The Five Worst Foods You Can Eat!

My whole family sat around the table one evening and I asked each person if they could come up with what they think would be the top 5 worst foods that you could eat. Each one had a different list and some foods they did come up with I might have agreed. Commercial ice cream was one common item,and doughnuts did come up as well. Check out this list and then give your family the test and see if they can list the real baddies.

The Five Absolute Worst Foods You Can Eat,
By Dr. Joseph Mercola and Rachael Droege

There are no "bad" foods, right? Only food you should eat in moderation? Well, not really. The following foods are so bad for your body that I really can't see any reason to eat them. Not only do they have zero nutritional value, but they also give your body a healthy dose of toxins, which should make the idea of eating them really hard to swallow.

Doughnuts
Doughnuts are fried, full of sugar and white flour and most all varieties contain trans fat. Store-bought doughnuts are made up of about 35 percent to 40 percent trans fat.

An average doughnut will give you about 200 to 300 calories, mostly from sugar, and few other nutrients.

It's too bad that Americans view doughnuts as a breakfast food as, nutritionally speaking, eating a doughnut is one of the worst ways to start off your day. It will throw off your blood sugar and won't stay with you so you'll be hungry again soon. You are better off eating no breakfast at all, or better yet grabbing a quick glass of Whey Healthier.

Soda
One can of soda has about 10 teaspoons of sugar, 150 calories, 30 to 55 mg of caffeine, and is loaded with artificial food colors and sulphites. I can't think of any good reason to ever have it. The diet varieties are also problematic as they are filled with harmful artificial sweeteners like aspartame.

Studies have linked soda to osteoporosis, obesity, tooth decay and heart disease, yet the average American drinks an estimated 56 gallons of soft drinks each year. Plus, drinking all that sugar will likely suppress your appetite for healthy foods, which pave the way for nutrient deficiencies.

Soft drink consumption among children has almost doubled in the United States over the last decade, which is not surprising considering that most school hallways are lined with soda-filled vending machines.

Schools often make marketing deals with leading soft drink companies such as Coca-Cola from which they receive commissions--based on a percentage of sales at each school--and sometimes a lump-sum payment, in exchange for their students' health. School vending machines can increase the consumption of sweetened beverages by up to 50 or more cans of soda per student per year.

If you routinely drink soda--regular or diet--eliminating it from your diet is one of the simplest and most profound health improvements you can make.

French Fries (and Nearly All Commercially Fried Foods)
Potatoes are bad enough when consumed in their raw state, as their simple sugars are rapidly converted to glucose that raises insulin levels and can devastate your health. But when they are cooked in trans fat at high temperatures, all sorts of interesting and very unpleasant things occur.

Anything that is fried, even vegetables, has the issue of trans fat and the potent cancer-causing substance acrylamide.

Foods that are fried in vegetable oils like canola, soybean, safflower, corn, and other seed and nut oils are particularly problematic. These polyunsaturated fats easily become rancid when exposed to oxygen and produce large amounts of damaging free radicals in the body. They are also very susceptible to heat-induced damage from cooking. What is not commonly known is that these oils can actually cause aging, clotting, inflammation, cancer and weight gain. You can read the article "Secrets of the Edible Oil Industry" for more information.

It is theoretically possible to create a more "healthy" French fry if you cook it in a healthy fat like virgin coconut oil. Due to its high saturated fat content, coconut oil is extremely stable and is not damaged by the high temperatures of cooking. This is why coconut oil should be the only oil you use to cook with.

I am fond of telling patients that one French fry is worse for your health than one cigarette, so you may want to consider this before you order your next 'Biggie' order.

Chips
Most commercial chips, and this includes corn chips, potato chips, tortilla chips, you name it, are high in trans fat. Fortunately, some companies have caught on to the recent media blitz about the dangers of trans fat and have started to produce chips without trans fat.

However, the high temperatures used to cook them will potentially cause the formation of carcinogenic substances like acrylamide, and this risk remains even if the trans fat is removed.

Fried Non-Fish Seafood
This category represents the culmination of non-healthy aspects of food. Fried shrimp, clams, oysters, lobsters, and so on have all the issues of trans fat and acrylamide mentioned above, plus an added risk of mercury.

Seafood is loaded with toxic mercury and shellfish like shrimp and lobsters can be contaminated with parasites and resistant viruses that may not even be killed with high heat. These creatures, considered scavenger animals, consume foods that may be harmful for you.

Eating these foods gives you a quadruple dose of toxins--trans fat, acrylamide, mercury and possibly parasites or viruses--with every bite.

If you have a taste for seafood, there's an easy solution. It's best to avoid your local fish fry and try the only fish I now eat--the delicious wild red Alaskan salmon that was proven through independent lab testing to be free of harmful levels of mercury and other contaminants.

A prodical's return - a moms' story

The importance of keeping your child's heart is so important BUT life happens and we are not perfect and we do offened and put distance between us and our precious children. When that happens we may not even know it has happened as many of us chalk distant behavior as normal growing distance that is supposed to happen between us and our teens as they mature. NOT SO. The emotional connection is meant to continue and grow in intimacy thoughtout the years so that the most important years of their lives, the teens and early twenties, are not left to chance or worse peer influence. Our children should not be without a guide, confidant or words of wisdom when they need them.

Moms- do not let your children go. DO not loose their hearts but if you do here is a story of a sweet mom willing to face some difficult issues in her own life and the fruit that came out of it. She regained her son's heart! (This email is in responce to an inquiring email on a yahoo group that I belong to.)

Dear Susan,

I wanted to give testimony of what the Lord has done in our family. You have written a perfect description of my son up until a couple years ago when he was 13. He is also second born, just like the son described here. I read your e-mail to him as well, and he said, "That sounds just like how I was!"

He's 15 now, and he is sooo changed. I have his heart completely, and he is willingly and eagerly attentive to my every instruction and influence. He's become affectionate and loving toward me and all his siblings. (I have 5 kids all together). He's become very focused in fully directing his own education with self government, and valuable purpose, with the only curriculum being his math book.

So, how did this happen? That's what I want to share and encourage others with. I've been trying to think of how to express what happened in a brief e-mail, but truthfully, I could write a book about it if I had the time. So I'll just try and hit some of the main things I learned.

He's not the only one who's had major changes. It began when I started to learn from a friend who was loving enough to tell me the truth, that I was motivated by my desire to be accepted by the people around me, in all that I did. I cared more about my image, than about my children and my home. A couple years ago, I would not have agreed with her, but now I see, she was totally right.

Part of what frustrated me the most about my son, if I was really honest, is that he wasn't conforming to my image of how my homeschooling family was supposed to be turning out. Even though no one around me really even knew about it. From the outside my family was quite perfect looking. I'm not talking about a life of pretending to be one way in front of people and being another at home. My desire for my image of the perfect family was carried out in my everyday life, whether anyone outside the family could see me or not.

I started listening to my conscience about how I was treating my family members. I started changing, and I soon began to speak with my children about listening to their consciences, and how our conscience will always lead us toward acts of love, and away from acts of self-centeredness. I noticed that my younger children were quite sensitive to obeying their consciences, but my 13 yr old son was not. I came to realize the truth, that he did not want to obey his conscience. I let him know, and I admitted as well, that he had not surrendered his heart to the Lord. Up until that time, I had thought he prayed the sinners prayer, that means he's a Christian, just like the rest of us.

At that time, I had been frustrated with him not taking up the smallest of disciplines. I wanted him to wash his face, clean his room, keep his school records. He was regularly avoiding these small things, and sometimes even lying about doing them. At that time, the Lord showed me a principle, that Love enables us to obey.

With this understanding, and by the leading of the Holy Spirit, I required my son to meet with me at 8:00 each morning for a few minutes. In these minutes, I sat close to him, and put my arm around him. I told him I loved him, and ran my hand through his hair and touched his face. I brought up anything I could encourage him with about the previous day. I prayed for him, and then asked him to remember the 3 small things I wanted him to do. I kissed him, and then asked him to go do them before breakfast. I was doing this in obedience to the Lord, and it was a sacrifice. He had not been an affectionate son for many years.

I thought this was just the Lord's solution to getting him to do these 3 small things, but He had much more in mind. Over the days, my son was easily able to do the tasks, but something else was happening. He began to look forward to being loved on. He loosened up, and began to lean into my affection. He began to ask me about small relational problems he was having with his siblings. Actually, he began to ask me lots of things, just to be able to stay longer in my arms. Even though he showed no indication of returning the affection.

I didn't really know it at the time, but his heart was being turned toward me. One night, there was a big storm, in which my dog disappeared. We began to search for him, and my son was the most concerned. I thought at the time he was concerned about the dog, but I later learned, he was concerned about me, because he knew how much I loved my dog. The next afternoon, he found my dog, killed in the ditch. I cried, and my son comforted me. The Lord had been speaking to his conscience, and as we prepared to bury my dog, he felt compelled to confess his hidden sexual sin to me. He was afraid that his sin had caused my dog to die. He came to me trembling and weeping, and asking my forgiveness. I showered him with forgiveness and hugs, and I assured him it wasn't true, but the Lord was allowing him to understand in a kid understandable way, that our sin did cause His son to die. The Lord was allowing my son to be broken over his sin, and the hurt that he thought had caused me, even though I didn't know about his sin. He told me that he felt very guilty about his sin, and he had tried often to stop, but he was always afraid to tell me. He thought I would get really mad. But, he said, now he knew that I loved him enough to help him get out of the sin, instead of just getting mad about it. I was stunned, but I knew it was the work of the Lord. I began to cry again, but this time it was in gratefulness to the Lord, that the death of my dog brought my son's heart to me.

Since that time, my son has continued to meet with me every morning at 8:00. I no longer require it, but he wouldn't miss it for the world, and neither would I. He sits with me, often for an hour. Sometimes I have to tell him to leave, so that he'll have time to get some breakfast. All those little tasks, he eagerly does and more, before he meets with me. Now we talk about his projects, and how he can overcome the challenges he's having with them, and how he can make them more well rounded by including some self generated writing projects. We talk about his relationship with each of his siblings, and how he can purposefully improve them, with self-sacrificing love. He's learned to say nice things, which he could never bring himself to do before. I hold him accountable, and ask about his conscience regularly. He looks me square in the eyes with a big beaming smile, and tells me his conscience is clean. He often speaks about how he never wants to go back to hiding sin, and the horrible feelings of living in guilt and hidden shame. He talks candidly about how his fear of my disapproval lead him to become a liar. He speaks with teary eyes of how the Lord has set our family free.

He is right. It was my disapproval, which was actually being formed by my own fear of being disapproved of. I wanted to be perfect, and have the perfect family, so I was quick to discipline my children into conforming to my image of the perfect family. I put it to another young mom this way, if you want your kids to be obedient, and to excel so that you will look good, then they will become what you are, a user of others for self-centered gain. Those days are long gone. I only need to love them, and truthfully show them the way toward obeying their conscience, and always choosing to love, as the Holy Spirit leads, first and foremost toward their siblings and parents and never using others for anything, even for seeking approval.

My story is not a formula to get your teenager's hearts. But I did learn several principles that are always true. Love enables us to change, and we can't help our children to change if the reason we want them to change is for our own image, for then we are only using them, not loving them. Everyone has a need to be known for the wretches that we truly are, and still be loved. The Holy Spirit knows what is needed, but His way will always include doing things we'd really rather not do. I thought it was only my adolescent son who's heart I did not have, but after coming to see what it was like to truly have someone's heart, I saw that I didn't have my older daughter's hearts either, even though they appeared to be much more compliant, and wanting the things of the Lord. Our family is totally changed now. Praise to the Lord!

I know I haven't been able to express all of the aspects of our total family transformation in this e-mail, but I am open to questions that can draw out more principles about what I have learned about the way the Lord works.
Susan, please be encouraged, the Holy Spirit knows what to do, He's only waiting for your co-operation with His ways. I have been praying for you.

Barbie

If you have any questions or discussions for Barbie, post them here and I will pass them on to her for her for reply, or email directly at bpoling@aol.com

"Don't buy stuff you cannot afford"

I love this skit. Steve Martin is the perfect guy to act so dumb. This wouldn't be so funny if it were not so true in much of our society today. I did have the actual YouTube video posted but it was removed from Youtube due to copywrite infringes, or something like that. I happen to find it again elsewhere but all can send right now is the link. You gotta see this and show it to your kids!

Enjoy a good laugh!

SNL Skit: Don't Buy Stuff You Can't Afford

100th post- Whoo Hoo

In keeping with blogging tradition, I’ve written 100 things about myself, since this is my official 100th post! Aren't we cute?



1 I love night snow in early December,
2 I love Christmas.
3 I love to organize anything,
4 but hate to tidy things up.
5 I think flowers are candy for the eyes.
6 I married Elvis and he is still in the building.
7 I have four awesome children,
8 and one sweet little girl waiting for me in heaven.
9 I'm a interior decorator in a former life.
10 I have home educated all my children through several paradigm changes
11 and they still love me.
12 I spent my teenage and early adult years mastering my passion for sewing
13 and then burned out.
14 I struggle to hem pants.
15 I buy my clothes at Good Will and garage sales.
16 And they look great!
17 My childhood passions were decorating cardboard boxes with Sears catalogue furniture and carpet pictures.
18 I loved to play school.
19 I was always the teacher, librarian and Mom - always
20 -hey nothing has changed!
21 In my next life I want to be a concert pianist and do ballet.
22 I love healthy eating and learning new things.
23I hate commercial TV.
24 I hate TV commercials even more,
25 but do love a good movie now and then.
26 I was saved and baptised at 17.
27 I am grateful for His grace in my life.
28 He is the only one who really knows me.
29 I love my Bible and the life that springs from it in my quiet times.
30 I love to keep a Bible notebook.
31 I never went to college and I'm glad.
32 I would not have survived.
33 The only thing I ever wanted to be in my life was a wife and mommy.
34 Hey again - nothing has changed!
35 I already have 3 of 25 grandchildren.
36 I adore my grandchildren;
37 they seem like they are my own.
38 I learned much of how to be a grandmother by my mother 's example.
39 I love to cook but not bake cakes.
40 I am rediscovering the beauty of raw chocolate.
41 I love being a woman.
42 I love to dress like a lady.
43 I'm a hopeless romantic, in my dreams only.
44 I'm actually quite choleric.
45 I'm glad one of my four children was a girl;
46I would have at least had one of my boys in pink ruffles, if I didn't.
47 I had my dream came true when I had boy and girl twins.
48They are my pride and joy
49 They were what held me together during some hard times.
50 They were my morning shift
51 Then I had a 10 year gap.
52 I love having two boys last.
53 They were my afternoon shift.
54 I never had a midnight shift,
55 -wish I had.
56 My favorite music is by Frank Mills.
57 My baby and I used to dance to it before she died.
58 I'm Canadian,
59 Eh?
60 (I do not know anyone who actually says that)
61 We live in Washington State.
62 Some say my "accent" still gives me away
63 My school yearbook said I wanted to travel after grad.
64 I have never gone anywhere.
65 My children have gone all over the world.
66 I love my reformed church.
67 I have an insatiable hunger to learn;
68 Computers are not logical.
69 I can't type.
70 I can and do order more books than I ever could possibly read
71 I used to play the baritone but now I don't.
72 I'm a budget believer and get a charge out of saving money
73 My mother is a garden guru,
74 I'm not.
75 My father played pool with Gandhi,
76 I didn't.
77 My children grew up too fast,
78 I didn't want to grow up at all.
79 My husband is a engineer manager,
80 and a very good one.
81 I'm a domestic engineer,
82 and getting better.
83 I love tropical fruit.
84 I should have grown up in Hawaii.
85 When alone I love to turn up the music loud and dance my heart out.
86 Nobody knows that.
87 I love health and vitality and have fought for it all my life.
88 My oldest son had cancer last year.
89 I wanted to throw up instead of him.
90 I kept seeing him as a little boy holding my hand.
91 I wanted to protect him;
92 but he was too big.
93 Music fills my lungs with hope
94 One day I will see my Saviors face
95 and He will say by his grace alone,
96 "Well done, good and faithful servant"
97 I can trust Him for that.
98 I obviously cannot count to one hundred...
99 very well...
100 at all!


Sigh, "Now that wasn't so hard, was it?"
"No, not really"

Accelerated Distance Learning-great possibilites

One of the vendors of the Christian Heritage Home educators of Washington conference this year was College plus, a company based on the process of earning college credits at home while still in the high school years. Being a lifestyle of learning and entrepreneurial minded proponent, I fudge a little on the whole college process. The whole system of earning credits in some else's artificial educational system rubs me the wrong way. True Education is something you earn through life, is self motivated and not something that is standardized and accredited. However, we live in the real world and if my child wanted to be an engineer or has gifts, abilities and a desire to be an astronaut, somewhere along the line that child is going to have to fit into the mainstream educational process. This book tells you how.

If you have facilitated in your child that desire to learn and he has developed the learning tools, by the time he is in his mid to late teens he may be ready to fit within an educational mold and not be too damaged by it. Ryan Yamane (a distance learning graduate)is the CEO for College Plus and his company provides educational planning to achieve some educational goals that can direct parents and teens to the least amount of time and money wasted. Many children can have a degree finished by 18 or 20 and with a small fraction of the costs and exposure to the damaging effects of today's college culture.

Even though I am a believer in teaching your child entrepreneurial skills and opportunities to earn those experiences, additional education is not wrong and if they must pass through college, this is the best way to do it. Check out this book(first)and get started in the thinking process that may well lead your child into a successful launch into life with an added bonus- a higher education early without all the garbage that goes with it and at a fraction of the cost.

"Expelled, the Movie"-You gotta see it!

Science aught to be the pursuit of truth! Every teen at home needs to see a great movie just hot off the reels at just about any theater near you right now. It is called, "Expelled, the Movie," and is written unexpectedly by a comedian who doesn't find the erosion of certain freedoms in this country very funny. Written in documentary form Ben Stein interviews several scientists and professors who have been released, let go or downright fired for any association they might have had with Intelligent Design. This movie attempts to expose the manipulation of the established Evolutionary Science community and associated their actions with that of a few other dangerous worldviews that have had devastating historical consequences.

Laurie Bluedorn of Trivium Pursuit says, .... our family just saw this film. One of the best documentaries I've ever seen. I recommend taking the whole family to see it or buy the DVD when it comes out.

For a trailer on this film and a commentary by Lee Strobel click here

For further discussion after you see the movie, and for those old and wise enough go to Expelled Exposed for the National Center for Science Education' expose on the movie. You may even be able to win prizes for "setting Ben straight" (tongue in cheek)

Go to Richard Dawson's blog (a stout antiGod evolutionist interviewed in the movie) and hear his scathing rebuttle of Expelled, the movie
Younger children might also find this movie interesting but there are a few quick scenes of the Jewish holocaust and if old enough to recognize the bodies might find it disturbing. If your child is able to discern worldviews well then that may be a good readiness sign to see this movie.
Also, several visual references are made to naziism and it may well be missed by children not well versed in the ideals of those worldviews.

Consider what God’s Word says about children’s education

Another great article by JulieBeth Lamb! I love the way she personalizes each verse.

Therefore do not worry, saying what shall we eat, or what shall we drink,
or what shall we wear? (or what shall we teach? or how can we afford it?) for after all these things the gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things, but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, (and point your children there continually) and all these things (the education and materials your children need) shall be added unto you (and them) Matthew 6:31-33.

And you, fathers (and mothers), do not provoke your children to wrath (by
teaching them secular views that are contrary to God’s Word and take them out
from under His protection), but bring them up in the training and admonition of
the Lord (all day, not just when the government’s hours of training are over)
and having good will doing service (learning the important lessons of serving
family and community), as to the Lord (through whom all things are possible) and
not to men (from whom we should be set apart) Ephesians 6:4,7.

God will feed (and provide everything needed) His flock like a shepherd, He
will gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom (and make sure
they are prepared for His good plan, with His work and through His people, not
with government curriculum) and gently lead those who are with young (in the
right way to educate their children for Him) Isaiah 40:11.

For I know the plans that I have for you, says the Lord (plans from His
word for your protection and guidance, your obedience and preparation for His
use) plans of peace and not of evil (so you don’t have to be afraid to just
trust and follow His ways and not man’s ways)to give you a future and a hope
(our hope lies in loving and fearing God) then you will call upon Me and find Me
and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you (and your schooling concerns)
and you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart
(God will be found in prayer, His Word and Godly curriculum, He will not be
found in government school curriculum and ideas) Jeremiah29:11-13.

Train up a child in the way he should go (discipling him in God’s ways, by
His instruction) and when he is old he will not depart from it (he will love God
and obedience to Him and will have been walking with Him through the school
years) Proverbs 22:6.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might (and
with your school time) And these words which I command you today shall be in
your heart, you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of
them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down,
and when you rise up (all the time! everywhere! that includes school, especially
school since it’s their training, the path you are preparing for their future)
You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates (God’s
word should always be before our eyes, including in our school books and our
“classroom”) Deuteronomy 6:4-9.

And whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble,
it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were
thrown into the sea (as parents we have a great privilege and responsibility to
protect and train these little ones as God intends, never putting them into a
situation or training them with curriculum that could cause them to stumble) Mark 9:42.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present
your bodies (and every moment of our lives) a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable
to God, which is your reasonable service (not defiled by ungodly training). And
do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your
mind (by a constant focus on God and His Word), that you may prove what is that
good and acceptable and perfect will of God (we must be set apart from the
traditions of the world and pressures from others who say that it would be too
hard or costly to follow God rather than the world’s way. We must trust God that
if we allow Him to guide our children’s steps, through a Godly school life as
well as a Godly home life He will conform them to His righteousness and prepare
them for His usefulness) Romans 12:2.

May the God of Grace show you His way to educate the children He has
entrusted to you.

JulieBeth Lamb thanks God for allowing these words to flow through her and prays they are a blessing to others as God has allowed them to bless her. She and her husband Rex are the leaders of a homeschool group in Oakdale, California. They have been homeschooling their five children since 1993 and have three still to graduate. Contact her at Cowgirl4Ever@clearwire.net or 209-838-6062