Month: April 2011

Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

Raw Food Children: Is It Safe?

If you are a parent who wants to switch to raw food children are going to be a question for you. Do you want your children to follow a raw food diet? How will you get them to eat it? How will you deal with opposition from others? And most importantly, is a raw food diet safe for kids?

If you believe that raw is the healthiest possible diet out there, then you probably would like your children to join you in it. You want what is best for them and a high raw diet is certainly healthy. But 100% raw can be another matter.

Kids have different dietary needs than adults. They require more calcium, in particular, in order to grow strong bones. It is hard for raw food children to get enough calcium on a raw vegan diet. Therefore, if you want your kids to be 100% raw, you should consider including raw (i.e. unpasteurized) milk, cheese and yogurt in their diet.

Raw milk products have their own risks, including the possibility of carrying salmonella and other food poisons. Remember there is a reason why pasteurization is carried out. You may also find that it is not possible to buy unpasteurized dairy products in your area, because it is illegal to sell them in some jurisdictions. You may still be able to buy direct from the farm.

If you cannot buy raw milk products or if you decide against them for safety, you will need to consider giving your kids some non-raw items whether those are pasteurized milk products or calcium supplements. The result of inadequate calcium in childhood can be very serious, including stunted growth and rickets.

With children under 5, you will also need to consider the size of their stomachs. Small kids cannot eat as much fiber as adults, which is probably one of the reasons that kids often refuse a lot of vegetables. They need higher calorie foods including a certain amount of fat. Fruit alone would likely not contain enough minerals and other nutrients. Again dairy products can help out, as can nut milks and nut butters.

Kids don’t like sudden changes and your best option will be to have them transition slowly from a cooked diet. You can begin with offering more of the raw foods that they like, such as bananas, and adding slices of finger foods like cucumber, celery and peppers to their plates. They may enjoy helping you prepare the food, creating interesting shapes when cutting.

Smoothies are popular with kids and can be the basis of many meals and snacks. You can add green vegetables to a fruit smoothie and they will probably still like the taste but you may have to serve in a cup with a lid so they don’t see the color.

You will almost certainly find that most people will think you are crazy or cruel for trying to raise raw food children, unless your kids are seriously overweight, when people may be more sympathetic because they will assume you are doing it for the weight loss aspect. But most people think of raw food as a stupid fad. This will probably include the children’s grandparents, other family members and possibly their other parent. So be prepared for some opposition, and be sure to have plenty of facts and figures to use in your defense.

We are not medically qualified and every individual has different nutritional needs. Before encouraging your kids to go raw, you should speak with their doctor and check that it is safe for them to become raw food children.

Raw Food Diet

This is my recommendation for a cheap and easy book to learn the essentials of the Raw Food Diet. Whether you want to start today doing Raw completely or if you just want to test out the Raw Food waters this book is a must. This specific easy to use Raw Food diet will help you lose weight, look younger, and have great energy. Learn more about Raw Food here now.

Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

How to Keep Going with Your Chosen Weight Loss Program

Motivation is the problem that most people have when attempting to lose weight. While you may be all for losing weight at first, once the going gets tough, many people find that they have a hard time maintaining that motivation. Finding the best ways to maintain motivation is essential to sticking with a weight loss program.

Here are some suggestions to help you stay motivated and continue losing weight. These can help you stay motivated. Some of these may even encourage you to push beyond your initial weight loss goals and into leaner weight classes.

1. Write down your goals. All too often, people do not write down their goals and then begin to falter in their resolves. Write down what weight you want to be at and how much weight you want to lose a week or a month.

2. Reward yourself every time you reach a goal. This reward should not be a food reward, but rather a gift reward, such as new shoes or new clothing. Something small for hitting small goals, something big when you hit milestone goals.

3. Track your progress. Be sure to draw up charts and write down your weight loss progression. Also consider writing down the number of inches lost as this can change even if the weight numbers do not change.

4. Track your portions and calories. Many times people will follow a diet plan, but will not follow the portion controls the entire time. This will cause you to gain weight, rather than lose it.

5. Keep a journal. Emotional eating is one of the most prevalent reasons that people gain weight. By keeping a journal, you can get your emotions out and not contributing to the desire to eat.

6. Keep a record of your exercise routine. All too often people forget to increase the weights used or change the exercise plan. This will cause you to stop losing weight and lose motivation.

7. Take stock as to why you want to lose weight. If it is just appearance sake, you might find you lose motivation quicker than if it is also about your health and the way you feel.

8. Put up mantras around the house and work place. These are small phrases that will remind you of your goals and how you are going to reach these goals.

With these 8 tips, you will be able to keep the motivation that you need to continue to lose weight. These tips will help you to reach your weight goals and maybe even surpass them as you get yourself into a routine.

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Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

Is A Raw Food Bar Really Raw?

Raw Food Bar

There are plenty of companies offering some type of raw food bar that you can buy. You can either order on the internet or find them at your local health food store.

However, you might wonder whether they are really raw. How could raw foods last so long and be a commercial proposition?

How Raw is Your Raw Food Bar?

In many cases, if you look at the fine print on a raw food bar or on the company websites, you will see that in fact very few, if any, of these vegan snack bars are truly raw. Most of them use some of the following ingredients:

Californian almonds which are pasteurized by law

Cocoa (chocolate powder) from roasted cacao beans, not raw

Pasteurized lemon juice or other pasteurized fruit juices

Cashew nuts which are heated to high temperatures to extract from the shell

It is possible to find cashew nuts that have been shelled in other ways, without using heat, but it is a more expensive process. Many manufacturers therefore choose regular cashews even when they are making what they consider to be a raw food bar.

Pasteurized is not Raw Food

Pasteurization is a process that heats food to high temperatures, close to boiling point, to kill bacteria and preserve the food. Food that has been pasteurized is not raw.

Some even contain roasted peanuts or regular peanut butter made from roasted ingredients. In fact, if you read the label, you will often find that a raw food bar only contains 50% to 60% raw ingredients. That is not what most people following a raw food diet would want to eat.

However, you can quite easily make a nut-based raw food bar yourself. Take 4 cups of raw nuts* and 8 fresh medjool dates, plus one teaspoon of fresh squeezed lemon juice. Chop or grind 1 cup of the nuts in a food processor, add half the pitted dates and process again, then another 1 cup nuts, then the rest of the dates. Keep processing after every time you add something. Add another 1 cup of nuts, then lemon juice, and finally the last cup of nuts.

When the mixture is done, you can add dehydrated fruits whole if you want. To have a chocolate flavor, mix in raw cacao powder plus a little agave nectar or other raw sweetener. Then form into bar shapes and refrigerate.

Raw nuts include: most filberts/hazelnuts, cashews from specialist raw food suppliers, most walnuts, brazil nuts in shells, most almonds from outside the USA

Raw is In The Eye Of The Consumer

In most countries, there is no law that says that a product marked ‘raw’ must be 100% raw, live food, never treated at temperatures above 118 degrees F. The word ‘raw’ is often used to mean something that still needs some cooking, like a bread mix, or nuts that have not been roasted for taste, etc. The ingredients of a bread mix would not really be raw.

Therefore, unfortunately virtually anything could be labeled a ‘raw food bar’. It probably has some raw ingredients and does not contain raw sugar, so it may be healthier than a sugary snack. There may also be some that are truly 100% raw – check labels. In most cases, if you want a truly raw food bar you will need to make your own.

Raw Food Diet
This is my recommendation for a cheap and easy book to learn the essentials of the Raw Food Diet. Whether you want to start today doing Raw completely or if you just want to test out the Raw Food waters this book is a must. This specific easy to use Raw Food diet will help you lose weight, look younger, and have great energy. Learn more about Raw Food here now.