Do you want to eat healthier in the New Year? After you have eaten everything that you have now in your cupboard consider replacing them with these foods which are alkaline and healthier for both you and your kids.
Here is an idea of what should be on your new grocery list –
• Irish steel-cut oats. Oats do contain some gluten, but for most people they are quite tolerable and they are okay for most kids with asthma to have.

• Mixed-grain hot cereals. Be sure they’re gluten- and sugar-free—and this means no honey or maple syrup

• Rice cakes. Stay away from the ones with too much sodium or funky flavorings (like sour cream and onion rice cakes!)

• Flax crackers

• Gluten-free bread. There are many delicious alternatives to the usual bread you buy. Try some sprouted breads, as they are easier to digest and are less processed.

• Sweet potatoes, yams

• Grains: brown or wild rice, millet, quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat, corn.

• Nuts: almonds, walnuts, cashews, soy nuts, macadamia nuts, filberts, etc.

• Seeds: sunflower, pumpkin, sesame, hemp, flax. Flaxseeds must be freshly ground rather than eaten whole, otherwise you won’t get full nutritional benefit.

• Nut or seed butters: almond butter, tahini, cashew butter, peanut butter (all unsweetened)

• Vegan butter

• Vegan mayonnaise

• Nondairy protein powder (soy, hemp or orris root-based)

• Beans and legumes: black beans, lentils, chickpeas, lima beans, adzuki beans, black-eyed peas, edamame, and fava beans. Dried ones are best

• Tofu

• Tempeh

• Fake meats: burgers, sausage patties, “meat crumbles,” “chicken” patties. Make sure all are gluten-free.
• Artichoke, rice, or quinoa pasta

• Pasta sauce

• Vegetables: kale, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, zucchini, eggplant, collard greens, squash of all kinds, tomatoes, etc.

• Mushrooms: shiitake, hen of the woods, portobello. Grilled, they make a great main dish and are almost as good as a steak

• Salad: arugula, radicchio, endive, mixed greens, peppers, avocado, tomato, radish,

• Fruits: apples, raspberries, cherries, peaches, blueberries, goji berries; frozen fruits for smoothies

• Citrus and exotic fruits lemons, limes, and unsweetened pomegranate juice for sparkling-water cocktails

• Herbal teas such as mint, chamomile and fennel.

• Nondairy milk, such as rice, almond, hemp, or soy milk (unsweetened)

• Healthy sweeteners: xylitol, agave nectar, and stevia for smoothies, milks, cereals and baked goods.

• Extra-virgin olive oil, expeller-pressed organic canola, high-oleic versions of sunflower and safflower oils, walnut oil, and flaxseed oil (the last is good to pour over things like salad or baked yam, but not to cook with).

• Seasonings: garlic, ginger, tamari; Himalayan crystal or Celtic sea salt. Regular table salt is bleached and stripped of minerals

• Flours to cook or bake with: bean, pea, soy, potato, buckwheat, tapioca, nut and seed, arrowroot, and rice. There are also prepackaged flour mixes that cater to the gluten-free shopper.

• Popcorn

• Corn chips

• Guacamole

• Hummus

• Soy cheese (rennet-free)

• Frozen spinach, broccoli, and cauliflower to throw into smoothies . . . you won’t even taste it!

• Vegetarian stock for cooking
Try some prepared foods from health food stores. They are often very tasty and nutritious too.

Gluten can be a source of health problems and today you are going to try and figure out how well your body has been tolerating it. Gluten is, in fact the source of most ongoing digestive problems causing everything from gas to bloating to irritable bowel syndrome. Just cutting out gluten has been known to cure asthma and other chronic problems in children..
Gluten is the key component in most types of bread, and it’s found in a number of grains—namely wheat, rye, and barley. It is part protein, part starch or carbohydrate.
We generally think of gluten as being only in bread and pasta, but in fact it is now widely used in processed foods, with negative consequences to many people’s overall health. It’s important to check labels and read ingredients carefully.
Other names for gluten include: modified food starch (though this sometimes refers to corn on a food label), hydrolyzed vegetable protein, hydrolyzed wheat protein, textured vegetable protein, and, of course, wheat.
The rule of thumb is that the more highly processed a food is, the more likely it is that these ingredients will show up on the labels.
Gluten is often present in:
• Bagels
• Beer
• Bread and bread rolls
• Cake
• Cookies
• Couscous
• Crackers
• Deli meats (which are heavily processed)
• Flour, including wheat, spelt, semolina, and rye
• Muffins
• Noodles
• Pancakes
• Pasta
• Pizza Sauces (often thickened with flour)
There are gluten-free versions of these products available made from beans, rice, corn, nuts, soy, and potatoes. These are the foods you’ll want to choose when converting from an acidic to an alkaline diet.
Gluten is not a naturally occurring protein in the human body. In fact, some researchers call gluten protein a toxin.
How could something that we eat so much of be classified as a toxin? Some studies suggest that gluten damages the small intestine and allows food proteins to be released into the body, and the immune system then interprets these proteins as invasive and goes into high gear to defend itself.
In other words, you get an overblown immune response. This kind of immune response can possibly contribute to or mimic diseases like lupus, arthritis, and multiple sclerosis.
Problems with digesting gluten can also cause headaches, asthma, skin rashes and hives, weight gain and/or loss ,bloating, fatigue, and behavioral problems such as depression.
At the most harmful end of the spectrum is celiac disease. Commonly thought of as an allergy, it is actually an immune-system response to gluten.

If you are a mom you should quit drinking, not because you are a drunk but because it is bad for women. Alcohol is an activity that is completely acidic in nature.
I am not suggesting you quit alcohol altogether unless it is a problem. There are many studies out now that suggest that we derive some health benefits from moderate drinking—to the heart, the nerves, to easing self-consciousness. Drinking does help us manage stress and can help us socialize and break the ice with the opposite sex.
However it is also unhealthy in many ways as it impairs our judgment and slows down our cognitive responses. In slightly higher amounts it can land us in situations that we’d never put up with if we were sober.
Drinking alcohol can also lead us down a fairly slippery slope, where that glass or two of wine a few times a week becomes a glass or two every day without our noticing, and pretty soon we become addicted.
Alcohol abuse can interfere with the brain’s chemical messengers, specifically the neurotransmitters serotonin, GABA (gammaaminobutyricacid), and dopamine. When you mess with these transmitters it affects our moods, our ability to think clearly, and the signals the brain sends to the body. It’s not a stretch to say that how our neurotransmitters are functioning affects how we experience the world and ourselves. We suffer from distorted thinking and bad moods.
Serotonin affects our emotions, memory, appetite, body temperature and endocrine regulation. Dopamine is involved with feelings of pleasure and reward. GAB A is involved in memory and cognitive functioning. Alcohol affects all of these factors in a negative way.
Alcohol can also be hard on our metabolism. Metabolism is the process by which the substances we eat and drink are converted into other compounds, less toxic than the original, some more.
As our bodies treat alcohol as a toxin, a poison to be purged (because, for your liver, that’s exactly what it is.) It is detoxified and removed from the blood through the process of oxidation. The liver is where most of the metabolism takes place.
However the liver can metabolize alcohol more slowly than the body absorbs it into the bloodstream so a certain amount nearly always affects the body and the brain.
Curiously, alcohol does not raise your blood sugar level in and of itself it will actually lower it. What does raise our blood sugar level is the carbohydrates in booze.
Your liver treats the alcohol like a toxin and goes about the detoxification process whenever it is in your body. It puts off releasing glycogen until it is complete. This process leads to hypoglycemia.
Alcohol causes stress-related issues in the body as well. One way is by raising cortisol levels. Cortisol is the “stress hormone,” and elevated levels of it can destabilize blood sugar levels and also add fat to the body.
Alcohol also depletes vitamins and B12 as well as folic acid—nutrients the body needs to cope with stress—and can interfere with REM sleep, leaving you less rested than when you wake up in the morning.
When you take a break from alcohol your body is again able to recover from stress on its own without artificial stimulation. You are able to keep dopamine in balance so your brain isn’t always craving a drink to temporarily elevate its levels.
The fact is, if given the chance, the brain has an amazing capacity to read just neurotransmitter levels and effectiveness all by itself but only if you stop alcohol.
Also, by reducing the toxin load when you quit drinking, you give your liver the opportunity to regenerate itself (unless it has already experienced serious scarring—cirrhosis—from heavy drinking).
If you steer clear of alcohol for twenty one days your body will reset and find its own balance again.
If you’ve been avoiding wine, beer, and spirits. Here’s what you can enjoy:
• Sparkling water with a twist of lemon or lime or a bit of unsweetened pomegranate, grape or blueberry juice
• Any kind of chilled herbal tea served in a festive glass
• Good, old-fashioned water with a lemon, lime or tangerine slice
If you do drink, say for a special occasion like your birthday try having that glass of white wine with some sparkling water. Diluted alcohol is best.

Staying healthy is the morally right thing to do! Our health systems are overburdened enough. You want to train your kids to eat healthy so they do not end up being burdens on the system as well.
First of all you may or may not be one of the more than 45 million Americans without health insurance.
Part of saving our own money and also not becoming a further burden on the health system is addressing the lifestyle factors that cause these chronic diseases. These approaches are both medically effective and cost effective, thereby improving your life quality while at the same reducing the burden of health care costs on society in general.
Heart disease, diabetes, prostate cancer, breast cancer, and obesity account for 75 percent of health care costs today, and yet these are largely preventable and even reversible through the very simple changes in diet and lifestyle addressed in this book.
How effective are lifestyle changes when it comes to your health? The medical journal called The Lancet, followed 30,000men and women in six continents and found that simple dietary lifestyle changes could prevent over 90 percent of cases heart disease. Thus, the disease that accounts for more premature deaths and is more expensive than any other affliction is almost completely preventable.
Also notable is that the very same lifestyle changes that can prevent or even reverse heart disease can also help prevent or even reverse many other chronic diseases as well.
The key is food. You are what you put in your mouth and you are only as good as what you ingest. The world is starting to finally really awaken to this fact.
In this book, you’ll find more than mere information; you’ll find practical guidance for how to use that information to become a better, more effective, more socially conscious human being.
After the completion of the fast you are left with more balanced blood sugar and freedom from old addictions. You will hopefully be onto a newer and healthier routine that includes the balancing of your blood sugar, weight loss and freedom from addictions.