VegMoms

Tuesday’s Natural Health: How many hours of sleep do you get on average? For most people, even those of us who pride ourselves on living a healthy lifestyle, the answer is: Not Enough. But even a minimal lack of sleep has been linked in some studies to both obesity and a higher risk of diabetes. Just three nights of staying up too late and getting up too early increases insulin resistance, according to an article in Psychology Today (pg. 54, Jan-Feb 2010). Even worse, it’s not easy to make up for late nights. PT reports that insulin activity doesn’t rebound even after four days of sleep recovery. And people who are tired tend to eat more, adding to the problem.

The lesson here for those of us who try to eat a healthy, plant-based, meat-free diet is that maintaining a healthy weight — and overall health — is about more than just what we eat. Cutting sleep hours, not making time for at least a little exercise and letting stress run wild in our lives can lead to health problems almost as readily as eating fast food five times a week can do for omnivores.

I’m a mom of three young kids, I have two jobs and work a lot of late nights at my computer, so I know how hard it is to manage the demands of work and life and still find time to sleep. But I also know it would be a lot harder to walk around checking my blood sugar many times a day and using an insulin pump. So I’m going to make more effort to get at least six (maybe some nights 7 or 8?) hours of sleep every night this week. How about you?

Tuesday’s Natural Health: This helpful primer from The Daily Green.com (re-blogged here from chemical free skinny) on how to save on organic foods lists some tips for saving on your grocery bill while still eating organic. I would add grow your own herb and veggie gardens and bake your own bread whenever possible to this list.

chemicalfreeskinny:

GENERAL INTEREST: 5 Ways to Save on Organic Food

These tips will allow you to eat green, sustainable and nutritious foods — while sticking to a recession budget

<Click photo for more>

Tuesday’s Natural Health: This story about how high-fat foods re-wire our brains to overeat was so good that it’s re-wiring my brain to crave a vegan BLT sandwich at 11 pm.

baconbaconbacon:

We can quit anytime we want!

That’s not true…

Submitted by sds

Tuesday’s Natural Health: Vegan foods are some of the easiest, best and most nutritious of any breakfast options. A package of homemade vegan granolas arrived in my mailbox this week from from a friend in Virginia who is an amazing chef and the brains and craftswomanship behind MacShack Acres so I’ve been eating pumpkin seed-ginger granola or cranberry pecan maple granola with soy milk and blueberries for breakfast every morning. No matter what vegan treats you choose for breakfast, eat something.

You don’t have to take my word for it, though. Listen to the experts: The number one healthy habit tip of the five healthy habits in the Mayo Clinic Diet is “Eat a Healthy Breakfast (but not too much).” And studies show that one of the greatest common denominators between people who keep a healthy weight after losing weight is the fact that they eat breakfast every day. So whether it’s a banana and some soy yogurt on the run; a mango smoothie; or vegan waffles and tempeh bacon, eat something to kickstart your metabolism and your day, every day.

Tuesday’s Natural Health: I’m the kind of mom who thinks about every element of my children’s school lunch. Every morning, I make sure I’m sending them off with the healthiest choices (that they’ll actually eat). I felt really good about that — until I read the investigative report in the St. Petersburg Times that shows potentially unsafe levels of arsenic (a dangerous heavy metal) in independently tested apple juices were found in apple juice boxes, including organic apple juice boxes.

Shockingly, the report shows that the highest levels of arsenic ever recorded in the St. Petersburg city water supply is .6 ppb (parts per billion), but in some of the organic apple juice boxes it measured as high as 25 or 26 ppb. That’s the bad news. The good news is the interactive report is easy to read, takes you through all the data step by step on the website and gives you tips so it’s not just another health scare report, but something that we can actually watch out for, make calls to companies and government agencies about and make better daily choices for ourselves and our children after reading.

The days of blindly trusting food sources are over. Articles like this one are the first step in taking back our food supply and making it safe for everyone, especially our children. (photo by Melissa Lyttle, published with article in the St. Petersburg Times/Tampa Bay.com)