Day 317- The Immortal Hamburger

McDonald's burgers don't decompose? Get moldy? They actually stay the same, even after many years have gone by? Wow, I think I just lost my appetite! This was discovered by accident when a guy placed a hamburger in his pocket and forgot about it for over a year. Shockingly when he did finally come across it, it looked and smelled exactly the same as it did when he purchased it. Don't believe me? Check out this video on what really went down:

Here is a great and entertaining article I found on the Natural News website, which is definitely worth a read.

Why don't McDonald's hamburgers decompose?

So why don't fast food burgers and fries decompose in the first place? The knee-jerk answer is often thought to be, "Well they must be made with so many chemicals that even mold won't eat them." While that's part of the answer, it's not the whole story.

The truth is many processed foods don't decompose and won't be eaten by molds, insects or even rodents. Try leaving a tub of margarine outside in your yard and see if anything bothers to eat it. You'll find that the margarine stays seems immortal, too!

Potato chips can last for decades. Frozen pizzas are remarkably resistant to decomposition. And you know those processed Christmas sausages and meats sold around the holiday season? You can keep them for years and they'll never rot.

With meats, the primary reason why they don't decompose is their high sodium content. Salt is a great preservative, as early humans have known for thousands of years. McDonald's meat patties are absolutely loaded with sodium -- so much so that they qualify as "preserved" meat, not even counting the chemicals you might find in the meat.

To me, there's not much mystery about the meat not decomposing. The real question in my mind is why don't the buns mold? That's the really scary part, since healthy bread begins to mold within days. What could possibly be in McDonald's hamburger buns that would ward off microscopic life for more than two decades?

As it turns out, unless you're a chemist you probably can't even read the ingredients list out loud. Here's what McDonald's own website says you'll find in their buns:

Enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid, enzymes), water, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, yeast, soybean oil and/or partially hydrogenated soybean oil, contains 2% or less of the following: salt, calcium sulfate, calcium carbonate, wheat gluten, ammonium sulfate, ammonium chloride, dough conditioners (sodium stearoyl lactylate, datem, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, mono- and diglycerides, ethoxylated monoglycerides, monocalcium phosphate, enzymes, guar gum, calcium peroxide, soy flour), calcium propionate and sodium propionate (preservatives), soy lecithin.

Great stuff, huh? You gotta especially love the HFCS (diabetes, anyone?), partially-hydrogenated soybean oil (anybody want heart disease?) and the long list of chemicals such as ammonium sulfate and sodium proprionate. Yum. I'm drooling just thinking about it.

Now here's the truly shocking part about all this: In my estimation, the reason nothing will eat a McDonald's hamburger bun (except a human) is because it's not food!

No normal animal will perceive a McDonald's hamburger bun as food, and as it turns out, neither will bacteria or fungi. To their senses, it's just not edible stuff. That's why these bionic burger buns just won't decompose.

Which brings me to my final point about this whole laughable distraction: There is only one species on planet Earth that's stupid enough to think a McDonald's hamburger is food. This species is suffering from skyrocketing rates of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, dementia and obesity. This species claims to be the most intelligent species on the planet, and yet it behaves in such a moronic way that it feeds its own children poisonous chemicals and such atrocious non-foods that even fungi won't eat it (and fungi will eat cow manure, just FYI).

Care to guess which species I'm talking about?

That's the real story here. It's not that McDonald's hamburgers won't decompose; it's that people are stupid enough to eat them. But you won't find CNN reporting that story any time soon.


Pura Vida!
Alica Ryan, NTP

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/030074_Happy_Meal_decompose.html#ixzz1jBbOFvEN

Day 316- Vegetable Bean Soup

Vegetable Bean Soup

Ingredients:

• Trader Joe's 17 Bean and Barley mix
• 1 head of cabbage, cut into small chunks
  
• 1 cartoon of organic chicken or vegetable stock
• 3 tomatoes, cut into small chunks
  
• 1 medium potato, diced
  
• 1 medium onion, diced
  
• 3 small zucchini, diced
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 1 tablespoon dried basil
• 3 carrots, peeled and diced
• sea salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Soak beans in filtered water with a little bit of sea salt overnight
2. In crock pot add beans and chicken or vegetable stock
3. Let cook on medium heat for about a hour
4. Add vegetables and water if needed
5. Add in dried herbs, salt and pepper
6. Let cook on medium to low heat for about 6 hours or until vegetables and beans are tender

Pura Vida!
Alica Ryan, NTP

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Day 315- Meatloaf

Meatloaf

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds 100% grass fed organic ground beef
• 3 carrots, peeled and diced
• 1 celery stalk, diced
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 cup mushrooms, diced
• 2 organic free-range eggs
• 21 seasoning spice from Trader Joe's
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 1 tablespoon dried basil
• dash of sea salt
• dash of fresh ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 2 teaspoon gluten-free mustard
• 1/4 organic, high-fructose corn syrup free ketchup

Directions:

1. Lightly saute celery, carrots, onion, and mushrooms in a pan with olive oil
2. Preheat oven to 350
3. Mix ground meat with 2 eggs, and the seasonings
4. Once vegetables have softened slightly mix them in with the meat mixture
5. Cook for one hour in a glass baking dish
6. Mix sugar, mustard, and ketchup together
7. Take dish out and spoon out the excess liquid
8. Evenly spread the mustard mixture over the top of the meat dish
9. Cook for an additional 10 mintutes

Pura Vida!

Alica Ryan, NTP

Day 314- Food Inc

What a lovely Sunday, worked out, went for a run with my dog, cooked a yummy meal, and finally sat down to watch Food Inc. Yeah, I know I'm a little 2000 and late! But now is better than never, right?

What an incredible movie; would I be alone if I said that it made me teary eyed? Losing a child at age 2 to E.coli from a hamburger is unimaginable. Especially since the E.coli problem wasn't made public until 16 days after her son's death.

Or if that didn't touch you, what about the monopoly that Monosanto and the big companies have on agriculture? Making it impossible to farm the way that would want to, getting you into a great amount of debt, and suing you for all you have if you don't comply with them.

If you haven't yet had a chance to watch this movie, I highly recommend it. Below is the official trailer, check it out.

Pura Vida!

Alica Ryan, NTP

Day 313- Workout of the Week

• 1 mile run
• 50 push-ups
• 100 crunches
• 1 miles run
• 50 triceps dips
• 1 minute plank hold
• 1 mile run
• 25 lunges each side
• 50 bicycle crunches each side

Pura Vida!

Alica Ryan, NTP

Day 312- Methylation for Detoxification

As many of us strive to accomplish our New Year's Resolutions, an important part to many is a period of detox. There are many steps to accomplish a successful detoxification, some of these steps are prevalent in the day-to-day functioning of our bodies that we tend to overlook their importance. An important detoxification step that many may not be aware of is the process called methylation.

Truth is methylation is involved in much more than detoxification, but what exactly is methylation and why is it so important?

Technically, methylation is the subtraction or addition of a methyl group - one carbon and three hydrogen (CH3) to some other molecule. It is a process that happens continuously in your body and is crucial for health. Methlylation is involved in activating serotonin, helping to prevent symptoms such as depression or sleeping disorders. It is important to our cardiovascular health, helping to reduce homocysteine, which in high amounts is not a good thing. Adrenaline must be methylated so that our bodies can wind down so that we are able to rest and sleep instead of becoming anxious and wide a wake during bed time. It is involved in the process that helps to reduce inflammation in the body, making sure that detoxification is working correctly, and the metabolism of hormones; just to name a few.

If you think about it methylation can affect pretty much every part of the body, it will help to put you in a good mood, help your body stay healthy, reduce hormonal issues, and make sure that you get a good nights rest.

So how do you make sure that methylation is up to par in your body? One way is to support it with plenty of B vitamins, especially B12, B6, and Folic acid. You can also check how well methylation is working in your body by a simple homocysteine blood test. Or by making sure your vitamin B status is optimal by asking your practitioner to run a complete blood count (CBC) test, or a methylmalonic acid test which will check your B12 levels. Skip the blood test that checks for folic acid or B12 since these tests are not very accurate and pretty much only reflect recent vitamin intake from food and supplements.

Pura Vida!

Alica Ryan, NTP

Day 311- More Great Gluten-Free Blogs

Here are some more great blogs that I have come across that will help give you new recipes and fresh ideas.

• Living Free~ I found a great recipe for a warm breakfast rice cereal, there are a few things that I would end up tweaking, such as no soy milk and substitute brown rice for the white rice, but it has definitely inspired we to create something similar when I get bored of my usual breakfast routine or for a great substitute for a gluten-free oatmeal. Sweet Rice Breakfast Cereal.
• Gluten-Free Fitness~ Erin has put together an easy 7-step manual for transitioning into a gluten-free life called, "7 Quick Start Tips for Living a Healthy Gluten Free Fit Life." You can find this on her blog as well as for your kindle.
• Gluten-Free Makeover~ A blog dedicated to taking foods we love and making them over into a delicious gluten-free version. Here is a recipe for gluten-free dinner rolls like your mom use to make.
• Celiacs in The House~ A mother shares her experiences with cooking for a house of celiacs and has a great blog post on how to eat more produce in 2012.
• The Daily Dietribe~ I found a helpful post for people that are interested in how to start a gluten-free diet. It also provides great recipes that you can make during the different phases of an elimination diet.
• The Spunky Coconut~ A gluten-free, casein-free, and sugar-free blog site. I found a interesting recipe for gluten-free, grain-free, and egg-free tortillas that I am going to have to try.

Pura Vida!

Alica Ryan, NTP