Veggie Burger Recipe
What’s a 4th of July celebration without burgers? With these veggie burgers made from sprouted wheat berries and veggies, you can have burgers without all the harmful fat and cholesterol.

Garlic Mashed Potato Recipe
Don’t worry, these potatoes aren’t raw, they’re fairly traditional garlic mashed, but without the added fat of sour cream and butter. We use safflower oil as a substitute for butter.

Roasted Potato Recipe
Here’s another potato recipe that’s delicious. This recipe is for creamer potatoes, but you can use different potatoes and cuts to make them more like french fries if you’d like.

Cole Slaw Recipe
You can’t have a 4th of July cookout or picnic without coleslaw. My wife Jean loves slaw and this recipe uses sesame oil and our famous spicy oriental coleslaw dressing. I’m sure you will love it.

Red Cabbage Recipe
Here’s another slaw type recipe made with red cabbage and using the same cole slaw dressing.

Green Salad Tips
This isn’t a recipe, but it’s just some good tips on how to make your green salads much more appealing. A lot of variety in your salads is the key to not letting them get boring.

Homemade Fruit Ice Cream
the 4th of July is a great time for ice cream and this ice cream recipe is made from nothing other than frozen fruit using a Champion Juicer. For a patriotic ice cream you can use bananas, strawberries and blueberries or blackberries for those traditional red, white and blue colors. This is a great treat and contains zero fat.

That about does it for our healthy 4th of July recipes. We hope you enjoy them and hope you have a safe and healthy 4th of July celebration.

This recipe for beet salad is on our website and in our vegan meal planner, but it’s worth mentioning here because it is so quick and easy.  For a single serving, peel one fresh, small beet. Next, julienne with a sharp knife or mandolin. Then, toss in a small bowl with a drizzle of olive oil, Bragg’s apple cider vinegar and honey. For extra flavor, sprinkle with sea salt and pepper.

Summer’s the season for beets. So if you’ve only ever eaten cooked or pickled beets, don’t miss the opportunity to enjoy fresh beets raw with this quick and easy beet salad recipe.

To your health!

Why doesn’t that question ever come up? The person who is most responsible for their own health is none other that you. You can do more for yourself than any government organization, insurance company or any kind of doctor by changing your diet away from processed foods and high fat meats and eating more fruits and vegetables that are high in nutrition. Shuffling around who makes the decisions for your healthcare and how the money in the system is allocated will do absolutely nothing to actually help people get healthier. And that’s the real issue we’re dealing with here, but instead we are only dealing with the symptoms.

Supposedly there are 46 million uninsured people living in the United States and the whole point of Obama health care is to figure out how to cover those people with insurance. But honestly, that’s just simply the wrong approach. What we should be talking about is how to get or keep those 46 million people healthy, not just how to insure them. We should also be working on programs for those that are already insured to keep them healthy as well. The current medical model of health care is to treat sick people instead of trying to keep people from getting sick in the first place.

Unfortunately, one of the major problems with healthcare today is that people in the medical field don’t seems associate diet with health. A perfect case in point is that one of the questions posed to President Obama last night came from nursing student Hershaw Davis Jr who is probably 150 pounds overweight. After answering Hershaw’s question, The President remarked that we need more people like Hershaw in the medical profession. I’m sorry to say this, but no we don’t. Mr Davis is the perfect example of entirely what’s wrong with the medical profession because he shows exactly the disconnect between diet and disease that is so rampant in medicine today. While Mr Davis may be able to do his job quite well, I wouldn’t know, the point is his size and the unhealthy conditions related to his obesity speaks volumes about where medicine is today.

My family has also experienced the oblivious to diet thinking in the medical profession when my dad had quadruple bypass surgery last year. After his radically invasive surgery and 4 days in cardiac intensive care, the second day up in his regular room he was served a pork sandwich and greasy french fries for lunch. Is there any other nearly perfect example of how out of touch medicine is with the benefits of a healthy diet? It is almost as if they were doing everthing they could to make sure my dad would be back in for another radical surgey some day.

The Cost Of Healthcare

Of course you can’t talk about national health care with out talking about the enormous cost and burden to Americans that something like this will be. And once again with Medicare we have another perfect example of government trying to run something and doing it about as inefficently as possible. In fact the question must be asked, has the government run any large scale program effieciently? Is there a single government program that anyone can point to that is profitable? What makes anyone think they can succeed with national health care?

But let’s get back to Medicare. Medicare was started to provide medical insurance to the elderly and is so seriously overbudget it threatens the economic fabric of our entire country. Medicare in effect is the elephant in the room. It is a disaster and is weighing down our economy to the tune of over $25 trillion (yes trillion, not billion) in unfunded liabilities.

We as a nation owe more to Medicare than all other government programs combigned, what makes anyone think that what the government couldn’t fund for the elderly will be able to fund for everyone else?

We will never, ever solve the healthcare crisis in the United States until we get down to the only issue at hand, the link between diet and disease. And until the medical profession and the government realizes the problem and stops throwing money at symptoms, money that we don’t have, nothing will get done.

The only thing you can personally do to increase your chances of avoiding serious disease is to eat a healthy diet rich in fiber, fruits and vegetables and exercise on a regular basis. The government will always do what it does best and that is spend money. Nationalized healthcare may be the last program the government creates before our entire economy goes bankrupt, the least you can do is choose to eat healthy and not participate in the coming fiasco.

We here at the healthy diet podcast blog have always believed in the motto of “eat healthy, be healthy” and our diet philosophy is simple - eat the most nutritious food possible. When you are always looking for your food to be in its most nutritious state (most of the time that means raw) you know that you are getting the most that particular food has to offer your body. And while some oils are good such as those recommended in the mediterranean diet, you have to make sure you are getting the right kind of those oils. You want to try and find cold pressed, extra virgin olive oil and other oils that are cold pressed and extra virgin as well.

These kinds of oils are minimally processed and not heated during their production and provide the best benefit that these oils are able to. The less heating and processing that goes into this oil, the better olive oil’s antioxidant properties.

There really isn’t any mystery to dieting, it’s all about eating nutritious food and guess what, you can eat as much of it as you want. That’s right, when you eat the most nutritious food possible, you don’t have to worry about counting calories, within reason. I wouldn’t recommend eating 5 pounds of potatoes at a sitting, but then again, you probably couldn’t do that.

The amazing things about eating highly nutritious food is that your body gets what it needs in the form of nutrients and then it tells your brain that you are no longer hungry. However, when you eat junk food, your body never gets the nutrients it needs and you essentially remain hungry until your stomach gets filled up. The more junk food you eat, the mosre you want to eat it because your body is searching for nutrition.

Yes, except for the minor amount of red meat included in the mediterranean diet, it is a good diet, but any diet is a good diet as long as you are eating the most nutritious food possible, which means mostly raw food. Dieting need not be so complicated.

The biggest scams seen lately are fake news sites that of course look very real complete with weather forecasts, other supposedly real news reports and the real clincher is completely fake “investigative reports” on resveratrol. These reports tout the benefits one so-called reporterette has had with her resveratrol supplements and she then challenges other reporters to see if they get the same results such as sleeping better, having less wrinkles and other feel good type benefits.

These scam news sites are advertising on the Drudge Report using pictures from celebrities such as Jennifer Aniston, Nicole Kidman, Selma Hayek and Marisa Tomei and asking the question, “How Does She Look So Young?” The premise behind this advertising is that these celebrities are taking the rip-off brand of resveratrol that these fake news sites are selling. The truth is they aren’t, none of these celebrities endorse these resveratrol products and this is nothing but a huge scam.

The scam goes deeper because consumers think they’re getting a free trial of this junk and all they have to do is pay for shipping. But the truth is, these scam companies get your credit card numbers and start billing you $80 or $90 a month because you unknowingly signed up for a monthly auto ship of this stuff.

Don’t think this stuff is a scam? ComplaintsBoard.com lists 130 about Resveratrol Ultra complaints and the company that sells this junk, FWM Labs out of North Miami, FL has more than 2,600 complaints lodged against them at the Better Business Bureau. The Florida Attorney General is investigating unauthorized credit card charges by this company and others running such scams in the state.

Lawyers for Dr Oz are pursuing the perpetrators of these fake news sites and their advertising practices so hopefully they won’t be around much longer but beware, because these companies are known to just form another company, change the labels on their scam products and poof, they’ve got a brand new business.

Use your best judgement when it comes to weight loss, anti aging and all other health claims from people selling miracle pills. Unfortunately they give legitimate supplements and sellers of those supplements a bad name.

Resveratrol was recently featured on 60 minutes as an ingredient in red wine that can help promote longevity, has antioxidant properties, weight loss and other healthy properties. Doctors have been saying for some time now that drinking a glass (that’s one glass) of red wine per day did help promote better health and digestion. The benefits of red wine have now been linked to the ingredient resveratrol in the wine.

Now diet pill and weight loss scammers have taken that to mean you can isolate resveratrol in wine and put it into some sort of pill and then charge people $80 a month or so to get this garbage shipped to you every month. The problem is, hardly anyone knowns they’re being billed until they get their credit card statement and see an errant $80 to $100 charge. And that’s not the end of it because the consumer then finds out that it’s nearly impossible to cancel these charges.

Avoiding Resveratrol Scams

Unfortunately the supposed resveratrol scam review sites you’ll find when you Google resveratrol terms aren’t real review sites at all, they’re just sites telling you that you need to read their review before they turn around and rip you off.

The best way to avoid getting ripped off if you think you want to try a resveratrol supplement is to buy it on eBay, from your favorite local health food store or from an online retailer like Vitamin Shoppe where you just pay for your bottle of supplements and if you like it then you can buy it again as you decide and not be rebilled on a monthly basis for it.

Don’t get scammed by the supposed free resveratrol trials, because they aren’t free at all. Read more about the resveratrol scams here.

Unfortunately though when you try to get information about thse products by googling acai berry diet scam you end up with search results that supposedly review these sites and tell you which ones are the best. In reality, these sites are also scams because they are really selling the scam products themselves.

Two things make these the biggest scams out there:

The first is the cost. Once you order your free trial you get 14 days to try the product and after the 14 day period your credit card starts getting billed for $60 to $90 a month for the junk and then you find out it’s nearly impossible to cancel your order.

The second reason this is a scam is because Acai berries have no inherent weight loss properties. While they are a highly nutritional food they won’t in any way help you lose weight. It’s all just intense marketing that results in you, the consumer, losing money instead of weight.

In your quest to lose weight after a possible holiday binge, don’t fall for these acai berry diet scams. Read more about this acai berry scam and how it works.

If you want a burger that will kill you, then eat the Utimate Double Whopper. If you simply don’t give a rip at all about your diet, your body or any of the organs in your body, such as the main one that pumps blood, then go ahead and gorge yourself on the Ultimate Double Whopper. This gargantuan, heart stopping burger will give 123% of the recommended fat per day with its 80 grams of such fat in 1200 staggering calories, 35 of those grams being fully saturated.

How much more gluttonous can we get as a society? I guess that depends on how fast we want to kill ourselves. This ultimate Burger King burger has 2 slices of american cheese, and 8 half slices of bacon (that’s 4 full pieces) and of course that’s all on top of the already more than enough 2 beef patties. Slop some mayo on this beast, add some fries and you have a meal that could stop the heart of an elephant, much more a person. 

I wonder when someone will get smart and start building paramedic stations near Burger king restaurants, or better yet maybe hospitals should start building heart centers next door to them. Will the lawyers be far behind?

Maybe it would be better if we could avoid all this and just eat a bit healthier. What do you think?

The reason I’m bringing this up is that a couple of days ago Jean and I stopped in at the local 7-Eleven in Palm Bay, FL to get gas and as I was standing outside our SUV pumping gas I looked over towards the entrance of the store and saw a guy carrying his Big Gulp mug under his arm. It was funny because as I looked at Jean sitting in our truck, she was looking at the guy too and then looked at me. No, he wasn’t carrying the mug by the handle as you would a cup, it was actually tucked under his arm as you would carry a basketball or a case of water, that’s how big the mug was. We both had quite a laugh at this scene, I only wish I would have had a camera.

I’m guessing the mug was the size of the largest Big Gulp known as the Super Big Gulp coming in at a whopping 64 ounces of soda (according to the 7 Eleven Wiki page). That’s one half gallon of soda in a single cup. With the insulation on this guy’s mug he had to carry it under his arm because it was more the size of a cooler than it was an actual soft drink. If you don’t put ice in your drink (I know no one does that, but you could) you can get 64 ounces of soda in your Super Big Gulp cooler…er, mug.

So, how much sugar is in that much soda? Right on a can of Coke it says there are 39 grams of sugar in the 12 ounce can. Take those 39 grams and multiply it by 5.33 to get to your 64 ounces of soda and you have 208 grams of sugar in a 64 ounce Coke if that’s what you’re drinking. That comes out to seven and one third ounces of sugar in your 64 ounce drink, that’s nearly one half pound of sugar in the cooler you call a soft drink. And if you think you’re doing your body good by drinking a diet soda, think of all the artificial sweetener it takes to sweeten a 64 ounce beverage. Those stats ought to give you a headache if the sucralose or splenda in it doesn’t.

The next time you think about having a soda nearly big enough to take a bath in, try a healthy smoothie instead or just have water.

I wonder if 7 Eleven will put wheels on the next size up Super Duper Big Gulp so you can push it around like a trash can or luggage.

Though there are many aspects of that question to contemplate, today it’s my aim to focus on health and happiness. Each going down of the sun at the end of the day is a reminder that there is a new day, with new beginnings coming when the sun rises in the morning. The way I have chosen to spend the rest of my life is committing to an even simpler and healthier life style. A lifestyle that more radically reflects what I truly believe.

Being that it is Memorial Day, and I have the day off from seeing clients, I will be spending the day preparing my home and myself for a healthier, stress free lifestyle. Some of the things I have planned to do to create a simpler, happier and healthier life: Go to bed earlier, cut out TV in the evening, check email only twice a day (or so), spend time doing more things I enjoy (like practicing my bowed psaltery, walking on the beach, gardening, crocheting), eating more of the simpler foods like whole vegetables and fruits, practicing yoga several times a week, cleaning out my cupboards and closets of unnecessary clutter, and choosing joy in the midst of irritations.

How will you spend the “first day of the rest of your life?”

In joy and simplicity,

Jean