Vital Choice fresh-frozen organic blueberries, strawberries and red raspberries are rich in anti-aging antioxidants, and draw customer comments like this:
"OH MY GOODNESS! I cannot believe the flavor ... the taste reminds me of something from my childhood. Thanks for a great product!"

Our wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon offers special appeal to those—like many of us here at Vital Choice—who like their wild salmon firm and flavorful.

These sustainably harvested fish are a super-healthy source of protein, rich in long-chain omega-3 essential fatty acids, and potent natural antioxidants.

And sockeye is a nearly unrivalled food source of bone-saving, cancer-curbing vitamin D, with a whopping 1,100 IU per 6-oz serving, or nearly triple the US RDA.

Our flash-frozen portions come vacuum-sealed for superior quality and convenience. Certified Kosher by EarthK

Vital Choice smoked Salmon is far superior to the notably greasy stuff made with farmed fish.  

After curing in natural alder wood smoke, our Smoked Sockeye Portions and silky, cold-smoked Sliced Nova Lox are immediately vacuum-packed and flash-frozen.  Thawed and served, they taste as though they came fresh out of the smoker.
 

Don't overlook our Smoked Salmon Sampler, which is our best smoked value by far. It has just one drawback: you'll get hooked on every part, and especially on our addictive Yukon King Salmon and Yukon King Salmon "Candy"!
 

Two years ago, German researchers reported the positive results of a small clinical trial in which they fed some subjects tomato paste, and found that this dietary regimen reduced sun-induced damage to skin (Stahl W et al. 2006).

New clinical findings from Britain repeat the positive results of the German research and support the hypothesis that diets high in antioxidant-rich plant foods help protect the skin from damage induced by UV sunrays.

The UK team was led by Professor Lesley Rhodes, M.D., Ph.D., who also conducted the research mentioned above concerning the opposite effects of omega-3 and omega-6 levels with regard to skin protection from sun (Rizwan M et al. 2008).

Scientists from the Universities of Newcastle and Manchester recruited 20 people and randomly assigned them to receive one of two supplemental food prescriptions daily for three months:

• Two ounces (five tablespoons or 55 grams) of tomato paste plus 10 grams (one tablespoon or 1/3 oz) of olive oil*.
• Olive oil* only.

*The grade of olive oil was not specified in the study. Hypothetically, extra virgin olive oil should be more protective because it abounds in extremely potent antioxidants that are virtually absent from the cheap, chemically extracted olive oil used in most packaged food products.

The volunteers’ skin was exposed to UV light at the beginning and end of the three-month study.

At the end of the trial, the tomato paste group had enjoyed 33 percent more protection against sunburn, compared with the olive-oil-only group.

This level of protection was equivalent to a sunscreen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of 1.3.

While this small SPF is only 1/10 that of a typical SPF 15 sunscreen, the one-third reduction in burn risk observed by the Brits is very substantial.

In addition to this reduced burn risk, skin samples from the volunteers in the tomato group had significantly higher skin levels of pro-collagen … the protein that gives skin its structure.

The British team attributed the protective benefits of tomato paste to lycopene: a carotene-class antioxidant and red pigment known to neutralize the oxygen radicals created by exposure to UV sunrays.

The researchers told attendees at the 2008 meeting of the British Society for Investigative Dermatology that lycopene appears to reduce damage to DNA in the mitochondria (energy factories) of skin cells.

Anything that protects skin cells’ mitochondrial energy factories and their DNA is likely to enhance skin health and exert an anti-aging effect.

Cocoa, tea, grapes, and berries appear protective

Lycopene-rich tomato paste and sauce aren’t the only foods that may offer potent protection against sun damage to ...

While most heart specialists focus solely on drugs and surgery, pioneering cardiologist Stephen Sinatra, M.D. has long known that there’s much more to heart health than plumbing.

He's made it his life work to investigate the crucial roles that behavior, emotion, and nutrition play in heart disease, in order to help people prevent and reverse heart disease via conventional and complementary therapies.

Dr. Sinatra has authored several pioneering works on the multiple causes and cures for heart disease, including The Sinatra Solution: Metabolic Cardiology.

Today, we’ll take a look at the updated 2008 edition of The Sinatra Solution, published earlier this month, which includes the latest findings on key cardiac supplements and offers illuminating case studies.

First published in 2005, The Sinatra Solution educated patients – and many doctors – about the metabolic processes critical to heart health, and four dietary supplements that can boost energy levels in heart-muscle cells.

The Sinatra Solution highlights the often-overlooked metabolic aspects of heart disease.

 

About Dr. Sinatra Dr. Sinatra is the board-certified cardiac surgeon and internist who gained fame in 1998 for his first bestseller, Optimum Health: A Natural Lifesaving Prescription for your Body and Mind.   Last year, we reviewed Reverse Heart Disease Now, in which he explored the lifestyle factors that affect cardiovascular disease. (See our review here.) He’s since written several landmark books on cardiovascular health and has appeared often on national radio and TV, including CNN, XM Radio, and PBS. Dr. Sinatra is also the author of the informative, engaging newsletter Heart, Health & Nutrition.

Simply put, the heart needs a great deal of energy, but its cells’ capacity to generate it declines as a result of heart disease. This situation creates a downward spiral that drugs can’t reverse and artery-clearing surgery doesn't always alleviate.

Heart patients’ energy shortage

To get sufficient energy, the heart’s muscle cells require two things that patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD) or congestive heart failure (CHF) often lack:

• An abundant supply of oxygen-rich blood.
• Ample supplies of certain nutrients and metabolic chemicals.

Together, these factors enable heart cells’ energy factories – called mitochondria – to generate the fuel that keeps the heart humming.

The Sinatra Solution focuses on four unsung heroes of cardiac health: coenzyme Q10 (coQ10), L-carnitine, magnesium, and D-ribose.

The synergistic combination of these energy-supplying nutrients maximizes the amount of oxygen that the heart and skeletal muscle can extract from the blood and optimize the rate at which cells convert food to the vital energy-storage chemical known as ATP, without which cells cannot function.

In The Sinatra Solution, Dr. Sinatra explains the importance of cellular energy metabolism on cardiovascular health, and the positive impact these four energy-supplying nutrients have on the cardiovascular system.

 

Taking statins? Sick at heart? Consider taking coenzyme Q10 Countless studies have documented the benefits of coQ10 in cardiovascular disease and congestive heart failure.   Sadly, all too few cardiologists recommend coQ10 supplements, even though the cholesterol-lowering statin drugs they routinely prescribe reduce tissue levels of coQ10.   Many heart patients suffer inadequate coQ10 levels and internal production of coQ10 requires optimal nutrition, making this common medical failure close to malpractice.   Unknown until the early 1970’s, coenzyme Q10 is a vitamin-like compound essential to the energy-producing metabolic pathways of every cell. (Coenzymes are small non-protein molecules that carry chemical groups between the complex proteins known as enzymes, which do much of the body’s cell-level work.)   British scientist Peter Mitchell won the 1978 Nobel Prize for elucidating coQ10’s role in the energy transfer processes within the mitochondria of human cells.   CoQ10 also acts as an essential, fat-soluble antioxidant that protects the fatty acids in cell membranes from free radicals.   While coQ10 occurs in leafy greens, nuts, fish and meats, it is hard to absorb from foods and most of the body’s coQ10 is created within cells via a complex process that requires adequate supplies of specific amino acids, vitamins, and minerals.   As Dr. Sinatra, explains, CoQ10 comes in supplemental forms that are much easier for the body to absorb, compared to food sources.

He guides us through the basics of energy metabolism, and clearly describes how coQ10, magnesium, L-carnitine, and D-ribose affect heart health.

These excerpts will give you a sense of why he is so passionate about the need to ensure adequate intake of all four heart-health factors:

“It’s all about ATP. Hearts, skeletal muscles, and every other tissue in our bodies have absolute need for adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, as their primary energy currency.”

• “Coenzyme Q10 and L-carnitine are major players in the energy recycling metabolic pathways. Both are known to be deficient in sick hearts and muscles.”
• “D-ribose is the only compound used by the body to replenish depleted energy stores. Hearts and muscles do not have the metabolic machinery they need to make ribose quickly when tissues are affected by metabolic stress.”
• “Magnesium is a vital mineral used by the enzymes that make energy synthesis and recycling possible. Without this important nutrient, the cells’ energy metabolism would grind to a halt.”

He cites scientific studies and provides illustrative case histories that testify to the important contribution ...

What does it means to say that fish oil is good for the heart?

We’re overdue for an updated answer to this basic question, and the publication of a new evidence review is a welcome coincidence.

The paper’s authors include James O'Keefe, M.D. and William Harris, Ph.D. … names well known to folks who follow the subject of omega-3s and heart health.

(Dr. O’Keefe works at Kansas City’s Mid America Heart Institute and University of Missouri, while Dr. Harris conducts research at the University of South Dakota’s School of Medicine.)

Last month, the journal “Mayo Clinic Proceedings” published a new review of the best clinical (human) evidence concerning the effects of omega-3s on cardiac health risks, authored by Drs. O’Keefe and Harris and scientific colleagues from New Orleans and Italy (Lee JH et al. 2008).

The authors considered the epidemiological evidence but focused on the best available clinical evidence, which comes from three large, placebo-controlled trials that involved a total of 32,000 volunteers.

The participants in all three trials were randomly assigned to take either omega-3 fish oil capsules or placebo oil capsules.

In these three key clinical trials, the risk of “adverse cardiac events” – heart attack, stroke, arrhythmia, sudden death – dropped by 19 percent to 45 percent among the participants who took fish oil, compared with those who took placebo capsules.

Findings summarize heart-related omega-3 research

The results of the new evidence review affirm several key theories about omega-3s, and summarize what we know about how they work, at what doses, and in which forms (Lee JH et al. 2008):

Cardiovascular health benefits

• Omega-3s reduce the risk of a second heart attack.
• Omega-3s reduce the risk of ischemic strokes, which account for 85 percent of all strokes.
• Omega-3s reduce the risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD), which causes half of all heart-related fatalities and usually results from an unexpected heart rhythm problem (arrhythmia).
• Eating one fish meal per week reduces the risk of developing heart disease by 15 percent. Eating five or more fish meals per week reduces the risk by 40 percent.

Dose and form

• Americans’ average intake of omega-3s, whether from fish or fish oil, should be increased, especially ...

Among other vegetables, today’s recipe features artichokes. The ancient Egyptians placed great value on this once-exotic vegetable, which the Greeks and Romans employed as a digestive aid.

In fact, artichoke possesses clinically proven choleretic (bile stimulating) and digestion-enhancing powers that make artichoke extract popular in Europe for mild indigestion.

Likewise, extracts of the vegetable have proven highly beneficial in clinical trials of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Artichoke extract has also been shown to lower cholesterol and triglyceride levels significantly, probably because it blocks synthesis and/or promotes elimination of cholesterol. And in test tube studies, artichoke flavonoids prevent LDL-cholesterol oxidation, which typically reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease.

In several European countries, artichoke extracts are prescription drugs for liver disorders. In animal studies, the flavonoid antioxidants in artichoke leaf extract reverse damage done by harmful chemicals in liver cells.

But the best way to benefit from artichoke is to enjoy it regularly as a delicious food!

Note: If you're not keen on artichokes, use mushrooms instead.

Wild Sockeye Salmon and Warm Vegetable Salad 

Serves 4

2 cans (7.5 OR 6.5 oz. each) Sockeye Salmon (traditional pack OR ...