These Cruciferous Vegetables Feed Your Bones and Heal Your Body

I have to tell you about a TEDx talk that blew me away. It’s a riveting story about a doctor taking control of her own health.

Terry Wahls is an MD and an athlete. But in 2000 she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She followed all the advice that mainstream medicine had to offer. But her condition continued to decline rapidly until she was confined to a wheel chair.

That’s when she turned to food and functional medicine. Today she is out of the wheelchair, active, energetic, and free of MS symptoms.

Guest Blogger: Margie King

Science has once again shattered the myth that milk makes strong bones.  A new Swedish study links drinking milk to higher rates of bone fractures and even death.[i]

The study tracked the eating habits of over 60,000 women for 20 years and over 45,000 men for 15 years. Researchers found that drinking more milk did NOT lead to lower risks of bone fracture.  In fact, women who drank three glasses of milk per day broke more bones.  Compared to women who drank less than one glass per day, heavy milk drinkers had a 60% greater risk of breaking a hip and a 16% higher risk of breaking any bone.

But it gets worse.  People who drank more milk also had a higher risk of dying from any cause.  For every glass of milk they drank every day, women had a 15% higher risk of death and men had a 3% higher risk.

Why does milk lead to more broken bones and higher death rates?

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Are bagels putting holes in your bones?

Well, maybe that sounds a little crazy but stick with me on this.

When I say bagels, I’m really talking about the gluten in bagels and other wheat products.  That includes bread, pasta, donuts, cupcakes, cookies, and a multitude of processed foods that add gluten.

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I was recently intrigued by a report on PBS about how the rising acid levels in the oceans are eating away at the coral reefs.  Those mineral-rich “bones” of the sea suffer from their own version of “osteoporosis.”

And it’s not just the coral.  Marine animals like scallops, oysters, and clams that rely on calcium to build their shells are having a harder time as carbon dioxide raises the acid levels of their environment.  Shells are becoming thinner, and shell growth is slowing down.

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I like to feed my bones red meat especially during the winter months and the transitional months of spring when my body craves heartier fare.

Now, you don't have to have meat for healthy bones.  But if you're a person like me who feels more energetic eating some meat,  it's a good choice.

Red meat is a great source of bone-building protein.  That’s what makes your bones flexible so they bend instead of breaking.  Adults need about 50 grams of protein a day, with women needing slightly less and men needing slightly more.  Just 4 ounces of red meat has about 28 grams of protein.

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By guest blogger: Margie King, Nourishing Menopause

What makes an apple good for us? Is it the Vitamin C? Vitamin K or B6?  Is it the soluble fiber or the insoluble fiber? Is it the potassium or the phytosterols?

Or is it the apple?  What a concept.

Western science is obsessed with deconstructing food, researching and analyzing its component parts, isolating the "active ingredients", repackaging them in pills or powders and prescribing them in daily doses.   But according to Annmarie Colbin, PhD., author of Food and Healing, this chemistry-based theory of nutrition is completely upside down. (more…)

This news is so upsetting that I had to share it ASAP.

I've spoken (and screamed) about GMOs in my free educational webinar.

And now take 12 minutes to view this video and you'll understand why I was chilled to my bones. Be advised this study uses lab rats and for my animal lovers and vegetarian readers, some of the images may be disturbing. (more…)

Rosie O’Donnell and I have something in common.  Recently we both had the same health scare – chest pains.  I was luckier than Rosie.  Her pain turned out to be a heart attack.  Mine - we think - was indigestion.

I’m pretty careful about my food, so indigestion was a puzzle.  Was I eating too many of those delicious candy like but acidic cherry tomatoes from my backyard garden?  Was it stress?  Or lifting too many heavy boxes during my move from Philadelphia to New Hope (don’t ya love that name…New Hope)?  Or the heavy metals detoxification program I’ve been following?  But that’s another story…

Whatever the cause, it got me thinking about how important good digestion is to everything – especially your bones.  If you’re not digesting your food, you’re not breaking it down into the vitamins and minerals your bones need.

But could indigestion lead to a broken hip?

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You might have noticed by now that I’m not a big fan of dairy as your main source of bone healthy nutrients.  I like a wider variety of foods for healthy bones, including dark leafy greens, seaweeds and bone broths.

But then there’s yogurt…and here’s where I have to make an exception to my dairy prejudice.

Yogurt is fermented by adding bacterial cultures to milk, transforming the milk sugar, lactose, into lactic acid.

Here’s why yogurt is better than milk when it comes to your bones:  acidity.

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