Vol. 2, Issue 32: October 30, 2008

Notes from the Diva

Did you miss us last week?

For the first time in a looong time we just couldn't manage to get our Health In High Heels newsletter ready last week, because of all the BES registrations. So, prepare for a double dose of goodness and cheer this week to make up for it!

Whooooa BESSY!

The Body Enlightenment System registrations officially closed and we're all wiping the sweat off our brows around here. More than 500 people from around the world have signed up for this session, and will be making this the most incredible BES experience ever! In honor of the occasion, we even have created a new blog solely dedicated to our Body Enlightenment System stories and tear-jerking moments of triumph. Check out the new Body Enlightenment Blog HERE

Look who's getting organized!
As you've probably noticed, we can't seem to hold ourselves back from getting involved in different events, projects and community building events and programs. Even our offline adventures are starting to get rolling. We've go so much going on, that even WE can't keep up with ourselves!

Thanks to Jimbo Sunshine Gilker we've got a hot new calendar. CHECK IT OUT! Now you’ll always know what we're up to and what fun is on the horizon!

Upcoming Online Events
The Truth About Your Food Teleseminar Series, with Dr. Adiel Tel-Oren, MD (You do NOT want to miss this FREE event!)

Live In-Person Events
Tera's Community Classes: At C'est La Vie health food store in Montreal, Tera will be hosting FREE community classes and the first one is all about how to prepare healthy lunches for kids! November 8, 2008 at 10:00am.  Call 514 833 3482 (DIVA)

The 24 Day Green Smoothie Countdown to Christmas. This is going to be a fantastic event! Watch for more announcements, soon!

Monomeal Cleanse for the Transition to Winter: Participants of our How To Get Rid of Cravings and Emotional Eating program will be participating in a group monomeal cleanse starting on the 6th of December.

Juicy Treats: Trick or Treat

Does Halloween have you paying a little too much attention to your sweet tooth?

We've got decadent treats so good, you'll forget they're raw.

Have Your Cake and Eat It Too!

Ask "Doctor T"

With Dr. Adiel Tel-Oren, MD of www.ecopolitan.com and special guest lecturer for the FREE The Truth About Your Food teleseminar series.

While some kids might be still raised on good ol’ fashion peanut butter and jelly, the increasing amount of life-threatening allergies to the seemingly harmless peanut makes us ask: just how healthy is it, really? We’ve posed this question to the doctor…

Your question:

"What should I know about peanuts to help me decide whether or not these are a food I should include in my diet, or not?"

Here’s the "off-the-cuff, un-referenced" answer from Dr. Tel-Oren:

1. First, peanuts are contaminated by aflatoxins (strong cancer-causing agents, known as carcinogens) that are produced by molds (such as the fungus aspergillus flavus), which grow on peanuts while in storage.

2. Second, peanuts are rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids, copper, and iron. When the peanuts are crushed to butter, the fatty acids come in close contact with these metals. This creates a rapid chemical reaction that turns the fatty acids into potent free radicals.

Free radicals have been implicated in the development of practically every chronic or degenerative disease known to humankind, from arthritis (joint inflammation and destruction) to heart disease, multiple sclerosis (neurological disease) to cancer, and most aspects of aging. Polyunsaturated fatty acids are very unstable fats, which means they easily become rancid with exposure to oxygen, heat and light. Most vegetable-derived oils fall under that category.

The process of fatty acids becoming rancid occurs inevitably over time, regardless of refrigeration or other protective methods. However, the intact nut exerts some protection against rancidity by maintaining the cell walls, which reduce exposure to oxygen. This protection is lost in the production of nut butter. Furthermore, copper and iron, when allowed to come in contact with these fats, will act as catalysts, accelerating the production of free radicals by thousands to millions of times.

This chemical reaction (which is described in textbooks of biochemistry) results in the formation of peroxidated fatty acids, which are some of the most dangerous free radicals known, because of their detrimental effect on cellular membranes.

3. Additionally, peanuts are usually roasted (and heavily salted), which destroys some of the fatty acids, turning them into hydrogenated fats, another form of damaging fats that the body cannot easily metabolize (the heat of roasting forms other toxins as well).

4. Last, clinical experience has shown that peanuts are commonly acting as allergens in people (resulting in migraines, asthma, or other symptoms); the complexity of this food, together with its frequent ingestion by the "unsuspecting" public, especially with today's commonality of gastrointestinal disorders, lead to repeated exposure to undigested food particles that results in such immune reactions.

These are the main reasons to avoid foods containing peanuts or peanut butter (or peanut oil, a frequently hidden, cheap ingredient in many packaged foods and in other oils that are massed-produced using the same machinery).

Go for other freshly ground nuts and seeds in a strong blender, instead. It will taste better and be better for you!

Your question:

Note from The Divas: We’ve been receiving hundreds of questions as people sign up for The Truth About Your Food teleseminars with Dr. T. Here’s one that came in and we thought we’d get the answer from the Doctor even before the teleseminars begin.

I'm looking forward to your teleseminars and feel pretty convinced that raw foods can do wonders for our health..........BUT..........I have a daughter who is a dietitian trained at Loma Linda Medical School and believes they have all the latest, greatest scoop on diet.

According to her, raw foods should be suspect because of the contaminants they contain. (Luckily she still eats salads). Could you let me know what would make Dr. T's knowledge more relevant than one of the most prestigious medical school's research findings? And how do we avoid contamination of our raw foods?

Dr. Tel-Oren says:

Thank you for your question.

If I understand the reasoning behind these ideas, the suggestion is that for the purpose of "avoiding contaminants" we should compromise our foods' nutrients, anti-oxidants, and sugar levels, while creating allergens, carcinogens, cross-linked proteins, and oxidized fats?

And all this despite our knowledge of numerous food-borne contaminants and/or micro-organisms that survive heat and poison and/or infect people daily when they eat cooked foods (especially meat and dairy products)?

Anybody who eats salad is "supposedly" at risk, so that's not an argument against raw foodists, specifically.

It's true that some contaminants enter our raw produce because of hygienic compromise during picking and/or storage. That's why we use food-grade H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide) when washing our produce. But people with healthy production of stomach acids have less to worry about, and the fact that 100% of the population eats raw foods daily (in salads, sandwiches, smoothies, or whole fruits/veggies) with very minimal rate of infectious outbreaks in comparison with the epidemics related to cooked animal products, speaks for itself!

There is no research done in Loma Linda (or other places) proving this point regarding raw foods (except raw meat/dairy, which is not relevant to plant-based diets), so there is no argument there...

…and if there WERE an argument, should we assume medical research can overturn the laws of nature without suspicion? We have numerous examples from the past indicating that humans are a PART of Nature, and they suffer every time they think they "know better" than Nature's dicta.

I hope this answers your question.

Yours, Dr. T

Any Questions? If you have a nutritional or brief medical question you would like Doctor T to answer, please email us and it may be answered in a future newsletter. Take advantage of this while you can!

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Whistling walking and crunching autumn leaves,

Tera, Amy and the Diva Dream Team

“Whatcha Doin’ Next Week, Divas?” Stay Tuned as we do a full-scale show off session of the Diva Dream Team! Who are the Amazing people making it all happen? Find out more next week! We don’t call them the “Dream Team” for nothing.