Hi Everyone.

Please find the April 15, 2010 Wholly Macro Delivery Menu below. It is delicious and nutritious (as always), and full of special healing super foods, discreetly inter-dispersed among the staple miso based soup, whole grain dish, bean dish, and assorted vegetable dishes. Each and every one of our weekly delivery service menus are carefully planned, coordinated, and crafted so as to utilize as many of the multitudes of important foods we feel you should incorporate into your weekly, if not daily, diets, as possible.

This weeks super star food is the modest pumpkin seed.

I received messages from various sources this week touting the pumpkin seeds health benefits, especially for men, making it clear to me that I had to say a few words about it in this weeks newsletter.

I know I often times write from a woman's perspective, being a woman, even though the benefits of most foods are unisexual. But this week MEN, this one is especially for you! 

There was an article in Men's Health magazine listing pumpkin seeds as one of the 20 best organic foods for men (April 2010 Issue).

By adding this delectable seed to your diet you can upgrade your nutrition and strengthen your body. Pumpkin seeds are an excellent source of protein, fiber, magnesium, omega fatty acids, iron, and zinc. They are cholesterol free.

The key nutrient in them for men is the zinc. Zinc is especially important to men for prostate health. A study done at the University of Chicago Medical School on 5000 men confirms that zinc prevents prostate enlargement. Pumpkin seeds are probably the single best food source of zinc on the planet. Oysters are a close runner up, but not nearly as pure a food source as pumpkin seeds are. (Think bacteria levels and toxic waste in oyster beds). There is a lot of "folk lore" about oysters and male virility, not unfounded it seems. I'm thinking that the zinc is the key here! To our human bodies, zinc is zinc, whether is comes from a pumpkin seed or an oyster. In today's world, pollution being what it is sadly, plant sourced foods are ultimately a purer and safer choice than animal or sea foods. Now I'm envisioning our many male customers emptying the pumpkin seed bulk bins at the health food store!!

Men need more zinc than women, but for both men and women, infection and / or stress can significantly lower zinc levels, and who among us doesn't have stress?? We need 50 - 100 mg. of zinc daily. But the average American diet provides only about 15 mg of zinc daily at best.

You can incorporate pumpkin seeds into your diet, and greatly increase your zinc intake naturally, by ordering from the Wholly Macro menu's, as I don't think a week goes by where there aren't pumpkin seeds somewhere on our menu, and / or, you can buy fresh organic pumpkin seeds from the health food store, rinse them in pure water, add about � teaspoon of high quality sea salt to about 1 cup of pumpkin seeds while they are still damp, then dry roast them on medium until they begin to pop. Let them cool, then store them in a glass jar in the fridge, and sprinkle them on grain dishes and vegetable dishes or salads, or use them in your favorite recipes. You will not get too much zinc in your diet when obtaining it from a food source. But please consult an expert when using supplements.

Macrobiotic Current Events:

There are several fun events coming up in the next few weeks that we wanted to let you know about, that Wholly Macro is participating in.

1. On April 22 I will be doing a free lecture at a wonderfully enterprising client of ours beautiful acupuncture clinic. The lecture is entitled Macrobiotics: The Food Component Of Oriental Medicine. It will be a show and tell type format, highlighting the many healthy foods that we borrow from macrobiotics to create the utmost in healthy cuisine, and how these foods compliment and round out healing body therapies such as acupuncture. Refreshments will be served, I'll be speaking, and you can check out this lovely acupuncturist and her clinic for future use.

If you would like to attend, please call or email Barbara, the office manager at the clinic, for further information and to insure your spot. You can reach her at 954 317-2922 or anne@healthfrominsideout.net.

2. The Macrobiotic Dinner and Lecture Group will be meeting on April 25 at 7 PM at Wild East Asian Bistro on Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. The topic of this lecture will be: The Fine Art Of Body Scrubbing, and will be presenting my user - friendly version of this ancient oriental health and beauty technique.

For information and reservations please contact Dena Axelrod at 954 484-8008, or daxelrod@bellsouth.net.

We hope to see you at one or both of these events.

In health as always,

Gayle and Jaime