Why to Drink Milk

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I saw a lame reason to drink milk the other day.

It was that milk is better than soda.

Should we drink milk just because soda is bad? It sounds like they where running out of arguments. Yet I can’t say I don’t agree. I would much rather have my kids drink a glass of milk than a glass of soda.

Are there any good reasons to drink cows milk?

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Get Enough Calcium Without Dairy

Many people are for different reasons avoiding dairy. But dairy is an important source of calcium and we need to make sure we get enough of it. Here I’m going to show you what other sources you can eat to get your full intake of calcium.

Our body’s are not very efficient in taking up the calcium in milk. Only 1/3 of the calcium is actually used in the body. The RDI of calcium is around 1000 mg for an adult. If we take in account the calcium we actually use we must drink almost 1 quarter gallon or 1 liter each day.

Calcium from vegetables are easier for the body to take up. There we use about half of the calcium.
Still we need a lot of vegetables or seeds to cover the full RDI of calcium.

This table displays how many pounds of a certain product that is needed to the full RDI of calcium.

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How much vitamin C do we need?

The recommended daily intake of vitamin C used to be 30 milligrams per day. This is just enough to prevent scurvy.
Many countries have updated the RDI. In the US it is currently 90 mg for men above 19 and 75 for women.
But is that really sufficient for optimum health?
Vitamin C is really important for our immune system. But we need 500 mg a day to have an effect on a cold.

Vitamin C lowers a too high bad cholesterol level and prevents hardening of the arteries. 300 mg a day have been shown to decrease the risk of death due to cardio vascular disease in men with 42% and in women with 25%.

According to American Journal of Clinical Nutrition people who have high blood levels of vitamin C live six years longer than those who have lower blood level.

A professor in London has found that you the body can take up and use 20 mg vitamin C per kg a day. (9 mg per pound). The excess vitamin is released with body fluids.

Since vitamin C is water-soluble there is no real risk of overdosing. If the body should get too much it reacts with diarrhea. Recent studies show that there is no risk in overdosing on vitamin C, a dose as high as 6 g a day should be ok.

More health benefits of vitamin C are:

• A high intake of vitamin C before exercise decreases the risk of muscle injury.
• Vitamin C helps to lower fever
• Vitamin C is a strong antioxidant
• It speeds up wound healing
• Vitamin C helps the body to take up calcium and iron

How to get the most out of your vitamin C
The effect of vitamin C gets a lot more powerful if you get bioflavonoid with it.
Bioflavonoid is the substance that makes citrus fruits yellow. They keep our capillaries clean and flexible and are said to slow down the growth of cancer cells.

Quercetin, the star of bioflavonoid, also has anti inflammatory, anti viral and anti allergen properties.

Foods rich in bioflavonoid are citrus fruits, broccoli and tomato. All these are also rich in vitamin C. But in lemon for example the bioflavonoid is not released in juice. You have to eat the whole fruit to get the full potential.

So there are many reasons to make sure that we eat plenty of vitamin C. Not just as a supplement but also in the form of fresh fruits and vegetables. Yet another reason to eat food like nature intended it.

How To Get Vitamin D During Winter

The news, the papers, internet. Wherever I look there are reports on the importance of vitamin D. The report state that deficiency of vitamin D causes cancer, heart disease, diabetes, MS and tuberculosis.

All you need is 10-15 minutes of sun shine on 40% of your skin per day. This might be really easy during summer. But how do you get enough during winter?

One god thing is that vitamin D is fat soluble which means that it stays in you body. And you don’t have to get up to your daily doses every single day. But still during cold weather it is almost impossible to get enough just from sun shine.

So what are the alternatives?
Cold water fatty fish such as Salmon, Mackerel and Herring is the best alternative.

Liver, eggs and milk also contain vitamin D though less than fish.

Not enough sun shine and don’t eat enough fish. Do like me and supplement on fish oil. Enzymatic’s Eskimo-3 105Sg is natural, stable and of great quality.

Do You Make The Mistake Of Eating Fat Free?

We’ve never consumed more Fat Free food and we’ve never been fatter. Something is not right.

So why are Low Fat and Fat Free products not working?

One reason for that is that many low fat and fat free foods are loaded with sugar and calories. Also for some reason fat free seams to give people carte blanche to eating unlimited amounts.

Another reason is that we need fat.

• Fat is very nutritious.
• Our brains contain 60% fat.
• Fat is essential to our cell membranes and nerve fibers.
• The vitamins A, D, E and K need fat to be circulated, stored and absorbed in the body.
• Children need fat to grow and develop.

But let’s not fool ourselves many of us need to cut back on their fat consumption. Tomorrow I’ll give you some great ideas on healthy ways to cut back on your fat consumption.

So the answer to good health and optimum weight is not no fat but right fat.

My personal formula is:

1. I use olive oil and rape seed oil in my food
2. I fry in real organic butter
3. I supplement omega-3
4. I eat healthy fat food e.g. avocados, nuts, cold water oily fish, flaxseed
5. I avoid fired foods in restaurants

The Basics About Vitamin D

Vitamin D, often called the sunshine vitamin,  is responsible for the body’s absorption of calcium.

This gives vitamin D an indispensable role in building and maintaining strong and healthy bones and teeth. 

 

Deficiency of vitamin D can cause serious bone cause problems such as osteoporosis in adults and rickets in children.

 

 

Recent research has shown that vitamin D can help prevent:

• Cancer
• Diabetes
• Multiple sclerosis
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Psoriasis
• Inflammatory bowel disease

Recommended daily intake for an adult is 1000 IU (international units) and the certified safe limit is 2000 IU.

The best most natural source of the vitamin is sunshine, most experts say the 10 to 15 minutes a day on your face and arms is enough.
Other natural sources are:

• Milk
• Tuna
• Salmon
• Mackerel
• Sardines

Supplementing vitamin D?
If you decide to do this you have to be careful. Vitamin D is fat-soluble which means that what is not used by the body is stored. Eventually the stored vitamin D can build up to toxic levels. Symptoms of too much vitamin D are:

• Drowsiness
• Diarrhea
• Headache
• Loss of appetite
• Fragile bones
• Calcium deposits throughout the body

Vitamin D and cancer

The absolute best way to get vitamin D is sunshine. This of course puts us in a dilemma since we’ve been taught than sunshine gives us skin cancer and lately that sun protective lotions also gives us skin cancer.
A couple of months ago Dr Mercola presented a graph showing the number of deaths in cancer related to the latitude.

The number of deaths more than doubled at latitude 50 compared to the equator. Latitude 30 crosses the US-Mexican border, the Middle East and north of India. And on the other side south of Australia and South Africa.

So for anyone living north or south of those lines sufficient sunshine is definitely something to consider. Maybe we should see sunshine as a natural cure for cancer. Pretty depressing for me who currently lives just below latitude 60. 

For all of us who are not luck to live just around the equator and to make matter worse, spend a lot of time indoors vitamin D is important. And we have to learn to manage our daily intake.

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