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The Best Health and Fitness Articles of the Week #125 – Homemade Probiotic Pickles, Lower Body Dysfunction, and the Return of the Food Replacement Drink Soylent

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Naturally Fermented Dill Pickles

Michelle has been craving pickles like crazy now that she’s pregnant, but I don’t want her eating the crappy preservative-packed pickles from Target, so I’m trying to find healthier alternatives. I bought Bubbies, but she doesn’t like the taste of those, so I’m thinking that I might just have to make my own. It looks really easy and only takes 3-10 days, so it might actually be something worth trying.


The Deficit Deadlift: A Strength Exercise You Can Do Without

Holy crap I couldn’t imagine trying to do a deadlift from a six inch deficit. My back hurts just thinking about the injury that would come from that. Good tips here for anyone crazy enough to try it though.


Shoes, Sitting, and Lower Body Dysfunctions

Many people don’t realize how things like restriction and loss of mobility can seriously effect other parts of the body. Elevated heels can cause tight calves and shoe padding can result in decreased stability and cause muscles to become inactive. Sitting can also cause the glutes to become weak and inactive. This article brings up another great point as well – what are we doing to our kid’s health by making them sit for 7-8+ hours per day. Are any schools using standing desks yet?


The effects of pre versus post workout supplementation of creatine monohydrate on body composition and strength

It seems that taking creatine post-workout is better than pre-workout but I wonder what the benefits might be to take it both before and after working out.


One Conditioning Exercise Everyone Should Do

I can totally relate to the part of this article talking about old hardgainer advice of working out only 3 days per week and being lazy the rest and then having unfit friends question your fitness levels during a friendly game of football in the parking lot. I played in a field though. This actually happened to me and that’s when I realized that I needed some conditioning work included in my own personal program.


Holy Grail Hummus at Home

This is a recipe from one of my coworkers. She says this is an awesome recipe, so I’ll take her word for it. I wasn’t happy with the outcome of my last hummus-making experience, so I can’t wait to try this one.


A Beginner’s Guide to Intermittent Fasting

I’ve played around with intermittent fasting before and I really liked it. I can’t remember why I stopped. I should try it out again. Just like this article says, I got very hungry in the mornings until my body adjusted, but I found that coffee with MCT oil blended in really helped.


25 Healthy Alternatives to Toxic Cosmetics

I highly recommend reading this post and the one that Mark Sisson linked to in the first paragraph on 5 cosmetic ingredients to avoid. I been very careful about buying safe foods to eat, but I haven’t been too cautious about the cosmetic products I use. I just recently started learning about the dangers of the chemicals in things like body wash and lotion and how the skin absorbs it and directs it into the bloodstream, so this one came at good timing.


Dear Mark: Cable Machine Weights, Plaque Regression, Lab Grown Meat, and Swiss Ball Chairs

I’ve always wondered about the health benefits when comparing the differences between standing standing at a desk or sitting on a Swiss ball. Seems to me like sitting on a Swiss ball for long periods of time is just as bad as sitting on any other chair, but there is a benefit of activating muscles on the ball that aren’t always used.


Soylent: What Happened When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks

This detailed experience of a journalist consuming nothing but a meal replacement drink for two weeks was absolutely amazing to read. I wrote about soylent earlier this year when the creator wrote a blog post about it. It sounded too crazy to be real, but it turns out it’s true. This is something that I would love to see succeed – not as a meal replacement for normal people, but for people who struggle to get enough food to survive.

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The Best Health and Fitness Articles of the Week #124 – The Dangers of Nail Polish, Common Squat Dilemmas, and Training Aids To Keep You Safe When Training Alone

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Facts about lipstick ingredients

I’ve been looking for a place to write where I could get paid for it and I found Helium so I gave them a try. They provide a whole list of topics that they’d like people to write about and when I saw a request for an article on the facts about lipstick, I thought that would be really interesting. I’ve been reading The Better Baby Book, which goes a little bit into to the toxins that are commonly found in cosmetics and why pregnant women shouldn’t use them, so I already had an idea of some of things I could talk about in this article. Check it out!


7 Squat Dilemmas Solved

There are things we can do to prevent injury but you shouldn’t feel forced into a position that doesn’t work for your body. A lot of advice on the Internet or in magazines will tell you that you absolutely need to do an exercise in a certain way, and for some people that just isn’t going to work. I’m actually trying to rehab my knee from PFPS, which was discussed in this article. I’ve always forced my knees out, but I believe my injury is from wide stance, which is something I read that I should be doing, even though it didn’t feel right to me. But I kept doing it and now I’m regretting it.


Three-Bean Vegetarian Chili Recipe

This is awesome recipe for red chile, but I made some modifications. Instead of canned beans, I cooked my own beans several days before because I prefer to soak my beans for 24 hours and then cook for 2 hours to remove lectins and all that good stuff. I used only pinto beans, instead three different beans, mainly because I didn’t feel like soaking more beans. I also don’t have a dutch oven, so I just made this all in a big pot. I simmered the veggies for 20 minutes and then added the beans and simmered for another 35 minutes. Last minute, we decided that we really wanted something to eat with it and I found this recipe for College Kid’s Microwave Cornbread, which took about 5 minutes total to make. It really turned out to be a super delicious meal.


The Better Bean Company

I eat a lot of beans, and I prefer to make my own so that I can soak them to remove lectins, but that takes at the minimum 24 hours to soak and two or more to cook. I usually either have beans that have been recently prepared or some extra that are frozen, but I don’t always have a specific type of bean ready so I cheat and go to the store to get canned beans. With these guys around, it looks like I don’t have to feel so bad about buying already-prepared beans anymore. Check out their ingredients! Good stuff.


Top training aids that keep you trackable & safe when alone on a ride or run

Having some sort of identification bracelet and/or a way to contact someone in case of emergency while out running, cycling, hiking or whatever it is you’re doing is super important. I hear so many stories these days of people disappearing while out alone hiking or running and they aren’t wearing a GPS tracker to help anyone find them. Most are not abductions or anything like that, but instead people suffering from heart failure or other serious injuries. Sometimes bodies can’t be found for weeks or even months. I don’t travel to the mountains by myself so I don’t have to worry about that, but if I go out for a long bike ride, I always have my phone or quarters for a pay phone and I make sure that someone always knows where I’m headed.

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The Best Health and Fitness Articles of the Week #123 – Supplements for Vegan Endurance Athletes, Paleo Hummus, and Using Marijuana to Stop Seizures

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Endurance Add-On For Vegan/Vegetarian Endurance Athletes

A short list of supplements that vegan/vegetarian athletes should be taking. The photo at the top of this post are not part of this list. Those are just some of the supplements I take when doing heavy weight training programs. 😉


Recipe: Paleo Hummus

I was just talking with coworkers about this last week and then Chris Kresser posts a recipe. Awesome!


Marijuana stops child’s severe seizures – CNN.com

What an amazing discovery. It’s so sad that this little girl was suffering from so many non-stop seizures that it was damaging her brain and beating up her body. Who would have ever guessed that she could be treated by low THC, high CBD marijuana? It’s great that she’s finally living the life that a child should be able to live.


Remember To Hydrate With Tim Ferriss

This is a quick read featuring some of Tim Ferriss’s favorite drinks. I’ve never tried Cold Mugicha Barley Tea or Acai. Cold Mugicha tea sounds pretty cool, since it can decrease body temperature.


No, doctors did not “inject HIV into a dying girl” to treat her cancer

This one has been spreading across social media recently and it really is an amazing story. A lot of the headlines claim that this young girl was injected with the deadly HIV disease, which is not true and is sensationalist journalism at it’s worst. It’s actually a virus derived from HIV, and is so genetically altered that people question whether it should even be called HIV. Still, this is really an amazing feat for the cancer research and treatment industry.

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The Best Health and Fitness Articles of the Week #122 – Why Sugar From Fruit Is Good For You, Construction The Right Training Program For You,

Here’s a recap of the best health and fitness articles I’ve read over the past week.


Making the Case for Eating Fruit – NYTimes.com

I’ve been seeing a lot of articles lately claiming that too much fruit is bad because of its sugar content but nothing that I’ve read has been convincing enough in my eyes. I pretty much agree with what this article says. Sugar in fruits are much different than processed sugars, especially in how they work in the body.


10 Benefits of Essential Oils

I don’t know much at all about essential oils, but I hear about their benefits all the time. I’d really like to start using them more often. I actually bought some tea tree oil for some mold I found under one of my dumbbells in the basement. I’ve been too lazy to use it though. I really need to get on that.


Gil Hedley: Fascia and stretching: The Fuzz Speech – YouTube

You’ve gotta move around and stretch to break apart the “fuzz.” 😉 Warning: Don’t watch this video while eating.


The Feet of People Who Never Wear Shoes

Very interesting studies! And from this post I’ve also discovered a new product that I want – a cobblestone mat. I’ll probably never get one though, because $50-60 is a little too much for something like that. I just need to do more barefoot walking.


Fitness is Not Religion or Politics, and there are Many Ways to Construct a Good Training Program

Bret Contreras makes many great points in this article – you need to eat right, train consistently and you should to exercises that you enjoy. He also included a ton of exercise variations that you can use in place of an exercise that you don’t like.


The 21 Best Kitchen Tools, Grocery Shopping Guides, Cookbooks, Websites and Local Resources To Fuel Your Active Lifestyle

I’m quite familiar with most of things listed in this post although I did learn some new stuff. The Nourishing Traditions cookbook and the Eating On The Wild Side.book both sound really interesting. I also think I should start buying things directly from Nutiva and I think I need to set up an Amazon Prime account.

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The Best Health and Fitness Articles of the Week #121 – Using Coconut Oil As Sex Lube, Getting Better Sleep, and Determining If Deep Squats Are Right For You

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Coconut oil: a natural lube

We’ve started using coconut oil on Michelle’s belly while she’s pregnant to help prevent stretch marks, and the other day I accidentally used too much and got oil everywhere. I was concerned about the safety of the oil being so close to her private parts so I thought I should look it up. It’s safe! During my research I also found this forum post about using coconut oil as a sexual lubricant. The posters say that the coconut oil may help with people who suffer from yeast infections and it might also be safe to use on latex condoms (although you should definitely be cautious, as oils are known to break down latex).


Skipping breakfast might do a dieter good, scientists say

There are many benefits of intermittent fasting, which you can find if you do a quick search on my site. This article doesn’t focus on those benefits, but instead on the fact that people who skip breakfast often don’t end up making up for the calories lost at a later time in the day. It’s a good way to reduce your total daily calories if you’re trying to lose weight.


Staircase Blocks

I’ve never seen these before. They look very convenient and super-easy to build. All you need is two 32″ x 8″ blocks of wood that you can cut “steps” into and you’re good to go. I don’t know how much one block of wood at those dimensions would cost, but it’s probably not too expensive. And as long as you aren’t lifting extremely heavy or dropping the bar on block, you’re probably fine starting with just one block.


Get Better Sleep

I’ve seen these massive posts from Ben Greenfield before but I haven’t read most because of their length, but the last couple he’s done have blown me away. I’m going to go back and read as many of these as I can. This one was amazing!


Q&A: Why Reverse Grip Bench Press?

If you suffer from pain from doing bench press, for example in your forearms, elbows or shoulders, try doing reverse grip bench presses instead. I’ve done reverse grip bench presses before, but not because I was suffering from pain. I don’t remember what the benefit was anymore, but I do remember that I couldn’t lift anywhere near what my normal bench was.


Do You Need to Squat Deeply?

I really want to be one of those people who are able to deep squat with good form, but I think it’s just not built in for me. I haven’t performed deep squats with heavy weight in about 2 months because of a knee injury I suffered while doing deep squats. I really worked hard to go below parallel and I put so much focus on my form, but then my right knee started to hurt like hell and it hasn’t stopped since. It has gotten slightly better over time, but the minute I do squats again, the pain comes back for several days. I still can’t run due to the pain either. I went to my physician and she says it’s not an ACL or meniscus injury based on the exercises she performed, but instead something called “runners knee.” I’ve been given pills for inflammation and a worksheet of rehabilitative exercises. As much pain as the squat has caused me, I’m afraid to do them again. That’s not to say I don’t want to though. I love squatting heavy weight. I miss it.


Top 10 Muscle Building Exercises For A Globo Gym

This is all you need. Most of these exercises are always in my routine, although I might add a few isolation exercises just to change things up and keep my routines fun. Here’s part 2 with some additional variations to those basic exercises.


Buh-Bye Horrific Chemicals!!

There are chemicals in everything we use around the house these days and I wouldn’t doubt if they are part of the reasons why more people suffer from health conditions like cancer or developmental issues. That’s why we try to use only homemade or natural cleaners, and why I just bought a hand steamer (no chemicals at all!)

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The Best Health and Fitness Articles of the Week #120 – Perfect Iced Coffee, How Low Carb Might Be Bad For Your Gut and Easy Meals for Busy Athletes

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Just a short update this week. With a baby on the way, we’ve been really trying to get prepared before Michelle’s third trimester, so I haven’t done much reading in the last week. We have most of our junk piled up and ready for a yard sale and soon we plan to paint several of the rooms. Looks like a busy next couple of months ahead of us, but I’ll do my best to share some of the interesting things I still manage to read.


Perfect Iced Coffee

I love coffee, just like anybody else. I take coffee to a higher level than most though. I’m often called me a coffee nerd because of all of the ways I make coffee. I own a regular coffee machine, but I never use it. I prefer to use a Hario V60 pour over instead. I also own an Aeropress, a french press and a moka pot, but I don’t use those as often. I try to buy only single-origin, organic coffee beans and I grind my coffee using a burr grinder instead of blade grinder. But I do these things because I want the cleanest, healthiest cup of coffee. If you sat me down next to a coffee expert to compare notes on various coffees, the only thing I’d have to say is “yup, that tastes pretty good.” I’ve tried a lot of different types of coffee, but for some reason I’ve never tried an iced coffee. That’s going to change after reading this! I plan to make some healthier modifications of course 😉


Easy Meals For Busy Athletes

Great post from Ben Greenfield about the importance of nutrient density in foods and he also included a huge list of 40 different meals and snacks that you can eat to support your health. I actually used this post to craft my meals for the upcoming week.


Sorry low carbers, your microbiome is just not that into you

Good info for everyone, especially people who do ketogenic diets. And for any vegans reading this, you might think it doesn’t apply to you since we eat so many carbs, but if you’re eating a lot of carbs that contain high amounts of indigestible fiber (wheat, bran, fruit skin, brown rice, seeds, nuts and skin from root vegetables), you might be starving your gut microbes. You should also consume plenty of pre-biotic (asparagus, burdock, chicory, dandelion root, Jerusalem artichoke, leeks, legumes and onions) and pro-biotic (yogurt, sauerkraut, kombucha, miso soup, sourdough bread, naturally fermented pickles and tempeh) foods or take supplements.


Find Your Kryptonite With the Free Bulletproof Food Sense iPhone App!

Food sensitivity testing is one thing I’m really surprised I haven’t actually done yet. I would like to though. But until then, I’ll be using this new iPhone app from The Bulletproof Executive. I can’t wait to see what kind of data I get from this!

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We’re Having a Vegan Baby!

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Yup, that’s right, we’re having a baby! As you might already know, both me and my partner are vegan, so yes, we’ll be raising a vegan baby. We actually have close friends who are also vegan parents which means we can talk to them if we ever have questions. We’ve really done a lot of research though and we’re very confident that we’re going to raise a strong and healthy baby.

I actually set up a new website that we plan to update regularly with what we’re learning. We also want to chronicle our experiences during this journey. You can follow what we’re doing at TheVeganParents.com.

We’re both really excited for the adventure that lies ahead.

So what does that mean for MixedFitness.com? Nothing really. Most of my posts on Mixed Fitness consists of my “Health and Fitness Articles of the Week” updates and I plan to continue posting those every week. You might start to see more posts related to parenting in my updates, but I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to do some sort of “Parenting Articles of the Week” update on my new site instead.

Anyway, we’d love it if you stopped by to say hello. We’d love to have you!

Or if you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments section below 😀

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The Best Health and Fitness Articles of the Week #119 – Easy Homemade Mochi, How to Understand Scientific Research, and Affordable Genetic Testing

japanese-mochi

I took some time off last week for the 4th of July holiday weekend and I didn’t do much reading at all. It was also a really busy week after announcing to my friends and family that we were having a baby, which then gave me the freedom to finally launch my new vegan parenting website. It’s all set up now and hopefully I can back to my normal reading schedule 🙂

I did manage to read a little bit over the past couple of weeks and here are the few articles that I really found interesting.


Simple Recipe: Super Soft Mochi

I read about mochi in The Better Baby Book and looked it up. I’ve actually had this once before from World Market, but I didn’t remember what it was called. I saw it at the store and since I’ve never had it before, I just randomly decided to buy a package of the green tea flavored mochi. It was pretty good. Now I can make my own and I’ll know exactly what’s going in it. You can cheat and make it in the microwave too. That’s what I did. 😉 I used the ingredients from the recipe at Frock Files but used the microwave instructions for mochi here. It’s super easy! I would recommend letting it cool for about 20 minutes so that it’s easier to cut.


Possibility Of First Head Transplant Fraught With Ethical And Medical Dilemmas

This would be amazing and absolutely terrifying at the same time. I really don’t know how I feel about this. The mention of acquiring healthy bodies on the black market sounds straight out of a horror film. But imagine the lives a procedure like this could benefit for people who have muscular dystrophy or some other sort of disorder. Could you picture yourself waking up one day with your head on a different body?


How to Read and Understand Scientific Research

I learned a lot about reading and understanding scientific research when I attended the health and fitness bloggers conference last year and it has helped me a ton when making changes to my own health. If you like to do your own research or if you like to write about health and nutrition, you should definitely read this article.


Make Your Own Non Toxic Cleaning Kit!

Removing and replacing the toxic chemicals we use in and around our home is important to us (me and my partner), and is something we’ve been really been working on doing lately, especially now that we’re having a baby 🙂


Comparing Vinegar Weed Killer Recipes

I had a sprayer that I bought from Home Depot last summer that I had planned to use to fertilize my garden, but I never researched a fertilizer recipe because my garden has always done well enough without it. So when I saw this, I decided to try recipe #3 because I have a huge problem with weeds but I can’t bring myself to use Roundup anymore because not only is it toxic, but it’s also a Monsanto product. On Monday I used the weed whacker to chop everything down and then I sprayed it. Let’s hope it works!


23andMe – Genetic Testing for Health, Disease & Ancestry

One of my coworkers is a health geek just like me and he brought this site to my attention. I’ve really been wanting to do something like this, but all the tests I’ve found are just a little too pricey, but 23andMe costs only $99. That’s definitely affordable. These tests can find your risks for health conditions, conditions you may pass on to your children, and drugs sensitivities you may have – all based on your genes! They will also keep you updated on new science discoveries that pertain to your DNA.

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The Best Health and Fitness Articles of the Week #118 – Taco Flavored Kale Chip Recipe, How Vegans Can Boost Metabolism, and a Remedy for Insomnia

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Here’s a recap of the best health and fitness articles I’ve read over the past week.


Spicy Taco Flavored Kale Chips

A coworker sent this to me but I haven’t tried it yet. I love plain ol’ homemade kale chips using olive oil, salt and sometimes cayenne, so I’m sure I’ll love these. Very gourmet!


My Unexpected Journey into PubMed

If you love doing research and if you’ve ever thought about trying to get a study published, there are some helpful tips for first-timers here. Some researcher I am though, I didn’t even know about jissn. It’s open-access and all articles are freely available to everyone and without registration. Cool!


This DIY Treadmill Desk Helps You Stay Fit While You Work

I would have never thought about buying a simple adjustable workbench to use as a standing desk. It’s not likely that I’ll set up a treadmill desk, but a simple standing desk would be awesome.


Increase Metabolism on a Vegan Diet

I never thought much about my body temperature being regulated by the food I eat but I get it checked regularly as part of my blood donation routine and I’m normal (usually around 98.4). I’m interested in seeing how some of my other vegan friends test.


Spybike and Spylamp bicycle GPS trackers

My local news station ran an investigative story about how bike thieves will steal pretty much any bike and they used the SpyLamp from this company to track down the thieves. I want one! It’s a GPS built right into a working taillight which will notify you by text messages if your bike moves.


Can’t Fall Back Asleep? “Sleepy Dust”—An Unconventional Nutritional Remedy for Insomnia

I don’t wake up in the middle of the night very often but it does happen occasionally. It happened just last weekend actually, but I don’t mind too much when I don’t have to work the next day. I wish I would’ve known about this a long time ago. Al you need is 5 tbsp organic cane sugar, 1 tbsp sucanat/rapadura, and 2 tsp. real sea salt. Easy! When you need it just take a pinch of your mixture.


16 Foods That’ll Re-Grow from Kitchen Scraps

We’ve grown only green onions from their scraps here at our house. We love it! I can’t wait to try these other ideas.

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The Best Health and Fitness Articles of the Week #117 – Homemade Non-GMO Corn Tortillas, Safe Sunscreens and Toxic Tampons

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Here’s a recap of the best health and fitness articles I’ve read over the past week.


In search of non-GMO corn tortillas

I’ve been doing my best to avoid GMOs and non-organic foods in addition to gluten, so in those regards, I’ve stopped eating flour tortillas. I’ve been buying organic tortillas from my local health food store, but I don’t believe they are non-GMO, which led me to search the web for a brand that is and in my search I came across this recipe. It sounds really easy and Bob’s Red Mill Masa Harina is really cheap too.


Whistle Activity Monitor for Dogs

Whistle is a technology company dedicated to creating products that benefit the health of pets. Their first product, The Whistle Activity Monitor, is like a FitBit but for dogs. The Whistle attaches to your pet’s collar, collects data on activity and provides a report for you or your veterinarian so that you can make informed healthcare decisions. The Whistle will cost 99.95 and can be preordered right now. I don’t know when it will officially launch.


BPA, the plastic food packaging, may be partially responsible for obesity

Yet another study showing the negative health effects of consuming foods that have come into contact with BPA. I don’t know if all of my Tupperware is BPA-free but after reading this I’m finally going to go through all of my containers and make sure.


Sun protection and safe sunscreen tips

I’m one of those people who never use sunscreen even though I know I should. It’s not because I want a tan or anything like that. I’m just lazy. There’s a handy list of safe sunscreens at the end of this article if you want to jump right to it. I like the Kiss My Face brand because they don’t test on animals so I’ll probably pick up a bottle of that.


One set, not three, is enough for strength gains over a 10-week session, says new research

If three sets of an exercise resulted in the same outcome as one set, which option would you rather do? I’m guessing you’d do one set and get the hell out of the gym. Well this study shows that one set actually could be better than three. I think this is basically what Doug McGuff, MD has been teaching for a while now.


Anti-smoking medication shows promise for treating alcohol dependence

I love seeing studies like this. It’s so cool that a drug that was created for one purpose also works to treat other illnesses. Science! I have two family members who struggle with alcoholism so hopefully this study results in something bigger.


Chipotle Starts Labeling GMO Ingredients On Website Menu

I’m a big fan of Chipotle, but now that I know that most of their menu consists of GMO ingredients, I probably won’t be eating there much anymore. If I avoid GMO’s at Chipotle, I can eat black beans, guacamole, lettuce, and any of their salsas. I can’t eat their tortillas, tacos, chips or rice. Also, I really hate when people call Chipotle, Chipoltay, like the guy in this video does. I hate it almost as much as GMOs.


Toxic Tampons: Feminine Hygiene Alternatives

Not being a woman myself, I would have never thought about this, but I’m sending this to my significant other for sure. I care about her health as much as I do mine.