Boost Metabolism Naturally...

Coffee can boost you metabolism naturally. EnerHealth Botanicals has a very interesting offering, NutriCafe-organic coffee with immune boosting or perfomance enhancing extracts.

Natural Ways to Boost Your Metabolism

* by LIVESTRONG.COM, on Wed May 26, 2010 1:03pm PDT

A fast metabolism is critical to burning fat and managing body weight. While some dieters use diet pills to speed up their metabolisms, the risks and side effects of these drugs make them risky. You can use some safe and natural methods to speed up your metabolism.

Gain Muscle

The American Council on Exercise recommends resistance training for weight management. Think of your muscles as your body’s engine. The bigger your engine, the more energy you can burn. Muscle, unlike fat, is active tissue that raises your metabolism just by being there. Adding a resistance training program is a sure method of naturally raising your metabolism. To make the most out of your time in the gym, train three days per week, training your entire body during each session. Use basic, compound exercises such as the leg press and shoulder press.

Keep Hydrated

Inadequate water intake can slow your metabolism. Water is responsible for several metabolic processes, including digestion, waste management and temperature regulation. The Mayo Clinic recommends drinking 2 liters of water daily. You can fight hunger as well as raise your metabolism by drinking a glass before each meal. To provide an extra boost, make sure your water is ice cold. Your body burns extra calories heating it up to room temperature.

Cardiovascular Exercise

Cardiovascular exercises such as walking, jogging and cycling are all effective ways to burn calories and keep your metabolism stoked. If you are just starting out, use a low-impact, low-intensity exercise such as brisk walking or moderate cycling. With more experience, you can graduate to jogging or intense cycling like spinning.

Coffee

Whether you realize it or not, you might already be waking up to an effective natural metabolism booster. The caffeine naturally present in coffee raises metabolism and can improve fat oxidation. Drinking a cup before exercise can also improve alertness and help fight fatigue.

There are many ways to increase metabolism. Many people have thyroid deficiency which can also decrease metabolism. Increasing thyroid function can improve metabolism.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Vitamin D, the grossly underestimated nutrient...

What would you think if someone told you that one nutrient could dramatically alter your health? That indeed that nutrient was necessary to prevent cancer, diabetes, heart disease, osteoporosis and many more conditions. Vitamin D, more a hormone than a vitamin, is necessary for the utilization of calcium and thus in the formation and repair of bones. How about if they told you that eating a low fat diet actually robs you of that very valuable nutrient? Well that is a reality that most of us are faced with on a daily basis and especially in the western world where processed food is the flavor of the decade.
Good fats from ethically raised animals such as raw milk, raw milk butter and raw milk cheeses, free range eggs etc. are great sources of Vitamin D as is, believe it or not the sun. In fact D3 is synthesized in the skin from sun exposure which in turn converts a type of cholesterol in the skin into vitamin D.
Vitamin D is important for the absorption of calcium and in fact, without vitamin D your body cannot absorb this essential nutrient. Nutrition can be a complex science if you try to break it down to individual nutrients and try to take each of these nutrients separately in pill form. We could easily become a nation of pill poppers leaving very little room remaining for good healthy foods. It is in our very foods where we can find the secret to optimal nutrition. However we can also find our nutritional demise there if we are not careful.
In order to become conscious consumers of high quality foods, we need to take a few steps back to an era when we had not yet succumbed to the media advertising blitz that convinced mothers that formula was better than breast milk and that pasteurization of dairy products was an important way to ensure us access to healthier foods. The debate over raw milk is a hot one and regulations, in addition to access to raw milk varies greatly from state to state. In order to find this valuable food, go to http://www.realmilk.com/where1.html. Also be sure to learn more about raw milk and its benefit from one of our recent radio show guests Mark McAfee at http://www.organicpastures.com/.
Having established that raw milk products are great sources of Vitamin D and its precursors and that this same nutrient is in no way bio-available from pasteurized dairy products, some might wonder where else we might find this important nutrient.
Many experts agree that Cod liver oil is a superior source of Vitamin D and many folks of certain generations will remember being fed this oil when they were children. Much research now recommends Krill oil over fish oil. Ultimately, however you get your vitamin D, it is just as important that you be able to absorb this vital nutrient. In order to absorb it you need to have a good functioning liver and kidneys since these organs are involved in transforming the natural form of vitamin D3, into its active hormonal form. Since fish oils and fatty saltwater fish are traditionally known to be the better sources off this nutrient and with our oceans being so badly polluted, it is advisable to eat smaller younger fish rather than older ones that so often retain heavy metals and chemical toxins into their tissues. One suggestion here is sardines, although since most of these are canned, you would be wise to seek out a source that is canned in BPA free cans. In order to keep our liver and kidneys in optimal working order I recommend taking a greens product daily, which will keep your liver and kidneys cleaner and help you detox some of these undesirable pollutants from your body. The product I recommend is called Enerfood and it is a totally organic source of many minerals and vitamins, in addition to its ability to keep your organs clean. In order to do a deeper cleanse, which I recommend once a season, I suggest doing a colon, liver and kidney cleanse. You can find the cleanses at http://www.enerhealthbotanicals.com/Cleanses-s/77.htm
Remember to get enough Vitamin D also by exposing your skin to the sun on a daily basis. Keep your exposure to between 15 and 30 minutes depending on your skin color. Lighter skinned people synthesize vitamin D more efficiently, while darker skinned folks need a little more time to synthesize this important nutrient. When your skin is exposed to the sun, the ultraviolet rays convert a form of cholesterol in the skin into a precursor to vitamin D. A precursor is something that goes on to make the nutrient itself. A short amount of skin exposure such as 20 minutes can bring you around 10 000 iu of Vitamin D. Expose as much op your skin as you can without shocking the neighbors or calling out the constables.
When we realize that higher vitamin D levels reduce mortality from all causes and that these levels improve all health complaints and enhance health, we understand why we need to get adequate vitamin D. Getting adequate sun exposure, drinking raw milk, eating fresh free range eggs, dandelion greens, alfalfa and horsetail, all of which are in the greens formula Enerfood and cleansing your liver and kidneys which process vitamin D, you will ensure that your health just gets better every day.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

The world may be on the brink of biological disast...

When we consider the all important topic of excellent health or for that matter just sustainable health, fresh fruits and vegetables are never too far away. For us to think that such essential elements of good health could be under threat, we realize that we need to get active and even vocally militant to promote the kind of change we all need. Getting healthy and staying that way involves eating a healthy diet comprised of preferably organic fruits and vegetable as well as taking high quality food based supplements like Enerfood.

Published on Sunday, May 2, 2010 by The Observer/UK
Fears for Crops as Shock Figures From America Show Scale of Bee Catastrophe

by Alison Benjamin
Disturbing evidence that honeybees are in terminal decline has emerged from the United States where, for the fourth year in a row, more than a third of colonies have failed to survive the winter.
Bernard Vallat, the World Organisation for Animal Health’s director-general, warned: “Bees contribute to global food security, and their extinction would represent a terrible biological disaster.” (photo by Flickr user Steve Punter) The decline of the country’s estimated 2.4 million beehives began in 2006, when a phenomenon dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD) led to the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of colonies. Since then more than three million colonies in the US and billions of honeybees worldwide have died and scientists are no nearer to knowing what is causing the catastrophic fall in numbers.
The number of managed honeybee colonies in the US fell by 33.8% last winter, according to the annual survey by the Apiary Inspectors of America and the US government’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS).
The collapse in the global honeybee population is a major threat to crops. It is estimated that a third of everything we eat depends upon honeybee pollination, which means that bees contribute some £26bn to the global economy.
Potential causes range from parasites, such as the bloodsucking varroa mite, to viral and bacterial infections, pesticides and poor nutrition stemming from intensive farming methods. The disappearance of so many colonies has also been dubbed “Mary Celeste syndrome” due to the absence of dead bees in many of the empty hives.
US scientists have found 121 different pesticides in samples of bees, wax and pollen, lending credence to the notion that pesticides are a key problem. “We believe that some subtle interactions between nutrition, pesticide exposure and other stressors are converging to kill colonies,” said Jeffery Pettis, of the ARS’s bee research laboratory.
A global review of honeybee deaths by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) reported last week that there was no one single cause, but pointed the finger at the “irresponsible use” of pesticides that may damage bee health and make them more susceptible to diseases. Bernard Vallat, the OIE’s director-general, warned: “Bees contribute to global food security, and their extinction would represent a terrible biological disaster.”
Dave Hackenberg of Hackenberg Apiaries, the Pennsylvania-based commercial beekeeper who first raised the alarm about CCD, said that last year had been the worst yet for bee losses, with 62% of his 2,600 hives dying between May 2009 and April 2010. “It’s getting worse,” he said. “The AIA survey doesn’t give you the full picture because it is only measuring losses through the winter. In the summer the bees are exposed to lots of pesticides. Farmers mix them together and no one has any idea what the effects might be.”
Pettis agreed that losses in some commercial operations are running at 50% or greater. “Continued losses of this magnitude are not economically sustainable for commercial beekeepers,” he said, adding that a solution may be years away. “Look at Aids, they have billions in research dollars and a causative agent and still no cure. Research takes time and beehives are complex organisms.”
In the UK it is still too early to judge how Britain’s estimated 250,000 honeybee colonies have fared during the long winter. Tim Lovett, president of the British Beekeepers’ Association, said: “Anecdotally, it is hugely variable. There are reports of some beekeepers losing almost a third of their hives and others losing none.” Results from a survey of the association’s 15,000 members are expected this month.
John Chapple, chairman of the London Beekeepers’ Association, put losses among his 150 members at between a fifth and a quarter. Eight of his 36 hives across the capital did not survive. “There are still a lot of mysterious disappearances,” he said. “We are no nearer to knowing what is causing them.”
Bee farmers in Scotland have reported losses on the American scale for the past three years. Andrew Scarlett, a Perthshire-based bee farmer and honey packer, lost 80% of his 1,200 hives this winter. But he attributed the massive decline to a virulent bacterial infection that quickly spread because of a lack of bee inspectors, coupled with sustained poor weather that prevented honeybees from building up sufficient pollen and nectar stores.
The government’s National Bee Unit has always denied the existence of CCD in Britain, despite honeybee losses of 20% during the winter of 2008-09 and close to a third the previous year. It attributes the demise to the varroa mite – which is found in almost every UK hive – and rainy summers that stop bees foraging for food.
In a hard-hitting report last year, the National Audit Office suggested that amateur beekeepers who failed to spot diseases in bees were a threat to honeybees’ survival and called for the National Bee Unit to carry out more inspections and train more beekeepers. Last summer MPs on the influential cross-party public accounts committee called on the government to fund more research into what it called the “alarming” decline of honeybees.
The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has contributed £2.5m towards a £10m fund for research on pollinators. The public accounts committee has called for a significant proportion of this funding to be “ring-fenced” for honeybees. Decisions on which research projects to back are expected this month.
WHY BEES MATTER

Flowering plants require insects for pollination. The most effective is the honeybee, which pollinates 90 commercial crops worldwide. As well as most fruits and vegetables – including apples, oranges, strawberries, onions and carrots – they pollinate nuts, sunflowers and oil-seed rape. Coffee, soya beans, clovers – like alfafa, which is used for cattle feed – and even cotton are all dependent on honeybee pollination to increase yields.
In the UK alone, honeybee pollination is valued at £200m. Mankind has been managing and transporting bees for centuries to pollinate food and produce honey, nature’s natural sweetener and antiseptic. Their extinction would mean not only a colourless, meatless diet of cereals and rice, and cottonless clothes, but a landscape without orchards, allotments and meadows of wildflowers – and the collapse of the food chain that sustains wild birds and animals.
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Contact your representatives about what could be the biggest threat to human survival to date. No bees, no pollination. No pollination no food!!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Superweeds...

By WILLIAM NEUMAN and ANDREW POLLACK

DYERSBURG, Tenn. — For 15 years, Eddie Anderson, a farmer, has been a strict adherent of no-till agriculture, an environmentally friendly technique that all but eliminates plowing to curb erosion and the harmful runoff of fertilizers and pesticides.

But not this year.

On a recent afternoon here, Mr. Anderson watched as tractors crisscrossed a rolling field — plowing and mixing herbicides into the soil to kill weeds where soybeans will soon be planted.

Just as the heavy use of antibiotics contributed to the rise of drug-resistant supergerms, American farmers’ near-ubiquitous use of the weedkiller Roundup has led to the rapid growth of tenacious new superweeds.

To fight them, Mr. Anderson and farmers throughout the East, Midwest and South are being forced to spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds by hand and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing.

“We’re back to where we were 20 years ago,” said Mr. Anderson, who will plow about one-third of his 3,000 acres of soybean fields this spring, more than he has in years. “We’re trying to find out what works.”

Farm experts say that such efforts could lead to higher food prices, lower crop yields, rising farm costs and more pollution of land and water.

“It is the single largest threat to production agriculture that we have ever seen,” said Andrew Wargo III, the president of the Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts.

The first resistant species to pose a serious threat to agriculture was spotted in a Delaware soybean field in 2000. Since then, the problem has spread, with 10 resistant species in at least 22 states infesting millions of acres, predominantly soybeans, cotton and corn.

The superweeds could temper American agriculture’s enthusiasm for some genetically modified crops. Soybeans, corn and cotton that are engineered to survive spraying with Roundup have become standard in American fields. However, if Roundup doesn’t kill the weeds, farmers have little incentive to spend the extra money for the special seeds.

Roundup — originally made by Monsanto but now also sold by others under the generic name glyphosate — has been little short of a miracle chemical for farmers. It kills a broad spectrum of weeds, is easy and safe to work with, and breaks down quickly, reducing its environmental impact.

Sales took off in the late 1990s, after Monsanto created its brand of Roundup Ready crops that were genetically modified to tolerate the chemical, allowing farmers to spray their fields to kill the weeds while leaving the crop unharmed. Today, Roundup Ready crops account for about 90 percent of the soybeans and 70 percent of the corn and cotton grown in the United States.

But farmers sprayed so much Roundup that weeds quickly evolved to survive it. “What we’re talking about here is Darwinian evolution in fast-forward,” Mike Owen, a weed scientist at Iowa State University, said.

Now, Roundup-resistant weeds like horseweed and giant ragweed are forcing farmers to go back to more expensive techniques that they had long ago abandoned.

Mr. Anderson, the farmer, is wrestling with a particularly tenacious species of glyphosate-resistan t pest called Palmer amaranth, or pigweed, whose resistant form began seriously infesting farms in western Tennessee only last year.

Pigweed can grow three inches a day and reach seven feet or more, choking out crops; it is so sturdy that it can damage harvesting equipment. In an attempt to kill the pest before it becomes that big, Mr. Anderson and his neighbors are plowing their fields and mixing herbicides into the soil.

That threatens to reverse one of the agricultural advances bolstered by the Roundup revolution: minimum-till farming. By combining Roundup and Roundup Ready crops, farmers did not have to plow under the weeds to control them. That reduced erosion, the runoff of chemicals into waterways and the use of fuel for tractors.

If frequent plowing becomes necessary again, “that is certainly a major concern for our environment,” Ken Smith, a weed scientist at the University of Arkansas, said. In addition, some critics of genetically engineered crops say that the use of extra herbicides, including some old ones that are less environmentally tolerable than Roundup, belies the claims made by the biotechnology industry that its crops would be better for the environment.

“The biotech industry is taking us into a more pesticide-dependent agriculture when they’ve always promised, and we need to be going in, the opposite direction,” said Bill Freese, a science policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety in Washington.

So far, weed scientists estimate that the total amount of United States farmland afflicted by Roundup-resistant weeds is relatively small — seven million to 10 million acres, according to Ian Heap, director of the International Survey of Herbicide Resistant Weeds, which is financed by the agricultural chemical industry. There are roughly 170 million acres planted with corn, soybeans and cotton, the crops most affected.

Roundup-resistant weeds are also found in several other countries, including Australia, China and Brazil, according to the survey.

Monsanto, which once argued that resistance would not become a major problem, now cautions against exaggerating its impact. “It’s a serious issue, but it’s manageable,” said Rick Cole, who manages weed resistance issues in the United States for the company.

Of course, Monsanto stands to lose a lot of business if farmers use less Roundup and Roundup Ready seeds.

“You’re having to add another product with the Roundup to kill your weeds,” said Steve Doster, a corn and soybean farmer in Barnum, Iowa. “So then why are we buying the Roundup Ready product?”

Monsanto argues that Roundup still controls hundreds of weeds. But the company is concerned enough about the problem that it is taking the extraordinary step of subsidizing cotton farmers’ purchases of competing herbicides to supplement Roundup.

Monsanto and other agricultural biotech companies are also developing genetically engineered crops resistant to other herbicides.

Bayer is already selling cotton and soybeans resistant to glufosinate, another weedkiller. Monsanto’s newest corn is tolerant of both glyphosate and glufosinate, and the company is developing crops resistant to dicamba, an older pesticide. Syngenta is developing soybeans tolerant of its Callisto product. And Dow Chemical is developing corn and soybeans resistant to 2,4-D, a component of Agent Orange, the defoliant used in the Vietnam War.

Still, scientists and farmers say that glyphosate is a once-in-a-century discovery, and steps need to be taken to preserve its effectiveness.

Glyphosate “is as important for reliable global food production as penicillin is for battling disease,” Stephen B. Powles, an Australian weed expert, wrote in a commentary in January in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The National Research Council, which advises the federal government on scientific matters, sounded its own warning last month, saying that the emergence of resistant weeds jeopardized the substantial benefits that genetically engineered crops were providing to farmers and the environment.

Weed scientists are urging farmers to alternate glyphosate with other herbicides. But the price of glyphosate has been falling as competition increases from generic versions, encouraging farmers to keep relying on it.

Something needs to be done, said Louie Perry Jr., a cotton grower whose great-great- grandfather started his farm in Moultrie, Ga., in 1830.

Georgia has been one of the states hit hardest by Roundup-resistant pigweed, and Mr. Perry said the pest could pose as big a threat to cotton farming in the South as the beetle that devastated the industry in the early 20th century.

“If we don’t whip this thing, it’s going to be like the boll weevil did to cotton,” said Mr. Perry, who is also chairman of the Georgia Cotton Commission. “It will take it away.”
With all these toxins in our environment from extra herbicides and pesticides, we need to become more attentive to caring for our health. Internal cleansing becomes imperative, so go to our cleanse page and get started today http://www.enerhealthbotanicals.com/Cleanses-s/77.htm
William Neuman reported from Dyersburg, Tenn., and Andrew Pollack from Los Angeles.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

The Importance of regular cleansing in the pursuit...

Are you wondering how to cleanse your colon and/or other organs at home? Discover how to clean your colon and restore your body’s natural ability to eliminate toxins. Our bodies are designed to digest nutrients and then eliminate any toxins or waste in a relatively short period of time. Total body cleansers, colon health and immune health are inextricably linked. A good cleansing program restores colon functionality and helps your body digest food properly, eliminates toxins and helps maintain a healthier immune system. However many people consider having one bowel movement every few days healthy. In reality, in a healthy individual one bowel movement for every major meal is normal. Couple this with the fact that many people simply don’t eat enough fibrous greens and whole grains and it is no wonder so many people suffer from a variety of digestive maladies. Using a safe and gentle cleansing formula on a regular basis can help restore your digestive system and renew your energy. When starting a detox or colon cleanse, natural and gentle products should be encouraged. If you ever feel bloated, tired, run down and old before your time you owe it to yourself to try a gentle, safe and healthy colon cleanse. A healthy digestive tract and colon will make you feel healthier and more energetic at any age.

Colon Cancer is a killer
With colon cancer killing more people than breast or prostate cancer, it has become blatantly clear that we can no longer look the other way, with regards to our digestive health. We should probably look down at our bellies. According to the American Cancer Society, colon cancer is currently the third leading cancer for men and women in cause of death. It accounted for some 50,000 deaths in 2008. The desire to cleanse your colon at home is becoming increasingly important.
Indigestion is an industry
Simply visit any pharmacy or pharmacy aisle in your local supermarket and you will often find an entire aisle devoted to indigestion and constipation remedies. Very few are actually cleansers for the colon. Skip over a few aisles and you will find the refined, empty and clogging foods that caused the problem in the first place. Home cleansers for the colon are safe, effective and affordable and cleanse your colon with natural foods and herbs. In order to cleanse there are a few things to pick up on this journey to wellness.

Try one of our Specialized cleanse programs

We have a variety of cleanse programs you can download, along with herbal tinctures and instructions for cleansing at home. You can use our cleanse programs at home here. Due to the inclusion of a full spectrum of high quality cleansing ingredients in this formula, your body can enjoy a much more complete and equally gentle cleansing experience. Just follow the downloadable cleanse program closely for best results. Natural body detox and colon cleanse can also be taken once daily for maintenance separate from meals.?? Natural body detox and colon cleanse contains a whopping 120 one teaspoon servings, many more than most leading competitors. It is designed for you to complete all six Enerhealth 4 day cleansing programs. During these programs five 1 teaspoon servings will be consumed for a total of 20 teaspoons per 4 day cleanse or 120 teaspoons for the entire program.

The American Dietetic Association recommends 20 to 35 grams of fiber each day, but the average American eats about 5 to 20 grams a day. Whole natural psyllium husk is one of the best dietary fibers known to man. Add to that the modern “rediscovered” power food chia and you have a winning combination. The Natural body Detox and colon cleanse is a safe, effective, gentle and all natural vegan way to cleanse your colon at home. It is also calming to the digestive system with its use of ginger and cinnamon and other herbs as well as being nutritive and sustaining from the inclusion of chia. Gentle bulking comes from the inclusion of chia and psyllium hulls which help eliminate constipation. Our detox cleanse for colon is natural and gentle and will clean the circulatory system by attracting and carrying out toxins from the organs and blood. Apple pectin, bentonite clay and activated charcoal attract to themselves toxins and accumulated poisons.
Shop intelligently and read before you eat

First, learn to shop intelligently; from experience this means reading labels, avoiding processed foods whose ingredients are incomprehensible and eat more organic fruits and vegetables. This will help keep you cleaner inside but it does not mean you should bypass cleansing. In our toxin filled world, cleansing should be considered imperative rather than a choice.
Cleanse your entire body

Second, perform a total body cleanse preferably once a season to help keep your body running smoothly. A good cleanse must incorporate several key elements in order to be effective. Among these it is very important to follow a vegan cleansing diet. When you choose to cleanse your colon at home, you control the products in the program and bring yourself benefits which with safe natural ingredients means less discomfort and bloating. Also, during the cleansing process you must consume at least a gallon of water per day, in addition to any other liquids. That might seem like a lot of water but it is essential.
A green superfood formula is strongly advised if you decide to cleanse your colon at home, for both its cleansing and its nutritional properties. In addition to an intestinal bulking and cleansing formula like our Total Body Detox, it is highly recommended to consume an herbal formula to assure regular bowel motility.
Cleanse your spirit

Thirdly, consider cleansing on more than just the physical level. Cleansing goes both ways. When we feel low and depressed, we tend to reach for unhealthy foods and beverages that cause us to retain more toxins. Similarly poor food choices create conditions in our body that make us more likely to feel low and depressed. When you cleanse your body you might want to get rid of old clothes, books and belongings. Make good food and beverage choices a gift rather than a chore. Consider cleaning up your life on other levels. Set boundaries, clean house, work on creating the life you want even in small baby steps. Combining these approaches you will feel happier and better immediately.

What Makes the Natural Body Detox so good?

Hydrated bentonite clay absorbs and binds toxins such as heavy metals, free radicals and pesticides that reside in the intestinal tract. In addition, recent studies also showed positive benefits of psyllium in IBD, Crohn’s Disease and Colitis.
Psyllium acts as a prebiotic – aiding in the healing the inner lining of the inflamed intestines. Indeed, psyllium has long been recognized for its potential role in reducing blood cholesterol. These are natural cleansers – colon health and natural weight loss is the result.
Chia seeds – natures nutritional cleanser??Chia itself is considered a superfood. It has an optimal balance of Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids as well as being a superb source of vegetable based protein. Chia is hydrophilic in nature. It absorbs much more water than most other foods, leaving you feeling full and allowing your body to absorb nutrition more slowly. This hydrophilic nature in addition to its high fiber content, makes it a perfect cleansing food.
Activated charcoal? This miracle ingredient absorbs most drug residues, pesticides and harmful chemicals. This is why it is used in water filtration worldwide.
Herbs for soothing and improving your digestion

Cinnamon is an astringent, diminishes chronic long term bleeding, stimulates digestion, and dilates blood vessels to help get rid of inflammation.
Ginger? Ginger is good for intestinal flus and helps reduce cramping and nausea. It helps with upset stomach and indigestion. Ginger is also shown to be superior to Dramamine in independent studies for travel sickness.
Marshmallow Root? is also mucilaginous and soothing to both the digestive and urinary tract. It increases the viscosity of urine and is diuretic. It is anti- inflammatory to the kidneys and bladder and stimulates macrophage activity in the urinary tract as well as being soothing to the intestines.
Apple Pectin? Apple Pectin has a drawing capacity and is great at attracting heavy metals to itself, which are then carried out of the body with the cleansing program.
Eating out, fast food, freezer dinners, sugary drinks and empty calorie snacks are a way of life in America. Our everyday diets have become so nutritionally deficient that you can dramatically offset this deficit by simply adding an EnerFood and Coconut Milk Powder shake once a day! The result will not only help you lose weight but will give you more energy, mental clarity and vitality.

So try a cleanse today. It will make you feel better and look better.

Benefits of cleansing include but are not limited to the following;

• Improvements in the appearance and texture of your skin
• Better digestion and elimination
• Clearer thinking and enhanced memory
• More energy
• Improvements in the functioning of all your organs
• Blood pressure normalization
• Allergic symptoms will diminish
• Your mood will be much more level and stable
• Your immune system will work better
• You will sleep better

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Treating and preventing cravings and addictions wi...

Many people believe that their cravings or addictions are purely habitual prisons from whence it is seemingly impossible to escape. I would contest that notion and aim to enlighten you as to why dietary deficiencies can lead to a whole host of health problems, including cravings and persistent addictions.

Perhaps two of the most well recognized addictive tendencies are those for cigarettes and alcohol, although craving sweets is one that should never be ignored either. Every year millions of people are drinking or smoking themselves to death, literally. According to the Health Recovery Center and many other similar groups, while traditional talk therapy is an important step in uncovering psychological patterns that can lead to alcoholism or keep people there, at least 3 out of every 4 alcoholics are hypoglycemic. Stabilizing blood sugar therefore becomes essential in the goal of addiction abatement as does nutritional deficiencies which themselves make people crave something. Alcohol and cigarettes have a numbing effect on those who use them but therapy groups rarely address the deficiencies that actually lead to their consumption. Balancing nutrition and blood sugar can stabilize the addict and make it so much easier to overcome addictions.

The nutrient deficiencies that most often cause cravings are for minerals, vitamins, essential fats and proteins. One of the easiest ways for us to get such nutrients is through the consumption of whole foods and whole food supplements. Green vegetables such as steamed kale, collard greens, green cabbage, broccoli, etc, as well as salad greens such as romaine lettuce, spinach, arugula and mizuna greens should be consumed daily and will provide you with many of these important nutrients in a form that your body can absorb.

Bearing in mind than many of us lead busy lives, another great way to get your greens for sure in a convenient form that requires little preparation, is to take a powdered greens formula that you can blend up with fruits to make a great smoothie. There are quite a few products on the market nowadays but one I highly recommend is a 100% organic one made by Enerhealth Botanicals. It is called Enerfood and is unique in the fact that it is completely full of whole foods and is filler free. Many competitor products use cheaper filler ingredients that pack little nutritional punch. Another great reason for taking Enerfood when your goal is to overcome addictions is that in addition to a high concentration of B vitamins that help reduce cravings and withdrawal symptoms, Enerfood is also a rich source of micronutrients such as trace minerals, which are always lacking in people who engage in addictive substances. Other mineral and vitamin rich foods include beets, carrots and berries and also other fruits such as kiwi, oranges or grapefruits, which are rich in vitamin C. Such whole foods are fiber rich and they help us feel full and thus make it less likely that we will reach for more, be it sweets, alcohol or cigarettes. Fiber is crucial not only because it makes us feel full but also because it acts like a broom in our intestines, sweeping out toxins. A great fiber supplement that is optimal in its ability to attract and expel toxins is a product called the Natural Body Detox and Colon Cleanse. It is almost 50% fiber. Sugar is also key to avoid in the pursuit of a substance free life. Cigarettes themselves contain tobacco which is cured with corn, cane or beet sugar and so smokers are doubly addicted, to the nicotine and to the sugar, making it even harder to quit the habit. This in addition to the fact that many folks who are addicted to both alcohol and cigarettes are also allergic to corn, yeast, barley and other foods that are contained in those substances. So when an AA group or some other suggests that you consume candy to help get over the addiction you face, you are actually perpetuating the problem. I would like to add to this that the food industry is actually creating a profound addiction to salty and sugary foods by their overuse of sugars and salt in the vast majority of processed and packaged foods. It keeps us consuming, that’s for sure. Salt is something we tend to crave when we are mineral deficient. The problem is that most commercially available salt is only sodium chloride and lacks the minerals that our bodies intuitively search for when we reach for the salt. Consequently I recommend that you purchase and use celtic sea salt, which is very mineral rich.

Specific herbal formulas can also help us in our goal to break the habit. One formula I recommend to help kick the smoking habit, in addition to the above mentioned ideas, is a formula called stop smoking herbal remedy which actually makes your cigarettes taste bad. In addition to this specific herbal formula, it is also recommended that you take a formula that will help calm your nervous system. Relax and de-stress herbal remedy is superb for helping you achieve that aim.

Addictions are often a reflection not just of a nutritional deficiency but also of a social sadness, one where we are also craving social connection. So often that leads to us going out more to eat or to bars, where the very substances we want to avoid are so very prevalent. A great way to avoid that trap is to go to meetup groups that will support you in your new goal of healthy, addiction free living. Mingle with those who share your goals and not only will you feel better, you will also feel supported.

Overcoming addictions is truly a road worth traveling. Imagine your life transformed and use all the suggestions in this article as a road map to your success.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Asthma management and potential reversal...

For many asthma sufferers the potential of reversing this chronic health concern is almost a dream. Few sufferers believe that they could function without their trusted inhalers and other medications. In order to get a better understanding of this health challenge, we must first understand what causes it, what worsens it and also what can improve and even potentially reverse it.

Asthma is essentially a condition that involves a respiratory system disturbance that results in a constriction of the airways making it progressively difficult and in extreme cases impossible to breathe. For those families with a member suffering from asthma, it is very beneficial to observe and take note of when attacks happen, noting times of day, following certain foods, during and subsequent to stressful incidents or altercations, after exposure to certain locations etc.  Basically there are a series of things that can lead to constriction of the airways and these situations are thus obviously best noted and avoided. It is also good to remain vigilant noting any other elements that tend to worsen symptoms. If at all possible involve the patient in this observation since the more they can personally become aware of what triggers an increase in symptoms the more likely they are to avoid such elements or situations.

Commonly speaking, some of the major elements that have such effects on asthma symptomology are the following; most asthma sufferers benefit greatly from excluding dairy products from their diet, often seeing a major improvement within a few days. Other dietary factors that can be of concern are corn and nuts. Allergens in general can be a major factor in asthma and practicing a one by one exclusion and reintroduction program where you remove a potential offending element from your diet or surroundings for at least a week, carefully observing any changes, and then reintroduce such elements. Other factors besides dietary elements are pet dander, dust, household and garden chemicals, new paint etc…. Also humidity levels can have an effect as can mold.

From practice as an herbalist I have recommended all of the above approaches in addition to stress management techniques such as deep breathing or calming visualizations. I have found all of these to be very helpful but perhaps the three most important practices have been the exclusion of dairy products, the relaxing practice of slow deep breathing and the use of certain herbs that strengthen the lungs especially one of my favorites named Mullein. Mullein can be taken in tincture or capsule form and should be taken daily. Consult a local herbalist or drop me an email for more information. I also recommend a great herbal tincture called lung renewal, which has mullein in addition to a number of other great lung herbs.

Several asthma sufferers have come to me for advice and after following my recommendations are now living life normally without the need for asthma medications. Natural approaches work if you just stick to them and especially if you seek expert advice to help guide you along the path to wellness.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Herbal therapies...

As most of us are aware, the use of herbs as medicine has been part of human culture for thousands of years and has truthfully evolved into a science. Modern allopathic medicine is relatively new in comparison, being only 150 or so years old in its current form. For us to say that herbal medicine is a true alternative to modern drugs is in essence a truth and yet some in modern medicine would dispute that statement wholeheartedly. On a personal note my children and myself have never needed or used pharmaceutical drugs, always turning to herbs for everything from bruises to colds, from infections to inflammation, and always successfully and without side effects.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

How to choose the best green superfood formula?...

Green superfoods are natural, normally powdered food supplements providing a concentrated source of nutritional elements that deliver a much higher nutrient density than what is contained in commonly consumed daily foods. Green superfoods, in addition to being a superb source of nutrition, are also considered by many experts to be an effective medium to effect improvement in a wide range of health conditions. Green superfood blends are commonly available in health food stores, yet there are great differences in quality and effectiveness.

Most green superfoods contain ingredients that are not traditionally eaten in the west, but which are to a certain extent more common in Asian countries, such as seaweeds. Seaweeds are highly nutritious, especially in minerals and are commonly eaten in most Asian countries. They support proper thyroid function and it can be said that thyroid health is generally much better in such nations. Some of the more common seaweeds used in green superfoods are kelp and dulse as well as fresh water algaes such as spirulina and chlorella.

Cereal grasses such as those from barley and wheat are also commonly found in green superfoods. They are known for their high mineral and vitamin content. Wheatgrass, barley grass and other such ingredients and formulas go a long way to correct nutritional imbalances that many of us suffer from due to the difficulty in obtaining a highly nutritions diet in a culture that is so often on the run. Organic superfood options like these algaes and grasses can also help to provide reliable, consistent energy without resorting to sugary and refined foods that sooner or later cause problems with blood sugar.

A wide range of green superfood products are now available in stores and online. As more people become aware of the need to correct poor eating and exercise habits, there is no doubt that green superfood will become a more common supplement to many people’s daily diets. With a shake or smoothie, green superfoods become an easy way to ensure balanced and health enhancing nutrition.

Now that we know how beneficial green superfoods can be, how can we choose the appropriate one? Several factors need to be considered. Firstly always choose a superfood that has powerful nutrient rich elements that come first on the list of ingredients. These would be the dense superfoods such as the fresh and sea water algaes; spirulina and chlorella, barley and wheat grass. Also be sure that the formula contains high level of B vitamins, so important for your nervous system and many other energy related processes in the body. Ascertain whether your chosen blend contains fillers of any kind. Some ingredients may seem to be good but always remember that the nutrient dense ingredients should always come first in order of quality and price. For example, spirulina is quite expensive. If it comes towards the end of the list and something less expensive such as spinach comes first, you will know that your provider is cutting corners and favoring profit over quality. Also make sure that the blend is organically grown. Why pay for a great mix of ingredients if you then have to be concerned with pesticide residues.

All this being said my recommendation for the best available blend on the market today would be Enerfood Organic Green SuperFood. It is an energy drink that is packed with vitamins, protein and minerals. This yields improved mental clarity and great nutrition without bulking or filler ingredients and without sugars or sweeteners. It is also highly bioavailable  as well as being vegetarian and vegan. It is naturally low in fat while being high in protein, vitamins, minerals and many of the micro-nutrients that are difficult to find in our normal daily diets.

This unique formula also helps cleanse your body. Enerfood green super food powder attracts toxins and eliminates them safely and naturally.

Enerfood Super Green Energy Drink provides dense and highly concentrated absorbable nutrition in a powdered form. That means when you mix it with fluids, the vitamin and mineral-rich molecules can be easily processed by your body’s digestive system. This way your stomach and intestines can absorb the nutrients and minerals and put them to work right away.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Caffeine and weight loss; Debunking popular myths...

Caffeine and weight loss; Debunking popular myths

Posted by darren craddock in Alternative Health News on February 19, 2010 | no responses

Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing author, researcher and Naturopath Dr Jeffry Weiss abnout his proven theories with regards to metabolism, caffeine and weight loss. Were I to say that the interview was fascinating would be an understatement. Where many people expound upon their theories in this realm, Jeffry has not only researched this subject extensively over several decades, he has also put it into practice clinically with very impressive results.

In his book; THE CAFFEINE DIET: SIPPING YOUR WAY TO SLIM, Jeffry has sought to explain in great detail why it is nigh on impossible to effectively lose weight on a conventional diet. The reasons for this are as follows: Basically when you begin to lose weight, the body thinks you are starving and subsequently slows your metabolism. Jeffry explains that were we to try to lose weight with only dietary means, we would have to reduce caloric intake to somewhere around 800 calories a day or less, rendering it very hard for us to obtain all necessary vitamins and minerals. This would affect many essential processes in our body and swiftly become detrimental to our health. Even the strongest of dieters would start developing cravings that would soon sabotage their most noble dieting efforts.

A profound question thus arises: How can we increase metabolism and thus not have to suffer draconian dietary restriction that ultimately sabotages us. Increased metabolism makes it possible for us to burn calories more effectively and also leaves us with a more consistent energy level. Low metabolism is not confined to a handful of people. Back in the 50’s about 10% of our population were dealing with this challenge. Experts like Dr Weiss and others conservatively estimate that those percentages have dramatically shifted and that we currently can count on at least 50% of the population suffering from low metabolism. When we become more aware of this we find it hardly surprising that obesity rates are skyrocketing. So what is the culprit, one might ask. The answer lies to a large extent in our water supply and it is fluoride. Fluoride competes with iodine in the thyroid gland, the gland responsible for maintaining optimal metabolism. With our diets low in iodine and high exposure to fluoride, it becomes increasingly difficult for us to maintain a healthy metabolism. Even as little as 1 part per million of fluoride inhibits DNA repair activity by as much as 50% and in animal studies such a level has shown demonstrable chromosome damage.  Moreover the forms of fluoride used in municipal water supplies; sodium fluoride and aluminum fluoride are hard to remove from the body and have numerous detrimental effects from poor thyroid function, brain related disorders such as Alzheimers and others. Good water filtration is essential, and although few systems offer effective removal of fluoride from water there are a few that do. One that I have experience with is the Berkey Water filters which have an add on component called a PF-2 filter that will remove fluoride and arsenic up to 99%.   This is essential if you are serious about reestablishing a healthy metabolism, as is the use of a fluoride free toothpaste. Most health food stores offer them but not all of their toothpastes are fluoride free.  Other chemicals such as chlorine and PCB’s affect thyroid function and happily these can all be removed from your water with the use of Berkey Water filters .

Knowing now how important the thyroid gland is in metabolism and maintaining a healthy weight, one might ask how else we can improve thyroid function. Mainstream allopathic medicine prescribes synthetic thyroid to basically do the thyroid’s work for it. The drugs commonly prescribed are a one size fits all approach that is not effective in  restoring a healthy metabolism.

Dr Weiss’s research and from the patients he has seen in the last 20 years, it is clear that the thyroid gland is sensitive to a variety of influences; dietary, lifestyle, and environment. Basically if we eat more toxic foods and are increasingly more exposed to pollution, petrochemical and industrial wastes, and heavy metals thyroid problems will continue to be a major problem in our society. The facts show that around 80% of women and men in the United States have thyroid issues. So what of other factors play a role in weight loss?

Exercise, calorie reduction, boosting metabolic rate and promoting fat burning. We have seen that calorie reduction does not work effectively. Exercise does help a great deal but to boost metabolism and reduce weight we need to increase our metabolism more consistently than just during a workout. This is where caffeine comes in. If you drink the equivalent of 100mg of caffeine, about 1/3 of a cup of coffee just before you eat will help reduce cravings, help you eat less and burn more calories.  Try a healthier coffee called Nutricafe and you will eliminate jitters plus get additional benefits too.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites