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Tag: Issue-4 - Organic Lifestyle Magazine

Vitamins and Minerals

Calcium is the most abundant mineral in the body. Though it seems like everyone is supplementing their diet with some form of calcium, most people are deficient. Your body can’t process calcium if you don’t have enough magnesium and you can’t absorb calcium without ample stores of vitamin D. You need vitamin K to regulate your blood calcium. And if you don’t have enough calcium, you won’t be able to process zinc. If you don’t have enough zinc, you won’t be able to process vitamin A.

Too much calcium can reduce the effectiveness of vitamin A and magnesium, and can cause anxiety (while too little causes depression). Also, people taking too much (and the especially wrong kind) of calcium are calcifying their soft tissue. And if your diet is acidic, your body is going to pull minerals (especially calcium) from wherever it can get it (teeth, bones, organs, etc.) to keep your blood at its proper, slightly alkaline pH (read more about this in Acid vs. Alkalinity).

To make the issue more confusing, most of the calcium supplements on the market are not digestible. Some of them are downright toxic; they can cause kidney stones or a host of other problems. Got milk? Well, throw it out. You and your family don’t need to be drinking that toxic soup of antibiotics, pesticides, and bovine growth hormones. Even if you buy organic milk, it’s a dead pasteurized food. Besides, although milk does contain calcium, even the Harvard School of Public Health questions whether it’s the best source.

That’s just calcium. We could go on and on with every other vitamin, mineral, or other essential nutrient in similar fashion.

Vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, and most of our other nutrients are all about balance. Growing strong and healthy bones is not as simple as taking a calcium pill. Let’s take a look at other vitamins and minerals to see what some of their roles are.

Minerals are found in rocks and soil. Plants get their minerals from the soil in which they are grown. If you grow the same vegetable in the ground year after year, the ground becomes deficient in the particular minerals that vegetable needs for development. Consequently the vegetable becomes deficient and so do the creatures that depend on it for nutrition. Through crop rotation, we replenish the soil. This is why crop rotation is so important.

Vitamins and minerals are necessary to sustain life and must be obtained from food because they are either not made in the body at all, or are not made in sufficient quantities.

Even if you only eat organic, remember big business has joined the industry and is now growing organic foods, using mono-cropping methods (without crop rotation). The organic label does not guarantee that produce was grown in nutrient rich soil. GMOs are invading organic fields and contaminating organic seed stores and the FDA has just authorized irradiating lettuce and spinach (regardless of whether or not it is organic).

While it was previously stated that we should consume five to nine servings of raw fruits and vegetables per day, the National Academy of Science now states that we should double that amount due the decreased nutrient content of our food. But compared to 50 years ago, many foods don’t have 50% of their former nutrition; they have 10% or less. In addition, toxins so easily accumulated in our modern society, require us to consume even more nutrients for optimum health. Obviously it can be very difficult to get enough vitamins and minerals from the foods we eat, and though that is exactly how we should get our vitamins, supplementation has become a necessity for optimum health.

That said, don’t ever fool yourself into believing vitamin supplementation is a substitute for a healthy diet. Your body needs a diet filled with the healthiest foods available. Vitamins alone have no energy value. They can’t be assimilated without food. Choose whole food vitamins, not synthetic chemical reproductions (there are very few exceptions to this rule in the world of supplementation), and eat plenty of raw, fresh, organic fruits and vegetables. Other than growing our own organic food, this is the best we can do.
Through crop rotation, we replenish the soil.

Some vitamins and minerals have specific preventive and therapeutic effects when taken in larger amounts. For example, niacin can be used to lower cholesterol and vitamin B6 is very useful in treating premenstrual syndrome. But never take a singular B vitamin for any length of time; take B complex. Studies have proven that taking one B vitamin alone seriously depletes the others. And many doctors don’t know this! But this warning is actually true for all vitamins and minerals in general.

Large doses of vitamins and minerals may slow, or even reverse many diseases previously thought to be an inevitable part of aging such as cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, impaired immunity, nerve degeneration, and other chronic health problems. Many experts consider larger doses of some vitamins to be necessary for optimum health. While OLM firmly believes that people should be fully responsible for their own health and strive to learn everything they can about how to heal and be healthy, we strongly recommend that significantly large doses of vitamins and/or minerals should only be taken under the supervision of a knowledgeable health care practitioner.

A lot of alternative health care practitioners recommend a hair mineral analysis to determine what minerals a person needs. A lab will analyze a sample of your hair and tell you which minerals are in your system, their ratios, and which heavy metal toxins you have accumulated in your body. Using your hair analysis as a guideline, your alternative health care practitioner will tailor a supplement program to get you body in balance and help you eliminate your accumulation of heavy metal toxins, while teaching you how to avoid heavy metal toxicity in the future.

There is some debate as to the reliability of hair analysis as a viable test for minerals, though the alternative health community does agree the test is accurate for heavy metals. All agree it is imperative to use a competent lab.

It is important to detoxify, as toxins can impede your ability to process vitamins and minerals. And detoxifying can “reset” your minerals and vitamins. Many detox programs require a juice fast, while others limit the foods you eat. Whichever detox program you choose, make sure you don’t rob your body of nutrients during the process, whether you are doing a “radical” detox or just a gentle cleanse. It is also imperative that your diet be alkaline, not acidic. You will never come close to optimum health with an acidic diet, no matter how many vitamin and mineral supplements you consume.

Once you get your body balanced properly, it becomes much more efficient at digesting and assimilating vitamins and minerals. Provided your body is not toxified, you will easily pull much of what you need from the foods you eat. You can then supplement your diet with a good whole food multi- vitamin/mineral for optimum health.

Choosing the right supplements is a whole other story (which we will get into in our next issue). For now we highly recommend Raymond Francis’sThe Roadmap To Choosing Supplements available for free at his websiteBeyondHealth.com. For that matter we recommend anything Raymond Francis has ever written.

In our first issue, we stated that vitamin tablets are usually not absorbed properly, and we recommended capsules. But Raymond Francis states, “A well-designed tablet is superior because the ingredients are tightly packed and are protected from exposure to the ill effects of moisture, light, and oxygen. Vitamins in liquid and powder form do not have this protection and degrade rather quickly after being opened.”

But note that most tablets and most supplements for that matter are not “well-designed”. “It takes a vast amount of knowledge, care and extra expense to create an effective supplement,” Raymond says. “Since the basis of competition in the supplement market is price, there is little incentive for companies to spend the money to create quality.”

For a list of toxins, reasons to detoxify, and how to detoxify, check out How Burdened is Your Body by Ryan Harrison, OLM issue 3. We also recommend Dr. Shillington’s detox program.

Click here for the Harvard Study

Thorne Research and Beyond Health (Raymond Francis’s company) produce some of the highest quality supplements on the market

Health Benefits of Coconut Oil

Unjustly maligned for decades, coconut oil is reemerging as a miracle fat that boosts energy, burns fat, is antibiotic, and helps with thyroid problems. In the past, poorly done, misleading studies were used to discredit the saturated fats in coconut oil in order to displace it in our diet with soybean oil. Now that soybean oil has caused an epidemic of health problems, healthy coconut oil is being reintroduced. After a yearlong study of coconut oil, I recently approved a superior product and added it to my own diet.

Coconut oil has been safely used for thousands of years. Natives in tropical climates who consume lots of coconut oil don’t suffer from the heart disease, cancer, colon problems, and other health challenges that we do. Because it is highly saturated, coconut oil is very stable, stores well, and is suitable for cooking. But don’t let the saturation bother you. These saturated fats are different. The medium-chain fatty acids in coconut oil are easy to absorb, digest, transport, and metabolize in the body. Unlike other saturated fats, the medium-chain fatty acids in coconut oil speed up the body’s metabolism and are used by the body to produce energy rather than being stored as fat. Coconut oil does a body good. Let’s have a look at the reasons why:

Heart Healthy

Population studies show that coconut oil lowers cholesterol, and reduces risk of heart disease. Americans consistently have higher cholesterol levels than coconut eating cultures.

Weight Control

Coconut oil helps you to lose, maintain, or gain weight depending on your body’s need. It contributes to weight loss by speeding metabolism and being used as fuel rather than stored as fat. For underweight people, coconut oil helps to gain weight, especially useful to those suffering from AIDS or cancer.

Infection Fighting

The medium-chain fatty acids and monoglycerides found in coconut oil are the same as those in human mother’s milk, and they have extraordinary antimicrobial properties. By disrupting the lipid structures of microbes, they inactivate them. About half of coconut oil consists of lauric acid. Lauric acid, its metabolite monolaurin, and other fatty acids in coconut oil are known to protect against infection from bacteria, viruses, yeast, fungi, and parasites. While not having any negative effect on beneficial gut bacteria, coconut oil inactivates undesirable microbes such as H-pylori, Candida albicans, and Giardia. Natives in Southeast Asia who drink filthy water, loaded with bacteria and parasites, are nonetheless healthy, mostly due to the protective effect of the coconut oil in their diets.

Thyroid Support

Coconut oil helps people with low thyroid function. Regular oils such as soybean, canola, safflower and corn suppress thyroid function. The medium-chain fatty acids in coconut oil stimulate metabolism, boost energy, and promote weight loss. While not a cure, some people have been able to reduce and even eliminate their thyroid medications.

Cancer Protective

Coconut oil appears to protect against cancer and not to promote cancer. Animal studies have shown that when animals are fed carcinogens and a variety of oils, the animals that do not develop cancer are those on coconut oil.

Anti-Inflammatory Effects

Coconut oil appears to have anti-inflammatory effects. For the past 20 years it has been known that coconut oil has been beneficial to patients with inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn’s disease. Coconut oil appears to have a direct effect in suppressing inflammation and repairing tissue, and it may also contribute by inhibiting harmful intestinal microorganisms that cause chronic inflammation.

Good for the Skin

Coconut oil rejuvenates skin and wrinkles and slows the aging and wrinkling of skin. Used as a lotion, it protects against sun damage and strengthens underlying tissues. It moisturizes, heals sores and injuries, and prevents production of “liver spots,” (oxidized oils). When liver spots occur, this same oxidative damage is also happening in other tissues such as the brain, heart, eyes, and blood vessels.

Among other properties, coconut oil:

Does not require refrigeration, and is stable at room temperature from one to five years.
Increases lung function by increasing the fluidity of cell surfaces.
Regulates blood sugar and prevents hypoglycemia by providing a supply of fuel not affected by insulin.
Boosts energy in chronic fatigue and suppresses herpes and Epstein-Barr viruses.
Doesn’t oxidize easily, thereby protecting the body from lipid peroxidation.

Selecting a healthy, high-quality coconut oil was no easy task. Obtaining reliable information about production techniques and quality was difficult. These products come from far away third-world countries, and from small producers who may speak poor English and have difficulty answering technical questions. I found that even some usually reliable sources in the U.S. were not offering the best oil because they ran up against the same problems, didn’t do their homework, and made poor choices.

The virgin coconut oil I have approved is the least processed oil on the market. This extraordinary oil is not heated above normal air temperature, and it is made form freshly harvested coconuts. Most oils are made from copra (dried coconut), which can be contaminated with mold. Coconut oil is a sensible addition to anyone’s diet, and the purity, flavor, texture and quality of the oil I have selected is truly superior. A therapeutic dose is three tablespoons a day.

Raymond Francis is an M.I.T.-trained scientist, a registered nutrition consultant, author of Never Be Sick Again, Never Be Fat Again, Never Fear Cancer Again, and an internationally recognized leader in the field of optimal health maintenance.

Reprinted with permission from Beyond Health® News
Copyright 2005, Beyond Health

Recommended Supplements:

Coconut Oil

Acidity and Alkalinity Balance

All of the cells in our body require the proper pH balance to function at an optimal level. If our body is acidic or too alkaline, chemical reactions including enzyme activity, cellular repair, and cellular reproduction are inhibited. Raymond Francis writes, “On the pH scale, 7 is neutral; 0 to 7 is acidic, and 7 to 14 is alkaline. The normal pH inside a cell is 7.4, which is slightly alkaline. Maintaining normal pH in the fluid inside the cell as well as the other body fluids is crucial for keeping the body systems functioning normally.”

While most of the body can still operate, however poorly, outside of the optimum pH zone, blood cannot. Dr. Shillington writes, “Your blood operates between 7.3 and 7.5 on the alkaline side of this pH scale. If it goes out of this range, you’re dead!”

Fast foods and processed foods are highly acidic. So how do we survive eating a Big Mac and a Coke? Our bodies pull alkalizing minerals—calcium, sodium, potassium, and magnesium from soft tissues, organs, glands, and bones to neutralize the acid and return our blood to the proper pH balance. If we continually eat a diet high in acidic foods, chronic acidosis will result. “Eventually, as time goes by, your body will leech your teeth and bones of their much needed calcium to balance this out-of-whack situation,” writes Dr. Shillington. “This is the ’cause’ behind arthritis, bone loss, tooth decay, liver and kidney failure, and a multitude of other diseases too numerous to mention. According to my up-to-date research, every disease has some connection to an acid/alkaline imbalance.”

The typical American diet is very high in protein. Most meat eaten is not organic and the animals are not fed their natural foods. Cows’ main diet staple is grass, but we proudly hail the “best choice meat”; as “grain fed.”; Grains are not the natural diet of cows. When they eat grains, their bodies become acidic and they are more likely to become ill. They are then shot full of antibiotics (in addition to hormones) and we eat meat which is more acidic than nature intended.

In addition, our industrial society pollutes water, feeds us chemical laden foods sprayed with poisons, wraps and stores foods in toxic plastic and Styrofoam, and encourages us to eat fast foods and processed foods. Is it any wonder chronic illnesses and devastating disease has reached epidemic proportions?

Though the belief that chronic acidosis is the cause of chronic illness or the basis for much of our disease today is not upheld by mainstream conventional medicine, conventional medicine does agree that acid diets pull calcium from bones and that alkaline diets help prevent osteoporosis, kidney stones, and age-related waste of muscle mass.

When you think about acidity of foods, you may immediately think of citric acid in oranges, lemons, and limes. Citrus fruits are acidic, but they turn alkaline when digested. The same is true for tomatoes. It doesn’t matter whether a food is acidic or alkaline. What matters is how it is chemically metabolized in the body. You may search through books on the subject and through sites on the Internet to find lists ranking foods on the pH scale. Unfortunately, the lists are not comprehensive nor are they in agreement, but they all do say to increase fruits and vegetables.

health food So how do you use this new information? How can you find out if your body is acidic? You can test your pH using the same test strips you might have used in high school chemistry class or to test the pH in your aquarium. Some recommend testing both saliva and urine. Raymond Francis recommends measuring your first morning urine before you eat. “This test offers an indicator of your cellular pH and can be used to monitor changes as you work to normalize your pH. First morning urine should be in the range of 6.5 to 7.5. If readings fall below 6.5, you are too acidic. Occasional readings above 7.5 are normal, but consistent readings above 7.5 are an indication of tissue breakdown, and a pH over 8.0 is a serious matter.”;

What’s the easy way to make sure your body is not too acidic or alkaline? How do you make sure your body has the right amount of omega 3s and omega 6s? How do you make sure your food has just the right amount of vitamins and minerals? How do you decrease the number of toxins you ingest? How do you rid your body of all virtually all disease and illness? Does it seem overwhelming? It’s not. It’s simple. Eat more raw, fresh, organic foods!

Recommended Supplements:

Meat Eater Guilt Trip

My girlfriend and I were driving down the freeway the other day when we passed a pickup truck hauling three huge, white cows that were lying down and eating hay.

“Awe, how cute!” she said as we passed them.

“You do realize where these cows are going, don’t you?” I asked. I wasn’t sure, but something told me they were on their way to the slaughterhouse.

“Oh, don’t say it. I don’t want to hear it. I’ll never be able to eat a hamburger again!”

This from the woman who adamantly refused to become a vegetarian? Oh, we’d talked about it often enough. I wanted to make the change. And though I’m the one who does most of the cooking, she wouldn’t budge. I’d finally given up. Our relationship didn’t need the strain. But I’m not a man who misses opportunities. I seized the moment.

We’d passed the cows by this point, so I slowed down.

“Stop it! I don’t want to see them again!” she said.

I insisted I was just driving the speed limit, which was true, but I never drive the speed limit.

“Speed up!” she said.

I did as she asked. I sped up, just enough to stay right beside them.

“Wanna go get a steak?” I asked. “Wanna go get a big juicy burger?”

“No, I think I want to be a vegetarian,” she said, whining like a small child as she looked out the window at her three new friends. She sighed. I knew she was thinking about her karma and all the cows she had consumed in her life.

This was it—my moment of victory, her moment of change. I let it sink in for a few minutes, and then I sped up.

A half an hour later she said, “I’m hungry, but I can’t eat beef… I want chicken.”

Next week I’ll take her to a chicken farm. Then she’ll only eat pork. Oh well, one step at a time.