Tag Archives: Yeast Infection Treatment

Questions & Answers

Cooking Methods for Weight Loss

What’s the best cooking method for weight loss?

It’s important to know the best way to cook food in order to maintain vital nutrients.

If you search online, you’ll probably find that microwave cooking is described as the “ultimate” way to cook. However, I’m not a fan of microwave cooking. I prefer to steam and stir-fry foods.

Boiling is not a really good food preparation technique. Boiling almost guarantees that nutrients will be lost during the cooking process. It’s estimated that 35 to 65% of nutrient loss occurs by boiling food.

I also think boiled vegetables, boiled potatoes, and a slab of meat is a bland and boring way to eat.

Steaming is a much better way to prepare food as the nutrient loss is only 10 to 15%. I prefer steaming my vegetables very lightly.

You should always be looking for ways to cook without destroying the valuable nutrients. For example, if we look at folic acid, it’s a vitamin that is exceptionally easy to degrade. Deep greens should be minimally processed to avoid this degradation. Folate is essential for cancer prevention, so protect it, if at all possible.

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My general philosophy is to cook for less time, cook smaller portion sizes, and cook for flavor.

In terms of cooking for weight loss, the best method is the quickest with the lowest heat that can achieve a satisfactory product.

Personally, I don’t have to cook food overly well. I prefer to eat meat that is semi-cooked and still juicy.

Stir-frying is a fantastic technique for weight loss. I love stir-frying using my steel wok and a little bit of sesame oil and the secret ingredient, water.

I will only boil certain tubers, such as sweet potato.

Stewing and grilling are also good options.

In the winter, I recommend hot pot cooking and stewing.

Having flavorful meals is another great weight to encourage weight loss. When food is tasty, it’s more satisfying. Some of the flavors I like are ginger, garlic, lime juice, chili sauce, anchovy sauce, Worchester sauce, and salt and pepper.

Over time, your taste buds will come to appreciate tasty, crunchy food.

Ensure that you are cooking healthy, high fiber foods. This will help you feel full on less food.

And don’t forget to keep your body moving.

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The Health Benefits Of Spanish Black Radish

Black radish is also known as Raphanus sativus variation niger.

You may know radish as in the red kind of radish. I like to grow radishes, but I also like to grow carrots, including dark carrots. The old carrots that were grown thousands of years ago are a dark black color and even purple color, these are extremely good for your health. Today carrots are orange. I also may mention to you that carrots are orange because the Dutch bred them to be orange for the Dutch royal family, which is an orange color.

Black radish is very good for you. Black and purple pigmented vegetables, like purple lettuce, are very good for you.

Radishes taste a bit peppery. Radishes belong to the Brassica family, so they are related to kale, Brussel sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower.

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Brassicas contain a compound called glucosinolates. In the gut, enzymes change glucosinolates into isothiocyanate. Isothiocyanate accelerates detoxification in the liver. It’s even been shown that isothiocyanate can detoxify certain cancer cell lines in the liver.

When they introduce cancer experimentally into rats or mice and then give the animals isothiocyanate, the rate of cancer is reduced. The claim isn’t that isothiocyanate cures cancer. The claim is that eating brassicas, including black radish, may help prevent cancer.

It’s also been shown that people who consume radish regularly have a much lower incidence of getting gallstones. The chemicals in radish stimulate globet cells (the mucous producing cells) and other cells in your gut that function to excrete waste. In other words, radish acts as a natural detoxifier of your small and large bowel.

Try and add more radish to your diet. Radishes are very easy to grow. They’ve got a nice crunch and are great for oral health. People who eat radishes and related vegetables tend to have sweeter breath and better digestion. Why not eat a radish instead of a chicken nugget? It’s a lot better for you.

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Questions & Answers

Glutamine And Gut Health

L-glutamine is an amino acid found in many different types of foods. Glutamine is found in chicken or bone broth, brassicas, and high protein foods like fish.

Many bodybuilders and athletes use glutamine because it boosts muscle and bone growth.
Brain function benefits from glutamine as well. Glutamine is one of the primary fuels for enterocytes, the cells that line the gut. I have seen studies that demonstrate glutamine boosting the immune system by increasing secretory IgA.

On the other hand, I have had clients who experienced significant side effects from L-glutamine. So, don’t just jump straight into the water. Put your big toe in first, okay?
If you’re going to take glutamine, and you’ve got GI issues such as leaky gut, IBS, Candida, or abdominal discomfort, don’t rush into taking large doses of L-glutamine. Instead, start with small quantities, and take it from there.

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I recommend that glutamine be taken with protein foods rather than an empty stomach. The average dose for many people is between 500 and 2,000 milligrams per day. Some websites recommend megadoses from 30 grams up to 80 grams per day. I consider that very foolhardy. Mega dosing on any supplement just doesn’t make sense, regardless of what it is.
With glutamine, start small, build up, watch the bowel motions, and use the eyeball test. Look into the toilet and see what the stool’s doing. Keep track of your gut comfort after starting glutamine.

When you introduce glutamine into your diet as a supplement, don’t start10 other things at the same time. Take glutamine, for example, at a rate of say 500 milligrams per day for several days, build up to 1,000, watch the stool, watch the gut symptoms, and watch the food sensitivities. If you start noticing improvements or changes, you may well be getting a good benefit from it. You could slowly step it up to 1,000 or 2,000 milligrams per day.

As per usual, if something benefits you, take it. If it doesn’t, get rid of it. It’s not a dietary necessity. But for people pushing their body hard through physical training and eating a lot of food, there is definitely a benefit from glutamine.

With regards to leaky gut, I’ve seen glutamine result in significant improvement. If the leaky gut comes along with SIBO, parasites, or Candida, it may be hard to tolerate the glutamine. In that case, start with a cleanse, eradicate the gut microbe imbalances, and then undergo a trial of glutamine.

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The Health Benefits Of Elderberry

Elderberry is a plant, also known as Sambucus nigra.

Sambucus is a fascinating medicinal plant that’s been used now for probably thousands of years. I used to grow this plant in Australia.

Elderberry can grow up to nine meters tall. I used to grow it down around my verandah in the backyard. Elderberry has beautiful big clusters of lovely, aromatic white, creamy flowers.
People make champagne or fizzy drinks from elderberry flowers.

The berries of Sambucus nigra are quite tart and need to be cooked. The berries have a high vitamin C and antioxidant content. The antioxidant compounds in elderberry fruit include phenolic acids and different flavonols like quercetin and kaempferol.

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The compounds in elderberry are very good at fixing free radical damage. As a result, elderberry is very good for people under a lot of stress who want to prevent progression to heart disease, cancer, or diabetes.

Several natural medicines contain Sambucus. Studies have demonstrated the elderberry can help prevent flu and shorten the duration if you do develop symptoms. Sambucus is thought to upregulate the immune system.

With regards to the gut, the combination of vitamin C, other antioxidants, and fiber, helps boost up beneficial bacteria levels.

I highly recommend growing elderberry. In addition to being very nutritious, it is a beautiful plant. Thankfully, Sambucus nigra grows well in a lot of different climates.

You can infuse elderberry flowers in hot water, cool it down, and end up with a lovely beverage. Some people just float the flowers in ice water. You can also make tea out of the leaves or the berries.

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Questions & Answers

Why Eating Too Much Fruit Isn’t Good For Your Gut

Some patients I see eat way too much fruit. Some people eat ten pieces of fruit per day. I think that’s far too much.

Eating anything in excess is not good for the body. I’ve always maintained that consuming particular foods is fine, like vegetable consumption or meat consumption, but it should be in balance with other kinds of foods.

I’m not here to argue the different merits of diets, you know, whether you are a vegan or whether you are a paleo person. This article is about the downsides of eating too much fruit.
If you eat excessive amounts of fruit, you’re going to be overloaded with fructose. Fructose consumed in abundance can upset intestinal permeability and encourage the growth of harmful bacteria in the gut.

Some studies have shown that large amounts of fructose can cause liver damage. Further, people who eat far too much fruit tend to have lower Bacteroides levels. At the same time, proteobacteria levels tend to go up.

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The microbiome often reflects the type of food a person east. For example, Prevotella bacteria thrive in the gut when a person eats a lot of fiber, particularly vegetable fiber.

Bacteroides bacteria prefer a mixed kind of a diet, especially if there’s a bit of meat in the diet. A healthy person will have a balance of different classes of bacteria.

If a person starts overeating one particular food, the result can be a bacterial imbalance in the gut. That’s why my motto is “Everything in moderation, nothing in excess” when it comes to healthy foods.

Of course, this motto doesn’t apply to unhealthy foods like high-fructose corn syrup. Up to 60% of foods now in US supermarkets contain high-fructose corn syrup. Avoid that substance as much as you can.

I am in favor of fruit, but I’m definitely not in favor of ten pieces of fruit a day. Definitely not.

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