Wheatgrass is the ultimate in alkaline food, or at least that's what they say. In my experience, wheatgrass has played a big role in my alkaline diet. Read on and find out. As a bonus, I've made a video of the wheatgrass that I use.
As a regular routine, I have a wheatgrass drink a couple of times a day. Earlier, I used to have Tony Robbins Green Drink, but I later switched to an Indian alternative. There are a couple of reasons for this, firstly, TRGD needs to be imported from the states, it's not available in India. Secondly, it costs around INR 5000(USD 100). But I must stress that TRGD is truly awesome in it's feeling. It will make your body feel light, this feeling of 'being light' can't be explained, but once felt, it feels truly amazing, there is no other feeling like that.
Coming to the point, I want to discuss wheatgrass powder, available locally in India and made in India. Simply put, wheatgrass has many 'benefits', but the only benefit I can feel in my body is that it makes your digestion system and excretion system function properly. Usually, when you eat junk, you mess with the system. Wheatgrass drink does some damage control and helps the food digest faster.
Wheatgrass powder is very cheap it costs INR 200(USD 4), you get 75g of powder which will last for about a month. To show you the exact details, watch the video for this.
Wheatgrass is good for you, so is using the breathing techniques,nobody is alkaline or acidic, its a continuum, adding alkalinity to your daily diet, helps, it makes the diet better. It does some good stuff. It takes 20 parts of alkalinity to neutralize 1 part of acid, so work on keeping to reduce your acidity and increasing alkalinity.
Cheers,
Prithvi
Showing posts with label green drink. Show all posts
Showing posts with label green drink. Show all posts
Friday, June 7, 2013
Friday, May 24, 2013
Alkaline Bananas: A Superb Snack
Woah!, I was just looking at the calendar to see how many days are left in May and I saw another whole week. 5 Fridays in this May, that means 5 posts. As you know, I keep alkaline eating easy, I don't go into complex exotic recipes involving half a dozen fruits half of which you won't find in India and the remaining half for which you don't know the Indian term. My ideas are fairly simple, primarily because, if they weren't, I wouldn't be using them myself.(lazy me ;)).
Having said that, let me take my favorite fruit of all time for this week's alkaline food, banana.The fruit that is available throughout the year, is cheap to buy. The benefits go on and on, but let's take a closer look into how we can use it as part of our alkaline diets. As an important note, bananas have a high glycemic index, what this means is that the sugar(glucose) content is high in them, this causes the sugar to be absorbed into the blood stream faster and causes a spike in the blood sugar levels. This isn't very good, because it is best to have a sustained blood sugar level without fluctuations. If a fruit/vegetable has a low glycemic index, it will get absorbed into the blood gradually and keeps the body stable. If you've ever felt a sudden spike in energy after eating some junk like McDonald's or KFC or something like that, this is what it is. Fluctuating blood sugar causes sudden feeling for a craving, sometimes in the middle of the night, or at odd times, this won't happen if you eat healthy foods and maintain the alkaline balance.
To be clear, a banana and a McDonald's meal can in no way be compared, in other words, don't worry about a high glycemic index as it is a natural sugar and as a part of an alkaline diet, it will blend in perfectly. (If you plan to go on a banana diet for an entire week, that maybe a different story ;)).
3 Ways we can use Bananas in our alkaline diets are
1) Fruit: As simplistic as it sounds, bananas and a couple of almonds make for a terrific snack during the evening, I usually feel hungry at about 7pm, I grab a banana, grab a couple of almonds and I needn't worry about dinner till about 9:30.
2) Banana Sundae: Typically, sundae is a word used to describe an ice-cream sundae, but in our case, we are referring to an entirely alkaline dish. Sliced bananas, served with honey on top make excellent dessert. Slice the bananas, place them horizontally on a plate and pour honey over them and it is ready to eat.
3) Salad: You may know from my previous posts that I mix and match fruits and veggies in my salads. Well, a banana is no exception, multiple times per week I add bananas to my salads and it makes for an awesome salad. Bananas, being sweet, neutralize the taste of any non sweet alkaline foods and make the salad palatable.
This concludes my post on bananas and their alkalinity. Although bananas are not highly alkaline, focus on natural foods is my priority as I believe that nature has made food available to us if we just look.
Give me your thoughts, I want to know. What do you want to hear about? Post in the comments.
Cheers,
Prithvi
Having said that, let me take my favorite fruit of all time for this week's alkaline food, banana.The fruit that is available throughout the year, is cheap to buy. The benefits go on and on, but let's take a closer look into how we can use it as part of our alkaline diets. As an important note, bananas have a high glycemic index, what this means is that the sugar(glucose) content is high in them, this causes the sugar to be absorbed into the blood stream faster and causes a spike in the blood sugar levels. This isn't very good, because it is best to have a sustained blood sugar level without fluctuations. If a fruit/vegetable has a low glycemic index, it will get absorbed into the blood gradually and keeps the body stable. If you've ever felt a sudden spike in energy after eating some junk like McDonald's or KFC or something like that, this is what it is. Fluctuating blood sugar causes sudden feeling for a craving, sometimes in the middle of the night, or at odd times, this won't happen if you eat healthy foods and maintain the alkaline balance.To be clear, a banana and a McDonald's meal can in no way be compared, in other words, don't worry about a high glycemic index as it is a natural sugar and as a part of an alkaline diet, it will blend in perfectly. (If you plan to go on a banana diet for an entire week, that maybe a different story ;)).
3 Ways we can use Bananas in our alkaline diets are
1) Fruit: As simplistic as it sounds, bananas and a couple of almonds make for a terrific snack during the evening, I usually feel hungry at about 7pm, I grab a banana, grab a couple of almonds and I needn't worry about dinner till about 9:30.
2) Banana Sundae: Typically, sundae is a word used to describe an ice-cream sundae, but in our case, we are referring to an entirely alkaline dish. Sliced bananas, served with honey on top make excellent dessert. Slice the bananas, place them horizontally on a plate and pour honey over them and it is ready to eat.
3) Salad: You may know from my previous posts that I mix and match fruits and veggies in my salads. Well, a banana is no exception, multiple times per week I add bananas to my salads and it makes for an awesome salad. Bananas, being sweet, neutralize the taste of any non sweet alkaline foods and make the salad palatable.
This concludes my post on bananas and their alkalinity. Although bananas are not highly alkaline, focus on natural foods is my priority as I believe that nature has made food available to us if we just look.
Give me your thoughts, I want to know. What do you want to hear about? Post in the comments.
Cheers,
Prithvi
Friday, May 10, 2013
Cucumbers: The Alkaline Food
Continuing with the theme of the month of alkaline recipes, the veggie* for this week is the cucumber. Alkaline inside and out, cucumbers make for awesome alkaline foods. They are light, fill your tummy and they are alkaline, what more could you ask for? Well, before you say 'taste', let me accept the fact that cucumbers don't taste all that great, but they don't taste all that bad either, they are simply neutral.
Let's dive into ways we can use cucumbers in our alkaline diets.
1) Cut Slices
2) Cut Slices in Salads
3) Cut Slices as a side dish
Yes, you read it right. The famous cucumber is best used as cut slices. Let's go into some details about how we can use them to the best possible way.
1) Cut Slices: The most common and easy way to eat a cucumber is to peel it, slice it and serve on a neat plate. It will be ready in 2 mins, best for a snack, in the initial days, cucumbers were my breakfast and lunch. Over time, newer dishes have come up in my menu. If the plain cucumber is too bland for your taste, add some chat masala (spicy & tangy powder), although chat masala has non alkaline ingredients, since we are adding them in minuscule quantities, it's alright.
2) Cut Slices in Salads: As you may remember from some of the pictures of my salads, cucumbers are a daily feature in my salads, sliced up a little differently than usual, cucumbers make a great filling, they are cheap to buy and one cucumber is often enough to fill up nearly half of the salad. The important thing to remember if you're one of the people that can't eat cucumbers directly, make sure you add some fruit that can add some sweetness to the salad to neutralize taste factor of the cucumber. This is a big one for me.
3) Cut Slices as a Side Dish: Cucumbers are present in every restaurant, and many times they are just placed as starters before the meal and the best part is that many times they don't even charge for them. A note to over eaters, cucumbers are the way to go if you want to eat less of junk. You have only 1 stomach, you can either fill it up with salads, with soup, with starters, with biryani*, or with ice cream. But the end result is that your stomach will be full after a while, and if it's full with cucumbers, you've put on no weight whatsoever, if you're full with biryani, you've put on 1500 calories.
Note: The satiety reflex, the reflex of the stomach that tells you you're full is triggered faster when you eat healthy, That means that if you're eating healthy foods, you will eat less and still have all the energy you need.
True, the list above is small, but it's not list that makes the difference, it is the application of the list in your daily life. I eat cucumbers in the way I mentioned above, it makes a huge difference to the quality of my life. I feel phenomenal, very necessary element to balance out acidic foods.
Keep this in mind while using cucumbers from now on.
Please post your experiences with cucumbers, and let me know about anything you'd like to hear more about.
Regards,
Prithvi
* in India, we refer to cucumbers and tomatoes as vegetables.
* Biryani is steamed flavoured rice that often includes Non Veg.
Let's dive into ways we can use cucumbers in our alkaline diets.
1) Cut Slices2) Cut Slices in Salads
3) Cut Slices as a side dish
Yes, you read it right. The famous cucumber is best used as cut slices. Let's go into some details about how we can use them to the best possible way.
1) Cut Slices: The most common and easy way to eat a cucumber is to peel it, slice it and serve on a neat plate. It will be ready in 2 mins, best for a snack, in the initial days, cucumbers were my breakfast and lunch. Over time, newer dishes have come up in my menu. If the plain cucumber is too bland for your taste, add some chat masala (spicy & tangy powder), although chat masala has non alkaline ingredients, since we are adding them in minuscule quantities, it's alright.
2) Cut Slices in Salads: As you may remember from some of the pictures of my salads, cucumbers are a daily feature in my salads, sliced up a little differently than usual, cucumbers make a great filling, they are cheap to buy and one cucumber is often enough to fill up nearly half of the salad. The important thing to remember if you're one of the people that can't eat cucumbers directly, make sure you add some fruit that can add some sweetness to the salad to neutralize taste factor of the cucumber. This is a big one for me.
3) Cut Slices as a Side Dish: Cucumbers are present in every restaurant, and many times they are just placed as starters before the meal and the best part is that many times they don't even charge for them. A note to over eaters, cucumbers are the way to go if you want to eat less of junk. You have only 1 stomach, you can either fill it up with salads, with soup, with starters, with biryani*, or with ice cream. But the end result is that your stomach will be full after a while, and if it's full with cucumbers, you've put on no weight whatsoever, if you're full with biryani, you've put on 1500 calories.
Note: The satiety reflex, the reflex of the stomach that tells you you're full is triggered faster when you eat healthy, That means that if you're eating healthy foods, you will eat less and still have all the energy you need.
True, the list above is small, but it's not list that makes the difference, it is the application of the list in your daily life. I eat cucumbers in the way I mentioned above, it makes a huge difference to the quality of my life. I feel phenomenal, very necessary element to balance out acidic foods.
Keep this in mind while using cucumbers from now on.
Please post your experiences with cucumbers, and let me know about anything you'd like to hear more about.
Regards,
Prithvi
* in India, we refer to cucumbers and tomatoes as vegetables.
* Biryani is steamed flavoured rice that often includes Non Veg.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Impact of An Alkaline Diet on Daily Life
A thought dawned on me the other day, I asked myself 'Why eat Alkaline?', I found that this is a very important question that most of us have. A question that you must have answered in some way which led to starting or continuing the diet. Let's look at why we eat alkaline and why we should continue to eat alkaline.
I'll describe 3 areas of my life where the AD has personally helped me.
Firstly, I find a huge, and I must emphasize on huge, impact on exercise. During my previous years when I used to eat any and everything, I tried to exercise, but the exercise used to be such a painful thing to do, you get tired easily, which in turn makes you give up on the exercise program entirely. After I changed my diet, exercising is a breeze, it's so simple to do, it's like a ship with an anchor, when you eat junk, you feel like you're dragging the anchor, when you eat healthy, it feels like you've let go of the anchor. It feels heavenly.
Secondly, there is a amazing difference in the quality of sleep I get. When I used to eat junk, I used to wake up tired, tired and tired. I learnt later that the body is trying to digest all the junk we put into it while we sleep and the body's resources aren't enough to cope with junk and as a result we feel dull and drowsy after waking up from a complete night's sleep. Eating alkaline makes waking up much easier, you feel fresh when you wake up in the morning, you have less resistance to getting up. It feels amazing, words can't describe how good it feels.
Last but not the least, energy level throughout the day, I must say that there is zero energy drain. When you eat junk, and you're continuously eating junk, you forget how good it feels or rather how light it feels when you eat healthy, probably because you forget what eating healthy is. After a couple of days of eating alkaline, you'll immediately feel the difference. I felt lighter, light like a feather. Light is a relative term and you must know how pathetic it feels after eating junk to know how 'light' feels like. Eating junk brings with it drowsiness, you eat Chicken Biryani (flavoured & steamed chicken with rice), you immediately feel like sleeping, especially with today's lifestyles' of AC restaurants, AC offices, AC homes, comfy chairs, AC cars. It makes it all the more likely to feel drowsy after such a meal.
The biggest impact that an alkaline diet has on your life is the long lasting energy, I eat salads for breakfast and lunch. I eat my breakfast at about 8am and lunch at around 1pm. Often, it so happens, I can completely forget about lunch till about 3pm. I have a very small portion serving of salad for breakfast and this should make me very very hungry, but this doesn't happen, this doesn't mean I don't eat till dinner, I must eat at the right times so I feel normal and feel satiated most of the time so as to avoid any cheat meals. When I refer to energy, it isn't the shot of sugar that instantly fuels the body when you eat some junk, I'm referring to a higher quality of energy, energy that stems from health not from food.
This is a very important post, for me as well as for anyone who's practicing the AD, it keeps us on track as to why we're on this diet in the first place, this can be easy to forget in today's culture of fast food.
Let me know what you think, any questions you may have, any experiences you've got regarding the AD.
Cheers,
Prithvi
I'll describe 3 areas of my life where the AD has personally helped me.
Firstly, I find a huge, and I must emphasize on huge, impact on exercise. During my previous years when I used to eat any and everything, I tried to exercise, but the exercise used to be such a painful thing to do, you get tired easily, which in turn makes you give up on the exercise program entirely. After I changed my diet, exercising is a breeze, it's so simple to do, it's like a ship with an anchor, when you eat junk, you feel like you're dragging the anchor, when you eat healthy, it feels like you've let go of the anchor. It feels heavenly.
Secondly, there is a amazing difference in the quality of sleep I get. When I used to eat junk, I used to wake up tired, tired and tired. I learnt later that the body is trying to digest all the junk we put into it while we sleep and the body's resources aren't enough to cope with junk and as a result we feel dull and drowsy after waking up from a complete night's sleep. Eating alkaline makes waking up much easier, you feel fresh when you wake up in the morning, you have less resistance to getting up. It feels amazing, words can't describe how good it feels.
Last but not the least, energy level throughout the day, I must say that there is zero energy drain. When you eat junk, and you're continuously eating junk, you forget how good it feels or rather how light it feels when you eat healthy, probably because you forget what eating healthy is. After a couple of days of eating alkaline, you'll immediately feel the difference. I felt lighter, light like a feather. Light is a relative term and you must know how pathetic it feels after eating junk to know how 'light' feels like. Eating junk brings with it drowsiness, you eat Chicken Biryani (flavoured & steamed chicken with rice), you immediately feel like sleeping, especially with today's lifestyles' of AC restaurants, AC offices, AC homes, comfy chairs, AC cars. It makes it all the more likely to feel drowsy after such a meal.
The biggest impact that an alkaline diet has on your life is the long lasting energy, I eat salads for breakfast and lunch. I eat my breakfast at about 8am and lunch at around 1pm. Often, it so happens, I can completely forget about lunch till about 3pm. I have a very small portion serving of salad for breakfast and this should make me very very hungry, but this doesn't happen, this doesn't mean I don't eat till dinner, I must eat at the right times so I feel normal and feel satiated most of the time so as to avoid any cheat meals. When I refer to energy, it isn't the shot of sugar that instantly fuels the body when you eat some junk, I'm referring to a higher quality of energy, energy that stems from health not from food.
This is a very important post, for me as well as for anyone who's practicing the AD, it keeps us on track as to why we're on this diet in the first place, this can be easy to forget in today's culture of fast food.
Let me know what you think, any questions you may have, any experiences you've got regarding the AD.
Cheers,
Prithvi
Friday, April 12, 2013
Cheat Meals & Solutions
Hey guys,
I know that the main interest for anyone is to figure out how to eat clean and most of all, how to resist the urge to eat junk. This post is all about, why, how and what to do now.
Why?
Before we get into the details of how, let's first figure out the why, why would anyone not want to live healthy, feel light? Logically, it makes no sense whatsoever, however when we dig deeper into this, we'll realize that the urge is a combination of emotional, psychological and scientific.
Emotionally: Eating food provides blood to the stomach and makes you feel good, this is one of the major reasons for over eating, whenever you feel bad, you'd grab something to eat (I'm no exception, this was a chronic problem that I had). This doesn't add to the quality of your life in any way, it only lowers it and makes you fat.
Psychologically or mentally: We feel disconnected from the rest of the society, everyone is partying, having drinks, eating kebabs (kind of grilled meat) and what not, people will eat anything under the sun, but this can't go on forever, all and I must emphasize ALL diseases come from creating a poisonous environment for our blood to proliferate in. Infectious bugs can do nothing to our body if our immune system is strong, because we pollute our bodies by consuming all sorts of 'socially acceptable' food, we are tearing down our immune systems and allowing bugs to infect us. (By the way, these are not my thoughts, they are thoughts of the best professors at Harvard who also happen to be Nobel Laureates).
 |
| Alkaline Salad, my lunch today. |
This is typically low in Indians because of the home environment wherein we are 'forced' to eat at home most of the time, but has changed drastically over the past couple of years due to the cropping up of fast food restaurants in every nook and corner and the changing lifestyles.
Now you know why you feel like eating junk. Let's move on to the How.
How?
Restricting the categories of foods you allow yourself to eat, makes a phenomenal difference in the quality of life we have. Before we discuss more on this, let's look into what are the Hows of unhealthy eating.
1) Eating Packaged foods: There are a couple of things to note about packaged foods, firstly, that almost no packaged food is alkaline, let me know if you find any. Secondly, they have so many ingredients that it crosses the line into acidic and maybe even into very acidic. As we know that alkaline foods are those that usually have a good amount of water content(the more the better) in them, do packaged foods have any water content at all?
2) Eating Junk: All food that we eat at restaurants is usually acidic, since almost everything has some percentage of oil in it. But compared to packaged foods, this is slightly better (this doesn't make it alkaline), as it is freshly prepared, the alive component of the food is more than in the case of packaged foods which have been packed months ago. In case of fast food chains like KFC or McDonald's, they have everything prepared in some part of the country and shipped everywhere else where only the last phase i.e. frying in oil or heating is done. This means, it is NOT good for the body.
3) Eating Excess: Eating in excess any food, let me re-emphasize, any food, be it acidic or alkaline (except salads), is not good. Just because they are alkaline, doesn't mean you can eat hundreds of almonds, they have their limits. The advantage of eating alkaline is, firstly that it keeps you feeling light all the time, in addition to the fact that it is good for you. Secondly, that the food you eat doesn't create Candida and create the craving for food.
Now that we have the How part covered, let's look at What Now.
What Now?
If you're feeling drowsy and feel drained of energy, and you need a cup of coffee to stimulate you, the diet intake you have is probably acidic. The impact its got on your body today is toxic enough, if you continue to eat the way you do, the future doesn't look too good.
What's probably happening is that the body's alkaline reserves are being depleted, but there is no replenishment, so if that is the case, the body needs to get the alkalinity from somewhere to balance out the acidity, so it takes it from the bones. This is why people shrink when they grow old.
I don't want to do an entire health workshop here, but the way your body feels and responds to the foods you eat are the best guide to you eating journey.
Solution
Obviously every one of us is human and I just mentioned above that there are alkaline reserves in the body. There is a cheat day allowed if you eat alkaline throughout the week. This basically boils down to the 80:20 eating habits, eat alkaline 80% of the time and you can eat acid 20% of the time.
Just keep these tips in mind, make sure that you eat the cheat meals at good restaurants where the meals are freshly prepared. Don't eat packaged foods, they are absolute junk.
Zig Zag principle, if it's not your cheat day and you still feel like having something, you may just go and have like 2 spoonfuls of ice cream.
WARNING: If you are weak with foods like me, don't try this, you will most likely fail and binge eat.
I have a solution to the warning, if you want to accompany a couple of friends out, eat a big bowl of salad or something at home and then go out, you'll already be full, so the tendency to eat anything greatly reduces.
I'll sign off here. Please post any comments you may have. I'm always open to questions.
Regards,
Prithvi
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Breathing Effect
Hey guys,
I mentioned in the last post that I had been using some breathing techniques. These techniques are fantastic, they charge you up when you need to get charged up. I've listed them below.
1) 1:4:2 is the breathing technique Tony Robbins suggests, take 1 count of breath in,hold it for 4 counts and release it over 2 counts through the Mouth.1 count doesn't mean 1second, if you take 1 count to be 7 then 4 counts would be 28 and 2 counts would be 14. It means that you should count in your head the no, it needn't be 1=1s. Tony suggests to take the count as 7, but for a beginner I'd suggest 4, it's a good way to get started especially if you have poor breathing habits. If you take 4, you will soon feel that you've mastered it and will want to take on a bigger challenge, that's when you put in 7.
This entire 1:4:2 ratio takes around 50-60s each time you do it and you are supposed to repeat it 10 times each time. I didn't realize this in the beginning and started doing it only 3 times, that itself had tremendous benefits, but since I heard that CD of Living Health again, I started doing it 10 times, I usually do it whenever I feel low on energy. But a systematic timed procedure is the best way to feel energy.
2) Breath in, breath out 10 times. This technique was suggested by Eben Pagan, this is a instant booster of energy and has a faster effect. You must take in 10 deep breaths and each time you must release every ounce of air inside of you through the mouth and that inturn it rewards you with an instant charge to the brain.Remember, after the 10th breath, don't take in any more air, until you feel like you really need to, which is usually after at least 1-2,mins
3) 3 in: 6 out this system works in a way wherein, you breath in for 3 counts and breath out for 6 counts. 1 count is 1s in this case. You will feel instant energy after you do this.
So That's that, I'll keep you posted on new stuff I try.
Ciao
Prithvi
I mentioned in the last post that I had been using some breathing techniques. These techniques are fantastic, they charge you up when you need to get charged up. I've listed them below.
1) 1:4:2 is the breathing technique Tony Robbins suggests, take 1 count of breath in,hold it for 4 counts and release it over 2 counts through the Mouth.1 count doesn't mean 1second, if you take 1 count to be 7 then 4 counts would be 28 and 2 counts would be 14. It means that you should count in your head the no, it needn't be 1=1s. Tony suggests to take the count as 7, but for a beginner I'd suggest 4, it's a good way to get started especially if you have poor breathing habits. If you take 4, you will soon feel that you've mastered it and will want to take on a bigger challenge, that's when you put in 7.
This entire 1:4:2 ratio takes around 50-60s each time you do it and you are supposed to repeat it 10 times each time. I didn't realize this in the beginning and started doing it only 3 times, that itself had tremendous benefits, but since I heard that CD of Living Health again, I started doing it 10 times, I usually do it whenever I feel low on energy. But a systematic timed procedure is the best way to feel energy.
2) Breath in, breath out 10 times. This technique was suggested by Eben Pagan, this is a instant booster of energy and has a faster effect. You must take in 10 deep breaths and each time you must release every ounce of air inside of you through the mouth and that inturn it rewards you with an instant charge to the brain.Remember, after the 10th breath, don't take in any more air, until you feel like you really need to, which is usually after at least 1-2,mins
3) 3 in: 6 out this system works in a way wherein, you breath in for 3 counts and breath out for 6 counts. 1 count is 1s in this case. You will feel instant energy after you do this.
So That's that, I'll keep you posted on new stuff I try.
Ciao
Prithvi
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