A January 21, 2007 news column by Al Lewis reports that a number of Wal-Mart stores have placed organic food signs in front of or near products that are not organic. Wal-Mart spokeswoman Karen Burk says it’s an honest mistake. Based on what I know about Wal-Mart, I don’t buy it.

Have you seen the documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price? If you have, you’ll know why I’m skeptical.

Wal-Mart has a reputation for deceit and callous disregard for the employees who work for them.

You can see that I left a comment for Al Lewis about his column, which I liked, by the way. In it, I said:

On a side note, does Wal-Mart really know what they’re doing? I shop organic, and usually choose Vitamin Cottage, Whole Foods, or my local King Soopers. I would never shop for groceries at Wal-Mart. I dislike Wal-Mart and avoid it at all costs. I doubt Wal-Mart will succeed in attracting any kind of serious health nuts. Although they might succeed in persuading their current socially unconscious customers to “try to be more healthy.”

I’m about to make a gross generalization: the average Wal-Mart customer does not care about the environment, working conditions at Wal-Mart owned factories, or the massive problems Wal-Mart’s business practices cause. Why would they care about organic products? If they don’t care about the world around them, why would they care about what they put inside their bodies?

Whether we recognize it or not, our opinions about diet and nutrition are all shaped by a certain philosophy, point of view, or a mixture of several of those. The way we have learned what we know affects how we look at what we eat and what we think a healthy lifestyle is.

From what I have known through their blog posts and emails – Ryan, Kelly and I have many similar opinions and several differing ones when it comes to diet and nutrition. It is one of the reasons why I enjoy writing for The Health Blog – I think that three different (but smart and cool, hehe) writers make for healthy and interesting discussion.

Tonight, I thought I would share some links and people with you that have been and are shaping what I think a healthy lifestyle and diet is. So when you read my posts in the future, hopefully you will understand better where I am coming from. Even if you think I’m crazy for telling you that vinegar is poison, I hope you will give me a chance and read some of these links anyway, and judge for yourself. :)

The common thing you will find among all these people and links is that they all prescribe to a scientific philosophy of health called Natural Hygiene. Natural Hygiene in a nutshell is the belief that your body is an amazing creation that is capable of healing and cleansing itself with proper care and diet. With Natural Hygiene, no one food or nutrient is a magic panacea for any particular disease or condition. Rather, if you correct your diet and go back to whole, natural foods, then your body will be able to heal itself.

1) Dr. Graham and Professor Rozi Graham from foodnsport
As I fumbled my way through the raw food world, my search came to a screeching halt when I found Dr. Graham and his wife, Rozi. Their teachings make so much sense to me and I have found so many satisfactory and wise answers from them in a crazy world of raw food “gurus” who try to sell you supplements and teach you to make all kinds of crazy “raw” concoctions that look and taste just like cooked food.

Dr. Graham is a Natural Hygienist and his philosophy is so simple, logical and scientific that it has left my husband and me with no doubt that he is a worthy mentor in our pursuit for good health. Dr. Graham also hosts a forum on Vegsource.com, a major vegetarian site, where he graciously and responsibly helps many people. Dr. Graham just came out with a break-through book called, “The 80-10-10 Diet” which I have almost finished reading. It costs $30 and is available from his site. It is the best $30 I’ve ever spent. I wish I could buy one copy for every friend and family member.

2) Nora Lenz from Rawschool
I check in on Nora’s site from time to time also. Although she hasn’t been a natural hygienist/raw foodist as long as Dr. Graham and his wife, they have very similar hygienic philosophies and Nora’s raw transformation story is very inspiring. She hosts a yahoo group (you can find the link on her website) and helps many people there too.

3) Dave Klein, Living Nutrition magazine.
Living Nutrition magazine comes out 2-3 times a year. I have several copies in my house and it has been a great resource for me. I like simple, truthful and scientific, and the articles in Living Nutrition magazine embody this. Dave Klein, the editor, healed himself of Crohn’s Disease by adopting Natural Hygiene principles years ago and now spends his life trying to help others regain health also.

4) This is a testimony I read a couple of days ago from a guy named Ric
who got himself out of major depression and schizophrenia by going on Dr. D’s 80-10-10 diet: http://www.vegsource.com/talk/raw/messages/99928774.html
Ric’s discovery of the connection between heavy grain comsumption and mental disease may make you uncomfortable or even shock you. It was a very inspiring story to me.

There are tons more but this is plenty to get you started. Thanks for reading and I hope you will take a few minutes to check these links out! Happy Friday, everyone.

I’m sure that most of us are dealing with a lot of extra housework now that the holiday season is coming to an end. Many of us are probably facing taking down all of our holiday decor and deep cleaning our kitchens from all the yummy Christmas treats we’ve been making.

Although I love getting in the holiday spirit and making my house look festive, I definitely don’t go overboard because I dread the aftermath of taking everything down. I quickly tore down my Christmas tree the day after Christmas this year because I was so sick of it taking up space in my living room! Also, instead of making a huge Christmas dinner, we took my inlaws out to eat on Christmas Eve instead. My holiday style is definitely no-hassle.

But for those of you who are facing disaster areas in your home, I have good news. Apparently, housework is more effective than playing a sport for helping reduce your risk of breast cancer! Cancer Research, a UK based study, followed 200,000 women who cooked, dusted, mopped and vacuumed around 16 – 17 hours a week for over six years. According to their results, all this housekeeping reduced cancer risk by 30% for pre-menopausal women and by 20% for post-menopausal women.

The connection to lower cancer risk seems to be a combination of maintaining a healthy weight and being consistently active doing housework (as opposed to playing a vigorous sport less frequently.) The full article can be found here.

So for those of us who have been putting off getting our homes back in order again after the holidays, hopefully this will help motivate you a little. :) Happy New Year, everyone!

I have recently made a change in my life. It has something to do with “time of the month” that all of us ladies go through, so I hesitated in blogging about it here, but the change I have made has improved my life so much that I decided to let go of any embarassment and blog about it anyway, in hopes that it might help some of you out there.

I will try to spare the more gory details for the sake of our male readers, but if any of you gals need more information, please feel free to email me!

For years and years, all I have ever known to use every month are disposable feminine hygiene products. They were never a great solution for me, with all kinds of messy, frustrating and inconvenient problems. Not to mention, I did feel a little guilty that I was clogging up landfills. And who likes going to the store for more supplies? Even worse – whose husbands or boyfriends appreciate being sent to the store for those supplies?

I really did not know there were other options out there besides what I was using. I had heard at some point about the Instead cup but was never tempted to try it because I was afraid they would be uncomfortable.

Recently, I was alerted about the existence of the Diva cup and cloth pads. The same ladies who alerted me to this handy dandy little thing also alerted me about the potential dangers of using disposable feminine hygiene products, from Toxic Shock Syndrome (which everybody already knows about, right?) to the fact that there are all kinds of chemicals in the products that are potentially carcinogenic. Did you know that there is chlorine in your run-of-the-mill disposable products? They use it to bleach it white.

These same ladies also said that they found their cramps greatly alleviated and their periods shortened by choosing more natural options. It had honestly not crossed my mind before that the products I was using could possibly affect the way my body handled that time of the month. Crazy, huh?

So I decided to try out the Diva cup after months of trying to talk myself out of it. And guess what? It works and it’s amazing! It’s hygienic, easy, comfortable and best of all, reusable. I don’t worry about Toxic Shock Syndrome. I have been using it for a couple of months now and I will never go back to the discomfort and mess of disposable products. Now instead of dreading that time of the month, I just cruise through it and sometimes even forget what I’m going through!

I hope this helps some of you out there who are ready to give up the hassle and cost of disposable feminine hygiene products and try something more healthful and earth friendly instead.

Here are some links for you to check out:
Diva Cup
The Keeper
Mercola on the dangers of disposable feminine hygiene products
Cloth pads info

As I said at the beginning, I did try not to dwell too much on intimate details, so if any of you female readers have more questions, please feel free to email me! The FAQs on the Diva Cup site are very insightful as well.
Last but not least, if you decide to buy a Diva Cup, run, do not walk, to the Better Life site and buy it from them at a steep discount.