B12, Weight Loss, Prostate Cancer, Flax, Instant Pot & Upcoming Magical Events!

B12, Easy Weight Control, Prostate Cancer, Flax, Instant Pot & Upcoming Magical Events!

In This Issue: 

• • Why You Need Vitamin B-12
  • Weight Loss Made Easy
  • Plant-Based Diets Lower Prostate Cancer Risk
  • Flax Superfood
  • Instant Pot Guide

You’ll find lots of healthy recipes in my Whole Foods Plant-Based, Gluten Free Diet & Recipes Group

Message from Bernadette Wulf

Happy New Year!

According to all the astrological reports I’ve been reading, 2022 should be a much easier year than the last two. Thank goodness!

Though I personally made it through unscathed, I know of so many people who lost friends and family members. Let’s all send out a wave of love and support to those who are grieving.

The new year is a good time to reassess your health protocols. Are you:

• getting all the important phytonutrients from a variety of fresh fruits and veggies?
• taking essential supplements like vitamin B-12 and zinc sulfate?
• minimizing fats to keep your blood oxygen levels high?
• moving your body regularly to keep your lymph flowing and removing toxins?
• avoiding foods that feed viruses, like eggs, dairy and gluten?

You may not be able to avoid ever catching a bug, but you can certainly minimize your chances of being bowled over by it.

This month we have some really interesting articles about the best way to lose excess pounds (or maintain your ideal weight), the importance of vitamin B-12, prostate cancer prevention, the wonders of flax and a really handy guide to using your Instant Pot. I hope you find something useful that you never knew before!

Upcoming Magical Stuff

Now that I’ve discovered how well Zoom works for shamanic journeys and magical workshops-playshops, I’ve planned several new ones for the New Year!

I’ve had lots of fun creating their banners on Canva.com. Check them out:

Faery Healing – Faery Reiki – Faery Doctoring on January 15th, 2022 (Will be recorded for those who cannot attend in person) – Click banner for more information or to sign up.

Coming Soon!

Two day Imbolc Immersion – A Faery Initiation Journey to the Four Faery Cities, Four Sacred Hallows & the Healing Heart of the Faery Realm – January 29th and 30th (Recorded for those who cannot attend in person) – I will be sending out email invitations when it’s time to sign up.

Dragon Guardians & Spirit Guides – If you have a connection with dragons you won’t want to miss this intensive journey to connect with the world of dragons and your personal dragon allies! (Date February 19th – I’ll be sending out notices closer to the event.)

Have questions or comments? —>>> Email Bernadette <—<<< Please use this link and do not hit reply to this post, because I may never get your message that way.

To your health and happiness!

Bernadette Wulf

HealItAll.com & Eat Plants for Life

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Why You Need Vitamin B-12

Whether you are vegetarian, vegan or omnivore, it is easy to become deficient in vitamin B12 unless you take a supplement, or consistently eat B12 enriched foods – especially as you get older. Though animal products can provide some B12, even avid meat eaters often test low in this important vitamin.

The original source of vitamin B12 is actually not animal products as is commonly believed. It is bacteria that naturally live on plants. Unfortunately, our modern washing methods remove most of those bacteria from our food, but since animals don’t wash their food they tend to get plenty.

Unless you consistently eat unwashed produce right out of your organic garden, you will have little chance of ingesting those important bacteria. My recommendation is to take a good supplement like Vimergy B12 or Global Healing Center B12 containing both methylcobalamin and adenosylcobalamin. One or two droppers full per week is plenty for most people under 60. One dropper full per day or every other day is recommended for senior citizens, since we tend to absorb less as we get older.

Don’t worry about getting a little too much, since it is water soluble and any excess will simply be flushed out in your urine. Better too much than not enough!

From theartofantiaging.com:

B-12 works in complex ways within your body, but one of its most critical functions is keeping nerve cells and blood cells healthy. It’s also involved in the synthesis of DNA, which is the genetic material present in every cell in your body.

To put it simply, vitamin B-12 supports your body at the most basic level. Without it, your nervous system can’t function properly, DNA synthesis may be impaired, and cell division is hindered.

B-12 also plays a major role in creating red blood cells and keeping them healthy. This is important because red blood cells are responsible for carrying oxygen to every other cell in your body and taking carbon dioxide back to your lungs to be exhaled.

As you can see, vitamin B12 is needed for many extremely important functions in your body and a long term deficiency can lead to devastating consequences. One of its most noticeable benefits is that can boost your energy without taxing the adrenal glands like caffeine does.

Play it safe and take a B12 supplement, even if it’s the only supplement you ever take. It’s that important!

Read more about why vitamin B12 is so important – https://theartofantiaging.com/benefits-of-vitamin-b-12-best-plant-based-sources/

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Weight Loss Made Easy

America is experiencing an obesity epidemic like nothing we’ve ever seen before. And so many people want to lose a few extra pounds that weight loss products have become a multi-billion dollar industry – an estimated 30 billion a year in the US alone!

People will try everything from bariatric surgery to radical ketogenic diets and fasting in the hopes that they will lose a few pounds. If only they knew that there is an easier (and MUCH healthier) way to shed extra weight.

Take a look at this chart from forksoverknives.com:

CALORIE DENSITY CHART

Foods	Calories/Pound
Vegetables	60 – 195
Fruit	140 – 420
Potatoes, pasta, rice, barley, yams, corn, hot cereals	320 – 630
Beans, peas, lentils (cooked)	310 – 780
Breads, bagels, fat-free muffins, dried fruit	920 – 1,360
Sugars (i.e. sugar, honey, molasses, agave, corn syrup, maple syrup)	1,200 – 1,800
Dry cereals, baked chips, fat-free crackers, pretzels, popcorn	1,480 – 1,760
Nuts/seeds	2,400 – 3,200
Oils	4,000

Notice anything interesting? Some foods have WAY more calories per pound than others. If you want to lose weight, or even gain weight, this chart will help you choose the foods that support you in the process. As long as you eat foods in the lower half of the chart it will be almost impossible to lose weight unless you are doing an extreme amount of exercise to burn off those extra calories – or you minimize your portions so much that you feel like you are hungry all the time. That’s no fun!

The good news is that you won’t have to scrimp on portions at all as long as you stick to the first three categories – fruits, vegetables and whole food starches.

But what about protein?

Protein is widely misunderstood due to massive campaigns by the meat industry – to the point where many people equate meat with protein. It is true that meat does contain protein, but it also contains a lot of fat (high calorie density), hormones, and usually drugs like antibiotics.

Did you know that ALL whole plant foods also contain protein? Protein is simply a combination of amino acids, of which we only need eight essential ones (some say nine – and kids need three more that can be found abundantly in plant foods like oats and peanut butter).

The ONLY essential amino acid that is a bit less widely available in plant foods is Lysine, but it is abundant in beans, lentils, spirulina, oats, quinoa and several other plant foods. Just include one or more of these foods several times a week and stick to whole plant foods and you will get all the protein you need to thrive. You’ll also get plenty of essential fatty acids as long as you include leafy greens. Read everything you need to know about vegan protein sources here.

Why do so many doctors recommend a high-fat (high-calorie), low-carb diet for weight loss?

First of all, doctors in general are notoriously ignorant about nutrition unless (like Dr. Greger, Dr. McDougall and Dr. Barnard) they have chosen to make healing with nutrition their focus. While it is true that a low carb ketogenic type diet can cause rapid and dramatic weight loss, it is NOT a healthy way to lose weight.

Most of the weight people lose on ketogenic diets is water, glucose reserves and muscle. Eventually, if they stay on the diet long enough, the body adapts and the weight usually comes back. Meanwhile, they have overburdened their liver, kidneys, heart, adrenal glands and pancreas with excess fat and protein and starved their liver and brain of vitally needed glucose. (Ketogenic diets can be helpful for people with seizure disorders, but even they will eventually experience the negative effects of long term ketosis).

Fortunately there’s a much better way to lose weight!

From forksoverknives:

Research has shown that people can freely eat foods that are 300 calories per pound or less and not gain weight. People can consume relatively large portions of foods that are between 300 and 800 calories per pound and still lose or maintain their weight depending on their individual activity levels and metabolism. The intake of foods with a calorie density of 800-1,800 should be limited as these can contribute to weight gain and interfere with efforts to lose weight. Additionally, the intake of foods over 1,800 calories per pound should be extremely limited as these foods can very easily contribute to weight gain and obesity and can also greatly interfere with efforts to lose weight.

Pretty simple, right? And if you really want to speed up your weight loss, try a 100% raw diet of only fruits and vegetables for a few weeks or even months. You might feel so good that you’ll want to stick with it even longer. As long as you eat plenty of leafy greens and fresh fruits and take a B12 supplement, you can stay on a raw fruit and vegetable diet indefinitely. Some people have been doing this for years with only beneficial results.

Note: If you eat from the top three categories on the chart for a few months and you still don’t lose weight, be patient. Either you are already at the ideal weight for your body, or your liver is clogged and/or sluggish due to toxins and/or excess fats in your diet.

If your liver is burdened with too much fat and/or toxins, it will begin to release toxins as soon as you clean up your diet, but it may release them more quickly than your body can eliminate them. That means the toxins have to be stored somewhere in your body until your system is clean enough to clear them out.

Given the choice between storing toxins in important organs, or in excess fat, the body will choose fat as the least harmful option. It will wisely hold onto your excess fat until it is ready to release those toxins for elimination.

Trust your body. As soon as your toxic load is safely reduced, the fat will start melting away effortlessly. Meanwhile, enjoy eating as much as you like of the nutrient rich foods at the top of the chart.

Read more about losing weight with low-calorie-dense foods – https://www.forksoverknives.com/wellness/the-calorie-density-approach-to-nutrition-and-lifelong-weight-management/

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Plant-Based Diets Lower Prostate Cancer Risk

Whole plant-food diets have been shown in study after study to dramatically improve your odds against most types of cancer, especially when the diets are also lower in fats. In this case the study was on prostate cancer.

From forksoverknives.com:

When Loeb and her team of researchers compared the dietary habits and prostate cancer risk among HPFS participants, they found that those who ate more plant-based foods were significantly less likely to develop fatal prostate cancer. Additionally, they found that younger men (under age 65) who ate more healthful plant-based foods were less likely to develop aggressive forms of the disease.

Maybe we need a new slogan, “Real men eat plants!” – at least the ones who are most likely to avoid the worst forms of prostate cancer.

Read more about why a WFPB diet can help you avoid prostate cancer – https://www.forksoverknives.com/wellness/prostate-cancer-new-study-plant-based-diet

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Flax Superfood

Aside from using “flax eggs” for baking, I rarely include flaxseeds in my diet, but I keep hearing about how they are so good for us. Maybe this article will convince you to include them more often. They certainly are a healthy food!

From theartofantiaging.com:

Just a one tablespoon serving of whole seeds will get you about 10% the daily value (DV) of magnesium, 13% DV of manganese, 11% DV thiamin (vitamin B1), and good amounts of phosphorus, copper, potassium, selenium, iron, and calcium. [ ]

Along with being rich in essential nutrients, flaxseeds are also one of the best plant-based sources of omega-3. Omega-3s are the fatty acids also found in fish oil, although they take a different form in flax (more on that later). They are known to support mental health, heart health, skin health, and eye health— just to name a few examples.

And top it all off, flaxseeds are also the #1 food source of a powerful plant compound group known as lignans, which have multiple health-boosting properties.

That being said, I prefer consuming hemp seeds and chia seeds for Omega-3 and sesame tahini for lignans – just my personal preference. What about you?

Read more about the benefits of flax seeds – https://theartofantiaging.com/incredible-health-benefits-of-flaxseeds

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Instant Pot Guide

Anyone get an Instant Pot for Christmas?

Or maybe you’ve had one sitting around for months or even years, but you never figured out how to use it.

Good news! Here’s a really helpful guide that will get you cooking in no time.

From thehappyglutenfreevegan.com:

First, it is almost impossible to mess up with this thing to a point of being dangerous, so if you’re concerned about the exploding pressure cookers of yore, you needn’t be (I said “almost”, don’t go overriding your pot’s safety features and then blame me when you poke an eye out). The lid audibly tells you when it’s sealed (when you turn it clockwise), and the pot won’t even build up much pressure if you haven’t properly closed the steam release handle by turning it, too, clockwise. [ ]

The sauté function has three temperature settings: ‘Normal’ heats to 320°, ‘More’ heats to 338°, and ‘Less’ heats to 221° (all in Fahrenheit)

For pressure cooking, you will probably use ‘manual’ nearly all the time (nearly every Instant Pot cookbook I’ve read relies on the manual setting almost exclusively). So don’t feel badly for not using all of those other buttons very much, if at all (I’ve never used any of the preprogrammed buttons).

Frankly, I don’t bother with the Instant Pot for tender vegetables like broccoli and I prefer the way rice comes out in my Saladmaster slow cooker, but for anything else that takes a long time to cook, like beans, you can cut the time way down. It may take a bit of trial and error to get the timing just right for some foods, but once you do it will speed up your meal preparation a lot.

You can even cook a whole meal in one pot in a matter of minutes. More recipes are being posted online every day. What fun!

For manual setting times you can download a free vegan Instant Pot cheat sheet here – https://www.veganguidetothegalaxy.com/blog/vegan-instant-pot-cheat-sheet/

Read more about how to use your Instant Pot – https://www.thehappyglutenfreevegan.com/getting-started-instant-pot-instant-pot-quick-start-guide/