Gulp a cup of coffee in the car, stuff a donut in your mouth, or, if you’re feeling slightly healthier, inhale a piece of toast with butter in a mad dash commute to work. Maybe weekends allow you to eat more for breakfast: eggs, bacon, orange juice, 3 cups of coffee… can you relate?

Most people have to be somewhere early morning Monday-Friday, be it a corporate job or dropping off the kids to school. Five hours go by and you’ve been running around like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off. You realize you’re starving so you scarf down a turkey sandwich at the local deli or office cafeteria. Perhaps you think that your sandwich is healthy: you opt for wheat bread (you assume that wheat is healthier, but read this blog for a different view) with a modicum of veggies (dubious in health like conventional pesticide-treated tomato and nutritiously-deficient iceberg lettuce).

Within 45 minutes of inhaling the turkey sandwich, you feel an intense desire to go curl in a ball and take a nap. Your energy level has crashed. But somehow, you power through the rest of the day--an energy drink or perhaps multiple cups of coffee--and although you still feel somewhat off kilter, you manage to get home, clean the house, pick up the kids, cook dinner and finish all the myriad menial tasks it takes to keep the engines running (even though on the inside, you’re running on fumes).

Though you might think you do not have time to keep one, maintaining a food journal is actually easy, especially with high-tech versions (apps) available on smart phones. A food journal will help you see patterns in your diet, providing clues as to why you’re experiencing energy crashes.

If you like the idea of having rock-steady energy and unfluctuating, mentally-stable moods throughout the day, a food journal is the best way to achieve these desired superior traits of well-being.

Record everything that goes down your throat

Achieving steady energy requires more than simply recording what foods you eat on a daily basis. Before explaining what else you should record, however, it should be noted that many people who keep a food journal often forget to record the little ingredients that can possibly lead to depleted energy. Here’s an example: instead of jotting down ‘green salad,’ also include what type of dressing. If the dressing was something other than a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, and instead was a huge helping of Caesar’s dressing loaded with processed ingredients and sugar, the dressing could be the culprit for a later energy crash.

Another example: you think you’re eating a healthy hamburger because the beef is organic/pasture-raised/grass-fed/kosher. The bun is gluten-free (might not be healthy after all; read: The Dangers of Gluten-Free foods on the Miracle Noodle blog) and topped with a slice of organic tomato and avocado.

But the food journal forgets to include a popular brand of ketchup that contains high-fructose corn syrup, which interferes with the appetite hormone (ghrelin) signaling the brain not to eat anymore. Your appetite, despite the healthy beef, is insatiable because of the high-fructose corn syrup in the ketchup.

So make sure you record every little seemingly innocuous ingredient, and if possible, the brand name.

Food journals have feelings, too

To fine-tune your diet and thereby achieve steady energy, include the following parameters in your food journal:

• --energy level before meal

• --mood before meal

• --hunger level before meal (1-5 with 5 being starving)

• --these 3 parameters after the meal

Taking it a step further, record your energy, mood and hunger levels 30 minutes, 1 hour and 2 hours after a meal. If you think that’s asking too much, you can simplify by recording ‘general well-being’ after meal.

Perhaps within 20 minutes after a meal, you feel satiated and in a good mood, but 30 minutes or so later, you have a craving for something salty and sweet. You’ve also noticed that your mood has swung to the irritable side.

Macronutrient portion sizes are critical

For lunch, you’ve just eaten what you thought was a healthy meal: Miracle Noodle with stir-fry veggies. Within the hour, though, it feels like you didn’t even eat lunch; the problem is that you did not add enough protein to the meal.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner should include protein sources--and natural fat--to regulate blood sugar levels. In other words, a proper balance of carbohydrates (mostly vegetables and a little bit of low-glycemic grains), protein and natural fat acts as the proper fuel for your fine-tuned engine of a body.

Figuring out the correct proportion of macronutrients at each meal will take some fine tuning and trial and error. Some people might thrive on larger portions of protein while others require more natural fat and/or carbohydrates for optimal energy.

Even though life might seem like one stressed-fill episode after another, in other words: too busy to pay attention to how you feel after a meal, keeping a detailed food journal will help you over time, get in touch with how powerful food is in affecting your moods and energy levels.

Time is of the essence for a food journal

Other things you might want to record in your food journal is how you slept the previous night and at what times you began every meal to learn what patterns give you the best energy. Also record how much water you consumed throughout the day. Remember, in addition to noting every condiment, also record everything you drink.

Maybe the bottle of wine you shared at dinner last night is the reason why you’re running on empty today!

Miracle Noodle can help you achieve steady energy. Eat more of it while saving almost 15% Every Time!

Save an additional 15% off every order by enrolling in the Miracle Noodle autoship program. Choose which products you want delivered and how often. It’s that simple. Join today!

Pizza, pasta, pancakes, potatoes, and pastries … these five popular ‘p’ foods supply the common western diet with a bulk of its daily caloric intake.

The problem with these five foods and many others in the Standard American Diet (SAD; an appropriate acronym), isn’t only the superfluous saddlebag and love-handle bloating calories. The two primary ingredients--sugar and wheat--in these SAD foods can contribute to an array of chronic diseases.

The main source of carbohydrates in the ‘p’ foods is wheat. Modern wheat processing strips much of the grain’s nutritional value. Because of this, by the time wheat enters the small intestine, about halfway through the digestive process, it has been rapidly digested and turned into sugar; ancient wheat and other grains digest more slowly providing longer-lasting energy and less a release of insulin.

Habitually eating processed wheat, which rapidly turns into sugar, and eating other foods that are digested even more rapidly as simple sugars, over time, can lead to weight gain because the body’s cells can only store so much sugar; excess gets stored as body fat.

The booming rates of allergies, asthma and other medical disorders, could, at least in part, be attributable to the over consumption of processed wheat (read: Trying to go Gluten Free? Good Luck).

But the ‘p’ foods and other SAD foods can be transformed from calorie-laden, potential allergy-inducing, belly-bloating foods  into lean, tasty, healthy options simply by swapping only a few ingredients.

For some of the following, we’ll use a recipe from Blogilates.com, a website dedicated to practical, easy-to-follow nutrition and fitness tips.

Healthy Pizza

The primary chronic-disease inducing ingredient in pizza is the white flour dough, which has been beaten to a pulp and lots any nutritional benefit. You can make your own flatbread pizza by replacing white flour crusts with 100% whole wheat flour, which is healthier than white flour, but for those that are trying to reduce widespread inflammation in the body, there are other crusts that are healthier.

One recipe from Blogilates calls for a cauliflower crust. Yes, cauliflower. The Miracle Noodle team was skeptical at first but judging by the feedback received, it seems that the cauliflower-crust pizza is a hit.

Other healthy crust alternatives includes a quinoa crust and even a wild rice pizza crust. To cut out even more calories, get wild--and crazy--by experimenting with Miracle Rice.

If you’re a meat lover, ditch the heavily processed pepperoni and instead use pasture-raised, grass-fed beef for meatballs or nitrite- and nitrate-free pork for pepperoni.

Also eschew the gooey, over-cooked cheese found on most regular pizza and instead use an olive oil and garlic base. If you love cheese on your pizza try buying raw cheese or unpasteurized but lightly cook the cheese or add it towards the end of the cooking process.

Healthy Pancakes

Most pancakes, a short time after being consumed, feel like bricks sitting in your stomach for a while. Then, shortly after, somehow after feeling stuffed, you feel hungry again, even though you just ate a stack of flapjacks within the last two hours. That’s because the pancake batter is quickly converted into sugar. It’s like pouring the wrong type of fuel in your car.

To make pancakes healthier and even easier to cook, try this amazingly simple recipe from Blogilates.com, run by the super talented Cassey Ho. Ho’s pancakes calls for only two ingredients: a banana and two eggs. Simply mix the ripe banana and eggs in a bowl and make sure the banana is completely mashed. Then spray your pan with some extra virgin olive oil PAM, or coconut oil on low to medium heat, scoop some of the banana-egg batter, give it about 20-30 seconds, flip, and done!

This is probably the easiest and most all-natural pancake recipe you’ll encounter. Thanks, Cassey, for sharing with the Miracle Noodle Team!

And instead of topping your cakes with regular syrup, a serving of which contains over 50 grams of carbohydrates--simple sugars--add a dab of butter to slow down the rise in blood sugar, and also agave syrup. Agave, though it does have an effect on blood sugar, is slower than regular table sugar. Yacon syrup is even healthier for those who really have to watch their blood sugar levels. Top of your cakes with a handful of organic berries.

Healthy Potatoes

White potatoes are among the highest foods on the glycemic index, meaning that their carbohydrates convert rapidly into sugars. If you’re trying to improve diabetes and lower blood sugar levels, it might be good to ditch potatoes all together. The term ‘healthy potato’ for those with high blood sugar should be considered an oxymoron.

However, if you must have your spud and eat it, too, try consuming smaller potatoes as they will contain more minerals and less starch. Most of the minerals are in the skin of the potato so make sure you are eating the skin of a small or mid-size at most potato.

Colored potatoes have more carotenoids than white potatoes. Carotenoids are substances that give color to a vegetable. But more important than the attractive color, aka pigment, of a sweet potato or other varieties of colored potatoes is the cancer-fighting properties of the carotenoids.

When eating a potato, limit the rise in blood sugar by adding some natural fat to the spud. Also eat some lean protein on the side.

Healthy Pastries

Perhaps another dietary oxymoron, healthy pastries, or more accurately, healthier pastries, are cooked using, similar to healthy pancakes, flours that are much lower on the glycemic index. Again, almond flour and coconut flour are two popular healthier options.

The joys of the human experience include dessert. Abstaining from cakes, cookies and other pastries makes dietary sense if you’re trying to lose weight, but for many, it’s a short-lived experiment. Opt, instead for allowing yourself a couple of small servings of dessert per week.

You can even bake chocolate chip cookies using Miracle Rice! Read this blog for more dessert ideas using Miracle Noodle.

Healthy Pasta

If you’re familiar with Miracle Noodle, you know how easy it is to slash hundreds of calories from your diet every week. Shaped from the root of a variety of Japanese yam, Miracle Noodle contains zero net carbs and zero net calories. The Internet is packed with recipes using Miracle Noodle. You can also download for free the Miracle Noodle Recipe Book, an 82-page easy-to-follow cornucopia of healthy pasta ideas.

How great it is to be able to eat noodles every day without raising your blood sugar levels and packing on the pounds.

Save almost 15% on Miracle Noodle Every Time!

Save an additional 15% off every order by enrolling in the Miracle Noodle autoship program. Choose which products you want delivered and how often. It’s that simple. Join today!

If you grew up eating commercially-popular breakfast cereals with clever and cute highly-marketable mascots, chances are you ingested butylated hydroxytoluene. Better known as BHT, it’s a synthetic antioxidant designed to slow the spoilage of fats and oils.

While eating a diet rich in antioxidants is critical to good health, avoiding synthetic ingredients is equally important, even if the synthetic material is an antioxidant. Foods are meant to spoil; eating foods with synthetic additives are usually harmful.  In the case of BHT, several studies have concluded that it is carcinogenic.

Dieticians, nutritionists, personal trainers, and health coaches preach the cardinal rule of healthy eating: if you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it.

While this is usually good advice to follow, it might be a bit too simplistic. Could it be that some foods contain additives that are beneficial to health?

Food additives to avoid

Maybe a better rule to follow would be that a certain food should at most have a handful of ingredients. Chances are high that a packaged food that has a long list of ingredients contains potentially-harmful preservatives and additives. Some of the more ubiquitous additives to avoid include:

• --MSG (monosodium glutamate)

• --High fructose corn syrup

• --Partially hydrogenated or hydrogenated oils or shortening

• --Sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate

• --Aspartame and other artificial sweeteners

• --Benzoates such as sodium benzoate

• --Food colorings such as Red 40

Food additives to fear not

Vitamin D, better known as the sunshine vitamin, acts more like a hormone than a vitamin. We have vitamin D receptor cells throughout our body. In order for our cells to utilize the active form of D, we need to expose our bodies to direct sunlight and ideally eat foods that naturally contain D. 

There are two problems with getting enough D. First, even if you get plenty of sunshine by going for walks everyday, if you live in an area that receives relatively weak ultraviolet sunlight in the winter, your blood levels of D will likely fall in the cold months. In the U.S., if you live north of the 37th parallel--running from roughly Santa Cruz, CA to the Four Corners region through Kentucky and Newport News, Virginia--you’d be wise to eat foods rich in Vitamin D, which brings us to the second problem….

There are relatively few foods that are naturally rich in D (cold water fish such as salmon, shiitake mushrooms and egg yolks are the main natural sources) and even if you consume them regularly and in large quantities, you still may have low levels of D in your blood (get a blood test from your doctor to have your level tested) if you live north of the 37th.

In addition to being known as the sunshine vitamin, D is also known as the mood vitamin. Having adequate levels (consensus recommendations call for serum levels around 60) can ward off depression.  

Foods that contain Vitamin D additives, therefore, can be beneficial for your health.

Vitamin D also helps transport calcium throughout the body.

Speaking of calcium, your favorite noodle substitute contains it

Zero-calorie and zero-carbohydrate Miracle Noodle products contain calcium hydroxide. And though ‘hydroxide’ isn't all that difficult to pronounce, thus not going against the golden rule of nutrition, if you can't pronounce it don't eat it, some may question whether calcium hydroxide is safe.

If “limewater” sounds safe to you, that’s essentially what calcium hydroxide is. Miracle Noodle is 97% water and 3% fiber with a trace amount of calcium hydroxide to firm up Miracle Noodle. Food-grade calcium hydroxide is safe for human consumption and been used in traditional cultures for hundreds of years.  In Mexico, it was traditionally used to soak corn to make it more digestible.   It provides texture to Miracle Noodle so that you can eat as much as you want without the calories or heavy bloat that’s associated with regular noodles.

Vitamin E and C additives

Alpha- beta- delta- or gamma-tocopherol might be difficult to pronounce but it’s more commonly known as Vitamin E. Vitamin E is a powerful antioxidant, playing a vital part in the health of our immune system, helping protect red blood cells. Beware of processed foods with tocopherols, though, as the vitamin E may be rancid.

Vitamin C is perhaps the most well-known antioxidant, abundant naturally in citrus fruits. Citric acid is sometimes added to certain foods. Though it’s much better to eat natural foods, citric acid is far safer and beneficial for your health than the dangerous additives mentioned earlier.

Dozens of additives in organic food

Though it’s best to eat organic food as much as possible, even organic food may contain additives. In fact, the European Union, which is generally regarded as more stringent than the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s guidelines, allows almost four dozen additives in organic foods.

While that may sound like a lot, consider that there are thousands allowed in conventional foods. So don’t panic, even if it’s organic. Use common sense. If there are only a few ingredients at most in a packaged food, it’s probably healthy; if there is a paragraph-long list of ingredients, avoid it as if it were a bottle of poison.

Most Miracle Noodle products contain four ingredients: water, a Japanese flour called ‘konnyaku’, calcium hydroxide and beta carotene, another healthy additive, which is a precursor to Vitamin A, essential for healthy skin and immune system.

Save 15% on Miracle Noodle Every Time!

Save an additional 15% off every order by enrolling in the Miracle Noodle autoship program. Choose which products you want delivered and how often. It’s that simple. Join today!

If you read the Miracle Noodle blog, “The Paleo Diet and Diabetes,” you learned about one of the latest diet trends, the so-called ‘Paleo Diet,’ which we on the Miracle Noodle team, believe is generally a healthy nutritional protocol for those trying to lower their blood sugar and improve diabetes.

If you’re not diabetic but just interested in general weight loss advice or the low-carb lifestyle, it still helps to know what the possible downsides are to ‘going strict paleo.’

For basic review, a strict Paleo diet means, among other things:

• --no hamburgers at a barbeque (unless the meat is 100% grass-fed, eaten with no bun and no ketchup)

• --no wine and cheese (Strict Paleo dieters believe the only Paleo-approved beverage is water; dairy was not consumed during the Paleolithic era and contemporary cheese is often processed)

• --no morning (or anytime) cup of coffee; dandelion root or hickory tea might be ok, but the Paleolithic era lacked French press machines and Starbucks, plus, conventional coffee is processed

These are a few of the perhaps less-known food philosophies of the Paleo Diet. More common is the knowledge that Paleo-approved foods are:

• --wild meats, aka pasture-raised, free-range, grass-fed, minimally processed, safe if consumed raw from a truly wild source

• --nuts, seeds and nut butters (Strict Paleo dieters debate whether or not nut butters are paleo-friendly; peanuts, being legumes are not approved on the Paleo diet)

• --fruits (in moderation, seasonal, grown locally)

• --vegetables (raw, low-starch, i.e. no potatoes)

• --herbs

• --natural fats (mostly from wild meats, nuts and fish oil)

The First Danger of Paleo: Carpe Diem

Listed above is a huge chunk of the Paleo diet. So, is it worth it to exclude some of your favorite foods? Perhaps that’s one of the dangers of a strict Paleo diet; the cliché, “Life is too short,” rings especially true in the winter of your life.

At age 85, are you going to remember all the carbs you cut from your diet or will you remember the sublime dinners with friends and family over endless rounds of Manchego cheese and Petite Sirah? (Disclaimer: The Miracle Noodle team doesn’t actually know if this is considered a proper pairing, but hopefully you get the idea that ‘eat, drink and be merry’--in moderation--is a more visceral motto to live by.)

While Miracle Noodle is widely considered a Paleo-friendly food, what you eat with it, could render it purely un-Paleo. There’s the obvious foods like cake for dessert after a Miracle Noodle dish (click here for a free download of the 82-page, Miracle Noodle Recipe Book), but there’s also unapproved Paleo-foods that might surprise you:

• --beans and other legumes

• --quinoa and other supposedly healthy grains

• --yogurt (Paleo cavemen didn't pasteurize anything)

The reason beans, other legumes and grains are not Paleo-friendly is compounds in these types of foods commonly called ‘anti nutrients.’ Anti nutrients include protein molecules like lectin, which, in some people, can lead to digestive issues. Philosophically, legumes are not approved on the Paleo list because they were not a staple during the Paleolithic era.

The second danger of Paleo: Paleo concerns overblown?

Eating nothing but lean protein, veggies, nuts and seeds and healthy fats is great for weight loss and managing blood sugar but consuming no amount of fruit, for example, could deprive you of the phyto- (plant) nutrients that are unique to certain fruits.

A strict Paleo dieter, may, for example, exclude fruits with a reputation for being relatively high in sugar. This would include kiwis, grapes and oranges. Eliminate these fruits and you are cutting off one of the few rich sources of zeaxanthin, one of the most powerful antioxidants discovered.

Phytates are other compounds that contain anti nutrients, at least in some people, leading to chronic digestive problems. Beans contain phytates, thus the reason they are not Paleo-friendly
(they are also relatively high in carbohydrates, roughly 30-35 grams per serving). But pop/celeb Medical Doctor, Andrew Weil, believes that, in general, concerns about phytates are unfounded.

Cooking and soaking, says Weil, and other health gurus, kill off some of the phytate compounds, and when eaten with a well-balanced diet (not just grains) should not cause a serious health problem in most people. Heirloom grains (grains that have not been hybridized) such as quinoa, einkorn and emmer wheat provide long-lasting steady energy and contain phytonutrients and antioxidants as well.

The third danger of Paleo: A pound of antelope meat ain’t cheap

Bodybuilders with barely more than a few percentage points of body fat are avid followers of the Paleo Diet. But eating enough wild game to build biceps the size of basketballs is expensive.

For optimum health, it’s worth it to eliminate as much as possible, grain-fed meats and large-scale agricultural operation animal products (e.g. eggs), but, to thrive on a Paleo diet and eliminate all grains requires leaning on more protein, typically more animal protein. Eating a meat-rich diet, even if it’s wild and unprocessed, is controversial enough as to whether or not it can lead to chronic disease, but there’s no denying that buying lots of meat, especially rare (no pun intended) wild sources are expensive.

The fourth danger of Paleo: Your body may be naturally carb-crazy

Diets like the Atkins Diet (which eliminated nearly all carbs and thrived on high-fat foods like dairy) and the Paleo Diet assume that everyone thrives on a low-carb, higher protein and fat diet. While that may be true for a majority of the planet’s population, there’s enough of a minority that has a biochemistry profile more suited to a diet richer in carbohydrates, albeit not from sources that are refined/hybridized/heavily processed and high-starch.

People who do well burning more carbohydrates for optimum fuel (energy) more slowly oxidize a simple carbohydrate like white rice. It’s theoretically possible that a carbohydrate-dominant individual would have less than optimal energy if eating a high-protein/natural fat diet.

The Miracle Noodle team believes that, In general, the Paleo Diet, makes logical nutritional sense. Perhaps, though, like everything else in life, moderation is the key; if you don’t have irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), Crohn's Disease, leaky gut, or other inflammatory bowel/stomach conditions, live a little and don’t worry about going strict Paleo 100 percent of the time.

Miracle Noodle is 97% water and 3% fiber, Paleo-approved and almost 15% off Every Time!

Save an additional 15% off every order by enrolling in the Miracle Noodle autoship program. Choose which products you want delivered and how often. It’s that simple. Join today!

Some of us on the Miracle Noodle Team can relate to the challenges of being a desk jockey, corporate shill, cubicle warrior and workaholic. Like you, we can identify with any of these hard-working appellations but the rudest insult of them all: a nine-to-five-er….

If your day is more of a 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. pedal-to-the-medal grind, chances are you have no time to cook, and unless you’re a multi-millionaire with your own personal chef, it’s impossible to prepare healthy meals.

Or is it? If you’re on the job all day, and don’t have time to cook, follow these 3 tips if you work all day but want to eat healthy:

1. Prepare a huge serving of Miracle Noodle stir-fry on your day off

Hopefully you have at least one day off during the week. If so, all it takes is about 10-15 minutes to prepare a healthy meal that you can have for lunch and/or a late afternoon snack for the whole week. Take 1-2 packages of Miracle Noodle for every day of the week. Remove from the eco-friendly packaging. Place noodles in a colander and rinse them for 30-60 seconds. Chop up a bunch of veggies or remove already chopped veggies (hopefully, organic) from the bag. In a large wok or pan coated with coconut oil, stir fry the veggies. Add Miracle Noodle to the veggies for the last few minutes of cooking.

Separately, bake or grill a lean, grass-fed or wild or free-range protein for 10 minutes. Go to the food store once a week and buy a few pounds of lean protein and cook the bulk of it. After the protein is ready, you can chop or cut into bite-size pieces and mix into the stir fry.

Buy some Pyrex or other glass containers. Place your Miracle Noodle-veggie-protein stir fry in the container and bring to work. Reheat in a microwave. It’s that easy to eat a low-fat, low-calorie, high-fiber, high-in-antioxidants, super-healthy meal, every day of the work week.

2. At night, take 2 minutes to prepare a green drink for breakfast

On the one day a week you go to the food store, stock up on green leafy veggies like spinach, kale and chard. Also buy some berries and bananas. Splurge on a Vitamix or other powerful food processor. At night, before you go to bed, grab a handful or two of the greens, a handful of berries and one-half a banana. Optional ingredients to include: flax seeds, unsweetened almond milk, one scoop of raw almond butter or similar nut butter.

Place ingredients in the food processor and place in fridge. In the morning, add water to the food processor and then let ‘er rip! In 10-20 seconds, you’ll have a superfood cornucopia breakfast. For those who need more bulk for breakfast, toast a piece of sprouted bread and top with cottage cheese and sliced tomato, or if you’re really on the run, just spread with grass-fed butter.

3. Have a plethora of healthy snacks at work

Nuts, seeds and fruit are the easiest and healthiest snack for those who work all day. Simply take 30 seconds to eat a handful of mixed seeds and nuts (preferably raw and not roasted as the roasting process can kill some of the beneficial nutrients) as a late-morning and late-afternoon snack to hold you down in between lunch and dinner. Other simple healthy snack ideas are hummus and carrot sticks, celery dipped in nut butter, or olives. These healthy snacks contain nutritious fats that help you feel satisfied for prolonged periods.

Extra Tip: If you want to get creative, download the Miracle Noodle Recipe Book for free. At a hefty 82 pages (but weighing zero pounds; it’s digital), you’ll find lots of recipes that take as little time to prepare as the standard Miracle Noodle-veggie-lean protein stir fry mentioned above. Remember to use low-sugar but tasty, minimally-processed-at-most sauces. Miracle Noodle really soaks up the flavor of whatever you’re cooking with. Add sea salt to taste (opt for a brand that offers unrefined sea salt with trace minerals).

Stock up on Miracle Noodle if you work a lot--save up to 15% Every Time!

Save an additional 15% off every order by enrolling in the Miracle Noodle autoship program. Choose which products you want delivered and how often. It’s that simple. Join today!

“If you don’t eat this one food, you will die sooner….”

“Buying this one common item at the supermarket could save your life….”

“5 Foods that can help you Live to 100….”

In an effort to boost web traffic, sell more products or newspapers or magazines, editors often exploit readers’ emotions with Armageddon-impending, you’re-a-sucker-if-you-don’t-read-this news headlines.

In the vast, largely unregulated, billion-dollar empire of nutrition, online supplement companies need to prey on human emotion to sell pills, powders and other products that are cleverly marketed and implied that they are absolutely necessary for being healthy.

Along with gluten-free foods, so-called ‘superfoods’ have generated lots of buzz through the web, popular TV shows, and in books authored by doctors and other authority figures. Food marketers are labeling more and more items as superfoods in order to move product.

Are all superfoods hyped?

No. There are legitimate superfoods. The problem is that the most common and more affordable superfoods are not marketed as such, while other foods, especially, those that convey exoticicism--in name and geographic origin--are heavily promoted as superfoods.

But this group of superfoods typically cost significantly more and offer the same benefits as more common superfoods. So let’s divide superfoods into two groups:

--Common superfoods

--Exotic superfoods

Before giving examples of each category, though, with the intention of helping you improve your health and saving you money, let’s answer the fundamental question….

What is a superfood?

A superfood contains an impressive amount of phyto- (plant) nutrients. There are several thousand phytonutrients including a few of these categories that you may have heard of:

--flavonoids

--carotenoids

--phenols

--lignans

--isoflavones

Many people are familiar with carotenoids, which give pigment to foods like…you guessed it, carrots. The common denominator for all classes of phytonutrients (also called ‘phytochemicals) is that they have been clinically proven to be powerful antioxidants. This means that superfoods protect your cells and DNA from getting mutated by free radicals that could occur from food, lifestyle or environmental factors.

Many researchers and their studies have confirmed what non-credentialed, holistic health advocates have been preaching for decades: natural plant foods have powerful antioxidant properties.

What are common superfoods?

All leafy greens, such as spinach, kale and broccoli are superfoods. So are yellow-orange vegetables such as pumpkin, sweet potato and carrots. Citrus fruits are also loaded with phytonutrients, though they are to be avoided in large amounts (limit yourself to a cup per meal or snack) if you need to control your blood sugar levels.

Some types of tea and even wine have powerful phytonutrients. So do beans like soybeans. Eggs also have phytonutrients. Even though eggs come from chickens and chickens are not plants (unless it’s a rubber chicken made from a rubber tree), chickens eat twigs, stems and other components of organic plant matter.

Other animals that have plant-derived antioxidants include wild salmon and grass-fed beef. Omega-3 essential fatty acids, another mass-marketed nutrition label, are not technically considered a phytonutrient antioxidant superfood because at its core, it’s just a fat. But wild salmon and pasture-raised beef eat algae and grass, respectively, which provide the source of the Omega-3’s.

Research concludes that Omega-3’s encourage antioxidant enzyme activity, essentially giving a super boost charge to the antioxidants in their fight against free radical damage that can potentially lead to cancer.

The bottom line with common superfoods is that they are readily available in not only high-end health food stores but supermarkets as well. Common superfoods have high ORAC scores (oxygen radical absorbance capacity), meaning they are powerful antioxidants. Other superfoods might also contain essential fatty acids, enzymes, and of course, vitamins and minerals, as well as protein and a complete profile of essential amino acids, which form the building blocks of protein.

What are exotic superfoods?

It seems that approximately a decade ago, blueberries and other berries were suddenly touted as a superfood. A short time later, berries and other fruits with exotic names became trendy superfoods. Think: mangosteen, goji berries (from the Himalayan plateau), pomegranate juice, açai (from Brazil) and chia seeds, to name a handful.

Is it bad to buy exotic superfoods? If you have the money, go for it. But to reiterate, many common superfoods have exceptional free-radical fighting abilities and may equal or even surpass exotic superfoods in their abilities to ward off cancer or other chronic diseases.

Common fruits, vegetables, grasses and non-hybridized grains as well as nuts and seeds all can be considered superfoods. In other words, foods that are found in nature and not processed, or very minimally so--and not overcooked--are superfoods.

Every food found in nature contains a unique biochemical profile. You don’t have to travel to Tibet and cultivate your own goji berries for optimal health; you might not even need to buy them at your local market to live a long life, either. But if you have a couple bucks to spare, exotic superfoods can spice up your life.

Is Miracle Noodle a superfood?

Another natural ingredient that superfoods contain is fiber, and on that criteria, yes, Miracle Noodle, also called ‘shirataki’ in Japan, is a superfood. Miracle Noodle, a zero-calorie, zero-carb all-natural pasta substitute, is 97% water and 3% fiber. The Miracle Noodle team would be lying if we said that the bulk of Miracle Noodle--shaped from the root of the konjac yam plant--ranks at the top of the ORAC scale, but for those who love eating noodles and need to lose weight and watch their blood sugar levels, Miracle Noodle is indeed a super food.

Save 15% on Miracle Noodle Every Time!

Save an additional 15% off every order by enrolling in the Miracle Noodle autoship program. Choose which products you want delivered and how often. It’s that simple. Join today!

One of the latest diet trends is called ‘The Paleo Diet,’ paleo being short for ‘paleolithic,’ referring to the pre-historic era when our cavemen, nomadic ancestors foraged, stalked and hunted their food.

Our distant Paleo kin were thought to be pictures of perfect health, chiseled with Brad Pitt-worthy abs, albeit with slightly more facial and body hair than Pitt.

Modern chronic diseases, such as diabetes and cancer, supporters of the Paleo Diet argue, were mostly absent during the Paleolithic era, a result of food sources being whole, unrefined and unprocessed.

The Paleo Diet’s main philosophy, if you’re not familiar with the concept: avoid grains at all costs (think: breads and other baked goods containing flour, along with pastas and noodles, rice, oats, etc.).

Most grains, the paleo theory posits, were not present during the paleolithic era. As societies evolved into settled, agrarian communities, grains became introduced to feed the growing populations. Modern processing of some of these grains, especially wheat, paleo advocates argue, is responsible for modern, first-world chronic diseases.

But does following a diet adopted by unsophisticated brutes, faced with the threat of daily mauling by sabre-tooth tigers and other beasts, and who would have qualified for AARP membership if they reached the ripe age of 30, make sense?

Is the Paleo Diet suggested for diabetics?

The short answer is, “mostly, yes.”

Nuts, legumes (beans), fruits, vegetables and wild or grass-fed meats are the main staples of the Paleo Diet. These foods are unprocessed, or at most, minimally processed, meaning they are loaded with vitamins, minerals, enzymes, critically important fatty acids and other vital nutrients. (If you’re overweight, do not avoid foods that contain Omega 3 fatty acids like wild salmon; contrary to what you might think, Omega 3’s fats will not make you fat and they are vital to good health and reducing inflammation.)

So, do indeed eat plenty of approved, Paleo-friendly foods, especially if you’re trying to improve your diabetes. Doing so may reduce the chronic inflammation in your body and may help improve your blood sugar levels. But take caution with fruit. Fruit is a sugar and should be, ideally, eaten sparingly, and consumed in the whole variety (eat, for example, a green apple but always avoid apple juice as it has no fiber to keep you full and regular).

Is dairy Paleo-friendly?

Although milk and cheese contain important nutrients like bone-building calcium and are sometimes fortified with Vitamin D (also important for bones and preventing chronic disease), most dairy is heavily processed, i.e. pasteurized. Pasteurization kills all of the beneficial bacteria that help fight off infections. Although it’s beyond the scope of this article, pasteurized and homogenized dairy products can contribute to a vast number of health problems.

If you have access to a farmer’s market, food co-op, or live in one of the few states that allow the sale of unpasteurized dairy, raw milk, cheese and butter can be part of a very healthy diet and has been in traditional societies for centuries.

Modern grains: definitely a ‘Paleo no-no’

If you want to lose weight and reduce the chronic inflammation of your body (achy joints, for example), then adhering to the Paleo requisite to avoid grains is wise, especially modern, processed grains.

Grains, at one time, were a health food, but today’s grains, especially wheat, perhaps the worst offender of processed grains, are stripped of nutrition and can lead to a host of health problems.

The grains that your grandparents and great grandparents consumed are not the same grain of today. Over the last half-century, wheat has changed dramatically in the way it’s produced.

It may seem innocuous why wheat has been genetically modified: to make the strains resistant to devouring insects, droughts and pathogens. But the biggest reason for the modification of this ancient grain is simply to be able to make huge amounts of it.

Eating modern wheat can raise your blood sugar

Because the modern process of treating, or milling flour, results in the stripping of the wheat germ, vitamins, minerals and enzymes are lost in the processing.

In numerous studies, including this one in the Journal of Experimental Botany, wheat, or more accurately: processed wheat, has been shown to raise blood sugar levels.

The study author, a British researcher, concluded, “Most of the starch consumed in the human diet, including wheat starch, is readily digested in the small intestine, resulting in a rapid increase in blood glucose which may contribute to the development of type 2 diabetes and obesity.”

In addition to the potential rapid ride of blood sugar after eating wheat, even whole wheat, this modified grain could be the cause for numerous health conditions, including:

• cramping

• nausea

• intestinal diseases, chronic bowel problems or stomach pains

• chronic fatigue and sleep difficulty

• depression

• memory loss  

• joint pains

The protein in wheat, otherwise known as gluten, could be the cause of these andother symptoms, including infections and autoimmune disorders.

So, diabetics should not eat grains?

For the most part, no, especially not modern wheat products like wheat crackers or wheat bread. But ancient, heirloom grains, which have the same genetic properties generation after generation are fine to eat in limited quantities. Types of heirloom, ancient grains include kamut, spelt, quinoa, amaranth, barley and some brands of rye.

Also, grains that have been soaked and fermented, which release digestive enzymes, helping your bloodstream absorb nutrients, are ok for diabetics to eat in limited quantities as well.

Diabetics would be wise to avoid nearly all flour-based products, especially white flour. But there is one type of noodle and rice that’s comprised of an ancient Japanese flour called ‘konjac’ that is highly recommended for diabetics to eat. Konjac flour is the main ingredient in Miracle Noodle and Miracle Rice, which both have zero net calories and do not raise your blood sugar at all!

The Paleo Diet can be very limiting, although thanks to Miracle Noodle, you can still enjoy your favorite noodle and rice dishes while sticking to a Paleo-friendly diet, all the while improving your diabetes, without the guilt of packing on extra calories and spiking your blood sugar.