Probiotics For Diabetics - Yogurt Vs Kefir

In my last post, I introduced the topic of why probiotics are good for healing diabetes. Today, I want to talk specifically about yogurt versus kefir as foods to obtaining the best probiotics for diabetics.

First, however, I want to stress that it is always important to eat a variety of natural foods both for your health in general and when you are curing your diabetes. This is especially true for probiotics because every brand and every source is different, even if it is labeled exactly the same. For example, two different brands of yogurt can list the same three species of live bacteria. However, the strains of the bacteria may be different even though they are the same species. There is much variation in the strains used and how they are cultured and prepared.

There are two primary differences between kefir and yogurt:

1. Kefir contains a far wider diversity of probiotics than yogurt, i.e. more species/strains of probiotics.

2. Kefir also contains much stronger strains of probiotics.

These two differences mean that the probiotics in kefir have a much higher chance of colonizing your gut on a permanent basis, or at least a semi-permanent basis until something really strong like antibiotics or disease kills them off. However, the probiotics found in almost all commercial brands of yogurt do not colonize the gut permanently. They are usually more beneficial in improving conditions for the good bacteria that already reside them. Therefore, most yogurt "probiotics" would be more accurately called "prebiotics."

Does this mean you should stop eating yogurt and switch to kefir entirely? No! Yogurt is a very healthy food and will help feed the healthy bacteria already established in your gut. However, you should not expect the probiotics in yogurt to significantly change the flora in your gut on a permanent basis (no matter what those Activia ads may suggest!).

Because kefir provides semi-permanent colonization of the gut, I do not think it is necessary to eat kefir every day. What I try to do is eat some kefir at least every couple of weeks or so to make sure I re-inoculate my gut in case I've done anything to disrupt my healthy population. I also alternate between brands of kefir get more variety.  In between, I eat high quality brands of yogurt that contain more variety than just the standard strains. I believe that both kefit and yogurt are important foods to eat if you want to reverse diabetes.

Kefir not only contains beneficial bacteria, it also contains beneficial yeasts (single celled fungi) as well. These include Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Saccharomyces delbruecki, Saccharomyces kefir, and Torula kefir. Kefir is cultured from milk innoculated with kefir grains that contain these beneficial yeasts as well as a very wide variety of beneficial bacteria.

Besides my bi-weekly intake of kefir, I enjoy yogurt 4-7 times a week. I usually buy my yogurt at natural food stores because they have more variety and better quality. My personal favorite is Liberte (a Canadian yogurt). This is one of the foods that I used to reverse my diabetes and also maintain a healthy body now and maintain my high quality of life. Food is literally like taking medicine or poison depending on what you eat. If you have diabetes, I just can't emphasize enough that you should get the information I link to at the top of this page. In it, you will find ALL the foods you need to eat, the specific details you need to know, and much more.

Update: I now culture raw milk either with yogurt starter powders (you can order these online) or I just put in a warm place and let it clabber which turns into a consistency of yogurt... it's basically "super yogurt" as it is like yogurt only with far more variety of probiotics.

Probiotics Are Good For Healing Diabetes

Did you know that if you look at all the strains of bacteria in the gut of a diabetic and all the strains of bacteria in the gut of someone without diabetes, you will find a VERY different set of bacteria. Having bad gut flora, in fact, is typical in almost all diabetics.

Probiotics, the "friendly bacteria" that you find in foods like yogurt and kefir, can help heal the body from many of the damaging effects from diabetes by helping you build up a healthy gut flora again.

The immune system of most diabetics is severely compromised. Inflammation in the joints, gums, and elsewhere is also quite common in a body that has been attacked by diabetes. Fungal infections that cause vagital itching and jock itch are also quite common. Probiotics can really help strenthen the immune system to ward off these effects of type 2 diabetes.

Diabetics are also often nutritionally starved even when they eat a healthy diet -- and even when they over-eat. This is because their digestive system has been so badly compromised, they simply can't get all the nutrients out of the food they eat. Probitoics can help you get back a healthy gut flora that can help you get more nutrients out of the food you eat.

Over the next few days, I plan to post a few articles about probiotics that I think will be particularly useful to those who are trying to reverse their diabetes and deal with the devastating effects that diabetes may have already had on your body. In the meantime, I highly recommend that you go and listen to this video and get the information that it recommends. If you are suffering from diabetes and the ongoing havoc it plays on the body, this information can radically change your life. Without the right information, it can be difficult to cure your diabetes but this resource puts it together in one comprehensive very well-researched package. Probiotics is just one of a myriad of things you need to know about if you want to reverse your diabetes (and not even the most important - albeit important of course).

The Average Lifespan of a Type 2 Diabetic Is 15 Years Shorter

The average lifespan of a type 2 diabetic is 15 years shorter on average than a person who does not have diabetes. This alarming statistic comes from the US Department of Health and Human Services. More specifically, it comes from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and is calculated using several massive health databases. As such, I consider this data quite trustworthy.

15 years! That's almost a whole generation shorter! The implications of this stat are staggering and I wonder if most type 2 diabetics REALLY understand how serious their disease is.

It's actually about double the impact that smoking has since smoking is estimated to decrease the lifespan only 7 to 8 years according the the CDC.

Surprisingly too, type 2 diabetics actually have a shorter lifespan on average than type 1 diabetics! Let that sink in for a moment and then read on...

The number one way that type 2 diabetics die is from heart attacks and other heart related illnesses. This is because the elevated blood sugar levels in their bodies eat away at the linings of all their blood vessels and eventually their heart just gives out. This is the same reason their kidneys fail so too and the reason why so many diabetics go blind and lose their limbs due to amputation. Diabetes literally kills you by attacking every major system in your body - slowly but surely.

The thing I want to emphasize the most here is that even type 2 diabetics who CONTROL their disease with medication die on average 15 years before their counterparts that do not have the disease. AND... the time that they do have on this planet is much lower in terms of quality of life. They are often fatigued and otherwise sick and can't enjoy life to its fullest.

So, the traditional path of taking oral medications and/or insulin injections that most medical doctors prescribe does NOT prevent a diabetic from having a greatly reduced lifespan.

I'm sorry if you have diabetes and I'm scaring you. My objective is not to scare you but rather to tell the whole truth about this issue, one that I do not believe is talked about anywhere near enough. A much shorter lifespan on average is the reality of being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. I feel like if you have the truth, you can do something about it. This is not a subject I feel it is better to be "blissfully ignorant" as they say.

It is also a fact that some people do beat these odds - they do. However, if you start talking to these people you soon start to realize something. The vast majority of them, sometimes without even realizing it, were doing things that at least in part reversed their diabetes - not just managing it - usually through diet, exercise, stress management, and other natural means.

So, it seems the key to gaining back those years is to cure your diabetes, not just manage the symptom of high blood sugar. Doing the latter looks really good on a chart but it's basically cheating.

The problem is that traditional medicine is never going to get you all the way there, i.e. you are never going to COMPLETELY reverse diabetes - CURE it completely - if you continue to follow the traditional course of action for type 2 diabetes. For a complete cure and a complete reversal of the 15 year shorter lifespan, you need to follow the alternative medicine approach, at least in part.

I am living proof that there is a cure for diabetes. In fact, you can reverse your diabetes is less than 6 months! However, you will need to follow a plan that eliminates ALL causes of type 2 diabetes which also prevent people from completely reversing it - this includes information that your traditional doctor will NEVER tell you, partly because they don't actually know and maybe because they are scared to tell you because their medical malpractice insurance won't cover this type of advice.

You will also need to add things to your diet that you are probably not getting now, or at least not enough of - again, including things that your traditional doctor will NEVER tell you. AND... you will need to make some other changes that will help heal your body naturally. Nothing too extreme or difficult, in fact quite enjoyable in most cases - simple things that will make a world of difference.

The key to getting this done in 6 months or less to have the right information. I can't recommend highly enough getting this reference to reversing diabetes. It is a comprehensive resource based on scientific research. It will give you all the information you need to curing your diabetes completely, including some information that is near impossible to find elsewhere.

If you have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes, this should serve as a wake up call to you! Yes, we all have limited time on this planet but there is no need to cheat yourself out of 15 years and lower your quality of life at the same time. I literally feel better now that I did when I was 30 years old (I'm now in my mid 40's) so in a way getting diagnosed with type 2 diabetes saved my life because I ended up improving my life. I want you to do the same.

Can Diabetes Really Be Cured?

When people are first diagnosed with diabetes, the traditional medical community approaches the disease as if it can not be cured. Modern doctors and nurses are trained to treat diabetes as a "progressive disease." In fact, this is the terminology they use when they talk to you. They say things like, "As your diabetes progresses, you'll need to..." as if it was a foregone conclusion that it WILL indeed progress, i.e. that there is no chance for a cure. Moreover, they are trained to treat the symptoms of diabetes, not the underlying causes. Specifically, almost all treatment is focused on lowering blood sugar, not on curing what is causing the blood sugar to be high in the first place.

Newly diagnosed patients are trained on how to test their own blood sugar. They are encouraged to do so often. They are taught how to adjust their medications, both oral medications and insulin injections, according to their sugar levels. A diabetic's whole life often ends up revoling around how their blood sugar reading will turn out. It can become rather depressing which can cause their diabetes to get worse.

By controlling blood sugar, the medical industry can chart the information and document what they call "progress." The problem is with their type of "progress" your diabetes will progress as a foregone conclusion right for the start.

Even support groups, often organized by or sponsored by local hospitals, are mostly focused on helping each other cope with the fact you're going to get worse rather than helping each other cure diabetes. Don't get me wrong - I think support groups are great BUT I wish there was more support for helping each other CURE diabetes.

The worst part to me is that the diet prescribed by modern medicine for the diabetic does not even come close to what it should be if the focus is to CURE diabetes. It does not focus on eliminating certain foods that CAUSE diabetes. In fact, it actually prevents one from curing it and it does not focus on adding those foods that are literally like medicine to the diabetic - and NOT just medicine to help lower blood sugar but can actually help the body to heal itself and get rid of the diabetes.

I have cured my own diabetes and I don't just mean lowering blood sugar. My blood sugar no longer surges when I eat a heavy helpings of carbs because I have actually cured my diabetes, not just maintained the primary symptom. It only took me about 5 months to get there. I'm in my mid-40's and I  literally feel better than I have since I was 30 years old. I'm quite certain I have added many years to my lifespan given what I have done. I have a new lease on life and I really want to get this message out to as many other diabetics as possible:

Yes, you CAN cure diabetes! Click here to find out how.

Why Deep Breathing Can Help Reverse Diabetes

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about why it's important for diabetics to keep their pH in the alkaline range. Deep breathing can help you do this. Your tissues will become more oxygenated, your pH will shift more toward the alkaline side, and you will become less insulin resistant.

If your body is more acidic, you will be much more prone to a multitude of diseases including diabetes. In order to reverse diabetes, it is very important to keep your tissues more oxygenated and more on the alkaline side.

Besides adding more oxygen in your tissues, deep breathing reduces stress as well. This helps also puts your body in a state where reversing diabetes becomes much easier. Remember, that if you have too much stress, you will produce too much cortisol, one of the worst things for a diabetic as it causes insulin resistance.

So, while deep breathing doesn't cure diabetes, it makes it easier for your body to heal itself.

Deep breathing is also sometimes called "abdominal breathing" or "belly breathing" because you want your belly and abdomen to be moving up and down when you deep breath. Sometimes it is also called diaphragmatic breathing because moving your belly allows your diaphragm to expand much more and allow more air into your lungs while you deeply breathe.

Many studies have shown that more than 90 percent of all people don't breath in a healthy way. They only fill about 50 percent of their lung air capacity. This is because they breath mostly in the top of their lungs. The goal of deep breathing is to fill more of the lungs with air, and in doing so, to reach the bottom of the lungs. This will fill your body with a flood of refreshing oxygen.

Deep breathing is quite easy but it may take a bit of practice. Here's the basic procedure:

Lie on your back or sit straight up in a chair with your shoulders back and maintaining good posture. When I really want to relax, I prefer to lie on my back to do my deep breathing exercises but I also find doing a minute or two of deep breathing exercises every hour when working at the computer siting in a chair makes a world of difference too.

Place one hand on your chest and the other hand on your belly. SLOWLY take deep breaths by first raising your abdomen, then inflating your rib cage, and then allowing your chest to rise up. Hold this for a couple of seconds and then SLOWLY release the air out in the opposite direction - chest first, then ribcage, then abdomen. Repeat this at least 1-2 minutes or for longer sessions. This is better than any medicine you could take. It will also help you sleep better. In fact, when I have trouble falling asleep, I often use this technique and I usually fall right to sleep afterward.

Deep breathing can really help prepare your body to be more responsive to the techniques and dietary changes you make to reverse diabetes. To learn detailed information on how to reverse diabetes based on scientific research, please click on this link and watch the entire video.

Why Diabetics Should Make Their Own Salad Dressings

I went grocery shopping yesterday which involved going to three different grocery stores. I had some time to spare so I took advantage of the opportunity to take a really close look at the ingredients on the various bottles of salad dressings at each store. If you've been following my blog, you will know that I checked out the salad dressings at Whole Foods recently as well and made a disgusting discovery.

Considering the toxins and unhealthy ingredients I found, I am more convinced than ever that diabetics who are serious about reversing their diabetes (and maintaining a healthy lifestyle after they do so) should make their own salad dressings. I have yet to find a commercially prepared dressing that doesn't contain something that would be really bad for someone with diabetes or anyone who wants to remain healthy.

The vast majority of non-organic salad dressing ingredient labels I read contained high fructose corn syrup which is known to contribute to the development of type 2 diabetes and also makes reversing type 2 diabetes nearly impossible! Most bottles also contained partially hydrogenated oils and/or genetically modified oils, two other major ingredients to avoid. Many also contained canola oil which contains trans fat and is almost always genetically modified (GMO)! They also often contained MSG and other artificial flavor enhancers. These are all toxic ingredients, especially for the diabetic. I found no exceptions to this - not one - and I looked at every salad dressing bottle on the shelf at all three stores!

What about organic salad dressings? Bottled organic salad dressings were definitely an improvement but, and this is a really big but, almost every one I picked up contained canola oil, which again has trans fat. It's also been show to raise blood sugar levels and cause other metabolic disorders, even if it is organic canola oil. You should also keep in mind that most supposedly non-GMO canola is contaminated with GMO canola because all varieties of rapeseed, including canola, are wind pollinated. There's so much GMO canola grown now (approximately 80% and rising),  it is contaminating wild rapeseed to a very significant degree. You do not want to eat canola of any kind, including organic! It is toxic poison.

You can choose all the ingredients in home made salad dressings and actually make them into healthy super foods that can help you reverse your diabetes and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Remember, food is medicine for the diabetic! You can use ingredients like fresh organic lemon, organic apple cider vinegar, fresh herbs, fresh organic onion, fresh organic garlic, fresh organic fruit with lots of fiber and healthy antioxidants, and organic nuts. You can also use organic sour cream and yogurt to include probiotics in your salad dressing.

Home made salad dressings also taste much better than anything you can buy in the store. What does this mean? If you have a really tasty salad dressing you will want to eat more salads which is one of the healthiest things a diabetic can eat. Diabetics should be eating lots of dark green leafy vegetables and a variety of other salad veggies like cucumbers and tomatoes.

Of course, the easiest salad dressing is just to mix a teaspoon of healthy oil like extra virgin olive oil or nut oils with organic apple cider vinegar or fresh organic lemon plus sea salt and herbs to taste. However, you can of course also make some amazing creamy dressings as well. I've been experimenting a lot and creating my own recipes and I plan to add some of the best of these to my diabetic recipes blog.

You can literally CURE your diabetes with food and in the process eat tastier food than you've eaten in years. However, sometimes diabetics aren't successful at curing their diabetes because they skip a crucial step (for example, they fail to eliminate certain foods) which prevents them from being able to cure their diabetes. However, if you go to this page and check out the video there, it will tell you how to get the most complete resources that I have found for people who need a plan to cure their diabetes.

Why Do So Many Children Have Type 2 Diabetes and Pre-Diabetes?

I got some depressing news yesterday. I was catching up with an old friend of mine from high school and found out that her daughter, who is only 14 years old, was just diagnosed with type 2 diabetes! My friend was crying when she told me. My friend's daughter is also very over-weight and not very physically active. The family is so busy they eat a lot of highly processed food from the frozen food section and stuff from a box and a can. They also grab food from those popular hot food bars. In addition to hearing the sad news about my friend's daughter, I also recently read a news story about a family who had two children, one age 11 and the other age 13, who were both diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

Earlier this year, I wrote an article about why so many children are being diagnosed now with type 2 diabetes - and why the average age of onset is getting lower all the time. This article included several things that we as parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, teachers, school administrators, school board members, politicians, PTA clubs, and other concerned adults can start doing immediately to improve the situation. This problem is so urgent that I sincerely believe we need to take immediate action. The copy of the article I wrote is below:

According to the CDC (Centers For Disease Control and Prevention), approximately 2 million teenagers in the United States have pre-diabetes. Furthermore, the number of children who are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes is rapidly increasing and the average age of onset is just as rapidly getting younger. Type 2 diabetes didn't exist at all until 1926 and it was completely unheard of in children until very recently - in fact, "type 2 diabetes" used to be called "adult onset diabetes" because it never showed up in children! These trends are ALARMING to say the very least!

Why are we experiencing this alarming trend?!?

Why do so many children have type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes and what can be done about it?

Children used to grow up eating wholesome healthy food. Eggs didn't come pre-packaged with hormones and they used to contain lots of healthy omega-3 because chickens ate grass and bugs. They were also allowed to move around and stretch their legs. Oats didn't come pre-cooked, defiberized, and laced with trans fat and high fructose corn syrup -- and they weren't designed to be nuked in the microwave destroying whatever nutrition might be left in them after all that processing. Oats and other grains were slow cooked and full of fiber and nutrients because they were not processed much. Dairy products were extremely healthy and nutritious without the hormones and antibiotics and before pasteurization, the proteins and probiotics in milk weren't destroyed. Cows still ate grass and weren't shot up with hormones and antibiotics - and beef still had flavor! Beef used to be an excellent source of omega-3 when cows still ate grass. Kids drank hormone-free milk with almost every meal, not soda pop and alleged "fruit juice" full of high fructose corn syrup and artificial chemical flavorings and colorings. Dinner did not come pre-packaged in a box loaded with trans fat, high fructose corn syrup, and additives like MSG to make up for the loss of actual flavor.

No meal for a child included genetically modified, highly processed, dehydrated, and sometimes reconstituted "vegetables." Real vegetables with real nutrients and real fiber came straight from the garden or from nearby farms. Almost every family knew how and participated in the art of putting up fruits and vegetables for the winter - and they were still full of fiber, nutrients, and yes TASTE when they were opened in the winter.

School cafeterias offered real wholesome food as well! And... we didn't have large school districts like the Los Angeles school district fighting parents inspired by shows like Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.

A typical after school snack was a piece of fruit, a peanut butter sandwich (WITHOUT the trans fat and/or high fructose corn syrup mixed in), or a few home made cookies made from scratch with wholesome ingredients and a glass of healthy hormone free antibody free pesticide free milk. I shudder when I really stop and think about what kids eat for after school snacks today!

Children used to be ACTIVE. They walked to school, walked to the movie theater, and walked to the store. They had more chores that included physical activity. They had LONG recess where they participated in physical activities like kickball, hop scotch, and jump rope. They ran around after school and played OUTSIDE where they got some sun on their skin to produce vitamin D. They screamed, they yelled, they jumped for joy, and breathed air that was far less polluted -- by the way, there's a connection between air pollution and diabetes.

In general, children used to be FAR LESS STRESSED. Kids did not worry about being shot by their classmates and they weren't pressured to do drugs right on the playground. Schedules were not quite so hectic. Kids didn't have to grow up so fast and worry about adult matters quite so soon. More kids had two parents for support, not just one, and in general, a lot more of the extended family were involved in their lives. Other adults in the neighborhood played a stronger role in helping the kids grow up as well.

Given all the facts above, it shouldn't be any big mystery why so many kids are developing diabetes! It is most certainly related to the enormous changes in diet, the dramatic decrease in physical activity, and the elevated chronic stress levels that kids grow up with now.

Now what can we do about it? First, we need to engage the media in getting the truth out about trans fat, high fructose corn syrup, genetically modified foods (GMO's), food additives like MSG, all the reasons for the low quality dairy products, all the reasons for low quality meat products, the dangers of modern massive-scale profit-driven food processing, etc, etc... Let's try to save our children and our children's children from the current alarming diabetes and obesity epidemic before us. We need to start speaking out about it more. We need to show up at school board meetings and demand better quality food in our children's school cafeterias. We need to tell politicians that we expect them to make laws and revise laws that better our kids - like keeping GMO's out of school cafeterias and prominently disclosed on food labels and on hot food bars when GMO, trans fat, etc ingredients are used. Would you take home food from the hot bar if the food was prominently labeled that it contained trans fat, high fructose corn syrup, and GMOs?

Second, we need to DRAMATICALLY change the diet of our children. Eliminating all trans fat and high fructose corn syrup is a good step in the right direction. These are poisons that CAUSE diabetes. Eating organic eliminates genetically modified organisms. Stop buying processed food and put some REAL food on the table!!! Yes, organic food is more costly but if you eliminate the processed foods, this more than makes up for the cost differential. Teach our children better eating habits. Boycott school lunches until they eliminate the processed food, trans fat, high fructose corn syrup, genetically modified orgasms, etc.... Spend time with the kids and grow a garden featuring a diversity of healthy fresh veggies. Teach them how to put up food for the winter. If you don't know how, take a class with your kids about how to do it. Make it fun.

Third, we need to be a LOUD voice for bringing back recess and physical activity to our children's lives. Maybe this should be legislatively mandated. Get the PTA's and other parent organizations involved. Speak out at local public meetings. Educate your neighbors, friends, and family. Our kids are developing type diabetes at age 11, 13, 14 for pete's sake! We really need to INSIST on getting back fun physical activity into our kid's life. Also, get active with your kids. Take a walk, play sports, go whale watching, etc.

Fourth, find ways to eliminate stress from our children's lives and help them learn how to cope better with stress. Try to create an peaceful supportive environment where they get more sleep and remain less stressed overall.

The information I link to at the top of the page (big red button) provides EXCELLENT step by step instructions on how to PREVENT diabetes and/or reverse pre-diabetes/diabetes if you and/or your kids have it. Watch the video all the way through and then take a look at their detailed information.

Coconut Oil and Diabetes - Benefits Of Coconut Oil To Diabetics

Coconut oil is a key food in reversing diabetes. To fully comprehend and appreciate this, you need to first put aside all the false information you've been blasted with for most, if not all, of your life. Coconut oil is a saturated fat and you've probably been brainwashed into believing that saturated fats are bad - research proves just the opposite is true! While coconut oil is one of the healthiest fats anyone can eat, for diabetics it can literally be a life saver. Unfortunately, most people actually think canola oil is more healthier than coconut oil. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Canola oil is toxic.

If you are interested in how to reverse diabetes, you have probably seen a lot written about reducing sugars and and restricting carbs in your diet. However, it turns out what oils and fats you eat may be more important to reversing your diabetes than carbs, and in fact, oils like trans fat that have been chemically altered in the lab may be one of the primary culprit in causing type 2 diabetes.

Trans fats cause diabetes by damaging your cell membranes. Unfortunately, the food industry has been putting large amounts of of these trans fats into the food supply since the late 1920's which is when the first cases of type 2 diabetes showed up and puzzled doctors around the world. Trans fat is also found in canola oil, which has been heavily promoted by the food industry as a "heart-healthy oil." This is false! It is essentially poison and you should eliminate all trans fat and all canola oil from your diet immediately if you want to cure your diabetes. I don't care how much exercise you do, how much weight you lose, and how diligent you are about avoiding sugar -- if you don't eliminate trans fat and canola oil 100% from your diet, you will be fighting an uphill battle at the very best. It is an essential step to reversing diabetes (but not the only step by any means - click on the red button at the top for complete details).

There are several benefits to using coconut oil if you are a diabetic. I am going to outline some of the benefits below but you should keep in mind that there are others and that I am only scratching the surface of what you really need to know.

Here are some of the benefits of using coconut oil if you have diabetes:

1. Coconut oil is one of the few oils you can cook with on medium heat and not create trans fat. Again, trans fat causes diabetes and if you continue to consume it while trying to reverse your diabetes, you will likely fail. Please note that cooking with olive oil on medium heat creates trans fat. Also note that you should avoid cooking with any oil on high heat.

2. Consumption of coconut oil lowers blood sugar significantly! Whether you cook with it or just take a spoonful right out of the jar every day, research has shown that coconut oil lowers blood sugar. I personally love the taste but be sure to buy ORGANIC and UNREFINED coconut oil or you will defeat the purpose. Refined coconut oil eliminates all the coconut taste but it also contains trans fat.

3. Coconut oil lowers the glycemic index (GI) of any food it is added to. So if you eat a cookie containing coconut oil vs the same cookie with canola oil substituted, the coconut oil cookie will have a lower glycemic index than the canola oil cookie (which is toxic). The lower the GI, the less a food should raise your blood sugar. Coconut oil literally slows down how fast your stomach empties food.

4. Coconut oil makes insulin work more efficiently with your cell membranes. Other the other hand, highly refined long-chained polyunsaturated vegetable oils and canola oil make your cell membranes brittle. When this happens, insulin can't do its job as well.

5. Cultures that used to use coconut oil almost exclusively never developed diabetes UNTIL they switched to polyunsaturated oils and canola oil. Then, there was a sudden surge in type 2 diabetes cases.

6. Coconut oil is a medium chained fatty acid (MCFA), which allows it to be taken up by your cells WITHOUT the aid of insulin. In other words, coconut oil can nurture your cells/body without needing insulin which means your body will be less taxed than when you eat polyunsaturated oils, canola oil, and even olive oil which all require insulin, your pancreas, and your liver to work over-time. Coconut oil is literally put in IV's and baby formula because it is so easily taken up by the cells.

7. Coconut oil helps protect you from infections and inflammation which is so common in diabetics because the immune system is often so compromised.

8. Coconut oil has been shown to help people to lose weight, not gain weight like the canola oil manufacturers would have you believe. It speeds up the metabolism and is burned immediately by the body instead of  being store as fat in the body like most other fats are. Losing weight is important to reversing diabetes. Keep in mind that when farmers tried to fatten their hogs by feeding them coconut oil (they did so because it used to be cheap), the hogs actually lost weight instead of gaining weight!

There are many other benefits of coconut oil to the diabetic that I don't even mention here and I've literally only scratched the surface of what you really need to know if you want to reverse diabetes. If you are serious about reversing diabetes, the most important thing you can get is NOT medication - it is information! You need a comprehensive source of information that unfortunately I can not provide in full on my personal blog although I do try to help as much as I can. What I can do is point you in the right direction to get the best and most comprehensive information on how to reverse your diabetes.

To Cure Diabetes You Need To Heal Your Damaged Cell Membranes

Most type 2 diabetics have damaged cell membranes from years of eating artificial foods found in the industrial age food supply. In order to cure type 2 diabetes, you need to heal these damaged cell membranes.

One food that causes damage to your cell membranes is trans fat so you will need to eliminate this entirely from your diet. Please understand that trans fat is not something you should just "eat in moderation" like an occasional scoop of ice cream. Trans fat is a poison and it has no business being inside the human body, even in small quantities.

To eliminate trans fat from your diet, you should learn how to find the hidden trans fat in food labels. You should also be aware that canola oil contains trans fat.

One of the primary constituents of healthy cell membranes are omega-3 fats. In a chemistry lab, these omega-3 fats are known as being in the "cis" formation - with all hydrogen atoms positioned on the same side of the fat molecule. When the food industry "hydrogenates" the omega-3 fat in the cis formation, it is converted to a "trans" formation - where alternating hydrogen atoms lie on opposite sides. This change in structure makes the molecule behave very differently. It is also a structure that is not found in nature the human body is not designed to handle such a structure.

For the food industry, whose primary interest is making as much money as they possibly can regardless of the health consequences, converting omega-3 trans fat into trans fat means a much longer shelf life for all the products they put it in - and they put it in almost all their processed foods. Have you ever wondered why store bought cookies almost never go bad? What about store bought crackers? This is why.

For the food industry, converting cis fats to trans fat also means they can turn really cheap oils into solids at room temperature and sell them as crisco and margarine (and all the processed foods containing them) at much higher prices. They actually have the gall to promote this as being "healthier" than the real thing that nature produces.

For consumers who eat this artificial poison (trans fat), it means a much higher chance of developing type 2 diabetes and other diseases. When you eat trans fat, it replaces the omega-3 fat in your cell membranes which makes them more insulin resistant. This is because the trans fat essentially blocks insulin from transporting glucose inside your cells. Your membranes are like the door and insulin is like the doorman. When your cells are "insulin resistant," this means that when insulin tries to open the door to escort the glucose inside, the door is fixed to not open.

This is the type of very specific information you need if you want to cure your diabetes (there's actually much more to the trans fat issue than what I've outlined here). Please check out the this information that I link to at the top of the page. It is a comprehensive source of information that you need to cure diabetes and is basically the same way I personally cured my own diabetes - i.e. it is a life saver.

Oranges and Other Cirtus Fruits Can Help You Reverse Diabetes

Many type 2 diabetics have higher than normal insulin levels which causes a build up of fat deposits in the liver. This is an extremely serious problem and one which must be addressed if you are to reverse your diabetes and keep it from coming back.

It turns out that sweet citrus fruit like oranges and tangerines can help a lot in eliminating those fats from your liver. This is because of an antioxidant contained in most citrus fruit called nobiletin. Tangerines contain the most nobiletin of all the citirus fruits, more so than oranges in fact, but any sweet tasting citrus fruit like tangelos and satsumas should provide nobiletin in high enough qualities to help. However, sour citrus fruits like lemon and grapefruit do not contain nobiletin. Keep in mind though, lemons are also very beneficial to diabetics in other ways.

We are getting into the season when it gets progressively more difficult to find fresh fruit at the grocery store. In a few months we'll be in the winter season when it's quite difficult to find melons and berries, especially if you try to buy local foods. The fresh figs that should definitely be part of a diabetic diet will be gone too. There will be less varieties of apples available too. However, the one class of fruit that always seems to be in the supermarkets even in the dead of winter are the citrus fruits which should make getting nobiletin easy any time of the year. Please keep in mind I am talking about eating these citrus fruits in moderation, something like a single tangerine a day.

One important point about orange juice and other citrus juice. The nobiletin is found in the membranes of the citrus fruit and in the peel, not in the juice. So, in order to get the nobiletin, you need to eat the fruit, not just drink the juice. Keep in mind too that while most people just throw away the peel, you can slice it and put it in stir fries for a delicious flavor (I really like it with chicken), throw it in salads to add zest (pun intended), and of course you can brew it up as a tea which I'm a big fan of. However, if you are going to use the peel and you are not buying organic (you should!!), be sure to wash the peel extremely well before you eat it.

This is just one food that is especially good for diabetics in helping reverse the ill effects of diabetes and also help cure the disease itself. If you have diabetes, the most important thing you can do in your life is obtaining the right information you need to reversing diabetes using all natural means. You will find the information you need at this link. I highly recommend it and it is basically the same method I used to reverse my diabetes.

How To Tell If There's Trans Fat In Food

Lately I've been getting some questions about how to tell if there's trans fat in food - especially for items that claim there is zero trans fat per serving. You've heard about the food manufacturers' sneaky little trick right? It is partially the USDA's fault because they do not require companies to label a product as having trans fat if it's less than 0.5 grams per serving. So what do many food companies do? They increase the number of servings per package of course so that each serving is less and therefore contains less trans fat. So, for example if a box of your favorite cereal used to have 0.7 grams of trans fat per serving and they used to claim there were 10 servings per box, they don't have to change the recipe to have less trans fat - nope, they just change the serving size - so in this example, if they change the number of servings to 15 per box (and each serving is now about 1/3 less). They then don't have to claim their product has trans fat because it's now "only" 0.47 grams of trans fat per serving. This has actually happened on thousands of products and is one of the main reasons why so called "serving size" has drastically decreased on many processed foods. This is absolutely ludicrous in my opinion and very unfair to the American consumer who is trying to eat healthier and avoid the trans fat which is a toxin - but for now that's what we have to live with (I am speaking out about this myself and maybe you'd like to to).

In case you haven't been reading my previous posts, trans fat causes diabetes! In fact, it was the introduction of trans fat into the food supply in the 1920's in the form of margarine and Crisco that caused the sudden appearance of type 2 diabetes in the 1930's - did you know that type 2 diabetes did not exist before this time?

It is imperative if you are a diabetic that you learn how to detect trans fat in food. This is because trans fat not only causes diabetes, it also prevents you from having the ability to reverse diabetes naturally. So I want to explain exactly how to determine if a food contains trans fat so you can avoid eating trans fat completely! Please understand that this isn't like eating ice cream where it's ok to eat it occasionally just not all the time (well, depending on whether or not it has high fructose corn syrup and/or other harmful foods). Trans fat is like eating POISON! and you should avoid it 100% of the time.

First, I need to point out again that ALL canola oil contains trans fat. It doesn't matter if it says it is expeller pressed and/or "organic" and/or "all natural" and/or "non-gmo" (the vast majority of canola oil is genetically modified rapeseed oil). ALL canola oil contains trans fat due to the fact that it is a strain of rapeseed that was specifically cross-bred to contain high levels of omega-3 which gets converted to trans fat when it is heated during the processing of the canola oil. This includes the lower heat "expeller pressed" processing you so often see on foods marketed as being "natural." Expeller pressed is still hot enough and kept hot for long enough that the omega-3 is converted to trans fat in high percentages. This has been independently verified by university researchers and you can end up with a product that has several grams of trans fat per serving. So, to avoid eating trans fat, you need to eliminate ALL canola oil from your diet.

Second, I want to explain what to look for on a food label. Because of the "per serving" issue, ignore the claims under the nutrition part of the label concerning trans fat. Instead, look at the list of ingredients very carefully - I have actually gotten into the habit of carrying a small magnifying glass into the store with me when I shop so I can more easily read the sometimes very fine print on the ingredient label. If the ingredient label lists "partially hydrogenated" anything, it has trans fat! Don't buy it! If it says "hydrogenated" anything, same thing. Don't buy it! And again, if it says canola oil, don't buy it as it does have trans fat, very possibly high levels of trans fat in fact! Occasionally, you will see canola oil labeled as "LEAR" or "low erucic acid rapeseed." This is just another name for canola oil (they changed the name for marketing reasons) and you should avoid it 100% of the time.

Ok, this should help you know exactly how to tell if there's trans fat in food. Of course the best way to avoid trans fat is to eat more fresh food or "whole food" like fresh organic vegetables, fresh organic fruits, fresh organic meats, and fresh seafood like wild salmon and shrimp. Most of your trans fat will be hidden in processed foods that come in a box or a can and in those hot food bars and delis so popular in the grocery stores these days. Try a food bar at a natural grocery store that is committed to no trans fat.

Please know that I try to provide as much helpful information as I can on this blog but you really need a comprehensive source of information to learn all the steps you need to take to reverse your diabetes - click here for the best source I've found and the one I recommend to my friends. Please don't just depend on my blog because you may miss a really important detail that is crucial and could block your other efforts from working. Even if you were just looking for a way to lower your blood sugar naturally because you are pre-diabetic and/or diabetes runs in your family, the information I link above would be extremely helpful.

If Your Oil Is Smoking You're Creating Trans Fat

I have a friend who follows the "mediterranean diet" and she cooks absolutely everything in olive oil. She has type 2 diabetes and she has been trying to lower her blood sugar naturally but so far she hasn't been able to do so. She has lowered her HgA1c to 7.8 from more than 9 (she's still on medication) but can't seem to get it to drop down into the normal range. I've been trying to convince her how much more healthy coconut oil is for diabetics would be for her but she's stubborn :)

I was at her house today for lunch and she was cooking some slices of tomatoes in olive oil to add to pasta dish. We were gabbing and I almost didn't notice but I looked down at one point and saw puffs of smoke emanating out of the skillet!

Alarmed I shouted, "Your olive oil is smoking... you've got your heat too high!"

"Oh yeah, I do that to get that roasted flavor," she quickly replied.

The conversation that ensued has prompted to me to write this important post.

When you smoke your oil, you create trans fat!

And... as I've written about many times before, trans fat causes diabetes. And... eating trans fat will prevent you from being able to cure your diabetes!

It doesn't matter how healthy your oil is. You can have the highest quality cold pressed extra virgin olive oil and you will completely defeat the purpose of using a healthy oil if you heat it to the point it smokes! When you see your oil smoke, you have created TRANS FAT which causes diabetes and many other health issues including heart disease and cancer. Trans fat is one of the worst things you can put into your body. If your oil smokes, I suggest you throw it out and start over!

In fact, olive oil, like many/most other oils can not be heated very much before it smokes - only the lightest heating on your lowest setting is safe. I used to use olive oil for cooking much more than I do now because I do enjoy the flavor it gives certain foods and it is one of the healthier oils to use. However, I do so very sparingly now that I know how easy it is to create trans fat when you heat olive oil (I still use it quite a lot in salads). I do enjoy sauteed spinach and other greens in olive oil but when I cook this, I literally use the very lowest setting on my stove and even then I keep removing the skillet from the burner to prevent over-heating the oil and creating the toxic trans fat.

Yes, trans fat is toxic! It is literally like eating poison. You should avoid it like the plague! This is especially true for my fellow diabetics!

Unfortunately, most oils can't be heated at all or not much. The perfect example of this is "canola oil" which is actually a variety of rapeseed oil. Canola oil contains a high percentage of omega-3 which is extraordinarily sensitive to heat. Applying almost any amount of heat to canola oil will create trans fat. This is why canola oil causes diabetes, even the canola oil sold as "healthy" and "expeller pressed." Even though expeller pressed canola oil is processed at lower temperatures than other canola oil, it is still heated high enough to create substantial amounts of trans fat. This is why it is important for everyone, especially diabetics, to completely avoid canola oil - avoid ALL canola oil, regardless of how healthy the marketing gurus make it out to be - they are WRONG - and they probably work (directly or indirectly) for the company selling you the oil. It may not be labeled as containing trans fat but several research studies have demonstrated that it does. This is also why we really need to convince Trader Joe's to stop allowing canola oil in their private label foods AND we need to convince Whole Foods to stop using canola oil in their private labels and on their foods they prepare on site. We all need to band together on this one! We also need to demand that the USDA require labeling of trans fat on food labels and independent random testing of companies claiming zero trans fat on their products.

Smoking oils creating trans fat is just one detail that is almost always left out of most guides to curing diabetes. And... look how incredibly crucial this detail is! If you don't eliminate trans fat from your diet you won't be able to cure your diabetes. This is a perfect example of why I have been harping and harping on people getting this information. First, watch the video and then explore what they offer. It is imperative to curing your diabetes that you have the right information - ALL the information, not just some of it. If you are truly serious about reversing your diabetes, you can NOT depend on just surfing around the net, hoping to pick up enough clues here and there. You really need one comprehensive source of information. To me, there is nothing more important to your life if you are a diabetic than curing it - because everything else is affecting by it - I can do SO MANY more things now and feel so much better after curing my diabetes. So, please stop smoking your oils (and if you cook with olive oil, do so only at extremely low temperatures - and don't buy anything with canola) and check out that information.