Healthy Honey, Microbiome, Ketogenic, Laughter

In This Issue: 

• Healthy Honey
• Feed Your Gut Microbiome
• Ketogenic Dangers
• Healing Laughter

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Message from Bernadette Wulf

Greetings!

March has so much to offer – Irish Day (I’m not a fan of Patrick who systematically tried to destroy the native Irish culture), the beginning of Spring, gardening inspirations, flowers and blossoms, and the possibility of some big rainstorms to make up for our very dry February. Welcome March!

This month we will take a look at the health benefits of raw honey, how to feed your friendly gut flora, a warning about yet another misleading documentary series promoting ketogenic diets, and last, but not least, the healing power of laughter.

As always, I would love to hear what you want to read about. Feel free to send requests, suggestions, or any sort of feedback. I appreciate hearing from my readers. Please use this email address – Email Bernadette

To your health and happiness!

Bernadette Wulf

http://healitall.com – Visit my new website Plant Based for Life

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Healthy Honey

Even though honey was prized as a healing medicine by our ancestors, recent media health trends have been giving honey a bad rap (partly due to the keto craze, see article below). Let’s put that misconception to rest right now. Honey is a very healing food.

Here’s what greenmedinfo.com has to say about honey:

Consuming raw honey, therefore, likely significantly impacts the microbiota within our own gut, and is one way to reconnect to ancient symbiotic relationships with flora that in our modern, sterilized, pasteurized, irradiated, poisoned, cooked, and bleached world, are all but eradicated from our environment, soil, food, and therefore bodies.

[ ] Bee products, including venom, wax, propolis, royal jelly, etc., have been found to provide potential medicinal solutions for over 170 different health conditions (see Bee Products), expressing over 40 distinct beneficial pharmacological actions. 

Sounds like some pretty good reasons to include raw honey in your diet. If you are concerned about the welfare of bees, I also wrote a whole blog post on that –http://www.plantbasedvegancoach.com/vegans-honey-10-thoughts/

Read more on the wonders of raw honey – http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/why-you-should-ditch-sugar-favor-honey

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Feed Your Gut Microbiome

We have just seen how honey can help improve our gut microbiome, but there’s more. It doesn’t do much good to take probiotics (either in capsules or by eating honey or fermented foods) unless you give them something to live on. Prebiotic foods are the favorite foods of healthy gut flora.

We already have some good bacteria living in our guts, even without taking probiotics, but they cannot thrive unless we feed them the right foods. Here are some of the top favorite foods of those helpful critters, from onegreenplanet.org:

• Asparagus
• Bananas
• Onions
• Garlic
• Cabbage
• Beans, Legumes
• Bran (oat bran, rice bran)
• Artichokes
• Leeks
• Root Vegetables
• Apples

And a few more from healthline.com: Chicory Root, Dandelion Greens, Jerusalem Artichoke, Burdock Root, Flax Seeds, Jicama , Seaweed

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/19-best-prebiotic-foods#section1

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Ketogenic Dangers

Here we go again. There is a new documentary series that just started, promoting the high-fat ketogenic diet. It’s called “The Real Skinny on Fat.” It is slick, well produced, and could be convincing if I didn’t already have a lot of information on the dangers of ketogenic diets.

Don’t get me wrong, ketosis is a natural and helpful bodily function that can help us heal (as in fasting), but is not healthful on a long term basis. People often feel better on it for awhile, because they have eliminated processed foods, but eventually their health starts to deteriorate due to lack of glucose reserves and other vital nutrients from fresh fruits and starchy vegetables.

Dangers of ketosis and high-fat diets:

• acid forming (therefore bone and teeth destroying)
• low in fiber, so doesn’t feed important gut flora
• leads to glucose deficiency (the most important fuel for brain and muscles)
• can cause kidney stones
• high fat diet can cause diabetes
• can overtax liver and kidneys
• can cause sluggish, congested liver
• can lead to muscle loss
• the weight loss is temporary, even for people who stay on the diet
• it can damage the heart
• high fat clogs arteries and causes oxygen depletion
• there are no long term studies showing benefits, aside from treating seizures
• will eventually cause nutrient deficiencies

Let’s look at that last bullet point, because it may ultimately be the one that makes or breaks the diet. We need about 2000 calories a day, more or less. Our main sources of calories are carbohydrates and fats. Healthy carbohydrates come from a wide variety of plant foods, mainly fruits, starchy vegetables, and grains. As long as these are whole foods, they will contain lots of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients (many of which have not yet been discovered by science).

Fats can come from plant or animal foods, including oils. Oils are very high in calories and very low in other nutrients. Even high fat whole foods like nuts, seeds, avocado, and animal products contain far less density and variety of nutrients per calorie than high carb fruits and starchy vegetables. So, the higher your fat intake, the less nutrient value you will get per calorie.

Before you blindly jump on the keto bandwagon, do your homework and research it thoroughly. It may sound really good, but fad diets often turn out to be “too good to be true.”

Here’s what healthline.com has to say:

“Keto diets should only be used under clinical supervision and only for brief periods,” Francine Blinten, R.D., a certified clinical nutritionist and public health consultant in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, told Healthline. “They have worked successfully on some cancer patients in conjunction with chemotherapy to shrink tumors and to reduce seizures among people suffering from epilepsy.”

In the general population, Blinten said a keto diet should only be considered in extreme cases.

“It can do more harm than good. It can damage the heart, which is also a muscle,” she explained.

For more on ketogenic diets visit –

http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/dangers-associated-ketogenic-diets-11436.html

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/keto-diet-is-gaining-popularity-but-is-it-safe-121914#4

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Healing Laughter

I suppose we all know that laughter is good for us. It just feels good. There have even been scientific studies like this one quoted by naturalhealth365.com, showing how laughter triggers “an opioid-like release in the pleasure centers of the brain. The researchers also found that subjects’ pain thresholds were significantly increased after watching comedy shows that made them laugh.”

Yet, sometimes it is hard to find something to laugh about. That’s when comedy movies and TV shows can be really helpful. I’ve been watching old Fraiser reruns on Netflix and I always get a chuckle out of them. Maybe something else will work for you. Some people swear by laughter yoga.

Whether inspired by the antics of puppies, cute comments of toddlers, or off color jokes of stand up comedians, laughter may be the key to healing what ails you. If you’ve tried everything else, give laughter a shot. It certainly couldn’t hurt, and lack of laughter could even be a risk factor.

From naturalhealth365.com:

[ ] a Japanese study found those who report never or almost never laughing had a 60 percent greater risk of stroke and a 21 percent higher risk of cardiovascular disease. Laughing regularly is also associated with better memory, learning and mood along with significantly reduced risk of depression.

Read more about the amazing health benefits of laughter – https://www.naturalhealth365.com/laughter-emotional-health-2469.html