Agriculture Society Tip of the Day

Can You Afford Not to Eat Organic Foods?

2009-08-12T10:36:00.000-07:00

When people talk about organic, the factor of expense almost always comes up. People have a perception that they can't possibly change their lifestyle and buying habits because organic food is too expensive.

It's true that on the surface, organic food is more expensive than conventional. But consider the "hidden" costs of eating conventional, industrial food. The food grown and raised by conventional means is procured in the cheapest way possible - that is, to minimize operating expenses and maximize profits. If those merchants didn't run their businesses that way, they'd fail to make a profit and probably would go out of business. So the food is produced as cheaply as possible, which means skimping on high quality ingredients and farming and production methods. When food is produced in such a way, quality suffers and nutritional content and integrity is compromised - plain and simple.

So the emphasis should be on real, organic foods because when you eat healthy, you are avoiding problems down the road - problems that will cost you more money than you realize. The idea should be that prevention up front will save you misery, disease, and cost later on. As an example, one of the most heavily consumed items in developed countries is carbonated soda pop, which has absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever. Soda pop is the number one source of calories in the United States! When consumed in such amounts, there is no one who can deny this definitely affects anyone's budget. So why not trade your dollars spent on soda pops, juices, Kool Aid, Crystal Light, Hawaiian Punch, Sunny Delight, or other processed sugary drinks for a wholesome, organic apple, pear, or banana.

Just stop to consider the large amounts of money we pay in taxes and other fees to support industrial agriculture - massive government subsidies to agribusiness (which drive smaller, sustainable farmers out of business), environmental damage as a result of toxins being dumped into the air, water, and land due to the operation methods of factory farms, the continual increase of health care costs, and untold damage to our health.

So what's going on here is that the health care companies are getting rich, the food industry is getting rich, but what's to become of the consumer? Are we destined to remain in the stranglehold of these corporations who have absolutely no concern for our health or well-being, or are we going to do something about it? We must take a stand, get proactive, support local and sustainable farming and food production, and stamp out these bloated, multi-billion dollar corporations who have taken for themselves all the power and profit.

Put the power, money, well-being, and health back in the hands of the people who can make a huge effect on our habits and future - the consumers! Do something ethical and moral, and healthy for yourself, your family, and the planet. Go organic and sustainable. Read labels. Be aware and educate yourself. Trade your junk food and industrial dollars for something more worthwhile and healthy - good, real, organic, sustainable food. Remember, each time you put food in your mouth, you are casting a vote for organic or not...and the consequences could be more serious than you think!

For more information about how the industrial food system is fleecing us, see the movie Food, Inc.

Massage for Indigestion, Abdominal Cramping

2009-07-13T15:10:00.000-07:00

Although abdominal cramps, bloating, gas, and discomfort are often a sign that you have eaten something you shouldn't have, there are some simple techniques you can use to help alleviate stomach and abdominal distress.

When you experience these sensations, try lying down on a bed or couch, relax, and take some deep breaths. Next, take your hands and gently massage your abdominal areas in a circular motion, paying close attention to the area where the discomfort originates. It may seem as though pressure will make the pain worse, but keep going anyway.

Press firmly, but not hard enough to make it painful in any place where you have pain or bloating. You can also follow your transverse colon around multiple times with your fingertips - your colon runs perpendicular to your breast bone just underneath your rib cage on either side. Use a rhythmic, pressing action with the pads of your fingers from right to left and move downward to the descending colon with your movement toward your hips. Continue around in a clockwise motion to the other side of your abdominal area and come up again toward the right side of your rib cage and your ascending colon and repeat.

You should feel relief fairly quick, but continue massage until you obtain the relief you need. Other good ways to obtain relief from abdominal discomfort include taking probiotics, fiber, or charcoal. Check with your local health food store or knowledgeable health care practitioner for these items. A natural fiber supplement is essential to your digestive health - avoid the cheaper brands with fillers and ingredients that are unknown.

Ways to avoid abdominal distress include eating a healthy diet, getting enough exercise, and minimizing stress. Avoid conventionally and industrially-produced foods such as meat, dairy products, and produce. Eat fermented foods such as real yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, and miso or natto.

How to Manage Diabetes

2009-06-15T09:53:00.001-07:00

Do you follow common health rhetoric about managing Diabetes? Medical experts advise being under the care of a physician to take care of your disease. But what's really causing the disease? Is it just some unknown thing going on in your body that needs continual doses of insulin and other medications? Common medical advice tells Diabetes patients to avoid sugar, and recommends that if desserts and sugar are eaten to drastically reduce fat intake. Following these directives are not only keeping your insulin levels in a haywire state, but they are ruining your health. Not enough emphasis is placed on removal of processed foods, which greatly contribute to the Diabetic condition in the first place, and eating real, whole foods. This is why people with Diabetes, in general, continue to struggle and struggle with their weight and health.

There are some natural alternatives to taking care of your health and your Diabetes. Diabetes is largely a modern disease that is caused by a combination of inactivity and consumption of processed, industrial foods. Eating a healthy diet should enable you to overcome your disease and lead a healthy life. Here are the foods you should eliminate from your diet:

Anything processed and containing refined carbohydrates such as:

crackers
bread
pasta
bagels
rice cakes
packaged cereals
most breads
alternative grain products that are processed such as the above
industrial pasteurized/homogenized dairy products - especially low-fat and non-fat
processed (roasted, salted, coated) nuts and seeds
non-organic nut butter that comes from roasted nuts
refined, vegetable oils like canola, soy, safflower, cottonseed, sunflower, and other vegetable oils
soy products of all kinds (except those that are fermented like miso and tempeh)
industrial meats
conventionally produced fruits and vegetables

Basically, anything packaged, canned, or in a box should be suspect and probably eliminated from your kitchen and diet.

Here's what you should include in your diet:

grass-fed, naturally and organically raised meats, pasture-raised poultry
raw milk and dairy (cheese, cream, butter) from organic, pasture-raised cattle
eggs from pasture-raised poultry
organically-produced fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables
raw nuts and seeds
organically-produced nut butters (avoid peanut butter)
natural, healthy fats like extra virgin olive oil, palm oil, and coconut oil, real butter from grass-fed cattle, tallow and lard from healthy beef and chicken (see above)
whole grains (avoid flour) from the bulk isle in the grocery store such as brown rice, oats, buckwheat, teff, quinoa, spelt, whole wheat, millet, oats, etc. that are soaked before eating and sprouted grains (try Ezekiel brand products)
fermented foods like real, home-made yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, lacto-fermented vegetables, and others

Obtaining regular stretching, movement, and exercise is important too. Here are some guidelines:

Focus on regular activity rather than length of time spent doing the activity.
Do something you enjoy and that fits your lifestyle and interests.
The best type of activity is something you can do outside. It allows you to get fresh air and sunshine (natural Vitamin D is very important for health), and gets you out of your everyday environment of the home or office.
Start out slow if you have been sedentary.
Don't focus on calories or fat intake as a method of losing weight. If you do, you will continue to struggle with weight issues. If you are eating whole, healthy foods and obtaining regular activity in your schedule, your normal weight should be easy to maintain.

For more insight about being nutritionally fit, and putting more emphasis on eating well to maintain your health and your weight, read Are You Nutritionally Fit?

For more information on types of healthy foods, read How Well Do Know Your Food? Find Out!

For more information on fats and health, read The Importance of Dietary Fats.

How to Make Chicken Soup

2009-06-13T08:13:00.000-07:00

When you make chicken, do you use your leftover bones and parts for soup? If you have never done this, it is a great way to make use of these parts for a nutritious base for soup or broth:

Kitchen tips start with pasture-raised, organic poultry. The minerals and nutrients from an organic, naturally-raised chicken carcass will be superior for your health. Always use organic vegetables, sea salt, and natural, organic, non-irradiated seasonings and pepper.

Directions:

Cut up carrots, celery, and onions. Use as much or as little as you want. Each person has a preference of how much to include in a soup. Set aside your vegetables.
Place your chicken carcass or bones in a large enough pot to fill up with water (over the level of its contents).
Add a moderate amount of salt and pepper (to taste, you will go back in and taste your soup before it is finished and add a bit more).
Add one or two bay leafs to your pot.
Pour in a bit of organic, raw vinegar (apple cider is a good choice) to your pot.
Place vegetables in the pot with the chicken carcass. Cover the pot with a lid. Put your pot on the stove and turn the heat up until boiling.
When the pot boils, turn the heat down and allow to simmer for 90 minutes.
Somewhere during the cooking process, taste your soup to make sure you have added enough salt and pepper. Now is also the time to add other seasonings, if desired such as cumin, parsley, paprika, or thyme.
When your soup has simmered for 90 minutes, remove from heat and take out the bones and bay leaf/leaves.

Now you have a fantastically healthy broth. Add anything to the broth that you like for soup - chicken, turkey, ham, rice, vegetables, beans, or sprouted grain pasta. Be sure that if you are going to add legumes or grains that you soak them overnight before cooking with a bit of whey, kefir, lemon juice, or apple cider vinegar. You may also choose to add other seasonings or spices to your soup. When you add ingredients, bring your broth to a boil again and then simmer your soup for an hour or so to infuse your creation with all the flavor of what you add in.

If you are not going to eat your broth right away, store in the refrigerator or freeze for a later time.

Supporting Big Pharma and Big Corporations

2009-06-11T08:48:00.001-07:00

Do you think twice about what you buy and who's profiting from it? If not, you may want to reconsider your buying habits and how they affect your health and the planet. Big companies and pharmaceutical corporations stand to profit from your purchases when you shop for food, personal care products, household items, and many other things you rely on for everyday living.

A majority of our food and products that we buy is polluted and full of toxins, and most people are unknowingly making themselves sick from items they are told are perfectly acceptable and healthy to use by the manufacturers. These companies have a bigger advertising budget on getting the product marketed to consumers than what is actually spent to make sure those same products are not harmful to use.

To read more about this important topic, visit Agriculture Society and read 'Big Corporations and Big Pharma - Dictating What's Acceptable to Eat'.

Why Alternative Care?

2009-06-09T07:48:00.001-07:00

Do you use some type of alternative care or therapy for your health? Many people are moving toward these types of treatments because conventional medicine has failed to offer viable solutions to their health ailments.

Dr. Josephine Briggs, director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (a federal agency Congress created a decade ago) states, "Most patients are not treated very satisfactorily. If we had highly effective, satisfactory conventional treatment we probably wouldn't have as much need for these other strategies and as much public interest in them."

Dr. Mitchell Gaynor, a cancer specialist at the Weill-Cornell Medical Center in New York includes nutrition testing and counseling, meditation and relaxation techniques in the facility where he works. It is true that cancer takes many years to develop, and some practitioners believe cancer must be treated with chemotherapy and a protocol of heavy drugs. Conventional medicine supposes that many supplements and treatments are unproven scientifically and even go as far as to say that some of those things are harmful or have side-effects. One of the most important aspects of alternative care and treatment that consumers should consider is that quality, knowledge, and experience count. Consider the following if you choose a complimentary method of treatment:

Never attempt to self-diagnose or treat yourself. Seek advice of a knowledgeable alternative health care practitioner before embarking on any program or protocol of alternative treatment. This will ensure quality and efficacy of the product and treatment you are seeking.
Avoid going to a health food store and purchasing products without some prior guidance or recommendation from a practitioner. Many products don't deliver what is listed on the label or may contain harmful or toxic ingredients.
You will save yourself time and money with knowledgeable alternative care.

Even though Gaynor still uses these drugs, there are many other health care professionals moving toward alternative therapies and still more who exclusively use alternative care for patients and clients. Why? Because they believe pharmaceutical intervention carries risks that far outweigh those in the complimentary camp. Drugs always have side-effects and are often just a band-aid for what is occurring in the body. Medications can also deplete the body of vital nutrients - which can cause further medical issues. Taking preventative care can have tremendous benefits to your health now and in the future. Here are some suggestions for success:

Educate yourself about the benefits of alternative care. Be willing to consider alternative therapies and treatments to conventional medical treatment.
Avoid processed and packaged foods.
Eat real, organic, whole, and traditional foods. Proper nutrition can help to avoid health problems that medical doctors treat with surgery and drugs.
Eliminate chemical substances from your life - tobacco, pharmaceutical drugs, and alcohol.
Educated yourself about the risks and dangers of chemical toxins in your home, work, and other environments. Remove as many of them as you can.
Get adequate rest and stress relief. Remember, stress can actually help cause health issues to start and become worse. Go to bed no later than 10:30 nightly.
Obtain some regular, moderate exercise. Don't tell yourself that if you can't do something drastic, you won't do anything at all.
Drink plenty of filtered water and avoid sugary, chemically-filled beverages. Consider getting a water filter in your home to help clean out impurities that can make you sick such as lead, copper, and arsenic.

All of these things will help you in your health journey and enable your partnership with an experienced alternative health care practitioner to be a successful one. If you are not treating your body and medical issues holistically, the chances for healing and recovery are greatly diminished.

What are the Hidden Costs of Eating Conventional, Industrial Food?

2009-06-03T08:30:00.000-07:00

Do you pay attention to where your food comes from? Do you go to the grocery store and purchase whatever's on the shelf and give little thought to what it might be doing to your body? Do you spend little time thinking about the preventative side of taking care of your body through the foods you eat? Do you eat out at restaurants and fast food establishments? If so, here are some things to consider:

Most grocery store and restaurant meat comes from factory farm environments where the animals are confined in the most abhorrent conditions available. They are shoved together in filthy, unnatural spaces surrounded by waste lagoons, are administered all types of chemicals including hormones, steroids, and antibiotics, and are fed the most unhealthy feeds available such as genetically-modified corn, grain, and soy, and renderings of bio-waste products. Animals cannot live normal, natural lives in these conditions, so why should their meat be healthy to consume?
Conventional produce is grown with pesticides and herbicides, from genetically-modified and engineered seeds, and with modern farming methods which are as harsh as can be to the landscape and damage and strip the soil of its nutrients - substances which are vital to the nutritional density and flavor of the foods you are eating.Conventional produce is said to contain higher amounts of water and less nutrition, so basically what you are getting is a piece of fruit or vegetables comprised of a little polluted water and roughage, and little else.
Processed foods in the store (representing at least 75% of what's available) are full of chemically-laden "food-like substances" which contain carcinogenic ingredients, hydrogenated oils, MSG and other excitotoxins, are synthetically fortified and contain little to no nutritional value.

Many health problems have been attributed to the consumption of these so-called foods. Toxins and chemicals in our food supply are responsible for the onslaught of earlier degenerative diseases than in the historical past. We consume massive amounts of this food each and every day in our homes, in schools, hospitals, offices, stores, and restaurants.

So is there a hidden cost? If you eat foods like this on a regular basis, you can bet there is. Switching to natural, organic, and grass-fed foods seems expensive on the surface, but when you consider the medical problems you will save yourself in the long run, doesn't it seem worth it to spend more now and save later? Industrial food may have a cheaper price tag at the store, but the long-term repercussions of eating this way for an extended period of time will definitely show a higher price tag in the future, in more ways than one: you'll pay with your pocketbook and your quality of life.

Cholesterol Medication and Your Health

2009-06-01T09:41:00.000-07:00

Do you take cholesterol medication that is recommended by a doctor? If so, there are some things you should know about these dangerous drugs:

They only mask the problem going on in your body, and don't get to the cause of the problem
Drugs deplete your body of vital nutrients, which lead to further medical issues
All drugs have side-effects. One of the primary side-effects of cholesterol medications is liver damage. Liver damage is dangerous and can lead to other health issues that are very unpleasant - not to mention expensive and time-consuming to treat

Here is how to raise your good cholesterol (HDL):

Eat real, grass-fed butter
Eat coconut oil
Eat grass-fed meats and pasture-raised eggs from reputable, local sources that raise their products sustainable
Eat plenty of organic, seasonal vegetables and fruits
Eat raw nuts and seeds
If you do eat grains, buy organic in bulk and soak overnight in a little lemon juice or apple cider vinegar and water to release the nutrients found in grains that our bodies often cannot absorb from not soaking and reduce the phytic acid content (that substance which causes indigestion and nutrient-absorbing blockage). Cook in the morning for 1/3 the time usual and eat with raw milk, homemade yogurt, a little raw honey or real maple syrup, and fruit.
Get regular, moderate exercise
Avoid sugar in any form - that means any refined carbohydrates - crackers, breads, rice cakes, cereals, pretzels, chips, bagels, pasta, desserts, sugary beverages (including juice and power "electrolyte" drinks).
Avoid processed foods and drinks, and especially those with artificial sweeteners or high-fructose corn syrups
Avoid unhealthy vegetable oils such as canola, soy, cottonseed, or safflower. These oils are too high in Omega 6s (which cause inflammation, cancer, and heart disease). These substances are also likely to be genetically-modified as well, which has its own set of health risks.

For more information on the Importance of Dietary Fats for health, visit Agriculture Society.

Drink Aloe Vera for Digestion Health

2009-05-30T06:55:00.000-07:00

Do you have digestive issues? A good remedy for those problems is liquid aloe vera. If you have heartburn, diarrhea, constipation, abdominal cramps, ulcers, IBS, Crohn's Disease, celiac disorder, and other related problems, this natural substance is very healing for those types of problems.

Of course, total healing cannot come without good dietary habits. Eat natural, whole, traditional foods to maintain long-term digestion performance such as grass-fed meats, raw dairy products (including cream, milk, cheese, butter, and homemade kefir and butter), pasture-raised poultry and eggs, raw nuts and seeds, healthy fats from extra-virgin coconut oil and olive oil, palm oils, flax oils, and healthy-sourced lard and tallow (from grass-fed animals), organic fruits and vegetables.

Benefits of regular aloe vera consumption:

Digestion support
Immune system support
detoxification
regulates weight and energy levels
Daily dose of vitamins and minerals - contains A, B1, B2, B6, B12, C, E, Folic acid, and Niacin. Also contains calcium, sodium, Magnesium, Potassium, Copper, Zinc, and Chromium.
Maintains healthy skin by collagen and elastin repair
Reduces body inflammation
Good source of amino acids
Maintains good dental hygiene
Better than supplements because aloe vera is a natural food from a whole food source

Be sure to eliminate the following - most processed foods including packaged grain products, pastas, breads, cereals, milk, soy (tofu, milk, cheese, fake meat products), roasted/salted nuts, alcohol, tobacco, and drugs (over-the-counter, prescription, and illegal).

A great brand of aloe vera which has no bitter taste is George's. Try this wonderful, healing substance with a good change in diet and watch your digestive problems improve dramatically.

For free aloe vera samples, visit Aloe Vera.org.

Alternatives in Cancer Treatment

2009-05-27T08:49:00.000-07:00

Cancer is a complex disease that is caused by many different factors in a person's life. Some medical and health care professionals believe that cancer risk can be prevented by our lifestyles alone. The Gerson Institute, a non-profit organization in San Diego, California is dedicated to implementing non-toxic treatment for disease.

The Gerson philosophy conforms to a naturally-based, safe regimen that does not involve the use of pharmaceautical drugs. Developed in the 1920s by Dr. Max Gerson, it uses whole, organic foods, juicing, coffee enemas, detoxification through cleansing, and natural supplements which cause the body to heal itself. Thousands of individuals during the last 60 years have experienced the Gerson Therapy to get well from various “fatal” diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and arthritis.

Diseases such as cancer and heart disease can be fatal illnesses which develop in the body over time. By the time a person receives diagnoses, the process has been insitu for some years. Disease is a reaction in the body to certain lifestyle habits (such as environmental exposure to toxins and poor diet) which contribute to inflammation, over-response by the immune system due to an overwhelming amount of stimulus in its presence, toxin overload, and lack of sufficient nutrient supplementation from the diet.

To enable your body to have the best chance of steering clear of harmful and fatal illnesses, you can take steps to stay healthy, reduce inflammation, and absorb nutrients for good health:

Eat raw foods
Eat organic foods
Eliminate processed foods (basically anything you purchase in a store that contains anything other than real, whole foods)
Eat nutrient-dense foods such as grass-fed meats, pasture-raised poultry, fermented foods, organic fruits and vegetables
Consume healthy fats such as coconut oil, extra-virgin olive oil, unrefined flax oil, and palm oils
Eat raw nuts and seeds
Make everything at home from scratch
Obtain enough rest
Obtain regular, moderate exercise
Seek stress-relieving activities such as yoga, pilates, meditation, or martial arts
Drink plenty of purified water
Eliminate plastic from your home and other living environments - replace with wood, metal, glass, or ceramic
Remove toxic chemicals from your home in the form of cleaners, personal care products, laundry and dishwashing detergents, dryer sheets, clothing and bedding from petroleum sources, air fresheners, perfumes, and dyes.
Reduce your use of electronic devices as much as possible. Turn off appliances and unplug when not in use.

For more information about The Gerson program and how you can take charge of your health, visit the organization's web site.

High Fructose Corn Syrup - Do You Think It's Sweet?

2009-05-21T08:34:00.000-07:00

Do you eat food products containing high fructose corn syrup? HFCS is a product that is manufactured from corn, and it is not a whole, natural food. It is broken down chemically in a laboratory and then reassembled as HFCS. Most HFCS is produced from genetically-modified corn. Here are some products containing this artificially produced sweetener:

ketchup
candy
jam
soft drinks
juice
breads
most processed food products

Here is a short list of fast food restaurants using HFCS in their products:

Arby's
Blimpie
Burger King
Chick-fil-a
Dairy Queen
Jack in the Box
KFC, McDonald's
Subway
Taco Bell
Whataburger

Here are some of the dangers associated from consuming HFCS*:

The effects of consuming HFCS translate to metabolic syndrome, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and and increase in triglycerides and LDL or bad cholesterol levels. Because it wreaks such havoc on the digestive system, it also causes liver disease.
HFCS is devoid of nutrients and will actually strip nutrients from the body.
HFCS contains unbound fructose in massive quantities, and this prevents the cardiovascular system's use of magnesium, copper, and chromium - essential minerals for heart function.

(*source, Weston A. Price Foundation)

The American Corn Refiner's Association maintains an elaborate web site extoling the virtues of HFCS as a natural sweetner, and why not? Besides manufacturing "natural sweeteners", they are a multi-billion dollar corporation and leaders in the industries producing biotechnology, ethanol, starch, corn oil, and feed products. They have leading medical and health experts and "research" backing their claims that HFCS is an important component in the human diet, and continue to tell the public that this substance does not cause obesity, heart disease, nor diabetes. It is no wonder it is so pervasive in our food supply and people are so convinced it is a harmless substance for consumption. It is important to remember that when you are looking for answers, always check to find out who is funding the research and what the entity providing said funding has to gain from such activity.

Be aware that HFCS is toxic to the body and is found in many processed foods. To avoid this dangerous substance, eat natural, traditional, organic foods. You will find that your health will fluorish and you will avoid many health issues.

Save Money on Organic Food

2009-05-20T08:22:00.000-07:00

Who says organic isn't affordable? Would you like to save money on organic products you buy? There are various merchants who provide online coupons for these healthy foods. Here are just a few:

Organic Valley
Stonyfield Farm
Organic Coupons - variety of merchants who sell organic food and household items
Brown Cow Farm
Earthbound Farm
Imagine Foods
Seventh Generation
Eat Better America - has various coupons for organic food merchants such as Cascadian Farm and Muir Glen Organic

Here are some other ways to save money on organic:

Look for store brands featuring organic items. Many stores are now featuring an in-house brand or off-brands which are more economical such as Whole Foods 365 line, S&W,
Shop locally and seasonally as well. These foods are always cheaper, fresher, and more nutritious. Check this list of fruits and vegetables that are in season, month-by-month.
Don't buy processed foods; buy fresh, whole food ingredients
Keep your eye open for sales
Be willing to substitute one thing for another if the item is cheaper (don't skimp on quality though)
Join a co-op or CSA. These groups provide benefits and extras to their members.
Grow your own in a home or community garden.

Colon Cleansing - Vital to Health

2009-05-19T11:19:00.001-07:00

Colon cleansing is one of the most powerful steps you can take in your health. Cleansing the colon is an effective way to eliminate embedded toxins and waste that have accumulated over time. These substances, when left in the colon, form pockets and deposits. They misshape the colon tract and reduce its effectiveness in cleaning out the body.

Benefits of colon cleansing include: overall improvement in all body processes and health; when toxins and waste are removed from the body, it improves all functions and valuable nutrients are more easy to absorbed from the food you eat. You will also have more energy, greater mental clarity, find that you become sick less often, and have greater digestive performance and experience less of the following: constipation, diarrhea, bloating, abdominal cramping, gas, and indigestion.

Although a high percentage of people who conduct colon cleansing lose weight, weight loss should not be the number one goal of cleansing. Cleansing should be done to improve overall health, and as a natural by-product of this act your body will drop weight. This is due to the release of accumulated waste (fecal matter) as well as the resulting improvement in absorbing nutrients in the body. This also causes a reduction in appetite and subsequently, frequent hunger pains associated with eating and not absorbing nutrients in food.

Find a qualified practitioner who can guide you through the process of colon cleansing. There are different methods of accomplishing colon cleansing - through diet and through actual mechanical and physical evacuation of toxic matter. In most cases, if you are considering a colon cleanse, you will need to run the gamut of activities - and likely multiple times, to remove enough matter from your colon to positively affect your health. A colonic is an excellent way to get your colon cleansing program off to a good start. A knowledgeable colon hydrotherapist can help. Home enemas are also a good idea, and are a more economical way to maintain colon health continuously.

Fiber in the diet naturally helps fight disease by binding to waste and cholesterol and carrying it out of your body. Diets rich in fiber help prevent the development of colon cancer and heart disease.Make sure you are getting plenty of fiber in your diet from whole foods. Good sources include broccoli, sugar snap peas, brussels sprouts, coconuts, carrots, bananas, nuts, plums, pears, apples, and potatoes (with skin), greens, raisins, sprouted & soaked whole grains, and sprouted and soaked legumes (beans). If you are not obtaining enough, take a good quality fiber supplement. Good brands include Colon Plus by Biotics Research, Genesis Today's 4Fiber A Dietary Fiber Supplement.

Fiber in the diet naturally helps fight disease by binding to waste and cholesterol and carrying it out of your body. Diets rich in fiber help prevent the development of colon cancer and heart disease.

Take care of yourself at all times - before, during, and after colon cleansing activities. Support your body with good nutrition. Eat foods that are easy to digest - steamed (cooked) vegetables, healthy, grass-fed meats and safe-source fish, and meat and bone broths from organic, grass-fed sources. Raw foods are actually more difficult to digest, so during colon cleansing, stick to as many cooked items as possible.

Many experts will say the best tool in prevention of colon cancer is regular colon screenings (colonoscopy). This costly procedure which can also have dangerous health risks. There is a way to avoid colon screenings - change your diet and perform regular colon cleansing activities. The best way to avoid colon cancer is through PREVENTION. Many practitioners and health experts will not tell you this. Eating a superior diet and getting enough exercise are two key factors, as well as your personal colon cleansing protocol which you can design with assistance from a knowledgeable practitioner such as nutritional therapist, naturopath, or colon hydrotherapist.

For more information about detoxification and cleansing, read How Cleansing Positively Affects Your Health on Agriculture Society.

Geriatric and Mental Health Care Centers - Promoting Health, or Death?

2009-05-18T09:05:00.001-07:00

Do you have a loved one who lives in an assisted care center? If so, you may think the choice you have made was the best available for your family. In some cases, it becomes very difficult to deal with caring for an invalid elderly relative - especially when you must earn a living and take care of younger family members such as children. Assisted care living is, at best, an artificial environment and often fails to address the problems at hand. Most clients receive regular administration of drugs and sometimes other costly and useless medical procedures - yet little attention is paid to nutrition and diet.

In truth, these types of facilities are really just symptoms of much larger problems in our society - by the time a person reaches a condition where he or she must be admitted to a care center, many things have escalated to cause the decline in health. Both mental and physical degeneration are due to poor lifestyle habits, and greatly diminish the chances of a person maintaining good health in younger years and reaching old age in good health.

Studies show that psychiatric problems can often be caused by lack of nutritional support in the body. According to The Mental Health Foundation, there are firmly established connections between the consumption of junk food to ADD and ADHD, Alzheimer's disease, depression, and schizophrenia due to the absence of key nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, and essential fats. The highly-processed and increasingly industrialized diet maintained by a majority of British citizens and Americans - as well as other people living in industrialized countries - has contributed to a rapid decline in the overall health state.

It is certainly true that mental illness is caused by a combination of social, psychological, biological, and environmental factors, but to properly address health issues, we must also consider financial cost of that maintenance. Chief Executive of The Mental Health Foundation, Andrew McCulloch, admits both cost and healthy food are critical factors:"It costs £1,000 a week to keep someone in a psychiatric hospital. How much does good food cost? We need mentally healthy school meals, and mentally healthy hospital foods," he said.

In Britain, studies conducted by Sustain, an activist organization working toward education about better diets, has prepared the publication 'Changing Diets, Changing Minds'. The purpose of this publication is to sound the alarm that national health care services' mental illness costs will continue to rise unless the government takes an active role in focusing on the connection between diet and mental function with regard to food, farming, education, and environment policies.

"Food can have an immediate and lasting effect on mental health and behaviour because of the way it affects the structure and function of the brain," the report reads. Tim Lang, chairman of the organization said: "Mental health has been completely neglected by those working on food policy. If we don’t address it and change the way we farm and fish, we may lose the means to prevent much diet-related ill health."

Mental health care professionals are beginning to understand the connection between a lack of nutrients such as Vitamin D and illnesses like depression, personality disorders, and post-traumatic stress syndrome. An October 2008 report published in the Sydney Morning Herald revealed that in a study of over 50 psychiatric patients, nearly 60 percent were experiencing a critical Vitamin D deficiency, while 11 percent were found to be moderately deficient.

It is essential to get proper nutritional support in the diet to maintain good health, and mental health is no exception. By taking steps now to prevent degenerative disease and immobility, you can avoid needing medications, surgeries, and assisted care now and into your later years.

Trans-Fat Free...Does This Mean it's Healthy?

2009-05-15T08:56:00.000-07:00

Do you look for labels on foods to buy that say "trans-fat free"? If so, you could be falling into a hole of believing the food manufacturer telling you that a food is healthy when it is actually not. Many products containing unhealthy oils are lurking in the grocery store - crackers, breads, pretzels, chips, rice cakes, cookies, desserts, sauces, salad dressings, and broths, and soups just to name a few. These products often contain canola, soybean, cottonseed, or some other type of vegetable oil that becomes a trans-fat simply by the way it is processed. Most people assume that if something does not specifically read "hydrogenated", it is healthy. The best oils to consume are:

cold pressed, extra-virgin olive oil (can be used on lower heat)
cold pressed, extra virgin coconut oil (can be used on high heat)
fish-oil from safe-source fish (do not heat this oil)
cold-pressed flax-seed oil (do not heat this oil)

Only on occasion should you consume the following: organic non-GMO (genetically modified) oils that are cold-processed such as grapeseed, sunflower, and safflower. These oils are polyunsaturated and contain higher levels of Omega 6 essential fatty acids. While we do need these in our diets, the Western diet typically contains a too-high ratio of Omega 6s to Omega 3s. Concentrate on getting the Omega 3 levels up and Omega 6 levels down.

When you go shopping, remember the best foods are always whole, real foods. Oils such as canola, soybean, cottonseed and others are engineered foods that contribute to health problems when consumed such as heart disease, weight gain, high blood pressure, malabsorption of nutrients, and other issues. Trans fats can hide in a variety of products. When in doubt, make foods from scratch - especially foods like salad dressings. You can mix your own oils at home with different types of vinegars, spices, fruits, salt, pepper, and garlic for fantastic flavor and health at the same cost as bottled dressings.

Try Homemade Mayonnaise

2009-05-13T07:51:00.001-07:00

Do you eat mayonnaise? Over the years have you heard from various sources how unhealthy it is to eat mayonnaise? The reason why most mayonnaise is so unhealthy to consume is because of the ingredients - pick up an average container of mayonnaise and you will find one of the main ingredients is some type of polylunsaturated, high-content Omega 6 vegetable oil such as canola, soybean, cottonseed, or safflower. Many of these oils are also genetically-modified, which you will definitely want to steer away from.

So what's the solution? There are a few good brands made by companies - here is the list:

Use caution, there are a variety of brands which use olive oil but who also use the other unhealthy oils - such as Spectrum, Best Foods, and Hellman's. There are also a variety of other unhealthy ingredients in these products.

Here is a good homemade recipe courtesy Dr. Ben Kim:

Ingredients:

1 whole egg, at room temperature
1 egg yolk, at room temperature
1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
3/4-1 cup of extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt, to taste

Directions:

Use your food processor to blend egg, egg yolk, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, and salt for around 30 seconds.
With the food processor running, add the olive oil slowly, a few drops at a time until desired consistency is reached.
This homemade mayonnaise will stay fresh for about 2 weeks in an air tight jar in the refrigerator.

Add into a food processor or blender or food processor eggs, lemon juice, mustard, salt and pepper until well mixed. Pour olive oil in slowly and steadily while the device is on. Allow to mix until thick and creamy. For a variety of dishes, you can add items like garlic or finely mined onions, and different herbs and spices (such as cumin, chili powder, or dill depending on the dish you are making).

For tartar sauce, add 1/2 cup of the mayo mixture to the following:

1/3 cup of organic pickle relish - add more if desired
1 pinch of pepper
1 pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon lemon juice

Mix ingredients in a bowl. Eat immediately or chill and serve for later use.

Although it does take extra time to make your own mayonnaise, it can make a big difference in your health - especially if you eat it often. Making your own mayonnaise can help eliminate unhealthy oils from your diet which contribute to disease and inflammation, and that makes good health sense!

KFC Craze Deceiving Consumers

2009-05-12T09:17:00.001-07:00

If someone handed you a package of chemicals, hormones, MSG, denatured fats, and other toxic garbage, would you eat it? Millions of Americans were ready and willing last week when a story featured on the Oprah Winfrey show offered a promotional coupon to Kentucky Fried Chicken for their grilled chicken with two sides meal. This meal was promoted as being a "healthier" alternative to the fried counterparts typically offered by the food chain. But if you examine just what ingredients are found in this chicken, you might change your mind about how "healthy" it is:

Fresh Chicken Marinated with: Salt, Sodium Phosphate, and Monosodium Glutamate Seasoned with: Maltodextrin, Salt, Bleached Wheat Flour, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oil, Monosodium Glutamate, Spices, Palm Oil, Natural Flavor, Garlic Powder, Soy Sauce (Soybean, Wheat, Salt), Chicken Fat, Chicken Broth, Autolyzed Yeast, Beef Powder, Rendered Beef Fat, Extractives of Turmeric, Dehydrated Carrot, Onion Powder, and Not More Than 2% Each of Calcium Silicate and Silicon Dioxide Added as Anticaking Agents. Contains Wheat and Soy.

Here are the main issues with this food:

MSG - an excitotoxin which disables and destroys neurotransmitters in the brain
Partially hydrogenated soybean oil and cottonseed oil - trans fats and unhealthy vegetable oils that are treated with pesticides, genetically modified, and inflammatory substances with too high levels of Omega 6s
Autolyzed Yeast - salt added to yeast, which effectively kills yeast by causing those digestive enzymes to eat itself. Like MSB, it is a flavor enhancer and falls under the category of an excitotoxin as well.
Calcium silicate and silicon dioxide - altered chemicals added for consistency and preservatives
Bleached white flour - processed and rancid flour with zero nutritional content
Chicken meat/broth/fat and beef fat - what is the source of this meat? You can bet it's not pasture-raised or free from chemicals, hormones, and antibiotics. If the merchant is not advertising it's meat has these qualities, it's usually from a factory farm. If you knew what type of conditions existed at these operations, you'd never eat factory meat again.

Ironically, some customers were unhappy after they tried to redeem their coupons and were turned away because KFC ran out of the grilled chicken entree. KFC responded by saying they would continue to honor coupons after a kitchen resupply of the advertised product. What is truly amazing is the overwhelming response had by this offer, and the fact that so many millions of people were deceived into believing that not only was this offer too good to pass up, but that this alternative was in any way shape or form a healthier alternative to the fried choices typically offered by KFC in the past. This occurrence is indeed proof that marketing and advertising works, no matter how untrue are the claims made by the company.

The unfortunate truth is, most of the time when you go to a restaurant, a grocery store (or even a friend's house, for that matter), what you are getting when you purchase meat is the most abhorrent quality available - that is, meat produced from animals in feedlots who are pumped full of chemicals and antibiotics.

The lesson here is - do your research! Don't automatically believe that because an ad or company tells you on television or a label that their products are healthy, that it means they really are healthy. Corporations, media, and marketers have learned that certain words they use translate to the consumer mind as something they want to buy - in this case, "grilled", in other cases "all-natural", "low-fat", "no sugar", or even "organic" can trick consumers into purchasing something that is completely unhealthy and eating it. When you consume something, remember the possible hidden cost of eating it, and you may think twice the next time you are deciding about what to eat for lunch.

Critical Elements for Health Through Nutrition

2009-05-11T08:34:00.000-07:00

What type of diet do you eat? There are some critical components that must be included each day in order to keep health optimal. Do you make certain you have these key elements in your everyday diet?

Digestion and elimination
Hydration
Essential Fatty Acids
Mineral Balance
Blood sugar balance
Balance of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates
Probiotics
Fiber

According to the tenets of Certified Nutritional Therapy practice and The Weston A. Price Foundation, these components are essential for controlling disorders such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and other illnesses and diseases that are particular to modern life. In order to maintain this balance with these components, it is important to eat a nutrient-dense diet including the following:

grass-fed meats and game
pasture-raised eggs
grass-fed dairy products
organic fruits and vegetables
fermented foods such as homemade yogurt, kefir, and sauerkraut (for live culture and probiotic delivery)
healthy fats such as coconut oil, fish oil from a healthy source and/or cod liver oil, real butter from grass-fed animals, cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil, lard from healthy sources (grass-fed meats), beef and chicken tallow
raw nuts and seeds

If your digestion is bogged down by processed and refined foods, it will affect your entire body and health. Because of this, the functions of digestion are the very foundations of good health. When you keep all the components of health in balance with proper foods, your body can keep itself free of degenerative disease and illness. Through many years of abuse, many people have damaged their digestion and health to the extent that it is necessary to take drastic measures of detoxification, alteration of diet and lifestyle, and heavy supplementation with whole-foods based, organically-sourced dietary supplements to bring health back to normal.

For more information your diet and disease, read this informative article on Agriculture Society.

For more information on dietary guidelines, visit The Weston A. Price Foundation for a wealth of great nutritional information that will transform your health.

What's the Word on Safe Seafood Choices?

2009-05-07T07:40:00.001-07:00

Do you pay attention to making safe seafood choices in your diet? If not, you should be aware that a great deal of seafood contains certain toxins and heavy metals which are harmful to your health. The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a list of safe seafood choices which are updated every six months. Because of overfishing and careless fishing practices, our oceans, sealife and environment have been put in danger of being not only contaminated but considerably damaged by the greed and overpopulation of humans.

Seafood provide an important source of Omega 3s, protein, and other nutrients vital to health. But there are definitely healthier and safer choices to make, as opposed to many that are not as healthy. Knowing which of these are superior is important. The Monterey Bay Aquarium provides a list for all regions in the United States, including Hawaii. For more information on these important choices, visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium web site.

For more information about safe seafood choices, visit the Organic Consumers Association.

Food and Soda Companies Returning to Sugar in Their Products

2009-05-06T06:15:00.001-07:00

Do you drink carbonated sodas and pop? One of the biggest soda companies has plans to revert their soda beverages and pops back to sugar in an attempt to convince consumers that their drinks will now be healthier than their previous versions with artificial sweeteners such as high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, and saccharine. PepsiCo will shortly be releasing what it calls a "Throwback" line of drinks in an attempt to recapture their image with a younger, more hip demographic. Pepsi has already released similar products in other countries - Pepsi Raw in the United Kingdom and Pepsi Retro in Mexico.

In a similar effort, Log Cabin, manufacturer of "maple syrups" is also replacing their previously containing HFCS products with sugar. Because high fructose corn syrup has been under the radar for so many years as a dangerous substance that causes myriad health issues, the now less-demonized sugar is once again taking its rightful seat on the throne in processed foods.

The fact is, sugar is just as unhealthy to consume as HFCS. The other matter is that our culture has become so accustomed to having foods and drinks sweetened and filled with artificial flavors and chemicals, we cannot possibly fathom the idea of something standing alone on its own flavor. Bottled waters are now commonly filled with various kinds of sweeteners - from sucralose to dextrose to fructose - and high fructose corn syrup. Essentially, all of these sweeteners are not safe to consume - just like sugar. All have high glycemic indexes and raise the blood sugar significantly and quickly, and allow it to drop down just as rapidly. And in the meantime, when you are eating sugar, your body ceases to burn fat. Is it any wonder obesity is so rampant?

Folks, don't be fooled by this severe marketing tactic! Once again, these companies couldn't care less about your health - it's all about the profit margin. Don't fall victim to their schemes and attempts to reel you back in if you've abandoned their products. Stick to real, traditional foods for everything you eat. Most mainstream companies that sell packaged foods don't sell healthy food; they are simply trying to deceive the consumer in order to get you hooked on something else you'll become addicted to and can't live without - and your health is the thing that will suffer - but certainly not their pocketbooks. Remember that besides being bad for your health, processed and packaged foods are also expensive, which translates into being bad for your pocketbook as well.

Protect the Rights of Consumers and Farmers - Stop The USDA's plan for NAIS

2009-05-05T19:42:00.001-07:00

Are you familiar with the NAIS (National Animal Identification System)? If you aren't, you soon will be. If you currently own livestock, are planning to own livestock, or eat meat, dairy, or meat-by products, you will be affected by this measure.

In the midst of supposed "pandemics" such as the Swine Flu, plans to make this measure mandatory (currently it is a voluntary choice) have been in the works for some time (since 2005), and we are headed toward yet another bill soon to become a law which will strip citizens of their rights. According to Mary Zanoni, PhD., (Executive Director of Farm for Life) this plan, headed up by Secretary of State Tom Vilsack who has been working with Big Agribusiness giants such as Monsanto, National Pork Producers, and Cargill Meats will "drive small producers out of the market, will make people abandon raising animals for their own food, will invade Americans’ personal privacy to a degree never before tolerated, will violate the religious freedom of Americans whose beliefs make it impossible for them to comply, and will erase the last vestiges of animal welfare from the production of animal foods".

All the details of this costly, imposing, and limiting system can be read at Poultry Press. Basically, if you own even one animal - horse, cow, pig, sheep, chicken, or any type of livestock, you must adhere to a very strict plan to manage the animal by registering it with the USDA and tracking it according to their requirements including the following:

each animal is assigned a 15-digit number in the form of a tag or microchip
could include collecting DNA from each individual animal
owner will be required to report the following for each animal: date of birth, each time animal enters or exits the property, application of every animal's I.D. tag, each time tags are lost or replaced, when animals die or go missing(must be reported within 24 hours)

Third "parties" such as veterinarians are required identify animals they treat or "sight" which are not tagged and report them to the USDA. This applies whether you are raising the animals for food to sell or only for your own self and family. There will be no exceptions. If you do not comply, the USDA will exercise "enforcement" against you (St., p. 7; Plan, p. 17).

The costs associated with implementating NAIS protocols are incidental for CAFOs and smaller factory farms. These facilities currently use computer technology for systems monitoring purposes. Smaller farms will be hardest hit as each individual animal will be required to have a tag. It is estimated that tracking one animal through a small farming environment will be equal to the cost of monitoring a thousand animals on the premises of a factory farm. This is because in the factory environment, all animals moving through a chain of production at once can be issued a single number - whereas on a smaller farm, each animal must be counted as one and issued a separate number entirely.

Does this feel a bit like Nazi Germany? It should!

This system is supposed to keep animal disease under control, but in reality, this is just another government program that will cost taxpayers more money, erode personal rights, and essentially wipe small, sustainable farmers and individual farmers off the map. Such impositions upon small business owners and individual citizens will prove too costly and difficult to maintain, and the USDA is counting on this as a way to "eliminate disease and illness" from the world of farming and agriculture. Of course, the real enemies in all of this are the factory farms working hand in hand with the government and USDA, who refuse to make mandatory passing necessary legislation about raising animals in sanitary and sustainable conditions.

When innoculatory vaccinations were issued in 1976, people paid the price after various individuals became paralyzed and experienced other permanent side-effects. This is yet one more thinly-veiled execution of "controlling" disease and is another method of supporting Big Ag and Big Pharma. These entities don't really intend to keep citizens from getting sick, and if you believe that, you are just being deceived. Where are the discussions about prevention? You won't hear them from the mainstream news media or the CDC because too much power and money is at stake. If you believe these events to be the big hoaxes they are, please visit Agriculture Society and read our open letter to the President and Congress about the necessity for prevention and real nutrition for proper maintenance of both our health care systems and our health.

Make no mistake, these new regulations will move toward effectively removing all sustainable and small farming operations, and seek to take away our rights to healthy, safe food.

Please, consumers, farmers, and anyone who cares about health and agriculture: PLEASE, AS urges you to take action and raise your voice about this important issue - the future of our ability to procure healthy food for ourselves and our families is at serious stake!

To sign a petition against this measure, visit Petition2Congress.

For more information about this system, visit the Organic Consumer's Association .

For more information about taking action on this critical issue, visit Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund.

For more information, visit Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance.

To see what the USDA is planning for this measure, visit the USDA site.

Frequently Made Mistakes About Nutrition

2009-05-04T08:05:00.000-07:00

Are you guilty of making these mistakes when judging whether something you want to eat is healthy? Find out - here's our list:

Do you eat low-fat or non-fat foods?
Do you count calories?
Do you believe lean meats are healthy to eat, while red meat is not?
Believe saturated fats and cholesterol are bad for your heart?
Eat soy products to improve your health?
Maintain a vegan diet?
Eat boxed cereals because the labels read "low-fat", or "high-fiber" or "all-natural"?
Believe eggs and butter are bad for your health?
Choose vegetable oils because you have been told they are healthy to consume (canola, cottonseed, soybean, corn, safflower oils)?
Take synthetic vitamin/mineral/dietary supplements to "fill in the gaps"?
Pay no attention to organic produce because conventional is "cheaper" and it doesn't really make a difference?
Eat processed foods such as enriched breads, crackers, cereals, bagels, English Muffins, pretzels, rice cakes, tortillas, croissants because you believe they are low-fat and healthy?
Eat highly-processed lunch meats, sausages, hot dogs and other similar items?
Eat products containing hydrolyzed proteins or protein powder?
Buy "food" and "protein" bars because you believe they are an acceptable substitute for a real, balanced meal?
Buy factory-produced eggs and industrially-produced meat from your local chain grocery store?

Consider each of these and think about how you respond nutritionally to each. Check back tomorrow for a discussion of the answers you came up with.

What's the Word On Agriculture and Health, Mr. President?

2009-04-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

With so many food issues at stake affecting our health, you would think it would be somewhere near the top of the list for our President to take more seriously the dire health care conditions in which we are situated, that are all-encompassing and have ripple effects on everything and everyone.

What's happened in the first 100 days? Sure, Michelle Obama took the initiative to install an organic garden on the White House Lawn. Then there's the well-intentioned economic stimulus package, promising the following for the environmental sector -$62.2 billion in direct spending on green initiatives and $20 billion in green tax incentives, including money for renewable energy, efficiency, improved energy transmission, smart-grid technology, low-income housing retrofits, rail transit, and green jobs training.

The administration also laid out its first budget to include an additional $15 billion in investments in energy and efficiency projects, with a clause to increase funding for rail – on top of the $8 billion for Amtrak in the stimulus. The plan was to create a “world-class passenger rail system” across the nation.

One of the most notable allocations on the budget was a cap-and-trade plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. Unfortunately, this initiative was rejected by the Senate. But those of us on the green side still hoped against hope that this action would prove just how intent the Obama administration was about making climate change issues a priority.

That's a great start, but isn't there more that can, and should be done? The answer is a resounding YES!

Food activists are accustomed to having to take a number when it comes to important issues being accounted for by the general public and government - even in the face of obesity and diabetes epidemics being at an all-time high, food safety issue after issue, questionable quality of school lunches served to children, the deficit in farming and rural populations, national and world hunger issues, and our unshakeable dependence upon petroleum and its affect on our food supply - while many viable alternatives and resources exist which continue to be untapped, unrecognized, and under-utilized.

In the last few years, we've noticed how food safety problems continue to mount as recall after recall occurs to make us even more suspicious of our food sources. In February of 2008, we watched as the media blazed with news headlines detailing the horrific ordeal of the largest meat recall in history of 143 millions pounds of meat, followed by the tomato and peanut butter recalls, and rice and wheat shortages. Then America was faced with the threat of deadly pathogens originating from the food supply, in the form of MRSA (from hogs in the Midwest), and once again, the Swine Flu which has been connected to Smithfield Farms in Vera Cruz, Mexico. This may be only the beginning if our policy makers and decision makers don't step up to the plate and put the hammer down. As these crises continue to crop up, we wonder if there is an end to in sight this insatiable, sickening lust for industrial food and the devastating, long-standing effects that result.

It is more than disappointing see repeated instances of both President Obama and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack failing to recognize agriculture issues as being intimatedly connected with the massive health care issues faced in our nation, as well as energy and environmental policies. In March after more recalls of 1500 peanut-butter containing products, the President announced the formation of a Food Safety Working Group (FSWG). "In the end, food safety is something I take seriously, not just as your president, but as a parent,” Mr. Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. Obama promised that with the inception of this new watch dog, his administration would finally begin to deal with the many problems due to lack of accountability and responsibility in food safety. Yet, ever since then, nary has a word been spoke.

Just as our article featured on the main Agriculture Society page discusses, the President has not acknowledged that to fix food safety issues which will stick, it is imperative that the current administration address underlying food system issues that are embedded in our manufacturing, production, political, and most importantly, agricultural systems, before anything else - without neglecting our heavy reliance on petroleum and petroleum by-products (which includes thousands and thousands of toxic food items on the market that people consume).

So what's next? We need to raise our voices and let our administration and President know that we won't be silent about these issues! Please become active and help make a difference. Visit Agriculture Society to read an open letter to the President and Congress about how preventative health care is absolutely essential and must include action in the agricultural, educational, and insurance sectors.

You can also sign an important petition on the Prescription for Change web site to show your support and intent. When you go to this site, there is a form letter which you can edit; make certain to mention something in this letter about preventative health care, addressing agricultural and food safety concerns, and emphasize how just how much these factors impact the effectiveness of our total health care in the United States. This correspondence will go directly to your local representatives according to the zip code you enter.

Alternatively, you can go straight to The White House and write a letter to The President.

This post is linked in Food Renegade's Fight Back Fridays Carnival. Please check out all the other informative posts on this site.

Fight Back Pain Naturally

2009-04-29T06:24:00.000-07:00

Do you suffer from back pain? Four out of five adults suffer chronic back pain, and the causes are numerous. Remember that your back is one of the major components of your body, and as such, can not only affect other parts of your body, but can in turn be affected by other parts of your body as well.

Consider psychological therapy

According to Dennis Turk, Ph.D., a professor of anesthesiology and pain research at the University of Washington in Seattle, patients with chronic pain sometimes fail to recognize the value of psychological treatments because they’ve been set up to expect a cure.

“Even the latest and greatest treatments don’t cure people with chronic pain,” he said. “Psychological interventions are not cures, but they do reduce pain and improve function and they are important components in the treatment of people with chronic pain.”

Turk added that psychological interventions are also cost-effective when compared to other treatments for chronic low back pain — a key finding, considering that estimates for treatment-related costs range from $20 billion to $80 billion a year in the United States.
“Surgery, opioids, nerve blocks, spinal cord stimulators, implantable drug delivery systems — every one of those particular alternatives is much more expensive and has poorer or at best equal outcomes compared to rehabilitation programs that include psychological components,” said Turk. “The paradox is that, despite data on the effectiveness of psychological interventions, insurers are less willing to pay for them.”

The bottom line is, back pain is a symptom of something going awry in the body, and the cause and cure could be as many as a dozen different things. Before considering expensive surgery and drugs that will likely mask the problem and just cover it up, think about the following alternatives:

Much back pain is caused by repetitive motions or being sedentary in one place for an extended period of time - such as sitting at a desk all day long. Make sure you get up and walk around once an hour for a few minutes. Take a break or part of your lunch break each day and go for a brisk walk outside. Atrophy of muscles, tendons, and joints occurs with there are long periods of sedation. Proper blood flow to affected areas is also impeded due to inactivity. This causes stiffness, weakness, loss of circulation, and eventually inflammation.
Perform stretching and back exercises daily.
Eat a healthy diet. Eliminate refined sugars and processed foods (including breads, boxed cereals, pastas, crackers, bagels, pretzels, etc., all of which are enriched and extruded).
Drink plenty of filtered water. Eat organic vegetables, fruits, raw nuts, raw cheeses, grass-fed meats, and safe source fish.
Get plenty of rest.
If you have too many things to do each day, reprioritize your schedule and let things go that are pushing you over your limit of time, energy, and available sanity with which to deal.
Obtain moderate exercise several times per week, such as brisk walking, hiking, bicycling, or some organized activity such as yoga, pilates, or martial arts.
If back pain persists, consider a natural approach such as acupuncture, body work, massage, or chiropractic care. These treatments work with your body and help to move it in the direction of healing rather than concealing the problem at hand, and actually boost your body's ability to deal with the handicap and heal itself more effectively.
Don't jump into the drugs and surgery option until you have tried all of these remedies together for an extended period of time. Many doctors are quick to recommend surgery or drugs which may not solve the problem.

Dehyration Nation

2009-04-28T08:51:00.000-07:00

Do you drink enough water every day? Are you substituting water for other drinks like coffee, tea, soda pop, "power" drinks, juices, or other processed beverages? Or, is your schedule so busy that you find you are going too long without drinking water? This perpetual cycle of drinking beverages which dehydrate you more and then not getting enough pure water daily can actually be the culprit of numerous health problems such as circulation, digestion, blood pressure, and kidney dysfunction.

Here are some guidelines and things to remember in order to keep yourself hydrated:

A good rule of thumb is to check the color of your urine. If your urine is any color other than light yellow, you are dehydrated and need more water. There is an old saying about drinking 8 glasses of water daily, and this works for some people. However, not everyone needs the same amount of water daily, so always use the urine test to determine if you are receiving enough fluids. If you are taking a multi-vitamin, especially one with B2 (Riboflavin), your urine will be colored bright yellow.
Avoid drinking all your water at once. It is better to have a container of water on hand at all times and sip than to try and catch up after hours and hours with no liquid and drink it all down at once.
Use a glass or metal container for your water. Plastic can leech into your water, and especially if it has been sitting for a long period of time or in a place that could potentially become hot, such as outside or in a car. Save glass bottles from products you purchase or find some good stainless steel containers from the store for storing water. As a suggestions, if you purchase water from a local source and use your own bottles, store it in glass bottles and dispense from a ceramic water container with a spout.
Don't buy bottled water. Most bottled waters are in plastic containers, and there is usually no way to verify the actual source of the water (there are exceptions, of course). Many bottled waters are simply tap water. Tap water contains many impurities, chemicals, and toxins from various substances that get into the water as well as others that are leeched in from the water treatment process such as iron, chlorine, fluoride, arsenic, mercury, ingredients from medications people take, and many others. Bottled water is also costly and when bottles are discarded, a very small percentage of those are actually recycled and end up in landfills - which damage the environment.
Avoid using distilled water for drinking. Distilled water has poor ionization, pH, polarization and oxidation potentials. Drinking distilled water can also rapidly deplete minerals from the body.
Even if you are drinking enough water, you could still be dehydrated. This is because most water does not contain minerals, and mineral loss is one of the major causes of dehyrdation. One way to assure you are getting minerals daily is to visit a knowledgeable health care practitioner who can determine your mineral balance. He or she can recommend a mineral supplement to take which can bring your mineral levels to optimal, which greatly improves health. Most mineral supplements do not have to be taken indefinitely; once your body rebuilds it's mineral supply up, you can discontinue the supplement.
Another way to keep mineral levels up is to buy a good quality product such as Electrolyte Stamina. This great tasting, "fizzing" drink (powder that you add to water) contains Stevia and comes in several flavors with over 1220 mg of Vitamin C, 72 trace elements and minerals, is high in Potassium, is a great antioxidant, and contains all major electrolytes.
Use a water filter that you can put on your tap. One of the best systems you can purchase is Kangen, a perfect alkaline, anti-oxidant containing water which properly filters out all impurities. Another good water filtration system is PUR Ultimate Faucet Mount and GE Smart Water (as recommended by Dr. Mercola).

Outbreak of Swine Flu Linked to Smithfield Factory Farms

2009-04-27T08:15:00.000-07:00

Are you worried about contracting the Swine Flu? It is definitely a cause for concern, but it is one that should be thoroughly understood in regard to its origins. Unfortunately, one of the culprits of this disease is once again being connected to a factory farm source. This virus is being described as a combination between avian (bird), swine, and human strain of flu. So far, 1000 people in the U.S. and Mexico have been infected, with 68 left dead. This outbreak is being heralded by health officials as easily capable of reaching global pandemic proportions.

It is well-known from media reports that the facilities where the pigs from these operations are housed have open lagoons of swine waste which are creating massive pollution from the stench to enormous clouds of flies overhead to water contamination - all of which are responsible for causing positive development of implacable pathogens.

"According to physicians from the state of Vera Cruz and the Mexican health agency IMSS, the epidemic's vector could be the clouds of flies created by hog CAFOs and the manure lagoons where the U.S.-Mexican company (Smithfield's Granjas Carroll subsidiary) through tons of manure."

The outbreak originated in Vera Cruz, Mexico where an enormous hog-producing operation resides. Smithfield Foods owns this subsidiary and reports on their web site to produce 950,000 hogs annually.

Although controversy exists about exactly how the virus is spread, some sources say it cannot be contracted from consuming the meat and that it must be spread through human-to-human contamination. Some say otherwise. However, as with MRSA, this virus has been found to reside in the body environments of both humans and pigs:

"One of the first clues that pigs could infect people with MRSA came in the Netherlands in 2004, when a young woman tested positive for a new strain of MRSA, called ST398. The family lived on a farm, so public health authorities swept in — and found that three family members, three co-workers and 8 of 10 pigs tested all carried MRSA."

Now this same strain of MRSA has also been found in the United States. A new study by Tara Smith, a University of Iowa epidemiologist, found that 45 percent of pig farmers she sampled carried MRSA, as did 49 percent of the hogs tested."

With the MRSA virus, experts repeatedly directed consumers to wash hands after preparing and cooking raw pork. They also assured us that eating this possibly infected pork meat would be perfectly safe to do as long as it was properly cooked. What kind of nonsense is this logic, and realistically, why should the Swine Flu virus be any different? Do you really want to prepare or consume pork from an unknown source that could possibly contain the Swine Flu virus or MRSA bacteria?

Even if, without a doubt, this virus is NOT spread from actually consuming the meat from pigs, there is irrefutable evidence at hand which proves that this virus originated within a factory farm environment in the first place. Doesn't this say something about our insatiable appetite for meat and having it at any cost? Doesn't it say something about the almighty dollar being placed above the well-being and health of human beings, animals, and the environment?

The best prevention for any virus or flu - this pandemic threat being no different - is by healthy lifestyle choices which include taking extreme care to have proper nutrition and good, clean, sustainable sources of food. It is nearly impossible for anyone to contract such viruses or bacteria from animals raised in healthy, sustainable environments.

Not until human beings understand the horrific and far-reaching repercussions of raising animals in factory farm environments for food will the passage of such lethal viruses and bacteria come to a halt.

For an informative article about the dangers of industrially-produced animal products on human health and the environment, visit The Sustainable Table.

For a recent article about the connection between the factory farm environment and Swine Flu, visit Grist.

For more information on Swine Flu outbreaks, visit Swine Flu Outbreak News.

How to Stop Cavities in Their Tracks!

2009-04-24T08:47:00.001-07:00

Reducing and elimination of tooth decay is less about treatments and more about prevention. Plenty of people brush their teeth regularly with fluoride and still get cavities and dental decay. If you want to keep dental caries out of your mouth, here are some suggestions that if adhered to, really work:

Eliminate refined sugars from your diet.
Eliminate processed foods from your diet.
Eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, organic preferably.
Eat healthy meats and dairy products such as naturally-raised, organic, grass-fed meats, safe seafood choices such as as salmon, raw dairy products from a healthy source like grass-fed milk, cheeses, creams, and butter
Make your own sprouted, soaked, and fermented foods at home such as kefir, yogurt, kimchi, sauerkraut, Kombucha, soaked grains that you would use for home-made cereals, and nuts.
Make sure you are getting enough fiber
Be certain to get enough essential fatty acids (such as with healthy meats, eggs, milk, and fish)
Take a good probiotic daily - consult with a knowledgeable health care practitioner. Make sure your probiotic contains at least 9 strains and has over 10 billion bacteria.
Brush your teeth and floss at least twice daily with a good quality, natural toothpaste that contains all-natural ingredients and no fluoride. Alternatively, you can make your own toothpaste with essential oils, baking soda, or peroxide (make sure you use food grade).

Your diet and lifestyle have everything to do with your overall health picture, including your dental condition. Eating a healthy diet can leave you with healthy teeth and gums, and help to avoid trips to the dentist for fillings, root canals, and other unpleasant, costly procedures.

This post is linked to on Food Renegade's Fight Back Fridays Carnival. Please have a look at the other great food and health posts there.

What's the Word on Safe Seafood Choices?

2009-04-23T09:08:00.001-07:00

Good Nutrition and Allergies

2009-04-23T08:25:00.001-07:00

Do you suffer from allergies? Many people do, and the normal course of action for allergies is to load up on prescription drugs and over-the-counter medication. But did you know that most allergies are due to a response by our immune systems caused by over-stimulation - that is, too many irritants in the body at once? It's true. By elimination of various allergens affecting the body's environment, you will decrease the immune system response to factors like seasonal allergies. It's that simple. Here's why:

When seasonal allergies flare up in the spring or fall, your body is over-reacting to foreign substances in the air which normally should be benign - pollen, dust, grass seeds, and other naturally-occurring substances. Your body is already "busy" trying to protect itself against other substances, such as foreign bacteria and viruses, and the food you are eating - many common foods are the culprit:

Wheat
Soy
Pasteurized dairy
Nuts
Corn
Other processed foods

Most of these foods are incredibly processed - and in addition, have the added component of being covered in pesticides and other chemicals, are irradiated, and even genetically-modified. All of these factors greatly contribute to the body's allergic and inflammatory response to toxic and unwanted substances.

When the pollen comes, it's just the straw that broke the camel's back - or the final tipping point. You become congested, your nose drips, your eyes water, you sneeze...you may even develop secondary sinus infections or respiratory ailments.

So what's the solution? Try removing all processed foods from your diet and see what happens.
Wait a week or two, and then gradually add back in replacements for these foods that are whole:

Sprouted, soaked, whole grains in place of processed ones
Raw dairy from a clean, organic source for pasteurized dairy
Grass-fed, natural meats and eggs for commercially and industrially-raised ones
If you aren't eating it already, start having a serving or two a week of safe-source fish (check the guide for current safe selections in your area).
Organic fruits and vegetables for conventionally-produced ones
Raw foods like nuts, fermented foods like real, homemade yogurt or kefir instead of store-bought, processed, pasteurized selections
Natural fats like olive oil, coconut oil, pumpkin seed oil, flax oil, avocado oil, or walnut oil

Natural foods and good nutrition always support the body's ability to fight off infections and disease, and allergic responses are no different. Make a lasting change today and see if it doesn't make a difference in your allergies and eliminate your need to buy expensive drugs that are harmful to your health, and which only cover up the problem.

For an informative article on the health and financial implications of food allergies and sensitivities, visit the main Agriculture Society resource site.

For more information about specific nutritional components and nutrients which can help allergies, as well as those to avoid, visit Natural Ways.

This post is linked to on Kelly the Kitchen Cop's site, please visit this wonderful resource and view some of the other great blogs that are featured on Real Food Wednesdays.

April is Autism Awareness Month

2009-04-22T09:34:00.001-07:00

Do you have a child who suffers from or do you know a child with autism? Have you ever wondered just how a child becomes autistic? Many people have had this same curiosity, and for years the medical community has chosen to treat autism as a disease with medication. Does medication really solve the problems of autism? Some people say no, and in the case of Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey, parents of son Evan, their journey into finding out what causes autism and the cure they discovered may be quite surprising.

According to McCarthy, when their son was diagnosed with "the disease" some years ago, the community was not very open to looking at alternative measures for their son's illness. It was all about medication and drugs. But when McCarthy and Carrey decided to take another path, they learned some very interesting things - if they removed as many toxins as they possibly could from their son's food, environment, and so on, a magical thing happened - his symptoms began to disappear. Soon, doctors and medical professionals were renegotiating on the original diagnosis and stating that their son never had autism. How could this be?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, autism is a debilitating disorder suffered by 1 in 150 kids, making it more common than childhood cancer, diabetes and AIDS combined. Many people don't realize that in the last 20 years, vaccination rates have more than tripled. In the 80s children were required to 10 vaccines by age 5. Today, they are administered 36 immunizations in most cases by age 2. It is beginning to seem as though the vaccine campaign is turning into one of the biggest money-making schemes in existence - with little to no consideration on actual prevention.

Proponents of this notion don't believe autism is caused by vaccines alone - but rather that vaccinations are, in many cases, a final tipping point that sends young bodies already in turmoil overload from toxins and irritants from their environment and diet into overdrive. To make a real difference and effect a reversal of autism, considerations would be to:

alter the schedule of vaccines
reduce the number of shots given
eliminate certain ingredients that could be toxic to some children (the major ingredient in vaccinations for removal would be thimerosol).

There would certainly be a chance that some children could still react even if all these steps were taken. But with the overwhelming amount of chemicals and toxins in the environment, food, and drugs and the success achieved by numerous parents who have tried removal of these substances when nothing else worked, it seems a mute point not to make a change.

Jenny McCarthy's web site, GenerationRescue.org lists the four most critical items which need to be addressed to reduce symptoms of autism:

1. Bring down the toxin load
2. Help the gut heal by detoxification, supplementation, and elimination of irritants
3. Increase nutrients in the diet
4. Remove heavy metals and other toxins which can exacerbate and feed symptoms

These suggestions are also offered to parents of autistic children:

Remove casein (dairy) and gluten (wheat) from the diet
Remove any other food allergens from the diet
Eliminate processed foods and refined sugars including but not limited to trans fatty acids, MSG, artificial colors/flavors preservatives, and other excitotoxins, nitrates, aspartame, Nutrasweet, and anything you cannot pronounce or do not know what it is
Eliminate the use of fluoride toothpaste
Make certain your child's diet includes Omega 3 essential fatty acids in the form of something such as cod liver oil. Good dietary sources include organic, raw dairy, grass-fed meats, safe deep sea fish such as salmon, and ground flaxseeds
Make sure your child's diet includes foods (fermented foods such as kefir, natto, kimchi, real yogurt, raw milk, raw cheese, raw butter, raw cream) with friendly bacteria and/or probiotics

For more on the movement that is attempting to "green" vaccines and for additional information about how widespread autism has become and what you can do about it, visit Jenny McCarthy's web site: GenerationRescue.org

Food Sources -Should You be Concerned?

2009-04-21T09:07:00.001-07:00

Are you careful about where you get your food? If you haven't been, you may want to reconsider the sources from where you purchase food. In the recent past, we've seen many examples of food recalls and people becoming ill from eating foods that were unsafe to eat. These examples are only becoming more numerous and widespread.

Many people believe that food poisoning is from eating food with bacteria in it that can make you sick - and that belief is absolutely correct. But what many people don't know is that most anyone can become sick from eating processed or industrialized foods - and these are the foods which are most commonly available and which most people consume on a daily basis.

The other important factor that is seldom considered when talking about food making people sick is that the health of the average person living in a developed country (such as the United States). The average citizen's health is less than optimal and the immune system of that person is severely compromised due to the continual consumption of processed and industrialized foods. Eating these types of foods lowers the ability of your immune system and digestive tract to function properly, thus lowering your entire state of health considerably.

When you see labels on foods or signs in grocery stores or restaurants that talk about consuming improperly cooked foods or raw foods and how those adversely affect health, they are unknowingly referring to those two factors - industrial foods and the poor immune systems of individuals consuming them. Because the landscape of industrial foods is so widespread and consumption of real, organic, healthy foods is too uncommon, people's immune system's in general are lowered and susceptible to letting pass diseases and illnesses into the body. Raw foods are vital to health and should be consumed, but because of our culture and our ignorance about these foods, we are wholly unacquainted with what it means to prepare and consume truly healthy raw foods.

Another factor in bacteria from food making people sick is the way foods are handled. For instance, if you buy a carton of eggs, the label may advise you to beware of salmonella. The American Egg Safety Board elaborates: "The inside of an egg was once considered almost sterile. But, over recent years, the bacterium Salmonella enteritidis (Se) has been found inside a small number of eggs. Scientists estimate that, on average across the U.S., only 1 of every 20,000 eggs might contain the bacteria. So, the likelihood that an egg might contain Se is extremely small – 0.005% (five one-thousandths of one percent). At this rate, if you’re an average consumer, you might encounter a contaminated egg once every 84 years."

A large percentage of the contamination associated with eggs appears on the outside of the egg from debris and fecal matter originating from the environment where chickens live. Most eggs are washed before packing. If you buy local eggs from a known source and you are concerned about eggs being contaminated from the outside, simply wash the egg. If you were to consume a contaminated egg with salmonella on the inside, thorough cooking would kill the bacteria. Most eggs that come from chickens allowed to roam in sustainable-raised environments are healthy eggs which would not contain salmonella on the inside.

In most cases, simply educating ourselves and paying attention to sanitation about clean food sources and proper handling will eliminate harmful bacteria from entering our bodies. However even in the best of cases, repeated consumption of industrial and processed foods will eventually lead to incidence of illness and possibly death, from food-borne bacteria. Your best bet is to pay attention to where your food comes from and keep your food preparation habits and conditions as clean as possible.

For more information about learning how to prepare healthy raw foods, visit the Raw Freedom Community message board.

Macaweb is an excellent source for some of the basics in raw food.

Is Reactive Medicine Cheaper Than Preventative?

2009-04-20T08:09:00.001-07:00

Are you in the habit of eating poorly and then taking medications regularly when you become sick? If so, you may want to consider what you spend on medications, insurance premiums, and low-quality food versus preventative care and good quality food. In the long run, preventative care can save you thousands of dollars in prescription drugs and trips to the doctor and hospital. And it can certainly afford you a much better quality of life and avoid suffering, pain, and misery.

As one example, if you went to the doctor and received a prescription for Levaquin, without insurance you would spend approximately $161.00 for ten pills. This medication is used for illnesses such as sinus infections, bronchitis, and pneumonia. If you are insured, you are still required to pay a monthly insurance premium to offset the cost of prescription drugs - which will vary according to your plan. Depending on your insurance plan, you will receive certain "benefits" and reductions of those costs. Insurance premiums are only slated to increase over time. The bottom line is, you are still paying a hefty sum for prescription drugs which may or may not make you well. In general, prescription drugs (at best) will remedy symptoms for a short period of time - but over a longer course of time the problem often remains unchanged and then you have other issues that are caused by the drugs such as side-effects (both short and long term), nutrient depletion, and the fact that what is causing your health issue has not been addressed.

Also, because Levaquin is an antibiotic, all good bacteria is being wiped from your body. This may seem unimportant, but when another virus or bacteria enters your body, it will be much less able to fight off the intruder and build up immunity to it and other invaders which your body will encounter. Once the good bacteria is gone from your body, it will take a great deal of time to regain your immune function and you will never be able to build it back up to what it once was before you took the antibiotic.

Clearly a preventative model for maintaining health is preferable. In some cases, antibiotics are needed, but not to the frequency that many practitioners prescribe them. Good, regular health habits can help eliminate the need for dangerous prescription drugs and medications which can further hinder the healing process of the body. Some suggestions include the following:

Engage in regular, moderate exercise
Eat healthy foods - fermented foods (such as ghee, grains, kombucha, kefir, yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi, natto, and other similar foods from raw sources), grass-fed meats, fresh, organic fruits and vegetables, raw dairy, nuts, and seeds.
Drink plenty of purified water that is alkaline in content.
Avoid refined, processed foods of all types - including store-bought breads, crackers, pasta, cereals, food bars, snacks, deserts, cookies, cakes, pies, pastries, muffins, crossaints, bagels, sauce mixes, salad dressings, dips, drinks, etc.
Avoid drinking alcohol excessively.
Get plenty of rest.
Engage in stress-reducing activities.
If you are in a position to do so, obtain regular care from a knowledgeable practitioner who can support a holistic and preventative method of keeping your health at optimal levels.
Make certain you are receiving enough probiotics, fiber, minerals, and essential fatty acids in your diet.
Don't wait until you have a serious problem, practice health maintenance every day. If you do, your body and your bank account will thank you.

For more information on how prescription drugs can deplete the body, read Supplement Your Prescription: What Your Doctor Doesn't Know About Nutrition by Dr. Hyla Cass, M.D.

For more information about making fermented foods, visit The Healing Crow.

Make a Difference in Your Child's Health

2009-04-17T11:17:00.001-07:00

Do you spend time reinforcing good health habits with your child? There are many messages sent to children from many sources about health. Many of these messages contain false information, so it is important to help your child understand the reasons why.

Food manufacturers, for example, label foods they sell as "healthy", "natural", "trans fat free", or "low-fat". Do these claims make foods healthy? Children especially need good fats, proteins, and cholesterol for brain, heart, and other body organ system health and development. Be interested and interactive with your child about healthy choices for life. Here are some suggestions:

Help your child to understand the connection between a healthy immune system, which keeps you from becoming ill, and a healthy diet.
Avoid, as much as possible, refined sugars and processed foods. Beware of "hidden" processed foods that many people believe are healthy, whole foods such as pasteurized dairy, cereals, crackers, tortillas, store-bought breads (those that are not from sprouted or fermented grains).
Spend time in the kitchen with your child, helping them to learn how to make healthy, delicious foods to serve in your home.
Include in every meal some type of vegetable. Current health rhetoric states that we should have fruits and vegetables available, but reinforcement on vegetables at meals with no fruit, and then offering fruit for snacks will help children to understand the importance of getting enough vegetables each day (recommended servings for children are 5 - 7).
Breakfasts can be challenging to get in vegetables, so be willing to think differently about breakfasts and consider preparing items like eggs from pasture-raised hens with no-nitrate bacon or sausage from naturally raised beef or pork. You can incorporate all types of vegetables into omelettes such as broccoli, spinach, bell peppers, squash, and zucchini.
Plant a garden with your child, whether it be a community garden, a school garden, or a garden in your own backyard.
Teach your child about the importance of organic foods and why organics are superior to the conventionally-grown variety.
Become an activist in your community and encourage your child to follow along. Children learn by example and if your actions show that you care about healthy food, your children will grow to care about it as well.

Conventional Produce - Least and Most Pesticides

2009-04-16T08:20:00.001-07:00

Do you eat plenty of fruits and vegetables daily? How about Organic? Or, do most of your produce sources come from conventional farming? The following is a list of produce from conventional sources which contain the most and least pesticides (source, Environmental Working Group).

"Consistent with two previous EWG investigations, fruits topped the list of the consistently most contaminated fruits and vegetables, with seven of the 12 most contaminated foods. The seven were peaches leading the list, then apples, nectarines and strawberries, cherries, and imported grapes, and pears. Among these seven fruits:

Nectarines had the highest percentage of samples test positive for pesticides (97.3 percent), followed by peaches (96.7 percent) and apples (94.1 percent).
Peaches had the highest likelihood of multiple pesticides on a single sample - 87.0 percent had two or more pesticide residues — followed by nectarines (85.3 percent) and apples (82.3 percent).
Peaches and apples had the most pesticides detected on a single sample, with nine pesticides on a single sample, followed by strawberries and imported grapes where eight pesticides were found on a single sample of each fruit.
Peaches had the most pesticides overall, with some combination of up to 53 pesticides found on the samples tested, followed by apples with 50 pesticides and strawberries with 38.

Sweet bell peppers, celery, kale, lettuce, and carrots are the vegetables most likely to expose consumers to pesticides. Among these five vegetables:

Celery had the highest of percentage of samples test positive for pesticides (94.1 percent), followed by sweet bell peppers (81.5 percent) and carrots (82.3 percent).
Celery also had the highest likelihood of multiple pesticides on a single vegetable (79.8 percent of samples), followed by sweet bell peppers (62.2 percent) and kale (53.1 percent).
Sweet bell peppers had the most pesticides detected on a single sample (11 found on one sample), followed by kale (10 found on one sample), then lettuce and celery (both with nine).
Sweet bell peppers were the vegetable with the most pesticides overall, with 64, followed by lettuce with 57 and carrots with 40".

15 Least Contaminated Fruits and Vegetables:

"The vegetables least likely to have pesticides on them are onions, sweet corn, asparagus, sweet peas, cabbage, eggplant, broccoli, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes.

Over half of the tomatoes (53.1 percent), broccoli (65.2 percent), eggplant (75.4 percent), cabbage (82.1 percent), and sweet pea (77.1 percent) samples had no detectable pesticides. Among the other three vegetables on the least-contaminated list (asparagus, sweet corn, and onions), there were no detectable residues on 90 percent or more of the samples.
Multiple pesticide residues are extremely rare on any of these least contaminated vegetables. Tomatoes had the highest likelihood, with a 13.5 percent chance of more than one pesticide when ready to eat. Onions and corn both had the lowest chance with zero samples containing more than one pesticide.
The greatest number of pesticides detected on a single sample of any of these low-pesticide vegetables was five (as compared to 11 found on sweet bell peppers, the vegetable with the most residues on a single sample).
Broccoli had the most pesticides found on a single type of vegetable, with up to 28 pesticides, but far fewer than the most contaminated vegetable, sweet bell peppers, on which 64 were found.

The fruits least likely to have pesticide residues on them are avocados, pineapples, mangoes, kiwi, papayas, watermelon and grapefruit.

Fewer than 10 percent of pineapple, mango, and avocado samples had detectable pesticides on them, and fewer than one percent of samples had more than one pesticide residue.
Though 54.5 percent of grapefruit had detectable pesticides, multiple residues are less common, with only 17.5 percent of samples containing more than one residue. Watermelon had residues on 28.1 percent of samples, and just 9.6 percent had multiple pesticide residues".

According to Environmental Working Group:

People who eat the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables ingest an average of 10 pesticides a day
Those who ate from the 15 least contaminated list, only ingested 2 or less pesticides a day.

Pesticides are known to interfere with many bodily functions, including poisoning, infertility, and birth defects. Children are especially at risk as their body proportions are smaller, they are in the growing and developing stages of life, and their metabolisms are faster which means substances travel faster in the body.

For more information about the dangers of pesticides and how widely they are used, visit Sustainable Table.

For more information on how to protect children from pesticides, visit the State Environmental Resource Center.

Content Being Lifted From This Site Illegally

2009-04-15T19:27:00.000-07:00

To all faithful readers of Agriculture Society: another party has been stealing content from this site, which is originally written by me, Raine Saunders, and is copyrighted. Please note that this site, http://www.lymphaticsystem.info/page/3/ has been the offender and should be noted as a plagiarizer and worker of criminal activity. This party stole not one but approximately 12 Tip of the Day posts. I have contacted this web site to inform them that I have discovered this fact, and will be working on bringing this matter to its just end. Thanks for your continued readership.

Update 4/16/2009: this matter has been resolved, although the party has removed all stolen posts, they did not respond to any messages sent. Please note that plagiarism is a serious offense!

Eating Well for Eye Health

2009-04-14T09:23:00.000-07:00

Do you take care of your eyes? Good eating habits are essential for optimal health, and many people do not receive adequate nutrition to support important organ and body systems such as the eyes. The AOA recommends eating a diet with a variety of foods loaded with key nutrients for maintaining and improving eye health, such as lutein and zeaxanthin.

The American Eye-Q survey revealed that 48 percent of Americans believe carrots to be the best food to maintain eye health. While carrots do contain provitamin A beta-carotene which is important for night vision, spinach and other dark, leafy greens remain the best support foods for eyes because they contain large amounts of lutein and zeaxanthin.

The following foods contain critical nutrients for maintaining eye health:

Lutein and zeaxanthin Colorful fruits and vegetables such as spinach, kale, broccoli, spinach, corn, peas, green beans, oranges, and tangerines
Essential fatty acids fleshy fish from deep sea sources such as salmon, tuna, or herring, organicv whole, sprouted or fermented grains, organic, grass-fed meats and pasture-raised eggs
Vitamin C fruits and vegetables like oranges, grapefruit, strawberries, papaya, green peppers and tomatoes.
Vitamin E raw almonds or pecans, sweet potatoes, and sunflower seeds.
Zinc organic grass-fed meats, pasture-raised poultry, liver, shellfish, raw milk and dairy, and organic whole sprouted grains.

Here are some other notable facts about eye health and nutrition:

Eating leafy greens like spinach can lower the risk of developing eye conditions such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Leafy greens contain high amounts of lutein, an important eye nutrient. Add 10 mg of lutein to meals daily or eat one cup of cooked spinach four times weekly.
More than 50% of Americans do not take in the recommended dosage of Vitamin C per day. Vitamin C has been linked, in approved amounts, to minimize or reduce the risk of cataracts and AMD. Eat fruits and vegetables that contain Vitamin C such as green peppers, citrus fruits and juices, strawberries, tomatoes, broccoli, turnip greens and other leafy greens, sweet and white potatoes, and cantaloupe. Other good sources include mangoes, papaya, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, watermelon, cabbage, winter squash, raspberries, blueberries, cranberries, pineapples, and red peppers.

If you are not receiving adequate amounts of these nutrients from food, make sure you are taking a good quality, whole-food, organically-produced supplement to fill in the gaps. Consult with a knowledgeable health care practitioner to find out which product is right for you.

Help Reduce Osteoporosis and Improve Bone Mass

2009-04-13T07:57:00.000-07:00

Are you concerned about bone loss in your body? As we age, our bones lose mass density. There are ways to reduce this process and keep bones healthy into your later years. Here are some suggestions:

Eat the right kinds of foods to ensure calcium intake is adequate. Good foods for calcium are - raw dairy, almonds, leafy green vegetables (kale, bok choy, spinach), black beans, salmon, and oysters.
Avoid processed and fortified foods to obtain calcium. Popular rhetoric tells us the following foods are a good source of calcium - soy milk, pasteurized and reduced or non-fat milks and other dairy products, fortified foods such as orange juice with calcium, "food bars", cereal with calcium, and corn tortillas. None of these foods are whole and are poor sources of nutrients. The body cannot absorb nutrients from foods that are processed because the nutrients in them are synthetic.
Getting enough calcium in your diet may be difficult, so do take a calcium supplement -- for both men and women. The type of calcium you take is important though, don't skimp on quality to save money. Avoid calcium carbonate; it is made from limestone and is difficult to absorb. Ingestion of calcium carbonate can lead to gas and digestion disorders. Read labels and make sure the type of calcium you take is calcium citrate. If possible, find a calcium supplement that is from a whole-foods, organically-produced source. Check with your health food store or health care practitioner.
Your calcium should be taken in conjunction with the correct ratios of zinc, magnesium, and Vitamin D. Check with a knowledgeable health care practitioner to make sure your supplements are working correctly for your individual needs.
Drink plenty of filtered water daily as the body needs liquid in order to properly absorb calcium. Avoid tap water and bottled water. Get a good filter system for your faucet or purchase filtered water from a good source.
If you are age 19 - 50 you need 1000 mg. daily. If you are over 50, you should be getting 1200 mg. daily. Children ages 4- 8 need 800 mg. and children 8 - 18 should be getting 1300 mg. each day.
Exercise is an important tool in reducing bone loss. Walking for 30 minutes 3 - 4 times per week is a good activity, but other physical exercise is also useful such as cycling and running. Weight-lifting is also reported to have a positive effect on bone quality as well.

Financial Stress Taking its Toll on Your Health

2009-04-09T08:32:00.001-07:00

Are you feeling emotionally-drained from the current economic downturn? If so, you are not alone. Millions and millions of people are said to have been experiencing the toll of the poor financial state of the nation and the entire world. A recent survey by the American Psychological Association shows that at least 80 percent of its respondents were most affected by money and the economy. Americans are reporting sleeplessness, anger, and fatigue are on the rise and that many deal with it by overeating and consuming junk food. The problem is so acute that economic stressors are surpassing those of daily work tasks and personal relationships.

Stress is a chronic condition, experienced in particularly high levels by people living in developed countries, and is ranked among diseases and disorders such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and cancer. Feeling out of control and believing there is no way to offset stress are among the most commonly communicated sentiments about emotional frames of mind.

Chronic stress creates its own spiral of events in the body. When we are stressed and do not provide our bodies with proper support, health problems begin to occur. Chronic stress weakens the adrenal glands, immune system, can cause weight gain, and eventually leads to disease and illness. Stress also puts tremendous strain on the heart. A person who is harried and stressed out is less likely to stop and take time to relax, meditate, eat a nutritious meal, or obtain adequate rest. These lapses result in further disturbances in sleep, eating habits, personal relationships, and other major lifestyle factors and habits.

Many people turn to taking prescription drugs, which is also on the rise. Drugs are expensive and generally only cover the problem up rather than getting at the actual cause. Here are some ideas for dealing with stress naturally and remedying the causes at the root. During times of acute stress, it is important to remember not to allow your most important asset go by the wayside - your health. If you don't have your health, everything else will suffer. Here are some ideas for dealing with stress naturally and remedying the causes at the root:

Don't load yourself up with more work/tasks/obligations than you can manage. If you are doing this, eventually something will have to give and it will be personal relationships and your health.

Make sure to eat a healthy diet - no matter what. Don't eat pre-packaged, processed, unnatural foods. Instead, allow extra time to make food from scratch. Buy local and organic whenever possible. Make larger amounts so you will have additional meals from your effort. Freeze your food and reheat later - in the oven or stove, not in the microwave. Microwaving has many harmful affects - one of the worst being that the super-heating of microwaving kills nutrients in foods.

Go to bed at a reasonable hour each night - around 10 p.m. Engage in relaxing activities before bed so you will be naturally tired enough to fall asleep within a few minutes. Avoid drinking alcohol and eating refined sugar or carbohydrates before retiring. These substances are unhealthy and upset the natural winding-down rhythm of your body.

Get regular, moderate exercise at least 3 -4 times per week for 30 minutes or more.

Find a good relaxation technique or activity you enjoy - massage, acupuncture, meditation, yoga, pilates, or martial arts are good choices.

Be certain to budget money for important preventative health care items - whatever those may be for you, whether it is good, healthy, organic foods, supplements, or preventative health maintenance or care from a knowledgeable health care practitioner. Skimping on your health now will lead to problems later - often those that are more difficult to manage and are more expensive.

Remove toxins from your environment as much as possible - look through your house and locate items that could be causing problems and increasing your toxic load, anything from plastic to chemical cleaners to devices that may emit radiation. Plastic can often be replaced with metal, wood, or glass (in many instances). Consider replacing old bedding, towels, or clothing that may be chemically-treated (most conventional fabrics, mattress coverings, and upholstery is). But only do so if you are financially capable of taking on the cost, if any.

Maintain perspective. Whatever your situation, things could be worse and focus on being thankful for the things you do have. A positive outlook will help combat problems and issues going on in your life, and help to minimize the effects of stress.

Polyunsaturated Fats and Health

2009-04-08T10:13:00.001-07:00

Has your doctor recommended that you choose polyunsaturated fats for health? Do you read in magazines and online about how great polyunsaturated fats are, while saturated fats are the enemy? Common health rhetoric stipulates that to maintain health we avoid saturated fats in anything containing these fats - butter, red meat, eggs, and certainly no dark or organ meats. But did you know that this advice, commonly given out by medical professionals, is one of the very things that has been adding to our health epidemic of heart disease and obesity - just to name a few?

This comes in the midst of a medical community that is now heralding the prescription of anti-cholesterol drugs to patients who are younger and younger. We've observed over the last two decades as advertisements for drugs claiming to solve every health issue from arthritis to sexual dysfunction appear more and more often on television and publications - and the drug created to lower cholesterol, Statin, is no exception. Is it really that everyone has a chronic health issue or is it the greediness of the pharmaceutical industry that is causing this stir? Or, could it be a yet a third offender responsible for this problem - industrially-produced meats and dairy products, as well as other fats?

The answer is that all three play an integral role. Here's how:

The health problem that has arisen from eating meat (as we discussed in yesterday's post More Evidence Vegetarian Philosophies Fall Short on Environmental and Health Concerns) is due to mass production and over-consumption of industrial meats (as well as other industrial foods). Factory-farmed meats scarcely resemble real food for many reasons - animals slaughtered for meat are raised in feedlots, standing in manure, living sedentary lives, eating genetically-modified grains, soy, and corn, and are administered all types of chemicals (steroids, antibiotics, hormones) to "perfectly" engineer their existence from birth to death to maximize profits. When your meat is that much departed from the grass-fed variety that comes from animals allowed to live healthy lives as intended by nature, there's no question that eating it will cause your body to become sick.

Everyone who eats this type of meat and dairy products - which represents a majority of people since most of what is available to the public is of the industrial variety - will eventually develop these health issues. For more information about just how harmful factory meat is to human health, visit Sustainable Table and Mother Earth News.

Big pharma has profited greatly from selling these drugs. Consistent reports and findings tell us so again and again. If you don't pay for it - let's say you are on welfare or don't make enough money to afford the drugs, the government will pay for it - which ultimately means all of us, the taxpayers that is, will pay for it. If the federal prescription plan forks out the money, annually we will see tens of millions of dollars added to our national debt. To compensate, the government must make more money to put into circulation, and the value of the dollar continues to sink lower and lower.

Who needs saturated fats?

Everyone does. Many parts of your body need saturated fats and cholesterol to be healthy. Your brain, for instance, is an intensively cholesterol-rich environment. Fat and cholesterol are essential for brain development in infants and children, and it is paramount for helping to support memory and learning in people of all ages. Saturated fats also aid the immune system, protect the liver from toxins, and improve cell membrane integrity.

The heart is another organ which requires the proper amount of saturated fat and cholesterol to maintain its integrity, performance, and structure. The Framingham Study, one of the most well-known medical investigations of this phenomena which is still being conducted reveals that up until the early 1920's, heart disease was not common in this country. Industrialization of meat raising and producing processes began in the late 1800s, and as a result took its toll on the health of the citizens consuming those foods. Heart disease has been steadily on the rise since then, and coincidentally so has the consumption of more and more processed foods.

For decades, medical communities have succeeded in making criminals out of these critical nutrients, and the number of people who continue to become obese and develop heart disease steadily climbs like a circus monkey. At the same time, our health experts extol the virtues of polyunsaturated fats - substances which coincidentally are found in an array of foods we are told are healthy for us - vegetable oils (such as cottonseed, soybean, corn oil) - when in fact these foods are the very things that cause degenerative disease and inflammation. Just have a peek at what the Mayo Clinic recommends to maintain a healthy heart. Pretty interesting. So why would a major medical hospital (and many others) put their names and reputation behind such untruths? Well, it is true that medical entities are closely tied to the pharmaceutical companies....are you starting to see a connection?

Although The Mayo Clinic doctors do admit that Omega 3 source of fish oils are beneficial, it is shocking to read that in their list of harmful fats it is recommended to avoid eggs, meat, poultry, lard, and butter - and the fact that these healthful foods are lumped in with trans fats - fats which everyone agrees have a profoundly negative effect on health. It seems unfathomable to have such a blatant contradiction on a medical web site. But believe it...it's there. Even though most medical doctors lack a good understanding of nutrition, this in no way excuses the irresponsibility of these statements in view of available research and evidence on the subject.

For more information about how important saturated fats and cholesterol are for health, visit Whole Health Source and The Health Report featuring Dr. Mary Enig, PhD., and Sally Fallon - world renowned experts on the subject.

More Evidence Vegetarian Philosophies Fall Short on Environmental and Health Concerns

2009-04-07T09:23:00.001-07:00

Many people say vegetable-based diets are more friendly to the environment, and that it requires more land and resources to grow feed for animals slaughtered for meat. But those viewpoints don't take into consideration the problem at the heart of the matter - which is that factory-farm operations use astronomical amounts of grain, soy, and corn to feed their animals (many of these crops are also genetically-altered and allow use of pesticides and other harmful chemicals).

These animals are not designed to digest these substances in the first place, as they are ruminants. As a result of eating these grains, the cattle develop diseases and conditions which then require farmers to administer antibiotics and medications. Animals who live on these farms also stand in waste lagoons - which accounts for the horrendous odor when you drive by such an operation. Of course, this entire cycle of raising animals is unhealthy and is devastating to the environment.

Sustainable farms should be the exception, not the rule. Sustainable-raised meat and dairy products are healthy to consume and maintain the land in a eco-friendly manner. It is important to realize the cascading effect factory farming has had on so many aspects of everyday life - socioeconomic, political, environmental, health, animal welfare, food irradiation - and that this is the enemy we need to stamp out, not smaller, sustainable, family-owned and operated farms living in harmony with nature. But these farms need your support, otherwise they will continue to be stamped out by factory-farm outfits.

Here's a disturbing thought, if you are a vegetarian or vegan, the foods you purchase will actually help to sustain the factory-farm way of existence because vegetarians and vegans, in their effort to avoid meat, consume mass amounts of grain, corn, and soy - the very crops which are also used to feed conventionally-raised animals. And that's about as unhealthy and un-eco-friendly as it gets!

Can you trust every farm label that says "sustainable-raised" or "grass-fed"? No. Currently no regulations exist for these labels, so buying local and getting to know the practices of the farms you purchase meat from is of paramount importance. In general, people who eat truly grass-fed meat should be able to decrease the portions they consume because the meat is higher in protein and lower in calories and carbohydrates. This is the key because factory meat is considered obese and is the opposite in composition from grass-fed. It is high in carbohydrates because the animal has been fed a high-carbohydrate diet with little nutrients in it. The meat is also much more fatty and lower in protein . In contrast to sustainable-raised animals, factory farm animals lead a sedentary life and are effectively "fattened up" on soy, corn, and grains that makes them sick. Because such massive amounts of this food must be grown on millions of acres of farmland, even more land is destroyed to enable factory farms to continue operation. Lands used for sustainable farms are just that - grasslands which are properly cultivated, maintained, and fertilized naturally.

It takes more land and resources to feed farm animals the very foods that make them sick in the first place, so doesn't it make sense to change the model of farms to a sustainable-method? The time has come to start educating about the real issues at hand - not that meat is unhealthy to consume, but that factory and commercial-farmed meat and dairy is massively harmful to both human health and the environment. Stand up and take action! The more we know about these important steps to take, the more we can improve our health and stop putting toxic waste into our precious earth.

For more information about putting an end to factory and commercial farm damage, visit Farms Without Harm.

Also, visit 10 ways you can help fight factory farms on the ASPCA site.

Processed "Milks" Harmful to Health

2009-04-03T09:07:00.001-07:00

Do you drink soy, rice, or nut milks as an alternative to dairy? You may be surprised to learn that these beverages are not healthy to consume. These drinks are processed and full of highly toxic material to the human body. One of the most dangerous aspects of soy, almond, rice, and other processed milks is that they contain oxidized cholesterol. They also must be fortified with nutrients in order to be able to place information on the label indicating the food is a "wholesome" product. Fortified nutrients do not absorb into the body. Finally, these drinks contain high amounts of carbohydrates and little protein, making them particularly harmful to the digestive tract and pancreas. All soy milks (even the "plain" or "original" varieties) contain brown rice syrup or evaporated cane juice - or worse, some artificial sweetener which can be even more harmful - all to cover up the unpleasant taste of plain soy milk.

Oxidized cholesterol, interestingly enough, finds its way into many "foods" on the grocery store shelf. Among other things, it is also an ingredient in baby formula - and from the most unlikely source you might imagine - the nonfat milk. Do you really want your precious infant consuming this substance?

The soy industry has exploded with processed, harmful products such as these, which don't even remotely resemble traditional, nutritious, real foods. But the soy industry (as well as rice and nut) have cleverly convinced people through untruths and slick marketing that these products will deliver you to the optimal health state which up until now, you have only dreamed of.

If you are going to avoid dairy products - of which most are unsafe to consume because of pasteurization, processing, the types of feed consumed by dairy cows, hormones, steroids, and antibiotics - don't make the mistake of switching to these products which are no better, and could easily be even more harmful - and risk your health. If you are going to consume dairy, now is the time to consider healthy, raw dairy products from a grass-fed, organic source. These products are optimal for health and the environment. Do some research in your local area to find a safe, organic, grass-fed source for dairy. More and more farmers are realizing the health benefits of raw and grass-fed.

For more information on the dangers of processed "milks" visit the Weston A. Price Foundation.

More Laundry Tips

2009-04-01T08:54:00.000-07:00

Are you looking for ways to make your laundry washing more eco-friendly and healthy? Here are some ideas:

Always be mindful of water waste. The laundry room is one of the most likely places in your home where waste can occur. One way to reduce water use is to make certain you have an energy-star rated machine. If you are using an older machine, you know it is less efficient simply because of its age and the fact that newer technology has improved. Consider replacing your older model with a more energy efficient one. Older machines use approximately 40 gallons per load versus the newer energy star models which use about 20 gallons. Energy star machines also use less electricity, which reduces overall operating expenses.
Switch from detergent to powder in your wash. Liquid detergent is about 80 percent water, and the powdered variety contains no liquid. Of course, you'll want to use the most eco-friendly detergent you can for the environment and your health. Good brands include Nature Clean, Bio Kleen, and Country Save.
Instead of placing all your wet laundry in the dryer, use a clothes line in your backyard. When weather does not permit, hang your clothes to dry someplace in your house that is well-ventilated and preferably where it can be near a window and sunlight. Alternatively, you can use the air dry setting on your clothing dryer if you need something to be dried faster, which uses less energy.
If you do use a dryer for your clothes, choose one that is also energy star efficient.
Avoid using dryer sheets or fabric softeners, as they are expensive, bad for the environment, and bad for your health. For clean, fresh-smelling, softer clothes add a half cup of white vinegar to each wash load during the rinse cycle. Vinegar has many household uses and is a great natural fabric softener. It is also safe for people suffering with allergies or sensitive skin.

Dryer Sheets!

2009-03-31T08:31:00.001-07:00

Do you use dryer sheets or some other product to "freshen" your laundry and reduce static? Consider eliminating this product from your home to save money, reduce pollution in the environment, and improve your health.

Dryer sheets are yet another product created by companies to make money, and they are toxic. If your clothes come out stiff and full of static, your problem is likely that you are over-drying and/or using a toxic clothing detergent. When clothes are washed in these substances (as is the case with most publicly-traded brands on the market), the build up on clothes can cause all types of issues to occur - including static build up and stiff laundry. Most laundry detergents found in the grocery store are toxic to the environment, your health and are a petroleum-based product. These detergents also contain other ingredients such as optical brighteners, ethylene glycol ethers and other solvents, alkylphenol ethoxylates (APEs), surfactants called ethanolamines, and chlorine and ammonia in combination which cause allergic reactions and other health issues.

Natural laundry detergents should never cause static cling or other problems and your laundry should come out static-free and smelling fresh and clean without chemicals and artificial scents.
To keep your laundry smelling fresh and clean and ensure you are using a safe cleaner, two high-quality brands to recommend are brands such as Biokleen and Nature Clean. These products are safe, non-toxic, and good for the environment. They are concentrated, so a little goes a long way. A box of Biokleen powdered laundry detergent (60 load size) should last at least a couple of months for a family of three.

For a home-made solution to laundry detergent that will keep your laundry clean, fresh, and eliminate the need for dryer sheets, visit the Family Homestead. Essential oils can also be added to your laundry mixtures to add a fresh, clean, safe scent if desired.

For more information on making your washing machine green, visit The Daily Green and Green Your.

Washing Your Hair Too Much?

2009-03-30T07:57:00.000-07:00

Do you wash your hair everyday? Most Americans are overly obsessed with cleanliness, showering, and washing their hair - so much so, people generally wash their hair at least once daily. But is that too much?

According to hair stylists and dermatologists - once daily is actually too much. Washing hair that often removes beneficial oil from hair (called sebum) and can damage it. So when did we start washing so often? Well, an article published in the New York Times from 1908 recommended that women who were washing only once a month begin to do so twice monthly instead. In later years, television ads began selling shampoo to consumers, and the trend of washing more often increased. After all, shampoo companies were starting to make big money selling these products. Soon, the hair industry exploded with all types of must-have hair products from hair spray to hair gels, and hair "mousse" to enable you to make your style just so. Hair ads convinced us that if the celebrities featured in them had beautiful hair from using these products, so could we. Guess what? The advertising worked! And now thousands of multi-billion dollar hair product industries exist to make us look better than we would if we didn't use their products.

So what's the solution? The bottom line is that less washing over time allows your oil glands to return to natural levels of oil production. It may take some weeks to regulate this, as after you have spent years and years washing those oils away everyday, the oil production is irregular. But in the end, it is healthier for your hair and the environment. Less product means less manufacturing processes and containers and packaging to dispose of - or to go into a landfill and cause havoc on the soil, water, and ultimately, air.

How often should you wash, then? According to Michelle Hanjani, dermatologist at Columbia University, "If you wash your hair every day, you're removing the sebum. Then the oil glands compensate by producing more oil," she says. She recommends that patients wash their hair no more than two or three times a week.

Also, when you do wash, try to avoid caustic, commercial shampoos. There are some good quality organic and natural shampoos on the market. Read labels. If you can't pronounce the ingredients, don't buy it. Avoid anything with emulsifiers, formaldehyde, and laureth sulfates. Here are a few ideas for good, homemade shampoo.

For more information on ingredients in specific brands of shampoo, hair care, and other personal care products, visit the Cosmetics Database.

Vegan Diets - Unhealthy and Bad for the Environment

2009-03-25T08:52:00.000-07:00

Do you eat a vegan diet and use vegan products? If so, you may be harming your health and the environment in ways you are unaware. Consider the vast amount of products consumers use and demand that are necessary for the vegan lifestyle - foods containing grains, corn, and soy such as food, personal care products, and household items - and you begin to get an idea of just how widespread the use and consumption of vegan foods and products really is.

Proponents of the vegan diet claim these studies are invalid and that vegans are often healthier than meat eaters, but these suppositions fail to take into account the following factors:

The majority of soy eaten in developed countries such as the U.S. is processed, altered, and highly toxic to our bodies and the earth. The same is true for many grains and corn.
Claims are continually made that Asian people have consumed soy for centuries and enjoy robust health. What is seldom mentioned is the fact that Asian people consume fermented soy (miso and tempeh, for example), and in much smaller quantities than people in developed countries (such as the U.S.).
The fact that most meat consumed by citizens in developed societies is the conventional, factory-farmed variety - the very type of meat which directly contributes to poor state of health in humans. Animals from these operations are given feed that promotes disease - grains, corn, and soy (and much of this feed is also genetically-altered). Then, farmers administer antibiotics to counteract illness. These animals are also given hormones to speed up growth and maximize profits. All of these substances are in the meat you eat - and cause your health to decline. Not only does conventionally meat wreak havoc directly on human health, but the methods used in farming are also exceedingly damaging to the environment.

Human beings need healthy meat to obtain proper nutrition from a clean source - sustainable-raised, pasture and grass-fed meat from animals that are allowed to roam and eat proper types of feed - not commercially-produced meat coming from abused animals in the worst possible conditions. Unfortunately, the factory-farmed meat represents the bulk of what is available on the market, is consumed by the majority of meat eaters, and is the culprit of those very illnesses and diseases which vegans blame on eating meat in the first place.

Traditionally, vegans rely heavily on soy foods to supplement protein in the diet. Research reveals that soy consumption has a negative impact both on human health and the ecosystem. The majority of soy produced is grown with farming methods which use genetic modification, chemical fertilizers, and toxic pesticides. Soy farming is also responsible for the destruction of important pristine lands such as rainforest area in the Amazon.

Another commonly used food in vegan diets is grains. Like soy, the majority of grains produced use farming methods which have a negative impact on the environment. Since the market explosion over the last several decades of vegan and vegetarian foods in food stores, a proliferation of processed soy and grain products requiring packaging materials are now available which also contribute to more garbage and toxins in the environment. Corn is in the same category, and is found in many vegan foods as well as thousands and thousands of other food, household, and personal care products on the market.

It could even be construed that anyone not supporting sustainable farming agriculture for production of food, even those who don't eat meat, are directly contributing to the increase of more pollution and destruction to our environment.

Diets void of meat proteins and replete with plant variety proteins are lacking in many nutrients necessary for optimal health. Soy can inhibit absorption of vital nutrients in the body, and can cause or contribute to deficiencies such as Vitamin B. Parents who impose a vegan diet on their growing children are also believed to commit a gross disservice to the health of their offspring. Professor Lindsay Allen of the U.S. Agricultural Research Service stated, "There have been sufficient studies clearly showing that when women avoid all animal foods, their babies are born small, they grow very slowly, and they are developmentally retarded - possibly permanently." Lindsay is particularly pointed toward those who eliminate fats from children's diets such as meat and dairy foods. "If you are talking about feeding young children, pregnant women, and lactating women, I would go so far as to say it is unethical to withhold these foods [animal source foods] during that period of life. There's absolutely no question that it's unethical for parents to bring up their children as strict vegan."

For more information about the health risks associated with eating a vegan diet, read Death by Veganism by Nina Planck from the New York Times.

For more information on the dangers of eating soy, visit the Weston A. Price Foundation.

More "Health Tips" Rewritten

2009-03-20T08:05:00.000-07:00

What are types of information do you trust from health authorities? Here is a "health tip" found on the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia web site:

"Instead of chips, candy, pastry or sodas, reach for healthier alternatives such as: flavored rice cakes, air-popped popcorn, low-fat yogurt, pudding prepared with non-fat milk, seltzer splashed with some fruit juice, graham crackers spread with low-fat cream cheese and jam, or frozen pops made with 100 percent juice".

All of the foods recommended as a replacement for the aforementioned junk foods are no better than chips, candy, pasties or sodas. Let's examine why that is:

flavored rice cakes - processed and probably full of chemicals, devoid of nutrients, possibly genetically-modified
air-popped popcorn - devoid of nutrients and likely genetically-modified
low-fat yogurt - processed, pasteurized, likely full of chemicals and sugar, and has had its fat removed and is therefore indigestible to the human body, possibly contains hormones and antibiotics
pudding prepared with non-fat milk - processed, likely full of chemicals and sugar, very low in nutrients pasteurized, and has had its fat removed and is indigestible, possibly contains hormones and antibiotics, very low in nutrients
seltzer splashed with some fruit juice - processed, full of sugar, and likely contains pesticides (from the fruit) and is completely devoid of nutrients
graham crackers spread with low-fat cream cheese and jam - processed, possibly genetically modified, full of sugar, has had its fat lowered and is indigestible, and likely contains hormones or antibiotics
frozen pops made with 100% juice - full of sugar, pasteurized, and devoid of nutrients

This advice, reviewed by a medical doctor (Patrick S. Pasquariello, M.D.), couldn't be farther from healthy. Yet this information is posted on a medical web site that likely experiences a lot of traffic from the public - and the people reading this are dangerously uninformed about the dangers of processed foods and are made to believe by medical "experts" that they are "healthy" snacks to consume. Use caution when you read something that says a processed food is healthy to consume. The only healthy foods to consume are whole, unprocessed, organic foods. You may be causing health problems to occur - such as heart disease, Diabetes, obesity, and cancer - without even being aware.

Better choices for snacks include the following:

Raw cheeses
Raw nuts
Fresh organic fruits and vegetables
Sprouted grain, organic breads with almond butter, raw butter, or a dollop of organic, 100% fruit spread
Homemade yogurts and cheeses from raw milk

These snacks come from whole foods, are delicious, and give your body the nutrition and support it needs. Can you say the same about the other alternatives?

What's the Word on Supplements?

2009-03-18T08:08:00.000-07:00

Do you take supplements for preventative health measures? Many people do, and there has been an increase in consumers purchasing supplements over the last three decades. But do you know whether the dietary supplement you are taking is actually a quality product or right for you?

According to a recent study of multivitamin use among older women, these pills were found to do "nothing" to prevent heart disease or cancer. The study's lead author, researcher Marian Neuhouser of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, offered this advice: "Get nutrients from food. Whole foods are better than dietary supplements," Neuhouser said.

In general, we should be getting our nutrients from whole foods - and that's great advice. The problem is, many doctors, government agencies, and organizations who conduct studies on supplements fail to acknowledge the following factors:

That the foods we eat are not as rich in naturally-occurring nutrients as they need to be for health due to processing, soil erosion, water, and air pollution. Because of this, people need supplementation in their diets.
Supplements used by the majority of people are not of the high quality standard they should be in order to actually deliver results in fighting diseases like cancer and heart disease. When quality supplements used for the correct purpose are used, results are usually favorable - unfortunately, this is the exception rather than the rule.
Many people take supplements without guidance or knowledge of the product's quality, efficacy, or appropriate use. Dietary supplements can be produced in many different ways and the manner in which the supplement is produced is of the utmost importance. For instance, many vitamin and nutrient supplements are synthetically produced in a laboratory without co-factors or phyto-nutrients present. The human body needs these substances to recognize and use vitamins and nutrients. Vitamins and nutrients taken in synthetically-produced solutions and supplements are not absorbed properly by the human body. Always choose whole-food, organically-produced products.
A great deal of people who take dietary supplements are also taking pharmaceutical medications which always counteract the effectiveness of any natural supplement - and the body's ability to effectively use the supplement's nutrients or herbal qualities. Drugs are known to deplete the body of nutrients and immune system function. In many cases, natural supplements and a change in lifestyle - not drugs - can heal the body sufficiently. Proper guidance from a knowledgeable practitioner can ensure the success of your treatment.

If you are going to take a supplement, to avoid dangerous side-effects such as overdosing on a particular vitamin or mineral, wasting money on a product that is not quality or is not effective in alleviating your medical issue, always consult with a knowledgeable health care practitioner.

Medical doctors can be a good resource for this type of consultation, however, many medical doctors do not fully understand the tenets of nutrition in health and tend to prescribe drugs rather than take a natural approach to treatment.

Find a good practitioner who understands the human body's reaction to malnourishment - a problem experienced by more people than medical science cares to acknowledge in the modern world. Good practitioners for natural healing are the following: naturopathic, chiropractic, osteopathic, homeopathic, or Chinese Medicine practitioners. Do your research and make sure these individuals are well-versed in nutrition.

Are Raw Foods Always Healthy?

2009-03-17T11:53:00.000-07:00

Do you eat a lot of raw foods? Eating raw foods is an important part of a healthy diet. However, if you have a toxic, unhealthy digestive system - which many people have who live in developed countries because of a continual diet of processed foods - raw foods are not as easy to absorb and can go through the intestinal tract being mostly undigested.

Consider your own health issues before embarking on a diet which may include a lot of raw foods. If you are a person who has typically eaten a lot of processed foods in your life, you may not be getting the benefit out of eating raw foods due to an unhealthy digestive tract unless you conduct some detoxification. Detoxification helps your body to remove harmful substances and toxins that prevent your body from functioning at optimal levels. If you are toxic, certain types of healthy measures you take may go by the way side and waste time and money. Keep in mind that if the digestive system is not functioning properly, it cannot absorb raw foods as easily. Stick to cooked foods until your digestion is in order.

Spring is an excellent time for detoxification as we are coming out of winter and cold and flu season. Detoxification should be performed on an individual basis and with the help of a knowledgeable health care practitioner. Avoid going to the health food store and guessing about which product to purchase. You may be unaware as to whether it is the correct substance your body needs. Find out through a consultation with a practitioner who is experienced in natural treatments and proper detoxification protocols.

For more information on detoxification and the importance of conducting this activity, visit Holistic Med.

Good Sources of Omega 3 Essential Fatty Acids

2009-03-13T08:54:00.000-07:00

Are you getting enough Omega 3s in your diet? With the pervasive, processed diet and poor eating habits of citizens in developed countries, many individuals are not getting adequate amounts of this essential fatty acids from healthy sources. Here are some healthy foods from where you can obtain Omega 3s:

Fish - cold water, oily varieties such as salmon, mackerel, herring, anchovies, and sardines
Flax seeds (freshly ground up) or flax seed oil (raw)
Walnuts
Pecans
Hazelnuts
Kiwifruit
Black raspberries
Lingonberry
Pasture-raised chickens, turkeys, and ducks - those fed a diet of grasses, worms, and insects
Eggs from pasture-raised poultry and other birds
Grass-fed meats and lamb
Raw milk and cheese from cows that are grass-fed
Organic butter from grass-fed cows - check your local dairies. Good store brands are Lurpak and Kerrygold

It is extremely important that you obtain Omega 3s only from meat and dairy products that originate from grass-fed and pasture-raised poultry. Birds and animals who are fed grains, soy, and corn naturally have a lower Omega 3 content and a higher Omega 6 content - the consumption of which is associated with the development of inflammatory conditions in the body such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and many others.

Omega 3 essential fatty acids are crucial in the maintenance of various body systems including brain development in infants and children, cardiovascular systems, and help prevent cancer.

For more information on Omega 3s and the role they play in health, visit The University of Maryland Medical site.

Using Water More Efficiently

2009-03-12T08:07:00.000-07:00

Here are some suggestions for saving water and money on your water bill:

Use fixtures that are water efficient. Look for the WaterSense label on products to help locate products and programs that use water more efficiently. Visit this page on the EPA's site for more information about WaterSense.
Repair leaks in faucets. Leaks cost thousands of dollars in wasted water annually. Visit this EPA
Take showers instead of baths, and limit your time. On the average, showers use 10 - 25 gallons of water while baths use about 70.
When doing laundry, always run a wash that is full. Partial loads waste water. If you are in the market for a new washer, purchase a high efficiency washer for maximum savings on water and bills.
When doing dishes, always run a wash that is full. If you wash by hand, don't allow water to run unless you are rinsing.

site page to learn more about repairing leaks in faucets.
For more water-saving tips, visit Water, Use It Wisely.

Gluten-Free Does Not Equal Healthy

2009-03-11T08:46:00.001-07:00

Do you have trouble with gluten? Many people do, and maintain what is known as a "gluten-free" diet. But did you know that just because a food is "gluten-free" does not make it a healthy food to consume? Here's why:

Gluten-free only means the food does not contain gluten. It does not mean the food is free of preservatives, dyes, chemicals, emulsifiers, and other toxins. In fact, many gluten-free foods can be just as dangerous to consume as the gluten-containing foods that cause health issues. Many processed foods fall into this category. Some examples of gluten-free foods to watch out for that may not be healthy are:

Crackers
Cereals
Breads
Chips
Rice cakes
Fruit rollups
Fruit snacks
Bagels
Pasta
Cookies
"Food" bars
Desserts
Other processed foods

This is especially true with foods given to children who eat what their parents buy for them and what other adults provide in settings where they are away from home. Children (and adults too) with food allergies may react to foods without even having been diagnosed with an allergy before, or may eat something thinking that it does not contain allergens or toxins when in fact the food does contain those very things. If in doubt, read labels. However, most processed foods by their very nature are going to contain ingredients which will cause health problems - anything from allergic reactions to chronic disorders like eczema, asthma, digestive, respiratory, and cardiovascular issues.

Be aware that the only healthy foods are whole foods. If you are going to eat grains, they should be eaten in moderation and be whole (not flour), sprouted, and/or soaked. Any type of flour can go rancid within hours and should be avoided. Real whole grains should be purchased in the bulk grocery section. To avoid problems with celiac disease, allergies, and other health issues, stick to whole foods and your health should remain stable.

Prevention is the Answer to Our Healthcare Woes

2009-03-10T08:58:00.000-07:00

Do you want change in our health care system? If so, it is critical to start thinking about health care change in the form of 'preventative' action rather than remaining with the Status Quo. Our current health care system relies too heavily on reactionary treatments that wait until the problem is acute (and sometimes too late) instead of emphasis on changes in lifestyle that would support a preventative system and better health.

How is prevention different than our current system? Let's take a look:

Prevention assumes that everything you do affects your health, which it does. It comes from a holistic approach, rather than than a compartmentalized view taken by allopathic medicine. In other words, allopathic medicine waits until the problem is noticed by the patient and then treats symptoms, not causes. Preventative medicine knows that every day counts in making your health optimal. It considers diet, stress, sleep, physical, spiritual, and emotional needs.
Preventative measures are ongoing. They are continual in nature, whereas allopathic treatments are used only when there is a symptom occurring. Many people have health issues and aren't even aware of it. It can take days, weeks, or years sometimes to notice negative effects of poor lifestyle habits. That is why preventative medicine is so important.
Preventative medicine does just what its name implies - it prevents issues from occurring before it happens or lessens the severity of a problem because action is constantly being taken. Allopathic or reactionary medicine doesn't prevent anything except the body's reaction to poor lifestyle, and then can cause or exacerbate other issues in the body because everything is connected. Our organ systems are not isolated from one another and when one system is compromised, it puts a strain on the others.
The cost of preventative health care is paid incrementally and falls under a "cost of living" item, and is much less compared to costly intervention recommended after a condition has gone on for a long period of time by allopathic medical treatment.

The time has come to address this issue and put pressure on government and health decision-makers about creating a health care system that values and utilizes preventative care for citizens of our country. As long we as rely on pharmaceutical and allopathic care for the primary treatment of health issues and undervalue the importance of lifestyle changes that really work, we will continue to see a rapid decline in the health state of all people.

In 2007, President Obama talked about how we spend less than 4 cents of every health care dollar on preventative care. The U.S. Preventative Medicine organization praised his appeal for modernizing health care by investing in prevention. But is he just giving lip service? We need action and progressive leaders who will deliver! Write letters to your congressmen and women, and to the president expressing how important preventative care is to you. Get involved locally. Become an activist and make waves in your local community, or run for office. The only way we will see change in our current system is from people who get involved and want action.

Any prevention plan that works will include eating diet of whole foods and encourages you to avoid processed foods. That means, literally, foods that are as close to nature as possible. For the past 50 plus years, common medical rhetoric tells us to avoid foods with fat and cholesterol - but in doing so, we've caused many of the very debilitating diseases and conditions which have become so chronic in our culture. A return to traditional, whole foods is the only diet philosophy which supports a truly preventative way of looking at health. For more information about how the role of traditional diets prevents disease, visit The Weston A. Price Foundation.

Cold? Make Some Soup!

2009-03-09T12:00:00.000-07:00

Do you feel like curling up with a book and some soup in front of the fireplace? With cold weather still surging through the northern regions of the world, our promise of spring-time weather seems too far away indeed. Warm up with some homemade, chicken soup. Instead of using a broth from the grocery store, take some bones with meat on it or a carcass and make your own from scratch. Not only will your soup be healthier and taste better, you'll save money too . If you make a large batch, you can portion out smaller amounts and freeze it for eating later. Here's a recipe for making your own chicken broth:

1 organic, pasture-raised chicken carcass or chicken bones with some of the meat left on them, including skin - use your favorite pieces such as breasts, thighs, or legs (or use them all)
Carrots
Celery
Onions
Salt
Pepper
Parsley

Fill up a cooking stock pot with filtered water (as much as you want for your soup), and put it on the stove. Cut the carrots, onions, and celery, and place them in the pot along with your carcass or chicken bones. Add the salt, pepper, and parsley to taste. Bring the contents of your stockpot to a boil and then turn down to low. Allow your soup to simmer for roughly 90 minutes. After 90 minutes, remove all the meat from bones and carcass. Discard bones.

You can add anything to your broth that you'd like. Here are some ideas:

Vegetables - corn, peas, mushrooms, zucchini, green beans, bok choy, shallots, cauliflower, broccoli.
Rice, potatoes, or sprouted-grain pasta (try Ezekiel bread pasta)
Additional meat - chicken or turkey
Other spices - cumin, chili powder, marjoram, thyme, bay leaf, cilantro, garlic, gingerroot...the sky's the limit!

If you add anything to your broth, be sure to put it in all at once and then bring your broth to a boil again, and turn down to simmer for at least an hour (especially if you have put in raw meat). Visit World Famous Recipes for a variety of different types of chicken soup. Be sure to replace any processed foods used in these recipes with whole foods.

Keeping Warm and Saving the Planet

2009-03-05T08:19:00.000-08:00

Winter is still here, and it's evident by all the snow falling and storms still raging across the west and northeast. And we'll still be experiencing chilly weather well into spring, which is really only a little over two weeks away. When it's cold outside, how do you keep warm inside? Do you turn up your thermostat and pay a high-ticket price for heating costs, or instead do you bundle up to keep your bills down?

Bundling up is certainly one way to save electricity, gas, and money. The best time to turn down your thermostat is when you are going to bed. According to Green Guide for Living, for every degree you turn down the thermostat, you keep up to 320 pounds of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere over the course of the season.You can add layers onto your bed at night to keep warm and keep heating costs down. Here are some ways to do it green:

Eco-fibers Purchase blankets, sheets, pillows, and comforters that are safe for health and the environment -eco-fibers are the way to go. Natural fibers such as wool and cotton are breathable and safer than petrol-based fibers like acrylic and polyester. Best bets are organically-produced fibers grown without chemical pesticides and genetically engineered methods.

Wool or Polyester? When choosing blankets and comforter batting, go for wool instead of polyester. Keep an eye out for organic or "Pure-Grow" wool. These fibers come from ranches that don't dip their sheep in pesticide baths. There are other chemicals to avoid such as moth-proofing insecticides, which many manufacturers use. Inquire at the place of business or with the manufacturer or retailer about whether those types of practices are used in the making of their products.

Chemical-Free Dyes Those who want colored sheets in their bedrooms now have a choice of heavy-metal-free or vegetable-based dyes. Look for products that are "SKAL-certified" and are made with dyes free of heavy metals. Another good choice is FoxFiber™ "color-grown" cotton, which is bred (but is not genetically-modified) to grow in different colors - but is usually only available in earth-tones such as browns, beiges and greens. Color-grown cottons will also fade less quickly in your machine than dyed cotton.

Chlorine-Free Bleaching: When selecting bedding or other household products, look for unbleached or chlorine-free bleached varieties. After harvesting, conventional and some organic cotton is bleached with chlorine in a way that releases cancer-causing dioxin into the atmosphere.

Tips for the savvy consumer:

Avoid products labeled with the following: crease-resistant, no-iron, permanent press, stretch-proof, shrink-proof, water repellent or water-proofed. Some finishes on fabrics release formaldehyde into the air.
Choose products that can be machine-washed, as dust mites and allergens can be eliminated from these fibers each time you wash.
Those with allergies should avoid down comforters and pillows as these types of bedding can be the culprit for exacerbating reactions due to their inherent ability to attract and harbor dust (and mites)

Great green products:

Coyuchi bedding

Organic Inspirations

Go Green Bedding

Green Home Bedding

Green Living Ideas

Natural Headache Remedies

2009-03-04T09:10:00.000-08:00

Do you suffer from headaches? Many different health problems cause headaches, but most are not serious and are treatable and preventable. Causes of headaches can be numerous including poor diet (eating processed foods which contain chemicals or toxins), becoming dehydrated, being under too much stress, not receiving adequate sleep, and some environmental factors such as being exposed to chemicals or toxins. Chronic headaches are often caused by these types of things. Headaches which are caused from brain tumors or cancer are much more rare, but can occur and should be checked out by a health care professional.

To avoid headaches, eat an organic diet with whole foods and eliminate processed foods. Drink plenty of filtered water. Dehydration can cause headaches as well as other health problems. Get plenty of sleep, moderate exercise, and stress relief.

If you develop a headache, here are some useful remedies to try other than drugs:

Hynotherapy
Massage
Yoga
Acupuncture
Aromatherapy
Hot or cold packs - try a hot or compress on your head with a moist wash cloth, and try different essential oils from herbs such as peppermint, lavender, eucalyptus, passionflower, ginko, cayenne, willow, or valerian (especially for sleep problems). Visit this site for more information on herbs used for headaches.
Herbal teas with the above mentioned herbs can also be effective
If you are taking herbs from a supplement and you are also taking some type of drug, consult with your practitioner to make certain there are no known reactions to what you are taking.

If you have persistent headaches, you should always consider lifestyle habits and making changes before taking medications or drugs. Medications and drugs can mask the problem causing your headaches that lifestyle changes can often easily address. If you have tried everything in earnest to eliminate headaches, consult a knowledgeable practitioner, and one that will listen to you and your body - not someone who will immediately jump to the conclusion of putting you on medication before determining the cause of the problem.

Natural Remedies for Coughs

2009-03-03T09:15:00.000-08:00

We are still in the midst of cold and flu season. Many people suffer from coughs that linger for weeks as a result of having contracted a cold or flu. Coughing is the body's natural reaction to inflammation and irritantion present in the throat. Coughs are often caused by allergies or by infection from bacteria or a virus. Here are some good, natural remedies for coughs as recommended by various natural philosophies:

Juice extracted from ginger with raw honey, 3-4 times daily
1 tablespoon lemon juice, 1 teaspoon of raw honey in warm water, 3-4 times daily
For dry cough - peel small piece of fresh ginger, sprinkle some salt on it and chew
1 gram of turmeric to a teaspoon of honey
Ginger tea with a few pieces of raw ginger that has been sitting in boiling water for a few minutes
Avoid processed foods, but in particular, processed and pasteurized dairy products. These products are associated with contributing to many health problems, including allergies and the production of mucus. Try raw dairy products if you have never considered them in the past
Hot baths with epsom salts and the use of essential oils such as cypress, lavender, eucalyptus, cedar, pine, peppermint, or jasmine. You can also boil water on the stove and add these oils to the water and inhale the steam. Use caution to avoid burns. You can also pour the water into a bowl and place a towel over your head while you breathe the steam from the water with the essential oils of your choice.

For additional cough remedies, visit Health 911.

Yard Work and Gardening for Health

2009-03-02T07:58:00.000-08:00

Have you started thinking about what you want to do in your yard this spring? Winter weather still prevails in most northerly places, but now is actually the time to start some preliminary activities for prepping yard and garden areas for planting. Garden and yard work is therapeutic and is a good way to stay active, as well as provides you the opportunity to save money by growing healthy foods on your own property.

Start making lists of all the things you want to do in your yard and what plants you'd like to grow once the warmer weather gets started. Some plants can be started in pots or smaller containers in your home such as tomatoes. By the time these plants have a good start as seedlings, the ground will be thawed out enough that you can transplant them. As an example, you'll have ripe tomatoes earlier in the year if you start them now inside your house. Most tomatoes take an average of 65 days to harvest. For more information about starting seeds early indoors, visit Renee's Garden. In the meantime, you can begin trimming back old, dead plants that you haven't eliminated from beds, and pulling out any unwanted ones that may not have done well last season. Cleaning up beds ahead of time will make it easier when it comes time to plant in April, May, and June.

Decide what plants you want based on availability, space, cost, how well they grow in your local area, and how much sun and water are needed for where you will locate the things you decide to grow. Best choices are organic seeds, and using organic growing methods will promote the healthiest, most nutritious plants for your family. You can use alternative methods of keeping pests away besides dangerous chemicals and pesticides such as insect identification, natural formulas and substances, proper soil cultivation, and careful monitoring of your garden area before infestations get out of control. Visit Avian Web for more information on this topic.

Careful planning, shopping around, and comparing plants can help save money and time down the road, and can lend better health from consuming healthy fruits and vegetables. Consult with your local nursery or greenhouse that uses organic and sustainable growing practices for more information about planting and growing in your local area.

For more information on gardening and growing the organic way, visit The Organic Gardener.

Natural Cardiovascular Health

2009-02-27T09:00:00.000-08:00

Do you worry about heart health? It's definitely a good idea to be aware of the risk factors and lifestyle habits that contribute to a healthy heart and body. But if you are following what popular rhetoric dictates about heart health, you will be headed down the road to circulatory problems and heart disease. Why?

Contrary to popular belief, a so-called "low-fat" diet will not help your heart. Many health experts recommend eating lean meats, low-fat and non-fat dairy products, and other low-fat foods such as processed selections from the grocery store like crackers, breads, cereals, and other items. These foods are not real food, but merely a processed version of those real foods. Chemicals and hormones are added to many of these foods, in addition to the fact that the way the food is produced is completely unnatural to begin with: meats and dairy products, by and large, come from factory farms where animals live in the most unhealthy environments. Meat and dairy products originating from these environments are not healthy to consume. The bottom line is, if you are not eating real food, your body will not be able to absorb it properly and what you will wind up with is health problems. Real food is the fuel and substance your body needs to function properly.

The place where you need to concentrate your efforts is on eating whole foods - that means foods that are as close to the way they occur in nature as possible. As one example, eating red meat is not the problem for your heart - the problem is eating obese meats from animals fed grains, corn, and soy. These types of meats represent the bulk of what is available on the market the consumption of which greatly contributes to many health problems, including cardiovascular disease. It is meats like this which have given healthy meat a bad reputation and have caused doctors to tell their patients to avoid eating it for literally decades. Naturally-raised grass-fed meats contain all the necessary nutrients for heart health - good Omega 3s, conjugated linoleic acid, high protein, low fat, and lower in calories than its conventionally-produced counterpart.

Eat plenty of healthy fats - extra-virgin, cold-pressed olive oil, flax seed oil, extra-virgin coconut oil, real, whole butter from grass-fed cows (raw is even more healthy).

Whole, raw, dairy from a clean source is very good for heart and overall health as well. Low-fat versions of these foods, and most of what you will find on the mainstream market can spell trouble for your heart. Conventional dairy contains additives, chemicals, hormones, and steroids, and is about as far away from natural as you can get. Dairy from factory farms contains improper nutritional value because of what farmers feed cows - corn, grains, and soy. Even many organic brands are unhealthy because they pasteurize their milk and feed their cows the same thing as the conventional variety - corn, soy, and grains (albeit, organic).

You must also include in your diet plenty of organic, fresh and cooked vegetables and fruits. To get enough vegetables and fruits daily, consider adding vegetables to breakfast. Make eggs with cheese and broccoli, spinach, and/or zucchini. Between meals eat fruit, as fruit can cause your digestion to bloat up and slow down when eaten in conjunction with big meals. Make sure you have green vegetables with each meal if possible - cooked or raw; green vegetables are important for heart health: brussels sprouts, kale, bok choy, romaine lettuce, mustard and collard greens, peas, broccoli, zucchini, and spinach are all good choices.

Include plenty of fiber, if possible from natural sources. If you need more fiber, try good supplements recommended by a knowledgeable practitioner. A good supplement is Colon Plus by Biotics Research.

If you take supplements for health, make sure they are whole-foods based products that are organically produced with co-factors and phytonutrients. You should include the following in your regimen:

Antioxidant vitamins A, C, and E
Folic acid (included in a balanced B complex)
Selenium (not to exceed 600 micrograms in a 24-hour period)
Vitamin D (natural sunlight exposure is best). Low levels of this vitamin are connected with heart disease, obesity, cancer, and diabetes.
Vitamin K (unless taking anticoagulant drugs - but consider eliminating prescription medications as they cause side-effects and other health problems)
Co-enzyme Q10 is an effective supplement which protects the cardiovascular system cells and eliminates free radicals
Calcium and magnesium - help to lower high blood pressure - make sure you obtain a good quality cal/mag supplement with zinc and Vitamin D for absorption, and be certain your calcium is not calcium carbonate - a form of calcium derived from limestone that cannot be absorbed by the body

Exercise and stress relief are important too. But you do not have to be a competitive athlete to be in good shape and enjoy an activity in which you have interest. Engaging in a moderate exercise schedule of 20 to 40 minutes three to four times a week is a good place to start. You can work up to additional minutes and more strenuous activity over weeks and months, but if you are just embarking on an exercise plan, it is always best to begin slowly. Other good activities include yoga, pilates, martial arts, meditation, and massage.

The Dangers of Artificial Sweetners

2009-02-26T08:34:00.000-08:00

Do you use artificial sweeteners? One of the most commonly used artificial sweeteners, Splenda, has been under scrutiny for many years. Yet, despite the health risks associated with its use, people continue to use this and other similar substances for sweeteners daily.

A recent report from scientists detailed in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health (2008) reveals that Splenda has been found to reduce the amount of friendly bacteria in the intestinal tract by 50 percent, increases acidity levels in the intestines, and affects a glycoprotein in the body that can have significant effects on health - and especially if you take certain pharmaceutical drugs. In addition, they found unmistakable evidence that Splenda is absorbed by fat, contrary to previous claims. The intestinal bacteria help maintain the body's overall balance of friendly versus unfriendly micro-organisms and supports general health. Because so many people are already deficient in good bacteria, heeding the results of these findings is not only critical, but taking a good probiotic supplement daily is also important in regaining health conditions compromised by modern lifestyle habits.

It is important to keep in mind that although Splenda and other sweetners taste like sugar, they are not sugar. Splenda is a chlorinated artificial sweetener which resembles other artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and saccharin. All have been reported as causing side-effects and dangerous health problems.

In 1998, Splenda was approved by the FDA for use in products such as baked goods, nonalcoholic beverages, chewing gum, frozen dairy desserts, fruit juices, and gelatins. Sucralose, the main ingredient in Splenda, is also permitted as a general-purpose sweetener for all processed foods. If you want to avoid Splenda, read labels and make certain that what you consume does not contain this ingredient. The best choice, however, is simply to avoid all processed foods.

Approval for this product was granted after FDA review of over 110 animal and human safety studies. However, only two of the 110 studies were human studies, the lengthiest one conducted over only four days.

As with any unnatural substance, if your body does not recognize what you are consuming, it will likely store it somewhere. Chemicals and toxins stored in the body cause health problems, plain and simple. And getting the chemical into the body is much easier than its removal process. Because scientists discovered that artificial sweeteners are stored in the body as fat, this can mean serious health repercussions from consuming them. This is because the molecules are too large to be absorbed by the digestive tract and it also has an adverse affect on your body's ability to burn fat as well.

Good alternatives to artificial sweeteners are Stevia, raw agave nectar, raw organic sugar, rapadura, real maple syrup, raw organic honey, date "sugar", concentrated organic fruit juices, molasses, and sucanat. Check with your health food store for more details about these products.

For more information on the dangers of Splenda, visit The Truth About Splenda.
Dr. Janet Hull has a booked called Splenda Exposed with detailed information about this chemical sweetener.

Stir Fry for Dinner - Healthy, or Not?

2009-02-25T09:30:00.000-08:00

Do you ever prepare a stir-fry at home because it's a healthy dish to eat? Stir-frying vegetables and meats can indeed be healthy, but here are some suggestions to make sure the way you prepare your food delivers maximum health benefits as it should:

Use organic vegetables
Use healthy, sustainably-raised, grass-fed meats and poultry
Avoid using soy products like tofu that are processed and unhealthy to consume
When you cook, use cast iron, stainless steel, good quality enamel, or ceramic - avoid teflon, aluminum, and Silverstone cookware that can leech chemicals and metals into your food.
Use healthy oils in cooking such as olive oil (only if you sautee on low heat). Choose high-smoke point oils such as grapeseed and coconut oil for higher temperatures. Avoid the following unhealthy vegetable oils: canola, soy, cottonseed, sunflower, and safflower
If you choose to use rice or noodles with your stir fry, use less in quantity and choose brown rice or sprouted grain, organic noodles. These foods are lower in glycemic value (which means less fluctuations in your blood sugar) and contain more nutrients because they are less processed and sprouted.
Use healthy seasonings for flavor such as sea salt, pepper, and organic herbs and spices. If you are going to use a soy sauce, choose one that is wheat-free and unpasteurized. You may even be able to find one that is fermented, which is a bonus. Your health food store should have good selections of different types of soy sauces. Consider making your own sauces at home with healthy oils, raw vinegars, and seasonings/spices. Lemon and lime juice, garlic, ginger, certain fruits, and nuts are excellent for augmenting sauce recipes

Allergies and Disinfection

2009-02-24T10:04:00.000-08:00

Are we causing allergies and illness by our habits of over-disinfection? Research shows that through repeated exposure to disinfectant solutions and anti-bacterial substances that are designed to "kill germs", we are contributing to both allergenic responses in the body and resistance to deadly bacteria.

Our immune system is designed to allow the human body to co-exist with the outside environment. Our bodies contain trillions and trillions of cells, many of which are foreign and remain without problem because of our immune system's function. When the immune system becomes ovewhelmed with an abundance of foreign bacteria, however, and friendly bacteria are not allowed to thrive or are killed by anti-bacterial substances, the result is disease and illness - and allergies. Chronic health issues such as asthma, allergies, eczema, and many auto-immune disorders like multiple-sclerosis, lupus, and fibromyalgia are becoming more and more common and have risen exponentially over the last several decades. Children are especially vulnerable and have shown the highest increase in these incidences as they have quadrupled over the last two decades.

What factors contribute to a failing immune system?

As well as because of the over-use of antibiotics, use of anti-bacterial gels, hand lotions, soaps, and other personal care products increase the chance of the body being unable to defend itself from powerful bacteria that can get into the body and cause illness and death. Children who are exposed to bacteria are believed to have stronger immune system response and therefore stand a much better chance of naturally being able to fight off infection than those who have less exposure and would have lower immune system function. When your child becomes sick with a cold or flu, use of these substances does not necessarily allow quicker recovery from illness - and in fact can allow the illness to go on longer or return. In 2000, a study conducted observed 61 infants between 9 and 24 months of age revealed that the more dust the child was exposed to, the less likely an allergic response was to appear. The American Medical Association reported on their web site, "There is no evidence that the use of antibacterial products prevents infection better than ordinary soap. Hand washing with ordinary soap and water is sufficient to reduce the risk of most common infections."

Other reasons related to these issues also stem from the fact that so much processed, packaged foods are readily available and are consumed, versus real whole foods which support the immune system and health in general. Processed foods do not contain nutrients and antioxidants necessary for life, so when these types of eating habits are coupled with continued use of dangerous disinfectant and anti-bacterial chemicals, the stage is set for disaster in health. Many processed foods are available, and in particular, marketed to children and families. Consumption of these foods contributes to an increase of Omega 6 fatty acids and a decrease in Omega 3 fatty acids. Too much Omega 6s actually suppress immune system function while Omega 3s build up immunity and reduce inflammation in the body. The majority of processed foods contain levels of Omega 6s which are too high for healthy consumption. Examples include foods with corn, canola, cottonseed, soy, safflower, sunflower, and peanut oils - such as in many grain products, chips, crackers, pretzels, "food" bars, desserts, fried foods, and many other processed items. Omega 3s are found in hemp, walnut, and flax oils and cold water fatty fish - especially salmon. Plant sources do not contain the best type of Omega 3s for this purpose, so it is important to give young children and infants adequate amounts of fish oil as this type of Omega 3 is the best source in offering protection against the development of allergies and asthma.

Vaccinations are now being suspected as a cause of immune system failure. As most childhood diseases are viruses, they do not respond to antibiotics. This discovery lead to the development of vaccines. When a vaccine is injected directly into the bloodstream, it is granted access to all major tissues and organs without the benefit of the body's total immune response. What results is partial immunity, and then children are required to periodically receive "booster" shots. Because vaccines stimulate a humoral response, their ingredients are never released from the body. The opposite occurs when diseases are contracted naturally. Because these contents do not vacate the body, the body's reaction is one of chronic over-sensitization. Vaccinations have been linked to the increased incidence in asthma - in a study of 448 children, 243 received whooping cough vaccines. Ten percent developed asthma in comparison to the 2% of 205 children in a non-vaccinated group.

For more information on anti-bacterial substances and how they can adversely affect health, visit Food Processing.

Traditional Foods

2009-02-23T08:59:00.000-08:00

What are traditional foods? Traditional foods are foods eaten by people over the longer course of civilization and which have supported health - those cultivated, produced, and harvested from the earth and out of nature - those foods which are wholly unaltered and organic, and contain the highest levels of nutrition or are nutrient-dense. These foods have been eaten for millennia by people around the world. They are not processed or packaged and sent all over the planet, so in many cases traditional foods are also those found in your local community.

Why eat traditional foods? The most critical reason is for health, as traditional foods by their very nature contain the highest levels of nutrition available. Another reason is for taste. Traditional foods are full of flavor, texture, and aroma. Eating traditional foods supports smaller family farms and food-producing operations. When you eat traditional foods, you are also helping the environment by using your dollars to support sustainable methods of food production.

What are the benefits of consuming traditional foods? There are many, but some of the most important ones are maintaining better health and avoiding allergies. Those who consume traditional foods have less allergies and intolerances to foods; they also have less issues with digestive and cardiovascular health and weight.

What types of foods are traditional foods? The following is a list of some traditional foods:

Sustainably-raised, grass-fed animal meats and poultry or game birds such as beef, lamb, venison, rabbit, pork, elk, chicken, turkey, cornish game hens
Sustainably-raised, organic eggs
Safe, wild-caught, deep sea fish and some seafoods
Organ meats produced from healthy, grass-fed animals and birds
Organic or sustainably-produced whole fruits and vegetables
Organic, whole, sprouted grains and legumes
Raw, sustainbly-produced dairy including milk, cheese, cream, butter, kefir, and yogurt
Raw nuts from sustainable sources

Eating traditionally means taking the time and effort to deliberately choose healthier foods to eat and avoiding processed, packaged foods which contribute to an overall decline in health. You can buy foods from others or hunt or raise and produce your own. With perseverance, research, and concern for health and the environment, you can change your eating habits from unhealthy to healthy by purchasing, growing, and eating traditional foods. For more information on traditional and slow foods, visit Cooking Traditional Foods and Slow Foods USA.

Go Healthy Snacks!

2009-02-20T09:38:00.000-08:00

In honor of National Healthy Snack Week, here's a challenge to everyone for replacing what's in your house with healthier alternatives for snack time: go through your cupboards and throw out the following: crackers, chips, candy cereals, cookies, rice cakes, pretzels, "food" bars, cookies, drink mixes, fruit rollups, and anything else processed you can find. Next, move on to the refrigerator. Consider throwing out your milk, yogurt, cheese, and processed meats. Why would you do this? Because there are healthier alternatives for snacks. Now, what can you eat? Don't despair! You really can have healthy snacks that are good for you and are delicious. Here are some ideas:

Homemade yogurt or kefir. Start with raw milk, if possible. Here is some information on the dangers of processed yogurts and a great recipe for making your own kefir at home. When your kefir is ready to eat, mix with a bit of agave nectar, maple syrup, or stevia or eat with whatever fruit you have in the house. You can also make smoothies in a blender.
If you do not want to make your own yogurt, stick with good brands such as Brown Cow or Trader's Point Creamery (available at Whole Foods - this is the most amazing yogurt I've ever tasted!). Here are some others to check out - Ruegsegger Farms, Sidehill Farm, and Straus Family Creamery.
Ezekiel bread (sprouted, organic, flourless) with raw butter, almond butter, and a dollop of organic, whole fruit spread or organic fruit pieces.
Fresh fruits and vegetables - the sky's the limit!
Make homemade dips for your fruits and veggies with olive oil or grapeseed oil and spices from your cuboard, and a variety of vinegars available from the store - apple cider, grapeseed, red wine, white wine, or balsamic. Remember, store-bought dressings are unhealthy as can be - loaded with sodium, preservatives, chemcials, and toxic vegetable oils like soy, canola, and cottonseed.
Other good store-bought dips would include salsas, hummus, and bean dips. Best brands are Emerald Valley, Tribe, and Amy's Organics.
Naturally-raised, grass-fed leftover meats from dinner the night before - use with Ezekiel tortillas and make rollups or cut up into chunks and make kabobs with cheese
Raw cheeses (check your local health food stores or co-ops)
Raw nuts and seeds - almonds, Brazil nuts, hazelnuts or filberts, walnuts, pecans, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, cashews

Take the healthy snack challenge and see if you can improve your's and your child's health through healthier snacking.

Find Ways to Reduce Sugar From Your Diet

2009-02-18T08:13:00.000-08:00

Do you ever stop and think about how much sugar you consume each day? It may be more than you think. Sugar cravings are usually a sign of poor eating habits, in general. The more sugar and refined carbohydrates you consume, the more you'll want.If you find yourself constantly having sugar cravings and are unable to stay away from processed foods and refined carbohydrates, here are some suggestions:

Resolve to make a food journal and keep track of what you are eating for one week. Make as many changes as you feel comfortable with at a time, but know that completely going off sugar for one week will bring about positive changes you might never have realized possible. Review your journal daily. You will be surprised at what you have kept track of and change will become easier each day.
Start replacing snacks like chips, crackers, processed breads, cereals, pretzels, rice cakes, "food bars" and others with choices like raw nuts, raw cheeses, whole fruits and vegetables. When you find yourself going for the unhealthy variety, eat the healthy alternatives instead.
At meal times, avoid a lot of starches and eliminate refined carbohydrates.
Eat plenty of steamed and raw vegetables.
Eat plenty of fruit between meals. Eating fruit with large meals can cause bloating and fermentation in the stomach, and can also lead to digestive difficulty for your digestive tract. Fruit between meals helps keep your blood sugar level and is a great snack choice that delivers nutrients and fiber.
Eat natural grass-fed meats and pasture-raised poultry. Obese meats such as those raised on feedlots and fed corn, grain, and soy add to your overall carbohydrate and glycemic load because those meats contain less protein but more fat and calories. Healthy meats contain the correct amount of Omega 3 essential fatty acids, high protein, low fat and low calories.
If you haven't already, begin a regimen of moderate exercise. Choose something you enjoy and can engage in for 30 to 40 minutes three to four times a week. Exercise lowers insulin levels and helps keep your blood sugar even and can aid in reducing sugar cravings.
Make sure you are taking a good whole-foods, organically-produced vitamin supplement. Consult with a knowledgeable health care practitioner who understands nutrition for recommendations.
Make sure you are taking probiotics that are at least 10 million strain, a good fiber product, and essential fatty acid supplementation. Consult with your health care practitioner for recommendations.
Consider performing a candida cleanse. People who eat refined foods on a regular basis almost always have a yeast overgrowth problem. This leads to sugar cravings, fatigue, immune system deficiency, weight gain, and long-term degenerative disease. Consult with a knowledgeable complimentary health care practitioner about how to go about this important step in managing health issues.
Obtain adequate rest and stress relief daily. Go to bed before 10:30 p.m. nightly and make sure to take time out for yourself during your busy day.

Alternatives to Wheat

2009-02-17T10:13:00.000-08:00

How much wheat do you eat on a daily basis? Did you know that the abundance of wheat in your diet can be causing health problems - some that you may not even be aware of? Wheat is one of the most common substances in many foods - it is also continually increasing the numbers of people who have allergic reactions from eating.

Many people make the mistake of simply replacing the wheat ingredient in foods with something else that can cause health problems as well - like soy or corn. But even these foods can cause allergies and health issues. Just like wheat, a great deal of corn and soy on the market is genetically engineered, treated with herbicides and/or is herbicide resistant from engineering. These foods cause a bevy of health issues when included in a regular diet.

The problem with wheat is twofold - (1) the fact that wheat is found in so many foods people eat each day and multiple times daily and (2) the fact that wheat contains 78% percent gluten. Modern wheat has been engineered to contain more of the gliadin, the substance in gluten which causes the "rise" factor when baking breads and doughs in the oven. Ancient wheats contained much less gliadin and were not eaten in such amounts as we consume today. Just take a look in your grocery store and read the labels on many processed foods. You will find that a majority of those foods do contain wheat.

What happens to the body when wheat is consumed? Your digestive tract can become irritated and hypersensitive to being repeatedly exposed to wheat. Many doctors and health sources report that an allergy is an abnormal reaction by the immune system to benign substances. But what is actually happening with reactions in the body to wheat is the fact that most wheat products are processed foods, which overall are not healthy to consume. When you consume wheat repeatedly, your body is reacting to a substance that is not healthy for your body. The same is true for many foods that people have reactions or allergenic responses to - such as peanuts, dairy, soy, corn, and even fish. Many of these foods are as unnatural as can be and are processed or contain some chemical or artificial ingredient that the body does not want or need.

After many years consuming unfermented, high-gluten grains can cause a long list of health issues including celiac disease, allergies, mental illness, chronic indigestion and candida albicans overgrowth (where unfriendly bacteria and yeast essentially take over the digestive tract and immune system, and eventually other organ systems). Recent research has connected gluten intolerance with multiple sclerosis.

What alternatives are available? There are good wheat alternatives to use that are becoming more and more available in the food marketplace. Some of these include millet, buckwheat, amaranth, and quinoa. However, use caution because if you are eating 3 - 6 servings of wheat daily already, you don't want to just replace your wheat servings with these and go on your way. Doing this can put you right back into poor health all over again. Why? Because if you are eating that many servings daily of wheat, you need to focus on putting something in your diet that is nutritious and something your body can actually use.

Cooked grains alone are not absorbable by the human digestive tract. You must be open to changing the way you eat grains. Fermented and soaked grains are much more digestible and nutritious than the kind our culture has been accustomed to eating for so many decades. For millinnea, people of the world have fermented and soaked grains because this is the principal method of causing the grain to become a food that the body can absorb and nutrient-dense. When you soak and ferment grains, gluten and other difficult-to-digest proteins are partially broken down into simpler components that are easier to digest and absorb.

For more information about soaking and fermenting grains and how it can transform health, visit the Health Banquet and The Wedge. Also, read about the health benefits of grinding your own flour at The Urban Homemaker.

How Much Is Our Health Affected by Family Genetics?

2009-02-12T08:50:00.001-08:00

Do you have diseases or health weaknesses that run in your family? If so, don't despair. Your family may have a health history of heart disease, cancer, or Diabetes, but the most important factor that affects your health is the lifestyle habits you choose. It is quite possible that some of the problems experienced by people in your family were exacerbated by those individual's lifestyle choices and not genetics alone. Doctors often tell patients that a family history can put you at greater risk for certain diseases, but that really only amounts to 10 - 20 percent of those instances. Your lifestyle choices are what really matters. If your body is not properly cared for or deficient, it cannot overcome any predispositions it may have to specific problems. And it certainly cannot maintain itself at optimal levels for good health, let alone family history.

Start making lasting changes today. Make a commitment - one of the most important choices you will make in your life. Don't just accept health problems you've lived with for years and attribute it to family history, lack of motivation or time to deal with the problem, or to "getting older". Take control of your own health by doing something different than you've done in the past by doing the following:

Eat whole foods.
Eat plenty of organic fruits and vegetables (7-9 servings a day for adults, 5 for children)
Eat foods with healthy fat, calories, and proteins such as naturally raised, grass-fed meats and poultry, raw dairy, safe choice fish, and pasture-raised eggs.
Engage in a stress reduction activity that's right for you - yoga, meditation, prayer, Pilates, martial arts, massage or something similar.
Get regular, moderate exercise. A brisk walk for 30 minutes 4 times a week is a good place to start. You don't have to be a super athlete to get benefit from regular exercise. Stretching and yoga are beneficial as well.
Eliminate processed foods and refined sugars.
Drink plenty of purified water daily.
Find out about vitamin and mineral supplements that are right for your individual needs.
Take fiber, probiotics, essential fatty acids.
Go to bed at a reasonable hour nightly - around 10 p.m. Engage in relaxing activities before bed.
Know your limits. You don't need to be a superhuman. Don't overload yourself with too many tasks or activities. These cause stress which contributes to disease.
Spend time with those you love often and discard relationships with people that are unproductive or damaging.

Remember, if you don't have your health, you don't have anything.

Is Tap Water Safe to Drink?

2009-02-10T08:52:00.000-08:00

Do you drink the tap water in your home without a backward glance? You may be surprised to learn that your tap water is actually much more harmful than you would think. Not only does tap water contain lead, arsenic, and other toxic metals, but there are also detectable levels of pharmaceutical chemicals and hormonally active chemicals present as well.

During 2006 and 2007, researchers tested tap water for 51 different chemicals from 19 U.S. cities. According to New Scientist, the 11 most frequently detected compounds were:

Atenolol, a beta-blocker used to treat cardiovascular disease
Atrazine, an organic herbicide banned in the European Union which has been implicated in the decline of fish stocks and in changes in animal behavior
Carbamazepine, a mood-stabilizing drug used to treat bipolar disorder
Estrone, an estrogen hormone secreted by the ovaries and blamed for causing gender changes in fish
Gemfibrozil, an anti-cholesterol drug
Meprobamate, a tranquilizer used in psychiatric treatment
Naproxen, a painkiller and anti-inflammatory linked to increases in asthma incidence
Phenytoin, an anticonvulsant used to treat epilepsy
Sulfamethoxazole, an antibiotic
TCEP, a reducing agent used in molecular biology
Trimethoprim, another antibiotic

Although these concentrations are diluted to millions times lower than the average medically recommended dose, Christian Daughton of the EPA's National Exposure Research Laboratory stated that neither this nor other recent water assessments give cause for health concern. "But several point to the potential for risk - especially for the fetus and those with severely compromised health." Unfortunately, the two statements made by Daughton are opposing because in the United States, many people have compromised health and are unaware of their condition. The health and condition of the immune system of the average citizen is below optimal due to poor quality lifestyles and eating habits.

The decision to stay away from tap water and filter your drinking water and/or water in your shower and tub is definitely a personal one. But if you are considering an alternative to tap water, a filter is the way to go. The quality of most bottled waters is too uncertain, and then there is the added health risk of chemicals from the plastic container leeching into the water. Filters add another expense to your household necessities, so if you are going to choose filtering your water, selecting a good filter is important. Various brands on the market such as Brita and PUR are available for reasonable cost, but there is some debate by various health professionals as to whether or not these filters actually remove enough of the undesired material. A good, economical choice is GE Smart Water, which was top rated in Consumer Reports December 2002.

The bottom line is, a preponderance of evidence shows tap water should be avoided because it contains hormones, pharmaceutical compounds, heavy metals, chlorine and may contain fluoride --toxic substances which can have serious health implications with repeated consumption. Avoid distilled water because it has the wrong ionization, pH, polarization and oxidation potentials, and can drain your body of necessary minerals. It has been tied to hair loss, which is often associated with certain mineral deficiencies.

For information about Kangen, one of the most high-quality water systems available which contains antioxidants that are vital for health, visit Very Healthy Water.

Growing Interest in Naturopathic and Complimentary Medicine

2009-02-06T09:05:00.000-08:00

Do you visit a naturopathic or complimentary health care provider for your health needs? There is a growing interest and increasing number of individuals who are moving toward natural methods and habits for maintaining health. In addition, more and mores states in America are providing licensing to naturopathic practitioners so that patients have choices in health.

It is from this interest and increasing educational opportunities that patients are being provided the tools with which to take charge of their own health, instead of being limited only to traditional, allopathic practices. From this shift, over the next several decades, we should be able to notice a very observable change in the status of overall health of the average person. Through awareness and education, people are finally being given the freedom to take control of health issues that formerly were believed to be soley at the discretion of the traditionally trained medical doctor that typically waits for a problem to develop and then prescribes drugs or surgery.

If you haven't found a knowledgeable health care practitioner who uses alternative methods and treatments and think you might be ready, now is the time to start looking into what's available. In large cities, towns, and even sleepy corners of the world can be found a variety of practitioners who are experienced and trained in the method that may be just right for you - chiropractors, Traditional Chinese Medicine Doctors, and acupuncturists, colon hydrotherapists, naturopathic and homeopathic practitioners, nutritional therapists, massage therapists, hypnotherapists, aromatherapy practitioners, osteopaths, and many others are awaiting your call.

For a list of different types of practitioners, visit World Wide Health Center. Consider changing your philosophy of taking drugs and having surgery for health issues and join millions who have taken their health into their own hands by visiting an alternative health care practitioner. You'll be glad you did.

Daily Fruit and Vegetable Servings

2009-02-04T08:24:00.000-08:00

How many whole fruits and vegetables do you eat daily? Here are guidelines you should be following to keep up on your body's need for these important foods:

Eat 95% of your daily produce as whole. Most Fruit and vegetable juices don't count as a serving. Why? Because these juices are highly processed, contain little more than carbohydrates and sugar, and unless otherwise noted are pasteurized (not raw) and have been stripped of their vital live nutrients. If you are juicing at home, the outcome has the potential to be better, but only if you follow specific guidelines. For example, many people use carrots and beets in juices because they taste good, but these vegetables in fact offer less nutrients and a higher glycemic index. It is important to start out slow with certain vegetables and over time add as many greens as possible to your juicing regimen. Visit Dr. Mercola for optimal juicing guidelines.
Dried fruits and vegetables do not count as a daily serving because again, they are highly processed, often contain fillers and chemicals (such as sulfur), and have a higher glycemic index than the whole fruit or vegetable because they have been dried.
Juice and vegetable supplements do not fully live up to their claims on packages. The best way to achieve optimal health is by eating real, whole fruits and vegetables.
Whenever possible, buy your produce local. This cuts out excess toxins which accumulate on produce from travel (and saves petroleum), even when they are organic.
Certified organic remains the best choice for produce. Organic varieties are lower in synthetic, persistent pesticides and herbicides. New research also suggests they are higher in nutrient and antioxidant value than the conventional variety. A study released in the Journal of Applied Nutrition in 1993 stated that organically grown foods contained 63 percent more calcium, 73 percent more iron, 118 percent more magnesium, 91 percent more phosphorus, 125 percent more potassium, 60 percent more zinc and a 178 percent more molybdenum than non-organic foods. Besides containing an impressive amount of minerals, the organically grown food was found to contain 29 percent less mercury, a potentially dangerous chemical. Another study published in the the 2003 Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry revealed that organically grown fruits and vegetables contained significantly more antioxidants than food grown by conventional means.
Adults should eat 7 - 9 servings per day, while children should have at least 5. A serving equals 1 cup raw, leafy vegetables or 1/2 cup chopped raw, cooked, or frozen vegetables. Avoid canned as these vegetables have been processed and cooked, and do not offer the same nutrient value as frozen or fresh. One serving of fruit equals 1 medium-sized piece of whole fruit such as an apple or pear, or 1/2 cup of chopped, cooked, or frozen fruit.
Remember that nutrients and antioxidants don't last long in the body, so eat these foods throughout the day for optimal health. Snack on these foods between meals instead of chips, crackers, bagels, pretzels, and other similar processed foods.

Colon Cleansing - Does it Benefit Your Health?

2009-02-03T08:34:00.000-08:00

Have you ever conducted a colon cleanse? Many holistic health care practitioners believe this is an important step to bringing your health back to optimal levels - and for most Americans with poor diet and lifestyle, their health state is not where it should be. Many allopathic or traditional doctors believe that colon cleansing is not only unnecessary but can be damaging to health. They believe the colon can purge out toxins on its own and that this process can disrupt the delicate electrolyte balance of the body. Who is right? Let's look at the facts:

Colon cancer is blamed as the third leading cause of death in the U.S. The American Cancer Society recommends screenings for colon cancer begin at age 50. But why would you want to wait until you are 50 to do something about a problem that has taken years to develop? Cancer does not rear its head overnight. It takes years of poor lifestyle choices to be able to observe the outward affects of cancer. Prevention can eliminate the need for expensive drugs, surgery, and years of needless discomfort and suffering. Colon cleansing is one such preventative measure that helps the body clean out years of built up toxins and residue from poor lifestyle choices before cancer has a chance to develop.

The colon is one of the main systems of elimination in your body, and when it is not functioning properly, the rest of your health will suffer. When people eat healthy, their digestive system and health flourishes. Most people don't eat as healthy as they can - and in fact, eat an abundance of dead, processed foods. When you maintain a diet of these kinds of foods, toxins build up in your colon, your bloodstream, and your entire body system.

According to Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, "an unhealthy colon is one in which fecal matter has been allowed to build up on its walls and within its cells. Over time, this fecal matter becomes encrusted in the colon, blocking its openings and slowing down the passage of stools. This fecal matter then continues to build up for days, weeks, months, and even years, putrefying and then poisoning your entire system." Dr. Kellogg maintains that poor colon health can indeed be the culprit of many other health problems. Conditions including but not limited to cancer, cardiovascular disease, influenza, colds, influenza, allergies, and arthritis, are all examples of diseases that can be connected to a colon with built-up toxins. "In fact, in most cases, the severity of a disease can be linked directly to the level of toxicity in the colon."

Removal of these toxins leads to increased energy and vitality, weight loss, improved function of the digestive tract, clearer skin, improved mental function, and subsequently better health. In addition to these benefits, improved bowel function is restored, eliminating constipation, diarrhea, and other disorders.

There are a variety of colon cleansing activities to perform - and you can choose a variety of combinations with proper advise from a knowledgeable health care practitioner. Locate an experienced colon hydrotherapist that you can trust, and work with him or her to determine the best course for your own health. Colon hydrotherapy can and should be used in conjunction with nutritional supplements and colonic fasting diets.

It is important to support your body during cleansing and afterwards with the proper resources including plenty of water, nutritious foods, probiotics, and fiber. How much fiber do you need each day? According to the Mayo Clinic:

38 grams for men and 25 grams for women 50 and younger
30 grams for men and 21 grams for women 51 and older

For more information about colon cleansing and how it can positively affect your health, visit the Colon Cleansing and Constipation Resource Center.

For other valuable resources and reputable colon-cleansing products, visit Blessed Herbs. This site comes highly recommended by many knowledgeable colon hydrotherapy practitioners and other holistic health care providers.

Your Health Begins With Digestion

2009-02-02T08:31:00.000-08:00

Do you think much about how your digestion affects health? It has a profound effect on how well you feel and how your entire body functions. Here are some tips for successful digestive function:

Limit beverage intake while eating - most overeating occurs because of dehydration, so hydrate before and after you eat - 1/2 hour before and 1 to 2 hours after eating. If you do drink with meals, limit your intake to something warm that will aid digestion such as chamomile, peppermint, or ginger tea. And drink no more than 4 ounces.
Chew your food well - at least twenty times.
Use correct food combinations when eating - eat fruit alone, between meals. Avoid mixing proteins and carbohydrates - eat rice, potatoes, and grains away from proteins and vegetables. Eat dairy products alone.
Eliminate refined and processed foods from your diet.
Eliminate trans fats and hydrogenated oils. Replace with grapeseed and coconut oils (for high heat cooking), and pumpkin seed oil and olive oil for raw consumption (great for salads).
Eat raw dairy - milk, butter, cheese, cream, and yogurt.
Take an Omega 3 supplement daily - cod liver oil is best in winter. Try Carlson's and Mercola's brand.
If you eat grains, give yourself a break from wheat, which is normally the most processed and causes the most allergies/health problems. Try whole sprouted grains (such as Ezekiel) including amaranth, quinoa, millet, kamut, buckwheat, and occasionally spelt. But use care not to eat a large number of servings of grains per day. One to two servings is sufficient and will help keep away issues such as bloating, gas, constipation, diarrhea, indigestion, candida syndrome, and other more serious problems like IBS or Crohn's Disease.
Eat more fermented foods - kefir and real yogurt made from raw milk, cultured vegetables, and sauerkraut.
Eat more fruits and vegetables. Raw juicing with plenty of greens is a good way to get your daily intake. When juicing, avoid high glycemic choices such as carrots and beets. For a good guide to juicing, visit Dr. Mercola's site.
Eat your largest meal earlier in the day. Don't eat after 6:00 p.m.
Avoid soy unless fermented such as miso or tempeh. Do not eat soy cheese, milk, or soy proteins. These foods are all processed and soy contains phytic acid which inhibits the absorption of minerals and nutrients into the body. Soy also contains estrogen which can be harmful in excess and especially for men and boy's reproductive systems.
Drink half of your weight in water daily - for example, if you weigh 150 pounds, drink 75 ounces of water.
Make sure you take plenty of fiber in your daily regimen. Ground flax seeds are a good choice (available in the bulk section of the health food store). Good products to take include Colon Plus by Biotics Research, Sonnes products, and Fiber Harmony.
Take a good probiotic daily. Good brands include PB8, Nature's Life, Complete Probiotics from Dr. Mercola, BioDophilus Caps and BioDophilus FOS by Biotics Research, and Prescipt-Assist. As you have trillions of cells in your body, you cannot overdose on these friendly bacteria which are one of the most critical keys to good health and proper digestion.
Mealtime should be relaxed and stress-free. If you are anxious or upset, avoid eating.
Foods that do not digest properly such as processed foods or because of stress result in overgrowth of harmful bacteria and digestive disorders as well as lethargy, mood disorders, and other issues.

Choose Fat Wisely

2009-01-28T11:11:00.000-08:00

Do you believe reports you hear that tell you to eat the right types of fat? There are definitely good and bad fats, but it may not be in line with what you have been traditionally used to hearing from the health community and your doctor. Here's why:

For decades, meat has received a bad reputation as being the culprit of heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, and other problems. The real problem is how the meat is raised -in factory farm environments with no room to roam nor grass to eat, fed corn, soy, and grains, and administered antibiotics to combat illnesses brought on by the very things animals are eating. Grass-fed and sustainable-raised meats and poultry are healthy and contribute to health in a positive way.
Many low-fat and non-fat foods have a negative effect on health. This is because many of these foods are not real, whole foods. Simply put, a real, whole food has not been altered by the food manufacturer in some way from its original state and can deliver maximum nutritional value to the body. Low-fat and non-fat dairy products are a good example of this because their enzymes and proteins have been altered to include less of what you need to utilize nutrients in your body for proper digestion and health. As an example, many lactose intolerant individuals can eat whole, raw dairy from a clean source, while pasteurized, homogenized, and reduced fat varieties cause allergies and illness.
Cholesterol has also received a bad name, and the reality is, the human body needs healthy cholesterol from healthy fat found in meat, dairy, and eggs. If the body doesn't have healthy cholesterol on a regular basis, it cannot defend itself against weight gain, heart disease, cancer, and many other conditions. Up until the 1920s, heart disease in the United States was almost non-existent. It was about that time that people's eating habits changed dramatically to include less good fats and more hydrogenated, altered fats.

To keep your health in good condition, it is essential to eat a moderate amount of healthy fats and cholesterol. The following is recommended:

Look for raw dairy from reputable sources, grass-fed, sustainable meats and poultry, and eggs from pasture-raised chickens, geese, turkeys, and ducks. Check in your local area.
Look for locally-produced grass-fed meats and poultry.
Buy local eggs from organic, pasture-raised hens
Obtain regular, moderate exercise.
Get enough fiber in your diet from whole foods. If you need more fiber, take a supplement as recommended by a knowledgeable health care practitioner. Good, natural brands are best. Avoid mainstream brands such as Metamucil and other which contain chemicals and binders that will harm your digestive tract.
Obtain a regular dose of Omega 3 essential fatty acids from a good fish oil source.
Maintain a low glycemic diet - this is not the same as a low-carb diet. If in doubt, remember that whole and raw foods are the rule of thumb for health. If it's not, it's probably not low-glycemic.
Eat less refined sugars, grains, and products that are not whole foods or are altered in some way. This includes most breads, crackers, bagels, pasta, cookies, "food" bars, and refined sugar products.
Eat more fresh, organic vegetables and fruits.
Find out about performing detoxification cleanses appropriate for your body and health state. Consult with a knowledgeable health care practitioner about this process, as you can do your body more harm than good and waste money trying to determine what you need on your own.
Take a good quality probiotic to help boost your immune system and digestion function.

For more information about the dangers of low-fat and controlled diets, visit The Weston A. Price Foundation.

Your Body Needs Real Butter!

2009-01-22T07:50:00.000-08:00

Are you still avoiding butter because you believe it is unhealthy to eat? Stop believing the untruths told by doctors and many health experts - because that information has long been one of the causes of health problems and disorders, including heart disease, weight gain, and high blood pressure! How can this be?

Until the turn of the 20th century, heart disease was almost non-existent. By 1960, it had risen to the ranks of one of the most prevalent killers. What changed? During those years, foods became more and more processed and a variety of artificial fats and "butter" products started becoming available. In fact, butter consumption decreased from eighteen pounds per person per year down to only four.

Is just any butter good for you? No, in fact most butters on the market fall into the category of "altered" or processed butters, and would have the opposite effect on your health. The reality is that much of our heart disease and other chronic, degenerative disease comes from eating foods that fall into this category. This is because so much more goes into making those butters than just the cow eating grass out in a nice, clean field. Most butter comes from conventional, "factory" farms and is unfit for human consumption. The animals who produce this type of butter are kept in cramped, unsanitary conditions and administered steroids, growth hormones, antibiotics, and fed unhealthy feed. For maximum health benefit, always choose organic, and from animals that are grass-fed (not grain, soy, or corn). Raw butter is the ultimate in health benefit as it contains the maximum amounts of CLAs (conjugated linoleic acid), healthy fat, many vital nutrients (including Vitamin K, Vitamin E, and iodine), and probiotics.

Check with your local dairies to find out if you can obtain good quality, organic, grass-fed butter (raw is a plus!). Good store brands include Lurpak and Kerrygold. Also try U.S. Wellness Meats (Monticello, MO) and Organic Pastures (Fresno, CA).

For a list of all the health benefits of eating real butter, visit Body Ecology. For another source that discusses the virtues of butter, visit The Weston A. Price Foundation.

Peanut Butter Recall

2009-01-21T07:14:00.000-08:00

Many people have eaten peanut butter as a staple for decades. This food has long been a staple of our culture as well as others because of its convenience, taste, and the unwavering belief held by people that it is a health food. Now, thousands and thousands of peanut products are being recalled off the shelves in stores due to an outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium.

How does Salmonella get into peanut butter? There are various possibilities. One is due to cross-contamination of machinery or equipment. Salmonella comes from unsanitary conditions in processing of meat and meat products (i.e., feces) - notably from animals raised in confined environments such as factory farms (the bulk source from where meat originates). Another possibility is contaminated water sources.

In 2007, Agribusiness giant Conagra, which produces the well-known Peter Pan peanut butter, was required by the FDA to pull products off the shelves. Because of the widespread use of peanut butter in so many products, consumers are being told to remove anything containing this substance - desserts, toppings, ice cream, cookies, crackers, and many others.

For years it has been commonly known by the public that prior to the peanut butter recall, peanuts were the culprit of allergies in many people. Its negative effects on human health have, in recent years, become widespread. Why? The simple answer is that peanuts contain a substance known as aflatoxin - an allergen which is basically a fungus. Aflatoxin is a naturally occurring mycotoxin produced by two types of mold: Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus. Aflatoxins have also been found in corn, wheat, rice, milk, and tree nuts.

According to Medicine.Net, Aflatoxins are a particular problem in underdeveloped and developing countries. There is some suggestion that the levels of aflatoxin consumption determine whether or not a reaction will occur - in other words, the more the aflatoxin is consumed, the higher the health risk is found to be.

Because peanuts and peanut-flavoring is such a ubiquitous substance in so many foods, it is no wonder allergies have become an issue for so many. Although levels of aflatoxins in one serving of peanut butter eaten might be relatively low, the frequency with which those products are eaten can cause health problems due to the fact that its consumption is repeated and frequent by humans.

According to the Cornell University Department of Animal Science, "because aflatoxins, especially aflatoxin B1, are potent carcinogens in some animals, there is interest in the effects of long-term exposure to low levels of these important mycotoxins on humans . In 1988, the IARC placed aflatoxin B1 on the list of human carcinogens. This is supported by a number of epidemiological studies done in Asia and Africa that have demonstrated a positive association between dietary aflatoxins and Liver Cell Cancer (LCC) . Additionally, the expression of aflatoxin-related diseases in humans may be influenced by factors such as age, sex, nutritional status, and/or concurrent exposure to other causative agents such as viral hepatitis (HBV) or parasite infestation."

As with most food recalls, mainstream, conventional methods in which foods are produced in the modern world are prone to harboring bacteria, toxins, and illness which make people sick and can even cause death. This is not new information. But mainstream news and health resources don't emphasize this fact at all. In most cases, food raised organically and sustainably will not harm people. Over and over again we are witnessing recalls of food in environments which are not sustainable nor truly organic. In the case of peanuts, however, even organic peanut butter can be harmful because organic peanuts contain even more levels of aflatoxtins than the conventional variety. Conventional processing of peanuts removes more aflatoxin content than organic. But does that make conventional peanuts safe to consume? Clearly not, as we are seeing today with thousands of peanut products being pulled off the shelves.

When the peanut recall is over, should you return to eating peanut butter? Many companies maintain that when nuts are roasted, that process sufficiently kills harmful bacteria. Should you take a chance that the bacteria has finally died because the product just so happened to be exposed to high enough levels of heat that it was enough to kill harmful bacteria like salmonella (or maybe not?)?

The choice is yours, but with all the available evidence of harmful effects from eating peanuts - as well as other highly-processed foods, the decision about intelligent health seems resoundingly irrefutable. Eating whole, organic, and sustainable-produced foods should keep you out of the doctor's office. But with conventional food, it's really all just a crap shoot.

For a good alternative to peanut butter, consider almond butter. Look for raw, organic almond butter in your local health food store, as the roasted varieties are often pasteurized and/or contain irradiated almonds. Other types of spreadable butter include cashew and hazelnut.

Support for Respiratory Health

2009-01-20T09:20:00.000-08:00

Do you take care of your respiratory system? Besides eating a healthy diet, exercise, and stress reduction (including deep-breathing exercises), a supplement called Cordyceps extract is known to strengthen respiratory function. This is a powerful mushroom extract which greatly assists optimal function of the respiratory system. The respiratory system is one of the seven channels of elimination and assists the body protecting itself from toxins, pollutants, and allergens.

Research has also shown that use of this herb improves oxygen uptake by both the brain and heart while improving resistance to hypoxia -- a state of oxygen deficiency in the body which is sufficient to cause an impairment of function. This extract is a great alternative to antibiotics and steroids for sufferers of asthma and chronic bronchitis in children and adults alike. Cordyceps extract clears bacteria from the lungs, thus making an environment for illness less likely.

Good practitioner sources to consult for herbal supplementation include homeopathics, naturopathics, and Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine experts. For more information about Cordyceps extract, read Dr. Chi's Herbal Formulas, (pages 59-60).

Are Your Dental Fillings Safe?

2009-01-16T07:51:00.001-08:00

Do you have dental fillings? Many individuals do. Dental fillings can cause a number of health issues. Amalgam fillings, the most commonly used type of filling, contain mercury. This substance can cause heavy metal poisoning in the body. The bottom line is, until those fillings are removed, the material in those fillings will continue to empty itself into your body. The result is a variety of health issues that sometimes are extremely difficult to diagnose and cannot be explained. However, care must be exercised in removal of fillings as the process itself can often make matters worse. Discuss your situation with a qualified health care practitioner. A mercury removal specialist is an good place to begin if you have concerns about dental work in your mouth.

While the human body does need trace amounts of certain metals for health function such as iron, copper, zinc,and selenium, others such as arsenic, mercury, lead, iron, cadmium, and aluminum are common metals that can be found in the body and which, at high levels, can cause health issues.

Since 1988, the Environmental Protection Agency has required dentists to treat amalgam fillings that are removed as hazardous waste. However, the various regulatory agencies as well as American Dental Association insist that putting “hazardous waste” in the mouth is safe.

Heavy metals cause problems in the body in the following ways:

Metals accumulate in various parts of the body and disrupt function in vital organs and glands such as the heart, brain, kidneys, bone, liver, etc.
These substances interrupt vital nutritional minerals from where they should be in the body to provide biological function. For example, enzymes are catalysts for virtually every biochemical reaction in all life-sustaining processes of metabolism. But instead of calcium being present in an enzyme reaction, lead or cadmium may be there in its place. Toxic metals can't fulfill the same role as the nutritional minerals, thus their presence becomes critically disruptive to enzyme activity.

The lifestyle you lead is most essential in protecting you from overload of metals in the body, or heavy metal toxicity. That includes diet, exercise, proper rest, stress management, and other factors included in your daily habits. Many people don't realize that exposure to metals is continuous and occurs over time - that these substances are found in everything from the water we drink to the air we breathe to the food we eat.

If you suspect you may have heavy metal issues, a visit to a qualified health care practitioner can help you to identify the problem and decide on a treatment. Detoxification activities are often very useful in alleviating symptoms and problems associated with heavy metal poisoning. Various methods to remove heavy metals include clay baths, oral chelation, infrared saunas, oxygen therapy (in conjunction with oral chelation), Traditional Chinese Medicine and acupuncture, and homeopathic remedies.

For a comprehensive overview of heavy metals, visit Life Extension.

More About Your Organic Bedroom

2009-01-15T08:35:00.000-08:00

Here are more steps you can take to make an organic bedroom environment in your home:

Remove all carpeting. Most carpeting is neither environmentally friendly nor easy to keep clean and is a common place where dust, mites, and other irritants are found. Good choices to replace flooring with include hypoallergenic cork, ceramic tile, untreated/nontoxic wood flooring, or recycled linoleum called Marmoleum. Keep feet warm with natural area rugs which you can shake out and wash. Try Rawganique and Modern Eco Homes.

Remove draperies, curtains, or shades which may be treated with chemicals that are toxic (such as petroleum-based treatments). Replace your old window coverings with untreated wood blinds, fabric shades, or other window treatments designed with organic fibers.

Avoid the use of VOC paints, sealants, stains and other chemicals. In hospitals, AFM SafeCoat products are used and are recommended by environmental medicine physicians.

Try the Milk Paint Company in Groton, Massachusetts, which offers authentic no-odor milk paint in 16 colors. Read more about safe paints at Mother Earth News. Visit American Clay and check out their selection of 32 colors of natural clay plasters and a variety of finishes.

Another good alternative is hemp wall upholstery which can be stapled into place without the use of adhesives.

Air out bedrooms and bedding. As recommended by The National Lung Association, doctors, and the EPA, opening windows is recommended to encourage recycling of the air in your home. If you have seasonal allergies, consider installing a window guard to eliminate dust and pollen, and dirt particulate from coming into the room. It is the custom of Europeans to place comforters onto the windowsill each morning. Allow your bed to air out awhile before making it.

Keep your sleeping environment clean. Wash bedding often in hot water at least 130 degrees Fahrenheit to kill dust mites. You can kill dust mites in cold water with safe detergents specifically designed to kill dust mites.

Clean the floor often - at least once a week and especially under the bed. Use a fresh mop head or HEPA vacuum and non-toxic cleaners.

For more ideas about making your bedroom and home environmentally safe, visit EcoMall and view this extensive list of useful products and services.

Creating an Organic Bedroom

2009-01-14T08:28:00.000-08:00

Are you ready to make your bedroom environment organic? To begin, concentrate on eliminating airborne allergens such as pollen, dust mites, mold/mildew, viruses and bacteria, and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) which can disrupt your sleep cycle and bring on long-term health hazards. As recommended by The American Lung Association and the EPA, here are three important actions to take in reducing indoor air pollution:

Control sources of pollution
Make sure your home is vented adequately
Keep indoor air clean

Here are some important steps to making your sleep environment safe:

Consider throwing out your current mattress and purchasing an eco-friendly, environmentally-safe one. This will be the largest expense you incur, but well worth it. Your current mattress is likely covered in flamer-retardant and stain-resistant chemicals applied at the factory. Foam cushioning could contain PBDEs or petrochemicals which are off-gassing (chemical off-gassing) at all times. The time you spend sleeping on your bed is nearly one-third of your life span, so this step is the most critical in moving toward a healthy sleeping environment.

If you have chemical sensitivities (especially to latex odors), select a natural cotton mattress or organic cotton mattress. As cotton mattresses are generally very firm, one option is to purchase a natural wool topper for relieving pressure points as you sleep. A topper will also reduce body indentations occuring over the life of your mattress.

If you are not allergy-prone, choose a natural latex mattress. These types of mattresses are anti-microbial, anti-bacterial, dust-mite proof, and relieves pressure points. Make certain the latex is at least 97% natural -- not a 60/40 blend of natural and petrochemical-based materials.

Because you sleep in the mattress instead of on top of it, a natural latex mattress provides your neck, shoulders, hips and knees with proper support. Tossing and turning will be less frequent and you will find that your sleep is more peaceful. Better sleep means your immune system has a better chance of rejuvenating and preparing for the next day's demands.

If you find that you are unable to replace your mattress, here are some other things you can do. Purchase a pure wool or natural rubber mattress topper. Although the topper eliminate off-gassing, you will experience better rest by putting some distance between yourself the toxins in your mattress.

Replace your current bedding with organic cotton sheets, pillowcases, and even duvet cover for your comforter. You can purchase barrier cloths or zippered encasings which provide protection to your lungs from dust mite allergens. Studies have shown mattress and pillow encasings can relieve eczema suffering. Good choices for pillows include those made with untreated cotton, organic cotton (better), wool (great for moisture wicking and eliminating sweat), buckwheat hulls (great neck support), or natural rubber (97% natural latex).

Consider sheets, blankets, and duvet covers manufactured with untreated or organic cotton or wool. Organic cotton is now available in a variety of colors.

Avoid bedding with down (feathers) such as comforters and pillows. These items hold in moisture and don't dry out quickly. As a result, they tend to produce mold. These items also attract dust mites. Choose a wool comforter to keep warm and encourage moisture-wicking. These comforters are very lightweight. A study conducted at Polytechnic Institute of Wales showed using wool as a fill fiber resulted in calmer heart rates.

Purchase a good air purifier. Make certain the purifier you purchase uses HEPA filtration. HEPA stands for High Efficiency Particulate Air. A good quality HEPA filter will eliminate 99.97% of all particles the size of 3 microns or larger.

Make certain you keep up on replacing your air filter. Some units require on-going filter replacement and prove very expensive in the long run, so do some thorough checking on filter types and prices before you purchase.

If you have a mold or mildew problem in your home, remove it using bleach or inquire about having professionals come into your home and removing it. When you have eliminated molds and mildews, consider investing in an Airfree air sterilizer. This air cleaner is capable of killing mold without producing ozone.

An alternative to the above would be to install a whole house air cleaning system. Or install special furnace filters that are specially designed to eliminate 90% or more of allergens and particles 2-10 microns in size. A good product called AllergyZone was invented by an allergist for allergy sufferers.

Check back for our next post where we will continue discussion of additional steps you can take to create a healthier sleep environment in your bedroom.

Coconut Flour for Health

2009-01-13T08:54:00.000-08:00

Want a good alternative to wheat flour? Try coconut flour, a food that is high in protein but low in sugar, and a gluten-free alternative to wheat that is nutritious and delicious. It is superlative for a variety of reasons to all grains due to its nutrient density and fiber content.

According to Dr. Mercola: "coconut flour is unlike any other flour consisting of 14 percent coconut oil and 58 percent dietary fiber. The remaining 28% consists of water, protein, and carbohydrate. If you haven't tried coconut flour yet, here are some more excellent reasons to start:

Coconut Flour is ideal for baking. It has fewer digestible (net) carbs than other flours, and it even has fewer digestible carbs than some vegetables!
Coconut Flour is gluten-free and hypoallergenic. With as much protein as wheat flour, coconut flour has none of the specific protein in wheat called "gluten". This is an advantage for a growing percentage of the population who have allergies to gluten or a wheat sensitivity.
Coconut Flour consists of the highest percentage of dietary fiber( 58%) found in any flour. Wheat bran has only is 27% fiber.
Coconut Flour can help you reach a healthy weight. Ideal for those who follow a low-carb eating plan, coconut flour works well as part of a weight loss program because it has high fiber, and foods with high fiber can help promote a feeling of fullness."

For recipes using this fantastic health food, visit Tiana.

What Are You Feeding Your Kids?

2009-01-12T08:28:00.000-08:00

Do your children eat a healthy diet? You may be under the impression that your children eat healthy food when you feed them at home, or even when you go out to a restaurant. Here are some foods commonly eaten by children, which many parents mistakenly believe are included in a healthy diet:

crackers
rice cakes
goldfish
"food bars"
fruit roll-ups
packaged cereals
"healthy" cookies
any other processed items used as snacks that really fall into the dessert or treat category
baked foods that are normally fried with batter on them such as chicken fingers, fish sticks, or other similar foods
popcorn
many bread, bagel, and grain products
baked chips
other processed products with no "trans fats" in them
cold lunch meats
pasteurized dairy products of all types - cheese, milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, etc. - especially those that are low-fat and non-fat
frozen meals such as breakfast burritos, waffles, and pancakes
tofu or soy foods (many of which are processed and contain pesticides and are genetically modified)
corn and corn products (many of which are also processed and contain pesticides, and are genetically modified)
peanut butter
roasted and salted nuts (many are over-salted and manufacturers use unhealthy vegetable oils to bind the salt to the nuts such as soybean, cottonseed, or canola oil)

Often parents feed their children foods like these because they are sold everywhere and are convenient. Parents may see their friend's children eating these foods and believe they are healthy when they are by and large, nutritionally deficient instead of nutrient-dense like whole foods. By its very nature, processing cleans foods out of their nutrients. Many of these foods are high in carbohydrates but lacking in nutrients, protein, or healthy fats.

Over time, continual consumption of these types of foods will lead to weight gain, premature heart disease, high blood pressure, sugar cravings, inability to feel full, dental caries, lack of concentration and patience, insulin resistance, lowered immune system function, mood disorders, aggression, irritability, lower academic performance, frequent illnesses and disease, and Diabetes.

Read labels! Just because a processed food reads "organic" or "natural" on the package does not make it healthy. The only difference between a conventional packaged food and an organic packaged food is the quality of ingredients used (no chemicals, pesticides, etc.). The nutrient quality of the organic processed food may be similar to that of the processed variety. Any processed food included on the above list that is organic should be used sparingly and as a treat.

Here are some ideas for healthy foods/snacks to feed children:

fruits
vegetables
raisins
raw nuts
raw cheese
organic, pasture-raised eggs
organic, grass-fed beef, turkey, or salmon jerky
grass-fed meat and poultry
almond butter (raw is best)
sprouted grain bread products, such as Ezekiel
tuna fish (tongol is a healthy choice)
homemade, organic popcorn with real butter and healthy oils
healthy oils such as cod liver, coconut, grapeseed, flax, and olive oil
moderate amounts of grains, rice, and legumes (4 - 5 times per week only) - all organic, sprouted, and/or soaked

Make sure your child gets the best start possible. Don't load your children up with carbohydrates and empty calories that fail to support health, learning, growth, or development. Feed your children nutrient-dense foods that help their immune systems stay healthy and support all the major body systems development - especially brain development.

Evidence that Organic Foods are Better

2009-01-08T08:55:00.000-08:00

Some people believe there is not much difference between organic and conventional foods. But did you know that the average American eats a pound of herbicides and pesticides each year? It may be asserted that trace amounts of these substances cause little to no harm. However, if an individual consumes in one year's time a pound of unnatural chemicals that are intended to kill living organisms, doesn't it seem likely that damage to the human body could conceivably be observed?

In general, organically grown foods contain higher levels of nutrients because organic farmers are more conscientious regarding their animals’ health and how they maintain and care for soils where food is grown. A study conducted by Bob Smith from Doctor’s Data, examined organic versus commercially grown apples, pears, potatoes, wheat and wheat berries. Findings revealed that mineral levels in organically grown food were twice as high, on average, as commercially grown foods. When produce and animals are raised without being sprayed or administered artificial hormones and antibiotics, these substances cannot be passed along to humans! As time goes on, more studies and research connect these substances with many disorders such as reproductive cancers and endocrine disorders.

So, choose organic as often as possible. It may cost more, but what is your health worth? Spend more now on good quality food and you will notice your health costs over the long-term going down. You will spend less time in the doctor's office or hospital and more time on things that are really important.

For a list of the most important foods to eat organic, visit Delicious Foods.

Soy, The Miracle Health Food?

2009-01-07T08:21:00.000-08:00

Soy is one of the most touted health foods on the market. But did you know that the consumption of soy is not as healthy as the companies who market it would have you believe? Here's why:

Most soy is genetically modified. If you are eating soy, chances are likely you are eating a genetically modified food.
The process of farming soy has created vast environmental damage to lands such as forests, cottage industries, and small family farms. It has caused as least as much damage or more than the industrial cattle industry. Here is a list of big companies whose interests lie in profit and not taking care of our earth (you'll recognize them): Dupont, Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland, Nestle, and Solae. Some of America's largest food manufacturers sell soy foods or use soy ingredients heavily in their products. The list includes well-knowns such as Kellogg, Kraft, General Mills, ConAgra, Heinz, Dean Foods, and Unilever Best Foods.
Infant formula containing soy is a popular replacement for cow's milk formulas. According to Soy Online Service, "babies fed soy-based formula have 13,000 to 22,000 times more estrogen compounds in their blood than babies fed milk-based formula". With all the xenoestrogens in our environment and food, do our children really need more in their bodies? Soy is basically birth control for babies! Excess estrogen, by the way, has been linked to an increased risk of cancer.
A major allergen, soy is used as filler in thousands of products, (due to its low cost) including all types of processed foods - chips, crackers, cereals, cookies, candy, cakes and many other desserts, food bars, meats, sauces, condiments, salad dressings, and 'vegetable oil'.
Soy contains the following compounds which adversely affect health: goitrogens, which damage the thyroid; lectins which cause red blood cells to lump together and may trigger abnormal immunity responses; oligosaccarides -- sugars that cause bloating and gas; and oxalates which prevent calcium absorption and cause painful kidney stones and vulvodynia, a vaginal disorder.
Many plant foods including soy contain phytates and phytic acid, naturally occurring 'pesticides' to keep plants from being eaten while growing. Phytates impair mineral absorption and remove minerals stored in the body including zinc, iron, and calcium. Cooking foods containing phytates can remove this substance, but the level of phytate in soy is extremely high and difficult to eliminate.
Soy contains isoflavones, which are accoladed as natural estrogens but are in fact endocrine disruptors, lower testosterone, cause menstrual disorders, and the proliferation of cancer cells.
Protease inhibitors in soy wreak havoc with digestive enzymes, while the saponin-content may lower good cholesterol and damage intestinal wall lining.
Soy milk, cheese, and other soy foods are as unnatural and processed as can be. Soymilk is is replete with rancid fats and is high in sugar. Soy cheeses are mostly manufactured with hydrogenated oils which are continually stated from many mainstream sources as being unhealthy for consumption.
Much health rhetoric continually reminds us how healthy the Asian populations of the world are with low cancer, obesity, and heart disease due to their intake of soy foods. The problem with these assertions is that Asians do not consume soy on the same scale nor the same type of soy we do -- they use it as a condiment or as a fermented food in the form of miso or tempeh -- this is vastly different from the mass quantities of an industrially-processed product we consume as a society in the United States. Overall, a traditional Asian diet also consists of a vastly different menu of foods than the typical Western diet - including a much larger amount of natural proteins from fish and nutritious vegetables.

The basic tenet of eating soy as a health food is that most of what is represented on the soy market is a processed food that is not a whole, healthy food -- plain and simple. If you wonder whether something you are eating is a real, whole food, a little bit of label reading and even some research could answer your questions and change the way you think about health and eating.

For more information about the dangers of soy consumption, visit the Healing Crow.
Also visit the Weston A. Price Foundation for authoritative information about why soy is not the glorified health food it has been made out to be.

Increased Cancer Risk with Radioactive Iodine

2009-01-06T12:57:00.000-08:00

Do you take thyroid medication? If so, you may be interested to learn that there is an increased risk of cancer associated with radioactive iodine medication - a drug commonly given to thyroid patients by doctors.

According to the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Otolaryngology -- Head and Neck Surgery Foundation Washington, D.C., October 2000: researchers declared a connection between post-surgical administration of radioactive iodine (RAI) treatments for thyroid cancer and the development of breast cancer later on. Using the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database, they found that young women ages 30 - 34 years of age who had thyroid cancer were shown as having the greatest potential for developing breast cancer.

Women between the ages of 40 and 44 at initial diagnosis of thyroid cancer were believed to be at a significantly higher risk of developing the disease - with the greatest risk appearing 15 - 20 years after the appearance of thyroid cancer.

The conclusion of the study found that adult Caucasian women in pre-menopausal years treated for differentiated thyroid cancer show higher risks of breast cancer development - anywhere from 5 to 20 years later. This discovery depicts a clear connection of increased breast cancer risk after thyroid cancer to the thyroid cancer treatment itself - radioactive iodine, then, is the suspected culprit for boosting the cancer risk development.

Diet and lifestyle always play a part in the development of disease and illness. There are ways to prevent the development of fatal illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, and auto-immune disorders. Paying close attention to eating healthy foods, getting adequate rest and stress relief, and minimizing exposure to toxins is key. However, people who have auto-immune disorders such as thyroid problems (as well as others such as lupus, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, and others) can benefit tremendously from and in many cases have their symptoms greatly reduced or eliminated simply by seeing a knowledgeable health care practitioner who can determine the underlying cause of the disorder. Auto-immune disorders are usually related to heavy metal toxification, parasites, or a viral infection and can often be cleared up with homeopathic, naturopathic, or other complimentary medical treatment.

For more information on these disorders, visit a knowledgeable health care practitioner who is willing to implement alternative and complimentary treatments and considerations such as an osteopath, acupuncturist/Chinese Herbal Medicine practitioner, naturopath, homeopath, chiropractor, or nutritional therapist.

Whole and Processed Foods

2009-01-05T08:14:00.000-08:00

Do you know what differentiates whole foods from processed foods? There are many misconceptions about whole and processed foods. Generally, processed foods do come in packages, cans, and boxes. Many whole foods come in packages, cans, and boxes as well, but the critical difference is in the ingredients and the way the food is actually processed or not. Anything which has been altered from nature is processed. That should be simple enough, right? Not always. Here are some examples:

Dairy products. Just because the label states "organic" or "natural" does not make it a whole food. Most dairy products are pasteurized, which denatures fragile proteins, fats, and digestive enzymes - and also life-giving probiotic properties which sustain health. Many dairy foods contain chemicals such as growth hormones, steroids, and antibiotics. Unless the product reads "organic", you are likely to be purchasing a product that contains these ingredients. Many dairy foods come from cattle or goats which are fed corn, soy, or grains. These feeds make dairy products unhealthy to consume. Make certain your dairy products come from pasture-raised, grass-fed animals.

Many dairy products are also non-fat or low-fat, reducing the healthful properties of raw dairy products produced in clean environments. For many years, misinformation has been given to the public by health experts about the importance of eating low-fat and non-fat dairy products -- touting them as health foods when they are not. For more information, visit the Weston A. Price Foundation, a respected, non-profit group promoting health through whole foods.

Grains. These foods are some of the most notorious for having labels which read "whole grains", when in reality, most of them are not whole at all. You have only to read the label to uncover the fact that most "whole grain" foods are not whole because the main ingredient is some type of flour, which goes rancid quickly after grinding. There are almost always other ingredients in these products as well, from sugars to emulsifiers and other chemicals you cannot pronounce to bind the product together. Many of these products also contain soy or corn, and sometimes roasted nuts (also not a whole food). The way to know if a grain is whole or not is to read the label. Simply put -- if the product contains flour, it is not a whole grain. Sprouted, whole grains are healthiest - and consumed in moderation. Good choices are Ezekiel breads (sprouted whole grain varieties), and organic grains from the bulk section that are whole and not ground up.

Canned and packaged vegetables and fruits. Some of the best examples of processed foods can be found in canned and packaged produce. Most canned produce contains at least some sodium. Others contain chemical preservatives to keep the product fresh longer or sugar of one form or another. Canned and packaged fruits and vegetables are never as high in vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients as compared to their fresh or frozen counterparts because many of those have already been cooked.Best bets are organic, local, in-season produce or frozen fresh organic selections.

Nuts. Any nut that has been roasted is not a whole food. Raw nuts with nothing added are whole foods. Roasting alters delicate oils and proteins in nuts, rendering them denatured and are unrecognizable by the body as a whole food. Sprouted, raw nuts are a good choice too.

Meats, fish, and poultry. These are by far one of the most confusing foods to determine whether they are whole or not. When you pay a visit to your local grocery store and go to the meat counter, you may believe that all meats available in fact whole foods. The problem lies with how the animals are raised before they are slaughtered. As with dairy products, animals that are fed soy, corn, or grains, and then slaughtered for food are unhealthy to consume. Cattle and other animals have stomachs that are designed to digest grasses - not other feeds like grains and soy. Because these animals have a difficult time digesting these feeds, they become sick and farmers administer antibiotics. Many of these same animals are also administered steroids and hormones to speed up the growth process - leading to faster turnover in farm production and profits. These meats are not good for your health to consume. Look for organic, sustainable meats that are grass-fed and pasture-raised.

Fish selections should be in keeping with safe fish choices and generally not from farmed sources. Visit the Monterey Aquarium site for more information on safe seafoods.

Oils. Safe and healthy oils are those that are the least processed - extra virgin olive and coconut oils, flaxseed oil, and grapeseed oils that are cold pressed in dark bottles and have not been sitting on the shelf more than a couple of weeks. Any packaged product containing an oil should be suspect because you cannot determine what type of oil is used with ease and how long it has been sitting around. Unhealthy oils include most vegetable oils, and in particular, soy, cottonseed, and canola oils. These are not whole foods as they have been highly processed from their original sources (canola oil comes from the rapeseed plant) - and are considered industrial grade products.

Fruit and vegetable juices (and juice products such as supplements and pills). Most juices have been pasteurized and filtered, thus eliminating nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. What remains is liquid sugar in most cases. Pills and supplements simply cannot contain all you need for health, as well as valuable nutrients are effectively dead by the time you consume them in those forms. You are better off eating the raw fruits or vegetables. Except in rare cases, despite what many labels claim, you cannot get your daily nutrients from drinking bottles of juice and fruit and vegetable "pills". Making your own juices at home and including a variety of fruits and vegetables is the best way to benefit from drinking juice. Avoid high glycemic vegetables such as carrots and include as many greens as possible. Visit Dr. Mercola's web site for information on the proper ways to juice.

Happy Holidays from Agriculture Society

2008-12-23T07:39:00.000-08:00

Wishing you the best this 2008 season with whatever tradition or holiday you celebrate. Spend time with your loved ones and take care of your health. Be sure to limit refined sugars and carbohydrates and eat plenty of whole foods. Be mindful of the environment and how much you consume. The emphasis should be on loving and spending time with those you care about, not purchasing. Challenge yourself to spend less money this season and eat better foods than you have in the past. Find ways to make your loved ones happy with good meals and homemade gifts.

Agriculture Society Tip of the Day will resume sometime during the new year. Peace and love to everyone, and happy holidays!

Vitamin D for Heart Health

2008-12-19T08:45:00.000-08:00

Did you know Vitamin D is critical for heart health as well as cancer prevention? According to The Journal of The American College of Cardiology, Vitamin D deficiencies are prevalent amongst 30 - 50 percent of the population. Lack of adequate Vitamin D levels can increase your risk of stroke and heart attack. The most common source for Vitamin D is through daily sun exposure.

"There are a whole array of studies linking increased cardiovascular risk with Vitamin D deficiency," noted Dr. James H. O'Keefe, director of preventive cardiology at the Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City. "It is associated with major risk factors such as high blood pressure, diabetes and stiffening of the left ventricle of the heart and blood vessels. Inflammation is really important for heart disease, and people with vitamin D deficiency have increased inflammation."

Experts estimate that up to half of adults and 30 percent of children and teenagers in the United States are vitamin D-deficient. There is a wide array of studies linking increased cardiovascular risk with vitamin D deficiency.

The results from long-running Framingham Heart Study reveal that a person with Vitamin D levels lower than 15 nanograms per millileter of blood is twice as likely to experience heart failure, stroke, or other cardiovascular disorder within two years as compared to those who have higher levels.

The most common source for Vitamin D is through daily sun exposure. Also, fish such as salmon and deep sea-sourced fish are good natural sources. Mainstream dairy (pasteurized) is not a good source for Vitamin D because the Vitamin D in dairy products is synthetically produced and added into the product. The human body has great difficulty absorbing these types of nutrients. Even though raw milk is a great food for human health, Vitamin D does not naturally occur in it.

Good quality supplements are widely available through a qualified health care practitioner or health food stores. Consulting with a professional about which type is right for you will bring maximum health benefit. Although current recommended daily intake of Vitamin D intake is only 200 international units a day up to age 50, 400 units for ages 50 to 70, and 600 units a day over the age of 70, recent studies and evidence suggest that many people need nearly three times those amounts to make up for deficiencies - to be taken over a period of time and then tested to make certain levels rise to where they should be. This is especially true for people living in colder climates during winter months when sun exposure is less.

Cancer Prevention...As Easy as Vitamin D?

2008-12-16T08:52:00.000-08:00

What are you doing to effectively prevent cancer? A new study has emerged from Creighton University School of Medicine in Nebraska delivering proof that a clear link exists between Vitamin D supplementation and reducing different types of cancer such as colon, breast, and skin (as well as others). Supplementing your diet with Vitamin D alone can reduce the risk of developing cancer by as much as 77 percent. With all the research and funding spent on cancer research over the last 50 years, this should be very exciting news to anyone who has been touched by cancer. The findings of this research reveal how the benefits of this essential nutrient exceed the effectiveness of cancer drugs used by modern medicine.

In their study, scientists conducted testing on 1,179 post-menopausal women aged 55 and older. The first group were administered 1400-1500 mg daily of calcium and 1100 IU of Vitamin D. The second group was given a placebo. After four years had passed, those who had consistently taken calcium and vitamin D supplements showed a 60 percent decrease in cancers. This amount is nearly three times the recommended daily allowance by the USDA.

“Vitamin D is a critical tool in fighting cancer as well as many other diseases,” stated principal investigator Joan Lappe, Ph.D., R.N., Creighton professor of medicine and holder of the Criss/Beirne Endowed Chair in the School of Nursing.

During sunlight exposure, humans manufacture Vitamin D3. You only need about 10-15 minutes of daily sun exposure (for instance, on a hot summer day) to create Vitamin D3. Because overexposure can also cause skin cancer, using caution about being in the sun too long is recommended. Sunscreens block the absorption of Vitamin D, so you should use only safe sunscreens and only after you have been in the sun longer than necessary to absorb the needed Vitamin D. Over the last 30 years, the public has been told by health experts to avoid sun exposure and use sunscreen. But in light of studies such as the one above, experts are now beginning to connect the avoidance of sun and use of sunscreen as having a negative effective on people's ability to avoid development of diseases like cancer.

Edward Giovannucci, M.D., Sc.D., of the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, wrote in a medical editorial: “Research on vitamin D should be continued to clearly elucidate the specific benefits and optimal intakes and levels of Vitamin D,” Dr. Giovannucci wrote further: “Nonetheless, based on the total body of evidence of health conditions associated with vitamin D deficiency, abetted with the results from this meta-analysis, a more proactive attitude to identify, prevent and treat vitamin D deficiency should be part of standard medical care." He also asserts,“from a broader public health perspective, the roles of moderate sun exposure, food fortification, with vitamin D and higher-dose vitamin D supplements for adults need to be debated.”

Here are the current recommendations for daily intake of Vitamin D:

200 IU/d, birth-age 50
400 IU/d, 50-70 years
600 IU/d, 70 years and older

Based on these findings, intake of Vitamin D could safely exceed these amounts and be beneficial to health in warding off the development of chronic and fatal illness.

If you are diagnosed with cancer, before deciding to take pharmaceutical drugs such as chemotherapy and radiation, consider consulting with a health care practitioner who will support your interest in treating health problems naturally. Many practitioners overlook the nutritional component of health and its effects on our health.

If you have not been diagnosed with cancer, now is the time to make lifestyle changes that will prevent such illnesses from developing such as the following:

eliminate all processed foods
increase intake of raw foods and organic produce (5 -7 servings daily)
proper whole-foods based, organic nutrient supplementation (consult with a knowledgeable practitioner for guidance)
obtain daily sun exposure
obtain regular, moderate exercise (3- 4 times per week for a half an hour or more)
obtain adequate rest and stress relief
eat healthy fats such as grass-fed organic meats, raw dairy, nuts and seeds, and healthy oils such as olive oil, coconut, and grapeseed oil
cut back on grains, which contribute to inflammation and disease
eliminate refined sugars and alcoholic beverages
drink plenty of filtered water
take probiotics (daily intake should be at least 10 billion or more)
take fiber - find a good, natural, organic brand and avoid grocery store brands such as metamucil
make certain your calcium supplements are from calcium malate, aspartate, gluconate, or citrate (not calcium carbonate which is derived from limestone and is not absorbed by the body adequately)
take essential fatty acid supplementation such as Nordic Naturals, Sonnes, or SIBU

Healthy Tips

2008-12-16T08:15:00.001-08:00

Looking for ways to save your health, the environment, and money? Here are a few suggestions you can use during the holiday season:

Even in cold weather, getting outside is good for your health and should be preferred over going to a health club for exercise. Bundle up and get moving! Even though gas prices are currently down, avoid driving unless absolutely necessary. Walk, ride your bike, ride your horse, carpool, ride your skateboard, or take the bus. When you do drive, try to accomplish multiple tasks that are in the same general location at once instead of making multiple trips throughout any given day or a week. Visit The Alliance to Save Energy site for more gas and energy saving tips related to your vehicle.
Do not allow your engine to idle. In cold seasons, people tend to sit and wait with their engines running. This pollutes the air for people passing by all around you. Be especially aware if bus or truck drivers are idling in areas where people linger or loiter - such as at bus stops, schools, or city centers. Ask drivers to turn off their engines. Visit the Clean Bus USA Campaign page on the EPA site.
Buy energy efficient lightbulbs and/or fixtures, or change your current to a more energy efficient variety. Look for the Energy Star label. Visit the Energy Star site for more information.
Load up all your used or old electronic devices such as cell phones, video game players, or computers and take them to a recycle center. Doing this will eliminate more cadmium, lead, and other hazardous substances from being placed in landfills. Visit the eCycle page on the EPA site.
Consider changing where your electricity is generated from standard to solar, wind, or other viable types. Visit Home Power for more information.
If you are building a new home or renovating, use materials and designs that are environmentally-sound. Visit the Green Building page on the EPA site.
Purchase less during the holidays or do your shopping online (and try to do online shopping sparingly to save on shipping for financial and environmental savings as well). Make gifts out of things you have at home - be creative.
Recycle bags and paper for gift-giving wrap and presentation.
Invite friends or family over for home gatherings instead of opting for expensive nights out. Encourage everyone attending to make something from home and bring a dish to share.
Trade decorations and lights with friends and family instead of making a trip to the store and wasting gas and spending more money on new items.

Maintaining Healthy Weight

2008-12-15T08:22:00.000-08:00

Do you struggle to lose weight? Do you have trouble gaining weight? Both of these problems are actually related to one another, as they can be a sign of toxicity in the body and an inability of the digestive tract to properly absorb the food you eat. Inability to absorb nutrients from food is actually caused by poor diet. When you eat processed foods, over time your digestive tract becomes irritated and those chemicals in the foods you eat begin to penetrate the lining of your intestines, causing inflammation, weight gain (or inability to maintain proper weight), and disease.

Many people undergo fad diets and plans to lose weight, only to fail and gain the weight back. Most diets promise that you will be able to lose weight and aren't able to deliver. Why? Because most diets work from the premise that you'll have to avoid certain foods that are high in saturated fats, cholesterol, and calories. Whether you are overweight or not, your body needs saturated fats, cholesterol, and calories to obtain enough fuel and nutrients. If you are counting calories, you can count on still being overweight. The key is what types of foods you are eating which contain cholesterol and saturated fats. These ingredients are not the same in all foods. If you are eating whole foods, these substances are not only safe to eat but are necessary to health.

When you eat unhealthy foods, the calories are irrelevant because most, if not all of those calories, are unhealthy. A diet soda is no healthier than a regular soda because it contains less or no calories. Sodas -- diet in particular -- are full of chemicals your body doesn't recognize. You are better off to discontinue drinking sodas (and juice) altogether.

When you eat healthy foods, those calories are all healthy to consume because they come from nature and give your body everything it needs to absorb and utilize nutrients for health. When doctors tell you to avoid red meat, they are saying this because the typical red meat most people consume is from factory farms - laden with chemicals, antibiotics, hormones, and the animals whose meat you are eating have been fed the wrong types of food - corn, soy, and grain (much of it genetically modified and herbicide resistant). Cattle are meant to consume grass as they are ruminants - an animal equipped with a stomach specifically designed to digest grasses. When ruminants are fed other types of feed such as grain, soy, and corn, they become ill and farmers administer antibiotics. Farmers in factory farm environments are also concerned with profit and give their animals growth hormones and stabilizers -- all of this translates into unhealthy meat that causes many health problems - including heart disease, cancer, and Diabetes. Factory farm meat is obese meat. Grass-fed meat contains the correct ratios of healthy nutrients - low calorie, high protein, and with higher levels of Omega 3s (CLA or conjugated linoleic acid). These factors have been found to have favorable effects on health such as helping to maintain proper weight and correct cholesterol levels.

Overweight individuals usually have detoxification issues and digestive disorders. If you have eaten poorly throughout your life, chances are you will have both. Digestive issues are caused by poor eating, leading to the storing of toxins which causes weight gain. When you get control of your toxification issues, you will then be able to lose pounds and arrive at the appropriate weight for your body size and type. Any diet which encourages an individual to lose more than two or three pounds a month and recommends eating less calories and low-fat foods should raise a red flag. Overweight does not mean starvation nor elimination of important, nutrient-dense foods - but that's exactly what many diets propose for the person trying to lose weight. An alteration in the way you eat should not be a diet but a lifestyle change. Until you understand this difference, you will likely continue to have weight issues.

If you are underweight, what you eat is still of crucial importance. Some people believe that if they are thin, they can eat poorly and it won't matter because eating that way won't cause weight gain. Even if you are fortunate enough that you don't easily gain weight, you can still damage your health from maintaining such a philosophy. Don't eat junk food to gain weight; if you truly need to gain some pounds, make your diet as healthy as possible. Eat plenty of organic fruits and vegetables, grass-fed, organic meats (both domestic and wild), safe fish, moderate amounts of sprouted, whole grains (avoid products made of flour), raw nuts and seeds, healthy oils such as grapeseed, coconut, and olive oil, raw, organic dairy products, and moderate amounts of legumes and rice.

Exercise, proper sleep, and stress reduction is also critical in the overall picture of health and maintaining proper weight. Employ a moderate exercise program that you engage in at least three times per week and is appropriate for your age and fitness level. If you are in doubt, consult with your health care practitioner or a personal trainer. Getting at least 7 hours of sleep per night is important, and making sure you retire by 10 p.m. is also critical toward helping maintain proper weight. Excessive, unaddressed stress, anxiety, or depression can also cause an individual to harbor excess weight or cause the inability to gain weight. If you need stress reduction, consider yoga, pilates, prayer, meditation, or counseling which focuses on varying forms of cognitive therapy (as opposed to pharmaceutical intervention which can often make problems worse or only be a band-aid).

If you are unable to lose or gain weight after eating a truly healthy diet, you may need to address toxification and digestive issues. In many cases, these problems can be easily solved naturally without drugs or surgery. Consult with a knowledgeable health care practitioner about the correct type of detox and/or digestive remedy for your individual needs. Good individuals to inquire with include a naturopathic doctor, a certified nutritional therapist, a chiropractor, or a nutritional counselor who can refer you to another qualified professional.

Let's do a comparison of several different types of foods. You decide which are healthier to eat:

Packaged bread or grain product or real, whole, sprouted grains that have been soaked
Pasteurized, homogenized, 2 percent milk or whole, raw milk
Lean, "low-fat" ground turkey which has been fed grains, corn and soy (possibly with growth hormones and antibiotics ) or natural, organic grass-fed ground beef with no chemicals, growth hormones, or antibiotics
Tofu or pasture-raised, natural eggs (no antibiotics, chemicals)
Conventional produce or organic produce

In all cases, any foods which are processed and contain chemicals will contribute to weight issues and health disorders. Natural, healthy foods with saturated fats and cholesterol are necessary for health. Proper cholesterol cannot be maintained without these foods, and weight trouble and health issues will arise from eating processed low-fat foods such as soy, dairy, and meats which are "engineered" by technology through administration of chemicals/hormones/antibiotics and the feeding of unnatural types of feeds such as soy, grains, and corn. These foods are eaten by a majority of people, as these choices represent the bulk of what is available on the mainstream food market and are recommended by many health professionals to be consumed. This is the reason why America has such an obesity and health epidemic. When we can finally make the distinction between real, whole foods for tools of healing and health, our chronic diseases and illnesses will finally be an exception rather than a rule.

Calcium and Your Health

2008-12-11T11:54:00.000-08:00

Are you getting enough calcium in your diet? Here are some ideas that might surprise you about this important mineral:

The best sources for calcium are as follows:

Leafy green vegetables like broccoli
Other greens such as spinach, collard, bok choy, and kale
Salmon
Almonds
Raw, organic, unpasteurized dairy - milk, cream, kefir, cheese, and butter

The following are not good sources for calcium:

Fortified drinks like orange juice, soy, rice, or nut milks
Pasteurized dairy products - consumption of these foods can actually lead to leeching of minerals from the bone since they have been heated up and denatured, causing malabsorbtion of minerals and vitamins. The naturally occurring fats, proteins, and enzymes present in clean, organically produced raw dairy are needed to absorb vital nutrients and for good nutrition. If you've ever experienced symptoms of lactose intolerance, this may be the reason why. Basically, pasteurized milk has been heated up which effectively kills friendly bacteria and nutrients. Then synthetic minerals and vitamins are added back in. Try raw milk and visit Organic Pastures for more information.
Other fortified "foods" such as many health bars, cereals, and other grain products.

If you are not receiving adequate calcium in your diet, a good supplement that is organically produced and whole-foods based should be a starting point. There are some good calcium supplements on the market which can be chosen if calcium intake is still not optimal. Cal-Mag-Fizz is a good product containing other minerals and viamins to help with absorption, baking soda, stevia for sweetness, fructose, and citric acid. Another good brand is Solaray. If you are looking for a calcium supplement, make certain yours does not contain calcium carbonate, as this type of calcium comes from limestone and the body is largely unable to absorb it. Good calciums to include in your supplement are citrate, lactate, hyrdoxide, and glycerophosphate.

According to Calcium Information (.com), here are the guidelines for calcium consumption by age:

Age / Calcium (mg/day)
0 to 6 months: 210
7 to 12 months: 270
1 to 3 years: 500
4 to 8 years: 800
9 to 13 years: 1300
14 to 18 years: 1000
19 to 50 years: 1000
51+ years: 1200
50+ women: 1500

How Effective is The Flu Vaccine?

2008-12-10T08:23:00.000-08:00

During cold and flu season, do you normally receive a flu vaccine? If so, here is some important information to know about this vaccine:

No proof exists that the flu vaccine works.

When your doctor gives you a flu shot, the vaccine only protects you from contracting strains of flu viruses that are active nine months prior to the beginning of the current flu season. That's when scientists collect circulating flu viruses to create the vaccine. As viruses continue to mutate, new strains are always appearing. Getting the flu vaccine does not automatically guarantee you will stay healthy. In fact, receiving the vaccine is a good way to cause weakening in your immune system.

A person who has received the flu shot may also contract the flu virus from the vaccine itself.

Flu vaccines are created from real flu viruses. Scientists grow viruses in chicken eggs and then destroy them with a chemical. The idea is to make the virus inactive, but, possible side effects from the vaccine include headaches, fever, fatigue, and sore muscles. Those are flu symptoms. As reported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, these symptoms most often occur in children or in those with weakened immune systems (such as the elderly), the segment of our population who are told to receive the vaccine!

The flu vaccine contains thimerosal -- a preservative that is toxic to the body.

Thimerosal is a preservative that contains mercury (a toxic chemical). Studies have shown that mercury is toxic to the nervous system. Scientists are also finding more and more evidence that the use of thimerosal in medications and vaccines is connected to the rise of autism in children. Despite the fact that in 1999 the U.S. federal government recommended the elimination of thimerosal from vaccines, this toxic chemical is still an ingredient found in most vaccines -- including all flu shots.

Even in light of this disturbing evidence, medical communities and professionals continue to urge individuals over age 50, parents with infants, pregnant women, and those with lowered immune system function and chronic health issues to rush out and receive the flu vaccine. The historical past has shown us that indeed the flu is a serious illness that should be cared for properly, but it is time we began to acknowledge safer methods of dealing with this seasonal illness. For an article on tips for staying healthy during cold and flu season, visit Agriculture Society.

For information about a homeopathic treatment of the flu that works, visit Homeopathic Educational Services.

Easy Lymphatic Cleanse

2008-12-09T08:47:00.000-08:00

Is your lymphatic system working correctly? The lymphatic system in your body, one of the seven channels of elimination, is a delicate system that can become bogged down by toxins from your environment and the things you eat such as processed foods. Like digestion, your lymphatic system can help clear out toxins that can cause disease such as cancer, so you want to make sure to keep it running as smoothly as possible.

From The Fat Flush Plan by Ann Louise Gittleman and Barry Sears, try the following protocol:

Cranberry water mixture:

Daily intake:
8 glasses daily

Purpose:
Drinking cranberry water eliminates water retention, removes accumulated toxins from the lymphatic system and helps to reduce cellulite.

Preparation:
Use Woodstock Farms organic unsweetened cranberry juice, Mountain Sun's, Woodstock Farms, Trader Joe's, or Knudsen's. Obtain two empty 32-ounce bottles. Fill each bottle with 4 ounces of cranberry juice and 28 ounces of filtered water. Alternatively, you can purchase Knudsen's or Tree of Life cranberry concentrate and add 1 1/2 tablespoons to each 32-ounce water bottle. It is important to use only unsweetened cranberry juice as some brands add corn syrup or aspartame. Drink these mixtures throughout the day, each and every day.

During and after cleansing, be sure to continue eating a healthy diet replete with fresh fruits and vegetables, grass-fed organic meats, raw, organic dairy, raw nuts and seeds, healthy oils such as olive, coconut, and grapeseed. Elimination of procesed foods, refined sugars, and foods with additives, chemicals, hormones, steroids, and antibiotics is a must to support any detoxification or cleansing activity and a healthy body. Also be sure to get plenty of moderate exercise, rest, and stress relief.

Are Vegetable Oils Healthy?

2008-12-08T16:13:00.000-08:00

Do you eat vegetable oil on food? Vegetable oils include the following:

canola oil (also known as rapeseed oil from rapeseed)
soybean oil
cottonseed oil
corn oil
peanut
sunflower
safflower

These polyunsaturated fats, heralded by the health community at large, are found in many processed foods such as salad dressings, breads, crackers, bagels, desserts, baked goods, cakes, and are also used in a majority of cooking in restaurants, and other public and private kitchens such as a majority of people's homes. How can these oils be so unhealthy?

Beware! Many "health experts", doctors, dieticians, and other individuals in health communities will tell you these oils are healthy to consume. But actually, they are some of the main culprits of degenerative disease plaguing people in the United States. Ray Peat, Ph.D in physiology who has studied hormones and dietary fats since 1986 reports that these oils are unhealthy to consume. "Polyunsaturated fatty acids, PUFAs -- those contained in the above mentioned oils, "are the bane of human health - they actually cause cancer, diabetes, obesity, aging, thrombosis, arthritis, and immunodeficiencies. Their only appropriate uses are as ingredients in paints and varnishes. As soon as a polyunsaturated vegetable oil enters the body, it is exposed to temperatures high enough to cause its toxic decomposition -- especially when combined with a continuous supply of oxygen and catalysts such as iron."

So which oils are healthy to consume? Olive oil (extra virgin, cold pressed), grapeseed oil, coconut oil (pure virgin), and flax oil only if raw. Olive oil should only be heated on low heat on the stove or oven as its composition is delicate and it has a low-smoke point. Grapeseed oil and coconut oil are wonderfully healthy and are higher-smoke point oils that can be used in higher heat for cooking without going rancid. Real butter from a reliable, organic source (raw is a plus) is also a healthy fat that can be used for cooking or used on whole-grain, sprouted breads.

For an in-depth discussion about healthy oils, visit Dr. Mercola.

Are You SAD?

2008-12-03T08:40:00.000-08:00

Do you suffer from depression in the fall and winter months? Millions of people do, and end up at the doctor's office for pharmaceutical intervention. SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder is common during parts of the year when there are less sunny days. Instead of taking pills, try the following:

Get outside for at least 20 minutes each day and go for a walk. Even if the sky is overcast, you are still getting important rays that penetrate the clouds and the ever-important Vitamin D - essential to health and well-being.
Natural Light Therapy, another option, is a treatment that uses artificial light to alter your circadian rhythms and suppresses the natural release of melatonin in the body. This affects biochemical changes in the brain which help reduce or control symptoms of seasonal affective disorder and other conditions. Light therapy is also known as bright light therapy or phototherapy.\
Be sure to continue eating a healthy diet, replete with organic, fresh vegetables and fruits, raw foods (including nuts and dairy from grass-fed cows), grass-fed meats, healthy oils such as grapeseed, olive, and coconut, and plenty of filtered water. Continue taking supplements or add to your regimen organic, whole-foods based products including multi-vitamins, essential fatty acids, fiber, and probiotics.
If you are still experiencing SAD symptoms, consider seeing a therapist who uses cognitive therapy instead of drugs. Sometimes, a change in your mental outlook is all you need. Other options include a visit to a qualified alternative health care practitioner such as an acupuncturist/Chinese herbal doctor, naturopath, or chiropractor. Massage therapy, reflexology, pilates, or yoga are also helpful.

For more information about Vitamin D and how much you should take, visit Dr. Mercola.

Prevention Foods

2008-12-02T08:30:00.000-08:00

Are you eating enough prevention foods? Here are some fruits and vegetables you may be lacking in. Consider adding the following to your daily diet:

Red: tomatoes, watermelon, and pink grapefruits. These fruits contain lycopene which supports prostate health and prevents heart and lung disease.
Yellow/Green: spinach, yellow corn, collard greens, avocado, peas, and honeydew melon. These contain zeaxanthin and lutein which supports vision and eye function.
Orange/Yellow: Pumpkin, sweet potatoes, acorn squash, carrots, apricots, and cantaloupes. Contain betacarotene and antioxidants which help prevent cancer. Also, oranges, nectarines, peaches which contain cryptothanxin for heart function support.
Green: Broccoli, kale, brussel sprouts, and cabbage. Contain isothiocyanates, sulforaphanes, and indoles which are known to affect enzymes and disintegrate carcinogens.
Green/White: garlic, celery, onions, chives, white wine, and pears. These foods have allicin and flavonoids, which have been observed to deter tumor growth.

The Truth About ADHD, ADD, and Hyperactivity

2008-12-01T09:41:00.000-08:00

Have you or has your child been diagnosed with ADHD or ADD? If so, prescription medications may have been prescribed to reduce symptoms for this disorder. There are other options available, as well as causes for ADHD and ADD which may not have been addressed by your health care practitioner. Children who have these disorders are often labeled as "problem" or difficult children with behavior problems. Many children with these issues become left behind in school and may be singled out frequently as disrupting classroom activities.

Medications prescribed to help children with attention deficit disorders do not solve the real cause of the disorder, but holistic health care practitioners such as chiropractors and naturopaths use alternative methods to deal with children or adults who exhibit symptoms of ADHD, ADD, and related problems. We are just now beginning to understand the connection between the foods we eat and the toxins in our environment on our health. Holistic practitioners help patients look for causes and eliminate those culprits in order to set health back on track. Some simple changes can be made which show dramatic improvement in symptoms of ADHD, patience and attention issues, and hyperactivity.

Chiropractic neurologists have seen success in treating ADHD and learning disabilities with proper brain stimulation techniques. The other important change recommended includes alterations in nutrition and lifestyle that can have a noticeable affect on or prevention of biochemical imbalances responsible for ADHD or ADD symptoms. If you are a parent with a child that has ADHD or a similar syndrome, consider the following:

Eliminate processed foods from your child's diet as they often contain refined sugars, dyes, preservatives, and chemicals which contribute to behavior issues.
Purchase organic foods whenever possible and look for foods with with as few pesticides, herbicides, hormones, antibiotics, and chemicals as possible.
Determine if there is an allergy—usually starting with dairy and gluten and try elimination diets.
As much as possible, eliminate chemicals in your home - plastics, sprays, air fresheners, antibacteria soaps, petroleum-based cleaners and detergents such as dish soaps and laundry detergents, pesticide sprays.
Avoid medications -- prescription and over-the-counter, nicotine, alcohol, and other drugs in pregnancy that may harm the fetus.
During pregnancy, seek regular relaxation activities. Job-related and personal stress may affect the health of your unborn baby's health adversely.
Avoid feeding your baby formula and breastfeed. During the first months and years of a child's life development of the body and brain are at a critical point. Pay close attention to your diet if you are breastfeeding and focus on non-processed foods with whole, organic dairy products, grass-fed meats, raw nuts, organic produce, and few refined grains.
Make certain your child receives adequate doses of essential fatty acids in his or her diet daily. This includes Omega 3's found in foods such as fish or good quality fish oils, organic grass-fed meats and organic butter, and Omega 6's found in cococut, olive, and grapeseed oils.

Chiropractic neurologists are in process of compiling data about comparing chiropractic neurological versus pharmaceutical treatments for ADD and ADHD. "We test children before they start the treatment and then every three months," says Dr. Melillo. "Within the first three months, the children get a two-grade-level increase on average—which is pretty dramatic. With children on medications, the improvement in academic performance is short term and lasts only as long as they take the medication. Our programs change the brain function and the improvement doesn't go away."

For more information, visit The American Chiropractic Association web site.

For an informative article about ADD & ADHD, visit Agriculture Society.

How Much Salt Should You Consume?

2008-11-20T08:33:00.000-08:00

Do you think about how much salt you consume? According to Harvard Medical School, if you are under age 50, your blood pressure is in a healthy range, and your health is good, you probably have little reason to worry about salt intake. A lower-sodium diet is good for people who are older, who are of African American descent, or who have high blood pressure or Diabetes. These individuals should limit their sodium intake to no more than 2,300–2,400 mg a day. People with heart failure or kidney disease are advised to keep their sodium intake under 2,000 mg a day.

Keep the following in mind for healthy consumption of salt:

Watch processed and packaged foods. These varieties contain much more salt than what you would use if you were preparing something from scratch. That includes any type of food you purchase in a package other than raw meats, fresh fruits and vegetables, raw nuts, dried rice/beans/legumes, raw grains, spices, and other similar items.
Anything that comes in a can, jar, package, or box is subject to having salt added to it. Watch everything from canned soups and broths to boxed cereals, crackers, breads, and packaged meats (hot dogs, lunch meats, bacon), cheeses, sour cream, pickles, prepared drinks, etc. Even frozen and canned fruits and vegetables that claim on the package to be "natural" or organic have often had sodium added. You are better off eating fresh, but if you are purchasing frozen or canned fruits or vegetables, look for those that are organic and have the words "no salt added" and are as natural as possible. Above all, read labels! The type of sodium added to most processed foods is usually the cheapest, most processed variety as well, so use care and avoid these as much as you are able.
When you are purchasing salt to add to foods, be certain to look for a good mineral salt that has been refined as little as possible. Some crucial elements missing from modern diets are trace nutrient and minerals that come from untampered foods from nature, and salt. These trace minerals and nutrients are vital to health.
Always be certain to add the correct amount of salt for a recipe. If you are guessing, add a little and then taste. You can always add more salt if necessary, but once you put salt in, you cannot take it out.

Embrace and Perfect Your Homekeeping Skills

2008-11-19T09:31:00.001-08:00

People underestimate the power and importance of good home-keeping. Home-keeping is an amazing lost art that can save a great deal of time and money, and should be viewed as an excellent way to preserve the environment and health as well. Key factors in smart home-keeping include using minimal resources, healthy foods and ingredients, finding ways to shorten your time in doing various activities and tasks, and learning about how to do things in a more economically and health-friendly way. Here are some tips for smart home-keeping:

Unless it is a special occasion, do most of your eating from home. An occasion can also be made more special if you prepare a home-cooked meal. You will save money and over time you will develop ways to make groceries last longer than you thought you could.
Resist the urge to purchase packaged, processed foods. Not only are these foods more expensive, they are never as healthy as those made at home, and usually involve some type of packaging that will pollute the environment. As much as possible, buy local and organic foods.
Instead of purchasing packaged items for the home, think of ways to save money by creating or making them yourself. Home-made cleaners and solutions for just about any type of preparation for sanitation are right in your cupboard - vinegar, baking soda, apple cider vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, lemon juice, borax, rubbing alcohol, and essential oils can do the job economically and without toxic side effects. Visit The Family Homestead for ideas on how to make your own cleaners.
Discard your modernistic views of getting tasks done. Stop using a microwave and start using your stove and oven. Your food will be healthier -- microwaving effectively removes nutrients from your food and should be considered a dangerous method to cook. Microwaves have also been determined to expose us to radiation and electromagnetic waves that can cause cancer. Whenever possible, don't use your dryer - let your clothes dry naturally. And, don't ever use dryer sheets. They are full of toxic chemicals that can absorb into your skin from your clothing. Always trust your "mothers intuition" about things that seem like they may not be healthy - if you have a doubt, you are probably correct.
If you choose to become a stay-at-home-keeper, don't allow what others who may be working full-time are doing to otherwise influence your choice. Many people who stay at home are busier than those who work out of the home. This is one of the most important jobs you will ever undertake, so march forward and don't feel guilty about taking it seriously!
Learn to partner with other individuals who share your zest for home-prepared foods and other items such as homemade soaps, candles, cleaning solutions, gardening, knitting, crotcheing, canning & jarring foods, sewing, jewelry-making, wood-working, furniture-building, and raising animals for food and other necessity items (such as for clothing, etc.). You may even consider a cooking co-op where you agree with others, perhaps in your own neighborhood, on a schedule of preparing foods where each family only cooks once or twice a week.
Think creatively about preparing a variety of meals at home for your family. Use the Internet for recipe ideas as they are free and vast. Borrow cookbooks from friends or check-out from the library. If you find that you have a hard time sticking to recipes, experiment with your own whims and tastes. Often something really spectacular can come from a crazy idea.
Prepare everything you can from scratch. You may be wondering, "where will I ever find the time??" If you re-prioritize your life a bit and make time to prepare home-cooked foods, cleaners, clothing, and other home items, you will find a quiet satisfaction as well as enjoy better health from your efforts. You will start to realize that you can do more from scratch if you just allow yourself the extra moments needed, and your life will start to order itself around these important tasks instead of you ordering yourself around a great deal of other activities that may not be as critical. When you start to slow down, prepare things, and savor the very act of doing these things for your family, you should eventually notice the peace you will feel, improved health, and satisfaction of having put in an afternoon's or mornings time on such fulfilling work.
Work on reusing, saving, recycling, and rethinking everything you do to save money, time, and the environment. Use glass containers you get from foods purchased at the store. Eliminate plastic from your house as much as you can and replace with reusable containers made of wood, metal, glass, ceramic, and enamel. If you must use plastic, recycle. Recycle glass, paper, and other items whenever possible.
Make at least one meal a day a sit-down occasion at the table with others where no other interruptions prevail. This should be a focused, relaxed time to enjoy healthy food that will nourish your body and join with family or friends, be social, and catch up. Turn off the television and put on some music that will get you in the mood, but will not distract from the task at hand - eating your meal in peace and being able to connect with important people in your life.
Don't panic if you cannot get everything done in a day; rarely anyone can. The beauty of the home is that it will always be there tomorrow. And unlike a thankless job you have to go to five days a week, you probably won't have a nasty boss breathing down your neck telling you that you may not go home until you have cleaned the toilets. If you have family members breathing down your neck about such items, it's time to sit down and have a talk about all that is involved in maintaining a house and/or caring for children or other family members.
Spend time teaching home-keeping with your family members -- in particular, your children. Getting tasks accomplished for the common good allows you to spend time together and bond over something everyone in your house cares about. Teach children to help with laundry, dishes, taking out the garbage, mowing the lawn, vacuuming, dusting, baking, tidying up their own rooms and personal items, and cooking meals. Play music, laugh, and have fun while you are engaged in these tasks. As Mary Poppins always says, "Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down!"
When your daily tasks are done, instead of going out enjoy a family game or movie night at home. Invite friends or other family over to share your evening. This is a great way to save gas, promote personal relationships, and avoid activities that tend to separate us as human beings such as being on the computer/playing video games/ watching television.