Celebrate Safe Sunning

   Ahhhhhh! The deep warmth and relaxation of laying out...that’s what we used to call it, “laying out”. I remember the coconut aroma of my Mom’s Tropicana suntan oil, and how she would fall asleep, stretched out on a lawnchair, while I played in the yard. I remember looking through the fence at the older neighbor girls, as they took time after school to bare most of their young skin to the brilliant, Southern California sun. Each of them was on a quest, a quest to achieve the perfect summer tan.

   Throughout the 80’s and 90’s skin cancer rates climbed, and people slathered chemical sunscreens on their skin in an attempt to block out the cancer-causing UVA rays. It’s so sad to me that chemical sunscreens with parabens and phylates, are now known to actually increase risk of certain types of skin cancer.

   Scientists are now discovering the many benefits of getting a safe, daily dose of UVB rays of sunshine (more about UVB rays below). These benefits, aside from getting a deeper skin color, include; natural vitamin D production (which cuts cancer risk by 60 %), improved mood and energy through release of endorphins, synchronization of biorhythms, treatment various skin diseases, multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, tuberculosis, and more.

   Since embarking on the quest for these benefits myself a few years ago, I too am now addicted to the warm, meditative retreat of lying out in the sun. It has become my 20 minute escape when I have the extra time...whenever the sun decides to bless me out here in otherwise foggy Los Osos.

   Throughout the day, there are two different types of rays we get from the sun. One type is beneficial, and one is detrimental. The detrimental, UVA rays, can damage our skin in the morning and in the late afternoon, when the sun’s rays are bent (or whenever the sun is less than 50 degrees from the horizon, which happens year-round in high latitudes such as Alaska). And the beneficial rays, the UVBs which help us make vitamin D, occur generally between 10AM - 2PM in the late spring, summer, and early fall in most latitudes, when the sun is overhead and the rays are more direct.

   For your regular sunning-pleasure, safety, and knowledge, I listed below the safe sun exposure guidelines and tips according to Dr. Joseph Mercola. Here’s a LINK to one of his best articles on vitamin D benefits and safe sunning.

   Get out in the sun in the midday, and only stay out in it as long as it takes your skin to turn a slightly darker shade. For me, since I’m fairly fair (thanks to my Irish heritage), that’s about 15 minutes in the spring & fall, and only 5-10 minutes in the summer. As soon as I turn slightly pink, I go back inside. I’ve been able to spend longer and longer periods out in the sun without burning, as my protective tan has developed. It’s best to let your natural pigmentation (tan) develop slowly to avoid burning even slightly.

   Avoid burning at all costs. Sunburn is one of the biggest risk factors for skin cancer and photo-aging. If you accidentally do burn, use raw aloe vera to sooth & heal your skin. If you have to be out in the sun for extended periods, cover up or use a non-chemical sunscreen. I like California Baby and Elemental Herbs SPF 33...you can also make your own natural sunscreen! Here’s a LINK to a great recipe for natural sunscreen.

When sunning, get as much of your skin exposed as possible, even if it’s simply rolling up your sleeves and pant legs, but shade your delicate face and eyes.
Avoid sunning through a window or glass, where UVB rays get blocked but UVA rays come through.
 

Avoid foods which weaken your skin’s natural sun protection: refined vegetable oils, processed foods, foods with chemical additives, and inflammatory foods. Eat plenty of real foods which contribute to your skin’s natural sun protection: virgin coconut oil, plenty of omega 3 fats, quality vitamin C, oral Vitamin D3, and the supplement Astazanthin. Here’s a wonderful article which explains all of this.
 
Wash your armpits and groin with soap, but try not to scrub the rest of your skin with soap as it interferes with you body’s ability to absorb vitamin D. You see, vitamin D production happens in the sebum (oils) of your skin, which can take up to 2 days to be absorbed into your body....no wonder we’re all vitamin D deficient!

Keeping Cool (And Warm) With Foods

JULY ARTICLE

                      Keeping Cool (And Warm) With Foods

I’ll never forget how amazed I was, when I first learned that our body temperature can be controlled with food. It was a hot summer day, and I was at a friend’s house (a friend who had been studying Macrobiotics for many years). He said that the day before at his house had been so hot, that he and his wife just stayed in the shade and ate only melon during the hottest part of the day. ‘What?’, I thought.  ‘Melons help you feel cool?’...Yes! Every kind of melon is hydrating to the body and has a very cooling thermal effect. In fact, most of the foods which grow at the hottest times of year, tend to cool our bodies down.

It’s intriguing to me how often Mother Nature knows best. The spring and summer crops tend to be cooling and cleansing, whereas the fall and winter crops tend to be warming and building. Go figure! The ancient diet and lifestyle systems of Macrobiotics and Ayurveda state these principals clearly, as guidelines for maintaining balance through the seasons. A powerful tool for maintaining balance in mind, body, and spirit, is to eat seasonally and regionally, just as our ancestors and indigenous people all over the world today do.

Another amazing fact is that different cooking methods impart either a warming or cooling thermal nature into our food. When feeling too warm, eat fruits and vegetables raw, or just lightly steam your veggies. Blanching or sauteing with water also tend to help keep the body cool. Quicker cooking methods using stainless steel are suggested in hot weather.

Conversely, in the colder months (or when feeling cold), bake, pressure-cook, or cook for longer periods of time in cast iron. The fall and winter foods which tend to be more warming and building are; whole fats like butter, quality meats, root veggies, winter squash, sturdy winter greens like Brussel’s sprouts and cabbage, and the hearty winter grains like oats, heirloom wheats, rye, kamut, and amaranth.

Okay. Let’s get back to those cooling foods, before you have to go jump in a swimming pool! The cooling summer vegetables are cucumbers, lettuces of all kinds, bok choy, mustard greens, turnip and radish tops, green beans, sprouts, summer squash, and zucchini. Most fruits have a cooling thermal nature, especially melons, tropical fruits, summer fruits, grapes, and berries.
And the cooling grains are: millet, corn, and quinoa.

It’s important to note, that, for easy digestion, eat melons and fruits by themselves, as they do completely different acid-dance in the stomach compared to other foods. If you have sensitive digestion (like me), you may want to eat all vining fruits, like cucumber, alone. It’s best to wait 2hrs after eating a meal, before eating fruits, melons, or cucumbers...and afterward, it’s best to wait another 2hrs before eating other foods again. Eat them alone.

And, of course, during these hot days, remember to stay hydrated with plenty of re-mineralized water, around the clock, by adding to your water any of these electrolyte-rich, water metabolism enhancers; a squeeze of lemon, a teaspoon of raw apple cider vinegar, an ounce or so of any 100% fruit juice, or a pinch of real sea salt. And, because many of us forget to drink, set out half your ideal body weight in ounces of water each morning, and drink 1/4 of it about 45 minutes before breakfast. Then, stagger the rest of your water throughout the day, between meals, so as not to dilute your valuable stomach acids or enzymes. Better digestion means better health all the way around. Yay!

Hope that helps y’all till the fall!

 Animal Proteins and Saturated Fats

In deciding to do a liver cleanse recently, I browsed the liver/gallbladder chapter of my favorite book, Healing With Whole Foods, and discovered that I’ve been way too liberal with both red meats and saturated fats.

For years, I’ve been gleefully mounding heaping tablespoons of ghee and virgin coconut oil into my skillet for high-heat cooking because I’d studied that eating a low glycemic, whole foods diet makes one’s metabolism switch from burning sugars for energy to burning fats. Also, it’s now well known that the trans fats from refined vegetable oils in processed and restaurants foods are what clog arteries (especially in conjunction with saturated fats in the diet). And, healthy indigenous people often eat as much as a 60% fat diet of natural, whole, unrefined fats. But, I’ve been stopped in my tracks with this fat-fest after reading that too much saturated fat is really hard for the liver & kidneys to process.

Saturated fats cause internal heat to build up because the energy released from digesting fats is more than twice the amount of energy released from proteins and carbohydrates. No wonder I’ve been opening the windows and waking up sweating at night. According to Chinese medicine, eating too much saturated fat slows the liver’s ability to cleanse the blood, which leads to liver heat and stagnation, which then can lead to excesses and inflammations such as acne, tumors, cancer, obesity, boils, carbuncles, liver/gallbladder disorders, heart disease, and kidney disorders. Whoah Nellie! No wonder my acne has come back again lately...I’m glad I came across this information when I did!

So, how much saturated fat is too much? In a nutshell, even though my metabolism had switched to burning fats, and even though I lost another 5 pounds without even trying on my low-glycemic, whole foods diet, my saturated fat consumption (pasture butter, ghee, virgin coconut oil, etc.) should be no more than 1 teaspoon per meal (as opposed to the tablespoon or two I’d been wallowing in for years). Okay. This guideline is best for me because my diet includes meats  and other animal products, which have copious amounts of their own saturated fats. If I were a low-glycemic, whole food-eating vegan, it would be okay to increase my saturated fat intake to 2 teaspoons or so per meal. But, since I want to continue to enjoy my eggs & greens a few days a week, and my grass fed beef once in a while, I need to eat less saturated fats, and enjoy more monounsaturated fats like high quality, extra virgin olive oil, unrefined sesame oil, raw nuts & seeds like flax, chia, and pumpkin seeds...and of course, avocado! Hallelujah! 

I’ll be using more water in my stir frys now, and way less ghee or butter in my beans. But, I won’t omit these wonderfully flavorful, saturated fats completely, because they’re very important in small to moderate amounts for everyone. Our bodies absolutely need good quality, saturated fats from both plant and animal sources, for brain & nerve repair and function, for glandular secretions & hormone balance, for healthy skin, and for internal warmth in the winter or when feeling cold. If we don’t get any saturated fat & cholesterol in our diets, our liver will begin to over-produce it because it plays such an important role in so many bodily processes. Chinese medicine says that fats should be used more liberally in the winter, or when feeling dry, cold, nervous, underweight, unproductive or ungrounded.

I believe that most health problems in modern people happen from three habits of the standard american diet; 1) eating packaged, restaurant & other refined foods such as iodized salt, refined sugars, refined vegetable oils, and refined grains like wheat flour, 2) in spiking the blood sugar throughout the day and throughout the lifetime, and now 3) in eating too much saturated fat, red meats, or pasteurized dairy products.

Okay. This is the perfect segway into what I just read about animal proteins. Animal foods, especially red meats, contain arachidonic acid. When this substance builds up, the body will experience pain & inflammation, blood clotting, and the inhibition of omega-3 fatty acid uptake. Excess animal protein & especially red meat consumption for long periods of time can eventually lead to: rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, dermatitis, rhinitis, psoriasis, lupus, and tumors. If you’re a regular red meat-eater (protein nutritional type or type O blood), and you’re experiencing any of these symptoms, you’ll probably want to eat at least 50% less animal protein, and replace your red meat with consciously raised, organic poultry (LINK to Dana’s heritage chicken) and clean fish. (Fish LINK: http://www.vitalchoice.com/shop/pc/home.asp).

I do really well as a type A blood type, on a complex carbohydrate-based diet, so, I’m going to reduce my egg consumption from 10 eggs/week down to 4 eggs/week, my poultry and fish consumption down to 4oz twice a week, and my red meat consumption down from 8oz once a week to just 4oz once a month. This is how most healthy, rural, Asain people eat, and seasonal veggies are the base of their diets.

If you find yourself craving meat, spirulina and chlorella are GREAT ways to supplement your protein needs while supplying your body with everything it needs nutrient-wise, including chlorophyl and gamma-linoleic acid (highly absorbable form of omega-3). Micro algae is not really a plant, and not really an animal. It’s sort of between the two. It’s considered a super food, and you can live very healthy, solely on it! Spirulina and chlorella are recommended specifically for people transitioning from over-eating meats to a more vegetarian platter. The recommended dosage is 1-2 teaspoons per day.

Right now is a perfect time to address these issues of overeating meats and fats & oils in our diets because June marks the warm return of summer, and it’s this time of year when our bodies need less meat and fat, and more of the the cooling, cleansing summer fruits and vegetables to maintain balance in mind, body, and spirit. It’s amazing to me how nature gives us what’s most balancing, season to changing season, right where we happen to live.

One Of My Favorite Breakfasts...

Arame Eggs & Greens w/Avo...YUM!

MAY RECIPE: The Seasonal Casserole To Go
This is a great casserole to make ahead of your busy schedule. What I like most about it is that you can totally individualize the recipe; it can be made with any of your favorite veggies, with or without cheese or meat, and even without eggs! It takes about 2 hours to make, but it’s well worth the effort. The entire dish can be cooled and refrigerated for easy spatula servings into wax paper baggies for lunch on the go all week long. Yay!

PART 1
Soak 1 cup whole grain millet and 1cup whole grain amaranth overnight under 2 inches filtered water in the medium saucepan you plan to cook it in. Soaking whole grains does 3 things: 1) it makes the grain's vitamins & minerals more assimilatable, 2) it initiates the sprouting process and then many more amino acids develop for your body to make proteins from, and 3) it makes the complex carbs much easier to digest.
Okay, the next day, strain off the soak water and refill the pot with 3 cups filtered water. Bring to a boil, stir in 1/2 tsp whole sea salt, reduce to a low simmer, put the lid on the pot at an angle so the steam can escape, and simmer for 25 minutes.
This thick gruel is a nutrient-packed base for any meal. Use it for breakfast or dessert alongside raw nuts & seasonal fruit, OR with beans or stir-fry!

PART 2
Stir-steam a bunch of diced seasonal veggies (below), and then mix in a dozen beaten eggs along with the simmered millet & amaranth (high quality meat & cheese optional) and pour everything into a casserole dish to bake. 

INGREDIENTS
8 cups diced seasonal vegetables:
   in spring/summer use: yellow squash or zucchini, asparagus, broccoli & bok choy
   in fall use: carrot or parsnip, green beans & collard greens
   in winter use: yam, burdock root, yellow onion & kale
3Tbsp ghee or coconut oil
1Tbsp yellow curry powder
3-4Tbsp Ohsawa or Eden brand shoyu or tamari soy sauce (or 1Tbsp sea salt if you can’t do soy)
1Tbsp minced fresh rosemary and/or marjoram & dill
12 high quality eggs (the eggs can technically be left out because the amaranth holds the ingredients together pretty well after the dish cools)
Optional: 1/2 c. drained sun-dried tomatoes (kids usually don’t like these)
Optional: 1 cup grated organic cheese (I like goat cheddar!)
Optional: 1lb cooked & diced high quality, consciously raised meat like organic chicken or grass fed beef

HOW TO
Sauté most dense veggies (root vegetables & onion) in ghee or coconut oil in a large wok or deep pot with a fitting lid with curry powder and 1 cup water for 2 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds. Next add less-dense veggies (green beans, summer squash, broccoli, asparagus, etc.) and stir, then saute for another minute. Next add dark leafy greens like kale or collards, cover the skillet and let saute another minute. Uncover skillet and stir greens into bottom of pan until they’re all slightly wilted and wet looking. Turn off the heat & add shoyu or tamari soy sauce and herbs. Stir in sun-dried tomatoes (optional), a dozen beaten eggs, 4 cups simmered millet & amaranth, and optional cheese/meat. Pour into buttered 9 x 13” casserole dish (use two baking dishes if needed) and bake uncovered for 35 minutes at 350°. When a wooden skewer stick comes out dry, it’s done! Let cool for at least 20 minutes.
Lemon juice squeezed over each serving tastes fantastic! Refrigerate the rest for easy meals to go. I just put a 4” square of it into a wax paper bag and take an avocado along for a hearty lunch away from home. Having this dish ready in the fridge is a God-send on those rushy mornings!