Is Beef Still For Dinner?

Posted by Dr. Wirtz on Apr 3, 2012 in Blog, Diseases, Health Tips | 2 comments

From fast food drive-in hamburgers to ground beef tacos to that juicy steak for dinner; no source of protein may be more of a fixture in the standard American diet than Beef.  This, and other sources of red meat are not the only sources of high-quality protein available for us to choose from, but they are by far our most common choice.  However, more and more research is suggesting this may not be a smart choice on our part, and the evidence continues to pile up demonstrating how red meat may play a role in many chronic health conditions.

One study published this month in the Archives of Internal Medicine looked at the health and eating habits of over 100,000 Americans through the course of more than 20 years.  Death rates from cardiovascular disease and cancer were collected and compared to other health and diet measures.

The results of this study found that, on average, every 1 serving per day of red meat increased each person’s risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 18% and risk of death from cancer by 10%.  The authors conclude that substituting 1 serving per day of red meat with a healthier protein source (for example fish, nuts, or legumes) can offer an even greater protective benefit against these fatal diseases.

Therefore the results of this study strongly suggest that red meat is an unhealthy choice of protein to be regularly included in our diets, and high intakes over a lifetime puts people at a significantly greater risk of dying from cardiovascular disease or cancer.

Better Sleep

Posted by Dr. Wirtz on Feb 21, 2012 in Blog, Free Exam, Free Treatment, Health Tips | 0 comments

Over the past few weeks I have been experiencing some sleepless nights and not quality sleep.  I know it’s from stress and I seem to have trouble turning my mind off at night.  I found this great article that talks about sleep and certain foods you can eat to help with sleep.  Here is the link http://www.foodmatters.tv/_webapp_195160/Stressed_Out_-_Having_Trouble_Sleeping. Eating healthy, drinking plenty of water, and getting regular chiropractic adjustments will help too!  So, stop in and get your free spinal exam and free treatment today!

Fried Food…..NOT Bad For You?

Posted by Dr. Wirtz on Jan 31, 2012 in Blog, Diseases, Free Exam, Health Tips | 0 comments

Vitamin D Helps Muscle Injuries

Posted by Dr. Wirtz on Jan 17, 2012 in Blog, Free Exam, Health Tips | 0 comments

I’ve come across a new research study that I wanted to share with you. This study looked at Vitamin D levels and the NFL players that have lost time to muscle injury. As part of their pre-season routine examinations, 85 NFL football players had their Vitamin D levels taken. Normal levels are considered to be 32 ng/mL or higher. Then, the amount of time each player lost to muscle injuries was tracked throughout the season. The study found that the athletes that suffered a muscle injury had an average vitamin D level of only 19.9 ng/mL!

Now, let’s look at this to figure out what it means. First of all, I’m shocked that a highly paid professional athlete would have dietary deficiencies at all.  But working with olympic athletes in my past tells me it’s the little things they don’t worry about, like drinking plenty of water or maintaining the appropriate vitamin levels. But that aside, does it mean that low vitamin D levels mean you are more likely to see injuries? Maybe. The study didn’t mention if their were any other dietary deficiencies, but it’s certainly possible that if the athletes were low in vitamin D they may have been low in other nutrients. Should we make sure we have adequate vitamin D levels? Absolutely!

Some vitamin D facts:

• It’s important  for bone density (preventing osteoporosis)
• Normals levels prevent heart attack and make it more likely to survive one if you do have one.
• Colon, breast and ovarian cancer have been linked to deficiency
• Good levels of vitamin D have been linked to a stronger immune system.
• Alzheimer’s patients have lower vitamin D levels (unknown if this is a cause or result of the disease)
• Good vitamin D levels result in less falls in the elderly.
• Has been suggested to be linked to mood, depression and cognitive function.

Wow! With all those benefits, we certainly should make sure you get enough. So where do you get vitamin D? In the summer, your skin will make vitamin D when exposed to the sun.  Milk, and most soy and rice milks, are fortified with vitamin D so you may be getting your requirements there. Dietary sources include oily fish (cod, salmon, tuna), eggs and liver. Unfortunately, you would have to consume large quantities of these foods to meet your requirements. I’m in favor of getting good nutrition through food, not tablets, but if you must supplement do some research abuout the brand before you buy to insure it’s a high quality supplement.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that you must follow recommendations when taking vitamin D supplements. The recommended daily dose for an adult is 600-800 IU/day. 4000 IU/day is considered the upper tolerable limit for this vitamin and you will see the effects of toxicity above these levels.

Remember, good nutrition and chiropractic adjustments is a key to injury prevention.  If you have a muscle injury come in for you free spinal exam as soon as possible!  Get adjusted!

Is Buying Organic More Expensive?

Posted by Dr. Wirtz on Dec 27, 2011 in Blog, Health Tips, Uncategorized | 0 comments

I personally try to buy mostly organic groceries and very little processed food because I have studied how bad processed food is for you.  I here people all the time say “it’s just too expensive to eat healthy.”  I myself don’t find this to be true.  I spend the same if not less on the groceries I buy and keep in mind I’m not only feeding myself, but an Olympic athlete who eats about 6000 calories a day!  I found this great article about this subject at mercola.com.  Happy reading and hopefully happy and healthy grocery shopping!  Don’t forget that a healthy body consists of great nutrition but also a regular Chiropractic adjustment!!!!  Come by and start yourself on the path to wellness.

Your Family Could be Eating Organic Food for the Same Price as

Processed Foods — or Less

A common perception is that whole organic food is so expensive that it is out-of-budget for the average family or even for the average single consumer. It is also commonly perceived that the average grocery purchase of processed foods at a neighborhood supermarket, using the store discounts, makes the processed food diet within the budget of most families.

If you go along with those who accept the above hypothesis on faith, you may be quite surprised by what you find in this article.

Knowing what I spend on groceries in an average week for my all whole-food, mostly organic-eating family, I had to test the conventional wisdom for myself. So one day in January 2005 I went to a typical supermarket right around the corner from me to see how the other half lives …

Health Nut Stalks Supermarket Aisles With Notebook in Hand

Jotting down in my notebook many processed foods as well as their weights and prices, with all the store savings, I prepared a long list of foods from which I could construct a hypothetical week’s worth of processed food for a family of three.

Below you will find a menu of all processed food items for a week, and a list of prices for all the groceries that I hypothetically bought. Then I assembled my hypothetical purchases into a meal plan for a family of three, which you will see below, along with the price list.

Following that, you will find a week’s menu and price list for mostly organic, all whole-food meals for the same family of three.

Ground Rules

For the sake of simplicity and realistic comparison, I stuck to the following constraints:

• There are no leftovers from before the beginning of the week, nor saved at the end (empty refrigerator beginning and end, and no throwing out food; everything purchased gets eaten by the three hypothetical family members).
• Unless specified otherwise, all beverage consumption is water.
• There are no separate snacks, except for Sunday afternoon, unless an individual saves part of a meal to snack on later.
• Neither the cheapest generic brands, nor the most expensive brands were chosen, but rather a brand in the middle, especially if it was on sale.
• Portions are listed per family member of a three-person family, although the heartiest appetite in the family may consume some part of the portion left by the smallest appetite. It is assumed that everyone eats the same food at the same time everyday, and that the six ounces of soda at every lunch is either carried in a thermos to work or school, or that this family is on vacation at home, eating every meal at home together and pouring their soda directly from a large bottle kept in the refrigerator.
• It is assumed that no family member is deliberately restricting calories, or is otherwise restricting any type of food.

The cold bottled coffee at breakfast may seem a bit extravagant, but consider that this replaces visits to coffee shops or any other form of coffee or tea or recreational beverage. Also, the all-processed food family does not get milk with their cereal, but rather cold, bottled, sugared coffee.

How do Whole Foods Compare?

Now consider a menu prepared entirely from whole, organic and free-range foods. One might consider such a diet to be extravagantly expensive. Yet the cost for a week’s worth of organic whole food groceries for a family of three is about the same as for the “cheap” processed food.

The same rules apply as with the processed food. No leftovers from the beginning of the week or saved at the end (empty refrigerator beginning and end, with no waste). No restaurant eating or take-out. No beverages other than water. No snacks except for what one person may save for later from his/her apportioned meal. No deliberate calorie restriction, and everyone eats until full.

All meals are listed for one person only of a three-person family, assuming that those with larger appetites may have more, and those of smaller appetites may have an equal amount less, in order to balance out to the average portions listed below.

A significant difference is that the processed food eating family gets a dessert of an ice cream bar, while the whole food eating family gets no dessert. The whole food eating family, however, generally gets much bigger meal portions. The reason behind this is partly demographic realism: those who eat denatured food are missing nutrients that they seek in desserts and other denatured foods, whereas whole food eaters feel completely full when eating in proper proportions for their metabolic types.

We made no attempt to quantify the salad ingredients. Fresh plants and salads are such anarchy of ingredients, they defy standardization. Cooking large meals with whole foods is a little trickier to quantify than packages of pre-weighed processed foods.

The difference is made up in the leftovers. For example, the large crockpot chicken stew at the beginning of the week, the eggplant curry in the middle of the week, and the roast beef at the end are massive enough not only for everyone’s dinner, but also for two days’ lunches as well, with generous one-pound portions. The one-pound portions of stew are about half added water by weight.

Both the salmon dinners and squash-and-broccoli raab dinners are small enough that the leftovers put together make just one lunch for the family. The advantage to cooking enormous crockpot or Dutch oven meals, with subsequent leftovers, is that although it is more time-consuming to prepare whole food from scratch, it is easier just to do it in fewer larger amounts during the week. If this still seems daunting, please see my article, Cook Whole Food from Scratch, and Keep Your Day Job.

The Bottom Line

You will notice the savings of $1.22 with a mostly organic, whole-food diet. In fact, our organic food price list shows higher than realistic prices in two ways: The prices shown are at retail health food stores in the Phoenix area. But also in this area, there are at least three organic food-buying groups, with prices for organic produce at about $1.00 per pound.

To find organic food buying groups, co-ops, health food stores, local retail farms and farmers markets in your area, see localharvest.com.

Furthermore, if you have a backyard, especially here in the Southwest, you can save further in ways that processed food eaters can’t: Almost all year we grow salad greens, herbs, braising greens of some kind and/or various squashes. (The salad herbs oregano, thyme, mint and parsley never quit here in any season!)

Subtracting the prices of what we are currently pulling out of our backyard garden from what is on the sample menu:

Organic cilantro:		$0.99
And organic broccoli raab:		$4.08
We save an additional:		$5.07

Which means we spend only $122.42 – $5.07 = $117.35 in an average week for a three-person family, which is $6.29 less than the family eating all processed food.

Of course, gardeners in colder climates tend to have really prolific harvests in summer and fall, which is when they will realize much better savings. Processed food eaters are entirely dependent on commercial supply, no matter what the season.

However, the biggest savings of the whole-food eating family has yet to be calculated, as we consider the difference in medical care needs between whole food eaters on the one hand, and those who will continue eating for decades such chemicals as MSG (a.k.a. hydrolyzed wheat protein and several other names), carcinogens or nerve poisons (a.k.a. pesticides), sugar, aspartame and other sweeteners, as well as margarine and other trans-fatty acids, to name some of the most infamous processed food ingredients.

As a wise saying goes, the best reason to eat organic is that pesticides don’t know when to stop killing.

Now answer honestly: Can you afford NOT to eat whole organic food?