Vitamin B-12

Lately I have been really tired. About two weeks ago I started taking Vitamin B-12.  Vitamin B-12 is not found in vegetables and I had been avoiding meat.

An explaination of vitamin B-12 from Wikipedia:

Foods

Ultimately, animals must obtain vitamin B12 directly or indirectly from bacteria, and these bacteria may inhabit a section of the gut which is posterior to the section where B12 is absorbed. Thus, herbivorous animals must either obtain B12 from bacteria in their rumens, or (if fermenting plant material in the hindgut) by reingestion of cecotrope fæces.

Vitamin B12 is found in foods that come from animals, including fish and shellfish, meat (especially liver), poultry, eggs, milk, and milk products.[30] One half chicken breast provides some 0.3 µg per serving or 6.0% of one’s daily value (DV); 3 ounces of beef, 2.4 µg, or 40% of one’s DV; one slice of liver 47.9 µg or 780% of DV; and 3 ounces of molluscs 84.1 µg, or 1,400 % of DV.

Eggs are often mentioned as a good B12 source, but they also contain a factor (avidin) that blocks absorption.[31] Certain insects such as termites contain B12 produced by their gut bacteria, in a way analogous to ruminant animals.[32] An NIH Fact Sheet lists a variety of food sources of vitamin B12.

While lacto-ovo vegetarians usually get enough B12 through consuming dairy products, vegans will lack B12 unless they consume multivitamin supplements or B12-fortified foods. Examples of fortified foods include fortified breakfast cereals, fortified soy products, fortified energy bars, and fortified nutritional yeast. According to the UK Vegan Society, the present consensus is that any B12 present in plant foods is likely to be unavailable to humans because B12 analogues can compete with B12 and inhibit metabolism.[33][34]

Claimed sources of B12 that have been shown to be inadequate or unreliable through direct studies[35] of vegans include laver (a seaweed), barley grass, and human gut bacteria.
[edit] Supplements

Vitamin B12 is provided as a supplement in many processed foods, and is also available in vitamin pill form, including multi-vitamins. Vitamin B12 can be supplemented in healthy subjects also by liquid, transdermal patch, nasal spray, or injection and is available singly or in combination with other supplements.

Eat a fruit you have never tried

I went to Weight Watchers and I had lost 1.8 pounds since last week. I did try to0. When I went out of town, I brought a bag and little cooler of my own food. I counted my points for about one-half the week.

Hey, I am watching Good Morning America and they are saying get rid of all your conveniences. Get rid of the garage door opener, the remote control, the electric can opener etc.

Anyway, now I am two-tenths of a pound overweight. ( Actually 2.2 pounds overweight) I had been at goal for months and months. I go to Weight Watchers ever week even though I don’t have to. But going keeps me at goal…or catches me when I get overweight. The ladies there are really nice and hadn’t been charging me even though I was weighing in slightly over-weight for the past few weeks. Last week the charged me…$12.00. Maybe that’s what I needed.

Anyway, this week’s challenge is to eat a fruit I have never eaten previously. Well, that will be hard because I tried to eat local AND organic. I don’t there is a fruit I haven’t eaten that is local. Hmmm…maybe dandelion greens?

I will go to the chiropractor again in a few minutes for a laser treatment on my foot.

Julie’s Organic Ice Cream

mmmmmmmmn goooooood!!!

Thursday morning: Hi blog friends. I have been very busy and found this post in my draft list.  I first wrote this back in August. Wow…Lot’s have changed since then.  I live up north and the Dairy Queen opened last week, after being closed all winter. I got a small vanilla cone.  But this is a post about my favorite ice cream treat. 

(I lost weight at our last Weight Watcher’s meeting.) (I am busy trying to be gainingfully employed, figuring out our 2008 taxes with Turbo Tax and trying to figure out the Ticket to Work and AATakecharge.) So enjoy this post.

Naturalgal

 

August 2008

A couple days ago I told you what I had for dinner and said we had a treat of Julie’s Organic Ice Cream….I couldn’t find the website for it because I thought it said, “Jules,” but it was “Julie’s” ….I don’t know why it didn’t show up in the web search…anyway….that is really good stuff.

Here’s the website

Oh, my goodness! I just figured out the point in this. You use a slide-rule type card that you get from Weight Watchers and take the calories….270 and line it up with the dietary fiber…..NONE in this case. You you then pull up the card in the window and line it up….yikes it 7 points!!!! practically a meal.  If you have this slide-rule type thing it is easy to figure out the points…

Organic, It’s worth it.

I found this unique advertising campaign for Organic products.

There is lots of great information on this link Organic Its Worth It.

Remember, just because it is organic doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a lot of sugar or fat…so choose wisely.

Remember my Cliff Bar?

My first blogiversity, totally weaned off psych drugs

<good [Feb. 2008]   bad>   

What’s in the meat [Feb.12, 2008] and A good meal to soothe the soul

This week Gianna posted that it was her second blogiversary, at the time I remembered when I began reading her blog. I tried to leave her comments every day to encourage her. I was so excited to read about what she was doing and wanted to encourage her to keep going.

As I read about her second blogiversary, I began thinking that my blogiversary must be coming up too. I am totally of psych meds. [I reluctantly added a blood pressure med a couple months ago. Read about that here .] I made my first real post on February 7, 2008. I posted much of February, none in March, and in April I started going great guns for posting. In fact a really popular post was on April 28 as a cheat sheet for purchaing organic food.

I waver back and forth….am I a recovery story or not?  I have made a new life for myself. NO ONE would ever suspect the problems I had a few years ago. I am on disability and working to get off. [I remember when I wet the bed, drooled, sounded drunk and couldn’t remember something a person just told me two minutes previously.] Now, I sometimes worry that people will think I am taking advantage of the disability because I am so stable and seem so productive. But in the back of my mind, I wonder, “Can I really support myself? Would I ‘go nuts’ if I had a “competitive job.” ?  My marriage has never been that good. Can I support myself if I leave my husband? Right now I work out of my home. I set my own hours. I work when I want. I wonder, “If I had a boss, would I crack?” In that past, I have had huge difficulties working for other people. Often in organizations I would be scapegoated by my co-workers and belittled by my boss.

Interesting enough, my present husband, [whom I am separated from because of verbal abuse] always had faith in me as a sane person. He worries that I will get in trouble for receiving benefits. He never knew me as that drooling fool or the wigged out anxiety-ridden, crazy-woman. When he met me I was on Zyprexa, working part time as a hostess, and living in HUD housing. [I was so relieved to receive the benefits, they allowed me to spend time with my daughter and not struggle for money. My hostess job was only 10 to 15 hours a week.] I visited a county-supported doctor at the a mental health agency, and since I was so poor I didn’t have to pay. I told her I didn’t want to take Zyprexa or Risperdal every day. [And I didn’t have any prescription coverage to pay for it.] So she allowed me to see her every two weeks to monitor my mood and nip a mania or depression in the bud. [I would take Risperdal at those times and only for  a couple weeks.]

I truly feel like  a new person. I am trying to work with a program named AAATakecharge. It is an Internet based program for people who have the “Ticket to Work.”

I feel bad about not posting too much lately and not commenting on other’s blogs, but I have been working very hard to be gainfully employed. I find that reading blogs. commenting on other blogs and writing my own can be very time consuming, but so therapeutic.

Eating Clif bars

 

The other day I purchased a Clif Builder’s bar. I thought I hadn’t been eating right because I have been under  quite a bit of stress and very busy. I am not sure how healthy this bars are. Since I haven’t eaten or fixed much meat lately I choose the 20g protien peanut butter.

Here are the ingredients:  Soy Protein Isolate, Chicory Syrup, Organic Brown Rice Syrup, Organic Evaporated Cane Juice, Palm Kernel Oil, Organic Rolled Oats, Unsweetened Chocolate, Cocoa, Organic Soy Protein Concentrate, Vegetable Glycerin, Natural Flavors, Organic Dry Roasted Almonds, Rice Starch, Cocoa Butter, Inulin (Chicory Extract), Organic Milled Flaxseed, Organic Oat Fiber, Organic Sunflower Oil, Soy Lecithin, Salt.

So what do you think….healthy or not?

They have a pretty cool website and even a dietitian named Tara who answers questions.

5 pesticide ladened foods to avoid

I try to eat organic, but I can’t always. Last night I took cut up organic celery and some orange sections to my support group. The orange was not organic.  I was the only one to eat it…everyone else was eating chips. I ate some chips too, but they were those blue chips. I also sneaked some chocolate.

Can’t afford organic all the time?  Here are the foods you should always try to get organic because of the use of pesticides on the non-organic. See this link.

 

5 non organic pesticide foods to avoid

1.peaches, apples, sweet bell peppers, celery, strawberries

See the whole story from Care2 here:

How much salt should I have?

I have high blood pressure. I try to reduce my salt intake, but how much salt should an adult have:  Here is an article from WebMD

Watch Out for Salt

he national blood pressure guidelines recommend limiting sodium to no more than 2,400 milligrams a day (about 1 teaspoon of table salt). By staying on a sodium-restricted diet, your systolic blood pressure (top number) may drop 2 to 8 points

Tip: Substitute herbs for salt when cooking and avoid processed meats and canned foods.

The  DASH diet is Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension or the DASH diet is a diet promoted by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (part of the NIH, an organisation part of the government of the USA) to control hypertension. Learn more here.

 

I look at the DASH diet and I find that it is really hard for me to eat as much fruits as vegetables as I need.  I go for comfort and not as much chewing…well I don’t know if that is really true…but I can grab a banana, or eat some yogurt much easier than a crunching apple or taking the time to peel an orange or prepare a salad.

Last night I went to an event and ate some carrot cake…because it was easy to eat.

Going out to eat makes it about impossible to have low salt. With hubby and I being separated, we do like to meet at restaurants, event he organic restaurants seem to have too much salt in there dishes.

This Christmas someone gave me some soup mix. I was so hungry yesterday noon that I was going to make some soup…but  look at this, it has 1190 mg of sodium!!!! half of an adults daily intake.   The name of it is Country Gardens Cuisine: Three Cheese Potato Soup from Comfort Foods, Inc.

So, I mixed just a tad of it with a rice pilaf I had boiled the day before and then I added some organic free-range chicken broth, low sodium, from Pacific Natural Foods.

The 20 worst foods in America.

I have seen the book, but I have never purchased it because I don’t go out to eat that much… at least at non-organic restaurants, but I did find this story interesing:

The 20 Worst Foods in America

Tricking the brain: Take small steps…weight….or meds

Research supports my previous post:

Take small steps, an article. 

It is also what Flylady and the Organizer Lady preach too!