I’m not sure how long ago Jamie Oliver was quoted as saying, “stop being a vegan and start enjoying what you eat”, but I only heard it for the first time the other day. It felt a little ironic to me, as I only truly started enjoying food when I became vegan. It’s of course understandable that you could only know that when you actually become vegan. I like Jamie and I think he is creating a healthy food revolution in many regards. I do look forward to the day he becomes vegan, however.

Besides discovering living foods and their incredible benefits, becoming vegan also taught me to be conscious about food … to think about where it came from, the energy and life force it holds and how lucky I am to be transferring that life force into me. It’s such a powerful process when you really think about it: a plant has lived and breathed the earth’s elements … soaked up the sunshine, filtered rain water. Then we, hopefully consciously, get to transform this energy into us, so that we may live our greatest potential, fueled by life force energy as it was all intended, really, in the beginning.

While Jamie Oliver isn’t yet vegan (and I do hold expectation that he will one day stop eating meat—why not?), he is doing some great work to transform the way we all think about our food and health. He’s working to at least get people to be conscious about not consuming junk and highly-processed “food impostors” and chemicals. To start thinking about what we’re feeding our kids. To put fruit and vegetables back on dinner plates.

Right now, after making healthy food choices a high priority in the UK, Jamie has set his sights on the United States where obesity has become the norm and many children can no longer identify what fruit and vegetables are (yes, this is true). In his quest to bring healthy food choices back to American schools and homes, The Naked Chef has started a petition to highlight its importance and start a movement towards health (you can sign it here).

Jamie’s mission is an important one that we could all pitch in and help with. No matter how small a contribution we can offer, it can help lead to not only greater health in America and in the countries so influenced by America, but also to a shift in consciousness.

A better diet, as Jamie is pushing for, also leads to clearer thinking, which leads to better choices, which leads to even better choices. Of those who directly benefit from Jamie’s work, some may awaken to find they have a passion burning inside that could influence others in ways never thought of. Even if Jamie doesn’t become vegan, those he has encouraged and helped to become healthy may blaze a vegan trail to encourage others in this fabulous, conscious way of life. With every transformation to good health comes unlimited potential. The wonderful thing is, we can all help to make it happen.

Jamie Oliver was recently awarded the 2010 TED prize for his contributions. Here is his speech…

Main photo courtesy of EatBoutique.com

As a journalist, you get to meet people from all walks of life. Over the years I’ve met some wonderful souls, been welcomed into people’s lives in the name of a story, learned many things and questioned much.

In the 15 years I’ve been doing this, there have been a few incredible people who have, just by their very nature, etched their message into my heart—some, albeit few, have even influenced me to change my life.

Once such interview was about five years ago: “Come along and meet this guy, he’s amazing,” the publicist promised. She was talking about Don Tolman, a guy from Utah known fondly by many as the Indiana Jones of Wholefoods. I’d never heard of him, or his message.

His message, I soon learned, is simple: live with nature, by nature and from nature. Understand what foods benefit particular body functions and eat them. Stop putting chemical pills and potions into your mouth. Drink fresh spring water. Stop brushing your teeth with fluoride. Listen to your great grandmother and use her natural remedies. Know that your body’s symptoms are your body’s cures. Eating meat causes putrification and dis-ease. Question everything.

A 30-minute meeting with the Stetson-wearing cowboy felt like five minutes. His message spoke directly to me, as if what he was saying I already knew on some deep level. I’d already been following some of his recommendations, purely on instinct, such as never taking a pill to relieve a headache or antibiotics to fix an ill, and no longer eating red meat.

If you haven’t had a chance to hear Don Tolman speak, below is an interview he did with Samantha Backman. I hope you enjoy hearing his message, as much as I always do.

Why it’s great: Packed with a gold mine of information that will change the way you look at your body and the food you put in it, forever. Tolman also talks about how every wholefood has a signature that corresponds to parts of the body, such as an avocado, which looks like a pregnant woman and takes nine months from blossom to ripened fruit. If a woman eats just one avocado per week, she is helping prevent cervical cancer.

Who’s watching it: Health care professionals, university lecturers and doctors who are realising the Western way of healing with pharmaceuticals doesn’t work. Also anyone who is interested in honest-to-goodness nutrition and how it greatly improves life through diet and exercise.

What you’ll learn: How your body actually works, why disease is not a mystery and how wholefoods, water, sunshine and clean air can prevent just about any disease.

Want to know more? See www.dontolmaninternational.com

Photo by Wheeloflife.tv

Hungry? Before you head to the refrigerator, check out these tips:

1. Clean out your refrigerator and kitchen cupboards. Read the labels of every product in your home that you deem edible. If you can’t pronounce it, or it has more ingredients than words in the bible, chances are your body isn’t meant to digest it. Are there foods in your cupboards you feel guilty just looking at? Guilt is the greatest destroyer of emotional energy—therefore you don’t need it, or the Snickers bar in your life. Nature provides some of the most delectable treats you could ever imagine. Head to nutritional expert David Wolfe’s website www.davidwolfe.com, for the low-down on one of nature’s most incredible gifts: raw cacao. The cacao bean is nature’s number one weight loss and high-energy food.

2. Clean out toxins and old waste with a cleansing detox. According to nutritional expert and Tree of Life founder, Dr Gabriel Cousens, research shows when intestinal toxemia is removed, symptoms such as fatigue, nervousness, gastrointestinal conditions, impaired nutrition, skin manifestations, endocrine disturbances, headaches, sciatica, low back pain, allergy, eye, ear, nose and throat congestion—and even cardiac irregularities—have been healed in hundreds of cases. Find out more at www.treeoflife.nu.

3. Download the Honest Food Guide from Mike Adams’ Naturalnews.com. This indispensable free guide was developed with you in mind, not big business. Unlike the traditional food pyramid (which is sponsored by major food corporations) you’ll find honest nutritional information, “not watered-down information designed to boost the sale of milk, beef and grains,” says Adams. Print out and post to your refrigerator for easy referral (and email the link to all of your friends!).

4. Make weekly trips to your local farmer’s market. Buying local is a great way to ensure your food is fresh, organic and free from scientific tampering. That is, anything genetically modified (genetically modified food is not as nature intended, therefore does not contain adequate nutrients and is considered by some to be unstable). The American Academy of Environmental Medicine recently issued a warning urging the public to avoid genetically modified foods. They also called for a suspension on GMOs until long-term, independent studies can prove their safety. Shopping at your local farmer’s market is also a way to become more connected to the food you eat, as you’re buying directly from the person who put their hard work, love and energy into growing the produce. There’s also an added bonus of upping your essential Vitamin D intake as you wander (without wearing chemical-laden sunscreen!) from stall to stall. See www.localharvest.org (US), www.farmersmarkets.net (UK) or www.farmersmarkets.org.au (Aus), www.farmersmarket.org.nz (NZ) to find a market near you.

5. Decrease or cease your intake of meat and dairy. Despite being told drinking processed milk is good for our bones and eating meat is a superior form of protein, it’s actually not true. Besides the fact that dairy causes iron deficiency, bloating, diarrhoea, gas and intestinal pain in most people, its consumption transfers drugs that have been administered to the animal, such as antibiotics, into the system of the person drinking it. And when you think about it, where do cows get their calcium? From the grass they eat. Leafy greens such as kale, broccoli, collards and cabbage are excellent sources of calcium—and no animals are harmed in the process, either. The same goes for meat consumption. Protein and iron is in abundance in a pure vegetarian diet. Eating meat also means you’re putting antibiotics and any dis-eases from the animal directly into your own system. If you plan to move from a meat and dairy-based diet, be sure to transition into it by reducing your consumption over time. If you’re unsure, seek advice from an informed wholefood nutritionist.

6. Educate yourself. By learning about the types of foods that create a healthy mind and body, you put the power back into your hands instead of big food industries whose primary interest is in creating dollars not health. A good place to start is with Dr Gabriel Cousen’s Conscious Eating. Also check out Don and Tyler Tolman’s Conscious Lifestyler website.

7. Take a whole food cooking or raw food preparation course with friends or family. Knowing where your food came from and exactly how it’s prepared can not only create peace of mind, but also bring families together through creating meals together. It’s also a way to meet like-minded people who are on the same path. Get Googling to find the right class for you. Check out Juliano’s “uncook” book RAW.

Photo courtesy: klynslis

Five fun ways to be very, very vegan (and romantic) on Valentines Day…

1) Make your favourite person (or yourself) a delish vegan breakfast in bed. Pancakes and Valentines Day just seem to go together. Check out these delectables from one of my fave foodie blogs, VeganYumYum (I like to replace ingredients such as soy milk with freshly made nut milk, sugar with raw agave nectar, and salt with Celtic sea salt etc). Even if you’re your own valentine, it’s still great to whip up a gourmet breakfast and head back to bed to eat it! Also, check out Vegan Yum Yum’s new recipe book: Decadent (But Doable) Animal-free Recipes for Entertaining and Every Day for more romantic brekky and dinner recipes.

SLOW RISE PANCAKES

Makes 8 thick 5″ pancakes

2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
2 1/4 tsp Active Dry Yeast (one packet)
1 tsp Salt
2 tsp Sugar
1 1/2 Cup Soymilk (or other non-dairy milk)
2 Tbs Oil
1 Ener-g Egg, prepared (1.5 tsp mixed with 2 Tbs water)
1/3 Cup Soymilk, for thinning the next morning, if desired

Whisk all the dry ingredients together until well combined. Add the rest of the ingredients (except the 1/3 cup of soymilk) and mix well. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. Use batter anytime the next day.

Once you’re ready to make pancakes, remove the batter from the fridge and stir in up to 1/3 cup of soymilk to thin it if needed/desired. Let the batter sit out on the counter for 20-30 minutes. Heat a non-stick pan over medium heat. Spray with spray oil and wipe out the pan.

Using a 1/3 cup measure, begin making pancakes. I added apple slices to the batter before it set:

You can add anything you fancy: blueberries, chocolate chips, bananas, strawberries, etc.

Once the top is bubbly and the edges are set, check to make sure the bottom is brown. Flip:

Cook on the other side for another few minutes until browned. Stack pancakes in a low oven to keep warm, serve with earth balance margarine and maple syrup.

2) A card (of course!). Recycling anything from cardboard to fabric can make for a gorgeous love token. See this how-to guide from About.com. For those who love a little graphic design in their Valentines Day, check out this sweet duo from Jeannie and Jewell.

3) Run a soothing, candle-lit bath. First step? Get your hands on some detoxifying bath salts. Who knows what toxic ingredients are in the store-bought kind? Here’s a homemade recipe that will put you right into the Valentine’s mood.

LAVENDER, ROSEMARY & EUCALYPTUS BATH SALTS

560 grams of bicarbonate of soda
15 grams of dried lavender
7 ml of rosemary oil
7 ml of eucalyptus oil

Mix ingredients together well and store in an airtight jar. When you’re ready to use, put two handfuls of the salts in the middle of a muslin square, draw up the sides and tie with string or ribbon. Swirl around in bath water until dissolved. The muslin bag is great to rub over your body when you’re finished soaking.

4) What’s more romantic than donning some stunning vegan lingerie? Enter Stella McCartney. Nothing much else to say really, except click here.

5) Make non-toxic, cruelty-free soy candles to adorn the dinner table and bath tub. Here’s a handy guide from Caringconsumer.com

HOMEMADE SOY CANDLE

What You Will Need

• 1 pound of soy-wax flakes (found on the Internet or in local hobby shops)
• 1 mason jar or another type of decorative jar made with thick, heat-resistant glass
• 1 cotton wick (use a wick that’s attached to a metal disc)
• Scissors
• Superglue

Procedure

1. Wash and dry your glass jar completely.
2. Put a couple of drops of superglue on the bottom of the wick (metal tab), then place the metal tab at the bottom of the jar.
3. Hold the wick in place for about a minute or until the glue dries.
4. Slowly heat soy wax in a pan over medium heat until it is completely melted.
5. Remove the soy wax from the burner.
6. Gently and slowly pour the soy-wax mixture into the jar.
7. Position the wick in the center.
8. Once the wax turns solid, trim the wick to ½ inch.
9. Light your candle and enjoy!

If DIY isn’t your thing. Click here for vegan friendly candle retailers.

Vegan pancakes courtesy of teenytinyturkey
Bath salts courtesy Melissa Ray Davis
Candles courtesy sallyleecandles

Even though I eat a mostly plant-based and raw diet, I still enjoy cooking up a warm meal every now and again. Sautéing a little tempeh, onion, garlic and miso is always a delicious addition to a kale salad.

But what happens if the pan you’re using to make your healthy masterpiece is doing you more harm than good? Case in point: Non-stick fry pans and the solid research that shows they’re detrimental to human health.

I cleaned out my kitchen cupboards long ago from chemical-coated cookware, after I did some research and found those fancy non-stick fry pans produce highly toxic fumes that leach into food causing cancer and other illnesses.

According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), after just two to five minutes of heating, coated cookware can exceed the point where the coating breaks apart and emits toxic particles and gases. At varying temps the coatings can give off at least six toxic gases, including, you guessed it, two carcinogens.

Researchers have also found that birds exposed to these chemicals hemorrhaged—their bodies filling with a fluid that leads to suffocation. They even have a name for it: Teflon Toxicosis. In humans they call it polymer fume fever, which is said to show signs as an illness similar to influenza.

The findings also showed when coated pans get scratched during cooking, small amounts of plastic and leached aluminum cling to the food, which are of course ingested. Then there are the fumes that make their way into the environment and are inhaled.

A 2005 EWG study, that was done in collaboration with Commonweal, found perflourooctanoic acid, a carcinogenic chemical from non-stick pans, in the umbilical cord blood of newborns. John Hopkins Medical Center also conducted a test in 2006 and found the chemical in the umbilical cord blood of 99% of the 300 infants tested.

So now we’ve all been turned off our dinner, what is the best pan to use? Getting beyond all of the marketing hype that comes with just about every product on the market today, led me to cast iron pans. They’re not only deemed safe to use, but also add iron to the food cooked in them.

Main photo: waferboard

I’ve always loved old Hollywood. There was always certain glamorous innocence that appealed to me, even as a child.

I still love the music, the actors and the acting. I’m all for stars bursting out in song or dance mid sentence. Girls with perfectly set hair, men treating women like ladies.

As I thought about watching one of my favourite oldies today, I wondered if there were any old Hollywood stars who used their star power back then to actively promote not eating animals. An olden day Alicia Silverstone. A Casey Affleck in black and white.

My never-fail Google search lead me to 1920s glamour girl Gloria Swanson, who became vegetarian in 1928. She was known as an early advocate of healthy eating—to the extent she even brought her own meals to functions in a paper bag. She had also recommended a macrobiotic diet to actor Dirk Benedict, after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Benedict had refused conventional therapies and later said his recovery was due to his healthy diet.

Swanson also used her Hollywood connections and her natural health know-how to help promote the classic health book, Sugar Blues, written by her husband William Dufty.

She only bought organically grown food and tap water wasn’t acceptable. In 1976, she told People magazine: “If you looked at it (water) under a microscope, you’d be horrified.” Instead of refined sugar, Swanson recommended natural sugar boiled off from organically grown raisins.

My favourite quote from Gloria Swanson?

“Why do people treat their bodies like garbage pails?” … It seems that question still remains valid, many years after glamorous Gloria asked it.

To read the 1976 People article in full, click here.

Main photo:
Gloria Swanson by Edward Steichen 1924 Vanity Fair, February 1928 Bequest of Edward Steichen by Direction of Joanna T. Steichen, Courtesy of George Eastman House © Condé Nast Publications Inc. / Courtesy George Eastman House.

A bottle of Pom Wonderful landed on my desk the other day. A cute little rotund ball of juice, promising to bolster the body with antioxidants, relieve digestion issues, lower cholesterol and the like.

The first thing I always do, of course, is flip any product over and read the ingredient list. While many drinks are marketed as healthy, a considerable amount on supermarket shelves are loaded with all sorts of undesirable (and oft-unpronounceable) ingredients.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn Pom Wonderful is actually pomegranate juice, albeit made from a concentrate. It also tastes pretty great.

While I think it’s an option for those who lead a busy life and don’t have time to make fresh juice, I’m personally not a fan of the pasturisation process, which is typically used to extend shelf life. However, the Pom Wonderful peeps use a flash method. My question is, is flash any better than the traditional process?

According Sally Fallon, nutrition researcher, chef, journalist and author of Nourishing Traditions – The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and Diet Dictocrats the jury is still out: “flash pasteurization heats (the product) very rapidly and only holds it for a few seconds. So it’s unclear which is worse (pasturisation or flash pasturisation), whether there’s any advantage, nutritional advantage to one or the other. Both of the methods get rid of the enzymes and that is the test for successful pasteurisation.”

I had some questions for the Pom Wonderful company, which they were more than happy to answer…

I’m a big believer in many foods and beverages being consumed in their natural state, particularly to preserve the all-important enzymes. I notice Pom uses flash pasturisation—can you explain how this works?

Pom directed me to Wikipedia, which describes it as follows… Flash pasturisation is a method used to heat perishable beverages such as fruit and vegetable juices (and beer as well as some dairy products). Compared to other pasteurisation processes, it is said to maintain colour and flavour better. It is done prior to filling the product into containers in order to kill spoilage microorganisms, to make the products safer and extend their shelf life. The liquid moves in a controlled, continuous flow while subjected to temperatures of 71.5 °C (160 °F) to 74 °C (165 °F), for about 15 to 30 seconds.

Is Pom 100% juice?

Our juice is 100% as we do not add more water than occurs in the juice naturally. However, we do have to concentrate the juice since the pomegranate season on our orchards in California is fairly short. But, when reconstituting it, we only add back the water we took out.

In the fruit and juice industry, the standard for single strength bottled juices is a measurement of its solid content or brix.  Freshly squeezed Pomegranate juice has a brix value of 16.  We concentrate our Pomegranate juice – to allow for year round availability. When we are ready to bottle (each 16oz bottle contains the juice of approximately five pomegranates), we reconstitute the juice with the same quantity of water that was removed during the concentrating process. This added water has undergone a process of reverse osmosis to ensure the highest purity and quality standards.

So there you have it. The Pom Wonderful lowdown. I certainly would recommend reaching for a Pom Wonderful instead a cola or any other chemical-laden beverage. But you still can’t beat squeezing your own juice from organic fruit. Nature, without meddling, always knows best.

Some benefits of pomegranates

For centuries, the pomegranate has been associated with good health and preparations using parts of the pomegranate have been used to treat a variety of conditions. Hippocrates prescribed pomegranates to treat eye infections and to aid digestion; Roman author and scientist Pliny the Elder prescribed pomegranate juice for 26 ailments including morning sickness; and in the 12th century, Dioscorides cited pomegranates as a treatment for ulcers and other maladies.

Pomegranates boast:

• Polyphenol Antioxidants – helps protect the body against “free radicals” – molecules that cause damage to our bodies over time. Free-radical damage is a major factor in aging and chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer.
• Vitamin C – helps maintain muscles and blood vessels, assists in the formation of collagen and helps the body absorb iron. Vitamin C may also reduce the length and severity of colds.
• Vitamin K – plays a key role in blood coagulation.
• Potassium – helps regulate blood pressure and maintain strong bones.
• Iron – needed by the human body for the production of hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying part of blood.
• Fibre – helps maintain digestive regularity and may reduce LDL cholesterol, which may help lower the risk of heart disease.
  

Since leaving the US, I’ve been astounded at how tricky it is to buy organics. Big chain supermarkets in New Zealand only offer a very limited selection — hardly enough to fill a dinner plate. I won’t even talk about how astronomically expensive they are.

So the question remains, how do we bring real, affordable organics to the masses while keeping the big corporations honest? It’s the big businesses that threaten the future of organics, because they come at it from a money-making point of view—not from what’s best for the consumer. Get it out quick at as little cost as possible to them. If it looks like an apple, it’ll sell as an apple. Who cares what the nutrient content is.

Science has helped these corporations meddle with nature, with genetically modified produce on supermarket shelves just about everywhere. Studies have shown such meddling is at a huge cost to human health. Big corp organics could be mutant potatoes that resist anything nature throws at it. It may have grown without pesticides and without a scratch, but it won’t mean it’s healthy to eat.

Organic Nation TV caught up with The Environmental Working Group‘s President Ken Cook (see video below) to chat about the potential issue of big corporations hijacking organics, threatening its quality and the current standards.

Host Dorothee Royal-Hedinger asked Ken to talk about the anxiety some consumers and activists feel about the trend of big corporations taking over organic brands as well as the tension between making organic food affordable and maintaining the standards on which organics were founded.

He was interviewed at Kickapoo Country Fair held by Organic Valley, a farmer-owned cooperative of more than 1,300 organic family farmers nationwide, in LaFarge, Wisconsin.

Courtesy of organic.org, I’ve included a top 10 list of reasons to grow and buy organics, as well as why we all can benefit from supporting the organic industry, regardless of where you live in the world.

1. Reduce The Toxic Load: Keep Chemicals Out of the Air, Water, Soil and our Bodies
Buying organic food promotes a less toxic environment for all living things. With only 0.5 percent of crop and pasture land in organic, according to USDA that leaves 99.5 percent of farm acres in the U.S. at risk of exposure to noxious agricultural chemicals. Our bodies are the environment so supporting organic agriculture doesn’t just benefit your family, it helps all families live less toxically.

2. Reduce if Not Eliminate Off Farm Pollution
Industrial agriculture doesn’t singularly pollute farmland and farm workers; it also wreaks havoc on the environment downstream. Pesticide drift affects non-farm communities with odorless and invisible poisons. Synthetic fertilizer drifting downstream is the main culprit for dead zones in delicate ocean environments, such as the Gulf of Mexico, where its dead zone is now larger than 22,000 square kilometers, an area larger than New Jersey, according to Science magazine, August, 2002.

3. Protect Future Generations
Before a mother first nurses her newborn, the toxic risk from pesticides has already begun. Studies show that infants are exposed to hundreds of harmful chemicals in utero. In fact, our nation is now reaping the results of four generations of exposure to agricultural and industrial chemicals, whose safety was deemed on adult tolerance levels, not on children’s. According to the National Academy of Science, “neurologic and behavioral effects may result from low-level exposure to pesticides.” Numerous studies show that pesticides can adversely affect the nervous system, increase the risk of cancer, and decrease fertility.

4. Build Healthy Soil
Mono-cropping and chemical fertilizer dependency has taken a toll with a loss of top soil estimated at a cost of $40 billion per year in the U.S., according to David Pimental of Cornell University. Add to this an equally disturbing loss of micro nutrients and minerals in fruits and vegetables. Feeding the soil with organic matter instead of ammonia and other synthetic fertilizers has proven to increase nutrients in produce, with higher levels of vitamins and minerals found in organic food, according to the 2005 study, “Elevating Antioxidant levels in food through organic farming and food processing,” Organic Center State of Science Review (1.05)

5. Taste Better and Truer Flavor
Scientists now know what we eaters have known all along: organic food often tastes better. It makes sense that strawberries taste yummier when raised in harmony with nature, but researchers at Washington State University just proved this as fact in lab taste trials where the organic berries were consistently judged as sweeter. Plus, new research verifies that some organic produce is often lower in nitrates and higher in antioxidants than conventional food. Let the organic feasting begin!

6. Assist Family Farmers of all Sizes
According to Organic Farming Research Foundation, as of 2006 there are approximately 10,000 certified organic producers in the U.S. compared to 2500 to 3,000 tracked in 1994. Measured against the two million farms estimated in the U.S. today, organic is still tiny. Family farms that are certified organic farms have a double economic benefit: they are profitable and they farm in harmony with their surrounding environment. Whether the farm is a 4-acre orchard or a 4,000-acre wheat farm, organic is a beneficial practice that is genuinely family-friendly.

7. Avoid Hasty and Poor Science in Your Food
Cloned food. GMOs and rBGH. Oh my! Interesting how swiftly these food technologies were rushed to market, when organic fought for 13 years to become federal law. Eleven years ago, genetically modified food was not part of our food supply; today an astounding 30 percent of our cropland is planted in GMOs. Organic is the only de facto seal of reassurance against these and other modern, lab-produced additions to our food supply, and the only food term with built in inspections and federal regulatory teeth.

8. Eating with a Sense of Place
Whether it is local fruit, imported coffee or artisan cheese, organic can demonstrate a reverence for the land and its people. No matter the zip code, organic has proven to use less energy (on average, about 30 percent less), is beneficial to soil, water and local habitat, and is safer for the people who harvest our food. Eat more seasonably by supporting your local farmers market while also supporting a global organic economy year round. It will make your taste buds happy.

9. Promote Biodiversity
Visit an organic farm and you’ll notice something: a buzz of animal, bird and insect activity. These organic oases are thriving, diverse habitats. Native plants, birds and hawks return usually after the first season of organic practices; beneficial insects allow for a greater balance, and indigenous animals find these farms a safe haven. As best said by Aldo Leopold, “A good farm must be one where the native flora and fauna have lost acreage without losing their existence.” An organic farm is the equivalent of reforestation. Industrial farms are the equivalent of clear cutting of native habitat with a focus on high farm yields.

10. Celebrate the Culture of Agriculture
Food is a ‘language’ spoken in every culture. Making this language organic allows for an important cultural revolution whereby diversity and biodiversity are embraced and chemical toxins and environmental harm are radically reduced, if not eliminated. The simple act of saving one heirloom seed from extinction, for example, is an act of biological and cultural conservation. Organic is not necessarily the most efficient farming system in the short run. It is slower, harder, more complex and more labor-intensive. But for the sake of culture everywhere, from permaculture to human culture, organic should be celebrated at every table.

Carrots are at the top of my list to put my eyes back on track. Why? Besides the fact they look like an eye—nature’s signature to show they’re good for eyes (see below)—they’re also loaded with antioxidant compounds and are rich in pro-vitamin A carotenes. Beta-carotene helps to protect vision, especially at night.

Carrots also protect against macular degeneration and the development of senile cataracts, which is the number one cause of blindness in the elderly.

Some other great foods that are said to be super beneficial to eye health, thanks to their A, C and E vitamins, include:

• Spirulina;
• Raw sunflower seeds;
• Green leafy veges such as kale and spinach;
• Oranges;
• Apricots;
• Capsicum (peppers);
• Tomatoes;
• Raw green beans and peas;
• Grapefruit;
• Kiwi fruit.

There are some delicious smoothies that are quick and easy to make, which are loaded with eye-loving vitamins and minerals. Raw food chef and herbalist Brigitte Mars’ recommends this recipe (see below) from her book Beauty By Nature. If you want a step-by-step on how to whip it up, also check out the video below from The Renegade Health Show.

Eye Health Raw Smoothie

1 cup fresh carrot juice
1 cup water
1/4 cup unsalted raw sunflower seeds
1 Tablespoon spirulina

Blend until smooth.

I know there has been some talk over the years of aluminium leaching into the foods inside the cans. Whether that’s true, I can’t say. However, new research is suggesting it’s the plastic that lines cans these days that’s doing the harm.

Dr Fredrick vom Saal, PhD, who is an endocrinologist at the University of Missouri, specialises in studying the effects of bisphenol-A (BPA), the toxic chemical that comes from plastics that wrap just about everything we buy in supermarkets. He says the number one canned food to steer clear of is tomatoes. The following info may well make you re-think your mother’s famous spaghetti sauce.

Dr vom Saal says bisphenol-A is a synthetic estrogen that is linked to all sorts of dis-eases from reproductive problems to heart disease, diabetes and obesity. It’s the acidity in the tomatoes that reacts with the BPA that causes the chemical to leach into the food. Appetising huh?

What’s the solution? Learning to live like your great grandmother perhaps, and only eating organic food that looks how it’s supposed to. Freshly picked. Oh and speak to your local grocer about supplying more organic, non-packaged foods. The greater demand, the more supply.

While I’m on the subject of stuff to avoid, here are some other foods, as published in a story on Shine.com, that you may want to re-think.

Microwave popcorn ~ Chemicals, including perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), in the lining of the bag, are part of a class of compounds that may be linked to infertility in humans. In animal testing, the chemicals cause liver, testicular, and pancreatic cancer. Studies show that microwaving causes the chemicals to vaporize — and migrate into your popcorn.

Non-organic potatoes ~ Root vegetables absorb herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides that wind up in soil. In the case of potatoes they’re treated with fungicides during the growing season, then sprayed with herbicides to kill off the fibrous vines before harvesting. After they’re dug up, the potatoes are treated yet again to prevent them from sprouting.

Conventional apples ~ If fruits held a “most doused in pesticides contest,” apples would win. An increasing number of studies are starting to link a higher body burden of pesticides with Parkinson’s disease.

A better way to make use of cans