones possible, which could support mammals on land. Really the origins of Vitamin D can be traced back over 750 million years to single cell organism, however in terms of human history it has played a vital role all along. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors have always been exposed to strong sunlight and the darker complexion of peoples that live closer to the equator are testament to this history. In fact if you have darker skin and live north of 37 degrees latitude you really aren't able to make enough Vitamin D (in which case you need to supplement). The Neanderthal's demise may very well have had to do Vitamin D deficiency as well. Their bow-legged bone structure and stooped posture was a sign of severe calcium imbalances likely due to Vitamin D deficiency.

In more recent times, it was during the Industrial Revolution when more and more people began living in big smoggy cities, seeing less and less sun. At the turn of the 20th century it was discovered that sunlight caused the skin to produce Vitamin D, it was estimated that close to 80% of kids living in Northern Europe and the Northeastern United States suffered from rickets, which is a bone deforming disease. Heliotherapy (exposing people to sunlight) became increasingly popular and was prescribed for the treatment of rickets, tuberculosis and psoriasis. And although it worked, it fell out of favor and instead the use of antibiotics, vaccinations and other drugs were heavily promoted. During the 1960s the pharmaceutical industry began to shift public perception, regarding the risk of skin-cancer and premature wrinkling due to sun over-exposure. All of a sudden we began to think of the sun as "bad"! It should be noted that it has been known since 1937 that, yes, over exposure to strong sunlight can increase the risk of skin cancer (generally easily treatable), but that UV sunlight can actually protect you from many more, and much more deadly cancers. Non-melanoma skin cancer has a death rate of 0.5%, while internal cancers such as colon and breast cancer can have death rates of 20%-65%. In fact there is even evidence that increased sun exposure can increase survival rates for melanoma, which is a more deadly form of skin cancer!

I hope you are getting the point, Vitamin D is absolutely vital for good health and sunlight is not bad! Sunlight has always, since the beginning of time, been essential for life and it is still today vital for our well being. Sunscreen with SPF 30 will eliminate 99% of your skin's ability to manufacture Vitamin D. If you give yourself 15 to 30 minutes of strong full body sunlight, when the sun is highest in the sky, you will have plenty of Vitamin D! The rest of the time, you can moderate your exposure by covering yourself and wearing a hat. Just don't let your skin burn.

Vitamin D - we should all worship the sun!

I was reading about all the new research on Vitamin D in the NUTRISEARCH Comparative Guide to Nutritional Supplements (I know, it doesn't sound like a riveting read, but that's exactly what the first two chapters about Vitamin D are, they are riveting!) and I couldn't help but chuckle at humanity's recent ridiculous blunder. Let me explain. For most if not nearly all of human history, we have worshiped the sun. The ancient Egyptians knew about the health benefits of the sun and so did many other cultures. There are medical texts dating as far back as 1500 BC that speak of sun exposure therapies. After all, the sun has been part of life on this planet since life began. But over the past 50 years we have managed to actually give the sun a bad reputation. The discovery that overexposure to the suns UV rays can cause skin cancer was used to launched a massive campaign to get people to cover themselves with sunscreen. This in addition to an increasingly indoor lifestyle has lead to Vitamin D shortcomings of astronomical proportions. The health implications are both vast and tragic.

Over the next few days I will write about Vitamin D, so if you read this blog on your laptop, read it outside in the sun and let your skin make some of this incredible stuff!

Dairy-free (but incredibly delicious) Alfredo Pasta

This is an absolute favorite of mine and Jenna and I have made this for many people who could have sworn it had cream in it. We use tofu and rice pasta and so it fits the bill for many allergies and food sensitivities. I would like to thank Noelle and Kris for introducing us to this meal! Here it goes:

Ingredients:

2/3 cup Cashews
1 1/3 cup broth
2 cup sliced mushrooms
1 block of extra firm tofu or 2 chicken breasts
450 g of rice pasta (or regular pasta if gluten and wheat are of no concern)
Olive Oil
2 Garlic Cloves
1/2 cup of fresh Basil, chopped
Salt / Pepper

Directions:

Blend the cashews dry until they are a fine powder (you may have shake the blender a little while you do this to prevent the cashews from sticking to the bottom). Stop the blender and scrape the bottom, then add 1/3 cup of broth and blend again for about 1 minute. Then add the rest of the broth and blend for another minute.
It helps to marinate the tofu before and I usually use italian seasoning, olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic for the marinade. When marinating tofu, cut the block of tofu into slabs, wrap them in cloth and place a bit of weight on it (about 5 lbs). This will squeeze some of the water out of the tofu and allow it to absorb the marinade better.
Sauté the tofu (or chicken) in a large pan for 5 minutes, then add the mushrooms and the garlic and sauté until the mushrooms and are nearly done. Add the cashew milk from the blender and continue to stir. Brining the cashew sauce to a light boil will thicken the sauce. You can add more broth if need be.
Finally add the chopped basil just before taking it off the stove and serving it with the pasta.

ENJOY!

Taking a thousand little steps to lead...

Last night I was in the communal kitchen of the Clearwater Bible Camp, which is home base for two White Water Kayaking courses that are part of the Adventure Guide Program at TRU right now. One of my students was cooking rice and heating beef stroganoff out of cans, when he confessed that in terms of cooking this was a stretch for him. In fact, as he closely monitored the rice and managed two pots he said it was the most stressful thing he had done in a while. This student happens to be an incredibly talented boater with over 120 days in his Kayak this year alone, who runs 60 foot waterfalls and steep creeks! I told him that when I was a student in the Adventure Program I made a lot of meals that go on bread. I've come a long way in my cooking and it's taken a lot of little steps.
I've had an incredible week here in Clearwater, teaching the Kayak III course. In my evolution as a teacher I've taken a lot of little steps as well. It has been wonderfully rewarding to teach this course, which is a Kayak Instructor course. I've been challenged in so many ways, I have learned a lot and yet it also feels like an accomplishment to be here. I always enjoy working with Sharman, our friendship has grown over the years and in terms of kayaking and teaching he's been both a teacher and a mentor to me. So working with him and being able to contribute to the course is great.
But I was talking about food and cooking. Sharman and I have been eating an incredibly healthy diet this week and in a way that's felt like an accomplishment as well. First of all I wondered if I'd be able to keep up eating healthy on this courses as the field course season approached. And I was grateful when Sharman told me he was on board with eating "the way I do", which is mostly vegetarian (one salmon dish this week) and quite different from the BBQ'ed meat with a salad every night that had been the norm on these courses. And that has also felt like a bit of an accomplishment, the fact that I've inspired a friend to try my food and then to have planned and cooked meals that have been filling, healthy and incredibly delicious.
Once I am back I have some catching up to do, in terms of blog posts, so get ready for some recipes!

Dairy Myth Buster

Growing up you may have been told how important it is to drink milk. If your mom didn't tell you, the dairy industry certainly did. Especially in more recent years, it seems there is an incredible amount of celebrities and athletes asking us if we are 'getting enough milk'. These people are probably told that they are saving the world by promoting milk consumption. After all, milk is a source of calcium and that is what we need for healthy bones! The message is pretty clear: Your crazy not to drink milk, if you are not drinking milk you should probably be really worried about your bones and if you are drinking it then you should still be worried and probably drink more!

That we should drink milk and generally consume lots of dairy for the entirety of our lives to be healthy is a myth! Let me lay out some facts. 90% of Asians, 70 of Blacks and Native Americans, and 50% of Hispanics are lactose intolerant and those people aren't all crippled by rickets and wasting away. The whole notion that a certain amount of dairy is 'enough' is probably based on the amount of calcium present in milk and in reference to the recommended daily intake of calcium. To begin with, milk isn't even as good a source of calcium as it's made out to be. In fact vegetables, especially alkalizing ones, are a much better source of calcium than milk. Arugula, for example, provides over 5 times more calcium per 100 calories than milk. See, if you come pair milk with vegetables in terms of calories, milk comes in near the bottom of the list. Now, if you argue that you would have to eat rediculous amounts of arugula in order to meet the required amount of calories (and calcium), consider the fact that people who eat a plant based diet eat the same amount of calories as a person who consumes dairy products. Also, a cup of broccoli has the same amount of calcium as a cup of milk.

In order to digest milk our bodies produce acids. These acids have to be buffered with calcium, which is taken from the bones. So even though milk provides the body with some calcium, it is cancelled out by the loss due to acid production. You see, osteoporosis is not a result of 'not getting enough' calcium. It is the result of loosing it.

Fact vs. Fiction

Brian Klemmer wrote a book called The Compassionate Samurai. He passed away this year and I am sad to have never met him. I am grateful, however, that I was able to take some of the leadership seminars he developed through his company Klemmer & Associates (www.klemmer.com). One of the lessons I learned through taking their classes was to differentiate between fact and fiction.
In life, all kinds of stuff happens to us. I am talking about all the life events, small to big, they undeniably happened to us. For example, my parents got divorced and subsequently spent 10 years fighting each other ferociously, often screaming at each other over the phone. This happened. It is a fact.
Since they were fighting about me I felt that it was my fault and that I wasn't good enough because if I was somehow good enough they wouldn't be fighting about me. While this happened as well, it only happened in my head. It's a story I made up. This is fiction.
How can we test this hypothesis? Well, we could go to other people who witnessed these fights and ask them how they were affected. We would hear a different story from every single person. That means, the event was not responsible for the story, the person was.
There are millions of other examples I could give you, maybe you can even think of one for yourself. Maybe someone told you something today and "it" stressed you out all afternoon. Well, that this person told you whatever they told you, is an undeniable fact. But the meaning you attached to that fact, is completely made up. By you!
Think about it! Say you lost your job. That's a fact, it clearly happened. You felt rejected and you got angry at your boss because you felt that he did not value your contribution and now you feel sorry for yourself because of what he did to you! See all of that is fiction, it's made up, it only goes on in your head! And we know that this is true because someone else might loose that same job and react and feel totally different about it!
What is the benefit of knowing this? Well, it opens up two options for us. The first one is that we can chose how we react to these events. And because that is sometimes easier said than done, the second option is that we can at least take responsibility for our own made up stories, emotions and reactions.

Food for thought.

Health vs. Flavor

I had a conversation at work today, about eating really healthy meals. I was talking to the store manager Kelly and the department manager Mark. Kelly, who is also a chef, and I were talking about recipes when mark joined the conversation. He expressed his desire to eat healthy but said he wasn't really willing to give up flavor. I could relate to that because I remember when Jenna's sister Noelle first went to the Naturopath because of migraines, she went on a very restricted diet. I remember thinking that, it must just be horrible eating like her and that it certainly meant giving up all flavor.
A few years later, we now eat with very similar restrictions and I can honestly say that we eat amazing meals all the time! I am going to try to post a few more recipes in the coming weeks and hopefully you'll give them a try. I promise you, I will only put recipes on this blog that are among our favorites, really tasty and very healthy.

Today was a big day so this is all I got....