Photo: Fresh Vegetables by Mary LaFrance
The purpose of this article is to describe how to get started with natural nutrition and natural healing and why it is so important. The first thing is to know what to avoid but what do you replace it with? How can nutrition be healing? One really needs to have a personal revolution in their lives but revolutions don’t happen overnight. How does one get started?
First it is important to understand that the traditional American diet is not the traditional American diet. Little by little corporations have dictated what our shopping and eating habits should be largely with the influence of television advertising. One of the most burning issues is that fiber has mainly been removed from people’s diets. What is the importance of fiber? Fiber helps the digestive process. Without fiber waste material gets stuck in the intestines and is difficult to get out. This is one of the major causes of cancer and other chronic illnesses. The waste material remains in the intestines. When waste material remains in the intestines too long the toxins are absorbed into the bloodstream wreaking havoc on the liver, pancreas and every part of the body.
Obviously we don’t want toxins (poisons) in our bodies, not the natural ones that are the product of food digestion and the unnatural ones that are in our environment such as in the air we breathe and sadly even in the food and drink that people put into their bodies. How do we get fiber back into our diets? The most important way is with whole grains. Corporations have given us processed white, wheat flower. This is wheat that has all the nutritional value taken out of it except for easily digestible carbohydrates. Whole grain wheat on the other hand has vitamin B complex, meaning lots of different kinds of vitamin B that work together to make all kinds of functions of the body work right and, also, other vitamins, iron, other minerals and protein. It’s hard to believe people have lost all this nutrition because of white, processed, wheat flout isn’t it? Most importantly whole grains have fiber. This includes rice (hint: brown rice has three times the fiber content of white rice) and barley, oats, amaranth grain, quinoa and any grain you can think of. Some grains contain vitamin E. They all contain essential minerals. All fruit and vegetables contain some fiber, also, and we need fruit and vegetables for vitamins and minerals, as well.
What happens when a person turns from an unnatural diet as people have become used to and gets on a natural, high fiber diet? First of all a person will at first have diarrhea and this is good. The body is starting to cleanse itself of the toxic waste that has been sitting and building in the digestive system for too long. Then the body will adjust to normal but normal isn’t what most people are used to. It is not normal to have one to two bowel movements a day. It is normal to have two to three bowel movements a day. This way toxic, waste material is not sitting in the intestines but being moved through as it should. If a person goes an entire day without a bowel movement it is no wonder people get sick and people get cancer.
Photo by Petr Kratochvil
WHAT TO DRINK THAT’S HEALTHY. One of the biggest problems is that most things that people drink during the day are unhealthy – everything from unhealthy water to soda, to drinks with caffeine, to alcohol. It is good to ask the question, “What did people drink before there was tea from India and China with caffeine and coffee from Africa and South America as well as store bought soft drinks?” The answer is that people made teas. The very word “tea” itself has been usurped. When we think of tea we think of the kind that has caffeine in it, a valuable trading commodity from the Orient. Creating a taste and addictions for substances that can only be grown in certain places so they become valuable, trading commodities has a lot to do with the balance of power in world history. It, also, has a lot to do with people’s health problems. I remember when I was little my mother showed me how to steep leaves from the backyard in boiling water to make a refreshing drink she called “wintergreen tea”. I only knew of wintergreen as a mint-like tasting candy. For many years later I still had no knowledge of the phrase “herb tea”. The fact is this is what our ancestors drank and many people today suffer from nutritional deficiencies because of the lack of healing nutrition in herb teas. Many of the drinks we know of come from these roots such as root beer, ginger ale.
WHAT DRINKS TO AVOID. Soda is bad for people because of processed sugars such as corn syrup and because of caffeine and preservatives. Why are processed sugars bad? It is because they are absorbed into the bloodstream too quickly which gives people what they call a “sugar rush” or in other words it creates a spike in the blood sugar level. This means the insulin glands have to work harder to produce insulin. Insulin is necessary to deliver the glucose to the cells so the cells of the body can use the calories for energy. Glucose is the only kind of sugar the cells of the body can use for energy. The body converts other types of sugar such as fructose into glucose. The body, also, converts other kinds of carbohydrates such as starch into glucose. Too much processed sugars and simple carbohydrates such as from processed, white, wheat flour over a period of time overworks the insulin glands until they wear out causing diabetes. Once a person gets diabetes the kidneys have to work very hard to get the sugar out of the body by sending it to the bladder to be urinated out of the body to save a person from dying from sugar in the bloodstream. Doctors give urine tests to see if there is sugar in the urine. If there is then they know someone has diabetes. Eventually the kidneys will wear out causing kidney failure. Too much caffeine causes insomnia and drives up blood pressure. Every time someone drinks a cup of coffee or other drink with caffeine they are driving up their blood pressure. If someone’s blood pressure is too high for too long it wears out the heart which never has time to rest waking or sleeping. This leads to heart disease and heart failure such as a heart attack. Artificial preservatives are to be avoided at all times as they are nothing but poisons to the body. Read the ingredients on a can of soda. Sodas not only contain artificial preservatives such as sodium benzoate and sodium nitrate but, also, sulfuric acid and phosphoric acid, stuff which dissolves flesh, metal and just about anything.
DO NOT DRINK DIET SODA OR USE ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS. Diet sodas may not have processed sugars or any kind of sugars in them but they have something worse. They have artificial sweeteners like saccharin and NutraSweet. Both of these are known to cause cancer and NutraSweet is known to cause early senility. Not only are diet sodas addictive because they are nothing but chemicals and water with nothing natural in them except for the water. The chemicals build up in the kidneys causing people to get kidney stones or in the gall bladder causing gall stones.
WHAT HAPPENS TO PEOPLE WHEN THEY DRINK ORGANIC HERB TEA? When a person starts to drink a lot of organic, herb tea instead of things that are unnatural and unhealthy at first a person will have to urinate a lot. This is because there is something in herb teas called a diuretic. A diuretic is a substance that helps the body’s urinary system work better. This is good because the urinary system is one of the most important ways for the body to rid itself of toxins. Once a person gets used to drinking herb teas the amount that a person urinates will go back to normal but the body’s urinary system will be healthier and work better.
Are you starting to get the picture? Natural nutrition means good health. Although illnesses can be cured with natural healing the idea is not to get sick in the first place. The best cure is prevention.
HOW TO GET STARTED? With myself personally I went to a good, independently owned bookstore and simply asked a knowledgeable person working there, a very nice, young lady, to recommend books that not only had recipes in them but, also, nutritional information about natural foods and some explanation of what natural nutrition is about. Well, I got very lucky she immediately took me to a section of the bookstore that had recipe and nutrition books and picked out two for me. Both were excellent. The one I picked was an inexpensive paperback book that is very famous called, “DIET FOR A SMALL PLANET” by Frances Moore Lappé.
This book has an introduction that explains the political implications of people’s shopping and eating habits that is amazing. It even gets philosophical mentioning the philosophical writings of Samuel Adams, one of the forefathers and patriots of the American Revolution. With the very first recipes that are meals in themselves she explains about complimentary proteins. Each meal has a few if not several complimentary proteins from non-meat sources. This was the beginning of the knowledge I needed to know. I still use the recipes from this book today and at times Frances Moore Lappé puts out a new edition with more, new recipes. This is a delicious way to get started with which one can start getting the benefits right away without having to be an expert. Remember I said you can’t have a personal revolution in your life overnight? These recipes are based upon traditional cooking with grains, spices, herbs, vegetables and good, healthy oils. These aren’t new, experimental ideas. You don’t have to feel like a guinea pig. Starting with these recipes can’t harm you but only make you feel healthy. And you will be healthier!
DIET FOR A SMALL PLANET TAUGHT ME HOW TO COOK. With this book I learned how to really cook things from scratch. I eventually learned how to make up my own recipes based on the principles I learned from this book that is by sautéing garlic and onions in oil, adding herbs and spices and beans or legumes and vegetables and pouring over grains such as rice or pasta. I even learned how to make salad dressing from scratch. I learned to make Middle Eastern curry dishes, Asian stir fries and pasta sauces.
Photo by Preto Perola
WHY ORGANICS? When I talk with people sometimes about organic foods I come up with a very common, canned response. Some people think that organic produce isn’t any different and that it is only a way to get people to spend more money for fruit, vegetables and grain. I find that this actually is an excuse and it amazes me. When I think about the way some people have developed the habit of eating restaurant food, fast food, convenience store food, frozen food and quick fix mixes, heat and serve foods, and have pizzas delivered, and the cost of these things; when I think of how these habits have replaced the idea of the entire family sitting down to a home cooked meal together thereby robbing people of family bonding and a true quality of life I am dismayed. Obviously these habits are not only unhealthy physically but spiritually and psychologically because they have removed people so far from what is natural. It has been many years since I have picked up packages of meat in the supermarket and looked at the prices but the last time I did I was amazed at how expensive meat is. When I think of people that order pizzas delivered constantly and how this habit can easily add up to hundreds of dollars very quickly I call this “people throwing their empowerment away”. Surely there are better ways for a person to invest their money. How about just having money in the bank instead of being in debt for starters? You see the personal revolution in a person’s life I was referring to is more than about natural foods!
FIRST: WHAT IS WRONG WITH FOOD THAT IS NOT ORGANIC? It is important to understand that ORGANIC FOOD IS THE WAY FOOD TRADITIONALLY HAS ALWAYS BEEN BEFORE MODERN FARMERS STARTED USING POISONOUS CHEMICAL FERTILIZERS, PESTICIDES, HERBICIDES AND FUNGICIDES. These poisonous substances are not only present in the food people eat but go into the air we breathe and the soil and ground water. They kill plants and animals in nature. Organic farmers have to spend years reconditioning soil that has been polluted with these toxic substances in order to be certified to label their produce organic. They have to get the toxic chemicals out of the soil and use natural fertilizers such as compost and animal manure to put nutrients back in the soil. Modern farming techniques wear out the soil and rob it of nutrients. This is one reason why fruit and vegetables do not have all the nutritional value that people think they have. In other words vegetables and fruit do not have iron or calcium unless there is iron and calcium in the soil. They do not have vitamin C unless there are the proper nutrients in the soil for the plants to produce vitamin C.
How bad are the toxins in these chemicals modern farmers use? When I was a cab driver I became familiar with a cab customer, a very nice man and a good customer, who was in a wheel chair and when he got out of the wheel chair he wobbled around on crutches and needed help. He had a nervous disorder where he had lost a lot of the control over his arms and legs. At one time he made a lot of money. He flew a crop dusting plane spraying chemical pesticides and herbicides on farm fields. Chemical pesticides and herbicides will cause damage to the nerve cells. THE FACT IS WITH ALL THE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS SPENT ON CANCER RESEARCH MORE PEOPLE ARE GETTING CANCER NOW THAN EVER BEFORE. Now even little children are getting cancer. Cancer was almost an unknown disease a hundred years ago. Do these toxic chemicals cause birth defects? Of course they do.
Photo by Africa Studio
WHY ORGANICS? When people have organic food in their diet they know they are getting the full nutritional value that the natural foods are supposed to have without the poisons from the chemicals modern farmers use and the preservatives put into the foods for a longer shelf life. When I speak to some people about foods having a longer shelf life they think that that is good because to them it means there is always a good supply of fresh food because it can be stored for a long time. This is not true. Long shelf life only means increased profits for corporations because it is more expensive to date food and replace it on the shelves with fresh food. WHY IS FOOD WITH A LONG SHELF LIFE HARMFUL TO PEOPLE’S HEALTH? For a number of reasons. MAINLY EVEN BACTERIA CAN’T LIVE ON THIS FOOD BECAUSE IT HAS NO NUTRITIONAL VALUE. Also, the preservatives are harmful. These processed foods have a lot of sodium from huge amounts of salt and preservatives with sodium such as sodium benzoate, sodium nitrate, sodium phosphate, trisodium phosphate. Too much sodium drives up blood pressure. Processed sugar is used as a preservative. A lot of these foods with long shelf lives are loaded with processed sugar which drives up the blood sugar level and contributes to people getting diabetes. Realize that people can go blind from diabetes. The artificial preservatives I mentioned are poisonous and contribute to cancer and other illnesses. Lots of foods that are processed have the nutritional value taken out of them such as processed, white, wheat flour. What about enriched flour? Corporations put artificial vitamins and minerals into the flour to fool people because they know if they do the flour will still have a long shelf life because bacteria still will not live on it because these nutrients aren’t natural and easily used by the body. Enriched flour still does not have fiber and other nutrients.
There are hidden toxic chemicals in food because these chemicals are used to process food cheaply and are not supposed to be in the food but residues remain. These toxins are not listed in the ingredients.
A LOT OF FOODS ARE RADIATED WITH ULTRA VIOLET RADIATION WHICH DESTROYS THEIR NUTRITIONAL VALUE FOR THE SAKE OF LONG SHELF LIFE. What happens to food when it is radiated with ultra violet radiation? Germs can’t live on the food because the nutritional value is lost. People often think they are getting health benefits from herbs and spices such as mint, oregano and turmeric root but if these herbs and spices have been radiated they do not have their medicinal value. I remember when I was a little boy my mother had a spice cabinet that had every kind of herb and spice that she needed for baking and cooking. She had a big, thick Betty Crocker cookbook and with whatever recipe she tried to make she always had the right herb or spices she needed in her spice cabinet no matter how obscure and little used. These herbs and spices lasted forever it seemed and never spoiled. When I started cooking with organic, natural herbs that I purchased in bulk from a natural food store I was amazed at the difference. The oregano I remembered from the little tin cans like my mother had was like a green powder. The organic, natural oregano was dried leaves and when I crushed them between my fingers before I sprinkled them into my recipe I was amazed by the wonderful aroma. I was equally amazed by the aroma and flavor of the organic meal I had cooked. My senses were awakened and I couldn’t believe what I had been missing in my life. PEOPLE SUFFER FROM NUTRITIONAL DEFICIENCIES BECAUSE THE FOOD THEY EAT DOES NOT HAVE THE NUTRITIONAL VALUE THAT IT IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE.
What are other dangers in the food people eat? Meat and dairy products are poisonous because of the chemicals injected into the animals and the chemicals in the food the animals are fed. Livestock are fed and injected with antibacterial agents to kill germs as a cheaper way to keep animals healthy. They are injected and fed growth hormones to make them grow faster to lower costs of production. Some are fed nothing but a poisonous chemical diet such as veal calves. Most are fed grains and produce containing toxic chemical residues from chemical fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides. Meat is, also, processed with toxic chemicals and preservatives such as chlorine and sodium nitrate. All these things contribute to high blood pressure, cancer and other illnesses. Too much red meat in the diet causes men to get prostate cancer.
If you do not have enough organic foods available in your area you can have them delivered to your door with this service: The Green PolkaDot Box
Photo by LMF from openfotos.com
SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS AND BOOSTING THE IMMUNE SYSTEM. I don’t know how and when I discovered shiitake mushrooms or learned that they are so good for the immune system that they keep people from getting colds and flues. For years I have seen people getting sick all around me and yet I didn’t get sick. SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS, ALSO, CURE COLDS AND FLUES. Why has the media and the medical establishment been telling us there is no cure for the common cold? The simple answer is they are lying or are ignorant.
HOW TO USE SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS. The great news is the best medicine is good nutrition so you use shiitake mushrooms in recipes. I have been collecting recipes with shiitake mushrooms for years. Do not try to eat these mushrooms raw or by themselves. They have too pungent of a flavor for that. They must be cooked or they are not easily digestible. SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS ARE GOURMET MUSHROOMS and they are delicious! Remember to cut off the stems first because the stems are not too easily digestible. Then chop them up before you sauté with other vegetables such as garlic and onions or simmer in soups or sauces. Shiitake mushrooms should be cooked until tender.
If using the dried shiitake mushrooms soak in boiling water in a bowl for a half hour before cutting off stems and chopping up. The water used for soaking becomes a delicious broth for your recipe!
It is important to remember with shiitake mushrooms it is not quantity but frequency that matters. One must have meals with shiitake mushrooms two to three times a week for at least three weeks straight to get the full benefits. Only a few grams a day has untold health benefits. Shiitake mushrooms help the body to produce white blood cells. These are the blood cells that fight against harmful bacteria in the body including viruses. ANTIOBIOTICS DO NOT WORK ON VIRUSES SO THEY DO NOT CURE COLDS AND FLUS. Some people do not listen to me when I try to tell them how to use shiitake mushrooms. Some have one meal with them and say it didn’t work. One just sautéed them and ate them with nothing else and said it didn’t taste very good. I told him again you have to use it in a recipe. One man I knew ate massive amounts of them raw until he got sick on them. What is wrong? What’s wrong is wrong attitudes. People in our society are conditioned to look for instant quick fix solutions to problems and do anything they hear about to total excess thinking if a little is good a lot must be better. NATURAL NUTRITION WORKS OVER A PERIOD OF TIME. IT ISN’T INSTANT.
Once I worked with a man who had hay fever. When there was pollen and dust in the air he would cough and sneeze and wheeze. I told him about shiitake mushrooms. He was the one who sautéed them and ate them by themselves and said they didn’t taste good even though his sister gave him a book of recipes for cooking with mushrooms. He found out he could buy capsules with shiitake mushroom powder in them at a natural food store and started using those. He was cured. Then much later he was coughing and sneezing and wheezing again and eating hard candies to soothe his throat like he used to. I said, “You haven’t been using your shiitake mushroom capsules have you?” He said,”No I have to get some more.” After that he was perfectly fine.
SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS CAN KNOCK OUT ANY INFECTION. When I was nineteen I got a cyst. It was on my upper buttocks area and it kept growing and started draining blood and water constantly. I had to have it surgically removed. The doctor said that if it was left too long it would become cancerous. The doctor said I had a congenital tendency to get it and I might get another one later on in life and if I did it would grow somewhere around the same area. When I was in my thirties this happened. It grew on the other side of my body at my belt line. It started the same as before. It was like a pimple and I thought that was what it was. It didn’t go away and kept getting bigger and was red and irritated as if inflamed. Eventually it seemed as if it got scraped on top and scabbed up. Then the scab got scraped off. I knew then that it was a pilonidal cyst, a draining cyst, like I had before. I decided that although I had a congenital tendency to get it that it was an infection so I started having shiitake mushroom meals each evening four to five times a week. In a month the pilonidal cyst went away. I kept on with the shiitake mushrooms four to five times a week for another month and the cyst has never come back.
SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS CAN HELP TO PREVENT CANCER. How? By strengthening the immune system incredibly. The fact is we all have cells in our bodies that turn cancerous throughout our lifetimes but our immune systems fight against them. The white blood cells, sometimes called white corpuscles, attack and kill cancerous cells. Having a healthy immune system prevents cancer and strengthening the immune system will cure cancer. ONE CAN SAY THAT THE BODY IS IN A CONSTANT STATE OF PREVENTION AND CURE. One has only to tap into the body’s ability to heal itself.
When I tell some people about shiitake mushrooms to my dismay I often get a typical canned response of, “What is the active ingredient?” Whenever I hear this question in this same conversation once again I know through experience what it really means. People who ask this are conditioned to believe that there is always one active ingredient that is responsible for the health benefits. This is basically a lazy person’s way of trying to find an easy quick fix solution for everything. This means they don’t want to do anything to change their unhealthy lifestyle. All they want is a miracle pill that is the solution to everything. They don’t want to think about giving up things that are unhealthy and bad for them or changing any of their habits. When I tell them that there is no one single active ingredient and that there are substances in shiitake mushrooms that work together synergistically to help keep a person healthy this is not what they want to hear. At this point with these kind of people it is the end of the conversation. I tell people even shiitake mushrooms won’t keep you from getting sick unless you get enough sleep and rest. People who have an unhealthy lifestyle of very little sleep and keeping themselves going with caffeine, nicotine and other stimulants as well as using alcohol and other depressants to bring themselves down from the stimulants so they can sleep do not want to hear this. NATURAL HEALING IS NOT ABOUT ONE ACTIVE INGREDIENT. IT IS ABOUT LOTS OF NUTRIENTS WORKING TOGETHER SYNERGISTICALLY TO KEEP ONE HEALTHY.
I have been using the subject of shiitake mushrooms as a way of introducing some important principles of natural healing. One of the most important is the idea of healing with nutrition. Another is the idea of prevention. Also, I have introduced the conflict in ways of thinking inherent in introducing ideas about natural healing to those for whom these ideas are new such as the concept of the active ingredient. Obviously it serves the purpose of the industrial medical complex, the medical industry and the pharmaceutical companies, those who are interested in quick sales to make quick profits to put the words active ingredient into people’s minds as much as possible by repeating it as much as possible. It serves the “selfish” interests of those in the medical industry to look the world over for natural healing cures from natural medicinal plants and to isolate an active ingredient to put into a pill or capsule, injection or syrup to sell to people. It even serves their purposes even more if their chemists in their labs can study the molecular structure of the active ingredient so they can find a way to synthesize it by just whipping up some chemicals in a lab since it is cheaper to artificially create something in a lab from chemicals than to grow plants and extract a natural ingredient from it. This is exactly why so many pharmaceutical drugs have so many harmful side effects.
Photo by bader mawasy
MORE INFORMATION TO GET STARTED WITH NATURAL NUTRITION AND NATURAL HEALING.
WHY NATURAL SEA SALT? People who are into natural healing and natural nutrition choose natural sea salt not just as a trendy thing because of an image of a certain type of lifestyle but for very good reasons. NORMAL TABLE SALT HAS ALUMINUM IN IT. This substance is toxic to humans. Aluminum is simply poisonous to the body. Why do food processing companies put silicoaluminate into salt including those little condiment packages of salt in fast food restaurants? First of all calling it silicoaluminate in the ingredients list on the packages is a clever way of hiding the fact that it is really two ingredients, silicon and aluminum, not one ingredient. I suppose they buy the two ingredients already put together to be able to get away with this. They add silicoaluminate as an anti-caking ingredient to keep the salt from clumping together from moisture in the air (humidity). This is why on packages of Morton Salt it bears the age old slogan of “When it rains, it pours”, a slogan that made Morton Salt the staple salt of most American households. This is probably one of the phoniest features to sell a product anyone ever came up with. With natural sea salt one only needs a salt shaker with bigger holes in it. If the salt clumps just hit the shaker against the side of a table or counter top and it de-clumps instantly.
SOME NATURAL SEA SALT IS MORE PROCESSED THAN OTHERS. Although all natural sea salt is better than salt with aluminum in it natural sea salt processed the traditional way has trace sea minerals in it, minerals that people need in their diet such as magnesium. Most natural sea salt does not have this. FRENCH ATLANTIC SEA SALT AND CELTIC SEA SALT HAVE TRACE SEA MINERALS. These salts, also, have extra flavor to them making them the choice of European chefs in fine cooking. Believe me there is a difference. Some natural sea salt that is more processed has other ingredients that are used as anti-caking agents that are not toxic and more natural but are unnecessary. There is nothing like pure, natural sea salt that is cultivated the traditional way. IT ALWAYS PAYS TO READ THE INGREDIENTS.
Photo by Darren Lewis
BAKING POWDER HAS ALUMINUM IN IT. Yes, food processing companies put silicoaluminate into baking powder as an anti-caking agent. In natural food stores they sell baking powder that does not have aluminum in it but these have other substances that are less harmful as anti-caking agents. What is baking powder? Believe or not if you read the ingredients on a package of baking powder you will find that baking powder is a combination of corn starch and baking soda. Ingredients you can buy absolutely pure. When I need baking powder in a recipe I just combine organic corn starch with pure baking powder half and half. It works and there’s no added junk in it that I don’t need.
Photo by werner22brigitte
HEALING WITH NATURAL HERBS: HORSETAIL TEA. I will use horsetail tea as an introduction to using natural herbs for healing. Horsetail is, also, known as shavegrass. It is a plant that looks a lot like green, mini bamboo. It grows in shallow water along the edges of creeks and ponds and is collected by hikers. One can buy the herb horsetail dried and shredded, ready to be steeped in hot water to make a tea. HORSETAIL TEA HAS A LOT OF CALCIUM AND SOMETHING IN IT THAT HELPS THE BODY USE CALCIUM. Horsetail tea has a lot of vitamin D. The body needs vitamin D to be able to use calcium. The ancient Romans and Greeks used horsetail to have strong bones, teeth and connective tissue. One should only drink one cup a day for a week or two weeks and then stay away from it for a month because it can drive up blood pressure. Fortunately horsetail tea has diuretics in it to help the body urinate out what is in it that causes the harmful side effects. IT IS IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND THAT NATURAL SUBSTANCES ARE SYNERGISTIC AND HAVE SUBSTANCES IN THEM TO COUNTER THE HARMFUL SIDE EFFECTS. The calcium in horsetail tea, like the calcium in all natural foods, is in a form the body recognizes and can use.
CALCIUM SUPPLEMENTS ALL HAVE LEAD IN THEM! Lead is a substance that is totally poisonous to the human system causing malfunctioning of the brain and wreaking havoc on the entire body including causing liver disease. About a year ago it made the national news when there was a raging debate in Congress about lowering the levels of lead in calcium supplements. The pharmaceutical companies claiming that without lead the supplements would be too costly for elderly people who need them. Just recently it made the newspapers that calcium supplements mainly do nothing for people. There was just one thing about how it could help a little with hip bones. Otherwise in most cases it does absolutely nothing but harm.
Horsetail tea is a good way to introduce some basic concepts of using natural herbs for healing purposes. One of the most important is that the healing nutrients people need are in a natural form that the body recognizes and uses. Another is that natural substances are far more complicated than one active ingredient. They contain substances that work together synergistically including working synergistically with other sources of good nutrition in a person’s diet such as flax seed oil that helps the body to produce cell tissue by helping cells to have stronger membranes. Also, substances work together to mellow any harmful side effects. Another important principle is to know how to use the herbs in moderation and with respect and with knowledge to avoid harm. It is nothing to be afraid of. There are many healing herbs that can keep a person healthy that people can use daily without harm such as organic ginseng tea, licorice root, ginger, cinnamon, red raspberry leaf, oregano and parsley to name a few.
If you can’t find the natural herbs you need at stores try shopping online! Horsetail herb tea online! http://bit.ly/WjHlBB
Photo by Petr Krotochvil
RAW FRUIT AND VEGETABLES. Why is it important to have raw fruit and vegetables in the diet daily or as much as possible? It is because there are enzymes (catalysts that bring about change) in raw fruit and vegetables that help the body to digest its food. These enzymes are destroyed in the process of cooking. A lot of health problems are caused because people do not have the ability to properly digest their food causing nutritional deficiencies.
WHOLE GRAINS. Why are whole grains important as opposed to processed, white wheat flour? Whole grains contain iron and other important minerals. They contain fiber. They contain lots of vitamins including lots of B vitamins. A lot of B vitamins together are called a vitamin B complex. This means different kinds of B vitamins that work together help all of the various functions of the body. Some whole grains contain vitamin E. Whole grains contain protein and some have amino acids as well. WHAT ARE AMINO ACIDS? Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. Protein being what muscle is mainly made of and what other tissue of the body is, also, a lot composed of such as brain cells. Nerve cells and organ tissue are made up of a complex system of complicated carbon molecules. Protein is made of amino acids which are, also, composed of a complex combination of complicated carbon molecules. Our bodies use amino acids to create protein of our own. We get all this when we have whole grains in our diets. We just need vegetables to go with it. Wheat germ, wheat bran, farina, malt, barley malt are all just parts of a grain of cereal. Each only contains part of the nutrition of a grain. Whole grain means all of the grain. All of the grain means all the nutrition that is in the grain.
And that is it, an overview of the basics to get started with natural nutrition and natural healing. It starts with avoiding what is bad for you, getting exercise, fresh air and sunshine and using what is good for you in a healthy diet. After that it is enough rest and sleep. Since this website is holistic I, also, have to mention cultivating health emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. We may need some stress in our life if we have ambition. We need mental stimulation, an outlet for our imaginations and we need challenges. Definitely however to pursue good health we have to examine the environments we are in and ask ourselves if our lives are making us unhappy and what we can do to get rid of unnecessary and unwanted stress. It is important to cultivate peace of mind, work toward goals, have a feeling of accomplishment and broaden our horizons. It is important to keep learning and growing as individuals at every phase of our lives. It is important to meditate and there are so many forms of meditation.
So relax! Enjoy the website and share the experience with us! Peace and Love!
vgirlnatural 