The Wheatgrass Habit- August Article

PROTEIN: MYTHS AND TRUTHS
Dead Protein versus Living Protein found in Sprouts
By KK Fowlkes

High protein diets seem to have been the fad for many years now. Many experts recommend as much as one to two grams of protein per day per pound of body weight in order to maintain and build the body. This can amount to 175 grams or more of protein for a person weighing 175 lbs !! When a person eats that many grams of protein per day, where does he get it? In many third world countries, people get their protein from a diet of rice and beans. In the United States and other western countries, we get our protein from a mixture of beef, fish, chicken and dairy products. These forms provide protein, but also contain a high amount of saturated fats! Animal protein in the form of a steak, a burger or a cheese pizza, no doubt tastes good, but is this form of protein helping our health?
Or are we in fact getting too much protein?

“The average American eats about twice as much protein than what is actually required. Some people, in the pursuit of thinness, are going on high-protein diets and are eating up to four times the amount of protein that their body needs. Protein deficiency is certainly not a problem in America . So exactly how much protein does your body really need? Much less than you think. According to the American Heart Association and the National Institutes of Health, as little as 50-60 grams of protein is enough for most adults. This breaks down to about 10-12% of total calories. Your body only needs 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight. To calculate the exact amount you need, multiply your ideal weight by 0.36. This will give you your optimum daily protein requirement in grams. Since the amount of protein needed depends on the amount of lean body mass and not fat, ideal weight is used instead of actual weight. Infants, children, pregnant and nursing women require more protein.” (Monique N. Gilbert, High Protein Diets—Are You Losing More than Weight?)

There is no doubt that protein is essential for the health of the body. The source from which we get our protein is a MAJOR KEY TO HEALTH!!

We have found through our study of the Ann Wigmore program, that there is a protein that one can obtain through a diet of living foods. Adding all kinds of sprouts to the diet can furnish LIVING protein to the starving cells of the body. Cooked protein does not furnish the body with the nutrients it needs to thrive and regenerate. Only living protein can do this.
How can we do this without having our food become bland and uninteresting? We like smoothies for breakfast!

To have a living breakfast, we take:

2 or 3 cups of fresh squeezed grapefruit juice or orange juice,
1 organic banana,
2 to 3 T. fresh ground flax seed (for the Omega oil)
1/3 cup to 1/2 cup of a mixture of sprouted bean, lentil, mung, garbanzo, peas, alfalfa, or broccoli---whatever sprouted seeds we have on hand. (We have a protein powerhouse mixture on the website.)
BLEND.

It has a great taste! Sometimes we also eat a few dried olives. We love this breakfast! If you haven't yet learned how easy it is to sprout, we have added some great mixtures and sprouting seeds to our website, along with some different kinds of sprouters. Please see our Sprouting Supplies.

SPROUTING SUGGESTIONS:
We have many interesting sprouters on our website now. We like the easy sprouter for its ease and convenience, and the Sprout Garden for its ability to sprout many types of sprouts at the same time. It is important to sprout the seeds for about 3 days and then put the whole thing in the refrigerator, especially in the heat of the summer. The sprouts will continue to grow. We take what we need each day, re-arrange the sprouts with a fork, and rinse, then putting the container back into the fridge. We also like to put sprouts in a bowl, squeeze with lemon juice, salt and cayenne pepper. Delicious!

Benefits of Broccoli Sprouts

I read an article today on Wikipedia about Sulforaphane, an antimicrobial compound found in many sprouts especially young broccoli sprouts. We have recently had many calls for broccoli sprouts and broccoli capsules and have had such good feedback on the benefits people have experienced. Here is the article:

"Sulforaphane is an anticancer and antimicrobial compound that can be obtained by eating cruciferous vegetables such as brussel sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy, kale, collards, arugula, broccoli sprouts, chinese broccoli, broccoli raab, kohlrabi, mustard, turnip, radish, watercress and cabbage. The enzyme myrosinase transforms glucoraphanin (a glucosinolate) into sulforaphane upon damage to the plant (such as from chewing). The young sprouts of broccoli and cauliflower are particularly rich in glucoraphanin.The anticancer activity of sulforaphane is thought to be related to the induction of phase-II enzymes of xenobiotic transformation (such as quinone reductase and glutathione S-transferase), and enhancing the transcription of tumor suppressor proteins.[citation needed]Consumption of broccoli sprouts has shown to be effective at inhibiting Helicobacter pylori growth[1] with sulforaphane being at least one of the active agents[2].Sulforaphane and Diindolylmethane (another compound from Brassica vegetables) have recently been shown to synergize together in the inhibition of cancer growth. Wikipedia®"

More info on broccoli sprouts and broccoli capsules!

Wheatgrasskits.com Acquires HandyPantry.com

Springville, UT (PRWEB) April 11, 2007 – Wheatgrasskits.com a leading ecommerce site for wheatgrass growing kits, supplies and wheat grass juicers recently concluded the purchase of Pheonix, Arizona based HandyPantry.com. Kaitlin Moller, President of Living Whole Foods, Inc., parent company of Wheatgrasskits.com said: “The addition of HandyPantry.com to our family of our living food websites nicely rounds out our product offering. Handy Pantry has been a leading supplier of certified organic sprouting seed, sprouters to grow sprouts for over ten years, and we are thrilled with that addition to our living food business.”

In addition to Internet ecommerce sales of sprouting supplies, Handy Pantry also wholesales a complete line of sprouting supplies to retail health food stores nationwide. The company plans to improve product offerings and continue to develop the wholesale channel. Living Whole Foods, Inc. has moved the operations of Handy Pantry from Phoenix to their headquarters in Springville, Utah, and is in the process of expanding into a 5500 sq. ft. production facility to accommodate growth.

About Wheatgrasskits.com

Wheatgrasskits.com was founded in 2000 to provide organic kits, supplies and juicers. In addition to a full line of wheatgrass growing supplies, Wheatgrasskits.com also offers other living food products including composting supplies, trace mineral fertilizers, soy milk making supplies and kits to grow sprouts and herbs.

About HandyPantry.com

Handy Pantry has been providing a full line of certified organic sprouting seed and other sprouting supplies for over ten years through health food stores nation wide, and direct through the company website.

Contact Information:
Living Whole Foods, Inc.
Kaitlin Moller
64 W. 600 N. Suite 2
Springville, Utah 84664
Phone: 801-491-8700
Fax: 801-491-8728
kaitlin@wheatgrasskits.com
www.wheatgrasskits.com
www.handypantry.com
www.herbkits.com
www.soykits.com

Tech Sprouts!

Food as Medicine Trend

In a recent report in the Magazine "Natural Products Insider" Steve French reports that two out of five consumers believe functional foods can be used in the place of some medicines (this is a 54% increase since 2003). People are getting the message that we can get healthy through our diet!

My sister says she looks for foods with Calcium in them because she knows that she does not get enough. Wouldn't it be amazing if everyone had a little health monitor with them when they shopped and prepared meals? The monitor would tell them what vitamins and living enzymes their body really needed in order for them to feel more energy and stem predispostion to diseases. I have a feeling the monitor would tell us to eat more living fruits, veggies and lots more sprouts! I know my monitor danger alert would sound as soon as I reached for a piece of non-organic, greasy pizza!

Raw Food Reads...

My new focus is raw food, sprouts and everything living! My dad, my sister and I set new year's resolution to eat as much raw food as we could. My mom has been living raw food for as many years as I can remember and now it is time for us to listen!

One book that has really helped me to understand the benefits of a raw food diet and wheatgrass is called "Enzyme Nutrtition" by Edward Howell. He explains why it is so vital for our body to get live enzymes in our food. I recently was at a vitamin store and they had a wall of products labeled "Raw Food". The products on this wall were all bottled powders and dead tablets. I couldn't believe it. This must be the techinical difference between living and raw food. By reading Edward Howell's book you can seen exactly how living food creates energy in your body to heal and to cleanse.

Raw Rules

Just posted our January 2007 Wheatgrass Habit

By Abby Weingarten

Beth Pratt's home page: www.deliciouslyfit.com
Permission to reprint article from Beth Pratt

Catalysts for self-change can come in many forms.Mine was food. For years, it was my addiction, my ultimate safety. Even in kindergarten, I would hide Halloween candy under my bed and sneak it out by nightlight. I'd
forage through my friends' cabinets and scarf down whatever pops and puffs of sugared cereal I'd find on the shelves.

By the time I could drive, it was McDonald's and I all the way. It tasted good. And I was hungry. I was always so hungry. Hungry for something, and never full, no matter how many double cheeseburgers I could fit in one sitting. I was tired, depressed, and just sick.

It wasn't alcohol. It wasn't illegal drugs. I didn't need ID to do it. I didn't even have to reach a certain age.

But I could treat my body like a trash bin with no repercussions. So I took full advantage.

No one teaches us in school that this is wrong, that it affects every facet of our psyches, to the point where we literally prove that old maxim: You are what you eat.

Seeking guidance

I needed help. I couldn't do it alone.

The more labels I read and the more opposing facts I downloaded, the more I yearned for a logical filter. I'd start a diet regimen only to discover, through my own skeptical research, how unhealthy it was. Search after Google search brought me to the raw food movement.

The little I knew about this was from a "Sex and the City" episode, in which the girls head to the Manhattan restaurant

Raw, where one of the show's characters, Miranda Hobbes, describes a cold summer vegetable soup as "a lawn in a bowl."

I was quick to assume raw foodists were monklike renegades who lived off wheatgrass shots and barley smoothies.

Then I met Beth Pratt, who debunked all those myths and helped me reshape my eating habits.

In a culture of quick fixes -- get in, get out, pop a pill, starve, purge, put the weight back on, listen to the audiobook, watch the infomercial and buy more products -- her mentoring stood out. It was almost unfathomable that a real person could come to your house, teach you how to prepare meals, retrain your muscles and map out your lifetime goals.

"I've always been a truth-seeker, wanting to help people cut through the fat," Pratt said. "I've been on every supplement there is. I've tried Suzanne Somers' diet. I've tried Atkins. And what upsets me with the fitness field is that there's so much conflicting information out there. People don't know what to do anymore."

Pratt is a chef and teacher certified by Living on Live Food with a background
in structural and postural therapy. At San Diego State University, she majored in athletic training and exercise physiology and was an anatomical functionalist at the Egoscue Clinic in Del Mar, Calif.

For more than 14 years, through her holistic-focused company BFiT Biomechanics
Fitness Therapy, she offered nutritional consultations and assessments throughout Boston, Scottsdale, Ariz., Las Vegas and San Diego.

In May, she moved to Sarasota, changed her business title to Deliciously Fit, and began holding raw classes at Whole Foods Market and her Bradenton home.

I enrolled in her "2-Week Fitness & Raw Challenge," in which she took me grocery shopping, introduced me to decadent recipes, improved my body's alignment and showed me the art of dining well.

"I've always been on the 'why' path. I was always trying to get fit and healthy and be the best I could be," Pratt said. "It's challenging to say, 'Where can I take it? What's that top level?'"

Learning to change

Simply put, going raw is going back to Earth's natural resources: nuts, fruits, sea and land vegetables, sprouted grains, beans and legumes (though some diets include raw meat, eggs and unpasteurized milk). Alone, these
ingredients sound unappetizing and bland, and they often are. But creative combinations yield mouthwatering results.

"Getting down to the basics of fruits and vegetables and what comes from nature, you find out what's real," Pratt said. "Just eating an apple is boring to me. You can do so much else with it, and that's what makes it exciting."

Consider a chocolate mousse made of avocado, almond butter, dates, almond milk, cacao powder and agave nectar. Or a torte made of raisins, walnuts, dates and fresh lemon juice.

A common question about the raw food diet is: Where are the protein and calcium sources? Almonds are rich in both, as are sesame and sunflower seeds, raw carob, Brazil nuts and green leafy vegetables.

"We are programmed to believe that the only source of protein is from animals," Pratt noted, "but actually, plant-source foods contain a good amount of protein and calcium that is actually easier for the body to
utilize and digest."

When food is cooked above 118 F, essential nutrients like vitamins, minerals and enzymes are lost, raw food advocates say. Amino acids, the building blocks of protein, begin to deteriorate at that temperature and are completely destroyed at 160 F.

Raw protein is considered to be more digestible by the human body because the amino acids and digestive enzymes are intact; heavily cooked foods are devoid of these enzymes, making them more likely to sit in the colon and increase the risk of disease.

Victoria Boutenko's book "Green for Life" explains that, because plants contain chlorophyll, which is similar in composition to human blood, humans are more able to process it. The amino acids in animal proteins are not
as readily available to the bloodstream. In her book "Living on Live Food," Alissa Cohen, one of the main
proponents of the raw diet, explains:

"It can take years for our bodies to begin to break down from the dietary abuse we have heaped upon them. Our youth can cover a host of progressive, diet-related problems, which, when they do surface years later, we simply
assume that they are part of the 'aging process.' It doesn't have to be that way!"

In every diet I attempted, something was always forbidden. Switching to raw, from my perspective, was more about indulgence than abstention.

"For so many years in fitness, it was about what you can't have," Pratt said. "Now I can eat as much as I want of this, without any guilt, and it's healthy for me!"

Feeding my soul

There was something far deeper than food in this for me. When I learned to be aware of everything I put into my body, I found myself more conscious of everything in my life. The environment seemed to matter more. Spirituality made sense. The less toxic I was on the inside, the less irritable I felt. I didn't have to physically recover from my meals or the self-inflicted effects of junk bingeing. But I had to truly look at myself and figure out, "Why do I really need this?" and "What void am I filling?" And then, I could move on.

"I think, sometimes people don't really want to take on the challenge. They would rather take it in a pill or a drink," Pratt said. "I made a conscious decision that I'm not going to talk anybody into anything anymore. People that come to me have to be people that are ready to hear this information."

I was ready.