We all know that Thanksgiving has been labeled the least healthy eating day of the year. If you are on a diet, you will most likely blow it, or make yourself crazy trying to stick with it. With Thanksgiving’s tradition of eating until you’re ready to burst, it seems pretty logical to be scared.

We have labeled Thanksgiving as the least healthy holiday. Well, like we all know, it doesn’t pay to hang out with the wrong kind of people. Thanksgiving should just be considered another day in November as far as it’s affect of our health, it just happens to be guilty by association. The association we give it to food, and lots of it. With this being the United States of America, we are free to do as we wish, furthermore, eat as we wish. Let’s take a closer look at the major food components to Thanksgiving before we judge too strictly.

First up, I’d like to call to the stand, Turkey, the main character in the Thanksgiving feast.

5 ounces of white mean Turkey: Total Fat: 11.7g Saturated Fat: 3.2 Trans Fat: 0 Cholesterol: 107.6mg Sodium: 89.2mg Carbs: 0 Protein :40.4g

It seems like turkey does have a little bit of fat, but it’s a healthy unsaturated fat, not saturated or trans fats. It has small amounts of cholesterol, sodium and no carbs. There are tons of proteins, and proteins from turkey are especially good because it is a complete protein with all necessary amino acids. Well, it looks like turkey is not only not bad for you, but actually good for you. The outcome, Turkey is innocent.

Next Up, Sweet Potatoes.

Sweet Potatoes, Dark Orange, Fresh, 5″ long Total Fat: .1g Cholesterol: 0mg Sodium: 71.5mg Carbs: 26.2g Protein: 2g

It seems that sweet potatoes are fat free and cholesterol free. They are nearly free of sodium as well as protein. This vegetable, or root, has good carbs as well. These good carbs are complex, which means your body breaks them down slowly providing you with energy over time, instead of going straight to your hips or stomach as fat. It would appear that sweet potatoes are innocent also.

Next I would like to call to the stand, Cranberry Sauce.

Cranberry Sauce, Sweetened and Canned, 3 slices: Total Fat: .3g Cholesterol: 0mg Sodium: 49.6mg Carbs: 66.5g Sugars- 64.5.g Protein: .3g

It would seem like cranberry sauce is fat free, but think of the rules the FDA puts on fat, preservative or even trans fat free items. If an item has less than .5g per serving, then it can claim to be free of it. Just keep that in mind. Imagine that it all has .49g and that is how much fat you are consuming. Cranberry sauce has no cholesterol and a limited amount of sodium. There are tons of carbs, 64.5g from sugar to be exact. Why don’t you just measure out 65g of sugar and attach it to your waistline, we can cut out the middleman that way. It would appear that cranberry sauce is guilty! At least the canned sugary kind is.

Next on the stand is Stuffing:

Stuffing, bread, prep/dry mix 1/2cup Total Fat: 8.6g Saturated Fat: 1.7g Cholesterol: 0mg Sodium: 543mg Carbs: 21.7g Sugars: 2.1g Protein: 3.2g

Stuffing has a bit of fat, but not bad fat. It has negligible amounts of cholesterol and protein, but a boatload of sodium. This tasty treat has a lot of sodium, but less than one can of most canned goods. So compared to most people’s diets, stuffing is low in sodium. The carbs are a little high, but the sugar isn’t. That means that the carbs are actual food and not sugar. Now these carbs are from the white bread found in the mix, so they aren’t the best, but 21g of it isn’t enough to worry about, it’s less carbs than a 20oz Gatorade. The Verdict: Innocent!

I’ve seen all I need. We have learned that turkey is actually healthy, canned cranberries are loaded with sugar, sweet potatoes are great, and stuffing isn’t healthy, but isn’t that bad either.

Is Thanksgiving guilty? No, it’s innocent. Turkey, sweet potatoes, and stuffing might actually be our healthiest meal of the year with small healthy portions.

So if Thanksgiving dinner is basically a healthy meal, who is guilty?

Even if you eat healthy food in excess, you will gain weight. Calories are calories no matter where they come from.

So what’s the big deal? Thanksgiving has only gotten it’s bad image because we overeat, and not only on the healthy stuff. We fill ourselves full of dinner and dessert. I know I don’t have to tell you how bad dessert can be, so I’m not going to. Just take it easy.

Let’s stop accusing Thanksgiving, and get real with ourselves. How about this year we take responsibility for ourselves and call it quits when we know we should. We won’t feel guilty, or miserable and actually enjoy our time with family. This year let’s be thankful for our family and that fact that we have so many leftovers.

Happy Thanksgiving

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The widely accepted definition of a raw food vegan diet is one where 75% of the time you are eating raw and the widely accepted definition of raw food is food that never gets heated beyond 115F. That being said, why would you switch to such a diet?

Benefit 1 – Rapid Weight Loss

People who eat a raw food vegan diet experience rapid weight loss. This is due to the fact that the vegan diet has a lot of fiber and few calories. The fiber gives you the feeling of being full, hence people on raw food vegan diets eat their fill and yet drop pounds.

Benefit 2 – Improved Health

In addition to making you slimmer, which alone results in less chance for many diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease, a raw food vegan diet has many other health benefits. Many vitamins, healthy bacteria and digestive enzymes are destroyed when food is heated over the 115F threshold. Raw food eaters benefit from such nutrients, which ease digestion, boost energy levels and improve skin. Processed food is loaded with sugars and preservatives, which can cause a low energy state.

Raw foods lack the preservatives and refined sugars of modern processed foods and the low energy sluggish feeling that accompanies consumption of such types of food. Hence a raw diet can drastically improve your health and lifestyle.

Benefit 3 -More Environmentally Friendly and Ethical

The vast majority of the meat consumed comes from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO). These industrial operations are notorious for very unethical animal treatment, significant environmental degradation and disease. An organic raw vegan diet is a vote against a system that is unhealthy, unethical and unfriendly to the environment.

Raw vegans need to take B12 supplements since B12 can only be found in animal products.

Make the change, look better, feel better, be healthier, and treat the planet better. Enjoy a raw food vegan diet.

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categories: raw food vegan diet,food raw vegan,vegan recipes,living vegan,dieting,nutrition

Someone who follows a raw vegan diet consumes vegan food that has not been heated beyond a temperature of 115F at least 75% of the time. Believe it or not, there are actually specialized sub categories of raw veganism. This article will highlight three of the most popular diets.

Sub Category 1 – Raw Fruitarians

Vegetarians do not eat dead animals; vegans do not eat anything produced by an animal. Fruitarians take things one step further. They do not believe in killing any living thing including plants, to get their food. Their diet consists of foods that can be harvested from a plant without killing it (ie. nuts, fruits and seeds). In this type of diet it is important to ensure that enough proteins are being consumed.

Sub Category 2 – Raw Sproutarians

As the name suggests Sproutarians only eat food that has sprouted. They believe that by eating this living food they are getting more of the foods life energy. Sproutarians feel that eating a germinated food is very healthy because it contains all elements that a plant embryo requires for life. Most legume, seed or grain can be sprouted.

Sub Category 3 – Raw Juicearian

The Juicearian diet requires that food is juiced before it can be consumed. The juice can come from either fruits or vegetables.

Amongst Juicearians, wheat grass is one of the most popular foods consumed. The reason is because wheat grass is alive and planted right up until the moment it is consumed. The process is to cut the wheat grass, juice it and drink. Since it is consumed right after it is harvested it is super fresh and is believed to contain a maximum amount of life force.

So those are 3 interesting sub categories of raw veganism. Enjoy eating raw and enjoy the benefits of a healthy lifestyle.

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Although most vegetarians consume a considerable amount of protein, they often do not absorb as much as they would on a nonvegetarian diet. This is because plant proteins are considerably less digestible than animal proteins, which contain amino acid chains that are closer or identical to human amino acid chains.

Consuming animal proteins might yield close to a 1:1 absorption ratio, while consuming plant proteins, such as wheat, might only yield 50% of the amino acids needed to build a “complete protein” or a protein that can readily be assimilated into the human body.

The second major advantage vegetarians enjoy is increased skin health. In addition to consuming larger quantities of nuts (which contain healthful oils), vegetarians tend to consume more fruit and vegetables, which are rich in essential vitamins, including A and E, which are linked to good skin health.

For instance, some vegans do not wear wool because they believe it contributes to animal suffering.

These vegans often cite how scientists have bred sheep over the years to generate unnatural amounts of wool for human needs. This breeding has resulted in the Merino sheep of today, which often has enough wool to equal its body weight.

As a result of this counter-evolutionary trait, the Merino sheep that exists today often has far more wool than it needs, which is evidenced by the high amount of sheep that die of heat exhaustion. In addition to overheating in hot temperatures, many sheep end up freezing to death after they are sheared.

Vitamin E can be found in wheat germ, seed oils, walnuts, almonds, and brown rice–all foods that are commonly a part of a well-balanced vegetarian diet.

For non-vegan vegetarians, yogurt, milk, and eggs (which contain complete proteins) are all excellent sources of protein.

It means the popular mythology about vegetarian diets is false. Not only can a vegetarian diet be nutritionally sufficient, but it can also affect better skin health, prevent cancer, and increase your heart health.

Thank you for reading my article on Vegetarians please also read my articles on belly fat loss and how to reduce belly fat.

categories: food,vegetarians,veggies,meat eaters,no meat

With the growing concern about diabetes and obesity, many people have been looking to sugar alternatives as one way to maintain diet while living a healthier lifestyle. Nearly everyone responds to the sweetness of sugar, but processed regular white sugar used in most of our foods is not good for you and presents a host of health risks. Even though refined sugars are not good for you, there are sugar alternatives so you can still enjoy eating.

Natural sugar is one choice much better for you than refined white sugar. This natural sugar can provide easy to digest energy when consumed in small amounts, benefiting your body. This type of sugar will cause your body to store fat if you eat too much. This is what we try to avoid, but in small doses provides a good alternative.

Other sugar alternatives are also available. Some of these are better for your body than others. The first option is saccharine. This is found in the pink packets in restaurants around the country. This sugar alternative is much sweeter than regular sugar, so you will use less to get the comparable result as natural sugar.

The downside to sugar alternatives is they may not be healthy for you. There have been rumors that they may be responsible for causing cancer, although no scientific studies have prove this. The worst part is they trick your body into wanting more sugar. This prevents you from eating healthier – and the alternatives may actually trick your body that it is getting sugar, storing the empty calories as fat.

Artificial sugar alternatives are not generally good for cooking with. While they may work for sweetening tea and coffee, they often get a chemical taste during cooking. This is why most homes will have refined sugar in the pantry, even when artificial sweeteners are used.

But there are other natural sugar alternatives that you can use that are great for baking and all your other sweetener needs. Honey is one good choice. It is all natural and good for you in moderation, of course. It is great for baking and as an added bonus it thickens things up as well.

Honey is also great in tea or coffee and you can even get dried honey crystals that are even easier to use. These are convenient for beverages or for sprinkling on cereal. Other natural sugar alternatives include agave, which is a thick liquid derived from a plant. It is thick, but not as thick as honey. It is sweet but not overpowering and it has a wonderful flavor.

Agave is another type of natural sugar alternatives available. This sweetener is a thick liquid that has been derived from a plant. Not as thick as honey, this liquid offers a sweet flavor, yet not overwhelming.

With all the natural sugar alternatives out there, make sure you do your research well. Natural sugar alternatives like Honey Crystals offer the additional benefit of being dry and easy to use. It replaces sugar 1:1 and is great for keeping your weight in check and your health in shape.

Check out top notch recipes made using the natural sugar known as organic honey crystals then visit the Mama Healthy website to obtain one of the best sugar alternatives out there.

A new niche has arisen in the cooking classes niche, namely the healthy cooking classes sub-niche.

What sets healthy cooking classes apart from the rest of the pack is the fact that they are entirely devoted to the promotion of healthier eating habits, so that the people taking such healthy cooking classes are taught how to prepare healthier meals and how to make ordinary dishes in healthier ways.

And going by the numbers of people signing up for such healthy cooking classes, it would seem that they are increasingly popular. Added to this is the fact that the popularity of the healthy cooking classes is bound to attract even more players in the cookery education sector to develop even more healthy cooking classes to meet the demand, with even more people looking out for the healthy cooking classes, as people are always likely to be attracted to things around which there seems to be some buzz, thence creating what can be described as cycle of popularity.

The typical healthy cooking course normally starts with an introduction to the concept of healthy eating (as opposed to irresponsible eating), before taking the students through the benefits of eating healthy for their holistic well being, and then getting into the nitty gritty of healthy cooking.

Most healthy cooking classes have a unit (or more precisely some lessons) devoted to teaching the students how to select healthy foods ” seeing that some very unhealthy foods are nowadays being misrepresented as healthy; mainly due to ignorance on the part of the buyers.

Another common element of the healthy cooking classes is emphasis on how to make palatable meals using what are defined as healthy cooking techniques. These healthy cooking techniques include methods such as boiling, steaming and stewing ” as opposed to what are considered unhealthy cooking techniques such as deep fat frying. Using these healthy cooking techniques, a person has a way of ensuring that they dont end up making the healthy foods they so painstakingly select unhealthy – just by the way they cook it. The use of these healthy cooking techniques also gives the people taking them the opportunity to learn ways making what are otherwise considered unhealthy foods (such as red meat) a bit healthier by virtue of the method of preparation employed in making them, and thereby mitigating the potential harms of such foods.

Healthy cooking classes are not expensive. Indeed, many are being offered to the students for free over the Internet, with the money to finance the courses coming from having the makers of the various healthy foods advertise their wares on the websites offering the healthy cooking classes.

To learn more about healthy cooking classes be sure to check out our site today.

categories: cooking classes,online cooking classes,healthy cooking classes,culinary cooking classes,cooking classes for teens,cooking,food,health,educational

I had decided to lose weight, but I wanted to make sure I was doing this in a healthy way, which is why I thought smoothies would be a great choice. I quickly found the Amazing Smoothie Recipes eBook which not only gave me great recipes, it also told me about the numerous health benefits of smoothies – which I was really interested in learning.

When I bought the eBook it was very easy to download ” which was great because I couldn’t wait to check it out, alongside the 4 bonus eBooks that came with it! It only cost $9.95 and it was given in PDF format which helped me to print it out and put it into a ring binder, though I also saved a copy of all the eBooks on my computer for safe-keeping.

Some of the great things this eBook has taught me include just why it’s so important to have 5 portions of fruit and vegetables each day. Because most of us lead such busy lives, we often get as little as three – but the recipes in this eBook provide a helpful way around this. You’ll even get a chart so you can tick off how many portions of fruit you eat every day.

There were some really interesting facts in this eBook about why smoothies are so nutritionally valuable. For example, I learned that watermelons include an important cancer-fighting ingredient called lycopene. There are also a huge number of other antioxidants found in the recipes here, important for protecting your health.

I also recommend the recipe on page 43 for the Pink Banana Smoothie, or the Apple Passion on page 37. And the good news is that they don’t require any fancy ingredients, just fruits stocked in your local supermarket. This is even great for anyone going on a raw diet ” all it takes is a minute to whizz your food in the blender!

The one factor I’d like to point out about this eBook is that all the measurements for liquids are provided in ml instead of in cups. But this wasnt too much of a problem for me, as most of my measuring cups already had the measurements for ml as well as cups ” and I found that around 200ml of juice works out at just less than 1 cup ” but if you don’t already have one that measures ml, I’d recommend getting a Pyrex measuring cup. If you’re also worried about making a mess with your blender then you’ll really enjoy the section on keeping it clean ” it’s certainly saved me a lot of effort!

The best thing about choosing to buy an eBook was that I could download it instantly! This means you can buy it whenever you want and you’ll get it right there and then! Not to mention the fact that you’ll also be sent those four great bonuses: Amazing Vegetable Variations (recipes that are really popular with families), 101 Amazing Ways to Stay Healthy, The Amazing Family Cookbook (including over 500 recipes with low fat and low sugar), and Amazing Fast Food Facts.

Id definitely recommend the Amazing Smoothie Recipes eBook to anyone on a diet or wanting to learn more about improving their health!

Whether you are trying to lose some weight, or just become a little more healthy, the Amazing Smoothie Recipes ebook is a great way of getting started. You can also try reading my own weight loss diary at Diet Smoothie.net