Now the country seems to be in a severe lockdown and we are going through the holiday period, take some time and reflect on how important your health is and please enjoy some time with your family if you can.
If you are lucky enough to be in the same household, learn to relax when you’re eating – chew your food properly. If you want to recreate perfect digestion then chew every mouthful for every year you have been on this planet.
Now the weather is turning, boosting our immune system is more essential than ever, with all the nasty viruses gaining momentum. The easiest way to get nutrients in our bodies is to eat soup. If your body can digest them, then always start with garlic and onions.
Ginger has antibiotic qualities and also helps to thin the blood One of my pregnant friends at the moment has seriously been suffering from nausea and vomiting, and it’s always fascinated me how some ladies can just sail through pregnancy without it. I suffered from nausea but was lucky to never feel the need to vomit. I suggested she try ginger as it helped me enormously in relieving the severity of the nausea. I always had a hot mug of water with fresh ginger soaked in it to ease morning sickness.
Green beans contain many vitamins as well as loads of useful fibre. You may be surprised to hear that the iron content in green beans is twice as high as that of spinach. Iron is an integral component of haemoglobin, which transports oxygen from the lungs to all body cells and is also part of key enzyme systems for energy production and metabolism.
If you haven’t heard of aquafaba already, it’s simply the viscous water in which legume seeds such as chickpeas have been cooked. I discovered it years ago from a vegan friend in California. It is an excellent way of making really fluffy cakes instead of using eggs due to its ability to mimic the properties of egg whites in cooking.
I’m always looking for ways of minimising sugar intake for myself and my family and friends while still treating ourselves to our favourite desserts. I have used Stevia for over 20 years, but it can be a very difficult product to use in general even though it’s zero glycaemic and an excellent product for cooking.
Although both black and green teas originate from the same tea plant, the methods of processing are different. Breaking the leaves and exposing them to oxygen produces black tea. And the resulting natural fermentation process destroys the most important biological ingredients of the tea.
Love ’em or loathe ’em, you cannot hate cranberries more than a urinary tract infection. Cystitis is a most annoying and uncomfortable problem, mainly suffered by women. Urinary tract infections are triggered by bacteria, primarily E. coli, adhering to the walls of the bladder or kidney.
What we think directly affects our health, so staying positive and hopeful will help fight the coronavirus and keep our immune system strong. The brain’s cerebral cortex controls thought and is connected with digestion – so foods as well as thoughts need to be properly digested to become useful for us and not cause harm.
Persistent negative or undigested thoughts have a toxic effect, especially on the digestive system.
Fear, trauma, anger and anxiety get locked up in the cellular memory of the intestines for a long time without any obvious indications of their presence. Once concentrated, they can unwrap, and affect you in a negative way.
Remember, 95% of one of the most powerful happiness hormones for the brain, Seretonin, is produced in the digestive system and regulates it.
Once happiness diminishes, serotonin does too, weakening digestion, making what you eat essential.
If only doctors really focused on the digestive system they would find many mental and emotional conditions might be rapidly reduced.
The immune system acts as both a physical and mental healing system, but it can be easily over-taxed when it’s exposed to non-nutritious foods and negative thoughts. The thymus gland, part of the immune system, reduces to half its size or less when you are in distress. This may make you susceptible to disease so it’s vital to stay positive and minimise stress.
While access to your favourite foods can be more difficult to come by currently, it might be a good time to look at cleaning up your diet. Look at easing up on excess meat, fish and dairy consumption. Try more vegan food.
When you crave a burger, try a vegan one to minimise stress on your digestive system a few days a week. Take a look at our online store at VBites.com.
But most of all, look after yourself and your loved ones and use the lockdown time to appreciate how lucky we are to spend time around people we love
If everyone reduced their meat consumption by 50% there would be enough food to feed the entire developing world.
If we reduced it by just 10% we would free up enough grain and other natural foods to feed 60 million people. This kind of considerate thinking sparked the name flexitarian, where we live in the reality of not everybody being willing to live on an entirely plant-based lifestyle.
In the words of Albert Einstein “nothing will benefit human health and increase the chance for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet“. And he wasn’t including dairy, so he meant veganism.
He predicted that producing and eating so much meat would kill us and our environment.
The world’s output of meat increased fivefold in the second half of the 20th century. Given the current trend, by 2050 increases in meat production will have reached a point where we could feed 4 billion more people with the plant food being used to raise cattle.
Only 10% of the protein and calories we feed our livestock are recovered in the meat we eat.
One acre of greens produces five times more protein than an acre of pasture set aside for meat production. One acre of beans or peas produces 10 times more protein, and an acre of spinach has 28 times more protein. Almost all land can be used for growing some crop or another.
In the UK many people will think they are getting a bargain when they buy cheap meat, but farmers are subsidised by the taxpayer – and that’s money that could be used on the NHS or schools.
At my vegan food firm VBITES we have shown a lot of farmers they can grow mushrooms, oats and other vegetables that we can turn into meat and fish alternatives.
So next time you walk down the supermarket meat aisle, pause and look at the meat-free ranges.
VBITES is my thing but there are many other ranges on offer. I suggest you try them and start thinking about what difference you can make as an individual – rather than relying on the Government to change things.
I have numerous friends who are addicted to sugar or who are diabetic, so I am always researching ways of cooking diabetic- friendly food for them. I was once a sugarholic until I discovered diabetic chocolate and weaned myself off by kidding my body it was having real chocolate. Now I may have a few cubes of dark chocolate once a week as I no longer crave it.
Sugar is probably one of the hardest food substances I ever had to wean myself off, so here’s an alternative that may help you – Xylitol.
It looks and tastes like real sugar but contains less than 40% of the calories and is found in fibrous plants and vegetables. It has been approved as a sugar substitute in over 30 countries.
It is safe for diabetics and hypoglycaemics, it does not encourage growth of yeast – including candida albicans – and in contrast to ordinary sugar it increases the absorption of B vitamins and calcium.
Rather than chew gum that contains saccharin or aspartame, try to find it with xylitol.
In studies, tests showed a significant decrease in plaque accumulation in the mouth after chewing making it good for teeth and gum health.
In fact, scientific studies have shown it reduces plaque and cavities by up to 80% by neutralising plaque acids and inhibiting the growth of the plaque-producing bacteria responsible for causing most cavities.
It improves breath odour, reduces infections in the mouth and can relieve dryness.
Xylitol also stimulates remineralisation of tooth enamel and in clinical trials it was shown to boost the immune system. Also, in children specifically, it inhibits the growth of streptococcus pneumonia bacteria, reducing ear and sinus infections by 40%.
Xylitol can be purchased in bulk from health food stores and many people use it in their breakfast cereals and for baking. The amount you use is purely individual, so have fun with it in the kitchen.
Many of you will already know some of the tips below, but even the most vigilant of us get out of a routine and need to be reminded.
Every morning after getting up, drink one glass of warm water to increase the regularity of your bowel movement.
Five to 10 minutes later drink a second glass with fresh lemon. This will help to assist the intestines to start eliminating any accumulated waste. Wait at least 30 minutes before eating your breakfast.
Before taking a shower or bath, do a three-minute dry-skin brush to improve circulation and the quality of your skin. Then massage yourself with coconut oil.
If you are hungry try and stick to porridge each morning. If you’re not, don’t force the body to eat but try and have some seasonal fruit. Don’t eat it with porridge as fruit should always be eaten alone and preferably on an empty stomach.
Make lunch the main meal of the day and avoid drinking water as you eat as it will dilute the digestive juices. It is best to drink a glass of water about half an hour before lunch, and then wait one or two hours after lunch before having another. I found this really hard to do at first because trying to get the recommended six to seven glasses of water a day when you’re not meant to drink when you eat can be quite difficult.
But seeing as I don’t have a terribly robust digestive system, it’s something I try and stick with.
Dinner should be veg and rice or soups, or anything similarly easy to digest.
Finally we all know we need to exercise. We have 1,000 excuses why not, such as being too busy, unable
to afford a gym membership and so on. However, you can pull up a 10-minute workout on YouTube and do it in your living room. I often do them in hotel rooms on business travel.
I really enjoy Joe Wick’s 10 to 20- minute workouts and they really work. He is hilarious and gets worn out before I do, so I’m not sure if he’s just trying to make us feel better – but anyway, make sure you check them out.
With Christmas over for another year and while the memory of feeling ‘stuffed’ from your Christmas turkey lunch is still fresh in your mind. I thought I would take this opportunity to discuss turkey, as you begin your New Year’s resolutions and prepare to reduce your meat consumption January (now famously called Veganuary).
Without frightening you too much here are some facts about turkey:
630 million turkeys are produced for meat each year globally, 240 million are produced in the United States and over 240 million in the EU. Commercially grown turkeys have been selectively bred for fast growth and have disproportionately large breast muscles. They are slaughtered when they are between 9 and 24 weeks of age and many weigh up to 20 kg.
In the EU over 90% of turkeys are kept indoors for intensive farming up to 25,000 of them have no outdoor access and are kept in sheds.
If you are insistent on eating turkey at Christmas at least try and buy it from a small producers who produce turkeys for the Christmas market and who keep turkeys in open barns with natural lighting, ventilation and some space. This (at lest) is not as cruel but is still far from ideal.
A lot of vegans don’t like the taste of meat and this is the reason they become vegan, however I and millions of others around the world love to have a meat substitute once or twice a week and Christmas is no different.
This is why I decided to make a vegan turkey and a vegan gammon with VBites vegan sausages wrapped in vegan bacon – a copy of our traditional pigs in blanket. Most of the Christmas plate we always have is the same as we have every Sunday for our Sunday roast.
If like me one of your favourite components is cauliflower cheese why not try the new Applewood Vegan smoky paprika cheese as an alternate in your cauliflower cheese dish, available in Asda, it’s the best selling Vegan cheese. It melts and is stringy with a great smoky paprika taste, try adding some Marmite, assuming you’re a Marmite lover like me that is.
Happy New Year!
For more great recipes go to VBites.com and Veganuary.com
In these troubled times it’s very easy to sit and complain, as we know there is so much to complain about, but focusing on the negative truly has a detrimental effect on your life.
I thought I would write this piece because people always ask me after everything that’s happened, how do you stay positive. I suppose because I’ve spent most of my life surrounded by problems I decided I either had to help solve them or drown in them.
What a lot of people I talked to never truly believed is a large part of the power of healing ourselves depends on our thoughts, feelings, as well as the food we eat. In addition the quality of the air we inhale, the water we drink, the environment we are in and the things we choose to do, see and hear.
If you start with little things like moving out of a room of negative thinkers and talkers and refusing to be part of the conversation rather than being pulled in and drowned in it. As you build up your strength you’ll be able to guide and persuade other people to do the same.
It’s a fact that the power of positive thinking especially in the worst of times will affect your immune system and help it remain efficient. Of course when something major happens it’s important to acknowledge it and go through the grieving process but if those around you can help you find something positive in your life and feed you good food and water and try to minimise lingering depressive thoughts or fearful emotions this will help minimise depleting your immune system and creating illness within yourself. Negativity makes our bodies susceptible to invading micro organisms recent research found that toxic personalities have a much higher risk of becoming ill than positive personalities do.
To understand how much simple things such as negative thoughts, emotions or physical experiences can quickly disrupt the energy distribution to the body’s muscles, organs and immune system try yoga, pilates, fresh air walking and minimizing your consumption of animal products.
See how you feel in a few months, write a diary and note the change. Try Vmega-3 Algal Oil to maximise the affect as most people need more Omega 3 and it is important to get it from its original source which is algae rather than the fish who eat it...
I highly recommend you watch game changers on Netflix!
Personally I find drinking enough water very difficult, not only because I don’t really enjoy it unless I’m very thirsty in the gym, but I don’t have time to be on the loo all day.
However unlike many of my friends I never drink soda drinks. I have one friend who drinks zero water and lives off Diet Coke!!!! Luckily she eats tons of vegetables so gets her water through them. But that is not enough.
According to the recommended daily allowance we are meant to have 12 cups of water every day to stay hydrated.
Luckily for those of us who find it difficult to drink enough water we can get a lot of it from the water our food contains as well as the water that is released when our food digests, with a healthy plant-based diet we can probably get at least 4 to 5 cups per day from vegetables, however we still need to drink the remaining 67 cups according to the scientist. They claim 20% of us drink no water at all and 42% of us drink a mere two glasses. Many of us drink too much soda, coffee and juice, which has too much sugar in it. If we don’t get enough water we basically dry ourselves out in other words dehydration. Seeing as we are made up of mainly water it makes sense that the lack of it contributes to chronic health problems such as adult onset diabetes, chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, high blood pressure and the list goes on.
It’s also important to know the water we are drinking, right now we are experiencing a crisis with the water in our environment. In some countries Rivers no longer reach their destinations being diverted for irrigation or dams for hydroelectric Power.
When water travels downhill it picks up calcium and magnesium and becomes more mineralised and more supportive of our health.
Studies in Sweden have shown that if everyone in the country were to drink water with the highest naturally occurring magnesium levels death from heart attacks would drop by about 19%.
Basically water needs to get where it was destined to go and in our case that should be directly into our bodies not via soda or coffee.
Drinking one coffee in the morning is not going to kill you, however many people drink several throughout the day. Coffee however is a diuretic and actually causes the body to excrete more water than it contains, leading to further dehydration.
I now force myself to just carry around a 2 L bottle and sip on it and sometimes by miracle refill it halfway through the day and start again.
Get sipping!
Many years ago Richard Branson showed me you can achieve great things working from a hammock.
However that is only after you have proven you can run a business and even harder own one.
Running a business from a hammock however is not always possible for most of us.
In my case I need to be in my Vegan factories or out in sales meetings..
However finally after 35 years in business I have found a solution nearly as good as a hammock that actually works and keeps me fit.
Email cleansing on a bike, don’t stop reading your going to thank me for it when you actually try it.
The reality of today’s life is ‘WE ARE ALL TO BUSY !!!’
We send an email and 10 more come in, we can never get on top of our work or feel we have covered everything without working 18hr days.
Due to lack of time we make excuses not to exercise,we gain weight, get unhealthy,feel sluggish and so the domino effect continues.
Possible solution, healthy multitasking.
In the gym or on a bike at home or work depending, on your circumstances, start on level one just to spin the bike and move the synovial fluid, great for long term joint health.
Start doing your emails on your phone or I pad or a small computer.
The bike indoors is so boring that the distraction of e-mail cleansing will make the time fly by/
I could barely do 20mins without yawning,but now I get at least 500-900 emails a day, once 4 hrs passed ( only on level 1) and I only realised when my bum went numb...
The added benefit was when I got a seriously annoying email I peddled faster to release my frustration.
By the time I stepped off my thighs felt firmer, I felt less stressed with a feeling of achievement not only for fitness but the fact I had created the best time management solution I could..
I now save weights for 20 mins at the end or weekends.
My plan is to set up a bike in the factory for me and anyone else wishing to join the email cleanse revolution.
My thoughts are to get the carpenter in and build a basic but high desk to sit over the bike , keep the posture straight as we are folding back into apes because of these bloomin’ computers and get email cleansing and feeling a little in control of our lives, in this mad world..
You don’t know till you try it...
Ever since I can remember I have loved chocolate.
As a kid it was a real treat and we had no idea we were not eating real chocolate, most of the large manufacturers used mainly milk and sugar and miniscule amounts of cocoa butter.
In fact the first time I tried real chocolate I did not like it as my taste buds were so addicted to sugar.
It was only when I discovered that dairy was giving me acne that vanity took over and I discovered a way to wean myself off my sugar addiction.
This was over 26yrs ago and the only way I managed it was with diabetic chocolate.
I tricked my mind into thinking i was eating my usual chocolate until my sugar cravings subsided.
I then started to make my own chocolate protein balls and freeze them with rice protein powder cocoa , almonds and dates..
Every monthly PMT moment of weakness made this my saviour from a risky decline to my old eating patterns....
Cocoa powder is made by crushing the beans and removing the cocoa butter.
It is rich in polyphenols, which are naturally occurring anti-oxidants also found in fruits, vegetables and teas.
In its raw state it improves Nitric Oxide levels ( which studies have shown help reduce high blood pressure)
Flavonoids found on cocoa improve nitric oxide which relaxes and dilates your arteries and blood vessels and improves blood flow.
The more it is heated the more it’s health benefits are decreased.
Now why do we feel better after consuming it.
Well, studies claim the flavonols conversion of tryptophan a natural mood stabilizer affecting serotonin could be the trick, also the natural caffeine content and the simple pleasure of eating chocolate..
Over indulgence in anything is never recommended.
However a nice oat milk cocoa drink when stressed is my bedtime go to..
And even that has now been proven to bring calmness and contentment..
On the other hand how could the pleasure not....
Now in 2019 you can pick up healthy snacks in most health food stores.
My favorite treat is The Avocado chocolate pot, made from Cocoa powder, avocado, cashew nuts and dates, a nice clean label, found online at Onist.com, if you do not have a local Wholefoods.
And top it all it’s a buy one, give one, helping charity.
What’s not to love...
I recently had the privilege to hear Sir David Attenborough speak to bankers and financiers in London, pleading for all the successful entrepreneurs in the room to invest in companies trying to save animals, the planet and our health.
It was incredible to listen to a 93-year-old man who has dedicated his life to warning us about what is now actually happening to our world. He said all the solutions are there – but all of us have to do something about it – and we can achieve this by our choices in our everyday lives.
A lot of people don’t think about where the food on their plate comes from. But every purchase we make affects our livelihood, our economy. Britons stood up and shouted for Brexit yet, day after day, they buy imported food rather than home-grown produce.
The nation shouts and marches for climate change, then so many pop to the shop afterwards and don’t even read the label to see where their food comes from, or even stop to consider their own carbon footprint.
Supermarkets are still buying from all over Europe and not supporting British manufacturing or farmers.
At my company Vbites, we have invested heavily in UK-based production, creating hundreds of jobs in theNorth East. We have taken huge risks in investing in this country to help farmers grow oats, peas and potatoes that we can make into protein isolates and put into our products to feed the nation.
Meanwhile, some supermarkets continue to unnecessarily import food when they could so easily support the farmers and manufacturers in the UK which, in turn, supports the economy and the survival of this nation.
So next time you’re out in the supermarket take a look at the packet and see where the product was made. Because it’s down to you to bring about change in consumer demand – a change that could ultimately help save our planet.
Seaweed offers us one of the best sources of iodine, which can help support your thyroid gland. The vitamins and minerals it contains include vitamins K and B, zinc and iron, and many antioxidants.
It has been eaten in Asian countries, such as Japan and China, for centuries, and finally it’s becoming more and more popular in the western world. Many studies have shown that it helps increase weight loss because it contains a substance called fucoxanthin that apparently increases the protein that metabolises fat – benefiting people with Type 2 diabetes.
It also contains a substance called alginate which can help prevent bloodsugar spikes, which in turn may reduce the absorption of sugar into the bloodstream. Scientific tests have shown that the carbohydrate in seaweed called fucans may help prevent blood-clotting, which can cause heart disease.
Be careful where you source your seaweed – some can contain a lot of heavy metals. There is a lot of scaremongering about consuming too much iodine, but what is not promoted is the fact that many of us are walking round with an extreme iodine deficiency.
Heating food can kill 90% of the iodine we think we are consuming. It’s really important to understand its huge health benefits and wake up to the fact that the Japanese, as a nation, are far healthier than us, so why don’t we start learning from those that know more about nutrition? Next time you go out for a Japanese, order the kelp salad or, if you can’t hack the taste, get the miso soup with lots of seaweed in it – and know you will be chewing on something that has huge health benefits.
If you want to get creative, it’s very easy to find Nori sheets and follow an online recipe for avocado Maki wrapped in Nori. Like all food products, it’s important to know what you’re buying and, in my opinion, the best and cleanest seaweed source I have found to date is seaweedandco.com.
This week campaigner and food writer Heather Mills asks if a vegan diet is suitable for everyone When I first became a vegan I believed veganism could help everybody. But there are a number of factors you must be aware of before you go down the vegan path.
We know that vegans must take vitamin B12 to supplement their diet. However, following this way of life may mean you can’t convert short-chain fatty acids, such as flaxseed, into a long-chain fatty acid such as those found in oily fish. Oily fish such as salmon is a good source of omega-3 fatty acid but this can be found in vegetable oils and nuts too (especially walnuts).
Depending on your digestive system and ability to produce enough enzymes, you may be one of the small percentage at risk of not getting enough DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) too. Vegetable-based omega-3s come from ALA (alpha-Linolenic acid) which are then converted to a long- chain fatty acid such as DHA or EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid).
I became concerned about people who couldn’t make this conversion, especially when it comes to the area of mental health and brain function. Then I discovered that omega-3 does not come from the fish itself, it comes from the algae the fish eat. I then wondered why are we killing billions of fish to squeeze oil out of them to put into capsules when we could just eat the algae directly?
The next problem I found was not all algaes are equal. Many have low levels of DHA. I decided to scour the world for the best algae and invested millions towards helping to solve the problem. This was motivated by a friend with serious mental health problems who wanted to go vegan.
Now 12 years on we have come up with the perfect DHA algal oil vegan capsule called V-Mega 3. It’s one of the things I’m most proud of. If you’re still not convinced, imagine how much taking these will help marine ecosystems from all the overfishing.
It’s one thing to discuss enjoying a piece of fish on a plate but there is no discussion to be had over whether you should you take the original omega-3 source from the algae or the secondary source from the fish. For more information visit vbites.com
