True Health Balance

Chia seeds have been around for centuries. Why is it that they have just been noticed as a super food? Most people know these seeds from the Chia pet. These seeds have a super ability to retain water. Ten times there size in water. For centuries this tiny little seeds were used as a staple food by the Indians of the south west and Mexico. Known as the running food, its use as a high energy endurance food has been recorded as far back as the ancient Aztecs.

Let’s get to the magic of these little seeds. If you take a spoonful of seeds and put them in a glass of water for 30 minutes or so, the glass will contain a solid gelatin. The gel reaction happens because of the soluble fiber in the Chia. The same thing will happen in your stomach. The gel that is formed in the stomach will create a barrier between the carbohydrates and the enzymes that break them down into simple sugars. They make you feel fuller faster because they absorb 10 times there weight in water and form a bulky gel.

Chia Seeds are also a very high source of protein. The possess 19-23% protein. The great thing about the protein it is a whole and complete amino chain. Usually When you eat grains and vegetables, they have to be eaten with a combination with other grains and veggies to achieve the correct balance of Amino acids. Not so with Chia Seeds. The seeds are digested very easy. They are assimilated very quickly by the body and will begin to regenerate muscle tissue.

The Omega 3 content of these seeds is amazing. Just 2 table spoons will give you more Omega 3 fatty acids than a portion of salmon. They also contain Omega 6 at a favorable ratio of 3:1. These oils, unsaturated fatty acids, are the essential oils your body needs to help emulsify and absorb the fat soluble vitamins, A, D, E, & K. This also important to your bodies blood. Fatty acids help to transport oxygen to the cells of your body.

One interesting thing about these seeds is they have no taste and when they are added to foods, they will mimic the taste of that food. Here are a few foods you can add them too:

• Cereal
• Salad
• Muffin, Cookie, & Pancake Recipes
• Soup
• Oatmeal
• Salsa & Dips
• Smoothies

Just a quick breakdown of the advantages of eating these amazing seeds. They are nutritious, energizing, reduce cravings, and easily digestible. Dr. Oz and Dr. Weil have both commented on their tremendous benefit.

Share

Email this to a Friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

This one is for the women out there. Let’s get to the point. Around your period time, a woman’s body becomes very low in magnesium. Other than tasting so good, chocolate is extremely high in magnesium. The problem is, most people eat poor quality chocolate which is very high in oxalic acid. This creates an acidic environment in your blood. After the sugar rush is over. You sort of crash which makes you even more irritable than before.

I have a better solution. Let's replace the chocolate with a few other foods that are high in magnesium. Spinach, swiss chard, salmon, sunflower seeds. There are hundreds of delicious sources: nuts and seeds, especially almonds; wheatgrass and barleygrass and powdered green superfoods; seaweeds like alaria, kombu, wakame, & nori; most beans; corn, rye, and rice -- the list goes on and on.

If you absolutely cannot fight the chocolate craving, I suggest that you get a high quality dark chocolate. Look on the label for at least 70% cocoa dark chocolate. Then, look on the ingredients to make sure the fat used is cocoa butter, which is a neutral fat, not bad or good for your heart.

This is the healthiest bar out there can be found here. One small piece will work. Try to brush your teeth too. Not sure that it works.

VB4MVDFNPHJD

Share

Email this to a Friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

You were told as a child to drink your milk to make sure you have strong healthy bones. Turns out Milk in its natural state only contains about 30-70 IU’s per quart. Let’s do the math. There are 4 cups in a quart. Even at the high end, you are only getting less that 20 IU’s per cup. The food and nutrition board recommends 200-400 IUs per day.  Back in the 1940’s there was a condition called Ricketts. This is a softening of bones in children potentially leading to fractures and deformity.  You can read more about this if you go HERE. The milk producers figured out if they supplement the milk with vitamin D they could reduce the cases of Rickets. Doing so reduced the incidence rate of juvenile rickets by 85% in the United States.

So what is vitamin D?

First of all, it is not actually a vitamin. It is a hormone. A hormone is a chemical messenger that is produced and secreted by specific glands and cells within the body of animals. It is classified as a vitamin for nutritional and public health reasons.  So, Vitamin D is a steroid vitamin, a group of fat soluble prohormones, which encourages the absorption and metabolism of calcium and phosphorous.

Why do we need vitamin D?

Its main function is to maintain blood calcium in a normal range. It does this by telling the intestine to absorb more calcium from the food we eat. If it can’t find calcium in your blood, it will start to leach calcium from your bones. Our country has one of the highest rates of osteoporosis rates in the world. Partly because the US is suffering a extremely high Vitamin deficiency rate. I am not saying that this is the determining factor in osteoporosis. There are other factors including low level of physical activity and smoking. It has also been proven that excess protein is a factor. A normal adult needs about 25 grams of protein daily.  The typical American diet will consume upwards toward 200 grams a day.  Your body cannot use this amount of protein.  Protein is also not stored in the body, so the liver and kidneys have to find calcium and magnesium from the body to neutralize the acid that the protein produces.  What do you think happens when the liver and kidneys can’t find enough calcium in your blood?  They look for alternate sources like your bones and your brain.  There are also multiple studies to support the following needs for vitamin D.  It is also a factor as an immune system regulator.  Although more studies need to be done it also may be important to the immune system against disorders like a common cold, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and depression.  Studies also show a correlation between weight gain and vitamin D deficiency.  Studies are now coming out that are proving very promising that vitamin D fights cancer cells.

How do I get vitamin D?

Vitamin D is known as the sunshine vitamin.  You don’t actually get vitamin D from the sun.  Vitamin D is formed in the skin when ultraviolet light of the correct wavelength, UVB, strikes bare skin. Enormous quantities of cholecalciferol are rapidly made in the skin if the sun is high in the sky (midday and the summer season), your skin is not covered by clothes or sun block, you stay in the sun until your skin just begins to turn pink (not red), you are not behind glass. Glass blocks virtually all UVB, preventing vitamin D from being made.  There are also a few foods that contain vitamin D that I recommend.  One is wild salmon the other is shitake mushrooms.  I also recommend a liquid form of vitamin D.  I used carlson’s D drops.  You can find them here

For the D drops, here are the recommends amounts

WARNING:
There is no way to know if the above recommendations are correct. The ONLY way to know is to test your blood. You might need 4-5 times the amount recommended above. Ideally your blood level of 25 OH D should be 60ng/ml.

How much sun exposure do I need?

I recommend sun exposure to the arms and legs for 10 to 15 minutes.  Unfortunately, in the winter months, the amounts of UVB rays are minimal.  The question arises about tanning beds being a suitable replacement for the sun.  Both the sun and tanning beds emit two types of ultraviolet rays, UVA and UVB.  Most tanning beds will emit UVA rays.  Make sure that the  beds are calibrated for UVB.

If you or anyone you know is pregnant, please make sure you get your Vitamin D levels (25 hydroxy D) regularly checked during pregnancy. Levels need to be above 50 ng/ml to protect you and your baby from some of the most serious complications of pregnancy such as premature delivery and preeclampsia. This is a potentially deadly increase in blood pressure and fluid accompanied during pregnancy. Preeclampsia and related disorders is suspect to cause 76,000 and 500,000 infant deaths every year. These deaths could have been prevented by simply optimizing vitamin D. It is not standard practice to check vitamin D levels during pregnancy. You have to ask your doctor. U.S. researchers Drs. Hollis and Wagner also found that over 87 percent of all newborns and over 67 percent of all mothers had vitamin D levels lower than 20 ng/ml, which is a severe deficiency state.

What about sun Screen?

If you wear a sunscreen with SPF [sun protection factor] 8, it prevents 95 percent of your skin's production of vitamin D. When you get to SPF 30, production is almost zero.

Which is more important for humans, vitamins D₂ or D₃?

Both forms are present in nutritional supplements. It is debated that both forms are equally effective, but I have to go with nature on this one.  D3 is produced in your skin. Make sure it is Cholecalciferol.

The fact that you will get 20,000 IU’s of Vitamin D produced in the skin after just 30 minutes of sun exposure begs for the question , Why did nature develop a system that delivers huge quantities of a steroid precursor after only brief periods of sun exposure? The benefits of vitamin D are just starting to surface in large quantity. I had my kids on vitamin D all winter and they may have had one small cold each.

Share

Email this to a Friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Soon you will be hearing and seeing commercials for you to get the flu shot. I will start off with posing the question… Why do we hear about the flu at this time of the year? What happens to the flu in the summer? Hmmmm. I will answer this question later in this post. First let me give you a bit of information on the flu vaccine.

In general, there are two types of flu vaccines. The first one is a shot of the actual virus that has been inactivated (killed). This is the one that most people receive. Nothing like pumping something that is dead into your blood stream. Yes, I just had to add that.

The second type is a nasal spray. This is a weakened form of influenza. This is the form that most people over 65 will receive. Mostly because your immune system becomes weaker as you age. Pumping the typical virus into someone at this age would cause serious problems.

 Now onto some fun, exciting, discussing facts about the flu vaccination.  What exactly is in this stuff and how is it made?  Because influenza strains change every year, each year’s vaccine differs from the previous one by including one or even two new virus strains.  Influenza vaccinations are prepared in the traditional way. Fertilized chicken eggs that are 11 days old are injected with a small amount of one to three targeted strains of flu virus. Notice I say targeted. Keep in mind. There are hundreds of different types of viral strains. Then you have multiple subtypes.  Vaccine companies must make their orders six months in advance. So basically, they have to guess which strain is going to hit. What makes it worse is this virus survives by mutating into different new strains. What are the chances that they will be correct in their guess? How many of you have gotten a flu shot and ended up getting the flu? Ok, back to the egg. Each targeted flu virus is injected into the albumin (egg white). They seal up the hole and the egg is allowed to spoil for several days. After the virus is allowed to grow in the decayed egg, they harvest the virus. Each egg only will produce 1-2 doses. Let’s do the math shall we? To produce a sufficient supply just for the United States alone, they will use 270 million or more eggs. That is about 4.5 million dollars in revenue for the farmers at $2 a dozen. Wait, we can increase that revenue if we scare the public into a pandemic. Let’s give is a nice commie name. That will really terrify everyone. Oh yes, marketing does work. The entire process, from collecting, injecting and incubating millions of specially produced eggs through the safety tests on the vaccine, takes five to eight months. This means that health officials must decide one year in advance which flu viruses to use in its vaccines and how many batches of vaccine to purchase. This can be a risky business when trying to contain a potential pandemic of a rapidly changing virus such as the “bird flu”.

So, you’re saying to yourself, “That’s not too bad. The farmers are making a living. I can deal with some rotting eggs.”  I have not finished. During the manufacturing process, antibiotics (neomycin, polymyxin B and gentamicin) are added to eliminate stray bacteria. The final solution can contain additives in any combination: Triton X-100 (a detergent); polysorbate 80 (a potential carcinogen); gelatin; formaldehyde; and residual egg proteins. In addition, many of the influenza vaccines still contain thimerosal as a preservative. Thimerosal (mercury) is being investigated for its link to brain injury and autoimmune disease. Wait… formaldehyde. Don’t they use that to embalm dead people? Why, yes, yes they do.

Let’s concentrate a bit on the Mercury. Dr. Hugh Fudenberg an immunogeneticist and biologist with nearly 850 papers published in peer review journals, has reported that if an individual had five consecutive flu shots between 1970 and 1980 (the years studied), his/her chances of getting Alzheimer's Disease is ten times higher than if they had zero, one, or two shots. I am not saying that that mercury contained in the influenza shot can be directly linked to Alzheimer’s. More research is needed to prove this. I am willing to bet that the research will not be done. If it is, it will be funded by the pharmaceutical companies. No conflict of interest there.

Did you know? The CDC states that 90% of deaths from influenza occur among the elderly. Considering that nearly 65% of all deaths (from any cause) occur in this age group, it is nearly impossible to prove that flu shots significantly increase life expectancy in this group. The truth is that most people—young and old—will weather a bout of the flu without hospitalization or complications.

So what can I do to not get the flu? Create an environment in your body that does not allow colds and viruses to live. I recommend reading my article “What is an Alkaline Lifestyle”

A few other things you can do.

1. Try to avoid white sugar.
2. Exercise regularly.
3. Get adequate sleep.
4. Drink plenty of non-acidic water.
5. I also recommend reading my article “What is a fever”

Almost forgot about my question in the beginning of this. What happens to the flu in the summer? Well. This is my theory in a nut shell. During the summer we are more exposed to the sun. The sun allows your body to make vitamin D. Vitamin D is vital is fighting sickness. Stay tuned for my article this week on Vitamin D. Also, our diets switch from a more healthy way of eating in the summer to a processed acid based diet. This is a major breeding grounds for all kinds of nastiness. We all know how well we eat at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. No alcohol consumed in MASS going on there.

Share

Email this to a Friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Have you ever felt stressed, scared, or even angry at a particular situation? Have you ever noticed what you did instinctively to relieve yourself? You took a nice deep slow breath. By some amazing power of the universe you somehow felt better. Sometimes it even took 2 breaths to get the job done.  We know it works, but what most of us don’t know is how. Ok, here comes the boring technical explanation. Stay with me, you might even find this interesting. When you breathe deeply, the hypothalamus, which is connected to the pituitary gland in your brain sends out neurohormones that inhibit stress producing hormones that trigger a relaxation response in the body. Still with me?  There is much more to this. If you are interested, I suggest doing some reading on the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system.

Before I explain Alternate Nostril Breathing, I want to throw in a caution or two. More advanced methods of pranayama (alternate nostril breathing) need to be practiced with an experienced practitioner.  Practicing on an empty stomach is preferred. Do not hold your breath if you have high blood pressure. If you have a cold, do not try this breathing technique

As you can see from the paragraph above, breathing can be a powerful means of interacting with your nervous system. With this exercise, we breathe with only one nostril at a time.  Medical science has recently discovered that the nasal cycle corresponds with brain function. The electrical activity of the brain was found to be greater on the side opposite the less congested nostril. Studies have shown that we will favor a certain nostril while we breathe. The cycle will change about every 3 hours.

So why is this important? Breathing this way can have adverse effects on your health.  Your nose is directly linked to your brain and nervous system. Breathing in only through your left nostril will result in chronic fatigue and decreased brain function. Conversely, breathing in only through your right nostril will result in mental and nervous confusion.

The benefits of doing this breathing exercise is that it will create a more balanced you. It will allow both sides of the brain to function properly. Most Yogis consider this exercise to be the best way to calm the mind and nervous system.

Ok, here is a step by step how to do this.

Step one: Use right thumb to close off your right nostril.

Step two: Inhale slowly through left nostril

Step three: Pause for a second

Step four: Now close left nostril with ring finger and release thumb off right nostril

Step five: Exhale through your right nostril

Step six: Now, inhale through your right nostril

Step seven: Pause

Step eight: Use thumb to close off your right nostril

Step nine: Breathe out through left nostril

Step ten: This is one round. Start slowly with 1 or 2 rounds and gradually increase. Never force. Sit quietly for a few moments after you have finished.

There are many, many different techniques of pranayama such as inhaling for 4, holding for 4 and exhaling for 4.

Share

Email this to a Friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

If you can remember back to your days in Chemistry 101, you learned the concept of alkaline and acid. There is a Ph scale from 0 to 14. Pure acid is 0 and 14 is pure alkaline. So things like battery acid would be a 1 and Sodium hydroxide would be a 14. It takes 20 parts of acid to neutralize one part of alkaline.

One number that we are all aware of is our body’s temperature. It is around 98.6 degrees. There is another number that most people are not aware of. That number is 7.36. That is the Ph level of our blood. Unlike our body temperature, our blood has to keep that constant rate or we would enter a condition called acidosis. Acidosis is a condition in which there is excessive acid in the body fluids. The acid would eventually burn holes in our arteries and we would die.

So why does all this matter to us? To answer that, I have to use the following saying, “We are what we eat” If I can add to that saying, I would say, we are also what we think. I will explain that in a bit. Let’s start with what we consume. All foods have different minerals in them which make them fall somewhere in the 0 to 14 Ph level. For example, take a good old can of Coke. The Ph level is about 3.4 on the scale. It is very acidic. Asparagus is about 8.5. It is Very alkaline.  So when you eat these foods, the stomach starts to digest the food and the vitamins, minerals and acids start to be absorbed in the stomach, with most of the nutrients being absorbed in the small intestine.  Now, our bodies need to absorb some acid. Without it, we would not be healthy.  Unfortunately, we consume a typical Western diet that is very highly acidic. We drink coffee and soda all day. We constantly test our body’s ability to get rid of all this acid. Your body tries to keep up by using the alkalinity in the foods we eat.  That is where the problem lies. We eat very little alkaline foods. If your body does not get it from our foods, your body will take it from the alkaline reserves that we store in our body fluids. If that becomes depleted, your body will start to steal from your calcium based organs like your bones and brain. Sounds bad, doesn’t it. You would be correct.

If all this fails, your body keeps trying to fight back. It starts to produce massive amounts of Cholesterol to surround the acid and remove it from your blood stream. And by the way, I thought I would add that it takes that acid as far away from the internal organs as possible. Places like the Hips, butt, thighs, stomach and the back of your arms become the final resting place. Your blood vessels can only remove so much of the acid. After a while, Cholesterol starts to accumulate on the side of the walls and forms plaque. As the acid builds up in your blood, it starts to attack the blood cells. These cells have a positive charge on the inside and a negative charge on the outside. If your cells are healthy, the negative charges are pushing other cells away. It is very much like putting 2 magnets that are negatively charged together. They repel each other and flow freely. The acid starts to strip the negative charge away from the cell and they start to attract to each other. This is what they call blot clotting. You start to feel lethargic and tired all the time.  The clots keep much needed oxygen from flowing through the system. The clot grows and eventually finds its way to the heart or your brain. That can spell lights out.

If all of that is not bad enough, we have the concept of disease.  The wonderful world of germs. We have been told that germs cause sickness. Louis Pasteur was to thank for that. I am writing a blog entry that will put a kybosh on that theory. Let me give you an analogy. Have you ever been to the city dump? Well, if you have, one thing that you will see other that the endless trash is thousands of rats. These rats feed off the food and waste. They multiply at a feverous rate.  They break the food down, but create their own waste in the process. Your body works in the same way. Look at the acidic environment in your body as the trash and the rats are equivalent to the germs. The germs try to break the acid down. They too start to multiply and create their own waste.  The environment gets worse and worse.

Let’s throw some common sense into the mix here. If we had a problem of rats or mice in our house, what would we do? We would spread poison or set traps to kill the rodents. That would work for a while, but what would happen? They would eventual come back. Why? Because we took care of the problem, but not the cause. The problem is the rats, but the cause is the trash and mess that we have at the house. Here is a novel idea. Why not get rid of the trash and mess? Hmmmm. No mess, no rats. Modern medicine works like the rat principle. They try to kill the rats with procedures and drugs. Those rats just keep coming back. The problem is the rats bring their vulture buddies to join in on the feast.

I know you are staying to yourself, “What do I do?” The answer is to take care of the cause and get rid of the trash. It is that simple. Disease cannot live in an healthy alkaline body. It can however live in an acidic environment. There are several ways to become more alkaline. Today we are going to focus on food and drink. The first things we have to do are learn what foods are acidic and what foods are alkaline. Before I go any further, I am going to ask you to be open and to not discount what I am going to say. Just take in what I say and then do your own homework. Don’t just take my word for it. This is where change comes in. We all just love to change. Yea right…

I have a list of foods that are alkaline and foods that are acidic. You can view that list... Alkaline food List. You will notice this about the list. On the acidic side, you have Meats, dairy, seafood, and sugar. On the Alkaline side, you have vegetable, some fruits, grains, and legumes. So what are you saying? Should I become a vegetarian? No I am not saying that. Currently, most people have an 80/20 diet. 80% acidic and 20% alkaline. I am just telling you to flip that.  Eat 80% alkaline and 20% acidic. I will tell you this. When I first saw this, my answer was probably the same as yours. I said to myself, “There is NO WAY I could do this”. I ate meat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I drank Coffee all day. I ate so much cheese, they called me Fedda. Fetty/Fedda, Get it? Anyway, my answer was to transition my toxic diet to a healthy one very slowly. I started to introduce more alkaline vegetables to my diet and reduced the acidic ones.  It did not take long for me to get to the 80/20. My cravings for acidic foods just faded away.

So why did I do this in the first place?

In a few words, I was a mess. My weight was starting to get out of control. My health was starting to dwindle. I had bad headaches, horrible reflux disease, my joints were sore and cracking when I got up or went up the stairs. I was dealing with sinus problems, allergies and lower back pain. I was always tired. I was depressed and taking depression medication. I was always fighting off acne, colds and all types of sickness. You’re not supposed to have acne at 40. I needed to do something and I felt like I needed to do it fast. I am the kind of person that will devour information on a subject. I set out to learn how to be healthy. My goals were easy. It had to be common sense. I did not want to go on a diet, and it had to be from God.  Since I was always into fitness, it did not take me long to accomplish my goals. After I reached an alkaline way of living, I started to notice my issues fading away. For a few months I was eating 100% alkaline foods. I was starting to lose weight at about 2 pounds a day. I lost 45 pounds in no time. I even started to worry that I was going to waste away to nothing. That did not happen. I stopped at about 180 and have been there ever since. All my pains and problems are gone. I don’t get sick. I don’t take any medication. I feel wonderful. I will admit that it was a little tough in the beginning. I was not a big vegetable eater. My tastes have changed drastically. I have no cravings for the sugar laden processed foods. I will never go back. I have more energy and stamina. I feel better now than I did when I was twenty. My suggestion to you is to try this for a month. After a month I am willing to bet that you will never go back.

People ask me if I cheat at all. Of course I do. I am not fanatical about this. I do not stress about what I eat. Stress creates more acid in your body. More than any food you could eat. If I want to have a cup of coffee or a piece of cake every once in a while I will. Also keep in mind, people will look at you funny. You will not be the norm. It is a shame that being sick, overweight, and popping pills have become normal. God gave me this body to take care of. In the bible, it says that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. I can at least give the spirit a clean place to live.

Share

Email this to a Friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

How many times did you hear from your mother to chew your food? Turns out she really knew what she was talking about. Unfortunately most of us do not chew properly. We live our life’s in this eat and run mode. We treat meals like an inconvenience. In our minds, eating has become a necessary evil. We have gotten into a pattern of speed eating, but how did it start? I believe that good old mom did a pretty good job slowing us down, but I believe that school was our downfall. They hurdle kids into the lunch room like cattle and give them very little time to eat. What makes it worse is recess is usually shortly after, so the quicker you eat, the quicker you can get to the more important tag and dodge ball events outside.  You now live your life is a stress mode. If we could cut out eating from out busy schedule, we would. Fast food companies know this. They prey on our stressful lives. They have us right where they want us, with our money in their pockets. Keep in mind, as we go on, that our nutrition is limited first by the proper function of our factory, digestion. Poor digestion means poor health.

What I would like to do is point out some common sense, as well as a bit of technical information on why we should chew our food. Most of us don’t give chewing our food a second thought. We chew just enough to get it down without choking.  So right away, our common sense rears its wonderful head with my last statement. That little alert bell goes off in our head. Maybe that is just the old memories of mom telling us to slow down and chew. One thing she left out is, “WHY?”

Let’s see if I can fill that gap. Most people think your stomach is the first step in food digestion. This is not true. I bet you are thinking that I am going to say chewing is the first step. Nope, Wrong again. Your brain is actually the first step. It uses thought in conjunction with the two senses that are sight and smell to begin the wonderful process of digestion. The first phase is called the Cephalic phase. Neurogenic signals that cause the cephalic phase of gastric secretion originate from the cerebral cortex and in the appetite centers of the amygdala and hypothalamus. Say what??? Ya, I had to float some big words past you. Basically your brain prepares your stomach to digest food by churning up the digestive juices. This phase of secretion normally accounts for about 20 percent of the gastric secretion associated with eating a meal.

Now your teeth take over and crush the food into smaller particles. The next question most people ask me is how many times to I need to chew. I am not into the counting thing. I think that is a bit ridicules. I will tell you a better way. The simple rule to follow is if you can identify the food in your mouth by the sense of touch, your teeth have not done their job. Keep chewing. While we are chewing, the food is moving over the taste buds in your mouth. The taste buds are sending signals to your brain which in turn will release the proper digestive enzymes into your mouth and stomach. Different types of foods will need different enzymes. Carbohydrates need the enzyme “salivary amylas” Proteins need the enzyme “proteinase”  Fats need fat-digesting enzyme called lingual lipase.

So what happens if you do not chew well?

• The more you chew your food, the less time it needs to spend in your stomach being bombarded with acid. Chewing your food allows your saliva to cover more surface area of what you're trying to consume. If you don't chew as well, these enzymes don't have the ability to break down starches (providing you with energy) or start digesting fats (leaving them partially unprocessed). You’ll receive less energy and feel more sluggish as a result.
• Large pieces of food move through your system allowing for bacteria growth. This in turn creates gas and bad breath. Ask someone that has bad breath if they take time to chew their food.
• If the food is not broken down, much needed nutrients cannot be absorbed by the body

Take time to enjoy your food. Make sure you are not feeling stressed when you do eat. I highly recommend purchasing a juicer. I love mine. I also use the pulp for my salads. Also remember to combine the right foods. I wrote a post on Food Combining Here

Share

Email this to a Friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

We will test our saliva. You will need a small spoon and a Ph strip. I get mine at Amazon.com. Click Here to go to the page. The proper way to do this is to wait one to two hours after eating. We do this because the acidic levels rise after eating. Fill your mouth with saliva. Swish the saliva around in your mouth and then swallow. This is done to take care of any acids that have built up in your mouth. Then fill your mouth again with saliva and put it onto a small spoon. Move the ph strip in the saliva for a few seconds. (Do not wash the strip off). The pH paper should turn blue. This indicates that your saliva is slightly alkaline at a healthy pH between 7.35 and 7.45 (slightly alkaline). If it is not blue, compare the color with the chart that comes with the pH paper. The lower the number, the more acidic you are.

What are the dangers of having an acidic body? Most degenerative diseases are associated with a high acidic body, including cancer, arthritis, osteoporosis, and even tooth decay. Small symptoms begin to show, such as headaches, allergies, aches, and back pains. The body tries to get rid of the excess acid through the skin producing symptoms such as acne.

What causes an acidic body? There are several reasons. Animal products like meat, eggs, and dairy. Additionally, we eat acid-producing processed foods like white flour and sugar and drink acid-producing beverages like coffee and soft drinks. We use too many drugs, which are acid-forming; and we use artificial chemical sweeteners which are extremely acid-forming. Stress causes your body to create large amounts of acid.

How do I become more alkaline? You do this by eating health foods like fruits and vegetables. Take a calcium and magnesium supplement which can be found in most multi-vitamins. Drink 6-8 glasses of water a day. Add 2 glasses if you are overweight. Doing breathing exercises 3 times a day to exercise the lymphatic system. You can read more on this from a tremendous article I found HERE.

Share

Email this to a Friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

If I ask 10 people the question: “What causes disease?” The answer, most likely would be “Germs” There was a time that I would of answered with the same response. I now disagree with that answer.  To explain this further, we have to understand how the term “Germs” came about.  In the late 1800’s, there was a scientist that discovered germs. His name was Louis Pasteur.  I had heard from several health guru’s that the germ theory was bogus, so I decided to do my own research. Turns out there was another scientist named, Professor Pierre Jaques Antoine Bechamp.  Louis and Pierre were not the best of friends. As the record would show, Pasteur plagiarized much of Bechamp's work. At the time, Pasteur was in high favor of Napoleon III and the High Church. Bechamp was a workaholic and was not interested in fortune or favor.

Bechamp's investigations showed that the cell itself was made up of smaller living entities capable of intelligent behavior and self-reproduction. He referred to these as 'molecular granulations' and gave them the name of microzymas, which he said were the real basic units of life.  Bechamp described how in certain conditions microzymas could develop into bacteria within a cell and could, if the right conditions persisted, become pathological, so that infection could develop in the body without the acquisition of the germ from an outside source. This is called pleomorphism.

This is where it starts to get too technical, so I will spare you. Basically, Bechamp believed that disease starts within the cell and Pasteur believes it starts outside with germs.  There are staunch supporters of both theories on either side. They even say that Pasteur admitted that his theory was wrong on his death bed. I will be honest with you, both side make a great case for their cause.  BUT, and that is a big but, I have to look at this threw my common sense eyes. Pasteur seemed to run into controversy everywhere he went. Ole Louis was out for fame and fortune. Bechamp was quite the nerd and kept to himself. He basically just wanted to help people.

So here is how it went down. With the help of these new fangled microscopes, Pasteur found these germs hanging around dead matter and made the conclusion that these germs must be the cause of disease. You have to understand, before his theory was accepted, the belief was that disease was caused by evil spirits. Needless to say, at the time, they were very ripe to accept any other theory. People were terrified that the evil spirits would take them over. So along comes Louie with a small step up. Now, little creatures called germs invade your body and cause you to be sick. Now people were terrified to catch a germ. Here is the major difference. At least germs had the ability to be destroyed by man threw drugs and procedures. Those evil spirits just could not be caged. Now for the big catch. There were oodles of money to be made from the drugs and procedures that Pasteur convinced Napoleon III that he could create. And create he did. It all comes down to money, doesn’t it?

At this point, you are probably thinking that I do not believe in germs. No so. The germs are real and they will take you over, but they are not the cause. Let me ask you a question? Does this make sense to you? If you saw a pile of trash with a bunch or rats hanging around the trash, would you say, Hmmmm, those rats must have brought that trash here” Of course you wouldn’t! The rats came because the trash was there. The trash was in a nice bag. Now the trash is everywhere because the rats dug it out of the bag. Plus, the rats have left their own deposits, if you know what I mean. Germs are everywhere. We eat and drink them. They live in the soil and water and drift on currents of air. They survive without oxygen or in the absence of sunlight. They form dense colonies on virtually any artificial surface. There have been discoveries of germs found living in volcanoes, 650 degrees F. The presence of normal germs also appears to prime the immune system into a higher state of readiness. Without germs we would not be able to survive. That being said, why do we get sick? What is the cause? Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you are the cause. You are the one that brings the trash into your body for the rats to feast on. You push your body to the limit and when your body can take any more, you end up getting sick. The first thing you say is. “Those dam germs!” It wasn’t that you went out all night drinking and smoking. It is not that you feed your body with every processed food known to man. It is those dam germs. As far as the flu shot, I challenge you to do a Google search on how the flu vaccination is made. I, personally, do NOT get one. Alright, I have preached enough. I hope you get the point.

Your body goes way beyond tremendous. I HIGHLY recommend you read up on all the body’s defenses that it uses to combat sickness. The bottom line is that our body was made to deal with the germs, but not to the extreme capacity that we put it threw. We fill our body with trash every day. It sits and accumulates over time. The germs are there for a reason. They are there to take care of the waste. When we do come in contact with some bad germs our body is in what I call “Custer’s Last Stand mode” We all know what happened there. He got his butt whooped and so does our body.

Most of us live our lives in a state of sickness just waiting for the next nasty bug to take us down. I got to the point in my live that I was just sick and tired of being sick and tired. I removed all the nasty things that were going in and replaced it with healthy natural food. I have not had a cold in almost 3 years now. I don’t take any medication. Not even Tylenol. All my ailments are gone. How do I feel now you ask? All I can say is, trying to explain the feeling to you would be like trying to explain what a rose smells like to someone that have never even smelled a flower.

I am going to end this post with this thought. Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch was a German physician in the late 1800’s. He became famous for isolating Bacillus anthracis, the Tuberculosis bacillus and the Vibrio cholerae and for his development of Koch's postulates. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his tuberculosis findings in 1905. Robert Koch made the discoveries that led Louis Pasteur to describe how small organisms called germs could invade the body and cause disease.

In the final decades of the 19th century, Koch conclusively established that a particular germ could cause a specific disease. He did this by experimentation with anthrax. Using a microscope, Koch examined the blood of cows that had died of anthrax. He observed rod-shaped bacteria and suspected they caused anthrax. When Koch infected mice with blood from anthrax-stricken cows, the mice also developed anthrax. This led Koch to list four criteria to determine that a certain germ causes a particular disease. These criteria are known as Koch’s Postulates and are still used today. Integral to these criteria is Postulate #3, “The disease must be reproduced when a pure culture is inoculated into a healthy, susceptible host.” Even today, with all of the advances in modern science, it would be impossible to prove that a specific germ is responsible for a disease without the use of laboratory animals.

Share

Email this to a Friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Out of all the questions I get. The one that I receive the most is, “How do you get your protein?” First of all I want to say that I am not a vegetarian. I do eat some meat. Not very often, but I will. My taste for it has all but diminished. Where I live, we have bonfires often and I do like a good sausage over the fire. There is a popular misconception that the only way to get protein is by eating meat. This is not true.

What is Protein?

Without getting to technical, protein is one of the basic building blocks of our body. It constitutes about 16% of our total body weight. Our muscle, hair, skin, and connective tissue are mostly made or protein. Proteins are made up of smaller units called amino acids. There are 22 amino acids important to human nutrition. Nine of these are essential amino acids, meaning the body cannot make them. Instead they need to be provided in the diet. The body can produce the other 13. The role of protein in food is not to provide our bodies with proteins directly, but to supply the amino acids from which the body can make its own proteins. When we eat a diet that supplies each essential amino acid in adequate amounts, our body supports protein synthesis. For a more complex discussion on protein, Go Here 

How much protein do we need?

There is a calculation based off a person’s sex, weight, and calories that are consumed, but we are going to keep this simple. The RDA recommends .36 grams of protein per pound that we weigh. So for a 170 pound man, you would multiply 170 x .36 or about 61 grams of protein a day.

Did I get my protein yesterday?

The following is what I ate yesterday.

Let’s see how I did. I weigh 180 pounds. So that would be 180 x .36 = 64.8 grams of protein. Well, look at that. I actually went over my recommended limit. Since I do workout and lift weights, my protein need will be slightly higher.

Good quality protein

I know what you are thinking now. “Sure there is protein in vegetables, but it is a low quality protein”. When I hear someone tell me this, my first question to them is what is the difference? Most have no idea what this means. They just heard it and repeat what they hear. I am guessing the meat producers are feeding this statement. Well, guess what? It is true…. Sort of. It is only part of the story. Eggs, cow's milk, meat, and fish are high quality protein. This means that they have large amounts of all the essential amino acids. Soybeans, quinoa (a grain), and spinach also are considered high quality protein. Other protein sources of non-animal origin usually have all of the essential amino acids, but the amounts of one or two of these amino acids may be low. For example, grains are lower in lysine (an essential amino acid) and legumes are lower in methionine (another essential amino acid) than those protein sources designated as high quality protein.

What about protein combining

The “incomplete protein” myth was inadvertently promoted in the 1971 book, Diet for a Small Planet, by Frances Moore Lappe. In it, the author stated that plant foods do not contain all the essential amino acids, so in order to be a healthy vegetarian, you needed to eat a combination of certain plant foods in order to get all of the essential amino acids. It was called the theory of “protein complementing.”

Frances Moore Lappe certainly meant no harm, and her mistake was somewhat understandable. She was not a nutritionist, physiologist, or medical doctor. She was a sociologist trying to end world hunger. She realized that there was a lot of waste in converting vegetable protein into animal protein, and she calculated that if people just ate the plant protein, many more people could be fed. In a later edition of her book (1991), she retracted her statement and basically said that in trying to end one myth—the unsolvable inevitability of world hunger, she created a second one—the myth of the need for “protein complementing.”

In these later editions, she corrects her earlier mistake and clearly states that all plant foods typically consumed as sources of protein contain all the essential amino acids, and that humans are virtually certain of getting enough protein from plant sources if they consume sufficient calories.

What happens if we get to little or too much?

Here are some symptoms of protein deficiency:

• Edema – A collection of fluid under the skin, which most commonly affects the legs, feet, and ankles, but can occur anywhere on the body.
• Weight loss
• Thinning or brittle hair, hair loss
• Ridges or deep lines in finger and toe nails
• Skin becomes very light, burns easily in the sun
• Reduced pigmentation in the hair on scalp and body
• Skin rashes, dryness, flakiness
• General weakness and lethargy
• Muscle soreness and weakness, cramps
• Slowness in healing wounds, cuts, scrapes, and bruises
• Bedsores and other skin ulcers
• Difficulty sleeping
• Headache
• Nausea and stomach pain
• Fainting

The risks of too little protein are as follows:

• Gallstones
• Arthritis
• Heart problems
• Muscle deterioration
• Organ failure
• Death

Good Sources of Protein

Share

Email this to a Friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!