Remember a few posts ago when I mentioned that after having-it-up-to-here with magazines that promote unhealthy products and mindsets I half-heartedly subscribed to Martha Stewart’s Whole Living magazine? The tagline of the mag is “body + soul in balance.” It sounded like a fairly likeable magazine, unless it turned out to be just another catch-phrase label, cleverly masking its unhealthy content.
Which, I am quite pleased to say, it is not. I received my first issue nearly two weeks ago and I just now had a chance to really spend some time with it and see for myself what the editors think “whole living” is. I am ecstatic that they pretty much promote what I already believe, and their tagline is quite in balance with that. I sat down with my magazine tabs and was amazed at how many blue ones I needed. See, in my scheme of magazine perusal I color code ideas and things I want to come back to with these cute little page flags. The blue ones are for health/medical/wellness ideas that I either need to save or follow up on. Typically, even in Health magazine, I only used one or two blue flags, and that wasn’t even with every issue. LOOK at this:
That’s an unprecedented amount of blue tags, folks! Which means that they share a lot of health and wellness advice that I deem valuable.
Best part? No annoying ads of beautiful, air-brushed, you’re-never-gonna-look-like-this-in-a-million-years models. The ads are for things like seriously all-natural gummy vitamin supplements, organic teas, and products that promote natural beauty and health without chemicals and artificial ingredients (for the most part). They promote sustainable companies and products, which I realize I don’t know enough about. In short, I find this magazine to be severely lacking in “plastic promotion” – petrochemicals, harmful beauty regimens and overall fakeness. (Is “fakeness” even a word??) Allow me to share with you some of my favorite parts of the November 2011 issue:
Pages 2-3 contain an action plan for strengthening the immune system and beating stress in November, like how to ease a sore throat and a recipe for air freshener without hormone-disrupting chemicals. All of the advice solutions are natural – really natural, not just buzzword natural. 😉
Page 22 shares the “Econumdrum” of home efficiency and offers insight into how to improve your home’s heating efficiency this winter. Page 26 tells you how to shop for ethical meats. Several natural perfume recipes are listed on page 42, and page 48 enlightened me to the ancient art of Ayurveda. I’m going to share Page 52 with Dom as I try to get him to follow some yoga advice for people with rotator cuff injuries.
There is an entire recipe section where you’ll find all kinds of special-diet healthy recipes to share at Thanksgiving, so even people with food sensitivities can enjoy the feast at your table. And best of all, there is a recipe for Dark Chocolate Bark with Pistachios and Sea Salt. Oh my.
Not everything promoted in the mag is “organic,” which is okay because not everything has to be. One article even points out the fallacy in thinking that organic foods are healthier foods for losing weight, which I found out on my own is not the case. (Generally speaking, organic produce is preferred to its non-organic counterparts, but organic snacks are NOT necessarily lower in fat, sugar or calories. It is still incumbent upon us to read and decipher labels.) I also was inspired by the article that pointed out, “What is healthy for me may not be healthy for you. Listen to your body…”
Check out the magazine online. Subscribe. Or, buy one in the checkout line. Call me up and we’ll chat about the articles. You know you want to!