The Best Health and Fitness Articles of the Week #111 – Making Your Own Hummus, Fitness Marketing Hype and The Dangers of Using Birth Control

homemade-hummus

Here’s a recap of the best health and fitness articles I’ve read over the past week.



Find Your Perfect Hummus

Earlier this week I made the basic hummus recipes that’s linked to from this page, and I think it came out tasty. It was super-easy too, for the most part, but I learned some things after trying it out for myself. First, I didn’t add enough water so mine came out a little thick. Second, I used my Vitamix, and I think a food processor would have made this way easier. As soon as the batch of hummus I just made is gone, I’ll try some of the options listed in this article. I can’t wait!



How to Make Fatty Coffee with Butter and MCT Oil (Ketogenic Coffee Recipe for Biohackers)

People everywhere are catching on to Dave Asprey’s Bulletproof coffee. Abel James likes to call it fatty coffee and he’s included several modifications you can try, such as cocoa powder, MCT oil, almond butter and vanilla powder. He also sometimes uses heavy cream and grass-fed butter, but being vegan, I obviously don’t use those. I could try coconut cream though. I was actually thinking about buying one of those frothers from World Market but I wasn’t sure how well they worked, but they look pretty good. I’ll probably pick one up this week.



Fascinating Facts About Sleep

I’ve mentioned one of the ideas from this post before, which is that before man-made light, people used to go to sleep as the sun went down and woke up in the middle of the night to have tea or get things done and then went back to sleep for a second time. Some theorize that this is how the body was designed to sleep. It’s interesting. The post also goes into sleep aids and pharmaceuticals and how some help and some hinder your ability to get a good night’s rest. I personally really like the idea of sleeping in different rooms, but I know for a fact that my partner would not be happy with it. She barely lets me have my own blanket, but that’s a luxury I’m unwilling to give up.



5 Fitness Buzzwords That Make Me Want to Punch a Hole in the Wall

I wish that everyone in the entire world could read this article. It pretty much tackles everything that’s wrong with the marketing hype of the health and fitness world. I’ve fallen for all of these things over the years, and that’s because as a beginner, I turned to magazines from the grocery store. I eventually wised up and started doing my own research but luckily for beginners these days, there are posts like this from Nerd Fitness.



Guides to Local Foods By State

Great resource to figure out what foods are in season in your state and where to find it. This will help you find fruits and veggies grown closer to home, which is better for the environment and requires less travel, which also means your food will have more nutrients as it gets in your belly.



Balancing Hormones Naturally, Post Hormonal Birth Control

This is a great post that discusses the many negative side effects of birth control, such as thyroid problems, nutritional deficiencies, gut bacteria depletion and how it compromises the body’s ability to produce hormones naturally. The post also talks about how to re-balance the hormones in the body after coming off of hormonal contraceptives. In addition to what this post doesn’t mention, I’ve also read that hormonal contraceptives can cause blood clots, migraines and even seizures. Mercola.com lists a whole bunch more. Just because you’ve been taking birth control for years and you’re fine now, who knows what kind of damage that birth control is causing in your body that you’re not even aware of.



Veggie Burgers, Meatless Chicken and Paleo Bread

I’ve actually had people ask me why I sometimes eat meat alternatives. I don’t know why it’s so hard to understand that I grew up with burgers and wings just like everyone else. They are comfort foods. Vegans and vegetarians eat alternatives because it reminds them of foods they grew up loving while in turn not having to worry about animal cruelty. And paleos do the same thing with breads and crackers and pizza crusts. Diabetics do it with cookies. Everywhere we look people are looking for a healthier (or ethical or safer), but similar, alternative to a food they grew up eating. Sorta puts things into perspective, huh?



New evidence on how fluoride fights tooth decay

So there actually are benefits to fluoride. I was starting to wonder because it seems like all I ever hear about fluoride these days are how bad it is. Most of the anti-fluoride stuff seems to be theory and not proven, but I suppose you can never be too careful.



Weekend binge drinking could leave lasting liver damage

A lot of people save their partying for the weekend but a recent study shows why that could be detrimental to our health. Not only can weekend binging cause permanent liver damage, it can also cause damage to many other important organs in the body.

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