Purely Nourished

Cleans­ing seems to be the new buzz word. It seems every­one and their sister’s mother’s sis­ter is doing it. Does that mean you should?

Let’s begin by break­ing down the term cleanse. Cleans­ing, sim­ply put, means to purge or clean. From  that angle the term doesn’t look so daunt­ing. To clean, as if to clean your room or wash your sheets. Con­sider the term spring clean­ing; “Out with the old, in with the new.”

Cleans­ing is the basic act of remov­ing impu­ri­ties. To be per­fectly hon­est, a lit­tle cleans­ing never hurt any­one and it’s easy for every indi­vid­ual to design theirs. A cleanse can be as sim­ple as remov­ing salt from your diet, or remov­ing a bad habit. Dur­ing a cleanse, you can purify your body as well as your mind and behaviors.

Is there a bad habit you would like to break or have you noticed cer­tain foods or drinks make you feel less than your best? Maybe mak­ing an indi­vid­u­al­ized cleans­ing plan is right for you. Decide what you would like to improve and get started. Let’s take cleans­ing sugar as an exam­ple: You’ve real­ized that sugar gives you an ini­tial rush but shortly after you find your­self antsy and lethar­gic. You notice you’re gain­ing weight and your com­plex­ion is less flaw­less than you remem­ber. Could the cul­prit be sugar?  Make a con­scious deci­sion to remove sugar from all aspects of your diet and you will notice changes.

Clean­ing can take on many forms, you can go “Cold turkey” or slowly trade a poor alter­na­tive for its healthy coun­ter­part. A com­bi­na­tion of the two is what usu­ally works best.  Self-control is going to be your best friend and remem­ber if you fall off your plan it’s not the end of the world. Get right back on. The first two days are always the hard­est but as the days go on, sugar becomes less detectable in your body and you will crave it less. Just as sugar becomes a dis­tant mem­ory, so will any other “impu­ri­ties” that you are try­ing to reduce.

Start here and if you like the results slowly work your way up to more intense cleanses. As long as you edu­cate your­self, lis­ten to your body/mind, and take pre­cau­tions, cleans­ing can be a way to bring about great transformations.

Sugar is a sim­ple car­bo­hy­drate occur­ring nat­u­rally in foods such as grains, beans, veg­eta­bles, and fruit. When con­sumed in this pure, unprocessed form it pro­vides numer­ous vit­a­mins, min­er­als, enzymes and proteins.

A processed form was cre­ated in the 17^th cen­tury, with the con­struc­tion of the first sugar refin­ery.  The refin­ing processed removed valu­able vit­a­mins, min­er­als and fiber, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for the body to digest. To prop­erly digest refined sugar, the body must tap into its stor­age forms of enzymes and min­er­als cre­at­ing a defi­ciency in the body. In addi­tion, once the sugar reaches the blood­stream it gen­er­ates an extreme rise and then dip in blood sugar. The effect of this change in blood sugar lev­els leaves the indi­vid­ual with numer­ous unfa­vor­able symp­toms, fatigue and irri­tabil­ity to name a few. Clearly, refined sugar does noth­ing but wreak havoc on your fab­u­lous body. By cut­ting your sugar intake in half, you will notice a dif­fer­ence in your energy, crav­ings, and mood swings. Choose nat­ural forms of sugar such as honey and maple syrup to curb your addic­tion. Your body will thank you!

Nat­ural Alternatives

• Raw Honey — One of the most pop­u­lar sweet­en­ers; It con­tains small amounts of enzymes, min­er­als, and vitamins.
• Maple Syrup — Made from boiled down sap of the Maple tree; This syrup is filled with minerals.
• Brown Rice Syrup — Prod­uct of brown rice; It is mod­er­ately sweet with a but­ter­scotch flavor.
• Molasses — Derived from clar­i­fied and blended sugar beet juices. It is a great source of iron, cal­cium, mag­ne­sium, and potassium.
• Rapadura (whole cane sugar) — Cre­ated from the extracted juice of the sugar cane plant. It is rich in vit­a­mins and minerals.
• Ste­via — Extracted from the Ste­via herb; Ste­via is known for hav­ing no effect on blood sugar lev­els. (Note: Green and brown liq­uids are the unprocessed form of Ste­via so stay away from the white and clear forms.)

To Sum­ma­rize

Best forms of sugar (least processed): Honey, Maple Sugar, Molasses, Rapadura, Stevia

Try to avoid: High fruc­tose corn syrup, evap­o­rated cane juice, sucanat, and turinado.

Note On Agave

Whats with agave? Two years ago the agave kick was huge. Now peo­ple are not so sure.

Agave — Liq­uid sweet­ener made from the agave cactus.

How its made– In order for agave to be trans­formed into a nec­tar form it must undergo pro­cess­ing sim­i­lar to High Fruc­tose Corn Syrup. In other words it becomes highly refined fructose.

Highly refined = loss in vit­a­mins, min­er­als, & pro­tein = Unrec­og­niz­able to the body = Harder for the body to digest.

Yes agave has a low glycemic index but that is only because it is not processed as a glu­cose mol­e­cule (glu­cose is what causes blood sugar lev­els to rise and fall). Rather the body digests the refined fruc­tose (agave) in the liver by turn­ing it into triglyc­erides and stor­ing them as fat.

Steps To Put You On The Right Track

1. Keep sugar OUT of the house; if its not acces­si­ble you will be less likely to eat it.
2. Drink water when you feel a crav­ing com­ing on; many times that sugar crav­ing is a dis­guise for dehydration.
3. Con­sume a greater vari­ety of sweet fruits and veg­eta­bles to substitute.
4. Con­sciously make it a point to avoid sugar; after a few days it will be out of your sys­tem thus decreas­ing your desire.

No food is bad, although some foods may be best con­sumed in moderation.

Sugar: In the last 20 years, sugar con­sump­tion has increased from 26 lbs to over 135 lbs of sugar per per­son per year.  The major­ity of this sugar intake is con­sumed from prepack­aged food sources. While the sugar found in fruits and veg­eta­bles is not a bad source of sugar with its added vit­a­mins and min­er­als, refined sugar is not so great. Due to the lack of vit­a­mins and min­er­als in processed food, the body needs to find an appro­pri­ate way to digest them by tak­ing min­er­als and enzymes from inter­nal sources. This bor­row­ing causes a defi­ciency in the body, which in turn causes bio­log­i­cal con­fu­sion. Blood sugar lev­els spike and dip and cause dis­or­der in the break­down of car­bo­hy­drate. While eat­ing a pack­aged prod­uct here and there will not kill you, struc­tur­ing your diet around processed foods can poten­tially lead to hypo and hyper glycemia, as well as diabetes.

Dairy: Although once praised for its weight loss ben­e­fits and high cal­cium con­tent, dairy prod­ucts are not all they are chocked up to be. The high sat­u­rated fat con­tent in many dairy prod­ucts can lead to weight gain, heart dis­ease, and numer­ous other health issues. After a brief absti­nence from dairy prod­ucts, the major­ity of peo­ple notice ben­e­fits imme­di­ately such as clearer skin, decreased mood swings, and relief from mucous build-up in the back of the throat. Dairy pro­duc­tion is no longer what it used to be. Typ­i­cally, cows pro­duce milk for less than a year after giv­ing birth. To sup­ple­ment the grow­ing demand for dairy prod­ucts, dairy com­pa­nies use BST  (a genet­i­cally pro­duced growth hor­mone) to increase the milk pro­duc­tion phase in female cows. These added hor­mones end up in the dairy prod­ucts that we find on the super­mar­ket shelves. The hor­mones are not as harm­ful in adults but they can lead to early puberty in chil­dren. If you can­not live with­out dairy, pur­chase an organic option. Try to trade one serv­ing of dairy a day for a dairy-free option such as soy or almond based products.

Meat: The aver­age Amer­i­can con­sumes over 222 pounds of meat per year. While meat con­sump­tion in itself is not bad, the con­sump­tion of con­ven­tion­ally raised meat is harm­ful to your health. Ani­mals that are com­mer­cially raised are full of harm­ful hor­mones and antibi­otics that are designed to pro­duce the max­i­mum amount of meat per ani­mal pos­si­ble. Not only are the ani­mals being forced to grow twice their nor­mal size, using growth hor­mones but they are also treated poorly. Con­ven­tion­ally raised chick­ens and pigs are crammed into cages with hun­dreds of other ani­mals result­ing in unnec­es­sary stress and dis­ease. Organic and free range meat is usu­ally more expen­sive but def­i­nitely worth the extra few bucks. Exces­sive meat intake whether organic or not, can lead to chronic dis­ease due to the sat­u­rated fat con­tent.  If you feel best on a diet with meat, try to min­i­mize your intake and eat organic when­ever pos­si­ble. Also, try to sup­ple­ment meat con­sump­tion with veg­e­tar­ian options. Meat can be a great source of pro­tein, iron, and B vit­a­mins when con­sumed in moderation.

Cof­fee: Over 150-million Amer­i­cans drink cof­fee on a daily basis, among these drinkers, an aver­age of 3.1 cups are con­sumed per day.  Although there are numer­ous ben­e­fits includ­ing alert­ness, con­cen­tra­tion, and men­tal and phys­i­cal per­for­mance, cof­fee con­tributes to just as many, if not more neg­a­tive side effects. It inhibits the absorp­tion of essen­tial min­er­als and B-vitamins. Many sta­tis­tics have also linked cof­fee con­sump­tion to osteo­poro­sis and heart dis­ease. Try to limit your daily cof­fee con­sump­tion and trade your reg­u­lar cup of joe for an apple, or a cup of hot tea every once in a while.

Trans Fats: These are found in many processed junk foods: mar­garine, baked goods, and in low fat, reduced fat, and fat free options. Trans fats are arti­fi­cially pro­duced by com­bin­ing hydro­gen with polyun­sat­u­rated oils. Con­sum­ing these fats in large quan­ti­ties can inter­fere with your bod­ies nor­mal metab­o­lism. Focus on sub­sti­tut­ing good fats for bad fats such as avo­ca­dos, wal­nuts, and seeds, to increase your energy and boost your immunity.

Salt: The major­ity of health con­cerns related to salt intake are from processed and refined forms of the min­eral. About 74.5 mil­lion peo­ple in the United States age 20 and older have high blood pres­sure and med­ical experts agree that exces­sive salt intake is a sig­nif­i­cant con­tribut­ing fac­tor. If you can­not live with­out it, use a high-quality sea salt in mod­er­a­tion. Make sure the sea salt is in it’s purest form, free from col­or­ing and harm­ful additives.

Remem­ber that mod­er­a­tion is KEY!