Amazing Zucchini Pasta

A few days ago, one of my roommates said to me, "You eat some pretty weird stuff Flo!". At the time I replied "Well, yeah I know, but I feel all the better for it." But as I thought about it later on it occurred to me, that I am not the one eating the weird stuff! And this isn't so much about my roommate as it is about the majority of people in our society. There is so much food that really isn't food but just looks like it and is genetically and chemically designed to be tasty! I am talking about things like twinkies (for the record, my roommate eats healthier than that).



But you don't really need to go to the extremes of junk food to point out that there is a lot that isn't right with our food supply. If you eat non-organic meat, you are drugging yourself with antibiotics every time. I have already talked about the fact that cows are now feed mostly corn, which makes beef incredibly high in omega-6 fatty acids that cause coagulation of the blood, are inflammatory and cell growth stimulating. I have also talked about the chemical pesticides that get dumped on our food and the fact that our soil has been depleted of essential nutrients.

But I am the one putting weird stuff into my body! ;-)

Anyway, I decided to share a recipe with you today. It is absolutely amazing, one of our favorites and fairly quick and easy. Enjoy!

Zucchini Pasta
Makes: 4 servings

Ingredients
2 zucchini, sliced into thin strips (think thin french fries)
1 cup cherry toms
1 cup snap peas
5 green onions
3/4 cup mushrooms, MARINATED
1/2 cup sundried toms
1/2 cup Cashew Nuts
1 1/2 cups of broth
2 tbsp soy sauce or Bragg
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
2 garlic cloves

Directions:

To marinate mushrooms: cut the mushroom into slices about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Toss with balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, olive oil, garlic and some herbs (you can get creative here) and let sit for at least 1/2 hour. In a blender grind cashews, then add the broth and blend more to make a cashew milk. It helps if the broth is hot and if you only add half, then blend and then add the other half before blending some more.

Sauté the mushrooms for a few min. and then add the zucchini, cherry tomatoes (halved), sun dried tomatoes, snap peas and the sauce. You only need to bring the sauce to a light boil for it to thicken up and this recipe is originally a raw food recipe so you don't have to cook it for more than few minutes.

Enjoy!

Ps: next time I make it I will add pictures here.

Sunscreen

So, yesterday I got into this rant about sunscreens and all the carcinogens and gender bending estrogenic compounds they contain. I talked about the fact that using them blocks your body's ability to produce vitamin d and how vitamin d deficiency is linked to osteoporosis and cancer. As I was writing I was careful not to make statements that I couldn't back up with facts and research. So in the meantime I did some more digging around and I came across this study.
This research paper was published in the British Journal of Cancer in 1992 by J. Moan and A. Dahlback. These researchers looked at the occurrence of skin cancers in Norway between 1957 and 1984. Here is what they found: during this time the occurrence of skin cancer went up 350% for men and for women it went up 440%. The Ozone Layer, however, did not suffer any depletion over Norway during this time period. Therefore they concluded that an increase in ultra violet radiation was not responsible for the increase in skin cancer occurrence. If you want to check out the study, here is the link for it:

http://www.nature.com/bjc/journal/v65/n6/pdf/bjc1992192a.pdf

Food for thought. Now here are some tips for avoiding both skin cancer and carcinogenic sunscreen:

- Ease into the summer. Slowly increase your exposure to sunlight so that you develop a natural tan without burning.

- Limit your exposure at the hight of the day, between 11 and 2 when the sun is highest in the sky and most intense.

- Cover up naturally. There are natural sunscreens as well as light long sleeve clothing options that can help protect you.

-Wear a hat.

All these measures go toward one goal: not allowing your skin to burn!

Getting sun is healthy, burning is not.

You can check out the Good Guide at www.goodguide.com to help you find sunscreen products that are rated according health, environment and society. The last two categories obviously have to do more with the company's practices than the product itself.

Alright, enjoy what's left of the summer and stay safe!


PS: You may have noticed that I changed the design of this blog a bit. I felt that the black background was a bit hard on the eyes. I have also started to add labels to my entries, which will allow readers to search for entries in certain categories such as recipes. Let me know what you think!

Vitamin D and Sunscreen

Thanks to modern technology I am sitting outside while fulfilling my daily commitment of writing. I have been writing about vitamins and minerals, how our soil has been depleted over several decades and why we need higher amounts of anti-oxidants to support our body's cells. There is another vitamin that most people are deficient in. It's Vitamin D, which is made by our bodies when we are exposed to the sun. Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to a lot of health problems. Because the body needs Vitamin D to properly use calcium, Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to bone related diseases such as osteoporosis and rickets. The vitamin is also crucial for cell regulation functions and therefore is key in preventing cancer.

So, what are some of the reasons why you might not get enough of this Vitamin? Well, how much time do you spend outside? Of the time you spend outside, how much time do you wear sunscreen? You see, we've been told that ultra violet light is bad and causes skin cancer. But it's clearly not all bad, because we desperately need it to produce Vitamin D. Of course our use of certain greenhouse gases has diminished the ozone layer and we are now exposed to more ultra violet radiation than we used to. I don't mean to suggest that we all go out and get crazy red sun burns, but know that every time you apply sunscreen, you are not allowing your body to produce a vitamin essential to your health. Also, I think it's worth noting that chemical sunscreens contain chemical compounds that are known carcinogens. They generate free-radical activity, which as we've learned damages cells and can lead to cancer. They also have estrogenic properties that affect sexual development and have other ill health effects.

I have to say, as I am writing this I am realizing that I need to write a bit more about sunscreen. But I want to read a little more and make sure I have some good sources. So in the meantime, try to get some sunlight on your skin, without sunscreen, I am not talking six hours of sun tanning here, just a little. And think about taking Vitamin D this fall, winter and spring when your body is probably not able to produce adequate amounts.

I hope you are still drinking lots of water too!

Oxidative Stress

I am not quite done with vitamins. There is another big reason why I believe it's important to take vitamins and that has to do with oxidative stress. You've probably heard of free radicals and anti-oxidants but chances are you may not know exactly what one or both of them are.

Free radicals occur naturally in the body. They are chemical compounds that are very reactive and will steel electrons from other molecules. When this occurs, the molecules who have just given up an electron then become more reactive and turn into free radicals themselves. We have a chain reaction and the result is oxidation. If you cut an apple or an avocado in half and leave it exposed to the air, it turns brown. This is oxidation.

In our bodies, it's the cells that take the hit. They get damaged by oxidation and this is referred to as oxidative stress. The cells are the building block of your body, healthy cells build healthy bodies. The body protect's itself from this oxidative stress with anti-oxidants, which are compounds and molecules that are able to donate an extra electron to free radicals thus stopping that chain reaction. Where do we get these anti-oxidants from? Fruits and Vegetables for example. Vitamin C is an anti-oxidant, in fact if you take that apple or the avocado from the earlier example and squeeze some lemon juice on it, it won't turn brown. That's because the Vitamin C is protecting the exposed fruit cells from oxidation (see right side of the apple).

The same applies to our body's cells, the get their protection from anti-oxidants found in fresh fruits and vegetables. So far this should make pretty good sense, if you eat a lot of fruits and vegetables your more likely to be healthy. Oxidation is a natural process and anti-oxidants help the body deal with it. So why would anyone be concerned with getting more anti-oxidants? The answer is that just as the mineral content of our farming soil has dramatically decreased since the 1940, the amount of oxidative stress has increased. What are some of the sources of this increased Oxidative Stress? Toxins in our environment, which are either in the air we breathe or in the food we eat, have increased astronomical since the 40s.

David Servan-Schreiber writes about this in his book Anticancer: "The annual production of synthetic chemicals has risen from a million tons in 1930 to two hundred million tons today"! The chemical industry has released well over one hundred thousand chemical compounds since the 1940s, the vast majority of which remain unstudied in terms of their ability to cause cancer for example. One argument that chemical companies always make is that humans generally are exposed to only one hundredth of the amount toxic to animals of the chemical in question. However, we are regularly exposed to 3,750-7,500 carcinogens of which one hundredth is still thirty-seven to seventy-five times the dose considered toxic to animals. And of course there is the 'cocktail effect' of being exposed to a vast combination of environmental toxins, of which no one has a clue what the effect is on the human body.

One thing is certain, we have been getting sicker and bigger. This coming generation may actually be the first in history to be outlived by their parents. I for one am committed to limiting my exposure by eating as much organic, fresh and local as I can. And I am also comforted to know that my body is getting protection and all the help it needs to repair itself from the Vitamins, Anti-oxidants and Minerals I take.

Stay healthy friends, live long and prosper!

Nutritional Crisis

Yesterday I talked about the mineral depletion of our soil over the last several decades. Because trace minerals are rarely added back to the soil, their concentrations have decreased dramatically in vegetables since the 1940s. Therefore, assuming you eat a very healthy diet full of fresh wholesome foods, your body does not get enough of the essential trace minerals and nutrients it needs to maintain optimal health. That is one of the reasons why I believe it is important to take supplements.

I don't, however, want to suggest that taking vitamins alone is enough or disregard the importance of real food. I think eating organic and locally grown fresh food is something we should all strive for. I think organic farming is the only sustainable kind of farming in the long run and in the face of the climate challenge we need to change the way food travels. The food in your shopping cart may well have travelled collectively tens of thousands of kilometers depending on what's in your cart. Kiwis and lamb from New Zealand, apples and oranges from California, atlantic salmon that was shipped to China to be processed and then shipped to North America to be sold. You get the idea, but I want to write more about nutrition than about the environment today. I just wanted to make the point that eating local and organic foods is important for many reasons. And I know that eating all organic comes with a steep price tag, which many cannot afford. I don't eat 100% organic, but it's something I strive for. You can look up lists online about which foods are most contaminated in terms of pesticides and other chemicals and that can help you get started. Eventually organic foods will become affordable as more and more people choose them.

Now it's time for me to walk the talk and go down to the Farmer's Market to get some locally grown organic vegetables...

Take Vitamins

I am going to present my case for why you should take vitamins. This is obviously a bit self serving as I am in the business of selling vitamins, but hopefully I can back up my reasons with facts and research well enough to make it clear that I care about your health more than my wealth.
I used to take vitamin and mineral supplements fairly intermittently. Basically, whenever I got sick and the odd time my mom would urge me to take them because of my active and physically demanding lifestyle. As a broke student I really only took them when I got them from my mom.

Now I take not only vitamin and mineral supplements, but also other nutritional supplements such as fish oil and specific plant based extracts. I have learned why it is important to take nutritional supplements and why I won't get what I need by just eating healthy. But I have also experienced what has happened to my body when I started to give it everything it needs. When I experienced a recurrence of testicular cancer late last year it was bit like wild fire, growing and spreading. Before a surgery in January it had spread to some lymph nodes in my abdomen and consecutive CT Scans showed that those nodes were growing. After drastic lifestyle changes, which to list them would require a blog entry of its own, I experienced significant results.

I had gone to the Naturopath and done some intravenous therapies there, Vitamin C and Sodium Bicarbonate. I went on a near vegan diet, got my body ph into the alkaline range and began taking supplements. CT Scans since have shown that those lymph nodes have shrunk. I went from wildfire to tumors getting smaller. I am not trying to make any claims about having cured myself. As of now I still have enlarged lymph nodes and elevated tumor markers (levels of certain substances in the blood). But things are far from the out of control situation last winter.

But enough about my personal journey, I promised to write about why it is important to take Vitamins and why we don't get enough of essential nutrients just by eating healthy. First of all, you probably don't eat as healthy as you think. If you took an honest account of what goes into your body, kept track of it for a week and then looked at it, you would most likely have to admit to yourself that there is a fair bit of less-than-healthy food that you eat. But even if you ate as much fresh vegetables as you should and you ate mostly unprocessed foods, whole healthy meals, I am saying that you're not getting enough of certain vitamins, anti-oxidants and minerals. And here is why:

Some things have changed over the last couple of decades and I am going to begin with the changes in how our food is grown. As the world's population has increased, farming has become more and more an industrial food production. Most crops are grown in monocultures, which require large amounts of fertilizer and as a result the soil has become devoid of many essential minerals. If it isn't in the soil, it won't be in the plant! The following are two charts that show the level of mineral depletion in the soil here in North America and specifically the depletion of certain minerals in vegetables. The last graph shows a strong correlation between the depletion on minerals in the soil and mineral deficiency related diseases.

So, I will let you ponder this and continue with more on this topic in my next entry. I have to eat some lunch and take some vitamins....

Jack's Letter

I was in Williams Lake, BC on Monday teaching a Swiftwater Rescue Course when Jack Layton died. He wrote a letter to Canadians two days before he passed. I wish to honor him by posting his words here. Maybe some of you have not taken the time to read his letter yet and will do so now. I don't feel adequate to comment on his life or legacy and wish only to express my gratitude for his words and the values he fought for.


August 20, 2011
Toronto, Ontario

Dear Friends,
Tens of thousands of Canadians have written to me in recent weeks to wish me well. I want to thank each and every one of you for your thoughtful, inspiring and often beautiful notes, cards and gifts. Your spirit and love have lit up my home, my spirit, and my determination.
Unfortunately my treatment has not worked out as I hoped. So I am giving this letter to my partner Olivia to share with you in the circumstance in which I cannot continue.
I recommend that Hull-Aylmer MP Nycole Turmel continue her work as our interim leader until a permanent successor is elected.
I recommend the party hold a leadership vote as early as possible in the New Year, on approximately the same timelines as in 2003, so that our new leader has ample time to reconsolidate our team, renew our party and our program, and move forward towards the next election.

A few additional thoughts:
To other Canadians who are on journeys to defeat cancer and to live their lives, I say this: please don't be discouraged that my own journey hasn't gone as well as I had hoped. You must not lose your own hope. Treatments and therapies have never been better in the face of this disease. You have every reason to be optimistic, determined, and focused on the future. My only other advice is to cherish every moment with those you love at every stage of your journey, as I have done this summer.

To the members of my party: we’ve done remarkable things together in the past eight years. It has been a privilege to lead the New Democratic Party and I am most grateful for your confidence, your support, and the endless hours of volunteer commitment you have devoted to our cause. There will be those who will try to persuade you to give up our cause. But that cause is much bigger than any one leader. Answer them by recommitting with energy and determination to our work. Remember our proud history of social justice, universal health care, public pensions and making sure no one is left behind. Let’s continue to move forward. Let’s demonstrate in everything we do in the four years before us that we are ready to serve our beloved Canada as its next government.

To the members of our parliamentary caucus: I have been privileged to work with each and every one of you. Our caucus meetings were always the highlight of my week. It has been my role to ask a great deal from you. And now I am going to do so again. Canadians will be closely watching you in the months to come. Colleagues, I know you will make the tens of thousands of members of our party proud of you by demonstrating the same seamless teamwork and solidarity that has earned us the confidence of millions of Canadians in the recent election.

To my fellow Quebecers: On May 2nd, you made an historic decision. You decided that the way to replace Canada’s Conservative federal government with something better was by working together in partnership with progressive-minded Canadians across the country. You made the right decision then; it is still the right decision today; and it will be the right decision right through to the next election, when we will succeed, together. You have elected a superb team of New Democrats to Parliament. They are going to be doing remarkable things in the years to come to make this country better for us all.

To young Canadians: All my life I have worked to make things better. Hope and optimism have defined my political career, and I continue to be hopeful and optimistic about Canada. Young people have been a great source of inspiration for me. I have met and talked with so many of you about your dreams, your frustrations, and your ideas for change. More and more, you are engaging in politics because you want to change things for the better. Many of you have placed your trust in our party. As my time in political life draws to a close I want to share with you my belief in your power to change this country and this world. There are great challenges before you, from the overwhelming nature of climate change to the unfairness of an economy that excludes so many from our collective wealth, and the changes necessary to build a more inclusive and generous Canada. I believe in you. Your energy, your vision, your passion for justice are exactly what this country needs today. You need to be at the heart of our economy, our political life, and our plans for the present and the future.

And finally, to all Canadians: Canada is a great country, one of the hopes of the world. We can be a better one – a country of greater equality, justice, and opportunity. We can build a prosperous economy and a society that shares its benefits more fairly. We can look after our seniors. We can offer better futures for our children. We can do our part to save the world’s environment. We can restore our good name in the world. We can do all of these things because we finally have a party system at the national level where there are real choices; where your vote matters; where working for change can actually bring about change. In the months and years to come, New Democrats will put a compelling new alternative to you. My colleagues in our party are an impressive, committed team. Give them a careful hearing; consider the alternatives; and consider that we can be a better, fairer, more equal country by working together. Don't let them tell you it can't be done.

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

All my very best,
Jack Layton