Throughout the year, I am going to write a dedicated article each month about how you can obtain essential vitamin and minerals – naturally. I’ll even discuss why the vitamins and minerals are so important to your overall health.

As the year goes on, I will link the articles from here:

Vitamins

• Vitamin A

• B Vitamins

• Vitamin C

• Vitamin D

• Vitamin E

• Vitamin K

Minerals

• Calcium

• Chlorine

• Magnesium

• Phosphorus

• Potassium

• Sulfur

Keep updated on the latest & greatest health articles by joining the Skinny Twinkie community!

Related posts:

1. Benefits and Sources of Vitamin A
2. Twinkie’s Challenge: Throw away your Microwave!
3. Twinkie’s Challenge: Buy Organic

How it all started…

Cancer survivor David Luks developed deluxe honeydrop™ during cancer treatments at Sloan Kettering two years ago where he learned about the benefits of an organic lifestyle. With that knowledge, he decided to create a drink from the land, not the lab.

I got the idea for honeydrop in the wake of having survived cancer. One day, my nutritionist handed me an article about honey and honey’s many health benefits. The article explained that honey is a naturally sweet byproduct of pollination that contains antioxidants, minerals, and vitamins.

Like many of us, David realized that the brands that were promoting their use of honey in products were actually using mostly refined (white) sugar. This of course, defeats the purpose of trying to have a healthy beverage.

Luckily for you and me, David decided to create these healthy and delicious beverages for us – without adding sugar, corn syrup, or artificial products.

Healthy Beverages

Currently, deluxe honeydrop™ includes two organic honey infused organic juices and one organic tea. These beverages are comparable to drinks like Vitamin Water – except these are actually good for you. The beverages contain only 40 calories per serving (2 servings per 16.9 oz PBA-free, recycleable bottle) and each bottle has a spoonful of real honey from Brazil.

The flavors include:

Bee Calm – Chamomile, Tea & Honey

Bee Strong – Blueberry & Honey

Bee Alive –    Blood Orange & Honey

Benefits of Honey

Honey protects against obesity and hypertension; it is lower on the glycemic index (64) relative to sugar (100), making it a more ideal sweetener for diabetics.

Honey is also a great alternative for athletes since it contains glucose and fructose; glucose burns slowly for lasting energy, and fructose burns fast for instant energy and performance.

Honey also naturally helps alleviate sore throats, and contains antioxidants, vitamins and minerals.

I seriously wonder why anyone would anyone want to use processed sugar over honey!

Where to Buy

This is still a relatively new product, so you will want to make sure that you find or request honeydrop™ beverages at your local grocery or health food store!

Right now,  there are 125 Whole Foods stores across the country carrying deluxe honeydrop™ beverages,  with more expansion planned in 2011.

Enjoy the delicious low calorie beverages, and let me know which one is your favorite – I know, hard to choose which one, right?!

Keep updated on the latest & greatest health articles by joining the Skinny Twinkie community!

Image credits: honeydrop.com

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1. Health Benefits of Honey
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Visit your Doctor or Midwife

It’s a good idea to visit with your Doctor or midwife before you try to get pregnant to discuss relevant medical concerns, your pregnancy plan, and answer any questions you may have. If there is any health concerns, they will be able to help you prepare your body for Pregnancy.

Healthy eating habits

You shouldn’t be on a “diet” per se while you are pregnant, but before, during, and after your pregnancy you should have a healthy, balanced diet. If you are eating a lot of fried or sugary foods, you should start eliminating them out of your regular eating habits as soon as possible. You should focus on eating healthy food, not only fuel for your own body, but nutrients that will help develop a healthy baby too.

Prenatal Vitamins

During your pregnancy it’s crucial to have the right amount of vitamins and minerals in your body so that your baby gets the nutrients he/she needs in order to develop. Ideally, you should take Prenatal vitamins at least 6 weeks before you get pregnant. doing this,  you will be able to build up what your own body may be lacking in vitamins and minerals, and may help prepare your body for your developing baby. Folic acid is one of the many nutrients you will need which is found in Prenatal vitamins, and is  crucial to take – especially in the early stages of pregnancy – to prevent birth defects.

Work out

It’s healthy for you and for your baby to be fit before you get pregnant and to stay fit during your pregnancy. Of course,  you will want to make sure you aren’t doing anything too intense while you are pregnant because you don’t want to compromise your baby’s health. It’s not a bad idea to speak with your Doctor or Midwife about what type of exercise is appropriate for you.

Quit those bad habits!

Before you even try to get pregnant, you should stop smoking and drinking alcohol. You don’t want to wait until you have a confirmation that you are pregnant because in most cases, you don’t know you are pregnant until you are 4 weeks along already. As you may already know, consuming alcohol and smoking are extremely harmful to your baby during pregnancy and even after they are born – ever heard of second-hand smoke? Don’t allow your baby to suffer from something they have no control over.

I know it will be hard to stop drinking alcohol and/or stop smoking…but it will benefit you and your family in the long run, and I promise that you won’t regret it when your healthy baby comes!

Labor and Delivery

It’s always good to start with a plan of how you are going to have your baby delivered. Educated yourself on what to expect, what your choices are, and what’s best for you and your baby. If you are planning to get pregnant, or are already pregnant, I recommend watching a documentary called “The Business of Being Born“. It’s controversial and I love it because it will at least give you the other side of the story when it comes to having a baby. I feel that all soon-to-be Moms should at least know about natural births and the benefit that comes from them.

Keep updated on the latest & greatest health articles by joining the Skinny Twinkie community!

Related posts:

1. Pregnancy Weight Gain: Not All Baby
2. Important Nutrients During Pregnancy
3. Workouts for your Baby

Honey is very good for you, but you must know that not all Honey is created equal. Before I go into the many Health Benefits of Honey, I want to first share with you several different types of Honey, so you can be sure you are only getting the best out there.

Different Types of Honey

Honey

Just because you are buying “Honey”, doesn’t mean it is truly “All Natural”. Most honey on today’s market is processed, leaving out all of the good stuff, which is the reason why you would want honey in the first place!

Commercial Honey (the typical Honey bear you see on store shelves) is treated with an intensive heating process that destroys the nutrients of Honey. Don’t always trust your Local Honey either, since many of them will use very little local honey, and then they will mix it with other commercial or off-shore (cheaper) brands of Honey- and yes, they can call it “Local”.

Raw Honey

Raw honey isn’t processed, but is minimally filtered. In it’s pure and raw state still in tact, you will be able to enjoy the maximum amount of honey’s natural antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and vital phytonutrients, where all the nutrients are still preserved.

With Raw Honey, you won’t get that perfect golden glow look of Honey, but you will get the enzymes that help you digest honey, which is something your body needs.

Raw Creamed Honey

If you want to buy Raw Creamed Honey (my favorite), just be sure that is is un-filtered and you will receive the same health benefits of regular Raw Honey.

Certified Organic Raw Honey

For Honey to be Certified Organic, the beehives must be miles away from dense population, industry, traffic congestion, and farm fieldstreated with chemicals and/or landfills. Bees have a natural 4 mile flying radius, so finding the land that can meet the strict requirements  for Certified Organic Raw Honey can prove to be quite difficult. Yet,  the Honey from the wild vegetation can create some of the best tasting Honey on the market.

Nutritional Benefits

Raw Honey is a source of simple carbohydrates, proteins, amino acids, vitamins, and minerals. Depending on which flowers the honeybees went to, the Honey itself may include…

Vitamins: Niacin, Riboflavin and Pantothenic Acid

Minerals: Calcium, Copper, Iron, Magnesium, Manganese, Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc

Raw Honey has a polyphenols, which act as an antioxidant.

Healing properties of Honey

Raw Honey is an oral antibacterial (polyphenols). Raw Honey has been used as a natural treatment for many things, including coughs, sore throats, and even healing infections and burns.

Children with diarrhea are usually given some kind of sugar solution to help rehydrate them, but others have found that if you use Raw Honey instead, the Honey kills the bacteria in the intenstines, and stops the diarrhea altogether.

There is a Raw Honey that is indigenous to New Zealand, and people have found that the Raw Honey taken daily (4 tablespoons) was able to reduce the symptoms of the stomach Ulcer. The Honey helps because it is able to kill the bacteria that causes the stomach ulcers in the first place.

Now that you see the Many Health and Healing Benefits of Honey, you now have plenty of reason to replace your Sugar with it in no time!

Keep updated on the latest & greatest health articles by joining the Skinny Twinkie community!

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1. The many Health Benefits of Salmon
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A Microwave is an “electromagnetic energy” that affects the molecules in your food. Food has positive and negative electrons in it (think North and South Pole!), and when touched by the wave energy from the Microwave, there is a polarity change, which means the negative electrons become positive, and positive electrons becomes negative. By this movement, heat is created with these waves, which is how our food gets cooked. My changing the polarity of the molecules in your food…there are some scary side effects that just don’t make the convenience of a microwave worth it anymore.

Nutrition depleted

Vitamins and Minerals are made useless when heated in the Microwave. Isn’t this the whole point of eating in the first place? Yes, I think foods should taste great…but we are supposed to feed our bodies with beneficial nutrients- Vitamins and Minerals. Knowing that the Nutritional value is depleted when using the microwave just makes me rethink using the microwave for its “convenience”.

People have found that when using the microwave for their fruits and vegetables, they are having a harder time digesting their foods. The microwave kills the nutrients found in the food which help your body digest it.

Harmful Effects outweigh the convenience

I have heard many studies confirming the harmful effects of using a Microwave on the foods and beverages we consume. Some of them are listed below.

-Create cancer-causing agents in not only most food containers you cook with, but also in the food itself. In many cases, it can cause intestinal tumors -anyone ever heard of Colon Cancer?

-Hormonal balances in both men and woman become destabilized or altered.

-Negatively affects your metabolism. If you are trying to lose weight, another reason to stay away from the microwave.

There is a story about a lawsuit back in 1991 in Oklahoma. A woman names Norma Levitt had hip surgery, and was killed by a simple blood transfusion when a nurse “warmed the blood for the transfusion in a microwave oven”. Now, if you do some research, you will get mixed answers as whether this story is actually true or not. Here at SkinnyTwinkie.com, I try to be as honest and open as possible. I really don’t know if this story is true or not. What I do know is this…I am not willing to risk using a Microwave on my Organic foods…or any other food for that matter.

Throw away your Microwave!

If you are the least bit concerned you might just use your microwave anyways, I suggest getting rid of it now. Before you get all sad thinking “my convenience is going away!” think again about what you are doing for yourself by using an Oven or Toaster Oven instead of a Microwave.

First of all, your food will not only have a better texture when it is baked or toasted, but it also tastes better! Who wouldn’t want that? No one that I know of! Second of all, it is much healthier for you , and all you have to do is wait a little while longer. Well worth the wait, especially if you understand the purpose of consuming Organic foods! Another reason to toss your microwave is that it is so much more fun to make popcorn on the stove (with a clear glass lid, of course)!

Still keeping your Microwave anyways?

Ok, Just because you might keep it…doesn’t mean you have to use it, right? And if you do use it anyways…use it to clean dirty sponges that were used for cleaning dishes! That’s right, the Microwave kills everything you put in it, so when you put a dirty sponge in the microwave for 15-30 seconds (depending on what setting you have it on), it kills all of the bacteria on the sponge! I actually tested this out myself with a sponge that didn’t smell all that great…I used the microwave, and smell was all gone. Sweet. Ok, so maybe there is one good thing it can be used for? Still…I don’t believe it is worth keeping around with the possible temptation of cooking your food, plus you might as well just buy another sponge for your kitchen anyways.

Keep updated on the latest & greatest health articles by joining the Skinny Twinkie community!

Related posts:

1. Twinkie’s Challenge: Buy Organic
2. Twinkie’s Challenge: No Sugar or Artifical Sweeteners!
3. Twinkie’s Challenge: Exercise Regularly