I have recently had the pleasure of being interviewed on the CHLY radio program "A Sound Constitution" by Vancouver Island University nursing student Candace Buckler.
We talked about the various roles of water is human physiology, including some of the side effects of chronic dehydration, vulnerable populations, bottled water, and related health issues.
Click on the link to the podcast to hear all the latest.
Nourish Nutritional Therapy has gone back to being a mobile practice. Thanks to the good people at Heart Quest for hosting us for the summer. Take care, and we'll see you at the place of your choosing in the future.
Friendly flora, or probiotics, are defined as “live microorganisms which when consumed in adequate amounts, confer a health effect on the host”. There are between 400-700 different species of literally trillions of organisms living throughout the intestines; the greatest concentration of bacteria is in the colon, building up from the end of the small intestine in the ileum. The organisms referred to as intestinal probiotic bacteria include Lactobacillus acidophilus, L. bulgaricus, L. casei, L. rhamnosus, L. Plantarum, and the bifidobacteria Bifidobacterium bifidum, B. longum, and B. infantis. Friendly flora also includes organisms such as the yeast, Saccharomyces boulardii, which is very effective (more so than Lactobacillus or Bifidobacteria) in controlling the proliferation Clostridium difficile (C-diff) – a bacteria that is rampant in hospitals and causes potentially fatal ulcerating diarrhea.
The impact of bowel flora on health continuously being examined by medical researchers, and journals such as the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition are constantly giving us new food for thought on their importance. One recent issue to crop up and further complicate bowel health is the presence of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the food supply. GMO’s are present in 60% of processed, pre-packaged, and fast foods – all staples of Standard North American Diet. Many believe with good reason that they pose grossly under-researched potential dangers. Processed food giants Nestle, Quaker, Kraft, Nabisco, Kellogg’s, Heinz’s, Pepsi, and Coca Cola (to name a few) use common GMO ingredients and derivatives from soy, sugar, corn, canola, and cotton in virtually all of their products . Even in the EU, which has banned GMO’s for human consumption, copious amounts of GMO feed are given to livestock all over the world which are consumed by humans, and tests confirm the presence of GM DNA in animal feces, casting doubt as to the presence of any truly GMO-free food left in the world. All GMO’s have an antibiotic marker gene for identification which could confer antibiotic resistance to pathogens, and may have antibiotic properties, causing speculation that these genes could have the same negative impact on bowel flora that medicinal antibiotics do, though proper research is still pending. University of Newcastle research found that patient who had undergone a colostomy retained GM DNA in their small intestines, while those with complete bowels were able to remove all detectable traces of it, illustrating again the importance that bowel flora have in detoxifying even altered genetic material.
Probiotic bacteria are the foundation of long-term health. If you are at all concerned about your bowel and immune health, or have done a course of antibiotics, consult your health professional about your probiotic status.
I am a little slow in getting this information out, but if you are also like me and haven't been made aware yet, the Vancouver Farmers Markets are back for the summer.
Farmers markets are a great place to buy locally grown, sustainably harvested, and in many cases completely organic food. Their prices are also usually more affordable than major grocery stores, and you have the comfort of knowing that ALL of that money is going right back to the farmers. Between 1996-2006, small farm income averaged negative $10'000, while giant agricultural conglomerates, many of which, like Monsanto, are also heavily invested in genetically modified products, posted 1.88 billion dollars revenue in 2009.
Also, organic fresh fruits and vegetables have considerably higher levels of antioxidant phyto-nutrients, vitamins and minerals. Some vitamins start to degrade very quickly after a vegetable is picked. Potatoes for example are actually a good source of vitamin C (British Ship men used to use them to prevent scurvy when limes were scarce); however, they lose about 50% of their vitamin C within 2 months after picking, and they keep well. Green peas lose 77% of their vitamin C within a week of being harvested. Many types of produce may have been picked between 1-6 months prior to being put out for sale in a supermarket.
The farmers markets also have humanely raised, drug-free animal products like beef, chicken, fish, eggs and cheese for sale, home-made preserves, as well as natural cosmetics, clothing items, and delicious eat out items like crepes and smoothies.
Head out to your local market and taste, smell, and see the difference that fresh produce lovingly reared makes. Available at the following locations:
Trout Lake Farmers Market Saturdays, May 8 – October 23
9am – 2pm each week
North Parking Lot of John Hendry Park at Trout Lake
Between Templeton and Lakewood south of the 13th Avenue Alley
Please note: There is no parking in the North Lot and no parking on 13th Avenue. Please park away from the area & walk in. Or better yet: walk, cycle or take transit if you can!
Map of Market Location Interactive Market Map
West End Farmers Market Saturdays, June 5 – October 23
9am – 2pm each week
1100 Block of Comox Street across from Nelson Park at Mole Hill
Map of Market Location Interactive Market Map
Main Street Station at Thornton Park Wednesdays, June 2 – September 29
3pm – 7pm each week
1100 Block Station Street along Thornton Park across from the VIA Rail Station and near the Main St Skytrain Station
Map of Market Location Interactive Market Map
Kitsilano Farmers Market Sundays, May 23 – October 24
10am – 2pm each week
2690 Larch Street at 10th Avenue, Parking Lot of Kitsilano Community Centre
Map of Market Location Interactive Market Map
Starting this month in May, Nourish Nutritional Therapy will be practicing Monday's out of Heart Quest, a multi-disciplinary clinic at 204-2250 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, BC.
Please check the calendar for hours, and I look very much forward to meeting you the new location. Take care.
Dear Nourish Clients,
This is just a quick note to let you know that I will be away from April 23-27 doing another clinical practicum at my university in London. I will be back soon though, and I hope to see you all then. Take care and best wishes.
Vanessa
Thank you all for coming to visit my site. I am happy to after years of training be ready to make nutritional therapy my vocation, and to offer some much needed assistance to those struggling their health and diet.
There has been a great deal more media attention to questions of diet and chronic health problems, and refreshingly, there has also been a good deal of creative minds setting about to try to change it.
My favourite among these is Jamie Oliver, hands down. He is a British chef who successfully changed Britian's school lunch program, and has gone on to the statistically most unhealthy city in the US to attempt the same there.
He has passion and insight, and is dedicated to changing how people have come to view food as being secondary to their lives, something incidental that you remember to mind when you're hungry. And he is also funny and honestly appalled over it. I have become quite addicted to his show actually: he doesn't even try to force people to make radical changes. He simply wants us to understand that food should be REAL. Nevermind, vegan, raw-food, macrobiotic…the problem is much more basic than that. A startling number of people in the developed world never eat freshly prepared, unprocessed food. Even regular pasta with vegetables and home-cooked tomato sauce is alien to them. And that is the experience and the relationship to food that must be remedied before anything else.
I hope you enjoy this opening clip of the show, and come to follow it and cheer for Jamie as I have.
Welcome to my site.
I'll be adding blog posts very soon.
Have a look around and if you have any questions just give me a call or email me. I'm here to help you with your health. Thanks
