DETERMINING ORGANIC?

One of my writer friends just emailed me to ask me how do I determine if a product is GMO? Well I haven't done tons of research yet, but generally the big products: corn, soybeans, canola, etc are mostly GMO. Here is what the USDA reported. Almost 100% of soybeans are GMO! Soymilk and Tofu lovers beware!

So simply put if you are feeding yourself and/or your children processed foods they're likely to have hidden high fructose corn syrup and be GM (Genetically Modified). I don't think our bodies can process this!

In addition there's a simpler test to know if your farmer/grocer is being honest about their produce. How long does it last? Organic tends to go bad faster. At Gustorganics restaurant you can even see the dessert tray of fruits go brown right in front of you eyes while you sit there! Doesn't affect the taste at all.

I had a really cute experience the other day. One of my clients told me that she had to buy organic lemons because the store was sold out of regular lemons. She said she never knew lemons could have such a full taste or could be so juicy. Then she commented on how they didn't last very long. After such a fulfilling experience in taste with the lemons and seeing my weight fall of she never wants to go back to industrial fruit!

So the moral of the story is stay away from processed foods. We hear it all of the time, but it's literally killing us!!! Do your homework. Find out what you can buy locally. The more we support independent farmers the more food options there will be because right now outside of NYC organic is almost impossible!

AND THE RESULTS ARE IN!

I had a hunch my weight problem was from industrial foods. Since I have lost almost three sizes and was about to start the cleanse I felt it was time to finally weigh myself. In fact my colleague insisted on it so she could record the effects I was having from the cleanse.

I am happy to report I have gone from 282+ lbs in january to 246 lbs as of a couple of days ago. How wonderful is that? In fact if you don't believe it my gym has my stats on file after they tried wrestling me in for personal training sessions. I'm slowly losing substantial weight not by dieting, but by changing the source of my food.

It has been a difficult journey. It has definitely been anti-social, but now I'm beginning to see changes in how the people around me look at food. My changes are fueling their desire to change. It's not depriving myself of anything, but fortifying my body with delicious food.

BUT given I was sick last year I will see if this loss continues to happen. So far the cleanse has made me a bit hungry which I'm sure is lowering my metabolism as we speak!

Keep you posted on the progress!!!!!

KEEP IT CLEAN

As promised I am now into day two of CLEAN, the 21 day detox program that is hitting Hollywood like wildfire. I am usually the LAST one to hit a trend when there is one. Still don't use an IPod and I barely made it on to MySpace which I've only used less than a handful of times.

My colleague is big into cleanses. I however am not for several reasons. One is that it takes me months to revive someone's skin after they have done so. The skin is our largest organ and it can sometimes give us glimpse into what is going on inside the body. That makes me think that the vitamins and minerals that we deprive our cells from over an extended period of time can cause adverse effects when it comes to aging after what I have already observed from most cleanses.

BUT I do think that we are eating waaaay too much crap as a society and food choices tend to have a certain domino effect that can spiral out of control. A lot of people out there need a jump start. I like that Gwyneth Paltrow wrote so openly about her experience for her online mag called GOOP. You can see her post about the cleanse here. It's good when a celebrity takes the position of being a positive role model for whatever reason it is that they do.

If you don't have time right now to go to her excerpt I'm going to give you CLEAN in a nutshell. 21 days. Shake in the morning and evening with supplements. One meal in the middle of the day with foods like wild salmon and lots of greens. Your one meal has to be clean as well. The first thing you do in the morning is take a probiotic (which I like) and then your supplements at both shake times. I know I have a problem with one supplement because it contains oil of oregano which I am allergic to, but I'll do it anyway until I think it's causing a problem. Oregano is fantastic at killing candida which is one of the things that causes yeast infections in women.

If you want to lose weight you mix your shake with water. In this case I would like to get the most out of my money and take advantage of that part of the cleanse. IF you do it that way it will taste like you've been soaking your cereal in water overnight. Unless you are hard core I recommend mixing the shake with almond milk and blueberries for taste!!!!!

So far my side effects have been great amounts of fatigue. I wish I had started this on the weekend. I'm going to really miss my supplements that I take for energy as well. When I went to switch over to organic I had a much heavier detoxification effect. My skin was blistering. I had constant chills and headaches and felt like I was about to come down with the flu. Up until my meal right now I have just been hungry and tired.

My colleague who has been a raw vegan, cleanses constantly, and frequents her colonic therapist has had headaches and lots of fatigue. It sounds like this cleanse is hitting her much harder. Knowing she is getting a response tells me that this could be an effective cleanse. Time will only tell

LOOKING BACK

This week a big change is going to happen. Being that my business is about testing products both myself and one of the girls that works with me have decided to test out a very popular cleansing program called CLEAN. At first I thought it was a fad that some of my celebs were doing, but when I spoke to one of the partners that I happened to be friends with, he told me that the cleanse was manufactured by a company I know with a superb reputation.

Given that my business is about anti-aging I wanted to see what would happen to my skin on this cleanse as well as the structure of my face. The great thing is if something goes wrong I have all of the tools to repair it.

This is why I'm taking this time right now to post my latest before (left) and after (right) images from when I first started organic because up until this moment the whole experiment was solely about changing the source of my food. The after photo is even me with only 3 hours of sleep, getting over an allergy attack and infection, and being under severe stress. My eyes are so much wider. What's really interesting is you couldn't see my earring in the before photo because of how wide my face was versus the after. I think my neck even looks like it's almost half the size!

So the moral of the story here is organic is making some physical changes with me. The cleanse that I plan going on I will explain in the next post. It lasts 21 days.
In the beginning my body already went through a major cleansing process going through organic so it will be interesting to see what happens on a planned cleanse!

GIVE ME TRANSPARENCY!

GMO. Short for Genetically Modified Organism. GMO according to the industrial world is also known as farming productivity. I am never one to stand in the way of science, but the idea of altering the course of nature for the rest of time just does not sit well with me. Once you go down this road one can never come back.

It is not science and changing nature that scares me. It's using bacteria or a virus to change that plant's DNA. That virus or bacteria is now part of the plant. It is not friendly bacteria either. It is meant to invade. Feeding our bodies with these mutated plants just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

There are consequences to our industrial farming practices. People out there are getting sicker than ever! We have more cancers than ever. Could it be that we are getting this cancer because we are not getting good foods to fight off free radicals?
We are also not getting enough minerals because the minerals are being depleted from our soil. Did you know that our bodies don't even produce minerals naturally? Did you know that without minerals our cells can't function properly?

My friends the reason I am writing this post is for one reason. It has been brought to my attention that the current administration like it's past one is allowing our food companies to get away with hiding what happens to our food. The europeans won't let them get away with that, but we don't make companies accountable as consumers in any way in this country!

It's not about making companies stop what they are doing. Everyone should be free to do what they want to do. That's the problem in the first place. Everyone is trying to control everyone. It's about allowing people to do what they want and make the choices that they want.

I want to know where my food is coming from and what they are doing!
If that is important to you as well I encourage you to read this article and sign the petition. Please pass this along to others you think might care.

We still might have a chance!

A NEW EXPERIENCE

Tonight was a late night with clients for me. It's around 11pm and my last client just left, but not before she ordered us in some grilled chicken, grilled vegetables, and brown rice from Gustorganics. She's not one to really go crazy for vegetables, but since she was with me she thought she'd be open about it.
After we finished our meals in the salon she said that she was very impressed and couldn't wait to try other things! Then she went on to ask what was on the vegetables to make them taste so good? I asked her what she meant by that? She said that the vegetables had so much flavor! I laughed and told her 'that flavor' is what a vegetable is supposed to taste like. I explained to her this was what I felt I was missing in my food from the time I came to New York: taste!!!! She's lived here her whole life so she really didn't have the perspective I have of eating food grown right in our own gardens!
Just goes to show positive lifestyle choices can bring about positive change!

IT'S TEA TIME

There's a new coffee/tea shop that kicks another chain's ass in so many ways. First of all can I say I am so glad that large means large?

The place is called Argo Tea. They really bring in the art of tea. The shop that is next to my office in the flatiron district reminds me a bit of a tokyo tea bar with their bubble and signature teas. Just the idea of a strawberry green tea alone makes my mouth water! The coffee is not only organic, but certified fair trade. You can also get your milk organic as a "topper".

I also love that they are in the spirit of giving back to the artist community. 10% of all of their proceeds at this cafe goes to GenArt. I almost feel like a coffee shop should always be synonymous to the artist anyway, not Oprah's book pick of the month!

I've always told my overseas friends that the art of tea and tea time is what is missing from this country. There could be a lot of healing through tea.

Back to the health and nutrition Argo states: "We've created our own unique blends of Signature Drinks that are all naturally fresh, healthy, and distinctive. Always made from real ingredients that are free of any artificial flavorings, colors, or additives."

Amen!

A LITTLE PERSPECTIVE

I was eating once again at Gustorganics the other day in NYC and found that they were promoting a new film called FRESH.

I feel that the more we know about our food and its sources the better decisions we can make. I personally have not seen it yet and the screenings are not available in my area at this minute, but they do give the option to buy your own DVD.

I wonder how/ if this could be any different or better than the FUTURE OF FOOD was or FOOD, INC? I guess I'll have to let you know. They say that the movie is about people trying to rethink the food system. Our current industrial model has "consequences" which include "environmental pollution, depletion of natural resources, food contamination, and obesity."

One thing that I do know if that there is no restaurant I feel better than eating at than Gustorganics AND I know he has integrity. How I feel at the end of that meal is becoming the most important thing to me! Oh and p.s. when can you ever eat a huge bowl of pesto pasta with 3 heapings of parmesan cheese and still lose weight?!

IT'S ABOUT DEMOCRACY

We were founded upon choices and truths in this country. I've already seen how much making choices from better sourced foods has directly made an impact on my health. The results so far are clearer skin and and a continuous decrease in my size. While the results have slowed down a bit (probably from the volumes of food I can eat from time to time), my body seems to continue to undergo changes.

I like knowing I live in a country with a president that told us WE can make changes. It took a close friend of mine from another country to send this petition to me and make me aware that transparent farming and food practices could be on the horizon here in America.

You can have your crap out there, but I want to be able to nourish my body with better foods that aren't the result of a lab experiment that could go very wrong in the future. I know I want food that tastes like food and won't leave me sick for hours while my body tries to digest it! I want to pick up a piece of fruit or a vegetable and bite into it and taste the full flavor nature has to offer. I know I have personally suffered long enough.

Please sign and pass this petition along to your friends. Let's really make a difference!

CULTURE SHOCK!

The other day I had to go to the east side of Harlem for a doctor visit and decided it would be a great idea to visit the Pathmark grocery store that sits on 125th and Lexington. It's a pretty sizable grocery store that takes up a good 1/2 portion of the block.

I was a bit hungry and knew it could wait, but I wanted to see how much organic food I could find in the store since I was already there. I wasn't going to let the crack heads hanging out front deter me.

Walking through the isles alone was enough to give me a coronary!! In all of my life I have never seen thousands of square footage (in the form of an oral death trap) posing as a grocery store. In this photo half of the isle alone is ORANGE!!!! Cheese curls, cheese puffs, party mix with orange snack mix......unbelievable! That wasn't even the snack isle!!!

Then there was the enormous kiosk from Nabisco that held Oreos on one side and canned cheese spread on the other side. The section of chicken nuggets.....HOW MANY TYPES OF CHICKEN NUGGETS ARE THERE? The section was the equivalent size of a normal dairy section at some of the bodegas in the city!

Every which way I turned it just kept getting better. There were huge meat sections just dedicated to sausage. Then in the snack section/isle featured endless corn syrup-based sodas while opposing every brand of chip imaginable.

The produce department was pathetic. Organic or not it didn't even appeal to me. It made me imagine flies swarming over the produce like the way that an illustrator would draw for the sunday comics feature. Earthbound organic spinach seemed to be the only organic item in the entire store.

I found myself having to pick my jaw up off of the floor after my visit. What are we doing America?! No wonder we're so sick! Does Pathmark provide this type of food because that is what is affordable? Is this food a lifestyle? Do people want to see more real food available? How did it ever come to this?!?!?

FAUX FOOD LABELS

Happy Easter Everyone!

Given that a lot of businesses were closed for Easter it made me exercise moving out of my comfort zone for once to explore other options.

On my random walk around the city I spotted the opening of a new cafe called Fresh & Co.
I wanted to witness how "fresh" they were. At first they looked like any other corner deli/restaurant, but amidst the sodas and the chips they had prepackaged organic pasta dishes and fresh juices.

What really put me off was the fact that they designed their juice label to look like the USDA symbol from a distance. This is conditioning the consumer to feel a certain way about a product. This is really not cool. My patience is running thin with this kind of subliminal marketing. I'm hoping that someone brings it to the USDA's attention.

Personally I was so put off by the design that I walked out of the store. A design that was problem made to make the consumer trust their products was exactly what put me off of their products. What's worse is I have no idea if their produce is GMO or not.

How do we trust these companies?

Gonna have to really figure this one out. I'm wondering who to speak to about stricter labeling guidelines?

RESPONSIBLE CONSUMERS

I can't believe how much time has passed and how much I have already learned. It is so encouraging to see how my own changes in my life have started to impact others. I even saw one of my friends secretly start to change some of their products to organic (even though he was laughing at me in the beginning)! My brother is making his own granola. Friends are going to organic restaurants. There are exciting changes being made.

In the beginning of my journey I spoke of how Fresh Direct had included Kashi in their organic section. I also spoke about how they would not respond to how upset I was that they put items that were not organic in their organic section of their website. It's a long story, but if you go back to the beginning of the blog you can read more about it.

Right after I got the Kashi in January I found a group/note on Facebook called the Kashi Misconceptions. I posted my grievances. I was upset how we as consumers are being misled in so many ways.

This past week a woman named Lori Geiger (her photo is above) posted a little more helpful information. I asked Lori if I could post her photo and response to the thread because I admired that she exercised her right as a responsible consumer.

I really feel like we as consumers need to stop trusting everything that is handed to us. We need to really connect to the things that we put on and in our bodies.

This is what Lori posted about Kashi:

"My local food co-op store stopped carrying Kashi. :~( When asked why, they said Kashi uses genetically modified grains. Never one to believe things without confirmation, I called Kashi. They stated that they never intentionally purchase GM grains, however there is no certainty that the grains have not been contaminated at the farm level. They carry only 4 items marked organic, all cereals. Sad day in Kashi land! :o(
I do not believe this rests on the company's shoulders. If there were more oversight of the GMO or didn't use them at all on the farm, we wouldn't have this problem!"


What I love most about Lori is that she is open and not angry. There is a lot of love in what she says and no fear. She didn't trust what one person said. She went straight to the source.

Yeah Lori!