Why A New Approach To Healthy Eating?

So it's midnight and I am inspired to write, after working all day, and to introduce myself. I am Kim Mendoza the other half of our whole being Dino and I share.

Why do I feel inclined to write this late after a long day you say !!!Well I feel great and I want to share my greatfulness and appreciation to all that want to hear our story.

 

Today was a wonderful day. I am alive and we are feeling well!! Dino and I started juicing this past Monday August 25, using a detox juicing only program we watched on a documentary on Netflix called "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead". Joe Cross the creator of this wonderful film inspired and challenged us to take another look at ourselves individually and step up  our game to our commitment to implementing  with Great Urgency our Health Wellness and Fitness program focusing primarily on the childhood obesity crisis we are faced with today in this nation. It is alarming and concerning how sick this nation really is.

This juice fast detoxification experiment has forced us to take our eating routine lifestyle to another level. Yes Dino and I and our beautiful daughter Gabriella have been chemically, hormone, and toxin  free for the last year and feel good but we are still moderately overweight ... but why? Everything we eat is organic, no dairy, we eat lean turkey and chicken, we juice at least 3-4 times a week, and we eat grains no white bread. Our snacks have no preservatives, additives, high fructose corn syrup etc... you know the deal... We have been feeling very good and energetic with our lifestyle change but now we are almost  feeling fantastic!! Answer to why I am up this late when I have to get up early in the morning!!

We started this journey to be healthier because we felt powerless in the beginning without the why, and because we wanted better for ourselves and for our daughter and now we want to help and empower others their children and  their parents with our new knowledge while we continue educating and helping ourselves to live better longer healthier lives.Knowledge is power!!! It's the key to true bliss...

Our journey begun 10 years ago when I told my husband  that something was not right. I am to young to be constantly fatique at only 30 years old,having such discomfort during my menstrual cycle, being constantly emotional and moody, not being able to focus and function normaly during this time. My thoughts were not as clear as I wanted them to be I was easily distracted. I got colds easily and or headaches. As recent as one year ago my daughter had ear infections and allergies, colds, runny noses, fevers etc... I also had what could be considered allergies and pains in my joints at 35 years old until the pain stopped when we completely changed our diets we would change our quality of life. Now I am 41 and loving the mental clarity and no pain in my back or joints and I have reduced considerably discomfort during my menstrual cycle and My daughter Gabriella has no more symptons of coughing or being sick it's a miracle. You truly are what you eat... Period!!!!

But why has this information been hidden for so long? Where do we find out what to do to change? Where do we get those resources to help us change our childrens live for the better and for ourselves?

Question: Did you know that all diseases including ADHD are caused by being nutrientionally deficient ? Hence local, seasonal, organic food is the Cure. Simplicity is the answer, "let the food be thy medicine". 

"We Are The Why" is our deepest passion. It is to created to answer questions common among parents .

Next blog...Why are we considering a vegan diet and why is juicing important? What are some of the myths that have lead us astray and at the mercy of the very tainted and corrupt food system.Follow us on our journey..

How Can I Find Food Without The Extra Stuff?

I do more shopping now than I have in the last 30 years. I didn’t particularly like shopping at all but we had to eat. Now I spend at least a minute of time looking at each product. The rule of thumb I have is, if  it has an abbreviation, more than two words or more than ten letters that I don’t know, I put it back. A few of the resources that I have found useful for shopping for food, that I loaded on my smart phone, is True Food, The Center for Food Safety’s food network site (http://truefoodnow.org/shoppers-guide/ ) and Label Watch 

( www.labelwatch.com ) in my book marks.

When I started reading labels in the store, it became very time consuming. I decided to use True Food to select supermarkets and the Label Watch site to build the lists of foods without the extra stuff. The Label Watch site can also be used to inventory the fridge and cupboards, so stuff can be cleaned out.

By now I have worked my way through so many products that I can tell by the vendor or manufacturer which ones go in my cart and which ones don’t. Recently, I have taken a second look at items that had used alternative sweetners or coloring to find that they have changed ingredients to safer ones. This isn’t common enough, but voting with your debt card or feet works in our economy. 

For those who don’t have phone with internet access, on  a pc there are pocket guides that you can request or print out. For the Label Watch you will have to print it out or write it out by hand. In any event, taking these guides along will give peace of mind knowing you are not bring something home you didn’t want.

Where Can The Information Be Found?

Finding information on nutrition and the state of the food system is far simpler than you can imagine. In this age of Wi Fi and smart phones it is easier to find information than it was less than a decade ago. Sorting through all the information becomes the challenge. 

There are hundreds of sites and thousands of articles that pop up when you Yahoo or Google. If you want the most current and credible information, you need to use the advance search options of the search engine. Here are two links on the subject. http://www.virtualsalt.com/howlook.htm and http://www.virtualsalt.com/evalu8it.htm

The point is always question the answer to a question until it is no longer is a question but a fact. When dealing with information, some except what they get at face value. That is what the problem has been concerning our food system. It is what the businesses, which are not looking out for anything but profit, count on. Unless you are thoroughly familiar with the federal, state and local regulations in the food industry, you are at a supreme disadvantage to knowing what is wrong with the food you are eating.

And let me be clear about this. There are many things wrong with the food you are eating. Further more the corporations and government agencies are fully aware of it. This is not conspiracy or fiction. It is a bona fide and verifiable fact. The question then becomes the proverbial “What did they know and when did they know it”. Once you become familiar with that, then the answers to “what can be done” come from the how it was done.

Everything that we write in this blog has been checked and re checked through multiple sources. But we don’t expect or want you to take our word for anything. That would just continue the pattern of acceptance that creates most problems. Question everything is what I say, even what you read in this blog. Feel free to cut and paste anything suspicious or what tickles your BS meter. I invite you to do it and comment here in this blog.

I will give you the carrot that will begin a lengthy search to the answer to the  question, “What is this stuff on the label and is it really good for me?”    

Google Codex Alimentarius (my link for you is attatched)

This is a real organization and not product of an over active imagination. 

To facilitate pure objectivity I am not including what I have found unless requested.

 

This is the WHY. Do you Know the WHY?

So WHY Start A Healthy Eating And Fitness Initiative

This blog will have articles from both Kim and Dino Mendoza, founders of 5 Flavors Of Chi.

5 Flavors Of Chi was an idea born out of my wife’s passion for cooking. We had, for years, spent time talking about starting a business but I didn’t see how starting a restaurant would be anything but a long hard road to no where. I didn’t feel it, I mean really feel that another restaurant was something that was needed. I was not excited about eating out at any restaurant that I knew of. I didn’t get what all the excitement was about dinning out was to begin with. Food was not exciting. Why was food not exciting?  I wouldn’t learn the real reason for another 10 years.

In the summer 2010 we decided to draw out an approach to build a restaurant that we would go to. It was during my research of the restaurant industry and the food system in general, that I began finding disturbing information.

As most people who research information on the internet, I was coming across articles that were warnings about the negative effects and down side to my search topic. And as I did further cross referencing and checking the information, a pattern of a serious issue began to surface. Our food system had been contaminated! Not just one item or recall notice but thousands of thousands of reports and case studies on the most common foods we were eating. I have some college, so I put all of the information and data through many research filters, only to come to the same result. Obesity is a real epidemic, not just the common public service announcement.

Studying for months the history of the problem, the need for a restaurant alternative began to develop. It began to become clearer what form it should take. We spent the rest of the summer discussing how to go about creating the business. I put together an outline of the menu and developed a pilot program.

I introduced the pilot program (5 Flavors Of Chi, Healthy Eating and Exercise Program) in the school my daughter was attending. It was received fantastically by the parents and school staff. I finally began to understand what made food exciting. Finding good (healthy) food was exciting and really understanding the nutritional value of healthy food was what was missing.

Although we have had success with the program this year, it was almost a decade in the making. In the spring we put together a parent engagement approach to the healthy eating and fitness program for the school. We began right where we were, at our daughter’s campus.

Our experience showed us many things we had in common with the other parents. Two things in particular were the shock that the food system was so unhealthy and full of ingredients that shouldn’t be there and outrage that it had been going on for decades. The other was that most parents naturally want the best for their kids, If they only knew for sure, what there choices were; they would make the one that was best for their family.

So why is there so much in our daily diets that create concern and problems for us?

That is WHY we have this blog. We will be putting what we have found and ask that you put what you find in this blog. I will begin with the link to Food Matters and encourage that parents check out the video.

Dino