Are you always sick? If feeling ill is more normal for you than feeling healthy, here are some of the common reasons and what you can do to get your immune system back on track.

Junk Food

If you’re sick all the time, change your diet. Stop eating processed food.

Less than one hundred years ago, there was absolutely no need to explain the difference between whole food and processed food. Food was just food. It was healthy, farm-grown, nutritious, and filled with live-promoting nutrients. Not anymore.

Now we run to the nearest supermarket or convenience store to stock up on MSG-laden cereals and aspartame-laced diet soda. Most of our food comes from a box or a can.

You can get healthy by getting rid of the fast food, microwavable meals, soda, potato chips, and French fries and trade it in for healthier fare.

Whole foods such as organic vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, legumes, organic meat, wild-caught fish, and healthy fats like coconut oil and butter will do absolute wonders for your health.

Try it!

You Bathe in Toxins

The amount of toxins lurking in your shower is unbelievable. Read the labels on the shampoo and conditioner you use to beautify your hair and the slick-smelling body wash you use to impress the ladies (or the gentlemen).

Shampoos and other conventional bathing products contain parabens that have been linked to infertility, muscle dysfunction, learning disabilities, and mood swings. They are also loaded with phthalates that have been proven to cause cancer.

Get rid of all the chemical cosmetics in your bathroom and start fresh. Invest in a good bottle of castile soap. You can use it as a body wash, shave cream, and shampoo all in one and it’s completely pure and natural! Also, make the switch to paraben-free mineral make-up. Your face will thank you.

You Shoot Up with Toxins

Do you get the flu shot every year? Vaccines are loaded with three of the most potent neurotoxins on the market: Aspartame, mercury, and MSG. If you have unexplained muscle twitches, movement disorders, chronic fatigue, and mood swings, these toxins could be to blame.

Do your research and learn all you can about the pros versus the cons of vaccines so you can make an informed decision about your health.

You Use Hand Sanitizers

If you’re trying to avoid getting sick by using copious amounts of hand sanitizer, it’s not helping. Hand sanitizers not only kill germs on your hands, they also kill the good bacteria. Your immune system’s first line of defense is your skin. And alcohol isn’t the only ingredient in hand sanitizers. They also contain a potent pesticide called Triclosan, which has been linked to chronic immune system dysfunction.

You Don’t Move

Do you get enough exercise? Regular exercise helps prevent illness by raising your T-cells (fighter cells) and cutting down on your body’s inflammatory response. There’s no need to become a bodybuilder to get the exercise you need. Just start by walking or hiking for 30 minutes three times per week.

You’re a Vampire

Do you get enough sun? Or are you like millions of others who believe that if you step out into the sun, its harmful UV rays will penetrate your skin and rearrange your cells until you’re riddled with skin cancer? It’s not true. As a matter of fact, studies have actually shown that lack of sun can cause skin cancer!

Vitamin D is essential for a healthy immune system. Unfortunately, Vitamin D deficiency is rampant in the United States and Canada because so many of us are avoiding the sun by either staying inside or bathing in sunscreen (which, by the way, contains toxic chemicals). Yes, you will bring on skin cancer if you tan at high noon each day for hours but fifteen minutes of sun exposure each day will help boost your vitamin D levels and your immune system.

You’re a Zombie

Warm bodies? If you don’t get enough sleep every night, you probably find yourself slogging through your day like the walking dead. Plus, if you’re making up for your sleep deficit by pounding energy drinks or high-test coffee, you’re doing some serious harm to your health. Excessive caffeine intake coupled with lack of sleep equals taxed adrenal glands and a very weak immune system.

Magnesium deficiency is a common cause of chronic insomnia. This essential mineral is responsible for more than 300 enzymatic reactions in the body. Adding a chelated magnesium supplement to your diet can work wonders in calming your mind, relaxing your body, and improving your sleep.

There’s no reason to always feel sick when you have the power to change it. Good health is just a few dietary and lifestyle changes away. Don’t go back to the doctor just to have him run more tests and look at you like he’d love to recommend a good shrink. Take control of your health. If you make all these changes and still feel sick a lot, make an appointment with a naturopathic physician for a second opinion.

My first memory of food is a hamburger. It might have been McDonald’s. They were just taking off when I was a kid. Anyway, I was four and was devastated to find my burger covered in mustard and onions!  I was hungry. Really, really hungry. But I couldn’t eat that nasty thing.  Mom was sympathetic.

My second memory was my mom giving me the starving kids in China speech. I was only five, but I knew that finishing my dinner didn’t have a damn thing to do with hungry kids on the other side of the world.

It is my third early memory of food that set the foundation for a lifelong, dysfunctional relationship with food.  At age six I was a large framed, muscular child. My stepmother decided I was fat. Her solution was to withhold food. My brother and sister were allowed snacks after school. Not me. It didn’t matter that I was hungry. No snack. I remember the hunger as physical and emotional pain.

I had lost my mother who loved me and cared for me. And now this woman, my stepmother, did not care if I was in pain. The battle lines were drawn, and I quickly learned to equate food with love.

I have ridden the roller coaster ride of a love-hate relationship with food ever since.  I have used food to soothe myself, to cope with anxiety, stress, and pain. I have withheld food to punish myself. Mostly, I have used my lack of discipline and control with food as a means to undermine my self esteem and self worth all my life.

I don’t believe the answer lies in hating food or in developing an indifference to it. My goal is to understand it. To befriend it. Who knows–maybe we will go beyond friendship all the way to love.  That’s what I want to do; I want to really love food. I want to love it so much that I choose the best food, the most nutritious food, for my body. I want to celebrate food!

Step one is a three day fast on lemon/ cranberry juice with stevia and cayenne. Today is day three.

Postscript

I know I said that today I would explain why I don’t want to see an eye specialist, but I’m putting it off. I’m just not in the mood to rant about conventional medicine and all its stupidity right now.  But I promise I will explain soon for anyone who hasn’t already guessed.

From foreign objects to bacterial contamination, the growing rates of hazards in processed foods are motivation to eat fresh!

When millions of pounds of food are processed each day, it is not surprising when a contaminant or two finds its way into the food. At minimal levels, these contaminants go unnoticed and undocumented. However, at elevated levels, contaminants can be dangerous or even fatal. Unfortunately, many food recalls do not occur until a number of people have become sick or injured.

2012 had its fair share of recalls and contaminations- notably the alarming arsenic levels in rice that prompted congress to limit arsenic in rice products. 2013 is already off to quite a start in food recalls. According to the U.S. FDA, these foods, among many others, were found to be contaminated:

• Beef lasagna made by Findus was found to contain up to 100 percent horse meat! This discovery prompted a mandatory testing of products containing processed beef by all companies. France and the UK are experiencing similar problems.
• LeanCuisine, distributed by Nestlѐ Prepared Foods Company, has been recalled for a misprinted “best before date”.
• Various dried mushrooms from DZH Imports contain high levels of sulfites that could trigger a fatal reaction in those allergic.
• Frozen Country Fried Steaks became contaminated with foreign particles when a plastic bin found its way into production, requiring AdvancePierre Foods to recall these items.
• Just when you thought natural food stores were safe, Whole Foods and its seafood division, Whole Catch, have recalled products: bagels with cream cheese, the cream cheese itself and sockeye salmon contained high levels of Listeria monocytogenes. A sometimes fatal bacterium, Listeria monocytogenesit can also cause miscarriage.
• Annie’s brand, a company that produces natural and organic boxed and premade foods took their frozen pizzas off shelves because of metal fragments. Metal pieces were also found in bagels by Thomas’, Sara Lee, Publix and Weight Watchers.
• A most recent recall is that of Organic Baby Spinach distributed by Taylor Farms Retail Inc. The spinach was found to have elevated levels of Enterohaemorrhagic E. Coli (EHEC). Symptoms include intestinal distress, fever, and nausea.

The big surprise in this list is the recall by the natural and organic brands. No mass produced food product is safe from excessive contamination, further demonstration that factory farming, organic or conventional, is a health hazard. Corporately produced foods all pose a potential heath risk. The food item is handled too many times by too many people, making it difficult to control quality and safety. Contamination can occur at any point in production, during the growing stage, harvest, processing or shipping. A single item comes into contact with a great many others, spreading contamination rapidly- making the act of investigating the source of contamination a challenge.

Purchasing food from a local farmer reduces the risk of contamination. First, because there is less quantity, it is easier to prevent the introduction of foreign material. Second, because the food is not warehoused for lengths of time with foods from other origins, bacterial contamination from other food sources is not a factor. Reducing the opportunities for contamination helps minimize the risk of particle or bacterial contamination.

With the risk of oral injury, bacterial infections, and other intestinal ailments, it is amazing that we continue to trust our conglomerate food suppliers. At what point do we abandon factory farming and support our local farmers and a healthier lifestyle?

Nearly everyone I know has disconnected the cause and effect of their food intake and their health, especially as they age

Memory is a funny thing. We think we remember the past, maybe even think we remember it well, and then we run across a letter, a journal entry, a list—and discover that our memories are woefully incomplete.

Worse yet is the tendency to downplay or ignore cause and effect when we are faced with making major changes in diet or lifestyle.  We don’t want to remember that there are patterns of pain or disease when we are faced with giving up foods we love.

I was reminded of these tendencies when I ran across a list of symptoms I put together for medical doctors back in the day when I wasted a few thousand dollars chasing a definitive diagnosis for my auto-immune “disease.”

Oh, I remember that it was bad—horrific, actually. I remember the day I stood at the bottom of a flight of stairs at work and cried because I just couldn’t make myself climb them. And I remember the day I sat with my accountant struggling with a mental fog so profound that my lack of short term memory made coherent speech nearly impossible. I remember how my joints, my bones, my muscles, and my organs hurt. But I didn’t remember half of the actual acute and painful symptoms on that list, like the blisters inside my mouth or the lumps in my salivary glands.

This started me thinking about my journey towards health. Once the worst of the  acute symptoms were under control and I felt significantly better, the denial of cause and effect took over. Sometimes when I ate bread or other wheat, my heel hurt so badly I could barely walk. Sometimes I broke out in weeping rashes. My joints ached. My muscles hurt. Sometimes the symptoms appeared within a few hours, sometimes the next day, sometimes in three days.

These discrepancies were enough to allow me to dig a deep, deep trench of denial—to crawl inside and eat my pizza, French bread, and cookies for years. It wasn’t until I mentioned these symptoms to a friend who sent me a link on Celiac disease that I stopped pretending the cause and effect wasn’t clear and convincing. It wasn’t until I understood that every time I ate gluten more of the cilia in my gut was destroyed, and it became harder and harder for my body to pull nutrients from the good food I was eating. That’s when I gave up gluten.

But I still hadn’t conquered sugar.

Now mind you, I always ate better than the Standard American Diet. For years I had eaten more fresh food than anyone I knew. I’d given up sodas and nearly every food with preservatives, food coloring, or flavorings except for the occasional bag of Cheetos.. I avoided MSG, except when I ate out (See how it works?).  I limited my chocolate intake, but I kept ignoring the fact that sugar feeds Candida, even though my ear and my gums hurt every time I ate it and other nasty symptoms popped up, too.

You see, I felt so much better than I had at the height of my illness, I ignored the pain and discomfort I still lived with every single day.

I am happy to say I finally adopted the motto, “If it makes you hurt, don’t do it dummy!” and I eliminated hidden gluten from my diet and really cut out sugar (almost completely). It was then that I discovered the third piece of the puzzle: I was vitamin D deficient. Wow! What a difference a little vitamin D made!

When you live with chronic pain, you learn to ignore it (as much as is humanly possible). You stop remembering what it feels like to actually feel good. When the day comes that you wake up pain free, cause and effect takes on a whole new meaning. Once I reached this level of health, I knew every single time a tiny bit of gluten slipped through my defenses. I could feel it in the stiff muscles of my back and neck as well as other muscles that tightened up or became inflamed. I discovered that every single time I ate refined sugar my glands, my ear, my sinuses or something else ached.

Nearly everyone I know (other than the majority of my Facebook friends who are health nuts) has disconnected the cause and effect of their food intake and their health, especially as they age. Most of my friends drink alcohol. They eat out of cans and boxes and nuke their food with a microwave. They hurt. They are sick. And they all accept their symptoms or illnesses as an inevitable side effect of aging.

I even have a dear friend recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s who told me there is no way she can eat a clean healthy diet of all fresh, organic food. The thought of giving up canned food and possibly shopping more than once a week was just too much to ask. So I didn’t even bother to talk to her about giving up alcohol. Cause and effect. Pure and simple.

If you are sitting on the fence in contemplating a healthy lifestyle, whether it is a radical change or just a further shift towards health, I strongly suggest you start a journal. Write down all of your symptoms—everything that hurts or isn’t optimal. Then do a cleanse and follow it up with a truly healthy diet until you are symptom free and pain free. Once again, write down how you feel and compare it to your first journal entry.

Every time you feel sick or you hurt, or you have no energy, take an honest inventory of everything you ate for the previous 3-4 days and write it down. Be honest with yourself. I am willing to bet you will soon discover your own cause and effect. And with the proof right there staring you in the face, maybe you won’t waste years like I did fooling yourself. You’ll find the strength to heal yourself and live a happier, healthier life.

Why Mary’s Little Lamb Shouldn’t be at School

We live in a country where fried chicken tenders and grilled cheese sandwiches are typical children’s meals. It’s not surprising that many people pay little attention to where their meats come from and what is in them. Are they natural, or not? 

Healthy Lean Proteins Can Help Improve Your Diet

The building blocks of a healthy diet include five food groups: fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy, and protein foods. The amount of protein people should eat each day depends on their age, gender, and activity levels.

While most Americans do eat a sufficient amount of protein, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) points out that most people need to make more varied selections to include leaner options. Lean cuts of lamb are a healthy protein food that is often overlooked.

Lamb and other lean meats can be found at many meat markets and grocery stores, but consumers receive very little information about the protein they place in their shopping carts. Unless labeled otherwise, meat products often come from animals that were raised in feedlots and fed grains. These meats often contain traces of growth hormones, antibiotics, and other drugs that the animals received during their lifetimes.

GMO Foods: The Dangers

Feedlots are used in commercial factory farming because they allow farmers to contain more livestock in less space. The animals live in incredibly cramped, inhumane quarters, essentially living in their own waste. As a result, they frequently succumb to illness and constantly receive antibiotics. In addition, they are fed a diet that consists mainly of genetically-modified (GMO) grain, which is unnatural for both humans and animals.

A variety of commercialized GMO crops are grown in the U.S., and meats and other animal products such as eggs often come from animals that have been fed GMO foods. Anywhere from 85 to 91 percent of grain crops have been genetically modified. The reasons for genetic modification are often to increase production and reduce cost. Commercial growers can spray weed killers over the entire crop, but the weed killer is unable to kill the GMO plants. The plants that have had their DNA toyed with in the lab have been dubbed “frankenfoods” by those who are concerned about long term health of consumers.

GMOs can lead to unpredictable, hard-to-detect side effects and health risks. These include but are not limited to allergies, toxins, nutritional problems, and even new diseases that are yet to be determined.

Understanding Organic Claims

Purchasing naturally raised foods is the easiest way to avoid foods that contain genetically modified ingredients. The U.S. and Canadian governments do not allow companies to label foods and products 100% Certified Organic if they contain genetically modified foods or ingredients. Unfortunately, foods that are labeled Made with Organic Ingredients may contain up to 70% organic ingredients—which means some ingredients may not be GMO-free.

Grass-Fed, Pasture-Fed Meats: The Basics

Lamb and other meats are often labeled with stickers reading grass-fed, a USDA term that means the animal was fed nothing but grass from weaning to harvest. Pasture-raised meats come from animals that were held in pastures rather than feedlots. Meat from  animals that were grass-fed and raised in local pastures are the only meats that are certain to be GMO free. There are substantial nutritional differences between meats from pasture-raised animals and those raised in feedlots.

Pasture-raised meats are comparatively:

• Lower in fat.
• Higher in protein.
• Lower in calories.
• Four times higher in vitamin E.
•  Higher in beta-carotene.
• Contain two to four times the omega-3 fatty acids, which greatly lowers risk of heart problems. Eggs from pasture raised chickens have ten times the amount of commercially-raised hens.
• Contain three to five times the level of CLA, which is a potent cancer defense.

Kindness to Animals

Animals do not fear the future. They live moment by moment, experiencing life and emotion in the short term. Animals raised in feed lots suffer each moment of their lives. Everything about that existence is unnatural and frightening. When the mass butchering begins, the animals are frightened by the smell of blood and by being hustled about, not knowing what is happening. This fear results in the release of adrenaline, which causes meat to be tougher than it would if the creature died while relaxed.

When animals are raised naturally, out in the pasture, they enjoy each moment of life. Rather than standing in their own waste, they live in the outdoors with sunshine, green grass, shade trees, and fresh, clear water. When the age of processing comes, there is no feed lot to endure. Most of the smaller growers are keenly aware of each detail and do their utmost to cause little fear for the herd.

While food labels can be confusing, it’s important for us to understand what we are putting into our own bodies. Spend a few minutes learning more about the dangers of GMOs and the importance of purchasing organic products and grass-fed, pasture-fed meats. The truth will shock you.

Chemicals and Other Contaminants You Really Shouldn’t Be Drinking

If you’re like most people, you use tap water for cooking, cleaning, bathing, and drinking. Also like a lot of people, you may not have given a thought to what could be in that water—things like chemicals, microorganisms, and bacteria. If you’re concerned about your health, you should consider purchasing and installing a home water filtration system to ensure that the water you and your family members use is safe and clean.

Contaminants in Drinking Water

Recently, the Environmental Working Group analyzed almost 20 million drinking water tests that had been done by U.S. water suppliers between 2004 and 2009. The results showed that there were hundreds of different pollutants in American drinking water. Most of those contaminants have no safety levels set by the government; others exist at levels higher than recommended by health guidelines.

These contaminants may come from chemicals added by water utilities for treating the water, from industrial or agricultural contamination of water supplies, from chemicals leached from water pipes and tanks, or from wastewater treatment plants.

Chemicals Intentionally Added

Just a few of the chemicals intentionally added to drinking water include , supposedly for oral health, but the World Health Organization  does not advocate the addition of this toxic substance to water supplies where people have a good health structure. In fact, the World Health Organization recommends the removal of fluoride from drinking water in first-world countries. Fluoride consumption is linked to certain cancers, lowered IQ, and diminished thyroid levels.

Other chemicals that may be intentionally added to drinking water during the water treatment process are potassium permanganate, aluminum sulphate, hydrated lime, chlorine, and polyphosphate. Some of these chemicals are added to disinfect the water. Some are added for other purposes.

Unintentional Contaminants in Drinking Water

In addition to industrial pollution, common sources of unintentionally-added contaminants to drinking water are agriculture, factory farming, and the water treatment (disinfection) process itself.

Nitrates from fertilizer can infiltrate groundwater and run off into rivers and streams, contaminating water supplies. Nitrates are particularly dangerous to infants and children. Other agricultural contaminants include perchlorate, bromochloroacetic acid, MTBE, and Di-n-butylphthalate.

Trihalomethanes, bromate, haloacetic acides, and chlorite are among more than 600 by-products of the disinfection process. Most of these by-products are not restricted, nor do water treatment plants test for them.

Yet another group of contaminants in our drinking water are microorganisms. These may come from factory farm run-offs and sewage treatment plants. Some include Cryptosporidium, Giardi lamblia, Legionella, E. Coli, and a variety of viruses.

For every contaminant we test for, there are thousands we don’t. We don’t know the dangers of these chemicals in our drinking water, and no attempts are made to remove or prevent the contamination.

Types of Home Water Filtration Systems

One of the best ways to protect yourself against these contaminants is to install a home water purification system. There are several different levels of filtration that you can use. It depends on how many of those contaminants you want to remove and how much money you want to spend.

If you have a limited budget, a carbon filter system (pitcher, faucet-mount, or large dispenser) will remove chlorine, mercury, lead, asbestos, and VOCs. It will not remove fluoride, nitrate, arsenic, hexavalent chromium, or perchlorate. Some carbon filters are better than others.

The very best (and most expensive) way to remove the most contaminants from your water supply is to install a reverse osmosis (RO) system combined with a top-level carbon filter. Reverse osmosis uses a semi-permeable membrane that holds all particles larger than water molecules. This type of system will filter out perchlorate, hexavalent chromium, fluoride, arsenic, and nitrates. These types of filters are used for drinking and cooking water only.

To kill off bacteria and microorganisms, an ultraviolet light system works the best. These filters do not remove chemicals, but you can install a UV system to your reverse osmosis and carbon filtration system.

What if there was a health food that cleansed your blood, detoxified your liver, made your body more alkaline, built up your red blood cell count, contained 17 amino acids and 80 different enzymes, contained all known minerals, oxygenated your body systems, and provided a good boost of energy? Wouldn’t you want an ounce or two?

Wheatgrass juice, also called “liquid sunshine” is a superfood made up of 70% chlorophyll. It is about as close as you can come to hemoglobin, the compound in your blood that carries oxygen. It’s easy to digest (taking less than 5 minutes), and it can provide a boost of energy much more healthful than downing a can of Red Bull or any other energy drink.

Wheatgrass is unique. It builds and destroys simultaneously. It builds up your immunity and your red blood cell count, while it destroys (or neutralizes) toxins. It purifies and cleanses while strengthening and providing super-charged nutrition.

If you’re ready and raring to go on a wheatgrass juice kick, have at it, but know that you should start slowly. Wheatgrass juice can have an effect on some people almost immediately, so it is recommended that you ease into your new habit of healthy wheatgrass shots. A single ounce is plenty to get you started. Any more than that can cause you to become nauseated or give you a case of the trots (diarrhea). For the stout of heart, you can take two ounces, but work up to over a period of a couple of weeks, at least. Because of the many enzymes it contains, wheatgrass juice goes to work almost immediately, and if your system is the least bit toxic, it may do too good a job in eliminating those toxins.

One of the more noted pioneers of the use of wheatgrass juice was Anne Wigmore. Over a period of about three decades, Ann helped people recover from all types of chronic illnesses, including cancer by concentrating on regimens of raw foods and wheatgrass juice. She founded a health resort in the United States in the year 1968 called the Ann Wigmore Foundation, which was renamed the Hippocrates Health Institute after her death. While living, Ann was given the title of “the mother of living foods.”

One of the popular contemporary theories of disease is based on inflammation. Wheatgrass juice contains P4D1, a “gluco-protein” that acts like an antioxidant, reducing inflammation. There are a myriad of maladies that wheatgrass has been used to treat. Among those diseases and conditions that people have treated with wheatgrass juice are skin disorders, digestive disorders, arthritis, asthma, insomnia, kidney stones, ulcerative colitis, cancer, fatigue, allergies, diabetes, urinary tract infections, and many others.

If you’re ready for some wheatgrass, “the ultimate blood purifier,” you have the option of sprouting some of your own homegrown specimens or buying a swill of it every day at your local health food store. Wheatgrass is one of the more popular seeds for sprouting, and it is quite simple to grow on your own at home.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/IL0URJcZF8w