Ana Calvo Nutrition

Here are various exciting compounds only found in plants which although not considered essential are extremely important and are a huge reason as to why a whole-foods plant-based diet can help to lower the risk of an angina attack by 90%, to improve digestion, increase energy levels, vitality and general wellbeing, promote better sleep and physical functioning, to maintain a healthy body weight and blood sugar levels and to lower cholesterol, depression and anxiety (1). These wonderful compunds are called… guessed by the title?… PHYTONUTRIENTS!! (or phytochemicals). Phyto means plant in Greek and even though we know around 100000 of them exist, there’re a huge array of them we don’t know about yet. Plant foods are often times underestimated as some people believe we only get some minerals, vitamins and fiber out of them but when you discover the existence of all the diverse phytonutrients and their amazing health benefits you’ll definitely think much highly of them. Because of this way...

As we should all remember form our biology class photosynthesis is the process by which plants convert sun light into energy through chroloplasts (a type of plant cells containing chlorophyll). So of course this process is unique to plants and certain bacteria… or is it??? I was absolutely fascinated when I read the following studies that prove that humans most likely can also convert energy from the sun: Firstly it has been proven that MELANIN (the hormone that help us tan) breaks the paradigm of being able to dissociate and re-form the water molecule. This means that humans also have the amazing ability to transform the photon energy into chemical energy, in other words we are able to photosyntesize!! And melanin is also thousands of times more efficient in doing so that chlorophyll (1). So we could say that melanin is to the animal kingdom what chlorophyll is to the plant kingdom. The Human Photosynthesis Study Center claims that one-third of the energy available to a human being is...

Continuing my last post let's talk about the benefits of a whole-foods plantbased diet in term of health and nutrition. 1) Scientifically proven to prevent and reverse cardiovascular disease and  Diabetes type II , th e two mayor non-infectious prevalent diseases in the world today. Isn't this good enough reason? Ok, let's move on! 2) Weight loss : vegans have the lowest BMI compared to vegetarians and omnivores. I will talk more about this in a future post but to sum it up the risks that being overweight carry are very well known, so why not swap to a lifestyle that naturally promotes weightloss?  3) Inflammation and immune system :   - All aminal protein is inflammatory while whole plants are anti-inflammatory.  Inflammation plays a pivotal role in the immune system pathogen attack but when it becomes chronic it can lead to a slowed down system (lowered potential to fight infections and higer chance to miss the destruction of forming tumoral cells ) or to a overr...

Hello again! Let's continue where I left off on my last post. Here's the story on how and why I decided to #govegan ... This happened almost 3 years ago while I was studying for my Master's. Now that I look back on it, it feels as if all the puzzle pieces came together at once to provide me with the answers I have been looking for for so long. On the one hand I was reading more and more about the healthiest diets and the best research all pointed to a Whole Foods Plant-Based diet, which meant no animal products so I was already having the possibility in mind. Then within the same week I attended 2 festivals: - Irish farming festival  (I won't name it): I was invited to go there, sold with the idea that it was a fun festival to go to. Not only was I extremelly uncomfortable for an unkown reason throughout the whole thing (probably my gut feeling knew how wrong everything was even befor I did), but the moment I saw all the poor caws being displayed as a mere product to tr...

Who am I? Hello every one! My name is Ana Calvo, I am a Nutrition and Dietetics Master's graduate especialised in clinic nutrition who follows and promosed a plant-based diet, more commonly known as a vegan diet.  This is the simplified, boring version of me, for the full version I invite you to check: My story! I was born in a small city in the North of Spain and was forced to chose a university as soon as a I finished my high school. I chose to study nutrition and dietetics because it was close to my house and I love food. At the time though I wasn't really passionate about it, my true dream was to become a rock star and travel the world!!! So after having fun with my rock band for a few years I decided to start traveling.  Firstly I spent a year in Ireland looking after kids, learning English and having the craic (as the Irish say). I though "what a great way to see the world, let me keep discovering!" So I decided to spend another year exploring and went to Londo...