The impact of refined sugar consumption on our health is extremely detrimental. It contributes to weight gain, diabetes, heart disease, and is particularly damaging to our immune response, which is an underlying factor in cancer. Immune function decreases for hours after sugar is consumed. A research study done by Loma Linda University in which participants were fed different forms of sugar found that the effectiveness of white blood cells (our immune cells which fight infection) decreased up to 50% after 1-2 hours of eating sugar, lasting up to five hours. Dr. Linus Pauling, a Nobel Prize winning microbiologist, conducted groundbreaking work related to Vitamin C and the common cold. In this research he found that sugar severely slows down the ability of white blood cells to engulf pathogens, one of our primary defenses against viruses (COVID-19, influenza, colds) and bacteria (Salmonella, E-Coli, Staph infections, bacterial pneumonia).
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Green Smoothies help ensure you'll reach the daily recommended intake of 7-9 servings of vegetables per day while flooding your system with health-promoting nutrients. Studies show that consuming fresh juice helps to: • increase energy • Boost your immune system • Reduce inflammation Green Smoothies are easy to make, easy to digest for instant energy. A blender is the perfect set of teeth allowing nutrients to be absorbed quickly and easily with all natural digestive enzymes intact. Blending by-passes all digestive problems like sore teeth, peptic ulcer, colitis, a tired pancreas and overworked liver. Green Smoothies are simple to make. Take any fresh greens you like and blend them with fruit and water (or coconut water is delicious too) and a bit of fruit. Skip the milk and yogurt as these impede digestion speed and absorption. As you become accustomed to the green taste, you will find you enjoy it with less fruit. As you can see above, the core atom of chlorophyll is magnesium. Chlorophyll is one of the best builders of red blood cells, vital for delivering nutrients and removing toxins from your entire body. Green Smoothies are rich in alkaline minerals like calcium. The high-calcium greens are the fibrous ones such as dandelion, kale and collard. Wherever there's a hard shell - as in teeth, bone, or tough-to-chew greens, you will find calcium. Leafy green also contain small quantities of alkaloids as well as other phytotoxins like oxalates and goitrogens. It's good practice to rotate greens in your Smoothies so you don't get a buildup of any one alkaloid type. I usually rotate romaine, spinach, kale, parsley, watercress and swiss chard. When I'm in a rush, the organic baby green mix 50/50 with spinach works great too. Basic Green Smoothie Recipe for Beginners If you want your smoothie to be pretty and bright green, choose light-coloured fruits. These include: mangoes, pineapples, bananas, pears and apples to accompany your green veggies. I love the tropical flavour from the mangoes or pineapple! You can also add berries, just keep in mind that you’ll end up with a brown coloured smoothie, which is just as delicious, but not so green. I put these in a mug instead of a glass. Ingredients
Lemon Lime Shake - Serves 1 1 avocado, peeled and seeded ½ English cucumber 1 lime, peeled 2 lemons, juiced 1 young coconut, juice and meat Stevia drops to taste 1 cup ice cubes In a blender, layer ingredients in order listed. Blend on low to start. As liquid incorporates, increase speed to high and blend until smooth and frothy. Add more ice for sorbet-type consistency. Serve immediately. Optional add-ins: Add 1-2 tbsp flax seed, 1-2 tbsp fax seed oil, and 1-2 tsp greens powder to increase nutrition, fiber and essential fatty acids in smoothies. Ascorbic acid is one form of Vitamin C, derived from glucose. It is a very effective, natural way to get rid of warts, even plantars. It burns away the wart tissue, but does not harm normal skin.. Just place some of the powder directly on the wart and hold it in place with a band-aid. Do it every day for 7-14 days and you will see the difference. I've heard reports of similar success with oil of oregano. Warts may indicate an immune system weakness allowing the wart virus to take hold in your body. Support your immune system with a diet rich in Vitamins A, C, E, zinc, selenium and essential fatty acids. Vitamin A Foods: Butternut squash, sweet potato, kale, carrots, beef liver, spinach, dried apricots, broccoli Vitamin C Foods: Black currants, red pepper, kiwi, guava, green pepper, oranges, strawberries, papaya, orange Vitamin E Foods: Wheat germ oil, almonds, hazelnuts, spinach, avocado, butternut squash, pine nuts, olive oil Zinc Foods: Grass-fed beef, chickpeas, cashews, pumpkin seeds, yogurt, kefir, chicken, mushrooms, salmon Selenium Foods: Brazil nuts, salmon, tuna, turkey, chicken, mushrooms, navy beans, free range eggs EFA rich Foods: Avocado, coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, salmon, sardines, flax and chia seeds, almonds, walnuts Practice Thymus Tapping to keep the gland active and boost your immune system. This exercise will:
e are all different biochemically. Some of you may catch every cold that comes around; others may have 1 cold every 5 years. Why is this? The answer is... it's not the microbe, it's the terrain. In other words, the viruses are everywhere but if the terrain of your body is in a healthy state, your immune system can be proactive and do its job, eliminating the virus. Some people have compromised immune systems…not only do they catch every little cold or flu that is out there, but an auto-immune disorder like asthma, allergies, lupus, eczema or rheumatoid arthritis may be present. We all have one thing in common however,we want to avoid the flu. To do this, we need to prepare and strengthen the terrain of our bodies by supporting our immune system with good lifestyle choices and the proper supplements.
Prevention The best defense is to practice prevention, ensuring your body is in top shape to fight off viruses and stop bacterial infections from settling in. Lifestyle changes are vital in supporting your immune system and the following steps are a good start. Wash hands constantly - when you wake up, before you eat, before you sleep and in between. Stay hydrated - Drink half your weight in ounces of pure filtered water per day between meals starting with a glass first thing in the morning. Regular exercise - Your lymph system clears your body of pathogens. Vigorous movement and deep breathing pumps your lymph system. Breathing exercises, walking, swimming and anything that moves your arms and legs works wonders. Rebounding is excellent! Eat Antioxidants - A minimum of 50% of your diet should be raw fruits and veggies. Every meal you eat, make sure half of it is raw – that's easy! Eat a rainbow of colors and remember the blues, reds and purples! Eat Clean - Avoid sugar, caffeine and processed food. Sugar suppresses the immune system. White blood cells are depleted by 50% after just 1 teaspoon of sugar and take several hours to recover. Caffeine robs your body of water, minerals and vitamins, dehydrating and malnourishing your body. If you drink coffee, make sure you add an additional two glasses to your water intake per cup of coffee. Processed Food - these food products contain hundreds of chemicals that are not recognizable to the body as food. This means that they are perceived by the immune system as foreign invaders that must be dealt with. When the immune system is tied up battling the invaders you have willingly put into your body, it is not available to do the job it was created to do. Adequate Sleep and Rest - Sleeping less than 8 hours a night depletes your immune system. Stress Management - Try yoga, breathing exercises, meditation, gardening, listening to music – whatever you love doing that relaxes you. Make it a part of every day. Supplement Support Probiotics. Normalize your intestinal flora by taking a high potency supplement with a minimum of 2 billion live bacteria per capsule. It will assist in restoring intestinal immunity by hindering the growth of harmful bacteria such as candida, molds, yeasts and fungi. These helpful microfloras not only assist digestion, they exert antimicrobial activity against pathogens and boosts immunity be encouraging immune cells to proliferate, and reduce inflammatory cytokines. Food Source: plain yogurt, miso, kefir, sauerkraut daily Vitamin D. Your adaptive immune system (the cells that activate in the presence of an invader and retains antibodies and immunity for the future) cannot function without the presence of Vitamin D. Most people are deficient. Make sure you are taking the D3 form which is the most active and natural form. Take 4000 – 6000 IU daily for adults and 400 – 800 IU for children, aiming for the higher range in the winter months. Must be taken in or with a multi containing Calcium and/or a Calcium formula to aid absorption. Food Source: mackerel, salmon, oysters, sardines, tuna, eggs, butter, chanterelle and shitake mushrooms, oatmeal and parsley and…. SUNSHINE!! Get a minimum of 20 minutes of sunshine on your skin each day during late spring, summer and early fall. Vitamin C makes your immune system more active and is a powerful antioxidant. Take a supplement that includes bioflavonoids (plant chemicals that enhance Vit C's effectiveness.) Supplementary range is 1000 to 10,000 mg daily. Take 1000 mg every hour until you experience loose bowels, and then back off 500 – 1000 mg. This will be your optimal intake. Food Source: citrus fruits, berries, green and leafy vegetables, tomatoes, green peppers, papaya, raw onions, rose hips, alfalfa, cayenne pepper. High Quality Multi Vitamin Mineral in an Antioxidant Formula with Vitamins A, C and E with zinc. Food Source: Raw fruits and veggies especially red, green and orange colored and lots of leafy greens, raw nuts and seeds. Omega 3 Fatty Acids in the form of fish body oils or flax seed oil. Carlson's Laboratories makes a good lemon flavored one with NO fishy taste and flax seed oil has a slight nutty taste, you can mix it into fruit juice, yogurt or smoothies. Food Source: Eat cold water fish a minimum of twice per week, and a handful of raw (refrigerated, unsalted, unprocessed) nuts/seeds per day. Pathogen Destroyers If you do come down with something, reducing the initial viral load when the first symptoms are felt is effective at staving off or limiting the severity of an illness. Gargle and rinse sinuses with saline. Cold and flu viruses multiply in the sinuses and at the back of the throat. Use ¼ tsp kosher or pure sea salt in a neti pot or soft squeeze bottle full of lukewarm water. Heat the water in a kettle; don't use warm water from the tap. Do this several times a day for gargling and at least once a day for sinus rinsing – this alone can make a huge difference in getting back on your feet quicker. Oil of Wild Mountain Oregano – you can find this essential oil in the health food store. MUST be Origanum Vulgare and must be a minimum of 20% Carvacrol FINISHED. 40% is better. Wild Oil of Oregano is anti-viral, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-parasitic plus boosts the immune system and is rich in minerals and Vitamin C. A, C and minerals. Put 5-6 drops in a shot glass of orange juice (or water if you can stand it) 3 – 4 times per day with meals. Most kids can't stomach the taste so try putting the drops in an empty gel cap if they can swallow them. Will destroy beneficial gut bacteria also so must be followed up with a course of therapeutic probiotics to replenish friendly microflora in the intestines. Olive leaf extract - OLE is a member of a group of antioxidant plant compounds called flavonoids. In laboratory tests OLE effectively eliminated a wide range of organisms including bacteria, viruses, parasites, and yeast/mold/fungus. Aged Garlic is one of the best infection fighters available for both bacterial and viral infections while being kind to beneficial bacteria. Stimulates the activity of macrophages (which engulf foreign organisms), helps clear mucous from the lungs, making garlic particularly helpful in treating upper respiratory viral infections, effective against strep and staph bacteria. Homeopathic Remedies - There are flu and cold formulas that if taken immediately at the sign of symptoms, can reduce the length of sickness by 75%! Something to keep in your medicine cabinet. *If you are pregnant or nursing or on medications, check contraindications with your naturopath or medical doctor. Some Final Tips Eat lightly. When your body is put to task fighting illness, don't tax it further by overeating. Eat lightly and choose foods that are easy to digest and drink lots of liquids. Water and 50/50 diluted apple juice are great. Avoid Tylenol / Advil. When you are fighting a fever, don't take Tylenol for fevers below 103 degrees. A fever is an expression of the immune system working at its best. Fever increases the amount of interferon (a natural antiviral and anticancer substance) in the blood. A mild fever also increases the white blood cells ability to destroy viruses, fungi, bacteria while impairing the replication of many bacteria and viruses. Use cool head cloths, and avoid sugary drinks and traditional snacks such as jello and ginger ale…the sugar does more harm than good. The ideas and suggestions in this handout are not intended as a substitute for the care of a licensed health care practitioner. They are meant for educational purposes only. |
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