Nancy’s Alkalinizing Tomato Soup
Makes 3 Quarts

1 eight-ounce jar sun dried tomatoes in olive oil
1 large yellow onion, coarsely chopped
12 ripe beefsteak or heirloom tomatoes, washed and scored into quarters
water to cover
2 large bunches fresh basil, washed, hardest stems removed
2 tablespoons freshly grated nutmeg
cayenne pepper, to taste
sea salt and pepper, to taste
whole cream, optional

In a large soup pot, over medium-high heat, heat the sun dried tomatoes and all of the oil. When the oil is hot, add the onion and sauté until soft, about five minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add tomatoes to pot, cover with water and cook over medium heat for one hour, until very mushy. Turn off heat, add basil whole, and cover. You want to allow the basil to wilt and infuse soup with flavor, but not cook. When completely cool (or soup will splatter out of the blender), purée soup, about 60 seconds per batch, until very smooth. Rinse pot and wipe dry. (You may strain the soup for a smoother consistency if desired.) Return soup to the pot. Season with nutmeg, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper. Ladle into bowls and pour cream into the center of each bowl.
Freezes nicely for 1 week.

I ran 2 miles, then did a P90X workout…..felt great!

I ran on my mini-trampoline for 45 minutes, finished with ab work. Felt GREAT!
I did a combo POWER (weight) class mixed with interval spin training on a stationary bike. Pilates tomorrow.

carido 40 minutes, weights then steam room (my Zen). Love that feeling

Followed a yoga cd and later will walk
TRX Suspension Straps. This builds major strength without the danger of injury from pounding your joints.

45 min flow yoga class….loved it!

wii tennis! im a tough competitor, and went shopping for two hours! walk, climb steps, movement is the key word!!

Rode by bike to work 10mi this morning. rode back home at the end of the day…

I went to a Bikram Yoga class..taught by a guest instructor, world Champion in Bikram yoga. I also took the kids on a walk. I love to work out!! It helps me sleep so well!

I did a 3 mile jog in 54 minutes with my average heart rate 126 and a peak of 152,
And it was hot out there but always feels so wonderful to move – and it’s mind over matter for this 56 year old polio/post polio survivor.

1km swimming at 8 this morning before work…!

Gym thrice a week, cardio once a week

I shovel manure and walk long distances with the wheel barrel to the pile to dump it. I do this about 4 hours 3 times a week. (job…work with horses)

Today was a four mile jog followed by an hour of blueberry picking! I love summer!

Fat was vilified by the medical community and the government, but they got it so wrong and in the process led a lot of people into the bad health zone.  Once you are in a bad health zone it takes a monumental amount of effort to pull out. So I want to help you by telling you about fats. This blog would be miles long if I went into the whole story behind fat, so I hope that you’ll order Death by Supermarket on Amazon. It’s a cheap little book that will save you zillions in health costs down the line. Why? Because bad fats, which are endorsed by the medical community, are so dangerous and such killers that the sooner you understand which fat to eat and which to avoid, the better.

Polyunsaturated vegetable fats are said to be healthy by the so-called experts. These are corn, cottonseed, peanut, safflower, sunflower, soy, and canola. They are the fats that are lined up in gleaming bottles in your supermarket. These oils have been processed with heat and chemicals, and are exposed to oxygen all of which oxidize the fragile polyunsaturated molecule and create free radicals (which lead to cancer and every other degenerative disease). Adding to the problem is the fact that they are omega 6 oils.

But this doesn’t mean that you should avoid polyunsaturated fats altogether, because naturally occurring polyunsaturated fats are health giving and will contribute to your achieving brain neurotransmitters balance and your genetic gifts.

Within the polyunsaturated fatty acid are omega-3 and omega-6. Omega-3 and omega 6 are essential fatty acids, which means they are required by the body but can only be obtained through eating the right foods.

Omega-3 promotes lean body mass, which means that including omega-3 fatty acids in your diet will help you burn fat and build muscle. Omega-3 fats are essential to cellular health. Without omega-3 you will likely end up with dry skin, premature wrinkles, thin, brittle hair and nails, depression and other neurotransmitter imbalances, chronic constipation and a malfunctioning immune system, leading to muscle and joint pain and arthritis. Of course with omega-3, you will enjoy the opposite effects.

The ideal and traditional ratio of omega-3 and omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids omega-3:6 is about 1:1. Today Americans consume a 1:20 to 1:50 ratio. And this is not good, as an imbalanced omega 3:6 ratio has been shown to be a major contributing factor in the development of cancer and other degenerative diseases.

So let me try to be really simple because fatty acid biochemistry is totally confusing and has made my own head spin around like Linda Blair’s in the Exorcist.

Omega 6 is found in meat—but unfortunately it’s too high of a ratio now that factory raised animals are fed an unnatural diet. Like humans, they are what they eat, so when we eat them, we’re eating too many Omega 6’s. I hope that’s clear.

Omega 3 is especially important now that researchers have identified what Dr. Russell Blaylock (a former neurosurgeon who is a leading alternative medicine expert) calls “smoldering inflammation” as the cause of most disease. Omega 3 can be found in cod liver oil, whole grains, fruit, veggies, fish, olive oil, and garlic.

Omega 3 becomes gamma-linolenic acid in your body (you’ve heard of it—GLA) which reduces inflammation. And you can actually supplement your diet with GLA producing omega 3 oils like evening primerose, borage, and black current seed oil (please keep them in the fridge).

The balanced diet of real, whole, historically eaten foods that I talk about in Death by Supermarket provides a perfect balance of omega 3:6. The typical American diet, like I said above is killer on the Omega 6 side.

Omega 3 is so important to brain health that if you are depressed or you kids are tearing the house apart in rage and/or suffering from ADD try giving them (encapsulated so they don’t rebel) flavored cod liver oil.

Examples of healthy polyunsaturated fats are cold-water fish such as cod, herring, mackerel, salmon and sardines and their oils, eggs, butter, cream, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds and oil, sunflower seeds, walnuts, wheat germ and wheat germ oil and flaxseed oil (experts recommend cod liver oil over flaxseed oil, as flax tends to go rancid more quickly). Sesame oil is the only polyunsaturated oil that can be used safely in cooking.

Other fats you know about are saturated and monounsaturated, which are also healthy and I will write more about these fatty acids in future blogs.

I’ve spent 13 years talking about healthy and unhealthy fat and it still blows my mind to go over to a friend’s house and see some kind of weird fake butter—you know that “healthy” omega 3 spreadable gunk. I can’t tell you how many of those tubs I’ve convinced people to dump into the garbage.

The whole subject of fat is so very complicated that I’m going to give it to you in small bites.

A lot of people still believe that polyunsaturated fats are healthy and have no idea that there are VERY FEW OILS on the market that are healthy to eat. The expression “you are what you eat” aptly describes what happens when you eat any type of fat.

Fat is absorbed very much like it is when you eat it. It’s either burned as energy or stored as adipose tissue, OR it become part of your brain, as in brain cells (your brain is 60-70 percent fat).

Examples of fats that will make you dumb, flubbery, ugly and really unhealthy are:

All factory food containing polyunsaturated fat
Bottled salad dressing
Cheese “foods” like smart beat healthy fat free non dairy slices and kraft velveeta
Deep fried foods
Heat, chemical and petroleum solvent treated polyunsaturated vegetable cooking oils (corn, cottonseed, sunflower, safflower, soy, and canola)
Hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated vegetable margarines
Hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oil
Imitation meat
Most store-bought mayonnaise, especially reduced fat mayonnaise and Miracle Whip
KFC, Dunkin’ Donuts, Krispy Kreme, etc.
Ersatz sour cream and fake dessert toppings
Movie popcorn and micro wave popcorn
Non-dairy artificial cream products
Soy spreads like take control soybean spread
Vegetable shortening

This is only a fraction of the list of weird science fats that have greatly contributed to the epidemic rise in disease, obesity, and dumbness.

It’s been like pulling teeth but the alternative pioneers have finally convinced the medical community that fat is crucial to good health. However, the medical community still has it all wrong and are pushing substances like spreadable Omega 3 fake butter, canola and soy oils which are all very, very unhealthy.

I can’t put 350 pages of Death by Supermarket for you. All I can say is that you must get educated about fats and oils. And in the meantime, this is the list of historically consumed fats and oils that are healthy, lifegiving, and beautifying:

HEALTHY POLYUNSATURATED FATS (always eat polyunsaturated fats and oils at room temperature—do not use to cook): Cold-water fish such as cod, herring, mackerel, salmon and sardines and their oils, eggs, butter, cream, pumpkin seeds and oil, sesame seeds and oil, sunflower seeds and oil, walnuts and walnut oil, wheat germ and wheat germ oil and flaxseed oil (cod liver oil is superior to flaxseed oil, as flax tends to go rancid more quickly). Sesame oil is the only polyunsaturated oil that can be used safely in cooking.

HEALTHY MONOUNSATURATED FATS: Almonds and oil, avocados and oil, hazelnuts and oil, peanuts, peanut butter and oil, olives and oil, rice bran oil, “high oleic” safflower and sunflower oils and sunflower seeds.

HEALTHY SATURATED FATS: Cocoa butter, coconut, whole coconut milk, coconut butter and oil, beef, butter, cheese, cream, crème fraîche, eggs, fowl fat, lamb, lard, nutmeg oil, palm kernel oil, pork, sheanut oil, sour cream and whole milk.

If you don’t like yourself, your natural inclination is to abuse yourself. If you live alone, for example, you may eat microwaved Lean Cuisine for dinner with a Diet Coke, and then polish off a tub of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, then spend the rest of the evening watching stupid TV eating an entire bag of chips. You stop off in the bathroom before bed to brush your teeth and give yourself a tongue lashing in the mirror. Then you go to bed angry and stare at the ceiling, thinking more bad things about yourself.

If you genuinely like yourself, however, your natural inclination will be to do nice things for yourself, like come home from work, meditate, make yourself a nice, dinner of real food with a glass of raw milk, or even a glass of a good wine. The rest of your evening will inevitably take a more enjoyable track.

But you can’t FORCE doing nice things for yourself like the Gestapo. The desire to treat yourself well comes from within. Begin by recognizing all the times during the day that you say hateful, disparaging things to yourself. You may be surprised at how harsh the inner voice is. Once you recognize this tendency, shut that voice down when you hear it by saying to yourself, “I recognize what you are saying, but I don’t agree. I love myself just as I am.” Say it a million times if you have to—even, and especially if you think you don’t deserve it. Even if you just ate that cookie dough ice cream. Especially if you just at that cookie dough ice cream.

Take a stand against self hatred and soon you’ll find a feeling of self love radiating from within yourself. Along with this newfound respect for yourself, you’ll find yourself relating to others in a more positive way. You’ll also find pleasure in treating yourself more thoughtfully, including feeding yourself healthy food, stopping the destructive cycle of dieting, and cutting down on all the prescription and OTC drugs.

Changes like that are truly sexy.

When I go in for a facial with a new aesthetician she invariably tells me that I have beautiful skin and asks me what I use on it. Soap and water, only and always, and for the last few years I’ve found a brand of hand lotion that I like as face cream. (I especially like that I can take one tube of this cream when I travel and it serves as hand, body, and face cream). The aesthetician gasps and then tries to sell me on a beauty/anti-aging cream. But I thought you just said my skin was beautiful?

Beautiful skin is not obtainable through face creams, I don’t care how technologically advanced they sound. Bad skin can’t be hidden with makeup, and in fact, looks worse with thick goo piled onto it, pooling into and around the blemishes, wrinkles and bags. Bad skin can’t be fixed with plastic surgery either. Your skin is your largest organ of your body. If you abuse it, it will show and show fast.

In terms of wrinkles, there are four proven ways of eradicating or diminishing wrinkles (to some degree).

Plastic surgery
Botox/and derma fillers
Retin-A
Laser and chemical peels (hopefully with someone who knows what they are doing)

If a glowing complexion is what you’re after you need to:

Eat a well-balanced diet of real whole food
Drink plenty of water to flush toxins
Exercise (at least sometimes in fresh air)
Don’t smoke
Avoid toxins
Get enough sleep
Minimize stress
Don’t drink diet drinks (aspartame)
Minimize caffeine
Minimize sugar
Minimize alcohol
Avoid weight fluctuations because ultimately you will end up with waddles under your chin
Avoid sun exposure on your face because UV rays damage skin.
Use HRT if you need it.

If you had read Death by Supermarket as I’ve asked you to do a million times I wouldn’t have to be telling all of this to you now. But for you who don’t read, the body breaks down and builds back up on a cellular level every single second of every single day. And so you need to provide your body with the biochemicals it’s made of to keep up the building process. Those biochemicals are REAL FOOD.

Amino acids (protein), vitamins and minerals, and enzymes in red meat, fish, poultry, eggs, fresh vegetables and fruits, healthy fats like coconut, olive oil, butter, and fatty foods like fish and avocados make skin NOT face creams.

Eating foods rich in Vitamin A will improve even the driest, scaliest skin and help clear up acne. Though I have to add here that if you have acne, please do not take tetracycline or Acutane as you’re asking for a lifetime of autoimmune conditions. These are powerful and very dangerous drugs. Find a hormone doctor who knows what they are talking about and get your hormones tested. Chances are you have a hormone imbalance that can be corrected by eating better, stopping birth control pills, or taking bioidentical HRT.

Vitamin A is present in sweet potatoes, carrots, spinach, organic milk, and eggs.

Eat foods rich in Vitamin C, which is an antioxidant. Free radical damage oxides skin. Think of a rusting out car. Citrus fruit, bell peppers, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts all contain Vitamin C.

Zinc keeps collagen production optimal. Zinc is present in cheese, whole grain, and beans.

Selenium is a trace mineral that guards your skin’s elasticity. It also helps your body to detoxify and helps fight free radicals as well. Brazil nuts, oysters, mushrooms, and sunflower seeds all contain high amounts of the mineral.

Estrogen prevents skin from aging and keep skin glowing. Estrogen keeps skin plump and moist and preserves elasticity (at least to some degree). I am a proponent of bioidential hormone replacement. More about that in a subsequent video/blog.

You want your skin to be soft, glowing, and smooth yet firm and supple to touch, this comes from having adequate collagen production. Drinking diet drinks containing aspartame is counter-productive because aspartame metabolizes into formaldehyde, which degrades cellular structures. Just think of Aunt Mary who looked like hell in her casket at the funeral home after being pumped full of formaldehyde. She would have looked better if they would have left her alone! So when you drink liquid formaldehyde your cells are degrading, cellulite sets in, along with dull, lifeless skin, bags under the eyes and slackness around your mouth, better known as nasal labial folds. Ugh.

Water flushes toxins from your system. So does exercise. When you sweat, your body releases toxins through your pores. The vitamin D that your body synthesizes from sun exposure when you take your walk outside (keeping your face covered with a hat and sunglasses of course) contributes to the cellular rejuvenation process.

MY SECRET WEAPON AGAINST SKIN AGING

My secret weapon is blenderized green veggies. Vegetables must be digested before your body can absorb the nutrients. Because the nutrients in vegetables are locked behind hard cellular walls there are only three ways of getting to them, chewing them to mush (which no one does), cooking (which destroys some of the nutrition), and blenderizing (which unlocks all of the nutrition). You can’t get this full spectrum of vitamins, minerals, enzymes and nutrients in a supplement or even in a well balanced diet of real food. It takes one to one and one half pounds of fresh vegetables to make eight ounces of juice. If you drink fresh juice twice a day, you are getting the phytonutrients of two to three pounds of fresh vegetables.

The human body strives for a delicate pH balance. Maintenance of the delicate acid-base balance in the body is critical and most of us are too acidic from our toxic environment. An alkaline environment allows all the repair processes such as making new cells, membranes, tissues, enzymes, hormones and neurotransmitters to take place. Normal metabolic processes, stress, toxins, acidic foods, beverages and ingesting stimulants all make your body more acidic. So not only will your skin look better if you drink juice but your overall health will improve.

I like formulas that aren’t too pond scummy because if they’re so terrible you can’t choke them down then you’re not going to drink them. I use:
Celery
Cilantro
Parsley
Cucumber
Mint
Dill
Swiss Chard

You can also blenderize sprouts, cruciferous veggies, ginger, and virtually any vegetable or herb. Just experiment for veggies that you enjoy. Avoid tomatoes, carrots, and beets and they are sugar when liquefied.

I drink 24 ounces of fresh green veggie juice every single day. I use the Vita-Mix 5200. (DO NOT buy the old fashioned grinders as they are hard to clean up and you don’t get the pulp.) The Vita-Mix is expensive but worth it.

I’d love to hear from any of you guinea pigs out there who want to share your stories of improved skin!