Health Spotlight: Garlic

What smells wonderful when you cook it, stinky on your breath, and has almost too many health benefits to even count?

Garlic

According to NaturalHealthRemedies.org, garlic can improve your health in the areas of: 

Acne

Cholesterol

Cardiovascular health

Slows aging of liver

Combats damage from nicotine use

Increases antioxidant enzymes

Blood pressure and blood clots

Is anti-bacterial

 

This chart from The World’s Healthiest Foods shows the nutrient make-up of garlic:

So, adopt the philosophy of the Italians and the Texans:

Eat garlic.  And more is better!

Health Spotlight: Brown Rice

If you are gluten-sensitive like me, you may have found that many of the products you are substituting gluten with contain a base of this food.  Cookies, snack bars, crackers, bread, pasta. . .so what am I speaking of?

Brown Rice

First, an interesting note, from “The World’s Healthiest Foods” website:  “Our food ranking system qualified brown rice as an excellent source of manganese, and a good source of the minerals selenium and magnesium. The complete milling and polishing that converts brown rice into white rice destroys 67% of the vitamin B3, 80% of the vitamin B1, 90% of the vitamin B6, half of the manganese, half of the phosphorus, 60% of the iron, and all of the dietary fiber and essential fatty acids. By law in the United States, fully milled and polished white rice must be “enriched” with vitamins B1, B3, and iron. But the form of these nutrients when added back into the processed rice is not the same as in the original unprocessed version, and at least 11 lost nutrients are not replaced in any form even with rice ‘enrichment.’”

They go on to say that brown rice (in part due to its high fiber content) can help to lower cholesterol, maintain a health body weight, reduce the risk of colon cancer (due to being a source of selenium), and possibly protect against “hormone-dependent cancers as well as heart disease.”  That’s pretty good for a simple bowl of rice!

And if you get really ambitious and want to do a whole body cleanse (and to see the health benefits of cleansing, click here), a doctor I take a lot of nutritional advice from has outlined a Brown Rice Cleanse that I am getting ready to try in a couple of weeks.  Here is what Dr. Linda Page has to say about her cleanse:  “A brown rice cleanse is based on macrobiotic principles for body balance. It’s cleansing, yet filling. You don’t feel like you’re on a cleanse at all, yet it does the trick. It’s a diet that uses rice as a nutrient building food, and vegetables and vegetable juices as concentrated cleansing supplements. A brown rice cleanse is high in potassium, natural iodine, and other minerals, so most people notice improvement in their hair, skin texture and nail growth.”

A meal that is a staple in our home is teriyaki chicken with stir fry onions and bell peppers on a bed of brown rice.  My mouth is watering already!  So with many different uses and many valuable benefits, have fun experimenting with brown rice!

Health Spotlight: Berries

Today we are going to spotlight one of our family’s favorite foods.

Berries

I confess that, even though I have a master’s degree in nutrition and should know better, I don’t always make the best of choices in what I eat or what I feed my family, but one thing we do is have berries every single day without fail.  If my son had to pick one food to subsist on for the rest of his life, I have no doubt that he would pick blueberries.

Here are some of the benefits of berries:  They are a good source of fiber, vitamin C, and antioxidants.  According to OrganicFacts.com, blueberries can help with aging, urinary tract infection, eye care & macular degeneration (can prevent or delay all age related ocular problems), brain function, memory & Alzheimer’s disease, constipation & digestion, cancer, and heart disease.  “They keep you fresh, active, fit, sharp, close to nature and in a good mood, as they are very good anti-depressants. The deeper the color of the blueberries, the more they are rich in antioxidants and other medicinal values.”

So what about raspberries?  With their good sources of potassium and calcium, they “are good for those suffering from inflammation and pain. It helps prevent cancer, inhibit the growth of cancer cells, prevents damage to cell membranes and the formation of tumor in various parts of body including the colon. It reduces the risk of heart diseases and delays the effect of aging. Raspberries protect the body tissue from oxygen related damage” (source).

Berries make Dr. Oz’s “Anti-Cancer Shopping List” and are among Dr. Mercola’s “Best Overall Fruits for Your Health“.  They are great on your breakfast cereal, mixed in your yogurt, thrown into a smoothie, or plain.  What a beautiful thing God has given us in berries!

Health Spotlight: Almonds and Walnuts

Today’s Health Spotlight feature is all about a couple of small foods packed with big nutrients. 

Almonds and walnuts

Almonds have been said to “lower the risk of gallstones, weight gain (instead makes you lose weight), high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. It reduces blood sugar level, weight and LDL (bad) cholestrol, including almonds in your diet keeps heart and blood healthy.”

You can find them raw, roasted, salted, sliced, or even flavored with tamari. 

Walnuts are rich in Omega-3, an unsaturated fatty acid with many health benefits in and of itself.  According to OrganicFats.net, “regular consumption of walnuts helps in lowering cholesterol levels, controlling high blood sugars, and improving cardiovascular functions. It is good for various hearth problems. The reason for these benefits of walnuts is that they contain unsaturated fats and little cholesterol, significant amount of omega-3 and antioxidant properties. Walnuts can help prevent gallstones.”

And do not be scared off by the word “fat.”  These are good fats and will do far more good for you than you can measure.  Don’t believe me?  Read “Fats 101.”

 My new favorite snack is called Mrs. Mays Naturals Almond Crunch.  I have to cut myself off after a few because I would keep eating them, they are that good!  They have many different flavors, including options with walnuts and cashews.  So for your snack today, pick up a bag of almonds or walnuts, and get a fair share of fat today!  And try your best to resist the ones covered in sugar or chocolate. . .tasty, yes, but good for you?  Not as much.

Health Spotlight: Green Tea

Today I’m going to spotlight something that has been getting a lot of attention the past few years for its health benefits.   

Green Tea 

This warm, relaxing treat has powerful antioxidants that have been shown to fight those dreaded (and deadly) free radicals in our body.  For a refresher on what free radicals are, click here.  Dr. Mercola has article after article about how green tea is good at protecting against heart disease, skin cancer, oral cancer, breast cancer, and prostate cancer.  Ok, so now you are intrigued.

University of Purdue researchers have found “there is also research indicating that drinking green tea lowers total cholesterol levels, as well as improving the ratio of good (HDL) cholesterol to bad (LDL) cholesterol.”

Look here at how green tea surpasses the antioxidant levels of some of the most nutritious vegetables.  This is not to say abandon these vegetables, but is more of a testimony as to the antioxidant rich nature of green tea.

So, today as you wind down from a hard day of work, grab a cup of green tea and know that you are doing your body a favor.  But please, choose organic.  No sense in wiping out many of those great green tea benefits with all the chemicals used in growing and processing it.

And wouldn’t you know. . .I’m drinking some right now.

Come back for the next 5 days as I feature a new food in the Health Spotlight.

Cancer Takes Too Many of Us

Today I am a little bit sad. . .as well as a little bit mad.

Yesterday afternoon, a woman I know and respect from church, who served as my Mentor Mom in a Mother’s ministry group, lost her lifemate and husband of 47 years to liver cancer that had spread to his lungs.  Today I grieve with her and her family, and I’m also mad at cancer.  As Christians, we know that to be “away from the body” is to be “at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8), so I hope and pray that John’s family is rejoicing today that he is out of pain and dancing with Jesus!  But in honor of him and the battle he fought against a disease that ravaged his body, I thought it would be appropriate to highlight a few things from a phenomenal book I am just finishing up.

It is a book called Knockout, by Suzanne Somers (yes, Chrissy from Three’s Company).  She is a breast cancer survivor and has made it a life mission to inform herself about everything there is to know about cancer and its prevention.  Knockout is an excellent (cannot stress that enough) and resourceful book in which Somers interviews a dozen or so doctors and nutritionists who are curing cancer, treating patients to “manage” their cancer (live symptom free for decades) and teaching the average layperson simple things they can do to prevent cancer in the first place.  

One of the doctor’s that she interviews is Dr. Russell Blaylock, with whom I was thoroughly impressed.  Of all the things he reveals in this book, some quite shocking, these were some of the most informative:  

1.  Prostate and breast cancers are being overdiagnosed.  “If you look at a woman age fifty, about 40 to 45 percent of them will have breast cancer cells in their ducts.  Most of them will never get breast cancer, or at least it won’t spread.  The same thing is true for prostate cancer.”  He goes on to say something even more shocking.  “By overdiagnosing, they improve their statistics.  It makes it look like the war on cancer has made headway, when in truth they haven’t made any headway.  And then these poor patients go through all this hell” (p. 149). 

2.  Mammograms may be increasing one’s risk of breast cancer–because of the radiation, as well as the fact that “every time they squash it (the breast during a mammogram), the cells are pushed out into the lymphatic system and also the blood vessels, and you are more likely to cause metastases” (p.151).

3.  “Cancer is fueled by sugar,” yet “some of the biggest cancer centers in the world tell their patients to eat sugars. . .so they don’t lose weight” (p. 155).

4.  Some of the things that can help prevent cancer:  folic acid, addressing chronic inflammation, glutathione, melatonin, vitamin D3, omega-3, tumeric, flavonoids

The most disturbing information to me that was revealed in this book is the underlying belief from many of these doctors that chemotherapy and radiation do very little (or nothing) for most cancers, and that it is just the “standard of care” given, even though alternative treatments exists and are working.  Why are they not being used in mainstream medicine to a noteable degree?  Another shock–there is a massive amount of money flowing to medical centers through funding from pharmaceutical companies and a massive amount of money to be made in chemotherapy.  “The government and the pharmaceutical companies are making billions of dollars off the improper treatment of cancers” (p. 156). 

Dr. Blaylock’s website, which includes a wealth of information, appears here.

Another chapter which I found invaluable is one in which Ms. Somers interviews her own personal nutritionist, Cristiana Paul, M.S.  She has created a resource, and it is reprinted in Knockout, that outlines nine interventions for cancer–nine ways to intervene and interrupt the path of a cancer cell before it becomes destructive.  I am thrilled at this information and will be referring to it often for my own health and that of my family.  What I appreciate is that these are things any one of us can do, and can do easily, and they are the same types of things that promote good health in other ways as well.  She addresses the importance of drinking water, of getting adequate protein and fiber, of detoxifying our bodies, enhancing our immune system, supplementing with various vitamins, and more.  You can find Ms. Paul’s website here. 

This book is filled with astounding (and supported) claims that make a whole lot of sense to me, the average reader interested in nutrition.  I highly recommend it.  And to all of those who are struggling with cancer, or know and love someone who is, you are in my thoughts and prayers today as I honor a man whom many termed their “best friend” and a strong man of faith.

The Sniffling Season

Here we are again, in the middle of what I’m calling The Sniffling Season. . .everyone coughing, sniffling, and sneezing all around us. . .as we pray for immunity from it all.  What can we do to protect our bodies and our family from it all?

This product has remained in our home for about 5 years now and it has helped us avoid many sniffles along the way.  As I’ve been researching lately for some of the best supplements and herbs to build the immune system and fight off viruses, I realized that this product has them all.  Ingredients such as Vitamin D-3, Olive Leaf Extract, Echinacea, Garlic, Vitamin C, Goldenseal Root Extract, and Zinc.  They are horse pills, I will admit, but the testimonies from my family about how this supplement has lessened the severity of our colds or helped us avoid them altogether are numerous.

It is called Wellness Formula and I highly recommend it as an all-in-one herbal defense formula.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you like to “double up” on those immune-boosting supplements as we do, you can supplement your supplements by adding extra garlic (there are odorless capsules available), Vitamin C, Vitamin D-3 (I add the liquid and tasteless drops to my tea or water), and liquid Echinacea for kids.  As a family, we are on the kids formulas and adult formulas of all of these.  Just follow the suggested use on the bottles, but understand that many times those are even under what you can take in a day, but do your research.

And here’s to good health this Sniffling Season!

Be Healthy: An Easy Reference Guide

I feel a bit like I’ve stumbled upon a treasure chest full of gold!  I stumbled upon it by way of www.NaturalNews.com, an excellent health website I’ve been visiting lately.  It is called the Honest Food Guide, created by a holistic nutritionist named Mike Adams, a.k.a. “The Health Ranger.”  This is an excellent resource to study, keep in your kitchen, or take to the grocery store with you.  It is a handy reference guide as to what food choices can lead to disease and which ones lead to better health, and why.  The only thing I would add to this chart (and this is my personal opinion and choice) is organic, free-range poultry, which I don’t see on here now, but maybe I missed it. 

I’ve included the thumbnail here, but click to visit the full-sized version. 

More Swine Flu Vaccine News

Although I didn’t intend to write another blog about the swine flu vaccine since I covered it a couple of weeks ago (link here), I came across some interesting news today that I wanted to share.  This is from Barbara Loe Fisher, president of the National Vaccine Information Center, who says this:

“If you or your child are injured from getting a flu swine flu shot, you are on your own. Because Congress shielded the vaccine manufacturers and any person giving swine flu shots from lawsuits if people get hurt. There is no funded government vaccine injury compensation program for swine flu vaccine.”

The question is do we trust the government to give us something safe for our bodies and those of our children when there is no recourse–they have no responsibility whatsoever–should anything happen as a result?  Could that affect how carefully (or carelessly) they test the vaccine to begin with?

From the FDA’s website directly:  “Safety and effectiveness of Influenza A (H1N1) 2009 Monovalent Vaccine have not been established in pregnant women, nursing mothers or children less than 4 years of age. (8.1, 8.3, 8.4).”

In addition, if any adverse reactions do occur as a result of this swine flu vaccine, there is a good chance that those reactions will be seen as “coincidences” by federal health officials anyway (see below).  I remember reading about parents who heard those words when their child developed autism or were never the same after receiving their massive doses of  vaccinations.  “It was a coincidence. . .your child would have developed autism anyway. . .it’s just a coincidence that it started within a week of his or her vaccines.”

Fisher addresses this issue:  “But even if there was a funded vaccine injury compensation program - like the one that had to be created by the federal government in 1976 after that year’s swine flu vaccine paralyzed about 500 Americans and killed 25, there is little chance you would be compensated if you or your child does become vaccine injured.  Federal health officials are already pre-emptively warning Americans that most of the deaths and cases of brain inflammation, seizures, paralysis, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, strokes, heart attacks, miscarriages and other serious health problems that develop after swine flu vaccination will be considered a ‘coincidence’ and not related in any way to the flu shots just given.”

I do not like to speculate as to the motivation behind what people do, but I’ll give you the facts and let you decide from there.

“We are witnessing a roll-out of the largest, most expensive mass vaccination campaign in the history of our nation. A rollout that is bigger than even the polio vaccine campaigns of the 1950’s. . .Swine flu shots are free for most Americans because the government has given $1 billion dollars to pharmaceutical companies to create the new swine flu vaccines and has given another $5 billion dollars to state and federal health agencies to promote and deliver the influenza vaccines to people. That is a lot of money. The push to get vaccinated is like nothing we have ever seen before.” (Fisher)

Let’s not forget that pharmaceutical companies such as those that manufacturer vaccines, are in a business. . .a business for profit. 

“The entire vaccination philosophy now believes that the human immune system is useless and should be hijacked with Big Pharma’s chemicals. It’s ridiculous. Sure, vaccines are warranted in laboratory workers who might be exposed to level-4 infectious agents that could be fatal, but pushing mandatory vaccines on all the children in the nation just to prevent non-fatal infections and winter colds is medical madness.  But it does, of course, earn profits for Big Pharma. And that’s the whole point of the big vaccination push in the first place. It has nothing to do with public health and everything to do with corporate profits” (source).

I can’t pretend that I’m not worried about this swine flu, but I also admit that, as a mother, I am worried about a lot of things with regards to my son.  However, when it is becoming increasingly obvious to me how little I can actually trust the government, there is no chance I can trust them with this vaccine.

An added note:  As I write this, there is a Homeland Security hearing going on regarding the news that came out yesterday that the swine flu vaccine has been slowly distributed and it may not reach all the Americans that want it in time.  This morning on the Fox News Channel, Dr. Marc Siegel pointed out this fact–the government is in charge of the H1N1 vaccine!  Is this a preview of government-run (ineptly) health care?  An excellent article from The Heartland Institute, addressing those concerns, can be found at  http://www.heartland.org/full/26089/H1N1_Vaccine_a_Preview_of_GovernmentRun_Health_Care.html.

For good information about the potential dangers of this vaccine and others, visit www.vactruth.com

To Have or Not to Have. . .the Swine Flu Vaccine

So much is being made lately about the swine flu that is circulating around, closing schools, and unfortunately in a few cases, taking lives.  It is difficult, for me at least, to find the right balance between the extreme hysteria and the reality of the risks.  As a mom especially, anything involving my child’s health and life can, unfortunately, set every emotion into high gear and therefore throw some rational and logical thinking out the window.  And watching the news only exacerbates the potential for fears and impulsive action.  So I’ve researched a bit and prayed about it and offer these 10 thoughts on the subject:

1.  Where is the evidence that this is any worse than the seasonal flu that we all contend with, and sometimes catch, each year?

2.  In order to consider the swine flu vaccine, we must go back to the basics of vaccines in general.  Review the research and only after that, can we make an informed decision aside from emotion.  I covered this subject in a previous blog, found here, with many resources and important information.

3.  It has been said that “news that bleeds leads.”  Things are no different when it comes to swine flu.  Do not allow yourself to be caught up in the hype about this flu unless it statistically proves worthy of the hype.  Carry a healthy skepticism with you as you read the newspapers or watch the news, realizing that the media, most of the time, covers the negative side of everything.

4.  Some of the common ingredients of vaccines in general are as follows: human diploid cells (lung tissue from aborted fetuses, thimerisol (the toxic compound that, because of it’s mercury content, has been suspected by many as contributing to autism), MSG (monosodium glutamate, a food additive that is best avoided for good health), formaldehyde, aluminum in various forms (if you recall, there is also speculation about an aluminum-Alzheimer’s link), and various parts from chicks, mice, and monkeys.

5.  One of those ingredients in the swine flu vaccine is said to be an adjuvant, a chemical “used to multiply the potency of the active ingredients in the vaccines” (source). 

 ”The U.S. government has contracts with several drug companies to develop and produce swine flu vaccines. At least two of those companies, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline, are using an adjuvant in their H1N1 vaccines.

The adjuvant? Squalene.

According to Meryl Nass, M.D., an authority on the anthrax vaccine,

“A novel feature of the two H1N1 vaccines being developed by companies Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline is the addition of squalene-containing adjuvants to boost immunogenicity and dramatically reduce the amount of viral antigen needed. This translates to much faster production of desired vaccine quantities.”

Novartis’s proprietary squalene adjuvant for their H1N1 vaccine is MF59. Glaxo’s is ASO3. MF59 has yet to be approved by the FDA for use in any U.S. vaccine, despite its history of use in other countries.

Per Dr. Nass, there are only three vaccines in existence using an approved squalene adjuvant. None of the three are approved for use in the U.S.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/08/04/Squalene-The-Swine-Flu-Vaccines-Dirty-Little-Secret-Exposed.aspx

6.  Shouldn’t we question something that was fast-tracked and couldn’t possibly have been tested long-term?  Aren’t we concerned at all about our future health, or that of our children, or are we willing to take such a huge risk simply to lessen the severity of a flu that has shown itself to be no more harmful than the seasonal flu?

7.  An article from Natural News reminds us that ” in 1976, a failed swine flu vaccine caused irreparable damage to the nervous systems of hundreds of people, paralyzing many. Medical doctors gave the problem a name, of course, to make it sound like they knew what they were talking about: Guillain-Barre syndrome. (Notably, they never called it “Toxic Vaccine Syndrome” because that would be too informative.)”

8.  Ironically, and tragically, vaccines “thwart our bodies natural abilities to fight off disease,” says Dr. Mercola.  Ask yourself, “What is the trade off here?  What am I trading in for a very small amount of protection from, in most cases, an uncomfortable and inconvenient but harmless flu?”

9.  The swine flu vaccine will contain mercury.  For the dangers of mercury in vaccines, click here.

10.  The Bible says, “people perish from lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6), speaking of those who do not know Jesus Christ.  Well, I see this influx of vaccinations in our country today in much the same way.  Let’s not perish from a lack of knowledge. . .let’s not compromise our health simply because we are not willing to do the research and make an informed decision about what is worth the risk regarding vaccines.

Visit my previous blog on vaccines:  http://www.standingontruth.com/nutritional-living/2009/03/vaccines-whats-really-at-stake/ and Vactruth also has some interesting articles on the swine flu vaccine.

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