Tidbits

Some helpful tips that I've come across about food and nutrition that you may not be aware of but will hopefully think 'oh, hmm, that's good to know' and give them a try.

• Taking a 5-10 minute walk after a meal stimulates digestion and helps to process food better.
• Drinking cold water vs. luke warm water makes your body exert extra energy to warm it up. It also tightens your stomach's blood vessels thereby lowering absorption, plus room temperature water helps your body to eliminate and distribute fats (which very cold water could solidify and store in your body instead).
• Daily consumption of lemon water in the morning will benefit your digestion by alkalizing stomach acidity. It is also a blood purifier, antiseptic, and a secret for rejuvenating your skin from within.
• If you like to buy dried beans and cook them yourself, which I highly recommend over canned beans due to the toxicity of the can lining, you can cook the beans with a little wakame (a dried seaweed) and that will cut down on your post-bean-eating flatulence.
• Lightly steaming your veggies (5 minutes or less) as compared to eating them raw actually increases the bioavailability of the enzymes and nutritional components and your body will be able to digest and absorb them even better than raw foods.
• Microwaving food pretty much kills any enzymes and severely depletes food of its' nutritional content - toaster ovens are a better choice because they do not emit radiation, but if you absolutely cannot NOT heat up yesterday's dinner for lunch today then salvage some nutrition by microwaving slightly for under a minute.
• The best time for eating probiotics like yogurt, kefir, or goodbelly is about an hour or so before bedtime. The benefit of probiotics is to replenish your intestinal flora, the good bacteria, so if you eat it as the last snack before your sleep fast that will really allow the probiotics to do their good work (and not get washed away by the digestion process if you were to eat it ahead of other meals).
• Making your own vegetable stock and using that instead of water will add additional nutrients to your meals, see instructions below.