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A guest blog by Talia Fuhrman

Free radicals suck. They are like tiny malicious sparks from the wand of a great and powerful warlock out to destroy our radiant, perfectly normal functioning cells. Over time, these little guys strike a slow, insidious blow to our overall health as well as the health of our skin.  They stealthily attack our outer beauty by causing collagen damage, skin dryness, fine lines and wrinkles.

How do these tiny microscopic molecules manage to accomplish such damage to our skin cells, you say?

It is a rather simple concept. The atoms in our bodies take tremendous pains to maintain an even number of electrons in their orbits; this helps keep our atoms stable, at peace and functioning at optimal potential.  If an atom possesses an uneven number of electrons, it will greedily snag one from another nearby atom in an effort to maintain stability. Those avaricious little guys!

When we eat processed/junk foods, spend time under the sun’s beating ultraviolet rays, or bath our skin in harmful synthetic chemicals (Think I’m kidding about this? Check out the ingredients used in conventional makeup products. Nasty!) our bodies produce free radicals. Free radicals are unstable atoms with an uneven number of electrons and when they are produced on our skin they form a damaging chain reaction that results in the premature aging of our skin and cellular damage that leads to de-beautified, dull lookin’ skin. I wasn’t kidding when I said they are on the dark side.

In comes vitamin E to the rescue! Vitamin E is one of the most powerful antioxidants with proven skin-protecting properties.  However, our bodies can’t produce it, so we need to eat plenty of vitamin E-rich foods to create the formidable outer beauty shield we seek. Studies have even shown that consuming vitamin E-rich foods on a regular basis can reduce sunburns from exposure to UVB radiation.

Now onto the exciting part of this article in which we learn how to use the beneficent forces of plant-foods to defeat those evil free radicals.

The best vitamin E-rich foods are now comin’ at ya!

1) Spinach- We’ve got a clear vitamin E winner over here! Two cups of raw spinach provides 6% of the %DV. Two cup of raw spinach is a tiny 14 calories, so this means that spinach is one of the most concentrated sources of vitamin E per calorie. Because spinach is super low in calories, we can eat a lot of it to fill up and get our vitamin E, but we won’t be consuming many calories. I adore spinach in soups, wraps, salads and even in smoothies. Now whenever I eat spinach I will think of skin that is youthful, bright and clear!

2) Tomatoes (both regular and cherry!)- One cup of cherry tomatoes is 26.8 calories and contains 4% of the %DV for vitamin E. I love tomatoes so much! Tomatoes are another highly delicious, nutrient-dense, low-calorie food. I adore roasted tomatoes and tomato sauce with garlic, basil, and other Italian spices. A significant chunk of my brain tells me I should have been born Italian given my love of Italian food, my foodie propensities and my love affair with Mediterranean culture, but I must say that it doesn’t take much to make me happy. Give me some homemade, chunky, steaming, perfectly seasoned tomato sauce over whole-wheat penne pasta, roasted vegetables and cracked pepper and I am a very happy camper. Oh and check out this deliciousVegan Roasted Tomato Soup recipe from LifeAsAStrawberry.com. I’ve been gazing at pictures of the recipe and my eyes are going wild with pleasure!

3) Swiss Chard- this exceptional, absolutely exquisite nutrient-powerhouse of a green vegetable is loaded with vitamin E as well as plenty of beta carotene, lutein, zeaxanthin, iron, magnesium, potassium, vitamin K, B vitamins and much more.  As such, it is a wickedly nutritious food that will naturally make your skin look ma’velous darling. It actually has the same amount of vitamin E as spinach. Goooo, green leafy vegetables! Now the trick is to learn how to cook it to make it tasty too! In all honesty, S to the C was never one of my favorite foods, or even on the tasty side of the spectrum on my food-liking scale, but it’s so gosh darn healthy that it’s worth playing around with in the kitchen to make it taste as scrumptious as it is healthy for our tiny, nutrient-craving cells. Check out all of these AMAZING swish chard recipes that should do a superb job of adding flavorful delight to any day we choose to prepare them. CLICK HERE, CLICK HERE, your fingers tell you! You know you want to start including more S to the C in your life!

4) Sunflower seeds- these cute littl’ seeds pack 222% of the %DV in a 100 gram serving. As 100 grams of sunflower seeds amounts to 3.5 ounces or 0.42 cups, this is quite a bit of sunflower seeds to consume at one time. However, 222% is also a fantastically large percentage, so large in fact, that sunflower seeds happen to contain the most vitamin E per calorie of all foods. Wow, sunflower seeds, just wow. Way to rock the whole good for you thing. Actually I wrote a blog post about how incredible sunflower seeds are for us a little while ago. Check it out by clicking HERE and up your sunflower seed IQ! May you never look at sunflower seeds the same way again.

5) Avocados- one whole avocado contains between 10-13% of the %DV depending on the type of avocado. Florida avocados tend to contain slightly more vitamin E than California avocados, but the difference is pretty trivial. What’s not trivial? Eating creamy avocados as often as I can! I actually just relished an avocado-filled, pesto sauce-enhanced whole-wheat pita sandwich before writing this blog post. I can testify that it was pretty much the best lunch a hungry girl could ask for. And now I’ve got plenty of vitamin E cruising through my bloodstream right now too. You can also count on avocados for an wildly high number of other nutrients including many in the carotenoid family. Think beta-carotene, alpha-carotene, lutein, neoxanthin, zeaxanthin, chrysanthemaxanthin, neochrome, beta-cryptoxanthin and violaxanthin. Wow, that was a type full (as opposed to a mouth full!). While you don’t need to remember the names, pronunciation or spelling of all of these funky-named nutrients, you do need to remember that all of them work together to strengthen our immune systems, combat free radicals, promote a healthy reproductive system and even aid in the absorption of other nutrients. Holy moly guacamole, that’s impressive. To read more about the health benefits of avocados, CLICK HERE.

Clearly my next cooking endeavor will be creating a raw avocado cream pie recipe. Doesn’t the above picture look drool-worthy, knock-your-socks-off AMAZING?! It’s from KirbyCravings.com, but the recipe isn’t very healthy and is not dairy-free. Time to venture to the kitchen to make a non-dairy, healthier alternative!

And my Vitamin E runners up: almonds, peanut butter, pine nuts, hazelnuts, kale, turnip greens, broccoli, red peppers, tropical fruits such as papaya and kiwi, radicchio, paprika, red chill powder, and wheat germ. These runners up also pack a mean vitamin E punch! Leafy greens, nuts and seeds tend to contain the most vitamin E per calorie, so make sure you are consuming these foods often. The more vitamin E from real foods the better, I say!

Remember that no pill can take the place of the complex nutrient composition in real foods. Studies have shown that supplemental vitamin E offers no health benefits and may even be detrimental to our long-term health. For more information about the toxicity of supplemental vitamin E CLICK HERE and HERE.

I hope you have a delightful, vitamin E plant-foods rich week! Today is also my birthday, so happy birthday to me! I am now 21 + 5 but I think I look a solid 21 + 2 thanks to my buddies those plants.

Talia Fuhrman, the oldest daughter of Dr. Fuhrman, has a degree in nutritional sciences from Cornell University and is currently working on a manuscript of her own health and wellness book for young women. She is on a mission to help people of all ages understand that eating healthfully can be fun, delicious, and easy. A lover of cooking and writing, she understands that disease prevention must be made positively delicious! Talia has her own website with psychological musing, nutrition tips and recipes. In addition to her posts on Disease Proof, you can find her at TaliaFuhrman.com.

A guest blog by Paul Graham

“If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess powers without compassion, might without morality and strength without sight.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

We often think of a generation in terms like an “older” generation or “younger” generation; “Generation X” or “Generation Y”.  We have the “Baby Boom” generation that are entering the retirement years right now.   Generally speaking, the word “generation” is thought of as approximately 30 years among human beings and is accepted as the average period between the birth of parents and the birth of their offspring. I like to think of things in terms of generations of time and it is my assertion that we are entering the most important generation of time in history.  I know that it is a lot to say and lay claim to.  Yet I don’t know of a time in history where we face as much peril as we do now.  I know there have been periods of great conflict when it seemed like the entire world was at war.  Times when plagues cut a deadly swath through humanity.  There have been times of terrible darkness of the human spirit and condition.  Despite our technological successes and improvement of life conditions in many ways, it is in this generation that we also face issues that threaten the very life of the world that we live on.

Today we live on a planet that is full of crisis.  The impact of our decades of polluting our planet and robbing it of its natural resources is catching up with us.  We produce enough food to feed everyone on Earth and yet millions die of hunger and lack of adequate drinking water.  We are in a world health care crisis. Despite spending an unprecedented amount on health care and research each year, we are no closer to stemming the tide of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and a wide array of diseases.  We suffer from obesity and food allergies like never before.  Our world food supply has been attacked and is attempting to be controlled by major corporations with both short and long-term effects that can be devastating. Economies around the world are teetering on the brink of collapse. Political tensions seem to be high in almost every country and mass protests are being seen in various countries around the world.  Humans cannot seem to keep from finding ways of killing one another.  We eliminate species of animals to extinction regularly and continue a great holocaust against these creatures in numbers that reach the hundreds of billions each year. In some ways we have learned so much through history, and in other ways we have learned so little and have not evolved nearly enough.

Renowned water scientists speaking through United Nations sounded a great warning bell this past year when they said that we are going to have to change our ways by the year 2050 or we will see unprecedented food and water shortages. They said that we will need to switch to a primarily plant-based diet long before then in order to insure enough food and water for the planet.  Right now, inordinate amounts of food and water are being used to feed our livestock to produce animal-based foods.  This dependence that we have had, especially in the past 50 years, for using animals for our food has also caught up to us and is contributing in major ways to a number of the aforementioned crises.  It is certainly contributing to the health care crisis we face, and now more and more of the medical and scientific community are understanding the devastating effect that eating animals is having upon our health.  The production of livestock contributes more to air pollution than all of our transportation combined while also polluting our ground, rivers and streams.  It leads to deforestation.  These industries are also a part of the corporate power groups that are attempting to control our food supply and much of the genetically-modified food that is being grown is being fed to these animals and is thus entering our food supply.  Perhaps even more importantly, we cannot expect to have peace with other men if we cannot first find peace on our plates.  We need to stop killing animals for our pleasure.  We do not need to kill them for our food or our clothing.  There are alternative and superior ways of eating and living.

The good news to this is that a compassionate force of people is rising up to save the planet. I believe that the future of the world is vegan where we will not hold animals in captivity or use them for our food or pleasure.  The number of people that are not eating or using animals in any way in their lives has doubled in the past couple of years in this country and is growing at an even faster rate in other countries of the world.  This force of people is seeing exponential growth and we will see new industries raised up to meet the demand for new products, thus stimulating the economy and perhaps redistributing some of the wealth that is being hoarded by corporations today.  As people switch to a healthier, plant-based diet we will see less of a dependence on health care and a decrease in diseases. We will take back control of our food supply.  We will make it possible for the people of the world to have food and water. We can see the planet healed and rid of most pollution.  People can dig in their heels and fight this but this is not only the way things are going to go…it is the way that they have to go.  We will see critical mass…I believe we can see a tipping point in this generation and stem the tide of the crisis’s before us.  I am only one, but linked together with other like-minded and compassionate people around this country and around the world…we shall be an unshakeable force that will lead this world into an age of social justice, compassion, health, healing and peace among all creatures. This can be the generation that will change it all.

“We are the ones we have been waiting for.”   The Hopi Elders

Paul Graham was born and raised in Northern California and has lived in Las Vegas since 2004. He is a top wedding officiate, a green Realtor and writer. He has a daily vegan food blog www.eatingveganinvegas.tumblr.com which is 365 days and 365 vegan meals in Las Vegas. He can also be reached at eatingveganlv@gmail.com or www.facebook.com/EatingVeganinVegas. Paul’s e-book, “Eating Vegan in Vegas: If It Can Happen Here, It Can Happen Anywhere” is now available at www.sullivanstpress.com.

THE GHOSTS IN OUR MACHINE is an award-winning documentary about the moral significance of nonhuman animals. It illuminates the lives of individual animals living within and rescued from the machine of our modern world. Through the heart and photographic lens of celebrated animal photographer Jo-Anne McArthur, viewers become intimately familiar with a cast of animal subjects.

THE GHOSTS IN OUR MACHINE was conceived in 2010 and was recently released to sold out audiences at the International Hot Docs Documentary Film Festival in Toronto, and is making its way across Canada. You can read over 30 reviews here.

Watch the video above to learn more and to meet me, Liz Marshall, the director of Ghosts.

We are now focused on bringing Ghosts to you in the U.S. this fall. Our social media metrics tell us that the U.S. is our #1 fan, so we are that much more determined and excited to bring the film to a diverse U.S. audience.

Our campaign is a vital opportunity to make a genuine and significant impact, for the animals. Ghosts is well positioned to be a catalyst for change. There is an undeniable wave of consciousness emerging about the animal question, and about the horrors and insanity of the industrialized system, which has reduced billions of animals, annually, to bits and parts; tools for production.

THE GHOSTS IN OUR MACHINE is part of this zeitgeist

Support Us

We can get the job done for $30,000, but please know that every additional dollar raised will increase our chances for success (additional funds will be spent on marketing and publicity). For those of you who have been following us closely, you will notice we have pared down our financial ask to reflect a smaller plan.

With your financial support we will conduct an Oscar Qualifying Theatrical release in LA and NYC this fall. With the help and expertise of our Campaign Team we will fulfill the Academy criteria and in doing so we will generate national media, target our demographic, build momentum and buzz at the grassroots and beyond. Our NYC/LA Theatrical Release will effectively kick off a longtail distribution path in the U.S. to include other cities, and to release the film in various ways with the help of our distributors.

Digital
Community
Broadcast
Educational
All of this will place the film before the general public, which is the goal.
Change is a profound ripple effect.

We need to reach beyond the choir

…and, the choir is important; they are the champions who help spread the word to those who already care. We have partnered with several well established animal advocacy/protection/rescue organizations. These important organizations believe in THE GHOSTS IN OUR MACHINE, and we are honoured to partner with them: Farm Sanctuary, Mercy For Animals, PETA, NEAVS, and The Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy. With their help we will reach vibrant U.S. animal communities.

Perks

We have carefully crafted the Perks on the right side, we’re sure you will love them. It’s time to share the jewels from our multimedia treasure chest. This is the perfect opportunity!

For the Ghosts

Help us in our efforts to change the world for animals. Help us to usher THE GHOSTS IN OUR MACHINE into the spotlight in the U.S., and to continue to put the animal issue on the radar! We know that lots of people will love the film, and we know it will continue to be critiqued. This attention will only continue to aid the larger social and moral dialogue that is starting to happen in North America. The time is right.

Other Ways You Can Help

If you cannot contribute financially but want to support us, please SHARE our Indiegogo fundraising campaign, widely, and help us make it viral. Thanks so much.

Thanks to each of you for your consideration. We greatly appreciate it.

We’re loving Great Gluten-Free Vegan Eats by Allyson Kramer. You might think that following a plant-based, gluten-free diet is challenging, but Great Gluten-Free Vegan Eats shows you exactly how to create compassionate and wheat-free recipes that are impressive enough for even the most seasoned foodie. Full of fresh and all-natural ingredients, the 101 fully-photographed, scrumptious recipes you’ll find inside prove that eating vegan and gluten-free doesn’t have to be a sacrifice, but a delight!

To win a copy of this awesome cookbook simply like New Year, New You Health Fest– the annual plant-based healthy food festival that takes place in historic, Marshall, Texas. Winner will be announced August 21st. Good luck!

A guest blog by Paul Graham

It is not an easy thing to do…admitting that you were wrong. Let alone be glad about it. But that was exactly the case six years age this August, when I decided to eliminate the use of animal products in my life and to live a fully compassionate and conscious lifestyle. The practical side of doing it was not the hard part…I found it rather easy to do when my mind, body and spirit all got on the same page of understanding. The harder part was coming to grips with the fact that for fifty years of my life I had been living with only a partial understanding of the realities that were happening in and around me. I was “dead” wrong in the way I was perceiving my relationship to animals in my life and the way that I was supposed to co-exist with them. It was one of the most profound revelations that I could imagine.

As I was watching “The Long Ranger” yesterday, I was struck with a thought…besides the fact that I really like my bud Johnny Depp. The movie starts out with a young boy dressed as The Lone Ranger walking into a carnival exhibit of The Old West. He sees the buffalo, a bear and then comes upon a rather old Indian. He is startled when the Indian is actually alive and begins to talk to him. “Tonto” begins to tell the boy of his adventures with The Lone Ranger. It was a very creative way to tell the story and it got me to thinking. How powerful it would be if we could have a living exhibit with some of the great orators, scientists, artists, writers, statesmen and humanitarians throughout history who have written and spoken for us words of enlightenment to encourage us to abstain from the eating and use of animals in any way in our lives? This would be something I would love to hear. It would be so impactful knowing that these great minds have have been speaking for centuries upon centuries about what I came to understand just a handful of years ago. The sad part would be that too few people actually listened to their wisdom over the years, and billions and trillions of animals have suffered as a result.

A sampling of an exhibit like this would sound something like this with a great orator such as Pythagorus, one of the fathers of science, saying, “The Earth affords a lavish supply of richness of innocent foods and offers you banquets that involve no bloodshed or slaughter, only beasts satisfy their hunger with flesh, and not even all of those, because horses, cattle and sheep live upon the grass.” He also would say, “Animals share with us the privilege of having a soul.” Nikola Tesla was a great humanitarian and scientist. You could hear him say, “Animal slaughter was wanton and cruel.” The great Leonardo DaVinci would be fascinating to listen to and we could hear him say, “I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.” He would probably go on to say about how the ingesting of animals makes our bodies to be “graveyards.”

There would certainly be some great writers present who would have much to say. Henry David Thoreau could be heard sharing these words, “I have no doubt that that it is part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have led off eating each other when they come in contact with the more civilized.” Leo Tolstoy wrote much about non-violence and also was an advocate of vegetarianism which led to his friendship with Gandhi. Tolstoy would no doubt have much to say, such as “Flesh eating is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act, which is contrary to moral feeling: killing.” He would also say, “If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.” George Bernard Shaw would certainly be one of the characters of the exhibit and would talk endlessly. “I was a cannibal for twenty-five years. For the rest I have been a vegetarian.” He would pull no punches: “We pray on Sundays that we might have light to guide our footsteps on the path we tread; we are are sick of war we don’t want to fight. And yet we gorge ourselves upon the dead.” ” A man of my spiritual intensity does not eat corpses.” “All great truths begin as blasphemies.”

Great statesmen would be seen and heard and remembered for their courage to speak the truth no matter what the contrarian thought might be. Thomas Paine would proclaim, “Everything of persecution and revenge between man and man, and everything of cruelty to animals, is a violation of moral duty.” Benjamin Franklin would be fascinating and we could hear the wisdom of “Flesh eating is unprovoked murder.” On the subject of vegetarianism, he would note that “one will achieve greater progress from the greater clearness of head and quicker comprehension.” President Abraham Lincoln could be heard in his distinctive voice to say, “I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. It is the way of a whole human being. He would also remark that, “I care not for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not better for it. Gandhi would keep us spellbound with his gentle spirit and powerful words: “To my mind the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I hold that, the more helpless the creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.”

We would be overcome with the truth touching our heads, hearts and our very souls. Henry Salt would state, “The emancipation of men from cruelty and injustice will bring with it in due cause the emancipation of animals also. The two reforms are inseparately connected and neither can be fully realized alone.” Thomas Edison would challenge us with, “Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.” Albert Schweitzer would bring us this thought: “The time is coming when people will be amazed that the human race existed so long before it recognized that thoughtless injury to life is incompatible with real ethos. Ethics in its unqualified form extended responsibility to everything that has life.” Albert Einstein, with his wild hair and scribblings on the chalkboard would leave us with hope that “nothing will benefit human health and increase the the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” I hope that this idea for an exhibit like this resonates with someone and they run with it. I think it could impact a lot of people.

I can do very little now about the first half of my life other than admit that I was wrong about a lot of things. It was not until I opened my mind and my heart to this truth that I could actually move not only forward, but higher in my own life. It has opened up incredible vistas to me and has connected me with remarkable people that I will work hand in hand with for the second half of my life towards fulfilling the goals and ideals that these thoughtful and compassionate people through history have spoken and written. It is hard to admit that you were wrong, or perhaps that you were taught a wrong way to live. I understand that…I lived it. But I also know there is life on the other side of this decision that provides not only life for you, but also every other living creature. We can take off an old grid that we lived life through and put on a new one. It is the life that I dream of where ever man, woman and living being can be free. We can live and co-exist together, the way it has always been meant to be. I want to live to see that day.

Paul Graham was born and raised in Northern California and has lived in Las Vegas since 2004. He is a top wedding officiate, a green Realtor and writer. He has a daily vegan food blog www.eatingveganinvegas.tumblr.com which is 365 days and 365 vegan meals in Las Vegas. He can also be reached at eatingveganlv@gmail.com or www.facebook.com/EatingVeganinVegas. Paul’s e-book, “Eating Vegan in Vegas: If It Can Happen Here, It Can Happen Anywhere” is now available at www.sullivanstpress.com.

A guest blog by Talia Fuhrman

I love starting out Mondays with a delicious, easy-to-prepare new recipe, don’t you? And who doesn’t enjoy a scrumptious muffin recipe that is not only moist and melts softly on your tongue, but is also bursting with nutrients and health-promoting ingredients?

I’m going to make a very immodest proclamation. I’m going to declare with the utmost of confidence that this is the healthiest banana walnut muffin recipe currently floating on the Internet. I know. I just dared to write that.

After reading the list of ingredients most conveniently found directly below the next few paragraphs, you might just be apt to agree. I do realize that at this point you are likely going to stop reading these words and skip below to the recipe because curiosity has gotten the best of you. If you are still reading this paragraph instead of the recipe, well congratulations. I venture you are not among the majority.

Now that most all of you have read the recipe (either before or after your eyes finished absorbing the words in the last paragraph), you will observe that I used a tad of whole-wheat flour (I don’t avoid gluten completely, even though I rarely eat wheat flour), you can make these muffins gluten-free by substituting oat flour for the whole-wheat flour. In fact, if you are not currently in possession of almond flour or coconut flour, you can try experimenting with other flours, just be warned that some whole-wheat flour or oat flour will be necessary because almond and coconut flour are significantly more dense and your muffins will turn out too heavy without the addition of whole-wheat or oat flour.

You will also note the use of beans, which is my not-so-secret-anymore trick for preparing oil-free muffins. Oil is normally added to cake and muffin recipes to add moister and texture, but beans do a beautiful job at doing the very same thing. And you cannot taste the beans one little bit. The nutrition 411 is that beans are far better for us that oils and so the use of beans instead of oil is just one reason why this recipe rocks. Another reason why this recipe is so cool is because it’s completely vegan and employs heart and brain healthy flaxseeds as a substitute for eggs. When a girl is determined to get creative in the kitchen, healthier substitutions for conventional ingredients can easily be found. Hello both healthy and tasty muffins!

The banana flavor and spices compliment each other delightfully and I love the addition of orange zest and cardamom. I hope you like this recipe as much as I do.

Here are some nutrition fun facts, so you can appreciate how much better for us these muffins are compared to the typical muffins found in bakeries, restaurants and grocery stores across America:

1) Low-nutrient, empty calorie foods without the beneficial presence of antioxidants, vitamins, and phytochemicals results in the buildup of waste products in our cells. When we eat conventional muffins filled with white-flour and oil, without the accompaniment of micronutrients found in plant foods, our disease risk goes up and we age prematurely (see pg. 109-115 of Super Immunity by my dad, Joel Fuhrman M.D., for more information on the health risks of consuming low-nutrient foods).
2) At 120 calories per tablespoon, all oils (even coconut oil and olive oil) very high in calories and low in nutrients → CLICK HERE to learn more about why avoiding oil is a good idea.
3) High in fiber and resistant starch, beans are a superpower food that help reduce our risk of developing heart disease and many common types of cancer → CLICK HEREand HERE to learn more about the health benefits of beans.
4) Walnuts are AWESOME for us! Like all nuts, walnuts are rich in fiber, minerals, antioxidants, and monounsaturated fats, but walnuts stand out because of their distinctively high levels of ALA, an omega-3 fatty acid. Our brains are made of omega-3 fatty acids and because our bodies can’t make their own, we need to eat plenty of omega-3 fats to stay healthy (and smart!).

Behold the recipe:

Ingredients (makes 10-12 muffins):

½ cup whole-wheat flour
½ cup almond flour
½ cup coconut flour
10 Medjool dates, pitted
½ cup canned white beans (I recommend Eden’s BPA free canned beans)
¼ cup unsweetened applesauce
3 very ripe mashed bananas
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cardamom
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon orange zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons ground flaxseeds soaked in ½ cup water
¼- ½ cup coarsely chopped walnuts
¼ – ½ cup dried cherries or raisins

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place paper muffin cups in a muffin pan.
2) Mix ground flaxseeds with water and let them sit for a few minutes until it form an egg-like consistency. Ground flaxseeds are an amazing substitute for eggs! Add pitted dates, bananas, beans, applesauce, flax “egg”, vanilla extract and spices to a high-powered blender and mix thoroughly.
3) Put aside the blended mixture and in a large bowl, combine flours and baking powder. Once the dry ingredients are mixed, add the wet blended ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix and mix some more until a nice batter forms.
4) Add dried fruit and walnuts in amounts to your liking and distribute them in the batter evenly.
5) Using a large spoon, place a few tablespoons worth of batter into each paper muffin cup. Once there is no more batter left, bake for approximately 25 minutes, or until the muffins develop a golden brown color and are crisp to the touch.

Now I hope you have an appetite after these muffins are ready because they are quite difficult to avoid consuming on the spot. Just let them cool for a few minutes before consuming and rich, moist banana walnut muffins will be yours for the eating. Woohoo!

Talia Fuhrman, the oldest daughter of Dr. Fuhrman, has a degree in nutritional sciences from Cornell University and is currently working on a manuscript of her own health and wellness book for young women. She is on a mission to help people of all ages understand that eating healthfully can be fun, delicious, and easy. A lover of cooking and writing, she understands that disease prevention must be made positively delicious! Talia has her own website with psychological musing, nutrition tips and recipes. In addition to her posts on Disease Proof, you can find her at TaliaFuhrman.com.

A guest blog by Gary Smith

It’s important to live your life in alignment with your values, as best as you can. I would hope that we all value justice, equality, fairness, nonviolence towards others and compassion. Most cultures don’t put much value on these values. We need to disconnect from the culture of violence, competition, exploitation, racism, homophobia, sexism, oppression, speciesism…and begin to embrace our deepest values. One step in the process is to go vegan. When we participate in violence against the most vulnerable for food, clothing, entertainment and household items and cosmetics, we negate who we are as people. We live in a constant state of contradiction, denial and pain, because we are out of alignment with our deepest values. Now is the perfect time to move in the direction of veganism and to honor your values.”

Gary Smith is co-founder of Evolotus, a PR agency working for a better world. Evolotus specializes in health and wellness, spirituality, animal protection, natural foods, documentary films, non-profits and socially beneficial companies. Gary is the animal rights blogger for Elephant Journal and has also written as a guest blogger for Mother Nature Network (MNN.com). Gary and his wife adhere to a vegan lifestyle and live with their cat Chloe and their two rescued laboratory beagles, Frederick and Douglass, in Sherman Oaks, CA.