Living Healthy: dairy

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Thursday, October 18, 2012

Top 12 Foods that Cause Inflammation

Everyday foods like bacon, eggs, coffee and dairy products are linked to inflammation. That might not sound like a big deal but when you consider that most chronic conditions like cancer, arthritis, diabetes, and obesity have been linked to inflammation. Low grade inflammation is a factor in most health issues. And if you suffer a pain disorder, you better believe that inflammatory foods will aggravate the condition.

Try reducing your consumption of these foods with the goal of eliminating them completely. The same holds true for alcohol and fried foods – both of these have been known to irritate and worsen arthritis

Many common foods in the Standard North American Diet can cause or exacerbate inflammation in the body.

Here are my picks for the top 12 inflammatory foods:

1. What I call the “3 Ps”–Processed, packaged, or prepared foods. And, yes, fast food is atop the list of inflammatory foods thanks to the harmful oils, sugar and artificial sweeteners, food additives, and a whole host of nasty ingredients.

2. Hydrogenated and trans fats found in margarine, shortening, lard or products made with them. That includes baked goods, cookies, pies, buns. Of course there are healthier alternatives to these baked goods but most grocery stores and bakeries are using these harmful ingredients.

3. Meat (not wild-caught fish). I’m not suggesting that you have to go vegan or vegetarian here although a plant-based diet tends to be much lower in inflammatory substances but meat and poultry tend to cause inflammation so make them the background of your meals not the main dish.

Keep reading to discover more inflammatory foods…

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Source : care2[dot]com

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Make Your Own Organic Cashew Milk

When you’re cutting out – or cutting back on – the dairy in your diet, vegan milks make life so much easier. From moistening cereal to lightening coffee to whipping up baked goods, a bottle of yummy, vegan milk is a handy thing to have in the fridge.

The trouble with store-bought vegan milks is that they aren’t always as natural as you’d probably like. Even organic non-dairy milks often use the thickener carageenan, which can exacerbate gastrointestinal problems because of its inflammatory properties. Don’t let that convince you that going back to dairy is the way to avoid this ingredient. Carageenan isn’t limited to non-dairy milks; it’s a common thickening agent used in low-fat dairy products as well.

If you want to skip the mystery ingredients in so many store-bought vegan milks, your best – and most affordable – alternative is to make your own. Nut milks are super simple to make in your own kitchen, and cashew milk is particularly creamy and delicious. Even better? You only need three ingredients to make your own cashew milk: raw cashews, maple syrup, and water!

Because homemade nut milks don’t have all of the preservatives and other additives that store-bought vegan milks have, they’ve got a shorter shelf life. You’ll want to drink your homemade cashew milk within a week of making it.

On the next page, check out a recipe to make your very own organic cashew milk from scratch!

Image Credit: Raw Cashews photo via Thinkstock

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Source : care2[dot]com

Gallup Asks Americans if They’re Vegan for the First Time

In a July 2012 Gallup poll, Americans were questioned about whether or not their diets included animal and dairy products, and 2 percent of the population responded that they were vegan. This amounts to about 6 million people in the U.S. alone, an impressive number for the diet’s relatively recent prominence.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the poll also asked if respondents were vegetarian, and 5 percent (or 15 million) reported positively. This figure is down 1 percent from 2001, however, overall the number of people reporting themselves as vegetarian has remained steady over the past 13 years.

More surprising, perhaps, than the overall numbers of vegetarians or vegans was the self-reported demographics of those choosing a meatless diet. Stereotypes of typical vegetarians seem to have little basis in fact, as nearly all segments of the population reported similar percentages.

Slightly more women (7 percent) than men (3 percent) said they were vegetarian, while vegetarian individuals were more likely to be unmarried (8 percent) than married (3 percent).

Instances of vegetarianism were very similar whether a person considered themselves politically conservative, moderate, or liberal. This was also the case regardless of what level of education they’d completed. Additionally, older Americans were more likely to be vegetarian than younger adults, although the percentages were close.

More than 1,000 Americans were polled by telephone in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. In a larger 2008 study conducted by Vegetarian Times and carried out by the Harris Interactive Service Bureau, 3 percent of the population said they followed vegetarian diets. Of those, 0.5 percent considered themselves vegan.

Do these figures mean more people are choosing a diet free of animal products? Perhaps, although polls always have margins of error. More than anything, the questions about the kind of people choosing vegetarianism show us that there is not a characteristic type of person choosing a meatless diet, but people from all walks of life have embraced it.

By Sarah Shultz for Diets In Review | photo via istock

Source : care2[dot]com