Hi all
Im usually with the Low Carb forum but I was browsing through since low carb isnt working for me. I really dont like eating lots of meat as is required for that and this forum seem like a great place to eat moderately but good interesting food.
Does whole food also mean not using canned foods like canned beans??? I love humus and other bean dishes but it takes forever to boil dried beans!! Any ideas??
Also, Im sure you guys are already aware of this but certain seafoods, especially larger fish like swordfish, tuna etc have very high levels of mercury in them. If anybody has questions I can direct you to a website that has a breakdown of safer types of seafood and which ones to avoid.
I love fish but I have had to be much more careful as I have seen fisthand how mercury can affect certain people. Both my motherin law and sisterin law have been diagnosed with sever mercury poisoning and it is really a terrible and probably incurable illness.
Anyway, just be careful. Otherwise I am looking forward to trying out this lifestyle.

How did they get exposed to mercury?
Lyn

The fish are contaminated because we have this nasty habit of dumping stuff in the ocean (coal-burning power plants are the largest source of mercury, and a lot of waste from these plants ends up in water), so the water is contaminated by that and by air emissions. Bacteria in the water converts the mercury into its organic form, which is then consumed by snails, insects, and small bottom feeders. These fish are eaten by larger fish, and so on up the food chain. Try and imagine how many little snails and insects a 1000 pound tuna would need to eat just to fuel itself, and you can see how much mercury it ends up ingesting.
Just another example of what we're doing by not thinking about or actions on the environment.

Mealybug, whole food doesn't necessarily mean cooking everything from scratch to the point of boiling dried beans, so you'll be ok You can use canned beans, but it's always important to check the label for sodium counts, and rinse them well to remove excess sodium. Canned foods are fine on a whole foods diet. In terms of nutrition, fresh is best, frozen is second, and canned is third. Dried beans aren't exactly fresh, lol, so I'm not sure how they would fit in the chain. The difference would probably be tiny, though.

Regarding mercury in fish, it is a very scary thing we have to think about these days. Some varieties of fish are worse than others. We have a list of mercury levels per variety, with a few tips at http://www.3fatchicks.com/Food/Cooki...ls_in_Seafood/

This is one of the times I'm happy to be where I can get fresh caught salmon. And it appears that light meat tuna is lower in mercury than the albacore - less expensive too!

I can't comment on the fish, but I do have a tip for you regarding beans. I am trying to cut back on sodium, so I don't like to use canned beans. I also don't have the time/ patience for boiling beans and have come accross a pretty good way to always have home-made beans on hand. Freeze them! I generraly will take about a pound of dried beans- any kind- rinse them and throw them into the crockpot with one whole onion, garlic, a bay leaf and some vegan, sodium free bullion cubes and cover with water. I let it cook pretty much all day on low (time depends on the kind of beans). Then drain and put them on a cookie sheet in the freezer (called flash freezing). When frozen, scrape off and put into a freezer bag. Flash freezing them is great because they are not all stuck together and when you need some beans you can just measure out what you want, defrost or pop in the microwave and walah- great beans. I generally have 3-4 kinds on beans ready on hand. They are fat free, too! The bags will lay flat, so it does not take up tons of space.

Some folks have financial or geographic problems with eating only best freshest purest foods .... so we do what we can do. I believe that there is a sliding scale of bestness with most foods from processed to just picked and as long as you do the best you can ... that's better than before ... right?

The Chicago Tribune did a big report on mercury in fish about a year ago, and one of the things I remember reading is that the effects are not necessarily permanent but disappear as the mercury levels reduce in your bodies. However, this may not be the case for children (for whom mercury could pose developmental problems).

The conclusion I remember coming to was that pregnant women and children need to be the most concerned with mercury, the rest of us should pay attention to how much fish we're eating that is likely to be high in mercury (such as swordfish), and be aware of the symptoms, but that because the effects weren't permanent, most of us grown-ups could recover...

This is, at least, my memory.

wow tahnks for teh great info about beans!! Especially flash freezing.I always wondered what that meant and now I know..I will definitely try that next time I want to make beans.
As for mercury.. my motherinlaw doesnt know how she got it exactly. it was a combination of factors... dental fillings (almost her entire mouth was filled cavities!!) that gradually leech into your body and get turned into methylmercury in the digestive system and then get absorbed in the body, combined with eating seafood that must have had high levels of mercury as well as just from breathing and drinking water which all have some traces of mercury depending on where you live!
Some people are more susceptible... children especially. But certain people seem to excrete it from their bodies more easily and other people store in in their tissue and brain! With my motherinlaw, her mercury levels were so high taht a lot of it was even in her brain and now she has permanent damage which gives her extreme chemical and food sensitivities and causes her to constantly feel exhausted and have fogginess in her thinking. I fel really bad for her because just day to day living is very difficult. typical chemical like perfumes, cleaners, even stuff like glue or hand lotion makes her ill. and she is a school teacher and is constantly exposed to stuff like that from students or other teachers.
Anyway, keep track of the amout of high mercury seafood you eat since we cant control our air quality but at least we can control what goes into or body!

In relation to the mercury in fish, there is something that can help detoxify your body of metals and other harmful chemicals. It's called Chlorella. It's a green algae. I recently started taking it and have noticed some great effects on my body. It's totally natural. I can't remember exactly where I read about it for the first time, but I have tried and tried to do a Google search to find any reason why I shouldn't take it and everything that I find related to chlorella is good news only! I guess that's a good sign! Do a quick Google search...it makes for interesting reading.