Hello, Londondiva!
Hehehe...you knew I would reply to this one. I am out here cruising around this new site and saw your post, so I pulled up an old post from the old LHL. It's a portion of a post I wrote "Haircare from the Inside Out."
"I think nutrition is extremely important for your hair. I strive to maintain an excellent diet at least 85% of the time. I eat loads of fruit and have a good dose of vegetables everyday. Fruits like kiwis, every variety of apple available, concord and red grapes, and berries like blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries. For vegetables, my mainstays are broccoli, cabbage, green and yellow squash, green beans, red, white and sweet potatoes, and cauliflower. I also enjoy eggplant and the often termed no-no hair food..tomatoes. And, I have to say that I have acquired my mom's taste for mushrooms, especially the shitake and reishi. I add these to my famous spaghetti sauce with black olives which I also adore. I also eat very little red meat now, maybe once a month or so. My mainstay protein sources are fish like salmon, rainbow trout, tuna, sea bass and some shrimp and crabmeat during the holidays. I also like Kosher chicken when the free-range kind is not available to me. Other foods which I enjoy and eat a fair amount of are plain yogurt(low fat), carrots, beets, oats, onions, and nuts and seeds, especially almonds, walnuts and pistachios, and sunflower and pumpkin seeds. For sweetners, I like honey and molasses the best.
The other part of my diet which I think is so good for your body, including your hair, is good-quality water. I'm sure that I drink close to 2 gallons daily now. I'll give a plug here for my favorite, Deer Park. I try to balance this with the amount of weaknesses I ingest daily which include ginger beer, ginger ale and tea of all kinds. I've been drinking tea since around age 8 and I have no plans to stop the oolong, green or black varieties. For me, the bulk of herbal teas just don't have the same appeal, but I do like elderberry and rose hips very much
I try not to drink more than 3 cups of tea and a glass or so of the ginger ale or beer each day. I also like juices like grape, orange and apple. I'm not really into the green drinks, but I do have them sometimes."
Girl, I don't think I am drinking 2 gallons of water these days. I know it's close to a gallon, but not 2 /images/graemlins/shocked.gif
The deal with the tuna and mercury is very depressing to me, but very true. This includes all types. I wondered about yellowfin, but my doc says same situation. There is a list I posted a long time ago of types of fish to avoid in great quantities due to high mercury. With the tuna, as I told you before, 1 can per month and NO MORE. And, I'd shoot for the mid-size can, too. With the fish I listed in my previous post, I was happy to learn that I will not have to give up any of them. They are all on the list to enjoy. Definitely keep eating the salmon.
I've never understood why "shade vegetables" like the eggplant and tomatoes were ones to avoid. I first saw this at the Hair Boutique, but have read it at other sites.
With the seaweed salad, I don't know whether Whole Foods has different ones for different areas in terms of the fresh-frozen kind. Mine was not sweet and salty...it was extremely CHEWY and the garlic and onions made it quite good. As Nyambura mentioned, there are tons of options available here. The best thing to do is check at your local healthfood store to see what is available to you.
The refined sugar depletes your B Vitamins, those you acquire in food and may take orally. Just eats them away and that is not what you want. With the sugar, we all know that excessive amounts are not good for us and often tied to many diseases. I would suggest keeping a balance here.
Natural sugars are better, but not to excess. It's not great to let fruit get excessively ripe, say like a cantalope or even a banana.
The same is true with caffeine...moderation.
I have been missing you guys. I'm trying to get my act together for the vacation I mentioned. I leave Monday for Hawaii and will be back November 11. I've also been so shocked about the horrible sniper in the DC Metro area...very frightening. We live in a very violent world.
I've got to run and eat my haddock, sweet potato and salad...I can smell the sweet potato /images/graemlins/blush.gif Hopefully, I will get back and get to explore the site and everything here before I leave for vacation.
Much Love and Cheer to you all,
Jade