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When your pancreas doesn’t make enough insulin, or stops producing insulin at all, or your cells stop responding to the available insulin in your blood and can’t absorb glucose from your blood stream, you will have a condition called diabetes: too much glucose (sugar) in your blood stream.

One common symptom of diabetes is frequent urination which then triggers thirst and increased water/liquids consumption. Other symptoms are fatigue, nausea, vomiting, and sometimes blurred vision. Untreated, extremely elevated blood glucose levels can lead to coma and death.

Kira and Bill Van Ittersum discuss these problems of diabetes and give some practical advice about what you can do about this disease.

Links:
Diabetes (Type 1 and Type 2) by Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD
http://www.medicinenet.com/diabetes_mellitus/article.htm

Diabetes: Causes, Symptoms and Treatments
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/info/diabetes/

Diabetes
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/diabetes.html

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More than 3 Million cataract surgeries are performed in the U.S. annually. This large number makes cataract surgery the most common surgery of its type in the country. It is elective surgery and the Boomer Generation is choosing to have it done more often and sooner in their lives than older generations did.

It starts with “blurriness;” you can’t read the fine print anymore—whether in a book or on the computer screen—without an aid such as a magnifying glass. Driving at night can also be a struggle. Lights of all kinds cause glare in your lenses that interrupt your vision and cause you to become hesitant behind the wheel.

Listen in as Kira and Bill Van Ittersum discuss Bill’s cataract surgeries. Each was quick, nearly painless, and the results were dramatic!

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Over 42 million Americans still smoke cigarettes. Add to this number the people who smoke cigars, pipes, or use chewing tobacco, snuff, and other tobacco products and you have 1 out of 6 Americans addicted to tobacco. There are over 480,000 tobacco-use related deaths each year in America and an additional 14,500,000 people are afflicted by a tobacco-use related disease.
The direct cost to America’s health system is estimated at $133 billion dollars a year with additional indirect costs to the economy of $156 billion dollars from lost productivity and sick days due to smoking-related illness. Add to that number the direct out-of-pocket expense to America’s citizens of buying the tobacco products. The totals are staggering!

In her editorial article in the April-May issue of AARP Magazine, (p.77), Jeannine English, the current President of AARP, makes a bold statement: Thank You for Not Smoking! Kira and Bill Van Ittersum liked this approach so much that they decided to do a podcast on it. Listen as Bill and Kira share Jeannine’s tips and ideas and then more of their own on how you, too can kick the habit for good!

Links:
English, Jeannine, President of AARP. (2015, April-May). Editorial. Plain English: Thank You for Not Smoking. AARP Magazine. Page 77.

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Late in the evening, the “food siren” calls to you from the kitchen! “Come to meeee! Come to meeeeeee!” In this podcast, Kira and Bill share their tips that they use to “snack healthy,” yet satisfy their cravings.
Food manufacturers have been using “food science” to hook western-world consumers with the triple-whammy combination of “sugar—salt—fat,” and they have been enormously successful in their endeavors. There are more people who are overweight today, as a percentage of society, than there ever were in the entire previous known written history of the world!
Kira and Bill share actual tips that they use to short-circuit the food providers. It’s not so much “will power”—this rarely wins against the “food siren”—but retraining the nerve signals between your taste buds and your brain’s satisfaction center. Your brain craves “satisfaction,” and these tips will help you to deliver!

Links:
Banana-Oatmeal-Raisin-Chocolate Drop Bars
3 very ripe, mashed bananas
1/3 cup apple sauce
2 cups oats (regular, organic, or gluten-free)
1/4 cup almond milk
1/2 cup raisins
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Mix well. Grease a 9 x 9 square baking pan with coconut oil. Spoon mixture out into pan (should cover pan to a depth of 1 inch, more or less.) Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes. Cut into squares, remove bars, and let them cool on a sheet of wax paper. They’re delicious with a hot cup of raspberry-green tea!

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Banana bread is always a treat, but now with gluten-free flour, sea salt, organic eggs, raw sugar, coconut oil, and walnuts it can be a high-energy “pick-me-up” snack for young and old alike. Kira and Bill Van Ittersum talked about this bread in their Gluten-Free Baking podcast a few weeks ago and the response has been fantastic. Listeners wanted the whole recipe, so here it is.

Bill and Kira serve this fresh banana bread to their grandkids for an after school snack and they love it! Spread a little coconut oil-butter spread (50-50 mix) on it and they practically inhale it. With granola bars, there is always some left over—not with this delicious, moist banana energy bread. Try Kira’s recipe, you’ll be happy you did!

Links:
Find Namaste Foods and their delicious recipes here: http://www.namastefoods.com/products/cgi-bin/products.cgi?Function=show&Id=13

Banana Energy Bread – Kira Style
2 cups Namaste Foods Gluten Free Perfect Flour Blend
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup melted coconut oil
1 cup raw sugar
2 large organic eggs
4 medium, over-ripe bananas, mashed
1 tsp. gluten-free vanilla
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Heat the oven to 325 degrees F.  Lightly coat a 9×5 loaf pan with coconut oil.

In a medium size bowl sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl mix together the coconut oil and sugars. Add the eggs, mashed bananas and the vanilla. (Please Note: Kira always sets the eggs in a dish filled with warm water for several minutes before breaking them out of their shells because coconut oil tends to congeal and harden when exposed to cold temperatures.) Stir all of the wet ingredients together. Then fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients along with the walnuts (if using them).

Pour the batter into the 9×5 loaf pan and bake for approximately 65 -75 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. In my oven, 65 minutes is the perfect amount of time. Transfer the loaf to a wire heating rack and cool before serving.

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What is it about meditation that inspires some people to make it a daily practice? What are they enjoying that most of society is missing out on? In this podcast, Kira and Bill Van Ittersum share personal stories and real-life experiences from several people about their success with meditation. They leave the “how,” and “what, when, and where” of meditation for you to research on your own and instead focus on the “who” and “why.”

From Fleur Carter’s story, “The benefits of meditation are wide and varied; from reduction in stress, to increased levels of concentration and focus, to the ability to deal with destructive emotions. The list is endless.” Bill and Kira invite you to try meditation for yourself and wish you, “Good practice!”

Links:

1. The Guided Meditation Site http://www.the-guided-meditation-site.com/meditation-stories.html
2. MindBodyGreen http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-6679/How-Meditation-Changed-My-Life.html