Holistic Solutions - Nutrition and Lifestyle Counseling

In our busy helter skelter lives we are all eating on the run and eating out more. We’re all getting more conscious about our food choices: calories, fat content, trans fats and sodium. Following is the sodium content of some of your favorite fast foods.   

Warning; the following facts are SCARY!

  Burger King Enormous Omelet Sandwich: 1,940 mg.  Pizza Hut 4 All Individual Meat Lovers Pizza: 2,150 mg.  Cosi Individual Pepperoni Flatbread Pizza: 2,731 mg.  Macaroni Grill Chicken Parmesan Lunch: 2,030 mg  Subway Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki Foot Long: 2,400 mg  McDonald’s Mighty Kids 6 piece Chicken McNugget Meal with fries
and 8 ounces of 1-percent milk: 940 mg.  KFC Chicken and Biscuit Bowl: 2,420 mg.  Quiznos Tuna Melt, regular: 1,535 mg.  Auntie Anne’s Glazin’ Raisin without butter: 460 mg.  Auntie Anne’s Original Pretzel: 930 mg.   Let’s put this into perspective. The American Heart Association recommends no more than 2,300 mg. of sodium per day while The Institute of Medicine is urging us to eat only 1,500 mg. A recent study posted by the British Medical Journal concluded that a 25 to 35 percent decrease in dietary salt cut cardiovascular risk by 25 percent.   Prepared or processed foods, ingredients that mean lots of salt include but are not limited to monosodium glutamate (MSG), baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), baking powder, (disodium phosphate found in some quick-cooking cereals), sodium alginate (often used in ice cream), sodium nitrate (used in cured meats), sodium benzoate (used as a preservative in many sauces and salad dressings), sodium propionate and others.   Is this frightening?   Please DON’T pass the salt.  

Dr. Rob, syndicated columnist  Bucks County Courier Times August 15, 2008

We all have magical memories of putting our baby teeth under our pillow and waking up to find money the next morning. Over the years the price of a baby tooth has gone up with inflation. In “the old days” we got a coin. Now no self-respecting Tooth Fairy would leave less than a crisp dollar bill. In “the old days” we wrapped up our collaterol in a kleenex that stuck to the spots that were still wet. The Tooth Fairy has gone commercial these days. You can buy a pretty little embroidered tooth purse for little princesses or tooth cases with action heros for the rough and tumble crew.

All that led up to putting the tooth under the pillow was part aof the entire tradition. The tooth started wiggling just a little. Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle while you’re in class. Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle while you’re in the car. Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle while you’re watching TV. Sometimes the tooth co-operated and it came out easily. Other times everybody would joke about tying one end of a  string around the tooth and the other end around a doorknob. The tricky part is tying the string to a slippery “still in the mouth” tooth.

We all know the routine, right? Put a tooth under your pillow at bedtime,  wake up the next morning and take the dough. We all know that a tooth without fillings is worth more than a tooth with fillings, right?

There are lots of children’s books about the Tooth Fairy; lovely bedtime cuddle and reads. Recently a friend told me about a comic strip she read where the Tooth Fairy left cholesterol medication instead of money.

What’s wrong with this picture? It’s funny but it’s not.

According to the Bucks County Courier Times July 8, 2008, “. . .the American Academy of Pediatrics Monday issued new guidelines calling for routine cholesterol screening for children under age 10, and more aggressive use of cholesterol-lowering drugs in some children as young as age 8. ” Yikes!

Let’s see if we can put this is perspective. American children watch on average 3 hours of TV a day. Yikes!  31% of American children are overweight or at risk of obesity. Yikes! Do you think there might be a connection between the two?

School age children typically bring 99% of their lunch in the form of packaged foods. What % of trans fats are in those foods? I think I read somewhere that trans fats have some relationship with cholesterol levels. Do you think there might be a connection between the two?

Back to the Tooth Fairy.  Image One: The child wakes up, hair all dis-sheveled, rubbing the “sleepy dirt” from their eyes. They flip over the pillow, find the money and go running down the steps to tell everyone, “The Tooth Fairy came!” Image Two: The child wakes up and flips over the pillow. Finding their cholesterol pill he plods down the hallway to take his medication. Image One: Personification of American Tradition. Image Two: a sad commentary on the state of the American diet.

Bobbie Burkhart
Holistic Health Counselor
www.bevitalwithbobbie.com

I don’t believe in semantics. I believe in symptoms and in treating the symptoms.
I believe in creative solutions.

ADHD has been misunderstood for many years. Children were judged and critized for behavioral problems. Parents of these children were judged and criticized as having poor parenting skills. With more awareness this stigma is slowly disappearing.

Wonderful!

Symptoms vary from one person to another and are usually treated with prescription drugs. Not so wonderful: the cost, the side-effects, the possibility of abusing the drugs.

Solution: Could it be as simple as diet modification to lesson the severity of ADHD symptoms? Could diet modification possibly lower the dosage for prescription drugs needed in more extreme cases of ADHD? Could diet modification possibly eliminate the necessity for prescription drugs in the less severe or borderline cased of ADHD?

Wouldn’t this be wonderful?

I believe it’s possible.

Bobbie Burkhart
Holistic Health Counselor
Holland PA

September 16, 2007
Bucks County Courier Times