The Mighty Enzyme: #1 Secret to Perfect Health

Modern science always seems to be looking for the next miracle cure for a plethora of aging diseases. However, a vastly important health component, the mighty enzyme, has already been researched and studied for some time. Enzymes carry out all the biological processes in the body, including digestion, detoxification, repairing, healing and even thinking. Take all the vitamin and mineral supplements you want, but if you lack readily available enzymes, you are going to have a much harder time fully digesting and absorbing them. As Dr. Ann Wigmore says, “Enzyme preservation is the secret to health.” Did you know that enzymes:

• Maintain weight and/or promote weight loss
• Fend off chronic degenerative diseases
• Greatly slow the aging proces

Read on! Here are a couple of interesting studies:

• Dr. Francis Pottenger studied 900 cats over 10 years. He gave half the cats raw milk and food and the other half pasteurized milk and cooked food. In the first generation, the cats on the cooked food developed a pattern of degenerative disease, and in the second and third generation the cats began to develop congenital bone deformities, hyperactivity, and sterility. The cats fed raw food were healthy from generation to generation.
• In Japan, a study showed that 82% of patients with tuberculosis had lower enzyme contents than normal, and diabetes patients had an 86% lower than normal level of amylase.
• Dr. Kollath of the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm found when he put animals on a diet of cooked and processed foods similar to the typical Western diet, the animals began to age more quickly and began to develop chronic degenerative diseases at an earlier age. The animals raised on raw food did not suffer from those problems.
• Dr. Howell, who many consider the father of food enzyme research in the 20^th century, produced a vast amount of research and evidence that strongly suggests that foods devoid of enzymes as a result of cooking, food irradiation and microwaving causes the enlargement of the pancreas, and puts a massive strain on all the endocrine glands, including the adrenals and pituitary.

The fact is, when a large reserve of the body’s enzymes are used up in the processes of digestion, which can use up to 50% of the body’s energy, it takes away from the body’s use of enzymes towards functions such as detoxification, and repairing and maintaining the health of the skin and organs. Enzymes are also used to maintain body weight. Cooked fats lack the enzyme lipase, which interferes with fat digestion, just as cooked carbs lack the enzyme amylase, which help break down starches. Also, cooked food stimulates cravings for food because the organs are not getting the nutrients they would normally get in uncooked food. The body craves more nutrients, which may translate into a much greater appetite. Farmers have long known that if you give raw potatoes to hogs they will not gain weight, but if you give them cooked potatoes they gain a lot of weight.

The problem in modern society is that the capacity or an organism to make enzymes is exhaustible, and whenever we process or cook foods in any way, we destroy its enzyme reserve.

So:

1. Eat as much raw food as possible. This is the #1 activity that preserves enzymes and maximizes health. Follow the lead of ALL other animals on earth (besides humans and domesticated animals) who eat their food raw, and do not suffer from the chronic degenerative diseases that we do. When we eat raw food, it uses its own enzymes to digest the food and does not deplete the food enzymes from our own system to break it down.

2. Add sprouts to your diet, which is one of the highest enzyme-concentrated foods.

3. Take live, plant enzymes supplements, which you can find in any health food store. Especially if you are about to eat cooked, microwaved, or irradiated food!!

Corn: When Good Veggies Go Bad

When Midwestern cornfields and rural farm life come to mind they probably seem far removed from the politics of Capitol Hill. 

The reality is that corn is deeply entrenched in American politics. It is now the #1 crop grown in America, with almost 80 million acres planted annually.  Corn should be rotated among fields, or else grown only once in four seasons, in order to prevent depletion of the soil.  However, common commercial growing practices do not rotate corn and therefore rob the soil of nitrates and precious minerals.  The result: commercial corn requires more nitrate fertilizer and pesticide than any other crop.  Corn’s extreme hybridization further contributes to its heavy reliance on fertilizers and pesticides to grow.

So where does all this corn go?  More than half of the 10 billion bushels produced in America each year are fed to animals being farmed for slaughter, including cattle, chickens, pigs, and even farm-raised fish like salmon.  Since these animals don’t eat corn in their natural diets, they have trouble digesting it properly and frequently become sick.  Farmers respond by dousing the feed with antibiotics, steroids, hormones and drugs.  The antibiotics keep animals alive long enough to be slaughtered, while steroids make them grow large prematurely so they can be slaughtered before showing any signs of disease. For example, the lifespan of a chicken in the wild is about 17 years, but a factory-farmed chicken is slaughtered at 3 months or less.  The antibiotics and steroids fed to these animals, not to mention all the chemicals sprayed on the corn they eat, accumulate in people who eat factory-farmed meat.

Corn isn’t just an indirect health risk to meat eaters - its mass farming has terrible environmental consequences.  The sea of chemicals, nitrate fertilizers and pesticides used to grow commercial corn severely harm local water supplies and eventually run off into major water sources like the Mississippi River.  The costs are real: the Gulf of Mexico now has a 12,000 square mile zone where marine life has been virtually wiped out!

It gets worse.  Four billion barrels a year of corn are processed and refined into high fructose corn syrup.  Since the 1980’s, we’ve replaced the white sugar formerly found in many foods with this virtual poison.  A few examples include packaged food, fast food, junk food, baby food, juices, soda, sweet tea beverages, canned soup, cookies, muffins, pasteurized juice and even bread.  High fructose corn syrup is highly glycemic and promotes hyper/hypoglycemia, elevates triglyceride levels, and induces an insulin response. Guess what has occurred in almost exact parallel to the inundation of high fructose corn syrup…a shocking rise of obesity and Type II diabetes in children!

So how did corn syrup infiltrate the American diet?  Politics.  Corn costs $3 per bushel (56 pounds) to produce, but the world market is so saturated that it fetches only $2 dollars per bushel.  In June 2002 President Bush approved a $190 billion farm bill, which provides $4 billion per year in subsidies (i.e. taxpayer money) through 2012 to induce farmers to grow MORE corn. 

To be clear, helping farmers is good thing.  But the unfortunate reality is that even with this subsidy, most corn farmers are working hard and not getting rich.  Behind the farm bill is a more powerful lobby - the pharma/chemical industry that supplies all those pricey pesticides and chemicals that corn needs to grow and the antibiotics, hormones, and steroids going right into corn-based feed. 

While Americans get fatter and sicker and our environment gets more polluted, it seems that just a handful of big business are benefiting- at our great expense.

What can we do? Take a stand. Stop buying packaged food that contains high fructose corn syrup. Stop buying processed corn products for you, your family, and your pets. Stop supporting factory farming, and start supporting organic farming. You’ll feel better than ever.

Special thanks to Dr. David Jubbs for his essay, “The Cornification of America.”

Hollywood Meets New York

When Adam and I started Envision Beauty we were focused almost entirely on creating the best possible product.  I was practically obsessed with tweaking THE SOLUTION until it was completely perfect - the ultimate all-in-one skin formula that would significantly improve user’s skin and give the “wow!” reaction that other skincare lines I had used (Clinique, Murad, La Mer etc.) just didn’t provide.  I was also psyched to educate people about natural health and beauty, such as the fact that putting layers and layers of products on your face can cause visible aging! 

After months and months of development, I knew that we finally had an absolutely amazing product.  The next issue was how to get the word out.  Adam and I figured we would market THE SOLUTION online and through boutiques.  The only catch was that we had NO media or press contacts and only a tiny marketing budget.  In short, we were going on complete blind faith, putting our dream out into the universe and trusting that we would get what we need.

This brings us to last summer.  I was on the set of a movie (Old Dogs, starring John Travolta and Robin Williams) when I met the movie’s publicist, John.  We ended up talking and really clicking. You know when you meet someone that you feel comfortable with instantly, that you feel that you’ve known for years? Despite the negative stereotypes about people working in the film industry, that’s how I immediately felt about John.

John is so real and good-hearted, amazingly calm and kind to everyone, funny in a non-sarcastic way and very open-minded.  All this despite that as a major Hollywood publicist he works with some of the biggest celebrities and on the some of the largest motion pictures in the business. 

John was almost instantly THE SOLUTION’s #1 Fan, promptly ditching his Shisheido collection and never looking back.  Now, a year later, John has grown to become an integral part of Envision Beauty, directing our marketing and PR efforts.  As difficult as it was to create a groundbreaking product, getting it out there is just as much work.  Fortunately for us, the universe brought John and Envision together. 

The funny thing is that when John first met Adam, he said, “You don’t seem like a lawyer!” Adam replied “Well you don’t seem like a Hollywood publicist!” I do believe that energy is energy, and like attracts like, and I am very grateful that our company attracted the most yogic lawyer and the most yogic Hollywood publicist possible.

When we started, back in 2006, I could never have imagined such a wonderful team.  Now I can’t imagine anything less!

Attention Summer Travelers

Ah, summertime! What a great time of the year to get out of the city, go to the beach, or fly somewhere to chill out (though probably not Europe right now with this dreadful exchange rate!).
 
As we jet set to our fun summer vacations, it is important that we realize that we can suffer not only stress and fatigue from air travel itself, but also free radical damage via high levels of radiation found in airplanes. Planes fly very close to the ionosphere, causing atmospheric radiation to constantly bombard flyers.  Unfortunately, the aluminum body of a plane offers us no protection.

This problem has been known for decades - it was first discovered in the 1960s when the air crews assigned to the first long-distance, high-altitude flights experienced unusually high fatigue.  To try and keep it simple, a flight from New York to Los Angeles is the equivalent of one chest X-ray. The number of chest X-ray exposures a person is allowed to have over any given time is usually limited and measured in three year increments. These usually number in the range of three chest X-rays per year. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration permits aircrew exposures of 1000 times the dosage that a restricted citizen is allowed, although they are usually restricted to 80 hours on duty each month. Studies of these crews have shown that they suffer from changes in blood values and sensitive bodily tissue, e.g., gonads and eyes. Unfortunately there is no one keeping track of frequent traveling citizens who seem to live on planes, especially those who often fly internationally.

In its simplest form, the free radical damage caused by air travel shows itself in the form of oxidative stress in the body and the simplest way to deal with it is the introduction of antioxidants via fruits, vegetables and berries on a daily basis. Oxidation occurs when an oxygen molecule within a cell loses one of its two electrons, becomes unstable and randomly hits everything in its path in an attempt to restore its stability and it will steal an electron from anywhere. If it hits another oxygen molecule, it will steal the first electron it comes to. If it hits fat or protein structures, then oxidative damage will occur. If fat, toxic lipid peroxide (rancid fat) occurs. If protein, then changes in the structure often occurs, joints get arthritis, muscle gets weakened and DNA gets altered while its Genes are bent by this interaction. Bent Genes often result in a cancer and if the body is able, it will clean up the mess before it gets bad. Unfortunately the body is overwhelmed easily; the traveler is subjected to sleep depravation and highly processed and unhelpful foods becoming more susceptible when the consistency of the attack plays against a weakened immune system.
 
Fortunately, a good outcome is possible.  The antioxidants found in fruits, vegetables and berries are able to donate electrons to these free radicals without themselves suffering instability. Fruit, Vegetables, Grapes and Berries are miraculous in their ability to calm the oxidation process. However, it is necessary to renew this cascade on a daily basis. In other words, when whatever supply is ingested runs out, it must be replaced with a new supply of antioxidants.

If the average person (who isn’t flying) requires 7 to 9 servings of fruits and vegetables daily (Recommendations of the US Dept. of Agriculture and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) then one who is further compromised as is a diabetic, cancer survivor, extreme athlete or frequent long distance flyer will certainly require more. Just how much more is anyone’s guess.
 
When you fly, especially the day of your trip, try to eat lots of fruits and vegetables.  Make it as simple as possible, so that your body’s energy can be used in fighting free radical damage rather than digesting something heavy. Also, you might try taking a whole food (not the store!)- vegetable, fruit, and berry supplement, which will serves as major fortification of antioxidants during strenuous travel.  It of course can also be used when you feel that you are not eating well or have been lacking greens or fruit in the diet.

A whole food supplement has been derived from whole fruits and vegetables, whereas typical synthetic supplements use extracts constructed in a lab (which your body only absorbs a percentage of).  I like the brand Juice Plus+, a convenient and highly researched supplement. They have separate vegetable, fruit, and berry capsules that literally pack pounds of fruits, and veggies.

Travel safely, stay energized and healthy, and keep your cells beautiful on the inside and out!

Yummy Spirulina Pie

I bet you never thought greens could create an amazing dessert.  I had never really had a “green” desert before I tried this one out, and it blew me away. So skepticism aside, give it a try and I guarantee you’ll be very pleasantly surprised.

 

For the pie crust:

 

• 2 cups raw almonds finely ground in a food processor (I prefer to sprout mine overnight by covering them in water in a bowl)
• 1/3 cup agave

For the pie filling:

• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup cashews
• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 1/3 cup agave
• 2 Tbs. spirulina (which you can buy at the health food market or Wholefoods)
• 1 Tbs. carob powder or PURE ground cacao (no processed sugar please!) 

To make the crust mix the ground almonds and agave in a bowl. Press the mixture evenly into the bottom of a 5-inch pie tin.

In a blender, combine the rest of the ingredients and blend until smooth. Pour this liquid mixture onto the pie crust and freeze for about 3 hours before serving (try not to get impatient and eat it too early, as I’ve been known to do!). After freezing for a few hours, you can transport the pie into the refrigerator. Freezing it first creates an amazing, cheese-cake like texture.

Desert and sneaking more greens into your diet - Perfect! 

Some Not So Tasty Facts About Meat

 

Many of us grew up eating poultry and red meat.  All of us are the targets of lobbying efforts by these industries telling us that we need more protein in our diets, and that meat is the best source. But overwhelming evidence today – from the rise of colon cancer to heart disease – suggests that we have a major, major problem with our diet.

 

Most of us here in the U.S. are fortunate enough to have a vast amount of food choices at our fingertips, including many diverse plant proteins, which are more easily assimilated by the body, not acidic and toxic, and yes- much more beautifying! 

 

Remember:  the more clean and pure your food is, the cleaner your blood is.  The cleaner your blood is, the more beautiful the skin and body will be.

 

Here are some reasons why I don’t eat meat:

 

1. 2700 Unlisted Drugs and Hormones

“Animals (raised for meat production) are kept alive and fattened by the continuous administration of tranquilizers, hormones, antibiotics, and 2700 other drugs. The process starts even before birth and continues long after death. Although these drugs will still be present in the meat when you eat it, the law does not require that they be listed on the package.”                        

                            Poisons in Your Body, Gary and Steven Null

 

The animals are fed food to make them fat. And when you eat meat you are eating what the animals have eaten. Is it a wonder so many people are struggling with their weight nowadays?

 

1.  Antibiotic- Resistant Microorganisms

Each year, 15 million pounds of antibiotics (half the total U.S. production) are fed to farm animals. Over time, this drug overkill allows disease-causing micro-organisms to develop immunities to antibiotics, posing a threat to people who later consume the meat. A prominent example: Time magazine presented startling evidence that government health offices “traced a serious outbreak of a gastrointestinal illness that was caused by antiobiotic-resistant germs.” The source of the bacteria, say the investigators, was hamburger from cattle that had been fed the antibiotic chlortetracycline.

 

Drugs, hormones and antibiotics also clog our livers and blood- which can lead to weight gain and drab skin. Not beautiful!!

 

2.  Pain Toxins

 

The trauma of being slaughtered – moral reasons and Ahimsa (nonviolent yoga principles) aside – causes the animals to secrete powerful hormones and toxins into their blood and, consequently, their meat.  These join with un-eliminated wastes in the animal’s blood such as urea and uric acid, to further contaminate the flesh that consumers eat.  This is one of the main reasons that the meat that humans consume is so toxic and acidic.

 

3.  Diseases

 

Animals raised for slaughter are subject to dozens of diseases that can be passed on to humans.  Government meat inspectors condemn only the diseased part of an animal, allowing the rest of the carcass to go to market. The government also permits the sale of chickens with airsacculitis, a pneumonia-like disease in which chest cavities are cleaned out with air-suction guns, which burst the air sacs, allowing the pus to seep into the meat.

 

4.  Straight-up Filth

 

Newsweek magazine reported the following about conditions in Colorado’s Cattle King Packing Co., a major supplier of beef to school lunch programs, the Defense Department, and the Wendy’s fast food chain:  “Government inspectors described the rats, roaches, and paint chips that littered the plant, while workers told of people urinating in the slaughter area and repacking spoiled meat returned by dissatisfied customers.”

 

Responding to the sanitation defects at the Cattle King Plant, attorney Robert McAllister admitted, “Yes, those things did happen, like they do in every other packing plant in the U.S.”

 

Need I say more? Do yourself, your skin, your planet, your fellow beings on earth a huge favor: stop supporting the meat industry. You will be more beautiful on the outside, and you will be surprised at how much calmer and lighter you feel inside!

Yin and Yang

People often assume that I am calm all the time because I practice yoga, meditate and/or do Reiki…whatever the analysis.  Well, in a perfect world, I would be calm all the time. But the reality is that I am not always practicing yoga, and I’m not a yogi (yet!) that can disappear into the caves of the Himalayas and mediate 24/7.   

 

Running Envision Beauty can actually be quite stressful.  It has been my dream come true, but has also taken up much of the time and personal resources of both me and my partner, Adam, for the last two years. 

 

Now from the outside, you might say that Adam and I are as opposite as opposite could be. He shows up to our meetings in a suit with a monogrammed shirt, while I’m in yoga pants, a tank top and barefoot.  An IP lawyer by trained profession, Adam chuckles at my Feng Shui suggestions for his apartment – though he does keep a good luck Ganesha statue that I gave him next to his computer.  He does not meditate and didn’t know what a Goji berry was until I introduced them to him.   I make almost all of my food at home, only occasionally going out (I do love Pure Food and Wine!), much prefer to get my own groceries, and don’t drink, except for the occasional glass of wine at dinner.  He likes to eat at restaurants, which he does almost every night, and drinks beer after work.   Time and time again, I sigh when I look into Adam’s empty refrigerator.

 

In spite of all this, Adam is always the voice of calm and perspective with business affairs. When we shot some videos for our website (coming soon!), I hated the way they looked and burst into tears.  Adam was the reasonable one, calmly reminding me that the videos still hadn’t been edited. When the first draft of our website came back with a tacky picture of me sitting on a fluffy cloud — despite our clear instructions to the contrary – I was anything but calm.  Over weeks, then months, as the website design process droned on I felt my blood temperature rising, utnil Adam took over all communications with the web designers. When  thousands of the Thank You cards that we put in each box of The Solution  were printed UPSIDE DOWN, Adam handled it all, with composure, grace and ease.  Although Adam has practiced yoga exactly once, he exhibits the ultimate yogic qualities of equanimity, not letting the outside world disturb one’s peace of the mind, and breath.

 

Owning and managing Envision Beauty involves incredible self control and commitment and has taught me an incredible amount about bringing my yoga practice off the mat and my mediation pillow and into the real world.  Adam, I’ve discovered, beer drinking lawyer though he may be, is every bit as much a yoga teacher as me.

Megan’s Almond/Brazil Nut Milk

 

Unsweetened almond milk can be found at Trader Joe’s or your local health store.  But there is nothing quite as delicious as freshly made, completely raw, and preservative-free nut milk made in your own blender.  If you have the time its surprisingly easy to make.

 

• 1 cup raw almonds (soaked overnight) OR 1 cup raw Brazil nuts (soaked 15 minutes)
• 3-6 cups of filtered water (depending on how thick you like your milk)
• 3 Tbs. of raw honey or agave (or more, depending on how sweet you like your milk)
• Pinch of sea salt
• 1 Tbs. lecithin granules
• 2 Tbs. coconut butter
• 1 Tbs. vanilla extract

Place the soaked nuts and the water in a blender and blend on high until smooth. Taking a cheese cloth or bag (you can get them pretty inexpensively online or at a cooking store), pour the mixture through the cloth into a separate container.  Make sure to squeeze all the liquid out of the cloth with your hands, so you get all the milk out.   Note: For a finer milk, use 2 cloths or bags layered on top of each other.

Rinse out the blender, and put the strained ‘milk’ back in the blender.  Add the rest of the ingredients, and blend on high until smooth

 

Fresh nut milk keeps well in the fridge for about a week.  Use in place of dairy milk for all purposes. Yum!

NYLON Magazine Photo Shoot

My flight home from San Juan, Costa Rica arrived at LaGuardia just before midnight on Monday.  After retrieving my checked luggage, braving inclement weather and navigating heavy construction on the BQE, I finally made it back home well after 2:00 in the morning.

The first thing I did when I arrived, soggy and exhausted, was drop my bags and check my email.  Uh oh!  My fears were confirmed.  My photo shoot for NYLON Magazine’s upcoming feature about THE SOLUTION was scheduled for the very NEXT morning (actually the SAME morning, since it was already past 2am).  In my apartment, no less! After being gone for 2 weeks, my apartment was a mess and I had to give my plants their badly needed water, air the place out, pick up my pet turtle from my partner Adam, vacuum, clean out the clutter that accumulated in the chaos before my trip, and do a million other things.  Not to mention getting myself in the shape for the shoot, which included getting a hair cut and my eyebrows done!  Talk about culture shock returning to life in NY- back to the craziness, immediately!

That morning I got up super early, made myself a cup of green tea, and ran around crazily unpacking, picking up and cleaning.  Then I rushed around town preparing myself to once again be presentable as the leader of a luxury skincare company.  When I was in the jungle and waves of Costa Rica, I…uhhh… let my hair down, both figuratively and literally.  J  By the time the photographer, Peggy, arrived, I was ready to go.  I was groomed, wearing a cool outfit, and my apartment was ready to be shown to NYLON’s readers. 

My apartment is…eclectic, you might say, and Peggy loved it. We had a great time thinking of angles for the shoot that would reflect Envision Beauty’s feel and my own personality.  First, we decided to take some pictures near my travel wall, which features framed pictures from my travels in Africa and Asia.  Since my worldwide journey was a huge influence to found Envision, and many of the THE SOLUTION’s ingredients are sourced from around the word, we thought this was a perfect place to start.  Next, we took a bunch of pictures in front of my bookshelves, which are loaded with tons and tons of health and beauty research books.  Finally, we went out in the sunshine and fresh air of my back yard.

I think the pictures came out great.  After NYLON decides which they plan to use, I’ll post a few of the extras here.  It will be fun giving you a peak of my apartment!  

The “Diet” That Makes You Fat

I have bad news: many of you are on a “Diet” that is actually causing you to gain weight.  But the bad news is really good news.  Bear with me.

The “Diet” is that Diet Coke you like to drink, which says 0 calories and 0 fat and 0 sugar on the label, but is horrible for you.  I know you know that regular soda is full of sugar and calories, and should  therefore be avoided.  But most of us have never considered how creepy it is that a bubbly, brown drink can somehow have 0 calories but still look exactly the same and taste similar to the real thing??

The first thing you need to know is that low-cal “diet” products, such as diet sodas, do NOT help you lose weight!  This is a complete myth. Over a decade ago, in 1986, the American Cancer Society documented the fact that persons using artificial sweeteners gain more weight than those who avoid them, revealing that artificial sweeteners can:

• Stimulate your appetite
• Increase carbohydrate cravings
• Stimulate fat storage and weight gain

Since 1986 newer “fake” sugars such as Splenda have been introductd.  They are ALL high on the Glycemic Index, I believe around a number of 80 (on a scale of 0 to 100).  Even normal sugar only scores a 70!   What this means is that even though Diet Coke has no calories, it still encourages weight gain.  I know- horrible.

It gets worse.  Soda and colas are also the most acid-forming of all foods.  But soda isn’t really a food anyways, it is a collection of acidic chemicals like carbonic acid, phosphoric acid, etc.  Soda demineralizes the bones, teeth, and skin, robbing you of your highest beauty by eating up your minerals. 

What’s more, too much aspartame (the sweetener in many diet drinks) and glutamate in the brain can kill certain neurons by allowing an influx of calcium into these cells. The neural cell damage that can be caused by excessive aspartame and glutamate is why they are referred to as “excitotoxins.” They “excite”, or stimulate the neural cells to death. This influx triggers excessive amounts of free radicals, which kill the cells.  And we know free radicals are a major cause of aging!

So stop reaching for that fizzy poison.  Treat your body and skin with a refreshing drink of water or white tea… anything but soda!!