Julian Georgiou, Healingtalks Contributing Writer

(Healingtalks) Research reveals that processed and sugary foods  have an addictive impact on the brain, and with withdrawal symptoms similar to that of drug addictions.

This is based on the investigative reports of Bloomberg’s Robert Langreth and Duane Stanford. They discovered and compiled studies that provided cumulative evidence that high sugar diets are essentially unhealthy and addictive. However, it is in the manufacture’s best interest to sell products of that strongly lure consumers and in order  to achiever higher profits

Furthermore, the attempt to conceal this fact mimics the behavior of tobacco companies.

Overwhelming data

According to a National Library of Medicine database, and verifying the addictive nature of high-sugar-laden foods, a whopping 28 scientific studies and papers have been published on this, and in just this year alone. These  findings reveal exactly how high refined sugar and fructose corn syrup ingredients do cause brain changes and addictive behavior. Here is a sample:

• University of Texas  – A career of overeating causes blunted reward receipt, the same symptom of chronic drug abuse.
• Princeton University – Sugar addicts suffer withdrawal symptoms including anxiety, shakes and tremors. In addition physiological damage to dopamine receptors in the brain, similar to those seen in animals on addictive drugs.
• University of Bordeaux – Researches were stunned when rats prefer sugar water sweetened to hits of cocaine
• University of Florida – Viewing images of sugary drinks caused areas of the brain to become hyperactive in the same way an alcoholics does when anticipating a drink.
• Scripps Research Institute in Florida – Found damage to the brain’s reward centers may occur when people eat excessive quantities of food.
• Harvard University researcher – Highly processed foods may cause rapid spikes and declines in blood sugar, increasing cravings.
• National Institute on Drug Abuse - We are finding tremendous overlap between drugs in the brain and food in the brain.
• Journal Nature Neuroscience – Results produced the same brain pattern that occurs with an escalating intake of cocaine.

Obesity epidemic

In the U.S., 1/3rd of adults and 17 percent of teens and children are obese, and the numbers are increasing  (Langreth & Stanford, 2011). Obese individuals are addicted to foods that are carefully designed to deceive the palate and thus to cause excessive cravings that are impossible to satisfy.

Sugar Addictions

As a result, our modern diet is really creating dependent “food-patients” who become sick and lack the knowledge or will to change their ways.

‘Modern processing creates food with concentrated levels of sugars, unhealthy fats and refined flour, without redeeming levels of fiber or nutrients. Constant stimulation with tasty, calorie- laden foods may desensitize the brain’s circuitry, leading people to consume greater quantities of junk food to maintain a constant state of pleasure’ (Langreth & Stanford, 2011).

Selling shallow happiness

Manufactures use science to create products that intentionally overstimulate taste buds. They then sell those products to the public, especially children, and using millions of dollars for savvy marketing. They offer up images of  ‘happiness’ to an otherwise bored, stressed or depressed population – and which often affects  young adults and children the most.

The resulting food addictions then become clear early on, as when a mother sees her children all crying in a supermarket due to their latest craving for a candy or ‘sugar fix’.

Changing our diets

A time will come when food manufactures will come under stricter regulations, those that can balances taste and nutrition, plus to provide consumer ample information to make educated choices. Until that time, ‘buyer beware’ when choosing various foods and snacks. When weaning off processed sugar products, one should know, and deeply process that fact that the health benefits of getting off this sugar addiction exceed by far the pleasure of a‘quick ‘sugar fix.’

Related articles

• Shocking study shows American teens aren’t fit by far
• Flame Retardants only a soft drink away
• Artificial sweetener disease – a new illness 
• Sugary Drinks Raise Diabetes Risk

Video

References

Langreth, R, 11/2/11, Fatty Foods Addictive as Cocaine in Growing Body of Science

Keywords

Sugar addicts, signs of withdrawal, alcoholism symptoms, effects of addiction, signs of addiction, modern diet, junk foods, changing your diet, eat health food, how to eat healthier

Easy Raw

Sauerkraut

Making Recipe

Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Healingtalks Editor

(Healingtalks) In suggesting some easy raw sauerkraut making recipes, let’s first look at the benefits

Benefits of making raw (unpasteurized) sauerkraut:

• Raw sauerkraut aids in the digestion of any meal.
• Super holiday food to help over-eating yummy treats
• It’s a GREAT source of vitamin C and B-complexes.
•  It introduces friendly bacteria into the intestinal tract and helps satisfy cravings.
• Raw sauerkraut control yeast overgrowth (i.e. candida).
• Fermented foods help strengthen the immune system to ward off colds and other immune assaults
• May help ward off more serious ills, giving the body a higher level of vitality
• Ancient method of storing food before there was refrigeration

Grand recipe – Hippocrates “sauerkraut nouveau”

Remember eating red cabbage out of a pickling jar?

Well, here is the recipe in a tasty salad! You could also make this with green kraut, too, but the red is extra nutritious – and looks real pretty!

• 2 cups of raw sauerkraut or one head
• 1 stalk celery, minced
• 1/2 red onion, minced1/8 tsp. cayenne
• Slice of sugary apple to help the fermentation
• 1 tablespoon of Himalayan salt

Tips on preparing sauerkraut

• Peel the top leaves that may have darkened
• Peel the next good layer and set it aside as you need it to top the sauerkraut as it ferments
• Chop the rest of the leaves finely. You can grate it in a food processor
• Add other veggies and grate them or spices for flavoring
• Consider adding some seaweed for super-mineralization (just like in growing plants with seaweed fertilizers)
• Add quality salt (like Himalaya), about 2% relative to the total weight of the sauerkraut. 1 tab
• Stir with the salt and other spices and pound for 10 minutes until it is juicy; let it sit for an hour and repeat
• Transfer to large jars and pack down tightly; let liquid rise to top; cut the put aside leaves so the pieces fit inside on top of jarred sauerkraut; add a weight, like a shot glass to keep the sauerkraut submerged
• Allow an inch space on top of the leaf to allow for expansion
• Do not tighten the lid fully
• Label the lid with the date of preparation
• Packing down can be in layers with a thin slice of something sweet in between, your favorite fruit, like apple slices to help fermentation
• Store in a cupboard or cool and dark place; place towel underneath to catch drippings; towel over to enhance darkness
• Leave in that cool and dark place for about 3-4 days; less if warm, more if cool; then transfer to refrig
• You can tell if the fermentation has taken if the smell is sour/attractive rather than repulsive
• Green cabbage will turn yellow in color as a sign the fermentation has taken
• Can leave in frig indefinitely

Related Videos

How to make and on the benefits of sauerkraut:

More details on home preparation:

Make your own homemade Sauerkraut- Raw Vegan from Lauren Amerson on Vimeo.

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Fermenting Food Movement That Ferments

The Misdiagnosed Health Problem – Candida Infection Is Overlooked

Hippocrates Half Century Contribution

http://www.healingtalks.com/enviroment/fungus-and-mold/the-misdiagnosed-health-problem-candida-infection-is-overlooked/

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Exercise can help

you sleep at night

Julian Georgiou, Healingtalks Contributing Writer

(Healingtalks)  Dramatic statistics tell us that more than one-third of U.S. adults have trouble falling asleep at night or staying alert during the day.

Inadequate sleep has been linked to many ills, including depression, cardiovascular disease and other health problems. Getting a good night’s sleep regulates moods, aids memory functions, plus concentration, learning, and focus. It is a critical factor in health, weight and energy levels (Davila, 2009).

So what to do?

Let’s explore combining a healthy diet and a regular exercise program.

Real links between exercise and sleep

Scientists at Northwestern University conducted a study which showed that those who exercised reported their sleep quality improved immensely. They also reported fewer depression symptoms, more vitality, and less sleepiness during the daytime. ‘By improving sleep, they were able to improve physical and mental health as well as the ability to fight diseases

Exercise timing

The type and timing of your exercise makes a difference.

A light morning exercise, like running or walking outside,  can relieve stress, improve mood and impact sleep at the end of the day. Exposure to natural light in the morning reinforces your body’s sleep-wake cycle. Waking up earlier and walking or bicycling to work could help your overall vitality and quality of sleep (Virdil, 2011).

To affect your sleeping habits even more, vigorous late afternoon or early evening exercise is recommended. Exercise too close to bedtime and you can have a negative impact because your body’s temperature needs time to cool down. The exact time it takes can vary from person to person so a trial and error approach could be taken. The decrease in body temperature appears to be a trigger that helps ease you into sleep (Virdil, 2011).

Exercise types

The type of exercise is also important. Virdil recommends a 20 minute cardiovascular workout to get the heart pumping. It will make a difference to the depth of sleep. Also it’s best to choose an activity you love to do for your routine. It shouldn’t be  burden.  Having fun greatly betters the chance that the exercise is maintained.

Exercise for life

Healthy eating and regular exercise are essential for a good life. To recap, the benefits of exercising includes; better sleep, greater weight control, improved immunity, less mood swings, higher levels of energy, and even a better sex life. Lastly it can be fun. So let get with it! Exercise regularly for better sleeping and which then leads to better living.

Related Articles

Secrets To Sleeping Soundly

Tips for a good night’s sleep

Few Simple Tips to Help Fall Asleep Faster

Video

References

Virdil, D, 2011, How to Fall Asleep,

Hendrick, B,  09/17/10, Exercise Helps You Sleep, Regular Aerobic Exercise May Help Insomniacs

Davila, D, December, 2009, Diet, Exercise and Sleep

Dotinga, R, 12/1/11, Study: More exercise could make for better sleep

Keywords

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Dangerous caffeine

overload

in athletic sports

or “energy” drinks

Julian Georgiou, Healingtalks Contributing Writer

(Healingtalks) When life couldn’t get any faster perhaps all that’s missing is a triple dose of caffeine?

Today’s best source of caffeine is a growing selection of energy drinks. The sale of these drinks has grown to become an 8 billion dollar industry, according to USA Today reports,  because so many young athletes are using these as fluid replacement drinks (such as Gatorade) – and with potentially lethal doses of caffeine.

What does caffeine actually do?

Caffeine initiates uncontrolled neuron firing in your brain.

This excess neuron activity triggers your pituitary gland to secrete a hormone that tells your adrenal glands to produce adrenalin. Adrenalin is what gives athletes that winning burst of energy, though historically adrenalin is the source of our “fight-or-flight” or danger avoiding response (Cherniske, 2008). Professional alike are taking to these drinks to enhance both their mental and physical states.

Caffeine as an addictive drug

Abstinence from any physical addiction causes withdrawal symptoms.

In the case of caffeine symptoms experienced from 12-51 hours include as headache, fatigue, decreased energy, decreased alertness, drowsiness, depressed mood, difficulty concentrating, irritability, and fuzzy headed (Kovacs, Caffeine). This the feeling Cherniske refers to as the ‘Caffeine Blues’. Traditionally the source of caffeine came from a cup of coffee at around 100mg per 8oz and where energy drinks such as NOS, Spike Shooter and Wired X 344 contain between 260mg to 244mg of caffeine per 16oz – not to mention the high sugar content and other questionable ingredients.

Dangers of caffeine exposed

An overdose of caffeine causes anxiety, nervousness, sleep problems, elevated blood pressure, and heart palpitations (Fryhofer, 2011). Cherniske calls your body’s constant state of alert “caffeinism,” which is characterized by fatigue, anxiety, mood swings, sleep disturbance, irritability and depression. The list goes on of dangerous consequences of caffeine intoxication – such as seizures, mania, stroke, liver damage, kidney and respiratory problems, seizures, and agitation, as well as heart rhythm disturbances, heart failure, high blood pressure, and rhabdomyolysis (Fryhofer, 2011).

This is essentially why these drinks “should not be consumed before, during or after physical activity as they can raise the risk of dehydration and increase the chance of potentially fatal heat illnesses’ (Norwood, 2011).

Mixing caffeine and alcohol

Another dangerous practice is the mixing of caffeine and alcohol. Alcohol is a sedative. Caffeine, on the other end of the spectrum of psychoactive drugs, is a stimulant. As caffeine can reduce the sedative effects of alcohol, this may allow someone to drink for longer periods of time (Greenemier, 2010). This common practice among young adults is a recipe for alcohol poisoning and severe dehydration.

Four Loko, an drink with up to 6-12% alcohol along with a high amount of caffeine and has been known to make people pass out. It can be lethal.

Final thoughts

The FDA limit for caffeine in cola drinks is set at two hundredths of a per cent (0.02%), a max of 71 mg per 12 ounce serving. Scientists and many parents wonder why this doesn’t apply to energy drinks (Fryhofer, 2011). Red Bull was the first sports energy drink that hit the U.S. market in 1997 (Norwood, 2011) – creating the potential for increased health risks.

References

Sandra A. Fryhofer, MD, 03/24/11, Caffeinated Energy: Drinks With Dangers

Larry Greenemeier  11/09/10 Why Are Caffeinated Alcoholic Energy Drinks Dangerous?

Robyn Norwood, 12/02/11, Young athletes and energy drinks: A bad mix?

Dani Veracity, 10/11/05, The hidden dangers of caffeine: How coffee causes exhaustion, fatigue and addiction

Betty Kovacs, Caffeine

About Four – Wikepedia article

Stephen Cherniske, 12/01/08, Caffeine Blues: Wake Up to the Hidden Dangers of America’s #1 Drug

Related Articles

Coffee whats the verdict is it good or bad for us

Coffee illusions What the magic brew does to your brain

What’s in a cup of coffee

Keywords

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How to start

  a raw food diet

 Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Healingtalks Editor

(Healingtalks) Learning how to gently, pleasurably and effectively transition to a raw food diet is one of the most important things you can do for your health.

Video

  Related Articles

• Raw Diet- Before and After
• Scoop on Raw Food Vegan Diet
  
• Why We Love the Raw Food Diet and Lifestyle
• Gone Raw Recipes
  

Books

Keywords

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Get juiced with juice power!

Julian Georgiou, Healingtalks Contributing Writer

What is juicing?

(Healingtalks) Juicing is the process of squeezing  juice from your fruits and vegetable to yield the highest, most ALIVE concentration of nutrients and micro-nutrients. It’s health benefits seem endless because they are! They can easily be prepared to yield creative combinations with refreshing tastes that give your a live-charging BOOST.

Juice daily. Look vibrant at any age

Reasons for juicing

If  you want to simply add juicing to your daily diet or go on a juice detox/feast, here are some motivating reasons why:

• Helps absorb more fresh nutrients – Many health practitioners recommend eating 5 or more servings of fruits and vegetables each day to prevent cancer and other degenerative diseases.
• Gets more variety of nutrients into your body- Juicing means you can consume not only a higher amount but also a greater variety of fresh nutrients.
• Places less stress on your digestive system – Juicing gives your digestive system a rest, including the stomach, intestines, pancreas, gallbladder and liver. During this process, your cells have the time to catch up with their work and detoxify.
• Great way to embrace the raw food culture. When food is cooked at temperatures above 114 degrees, the enzymes are destroyed by the heat (HealthyJuicer).
• Rich in enzymes -  Enzymes have the vital role of converting food into body tissue and energy.  So by increasing your bodies intake of enzymes you will feel healthy and revitalised.
• Full of phytochemicals – Juicing ensures that the body is getting sufficient amounts of phytochemicals, substances in plants that are  among the most powerful aides to fighting disease (Best of Juicing). The phytochemicals that researchers have uncovered are changing the way we think about food. Bok choy, broccoli, Brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, collards, kale, kohlrabi, mustard greens, rutabaga, turnip greens, red beets, peppers, garlic, onions, leeks, and chives are but a few of the vegetables that have cancer-preventing phytochemicals. Citrus fruits have substances that can help your body remove carcinogens. Grapes contain a phytochemical that appears to protect each cells’ DNA from damage (HealthyJuicer). Research also suggests phytochemicals hold the key to preventing some of diseases such as heart disease, asthma, arthritis, and allergies (Living and Raw Foods).
• Used for weight loss  – Because it is such a healthy practice it has also been used as a weight loss technique.
• A way to overcome chronic ills – This is because, most important of all, the juicing transmits the life-force of plants straight into us. The reason why is explained in Nathan Batalion’s (Healingtalks editor) unique and revolutionary life-and-consciousness-centered vision of nature.  Here is a little glimpse of it:
  

  Drink green juice for life

• Drinking for life - Imagine  that at the core of nature is what we all experience inside, and at every moment, as “consciousness:”  This means consciousness and not matter and energy defined mathematically as in physics or chemistry is at the core of things. Think of that “consciousness” first a little abstractly or universally before we apply it to juicing. So the abstract or mountain-top distant definition is that of a  universal relationship of connection. What the heck does that mean? Next imagine that this universal principle of connection is what really connects us deep inside to ourselves and to the world around us as a whole – creating the essence of an ORGANIC LIVING ORGANISMS. As living organisms we feel joy and pain. We cry when our feelings are torn apart. We suffer when our body is cut apart. Machines do not feel this pain, why we use bulldozers made of steel to lift heavy objects. They are not living, conscious organisms, Thirdly, imagine that past  the conventional way of looking at things, the mathematical view of physics and chemistry that centrally uses math symbols  (and abstractly as pointing to universal relationships of separation) is what  leads us to create things made of separate parts or MACHINES. Again how does all this relate to juicing? VERY POWERFULLY. Machines can run on petroleum and we can run on juices. First the simpler living forms tend to be more simply connected in comparison to complicated life forms.
• Thus drinking grass juices – The juice of a single blade of grass has more healing power than a stalk of corn. However, when a grass joints (splits it two) it has less healing or connective life-force power. This can be shown with live microscopy. It is thus the juice of the simpler plants, the grasses, that carry the greatest life force. Secondly, the chief medium for carrying that life force, that connected consciousness, is the plant’s juices for an important reason,. This is  because the liquid portion runs connectively through the plant to transmit life. Note that with a liquid, a separate drop loses its separativity because the fluid juice is THE connective medium that holds and transmits the life force.

Be really c-o-o-l….”Do it right.”

Get that life force into our body super-charged!

So there are fabulous reasons to juice up and especially with simple, living greens. But be sure to “do it right.”

• Drink your juices fresh, within 20 minutes of making drink the juice because the rest of the universe will grab that life force away from the juices once they are liberated from their protective fiber.  Due to a busy schedule, if you can’t make all your juices fresh, put them in tightly closed canning jars and filled to the top to cut down on oxidation and  add a high quality anti-oxidant powder like Vitamin C.
• Use a slow juicer – It is best to use a slow churning juicer (single or double auger) to release the juice without doing high-heat or oxidation harm to the same.
• Understand why this drinking of only fresh juices is vitally important in the context of a different life-centered worldview – Knowing this we keep better on track. Nathan explains that as the juice oxidates, its actually loses its “consciousness” or connectedness or life force. This is similar to what happens when an apple turns brown within minutes of being cut open. It happens more intensely with juices and we explain it chemically when he better explanation occurs in a different life-centered vision. Thus in Nathan’s revolutionary and living model of nature, oxygen is the bridge between the chemical/mechanical/atomic understanding and his consciousness-life-centered model – akin to the ancient Essene view.  Nathan explains why this is a more rational (not mystical) view  than that of Sir Isaac Newton’s  mathematical foundations for all the science. We really cannot best connect our cosmic vision of nature using our most “universal abstractions of separations” which is what math symbols are stripped naked- and any more than we can best glue something broken together using our sharpest chainsaw. This is why even a few Nobel-prize winning physicists and chemists have gotten themselves “lost in their world of inner consciousness” and have fallen prey to  Alzheimer’s disease and have died thereof. Nathan also claims this is why the allopathic medical model doesn’t essentially work with depth chronic ills, and why the natural one does. In the meantime we are mislead  – told to pop pills rather than drink green juices – based on a deeply false worldview that materializes both runaway health epidemics and the pollution of our planet.

•  

  Drinking for our chakra rainbow-light body

• Green juices are the best – This is because green is the middle, the most connective, the most healing and consciousness transmitting  color. In the  field of color therapy, green pulls the color separations back together toward colorless or white light. The most separative or opposite colors of the rainbow, red and violet, will reunite (return to white light) only in the presence of green, the color neutralizer in radiant light or the ultimate reconnecting/healing color.
• Use an alkaline base – Try cucumber or celery as a juice base. Acidity represents something fiery, which consumers the light or the consciousness/life force.
• Emphasize low-glycemic juices – more veggies than sweet fruits. Sugar, even fruit sugars, tend to leave acid residues in the body and they feed fungus and lower life forms.
• Add the juice of green sprouts and grasses – These will supercharge your drink with life energy.

Following his unique philosophy and related juicing approach, some years ago Nathan helped fund and organize the Gerson Healing Center at Sedona where Charlotte Gerson set up a juicing/healing protocol in the US based on her father’s groundbreaking work – and assisting many patients to reverse their life-threatening, chronic ill….  or as Charlotte explains it, “curing the incurable.” (Gerson)

Alkaline Juice Recipe

Now then for fun, let’s try this juicing recipe: 1 Cucumber 2 Celery Sticks (Including leaves) 2 Carrots 1 Apple 1 cup of Spinach 1/2 lemon (Skin included) Juice up and enjoy!

An inspirational story

Fat Sick and Nearly Dead, a film by Joe Cross tells the story of an unhealthy, unhappy overweight man determined to rid himself of prescription medication and let his body heal. His method, 60 days juicing fresh and green, with fruit and vegetable ingredients, was done while driving 3,000 miles across America. During this trip he talked to more than 500 Americans about food, health and longevity Joe meets a truck driver who suffers from the same rare condition, Phil Staples. After taking up the diet, Phil lost a total of 202lbs and Joe, 85lbs and began to enjoy life medication-free.

References

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Diet/story?id=3364083&page=1 http://www.healthyjuicer.com/pages/health_ben.html http://www.bestofjuicing.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enzyme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytochemical http://www.living-foods.com/articles/benefits.html http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1227378/

Healing Centers pioneering green juicing ….and/or the LIVNG foods diet

• Gerson Institute
• Hippocates Health Institute
• Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center

Keywords

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Start your day

with water and lemon

Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Healingtalks Editor

Starting your day off right!

(Healingtalks) I always recommend ample drinking of pure water or “hydration” early in the morning – and with as much as a quart. To that water one can add several health boosters:

• Squeeze in a little fresh lemon juice. This is one of the greatest energy boosters. Unlike coffee which stimulates the adrenal glands and causes blood sugar swings, aggravates hypertension and causes oxidative stress and free-radical formation  – with a high and then a let down – water with lemon produces even energy and inner cleansing. There is then no letdown because the energy wasn’t forced. Lemon can be replaced by other citric juices such as lime or grapefruit, and sometimes break the monotony of always having the same
• A cleansing tea with lemon is another alternative
• Fresh squeezed vegetable juice,  green-powders, super-food mixes  – all with lemon added – can also enhance the  “morning water feast”
• Probiotic, coconut water and kambucha drinks also help the body smoothly “break the fast” of a night’s sleep so that you replenish minerals and electrolytes – especially sodium potassium and magnesium.

Filtered or distilled water

Be sure your water itself is “clean” – either well filtered or distilled. If distilled it will be the purest of water, removing even the homeopathic traces of toxins. However then it becomes necessary to re-add minerals. This can be done with a pinch of Himalayan or Hawaiian salt. Your clean water can also sit overnight with a pinch of dulse powder added, to get more of the sea minerals replenished in your body.

Bioelectrical energy

What we eat provides “ions” -  the parts of molecules that carries an electrical charge and thus spark energy. Positively charged ions are called “cations” and negatively charged ones  “anions.” Most of the food is cationic. Digestive processes such as using hydrochloric acid, digestive enzymes, saliva are anionic. Lemon is highly  anionic, with a strong negative charge. Fresh lemon thereby helps oxygenate the body and helps enzyme functions of the liver. It helps prepare the stomach and intestinal tract for digestion later in the day.

Cleanses and nourishes

Citric fruits help stimulate bowel movements early in the am. Lemon especially can form soluble complexes with calcium which helps gt rid of pancreatic and kidney stones. This can also prevent calcification of arteries or cardiovascular disease.

What lemon and water provide

• hydration
• anti-oxidants
• electrolytes
• vitamin C
• vitamin P  (citrus bioflavonoids).

More on Vitamin P

Studies show that vitamin P  helps release the anti-oxidant properties of vitamin C. Bioflavonoids also improve capillary permeability and the overall blood flow – important for oxygenating tissues and maintaining blood pressure. They can help reduce swelling, venous backup and edema.

Morning instructions

Upon rising squeeze one lemon into a 16-32 oz glass of clean water and drink up! You can do this a couple of time to build up to a quart of liquids in the morning.

Be sure to juice down to the inner rind of the  lemon because the majority of the pectin fiber and citrus bioflavonoids are there. An organic mild sweetener can be added to the lemonade. Various herbs, like mint, are further used to further your morning lift-off.

Related articles

Alkaline diet supercharges 73 year old
Alkaline and acid food chart
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Based on an article by Dr. David Jockers and published in naturalnews.

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Heart help

71% who drank this lowered their blood pressure

Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist Healingtalks Editor

(Healingtalks) Did you know you can make a drink out of the juice of a coconut or coconut water – and this can help you improve your heart health? Shake a coconut and what you hear inside is  coconut water.

Coconut milk vs water

Coconut milk, known in Malaysia and Indonesia as “santan” and in the Philippines as “gata,” is a thicker liquid made by grinding up coconut meat and diluting it about 50% with water. It is a rich source of healthy fat and protein, and is used in Asian cuisine. Coconut water  is a much lighter drink that is 95 % water. It is gotten from young, green coconuts that look different than the brown hairy ones. They are white and pointed on one end, flat on the other. This coconut water is the liquid part of the coconut and when the coconuts are immature, the inner meat is not hard but jelly-like. It turns out that BOTH the soft “meat” and the liquid of coconuts are nutritional powerhouses!

“Dew from the heavens”

Coconut water is “noelani” by the Hawaiians  which means “dew from the heavens.” Many tropical cultures prize coconut water due to its refreshing and health renewing properties. As a result of the rich volcanic soils and mineral-rich seawater in which coconut palms grow, coconut water’s nutritional profile is very impressive. It is rich in vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, amino acids, enzymes, and cytokinins – a plant hormone which has anti-aging effects. Coconut water is further alkalizing For a complete nutritional profile, see tables at the Coconut Research Center site.

Coconut water’s health benefits

According to Bruce Fife, author of Coconut Water for Health and Healing,  coconut water has the following health benefits:

Nature’s Gatoraide or sports drink – with perfect electrolytes

Electrolytes are inorganic compounds that conduct electricity to help signaling between all the cells of our body. Your cells thus use electrolytes to maintain voltage across membranes or to carry electrical impulses to other cells. Water balance and blood pH depend on electrolytes.

Fresh coconut water is one of the richest sources of electrolytes and can be used to prevent dehydration from strenuous exercise, vomiting, or diarrhea. You lose electrolytes when you sweat for a while, such as an hour gym workout, so it is easy to replenish your electrolytes using coconut water – better than with any sports drink. It contains so many electrolytes, it’s been called “Nature’s Gatorade.” It has all the five essential electrolytes, potassium, sodium, magnesium, phosphorous and calcium. It is especially rich in potassium ions, but less so in sodium ions. Thus for a heavy workout or if you sweat a lot, you should add a pinch of mineral rich salt to your glass of coconut water. One study in 2007 found coconut water to be as effective as commercial sports drinks for whole body rehydration after exercise, with less stomach upset. But there is controversy because the sodium content may not be enough, so add that pinch of salt.

SunFire Salt

For the salt additive, we use SunFire Salt, a mix of Himalayan pink, Bolivian rose, and Hawaiian red, and  Chinese salt – an ultimately diverse mineral addition.

Cytokinins: Anti-aging benefits

Cytokinins are phytohormones or plant hormones. They regulate growth, development, and aging of plants. Coconut water has been an important horticultural resource, used in the propagation of several plants, including orchids and traditional Chinese medicinal herbs. The cytokinins found in coconut water support cell division and growth. Cytokinins have  also been found slow down aging.  Coconut water is the richest natural dietary source of cytokinins. Cytokinins also have anti-thrombolytic properties to lower the risk for blood clots. But coconut’s benefits don’t stop there. They also have anti-cancer effects.

Cardiovascular and Urinary Tract Benefits

Coconut water have been found to help prevent heart attacks as well as hypertension. In one study, 71 percent of people who drank coconut water lowered their blood pressures. Dr. Eugenio Macalalag, director of the urology department of the Chinese General Hospital in the Philippines, also reported that coconut water was effective in treating his patient’s kidney and urethral stones. When his patients drank coconut water 2-3 times a week, the reduced their stone size, eliminating their need for surgery.

Buy organic

Coconuts can be heavily  sprayed with pesticides. So be sure to buy only organic coconuts. The best coconut water is purely from fresh organic coconuts. In a pinch, you can use packed products after a workout.

Skip pasteurized  juices and sodas

Coconut water is a perfect replacement for juice or soda. Drinking the fresh coconut water, not bottled and especially not pasteurized. So next time you want a refreshing after-workout or sports event beverage, crack open a coconut! Second best, Exotic Superfoods makes an organic-raw version of coconut water -  the only kind of packaged coconut water we recommend.

 References:

• Coconut Research Center
• J Physiol Anthropol Appl Human Sci March 2002
• MedicineNet
• Southeast Asian J Trop Med Public Health July 2007
• Am J Emerg Med January 2000
• Plant-Hormones
• J Anti-Aging Med March 2002
• Experimental Hematology October 2002
• HealthTruthRevealed April 2008
• Plant Foods for Human Nutrition
• West Indian Med J January 2005
•  Int Surg October-December 1987
• The Nibble August 2011
• Molecules 2009

Video

A good video on the overall benefits of using coconuts, including coconut water.

Keywords

Coconut benefits, coconut juice, vitacoco, coconut drink, coconut for health, coconut drinks, coconut health benefits, green coconut juice, health benefits of coconuts, advantages of coconut water, coconut beverage, benefits of coconut water, what is coconut water good for, drinks with coconut water, coconut water nutrition, , benefits of coconut water, coconut water drink, drinking coconut, coconut water health, coconut water drinks

Crazy banning

of health claim

that water

prevents dehydration

(Healingtalks) EU officials in Brussels decided to ban any claims by water bottling companies that their water can prevent dehydration! Mind you, this was “intelligently” concluded after a three year investigation that supposedly showed there was no evidence for that otherwise obvious fact.

A lunatic ban

Now producers of bottled water are forbidden to make this claim and can face a two-year jail sentence if they defy the law. What should we use instead, mercury-filled vaccines and Big Pharm toxic drugs no doubt? This absolutely moronic directive is now the law-of-the-land all across Europe

How about a mandatory IQ test for legislators and regulators

This goes to show that maybe we should give a mandatory IQ test to prospective legislators before being allowed to serve the public. Can we similarly trust the FDA to regulate our drugs, foods and vitamin supplements?

Question: Which substance at room temperature will best hydrate the human body?

A) Mercury
B) Water
C) Gasoline
D) None of the above

According to the Nutrition Society and the EFSA, the correct answer is D! Meanwhile, these brainless buffoons may declare that four plus four equals 77 and a half.

BRAWNDO the “Thirst Mutilator”

In the movie Idiocracy, water was banned in water fountains and agricultural use to be replaced by a sports drink called Brawndo – the Thirst Mutilator. This was a drink with electrolytes. When the crops started dying after from being “hydrated” by Brawndo, the government officials scratched their heads to figure out why. After all, Brawndo had so many electrolytes and plants had to thus love it. In the film, the Brawndo corporation was purchased the FDA.

As crazy as the storyline is, this won’t compared to the idiocy of the EU directive.

Less than pea-brained bureaucrats

The EFSA bureaucrats who declared that water does not hydrate could be called somewhat “bird-brained.” But birds are such fabulous navigators and thus are really geniuses by comparison.  Even tiny bugs seek water intelligently and worms also. So these guys are not even mosquito-brained or worm-brained.  We might call them pea-brained, but why so insult peas in the process?

This is reminiscent of the FDA pressing felony charges against California distributors of raw milk and even though its been repeatedly proven that raw milk is much healthier than pasteurized milk. Knowing this implies that the milk of large corporate dairies, which must be pasteurized, is less healthy – a dangerous kind of knowing. So to hide this from the public, the FDA declares the opposite of the truth.  The best candidates for becoming spokespersons of corporate interests that require such attacks on our intelligence and the promotion of deceptions are apparently our regulators.

EU consumer alerts

So consider using the most expensive pharmaceutical drugs and surgery the next time you feel thirsty. It’s best to pass up water because its so utterly cheap and natural and is thus likely to be useless. Right?

This also brings up a concern for the “dydrating health” of our seniors. Maybe its best to give them five or more potent pharmaceutical drugs to cure any thirst, or better yet intravenous drips so you pay for the added bio-delivery costs. As for the welfare of our children, we should immediately pull water fountains from our public school grounds, and especially off of running tracks.  We don’t want thirsty athletes to be irreparably harmed by drinking water when working out. Right?

Back to common sense

Common sense tells us water prevents dehydration as the term “hydra” means water and nothing else. Common sense also tells us a “patriot” is someone who would truly defend the Constitution of the United States. Thus a law that utterly destroys and unravels constitutional rights should be best called “The Patriot Act.” Right?

And a law that most harms our overall air quality should be called “The Clean Air Act.” Right?

This all makes perfect sense to total idiots who apparently and increasingly rule us. To them when our land is increasingly filled with health epidemics, environmental degradation, income disparities and near economic collapse this all represents PROGRESS.

So start emptying those water bottles.

Related Articles

• EU bottled water ruling joins the ranks of bendy banana law
• Dehydration ruling: an ‘angels dancing on head of pin’ moment

Videos

Keywords

Water and hydration, water hydrate, hydrated water, quench thirst, prevent dehydration, bottled water ruling, EU bans claim that water can prevent dehydration.

Health Care vs Sick Care

Real health care means:

How Alkaline Diet

Supercharges

73 Year-Old

Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Healingtalks Editor

Introducing Chef Sal

It’s really strange to see a 73 year-young man who is muscular and has black hair. Though he’s lived in the US for over 4 decades, he still reveals his European accent, having grown up in Amsterdam during World War II. Exiled on a farm, he fell in love with the fresh farm produce and has ever since made the best of fresh, whole foods the center piece of his diet and recipes. Chef Salomon Montezinos is extra-ordinary.

Raw and Alkaline

The recipes he prepares are also quite unusual. They’re raw and alkaline. In fact, he helped pioneered this culinary combination. Following this diet himself has helped him outperform his senior peers – exercising 4 hours a day by weight-lifting, biking, running, and performing yoga. In addition, not only can he swim a mile-plus in the pool, after other exercises, but he swims in alkalized water. He does not bathe in unfiltered tap water either, which he also alkalizes with a filter. Chef Sal implores that if he cannot drink it, he will not put his body in it.

Indeed, alkaline water is found throughout Chef Sal’s house. After exiting the pool, he often re-energizes with alkaline water from the custom-installed machine in his fridge. He appreciates too well the extra kick of energy it gives.

Chef Sal’s Work Schedule

As strange as it is to see this 73-year old swim for an hour, it is striking to watch him also work a 12+ hours shift preparing raw alkaline meals. He credits his system for keeping him so young, fit, and energized. After all our bodies are 60 percent water and the brain contains even more, namely 70 percent.

Living Proof

Chef Sal exemplifies the alkaline lifestyle. He has thus developed a following, as more people let go of conventional health paradigms.

Keywords

Which are alkaline foods, living food, is alkaline acidic,good foods diet, acidic foods, diet alkaline, what is an alkaline diet, what is acidic food, live foods, raw vegan, super food diet, living food diet, diets alkaline.

Sources

• EvolveWithFlavor.com  Chef Sal’s website where he advance the philosophy of   using “raw alkaline foods” to create a most health-beneficial diet.

• Discovering Raw Alkaline Cuisine: One Chef’s Journey Check out his book  (with over 120 recipes) available at  EvolveWithFlavor.com

Resources

Acid/Alkaline Food Chart – Healingtalks

Alkaline Acid Food Chart

Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Healingtalks Editor

(Healingtalks) Food consumption worldwide has changed from so-called “primitive” whole raw foods to highly processed ones with little nutritional value. As a result, we see huge increases in chronic diseases. This is why it is ever more important to re-establish one’s health on a surer footing. One approach is to find an ideal balance between alkaline and acid forming foods.

This table helps identify food pH-levels. Each food is assigned a number which reflects its relative alkalinity (+) or acidity (-) per ounce (28.35g). According to this model, the higher the + number, the better the food is to eat

Source of Chart

Back To The House Of Health by Shelley Redford Young

Additional Resources

Symptoms of Acidosis

The New Biology and pH Miracle by Dr. Young

Definitions

Alkalosis  – A condition reducing hydrogen ion concentration of arterial blood plasma (alkalemia). Generally alkalosis is said to occur when arterial pH exceeds 7.45.

Acidosis is an increased acidity of the blood plasma. Arterial pH falls below 7.35.  Arterial blood gas analysis and other tests are required to separate the main causes. (Source: Wikipedia)

Keywords: acid and alkaline, alkaline foods, which foods are alkaline, foods rich in potassium, food alkaline, what is alkaline food, food with alkaline, alkaline or acid, alkaline and acidic, acidic and alkaline, foods that are acidic, foods acidic,  acid foods,
diet alkaline.

Coffee, what’s the

verdict? Is it good

or bad for us?

Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Healingtalks Editor

Coffee and stimulating the fire within

Analogy of food subjected to fire

The degree of inner fire

What is inner fire?

Pouring “water” over fire

A forever split verdict

Coffee’s pros

Natural Alternatives to

Replace Flu Shots

Keywords: children immunization, child immunization, childhood immunization, health immunization, information about vaccination, vaccine programs, immunization risks, vaccination dangers.

7 Highly Effective

Fitness Habits

By Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Editor Healingtalks

(Healingtalks) In the popular book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey points out seven effective habits that will change your life. It’s a popular book in the business world but why stop there? Let’s apply his habits to health and fitness.

Habit 1:

Be Proactive

Everything that you do, from sleep, to food, dealing with stress, and exercise, affects the health of your body and involves choices.Choose to go back for a second helping of Thanksgiving dinner, and there is a consequence. Take a month off of exercise – consequence. Being proactive means simply that you understanding ALL your choices impact your goals.

Habit 2:

Begin with the End Goal in Mind

Setting goals is the only way to get to where you’re going. Have you ever just gotten in your car, and started driving without a goal or destination? Did you end up where you wanted to go? Try this exercise. Get a piece of paper and a pen. Turn the paper long ways, and put a dot on either end of the paper. Now, put the point of the pen on one of the dots. While looking only at the point of the pen, draw a line to the other dot. Now, draw two new dots, and do the exercise again, only this time only look at the dot on the other side of the paper. When done, look at which line is straighter, and has fewer squiggles.

Habit 3:

Put First Things First or Prioritize

In all aspects of life, we must prioritize. You should take a weekly and even daily inventory of what those things are.
After completing Habit #2, your health and fitness should be included somewhere on this list. Depending on just how important your health and fitness is to you will determine its place on said list. Good idea to number your priorities on a short scale say 1-4. Then rearrange the list with all 1’s together, etc. Each day, those 1’s have to get done. When those are done, go to the 2′s, etc. If you get to any of the 4’s that’s, awesome. If not, they will wait.

Habit 4:

Think Win-Win

Including others into your goals in a win-win way. Get together with friends, workers, and family to run, take hikes, have healthy meals, go to the gym, etc.

Habit 5:

Seek to Understand, Rather Than to Be Understood

Don’t preach or try to look superior.  When exercising with other people; everybody has different skills and abilities. Some may not be able to keep up with you, or you with them.  Understand what you know,  while being thoughtful and respectful to others – and later this may lead to others wanting to know what you know.

Habit 6:

Synergize

Find strengths in others and put them to use for the benefit of the team. If you did habit 4 and 5, you probably already have some people in mind that can help you out. Look for unique skills in others that can be brought together. Now you run with the neighbor on Tuesday, lift weights with the receptionist’s husband on Thursday, and play b-ball with your cousin on Saturday.

Habit 7:

Sharpen

If you use a saw it will go dull over time. If you sharpen it, it will again cut wood. Constantly change things around, the way you exercise, detox, meditate, and eat. keep things alive. Don’t fall into a dead, mechanical routine.  Change training partners and settings.
Keep things fresh. If you do this your body, mind and spirit will be challenged to adapt and to reach new heights.

Also here is the author’s audio on the 8th Habit!

Keywords: seven habits of successful people, 7 habits of effective people,  7 successful habits, habits of highly successful people, 7 habits of highly effective people.

Based on an article by Todd Boyer at PhitZone.com

Keywords: Effective fitness habits, fitness habits, life style fitness, live for fitness, habits for health, fitness routines, ways to exercise, ways to build muscles, simple fitness

Super Brain, Eye

and Nervous System

Rejuvenation Drink

By Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Healingtalks Editor

(Healingtalks) It is important to remember that the brain is, to many, the most important part of our body. It helps to coordinate our whole nervous system, our whole consciousness

It is important thus to learn how to use all natural organic ingredients to supercharge your brain.…activate the genius inside of you.

Here you can listen to the genius of David Wolfe explain how.

The full recipe is in his book, Superfoods and he also offers some CDs

You can also freely access this book on line and the full recipe via google-ebooks

Another alternative to David Wolfe’s recipe was posted by Neens in her wordpress blog:

Alternative to David Wolfe’s Super Brain Charging Drink

300 ml of water with lemon and adya clarity (I don’t have any coconuts)
1/2 T of coconut oil
1/2 a dropper full of marine phytoplankton (I don’t have the powdered stuff)
1/4 t of crystal manna (algae) (I don’t have the liquid stuff)
1 capsule of Açai Resveratrol Ultimate ORAC Antioxidant Extreme (I don’t have MegaHydrate)
1/4 t of reishi powder (I don’t have lion’s mane)
1 T (heaping) of raw honey
1 avocado (for consistency, as I don’t have any berries, either)

Go For It

Follow these instructions and before you know it, you will be writing a daily blog on health and healing because your
brain power is overflowing!

Keywords: brain functions, food for the brain,  foods for the brain, how to improve the brain, brain and memory, brain health, how the brain functions

Key words: brain health, vitamins for brain, brain tonic, brain vitamins, brain food

Coffee Illusions:

What the Magic Brew Does to Your Brain

 Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Healingtalks Editor

With an intro from You Are Not So Smart. 

(Healingtalks)  Hmmm…………….Misconception: Coffee stimulates you. Truth: You become addicted to caffeine quickly, and soon are drinking coffee to cure withdrawal more than the stimulation.

That can’t be true…Get-off… What’s better than a warm cup of coffee with delicious cream, topped with a frothy head and  made sweet to the T. Further you smell it brewing and feel cozy inside as you browse cakes and brownies, scones and biscotti.

You get some of it in you, and you feel ALIVE again – you feel SUPERHUMAN.

Suddenly, you can’t keep up with your own mind as geometric symbols float over the magazine articles in your lap. Someone strikes up a conversation about health car…or whatever… and suddenly everything you’ve ever heard about the topic is at the tip of your tongue.

Damn…Jeez… coffee is AWESOME!

Coffee Illusions

You want to live a life of illusions, knock yourself dead. Want to live a life of integral health, let’s first understand something about illusions….especially  GREAT FEELING  “illusions.”

Think of a mirror – a thin surface appearance in our overall consciousness. No depth.

Think of a small timer – one that goes off and on for no more than so many minutes – or illusion timewise is temporary, lacking time-depth ….

( As an aside, pharmaceuticals work pretty much the very exact same way. They fool us into thinking they a the best means to heal. No way. There is a whole system of medicine is based on this belief, this illusions and they fiercely claim the mantle of  exact science” – depth truth. But in reality, they are best for just symptom modulation, suppression of symptoms especially pain (mirror surface conditions)…and for emergencies (think again  a smaller timer) or the surface of time. They belong likewise to any illusionary root worldview (no one every told you this?) that designs all chemicals and pollutes our earth and as much our bodies – the 17th century math-based/mechanical vision that has brought us to where we are after an industrial revolution- a world full of weather crises, the breakdown of social/financial structures, our earth’s ecology, our inner polluted ecology or health pandemics and cancer, etc)

Ok that’s too much to digest. So now back to the much, smaller but nevertheless all-too-wonderful-to- talk about topic of COFFEE…..!

Bottom line with all illusions….you guessed it…there is a let-down. They ain’t completely what they claim to be.

Once you’ve been drinking coffee for a while, the feeling after a cup isn’t the difference between the normal you and the super you, it’s the difference between the addict before and the fix after \

Ok, this is a very simplified explanation:

Caffeine’s Effects

Caffeine is an adenosine antagonist. This means it prevents adenosine from doing its job. Your brain is filled with keys which fit specific keyholes. Adenosine is one of those keys, but caffeine can fit in the same keyhole. When caffeine gets in there, it keeps adenosine from getting in. Adenosine does a lot of stuff all throughout your body, but the most noticeable job it has is to suppress your nervous system. With caffeine stuck in the keyhole, adenosine can’t calm you down. It can’t make you drowsy. It can’t get you to shut up. That crazy wired feeling you get when you drink a lot of coffee is what it feels like when your brain can’t turn itself off. To compensate, your brain creates a ton of new receptor sites. The plan is to have more keyholes than false keys.

Caffeine Crash and Pickup

Thus you become very sensitive to adenosine, and without coffee you get overwhelmed by its effects. After eight hours of sleep, you wake up with a head swimming with adenosine. You feel like shit until you get that black gold in you to clean out those receptor sites. That perk you feel isn’t adding anything substantial to you – it’s bringing you back to just above zero.

In addition, coffee stimulates your adrenal glands, which makes you feel like you could take a bullet and eat glass. When the adrenaline runs dry, you feel like you’ve been running a marathon, which leads you to look for more coffee to get those glands pumping again. After a few rides on the adrenal roller-coaster, you CRASH!

Getting Addicted to Caffeine Lift

You might think all of this probably takes a while, but it takes about seven days to become addicted to caffeine. Once addicted, you need more and more coffee to get buzzed as your brain gets covered in receptor sites. Neurologists report seeing patients regularly who drink two or three pots of coffee in one sitting before starting their day.

Coffee also releases dopamine, the feel-good chemical in the brain which is released when you have an orgasm, win the lottery and shoot heroin. A similar addiction cycle with dopamine leads to depression and fatigue when you aren’t hitting the beans.

Finally, caffeine takes about six hours to leave your system. So if you drink coffee six hours or less before going to bed, you won’t reach deep sleep as often. This means you wake up less rested, and need more coffee. If you’ve been drinking coffee for a while, you aren’t getting nearly as much out of it as you did in the beginning. You are just curing an addiction.

Caffeine Bottom Line

“The take home is that regular use of caffeine produces no benefit to alertness, energy, or function. Regular caffeine users are simply staving off caffeine withdrawal with every dose – using caffeine just to return them to their baseline. This makes caffeine a net negative  for  alertness, or neutral at best if use is regular enough to avoid any withdrawal.”

- Neurologist Stephen Novella from his blog, Neurologica

Mind you, this is not a dependency. You will experience withdrawal symptoms upon coffee cessation, but not like with amphetamines and cocaine. Coffee doesn’t seem to affect the dopaminergic structures related to reward, but before you breathe a sigh of relief, ask yourself how long you’ve been drinking it. Try and stop for two weeks and see how hard it is.

A cup or three will still give you pep, but as with all stimulants, over time you need more and more to reach that golden hum. Don’t freak out, 90 percent of Americans are just like you.

My Favorite Alternatives to Coffee

Want to really boost your health, get high on health, a sustained high…and in a different way.. if  I can you dare to be so counter-cultural…and with only a slight, not big time up and down stimulation, then try the following. Oh if this doesn’t fully turn you on, play some hip hop or your favorite high-beat music early in the morning to get you revved up and then sluggalug…

• Grapefruit Juice, freshly squeezed. No it doesn’t have that seductive taste of coffee but in the morning it will extend the detoxification process of sleep, stimulate a stronger bowel movement, add vitamin C and anti-oxidants to your blood stream for steady energy – what you really need.
• Wheat Grass Juice, freshly squeezed – This takes a lot more effort to get, grow and juice fresh wheatgrass – but boy is it worth it. This is  for the serious health lover as well as those challenged with a major chronic condition. It contains over a 100 essential nutrients, unlike the emptiness of a cup of coffee,  and may be the single most powerful blood cleanser on the planet. Before a road race or other sports event, its just fabulous. This  because it adds tons of oxygen to you blood. It gives more than just energy but steady power.
• Fruit and Protein Smoothie – The benefit of a smoothie is that you can add a large variety of nutrients to your morning routine, and you can vary that routine easily. Try mango and peach one morning with a protein powder, and another with bananas and sunflower seeds. Try this 2-3 times a week. The potential varieties for this are endless. Compare having a creative smoothie to the same boring cup of coffee everyday (with pasteurized cream and refined sugar, also not so healthy). Yes  and again it takes a little effort, some creativity, and being wide-eyed in the morning….but again its worth it.
• Herbal Tea – Alternatively try your favorite herbal tea, but with little or less of a  caffeine spike. Maybe add a little kambucha with spirulina and you will still get a BUZZ.

And for many more coffee alternatives, knock yourself DEAD…

• http://www.coffeealternatives.org/

• http://www.mycaffeineaddiction.com/top-10-coffee-alternatives-avoid-the-negative-effects-of-caffeine/

Keywords: drinking coffee, research about coffee, is coffee healthy, health effects of coffee

The following  MUST SEE video discusses more aspects of the Coffee rollercoaster, the acidic nature of coffee and much more!  Its called Quit Coffee Painlessly

Is Smoking Bad

For You?

Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Healingtalks Editor

(Healingtalks) We know that smoking can cause some major illnesses, including heart disease, cancer, and certainly respiratory disease that all lead to untimely or premature death.  It is reported that nearly half a million people in the USA  die prematurely (about 1/5th of annual deaths) and 100,000 in the UK due to smoking. According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), nearly a 100 billion dollars are also wasted annually because of lost productivity.

Smoking is  the single largest preventable global cause of death. In addition,  second-hand smoke exposure is a major health hazard.

Smoking causes cancer

A stunning 90% of lung cancer victims developed their condition due to smoking. Smokers also have a significantly higher risk of  many other forms of cancer, including kidney, esophagus, nose, mouth, cervical, bowel, pancreas, liver and so on.

Why does smoking raise cancer risk?

The answer is simple. There are over 4,000 different and often toxic ingredients in cigarette smoke that can harm us. Tobacco smoke, however, consists mainly of three ingredients:

• Nicotine  is not known as a carcinogenic. Rather it is addictive. Nicotine gets smoker’s quickly hooked.  It reaches the brain in just 15 seconds after inhalation. Nicotine is used also a controlled insecticide where its use leads to vomiting, seizures, and an overall depression of the central nervous system, as well as growth retardation. It impairs a fetus’ development.
• Carbon Monoxide is a tasteless poisonous gas. The body finds it hard to differentiate carbon monoxide from oxygen and absorbs it readily into the bloodstream.  Carbon monoxide causes fatigue, weakness, and dizziness. It is also a cardiovascular depressant. It is especially toxic for babies in the womb, infants and smokers with impaired immune systems.
• Tar is carcinogenic.  Worse yet, when a smoker inhales, about 70% of the tar remains in their lungs. If you try a smoker’s handkerchief test (fill the mouth with smoke but don’t inhale, and rather blow the smoke through the handkerchief) and you will see the sticky dark brown stains.  Do this again, but this time inhale and the handkerchief only has a faint light brown stain. The rest rains in your lungs and other respiratory channels.

Smoking and heart/cardiovascular disease

Smoking is a known cause of atherosclerosis, thus contributing to  coronary heart disease. People with coronary heart disease are much more likely to have a heart attack.

Smoking worsens a major heart disease risk factor. It does so by raising blood pressure. This makes it harder to exercise and to function overall.  A much higher percentage of smokers have strokes compared to others of the same age.  Those who smoke run a higher risk of developing aortic aneurysm and arterial disease. When we inhale smoke regularly, the cerebrovascular system is damaged. Additionally female smokers who use contraceptives has a still higher risk of developing coronary heart disease and stroke. Also if you smoke your levels of HDL or good cholesterol will drop. If you have a history of heart disease and smoke, forget it.You are literally playing with fire to snuff out your life premaurely.

Sources:

American Heart Association, Cancer Research UK, Medical News Today archives.

Other Healingtalks Articles on Smoking:

What is in a Cigarette

What’s Not in a Cigarette

Smoking Illusions

What is Really in a Cigarette

US Releases Graphic Images to Deter Smoking

Pictures of Smokers’ and Non-Smokers’ Lungs

Cigarette Ingredients

How to Fight Teen Smoking

What are Cigarettes, Straight Up

Keywords: Why people smoke, anti-smoking, smoking health, cause of smoking, smoking damage, why is smoking bad, how is smoking bad, smoking bad for you,smoking health, ways to quit smoking, health smoking, you tobacco, how bad is smoking, what is bad about smoking, smoking is bad for you, why is smoking bad, smoking is bad, bad about smoking, why bad smoking

Simple Video on How Smoking Harms Your Body

Getting More

Veggies into a

College Diet

By Jaelithe Guillette, Contributing Writer

(Healingtalks) Heading off to college means getting out of the house and finally escaping subjugation to your parent’s bland cuisine.  With no one around to tell you that you can’t eat pizza for breakfast five days a week, going to college may seem like liberating experience for your dietary habits.

Unfortunately, within a matter of days of your freshman year starting, you’ll realize that you’re pretty much eating the same few meals every day and it’s safe to say none include anything close to organic produce.

With your bank account on life support, you may have to opt for 49¢ Top Ramen more often than you’d like, relegating healthy foods like fruits and fresh vegetables to the fringes of your cuisine.  Besides, who has time to cook up some veggie side dishes when you’ve got a term paper due the next day?

Still, you’ve got to get the healthy stuff into you somehow, since it’s brain food that keeps our bodies primed for attracting partners (plus you don’t want to end up as the first non-pirate to be diagnosed with scurvy).  So here are a few quick, tasty, and cheap ways to sneak some “good stuff” into your diet.

Veggie Loaded Breakfast Burrito

When trying to shop for groceries with limited funds you’ll realize the value of this diet suggestion very fast:  hmmm….eggs and tortillas are inexpensive.  That’s why the breakfast burrito is a staple of the college diet.  Fortunately, the breakfast burrito also provides ample opportunities to sneak in some veggies into your diet and without hassles.  Simply chop fresh tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, or whatever other veggies flight your fancy, then throw them into the pan while you cook your eggs.  You’ll be left with a tasty breakfast that’s surprisingly nutritious.

Tasty tip: Use tomato tortillas to add some extra zest to your breakfast
(Editor’s note) For a vegan alternative – substitute fermented soy or tempeh for eggs.

Irresistible Veggie Side Dish

When your schedule is tight, it’s hard to find enough time to cook anything but a main course.  But your taste buds will die of boredom if the only thing they’re exposed to is Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.   Cooked or sautéed carrots are an easy, nutritious side dish that goes well with any main course.  Just cut whole carrots into 2-inch pieces and boil them lightly until soft.  Drain the water, mix with a little butter or olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and you’re good to go.  You could also sauté them in a bit of olive oil instead of boiling. Carrots are rich in healthy antioxidants and vitamin A, so you can rest assured you’re at least doing something good for your body.

Tasty tip: Mix in couple tablespoons of brown sugar to sweeten up your carrot concoction.

(Editor’s note) For a whole food alternative to brown sugar , simply add raisins or dates. Fresh veggie salads can be made with similar add-on ingredients as fruits and vegetables mix well.

Fantastic Fruit Salad

This dish delivers unadulterated awesomeness straight to your stomach.  Works well as a healthy breakfast, snack, or dessert and you can eat it on the go.   All you gotta do is chop up your favorite fruits (we’re talking apples, bananas, mangos, etc.) and mix them together in a big bowl.  A great tip is to visit  your local farmer’s market and see what’s in season. That way you can get the freshest organic produce and do what’s right for your body.

Tasty tip:  Coat your mixing bowl with lemon juice to add an extra kick and the fruit won’t brown due to the positive effect of the citric acid!

( Editors note)  Why not make college a challenging time to learn new life skills and develop super eating habits.

Keywords: Eating Vegetables More, Eating More Veggies

How to Enjoy Eating More Vegetables

Back to School

Health Checklist and Tips

Based on an article by Randall Neustaedter OMD

(Healingtalks) Packing lunch for school can be hard on parents. I suggest you sit down with your kids and make a list of things they want to eat in their lunches. This can lead to (yet another) discussion of the foods that are nourishing and foods that are not so good for your body.

Green Light Model For Nutrition

Putting food choices into a context that kids can understand can be helpful. The traffic light model works well.

Green light foods are good for you. Eat as much of them as you like. These include fruits, vegetables, whole grain products, nuts, and organic meats and dairy.

Red light foods are those kids should not eat, like corn syrup, diet foods with Nutrasweet, caffeine products, and artificial colors and flavors.

Yellow light foods are those you should slow down on, like desserts, processed white flour products, and juice.

Healthy Packed Lunch and Lunch Box

A healthy packed lunch includes fruits such as organic blueberries, strawberries, grapes, or apples, some protein like peanut butter or meat and cheese sandwiches on whole grain bread, yogurt (without corn syrup), nuts or trail mix, organic chips, carrot sticks, seaweed snacks, or cheese sticks. Avoid juice boxes.

Beware of lunch boxes. Plastic lunch boxes may contain BPA (bisphenol-A), a synthetic estrogen that contributes to hormone disruption and cancer. The vinyl lining of lunch boxes and lunch bags marketed for children often contains lead. Seek out a BPA and lead-free tag on the bag to ensure that the food in your child’s lunch is not exposed to these toxins. Legal action was taken by the FDA and the Center for Environmental Health against lunch box manufacturers, but some of these may still contain toxins.

Supplements For Kids Immune Systems

Keep your kids healthy by supporting their immune systems. Exposure to other children with viruses is bound to pass colds around the classroom, but you can help to minimize symptoms by giving some specific supplements during the school year. Several types of supplements can help boost immune function. Adaptogenic mushrooms are one of the most potent immune system activators. An excellent formula that also includes astragalus and elderberry is Immunoberry by Designs for Health.

Probiotic formula with lactobacillus and bifidobacteria species will also help to protect children from viruses. Vitamin D3 is an essential supplement in the winter months (2,000 IU per day). And a colostrum or whey protein supplement to supply immunoglobulins and lactoferrin will also boost immune function.

Avoid Vaccines

Do not allow yourself to be pressured into giving vaccines to your child. Make an informed choice rather than just conceding to the pressure of school requirements. Consider the likelihood of exposure, seriousness of the disease, and side effects of the vaccine. Vaccines being forced on school age children these days include pertussis in DTaP (whooping cough), measles (MMR), and HPV (cervical cancer). Read about the vaccines in my book, The Vaccine Guide, or search  websites for information about each vaccine before you comply with routine vaccination. Remember, an exemption from vaccination is always available to you.

Back to School Exercise

Schoolwork can be demanding, and homework time consuming. Many schools have limited the amount of time devoted to PE. Make sure that your kids are getting some form of exercise every day, either in an organized sport or bike riding or just running around at the park. Staying fit is important for mental function as well as physical health.

About the author:

Dr. Randall Neustaedter, OMD, has practiced and taught holistic medicine for more than thirty years in the San Francisco Bay area, specializing in child health care. He is a licensed acupuncturist and doctor of Chinese medicine, author of The Holistic Baby Guide, Child Health Guide and The Vaccine Guide. Visit his website, www.cure-guide.com, to register for a free newsletter with pediatric specialty articles and follow him on Facebook, at Dr. Randall Neustaedter, OMD.

Keywords: Children health food, health for children, back to school, dangers of vaccines, health check list for kids

Back to School Health Tips Video

Effects of Smoking:

Picture of Sana, a Smoker Child Who Needed a Tracheotomy (Surgical Removal of Trachea)

What are Cigarettes?

Straight Up

By Oliver Sparks, Staff Writer

(Healingtalks) Cigarettes are something that will mess up our minds. Straight up!

The PrimaryMind Twister in Cigarettes

The primary psychoactive, or “mind twisting” chemical in cigarettes,  is obviously nicotine.
“Mind twisting” means changing your thought process unnaturally and harmfully.

We fall for this because sometimes we get stressed and need a quick fix. When that first warm inhaling feel of sweet carbon monoxide and fiberglass fills your chest, in just 10 seconds, it appears all stress is gone. Now it’s up to you to finish the cigarette, slowly rotting your lungs.

So there is a catch. Yes you get immediate gratification for a price. In a decade or two you mess up your lungs – what filters and brings in oxygen, the carrier of life, to all of your cells.

What’s Else Is In Cigarettes

And that’s not all. Over 4,300 more separate chemicals can be found in a single cigarette. But when these all are burned together, they cause even more toxic chemical compounds to form. This is why, in 1970, Nixon passed a bill requiring a warning label on all packs of cigarettes, now commonly known as the Surgeon General’s Warning. Additionally the bill outlawed TV cigarette ads in commercials. Yet cigarette smoking recently is on an upswing, especially among teens.

As it turns out, approximately one quarter of the youth alive in the Western Pacific Region (East Asia and the Pacific) today will die from tobacco use. Cigarette smoking is the second major cause of premature death, worldwide.

So what are cigarettes?

A ticking time bomb in tiny tubes that should all have skull and bones marked on the them by law.

A smoking cylindrical death and a cause of dismemberment.

IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE IT….ASK SANA, PICTURED ABOVE…AFTER HIS TRACHEOTOMY

Keywords

What is in a cigarette, how cigarettes harm us, deaths from cigarette smoking

Related Articles:

What is in a Cigarette

What’s Not in a Cigarette

Smoking Illusions

What is Really in a Cigarette

US Releases Graphic Images to Deter Smoking

Pictures of Smokers’ and Non-Smokers’ Lungs

Cigarette Ingredients

How to Fight Teen Smoking

Video Links

Why Do Teens Smoke – Listen to a Seven Teenagers Tell You Why And How They Suffer – and three of whom will statistically die of a smoking-related disease.

Video:

Supermodel killing

herself with

coconut oil?

Based on an article by Elizabeth Walling

Email this author

(Healingtalks) Super models aren’t exactly known for their healthy habits. But while some may resort to street drugs or diet pills to stay thin, others know that if their body is going to keep working for them, they need to invest in their health.

Miranda Kerr’s Healthy Skin Habits

Miranda Kerr attributes her sexy curves and luminous skin to what she considers a healthy habit: eating coconut oil every day. But doctors say she could be killing herself.

Medical Naysayers

Despite the fact that coconut oil has been shown to slim down your waistline, regulate blood sugar levels and combat illnesses like pneumonia, many medical doctors still hold on to their archaic beliefs that coconut oil will cause you to drop dead from a heart attack. They claim that because coconut oil is made mostly of saturated fatty acids, it will raise LDL cholesterol levels and contribute to heart disease – in spite of the fact that research has shown coconut oil actually improves your cholesterol profile!

The Truer Story

Numerous native populations in tropical regions have used coconut and its derivatives in their diet for centuries, and yet these people have had remarkably low rates of heart disease. As modern foods continue to encroach upon their traditional diets, however, heart disease is slowly on the rise. Could it be that modern industrial foods like refined vegetable oils, white flour, refined sweeteners and chemical additives are more dangerous to our heart health than natural, traditional foods like coconut oil?

Absolutely.

What’s in Coconut Oil

Coconut oil’s fatty acids are actually what makes it so incredibly healthy. Special medium-chain saturated fatty acids like caprylic acid and lauric acid have potent antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal properties. These properties give your body’s immune system a boost by fighting infection, and they also help to maintain a healthy balance of flora in your gut by killing off candida overgrowth. Benefits like these can translate to improved energy, glowing skin, healthy hair and much more.

Waking Up To Lasting Beauty

The medical community needs to revise their overdone mantra of “artery-clogging-saturated-fats” and to realize the healing power of traditional fats like coconut oil. And while we probably don’t need to be taking nutritional advice from every super model, Miranda Kerr certainly seems to be onto something with coconut oil.

For more information:

http://blisstree.com/eat/nutrition/…

About the author:

Elizabeth Walling is a freelance writer specializing in health and family nutrition. She is a strong believer in natural living as a way to improve health and prevent modern disease. She enjoys thinking outside of the box and challenging common myths about health and wellness. You can visit her blog to learn more:
www.livingthenourishedlife.com/2009…

Related Article: Carcinogenic Beauty

Keywords: healthy coconut oil, skin benefits coconut oil,  miranda kerr supermodel skin secrets

Global Issue

of Tobacco Use

GREAT Reasons To Go Organic!

Let’s Begin With the Very Deepest-Digging or Taproot Reason to Go Organic

(Healingtalks) There are many great  reasons to go organic and we have gathered a list. But the conventional reasons leave out the most deep-digging one of all.  This involves the heart and soul of our modern industrial culture. What this refers to is something radical, and the word radical means going to the root, or in this case the taproot problem.

Imagine that our dominant modern philosophy of nature, the mathematical and mechanical, which dramatically brought us out of medieval culture and into the Industrial Revolution (with its “gifts” of mechanized agriculture, food production, delivery, and serving – including McDonalds) is really out of sync with the deepest core essence of nature. This means we need to learn something different about nature than what is taught in most all elementary schools, high schools and/or colleges.

Imagine that again what has led us to create synthetic lab chemical is an ideology of nature, namely the belief-laden following of wherever the symbols of mathematics point us in nature, and unfortunately to the deepest depths of nature.

Why is that a falsely guiding vision, one involving both a reversal illusion and corruption of consciousness?

This is because those lofty and elevated math symbols, stripped naked of their royal garbs, are really but our left-brain’s highest or most universal symbols to separate all elements of our consciousness. The number “1″ is the universal separate whole, the ultimate building block of mathematics, like a “point” in geometry.

Why is a math-based ideology of nature then a very, very, very serious problem?

• First, if you systematically separate things in nature, especially what is most together, it then falls apart! Atom bombs symbolize this. Their design by Dr. Femi used the framework of Cartesian coordinates (the mathematization of geometry) or the visualization of space universally separated or disintegrated.
• Secondly, it is not just dead matter than can be disintegrated. Remember what is most deeply connected in the whole in nature happens to be organic life.
• Thirdly, lets consider the math-based philosophy of nature as out of sync with nature’s true deepest essence.  There are steps to this process.

•  Imagine that at the core inner depths of all of nature and cosmically is something else, namely life. Imagine this to be true even if it is rare to bring this inner essence to the surface.
• Imagine that the essence of life is something we and all living forms experience as “consciousness,” awareness or sentience.
• Imagine that this consciousness forms the universal relationship of connection in nature. When we are conscious of something we simply connect with it. Universal connection creates a Oneness in nature and this would mean consciousness and life are at the foundation of nature’s Oneness and not what math symbols point to.

If that is so, then the math-based vision of nature, in a marriage with $-signing and when driven far too deeply, pits us directly against the very core essence of nature, including the core essence of ourselves (or what keeps us and the rest of organic life whole and healed).

It pits oneself against nature’s life thus producing systemic death or the death of whole ecologies and species. This is why when you test not individual synthetic chemistry but the entire underlying order (by throwing a large random mix of chemicals in a compost heap) all of life therein dies. That is exactly what is happening in our times…why species are dying, why chronic ills (especially consciousness-depletion diseases like Alzheimer’s, cancer and diabetes) are increasing at exponentially pandemic rates.

Now we can add to this all the other reasons to go organic, most of which are derivative of the above:

Sugary Drinks

Raise Diabetes Risk

Analysis Shows Link Between Sweetened Beverages and Risk of Diabetes

Based on an article by Kathleen Doheny
WebMD Health News

(Healingtalks)  Drinking one or two sugar-sweetened beverages a day increases diabetes risk by 26%, a study shows. In the new analysis, researchers pooled the findings of 11 previously published studies including more than 320,000 participants, attempting to assess the ”big picture.”

“Drinking sugar-sweetened beverages is certainly and consistently associated with an increased risk of diabetes and metabolic syndrome,” says researcher Vasanti Malik, ScD, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Metabolic syndrome, a cluster of conditions including high blood pressure, elevated fasting blood sugar, high triglycerides, low HDL, and large waist size, increases the risk of developing diabetes.

The researchers took into account sugar-sweetened soft drinks, fruit drinks, iced tea, and energy and vitamin water drinks. Beverages that are 100% fruit juice without added sweeteners were not counted as sugar-sweetened beverages in the research.

Big Picture – Sugary Drink Risk

By pooling the results of previously published studies, Malik says, the researchers hoped to provide an overall picture of how great the risk is and how consistent the evidence. “We pooled all these studies and came up with one overall measure of association,” she tells WebMD.

Habitual drinkers — those drinking one to two sugar-sweetened beverages a day on average — had a 26% increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes and a 20% increased risk for developing metabolic syndrome compared to those who drank the beverages once a month or not at all, Malik says.

Eight of the studies looked at diabetes risk and three at metabolic syndrome risk. Participants in the diabetes studies totaled 310,819, with 15,043 cases of type 2 diabetes. In the metabolic syndrome studies, there were 19,431 participants and 5,803 cases of metabolic syndrome.

In the 11 studies, ages ranged from 21 to 84; the follow-up period ranged from four to 20 years.

Nearly 18 million people in the U.S. are diagnosed with diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association; most have type 2 diabetes, in which the body doesn’t make enough of the hormone insulin or doesn’t use it effectively. Insulin takes sugar from the blood to the cells.

The risk of developing type 2 diabetes varies from person to person, depending on such factors as family history, ethnicity, weight, and age.

The link between sugar-sweetened beverages and diabetes and metabolic syndrome risk can be partially explained by the weight gain that can result from drinking the sugar-sweetened beverages, which in turn boosts type 2 diabetes risk, the researchers say. The sugar-sweetened drinks can also raise blood sugar and insulin concentrations quickly, in turn leading to insulin resistance and and higher risk of diabetes, according to the researchers.

Industry Comment About Sugary Drinks

The new analysis finds only correlations, not cause and effect, between sugar-sweetened beverages and diabetes, says Maureen Storey, PhD, senior vice president for science policy for the American Beverage Association, the trade association representing companies making non-alcoholic drinks. In a statement, Storey says: “It is overly simplistic, and simply misleading, to suggest that reducing or eliminating sugar-sweetened beverages from the diet will uniquely lower [the] incidence of serious health conditions such as diabetes or metabolic syndrome.”

A critical flaw in the studies analyzed, she says, is that “the authors focus only on the impact of one calorie source — sugar-sweetened beverages — on weight, rather than looking at all sources of calories.”

A primary risk factor for both diabetes and metabolic syndrome, she says, is obesity, and maintaining a healthy weight can help reduce that risk. “And we know that the key to maintaining a healthy weight is balancing calories consumed, regardless of their source, with calories burned.”

There’s nothing unique, she says, about calories from sugar-sweetened beverages.

The new analysis “confirms what’s known” about sugar-sweetened beverages and diabetes risk, says Stephanie Dunbar, RD, MPH, director of clinical affairs for the American Diabetes Association.

“This [new analysis] doesn’t give us cause and effect, but I think it solidifies, ‘Yes, we think there is an association there.”

Beverage Alternatives

Limiting your intake of sugar-sweetened beverages is suggested by Malik and Dunbar. Try sparkling water with a lime wedge as an alternative, Malik says.

“For the general public, there’s certainly no benefit from drinking these sugar-sweetened beverages,” she says.”Everyone should be discouraging from drinking sugar-sweetened beverages, not just for the risk of diabetes and metabolic syndrome.”  She cites other research linking sugar-sweetened beverages to tooth decay and heart disease, among other ills.

Sugar-free diet beverages aren’t an alternative she would endorse either, she says “Sure, artificially sweetened beverages are calorie-free for the most part, which is a good thing,” she says, “but there are a lot of chemicals in them.”

The intense sweet flavor in the artificially sweetened drinks, she says, may condition you to prefer more sweets in the diet, she says.

Dunbar agrees: ”Even if you don’t have diabetes, sugar-sweetened beverages are really not healthful.”

Break the Sweet Drink Habit

But habits are hard to break, she tells WebMD. “For people drinking a lot of soda, they are probably not going to switch and drink just water.” She suggests a gradual weaning from the sugary drinks. “You can use fruit juice and mix with seltzer or carbonated water. Work it down so you have just a little flavoring in the water.”

And when you have to have a sugar-sweetened beverage? “Get the smallest size available,” Dunbar says.

Keyword tags: Sugar-sweetened beverage, sugary drink, sugary drinks, sugar-sweetened soft drinks, Drinking sugar-sweetened beverages

VISIT TO HIPPOCRATES

HEALTH INSTITUTE

(Healingtalks) I have just had a  hugely rewarding visit to Hippocrates Health Institute and attended their Halloween Bash. Over the course of the last month I have learned any number of things that are worth sharing widely with others.

• ORIGINATORS -  Hippocrates Institute is the longest running natural health resort that using living foods as a primary means to maintain health and reverse diseases. They have been doing this for 54 years running. They founded the raw and living foods movement in the US and influenced much of it worldwide.

• INTUITIVE RATHER THAN IDEOLOGICAL – The two founders of Hippocrates, Ann Wigmore and Viktoras Kulvinskas are two highly intuitive individuals. They began an approach toward healing that has evolved and been perfected because it was not presented as an ideology but rather as a guideline. Thus the methodology as been adaped and changed over half a century through clinical experience of what worked and didn’t and with helping hundreds of thousands maintain or return to health. Both live and clinical blood tests are taken before and after treatments.
• YOU AND NATURE ARE THE HEALERS – The Institute teaches others to tap into nature in order to heal oneness. Do doctor cures anything with a treatment because the real cure is to know how to stop developing disease.

• SOME OF FINDINGS
  
  • 100% VEGAN DIET – No flesh foods. The blood work of meat-eaters tends to be significantly worse than vegetarians and vegans. Blood work on guests have shown significant differences in the level of health of meat eaters compared to vegans. This means no dairy, meat or fish is served.
  • MOST HEALING FOODS (majority green) – These are grasses which are the ancestors for vegetables (most concentrated sources of chlorophyll and micro-nutirents along with sprouts, blue green algae and sea vegetables. The logic would take a while to explain and hardly matters. The clinical experience of turning around chronic ills is what counts. These foods are the staples of the Hippocrates diet, the largest portions of which are sprouts, usually a dozen varieties. It is suggested to add about 4 ounces of wheatgrass juice a day should be added as a blood cleanser. Seaweeds provide additional nutrients, especially minerals.
  • RAW, ORGANIC, WHOLE, LIVING FOOD – None of the Hippocrates foods are cooked. Meals are made from only raw, whole or minimally processed ingredients. Nuts, seeds, grains, and legumes are all soaked and/or sprouted before eaten. Fermented foods with live probiotics are also served.
  • LIMITING FRUITS – Fruits represent only 5% of the diet unless one is extremely healthy and athletic in which case it can be up to 15%. For those struggling with serious chronic illness, 0% is recommended until the illness is overcome. Fructose is the element that does harm, and modern fruits are hybrid grown to be among the sweetest possible.
  • HIGH QUALITY FATS – No synthetic margarine or the like. High omega-3 foods ingredients are used like flax, chia and hemp.
  • EXERCISE – It is recommended to have some aerobic exercise almost every day, and weight lifting to increase bone density about 3x a week.
  • ADEQUATE SLEEP – Studies at Harvard showed that subjects who got either too much or too little sleep developed up to  3x as much incidences of cancer.
  • FASTING AND DETOXES – The guests fast one day a week and have available wheatgrass implants, infra-red saunas and other means of detox
  • MIND WORK – A positive, grateful mind are among the inner qualities that are nurtured and developed.That’s a quick synopsis but there is so much more.

  This is a brief synopsis of the  Hippocrates Health Institute’s recipe for radiant health.

  Keyword tags: Hippocrates Health Institute, radiant health, RAW ORGANIC WHOLE LIVING FOOD

Getting the Most

Natural Light

in a Small Space

By Contributing Author  Nan Gibbons

(Healing Talks) People who work from home and are also studying for an online degree tend to stay inside more and they may not be getting enough sunlight.

Need For Sunlight

Most of us underestimate the need for sun, but the truth is that our bodies need it to synthesize vitamin D. This vitamin is vital because it is a fat soluble that plays a role in bone density, regulates mood, and your immune system. Natural light is the best way for this to happen, but if we don’t get that, our bodies will pull from artificial light to process vitamin D; and it may not be enough.

Natural light is necessary!

We also need natural light in our homes, apartments and dorm rooms too. It can sometimes be a challenge to arrange things in order to allow natural light to come in. Take note of how things are arranged outside of your home, apartment or dorm. If you do not own your home, there may not be much you can do to the outside of the building to direct more sunlight in, but there are some things you can do from the inside to help it.

Bringing Sunlight Into Our Living Spaces

• Rearranging Home Furnishings To Let in the Sun

Sometimes furniture blocks windows and it is a simple matter to move them.

• Use Mirrors to Reflect the Sun

Using tilting mirrors will cause sunlight to bounce off of one area, and reflect on another. To do this you can set them up near the window from which you want more light. Push the top of one of the tilting mirrors up if sunlight is reflecting on your face, the other angled toward the floor. Place the third one across from the window and tilt upward slightly. The last one tilts higher to reflect the ceiling. This causes the light to diffuse and redirect. You can also place mirrors outside of the window as well.

• Paint with a Sun-reflective Gloss Finishes

This  is another way to reflect natural light. Cover outside walls, fences, garage if possible to help to redirect sunlight.

• Use The Solar Sun Jar and Moon Jar

These are relatively new products that hit the market with the solar conscious online student in mind. The sun jar captures natural sunlight and works as a good study lamp or book light. The moon jar is a night light. Both are in frosted jars, (the sun jar is warm colored orange or yellow LED, and the moon jar is in blue). The jars are powered by sunlight, so they must sit in direct sunlight to charge. There is no on and off switch, but rather the product is prompted by darkness in the room to come on. These jars can be found at Target or online at http://www.thinkgeek.com. Light diffused by the frosted jars gives the appearance of sunlight being emitted, or a cool moon glow (a warm colored LED light is used to give a more natural and warm light). You may notice that there is no switch on the Sun Jar – in fact there are no visible controls at all – but there is an override switch to turn it off, or to save battery life. The cost is relatively inexpensive.

• Window Treatments to Let Sunlight In

If your desire is to direct sunlight into a kitchen area, you can rearrange your window treatments to make this happen. Putting the curtain rod midway on the window and covering the bottom half while leaving the top part open is a way to do that. You will still have your privacy and natural light, the best of both worlds.

If it is your dorm window or apartment window, single sheers will give layers without blocking light. Or use the long scarf panel to drape across the top of the window panel and flow down the sides. This does not block light from the glass, and gives the room an elegant look.
If you require more privacy, you may want to pull down your blinds and turn them upward. This directs light towards the ceiling, helping to light the room.

• UV Windows

Uv windows reduce heat that comes into the home or dorm. They can significantly block UV radiation are and reduce fading in your furnishings concerns. Forty percent of furniture fading is due to UV radiation. Skin cancer is also generally traced to exposure to UV radiation.

So  let the sun shine in. 

There’s no excuse for not getting your vitamin D.

About the Author

Nan Gibbons is a fitness expert and marketer who loves traveling the world in order to provide consulting at sporting events. When  stateside, she enjoys spending time volunteering for environmental organizations as well as with her mixed lab, Cody.

Keyword tags: getting the most light in a small space, natural lighting at home, getting your vitamin D, bringing in sunlight, how to brighten your home

Four Ways to

Shed Belly Fat

Based on article by Deborah Kotz  http://health.usnews.com

Studies on Belly Fat and Waist Size

(Healingtalks) A study published  in the journal Circulation: Heart Failure indicates that having a large waist siZe ups your risk of heart failure, a condition that’s often fatal. A second study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that exercise doesn’t harm those with heart failure and could actually provide some benefits.

The analysis of the belly fat research, based on data from two Swedish population studies, showed that being overweight or obese increased the risk of heart failure in men but didn’t in women—unless they had a large waist size.

A woman with a normal body mass index of 25 whose waist size increased by 4 inches over the years wound up with a 15 percent greater risk of heart failure than those whose waist sizes remained the same. (A 5-foot, 4-inch woman who weighs 146 pounds has a BMI of 25.) Medical experts recommend that women maintain a waist size of less than 35 inches to reduce their risk of chronic diseases. How to measure your waist size.

Where you carry your fat is largely determined by your genes.  But there are certain things you can do to help redistribute fat away from your belly. Remember excess belly fat is so dangerous

Here are the four ways to keep a fit belly:

1. Exercise to shed that belly fat

You can’t exercise to spot reduce, but it will help you shed excess pounds — and often, the fat your body sheds first comes from your belly. Abdominal crunches can help tone muscles to make your stomach look flatter, but to truly get rid of fat, you have to burn off abdominal fat through aerobic activity.

2. Be a mindful eater

Researchers are currently investigating whether really paying attention to what you eat can help redistribute body fat from your waist to your hips. Plenty of studies, though, have shown that mindful eating can help with weight loss efforts in general. We recommend.moving in the direction of eating mostly fruits and vegetables, thus a vegetarian/vegan diet with mostly whole, raw, living foods.

3. Get adequate amounts of sleep

Too little sleep (less than six hours) or too much (more than eight hours) results in an excess production of the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol promotes the storage of fat in the belly.

4. Reduce stress

Penciling in 15 minutes a day for relaxation can also lower your cortisol levels, helping you shed belly fat. Deep breathing, a stroll outdoors under the blossoming trees, or a bubble bath can help you leave the world behind.

____________________________________

The following is based on comment on weight loss from Dr. Mercola’s Website

Number One Way to Lose Body Fat – Exercise

If you’re looking for that six-pack physique, you need to expose the abdominal muscles underneath the fat. But can you really lose fat in just one specific area – the abdominals? It’s unlikely, although some strategies may be able to do so a little.

• Exercise is your number one ally in shedding unwanted body fat.
• It helps normalizing your insulin levels.
• It  also helps you sleep better – another important factor not only for optimal overall health but also, as it turns out, for avoiding packing pounds around your midsection.
• I alleviates stress, so that you have less of the hormone cortisol that is connected to producing stomach fat.

Best Exercises For Weightloss

When you’re exercising to achieve weight loss, you’ll want to focus on weight bearing exercises, as muscle burns calories quite efficiently. It has been my experience that non-weight bearing exercises, like swimming and bicycling, are not as efficient or effective for weight loss. You will typically need to exercise four times as long in these activities to receive the same benefit of running, using elliptical machine, or using weights.

Additionally, to really maximize your weight loss efforts, make sure you include high-intensity interval exercises and strength training in your program.

One recent study showed that interval training can significantly enhance your body’s ability to burn fat. In this study, eight women in their early 20s were told to cycle for 10 sets of four minutes of hard riding, followed by two minutes of rest. After two weeks, the amount of fat burned in an hour of continuous moderate cycling increased by 36 percent!

An added boon of interval exercises is that it can radically decrease the amount of time you need to spend exercising.

As far as individual exercises to target your tummy are concerned, sit-ups and abdominal exercises that are associated with breath control mechanisms, such as yoga exercises, can help tighten your abdominal muscles.

However, it’s important to keep in mind that there is no single abdominal exercise that challenges all your abdominal muscles. So you need to perform a variety of exercises that involve the full range of muscles.

Another factor that is often overlooked is your back muscles. Your back helps you hold yourself up and your stomach in, from behind. So having strong back muscles, as well as abs, is essential for a flatter stomach.

Exercise and Diet Go Hand in Hand

The other, equally important, factor in helping you shed excess weight is to consume the most appropriate foods for your specific genetic and biochemistry. Remember, the foods that may be healthy for others are not necessarily healthy for you, and vice-versa. Determining your specific nutritional type is the proven way to ascertain which foods work best for you.

It’s also important to realize that controlling your insulin levels is as important to optimizing your weight as it is to protecting you against diseases like diabetes.

Why?

Because when your insulin levels increase, you are telling your body to store carbohydrates as fat and to not release any of the stored fat. This makes it impossible for you to use your own stored body fat for energy.

So excess refined and processed carbohydrates in your diet (such as breads and pasta) not only make you gain weight, they make sure you keep that weight on. By cutting grains and sugars from your diet, you can significantly improve your chances of successful weight loss.

As far as nutrition to target belly fat specifically, certain dietary fats have actually been found to be helpful in reducing the accumulation of subcutaneous and visceral abdominal fat.

A study published in the journal Diabetes Care in July 2007 found that diets rich in monounsaturated fats prevented the accumulation of both types of belly fat, without additional exercise.

Foods high in monounsaturated fats include:

• Nuts, especially pecans
• Seeds
• Avocados

Dangerous Weightloss Options

Unfortunately, many people simply opt for what appears to be the easiest solution, and when it comes to excess weight around your middle, surgical options like liposuction or treatments such as Lipodissolve are popular alternatives.

However, you need to be aware that there are many risks involved in procedures like these, and they may not give you permanent results.

During a Lipodissolve treatment, a chemical found in lecithin (phosphatidylcholine deoxycholate) is injected into fatty areas such as “love handles” and “bra rolls,” where it dissolves fat cells. But the injectable compound is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and no long-term studies have been conducted on Lipodissolve’s safety.

Among the chief questions about the procedure is where the fat cells go once they are dissolved. Lipodissolve practitioners say the cells are excreted by your body naturally, but no one really knows for sure. According to the FDA, Lipodissolve is a “buyer-beware situation.”

And when it comes to liposuction, a survey of plastic surgeons found that more people die during liposuction than during most other kinds of operations: 19 deaths per 100,000 procedures. Meanwhile the generally accepted death rate for any kind of elective surgery is 1 in 100,000. The most common reported cause of death was pulmonary thromboembolism, or blood clots.

There simply are no better alternatives to a healthy lifestyle if you want a strong and shapely body.

Can You Wake Up to a Flatter Belly?

So, what does proper sleep have to do with a flatter stomach? Researchers have found that all body fat is not created equal, and that holds especially true for belly fat. Abdominal fat has a very rich blood supply and has four times more cortisol receptors than other body fat.

Cortisol is a stress hormone, produced by your adrenal glands in response to stress, but sleeping too little (less than six hours) or too much (more than eight hours) also results in an excess production of cortisol.

The cortisol belly fat connection comes into play when you are under chronic stress, as cortisol tends to store unused fat that has been released by your body in the stress response. Since your belly fat contains large amounts of cortisol receptors, you may tend to gain fat in the abdominal region when you’re chronically stressed or have trouble sleeping properly.

For helpful tips to help you sleep well, please review my 33 secrets to a good night’s sleep. And, to help combat stress — and address any underlying emotional issues that may cause you to lose precious sleep — I highly recommend the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). It’s a simple psychological acupressure technique that is routinely used in my practice that can help you optimize your emotional health.

Keyword tags: living foods, studies of belly fat and waist size, shed belly fat, lose weight, shed pounds, exercise and eat for weight loss, how to lose weight and fat, interval training

Breaking News:

Teen Smoking Skyrockets

(Healingtalks) A study reported that American teenagers are becoming casual smokers, instead of heavy/regularly smokers.
In general young adults already had the highest smoking rates of any age group in the U.S., and thue new strategies to decrease young adult smoking are needed.

Researchers found that occasional smoking among teens rose from 1991 to 2009, while heavy smoking fell significantly.

We’re seeing a broad national phenomenon,” said Dr. Terry Pechachek, a study co-author from the Centers for Disease Control.

“With fewer cigarettes, the price effect, smoke-free policies and a change in the broad public awareness of risk, the heaviest patterns of use are becoming very rare,” Pechachek said.

But he warned against assuming that moderate smoking is safer in the long-run.

“It is important to note that light and intermittent smoking still has significant health risks,” Pechachek explained. “We think there may be an emerging pattern. We may be creating a new type of smoker that may be more durable, that are adapting to smoke-free environments and to changing social norms.”

Pechacek said that the high percentage of intermittent teenage smokers is unacceptable.

Teachers and parents should not downplay the risks of teen smoking

“It’s still a very risky behavior. We want to get across to people that although this is a positive trend, it’s very unacceptable to have so many children exposing themselves to something so addictive. The greatest danger is minimizing the risk.”

Here is more information on the study results

Major Rise in Teen Casual Smoking

Heavy smoking was defined by enjoying more than 11 cigarettes per day. Moderate smoking was defined as enjoying between six to 10 cigarettes per day. Light smoking was defined by having to five cigarettes per day.  Between 1991 and 2009, heavy smoking among teenagers has decreased by 10 percent, from 18 to 8 percent.

During this time, casual teen smoking has increased from 67 percent to 79 percent.

No significant changes in smoking trends for African American teenagers was observed, but for Hispanic teenagers, the heavy smoking rate increased from 3.1 percent to 6.4 percent.

Risks of Teen Smoking

Smoking has different risks for people who smoke at all. By smoking, people have an increased risk for heart disease, heart attack, lung cancer, and other types of cancer. An estimated 90% of all lung cancer in males are caused by smoking. An estimated 80% of lung cancer in females is caused by smoking. Teenagers today are even more vulnerable because of the introduction of ever more adulterated GMO, and sugar-addictive fast foods that help create a teen obesity and diabetics epidemic.

Resulting Early Deaths From Smoking

According to the CDC, smoking cigarettes has contributed to an estimated 443,000 deaths annually.

Nearly one of every five deaths in the U.S. are related to smoking. Tobacco causes more deaths per year than Human Immunodeficiency virus (HIV), illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides, and murders all combined.

This study was reported in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine.

More Healingtalks Articles on Smoking

How to Fight Teen Smoking?

What’s in a Cigarette

What’s Not in a Cigarette

Smoking Illusions

What is Really in a Cigarette

US Releases Graphic Images to Deter Smoking

Pictures of Smokers’ and Non-Smokers’ Lungs

Cigarette Ingredients

Keyword tags: American teen smoking, Hispanic teenagers smoking, teen smoking skyrockets,resulting early deaths from smoking, smoking causes death, smoking is death, rise in teen smoking

How To Fight

Teen Smoking

Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Healingtalks Editor

Overview of Teen Smoking

(Healingtalks) Each day in the United States, 3,900 teens try smoking for the first time, estimates the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Don’t allow your teen to become just another statistic. By talking with your teen in a frank and mature way, while setting a good example, you can help fight teen smoking and convince your teen to never start in the first place. Luckily, resources and parental support can help your teen to make the right choices when it comes to smoking.

Discussions with Children and Teens on Smoking

Start the discussion about smoking at a young age. The American Cancer Society recommends that the discussion begin with your child is only 5 or 6 years old. Talking about the health and social effects of smoking should be an ongoing dialogue in your home so that when your child grows into a teen, your opinion on cigarettes has been made clear. The ACS notes that many children take their first puff at age 11; it’s never too early to start talking about smoking.

Disclosure of the Dangers of Teen Smoking

Point out the health, social and economical dangers of smoking to your teen. Ask why he would want to participate in a habit that makes his clothes and hair smell, his body sick and his wallet empty. Ask your teen to make a list of the various pros and cons of smoking and to weigh the costs versus the gains to make the decision on smoking on his own.

Role Play Teen Pressure to Smoke

Try role-playing exercises with your teen to ensure that she knows what to do in a situation where a cigarette is offered to her, suggests the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Pretend to be a peer and offer your child a cigarette. Remember to be as convincing as another teen might be, trying to entice your teen by saying smoking is fun, lots of people do it and it’s not like he’ll become addicted. Coach your teen through the things he can say to politely say “no” and leave the situation.

Offer a Good Example By Not Smoking in a Teen Household

Offer a good example for your teen. MayoClinic.com notes that smoking is more prevalent among teens whose parents also smoke. To set a good example, make sure that you show respect for your body and health by exercising and eating well, not only by abstaining from smoking. This shows your teen that you respect your body and want to maintain good health, ideals and values that can be passed on to your teen.

Direct Your Teen to Online Resources

Show your teen online resources that she can read on her own time. These resources, like the ones found at Kids Health, a division of the Nemours Foundation, and the American Academy of Family Physician’s Web site, give the health risks of smoking in plain terms that your teen can understand. It may help her to see that you’re not the only adult who disapproves of smoking. See also the further articles on smoking below.

More Healingtalks Articles on Smoking

What’s in a Cigarette

What’s Not in a Cigarette

Smoking Illusions

What is Really in a Cigarette

US Releases Graphic Images to Deter Smoking

Pictures of Smokers’ and Non-Smokers’ Lungs

Cigarette Ingredients

More Teen Smoking Articles

For dozens of more articles and suggestions on how to best be informed and deal with or fight teen smoking, see http://www.livestrong.com/teen-smoking/

Keywords

Dangers of teen smoking, teens on smoking, how to treat teen smoking, preventing teen smoking, fight teen smoking, rise in teen smoking 

Benefits of

L-Argenine

What’s best? Soy milk,

cow’s milk, raw milk or

fermented milk (kefir)?

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

One of the most common questions I’m asked concerns my recommendations for milk or milk alternatives. My answer on this question has evolved over the years, so today, I’ll share my latest preferences for milk and milk-like beverages.

Thumbs down: Soy milk

A few years ago, I recommended soy milk as a natural alternative to cow’s milk. But since then, far better alternatives have emerged (see below). Also, more information has appeared regarding the environmental impact of soybean farming (the Amazon rainforest is being devastated by clear cutting to create soybean agricultural lands) as well as the frightening fact that most soybeans grown today are genetically modified (GMO) varieties.

On top of this, most popular soy milk brands (I won’t name names, but these are likely the ones in your grocery store) have been bought out by big, profit-seeking food and beverage corporations, and as a result, they’ve been sugared up and made nutritionally inferior. Check the ingredients on “plain” soy milk the next time you’re at the store: It’s loaded with sugar!

Without question, most soy milk has become too mainstream, too sugary and too much controlled by the same food and beverage giants that are still manufacturing and marketing other products that promote degenerative disease. Because of these reasons, I no longer recommend soy milk (unless you make it yourself or get it from a small, truly natural company).

Thumbs down: Processed cow’s milk

I’m also not thrilled about processed milk from cows. By “processed,” I mean homogenized and pasteurized. The pasteurization kills all the beneficial microorganisms, and homogenization artificially modifies dairy fats in a way that ultimately harms the human cardiovascular system when consumed. Processed “mainstream” milk is also taken from dairy cows pumped up with antibiotics, rBGH (Bovine Growth Hormone) and usually treated very poorly in terms of ethics. Even the popular brands showing happy cows and claiming to be organic are under intense fire by the Organic Consumers Association (www.OrganicConsumers.org) for exploiting certain loopholes that allow non-organic cows to be suddenly considered “organic” on the day they’re giving milk.

Processed cow’s milk is bad for your health and bad for the cows who give it. It’s great for corporate profits, however, and that’s why milk continues to be so heavily marketed as a nutritional beverage. They’ve even managed to so strongly influence the USDA that the latest dietary recommendations by this government agency essentially recommend that everyone should drink more milk. And it’s no surprise that infant formula manufacturers have, for decades, tried to convince nutritionally ignorant mothers that cow’s milk is better for their baby than human breast milk. (An odd idea, isn’t it?)

Thumbs up: Raw milk

Over the last two years, I’ve become a proponent of raw milk (especially raw fermented milk, see below). Raw goat’s milk is my personal recommendation, but even raw cow’s milk has merit. What’s so good about raw milk? Because it’s not homogenized or pasteurized, it’s nutritionally superior to dead, cooked milk. Raw milk seems to be far easier to digest, and it contains living bacteria cultures that enhance digestion and even soothe the digestive tract.

It’s no surprise, then, that raw milk is under attack by both federal regulators and some members of the processed milk industry. They don’t want people to find a “superior” milk that isn’t as profitable to sell (because it has reduced shelf life), so they’re trying to destroy the raw milk market and limit consumer choice to processed, dead milk. (The same is true in the almond industry, where the Almond Board of California is now trying to irradiate all almonds grown in the state, yet have them labeled as “raw” even when they’re dead.)

This attack on raw milk is dressed up to look like a public safety concern. Raw milk is dangerous, regulators claim, because the live cultures might get contaminated with unfriendly bacteria and harm someone. The preferred alternative, it seems, is to kill all the food so that it harms everyone equally.

In terms of choosing raw milk, the typical choices are raw cow’s milk and raw goat’s milk. Raw goat’s milk is more compatible with human nutritional needs (and is especially beneficial to infants when mother’s milk isn’t available), but it has a stronger taste that not everyone enjoys. I encourage you to try both raw goat’s milk and raw cow’s milk, then decide what you like best. The proteins in the goat’s milk are, no doubt, easier for humans to digest.

Thumbs way up: Fermented raw milk

The best dairy beverage for your health is, in my opinion, fermented raw milk. If you take raw milk and inoculate it with bacterial cultures, then let it sit for a day or two, you end up with a living, predigested, nutritionally superior beverage that’s so packed with life it’s actually fizzy (carbonated due to the off-gassing of bacteria) when you make it yourself at home.

One form of this fermented milk is called Kefir. It’s an incredible beverage when you make it yourself. The store-bought kefir just isn’t the same because it’s usually dead, flat and pasteurized. But home-made kefir is something else entirely! It’s alive, energetic and completely natural.

I was recently treated to some kefir made from raw goat’s milk by a raw foods chef in Tucson — a man I hope to feature on NaturalNews videos later this year. He makes kefir in jars on his kitchen countertop, using a kefir culture that’s been passed down from one raw foodist to another for years… maybe even decades. It contained no sweeteners or additives of any kind; just raw goat’s milk cultured with bacteria. After drinking it, I noticed an immediate energetic difference, and in the days that followed, I was amazed at the therapeutic effect on my digestive and elimination processes. Since then, I’ve really upped my intake of fermented foods in general.

Store-bought kefir is tricky. Definitely avoid non-organic kefir of any kind, and I strongly recommend that even when you buy organic kefir, avoid products made with added sugars. This is a fermented beverage, not ice cream. Don’t think it’s supposed to taste like a milkshake. It’s a slightly bitter beverage when you drink it plain, but that’s what kefir is supposed to be.

Thumbs way up: Raw almond milk

Another current favorite at my house is raw almond milk. It’s made from raw, soaked almonds, water, vanilla and a pinch of sea salt. I’ve posted a video on how to make this yourself using a Vita-Mix. (Click here to see the video.)

Raw almond milk is both delicious and nutritious. While it doesn’t have the protein content of animal milk, it’s rich in plant-based fats and various anti-cancer phytonutrients. Once you make a batch, you’ll need to drink it within a day or two, since it tends to sour very quickly (it’s alive, raw and nutritious, obviously), but I’ve found that you can preserve it in the refrigerator for several days longer by adding a couple of drops of food-grade hydrogen peroxide.

Many raw food proponents are now drinking a combination of raw almond milk and raw goat’s milk kefir. That’s a combination I’m enjoying, too. It’s good to have a balance of both plant and animal-based milks, but only if they’re from ethically treated, naturally raised animals who are not exposed to antibiotics, toxic chemicals or conventional veterinary care (which is all based on chemicals, just like human health care).

Mike’s Milk Matrix

Okay, here’s the low down on milk products and milk alternatives as I see it:

Soy milk: Not recommended. Too many GMO soybeans, bad environmental impact and some possible undesirable estrogen effects. The isoflavones are good for preventing cancer, however.

Processed cow’s milk: It’s just gross. Homogenized, pasteurized, milked from unhealthy cows and containing alarmingly high levels of pus, this liquid is nothing less than frightening. Flee it.

Raw cow’s milk (organic): This is an acceptable dairy beverage. If it’s from healthy cows treated with kindness and good nutrition, this raw beverage is far better than processed cow’s milk.

Row goat’s milk (organic): Even better than raw cow’s milk, since the goat’s milk is easier to digest and more compatible with human nutritional needs.

Fermented milk from cows or goats (organic Kefir): A great choice! It’s alive, nutritious and great for digestive health. Make it yourself for best results. If you buy it, avoid the sugared-up kefir products in the store.

Raw almond milk: A top choice for vegans, one of my favorite beverages. Make it yourself with raw almonds, water a nut milk bag and a blender. Click here to see my almond milk recipe video.

Enjoy!

All content posted on this site is commentary or opinion and is protected under Free Speech. Truth Publishing LLC takes sole responsibility for all content. Truth Publishing sells no hard products and earns no money from the recommendation of products. NaturalNews.com is presented for educational and commentary purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice from any licensed practitioner. Truth Publishing assumes no responsibility for the use or misuse of this material. For the full terms of usage of this material, visit www.NaturalNews.com/terms.shtml

What is really

in a Cigarette?

by K. H. Ginzel, M.D.

Most Outstanding Ingredient in a Cigarette

(Healingtalks) For those who still don’t know — let me emphatically state that cigarette smoking is a true addiction! To grasp this well-documented fact, one really doesn’t have to study all the supporting scientific evidence. One simply needs to consider that no other drug is self-administered with the persistence, regularity and frequency of a cigarette. At an average rate of ten puffs per cigarette, a one to three pack-a-day smoker inhales 70,000 to 200,000 individual doses of mainstream smoke during a single year. Ever since its large scale industrial production early in this century, the popularity of the modern cigarette has been spreading like wildfire. Here is the first, and perhaps the most significant answer to the title question: Addiction is in a cigarette. Probing into what makes a cigarette so irresistible, we find that much of the recent research corroborates earlier claims: It is for the nicotine in tobacco that the smoker smokes, the chewer chews, and the dipper dips. Hence, nicotine is in a cigarette.

Nicotine and Much More in What’s in a Cigarette

In contrast to other drugs, nicotine delivery from tobacco carries an ominous burden of chemical poisons and cancer-producing substances that boggle the mind. Many toxic agents are in a cigarette. However, additional toxicants are manufactured during the smoking process by the chemical reactions occurring in the glowing tip of the cigarette. The number is staggering: more than 4,000 hazardous compounds are present in the smoke that smokers draw into their lungs and which escapes into the environment between puffs.

Cigarette’s Concentrated Pollution of Lungs

The burning of tobacco generates more than 150 billion tar particles per cubic inch, constituting the visible portion of cigarette smoke. According to chemists at R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, cigarette smoke is 10,000 times more concentrated than the automobile pollution at rush hour on a freeway. The lungs of smokers, puffing a daily ration of 20 to 60 low to high tar cigarettes, collect an annual deposit of one-quarter to one and one-half pounds of the gooey black material, amounting to a total of 15 to 90 million pounds of carcinogen-packed tar for the aggregate of current American smokers. Hence, tar is in a cigarette.

Cigarette’s Air Pollution

But visible smoke contributes only 5-8% to the total output of a cigarette. The remaining bulk that cannot be seen makes up the so-called vapor or gas phase of cigarette “smoke.” It contains, besides nitrogen and oxygen, a bewildering assortment of toxic gases, such as carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, acrolein, hydrogen cyanide, and nitrogen oxides, to name just a few. Smokers efficiently extract almost 90% of the particulate as well as gaseous constituents (about 50% in the case of carbon monoxide) from the mainstream smoke of the 600 billion cigarettes consumed annually in the U.S. In addition, 2.25 million metric tons of sidestream smoke chemicals pollute the enclosed air spaces of homes, offices, conference rooms, bars, restaurants, and automobiles in this country. Hence, pollution is in a cigarette.

In addition, there is the chemical burden from sidestream smoke, afflicting smokers and non-smokers alike. Based on the reported concentrations in enclosed, cigarette smoke-polluted areas, the estimated intakes of nicotine, acrolein, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and formaldehyde peak at 200, 130, 75, 7, and 3 times the ADI, respectively. The high exposure to acrolein is especially unsettling. This compound is not only a potent respiratory irritant, but qualifies, according to current studies, as a carcinogen.

Illnesses That Follow Smoking

The witch’s brew of poisons invades the organs and tissues of smokers and nonsmokers, adults and children, born as well as unborn, and causes cancer, emphysema, heart disease, fetal growth retardation and other problems during pregnancy. The harm inflicted by all other addictions combined pales in comparison. Smoking-related illness, for example, claims in a few days as many victims as cocaine does in a whole year. Hence, disease is in a cigarette.

Limited Regulation of Cigarette Toxins and Carcinogens

The irony is that many of the poisons found in cigarette smoke are subject to strict regulation by federal laws which, on the other hand, specifically exempt tobacco products. “Acceptable Daily Intake,” ADI, is the amount of a chemical an individual can be exposed to for an extended period without apparent detriment to health.

Regulatory policy aims at restricting exposure to carcinogens to a level where the lifetime risk of cancer would not exceed 1 in 100,000 to 1,000,000. Due to a limited database, approximate upper lifetime risk values could be calculated for only 7 representative cigarette smoke carcinogens. The risk values were extraordinarily high, ranging from 1 in 6,000 to 1 in 16. Because of the awesome amount of carcinogens found in cigarette smoke and the fact that carcinogens combine their individual actions in an additive or even multiplicative fashion, it is not surprising that the actual risk for lung cancer is as high as one in ten. Hence, cancer is in a cigarette.

Among the worst offenders are the nitrosamines. Strictly regulated by federal agencies, their concentrations in beer, bacon, and baby bottle nipples must not exceed 5 to 10 parts per billion. A typical person ingests about one microgram a day, while the smokers’ intake tops this by 17 times for each pack of cigarette smoked. In 1976, a rocket fuel manufacturer in the Baltimore area was emitting dimethylnitrosamine into the surrounding air, exposing the local inhabitants to an estimated 14 micrograms of the carcinogen per day. The plant was promptly shut down. However eagerly the government tries to protect us from outdoor pollution and the carcinogenic risk of consumer products, it blatantly suspends control if the offending chemical is in, or comes from, a cigarette. Hence, hypocrisy is in a cigarette.

But there is still more in a cigarette than addiction, poison, pollution, disease, and hypocrisy. A half century of aggressive promotion and sophisticated advertising that featured alluring role models from theater, film and sport, has invested the cigarette with an enticing imagery.

Deceit and Death in Cigarettes

Imagery which captivates and seduces a growing youngster. The youngster, indispensable for being recruited into the future army of smokers, does not start to smoke cigarettes for the nicotine, but for the false promises they hold. Hence, deceit is in a cigarette.

In summary, no drug ever ingested by humans can rival the long-term debilitating effects of tobacco; the carnage perpetuated by its purveyors; the merciless irreversibility of destiny once the victim contracts lung cancer or emphysema; the militant denial on the part of those who, with the support of stockholders and the sanction of governments, legally push their lethal merchandise across borders and continents killing every year two and one-half to three million people worldwide. All things added together: death is in a cigarette.

K. H. Ginzel, M.D., is Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Arkansas. His work is concentrated in the area of nicotine and its effects.

Click for more information on what is really in a cigarette?

More Healingtalks Articles on Smoking

What’s in a Cigarette

What’s Not in a Cigarette

Smoking Illusions

US Releases Graphic Images to Deter Smoking

Pictures of Smokers’ and Non-Smokers’ Lungs

Cigarette Ingredients

How to Fight Teen Smoking

Keyword Tags: What is really in a cigarette, whats really in a cigarette, what’s really in a cigarette, what is not in a cigarette, what’s in a cigarette

Raw Buckwheat Pizza

…….Last weekend the theme at our local farmers’ market in Oneonta New York  was food-for-health. Some might not have noticed with all those belly-dancers there. But those who came to our table had a memorable event.

For  my friend Dana asked me to do a display of raw, living, local organic foods. Thus I brought my assortment of sprouts, micro-greens and something special - raw buckwheat pizza. The farmer’s market and the local Green Earth Health Food Store donated ingredients. The pizza was a big hit.

However, this was a new recipe for me and thus all the more fun to prepare at 2am the night before. Thank God I had help so that I could get to sleep at 4am. And all the effort was worth it!

In the past I had been used to making the pizza crust with either sprouted wheat berries or rye. Buckwheat is actually easier to sprout and is not a grain technically. It just tastes like a grain, is highly nutritious and is a relative of the rhubarb seed…and so this avoids confronting gluten or grain allergies.

The recipe is fairly simple though there are several steps to it and it takes time, but its worth it!

Preparing a Sprouted Buckwheat Pizza Crust

VEGETABLE IN SPICES – First we take on bunch of celery hearts, a cup of tomatoes, half an onion and some spices (a little basil, parsley, 2 cloves of garlic and a sweetener). For the latter and to keep things local, I used garlic, stevia, parsley and basil from our organic garden. All of these are put into a food processor.

SPROUTED BUCKWHEAT GROATS - Then we slowly add 5 1/2 cups of sprouted buckwheat. To make sprouted buckwheat soak the hulled groats for 8-10 hours. You can soak them in a bowl in the am and take them out to sprout in the pm, or visa versa. Then let them sprout for at least a day or two until the buckwheat develops its tails. It is then most alive and nutritious. We also make buckwheat groats that are chewing for breakfast by putting them in a dehydrator for a day and then adding some fruit and nut milk. We did that with the excess buckwheat that was left over after sorting out 5 1/2 cups for the pizza.

FLAXSEED MEAL - Lastly slowly add two cups of flaxseed meal which you can make in a coffee grinder. This gives the pizza crust its firmness.

If the consistency of this whole mix in the food processor is too wet then add more flaxseed. I have even added some whole, unground or whole flaxseed to give the crust more texture as well as nutrition.

PUTTING IT ALL IN THE DEHYDRATOR – We use a 14 inch square dehydrator instead of an oven to bake the pizza crust. This allows us to bake it no more than at 105 degrees which preserves the aliveness and super high nutrition of the ingredients. You can use olive-oiled hands or plastic gloves to put down the batter and so it does not stick to your hands but to the dehydrator trays instead. It takes 5-6 hours minimum time at 105 degrees for the crust to start hardening in the dehydrator.

Preparing the Nut Cheez

You can make a “nut Parmesan cheez” using a half pound each of ground brazil  nuts and walnuts. add 4 cloves of crushed garlic and some salt and italian seasoning. Paprika or cayenne pepper is optional to give it color and a hot flavor. You can also make a more soupy white nut  cheez by mixing 2 cups of cashew or macademia nuts with a little onion, lemon juice and salt. Blend it all together and put it into a plastic bag. Then cut the corner with a small opening so you can squeeze out the nut cheeze to form any pattern you like on the pizza

Raw Pizza Tomato Sauce

A great tomato sauce will end up being sweat. So here is how it is done. Slice up 3 cups of roma tomatoes. Add  1 1/2 cups of raisins or your favorite dried fruit (substitute stevia if you are sensitive to the sugar content). The spice it further up with the juice of a whole lemon, a pinch of Himalayan salt, some Italian seasoning, including basil and a clove of garlic – and voila you have a dynamite sauce.

Toppings

Last we prepare the toppings and here you can let your creativity go wild. We used sliced tomatoes, some garden parsley, a couple of mushrooms, sliced zucchini and peppers from a local farm, and garnished the whole pizza with edible flowers from our own garden.

Another idea I like is to do an eggplant or essentially olive and mushroom toppings. Remember to let your creativity go wild, including with the use of wild, local herbs.

Putting It All Together

Here are the steps I recommend

1. Put on your tomato sauce.
2. Add some thin slices of tomatoes.
3. Next put on your additional toppings
4. Then add the one or two kinds of nut cheezes
5. Lastly add your garnishing to the plate

There you have it.

I promise you that you won’t believe the yummy, delicious taste…with the bonus of super-nutrition

Nathan Batalion CT

For another take on raw buckwheat pizza see:

In general the issue of eating fruit or not in one’s daily diet, and especially when on a largely vegan diet, is a matter of great contention. Some swear by it and others at it.

During the summer we have locally the Woodsock Fruit Festival where about 300 or more adherents to a fruit-filled diet converge and support each other. Many of them are athletic, some accomplished and to prove their point that this is a healthy diet.  On the other hand Hippocrates Health Institute which has monitored the health of over 300,000 visitors on various diets found that they had a remarkable improvement in the health of those visitors when they largely removed fruits (except for small indulgences, generally low in sugar content, and only twice per week.) Dried fruit are verboten. Dried fruits are not allowed because of the concentration of fruit sugars.

So who is telling the truth?

Well the truth is that the fruit-filled diet works for some who do not have their compromised immune systems or messed up their internal flora (often due to having taking mass-spectrum antibiotics) and not for others. This is why we recommend  doing the flora-healing programs, such as the McConbs plan, before and during any shift to a high-nutrition, living foods diet. Otherwise that “good diet” will also feed the bad bacteria, fungus and mold, and therefore will not have the same result.

Fruit Friend or Foe is also the title of an insightful article by Dr. Stanley Bass.

See  http://drbass.com/aboutfruit.html

At the end of the article he discussed his tests on mice, trying out nearly a 100 different diets, and where the fruitarian diet especially led to premature death and carnage. His experiments are outlined here. http://drbass.com/mice.html Here he confirms the intuition of Dr. Ritamarie that fruits work best, in minimal quantities and when combined with greens.

Eater beware.

With that intro, here is the story told from another angle and by Dr. Ritamarie.http://www.drritamarie.com/newsletter/07/2011/is-fruit-your-friend-or-foe/

Nathan Batalion CTN

___________________________________________________________________

Fruit as Friend, Fruit as Foe: Simple Strategies
to Find Out if You Should Fill or Forget
the Fruit Bowl

Have you noticed that A LOT of health writers place fruit on their “hit list” of foods to avoid?  Some even put it right up there as just a notch above high fructose corn syrup!

So what’s wrong with fruit?  Actually, there is a book by that name, and, not surprisingly, I own it.  I bought it back in the dinosaur days when you actually had to physically own a book in order to read it!

It was at a time when I was exploring macrobiotics, and raw fruit was only supposed to be about 5% of calories on any given day.  If you are small and relatively inactive like most people and sustain yourself on a 1500 calorie a day regime, that amounts to less than one piece of fruit.

Fruit: To Fear or to Cheer?

In general, when online authors suggest you should limit or eliminate fruit they tell you that fruit:

• triggers outbreaks of candida yeast (Donna Gates)
• triggers blood sugar swings and cravings (South Beach Diet)
• increases risk of diabetes (Joseph Mercola)
• promotes an acid residue that can feed cancer (Robert O. Young)
• promotes “composting” that can result in overgrowth of unfriendly microorganisms (Gabriel Cousins)

Personally, what I’ve observed is all over the map.

I’ve seen diabetics on my green cleanse program normalize their blood sugars within 3 days while drinking nothing but green smoothies that contain between 40 and 50% fruit by volume.  That adds up to a lot of fruit over the course of the day.

On the other hand, I’ve seen other diabetics spike their sugars by adding a few strawberries to a green drink.

I’ve read accounts of women who’ve healed from chronic yeast overgrowth while eating a diet consisting of primarily fresh fruit.  I’ve also personally coached patients who are so sugar sensitive they have yeast flare-ups after a few bites of apple.

So what’s the truth?  Is fruit a friend or foe?

Over two decades of guiding people through life changing diet and lifestyle changes has taught me one thing for certain… and that is that there is no single set of eating rules that work for all of the people all of the time.

We are each biochemically and energetically unique.   We are shaped by our genes, early exposures, the way we were nurtured, how safe we felt in our early years, our diets, movement and sleep patterns, and even our thoughts.  Your response to the world is slightly different from mine. This is true of how we behave in response to outside stimuli as well as how we respond to food. It is said that one man’s food is another man’s poison.

I’ve found over the years that, for many people, one of the best ways to determine which foods are helpful and which are hurtful is to test.  And one of the best ways to test is to remove all the potentially problematic foods and add them back in one at a time.

This is called elimination/provocation.

For many people, the best way to do the elimination phase is by fasting on either water or vegetable juice for a prescribed length of time and then reintroduce foods such as fruits.

Solutions for Finding Out if You Are Fruit Sensitive

If you’ve been wondering if you’re sensitive to fruit sugar, here are some questions to ask yourself to determine if fruit is a friend, foe, or in between:

• Do find yourself feeling spacey or light headed after eating fruit by itself?
• Do you crave sugar after eating fruit?
• Does eating lots of fruit cause intestinal upset?
• Do you break out in a rash when you eat lots of fruit?

Carefully observe how you respond to eating fruit and experiment with using low-sugar fruits versus high-sugar fruits.  Also try combining fruit with greens and eliminating fruit for a few weeks.

If this is a course of action you’re willing to try, here’s what I suggest:

Follow 10 days of eating no fruit at all, except for lemons.  The ideal way to do this is by fasting or juicing.

After your 10 days of elimination, eat a meal containing 3-5 pieces of fresh ripe fruit all by itself.  Monitor how you feel over the next few hours. Next, eat a meal containing the same amount of fruit but this time eat it on a bed of greens or blended with greens into a smoothies. Try this with a few different types of fruit, in particular with berries.  Add cinnamon to your fruit and see if that changes things.  You may have blood sugar imbalances that can be corrected by a 30-day insulin receptor reset.

Over the years, I’ve developed my own special relationship with fruit.  I rarely eat a lot of it by itself.  Personally, I feel best when I eat fruit rwith greens. The first step is to start on the elimination path.  If you need support, take part in a group juice cleanse with other people. You can join me with Tera Warner of The Raw Divas for a 10-Day Juice Cleanse starting on August 1st.  You’ll also find extra educational support here in our upcoming radio show on “How Juicing Affects Your Blood Sugar”.

Fruit does not have to be your foe forever.  If you know you have fruit issues and you want to heal your sensitivities, address problems with abdominal fat, and improve your overall energy, you’ll find your best strategies for health and support using the Insulin Sensitivity Restoration System which you’ll find here – a 30 day program for restoring insulin receptor sensitivity.  I call it my IRS restoration system, short for Insulin Receptor Sensitivity Restoration System.

Insulin Receptor Sensitivity Restoration System

1. Remove all foods that trigger blood sugar spikes: sugar, all grains, potatoes, fruit juice, dried fruit and high glycemic fruits like bananas and grapes.  I recommend my patients purchase a glucose meter and test the fruits to determine which ones they need to eliminate.  I also recommend that whenever fruit is consumed it’s taken with green leafy vegetables like lettuce, spinach and sprouts.  Smoothies are the best way to eat fruit.
2. Supplement with the nutrients needed to restore regulation.  In general these may be chromium, magnesium, glutamine, zinc and the B vitamins.  It can vary from person to person.
3. Supplement with DHA, an omega 3 fat that’s vital for insulin sensitivity.  This can be in a plant form, from algae or from fish.Insulin resistance and blood sugar level imbalance are not minor inconveniences that can be ignored.  The long term consequences are serious and life threatening.

Retrain your tongue and get your blood sugar and insulin under control so you can live a long and happy life with a flat belly, clear head and a renewal enjoyment of your life

Fluoride Damages Brain

“The prolonged ingestion of fluoride may cause significant damage to health and particularly to the nervous system,” concludes a review of studies by researchers Valdez-Jimenez, et al. published in Neurologia (June 2011), reports New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc. (NYSCOF).

The research team reports, “It is important to be aware of this serious problem and avoid the use of toothpaste and items that contain fluoride, particularly in children as they are more susceptible to the toxic effects of fluoride.” (1)

“Fluoride can be toxic by ingesting one part per million (ppm), and the effects are not immediate, as they can take 20 years or more to become evident,” they write.

Most fluoridating U.S. public drinking water suppliers add fluoride chemicals to deliver 1 ppm fluoride (equal to about 1 milligram per quart) intending to benefit teeth and not to purify the water.

“Fluoridation clearly jeopardizes our children and must be stopped,” says attorney Paul Beeber, President, NYSCOF.  ”We can actually see how fluoride has damaged children’s teeth with dental fluorosis; but we can’t see the harm it’s doing to their brains and other organs. No U.S. researcher is even looking,” says Beeber.

Valdez-Jimenez, et al. describe studies that show fluoride induces changes in the brain’s physical structure and biochemistry which affects the neurological  and mental development of individuals including cognitive processes, such as learning and memory.

“Fluoride is capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier, which may cause biochemical and functional changes in the nervous system during pregnancy, since the fluoride accumulates in brain tissue before birth,” they write.*

Animal studies show fluoride’s toxic brain effects include classic brain abnormalities found in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, Valdez-Jimenez’s team reports.

A different research team (Tang et al.) reported in 2008 that “A qualitative review of the studies found a consistent and strong association between the exposure to fluoride and low IQ.” (Biological Trace Element Research)  (2)

In 2006, the U.S. National Research Council’s (NRC) expert fluoride panel reviewed fluoride toxicology and concluded, “It’s apparent that fluorides have the ability to interfere with the functions of the brain.” And, “Fluorides also increase the production of free radicals in the brain through several different biological pathways. These changes have a bearing on the possibility that fluorides act to increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.” (3)

On April 12, 2010, Time magazine listed fluoride as one of the “Top Ten Common Household Toxins” and described fluoride as both “neurotoxic and potentially tumorigenic if swallowed.” (4)

Phyllis Mullenix, Ph.D., was the first U.S. scientist to find evidence that fluoride damages the brain. She published her animal study in a respected peer-reviewed scientific journal in 1995 (5) and then was fired for doing so.(6)

Vyvyan Howard, M.D., Ph.D., a prominent fetal toxicologist and past-President of the International Society of Doctors for the Environment, said that current brain/fluoride research convinces him that we should stop water fluoridation.

Many communities have stopped or rejected fluoridation in the past several years  – the most recent is Fairbanks, Alaska.  This year, seven New York City Council Members co-sponsored legislation to stop fluoridation in NYC

References:  https://groups.google.com/d/topic/fluoridation-news-releases/rD7pCONMcLw/discussion

Contact:  Paul Beeber, JD, 516-433-8882 nyscof@aol.com
http://www.FluorideAction.Net
http://www.fluoridation.webs.com

Do you have a condition that no amount of improved diet, exercise, fasting, or meditation seems to get rid of?

Try your own homeopathic remedy that’s geared to exactly your body’s condition.

For example, if you have athletes feet, soak your feet in water to make a remedy unlike any (and far more powerful) than what you could possibly get in a store or pharmacy-made.

This article comes from http://oaks.nvg.org.

It is a great resource for spiritual and healing knowledge. I have interacted with patient’s whose lives have been rescued from disabling ills using just homeopathic testing and treatment.

Nathan Batalion CTN

How to Make Your Own Homeopathic Remedies

Are home-made homepathic preparations cheap?

Yes, they may cost next to nothing, and work just as well as those you buy at pharmacies, according to Dr Karin Lenger’s research findings.

Are homeopathic remedies plain humbug?

No. Recent research has detected formerly unproved sides to them. There is room for trust in home-made homoepathic remedies, which is furnished by magnetic resonance research (Dr Karin Lenger). Besides, there is research that confirms that homeopathy works for various ailments too. “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”

How do homeopathic remedies work?

That would depend on so many things, including choice of remedies. Anyway, you are free to try and make homeopathic remedies and see for yourself – make them at home and see for yourself, or buy some and take off from those globules and pellets. The “shake them up yourself” method is as old as homeopathy itself, and stems from its founder, Samuel Hahnemann. It is still in use. Hand-shaken homeopathic remedies are advertised for sale in some countries, such as the UK. On this page I show how to make your own remedies fast and quite costless.

Cheap home homeopathic remedies as good as machine-produced ones

In some countries, such as the United States, there are tens of millions that have problems with the sky-high prices of pharmacy-produced remedies, health insurances and the like. In many countries homeopathic remedies cost much too. But that can easily be remedied by “home shakers”. Read on to see how to make homoepathic remedies at minimum costs.

A few years ago a medical student in Moscow wrote me. She was concerned about the homeopathic treatment and the difficulties in getting remedies in Russia. A week ago an immigrant in this country told me how expensive homeopathic remedies are in Norway, where they cost over ten pounds per glass. For a round or cure, at least three such very small glasses or bottles are needed, according to a much used schedule. Hence, there are good reasons to learn about home-made homeopathic preparations – availability and low costs are among them.

I will show you (1) how to produce your own home-made remedies at very little cost; and (2) how to make use of the homeopathic remedy you bought so that it can last very long with very little cost. These things are easy, but not fool-proof.

Samuel Hahnemann and many, many others “diluted and shook” their bottles of ingredients to get homeopathic remedies according to schedules. You are free to do the same, whether you live in Russia or Poland or Jamaica. And such knowledge can become a part of your family tradition, a little thing of fun and delight to because of close contact with nature too. (I found it helps a bit against commercialised alienation too).

Combined homeopathic remedy – my favorite remedy against colds etc.

In the case of a beginning common cold or flu, see the remedy mixtures in a Remedy Finder if you want inspiration. I have gathered some remedies I use myself in that entry. I have, further, designed a blend that is based on these ingredients. It is designed for common cold, head cold, and influenza, all combined:

Dahlia ‘Inca’ — Eupatorium purpureum B — Hamamelis virginiana B — Mercurius corrosivus (Influenzas) — Micrococcin — Natrum hypophosphoricum — Saxifraga tridactylites — Stachys byzantina (= S. olympica) — Viburnum obovatum fruit: Cassioberry.

You may be able to buy at least some of the remedies at a well-equipped pharmacy. If they don’t have it on their shelves, they should try to get it by ordering it from a producer. Tip: A tiny glass of Natrum hypophosphoricum D30 could last you for tens of years. If you should want to try any of the remedies I have blended (above), stay away from toxic doses. Potencies above D6 potency are thought to be safe, but Micrococcin up to the D30 “potency” is not, and it is the same with other so-called nosode remedies. However, if you start using MGA equipment, as I did a long time ago, there are no such restrictions, no dangers of toxic poisoning at all.

Homeopathic Resources

There are many remedies to “shake up” and try out against a beginning cold apart from pepper, salt, lemon and onion. Find ingredients that can make your tears flow, can make you sneeze, and so on, quite as a beginning cold [or hay fever], and shake them well.

A rule of the thumb for the home-shaker: Homeopathic remedies that have some key symptoms of a common cold, may be tried, if non-toxic. I have tried 2 drops garlic, 2 drops onion, a few drops lemon juice, a few grains of table salt (Natrum chloricum, potassium) with or without iodine added; and some grains of black pepper. Salt, pepper, lemon, and onion – and use garlic if you wish. Further, in books on homeopathic remedies, Materia Medicas, you could read about these ingredients converted into homeopathic remedies, the symptoms that are classified under each. A Materia Medica (survey of homeopathic remedies and what symptoms they are typically used for or against) may tell more of each ingredient. I have often used William Boerickes’ Materia Medica. It is claimed to be very helpful among homeopaths.

Let us say you have found your non-poisonous ingredients. It is not unlike cooking and baking, where you gather your ingredients and tools you need to do your work. In fact, several of the much used Bach’s Remedies are made by cooking and adding a preservative. There is an estimate that the “potency” you get in this way, is about c8 or so. (It depends on the weather!) So maybe onion soup or broth with salt and pepper could help you a bit too. It is yummy anyway.

Here is the homeopathic way to produce the preparations: a little bottle with a cap, and some boiled, (destilled, rinsed) cold water. The water may be up to 25 centigrades, but preferably lower. The bottle may be anything from ten or twenty ml (milliliter) and a liter. I suggest fifty ml is quite enough, for you are going to dash it against your thigh or hip or on a book repeatedly. To save yourself from toil and bruises while you prepare the homeopathic remedy, a little bottle is best, accordingly. And remember the method is as old as homeopathy itself and still used. See for example: ▾UK handmade remedies for sale and ▾US handmade remedies for sale. Even though the American producer boasts of superior products made by hand, Karin Lenger (above) has detected it does not matter whether a machine or a human has shaken and dilited up the remedy; the results are similar. Hence you may learn how to “shake up” your own remedies without great fear of screwing up things a lot – not a bit.

But the main point here is that you can make some remedies yourself, easily and at very low costs. To take off from remedies you buy, is even easier, and the costs are negligible.

Homeopathic remedy ingredients – what you need

1. Twenty grains of ground, black pepper. They don’t have to be freshly ground.
2. A few (5) grains of table salt.
3. 2 drops of fresh onion juice pressed out of an onion.
4. 3 drops of lemon juice, preferably freshly pressed.
5. A few ground or torn “flakes” of freshly pressed garlic. Press 2-3 drops of juice out of it too.
6. 1/2 or 1 litre of boiled water (distilled water may be bought at pharmacies in some countries, if you want that, and bottled, rinsed water is commonly sold in groceries too)
7. One or two 30 ml bottles for the water will do all right, or something else, provided it is clean and the surface does not contaminate the water..
8. A pair of latex gloves (rubber kitchen gloves) for shaking the bottle – but the gloves can be dispensed with for home use.

Then it is time to prepare the remedy of your choice.

How to: The procedure doe making a homoepathic remedy is spelled out

Here is how to work on the ingredients, all of which are homeopathic remedies found in books of homeopathy: If you have only four of the five ingredients in your home, it may work well enough. But don’t drop the salt. Pepper is to be there too. But “the more the merrier” up to a point. Set the limit at six ingredients, for example.

Mix your 3-4 ingredients in a bottle (50 ml is good). That is, about 7 drops or so in all, and a few grains of “this and that” from the list, starting from the top of the list and downwards, ordinarily. Add water: Fill half of the bottle with water and shake well. A small bottle (30 ml) will make the boiled water last longer, so that you can make more and higher potencies, if that seems to be fit.

Very much depends on how the bottle is shaken, according to homeopathy. The doctors Andrew Lockie and Nicola Geddes describe it in detail in their book [Cgh 20-21]. I’ll describe the process I have advocated for people of many countries here:

1ST POTENCY IS MADE: You have mixed the ingredients and added water. Now shake the bottle violently for some time. I recommend a force equal to that of 3 kilograms falling 40 centimetres onto a firm book. That is, you dash the bottle, which you hold in your rubber-gloved hand, to something firm, and do it 30 times.

2ND POTENCY IS MADE: When you have shaken the bottle thirty times with enough force and speed (as specified), empty all of what is in it, but just a few drops. Leave three drops in the bottle, fill up with boiled water again, till the bottle is half full (or half empty). Three drops will do and is plenty. Now, shake again in the same way. When you have done it thirty times, you have come up with the second home potency, your H2 potency (H for “home” or “hand-shaken”, just as you please)

3RD POTENCY: Let three drops remain in the bottle. Add water till half full, and shake 30 times again.

4TH POTENCY: When you pour out what’s in the third potency bottle but for three drops, and shake the bottle once again as prescribed, you get the forth potency. This combined process of shaking and diluting is called succussion in homeopathy.

5TH POTENCY CAN BE USED AS A “MOTHER BLEND” TO GET MANY FUTURE BOTTLES FROM: I suggest you make a fifth potency too: Empty the 4th potency fluid from the bottle, but for three drops, fill up with water till half full and shake the dilution thirty times as before, just as prescribed. This gives you the fifth potency, which is perfect as a “mother homeopathic blend” to keep for a long time, after you have tried out your home-made remedies or put faith in “homeopathy cook-books”, like Boericke’s Materia Medica.

PUT “ASIDE”: Your fifth potency bottle is half full. If you want a set of potencies, like pharmacies have and homeopaths use, you may want to pour three drops from your 5th potency bottle into another small bottle (30 ml is enough still), fill the bottle half full with boiled water and shake as before: thirty times with enough force and speed – and then you have a sixth potency to go on with if you please.

The sixth potency does not contain significant amounts of the substances you started with at first, but the homeopaths claim the world over that it does not matter, and that here is a good potency to administer in something acute. Add “maybe” to it yourself.

You can preserve a fifth potency fluid – add some convenient preservative and keep it out of sunlight and heat. From this bottle you can from time to time pour 5-6 drops into another, empty flask of up to 100 to 200 ml – add water or ethanol or something even better, and shake. The “mother bottle” easily produces enough remedies to last you a life-time; at least many years.

6TH POTENCY – THE ONE TO USE: Pour 5 drops from your “mother bottle”, that is, the fifth potency bottle with or without added alcohol or some other preservative that is not unhealthy, but safe. You may want to use a 100 ml flask this time, to save some efforts later. Add pure water till half full, shake well (30 times) as prescribed earlier, and there you have your home-opathic flask. When you have used this 6th potency homeopathic preparation, you should wash and rinse before re-using it: 5 drops from the “mother fluidum”, add pure water till half full, shake as specificed, and you have your second flask of the “good stuff”, or whatever you wish to call it.

Highest potency recommended for home-made homeopathic preparations is C30

What you have ended up with, resembles the D6 potency, but it should be even safer, as it contains no particularly harmful ingredients in the first place, and secondly, they have been terribly diluted. In fact, your home-made product has its own potency scale, the H (home-made) scale. It lies between the common D scale and C (X) scales. With the D scale the regulated dilution is 1 : 10. With the C scale the regulated dilution is 1 : 100; which means 1 drop to a hundred added drops of water. That is the proportion.

Now you want to know how to ingest the liquid you have toiled with for maybe a quarter or half an hour the first time – time was added because you were inexperienced. But now you have a “mother fluidum” to last you – say – ten years if you want to. And from it, it may take just a few minutes to make another sixth potency flask the next time – cheap and time-saving.

And you are alerted to that you may make still stronger potencies if you want to. I recommend that your strongest home kit potency is about C30. Leave the higher potencies to experienced folks, as a “golden rule”. You may have time to become one too, and good luck with that.

C30 DOSAGES: 12 small (pharmacy-bought) pellets 2 times a day. Or 12 (home-made) drops 2 times a day, morning or night. Keep in mouth for 6 minutes – 15-20 minutes before or after meals or other things one puts or pours into the mouth – just to be on the so-called safe side. That is how to do it according to homeopaths the world over.

Dosages of Daily Intake for C6 Remedies

1. 15 drops 3 times daily may do well. Four times daily may work well too. In the morning, before going to bed – and spaced out in between. For children: half doses. For little children: one third of the doses.
2. Keep the drops in the mouth – under the tongue is said to be best – for 6 minutes.
3. Take the drops 15-20 minutes before taking food or drink – especially hot food and drink – or wait 15-20 minutes after a hot meal before you take them.
4. In acute cases the drops may be taken four or five times. To take them three times a day is good.

The example is an acute case of common cold. You may keep on taking these drops for 5 or 6 days, for example.

Seek to get more rest than usual if you have got a cold and strive to keep it down by these means (and onion soup too).

So now you know the secrets of making your own home-opathic remedies for getting rid of common colds by grabbing some food stuffs and shaking them in a particular way. To the question, “Does it work?” – “Try and see” is the answer.

There is perhaps one more thing you should be made aware of if you apply homeopathic remedies to chronic (long-lasting) troubles. According to homeopathic tradition, a so-called healing reaction may set in bewteen 2 and 7 weeks, give and take. But it may not ever come. At any rate, you may discontinue taking your homeopathic preparations till you feel better enough – let the intake be resumed three days after you feel OK. That is a tip. According to homeopathic tradition, a “healing crisis, distress, reaction” is followed by betterment, which was sought after.

Homeopathic remedies that won’t cost you much

Now comes another secret to make life easy. First buy a tiny glass of the homeopathic remedy you are after. Next dissolve 2-3 pellets (pills) from it in water. You should crush them first, then add clean water. Then shake well for, say, fifty times. And there you have your own remedy made on top of a tiny fraction of what you bought.

To spell out the advantages: One bought glass may serve you in this way, on and on, for years. Otherwise, if you take the pellets “bare”, you may have to buy dozens of glasses, each glass costing quite a lot. This is how to save you such expenses. To some it matters very much.

At any rate, take off from homeopathic remedies that can be bought at pharmacies or special shops. The way to cut down costs to a fraction is shown to you here, in graphic details

If you are arthritic or feeble, maybe “shaking up” your own home remedy is a bit hard to do. A round of diluting-and-shaking might go well in such cases too. it is up to you, after trying out the home-making process just a bit.

Dashing the homeopathic remedy against what?

Buy one glass of the remedy you are after. Pour a big pellet or 6 small pellets or 3 drops of the homeopathic liquid into a little (50 ml) bottle that is half full of distilled, cold water (or cold, boiled water). Let the pellets dissolve by stirring the bottle gently for a while. You see when they are dissolved. Then shake the half full bottle (a 50 ml bottle is plenty) thirty times with the same force and speed that 5 litres of milk would get if dropped onto some leather-bound bible from 30 cm (a foot) above it: Samuel Hahnemann used to dash his bottles against a bible bound in leather to produce remedies, or, as Lockie writes, he kept “banging it [his bottle] down on a hard surface”. Use kitchen rubber gloves (latex) while you do this “dirty work”. Ilana Dannheisser and Penny Edwards show how to do it too, if you should doubt the sanity of the procedure and so on. That “many do it,” is a fact. [Hog 18]. Don’t make the glass break. You can conserve the liquid in the bottle by adding some preservative, like alcohol (ethanol), if you like. Keep it cool otherwise. And keep the rest of the pellets in their glass, keep it cool and dark, and it is ready for the next few pellets the next time you need to prepare a bottle from the pellets in the glass.

Several homeopathic remedies “concocted” into one blend

If you want to blend four or five of our favorite remedies in one bottle, it is OK, as these are supposed to go well along together, all of them. Also, if your homeopath has prescribed a blend of remedies for you, there should be nothing to worry about, for it is very common practice in some countries to prescribe several remedies together, and the many homeopathic remedies that are called complex remedies, are just mixtures of single remedies.

Pour four small pellets or one big pellet from each of the single remedies into the same bottle. Fill it half full with clean, cool water (distilled water is best), and let the pellets dissolve in the water. Shake as specified (35 times is fine) when they are dissolved. Now you have made a new potency of the remedy you bought. If you bought the remedy Nux vomica D30, you have Nux vomica D31, which is more or less indistinguishable from D30. This means you can safely use it as D30, and without asking anyone for permission to do so.

You may use this method for single remedies you buy or make yourself, for single remedies that you mix yourself, or for a complex remedy. Or you may mix a complex remedy with a few more single remedies, depending on how skilful you are. But take care: It is not often recommended to mix more than 3 or 4 single remedies.

Homeopathic Dosages

KEEP THE drops in the mouth for 5 minutes.

• H6: 10 drops 3-4 times daily.
• H12: 10 drops 3-4 times.
• H30: 11 drops 2 times, morning and night.

Adjust to the body weight: For each kg (kilogram) above 110 kg, add a drop for grown-ups, i.e., 12 drops 2 times daily for H30. For children, reduce the amount of drops to about the half.

Taking homeopathic remedies for how long?

For acute troubles: Take the drops for as long as the trouble(s) last, for example 5 to 7 days.

For chronic (long-lasting) troubles: A fit “round” can be 6-9 weeks, followed by a pause of 10 days or more. Then repeat, either by using a somewhat higher potency of the same remedy (remedies) if they work well for you – from H6 to H12 could be fit, and from there to H30 the next time. Or you can try some other remedy, or blend remedies, old or new ones. There are really many options.

Observe: Don’t go further up than H35 (C35) with your home remedies. There are still higher potencies made, and they are said to work deeper into the system (organism) too, and may be applied in chronic cases. But consult an expert for it, and never neglect proper medical diagnosis and treatment first; there are good reasons for it.

If you have become interested in homeopathic self-care by this, books on it exist.

Confirmations that homeopathy works

It is ok to doubt these things, and ok to try and see if things work, even if we at present hardly know all mechanisms involved. Dr. James Stephenson‘s book on homeopathy was a great source of inspiration to me along such avenues as these in the late 70s. At that time I had my own homeopathic mentor, Heilpraktiker who tutored me in ear acupuncture too.

Homeopathic kitchen remedies

A little look in Boericke’s Materia Medica (p. 1015-23) tells that these are among the homeopathic remedies:

Anise, Asparagus, Bean, Beet-root, Blackberry, Buckwheat, Cane-sugar, Ca