This Friday, I had the opportunity to attend The Bavarian Inn Restaurant's Michigan dinner! A six course meal, the delicious dinner featured all locally grown, caught or made food and drink. The picture at right is one of the courses; Michigan bluegill served over arugula with a hard cider and stone-ground mustard vinaigrette.
Another course was an onion soup served inside a full onion! The Michigan farmer who grew the onions spoke at the dinner about his farm and even went as far as making onion wine! (I don't think it was the biggest hit of of the night.)
This year go out of your way to eat local! We have so many great things in Michigan and if we start supporting them not only will it help our communities financially but from a health aspect as well.
True health is total health. One aspect of total health is reducing the toxins in your environment.
A recent study by the EPA stated that the toxic chemicals in household cleaners are three times more likely to cause cancer than outdoor air.
One of the best all-natural cleaners is white vinegar as it is non-toxic and inexpensive. It can be used to clean almost anything!
For general cleaner mix half water, half white vinegar and a few drops off essential if you want a scented cleaner.
To mop your floors, we use the same mixture. It is safe for kids and pets too!
Another simple way to create a healthier home is to remove two common sources of chemicals from your laundry room -- fabric softener and dryer sheets.
Here are some of the chemicals found in commercial fabric softeners and dryer sheets you want to avoid:
Alpha Terpineol: can cause central nervous damage and respiratory problems
Benzyl Acetate: linked to pancreatic cancer
Camphor: causes central nervous disorders, is easily absorbed through skin
Chloroform: a carcinogenic neurotoxin that warns inhalation can be fatal
To reduce toxins in your laundry, replace dryer sheets with dryer balls. Plastic dryer balls can be found at many home good stores, but wool dryer balls are your best option. They help reduce drying time (saving money) and help soften clothes too. To find wool dryer balls locally, visit Sweet Peach Baby Boutique in Bay City, Mich. Also, try swapping out fabric softener for white vinegar. Fill a Downy Ball with white vinegar and throw in the wash on top of the laundry. It works great, is a natural antibacterial cleaner and fabric softener. And it doesn't leave your laundry smelling like vinegar.
Incorporate some of these natural spring cleaning tips for a healthier home!
To understand how to lose weight it's more important to understand how you gain weight in the first place.
1) Carbohydrates (not fat, or protein) increase the hormone insulin 2) Insulin shoves carbohydrates into cells and stores them as fat 3) The more insulin and carbohydrates you have the fatter you get
The only way to lose weight is to remove the carbohydrates that are
causing the fat storage.
Once you reduce and eliminate these, then your
body will burn the fat already stored as energy.
There is no
secret surgery, pill, potion, lotion. You will NEVER lose weight until
you stop fat storage first by reducing the carbohydrates!
Eggs are a healthy and easy source of protein and nutrients, and can be made in many different ways. Deviled eggs are a great healthy appetizer for your next get together.Be sure to eat the yolk too! Healthy Deviled Eggs recipe:
photo from thenourishinggourmet.com
6 hard boiled eggs
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 tsp mustard
Half of a squeezed lemon
1 tsp paprika
Mix the ingredients until fluffy (add the olive oil last). Scoop back into the egg
whites and sprinkle with paprika.
As seen on NBC 25 with Joel Feick: Balance is something many of us take for granted – until we
lose it. An indication on how well your brain is communicating with the rest of
your body, balance typically gets worse with age. But you can improve your
balance, it just takes practice like any other skill.
Most people sit for the majority of the day which is one of
the worst things you can do for your balance. Standing and moving around activates
the muscles in your legs therefore improving your coordination and balance.
According to The Gerontologist,
falls are the leading cause of injury death for people over 65 years of age. Also,
on average one in three people age 65 and older fall one time per year. Being
proactive and preventing falls is very important for this age group. Especially
when it is slippery outside, always take smaller steps as the larger steps you
take, the worse your balance gets!
Many falls actually happen at night when it is dark. When
you aren’t able to use your eyes, it completely changes how your body balances.
Now imagine getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, your
vision is not very good and your leg muscles are not as strong as they used to
be. Practicing balance exercises with your eyes closed is a great way to
prevent falls and injuries.
Practice these balance exercises daily:
Stand on one leg: alternate every
30 seconds, five times on each side. This helps the connection between
your brain and the rest of your body improving balance.
Stand on one leg, eyes closed: alternate
every 30 seconds, five times on each side. Be sure to hold on to a wall or
chair when you start practicing! This helps to prepare your body for
walking when it’s dark. If you get really good at this, buy a balance disk
and practice on that.
Chair squats: Use a chair and practice
getting up from a sitting position, 20 times with no hands. Squats help strengthen
your legs and hips, creating a strong foundation to prevent falls. Weak
leg strength is the main reason people their lose balance and fall.
Up and down: Practice getting on
the ground and getting up. If you have trouble with this, make sure you
practice with a friend to help you. Many elderly people struggle getting
off the ground without something to grab or lean on. If they fall in an
icy parking lot and nobody is around to help it could mean big trouble! This
is a very simple exercise to practice, but very important.
Start doing these exercises on a daily basis to improve your
overall balance. Injuries from falls could greatly be reduced by doing them.
We don't eat bread, so this is what I use my toaster for (unplugged of course)
When most people think of desserts they think of cookies, cakes, ice cream or pie. When I think of dessert, I think of anything that is processed such as bread, cereal, dairy, snack bars, frozen dinners, pasta, fast food and more.
When trying to eat healthy focusing on eating real food is the key. If you use this simple rule it will clarify and simplify most health questions or issues.
Does it have a long ingredients list? If it does, then odds are it is not going to be healthy. Can you pronounce the ingredients on the list? If you can’t read it, don’t eat it.
A cucumber, pineapple or venison does not have an ingredients list, obviously. But bread, Vitamin Water and Nutri-grain bars on the other hand have a long, unprounceable ingredients list.
If you can find something in nature and eat it then it’s going to be healthy. The more levels of processing something has been through, the unhealthier it is for you.
For example, a blueberry picked directly from the wild can be eaten, but for you to eat grain from a field it has to go through different levels of processing and typically contains made in a lab nutrients or fiber added back into it because they were damaged during the processing of the food.
The next time you are eating a meal think about it from a real food or dessert food perspective. Healthy protein, fruits and vegetables are real food. Processed food such as dairy, grains and packaged food is dessert.
Eat real, healthy, nutritious food 80 percent of the time. The other 20 percent of the time, enjoy dessert! But now you know to choose your dessert wisely... a piece of bread or a piece of cake?
Our lives are full of stress. Work. Money. Family. Stress. Stress. Stress.
Local chiropractor and healthy living advocate Dr. Dan Kehres says after a while, all that stress takes a toll on your overall health. On NBC 25 Today, Dr. Kehres says we all need to take steps, everyday to relax. Perhaps meditation is your way to do it. There are breathing techniques you can learn. You can consider yoga. Anything that takes you away from reality for about 20 minutes to find your quiet place.
