When it comes to your skin, beauty is more than skin-deep. What you eat has a lot to do with the appearance of your complexion, and a number of skin problems, such as acne, can be cleared up simply by altering your diet.

As a general rule, a diet high in fresh vegetables, which are rich in bioflavanoids, and plenty of omega-3 fat will lay the necessary groundwork for a healthy, youthful complexion.  Certain nutrients also have protective benefits, helping you ward off the damage caused by exposure to the elements.

Healthy Fats Promote Beautiful Skin

One of the first strategies you can use to improve your skin health is to make sure you are getting enough high quality omega-3 fats.  Fish high in omega-3, coconut oil, avocado, olives and olive oil, and raw nuts are all good choices.

For Radiant Skin, Boost Your Vegetable Intake

Fresh vegetables are also essential for creating healthy, beautiful skin (ideally organic, to avoid toxic pesticides). Vegetables are high in both water and nutrients (including essential minerals), and promote optimal functioning of your natural detoxification systems.

Vitamin C Promotes Tighter, Clearer Skin

Vitamin C aids in your body’s production of collagen, which is the protein that forms the basic scaffolding of your skin. Collagen breakdown can leave your skin saggy, and vitamin C can help tighten it back up. It also helps with skin healing, if you’re struggling with any kind of skin problems.

Healthy Skin Is Created From the Inside Out

By keeping your insides healthy and clean, your skin will have no choice but follow suit and mirror your internal state. To accomplish this, you need to pay careful attention to what you put into your body. Avoid known skin- and health-wreckers like processed foods, sugary drinks, and alcohol, and load up on fresh veggies, fruits, and berries (ideally organic and locally grown). Juicing is an excellent way to pack more vegetables into your diet.                                                                                                                    Mercola.com

Grow healthy, beautiful skin with fresh fruit and vegetable deliveries from  Seabreeze Organic Farm 

From the Cornucopia Institute:

It’s been a little more than 10 years since The Cornucopia Institute was founded. One of our first activities was exposing industrial-scale, confinement style, dairies with 4,000-10,000 cows that were producing organic milk for the Horizon label (Dean Foods/WhiteWave) and Aurora Dairy (private-label milk to Walmart, Costco, Target and a number of grocery chains).

A decade later, after the Bush administration suggested they couldn’t enforce the regulations requiring access to grazing for dairy cows and other ruminants, and after the Obama administration announced “the age of enforcement,” we again find widespread fraudulent activity that continues on “factory farms” producing organic meat, milk and eggs.

As they say, one picture is worth a thousand words. The preponderance of evidence on these 14 different facilities is overwhelming.  Read The Cornucopia Institute’s news release detailing the findings from the aerial flyovers of organic factory farms and see the photo galleries …read more

Magnesium is an incredibly versatile and important nutrient that many doctors, nutritionists, and researchers believe is the single most important nutrient for human health.

It is essential for over 300 different chemical reactions in the body, including maintaining your energy level, helping you relax, and sustaining the health of your heart and blood vessels.  Because it has so many crucial functions, and because it appears to protect us from serious conditions that are most prevalent in the developed world, magnesium really is the “miracle mineral.”

FOODS HIGH IN MAGNESIUM

Magnesium food sources were once commonly consumed, but have diminished in the last century due to industrialized agriculture and changing diets.

The foods magnesium is found in include:

• Beans and nuts
• Whole grains such as brown rice and whole wheat bread
• Green leafy vegetables

Reasons we can’t get enough magnesium in the diet:

• Reduced levels due to processing.
• Reduced levels due to soil conditions.

WHERE DO FOODS CONTAINING MAGNESIUM COME FROM?

FROM SOIL CONTAINING MAGNESIUM

It is well known among experts that the quality of our crops is decreasing.

Pesticides Destroy Organisms That Provide Nutrients to Plants

Experts link vitamin and mineral depletion in the soil to use of pesticides and fertilizers.  Though it was believed initially that pesticides would work simply to rid farmland of unwanted weeds and pests, it was soon learned that their use was causing irreversible damage. Vitamin-fixing bacteria in the soil, as well as earthworms, natural soil aerators and fertilizers, were being first reduced and then extinguished from American crop land.  Without this living environment, soils produce vegetation with dramatically reduced vitamin and mineral content.

http://www.ancient-minerals.com/magnesium-sources/dietary/

With a Seabreeze Organic Farm subscription

you’ll receive produce grown in living soil

rich with beneficial earthworms

Our living soil feeds our plants naturally.

The Lady Bug‘s Club spent a beautiful afternoon enjoying gourmet fare

Seabreeze Mesclun with edible flowers

Garden Pasta  and  Macrons with cream cheese and borage flowers

and a farm tour at Seabreeze

hosted by Stephenie

Here are a few ways to keep your produce fresh a little longer according to white-goods website AO.com.

Put a couple of paper towels or kitchen towel on top of your salad leaves and tightly cover with plastic wrap when storing in the fridge.  This prevents moisture from settling on the leaves, helping them to stay crisp and prevent wilting.

You should store garlic and onions in a bamboo steamer, giving them a cool, well ventilated home that protects them from the light.   This will prevent sprouting, which means they’ll be edible for much longer.

Chop green onion (scallions) up into small pieces ready for use and freeze them in an empty water bottle.   When you need them for a stir fry, stew or anything else, shake out what you need and return the rest to the freezer.

Wrap damp paper towels around the bases of your asparagus or put them upright in a glass with about an inch of water.  This keeps them hydrated and slows down wilting.

Store an apple or two in a ventilated bag with your potatoes and keep them in a cool, dry place because the gases stop the root vegetable from sprouting.

Freeze leftover herbs in ice cube trays to retain their freshness.   Just place the chopped herbs in an ice cube tray, fill with water and place them in the freezer.   When you’re ready to use, just pop as many cubes as you need into your cooking and the water will evaporate, leaving you with fresh herbs every time.

Store fresh, raw, peeled carrots in a plastic bag – with as much oxygen squeezed out as possible – or aluminum foil in the fridge.   If they’re stored like this with limited oxygen, they will last up to two weeks.  The same applies to celery, if you take it out of the plastic bag and wrap it in foil. This will allow the gas to escape and keep it crunchy for much longer.. 

Avoid washing your berries until right before you’re ready to eat them, as moisture encourages mold growth.  And it’s even easier if you use berries mainly for juice or for smoothies. Freeze them to keep them fresh for a later date.

Cut the leafy tops off your pineapple and store it upside down.   This helps redistribute the sugars that sink to the bottom during shipping and keeps it fresh for longer.

Although the fresh produce is usually the first section you come to in the supermarket, make sure it’s the last place you go.  Fragile fruits like berries can start to spoil as soon as you take them from the fridges.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-3493629/You-storing-fruit-veg-WRONG.html#ixzz43MI7LcEo

By Dr. Mercola

We face a number of very pressing problems in the world today. Water scarcity is getting worse as aquifers are drained faster than they can be refilled. Soil erosion and degradation is also rapidly worsening. Ditto for air and water pollution.

Land is turning into desert at a rapid clip, and with it, we’re losing biodiversity of both plant and animal life. Manure lagoons from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) pose hazards to the environment and human health.

Everything is getting more toxic, and according to scientists, we may have less than 60 years’ worth of “business as usual” before we reach a point at which nature will no longer sustain us on any front, be it water, air, or soil quality.¹

Modern Farming Has Proven Itself a Failed Experiment

These environmental problems, which have all been either caused or made worse by modern farming practices, have also led to a distinct reduction in food quality and safety. Nutrition has declined and toxicity has escalated, thanks to the excessive use of agricultural chemicals.

Agricultural overuse of drugs, especially antibiotics, has also led to the development of drug resistant disease,² which has now become a severe health threat.

Modern farming practices have also been accused of contributing to global climate change — a controversial and hotly contested issue if there ever was one. However, let us not lose sight of what’s really important.

Regardless of whether manmade climate change is real, or whether the climate shifts are the result of wholly natural warming and cooling cycles, the fact remains that our weather and environment are changing, and these changes pose challenges to our food security and survival.

Moreover, these challenges must be addressed with genuine, long-term, and sustainable solutions. We have to learn how to overcome droughts, floods, and various temperature fluctuations.

Regenerative Agriculture — One Solution for Many Problems

The really good news is that we have already found a solution that addresses virtually all of these problems.

It doesn’t matter if you believe climate change is an issue worth your consideration or not. It doesn’t matter whether you believe water shortages are a pressing concern, or whether you care about preserving our butterfly, bee,³ or fish populations.

Even if you care about just one of these many issues and pooh-pooh all the rest, your time, money, and effort is best spent by supporting regenerative farming.

The reason for this is because regenerative farming helps rebuild and optimize soil quality, and the benefits to air, water, ecosystem, food, animal welfare and human health are downstream results of this optimization.

 

Five Tenets of Soil Regeneration

To halt environmental destruction, and to continue growing healthy foods, we must rebuild our eroding topsoil. Using the following five tenets of soil regeneration, a farmer can “build” approximately one inch of topsoil in a five-year period:

1. No-tillage. Tilling is probably one of the most destructive aspects of modern-day industrial agriculture, as it disrupts and destroys soil biology. It’s particularly harmful for the mycorrhizal fungi — important soil fungi that attach to the roots of plants. Today, no-till farming has started to catch on in the Northern Plains, which is encouraging.
2. Plant diversity and rotation
3. Multispecies cover-cropping. While home gardeners can add crop cover like mulch or wood chips, large scale operations achieve the same results by planting cover crops. Cover crops may be grown before a cash crop, along with a cash crop, or after. These plants pull down and “trap” carbon in the soil, where it does the most good (opposed to in the air).

Cover crops also act as insulation, so the soil doesn’t get as hot or cold as it would if bare. This allows microbes to thrive longer. Also, the soil biology heats up the soil, which can extend your overall growing season in colder areas.

1. Maintaining living roots in the soil year-round. It’s important to have living plant roots in the soil as long as possible throughout the year. To accomplish this, use cover crops when not growing a cash crop. Interestingly, as described in Mother Jones,¹⁰ depleted and eroded grasslands can also be regenerated by adding compost, allowing the grasses to grow back faster, while simultaneously nourishing the soil.
2. Livestock integration and diversification

You Are What You Eat … And Health Begins in the Soil

Aside from the environmental harm being done by CAFOs and chemical-dependent agriculture, the current food production system also takes an incredible toll on human health. Many kids are not getting the nutrients they need in order to thrive, especially in the U.S. where nearly 40 percent of children’s diets come from added sugars and unhealthy fats.²⁰ Only 21 percent of youth aged 6-19 eat the recommended five or more servings of fruits and vegetables each day.

Your best bet for finding healthy food is to grow your own. If that is not possible then connect with a local farmer that raises crops and animals according to organic standards.

Remember, even if you’re not a farmer, you can still have an impact by implementing regenerative aspects such as no-till, plant diversity, and using ground cover like wood chips into your home garden. Along with that, plant some pollinator species to provide a habitat for pollinators. Monarch butterflies, for example, need milkweed to feed and reproduce. When purchasing bee-friendly plants, make sure they have not been pretreated with pesticides that are toxic to bees.

Most importantly, as a consumer, use your dollars to drive change, and educate others as to the importance of nutrient-dense, toxin-free food. Every single time you spend money you make an impact, whether you’re buying organic heirloom seeds for your garden, organic grassfed food for your family, organic cotton clothes, or any other organic items, furnishings, and building materials.

It all adds up, and together we can drive larger industries that have such an enormous impact on our environment and health toward more sustainable, regenerative practices.

Seabreeze is your local farm here in Coastal San Diego County.  We grow healthy, sustainable produce with farm animal integration and we are even a Monarch butterfly sanctuary.

Mention this post when you sign up, and we’ll add a $10 Green Store credit to your account.

For decades, more and more Californians have put on weight and fallen sick with diabetes, prompting warnings that the disease was spiraling out of control.

Now experts have data showing just how bleak the situation is.

Researchers from UCLA determined that 55% of California adults have either diabetes or pre-diabetes, a condition in which blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not high enough to be considered diabetic, according to a study published Thursday.

Experts say there’s hope of curbing the disease’s spread. The vast majority of diabetes cases in California — upward of 90% — are Type 2, which is preventable. People can stave off developing diabetes by adopting a healthier diet and increasing physical activity, experts say.

With weekly or every other week deliveries of Seabreeze vegetables and fruits, you can fight diabetes better than taking medications.  An often-cited clinical research study found that people with pre-diabetes who were overweight and improved their diet and worked out reduced their diabetes risk 58%. Those who instead took a medicine to treat diabetes reduced their risk only 31%.

A new study is shedding light on how much of our diet is made up of processed food.

More than half of our daily calories come from processed food, according to the study and we’re eating more “fake” food than real food.

The study shows a distinction between different levels of processing and the different effects it has on our health. Ultra-processed foods are different in that they contain more chemicals, additives, trans fats and emulsifiers.

These are often used to imitate the taste, texture or other qualities of natural foods, or “to disguise undesirable qualities of the final product,” lead study author Carlos Augusto Monteiro, a professor in the Department of Nutrition, School of Public Health at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, told CBS This Morning.

With a Seabreeze subscription, you’ll always receive real ingredients that will keep your body healthy, and they’re absolutely delicious as well!

By LIZZIE PARRY FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Instead of focusing on what you slather on your skin, a team of experts are urging women, and men alike, to rather concentrate on what they are putting in their bodies.

Forget a fancy new moisturiser, they proclaim.

And instead embrace the notion that beautiful skin starts on your plate.

Vegetables such as carrots, squash, pumpkin and sweet potatoes contain particularly high levels of beta carotene, and other carotenoids, which give them their orange colour.

‘Beta carotene converts to vitamin A in our body, which is one of the most important nutrients for skin integrity – meaning the skin that is firm, resists damage and can heal quickly,’ Ms Wilkinson said.

‘Beta carotene itself may also help to prevent free radical damage to our cells that can result in ageing, as it works as an antioxidant.

‘The orange vegetables are delicious as a basis for stews and soups in the winter, or roasted with other vegetables such as peppers, red onions and beetroot.’

Berries such as blueberries, raspberries and blackcurrants are excellent sources of vitamin C.

Nutritionist Cassandra Barns said: ‘This vitamin is vital for the formation of collagen, which gives our skin structure and elasticity.’

Furthermore, she explained, vitamin C is also an antioxidant, ‘protecting our cells from damage’.

‘Berries also contain many other plant nutrients that may work as antioxidants in the body, such as the quercetin, catechins and resveratrol,’ she said.

‘Another advantage of berries over most other fruits is that they are lower in sugar – a diet high in sugary foods can speed up skin ageing.

‘Berries are great added to plain yoghurt, with some chopped nuts – an ideal snack or breakfast option.’

With a Seabreeze subscription,  ensure your access to skin-healthy foods every week!

Mention this add in the sign-up comments, and we’ll add a $5.00 Green Store credit to your account

We’ll include a dozen cage-free, farm fresh eggs with your first delivery when you start your deliveries in March!

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