My picks for Academy Awards 2011!

Picture: Social Network

Director: Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan

Writer (Original): Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg, The Kids Are All Right

Writer (Adapted): Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, True Grit

Actor:   Colin Firth, The King’s Speech

Actress:   Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right

Supporting Actress: Undecided

Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter

Documentary:    I’m Still Here (Ok so it wasn’t nominated, but I am still thinking about the odd/stupid/brilliant film)

Care to wager??

Many Americans are still terrified of eating fats and feeling guilty when they do. After reading Real Food by Nina Planck, I learned some curious things. Consider this: lard and bone marrow are rich in monounsaturated fat, the kind that lowers LDL and leaves HDL alone. Saturated coconut oil fights viruses and raises HDL. Butter is an important source of vitamins A and D and contains saturated butyric acid, which fights cancer. As for the vaunted polyunsaturated vegetable oils, we eat far too many. Refined corn, safflower, and sunflower oil lower HDL and contribute to cancer.

Fats are not only delicious, but they are also necessary for health. Fats in the omega family are called essential because the body cannot make them; we must get them from foods. The brain relies on omega-3 fats; deficiency causes depression. Without fats, the body cannot absorb the fat-suluable vitamins A, D, E, and K. Fats are key to many other functions, including building cell walls, immunity, and assimilation of minerals like calcium. Also, fats stimulate the secretion of bile acids, which are essential for digestion.

If you’re trying to remember which fats are healthy, follow this rule: eat the foods we’ve eaten for thousands of years in their natural form. All the traditional fats are healthy. With animal fats, the animal’s diet matters for our health. Cattle, sheep ,bison and other game should be grass-fed. Pigs, chickens, ducks, and geese should be pastured. Fish should be wild. With vegetable oils, processing also matters. Oils should be cold-pressed and unrefined.

It’s easy to remember the unhealthy fats: they are the industrial fats recently added to our diet. All hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils, including lard and all vegetable oils. You also want to avoid corn, safflower, sunflower, and soybean oils, especially when refined or heated.

Be Well,

Mojo

Some recent Borracha press for Wine Wipes and Pearly Wipes:

Dr. Oz – According to Dr. Oz (Oprah’s go-to health expert!), red wine’s high antioxidant levels are good for your health, but the acid in red wine can erode your teeth’s enamel and brushing right after sipping vino can actually make it worse. His recommendation to safely and naturally cleanse and protect your teeth – Wine Wipes!! Check out the segment at http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/healthy-habit-backlash-pt-2.

The Early Show – Pearly Wipes and Wine Wipes were JUST featured in a segment on getting Hollywood-worthy white teeth! Beauty expert Maggie Gallant highlights both products as a 10-second easy-to-use stain fighter that fits perfectly in your makeup bag, and likes the immediate effect the wipes provide. Check out the segment at http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7254557n&tag=related;photovideo.

People StyleWatch – Pearly Wipes were recently featured as a new must-have, stain-preventing wipe (that works in 10 seconds!) to fight teeth stains and bad breath on the go!

BELLA – Both Wine Wipes and Pearly Wipes are featured as ‘Reasons to Smile’ in the January 2001 issue.

Redbook – Nutritionist Martica Heaner recommends stashing Wine Wipes on you to clean your teeth after meals and teeth-staining drinks, like wine, tea, coffee, and cola, that can erode enamel.

Most of us in this country have been programed to enjoy certain foods, especially the denatured ones, with their liquid counter parts, like coffee and a donut, pizza and ice cold soda, or cookies and milk (unfortunately the wrong kind of milk). In fact, a fast-food meal would be incomplete without the half-gallon-sized soft drink to wash it down with. The problem is that drinking all that liquid with meals interferes with the whole digestive process.

Even if you make conscious decisions about the food you eat, simply drinking too much water with your meals can affect your ability to properly breakdown your food. Digestion involves breaking down the food you eat into smaller and smaller particles so the nutrients can eventually be absorbed. The process depends on fluid in order to liquefy and dissolve the contents of food first with saliva in the mouth and then digestive juices in the stomach and small intestine. Drinking too much liquid with meals dilutes the concentration of hydrochloric acid and enzymes needed for proper digestion.

So to get the most out of the food you eat, it is best to avoid drinking more than 4-6 ounces of liquids 20-30 minutes before and after your meals. For those of you who have trouble breaking the habit of drinking with meals, there’s good news – there are some liquids that ADD to your digestive capability, like kefir, raw milk, kombucha…wine

Be Well,

Mojo

Day 12 of Sober January (started a day late due to hair of the dog from New Years Eve).

A month without alcohol has been a surprisingly smooth ride so far, except for about 20 minutes on Saturday night when I was literally talking myself into a bottle of chilled Pouilly Fuisse I discovered in the fridge. I blame the bout of weakness on Wine Spectator, which I foolishly read Saturday afternoon, researching new wines for the bistro.

Pros:

PRODUCTIVITY. The morning fog that even 2 glasses of wine with dinner can cause is lifted, making it easier to hit the gym at 6am.  Also, not having ‘lets go have a glass of wine’ as an option for evening activities, my nights are spent doing other things like cooking, reading, watching movies, and training for Wildflower.

Cons:

THE WEEKENDS. Friday and Saturday nights, once filled with delicious bottles of wine and 4 hour dinners, are now reduced to sparkling water with meals, and movie going.  In the last 10 days I’ve seen- Blue Valentine, True Grit, Black Swan, The Fighter, King’s Speech, Honeysuckle Rose. All amazing.

CONCLUSION: Some things are just better with booze.. ok, a lot of things.

Will Chinese put down the Benjo and reach for Bordeaux? The Chinese government is betting on it, with a little help from US, France, Italy and Portugal.

Welcome to Chateau Changjiu Global Beijing.. A faux french estate outside Beijing, complete with turrets, arched windows, bowling, snooker, rifle shooting, archery, and a 180 seat movie theater showing Sideways with mandarin subtitles. But have no fear, no faux french estate could do without a chinese restaurant, neatly sandwiched in between a the faux french bistro and the faux italian ristorante.

Completed in 2009, Chateau Changiju is like a Burgundian disneyland for all things wine combined with a working vineyard. As ridiculous as it sounds, China is investing billions of dollars in building new wineries, hiring foreign enologists, and inputting state of the art equipment from France and Germany. The goal? To become a world leader in wine making. This means not only supplying the Chinese population with wine, but also to have ‘China’ listed next to the likes of ‘France, Italy, Spain and California’ on wine menu’s across the globe.

Kanpai!

It’s a new year.. it’s a new decade! A time for renewing one’s self. Most of us are motivated to improve our health. Many of us struggle with habitual consumption of one thing or another. One of the most effective methods to overcome habitual consumption of unhealthy foods is to simply crowd them out.  In other words, add more healthy food to your diet rather than cutting out the foods you enjoy.

The crowding out theory says that if you fill your body with healthy, nutrient-dense foods, it is only natural that cravings for unhealthy foods will diminish.

Think about it… It’s hard to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day and still have room to binge on ice cream later that evening.  The body can only consume so much.  By eating and drinking nutritious foods earlier in the day, you will naturally leave less room for unhealthy foods later on.

This method is most evident when you increase your intake of water.  Fill a water bottle with clean, filtered water and sip it steadily throughout the day.  As the day progresses, you will have less room for coffee, sugary juices and soft drinks.  It’s really that simple!

Unlike strict diets, there’s no guilt or denial associated with the crowding out method.  Start this week by increasing your intake of nutritious foods — such as dark leafy greens and whole grains — and you’ll begin to notice that your body has less desire for processed, sugary, and nutrient-deficient foods.

Try it and let us know how you do.

Mojo:)