Halloween Hazards and Healthy Halloween Treats
Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo on October 30, 2009 – 3:56 pm -
Halloween is a fun holiday, especially for kids. My teenage son, Eric has been to several haunted houses with his friends and spent hours at a costume store, picking out just the right mask.
My preteen son, Kevin, loves trick or treating and eagerly anticipates what’s going to be in his goodie bag…the one I’ll trade him for the candy he collects.
Even though we don’t eat candy, and we end up throwing away all the candy collected at Hal loween, the kids still have a blast!
We have our own rituals and festivities after the trick or treating is over. Trick or treating is a social event. They used to just collect money for UNICEF, but after a while they got tired of telling the well-meaning adults “No thanks” on the candy and started coming home with bags full. At first they thought they could just give it to their friends. Then they realized that they liked their friends too much to add to the already too large a strain on their immune systems and decided it best to throw it away. Wasteful??? Not hardly. Every piece we throw away is one less that some one eats and that saves them hours of a depressed immune system.
You see, sugar depresses the immune system. It’s been measured to decrease the activity of the T-cells, the “protector cells” by as much as 50% for 4 hours after just 2 teaspoons of sugar. Your typical soft drink contains 8 teaspoons.
With all the fear of the flu going around these days, isn’t it nice to know that there is an easy way to support your immune system and protect yourself and your kids from the flu? Supporting their immune system naturally is far more effective than any flu vaccine….and much safer. I held a special “emergency” immune system support and flu prevention teleclass at the beginning of the month. The recordings are available at http://drritamarie.com/FluProtection-TeleClass-SignUp.php
A Nobel prize winning researcher named Otto Warberger showed the connection between sugar and cancer back in the 1930’s! Sugar’s adverse effects can be seen throughout your body. Here’s a passage abut sugar from my new book, Healthy Halloween Treats
“Sugar can also impair the structure of DNA, cause hyperactivity, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and crankiness in children, weaken eyesight, contribute to eczema, interfere with the absorption of protein, decrease the activity of your T cells, which contributes to the reduction in defense against bacterial infection, contribute to Candida (yeast) infections and contribute to osteoporosis. “
There are more little known facts about sugar in Healthy Halloween Treats, as well as healthier alternatives to the candy and cupcakes and other harmful foods that are usually associated with Halloween.
Junk food doesn’t just promote tooth decay and hyperactivity. It is life-threatening!! Here are some statistics from Dr. Joel Fuhrman, a “radical” medical doctor who treats his patients with broccoli and other fresh fruits and vegetables.
“The CDC estimates that 1/3 of children born in 2000 will develop type 2 diabetes in their lifetime, and that children born in 2000
may not outlive their parents. Overweight/obesity rates have doubled among children and tripled among adolescents in the past 20 years. Obesity in children increases their risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, asthma, joint problems, sleep apnea, early puberty, and several cancers. Signs of atherosclerosis can be seen in early childhood. Most adult cancers are linked to poor childhood nutrition. Sugar contributes to violence. 69% of the 10 year olds who were violent at the age of 34 had eaten sweets and chocolate nearly every day during childhood, compared to 42% who were non-violent.”
As a parent or an adult responsible for the nutrition of a child, you have the responsibility to educate yourself. Allowing your children to indulge in junk food sets them up for childhood illnesses, cancers, and poor quality life. As parents, you must take control of your children’s health! You must set a good example and protect them from the dangers of indulging in the Halloween sweets and treats that are harming them.
For more information on the health risks the modern western diet imposes on kids, read Dr. Fuhrman’s book Disease Proof Your Child
It’s sad how much misinformation abounds. The American Academy of Family Physicians is clueless about counseling parents about healthy diet for kids. They just announced a corporate sponsorship with Coca-Cola to develop their consumer education content on to beverages and sweeteners for their health and wellness web site, FamilyDoctor.org. Coca-Cola is certainly not going to include the information about how dangerous soft drinks are, will they? How can you trust your family physician if their association is getting its nutrition education from CocaCola? According to Dr. Fuhrman, on his blog , Disease Proof, the American Dietetic Association also accepts money from Coca-Cola, as well as from PepsiCo, Kellogg’s, General Mills, Mars and the National Dairy Council.
I know it’s hard to say no to your favorite holiday goodies. Yet you owe it to yourself and your family to learn the cold hard facts and act on them. In Healthy Halloween Treats I give you all you need to maintain the joy and playfulness of the holiday and keep it nutritious and safe at the same time. Try some banana ghosts, chocolate covered apples, chocolate spiders or swampsicles. Your kids will love it and they’ll thank you when they realize later how much pain and suffering you saved them by making healthy choices for them.
Happy Halloween.
Love, Health and Joy,
Dr. Ritamarie
Tags: dr fuhrman, Dr. Joel Fuhrman, Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, DrRitamarie, Halloween junk food, Halloween treats, raw and living foods holiday recipes, whole foods, whole foods halloween
Posted in Gluten Free recipes, cancer, healthy holiday | 1 Comment »
Sugar, Freedom of Choice and Whole Foods
Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo on October 31, 2008 – 6:56 am -A recent comment to my blog post “Whole Foods is Promoting Junk Halloween Treats” http://drritamarie.com/blog/2008/10/31/whole-foods-is-promoting-junkhalloween-treats/#comment-27 prompted me to clarify my stand on the Whole Foods and sugar issue. I shop at WF all the time, and they do carry lots of quality foods, especially at the raw bar downtown. It’s the most convenient place to get organic produce, and while I’d prefer to go to the Farmer’s market for all my food, it is not an option. However, to clarify, the sugar they use is not necessarily organic, and certainily no better than any other sugar. The sugar in the cookies today was not organic. Neither was the flour. It was unbleached, but still refined, meaning NO NUTRITION.
What I object to is that they sell these products to unsuspecting consumers who believe that they are healthy BECAUSE they are at Whole Foods. They may be new to the health front, and have no experience reading labels. They TRUST Whole Foods to bring them only health supporting foods.
I’ve known for years that these products were there. The bakery at whole foods is almost all refined flour products. I think there may be one bread that is 100% whole grain. I’m not sure what prompted me to speak up today, but a voice inside said “enough already.”
Someone commented that if Whole Foods took a stand and stopped carrying products with sugar in them that they’d lose customers. While I find this hard to believe, it could very well be true. I’m not asking that they stop carrying them. If they want to satisfy a small segment of the population that expects to be able to buy sugar and refined flour at whole foods, it’s fine for them to carry these products, as long as they are labeled as such. Perhaps a “transitional foods” aisle, with a disclaimer “These foods contain ingredients that have been shown to have health risks associated with them. Please read the labels and make an informed choice”
I’m tired of watching people be deceived at the expense of their health. The Halloween products were not just sitting on a shelf, they were being actively promoted to people who may not have even noticed them had the display not been there.
Maybe I’m naive, but I believe that if enough of us take a stand and let our voices be heard, we can facilitate change. Thanks for listening to my rants.
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Love and helath,
Dr. Ritamarie
Learn to make healthier Halloween choices: http://www.FreshnFunLiving.com/Halloween
Transform your health with the magic of green foods. Get my FREE ebook at http://www.GreenFoodMagic.com
Tags: Halloween, halloween junk, Halloween junk food, halloween recipes, Halloween treats, Healthy halloween recipes, healthy halloween treats, raw foods, raw foods halloween, sugar, sugar and cancer, sugar and halloween, sugar dangers
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Whole Foods is Promoting Junk Halloween Treats
Written by Ritamarie Loscalzo on October 31, 2008 – 1:57 am -I just got back from Whole Foods and I’m fired up. There was a lady at a display right at the front of the store with plates of pretty Halloween cookies on display. She was offering samples. As I walked past, she offered me one. Normally I just say no thanks and walk on, but I was compelled to stop and read the ingredients. After all, I’ve spent the better part of this week writing and talking to people to educate them about the dangers of the Halloween treats that are being pushed on us this week.
White flour, sugar, butter, eggs and other colors and flavorings were being pushed by a health food store called Whole Foods. Whole foods …let’s see. Last time I read the definition of whole foods there was something about nutrients intact, as nature created the food. These treats are total junk. Yet, the unsuspecting consumer, shopping at whole foods and paying the higher prices, is expecting to get value and health PROMOTING food. Most of them don’t read the labels. They just assume that the product is healthy because Whole Foods is selling it. WRONG!
I explained to the pleasant looking woman offering the samples that I was disappointed that Whole Foods would be promoting such food. I read the ingredients to her and explained that this was not good for people and that Whole Foods should not promote foods that contribute to the demise of the immune systems of all who consume it. She just stood there and nodded her head and smiled at me. It was infuriating. She didn’t even engage me in the least. No…”Wow, I didn’t realize”, or even “Well, at least there’s no hydrogenated oil in them”. She just stood there patronizingly smiling and nodding her head. She didn’t want to hear a word I said.
I checked out and paid for my groceries, and a little voice in my head told me to go to customer service and let my opinion be known. The pleasant customer service representative paged a manager to speak with me.
The manager was a youngish, long haired, very nice looking gentleman, and I thought that I’d have a sympathetic ear. He listened and told me that all the ingredients met the store’s standards. We got into a discussion about those standards, and I explained my concern for the health of our kids. I explained to him that a Nobel Prize was awarded to Otto Warburg linking sugar to cancer. http://www.mnwelldir.org/docs/nutrition/sugar.htm . I talked to him about the immune system, and how sugar and white flour contribute to heart disease, cancer, autoimmune disease, colds, ear infections, ADD and autism. I explained to him that I could probably talk about the dangers of eating those cookies for 3 hours and not be complete.
He explained that there was nothing he could do, and besides, there are no clear cut nutrition guidelines that all agree on. He explained that they want to give people choices. I managed to get him to give me the name of someone higher up in the organization to speak with about my concern.
Let’s do a grass roots effort and let Whole Foods know how we feel. Call Margaret Wittenberg at 512 477-5566 and tell her how you feel about white flour sugary cookies being sold as healthy Halloween alternatives. You can also mention the gummy drops they sell, in which the first ingredient is corn syrup. Stop by your local store and ask them why they are selling immune system enemies masquerading as pretty, healthy Halloween treats.
Inform yourself. Come up with alternatives for yourself and your families. In my book, Healthy Halloween Treats I have lots of recipes that are quick and easy to make and taste great. I also have a list of sources of packaged treats that support health rather than destroy it.
Make your voices known. I don’t know about you, but to me the incidence of childhood cancer, immune system diseases and brain dysfunction amongst kids these days is alarming. It’s all preventable. Let’s do something today. Offer your kids and yourself healthy Halloween treats and learn Halloween recipes that support vibrant health.
Please let me know your thoughts. Let’s get a discussion going around this issue.
Love and Health,
Dr. Ritamarie
www.FreshnFunLiving.com/Halloween
Tags: halloween junk, Halloween junk food, healthy halloween, raw foods recipes, sugar, sugar dangersm sugar and cancer, whole foods, whole foods halloween
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