Eating healthy on the cheap can be tough, but if you stock your kitchen with the healthy cheap essentials it should save a great deal in the long run.

I buy certain staples like organic cheese and organic butter when they are on sale and keep them in the freezer.

Consider buying your organic meats, eggs, and fish in bulk and store in a larger freezer out in the garage.

Remember we have to pay for our health one way or another. Prevention is key. The food that graces your kitchen table is the best disease prevention money can buy. President Obama thinks that we will never fix the National Deficit until we fix the Health Care Crisis, I think we will never fix the Health Care Crisis until we fix the crisis at our kitchen tables.

Here are my favorite cheap health foods:

Flax seeds
Oatmeal
Brown Rice
Apples
Yams/Sweet potatoes
Broccoli
Spinach
Canned tomatoes
Carrots
Bananas

Tips I have learned from the Whole Foods School of Hard Knocks:

-Avoid buying a bunch of healthy stuff you don’t know how to prepare. Nothing is more wasteful than a bunch of rotting random veggies in your fridge. Instead, commit to making one new healthy recipe per week, experiment with new ingredients and recipes gradually to avoid wasting valuable grocery dollars. Don’t get overwhelmed by all the different grain options, make friends with them one recipe at a time.

-Drink a smoothie in place of one meal each day. You can easily get two servings of fruits out of the way by doing so. Buy frozen fruit when it is on sale, or save money each summer by picking and freezing your own.

-Shop at Farmer’s Markets for produce once weekly when possible. Plan meals around the foods that are in season, rely heavily on fresh herbs, pepper, garlic, and onions to season your food in lieu of organic sea salt.

-Buy frozen chicken breasts and fish on sale.

-Shop organic when possible, buy “The Dirty Dozen” organic, and save your organic dollars on the “Foods Least Likely to Contain Pesticides”.

-Avoid canned foods and opt for frozen. Always keep a little frozen broccoli, spincach, cauliflower, and mixed veggies in the freezer. You can quickly dress up any recipe by adding some steamed frozen veggies. Add one cup of frozen veggies to every frozen meal you prepare, most veggies will mix in nicely with the sauce. The fiber in the vegetables will keep you feeling full longer.

Remember that eating healthy is an investment in your current and long term health.

By Dr. Nicole Sundene

Thanks to MSN Health & Fitness contributor Jean Weiss, a list of the most medically questionable and harmful additives in everyday foods has been compiled to educate the masses. There are several that may be recognizable due to news reports and popular opinion, but others may be new to some and worthy of notation.

1. Sodium nitrite
2. BHA & BHT
3. Propyl gallate
4. Monosodium glutamate
5. Trans fats
6. Aspartame
7. Acesulfame-K
8. Food colorings (Blue & , Red , Green , Yellow )
9. Olestra
10. Potassium bromate
11. White sugar
12. Sodium chloride

There are many reasons that some people choose to shop and eat a completely organic range of foods, but the primary reason seems to center around the additives in various non-organic food items. Those additives have been studied and linked to various diseases, and instead of taking the chance that unhealthy preservatives and flavorings might be integrated into grocery store items, people often opt for the strictly organic route so as to avoid them altogether.

But everyone cannot afford the prices of organic foods or the time it takes to shop at specialty markets for them. Thus, becoming informed about the additives in everyday food items can make for an easier shopping experience and healthier items being ingested by everyone. In addition, a mass boycott of foods that contain such additives could prompt food manufacturers to remove such harmful ingredients from their products in the future.

HealthNews Dozen
Top 12 Food Additives to Remove From Your Diet
By Jennifer Newell
Health News, June 29, 2009
Straight to the Source

OK, first of all I will cut to the most asked question- will your kids and family be receiving either the H1N1 shots or a seasonal flu shot? the answer to both is a confidant no.

We have never had seasonal flu shots and we won’t be starting to do so this year despite the fear tactics employed by so many. The key is in building a very strong immune system and knowing your natural means of fighting bugs should you happen to bring any home.

I have seen many articles come across my e-mail based on this topic so I figured I would offer some of them here for your own educational process. I do admit most everything you read here will support my own views, hey, it’s my blog! If you want to read about opposing views, there are many out there and it isn’t hard to find them. I hope this helps you process of deciding where you will stand…

What I know:

• You don’t want to take the chances of getting Guillain-Barre syndrome, a reaction of the body’s immune system from receiving vaccinations. My husband has had it after multiple vaccinations in his early 20’s,  and I was afraid I would loose my fiance at the time, or best case we would have to find a new first apartment with handicap access. Not a good time! Guillain-Barre rates were out of control after the last H1N1 vaccination fiasco in the early 70’s.
• avoid sugar (kills your immune system), get enough rest (elementary children need 10-11 hours a night!), wash your hands (don’t use anti-microbial soaps),  Have positive thoughts (negativity decreases your immune system), manage your stress (stress lowers your immune system), excercise, take vitamin D, take probiotics, cover your mouth with the hollow of your elbow, not your hands that you will then touch things with and spread germs (teach this to your children!), if you are sick or have sick kids STAY HOME!, avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth as much as possible, avoid artificial colorings and flavorings, eat whole, organic foods, avoid processed, packaged, boxed, canned foods, drink lots of pure, non-tap water
• take a good quality multi vitamin, probiotic, vitamin D and multi mineral to boost your immune system. Costco, walgreens, grocery stores and walmart, will not carry quality products!

Info on the H1N1:

Dr. Mercola on the H1N1

SixWise on H1N1

Jon Barron on H1N1

Is the H1N1 vaccine safe:

H1N1 vaccination for children

Info on flu vaccines:

Dr. Mercola on flu vaccines

Jon Barron on the flu

There are too many article out there to list here, these above sites also have other articles on similar topics.

Children should not be treated routinely with flu drugs such as Tamiflu because there is no clear evidence that they prevent complications and the medicines may do more harm than good, British researchers said on Monday.

They called for a reconsideration of the widespread use of antivirals among those under 12 in light of an analysis of clinical data from previous seasonal flu outbreaks showing scant benefits and potentially harmful side effects.

Governments around the world have built up large stockpiles of Roche’s Tamiflu and GlaxoSmithKline’s Relenza to deal with the H1N1 swine flu pandemic.

In Britain, hundreds of thousands of doses of Tamiflu have been handed out to people with the disease, around half of whom are children.

But Dr. Matthew Thompson from the University of Oxford said that, while antivirals shortened the duration of flu in children by around a day, they didn’t reduce asthma flare-ups or the likelihood of children’s needing antibiotics.

Tamiflu also was linked to an increased risk of vomiting, which can be serious in children because it can result in dehydration.

The analysis was based on a systematic review of seven clinical studies looking at use of Tamiflu and Relenza in seasonal flu outbreaks in 2,629 children aged 1 to 12 years.

There is no reason to think that the conclusions would not apply to the present relatively mild outbreak of swine flu, Thompson said.

Fellow Oxford researcher Dr. Carl Heneghan told reporters, “The strategy of giving out this treatment in a mild infection is inappropriate.”

The researchers also found that 13 people need to be treated to prevent one additional case, meaning that antivirals reduce transmission by a modest 8 percent.

“While morbidity and mortality in the current pandemic remain low, a more conservative strategy might be considered prudent, given the limited data, side effects such as vomiting, and the potential for developing resistant strains of influenza,” they wrote in the British Medical Journal.

Copyright Reuters

“We demand the systematic publication of the results of these tests, which we could only obtain on a case by case basis by taking legal action… It [the study] brings to light a significant underestimation of the initial signs of diseases like cancer and diseases of the hormonal, immune, nervous and reproductive systems, among others… The health crises may be more important than the international financial crisis because of the lack of transparency of the regulators.”

Source: An alarming study published in the Journal of Biological Science this week points toward serious health hazards from genetically engineered foods and pesticides. The research, conducted by scientists from France, Italy, New Zealand, U.K. and U.S., corroborates the decade-long criticism by public interest organizations such as the Organic Consumers Association, Greenpeace, and Friends of the Earth that European Food Safety bureaucrats and the U.S. FDA have used unreliable tests to assess the safety of food and products containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs). GMOs are now found in more than 80% of (non-organic) foods sold in conventional grocery stores in the U.S., as well as the majority of animal feed in the EU.

Learn more

Microwaves seriously deplete the nutrients in your food. This is no surprise as all heating methods have a similar effect. However, microwave heating appears to produce the greatest losses.

Microwaves are high frequency electromagnetic waves that alternate in positive and negative directions, causing vibration of molecules up to 2.5 billion times per second. This creates friction and heat that can destroy the fragile structure of vitamins and enzymes.

Consuming microwaved foods may also cause pathological changes in your body. Once a food’s structure is altered, it cannot perform the desired function in your body. Clinical studies show that microwave heating of milk or cooking of vegetables is associated with a decline in hemoglobin levels. These reductions may contribute to anemia, rheumatism, fever, and thyroid deficiency.

To learn more, read The Hidden Hazards of Microwave Cooking.

Here is another good article about using microwaves

Teflon is one of the most popular bakeware materials in America. Teflon and other non-stick brand names comprise up to 77% of the entire bakeware market.

So what’s wrong with it?

Well, for starters, Teflon is made from perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a synthetic chemical used in production that creates the soap-like slipperiness and non-stick finish.

Once heated, Teflon and other non-stick bakeware will quickly reach temperatures at which toxic fumes release into the air. And it doesn’t take much heat to do this – the coating begins to break down and release toxins at a temperature of only 446° F.

PFOA has become very controversial because of potential health dangers…

In animal studies, PFOA posed health hazards like:

• Serious changes in organs including the brain, prostate, liver, thymus, and kidneys, showing toxicity.
• Death of several rat pups due to PFOA exposure.
• Changes in the pituitary in female rats, at all doses. Changes in the size of the pituitary indicate toxicity.
• PFOA contributed to tumor growth in at least four different organs in animal tests, and indicated in an increase in prostate cancer in PFOA plant workers.

Now the various PFOA doses used in these animal experiments weren’t necessarily the same exposure levels you might get from Teflon. But they clearly show the potential danger from PFOA.

And there’s more evidence:

• In a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), close to 98% of the population returned detected PFOA levels. While PFOA can come from sources other than Teflon, that’s startling information.
• A study reported in 2007, conducted by the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, showed alarming evidence indicating newborn infants face exposure to PFOA while in the womb.
• Though not necessarily related to Teflon, PFOA has already been implicated in increased instances of cancer in the pancreas, liver, testicles, and mammary glands, as well as miscarriages, thyroid problems, weakened immune systems, and low organ weights.

So, from a health and safety standpoint, Teflon bakeware is not a good choice.

Also, there are many other non-stick brand names that contain this toxic PFOA coating, including: Silverstone, Fluron, Supra, Excalibur, Greblon, Xylon, Duracote, Resistal, Autograph and T-Fal, to name just a few. So, avoid these as well.

In fact, if you have any bakeware made from this non-stick material, I would recommend you throw it out and replace it immediately.

Why You Should Avoid Aluminum

So, what are some of your other choices for baking appliances?

What about aluminum – it’s also very popular and lightweight? In fact, consumers choose metal bakeware products 73% of the time.

But I would not recommend aluminum pans for baking if you want to enjoy your golden years. Aluminum is a causal factor suspect in Alzheimer’s disease.

In my experience, people dread Alzheimer’s disease more than cancer and heart disease, for good reason.

Aluminum is a “reactive” metal, meaning that it reacts with salty or acidic foods to release itself into your food. Sources of aluminum include any size cookware or bakeware containers, foil, and utensils.

And many if not most aluminum bakeware manufacturers choose to coat their products with Teflon or other non-stick materials. So, you could face the same hazards detailed above from Teflon.

In addition, you can also face exposure to aluminum when Teflon chips off your coated aluminum baking dish or pan.

So, aluminum might satisfy one of our selection criteria by being lightweight – but I feel the safety risks are too high. Plus, I’m convinced there is a better alternative available for you.

Article taken from various articles on Mercola.com

The Pesticide Action Network has launched a new online searchable database designed to make the public problem of pesticide exposure visible and more understandable. Whether you want to find out what’s in your apple juice, milk, peanut butter, or bottled water, this innovative tool links pesticide food residue data with the toxicology for each chemical, making this information easily searchable for the first time.

Bookmark this link! and share it with everyone you know!

My nutritional philosophy is, “If it has a label, don’t eat it.”

That said, I realize that’s not always realistic for all of us all of the time. We like to have convenience foods to help us deal with our time crunches, and that’s OK. But I recommend that you read the labels. Choose packaged foods made with real-food ingredients over those with factory-created components.

Be a smart consumer and look for things that are going to help your body thrive. When you pick something up, ask yourself the question: “Is this something my great grandmother would have eaten?” If the answer is “no,” you should probably put it back. Things like frozen blueberries or canned black beans can still be good for you, as long as they don’t contain a bunch of unhealthy and unnecessary ingredients.

STOCKING A HEALTHY PANTRY

Now that you know what to avoid, go to your cabinets, refrigerator, and freezer and toss out any foods that contain the ingredients on the avoid list.

Here’s a list of foods that you can replace in your pantry with healthier foods.

· Refined White Sugar – replace with stevia, agave nectar, honey, brown rice syrup, or Rapadura Whole Cane Organic Unrefined Sugar

· Margarine – replace with organic real butter

· Table Salt – replace with natural Celtic Sea Salt

· Skippy, Jif or other Peanut Butter – replace with natural peanut butter with only two ingredients: peanuts and salt.

· Canned veggies/fruit – eat fresh fruits and veggies

· Soft drinks – good clean water, sparkling water, herbal teas

· Pasta – replace with brown rice pasta, quinoa pasta, or whole wheat pasta if your not sensitive to gluten or wheat.

· White Flour – replace with 100% whole wheat flour, or whole wheat pastry flour or other non-gluten flours.

· White Bread – replace with a good 100% whole grain bread. The ingredient list should be short with only a few ingredients such as whole wheat flour, yeast, honey, salt.

· Crackers – replace with whole grain crackers – try Ak-Mak, Mary’s Gone Crackers, or Back to Nature Harvest Whole Wheats

· Breakfast Cereals – Go with a whole grain one, look for short ingredient lists.

Written by Dee McCaffrey, CDC