What and How Not To Eat If You Want To Stay Looking Young!!

So organic pillow hugger!! You are getting your beauty sleep, drinking plenty of filtered water, and getting the excercise in, so are you doing everything possible?

Nutrition, not age, determines the body’s internal chemistry, and that chemistry determines, in large part, the quality and resiliency of virtually every organ, cell and system in the body. If your diet is poor and missing essential nutrients, then it doesn't matter what else you do, your body will age beyond its years.

In our next article we will discuss what you should eat, but in this one we'll just give you a quick heads up on some foods that speed up aging. Just to note though, the odd bad food isn't going to make a huge differenbce, but it's daily habits that can stack up and cause problems.

1. Cut out Transfats

Transfats in fast foods and supermarket processed food is a huge offender. It acts in the body by increasing inflammation, and damaging your chromosomes, at the same time it reduces cell to cell communication which is bad news for your body. Being a man made molecule it is unantural to the body and causes enormous damage. Try to cut out anything that says it has hydrogenated ingerdients in it.


2. Highly Refined Sugar


Its not easy when you're a cake lover like me, but sucrose and higly refined sugars actually cut down your bodies ability to repair itself. High levels of sugar cause glycosolation within the body, this is when sugar molecules start interfering with protein molecules and a multitude of problems such as oxidative stress occur. Unfortunately when one thing like this starts happening in the body, a multitude of oither effects can begin which are like hitting the fast forward button on aging; hearing damage, vision damage, catracts, heart complaints are all a result. Trade refined sugars for natural sugars wherever possible, honey, maple syrup, agave nectar, but not artificial sweeteners, as they do more damage than even the most refined sugars!


3. Refined Starcy Foods

Highly refined carbs, are things like white bread, white pasta, white rice, any carbs that have their wholeness stripped away from them. Eating carbs like these are the same as eating high sugar foods, they massively increase your insulin level in the body as your body rushes to digest them, and then you'll feel hungry again 30mins later. This can lead to type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome and heart disease. Instead stick to whole grains and legumes and veg. Much better for you.

 4. Waiting Until Your Hungry Before eating

When you are really hungry, your body releases a hormone called Ghrelin which urges your body to go out and stuff itself with food!!! So the result is that you over eat, as it takes 30mins for the hormone to switch off once you've started to eat. By that time you've already gorged yourself on too much food. Eat regularily and healthily, don't wait to be hungry.

5. Eating When You're Stressed

Cortisol in produced by your body under stress and directs the blood supply away from your stomach to deal with your stressful situation. In the meantime your food does not properly digest and ferments in your gut instead, also resulting in un wanted metabolites being absorbed into your bloodstream. Stress also disrupts the acidity level in your gut, making it less able to absorb vital nutrients such as vitamin B12. Cortisol also stops the body repairing itself, so all in all, stress and eating don't go together. Make sure you are relaxed when you eat, not rushing around or anxious.

So to sum up, how you eat is as important as what you eat. More about this to come in following weeks, but in the meantime, stick to a whole food natural diet for ultimate health.

What To Do With Your left Over Halloween Pumpkin?

Organic pillow lovers will be interested to know that instead of throwing their pumpkin away after Halloween, you can make a delicious and easy pumpkin pie!

This is a very American dish, but is delicious and warming on cold autumn nights, so don’t throw it away, be creative!

1.     Preheat the oven to 200 degrees

2.     Your pumpkin is already, ready to cook as by now you will have done all the hard work removing the inside stringy flesh and seeds. Cut in half and bake both halves in the oven at about 350 degrees, and scoop out the inside when tender after about an hour to an hour and half.

3.     Make the pie crust by either - cheating using a pre made short crust pastry dough (!), or make your own using 7 oz of all purpose flour with a teaspoon of salt, and 4 oz butter, put everything in a bowl, mix with your fingers until it resembles a fine breadcrumb mixture and add 2-3 tablespoons of cold water to the mixture a little at a time. Keep mixing  and kneeding dough until it is moist enough to hold together in a ball

4.     Shape dough into a ball and place on a lightly floured board. Roll dough out to 1/8inch thickness. With a sharp knife, cut dough 1 1/2 inch larger than an 8 to 9 inch pie pan placed upside down on the flattened dough. Gently roll the dough around the rolling pin and transfer it right side up on to /into the pie pan. Unroll, ease dough into the bottom of the pie pan gently.

5.     In a large bowl with mixer speed on medium, 2 cups cooked pumpkin mash with 12floz evaporated milk, 2 beaten eggs, ¾ cups brown sugar, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, ½ teaspoon ginger, ½ teaspoon nutmeg and ½ teaspoon salt. Mix well. Pour into a prepared crust. Bake 40 minutes or until when a knife is inserted 1 inch from the edge comes out clean.

Enjoy with some fresh whipped or double cream or ice cream!

Frankenstein..move over and make space for Genetically Engineered Cloned Cow!!

Organic pillow huggers will be horrified by the latest news about the genetically engineered cloned cows that have been produced solely with the purpose of making milk less allergenic. It really is quite disturbing.

Although I'm all for science, i find this form of allergy treatment  quite twisted.

Firstly, don't get me wrong, i hate allergies but would never give my kids milk from a cow like this! when you mess with nature, it has a habit of coming up and biting you on the backside with an even bigger problem!

Secondly, as the cow is genetically engineered the milk produced by it is 100% artificial hormone driven ( hurrah more cancer causing excess oestrogen hormones!!!) and it has produced milk with double the amount of Caesin in it anyway, I'm sure it's still pastuerised and laced with antibiotics too!!!

Whose paying for this rubbish research!!!!!

For more info http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19785006

Pillows Found Full of Fungi

Organic pillow lovers will be interested to know about a study that came to my attention recently that found that the average bed pillow is home to a host of potentially-harmful fungi. A University of Manchester research team found up to 16 types of fungi in pillows they analysed, the Allergy journal reported a while back. Researchers found that feather pillows had fewer species of fungi than synthetic versions, particularly in the case of a fungus which exacerbates asthma. The expert opinion was that pillows should be disinfected regularly as fungi appear in most environments. The study analysed samples from 10 pillows - 5 feather and 5 synthetic - which had been used for between 18 months and 20 years. The results were alarming - the fungal spores found in the pillows fed off human skins scales and dust mite faeces. The first of these types of experiments on fungal contamination in bedding were carried out in the 1930’s but little has been carried out since. Researchers found that all 10 pillows had a "substantial fungal load" with between four to 16 different species being found on each, whilst the microscopic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus was particularly common in synthetic pillows. This fungus commonly invades the lungs and sinuses and can worsen asthma. It is also known to cause infection in leukaemia and bone marrow transplant patients. Lead researcher Professor Ashley Woodcock said the findings showed there was a "miniature ecosystem" operating inside pillows. How to Sleep More Healthily People spend a third of their life sleeping and breathing close to a potentially large and varied source of fungi, which have important implications for patients with respiratory disease - especially asthma and sinusitis." A spokesperson for the charity Asthma UK said: "We are aware that patients at the severe end of the spectrum of asthma are more likely to be hypersensitive to fungi than others with asthma. However in BuyOrganics opinion, the researcher’s suggestion that we should switch to feather pillows may not be the best answer for Asthmas sufferers due to the amount of dust mites that can build up in these pillows over time. It is obviously advisable to choose a natural pillow, among the our top picks would be fillings that naturally repel dust mites and are also anti-fungal and anti-microbial. Our top picks would be wool, latex flakes or grain pillows, which have these properties as well as many more health benefits. All of our pillows at BuyOrganics are zipped so that the inside filling can be removed and cleaned naturally by placing in the sun and airing and the outside can be washed at 60 degrees, the temperature at which dust mites are killed. No need for nasty disinfectant chemicals!!

Is your Partner Fed Up Of You Being Crabby In The Morning?

If you’re anything like me, the morning always comes too soon! There are those like my husband who jump out of bed in the morning full of energy ready to go for a mile long run, and there are people like me who just can’t open their eyes!! I am after all, an Organic Pillow lover and so I love my bed! It can be quite disconcerting if you are up and ready and your partner just won’t budge! “What a waste of the day” he thinks! “Let me sleep” she thinks!! Disputes like this can lead to very irritated weekends. According to sleep researcher and Sleep for Success CEO James B. Mass, sleep cycles are genetically determined, and women are more likely than men to be larks. Although this is not the case in my house, James says "You can't blame a person, it's not environmental," "owls," function better at night, have a body temperature that doesn't begin to rise until later in the morning. In my quest to try and become a morning person is there anything I can do? James says “Yes, but it's not easy”. It helps to be exposed to daylight immediately after getting up. Take a 15-minute walk, or get an FDA-approved light for indoor use, he suggested. “Walk I say!!! I can barely drink my tea, without drooling!” As long as you and your partner remain in different time zones, the best you can do is learn to understand and respect each other's nature. "It's important to work this out because it's how your day starts and you don't want to be irritated every single morning," said Suzanne Berman, a psychotherapist in private practice in Fair Lawn, N.J., who has worked with couples for more than 25 years. She offered the following tips for couples: • Communicate with each other: Don't expect your partner to guess what you need or what you're feeling about your morning dynamics. • Make each other your priority: "If your behaviour is continuously irritating the other person, the statement you're making is that you don't care about their needs," Berman said. This might mean not being able to make that morning phone call while your husband is still sleeping, for instance, but it's important to realize that seemingly-small acts build up over time and can cause resentment and create distance between partners. • Learn to Compromise: If you want the alarm set for 6:40 a.m. so you can sleep as long as possible, but he wants it at 6 a.m. to have extra time to wake up, try setting it for 6:20. "The couple needs to work something out so that both people feel their needs in the morning are being respected," she said. • Have realistic expectations: "If your husband isn't going to make it to the breakfast table, maybe you need to stop making his breakfast," Berman suggested. And stop trying to have that deep conversation in the morning. "Don't keep pushing your own agenda. That won't get you anywhere; you’re wanting something your partner can't give you." • Except Reality: "People are who they are, with their habits and routines," Berman said. The notion that 'If you loved me, you'd change,' is fantasy. Instead, tune into what your partner is telling you about themselves, and take that seriously. • Accept Each Other As You Are: Accept that you are two separate individuals: "You're a couple, but you're not the same person," Berman said. "It's hard for couples to accept this, especially women. I can happily say that me and mine have overcome these morning issues and we understand each other’s morning routine now (most of the time ;) !)