Eat Salads

Medicine is entering the age of the microbe. We are just beginning to find out how incredibly important our tiny symbiotic friends are to the health of mammals. Your well-being is regulated in large part by the food you eat because your microbial chemical reactions define your health. There is no better way to foster a diverse and beneficial gut-ecosystem than to eat a salad every day consisting of many different vegetables and herbs. Think of your body as your family, and your gut microbes as your children. The health of those kids will completely dictate the health and success of the home. These aren’t just any salads though. We’re not talking a bag of bleached lettuce and some carrot shreds. These salads promote a diverse and beneficial ecosystem because the salads are made that way: here’s a recipe.

Must Read: How To Heal Your Gut

Drink Cranberry Lemonade

Water is wonderful, and chances are, you should be drinking more of it. Let’s take it one step further, though. Cranberries reduce inflammation and keep our kidneys running at peak performance. Lemon juice is said to help clean the liver, and lemons are known to help with digestion and PH balance. Try making cranberry lemonade with stevia, and drink a half gallon or more a day. This counts as your daily water intake too, so you don’t need to drink this and water. It’s super easy, all done to taste, and here’s a recipe. There is probably nothing else easier to do that can beneficially impact your health as much.

Eliminate Toxins

The toxins you breathe in are not inconsequential. Cleaning products may do as much damage as a pack-a-day habit. Perfumes, air fresheners, that new car smell, and fragrances in body care have been proven to be highly toxic to the body. Open your windows whenever possible, don’t trap yourself in areas that do not have fresh air circulating, and use non-toxic cleaners like this.

Squat

In many parts of the world, squatting is common while cooking, eating, birthing, and relieving oneself. We used to squat all the time. We are designed to squat. We would squat constantly in the wild. In nature, to navigate life and stay alive, we foraged all day. We would squat down, pick a leafy green, and eat it, likely while still in the squat position, staying low and looking around for trouble or more food. We would squat to track our prey, squat to defecate, and we would squat to relax because we didn’t have chairs. Our bodies have been squatting for a long time, and we are still evolved to squat. Squats even help detoxify the body and regulate our hormones! Click here for more on squats. If squats aren’t possible right now, try “get-ups.” What are “get-ups”? Anything you want them to be, just get up, get back down, and get up again! You may need to start in a chair, or maybe your starting position can be laying on the floor. Just get moving up and down and build up to squats.

Must Read: Holistic Guide to Healing the Endocrine System and Balancing Our Hormones

Walk and Run

Us humans were meant to walk and jog and sprint on a daily basis. We should be walking, squatting, and running sporadically all day. Jogging can be particularly hard on a body with a heavy toxic load, but it has tremendous benefits too. If you suffer from knee pain, read this. If running or jogging isn’t something you can do yet, walk. If you can run, walk some anyways. Walking is a kind of meditation even when one is not trying to mediate. Take the stairs and park farther away. Walk and jog and sprint every chance you get.

Go Outside in Nature

Have you read the studies about this yet? Nature is really important to our health. We need it and we do not get enough of it! If you are near the woods, take a daily walk. Breathe in the nature around you. Do some grounding by walking barefoot or sit on a rock and meditate. Whatever you do, just get out there and get some negative ions.

Breathe

Speaking of breathing, this is not a small thing. One can radically improve their health and their mental well being immediately by eliminating shallow breathing and learning to naturally take deep, full breaths. If you lie down on the floor and breathe in, does your stomach rise or fall? If it’s sinking in as you take a breath than your breathing is all wrong! Here’s how to breathe properly.

Recommended Reading:

• Detox Cheap and Easy Without Fasting – Recipes Included
• Start Eating Like That and Start Eating Like This – Your Guide to Homeostasis Through Diet
• How to Make the Healthiest Smoothies – 4 Recipes
• Holistic Guide to Healing the Endocrine System and Balancing Our Hormones
• How to Cure Lyme Disease, and Virtually Any Other Bacterial Infection, Naturally

A new study presented in San Diego of 140 premenopausal women in Bulgaria who found that urinary tract infections (UTIs) were reduced by half with when their water consumption increased by 1 and a half liters. The women included in the study previously had experienced UTIs more than three times a year. After dividing the test subjects in half, researchers found that the group who increased their water intake by 1 and a half liters (6 cups) averaged 1.6 infections a year and the group who did not drink more water reported an average of 3.1 infections.

Drink more water. Experience fewer UTIs. Is it really that simple? The answer is yes and no. UTIs don’t magically develop because you’re not drinking enough water, though a dehydrated body is more susceptible to infection and any number of ailments from headaches to constipation to depression to acid reflux. Consider these health issues. Consider the time, money, and effort that goes into treating these ailments. Why aren’t we putting as much effort into preventing the UTI as we are into treating it?

The Very Beginning

Conventional medicine says that a urinary tract infection occurs when bacteria enter the urinary tract through the urethra. The belief is that the bacteria comes from the rectum, and studies show that 80 to 90 percent of bladder infections are caused by E. coli, an intestinal bacteria. Many holistic health practitioners suspect that leaky gut may also be a common cause of UTIs. The E. coli bacteria has a long, hair-like appendage with the protein FimH at the end of it. That protein forms a tiny hook. The hook helps the E.coli hang on and gives it a chance to grow and irritate the urinary tract. The urinary and intestinal tracts are composed of the same mucosal tissue and much like the gut, the E. coli that end up in the urethra can be balanced by beneficial bacteria, particularly lactobacillus. If there isn’t enough lactobacillus to balance the E. Coli, the risk of UTIs increases. Other common UTI risk factors include:

• Sex
• Holding in urine for too long
• Feminine products
• Hormone shifts
• Dehydration
• High blood sugar or uncontrolled diabetes
• Kidney stones

Recommended Reading: Gluten, Candida, Leaky Gut Syndrome, and Autoimmune Diseases

While physiology makes UTIs are more easily noticed in women and much of the literature on them is geared towards women, they do affect men as well. In fact, older men are most likely to be hospitalized for serious kidney and bladder infections, usually the next phase of an untreated urinary tract infection. Rates of emergency visits for people with UTIs remain highest among the elderly, although there is a bump among women 15-25 years old. Fifty to sixty percent of adult women have experienced a UTI in their life, and that familiarity could explain why women are less likely to be hospitalized than men. Being able to recognize UTI symptoms quickly and deal with them effectively can be the difference between a mild inconvenience and a serious bladder or kidney infection. Some of the ways to spot a UTI are obvious (it burns when you pee), but other signs of a distressed urinary tract are equally important. These include, but are not limited to:

• A constant need to urinate
• A burning sensation when you urinate
• Cloudy, foul-smelling urine
• Pain or pressure in the lower abdomen
• Feeling tired
• Fever and chills
• Back or side pain

Regular lower back pain is a sign of a sluggish renal system. A sluggish renal system allows pathogens to colonize. Fluid gets stale, it doesn’t move as it should, and pathogenic activity increases. The organs become swollen and put pressure on the hip and lower back joints. This can make it difficult to stand up straight and elongate the back. If the pain decreases after urination, this is the sign that none needs to detox the urinary tract and the liver and gut.” – Michael Edwards

If you’re experiencing any of these symptoms, how can you stop a UTI from going any further?

Treatment Options

Once you realize that you have or could soon have a UTI, time is of the essence. If you decide to go the conventional medicine route, you’ll be given antibiotics. UTIs are the second most common reason to prescribe antibiotics, but this method harms more than it helps. Yes, harmful bacteria like E. coli are eliminated, but the slow-moving lactobacillus necessary to keep the harmful bacteria in check are also destroyed. Without those beneficial bacteria to balance the vaginal ecosystem, antibiotics have turned a simple UTI that research now tells us could have been resolved with drinking more water into a breeding ground for a potentially recurring infection.

Recommended Reading: How to Cure Lyme Disease, and Virtually Any Other Bacterial Infection, Naturally

It is naive to think that a bladder or urinary tract infection should attempt to be cured just by simply drinking more water. But this study also proves that there are other potential treatment methods out there that haven’t been properly explored due to how easy it is to prescribe antibiotics. Many of these methods also have the benefit of strengthening your overall body ecosystem and preventing future infections. In addition to drinking lots of water, other common holistic treatment options include:

• Cranberry – According to Web MD, cranberry juice, extract, or supplements help about as much as taking antibiotics to prevent another UTI. It is most effective when paired with higher PH urine or a balanced microbiome. The tannins in cranberry make it effective against E. coli and prevent it from colonizing the urinary tract. Cranberry also supports the kidneys, making waste elimination more efficient. All cranberry is not created equal, though so make sure you use unsweetened cranberry juice, not from concentrate. The taste can be gnarly, so do yourself a favor and check out this lemonade recipe. The recipe makes it easy to add cranberry to your everyday routine.
• Probiotics – Good bacteria are needed to manage harmful bacteria overgrowth. Without them, E. coli and other disruptors are able to flourish. For a UTI (or anything really), it’s important to pick a probiotic that makes it to the problem area. Lacto-fermented foods like sauerkraut, kefir, or kim chi are great sources of beneficial lactobacillus, but it remains to be seen if they make past the stomach acid. Your best bet is looking for a probiotic with an acid-resistant capsule.
• Garlic – Garlic has some fantastic antimicrobial properties and is effective in eliminating a range of bacteria and fungus, including candida. The properties are a result of the compound allicin which occurs when a sulfur-based compound called alliin, and the enzyme alliinase in garlic come into contact. To take full advantage of the allicin, leave the garlic for a few minutes after it has been chopped. This allows the alliin and alliinase time to create more allicin. Keep your garlic raw to get the most benefits, but swallowing raw garlic by itself can cause nausea. Raw, chopped garlic on salads is an especially effective deployment of the herb.
• D-Mannose – Of all of the remedies listed, D-mannose has received the most attention from researchers. In a 2014 study of its efficacy, D-mannose was more successful than nitrofurantoin, an antibiotic, at reducing recurring UTIs and had fewer side effects. D-Mannose is related to glucose and derived from cranberries, peaches, and other berries.
• Vitamin C – Vitamin C enhances the immune system, improves liver function, and inhibits the growth of E. coli. Pregnant women experiencing vitamin c treatment for three months experienced fewer urinary infections, according to a 2007 survey. It acidifies the urine, limiting bacteria growth. Vitamin c does come in supplement form, but many of those are derived from corn. Your best bet to increase your vitamin c intake to eat more produce, as it’s found in oranges, kale, peppers, and a multitude of other beneficial goodies.
• Oil of Oregano – Active against all of the clinical strains of bacteria tested (including E. coli), oil of oregano acts like an antibiotic without contributing to antibiotic-resistant bacteria.It does this with extremely high levels of antioxidants and is antiparasitic, antiviral, antibacterial, and antifungal. It is a powerful, indiscriminate killer that can reset the microbial environment in the intestines. It can be very harsh to irritated or sensitive skin, so capsule form is likely the easiest way to use it.

None of those actually fix the root cause of UTIs, though. Environment matters. Many people don’t have complete control over the pesticides sprayed on their food or what is happening with the waste produced by the chemical company down the street or 15 miles away. There is, however, another environment that you can and should exert control over in the quest to be healthy – your gut environment. This is where it all starts. When you have a UTI or bladder infection, something has gone wrong with the gut. Diet is crucial.

Recommended Reading: How to Kill Fungal Infections

Bad bacteria will always be there, but infections occur when the good bacteria are no longer able to keep them in check. Good bacteria are slow moving globs of protection that crowd out and starve off pathogens. Cultivating this good bacteria is essential to balance the pathogenic bacteria. Diet builds and nurtures beneficial bacterial colonies. Bad bacteria thrive on sugar and other refined foods, and it’s no coincidence that our most beneficial gut bacteria prefer to live off of a variety of beneficial raw veggies, fruits, and herbs.

We Need Fewer Antibiotics…Start Now

Antibiotic resistance is here. By necessity, we must look somewhere other than antibiotics, and there are other options that conventional medicine is not considering. If reducing UTIs by half is accomplished with a treatment as simple as drinking more water, what do we even need them for? For years, medicine has pushed for a cure rather than prevention. As margins for error in health keep decreasing, choosing to treat and support your body with diet and lifestyle before you get sick is the best way to never get sick.

Fast UTI Protocol

Cranberry juice is the secret. But not just any cranberry juice will do, it must be 100% cranberry juice with no other juices or sweeteners added. Conventional cranberry juice with high fructose corn syrup or table sugar will more often than not feed a urinary tract infection.

Lakewood is a common brand of cranberry juice that is available in the U.S. It is pasteurized but it is not reconstituted (not from concentrate). If you can find cranberry juice that’s unpasteurized at your local farmers market, or make it yourself, even better. If you cannot find the cranberry juice get a cranberry supplement. For those with recurring UTIs. have both on hand if possible.

At the first sign of kidney problems, like slow, shy, or otherwise difficult urination, take a gulp of cranberry juice straight, and then make a gallon of cranberry lemonade. This will help detoxify the kidneys, liver, gallbladder, and to a smaller extent the gut. If the infection has set in, SF722 and a probiotic would be in order. For chronic urinary tract issues, taking SF722 daily and always having nettle leaf and this kidney tea (or tincture) on hand is advised.

Related Products:

• Cranberry
• Probiotics
• Urinary Tract Formulas

Must Reads:

• CBD Oil – A Comprehensive Guide To Cannabidiol
• Detox Cheap and Easy Without Fasting – Recipes Included
• Start Eating Like That and Start Eating Like This – Your Guide to Homeostasis Through Diet
• How to Make the Healthiest Smoothies – 4 Recipes

Sources:

• To Reduce Risk Of Recurring Bladder Infection, Try Drinking More Water – NPR
• Top 12 Natural Home Remedies for UTI – Dr. Axe
• Urinary Tract Infection – How Bacteria Nestle In – Science Daily
• What Your Doctor Won’t Tell You About Recurrent Urinary Tract Infections – Body Ecology
• 8 Most Common Causes Of UTIs – Prevention
• Women suffer most from urinary tract infections, men more likely to be hospitalized – Science Daily
• Cranberry Juice and Urinary Tract Infections – Topic Overview – Web MD
• Garlic – The Most Amazing Herb On The Planet – Organic Lifestyle Magazine

This is more than a detox article. This is a lifestyle article. If you want to be disease free, vibrant, and truly healthy, it’s time to develop continuous detoxification habits that you do daily.

A very thorough detox can be expensive and challenging to complete. Some people who are very sick, or otherwise very toxic, need this kind of detoxification protocol, but most don’t, and most cannot afford to spend hundreds, or even thousands of dollars on supplements. The good news is that with the right habits, anyone can detoxify all the time without doing a “detox” that takes up all of your time, energy, and money.

The trick to detoxifying without fasting is to eat foods that help you to detoxify the body, and to drink plenty of water. Even better than water, here’s a recipe to kick off your detoxification protocol.

Reated: How To Heal Your Gut

Cranberry Lemonade Recipe

• Glass gallon jar
• Safe, clean, spring water or distilled water
• 1 cup of unsweetened, organic cranberry juice, not from concentrate
• 3 organic fresh lemons
• A citrus juicer
• Liquid stevia
• Liquid cayenne

Fill the jar to about 85% capacity with spring water (or distilled water). Squeeze the lemons and pour the juice into the water. Add cranberry juice. Add stevia to taste and then add cayenne to taste. The amount of cayenne used is up to you, but the more the better.

Recommended: How To Heal Your Gut

If you don’t have access to a good source for spring water, use other clean, drinking water that does not contain fluoride. If you don’t have access to organic lemons, use conventional. Fresh is best. If there are no fresh lemons, use organic bottled lemon juice. If you can’t get cranberry juice that is not from concentrate, get the reconstituted kind (just don’t get any kind of cranberry juice that has any other ingredients like sweeteners or other juices). If you can’t stand cayenne, don’t use it. No glass jar? Use plastic.

Since it’s cranberry season again, if you have a blender, try whole cranberries instead of juicing them. You can also throw in some of the organic lemon peels, as much as you can stand to taste. (Only organic. Don’t use peels from conventional lemons.) It’s pretty sour, but it has lots of benefits.

If you have powdered cayenne and/or powdered stevia, I recommend using a blender to mix some of the liquid with the powders so they don’t settle later.

The lemon juice will help flush the liver. The cranberry juice will help flush the kidneys. If you drink a lot of it, every day, you will feel an amazing difference in your health and vitality. This recipe is a far better choice for most people than the Master Cleanse.

Salad Recipe That Detoxifies

Produce detoxifies. Fresh, whole, raw vegetables, herbs, and fruits pull toxins from the body, repopulate healthy, beneficial gut bacteria, and give the body the nutrients it needs including enzymes and other phytonutrients that are almost non-existent in most modern diets.

Try to eat a huge salad every day with lots of greens, plenty of other colors, garlic, cilantro, ginger, and more. Check out this salad recipe.

The Salad Base

• Spinach
• Arugula (I prefer baby arugula, mature arugula tastes funky)
• Collard Greens (they’re very bitter; use sparingly)
• Lettuce (mix it up, try an organic spring mix)
• Kale
• Beet greens (the tops of beets)
• Red cabbage (thinly shred like a slaw or a little thicker, depending on the texture you prefer)
• Rainbow chard

Shredded, Grated

• Carrots
• Zucchini
• Beetroot
• Diakon (or other radish)

Chopped or Diced

• Leeks
• Red onions
• Red and yellow bell peppers
• Cucumbers
• Cilantro
• Asparagus (try cooking in a balasmic vinger first)

Extras

• Pomegranate seeds
• Olives
• Raisins or dried cranberries
• Sesame seeds
• Ground papaya seeds and/or ground pepper
• Avocado
• Eggs (try soft boiled)
• Beans (black, pinto, kidney, green, garbanzo, etc.)
• Garlic
• Turmeric
• Chia seeds

It’s not an exact recipe, and it doesn’t have to be. Mix it up. Try new things. My salads generally have about 15 ingredients. Make them big; make them diverse. Just imagine you’re in nature, not modern society, and all you have to eat is nothing but a wide variety of the best, whole, fresh, healthy vegetables and herbs. This is what a big salad a day can do for you: it’s life changing.

I throw in chick peas or a three-bean salad combination. If you’re not vegan, try a sheep feta cheese with this salad, and throw on some eggs. It’s good with meat, too, like chicken or steak.

Don’t ruin it with a crappy salad dressing! All this salad needs is a little balsamic vinegar (apple cider is better, but I don’t like the taste as much in my salads), or some fresh lemon juice or something. It doesn’t take much.

Daily Habits for Constant Detoxification

• Breathe in deeply, fully and properly
• Eat a big salad every day (I make seven every Sunday)
• Drink lots of cranberry lemonade every day
• Bodyweight squats every day.

That last one is more important than you may think. We expel more toxins through our skin and breathing than we do through bowel movements and urination. Get up, sweat, get your heart rate going, and breathe! I recommend bodyweight squats because it’s an important movement in nature (we used to squat a lot!), and it helps detoxify the body as you do them. Practice good form of course, and build up slowly. Start with 20, take a day off, but get up to 100 a day.

Related: Holistic Guide to Healing the Endocrine System and Balancing Our Hormones

Imagine that. 100 squats, a big huge salad, and a gallon (or so) of cranberry lemonade every day. If you can do it, you will reverse and set back disease for many years and feel amazing. When you are detoxifying, stick with the salads, squats, and lemonade. When you’re not, just fill in the rest of your diet with unprocessed, whole foods (organic whenever possible) and you’ll be healthier than anyone you know.

That’s pretty much my secret to good health. I make an 11 cup salad every day, I drink a gallon of cranberry lemonade every day, and I do squats. Sometimes I juice, but it’s done with lots of turmeric and ginger, and it’s not very sweet. I do enjoy an ultra healthy smoothie, and I put in lots of “superfoods” (I kinda hate that phrase, but, oh well), with Total Nutrition Formula.

When I need to go through a serious detox, I typically throw in SF722, Blood Detox, and some probiotics.

If you’re suffering from serious illness, or you know it’s coming soon if you don’t change your habits, this protocol will bring you to another level in health, but at some point you may want to do a more serious protocol that targets all of the elimination organs, and seriously address your gut health.

If you’d like to see some more recipes (and if you want to make your own tinctures and teas for your detox):
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Recommended Products:

• Mother Earth Organic Root Cider – Barrier Island Organics
• Formula SF722
• Floramend-Prime by Thorne
• Shillington’s Blood Detox Formula

Further Reading:

• How to Kill Fungal Infections
• 80% Raw Food Diet
• One Gallon Challenge
• Cheap and Easy Detox Protocols