Get Your Fats Right!
August 3, 2010 by Cheryl Millett
Filed under Beauty, Body, • Headline
Read this article to learn more than the average bears…roaring good information and something to sink your teeth into.
Life is what you make it and much of the time we are learning and experiencing new things which can shape our thoughts and diet.
One key area of nutrition is “FATS.” I like to ask my audiences what one word comes to mind when I say “FATS.” What one word comes to mind for you?
Most will say words, like obesity, trans fats, saturated fats and so on. These words refer to “FATS” as something negative, something to stay away from. After all, being over-weight and obesity is a BIG problem these days.
There are two sides to the FAT coin. There are healthy fats and unhealthy fats…with a flip of how it is processed.
Where to start? From the raw material to the types of fats, from the processing to the cooking temperature, fats will come out unhealthy or healthy for you. It is quality of the fat just before it enters your mouth that matters most. Wait for the kicker at the end of this article.
Raw Material
Healthy fats include fats from whole foods like nuts, seeds, olives, grass fed meat and poultry, wild fish, and avocado, then include a most powerful saturated fat coconut oil, and the poly-unsaturated or essential fatty acids (omega 3 and omega 6) from seal blubber. A majority of the fat from fish is located just beneath the skin…is this the part you eat? Do you eat it raw?
Unhealthy fats include processed and oxidized fats such as vegetable oils (i.e. corn, canola, soybean oil, safflower, sunflower oil, etc.), grain fed animals, farmed fish (use to feed them pellets with wheat in it from my days of working at George Weston), cooked fats, trans fats and more.
Fresh is Better
This does differ from food to food! For any whole foods, the shelf life is usually longer. Why? The stability has not been removed from the food. Using the on-the-counter approach – take for example the whole apple versus one cut up or a fat example, flaxseeds versus flaxseed oil. Either way the whole food would last longer. The seal oil from the blubber which if kept whole can maintain freshness when sitting on the counter. Wouldn’t be doing this with fish oil liquid! Besides the DHA in fish is a different molecule versus the DHA from seal oil. Weston A. Price talks highly about the seal oil and other healthy fats (see reference links.) The website also talks to the processing changing the quality of the fats.
Processing is NOT All Created Equal
If your taste buds are in good working order (and let’s just say you like the taste of coconut), you would notice the difference between raw and refined products. For example, I purchased a very good organic cold pressed coconut oil which tasted great (you see I eat coconut oil by the teaspoon) and the colour was a beautiful white. My mother bought an organic coconut oil which was refined (labeled for cooking – didn’t see this before I tasted it!). It looked beige, and tasted awful. Yuck!
Most fish oils, cod liver oils and seal oils are refined, bleached and deodorized, using high heat and chemicals in the process. I know of only one seal oil company that doesn’t do this standard processing. I recommend it to all my clients, and friends and family(www.AuumOmegas.com).
Purchase organic oils because toxins are stored in the fat. Sure they say they remove the heavy metals but that isn’t the only toxins present. There are toxic residues from the processing.
There are cold pressed oils such as olive oil, and flaxseed oil. Please understand there is still heat generated by the friction when making these oils. The high volume production can cause more friction which leads to oxidation of the product. In this case, I can write “go small or go home.”
The Type
Healthy saturated fats are very helpful in many ways. Here is one reason: Trans fats inhibit the body’s use of omega-3 fatty acids and the production of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, while saturated fats enhance the body’s use of omega-3 fatty acids and the production of the long-chain versions. (Ref: Weston A. Price)
Cooking Dangers
One last thing you must learn! The label reads what it contains at point of purchase not what happens if you put it in the oven at 350 degrees. Most processed foods do not contain trans fats but vegetable oils like canola or soybean oil. When you heat these oils past 320 degrees you actually create your own trans fats.
How do you like that? I recently read a book called “Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human.” This book brought to my attention that we cook at much higher temperatures today than how they did it hundreds of thousands of years before us. In those days, they didn’t use vegetable oils, they used animal saturated fats. Ah ha!
Dangers of the wrong fat such as vegetable oils, high heated fats, and trans fats: Cancer, Diabetes, Heart Disease, Immune Function, Fertility and Reproduction, Lactation, Development and Growth, Osteoporosis, Learning Disabilities, Obesity.
Oh my! What are you thinking? Share your thoughts with me…make your comment below or share this article with others. We need to take control of our health, of our grocery shopping choices.
Good news! A little saturated fat such as butter and coconut oil won’t hurt you but help you. Consume some mono-unsaturated fats, such as olive oil and avocado adds variety. Most of all have a good source of polyunsaturated fats or essential fats (Omega 6 and Omega 3 in a balanced ratio). Click here to go to articles on omegas.
FATS is not a 4 letter word!
Make it a healthy day!
Cheryl
References
http://www.westonaprice.org/know-your-fats.html
http://wwww.westonaprice.org/images/pdfs/Trifold-TransFats2009.pdf
Have you ever seen or heard about Cancer of the Heart?
August 3, 2010 by Craig Jacobs
Filed under Beauty, Body, • Feature
Have you ever seen or heard about Cancer of the Heart???
I am sure you never did and you never will. It has to do with PH levels in your body and oxygen. There is a cure for CANCER and let me explain. In his book “Acid & Alkaline”, Herman Aihara states that:
“If the condition of our extra cellular fluids, especially the blood, becomes acidic, our physical condition will manifest tiredness, proneness to catching colds. When these fluids become more acidic, our condition then manifest pain and suffering such as headaches, chest pains, stomach aches etc. According to Keiichi Morishita in his book “The hidden Truth about Cancer”, if the blood develops a more acidic condition, then our body inevitably deposits these excess acidic substances in some area of the body such so that the blood will not be able to maintain an alkaline conditions which causes these areas such as the cells to become more acidic and lower in oxygen.
As these tendencies continues, such areas increase in acidity and some cells die; then these dead cells themselves turn into acid. However some other cells may adapt in that environment. In other words, instead of dying-as normal cells do in an acid environment –some cells survive by becoming abnormal cells. These abnormal cells are called malignant cells. Malignant cells do not correspond with brain function nor with our own DNA memory code. Therefore, malignant cells grow indefinitely and without order: this is cancer.” One of the least understood concepts of nutrition is understanding what acid and alkaline balance is. The cells of our body depend on a balance acid-alkaline pH. If the body fluids are abnormal, digestive enzymes are rendered inactive, food does not digest properly, and an allergic reaction can result. Food bound microorganism such as yeast, bacteria, parasites, molds, viruses etc, are liberated in the body, which puts stress on the immune system.
The body is largely made up of water, a medium where is biologically useful in allowing nutrients, oxygen and bio-chemical to be transported from place to place. This water based medium can have acid or alkaline properties that are measured by a graduated scale called pH (for potential hydrogen), where 1.0 to 6.9 is considered acidic, 7.0 to 14.0 is considered alkaline. The lower the pH number, the greater the acidity, the higher the pH number, the greater the alkalinity.
We want the fluids in our bodies to have a neutral of 7.0-7.2 pH level. Under the 5.3 the body cannot assimilate minerals and vitamins, it must be above 6.4 for maximum utilization and weight loss.
Why should we be concerned about pH levels?
Since most of our body is water based (60%-70%), the pH has a profound affect on all body chemistry, health and disease. All regulatory mechanisms including breathing, circulation, digestion, hormonal production serves the purpose of balancing pH, by removing caustic metabolized acid residues from body tissues without damaging living cells. If the pH deviates too far to the acid side or too far to the alkaline side, cells become poisoned by their own toxic waste and die. Just as acid rain can destroy a forest and alkaline waste can pollute a lake, an imbalanced pH corrodes body tissue, slowly eating into the 120,000 km’s of veins and arteries like corrosives eating into marble. If left unchecked, an imbalanced pH will interrupt cellular activities and functions from the beating of the heart to the neural firing of the brain.
Our bodies contain many toxins, chemical, parasites, fungus, bacteria and yeast that, if not cleansed from our bodies, can develop into major illnesses.
WHY DO PEOPLE DEVELOP CANCER?
According to a famous doctor Dr Enderlein, “total healing of chronic illness only takes place when and if the blood is restored to a normal slightly alkaline pH.
What does pH mean? pH is the abbreviation for Potential Hydrogen or the measurement of hydrogen ions concentrated in any solution. The higher the pH reading, the more alkaline and oxygen rich the fluid is. The lower the reading, the more acidic and oxygen deprived the fluid is.
To be considered healthy, human blood must maintain a narrow pH range of 7.365. Any variations means symptoms and disease. If blood ph drops below 6.8 or increase above 7.8 cells stop functioning and that person dies. pH blood is very difficult to test, however some home test kits are available to test urine and saliva pH. Optimum urine and saliva is between 7.0 to 7.4. Test your pH each morning before drinking or eating.
If you have health problems this means you are ACIDIC. When the body goes into acidosis, the kidneys start producing ammonia, which may cause the pH to test alkaline. This condition if frequently found in elderly people and is the cause to unpleasant odor in senior homes.
In 1964, only 1 out of 214 contracted cancer. Today it is 1 in 3 females and 1 in 2 males. The determining factor between health and disease is pH. It is not uncommon for the average Canadian to test between 4 and 5 pH.
Research has shown us that unless the body’s pH level is slightly alkaline, the body cannot heal itself. So no matter what type of modality you use to improve your health problem, the modality won’t be effective until the pH comes up. Drugs and medication has the effect of lowering the pH, that is the reason why there are side effects.
When body pH drops below 6.4, enzymes are deactivated, digestion does not work properly, vitamins and minerals and food supplements cannot effectively assimilate. Acid decreases energy production in the cell, the ability to repair damaged cells to ability to detoxify heavy metals and make the body more susceptible to fatigue and illness. Your pH affects everything.
Research has proven that disease cannot survive in an alkaline state and that bacteria, viruses, yeast, fungus, Candida, mold and cancer cells thrive in an acidic environment low oxygen low energy. An acid pH can result from an acid forming diet, emotional stress, toxic overload. The body will try to compensate for acid by using alkaline mineral like sodium from the stomach and calcium from the bones. This is the cause of osteoporosis and a number of other disease like acid reflux and leaky gut syndrome. If there are not enough minerals in the diet to compensate, a build up of acids in the cells will occur, resulting in symptoms like arthritis, pain, fibromyalgia, lupus, cancer, gout, fatigue, obsesity, MS etc.
THERE IS ALWAYS TWO FACTORS THAT ARE PRESENT WITH CANCER
1. Acidic pH
2. Lack of oxygen
Can we manipulate those two factors that need to be Present to develop cancer?
We can reverse cancer. We need to learn how to manipulate the pH and the oxygen.
Cancer is not compatible in a healthy pH environment full of oxygen. Cancer of the heart does not exist. This is because, blood flowing from the lungs into the heart, are at the highest pH and oxygen levels within the entire body. As the blood travels through the lungs, acidic toxins are thrown out of the system leaving it rich with oxygen and a high blood pH.
In the absence of oxygen, glucose undergoes fermentation to lactic acid. This causes the pH of the cell to drop even lower. Urine and saliva of cancer patients almost always runs between 4.0 to 5.5. When cancer goes into metastases the pH drops even lower. We simply cannot survive in acid based bodies and that is why we always suggest Body Detoxification. We have all the tools we need to render our bodies alkaline and maintain health.
What Causes Me to be Acidic?
The reason acidosis is more common in our society is mostly due to the typical North American diet, which is far too high in acid-producing animal products like meat, eggs and dairy, and far too low in alkaline producing foods like fresh vegetables. Additionally, we eat acid producing processed foods like white flour and sugar and drink acid producing beverages like coffee and soft drinks. We use too many drugs, which are acid-forming; and we use artificial chemical sweetners like NutraSweet, Equal, or aspartame, which are extremely acid-forming. One of the best things we can do to correct an overly acid body is to clean up our diet to start including majority of alkaline foods, detoxing regularily, drinking healthy alkaline water and regular exercise. For your own free alkaline/acidic food chart click here.
What is the Link Between Weight Loss and Detoxification?
July 20, 2010 by Craig Jacobs
Filed under Beauty, Body, • Headline
Weight loss and detoxification are very common terms in today’s society. We’ve all heard about literally dozens of diets and products designed to help people lose weight. Weight loss is on so many people’s minds that it is usually assumed that people would like to lose weight. Detoxification is a newer term that has been showing up in our lives. When we think of a detox, we think of flushing all of the “junk” out of our systems. Both weight loss and detoxification are terms that are often misunderstood, but what is more confusing for people is the essential link between them.
Many weight loss products insure that you will lose X amount of weight within a certain amount of time. But with weight loss it’s important to lose the right type of weight. You could shave your head and lose a few ounces, or have the flu and lose 10 pounds. But is this really the type of weight we want to lose? Probably not. It’s fat that we want to lose. This is where the guarantees of weight loss products often fall short. Many weight loss products are really water loss products, or diuretics. They encourage the body to expel more water than normal. This gives the illusion of weight loss, but really once the person re-hydrates, the weight will be back.
Similar to the assurances of weight loss products, detoxification plans and products have a wide range of claims. Many claim to flush the body of “all toxins” in a very short length of time. True detoxification can only take place when the liver has been strengthened and made to be healthy though. It’s the liver that cleanses the blood of the toxins. A good detox program will involve stirring up the previously hidden toxins that have accumulated all over the body and the liver cleansing these out of the blood. This is why when you are going through a detox that actually is working, you could feel poorly for the first few days, if not a week or more. Not something to look forward to, but it is necessary as part of the “healing crisis” of the detox.
So we have taken a brief look at the real type of weight loss that we want -fat loss- and we have also seen what a real detox consist of – strengthening the liver to cleanse the blood and stirring up those toxins into the bloodstream. We can now look at the link between them.
Here is a strong statement that people need to understand: true and lasting weight loss involving losing fat mass cannot occur without a proper detoxification process. This isn’t something that’s commonly known, but it’s something that is integral in the healthy weight loss process for everyone.
In order for that fat to be lost, the body must properly break down the fat molecules to reduce the mass. When people have too much toxins in themselves, the body will often not only fail to break down these molecules, but will actually create more so that the extra mass dilutes the toxicity level in the person. Quite simply, the more of you there is, the more the toxicity is diluted.
Healthy weight loss does not involve simply taking products that cause water loss or starving yourself. It involves a healthy liver, regular exercise, a proper detox and the appropriate secreting of bile acid in order to actually break down the fat, which is of course
what we really want to lose.
This is why you should avoid weight loss products that do not speak about detoxification, and detoxification products and programs that do not strengthen the liver, or ones that will not actually achieve removal of toxins.
Love and Freedom
July 6, 2010 by Sarah Maria
Filed under Beauty, Body, • Headline
One of the defining themes of my adult life has been this something that I refer to as Love. When the universe forced me into personal crisis a few years ago, it slowly became apparent that a key issue was love. Ever since then, my life has become, in one form or another, a meditation on love:
What is love?
How do I love myself?
Why does my heart feel broken?
Will I ever feel loved?
How do I love and be loved?
Does love exist?
Is it just an idea, or is it something real?
So far, I have learned much through this meditation; I have learned much on this journey. This article is designed to help you explore the contours of love in your life, so that you can enjoy the gift that is everyone’s birthright, the gift that the universe wants to give you.
In my experience, learning to love yourself is an essential step on this path of love. It is the first step because if you hate yourself, you can’t go anywhere. But how do we love ourselves? When I was first told to love myself, I had no idea what that meant, nor how to go about it. Love myself? You might as well have been speaking a foreign language. Loving yourself does not mean that you indulge every desire, whim, or impulse. Nor does it mean that you become infatuated with yourself, per se.
Loving yourself means that you take good care of yourself. It means you get rid of all those false voices that say you are defective, incompetent, unattractive, unlovable—whatever it may be. You begin to see more clearly negative voices of conditioning, and you discover that they are nothing other than conditioning. You slowly learn to break free from them, affirming your inherent self-worth, not because you have done anything or are any particularly way. You are inherently loveable simply because you exist. It is your birthright; it is the gift of being a human being. You accept yourself as you are, and allow yourself to grow and change in the direction of greater peace and harmony.
Self-hatred creates destruction and discontent. As you learn to love yourself, you break free from these negative tendencies and learn to treat yourself with the dignity and respect that is due to every human being.
As you learn to love yourself, as your own heart heals, the natural impulse is for love to flow outward. Your relationships begin to change. You begin to share love with other people. You begin to discover that love does most certainly exist. Yet this love is not a commodity. It is not something that can be earned through merit. Love just shows up. It shows up sometimes on this path of life. You might experience it with your best friend or your lover, maybe a child, or even a parent. As you explore it, you will discover that the love is there first. The love just shows up, and then you find out why it is there.
If you have ever had a particularly close love relationship, maybe with a dear friend, you will see how this is the case. Chances are you felt an attraction, a pull, a love toward that particular person. As you get to know them more and more, you discover that the love is there for a reason. Maybe it is there to teach you something, to help you grow, to help you change. Now the fact is that love is always there, has always been there and will always be there. It is simply easier to experience in relation to other people with whom you have a heart connection.
The biggest challenge with love for most people is the desire to cling, the desire to keep this something that we call love. Yet continual change is the nature of everything. So you must learn to relax on this path of love. You must learn to relax and allow love to come and go, to ebb and flow as it may. In this way, love can lead you to greater and greater freedom. You enjoy being with your friends, your family, your lover, but you also know how to be alone. When you are together, there is love. When you are alone, there is also love. You let everyone be free to do as they may. You are free to be as you are; to do as you do. They are free to be as they are; to do as they do. When you come together, it is a beautiful sharing. When you are apart, it is also lovely. You learn to float with the tide of love, coming and going, enjoying and relaxing.
You slowly learn to love the love. You learn to follow the love. If love leads you into yourself for a while, go there. If love leads you to particular people for some time, go there. If it then leads you elsewhere, just follow the love. For ultimately, you are love itself, only most of us do not know it. As you learn to follow love, you discover that it always guides you, teaches you, and informs you.
In speaking of love in relationships, one of my beloved spiritual teachers, Sri Nisargaddatta Maharaj said the following:
“You are neither the husband nor the wife. You are the love between the two.”
Allow your life to be a journey, an exploration. Inquire into this something called love; this force that permeates everything. Explore it within yourself; explore it outside of yourself. Follow it where it leads you, and you are guaranteed to learn something that you don’t already know. You are guaranteed to learn something about life, about love, about yourself, and about everyone else.
May love fill your heart always.
Why We Need Good Sleep
June 16, 2010 by Craig Jacobs
Filed under Beauty, Body, energy healing, • Headline
Like leafless trees and animals that hibernate in the winter or a dormant volcano, sleep is an essential part of the natural processes in the universe. It is an inevitable component of our growth and development. We are bound to sleep and lack thereof has adverse effects to our health.
Why do we need sleep?
Our brain is a complex organ that literally manages all of our bodily functions. As much as there are seasons in a year, our body has a biological clock that commands the time for different bodily processes to take toll. 
Sleep is the only way our body can put itself in a state of rest to be able to perform tasks that are not possible during our waking hours of physical and mental activity.
Studies prove that sleep reverses the metabolic processes of our body when we are awake. If metabolism consumes the energy that we generate and uses all our cells to function well in a particular activity, during sleep our body undergoes an anabolic phase which is the exact opposite. The anabolic phase builds our body up again to its normal state or condition. A concrete example for this is that ideally we stop the engine from running when we do mechanical reparations with our car, as the opposite is impossible and won’t be logical.
Sleep paves the way for our cells to produce more protein and enzymes. It is also the time our body builds up the immune system’s components and repairs the damages made by pollutants and toxins during the day.
While the body repairs itself, blood pressure lowers. This time blood cells can reduce levels of stress and decrease inflammations caused by cholesterol and other toxins. Proper blood circulation makes a healthy heart. That is why, people who lack sleep experience palpitations and shortness of breath.
Among the other parts of our body that is being repaired, the brain is the most important. With a good sleep, the brain can repair its cells and refreshes the memory. Like a computer, our brain will be able to re-organize sections of data stored in our memory, which will make remembering things easier.
In behavioral science, sleep greatly affects a person’s outlook in life and habits. People who tend to sleep less are less happy and may not be able to handle anger or extreme emotions appropriately in a given situation since they have produced more stress hormones and some parts of their understanding are affected by lesser cellular activity in the brain, as some of cells may have been damaged and left unrepaired.
For a healthier you, bring back the natural balance of your body at a cellular level through sleep. For adults, sleep is considered good within at least a period of 8 uninterrupted hours.
