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Ever wish you felt great every day?I used to wish for the same thing so 6 years ago I set out to turn my blues into a passion to get up every day with a smile on my face and a joy to be living. How did I make my frown into a smile? That is what this website is dedicated to explaining. Each of us has the inner potential to feel great and all we need is a little help to make this happen. Hopefully, you will find the no-nonsense information on these pages helpful for you to reach your full potential! Get Wild, enjoy life and have a healthy excellent day!
Bill K. |
Current Health Article
03-26-12
A little coconut goes a long way! -to improving your memory.
Hello everyone,
How is your memory? Do you misplace things like your car keys often or get to the store and forget what you went there for? This is probably a common complaint with most people over 40 or at least we seem to notice it more at that point in life. Well this slow loss of memory has always fascinated me to some degree as I have always wondered what the actual cause of it may be. Somehow I knew it was related to our diet but could not find the key ingredient that would strengthen our thinking power. More recently I have run across some articles which have shed a little light on this subject. In the last few years we have heard increasingly about fats and fatty acids and how they are required for our body to function properly. If you walk into most food stores you are likely to see many products displaying their ability to give you your fatty acids or Omega 3‘s and 6’s, but what does this actually mean? As with most health related subjects these terms just become sort of buzz words or taglines to help sell products. This is how most of us learned about vitamin D when they started putting it on milk bottles. But just as in the milk example often the consumer product does little to actually address the problem they are advertising. Milk is a great example of this as the use of milk actually depletes the bodies vitamin D level and so the milk producers started adding it to there product to counteract this shortcoming. But in reality the body acquires vitamin D from the skins reaction to sunlight yet many people still believe that it comes from Milk. Well the same thing tends to happen with other essential nutrients. After a while we tend to think that we need to eat cereal to get fiber or eat meat to get protein. This brings us to our brain. As it turns out the brain is one of the few areas of the human body that actually loves fat. But not just any fat but those essential fats that we talked about earlier, the fatty acids. The brain itself is built of these fats. I actually found this out a long time ago when I had an interesting meal at a small French restaurant in the Georgetown area in Washington D.C. They served a dish called “Sautéed Cerveaux” which was actually a cow’s brain. As I recall it tasted very fatty thus was probably loaded with good fats or fatty acids. This may have been a somewhat unfortunate way to learn this point but it is instructive to our own cranium and its requirements for these fats. So if the brain loves fat why are most Americans, on their high fat diets, not Nobel laureates? It is because there is a marked difference in the types of fats. Fatty Acids come from natural un-processed sources such as raw flax seeds, coconuts, or avocados. Processed fats such as poly-unsaturated fats have a whole different chemical make-up. These fats actually inhibit brain functioning by clogging the arteries supplying the brain. Animal fats will cause the same issue and especially when cooked. In fact any heated oil will be toxic instead of healthy to the body. And so this gets us to my original statement. Why do we start to loose our memory over time? Clearly it is because we are taking in the wrong foods which are laden with bad fats instead of the essential fats. This same artery clogging issue is what triggers most diabetes as well. But there is still some hope. I just read an article which outlined how to help reverse dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. This article stated that great results could be obtained by giving a person raw un-processed coconut oil each day to help quickly restore their brains level of essential fats. Not sure why coconut oil works but apparently it does. Just to help prove this I bought some coconut oil which is kind of misnamed in my opinion because it has a consistency which is similar Crisco which is more of a solid. It even has the white color like Crisco. I don’t have dementia but I wanted to see if I would notice any improvement in my memory using the coconut oil. I started by taking a small teaspoon full each day to see what affect it might have. Within the first few days I noticed a small change. My ability to recall information was slightly improved. I tested myself by reading a sign in the way to work and later that day I recalled what I had read. I was able to easily do that when on most other occasions I would have struggled with that exercise. Still after several days I remember the sign. Also my recall of names was better. So far this has been a short term study so I will let you know how it goes long term. But if you know someone who is suffering from some memory issues this may be an inexpensive and safe thing to try. One note of caution is to limit the amount as coconut oil is a saturated fat albeit a healthy one.
On a side note, I noticed another good side affect to taking the small dose of coconut oil daily. My skin and hair has become super smooth and soft. Since I work a lot with my hands they are usually very rough and dry. After taking the coconut oil all of a sudden my hands became very smooth. Now, I have not stopped working or changed any other thing such as my soap so I have to attribute this change to the coconut oil. I have always read that your skin’s condition comes from the inside not the outside but this seems to help prove that.
Here are some weblinks for more info on coconut oil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_oil
www.coconutoil.com
Hope you all have a great day and make at least one change for the better each day which may now include a small bit of coconut oil.
Bill
See the articles section for past health related articles
A little coconut goes a long way! -to improving your memory.
Hello everyone,
How is your memory? Do you misplace things like your car keys often or get to the store and forget what you went there for? This is probably a common complaint with most people over 40 or at least we seem to notice it more at that point in life. Well this slow loss of memory has always fascinated me to some degree as I have always wondered what the actual cause of it may be. Somehow I knew it was related to our diet but could not find the key ingredient that would strengthen our thinking power. More recently I have run across some articles which have shed a little light on this subject. In the last few years we have heard increasingly about fats and fatty acids and how they are required for our body to function properly. If you walk into most food stores you are likely to see many products displaying their ability to give you your fatty acids or Omega 3‘s and 6’s, but what does this actually mean? As with most health related subjects these terms just become sort of buzz words or taglines to help sell products. This is how most of us learned about vitamin D when they started putting it on milk bottles. But just as in the milk example often the consumer product does little to actually address the problem they are advertising. Milk is a great example of this as the use of milk actually depletes the bodies vitamin D level and so the milk producers started adding it to there product to counteract this shortcoming. But in reality the body acquires vitamin D from the skins reaction to sunlight yet many people still believe that it comes from Milk. Well the same thing tends to happen with other essential nutrients. After a while we tend to think that we need to eat cereal to get fiber or eat meat to get protein. This brings us to our brain. As it turns out the brain is one of the few areas of the human body that actually loves fat. But not just any fat but those essential fats that we talked about earlier, the fatty acids. The brain itself is built of these fats. I actually found this out a long time ago when I had an interesting meal at a small French restaurant in the Georgetown area in Washington D.C. They served a dish called “Sautéed Cerveaux” which was actually a cow’s brain. As I recall it tasted very fatty thus was probably loaded with good fats or fatty acids. This may have been a somewhat unfortunate way to learn this point but it is instructive to our own cranium and its requirements for these fats. So if the brain loves fat why are most Americans, on their high fat diets, not Nobel laureates? It is because there is a marked difference in the types of fats. Fatty Acids come from natural un-processed sources such as raw flax seeds, coconuts, or avocados. Processed fats such as poly-unsaturated fats have a whole different chemical make-up. These fats actually inhibit brain functioning by clogging the arteries supplying the brain. Animal fats will cause the same issue and especially when cooked. In fact any heated oil will be toxic instead of healthy to the body. And so this gets us to my original statement. Why do we start to loose our memory over time? Clearly it is because we are taking in the wrong foods which are laden with bad fats instead of the essential fats. This same artery clogging issue is what triggers most diabetes as well. But there is still some hope. I just read an article which outlined how to help reverse dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. This article stated that great results could be obtained by giving a person raw un-processed coconut oil each day to help quickly restore their brains level of essential fats. Not sure why coconut oil works but apparently it does. Just to help prove this I bought some coconut oil which is kind of misnamed in my opinion because it has a consistency which is similar Crisco which is more of a solid. It even has the white color like Crisco. I don’t have dementia but I wanted to see if I would notice any improvement in my memory using the coconut oil. I started by taking a small teaspoon full each day to see what affect it might have. Within the first few days I noticed a small change. My ability to recall information was slightly improved. I tested myself by reading a sign in the way to work and later that day I recalled what I had read. I was able to easily do that when on most other occasions I would have struggled with that exercise. Still after several days I remember the sign. Also my recall of names was better. So far this has been a short term study so I will let you know how it goes long term. But if you know someone who is suffering from some memory issues this may be an inexpensive and safe thing to try. One note of caution is to limit the amount as coconut oil is a saturated fat albeit a healthy one.
On a side note, I noticed another good side affect to taking the small dose of coconut oil daily. My skin and hair has become super smooth and soft. Since I work a lot with my hands they are usually very rough and dry. After taking the coconut oil all of a sudden my hands became very smooth. Now, I have not stopped working or changed any other thing such as my soap so I have to attribute this change to the coconut oil. I have always read that your skin’s condition comes from the inside not the outside but this seems to help prove that.
Here are some weblinks for more info on coconut oil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_oil
www.coconutoil.com
Hope you all have a great day and make at least one change for the better each day which may now include a small bit of coconut oil.
Bill
See the articles section for past health related articles
Current Recipe
Detox Salad (Whole Foods)
Ingredients:
Chop the following items into small pieces about ¼ inch or so. Use equal amounts of each to suit the size you wish to make
Brocolli, Cauliflower, Carrots, Cucumber, Celery, Cucumber
Add in about 1/4 cup of the following whole:
Raisons , Red Currants, Sunflower Seeds
Instructions:
I got this recipe indirectly from Whole Foods who has this in their salad bar area. Luckily they are very good about listing all of the ingredients of each food at the bar (Probably for people with food allergies). I wrote down all of the items listed and decided to alter it slightly to make it even healthier. I omitted the salt and pepper and added celery to give it a more salty taste without the overt salt. I also added cucumber which makes a bit more refreshing. I am not listing any amounts below as they are not that important. Just put in about equal amounts of the first 6 items and then add a little bit of the rest to taste. If you like it more sweet then add more raisons and currants. Once everything is mixed then sprinkle with the lemon juice from a fresh lemon. If you are making a larger batch to use over several days then do not add the lemon until you are ready to eat. It will stay fresh longer that way. This makes a great snack or even a meal. Very healthy and good tasting!
See more recipes under the recipe tab
