The Benefits of Eating Organic Foods: They're Just Better for Your Body

There is a good chance that you have seen an organic food aisle at one of your local grocery stores. In fact, you may have even driven past a farmers market where organic food was sold. Unfortunately, if you are like many other Americans, there is a good chance that you kept right on walking or driving by. This is because many individuals do not eat organic foods.


Despite the fact that organic foods are not consumed by nearly all Americans, they still come highly rated and recommended. In fact, many health conscious individuals swear by them. Many claim that eating organic foods helps to promote lifelong health and happiness. Organic food consumption has increased in popularity over the years and that increase continues to rise at a relatively steady pace. If you are interested in eating organic foods, but if you have never done so before, you may be wondering what the benefits are. If so, please continue reading on.

When it comes to organic foods and their benefits, you will find an unlimited number of benefits. For starters, did you know that organic foods can help the environment? They can and this is a point that many do not take into consideration at first. Farmers who put pesticides in their fields and on their foods, are not only putting consumers at risk, but the environment at risk as well. Depending on which pesticides and other chemicals are used, the soil and other nearby areas can suffer damage. By eating organic foods, you are providing a small, yet still helping hand to help protect the environment.

Another unique benefit to eating organic that many individuals do not think of right away is the assistance that is provided to organic farmers and organic food manufacturers. Right now, the number of organic food manufacturers is quite small and many are small to medium sized businesses. The same can be said for farmers. The decision for many farmers and companies to go organic can be difficult and risky. Therefore, by purchasing organic foods, especially fresh fruits and vegetables, you can take comfort in knowing that you are helping many small to medium sized farmers and organic food companies stay in business.

Organic foods can also help to improve your body and health. In fact, organic foods may be able to help cleanse or detoxify your body from harmful chemicals. When you stop eating foods that are tainted with pesticides and other chemicals, your body will expel the current and remaining toxins from your body. This means that your body should be clean, chemical free, and pesticide free after a specific period of time. Of course, remember that you want to stay healthy. For that reason, if you decide to start eating organic foods, try to stay doing so. If you are a parent, one of the best ways to help ensure that your child has a happy and healthy life is to get them started on eating organic foods as early as possible.

Another one of the many benefits to eating organic foods is the better quality. In fact, many individuals claim that organic food tastes much better. One reason why farmers claim to use potentially harmful pesticides and chemicals is to kill bacteria. While this does sound like a good idea, the bacteria that can be present when fruits and vegetables grow isnt necessarily bad. In fact, some say that it helps to foods grow in a certain way. This, apparently, in turn helps to produce better results, which should better tasting, more natural food.

 
As you can see, there a number of benefits to eating organic foods. In fact, the above mentioned benefits are just a few of the many reasons why organic food should be given a close examination. If you would like more information on organic foods, including the benefits of eating them, consider speaking with a professional healthcare provider, like your doctor. He or she can help you decide if switching to organic foods is the right decision.

Obesity Rate Rises Again After A Pause for Last 5 Years

According to a recent report, Americans are continuing to get fatter and fatter, with obesity rates reaching 30 percent or more in nine states last year, as opposed to only three states in 2007.

This is trend reversal from a study release earlier this year that, obesity rates have remained constant for at least five years among men and for closer to 10 years among women and children.

In the eariler report, Dr. David Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life Program at Children’s Hospital Boston. suggested that “we’ve reached a biological limit” to how obese people could get. When people eat more, he said, at first they gain weight; then a growing share of the calories go “into maintaining and moving around that excess tissue,” he continued, so that “a population doesn’t keep getting heavier and heavier indefinitely.”

Well, don't celebrate too early. The new study results really confuse and slap the faces of health officials. The revised data show that 2.4 million more people became obese from 2007 to 2009, bringing the total to 72.5 million, or 26.7 percent of the population. The numbers are part of a continuing and ominous trend.
 
The report estimates the medical costs of obesity to be as high as $147 billion a year, and notes that “past efforts and investments to prevent and control obesity have not been adequate.”
 
Researchers blame the usual suspects: too little exercise and too much of the wrong kind of food, which means not enough fruits and vegetables and too many high-calorie meals full of sugar and fat, like French fries, soda and other sweet drinks. Children do not get enough exercise during the school day; Dr. Frieden noted that even in gym classes, students are active for only about a third of the time.
 
So, where do we go from here?!
 

New Jersey Personal Trainer Carey Yang Featured in Suburban Trends

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 
Morris County personal trainer Carey Yang was interviewed and featured in Suburban Trends on the health benefits of gardening.


DENVILLE, NJ – Jul 31, 2010 – New Jersey personal trainer Carey Yang was recently interviewed and featured in a Suburban Trends news article titled "Mend Your Body & Mind in the Garden."
Gardening contributes to physical health since activities, such as pulling weeds, digging holes, planting flowers and plants, are all part of three important types of physical activity: endurance, flexibility and strength.

Gardening is included with other moderate exercise that can help burn calories and lose weight. "You just have to be active for at least 30 minutes to enjoy the physical benefits," said Yang, a certified personal trainer and owner of Beyond Fitness Solutions, LLC based in Denville, New Jersey.

Yang said, weight bearing exercises, such as lifting bags of top soil and mulch, pushing wheelbarrows and shoveling, and raking help enhance bone growth and stop bone loss.

"If you choose gardening as an exercise, just be sure to do it properly to avoid injury," said Yang. "Warm up with a stretch before you start to avoid back and knee pains. Also, stay hydrated and cool every 30 minutes."


About C. Carey Yang and Beyond Fitness Solutions, LLC

C. Carey Yang, Your Dream Body WorkoutXpert, is a certified personal trainer and fitness boot camp instructor based in Denville, New Jersey. Yang is the founder and master trainer of Beyond Fitness Solutions, LLC providing in-home personal fitness training, backyard boot camp, wellness and lifestyle coaching, and fitness and weight-management seminar.
Yang specializes in helping busy, working professionals who want safe, effective workouts with maximum results in minimum time. Yang is the creator of the 6-Step Dream Body Blueprint Body Transformation System.
To learn more about lifestyle and wellness coaching, personal fitness training and nutritional counseling and to sign up for a free monthly e-zine, receive free fitness and fat loss e-books, and schedule a complimentary consultation, visit http://www.BeyondFitnessSolutions.com.

Raw Food Detox Diet Can Help You Lose Weight in a Healthy Way

The raw food detox diet is getting popular these days as people want to cleanse their bodies properly using natural remedies. This method offers valuable vitamins, minerals and enzymes that you lose during the high heat cooking process. Raw food diet has been recognized to assist people to lose weight, increase their stamina, improve their overall health and provide higher chance of longevity.


This natural raw food detox diet remedy will provide macrobiotic aid and will promote health by avoiding highly refined or processed foods. Taking these food will make us gain extra weight and increase our intake of sugar, fat and chemical content which will throw our entire system out of balance.

The modern food we eat today and how they are processed affect the health problems of most humans in this world. Using macrobiotic raw food detox diet, you will eat your food in smaller portion and chew your food thoroughly so that the digestive system can work efficiently.

In this way, all the foods eaten will be fully utilized by your body. No doubt is true cooked vegetables and soup are delicious to have, but the way of preparing will rob them of their natural goodness.

However, if you eat in a poor way such as having meat and processed food, they will provide nothing good for your body to function properly. In fact, many people have turn to raw food diet to give their digestive system a much needed break from processed food and toxic loaded meats.

During this process, the body will gently tune itself as the raw food detox diet are loaded with extra vitamins and minerals to boost the health and immune system of your body. In the long run, your overall health will improve and the good news is the recipes are easy to follow and tasty to eat.

Raw Food Diet Can Help You Lose Weight

Obesity has taken the shape of an epidemic in the modern world. More and more people are falling prey to obesity due to an unhealthy lifestyle and bad food habits. But obesity can have disastrous effects on a person's health. Weight gain doesn't necessarily come because of the number of calories you eat. It is what type of calories you eat. When you eat foods that are highly processed they cause digestive disorders which cause you to gain weight.

A raw diet has proven to be of great aid in this regard after people following different variations of the diet have claimed drastic weight loss in a relatively short period of time, and without feeling hungry or miserable like you would with most diets. There is an ample amount of truth to this claim as the diet practitioners have proven that the raw food diet truly helps in losing weight quickly and effectively. Going on a Raw Food Diet will help your body to cleanse itself of all the junk that has been piling up in your organs, intestines and of course your fat cells. Due to the nature of the digestive and cleansing enzymes in the food itself, the more you eat the more cleansing occurs. There is no need to worry about consuming too many calories because they will not get stored as fat.



Some medical experts see great benefits in the raw food diet. In addition to enabling weight loss, the diet can ostensibly increase one's metabolism, making calorie burning easier. Some medical experts have also suggested that a raw food diet is a good antidote to eating disorders. In addition, it can help make your immune system stronger, and help the body rid itself of harmful toxins.



Starting a Raw Food Diet is fairly simple. Some of the best raw foods you can eat are obviously fruits and vegetables, but there are others such as seeds, nuts, grains, beans and sprouts. If you are trying to lose weight fast, you will want to know about some of the raw foods that have the best fat and calorie burning properties. For fruits, these include apples, grapefruits, mangos, pears, peaches, lemons and cherries. These vegetables are great for a midmorning or mid afternoon snack to stave off those hunger attacks. For vegetables, artichokes, brussel sprout, cauliflower, broccoli, celery, cucumber, red pepper, mushrooms and cabbage are all great foods to help promote fat and calorie burning. As far as herbs, garlic and parsley leaf are great additions to your raw foods to add additional flavor. This is one of the best natural weight loss.



If you decide a raw food diet is for you, you might consider supplements to compensate for the nutrients this diet is lacking. Some supplements to consider include vitamin B12, copper, zinc, and chromium. Another thing to consider when taking up a raw food diet is that most of the fruits and vegetables that you see in your supermarket are loaded with pesticides. Therefore, it might be best to consume only organic raw food.

What Organic Foods Are Most Important to Buy?

When just starting out, if one must choose, pick the organic versions of the conventional foods that are typically the most sprayed/fertilized - ie: Bananas Strawberries Grapes Broccoli Carrots Potatoes Lettuce Corn Milk the idea is, at least you'll reduce the exposure to pesticides, fertilizers and after market sprays such as dormant sprays - to keep potatoes from sprouting, as well as gassing and irradiation (ie bananas & strawberries) to make them ripe. Also, non-gmo such as corn or soy products.Milk is on the list because non-organic milk has added hormones given to the cattle as well as antibiotics.

Considering Raw Food Diet?

A diet is considered a raw food diet if it consists of at least 75% raw, uncooked fruits, vegetables, sprouts, etc. Raw and living foods are believed to contain essential food enzymes (living foods contain a higher enzyme content than cooked foods). The cooking process (i.e., heating foods above 116F) is thought to destroy food enzymes.

People who follow the raw diet use particular techniques to prepare foods. These include sprouting seeds, grains and beans; soaking nuts and dried fruits; and juicing fruits and vegetables. The only cooking that is allowed is via a dehydrator. This piece of equipment blows hot air through the food but never reaches a temperature higher than 116F.

Do you have to follow the regimen that strictly? Of course not. But it's certainly worth it to incorporate some of these techniques and ideas into your diet. If you tend to snack at work, try taking in carrots or apple slices.

Many of the bigger grocery stores now offer packaged vegetables or fruits that make it easier to pack them and take them to work. We're a nation of convenience, and much of the resistance to healthier eating is that it does generally take a little more effort and time to buy and slice fruits and vegetables. Food retailers have been catching on, slowly, and it's much easier now to get bags of sliced carrots, celery, apples, nuts and raisins.

Of course these aren't necessarily organic foods, and organic is the better way to go, but we think anything raw is infinitely better than cooked, processed food. If you have the time, do buy organic and slice them yourself. But if you're in a hurry, and nowhere near a natural food store, then don't beat yourself up or sabotage your efforts because you can't do this 100% all the time. That's not realistic. Anything from the fruit and vegetable aisle is going to be better for you than a potato chip, or worse yet, a french fry.