A HEALTHY KITCHEN

Although you can get pure Glucose (also called dextrose, or corn sugar) from a home brewing supply store, first, try baking with Corn Syrup.

Corn syrup is known as an "invert sugar;" it is useful in cooking and candy-making because, unlike other sugars, it does not crystallize. Corn is treated with enzymes to break down starch into glucose and maltose. Corn syrup is less sweet than sugar, and does not add flavor like molasses or honey...

Baking with glucose is a healthy idea, whether you are diabetic or not

Here's a simple Recipe for Carob Cake And Frosting:

Ingredients:

It's a funny old world, things go in and out of fashion and it's said to be the doom of man that he forgets (I like that one!). One thing that fits into this pattern is the consumption of raw foodstuffs, back in the day it was ALL we could do!! Yet now it's seems to be viewed as a new and healthy trend. Chew on that for a while, there is really very little out there in the dietary world that we haven't already done, got bored of, forgotten about then had come back as the latest trendy thing to do.

Reading this may mean you are interested in raw food consumption, and good on you! Fresh food eaten raw can literally make your day! It's also one of the simplest of techniques to master; you need a few good tools and a little imagination.

The principal behind raw food consumption is simple: raw food is intact, all the fragile nutrients are present and none of it's "life force" is lessened by processing. It's bonkers when you ponder that most of our food takes days, weeks or even months to reach us from the moment it leaves the soil or is plucked from it's branch. Then the first thing we do is heat treat it!! Cooking as we know it undoubtedly lessens the nutrient potential of fruit and vegetables. As does heat treatments like pasteurizing, or freezing and excessive delay in food reaching our plates (food miles).

So what do we need to eat raw? Strictly nothing more than our teeth, but to spice things up and broaden what we can make a few benchmark tools are required! A Single auger juicer will allow you to juice, grind, mince, and make sauce, importantly you much choose a slow turning machine, as high speed juicers introduce heat and oxygen (two destroyers of nutrients). A powerful blender will add smoothies, milks and more to your menu. Think of a dehydrator as a low temperature oven than gives your fruit and vegetables a shelf life but without lessening the nutrient value too seriously, a dehydrator in your kitchen will allow you to make all sorts of snacks and goodies and make sure nothing goes to waste!

We think that live natural food creates lively natural people. Next time you're in the queue at a burger bar you too may feel, as we do, that we are on set of a zombie movie! Find a juice bar or whole food cafe and compare the buzz!!

In conclusion then we are cellular beings, what I mean by that is nothing hokey it simply means that we are make up of billions of cells, these cells are constantly replicating, dying off, fighting disease and doing thousands of other functions on our behalf. Cells are like miniature factories, then need raw material, and they produce waste materials, we think the best raw materials you can give yourself is a fresh raw "living" diet!

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10 Changes To Your Diet That Will Instantly Make it 90% Better
A Guest Article By: Jayson Hunter RD, CSCS
MealPlans101

Most individuals do not eat like they are supposed to. Out of those individuals 95% of them don’t realize that by making 10 simple changes to their eating lifestyle they can improve their diet by 90% along with improving their health and overall well-being.

Apply these changes to your diet today and you too will be experiencing an increased benefit to your health, probable weight loss, a leaner body, and likely improvements to your blood profile. This all equals a longer healthier life.

Now let’s get started so you can benefit from these 10 simple changes that everyone can make immediately.

1. Hydration: Is there a difference
Consume Green Tea or Water instead of calorie filled drinks such as soft drinks. Green Tea has many health benefits and is a powerful antioxidant. You should be drinking 1ml of non-caffeinated fluid for every calorie that you consume. This works out between (8-12) 8oz glasses of Green Tea or Water a day.

2. Benefits of Fiber
Recommend consuming 25-35 grams of fiber per day. Since the average diet contains only 14 grams we could all use more fiber. Fiber will help satisfy hunger pangs as well as control insulin and blood sugar levels which tend to promote fat storage when they are elevated. By simply eating at least 1 serving of fruit and vegetables at every meal should get you to the goal of 25-35 grams of fiber per day.

3. The Importance of Protein
Eat lean protein sources which include; lean beef, chicken breasts, turkey breasts, salmon, low-fat cottage cheese and other low-fat dairy products, and whey protein powders, at every meal. This will also help control insulin levels and satisfy hunger pangs which tend to promote fat storage. You will find yourself naturally eating less food throughout the day if you eat some type of lean protein at every meal.

4. Frequent Meals: Why?
Eat 4-6 small meals day a day instead of the usual 2-3 large meals. Eating frequently will help regulate and boost your metabolism to burn more calories. By also including your protein and vegetables at these meals you will tend to eat less overall thereby reducing your calorie intake.

5. What are Whole Foods?
Consume whole foods that are high in fiber and low in sugar such as lean protein (lean beef, chicken, fish, and whey protein), fruits & vegetables (oranges, apples, strawberries, blueberries, broccoli, peppers, asparagus, carrots, nuts (almonds, cashews, & walnuts), and whole grains.
Try to minimize processed foods that come in a box or a bag. Instead choose whole grain choices such as whole wheat foods, oatmeals, and vegetables.

6. Healthy Fats: Yes, there are healthy fats
Consume adequate amounts of healthy fat foods such as olive oil, walnuts, almonds, or other Omega-3 products. Healthy fats are great antioxidants as well as help with brain function and many other essentials processes that take place in the body on a daily basis. Essential Fatty acids also help prevent certain diseases.

7. Superfoods
Include what I call “Superfoods” into your meal plan on a daily basis. These include but not entirely lean meat, salmon, low fat plain yogurt, tomatoes, spinach, mixed berries, whole oats, mixed nuts, olive oil, flax seeds(or flax meal), green tea, and various beans. These are just some of the “Superfoods” you should be incorporating into your daily meal plans.

8. Fat
Keep total fat intake under 30% for the day. This can be accomplished by not adding too many extra fats such as butter, sour cream, mayonnaise, etc. This doesn’t mean you have to completely eliminate these items, but do not eat them as a regular food item every day.

9. Food Log: Yes, this is the most important step
Record what you eat and drink. You will be amazed at what you consume and not even realize you did it until you right it down and reflect back on the day. Keeping a food log is critical to your success because if modifications need to be made you need something to be able to evaluate and analyze. If changes aren’t happening like you had hoped the answer can usually be found in your food and or exercise journal.

10. Food Labels
Review food labels. Avoid foods packed with excess sugar, calories, or foods that contain any trans-fats. You should be looking for more natural foods and not overly-processed foods. Ingredients to look for and avoid or minimize if they are one of the top ingredients listed in the ingredients list: Sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup and Hydrogenated or Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil.

If you see these ingredients listed at the top then that means the product is made up of that ingredient as it’s largest source.

Now I don’t expect you to make every change in one day. What I do expect is that if you are serious about living a better life and a healthier life then you need to make these changes over the next 4 weeks. The best way to accomplish this task is to map out your plan. Create meal plans and have a plan of attack in place in regards to what you are eating and when.

You will start to see just how easy it is to live a healthier life and achieve the goals that you desire.

About the Author:

Jayson Hunter, RD, CSCS, is a registered dietitian and fitness professional with more than 10 years of experience. He has worked with 1000’s of individuals in achieving their ideal body and has been published in numerous magazines. He is also co-creator of Meal Plans 101 nutrition software. For more information on how you can utilize Jayson’s expertise go to MealPlans101

I hope to give my thoughts on the impact of food miles on your fresh fruit and vegetables and the potency of their nutrients, indeed their health giving properties.

Food miles are an interesting development of global air and sea travel, gone is the day when wearing your attractive loincloth you would wander up to the nearest tree, pluck an apple and eat it as fresh and as vibrant as it could be, caveman style.

Now our food takes a longer journey from tree or earth to plate, I feel its important to realise that living foods are firstly vital and secondly losing their power to give health benefits from the moment they are picked. In some cases out of season foods are delivered frozen by sea freight or rushed over by air so we can enjoy a marvellous range of choice throughout the year. We are based in the UK so we enjoy bananas from the equator, apples from South Africa and Kiwi fruits from New Zealand. Although very enticing, what are these foods losing on the way?

We know fresh fruit and vegetables are good for us because of the healing power of the nutrients within, some nutrients are known about, the vitamins and minerals, some micro nutrients are yet to be discovered and their full benefits charted. But you can bet one thing! These nutrients are vunerable and they are live. Common sense would indicate that foods are best eaten as fresh as possible and, importantly, unfrozen, un-processed and not heat treated unless necessary! Isn't it striking that we are the only species on the planet with a catalogue of illness and we're also the only one that cooks and stores food.

What can you do? We recommend tracking down your local farmers market, often good here are very reasonably priced and direct from farmer to you with minimal time and process between. Also shop for locally grown produce as a matter of course, this will ensure the best produce.

We also recommend enjoying the art of juice and smoothie making as this takes uncooked fresh fruit and vegetables extracts the goodness raw and uncooked and supplies your body with the nutrients it needs!

Here is a real area of misunderstanding in the field of diet and nutrition, particularly in the area of nutrition for sports. We are told over and over that a balanced diet has a mix of carbohydrate, protein, vitamins, minerals and fat. People tend to think of meat or fish for protein, a carbohydrate like potatoes, pasta or rice, vegetables for vitamins and minerals and fats by sauce, olive oil, dressing or desert. Now it's also thought that the ratio of the main three, protein, carbohydrate and fat should be as third each for balance.

Right? I don't think so. I think the protein content is far too high, and of course individual foods are a blend of fat, protein, carbohydrates and nutrients themselves. Now let's take a look at the first whole food that we all have an interest in, mother's milk, for most of us our first food, and it's when we need maximum protein for all the growing we are doing. So if you had to guess, what percentage of breast milk would you say is protein? 45%, 35%? Try again, its 2%. Shocked? I was when I found out! So when we are young and we are putting on weight as fast as we ever will naturally, we do it on a diet that is 2% protein.

Take one of my favourite foods, broccoli, it has a blend of nutrients, fats, carbohydrate and protein that I think is very synergistic with the requirements of the human machine, and the fats are vegetable fats, not the more troublesome animal fats. I'm pretty much vegetarian since learning all I could about nutrition, sure there is nothing wrong with eating animal flesh, but I can't see the need with all the great sources of natural protein available with non of the drawbacks of animal goods. Also consider the health effects of consuming too much protein, weak bones, lethargy, acidic PH and high body fat.

I think there are different types of people, some thrive on protein, other become overwhelmed by it and suffer. I myself need a good supply of protein but I look to get this from the plant world. Did you know that wheatgrass powder is higher in protein than fillet steak!

My typical meal now is heavy on the lightly cooked or raw green vegetables, small oily fish a couple of times a week, some nuts and seeds for minerals and protein, plenty of cruciferous and leafy veggies and some good un-processed whole foods like brown rice. And what do I notice since leaving behind animal products? Well it's all good, more energy, more focus and less congestion problems and illness.

Essential oils, Omega fats, fatty acids, trans fats, there is a lot of fat out there, some good some bad. We hope we can help you sort them out, as a broad term the only good fats come from the non animal world. Simply put the only fats and oils really worth eating are from fish, nuts, seeds and vegetables.

We get our fats and oils from good sources, avocado is good, hemp and flax seed oils are also good, and both give a nice nutty flavor. Oily fish are good as well; we make sure we eat some small oily fish, e.g. mackerel or kippers three times a week. And we go to the counter to buy it. I don't dig fish in cans all that much as the can material can get into the fish.

Nut and seed oils are good things indeed, so try and add some avocado, coconut flesh, hemp or flaxseed oil in your juicer mixes two or three times a week, you only need a little splash as these nutrients are very concentrated.

You can fortify a juice by throwing a handful of nuts, seeds or a mixture into the juice at the blender stage. This is when you need a blender that is fast and powerful enough to mill the nuts and seeds making them super digestible. The auger juicers are multi function and can be used to grind up nuts and seeds too.

Remember nuts in particular are very calorie heavy so you don't need many of them, and try to avoid buying salty nuts, it makes them incredibly more-ish. Seeds are always worth milling or grinding as they are very hard to digest. Nuts and seeds have a lot to offer, they are very mineral rich too, the old saying is "nuts and seeds, greens and beans" with that lot in your diet regularly you'll be well nourished.

Hello, time for a little about the joy of sprouting?

In our quest for need to know health info we have tried all sorts including sprouting! and man, we love the joy of a good sprout. Nature has decreed that things are packed full of life force and goodness when young, so in the veggie world, sprouting is a good way to take advantage.

What is sprouting? It's the simple practice of germinating your own mini plants in the comfort of your own home, providing you with a continual crop of easy to digest power packed super food that you've grown yourself! Probably using your own sprouter

A simple sprout fact, check this out! In some cases sprouted young plants contain 60 times the amount of enzyme packed nutrition than their unsprouted or dormant bean. This is a gift from nature, take your bean, seed, whatever, just add water and you unleash its bioavailable goodness! KA POW! Did I mention that sprouts are possible one of the most easy to digest foodstuffs available? Imagine that! Your own organically grown, zero food mile, nutrition rich, super food mega crop growing in your kitchen for virtually pennies. Sprouting is the new bling, trust me, P Diddy has mung beans germinating all over his "crib"

What you need for Sprouting

Air: sprouts need air to breath!! They are living breathing things! Good air circulation is essential to prevent them rotting and for optimum growth.

Water: after a good overnight soaking, sprouts need water every 12 hours at least and more if it’s warm. They need a good soak to wash off the enzyme that stops them from germinating.

Temperature: Sprouts like kind of what we do, nice and warm for good growth and a happy plant, comfy room temperature is the way to go Room: remember after soaking sprouts can increase in size 30 times, give them room or they'll fight it out with each other!

Light: sprouts that produce leaves do need some light eventually, indirect sunlight is fine. A sprouter: well they'll grow anywhere really, but a sprouter does make it easy!

Things to Sprout

Green stuff .Alfalfa a daddy amongst sprouts, a true super food Cabbage, full of life-force as sprout, undoubtedly cabbage even as a tiddler

Clover (red) lovely in salads and ready to eat in 6 days

Fenugreek green, good and somewhat groovy, a nice large sprout crop

Mustard hot little buggers these, add a little or you'll be blowing out an imaginary candle

Radish turbo charged again and a hot one

Sunflower super tasty and ready in 10 days

Wheatgrass another super food, wheatgrass is a super food and a medicine

Beans, nuts and pulses Adzuki a super bean, a super sprout!

Barley ready in 2 to 5 days

Lentil very easy to grow, steam them or eat sparingly on salads, ready in 5 days.

Mung good old mung beans, great in salads

Oats you can eat sprouts raw, sweet tasting

There we go, the joy of sprouting is you've grown your own crop, you know where it's come from, I doubt you will have sprayed it with pesticide and its all green goodness. Get sprouting today!!

Sure we all know we should do things to aid health, but knowing why is more motivating.

The food crisis: limp lifeless foods = dull lifeless people, you need the nutrition from natural foods, no pill or potion can replace these. Get hold of the freshest fruit and veg you can and eat it raw. Cooking is a heat treatment that kills off the more fragile nutrients. Make juices and smoothies as these are fun, easy to digest and leave the nutrients intact.

Avoid sugar: of all the innovations of the food industry refined sugar, when eaten sets you up for hours of blood sugar peaks and troughs. It's a high calorie stimulant, not a nourishing food. Avoid it!

Water: invest in a water filter for the home, they are simple and cheap, some need no installation. It will save you a fortune in bottled water and get you in the habit of keeping hydrated.

Movement: you have two major fluid systems in your body, your blood and your lymph systems. Your blood supply has a pump, your heart which circulates the blood delivering oxygen and nutrients all round the body. The lymph system, which we hear less about, is just as important, this system has no pump and relies on muscular movement and deep breathing to be activated. Lymph fluid runs round every cell in the body washing away the toxic by products of your cells working. Without movement your cells are effectively swimming in their own toxins. Work up a sweat doing some activity everyday and understand why you instantly feel better!

Your path in life: be honest with yourself, it's your life, it's not just happening to you it's something you can control and steer. But if you don't know what you want you'll drift aimlessly. Take 20 minutes and a piece of paper and write down what you want. With a physical reminder you can then ask yourself what you did day by day to make it happen. If it's a mayor goal then work out a path and a timeline to get there. Life is a journey, plan yours and get what you want from it. Don't just follow the herd or bob about in the river. Addiction: Weather its cigarettes, sugar, caffeine, whatever. Understand the nature of it and educate yourself on the topic. I thought nothing of loading everything with sugar, thinking it was a natural food. On learning all I could about nutrition it took me I week to eliminate sugar from my diet completely. Why? Because I understood it and that motivated me to make the change. Knowledge is power to beat harmful habits.

It's typical isn't it? The very food group that offer the most potent health giving properties is also the one that most people ignore or simply do not like. I'm talking about greens, yes, sprouts, broccoli and all those dark green leafy veggies that are always over looked for tastier options. When you select your shopping just think about this, look at nature, think of all the massive muscular beasts that only eat grass!

Most greens, particularly leafy greens are complete whole foods, yes, I mean what I say, they contain protein, carbohydrates, fats and the complete spectrum of vitamin and minerals. Also anything green contains Chlorophyll, this is the chemical compound that allows green plants to suck up carbon dioxide and transform it into oxygen, a neat trick that has supported life on the planet since day one. Chlorophyll also happens to be super healthy to eat as it is a powerful cleanser at the cellular level. If you have read my previous articles on the nature of our bodies being made of billions of cells, each one like a busy factory repairing itself and making more cells, you'll understand the glorious benefit of keeping those factories clean! That's exactly what chlorophyll does!

Once you appreciate the power of green vegetables and what they offer it's easier to be enthusiastic about including them in your diet regularly, take brussel sprouts for example. As a kid I chased them round the plate soaking them in gravy to soften them up and make them taste, well like anything other than a sprout. Now I know that sprouts and other cruciferous veggies like broccoli are nutritional powerhouses with potent cancer fighting chemical compounds aplenty. Yes, eating sprouts effectively helps neutralise the negative chemical attack we are under everyday from pollutants and other nasty chemicals.

Healthy hint: you probably know by now my opinion on processed sugar, well once you remove such a potent taste from your diet your palate has a chance to return to normal with the pleasing effect that greens have a marvellous sweet taste all of their own that previously you may have been missing out on! I sincerely hope this information encourages you towards a more green and healthy life.

Another great place to look for potent greens is sea vegetable products, next time you are in a health food shop take a look at the chlorella and spirulina.

Every item of food or drink we consume has a biochemical effect on us, some negative and some of course positive. Furthermore it could be said that along with all the conventional methods of grouping foods that we could use the following:

Nutrient, stimulant and empty calories, let me explain group by group.

Nutrients are natural food stuffs that are not processed or altered from their original state by modern food industry practise. This means their natural chemical compounds and nutrients are left intact and are able to feed the body and have positive biochemical effects. This group includes all fresh fruits and vegetables and other natural foods nuts, seeds, beans, greens, oats, brown rice and all those other items that look the same served up as they do growing wild. This group is called Nutrients because they offer all the life giving power of natural foods whose positive effects are still to be fully understood.

Stimulants these are the temporary boost foods, usually high in sugar, caffeine or other artificial stimulants that give temporary energy followed by a low or crash as their active ingredients rapidly pass through the blood stream and are processed by the body. So tea, coffee, stimulant drinks, sugar rich foods and drinks. This group is probably the most harmful to the wellbeing of the mind and body and also can be dangerously addictive as the boost delivered is desirable and may be repeated with another dose! Stimulants are exactly that, nutritionally pretty void, they boost the body in an artificial short term way instead of fuelling the body with the nutrients it needs. Talk to someone in a coffee bar, and you'll see what I mean! Addiction to stimulants is a real danger as resistance is developed and more and greater doses are required for the same heady effect! Avoid this group and your reward will be better energy levels and a more stable and genuine mood, with greater resistance to temptation! Check out the ingredient panel of food packaging, manufacturers have to list ingredients in order of volume in the product, if sugar is in the top 4 leave it out of your shopping trolley. Isn't it crazy that most breakfast cereals have a huge amount of sugar in? Stuff a load of sugar down first thing and you'll be on a sugar craving roller coaster all day.

Empty calories, this is the U.F.O. food group, Unidentified Food Objects you know the score funny looking and smelling things that resemble nothing in its natural state! Generally they are cheap and certainly in the "junk" category. As we all know cheap isn't necessarily a good thing. Cheap batteries in your walkie talkie on a jungle trip could be a bad thing! Cheap food during your lifetime will definitely have a negative effect. These empty calories can have an extraordinary effect as they are calorie rich, high in sugar and other addictive ingredients BUT nutritionally poor, leading to over eating as the body craves nutrients and gets addicted to the sugar boost. It's impressive that a junk food addict can be at once obese AND malnourished, a testimony to the emptiness of the calories in this food group! I hope this simple look at foods makes you keen to explore the positive effects of great natural nutrition.

Nuts and seeds are rammed full of dietary essentials and easy to add into your diet, they can be hard to digest so mill them in the blender or grind them up in your single auger juicer so help your body get the best from them. Milling or grinding will break the seed or nut down a little and make them easier for your body to digest. Nuts contain protein, fiber, vitamin E and a good selection of minerals. They are potent and calorie rich though so you only need a few.

Nutty butters: some juicers excel at making nut butters, the single auger machines are the best for this, they double up as pestle and mortar style homogenizing machines that allow you to make pastes, nut butters, baby foods and other goodies.

Nutty hint: common sense this one but always buy non salted nuts, salt is everywhere in our diets, you needn't add any salt in the form of salty nuts, that's for sure! Also salt makes things very moreish, so you'll find it hard to stop eating them!

Nuts and seeds go great in smoothies and mill into dust in a decent blender. Mill them up before you put the fruit and vegetable ingredients in so they are ultra easy for your body to use. This is a super way of introducing vegetable protein to your diet as well as essential fatty acids, my favored seeds are Hemp or Flaxseed.

Nutty warning when you make a smoothie for someone, make sure the do not have a nut allergy! Take extra care when making drinks for children as they may be completely unaware of their allergies and intolerance.

Nut storage nuts are easy to store, you just need some screw top or lever seal containers, like any food they do need to be in air tight containers! They will then last 2-6 months quite easily, put a few grains of rice in with them to absorb moisture.

Seeds

Seeds again are natural powerhouses of nutrition we like linseeds, pumpkin seeds, hemp, sesame seeds and pine nuts which are the seed of the pine tree, expensive I know but great tasting and a fine source of vitamin E. We think the reason they are expensive is the cost of extracting them from such a spiky tree!

Apple pips are not good to eat, make sure you core or quarter the apple and remove the pips from them!

Seed sense! Seed's are potent, you only need a few regularly, and buy them hulled and keep them in sealed containers, flax seed oil is a good source of essential fatty acids.

Well I hope you found that useful and it helps you in some way, the importance of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables is clear to see and we thing juicing has it part! We think juicing and smoothie making is one of the best ways of getting a healthy diet and remember that nutrients can be fragile so keep it raw!

We're juice and health people here, we find that people always ask us some similar questions on the subject of juicing and natural health. So here is our F.A.Q section in which we aim to answer some of the most common questions on juicers, diet and natural ways to excellent health.

Question: What's the best answer to domestic juicing?

Answer : the age old, we reckon that in most scenarios of a family up to 4 people looking to juice a normal array of fodder including wheatgrass or leafy greens, the single auger style juicer is the way to go, won't go blunt, won't wear out, nice and quiet and will juice it all. Question: do I need to supplement my diet even when juicing regularly?

Answer: check this! it's a nutrient depleted world my friend! food miles, storage times, intensive farming from tired soil all have a bearing so we say yes! A quality multivitamin and mineral plus separate turbo dose vitamin C and multi oil capsule should be part of everyone's daily routine! R.D.A's are a MINIMUM we aim for optimum amounts which can exceed the government R.D.A by a couple of thousand percent!! Filling the gaps with quality supplements is an investment in your future! Cruising right through to a ripe old age disease free is well worth £25 a month, no? If you are under stress, you burn nutrients at a faster rate, so to cope, take more in! simple!

Question: what's the healthiest kind of juice?

Answer : veggie juices rock, they are more complex than fruit juice and basically ace them in terms of nutrition, the top of the tree are the dark green juices, alkaline, cleansing and a massive array of nutrients, not the best taste but drink em!

Question: will juices make me more beautiful?

Answer : YES! look what happened recently in the news, scientists issued a report that vitamin A rich skin creams have an anti aging effect, it's true, but why rub it on the outside when you can drink retinol (vit A) rich juice and nourish the cells that manufacture your skin! Try a carrot juice a day for a week and watch the wrinkles disappear!

Question: do centrifugal juicers damage juice quality?

Answer : a little, ALL juicers are good things, it's a hell of a lot better than carton juice or juice from concentrate which is next to pointless on the nutrient front. Centrifugal juicers run at high speed and whip too much air into the mix, your juice will oxidize in the glass, hence is loses it's anti-oxidant power, which is one of the main health benefits.

Question: what's the main reason to drink juice in a nutshell?

Answer: Well, we are made of billions of cells and we constantly regenerate ourselves, our cells are like little factories that make this possible, food is their raw material for manufacturing the new you, it makes sense to give those factories the best materials they can get doesn't it?

Questions: I'm knackered all the time, can juicing help?

Answer : Oh man, we hear this so much, yes juicing can help, fatigue is widespread it takes a while to happen and a while to get rid of, but a healthy nutrient rich diet is essential, getting a prescription upper like prozac only prolongs the condition as in our option another drug or toxin simply cannot help the situation long term.

Question: I want to lose some porkiness, is juicing a good idea?

Answer: Embrace a nutrient dense low bulk diet full of enzymes other active good stuff and watch your body respond. How can we expect to be the right weight when the average diet is high on mass but low on essential nutrients? A balanced diet is a whole heap more than the right proportions of protein, carbs and fat.

Question: Will a good diet affect my mood?

Answer: Hell yeah! a sugary-hi GI-caffeine diet upsets your system, leaving you low on concentration, hungry, craving another sugar fix and generally dimmer than you could be. Run your body well, and you'll be cooler, you'll find it easier to learn and you'll respond to stress better, not to mention an innate sense of well being.

Question: what else can help my level of health easily?

Answer: You GOTTA move it baby! your blood delivers nutrients to the cells, but they also make waste materials, these are carried away by your lymph fluid. Your lymph system doesn't have a pump like the heart and relies instead on deep breathing and muscular movement, get busy!!!

Question: what do you think of high protein diets like atkins?

Answer: It's a smoke and mirrors weight loss trick that's short term, yes it works short term but it's not all that healthy and is no substitute for a proper healthy diet, loads of greens and nutrient rich juices and good old graft down the gym or out in the fresh air.

I hope this has answered a few of your health questions, do get in touch if we can help some more.

Well two great tools for today's healthy kitchen, let's start by telling you what each machine does. A blender is a standard piece of kitchen mixing equipment, for the raw foodist this is what you use to make delicious meal-in-a-glass smoothies!

A blender is simply a mixing jug with a rotary blade at the bottom; whatever you put in the top gets liquidized and turned into a drink! So for example you may throw in a banana, some soy milk, some strawberries and a few ice cubes and you'll have a delicious and easy to digest fruit smoothie, no waste, and no fuss and just swill out the blender jug when you are done. Simple!

The beauty of smoothie making is that there is no waste product, everything is used up in the drink, your ingredients are liquidized and made very easy to digest, just think of those lazy summer days with a tall banana smoothie in your hand and the sun's rays on your face perfect!!

Blenders also make short work of adding super foods and other drink enhancers to your smoothie; you could whip in barley grass powder, protein powder, ginseng, or any other healthy liquid or powdered supplement!

Buy a decent blender and you can make super easy to digest nutritious smoothies every day!

Ingredients suitable for blending:

1) Banana, Mango, Strawberry, Raspberry soft pulpy fruits! 2) Juice from your juicer 3) Nuts 4) Seeds 5) Kiwi fruit (peeled), Berries, Star fruit, passion fruit, avocado, grapes, 6) Orange and other citrus (peeled of course) 7) Super food 8) Greens complexes, powdered barley grass etc. 9) Protein powder! Go beefcake! 10) Seed oil, essential fats etc 11) Ice, ice baby, let's face it you want your smoothie cool, after all anything less than the best is a felony! 12) Leafy greens I often make a point of chucking in a handful of spinach

Now your juicer is like a key!! It's a key for taking all of Mother Nature's natural fare and unlocking the raw liquid goodness from within!! Grab a carrot! Now look at that carrot and imagine inside it is charged with all the stuff you need, vitamins, minerals, enzymes and live nutrients for life!!!

Now your juicer allows you to take a handful of nature's finest foods and separate the rough, tough, and hard to break down body of the fruit or veg from the pure liquid gold nutrient content within! If you were to take that carrot now and run it through a juicer now you would have two things, one, a small mound of bland dry pulp, and two, a glass of nutritional LIQUID GOLD!!! This is what the juicer does! It unlocks the natural raw power of fruits and veggies and gives them to you in a way that your body can fully and easily absorb!

Your juicer can give you a lifetime of service providing you with the best dietary supplement of all natural living juice! Now there are obviously different types of juicer with differing capabilities so this gives you a good idea of which type of machine does what! I hope you found this information useful, look out for our other articles describing the different machines and their uses.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mark Snare owns and runs juiceproducer.com an online resource dedicated to living raw and fresh, is a natural health and nutrition fan and grows a lot of his own fruit and veg. Mark makes a lot of juicer recipes and tries to be as healthy as he can be. For more ideas on juicer and blender foods have a look at his information archive.

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1. Eat 4-6 small meals day a day instead of the usual 2-3 large meals. Eating frequently will help regulate and boost your metabolism to burn more calories.

2. Consume whole foods that are high in fiber and low in sugar such as lean protein (lean beef, chicken, fish, and whey protein), fruits & vegetables (oranges, apples, strawberries, blueberries, broccoli, peppers, asparagus, carrots, nuts (almonds, cashews, & walnuts), and whole grains.

3. Eat low-glycemic carbohydrates such as vegetables, whole-wheat products and oatmeal instead of refined processed carbohydrates which usually come in a box or a bag.

4. Recommend consuming 25-35 grams of fiber per day. Since the average diet contains only 14 grams we could all use more fiber. Fiber will help satisfy hunger pangs as well as control insulin and blood sugar levels which tend to promote fat storage when they are elevated.

5. Eat some type of lean protein at each meal. Protein helps to satisfy hunger and provide the necessary building blocks to maintain lean body mass while losing body fat.

6. Consume adequate amounts of healthy fat foods such as olive oil, walnuts, almonds, Omega-3 fortified eggs or other Omega-3 products. Healthy fats are great antioxidants as well as help with brain function and many other essentials processes that take place in the body on a daily basis. Essential Fatty acids also help prevent certain diseases.

7. Recommend eating 5-10 servings of fruit and vegetables a day to meet your micronutrient needs. Vegetables also contain a good amount of fiber and help to control appetites and curb hunger.

8. Consume Green Tea or Water instead of calorie filled drinks such as soft drinks. Green Tea has many health benefits and should be drinking 1ml of non-caffeinated fluid for every calorie that you consume. This works out between (8-12) 8oz glasses of Green Tea or Water a day.

9. Balance your fat intake for the day. 1/3 should come from saturated fats, 1/3 from monounsaturated fats, and 1/3 from polyunsaturated fats.

10. If you want to start building habits then you need to follow a plan. Habits are formed by repetitively following a prescribed plan. Therefore map out your meals every day and follow them. If you follow your plan everyday for 2-3 weeks you will form habits that become part of your daily routine and you won’t even notice it. How do you think bad habits are formed? By repetitively doing something over and over again.

11. Include what I call “Superfoods” into your meal plan on a daily basis. These include but not entirely lean meat, salmon, low fat plain yogurt, tomatoes, spinach, mixed berries, whole oats, mixed nuts, olive oil, flax seeds(or flax meal), green tea, and various beans. These are just some of the “Superfoods” who should be incorporating into your daily meal plans.

12. Keep total fat intake under 30% for the day. This can be accomplished by not adding too many extra fats such as butter, sour cream, mayonnaise, etc. This doesn’t mean you have to completely eliminate these items, but do not eat them as a regular food item every day.

13. EXERCISE!! You can lose weight by just following a nutrition plan on its own but very few succeed at it and it takes much longer than when you eat properly as well as exercise. I am not talking about just getting on a treadmill for 30 minutes every other day. Though you can lose weight this way it is not the most efficient use of your time nor maximizing the ability to burn calories. The most effective way to lose fat is by strength training or some type of interval training utilizing strength training and cardiovascular exercises. A properly designed program can burn more overall calories in 20 minutes than 20 minutes on a treadmill. Also, the X factor in all this is that you will burn more calories per minute hours after you finished strength training because of the EPOC effect. Static exercise on a treadmill doesn’t produce this X factor.

14. Record what you eat and drink. You will be amazed at what you consume and not even realize you did it until you right it down and reflect back on the day. Keeping a food log is critical to your success because if modifications need to be made you need something to be able to evaluate and analyze. If changes aren’t happening like you had hoped the answer can usually be found in the food and or exercise journal.

15. Follow the 90% rule. If you can follow your plan 90% of the time then that is enough to have success with weight loss. If you find yourself breaking the rules more than 90% of the time then the chance of being successful with weight loss is not as likely. Your chances of failing increase significantly. Lose the all or nothing attitude and just take one day at a time. Reflect on your day before you go to bed at night and instead of getting down on yourself because you weren’t perfect just set goals to accomplish next day that would eliminate those errors.

About the Author:

Jayson Hunter, RD, CSCS, is a registered dietitian and fitness professional with more than 10 years of experience. He has worked with 1000’s of individuals in achieving their ideal body and has been published in numerous magazines. He is also co-creator of Meal Plans 101 nutrition software. For more information on how you can utilize Jayson’s expertise go to Mealplans101.com