This is that beautiful time of year when jack-o-lanterns peek through the most amazing variety of colorful fallen leaves, cool, blustery days are followed by frosty nights, and hints of the coming holidays appear in every store window. The most obvious symbols of the season are pumpkins: carved, painted and decorated in every conceivable fashion. Occasionally we even eat them!
Pumpkins are grown all over the world, except Antarctica, and they are a staple in many cultures. Early settlers always kept pumpkins in their root cellars to provide nourishment through the cold winter months.
Pumpkins are high in lutein and both alpha and beta carotene.
When ripe, the pumpkin can be boiled, baked, steamed, or roasted. Pumpkins that are still small and green may be eaten in the same way as other squash such as zucchini. In the Middle East, pumpkin is used for sweet dishes; a well-known sweet delicacy is called halawa yaqtin. In South Asian countries pumpkin is cooked with butter, sugar, and spices in a dish called kadu ka halwa. In China, the leaves of the pumpkin plant are consumed as a cooked vegetable or in soups. In Thailand small pumpkins are steamed with custard inside and served as a dessert. Also, pumpkin can be used to flavor both alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages.
Pumpkin seeds have many health benefits, some of which include a good source of protein, zinc and other vitamins and are even said to lower cholesterol. Pumpkin seeds are a good source of magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and phytosterols, which can benefit the liver and can increase immune response.
Pumpkin-seed oil has been a folk remedy for prostate problems, it has in fact been shown to combat benign prostatic hyperplasia. Pumpkin seed oil contains fatty acids which help maintain healthy blood vessels and nerves, and are loaded with essential fatty acids that help to maintain healthy blood vessels, nerves and tissues.
Enjoy the season and remember to put aside a few pumpkins for your dining pleasure!
Quick, picture a cow in your mind…what do you see? If you’re like most people, you’ll picture a cow contentedly grazing in an endless expanse of green grass.
Cows have eaten grass ever since the first cows walked the face of the Earth. This is because they are ruminants. Ruminants eat GRASS. Their digestive systems are designed specifically to digest GRASS.
What happens when you feed a ruminant grains? They gain weight really fast. That’s also what happens when you eat a lot of grains. The problem with a ruminant eating grains is that it makes them sick and quite bloated. So bloated in fact that a hose must be put down their esophagus to relieve the pressure or the cow will die. Of course this causes some amount of stress on the poor cow. The cow also becomes much more prone to disease. Stress and incorrect diet have a tendency to do that. So now we have a fat, miserable, sickly cow who is then given massive amounts of antibiotics just to keep it alive until it can get to the slaughterhouse. Millions of pounds of antibiotics are added to animal feed in the US every year. Animals get more antibiotics than people, and people get a LOT.
An interesting thing about these antibiotics is that they a) screw up the animals intestinal flora, and b) cause antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria to flourish. Even more interesting is that they do the same thing to YOU.
This here picture is of a typical feedlot. These animals are crowded together, fed corn and other far grosser stuff like chicken litter (feces, feathers and bedding) blood, ground up pigs and chickens and of course “downed” animals (just guess), supplemented with antibiotics, and possibly artificial growth hormones.
Corn also causes the rumen to become unnaturally acidic which causes all kinds of problems including diarrhea, bloat, ulcers, liver disease, and weakening of the immune system that leaves the cow vulnerable to other diseases. As the acids cause deterioration of the rumen wall, bacteria enter the bloodstream and collect in the liver causing abcesses.
A corn-fed cow also has a new, acidic environment in its digestive track, unlike the alkaline environment of the grass-fed cow (its natural diet, remember?) Guess what grows well in this acidic environment?
If you guessed:
Escherichia coli 0157 (thats the one that can make people really sick or even dead)
and who wouldn’t …. ? You guessed correctly!!! Oh and there are a few more problems with corn-fed cows::
Measurable amounts of estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, zeranol, trenbolone acetate and melengesterol acetate, all hormones, are found in meat!
These chemicals do not biodegrade, they simply stay around forever causing proven sexual abnormalities in animals and humans.
OK while we’re on a roll here let’s a look at fat. Specifically the fat from a corn-fed versus a grass-fed cow.
Grass-fed cows produce 300 to 400% more conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a natural and very beneficial fatty acid which your body requires for many purposes, one of which is to fight inflammation. Corn-fed cows on the other hand have insignificant levels of CLA but high levels of omega-3 fat, which promotes heart disease.
Another consideration is the source of the corn, which is quite often GENETICALLY MODIFIED. I will be writing a post on this lovely worldwide experiment/disaster in the near future. It will be my adventure into the ‘horror” genre of writing and it won’t even be fiction! You might just want to switch over to organic and grass-fed now…
Do you know how much of your supermarket meat is treated with carbon monoxide? Probably not, they don’t exactly display this information prominently. Or at all. I think they forget to tell you about the irradiation too. This is to keep filthy meat from sickly cows nice and sort of sterile. Did I mention growth hormones?
All of this pertains to pigs, chickens, turkeys etc, and you can watch the following video (if you can stomach it) to give you some idea of not only the filth and poisons you are ingesting with your meat, but the cruelty involved in the promotion of feedlot animals.
OK, I am not trying to discourage anyone from eating meat, although most of us could cut down. Everybody must make their own personal choices here. I do eat some meat, lots of farm fresh eggs, and I drink only raw milk from grass-fed cows. The thing is, you want to get your meat, eggs, and dairy (milk, ice cream, cheese, etc) from FREE ROAMING GRASS-FED animals. Well in the case of poultry they do eat bugs and some seeds and grain. LETS BOYCOTT THE FILTH, CRUELTY AND TOXINS FROM FEEDLOT ANIMALS. Here are some good books to read:
Before we get into this, let me tell you a little bit about myself.I am 51 years old and a mother of 7 kids. I am 5’ 3” slim and athletic and about 108 pounds.Now I’m not bragging here, just letting you know that I do know a thing or two about maintaining a healthy weight, even after having a bunch of kids.
The first thing that you need to understand is that most of what you’ve heard about weight loss is bogus.You are just not going to hear the truth, unless you really dig. The truth is not profitable.
Forget the food pyramid, its recommendations of 6 to 11 servings of REFINED carbohydrates is designed to make you fat.This is obvious, as the obesity epidemic came into full swing shortly after the food pyramid “guide” was thrust upon the public, as well as the push to use fake fats, fake sugars, fake foods (see a connection?) and the perfection of the feedlot.
I am not going to go into too many details, otherwise this blog will easily become a book, but I will recommend books that you can read to substantiate my facts. Also, please don’t use the cop-out that your genes are making you fat.Your genes are merely dumb storage facilities that do very little to influence your health. This is GREAT news as otherwise you’d be helpless to do anything about your health, or your weight, which, of course, isn’t true at all. You can read the book The Biology Of Belief: Unleashing The Power Of Consciousness, Matter And Miracles A few other points of interest:the only two species in ALL of nature that become fat are HUMANS AND THEIR DOMESTIC PETS.That should give you a little clue as to what makes you fat, it sure isn’t a natural, wholesome diet of raw foods! First, here’s all the stuff that makes you fat. 1) SODA and SUGAR Soda contains lots of sugar, usually in the form of High Fructose Corn Syrup All sugars cause a rapid rise in blood glucose, however fructose converts to fat more than any other sugar. To compensate for the rapid rise in blood sugar, (more…)
It’s the one recommendation in almost every diet plan, every guide to nutrition, every fitness book. Even organizations such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the World Health Organization, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, and the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion agree. But do we actually eat all those greens, yellows, reds and oranges every day? I know I don’t and I bet you don’t either. I just don’t have the time to go shop for fresh produce every day and then prepare it all and then (the hardest part) eat it all! Every day….
And if that’s not hard enough, then there’s getting my kids to eat plates of ummm yummy veggies, not gonna happen. So what do you do?
Enter JuicePlus, which I discovered about six years ago. Raw fruits and veggies in a capsule. It couldn’t get any easier! Or economical. Figure it out, if you bought 17 servings of fresh fruits and veggies every day, how much would it cost per month? JuicePlus is only about $40 a month. Plus, it’s been tested by independent labs all over the world and has been proven effective every time. You can’t beat it.
Of course we still try to get as much good wholesome nutrition in our diets as possible, but with JuicePlus there’s no question.
Try it, I guarantee you’ll feel better, but if there’s any problem just send it back for a full refund, they are the greatest company to do business with.
Even organizations such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the World Health Organization, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, and the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion agree. But as much as it’s preached, most people still don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables every day.
There is an easy, affordable way to get those fruits and veggies into your diet every day:
"What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday,
and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow:
Our life is the creation of our mind." ~Buddha
A light-hearted blog teaching about yoga, meditation, ayurveda, etc. It also provides up-to-date information about the shop www.MayhemArts.etsy.com which sells colorful unique meditation malas and photography.
~willow~ is an INFP, Leo, Water Rat who invites you to her introspective blog exploring a rather painful past, but with spirituality and hope in abundance. This is my outlet... maybe in time I can harness all this angst and publish a memoir?
The Unofficial Cristiano Ronaldo tribute site. Dedicated to Cristiano Ronaldo, Ronny7.com provides you with Latest News, Videos, images, articles, and the capacity to translate Cristiano Ronaldo Video
A few other points of interest:
"What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday,
and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow:
Our life is the creation of our mind." ~Buddha
