You wouldn't get the following essential nutrients from the nutritarial vegan diet!!

Hi everyone,

After dieting for 4 months - it's time to review my daily intake - is it enough? is it too much?

A decade ago I was growing aquatic plants at home in a huge aquarium.

Plants were looking at their best when all conditions were met, that is they had enough light, enough "sleeping hours", enough CO2, low enough PH, and the chemistry of the water had all the nutrition and at the right concentration. I was measuring the water condition on a daily basis, checking iron level, phosphate, nitrate, etc, etc, etc to make sure the plants are getting everything they need. If iron was missing then you could notice the deficiency in few days. If nitrate was missing then plants were so weak that they looked terrible. The thing is - a plant needs all the nutrients in order to flourish. If only one poor nutrient is missing - then the plants is stagnant, stuck! Actually that one nutrient that is missing is causing the plant not to consume the other nutrients!!

The human body behaves very much the same - if something is missing - it will show eventually, and it can be devastating to your health. So I think it's a good idea to check for deficiency in one's diet. Using the USDA data base - I went over all nutrients and checked for deficiencies.


The importance of Macro Nutrients

Back then when I was growing plants and people in the forum were asking me about plant nutrition, and about some micro element that may be missing like boron... I would say that with all respect the most important nutrients are the N, the P and the K!! NPK! These are the plants macro nutrients: Nitrate, Phosphate and Potash. There's no point in going into the details of some micro nutrient when a bigger, more important macro nutrients is missing or is in excess.

So for human beings we are talking about fat, carbs & protein. These are the macro nutrients and the rule we should have enough fats, carbs and protein.

So before talking about raw food, and dude do you get enough fiber, and the ratio between omega 3 and omega 6 - let's get this thing straighten out - it's the Macro nutrients that count. You should get enough of them.


Calories

The best way to summarize how much fat, how many carbs and how much protein we consume is to look at the calories because it's actually a weighted sum of all the fats, the carbs and protein in your diet.

9 x weight of fat in grams + 4 x weight of carbs in grams + 4 x weight of protein in grams = calories.

So calories is the first thing that we should be looking at - is it enough? Is it?

In order to calculate the calories that one requires we first calculate the Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). BMR calculates the number of daily calories you need to sustain life if you were totally immobile - how much energy do you require just to stay alive.

Women: BMR = 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years) 

Men: BMR = 66 + (6.23 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)

In my case BMR = 66 + 6.23 x (105: 0.453) + 12.7 x 83 - 6.8 x 50 = 66 +  1444 + 1054 - 340 = 2224 calories.

Next we use the Harris-Benedict formula to multiply the BMR by the appropriate physical activity factor.

• Sedentary: BMR x 1.2
• Little active, light exercise, 1-3 times a week: BMR x 1.375
• Moderately active, moderate exercise, 3-5 days per week: BMR x 1.55
• Very active: hard exercise, 6-7 days per week: BMR x 1.725
• Extremely active: very hard and intense sport and training twice a day: BMR x 1.9

I estimate that BMR=1.6 should represent my case so I need 3558 calories (BMR 2224 x 1.6) per day.

Looking at my daily intake I am shocked to find out that I consume less than half of this, I get ~1700 calories. That's very low. Even if I take into account my target weight which should be 71 Kg - still I shall need 2,800 calories.

So yes I lost weight quite rapidly as result but I think that this party should be over. Time for me to ramp up my caloric intake.


Macro Nutrients

What should I increase? fat? carbs? protein?

Chris Carmichael, recommends in his book Food For Fitness that athletes should consume 65% of their caloric intake from carbohydrate, 13% from protein, and 22% from fat.

As you can see my body is striving for more fat and more carbs while protein is almost OK.

Dr. Fuhrman too seems to be all for having more fat in my diet. In his book "the end of diabetes" he writes "Adhering to a diet that is less than 10 percent of calories from fat is not an appropriate recommendation for ideal health . This too-low percentage of fat results in less-than-ideal health outcomes such as low energy and minimized hormone production . The simple truth is that a healthy diet could be 15 percent of calories from fat or even 30 percent of calories from fat. As long as the diet is rich in micro nutrients and does not exceed our daily need for calories , a lower-fat diet has no advantage in the prevention and treatment of disease."


Micro Nutrients

Keeping the above in mind I am going now over all the nutrients and see how much do I have relative to the RDA.

Vitamin D 

As for Vitamin D - as I explained in another post - I get it from the sun. You can follow this link in order to calculate how many minutes you need to expose your face and arms to the sun in order to get your daily RDA.

But on the first rainy day I already bought this -

Vitamin B12

Vitamin B12 I get as a pill that I take daily under the tounge - 1200 ug daily.



Choline

Choline is a problem. The RDA for this nutrient is 550 mg. And as a vegan I am not sure how I can get enough if I don't eat liver or 5 eggs per day...

• Beef liver - pan-fried - 100 grams (about 3.5 oz) - 418 mg
• Whole large egg - 112 mg choline
• Beef (ground) 80% lean/20% fat - 3.5 oz patty - 81 mg
• Cauliflower - 3/4 C cooked (1" pieces) - 62 mg
• Navy beans - 1/2 C cooked - 48 mg
• Tofu - 100 grams (about 3.5 oz) - 28 mg
• Almonds - sliced - 1/2 cup - 26 mg
• Peanut butter - 2 T - 20 mg

So I bought this...

Niacin

I am consuming only 88% of RDA today and I want more. How do I increase that? There's plenty of niacin in fish, chicken, pork, liver & beef but I don't eat these.

There's also lots of niacin in peanuts, sun flower seeds and avocado but it takes many calories to get the RDA here. For example spanish peanuts provide 0.028 mg Nicain per calorie. So in order to get RDA one should consume 571 calories per day from peanuts. That's about 100 grams per day. Currently I consume 50 grams nuts in one day and so if I double that and make sure half of my nuts & seeds comes from niacin then I should be ok.

Vitamin E

The RDA here is 15 mg per day.

There's lots of Vitamin E in sunflower seeds (0.06 mg per calorie), almonds (0.045 mg per calorie), tomatoes (0.03 mg per calorie), and peanut butter (0.015 mg per calore).

All of this is suggesting to raise the amount of nuts & seeds and make sure I get portion of sunflower seeds, almonds and peanut butter.


ZINC

The RDA for Zinc is 11 mg per day.

Food that are rich with Zinc are: oisters (0.2-0.75 mg per calorie), beef (0.06 mg per calorie), alfaalfa seeds sprouted (0.04 mg per calorie), basil (0.03 mg per calorie).

Till now I got most of my zinc from beans (0.008 mg per calorie)...

If I want to increase my Zinc intake by say 4 mg then it means 100 grams of sprouted alfaalfa. It just doesn't make sense.

So I will have to buy this -

Iodine

I don't have any numbers for my Iodine consumption but I would guess that it's close to zero since I don't consume sea salt. So I will have to take this supplement as well.

Salt & Sugar

The maximum amount of salt to be consumed by a human being is 2.3 grams per day. I consumed 0.48 grams so I am "OK". There's lots of evidence that such low consumption of salt is not healthy, I shall read more about it and tune my diet accordingly.

As for sugar the maximum allowed is 284 grams per day while I am consuming 119 grams of which 77 grams are from fruits. I think I am OK here too.


Summary

The nutritarial vegan diet that I was leading for the last couple of months has some severe deficiencies and before it's too late - it's time to make sure I get enough. The most important 'nutrient' is the number of calories. I am going to double the amount of seeds and nuts from 50 grams per day to 100 grams per day.

This increase shall also resolve the issue of vitamin E & Niacin intake.

In addition I shall consume the following supplements daily: Vitamin D or sun light, B12, Choline, Zinc & Iodine.

Aviel.

A new nutritional index reveals that you should wrap your food in bacon

Hi guys,

Long time, sorry about that, been busy working, working, working :)

The other day my 90 yo vegetarian father sent me this article with the a title "A new index for the nutritional quality of various foods indicates that you should eat bacon and oysters". Well my father is the living proof that you can live a healthy long life w/o ever eating meat

So I had to find out what's this thing is all about.

Well turns out that this article quotes a young and a handsome PHD from Harvard by the name of Mathieu Lalonde. He is one of the Guros for the Paleo diet. Apparently there are many people adopting this Paleo diet which advocate us eating like our ancestors - mainly proteins, that is meat, pork, that stuff. And so this guy did some work called "Nutrient Density: Sticking to the essentials". You can watch it here.

Look, I am not qualified to judge and give marks here to these people. Apparently they have some logic behind all the fuss. I shall read about it - I always read about the enemies before I decide to mock them or... join them. I mean right now I am busy reading a book about finding wild nutritious plants growing in our back yards. You can't imagine me reading a book about how to catch cats or even the little cute rabbits growing in our backyard. And here's a picture of them if you don't believe me!!!

That said, those of you that do know me, are well aware that I can kill if I have to. I mean I have killed several times in my past when my survival instinct came into play. If I shall be convinced that this Paleo thing is the best next show in town then I shall toss this vegan/nutritarial thing aside and do the right thing.

But for now, I can't wait till I am fully educated - I am just executing on my diet and the results, so far are amazing.

Now back to this young PHD, the Paleo Guru. Well he sure knows how to present stuff. First of all he's good looking, he wears a blue shirt and a matching yellow tie, he speaks fluently, he knows how to look serious but I am not impressed by this - I mean I used the same techniques in my past to climb the technical ladder and present things when I had no clue of what's going on. It's the way you dress, the way you look and the way you talk. Especially in America...

So to summarize - he sorted the main food groups according to their nutrition density and he got the following results:

So as you can see Organ Meats and Oils are ranked at the top, and then herbs & spices, nuts and seeds, cacao, fish and seafood, pork, beef, eggs & diary and only then Vegetables...

How come????

How come I have been preaching about nutrient density and how vegetables are winning and all of a sudden comes this young man and say such things?

The answer is simple. It's the definition of what nutrient density is.

I am adopting the calorie restriction society as well as Dr. Fuhrman's definition as well as many other scientists : density = N/C = Nutrients / Calories. If you want to lose weight and live longer then you want to pay with as few as possible calories in order to get as many nutrients as possible.

Simple.

Now comes this PHD and explains the following. What is it that we are looking for - we are looking for the amount of essential nutrients divided by volume.

As for the denominator they guy knows he should put there calories but he doesn't feel comfortable with this....

First of all if he puts something with 0 calories in the denominator then he has a math problem. Now come on, so just because you have to deal with water having 0 calories - you are not going to use calories in the denominator?

And here comes his second argument which is absolutely unbelivably biased... and I quote "If you have a food that is very nutrient dense but also caloric dense dense then it’s not going to get a good a score as a food that has the same nutrient density but has fewer calories"

You will have to read this few times in order to understand what this guy is actually saying. He is saying that if you have meat (which is nutrient dense but caloric dense) then it's not going to get a good a score as a vegetables (which is nutrient dense but has fewer calories).

Let me make this sentence even shorter for you - what this guy is saying is that if you have meat then it's not going to get a good a socre as vegetables so that's why he is not going to put calories in the denominator....

Now think of yourself, a harvard student, sitting there listening to this crap and in front of you there's this good looking, so sure and so full of himself PHD saying this stuff with a serious look on his face. You wouldn't have no time and no courage to even understand that this is all wrong.

But before you contemplate what to do - this young PHD puts the following definition to nutrient density while saying "So I decided to use the weight per serving"

He also says "If you have someone who needs to lose weight then - sure stay on moderate to high nutrient density and moderate to low calorie density. (but if) you got an athlete... increase the calorie density of the food that he eats (no matter what the calories are)".

He actually agrees that if you want to lose weight then you should adopt the N/C model. He actually says it! And then he goes on to say that it doesn't work for athletes. So he prefers to feed us Athletes diets while some of us would just like to lose weight! Well people have already thought about it right? I mean using the N/C nutrient density and fullness factor you can aim to any of the quarters in the nutritional map. Remember?

You want to lose weight - go for the upper right corner.

You want to gain weight - go for the lower right corner.

both corners are high in N/C nutrient density.

You want to be a fat slob - for the upper left corner.

You want to die - take the lower left corner.

So easy, so simple. Let us decide what we want to do - don't eliminate those of us wanting to lose weight.

So AFTER saying the above he says... "So I decided to use the weight per serving".

You see? This guy is very scientific and un-biased... - all he needed was to present ONE mistake and then move on with his wrong conclusions. One mistake - put weight instead of calories in the denominator. From that point on everything goes south in his lecture - all his nutrient dense winners are winners because they are high in calories. Yes you are going to get lots of nutrients if you eat bacon, pork and yummy red meat but you are also going to become very fat for goodness sake.

And then when everything is twisted he can compare eggs white who have less calories than egg yolk. I mean people are eating only the whites cause they want to get as many proteins as possible without being fat. Here comes our genius young PHD and at about minute 19:40 jokes about it "sorry but for those of you who eat eggs whites for omlates, I will take the yolk".... Yea he will take the yolk just because he didn't take into account the price that he has to pay - the calories! 

I am sure he knew he was wrong, so that's why instead of discussing the denominator (calories) he preferred to allocate more time to discuss the numerator- the nutrients. He came across the ANDI index created by Joel Fuhrman and he was making fun of it. How could this be an index he laughs, if it doesn't contain performed vitamin A, pantothenic acid (B5), vitamin B12, vitamin D, biotin(Vitamin H), vitamin K1 and K2, taurine and iodine as well as essential fatty acids: EPA, DHA & AA as and essential amino acids. He actually makes a point here - and I really don't know why Fuhrman didn't take these into consideration. I will ask! I will find out! But on the other hand the young PHD himself excluded so many nutrients just because they were not part of the USDA EXCEL but were only in the microsoft ACCESS version. The excuse was now that most people don't have microsoft ACCESS and he wanted people to review his work....

So starting with an ambitious goal of really including all essential nutrients he had to remove from the list. He doesn't have any of the fatty acids, he doesn't have any of the amino acids and no chloride, Chromium, Cobalt, iodide, Molybdenum, Nickel and Sulfur... And to think that 2 minutes before he was mocking Fuhrman. See how many nutrients are striked through in his so called index?

One thing that he took out of the equation are the flevonoids. Hu humm - there are thousands of them and you can find them only in vegetables and fruits.

Under the umbrella of trying to look as if he's an objective scientist he decided to look only on the essential nutrients. Well that's the first mistake. Who are you to say what's essential and what's not. How come you are so sure of yourself that flevonoids are not important?

And of course he then decided that sorry fibers are not essential so it's taken out. Yep, it's taken out because vegetables have them and he would like the Paleo guys to cheer for him.

I wanted to play a bit with his excel like so many others. I mean - just sitting there in a lecture is not enough - you want to digest the numbers - you want perhaps to convert his work into something meaningful. But no... he doesn't give the excel source... yes - we got this Quick Update on Mat Lalonde’s Research on Nutrient Density on which Mat wrote to one of his fans

He then goes over the food groups and tries for some reason to find the best and the worst food in terms of nutrition. This is of course completely twisted and one can clearly see that those foods that are winners in terms of food density cost tons of calories while the losers just don't have enough calories in order to compete. All of this could have been saved if he only divided his results by the calories and then sort again.

That's why apples got the lowest ranking in the fruits department. look at the biggest losers here:

Really?

Let's take 'Apples, raw, with skin' and look at their nutrition map as shown in nutritiondata.self.com

Look like apples are not that bad - they are actually in the upper right quarter which means they are quite nutritious and when you eat them you don't want to eat many more - that is their fullness factor is quite OK. On the right side you can see the caloric ratio - only 3% fats.

The young PHD advocates eating pork. That's right, after reviewing all of his twisted nutrient density calculation he's recommending to wrap everything in bacon. And the crowds cheer.

Let's look at pork nutritional maps - let's take the winner of the pork winners. I mean it's full of fat 68%, tons of calories and if you make your calculation - how much nutrition do I get for how many calories then actually this winner actually stands at 2.5 out of 5 and same more or less in the filling department. Actually this guy is located in the lower left quarter... I am not impressed.

So this Mathieu Lalonde got it all wrong.

Does it mean that all the Paleo diet is wrong? Well certainly if this is the way they organize their arguments then yea they are wrong. But I give them more credit than that, there *is* logic behind thinking about what's best for a man to eat in terms of evolution, survival of the fittest, etc. I am going to read more about this diet and keep you guys posted.

Aviel.

My superior vegan nutrition blood tests results

Hi there,

Just before I started my diet in the beginning of July I took a blood test and now I took more or less the same test again.

I am really thrilled, positively surprised and almost shocked to see such significant improvement in most parameters. 3 Months of super nutrition reversed my diabetes and improved other life threatening parameters significantly.

It should also be a good opportunity for you guys to learn about the main parameters that one should pay attention to when reading the blood test results.

It's not enough to worry only about the parameters that are in red according to the definition of your medical insurance. Total cholesterol, for example, doesn't have to exceed 200 in order to catch your attention - it should be a concern for you the minute it goes beyond 140. So take the time to go over this with me and learn something useful that could extend your life.

Glucose

Starting with the glucose test that in simple words measures the concentration of glucose (sugar) in one's blood. The normal range is between 70 and 100. Between 100 and 126 is called pre-diabetic and beyond 126 is diabetic. In the beginning of July I was shocked to find out that my glucose level sky rocketed to 129!! I immediately started my diet, and with the help of Joel Fuhrman's book "The end of diabetes" I lowered my glucose level and it now measures 97. I am back to normal. Actually when I measure at home I am more like in the 88-95 range.

Am I satisfied? Well partially yes, but I think that this is still too high - I would like to be able to go to sub 80 at some point cause I believe that one lives faster when having such high glucose levels. I want to live slower, cause I want to lengthen my life. I will explain all about that in one of the coming posts.


Hemoglobin A1C

Once a patient gets a glucose level beyond 100 - the doctor typically asks for hemoglobin A1C test. This test shows how good was the glucose level during the last 3 months. You want your Hemoglobin A1C to go below 6. My doctor gambled that I shall have a reading of 6.0 two months ago and I even exceeded that! That's a very very good result. The end of the diabetes as we know it....

Cholesterol

As expected my cholesterol is absolutely optimal now. I was vegetarian since I was 7.5 years old, but I ate junk food so my cholesterol was very high but still not extremely high because at the end of the day I was not consuming meat. However it seems like the other stuff that I was eating including eggs and milk and cheese still managed to take me to 197.

But now - look at this - 117 !! If you remember I quoted the 97 yo vegan - a heart surgeon saying "If you can keep your Cholesterol under 140 - you chances of developing a coronary heart disease are very small"  and he then said that his cholesterol level is 119 atm. Well mine is 117 !! Hada boy!


Triglycerides

These are the fats that are so dangerous for the heart. You don't have to perform a blood test to get the reading... all you have to do is look at the tummy. I had a huge tummy and now it's gone.

GOT

Here too you can see that my diet has done wonders. Let me first explain what this test is. This test is checking the liver. As you know the liver detoxifies the blood in the circulation removing harmful substances, etc. Now there are several enzymes that are helping in this process. When the liver is damaged or destroyed these substances leak into the blood stream and can be measured. The problem with this GOT test is that it can indicate problems not only in liver muscle tissue but also in skeltal or coronary muscle tissues. To complement this test one should take the ALT test.

Anyway my doctor, contrary to the stupid doctors in "seker menahalim" immediately said that this too shall go away the minute I slim down! I like this doctor of mine. Not only is she smart and advanced, she's also even a little bit... humm... sexy.

Hemoglobin

The hemoglobin is an oxygen binding compound that carries oxygen into the cells and trust me your cells do need oxygen, otherwise you should feel fatique. I have always had low hemoglobin level but I was also always busy taking care of my job... I never had the time or the priority to look into this - IT'S ABOUT TIME! Especially since I thought that this nutritarian diet is going to improve things and as far as what I can see my hemoglobin got lower!!


Hematocrit

In conjunction with hemoglobin doctors always look at the Hamatocrit. These two folks typically go hand in hand. The Hematocrit is telling us what is the percentage of red blood cells in our blood. These red blood cells are carying the hemoglobin that carries the oxygen into the cells. My reading is low and it even went south in the last two months. You can look at it like this - the blood are the street of NYC and the red blood cells are the yellow taxi cabs and when their percentage is low then there's not enough taxis to carry hemoglobin so there's less hemoglobin too.

But why? Why do I have low Hemoglobin & low Hamatocrit? And also... - why me????


Iron


Big part of the Hemoglobin above is made of iron - and it's the one responsible for compounding with the oxygen and carrying it into the cells. So if there's no iron - then the hemoglobin is low.

And indeed !!! - my iron levels were always low but now, in the last 3 months they dropped significantly.

How on earth?

I mean I was eating tons of green leaves. But I read that plants based iron is not absorbed so good as the iron in the red meats. And stop with this "I told you" all you non-vegans reading this...

And I was also supplementing with 25 mili grams of iron pills - daily!

So how come this measurement is low?

I noticed over the years then whenever I am on a 'weight loss' diet my iron drops. But this time I thought it shall be different because I am supplementing and I am so healthy.

What is going on????


Ferritin

While serum iron is the level in the blood - the ferritin is the level of iron in the store house - in the liver. So it seems like I had huge improvement - I almost doubled the amount of iron in my storage.

But it's not in the blood... - why?

I don't know - but I suspect that the aspirin that I am taking on a daily basis is causing this. The aspirin is responsible for diluting the blood so yea it could hurt the hematocrit and it could also thus lower the hemoglobin...

So the hypothesis is as follows... - when I was fat and drinking 10 cups of coffee each day and eating lots of cheese my iron absorption was bad and thus the ferritin level went down. Then, when I started dieting 3 months ago - I ate lots of greens and supplemented with iron pills and indeed my ferritin went up however since my blood is diluted with Aspirion - it doesn't show... I will have to ask the doctor about this "theory".


MCV

MCV measures the size of the red blood cells Actually microcytic Anemia is defined in wikipedia as too low MCV. So as you can see things are improving but I am not there yet...

MCH

So if we are suspecting microcytic anemia then in this case the red blood cells should be hypochromic, that is - they should be pale. The MCH actually measures how pale they are. High MCH indicates macrocytic anemia and low MCH indicates microcytic anemia which means anemia that is cause by iron deficiency.

so to conclude the iron related blood tests here is what I think

• Ferritin is the most important indication for amount of iron in storage - and it improved.
• Hemoglobin & Iron as well as Hematocrit, MCV & MCH were probably affected by me taking Aspirion - so this is the end of Aspirin.
• Low iron can be a result of 3 things: low input of iron, bleeding & low absoption rate which could be genetic related.
• I shall do colonscopy just to rule out the bleeding option.
• I shall read and educate myself about iron input using plants - is it true that iron absorption from plants is that low?
• I shall not dive into genetics for now.
• After reading and educating myself about these issues I shall make my decision - increase supplementation or stick to plants as my sole iron source. 

Vitamin B12

Vegans can't get B12 from their diets. It's therefore that I get it from a B12 supplement. Before starting my new diet 3 months ago I measured the Vitamin B12 and it's ok, B12 deficiency are developed over a long period of time - years! so I think I shall monitor this annually to make sure that I have enough of this extremely important vitamin.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D was not measured 3 months ago - I just wonder why - I mean 1/3 of Israelis are Vitamin D deficient and I am sure those that are sitting in the office all day like myself are even more deficient. Anyway I started my daily "sun bathing" 3 months ago - and the results are showing that I am already out of the dangerous zone. I am almost sure that I would be at risk of deficiency or even deficient if measured 3 months ago. I can actually feel it in my bones - if I don't get the 10 minutes exposure to the sun on a daily basis then I can't concentrate, can't work effectively - for me it's a new habit. 

Conclusions

The results are astonishing - I got rid of diabetes, I reduced the cholesterol significantly, along with triglycerides, and resolved the oily liver problem. The only thing that is still a mystery for me is my iron levels and I shall explore that.

Aviel.

Yay - I graduated the "Couch potato to 5K" program

Yes,

For me it is quite an achievement!

If you told me 3 months ago that in 3 months I will be able to run 5 Km w/o stop I would not believe you. I was extremely fat.

My right feet was injured because it could not carry my weight. I couldn't walk so I instinctively shifted my weight to my heels. The result was Heel spur - a sharp pain in both heels (Plantar fasciitis)

 s

I bought pad insoles for my shoes - and the doctor told me I won't be able to run any more but I will be able to walk and start exercising. I was so happy. and I started walking 3 months ago.

I would walk one hour every day in the gym. Because I was afraid to run - I was walking up the slope and trust me - it was very difficult as you can see here.

Then 9 weeks ago I started my nutritarian diet. It was during my summer vacation and I was away from the gym room in the office so I started the program "couch potato to 5k". It started slowly - I would jog 60 seconds and then walk 90 seconds and I would repeat that for about 15 minutes. Then on the next week I would jog 90 seconds and then walk 2 minutes. And this week was the 9'th week. Everyday I ran 30 minutes from the office to the beach and back. Today was the last day of the last week and I ran 5 Km and 185 meters in 30 minutes!!!

It's amazing - absolutely amazing. I am very surprised that there was no injury. I think it has to do with my nutrition. Let me explain. Back then in the dark days, 3 months ago, I had those pains in my feet and also it was a bit bleeding and wet and this and that. I think my feet was on its way for becoming a diabetic foot. If I didn't read Dr.Fuhrman's "The end of diabetes" then I guess few years from now my feet would have looked something like this - 

You see? - it was an ensemble of so many problems, this doesn't work and that doesn't work. And look at me today - I can actually run 5 Km. Where are all the problems? Where are the injuries associated with running? I mean I had a surgery in my knee few years ago, I am susceptible to injury and yes this is my fear - I admit. But yet here I am running 30 minutes every day and no injury. I think it has to do with my blood vessels, it has to do with the fact that my veins are so clean that blood is rushing to my legs, nourishing them, fixing issues, fighting inflammation and any oxidation stress.

So now I purchased for 2$ the program that takes me from 5k to 10k. it's called "10K pro by run double"  

and I am looking forward to be able to run 10 Km. That should be so cool.

Aviel.

Let thy Salad be thy Main Dish

Hello everyone,

To be super healthy you have to nourish your body with as many as possible micro nutrients - Vitamins, Minerals & phytochemicals - as simple as that. And what's the best sources for the above? - Greeeeeens!! you have to eat tons of greens. Yes, you can get your vitamins and minerals from meat - true! But you will have to pay with lots of calories. If you eat meat and you are thin then it means you are consuming a moderate amount of calories and it means that you don't get enough nutrients. Period. The greens have the highest density (nutrients per calorie) and thus they should be your main dish.

So don't tell me about a miraculous goji berry that I MUST try, and don't tell me that you read that black chocolate is good for the health and that there's this bee pollen that you eat and it's good for you. All of this is total bull. Yes they are healthy - but who cares? These foods are at the perimeter. They cost money, the enrich whoever sells them to you - and you are busy reading and searching for these miraculous medicine when they are right in front of your eyes - THE GREENS!!

You have to eat them, you have to learn to enjoy them. Every food other than breast milk is an acquired taste  Yes, the first time you eat the real hardcore salad - it's gonna be tough. And so shall be the second and the third time. But taste is acquired - you will get used to it.

And please don't start with "I rather live less but at least I enjoy myself, I can go to Moses and eat a good stake whenever I feel like". Don't you start with me. I enjoy my salad way way more than you enjoy your stake - cause you know what? taste is acquired and when I eat I am already truly hungry so I salivate and I need my real food and then the food tastes 10 times more! So both of us are going to live happily. You are going to die at the age of 85 and I am going to die at the age of 105. You wanna live happily as long as I do? Then "suffer" just one month... - NOW and then you will be back to where you were - happy, healthy, with no pains, no illness, with perfect fitness level. It's your choice - you are gonna "suffer" during the transition period and that's it. 

Think about it - how many years did it take you to acquire your Bsc degree in MIT? How many years of hard work have you invested before you became a lawyer, a doctor? Here I am talking about one month of getting used to something that's gonna be as important as your job - your health!!!

So how do you "prepare" your main dish? There you go - 

A handful spinach

מלוא החופן תרד

A handful mixed leaves

חופן עלי בייבי

Few chard leaves cut without mercy

כמה עלי מנגולד חתוכים ללא רחמים

Green onions

בצל ירוק

Dill

שמיר

Some cucumbers

מלפפונים אחדים

Mushrooms

פטריות

Chopped onions

בצל חתוך

Now that looks quite like the food you give chimpanzees or you used to feed your turtle with. So every 3 year old knows that turtles should be fed with this stuff. They just can't imagine that we human - we are supposed to eat this stuff as well. Hell it's written in the user manual that accompanies new baby on this plant! But no... - let's feed the turtles something good and continue devouring our McDonald's Mac Royal. And with Chimpanzees it's the same story - when you go to the zoo they are asking you please please not to feed the animals and the signs explain that whatever you are eating could poison the chimpanzees!!! I wish I had the picture of this. 

And then you pour some lemon - you need the vitamin C in order to digest the greens.

And then you add your favorite sauce which could be nuts/seeds based or tofu based - and you make sure not to exaggerate here - cause now and for the first time we are talking REAL calories here...

And then you take the oil bottle and you throw it out the window. One word of caution here - when you throw the m*er f**er out the window - you make sure there's no body standing there. Another word of caution - when you throw that olive oil out the window - you make sure nobody watches. And why do you throw it? Cause these are empty calories - the ratio of nutrients to calories is 0 - you gain no nutrition from olive oil. And yea olive oil is better than canola or the fat that you have in meat but still it's an empty oil - it should be avoided.

And then you mix the whole thing and voilla.

Now half of my salads are raw as above.

But then another half are half raw - half steamed...

So here's the veggies as I am steaming them - see? broccoli, Brussel sprouts, peas & green beans.

ברוקולי, כרוב ניצנים, אפונה ושעועית ירוקה.

These folks are frozen so I steam them for 10 minutes or so.

And one half of the salads that are half raw - half steamed - I add starched veggies - which I will describe on one of my future posts.

That's it for today,

Enjoy you salad,

Aviel.

Best Mushrooms Soup that I have eaten in my life

Hiya folks,

This saturday I had the pleasure of preparing and also eating the best vegan mushroom soup - very very yummy!

And I even took pictures... 

So without further ado - let's see how to prepare such a yummy soup - promise me, promise me that you will give it a try :)

2 cups of water

2 כוסות מים

1 cup of white beans

כף שעועית לבנה

1.5 cups soya milk

1.5 כוסות חלב סויה

1.5 cups of carrot juice

1.5 כוסות מיץ גזר

150 grams frozen corn

150 גרם תירס קפוא

1/2 cup cut celery

1/2 כוס סלרי

2 chopped leaks

2 כרשה חתוכות (פרסה)

Half a kilogram mushrooms (doesn't matter which mushrooms)

חצי קילו פיטריות (לא משנה איזה סוג)

1 coarsely chopped carrot

1 גזר חתוך גס

1 garlic clove

1 שן שום

1 chopped onion

1 בצל חתוך

2 tbsp salt less soup seasoning

2 כפות תבלין מרק חסר תבלין

simmer for one hour

לבשל על אש קטנה במשך כשעה

put 70 grams cashew nuts with 4 tbsp soy milk in the blender together with half of the soup content, blend till smooth and then add back into the soup. Top with 100 grams spinach.

לשים 70 גרם אגוזי קשיו עם 4 כפות חלב סויה בבלנדר יחד עם מחצית מתוכן המרק. לערבב עד שיוצא חלק ולשפוך בחזרה אל המרק. להוסיף 100 גרם תרד.

Let the spinach faint for additional 10 minutes and that's it - voilla!!

לתת לתרד להתעלף בתוך המרק עוד כ 10 דקות - וזהו - המרק מוכן.

So here you can see me smiling, happily - do you know what took the picture?

You guessed it right! it was Donna my vegetarian, vegan wannabe daughter- and she helped me prepare so many other things that Saturday morning

She's a vegan in heart - but of course for the wrong reasons... - she just can't harm animals.

So you can see we made some Veggie Buritos and you can see her adding some tomatoes into the tortilla.

See? BTW, isn't she gorgeous? Why am I asking... cause not all daughters are beautiful. For example take for example a famous chef in Israel and since it's about time his daughter gets married and no body wants her then her father brought her as a guest cook to his show, but still, no body, absolutely no body wants to marry her - and her father is quite rich.

And these are ice creams made of mango with coconuts powder...

And these are some beans patties (black beans, red beans, oats, sunflower seeds)

And here Donna is eating her peach sorbet - that's at the end of a huge lunch with salad and beans and soup - 

And of course as result of all of this - she fell asleep on the sofa... - she rarely does such things cause for her sleeping is a waste of time.

OK that's all for today, hope you enjoyed, don't forget to subscribe or add me in google+ for more posts and more healthy, yummy food :)

Aviel.