Bodhiblog - Bodhimed

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vegetarian diet Do you struggle to align your eating habits with your ideals? If you're like me, sometimes your taste buds take control and you find yourself eating something you know isn't the healthiest choice for your body and your spirit. In this post I want to address the timeless question of whether or not to be a vegetarian. At this moment in history where the environmental impact of every one of our choices, especially the 3-times-a-day ones, is so critical, it's important to examine how we choose what we eat. The decision affects our health, the environment, the economy, and global society. Personally, I am the kind of person who needs to gather a lot of information from many different traditions before I make big decisions. So I've compiled a surprising list of unusual theories about eating meat. If you're on the fence about becoming vegetarian or if you go back and forth, the following considerations and anecdotes may help you finally decide what is best for you.

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haven eating raw broccoli Are you one of millions of parents that have to bribe their kids to eat their veggies? Maybe you sneak spinach puree into the brownies? Getting your kid to eat green things (and I don't mean M & M's!) can be impossible or easy, depending on how you approach it when they first start eating. While I may not have the answer to how to get a 10 year old who's never eaten veggies to suddenly like them, I do know that there are simple steps you can take from the very beginning to guarantee that your kids make healthy food choices without a fight. Giving your child the gift of healthy eating habits is one of the greatest things you can do as a parent to help them achieve their highest potential.

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If you were stranded on a desert island, which ONE health product would you want to have with you? I've got my #1 favorite, and I've asked other health experts and friends what they would choose. I got some really amazing answers, ranging from krill oil to coffee. While there's no substitute for adequate food and water, you could certainly extend your stay on some idyllic island with these supplements. The following explanations are brief, so be sure to click on the highlighted links to get more information.

Fish Oil / Krill Oil

You've heard people cringe about taking cod liver oil as a kid, but fish oils are finally getting their time in the limelight. Fish oils are very important because of their essential fatty acids. EFA's (which include omega-3 and omega-6 fats) are crucial to cardiovascular health, immunity, joint function, and brain development. Krill oil contains EFA's plus antioxidants. Here's what some experts said:

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officeshiva Are you proud of being an excellent multi-tasker? Do you thrive off the adrenaline rush that comes from doing at least 10 things at once? Maybe you feel like there's not enough time in the day to get everything done, so you never do just one thing at a time. It's hard not to do a lot of things at the same time, but new research shows that multi-tasking actually means you get less done and it's not done as well. The impact of multi-tasking on your health may take a while to show up, but according to yoga and Ayurvedic philosophy, this lack of focus creates Vata imbalance and keeps you from achieving optimal health.

Research Shows Multi-Tasking Is Less Efficient

In a 2009 Stanford University study, the researchers found that people considered to be high multi-taskers had an inability to ignore distractions and to keep things separate in their minds.

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1. Ayurveda might advise you to stop eating your favorite foods.

Ayurveda teaches that you are what you eat. Most people are in their current health predicament to a large extent because of their diet. Suppose you love spicy food and you pour hot sauce on your eggs at breakfast. You might also experience heartburn and tend to get frustrated easily. Ayurveda would advise you to avoid spicy and greasy foods in order to decrease heat (Pitta) in your body. Who wants to be told that? Maybe people don't want to hear that they are causing their own suffering, but if you're really looking to get healthy, you have to acknowledge that your daily diet might have something to do with how you're feeling.

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closed kitchen Do you remember when you were a kid and you loved eating cereal right before bed each night? Well it turns out that our bodies don't digest food very well after sundown. So if you don't sleep so well or your kids get stomach aches or you need to shed a few pounds, close the kitchen and keep reading!

Our body mimics the universe

According to Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine, our bodies mimic the natural universe. When the sun rises in the sky, so too our digestive fire wakes up and starts to roar. As the sun sets, our internal fire which is our metabolism also goes to sleep for the night.

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healthy woman Are you one of the millions of Americans for whom health care is one of your primary concerns? Everyone deserves adequate health coverage in case tragedy or serious illness strikes. But what about our day to day well-being? Nobody wants to visit the doctor every time a runny nose or fever shows up in the house. Wouldn't it be a relief to know that you could handle the minor illnesses on your own? Or even better, wouldn't you like to live a lifestyle that serves to prevent illness in the first place? The key to good health lies in drawing upon the wisdom of ancient medical systems that teach preventative medicine and balanced living.

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smart choices labeling A recent New York Times article describes the latest health fraud against our children. Evidently Froot Loops has received the Smart Choices label for being a nutritious choice for breakfast. Never mind that Froot Loops are 41% white sugar. For years I have been on a crusade against artificial food coloring and flavoring. So when this news came out, I decided it was finally time to share the research about the harmful effects of these petrochemical food additives.

This new food-labeling campaign is called Smart Choices and is backed by most of the nation’s largest food manufacturers, like Kellogg's which makes Froot Loops. Supposedly it is “designed to help shoppers easily identify smarter food and beverage choices.” What is smart about a cereal in which the primary ingredient is sugar, and which contains artificial food coloring that is proven in Europe to cause cancer and behavioral problems in children? Obviously it is a marketing campaign to keep mainstream America interested in junk food as the public consciousness around nutrition becomes more sophisticated and informed.

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kids running When I was still in the throes of sleep deprivation when my son was a toddler and never slept , my grandmother made a comment that has stuck with me for years. She said that kids never had sleep problems when she was a young parent. I've always wondered about that. We all slept as kids, and our parents worried about a lot of things but not about getting us to sleep. Why are there thousands of books these days instructing parents how to teach their kids to sleep? Isn't it a biological imperative? Why wasn't my kid just sleeping and letting me sleep? Was it something in the water?