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Sulforaphane is a chemical they’ve found in foods we already know are really good for you like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, watercress, etc. In our search for wonder drugs, we obliterate these foods in test tubes and isolate their contents on a molecular level to see what they’re made of.
Read MoreNitrates are thought to work better by increasing blood flow to our skeletal muscle bed, so the vessels that carry the oxygenated blood to our working muscle groups become physically wider so we get more air in. More air in equals a hotter fire. Theoretically, this suggests our endurance capacity is increased because we can run at a higher pace for longer before fatiguing.
Read MoreAll proteins are not created equal at all—no! Even meat proteins vary from animal to animal. Beef has more fat and iron while chicken, for example, tends to be a leaner source of proteins. Fish is again high fat and high protein but has different types of fats than red meat—often considered the good fats, but I’m not sure I agree with that sentiment entirely. Whey protein comes from cow milk, and plant proteins….well those come from plants.
Read MoreSo, let’s talk about oxygen. Oxygen is an unstable gas and our body takes advantage of that instability to produce energy. Part of the process of energy production involves disrupting electrons and spinning them through the little batteries in our cells called the mitochondria. Most of these reactions are very well controlled but sometimes some of the electrons escape. This is when the trouble begins.
Read MoreAt Spinaca, we talk a lot about health and wellness in the context of food, which makes sense. After all, launching, improving and maintaining good health has so much to do with what and how we eat.
Read MoreSaturated fats have definitely gotten a bad name over the years. Saturated fats, when digested, generally go through a double loop around the body because fats find it difficult to dissolve in our blood which is a water-based environment and most people recognise fats and water don’t mix very well. So fats are transported via our lymphatic systems which is a little bit like the back roads if our arteries and veins are the freeways.
Read MoreThe concept of restricting the intake of key macro or micronutrients (unless for medical reasons) does not sit well with me and in my mind can’t ever be particularly healthy because it means our bodies will missing key components that we need to help provide us with energy, make things and generally function as, you know, humans.
Read MoreIts that time of year isn’t it!? Odds are most of us took a minute or two this month to think about our health and how to get fitter and healthier for 2019. New Year, new attitude, right? We hit the gym and chow down on spinach and celery juice for all of two days or two weeks if we’re lucky…..then it’s back to coffee and chocolate! People often ask me how to make that new New Years Resolution of better diet and exercise stick. Well, I’ll tell ya. I have three simple tips to help you out.
Read MoreGod said, ‘I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board.’ So God made a farmer.
-Paul Harvey, 1978
Read MoreLast month, the journal Pediatrics came out with a study of how common, FDA-approved food additives threaten children’s health. The results were grim, underscoring the fact that the United States is woefully behind much of the world in regulating toxic ingredients like phthalates, artificial colors, and preservatives like nitrates and nitrites…and how the development of our children’s endocrine, nervous, and reproductive systems are at stake.
Read MoreIncreasing the availability of nitrates in our diet means we don’t need to rely on internal mechanisms to produce this compound and can react to challenges on the arterial system quicker. There is also a lot of evidence to show that a healthy more elastic arterial system is associated with a significant reduction in mortality from a cardiovascular event.
Read MoreIf you’re anything like me, it can be a struggle to stick to a healthy balanced diet when you get hit with the hustle and bustle of life. You get caught up at the office and the next thing you know you’re grabbing the #1 from the closest fast food chain and devouring it in your car. Throw traveling into the mix, and now you’re living off of whatever healthy snack you can find at the gas station or airport.
Read More“Gut health” is such a huge buzz-term right now and people are flocking to health food stores to stock up on probiotics, etc. Can you start by telling us what “gut health” really means on a physiological level and why it is so important?
Read MoreAs I mentioned in my last post, as a vegetable farmer, I’m always on a mission to get more produce and diversity into my kids’ diets. I credit my own mom with influencing my approach on this, as she always said “A little of everything, not a lot of one thing.” I’ve never forgotten that and take it to heart as a parent.
Read MoreMost people know about antioxidants but, what they are “anti” against is perhaps less well known. Buckle in, here we go. In the mid-1950’s a truly brilliant Scientist proposed the “free radical theory of aging”—also sometimes referred to as the oxygen paradox—that says, “That which gives us life also takes it”.
Read MoreWe’ve been talking over the last year about the health benefits of eating vegetables in their many different forms, whether fresh, juiced, blended or, of course, as powders. On a personal level, I’m a great lover of veg, and not just because I work in agriculture. My mantra at home―the one that makes my kids roll their eyes―is “Gotta have a veg!” At my house, we eat a veggie with every meal because, if I’m promoting the value of vegetables in my profession, I think it’s important to practice what I preach in my personal life and my diet.
Read MoreIn this blog series, we ask Dr. Fogarty, a nutrition and exercise expert from the UK, to weigh in on how eating vegetables affect our health and athletic performance.
Read MoreGilroy, CA, April 16, 2018—Spinaca Farms, known for growing, packing and procuring conventional and certified organic produce for the fresh market, announced the launch of their Root-to-Shoot program that maximizes crop utility for American farmers while supplying high-quality domestic vegetable products to the rapidly expanding functional foods market.
Read MoreIf you count potato chips, a lot of Americans have been eating a semi-plant-based diet for years… which begs the question: What exactly is a plant-based diet? Researchers at the American College of Cardiology recently studied three iterations of plant-based diets to find that, while a higher intake of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables was associated with a “substantially lower risk of heart disease,” a plant-based diet that emphasized “less healthy plant foods like sweetened beverages, refined grains, potatoes and sweets had the opposite effect.”
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