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Notes from IIN’s Founder: Why it’s OK to Quit Being Vegan or Macrobiotic

One of our gifted graduates, Alex Jamieson, recently posted an article on her website about experimenting with animal protein. She had been a strong advocate for the vegan way of eating for a long time, and she still recommends it as a healing tool for many.

After many years, she started having overwhelming cravings for animal protein accompanied with feelings of guilt for having them. She started eating animal foods in secret, ashamed that she had failed to live up to the “vegan ideal.” Alex finally learned to accept herself, and has bravely come out to share her experience with the world. What’s beautiful about her story is her compassion toward her body.

It reminded me of when I first became involved with nutrition and health. For several years, I followed a vegan macrobiotic diet – eating almost no dairy, meat, honey, or eggs. I did eat fish once in a while. I became very healthy and strong, and any time I went for a checkup all my blood tests were exceptional. Gradually, though, I began to notice the downside of this way of eating.

5 Health Benefits of Eating Raw Foods

Spring is right around the corner, and if you’re looking to boost your energy after a long winter, then you may want to think about adding more raw foods into your diet.  A raw foods diet consists mainly of uncooked foods, especially fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, and whole grains that haven’t been heated above 115 degrees Fahrenheit.

Raw foodist believe that cooking destroys enzymes that are vital to our health as well other essential vitamins and minerals. The more raw foods in our diet, the healthier we will be.  “There is some magic in raw fruits and veggies,” says specialist in nutrition medicine and visiting teacher, Joel Fuhrman, MD. He recommends consuming a mix of cooked and uncooked foods to get maximum nutritional benefits, since some nutrients in foods like tomatoes can be made more absorbable after being cooked.

A great way to start incorporating more raw foods in your diet is to make the salad the main dish during meals. Here are some of the benefits of eating raw foods:

Adrenal Fatigue vs. Thyroid Dysfunction: How to Tell

If you’re frequently tired, have the blahs, and feel like it’s difficult to keep weight off, you may be experiencing the winter blues if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere. Or it could be a more serious condition.

You might naturally assume your thyroid’s off balance if you have a family history of thyroid issues. However, adrenal exhaustion and thyroid dysfunction are closely linked and frequently mistaken. Some of the symptoms they have in common include extreme fatigue, never feeling well-rested, fuzzy thinking and memory issues, unexplained weight gain, and depression.

Adrenal fatigue and thyroid dysfunction are often confused because imbalances between the adrenals and thyroid are connected between their root origin in the pituitary gland and hypothalamus parts of the brain. These work together to increase and decrease hormones release by the adrenals and thyroid, as well as the sex organs. When one system gets thrown off balance, the other can be disrupted. This makes it more difficult to figure out if it’s adrenal or thyroid imbalance.

A Sweet and Gluten-Free Addition to Your Sunday Brunch

Nothing brings family and friends together quite like a delicious meal. Hosting Sunday brunch is a great way to gather everyone around the table to swap stories, reconnect, relax and enjoy each other’s company. It’s the perfect primary food!
 Add this gluten-free, dairy-free cinnamon sweet potato loaf cake from 2009 graduate Amie Valpone, to your next brunch menu for a sweet side dish that your brunch party will love and you’ll feel good about serving.


Cinnamon Sweet Potato Loaf

Ingredients

  • 2 cups gluten-free all purpose flour such as Bob’s Red Mill
  • 2 1/2 tsp. Simply Organic Cinnamon
  • 1 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp. sea salt
  • 1 3/4 cups stevia for baking such as Stevia in the Raw
  • 3/4 cup oil
  • 3 large eggs
  • 2 tsp. almond extract
  • 8 large sweet potatoes, cooked, peeled and grated
  • 1 cup finely chopped pecans
  • 2 Tbsp. coconut flakes


Instructions

What is Leaky Gut? How to Heal Your Digestive System

Leaky gut syndrome is a condition of the digestive system characterized by increased permeability of the intestinal lining, allowing pieces of undigested food and other toxins to enter the bloodstream where they do not belong.

This process activates the immune system in an effort to eliminate the foreign substances from the body, and thereby causes inflammation. The result is a wide range of physical symptoms such as bloating, multiple food sensitivity, headaches, eczema, and chronic fatigue, among others.

Essentially this means that having a leaky gut can seriously impair your overall health, and you could have it without even knowing! It also doesn’t help that it goes mainly undiagnosed by many mainstream medical professionals because they tend to focus on treating the presented symptoms, not the underlying root cause.

A multi-pronged approach is often necessary in order to heal a leaky gut. A balance of a wholesome natural diet, stress-reduction, supplementation, and a generous dose of patience are all required.

5 Tips to Stay Social When You Have Food Allergies

More people than ever before are being diagnosed with food allergies, and many are adopting diets that eliminate gluten, dairy, and soy, based on a diagnosed intolerance or personal preference. The dietary restrictions that accompany food allergies and intolerances often require an adjustment period of learning what you can and cannot eat. It can be isolating, but remember – you are not alone! 

If you are among this growing group, you’ve likely felt anxious at some point about attending a social function or dining out at a restaurant. Whatever the reason for avoiding certain ingredients in your meals, it’s important to focus on your primary food, like spending time with friends and family while still nourishing your body at mealtime. 

Here are five tips to help you stay social: 

Offer to bring a dish – If you’re heading to a party hosted by someone else, let them know ahead of time that you’d love to bring a food contribution. The host will likely be relieved to have some help, and you’ll be able to eat without worry. 

Integrative Nutrition Reviews: Women Food and God

Eating disorders are life-threatening illnesses that impact millions of people every year. They include anorexia (self-starvation and excessive weight loss), bulimia (cycling between binge eating and purging), binge eating disorder (recurring binging), and even atypical disorders such as orthorexia (obsession with a specific way of eating).

In recognition of National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, we are reviewing the work of Integrative Nutrition visiting teacher Geneen Roth, a pioneer in helping heal emotional eating for thousands of women.

In her teaching and books, Roth says that she’s gained and lost over a thousand pounds from years of fad dieting and then breaking her restrictive eating patterns. One day, she decided to just stop dieting, yo-yoing between being dangerously underweight and dangerously overweight, and just eat whatever she wanted by making conscious choices and asking her body what it wanted. Once she started trusting her body, she found her ideal size without effort.

Low Fat Vs. Mediterranean: Which Diet Could Save Your Life?

Olive oil, nuts, beans, fish, fruit, vegetables, and red wine … not only do these ingredients sound like a recipe for a delicious meal, but as it turns out, they can also save your life.

According to new findings published in the New England Journal of Medicine, about 30% of heart attacks, strokes, and deaths from heart disease can be prevented in high-risk individuals if they switch to the Mediterranean diet. Although people in Mediterranean countries always seemed to have lower rates of heart disease, it had never been conclusively proven that it was because of their famed diet of olive oil, plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit, very little red meat, and lots of red wine.

4 Natural Acne Remedies That You Can Make At Home!

Acne is a pesky and troublesome skin condition. Whether you are prone to acne or just get the occasional break out, chances are you’ve tried several over-the-counter or prescription treatments.  These medications are full of chemicals that can strip your skin of natural oils, dry out your pores and disrupt your pH balance – not to mention they don’t always work to treat the problem.

Luckily, there are a few natural remedies that can treat acne, and all of them can be cooked up right in your own kitchen!

Raw honey mask - Using raw honey as a facemask can reduce acne and moisturize your skin. The sugar in honey pulls the moisture out of the air into your skin, and the alpha hydroxy acid helps remove dead skin cells and encourages collagen production.  Simply warm the honey in your hands and apply to your face, letting it sit for 15 minutes before rinsing off. This is a great mask to do a couple of time a week, especially in the colder months, to keep your skin healthy and glowing.

How Science Perfected Addictive Junk Food

It’s no secret that eating nutrient-poor processed snack foods won’t keep you healthy. Laden with sugar, salt, and fat, indulging in them fill us up and take the place of foods that have the vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients that give us energy and keep our systems running.

Though serving sizes and nutritional information are clearly labeled on packages, most people have trouble putting down snacks after eating one serving. Why is this?

The truth is that food manufacturers carefully study what makes a snack crave-worthy to make them more addictive. Researching which colors, textures, flavors and levels of sweetness or saltiness maximize the bliss point, scientists design foods to create constant cravings and boost profits for food manufacturers.

A recent New York Times article reveals that the food industry has used science for years to create addictive junk food. The results of their science experiments have altered the way we eat – fewer set meal times and more frequent grazing or all-day snacking. The consequences have yielded a growing health crisis with increasing numbers of people with chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity and hypertension.

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