ASK MIKE...IS EATING RIGHT WORTH THE MONEY?

ASK MIKE
June 30, 2015

My lifelong friend, Marc, submitted this question for consideration. It is a question we are all concerned with. I can't begin to tell you how many people have said to me "I would love to eat the way you do, but it is too expensive".

Q. Mike, Do you believe that the extra money stores like Whole Foods charge for their products are really worth it in health benefits, since a lot of those labels seem to be meaningless?

A. Great question Marc, there are a lot of moving parts here and I hope to get to all of them for you.
I would like to start by saying that my wife Mary and I are fully committed to eating vegan and much of it in its natural uncooked state. We are on this path for many reasons which we can discuss at different time. We share a lot of the duties regarding this lifestyle and more specifically the food we eat. We believe that eating food that is organic, local, in season, whole, pure and in its natural state brings great health benefits at many levels.  That is our commitment, so with that as a back drop, let's continue.

Executing this lifestyle is of course where the tires hit the road. We have set up informal rules for ourselves that serve as a blueprint for how we do this.  Here they are for the first time ever in written form.

1. We acquire and prepare most of our food ourselves in a conscious manner
2. In carrying this out we try to buy all of our food from conscious growers and vendors. I personally vet almost everyone we buy from and actually have called their suppliers to see if it is all up to speed. I have a list of questions I ask each one of them. Sounds like a lot of work but it really is fun.  I learn a lot, and it gives me great confidence in what I am eating, as well as who I am buying from. Once you have vetted your main products and suppliers you only have to do that once in awhile. Just yesterday I vetted stevia products and vendors. (See yesterday's blog for results.)
3. When we eat out we will always try to eat at some type of conscious restaurant, typically not chains, steakhouses, etc. But on the road in a pinch who knows, but it will always be plant based foods.
4. We always try to carry our own food with us wherever we go so we have more control over the quality. Coolers are great and our little RV has a fridge.
5. We try to keep our packaged or processed foods to a minimum. It doesn't always work out that way so we are diligent label readers. We watch for additives, sugars, preservatives, unknown chemicals, etc, and try to avoid them.
6. If an item is on "the dirty dozen list "(Google it) we will ONLY buy it organic, otherwise, we will do without. If it is on the "Clean 15" (Google again, we might buy it if organic is not available or too expensive.

With all of this said we discover fun things and have great adventures together, even when we travel, which is a lot..Let's move forward with the cost of living this way that is mostly organic and live foods. Although we do much of this together, Mary is a very careful shopper both in selection, quality and pricing. She knows how much things should cost and which stores have the best products at the right price, which includes farmers markets. Since we want things as fresh as possible we shop or "pick a few things up" quite regularly. The days of giant shopping and stocking up (my bad habit) for us are history.Once again short frequent stops are just built into our daily lifestyle.  I am going to tell you we do have a Whole Foods within walking distance of our condo in Phoenix, but for the reasons stated above it is not our primary shopping spot. We don't actually have a single shopping spot but rather several, and based on what Mary observes it is a fluid process. The following are several places we shop in Phoenix area.   Sprouts Market mostly for our staples and quick pick ups. Whole Foods for whatever Mary says we need there  She also added that WF has great sales items so we can try new things at a great price. Costco has become the largest organic retailer in America.  I have vetted their suppliers and am happy with the info I have gotten for organic non-GMO products that we use regularly.  Plus they come in great sizes.   Local farmers markets for produce in season So this is where we buy more than 90% of our food. We also belong  to a great community garden in Bozeman, so we get some of our food from there as it is ready to harvest.

So keeping your food budget down while keeping the quality and health benefits up can be built into your lifestyle. Of course, eating right and preventing disease is ALWAYS going to be less expensive than paying the doctors to fix what is broken or not working right. Prevention will always be the best cure.

Here are 8 Tips:

1. Shop in several stores for specific products, be aware of pricing for your key items. Spread the wealth.
2. Shop at local farmers markets.
3. Prepare most of your own foods and keep them with you..
4. Be select on the restaurants you choose.
5. Read labels, Non-GMO Certified Project and FDA Certified Organic are the ones we trust as of today.
6. The words natural, genuine, healthy are all meaningless.
7. Be an informed consumer, vet your suppliers, read blogs like this.
8. Feel free to contact me to check out a product for you. I love it.
wholehealthwarrior2012@gmail.com

Being a Whole Health Warrior is being your own advocate. As we say,
"your body should last a lifetime".  Enjoy the journey.
.

TURBO TASTY GREEN SMOOTHIE

TURBO GREEN SMOOTHIE MADE EASY

This will give you the base for any green smoothie. The idea is to get as much greens into the drink as possible to pack in the minerals. Too heavy on the fruits taste good but is overloaded with sugars, so use fruit as a side sweetener. 

Large handful of spinach or kale or other green leafy veggie.

A bit of Xylitol or stevia will offset the bitterness of the greens.

8-10 oz. of nut mylk 

4 ice cubes

Now kick ck it up with a hand full of blueberries or strawberries

1 TBSP bee pollen (local if possible

1 TBSP vegan protein powder (hemp or pea is good)

1v TBSP of a good green powder (premier greens is my favorite or Sun is Shining)

1 TBSP spirulina

2 walnuts

2 Brazil nuts

1 TBSP ground flaxseed

10 Goji berries

This should make your day....

STEVIA - THE SWEET TRUTH

 STEVIA  2015

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

What is really exciting about being on the Whole Health Warrior journey and the quest to raise consciousness is that we are always learning, growing and discovering. One lesson I have learned is never to be afraid to jump in at anytime for fear of the development of the proverbial better mousetrap. What a horrible non-vegan image, but you get the idea. I hold this standard with my food choices, using the best information at the time to make my decisions. Study what is available, be discerning, decide, and move on. Never being afraid to come back and revisit this when “new” information is made available.

So is the case with stevia. When I first started using stevia, the object was to replace sugar and any of the common artificial sweeteners. In my mind the evidence regarding each of those was no longer debatable. Stevia is a plant that has been used for centuries as a medicine and sweetener which has zero affect on insulin levels in the blood so I started using it...

In those days you basically got stevia in a shaker, sort of ground up greenish stuff, we didn’t use much because it was very sweet but it worked fine. Then something happened to our stevia. It started to look like sugar, came in little packages of white powder in coffee shops, and in liquid bottle droppers with fancy flavors, plus it was given fancy names like Truvia, Stevia in the raw and so on. Intuitively I knew something was amiss here, but by then I wasn’t using much because I had moved onto different non glycemic sweeteners. When people asked me about stevia I would tell them it had no impact on insulin, that I wasn’t crazy about the taste, etc.

FAST FORWARD TO TODAY

Recently my friend asked me to read an article by a person names “Food Babe” (Vani Hari) dated 6/28/15 entitled INVESTIGATING SNEAKY INGREDIENTS IN STEVIA.

In summary here is what she writes:

She starts by telling us how bad sugar is for us, which most of us already knew, and that Americans eat way too much (130 pounds per year), and that it is addictive. Got it!

She then shares with us a brief history of stevia and how it is a plant from South America, That the extract is 200 time sweeter than sugar, and zero impact on blood insulin levels.  Got it!

Here's where it got interesting for me, thank you Food Babe for making my life easier.

ENTER BIG CORPS

The sweetener market is huge generating megabucks, so of course BigCorp wants their share. By now sugar and artificial sweeteners like aspartame are getting bad raps (rightfully so) so it’s time to find a new cash crop, enter stevia. BUT we need to reformulate it because natural is no good, rebrand it, who wants to call a food by its real name, repackage it remarket it, and all the rest.

So today we have a something new (not sure what it really is) that people are using as stevia. Some issues to consider:

1. Many of the brands are highly processed with as many as 40 steps.
2. In some cases the processing itself is patented.
3. Many of the processes are using chemicals, even possible carcinogens.
4. Some of the processes include acetone, methanol, ethanol, acetonitrale, isoproponol and other hard to pronounce non food items.
5. Then you might find additives to the final product such as dextrose, erythrotol, agave inulin, even silica.
6. Much of all of this includes non organic and GMO products or by-products
7. Stevia leaf has a long history of human usage while this other stuff doesn’t. Is it safe?

So as you can see the poor friendly little stevia plant is under assault and the finished product is now called a food. Any questions?

MY PERSONAL TAKE ON THIS

BigCorp is going to do their thing but I WILL NOT be participating.

I will not buy brands such as Truvia (by Coca Cola), Pure Via (Pepsico product), Stevia in the Raw or any other product that appears to processed in these ways. Don’t need the product that bad, value my health too much, and do not want to feed the BigCorps until they wake up and become conscious.

I WILL DO THE FOLLOWING

Continue to research this issue and report back to you when I have something worthy of reporting, such as new suppliers or new news on this topic. New tips such as looking for the words “whole leaf stevia” on labels (good).

I will endorse and buy from companies that treat our food with respect and consciousness. The following are 3 companies I have vetted and will buy from them (already have) and will use their stevia products. (More to come- this is a work in progress).

We will start to carry the best Stevia we can find in our online store at whwstore.com

Will have it online July 15^th. Always at a 20% discount.

1. Sweet Leaf Stevia (Wisdom Natural Brands)

Gilbert AZ. 800-899-9908 – sweetleaf.com

I have vetted them, only organic stevia leaf, no chemicals, water based extraction, and flavorings are botanical herbs, fruits, and veggies. No GMO, MSG, or other bad stuff.

Product is heat stable, can be used in cooking and baking. (Liquid drop form).

Call Melissa if you have any questions, she is very helpful.

2. Green Stevia Leaves

Greengreenstevia.com

All organic – simply dried leaves- you may grind it up yourself.

Available on Amazon for $16.88

3. Frontier Natural Products Coop

Green leaf stevia powder – (organic)

800-669-3275

Frontiercoop.com

16 Oz. - $22  

So hope this helps and many thanks to FoodBabe for bringing us up to speed.

Google her for her website and blog or follow her on Facebook.

Baruch Hashem