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The Paleo Diet: A Good Alternative For Those With Celiac and Gluten Intolerance?

May 24, 2013 By MelissaB 8 Comments

I’m a carb and sugar lover, and I’m guessing I’m not alone among Americans.  Pizza, bread sticks, pasta, bread. . . we are a nation that loves carbs.  For many of us, though, digesting carbs is a challenge.  Dr. Joseph Murray of the Mayo Clinic analyzed blood samples from the 1950s to those now and “confirms estimates that about 1 percent of U.S. adults have [Celiac] today, making it four times more common now than it was 50 years ago”  (CBSNews.com).  Nearly that same amount has Celiac disease but have not yet been diagnosed

Even if you don’t have Celiac, you may have trouble with carbs.  I’m intolerant to gluten, wheat and many other grains.  When I eat them, I feel like I can’t breathe and get dizzy.  Thanks to my many intolerances, I turned to the Paleo Diet.

What Is the Paleo Diet?

The Paleo DietThe Paleo Diet is based on the idea that you’re health will be optimal if you eat like our Paleolithic ancestors did.  That means eating grass fed meat, fish, fruits, vegetables, eggs and nuts.

What’s off limits?  Grains, rice, sugar, beans, processed foods, dairy, and certain types of oil.  If you’re like most Americans, the off limit items probably make up a large portion of your diet, so if you’re thinking of moving to a Paleo diet, I recommend transitioning slowly.  Maybe first give up sugar, then dairy, then grains, etc.  Give yourself at least a month to transition off each so you don’t feel deprived giving everything up at once.

Why Grass Fed Meat?

Traditional meat on the market today comes from animals that are fed a diet heavy on corn and are fattened up on feed lots.  Their diet causes them to produce less omega-3.  When we consume the meat, we develop high levels of omega-6, which is bad for the human body and can cause inflammation.

Cows and lambs especially that are fed an entirely grass fed diet are rich in omega-3, which is good for your body.  According to a 2011 study in the British Journal of Nutrition, “Eating moderate amounts of grass-fed meat for only 4 weeks will give you healthier levels of essential fats.  The British research showed that healthy volunteers who ate grass-fed meat increased their blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids and decreased their level of pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids.  These changes are linked with a lower risk of a host of disorders, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, depression, and inflammatory disease” (Eat Wild).

If you’re going to be eating a large quantity of meat on the Paleo diet, you want it to be the best meat available.

Other Health Benefits of the Paleo Diet

You may have seen the project where a photographer captured what families around the world consume in a week.  What is most startling is how much processed foods and how few fruits and vegetables Americans eat.

If you follow the Paleo diet, yes, you’re eating a diet heavy in meat (but if it’s grass-fed, it’s healthier meat), BUT you’re also eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables.  Before I began the Paleo diet, I’m ashamed to admit that I only ate 2 to 3 fruits and vegetables a day.  Now I easily get 7 to 10 servings of fresh fruit and vegetables a day.

What Comes Next

Sure, maybe now you’re convinced that there are benefits to following the Paleo diet, especially if you have a gluten or even dairy intolerance.  However, I’m guessing you’re probably ready to argue that the Paleo diet is too expensive to follow.  While it IS more expensive than a traditional American diet, there are ways to cut corners and make the Paleo diet more affordable, which I’ll explain in my next post.

Have you tried the Paleo diet?  What are your thoughts?

Original Image Credit: Banksy’s Caveman by Lord Jim, on Flickr

MelissaB
MelissaB

Melissa is a writer and virtual assistant. She earned her Master’s from Southern Illinois University, and her Bachelor’s in English from the University of Michigan. When she’s not working, you can find her homeschooling her kids, reading a good book, or cooking. She resides in New York, where she loves the natural beauty of the area.

www.momsplans.com/

Filed Under: Financial Miscellaneous, General Finance, ShareMe Tagged With: celiac, diet, paleo, paleo diet

Earning > Saving

May 20, 2013 By Shane Ede 25 Comments

Saving is a finite solution. You can only save so much, can only be so frugal. Your power for earning is unlimited with the right resource (you), the right tools (knowledge), and the right force (hard work).  That isn’t to discount saving.  Saving is an important part of the equation too.  But, because of it’s limited ability, it can only be so much a part of your overall wealth and financial independence equation.  Do you know what limits savings’ ability?  Your earnings. You can only save so much as you earn.  If you only earn $8 an hour, you can only save $8 an hour.  Far less, really, because who can live on $0 an hour?  Not many.  So, the more you make, the more you can save.

There’s another side to that, even.  The more you make, the more ability you have to make more.  That’s the root of the old saying, “It takes money to make money”.  While you can actually make money without having much money, the more money you have, the more opportunity you will find to earning more money.

Earning > SavingIncreasing your earnings isn’t always an easy equation to solve, though.  Many people feel like they’re trapped in the job they have, the payscale they’re in, and the life path they’ve chosen.  Not at all true!  Your earning potential is unlimited if you combine the resources at hand and improve the ones that aren’t.  You’ve already got you.  Increasing you knowledge of the work you want to do is pretty easy as well.  It just takes a bit of time, and some crafty searching online.  Pretty much anything you want to learn about is available online.  Heck, there are even entire sites dedicated to free college courses.  All you need is to dedicate some time to learning whatever it is you want to learn.  You can find that time by taking it from some of your TV watching time.

Follow all that learning up with some good old fashioned hard work.  That’s it.  Just hustle a little.  Unfortunately, there isn’t any magic formula for that one. I don’t know how to motivate you to work.  I don’t know the right things to say to you to make you want it.  You’ve got to provide that part.  If you can’t find the motivation to pull yourself away from American Idol for an hour to learn something, or work on making yourself a better earner, there’s just nothing that I can do for you.  You’ve got to find that part for yourself.

But, listen.  If you’re capable, like me, of getting your finances under control; of learning how to keep a budget, pay your bills on time, and learn from mistakes, there’s no reason you can’t learn how to earn more.  You CAN learn how to do something you want to do.  You CAN learn how to make yourself more marketable.  And you CAN earn more.  And, if you do, you WILL tip the scale in your direction.  You’ll start to earn more.  You’ll be able to save more.  And you’ll find that opportunities will present themselves to you.

How are you going to improve yourself today?

Shane Ede

I started this blog to share what I know and what I was learning about personal finance. Along the way I’ve met and found many blogging friends. Please feel free to connect with me on the Beating Broke accounts: Twitter and Facebook.

You can also connect with me personally at Novelnaut, Thatedeguy, Shane Ede, and my personal Twitter.

www.beatingbroke.com

Filed Under: Financial Truths, Frugality, General Finance, Saving, ShareMe Tagged With: earning, Saving

Personal Crowd Funding?

May 15, 2013 By Shane Ede 9 Comments

We’ve all heard about the many different crowdfunding organizations out there.  Probably the most famous of them is Kickstarter.  Or maybe Indiegogo.  Adam from Man vs. Debt recently crowdfunded his documentary “I’m Fine, Thanks” through Kickstarter.  Using crowdfunding sites has become pretty popular.  It’s a great way for artists and creators to fund the products that they are creating through the fans while still giving something back to the fans.

Recently, I found a site called GoFundMe.  It’s another crowdfunding site.  Except, in this case, it’s more of a crowd fundraising site.  Personal crowd funding if you will. Individuals and organizations can post a need, and then share it with friends, family, and the public through social sites and links that they can share.  Their friends, family, and anyone else interested can then go and fund the need.  Best I can tell, there aren’t many restrictions at all as to what it is that you can post as a need.  Want to use it to fund the down payment on a house?  It’s been done.   Want to use it to pay for a wedding?  Been done.

go fund me logo

Anytime I see something like this, my mind starts to wander about and find stuff that’s a bit “funny.”  I can see the good of a site like this.  It only takes a few seconds on their homepage to see that there are lots of people using the site to help people in need.  People who have medical issues.  People who have had house fires.  People who want to set up memorial funds.  I can even see how it would be kind of cool to create one to have people contribute to a wedding fund or honeymoon fund instead of buying wedding presents.  But, with every one of those that I see that seem to be legitimate things that people might want to create a fund, I see ones where you really have to wonder what some people are thinking.

[Tweet “you really have to wonder what some people are thinking.”]

For instance.  I ran across one that was a fund to help with the down payment on a new car.  Another asking for help with a down payment on a house.  It’s ones like that where my cynical side really comes out.  I’d like to think that the people really have just had a bit of down luck and just need that little bit to dig themselves out of a hole.  Or that little push to keep going to work.  Or whatever.  But, there’s that personal finance blogger side of me that wants to know why, if you knew you were going to need a car, or wanted to buy a house, weren’t you saving in the first place?

I guess there’s a small chance that the fund wasn’t intended to be seen by anyone more than the persons friends and family.  But, it is public.  And then there’s the question of taxes.  If I go create a fund, call it my retirement fund, and then raise a million dollars, what does Uncle Sam think of that.  I did a little digging, and, according to the sites FAQ section, they state that “most donations on GoFundMe are simply considered to be ‘personal gifts’ which are not taxed as income in the US.”

Which makes me wonder.  Maybe I should create a “don’t want to work anymore” fund. Set a goal of about $45,000 and see if I can’t take a year off work…

What do you think? Am I being too hard on this?  Are you going to go out and give it a try?  Would you give/donate to someone you knew who used it?

Shane Ede

I started this blog to share what I know and what I was learning about personal finance. Along the way I’ve met and found many blogging friends. Please feel free to connect with me on the Beating Broke accounts: Twitter and Facebook.

You can also connect with me personally at Novelnaut, Thatedeguy, Shane Ede, and my personal Twitter.

www.beatingbroke.com

Filed Under: Financial Miscellaneous, General Finance, ShareMe Tagged With: crowd, crowdfunding, p2p funding

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