functional food

Remember how your mother or grandmother used to tell you to make sure you got “lots of bulk”—and that meant eating oatmeal, muffins, and lots of wholegrain bread? Well, they were partly right and they were terribly wrong. Fiber is a vital part of your diet when it comes to promoting health and protecting the body from degeneration. But cereals, whole-wheat and bran muffins are not the way to go. TRUTH ABOUT FIBER What is the way to go? The answer may surprise you. The healthiest source of fiber does not come from wholegrains—which disturb blood sugar, create insulin resistance, and cause leptin resistance, making many people fat. (These things, by the way, have become a major driver in most chronic degenerative diseases.) The best fiber comes from fresh fruits and vegetables, which are full of both soluble and insoluble fiber. Insoluble fiber: This kind of fiber is found in dark green leafy vegetables, green beans, celery, kale and carrots. It’s the kind of fiber that does not dissolve at all, but adds bulk to your stools. It helps other foods you are eating move rapidly through your digestive tract so that elimination becomes healthier and more regular. Soluble fiber: This kind of fiber attracts water and turns to gel during digestion. You find soluble fiber in seeds, peas, nuts, blueberries and other berries, fresh beans and psyllium seeds. Soluble fiber helps slow down your digestion. It makes you feel full for longer. This is important for people who have a tendency to gain weight and to suffer from food cravings. One of the magic things about good quality fiber is that it actually ferments inside. This is wonderful because it releases something called acetate, which travels from your gut to the hypothalamus—the control center in your brain—and there it helps you stop eating more than your body needs. WHAT IS FIBER? Dietary fiber is a biological unit, not a chemical entity such as a vitamin or mineral. We get the best fiber from eating plant foods—beans, seeds, some pulses, fresh raw vegetables and fruits. Using simple sugars contained within, these plants produce a number of carbohydrate polymers. Some of these serve as energy stores for the plants, and are almost completely digested and absorbed in the intestine when we eat them. These are the soluble fibers. Others—the fibrous or viscous polysaccharides and lignins—lend the plants their structure and form, but we cannot digest them. Instead, they pass through the colon intact, where they are fermented to some degree before being eliminated from the body as waste. These indigestible polysaccharides, which make up the cell walls of plants, are known collectively as “insoluble dietary fiber”. They have a variety of other names, too. EACH IS UNIQUE Each kind of fiber behaves differently and has different benefits for the body: From cellulose, which binds water and increases fecal bulk, to pectin—very rich in apples—which is water soluble; hemicellulose, which shares some of cellulose’s characteristics and helps relieves constipation, aids weight reduction, and clears out carcinogens from the bowel; lignin—the woody fiber that you find in raspberries, strawberries, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, parsley and tomatoes—which helps eliminate the wrong kind of cholesterol and bile acids from the intestine; and the gums and mucilages, which are sticky fibers that food manufacturers make good use of as thickening agents in convenience foods. MASSES OF HEALTH BENEFITS When it comes to enhancing your health, protecting you from degenerative conditions and weight gain, the gifts of fiber are many. First, the right kind of fiber—such as acacia fiber, a soluble fiber—is great for helping people with irritable bowel syndrome. Using an insoluble fiber, such as beans or peas, can reduce the risk of diverticulitis by about 40%. All forms of soluble fiber help slow down the rate at which your body absorbs carbohydrates and sugars, helping to clear sugar cravings and aiding weight loss. Fiber is also great for your skin, especially psyllium husks and seeds. These help clear any overgrowth of Candida albicans—fungi and yeasts—from your body, helping to eliminate food cravings and protecting your skin from acne and rashes. A high-fiber diet helps lower your risk of hemorrhoids, which are caused by chronic constipation. A high-fiber diet also reduces the risk of kidney and gallstones, probably because it helps to regulate blood sugar. Research shows that good quality fibers help heart patients live longer. They are also marvelous for curbing the appetite. One of the surprising ways in which they not only do this, but also help protect us from degenerative conditions, is through fermentation. This process in the gut releases acetate, a waste product that has powerful and positive effects on the body. One of the things it does is to transmit information to the hypothalamus in the brain, which regulates your appetite and tells you when you’ve eaten enough. Research indicates that the appetite-suppressing qualities of acetate are excellent. RADIATION PROTECTORS Some of the best protection from radiation—which we’re experiencing more and more in our increasingly polluted environment—comes from fiber. So make use of it to protect yourself from the kind of radiation poisoning that now contributes to degenerative diseases. Seaweed is also one a great source of radiation protection. Studies have shown that alginate in seaweed and kelp products protect an organism from absorbing radioactive elements such as strontium-90 and cesium, both of which are incredibly dangerous to the body. Amongst other things, strontium-90 tends to replace calcium in the bones, leading to bone disease and cancer. Kelp is helpful in protecting against other kinds of environmental pollutants. The fucoidin it contains helps block the absorption of lead and other heavy metals. There is some evidence that, like pectin—the dietary fiber found in good quantities in apples—it can also help remove much heavy metal poisoning from the body from cadmium, aluminum and lead. Putting seaweeds in soups and vegetable dishes, making laverbread, or even taking kelp tablets can all help prevent the buildup of heavy metals in your body. FIBER 101 Governments recommend that we take in somewhere between 10 and 25 grams of fiber a day. Most people only get half of this, or even less. Because I eat 50% to 70% of my foods raw, I take in at least 40 grams a day. What is interesting is this: Research shows that our Paleolithic ancestors as well as tribal cultures, a few of which still exist on the planet, got somewhere between 35 and 60 grams of fiber a day! Aim for 30 to 40 grams of fiber a day and eat lots of vegetable foods. Your body will thrive on it. You will not find any good quality fiber in manufactured and processed foods. I strongly advise you not to eat such foods. Here are some of the vegetable foods and seeds that are excellent sources of fiber. Flax seeds, chia seeds, and psyllium seed husks Vegetables such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts and kale Macadamia nuts and almonds Berries of all kinds Green beans, peas, onions and root vegetables All the fibers listed above have been shown to help the body protect itself from cancer and other forms of degeneration so common in our world—fibroids, endometriosis, Alzheimer’s disease and heart problems. These fibers can also help tremendously to alter the metabolism of excess estrogen in the bowel—so that more of it is excreted and less of it is reabsorbed. I personally eat lots of green vegetables—most of them raw. My favorite source of seed fibers is twofold: Organic chia seeds and organic whole psyllium husks, which deliver both soluble and insoluble dietary fiber. If you have any sort of irritable bowel issues, I recommend acacia fiber. It is a soluble fiber that is very soothing to the gut. GO RAW What is so special about organic raw vegetables? Plenty. They have powerful protective qualities, which is why diets high in fresh green vegetables are recommended as an aid for protecting the body from degenerative diseases: Arteriosclerosis, arthritis and cancer. This is especially true of raw vegetables. Even more important, a diet high in raw vegetables not only provides you with the best quality fiber that you’ll find anywhere. It actually increases the microelectric potentials of your body’s tissues, making your cells function better, improving intra- and extra-cellular exchange, and imparting high levels of mental and physical vitality to your whole being. Fresh organic vegetables are the best source of natural fiber, vitamins and minerals for high-level wellness. I suggest that at least 50% of what you eat each day be made up of raw vegetables with some of the best low-glycemic fruits, such as the berries. Go raw. You won’t regret it. LESLIE RECOMMENDS Apart from all those wonderful green, organic vegetables you can sprout in your kitchen or grow in your garden, the products that I like best providing wonderful sources of fiber are these: Psyllium husks Chia seeds Acacia fiber BEST ORGANIC PSYLLIUM USDA Organic Non-Irradiated Kosher Certified Organic by QAI Certified Organic Plantago Ovata ForssK. Herbal Supplement Buy Organic Psyllium HEATHER’S ORGANIC ACACIA FIBER A medical food for the dietary management of Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Acacia Senegal is a soluble fiber with a clinically proven prebiotic effect. Studies have shown that soluble fiber, as part of the diet, regulates bowel motility (alleviating both diarrhea and constipation), and relieves abdominal pain from IBS. Acacia Senegal's prebiotic effect stimulates the growth of healthy gut flora, which in turn reduces bloating, gas, and bowel irregularities from the digestive dysfunction of IBS. Heather's Tummy Fiber is unique, because it has a good gastrointestinal tolerance and a proven significantly bifidogenic effect. Heather's Tummy Fiber is formulated specifically for the dietary management of IBS. It is 100% Acacia Senegal, and contains no low grade Acacia seyal. It also has no IBS triggers. Buy Acacia Fiber SALBA SMART NATURAL PRODUCTS, ORGANIC CHIA SEEDS, WHOLE SEED This is not your average chia seed - it's the Albert Einstein and Hercules of chia. University studies find Salba Chia seeds do heavy-lifting nutritionally, providing a daily Omega-3 (ALA) and fiber boost, and they earn extra credit for minerals. High in Omega-3 (ALA,) High in Fiber, Good Source of Calcium & Minerals, USDA Organic, Non GMO Project Verified, Dietary Supplement, Raw, Vegan, Gluten Free, Certified Organic by: International Certification Services Buy Organic Chia Seeds

I have often found that great gifts come in small packages. This is why I’m so excited about bringing you my brand new little book Kick Colds which has just been published. For many, the cold and flu season brings nothing but misery. It doesn’t need to happen. This year, suffering can be optional. Kick Colds tells you how to clear cold symptoms, and then how to make some simple natural changes that can protect you from getting a cold afterwards. It shows you easy and effective natural ways to boost your immune system. It brings you simple, practical guidance on how to get shot of sniffles, coughs and nasty throats when they threaten. It teaches how making changes in the way you eat and calling on the best anti-viral herbs and nutrients available can help you thrive even if all around you people are succumbing to a cold. This little gem of a book is packed full of healing power—from specific herbs and nutrients to easy-to-carry-out techniques, helpers and healing tools that can work wonders. The earlier you get on to them, at the first sign of sniffle or cough, the faster they can bring relief. IF YOU ASK ME I hate colds. To me, colds are the nastiest of all common sicknesses—sheer misery. They make me depressed, constipated and bad-tempered. This is why I’ve spent a lot of time learning how not to catch a cold in the first place and. if the first sign of one threatens what is the most effective way to ward it off. The time I’ve spent researching this stuff has been well spent, since I literally can’t remember when I had the last cold. By now it must be several years. Before that I used to suffer the common cold’s miseries once or twice a year. Everything you’ll find in this book relies on the powers of nature. Standard methods of treating colds with drugs and antibiotics don’t work. Antibiotics are useless against a cold virus. They only target symptoms while driving wastes and toxicity associated with the infection deeper into the body, from which they are likely to emerge in the form of another ailment in the future. Colds are associated with anything up to 200 viruses. Viruses are weird—so small you can’t even see them under a normal microscope. Scientists still can’t decide if they are living things or not, since they don’t eat, use oxygen or eliminate wastes. What they do—in no uncertain terms—is reproduce inside your body. Anti-viral drugs are as scarce as hen’s teeth, and antibiotics can’t deal with viruses. Viruses are not able to replicate themselves without entering your own cells and altering their function. Once you learn how to keep a virus from invading your cells then you can stop colds and flu in their tracks. Giving your immune system a boost for the cold and flu season is the key to doing this. COLDS HAVE REASONS We come down with a cold for two reasons: First is that the body needs to eliminate the wastes and toxins it has been carrying around and a cold is the way it chooses to do this. Second because your immune system is much in need of a boost. Colds are a body’s way of getting rid of all the wastes and toxins it has collected from our modern life filled with convenience foods, stress, inactivity and pollution. Keep your body free of toxins, and you need never have to go through the misery of a cold again. By this I don’t mean living in a plastic bubble and eating like a rabbit. It’s just common sense. Learn which foods support your body’s own ability to clear waste day by day, and avoid eating foods that put more toxins into it. Kick Colds tells you how to make simple changes to what and how you eat that shift metabolism in powerful ways so it can you free from becoming cold-fodder. LEARN TO FIGHT BACK Your immune system is a complex network of specialized cells and processes which form your body’s natural defense against invasion, poison and disease. It is like an elaborate, highly organized secret police in a totalitarian country which, together with its special branch of armed militia, has the job of ensuring that absolutely everything foreign is kept out. There are two sides to immunity: the secret police themselves—humoral immunity; and the militia—cell-mediated immunity. Your humoral immunity collects a vast log of thousands of antibodies throughout your lifetime which it has created in response to specific viruses, chemicals, bacteria and foreign substances which have invaded your system. As we now know, there are around 200 different viruses associated with the common cold. When your body is invaded by a new one it is the militia, the cell-mediated immunity, which goes out to fight it. This part of your immune system is centered around specialized cells called T-cell and B-cell lymphocytes. Build it up, and you have an in-built resistance to infection. A healthy immune system can stop a virus in its tracks. There’s plenty you can do to keep yours in peak condition. Become aware when your immune system is being breached, and act quickly to heal the invasion. Don’t even wait for the first sneeze. Take action now to nip it in the bud. FOOD CHANGE FOR INSTANT RELIEF To clear a cold fast, stop eating all grains, sugars, starchy vegetables and foods made out of them. Ready-in-a-minute pre-cooked meals, junk foods and even the standard meat-and-two veg Western meals can fill you with rubbish and create catarrh. They introduce your digestive system to the most difficult of all foods for it to break down and make use of: concentrated carbohydrates (e.g. breads, cereals, starchy vegetables and sugars of all kinds). Convenience foods and junk foods are also grossly deficient in essential nutrients, further inhibiting your body’s ability to eliminate waste. If your first response to all this is to say ‘How ridiculous, I’ve been eating bread and potatoes for years and they’ve never done me any harm!’ think back to how many colds you’ve had in your life. The digestive system of anyone who lives on manufactured foods or who chronically overeats doesn’t function normally because it remains in a state of permanent stimulation. Many people in this state eventually develop chronic fatigue, unrelenting hunger or food cravings, as their body calls out for the essential vitamins and minerals it is lacking. Poor digestion triggers metabolic slow-down, you lose energy, gain weight easily, and come down with frequent minor illnesses like colds and flu. INSIDE STORY My goal in writing Kick Colds has been to share with you tried and tested inside information, natural remedies, tools, and techniques both for banishing a cold if you’ve caught one, as well as helping you develop an immune system of the highest order. I’d love to see you enhance your wellbeing so well that, when someone asks you “When did you last have a cold?,” you’ll be able to look them straight in the eye and answer, “I’m not sure... it must be a few years back by now.” It can be great fun when, having tucked under your belt all you need to know to keep from catching colds, the last cold you had was so long ago that you can’t quite remember it.

Your body thrives on sleep. It is while you are peacefully slumbering that your body is busily repairing the damage the day has done. Your body’s cells including your skin regenerate and rejuvenate themselves during sleep. When you haven’t had enough sleep your face lets you know about it as soon as you look in the mirror next morning—dull eyes, dull lips and a dull complexion. Deep, regular sleep can do more to enhance your wellbeing as well as your good looks than the most expensive creams and potions on the market. NO SLEEPING PILLS There are no hard and fast rules about how much sleep you should get. Some people need a full eight hours. Others thrive on six. The better your diet—the higher it is in fresh fruits, vegetables and unprocessed foods—and the more exercise you get daily, the less time you are likely to need for sleep. What matters most is the quality of your sleep. Sleeping deeply does not mean drugging yourself into oblivion. In Britain alone 50 million prescriptions are written for sleeping pills each year. These drugs taken regularly can bring about dementia Alzheimer’s, depression and mental disorders. They also suppress vital rapid-eye-movement or REM phases of sleep. This produces psychological repression. Herbs offer a far safer alternative to drugs without having to pay the pipe with side effects or morning ‘hangovers’. There are three medically recognised types of insomnia—transient, acute and chronic. Transient insomnia lasts from a few days to a few weeks. It is usually linked to something specific—a worrying event or an illness. In acute insomnia your body has learned poor sleep patterns over a month or more and just keeps repeating them over and over again. Both these types of insomnia can be greatly helped by herbs. Chronic insomnia—when it has lasted more than six months—needs more help than short-term remedies can supply. The underlying reason for your inability to slumber peacefully—be it physical or emotional—needs to be identified and addressed. NATURE’S BOUNTY The drug valium takes its name from a plant: Valerian Valeriana officinalis was the primary herbal sedative used on both sides of the Atlantic before the advent of barbiturate sleeping pills. It is a safe and well-tested herbal remedy with a smell like dirty old socks. But don’t let that put you off since valerian is a powerful herb for inducing safe sleep. You can take valerian in a couple of ways. I like the tincture best—10 to 20 drops in a little water before bedtime or in the middle of the night when you awaken. Alternatively you can take a couple of capsules of the dried root. Valerian in lower doses is equally useful when your nerves feel ‘shot’, even during the day. It has the remarkable ability to enhance your ability to deal with stress and bring you stamina while it calms. Occasionally, and only to a very few people, valerian will cause drousiness in the morning. If this happens to you lower the dose or try a different herb. SIGN OF THE CROSS Passionflower Passiflora incarnata is a climbing plant with extraordinarily beautiful flowers. It has a blissful sedative effect on the body. Passionflower is one of the world’s most useful plants if you wrestle with nervous tension. It can be particularly helpful to women around the time of menopause. Not as strong as valerian in its actions, passiflora is more calming than sedating. As such it is a great alternative to tranquillising drugs. But it is a personal favourite for sleep. I even like the taste. Use 10-20 drops of the tincture in water or take two capsules of the dried extract up to four times a day when you need it. As an anti-stress herb many people like to take passion flower throughout the day in small doses to calm nerves and make everything easier. There is an excellent organic passion flower tea too. GLORIOUS POPPY The Latin name is Eschscholzia californica. California poppy has been used for thousands of years by Native Ameicans to calm anxiety, relieve pain and induce sleep. To assure optimal extraction of bioactive compounds, the plants need to be hand-harvested while in full flower then taken directly to the laboratory and extracted while still fresh and succulent. It’s best taken as a tincture. Researchers tellnus that this plant has anti-depressant properties, is an excellent gentle sedative, gentles pain, calm’s restlessness, counters insomnia, and helps establish equilibrium without any narcotic effect. It is my very favorite anti-stress plant. WELL KEPT SECRET You can use the flowers from the hop plant, Humulus lupulus, together with other remedies as a treatment for everything from indigestion to agitated nerves. Like valerian, hops has a pronounced sedative effect but it is a far milder remedy. Unlike valerian, hops smell sweet and you can use them without worrying about side-effects. You can take hops in the form of a tincture too. But by far the best way for sleep—particularly good for people who awaken in the middle of the night and have trouble going back to sleep—is to drink hops tea. Make it before you go to bed by steeping a handful of flowers for 10 minutes in hot water. Strain it and allow it to cool. Put the tea—sweetened with stevia if you like—by the side of your bed so you can drink it should you awaken in the night. It can also be a good idea to use a little pillow stuffed with dried hops blossoms. Put it under your neck when you go to bed or if ever you awaken at night. Traditional Medicinals make a gentle mixture of hops, catnip, chamomile and passion flower tea called Organic Night Night. FUNCTIONAL AND FUN TO MAKE Herb pillows are small cushions filled with fragrant, sleep-inducing herbs, that you can tuck under your normal pillow or keep near you while you sleep. Once you have stuffed your pillow don’t sew it up too tightly so you can replace the herbs as as often as you wish. If you keep it inside another pillow case you will easily keep it clean. Herbs for relaxation include camomile, thyme, lavender, catmint and rosemary, but my favourite pillows include a high proportion of dried hops. A few drops of essential oil of camomile will help with sleeplessness, geranium will relive anxiety and lavender irritation. Sprinkling with a little orris root powder will help preserve the mixture. PERFECT BLISS Create a sleep sanctuary – somewhere you will enjoy going to rest and sleep. Don’t have a television in the room and as far as possible avoid noise and light disturbance. If you awaken in the night, don’t turn on the lights. Research has shown that 15 minutes of light in the night can affect levels of melatonin in the body and make it difficult to get back to sleep. A WORD TO THE WISE: Never drive, drink alcoholic beverages or engage in activities requiring mental alertness while taking calming herbal products. Consult a healthcare provider prior to using any herb or plant if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, taking barbiturates, sedative drugs or other medications. TINCTURE OF VALERIAN Eclectic Institute Organic Valerian Fresh, Organic Valerian (Valeriana officinalis) root. Organic grape alcohol content: 45%. Fresh Herb Strength: 1:1. Buy Eclectic Institute Organic Valerian ORGANIC VALERIAN CAPSULES Eclectic Institute, Valerian, Rhizome & Roots Harvested Fresh & Flash Frozen for Optimal Quality Freeze-Dried for Ultimate Potency Buy Eclectic Institute, Valerian, Rhizome & Roots PASSION FLOWER TINCTURE Eclectic Institute, Passion Flower Organic Fresh, ORGANIC Passion Flower (Passiflora spp.) flower and leaf. ORGANIC alcohol content: 30% Filtered water. Fresh Herb Strength: 1.1 Buy Eclectic Institute, Passion Flower Organic PASSION FLOWER ORGANIC CAPSULES Eclectic Institute, Passion Flower 100% fresh freeze-dried ingredients, fresh freeze-drying maintains the biologically active constituents for highest potency and action. Buy Eclectic Institute, Passion Flower PASSION FLOWER TEA ORGANIC Gaia Herbs, Sleep & Relax, RapidRelief Herbal Tea Conditions that come rapidly can go rapidly when you give your body the right support. Gaia Herbs' RapidRelief products deliver results fast so you can get back to living life. Buy Gaia Herbs, Sleep & Relax, RapidRelief Herbal Tea NIGHT TEA ORGANIC Traditional Medicinals, Organic Nighty Night The use of passionflower, hops and chamomile for restlessness and mild sleeping difficulties is supported by clinical data and by traditional use. Buy Traditional Medicinals, Organic Nighty Night

Osteoporosis is a terrible disease. A progressive loss of minerals, bone mass and bone density, it affects men as well as women, and can result in fractures of the hip, shoulder, ribs, vertebra, forearm or wrist. In women, it is believed that bone loss begins several years before menopause and then gets worse afterwards, creating an ever-increasing risk of debilitating breakages. Osteoporosis is now the most common bone disorder. Worldwide, the illness causes more than 8.9 million fractures annually—in effect, a fracture every 3 seconds. SILENT KILLER In Britain, the incidence of the illness has increased six times in the past 30 years. One in three women and one in eight men develop it. In the United States, statistics are even worse: The illness currently costs the country more than 11 billion dollars a year. 25% of women whose hips fracture die within two years—not always directly from the fracture, but from ending up in nursing homes where inactivity, alienation and loss of control over their lives defeats them. Today, more women in the industrialized world die of fractures related to bone thinning than from cancers of the womb, cervix and breast put together. Now for the good news: Osteoporosis is preventable and treatable naturally, so take heart. Bone loss is no simple disorder. And it is most certainly not another so-called estrogen deficiency disease, as mainstream medicine would have us believe. Neither is it preventable or treatable by drinking milk or stuffing yourself with calcium supplements. In fact, both of these actions can actually make the condition worse. A FEW FACTS Osteoporosis regularly occurs in men who are deficient in testosterone and in women who are deficient in progesterone. Black women have less bone loss than white women, big women less than small women, and fat women less than their skinny sisters. Meat-eaters are at greater risk of the disease than vegetarians. A high calcium intake has long been toted as essential in preventing bone thinning. Yet people in third-world countries whose daily intake of calcium is less than half our own have a very low incidence of the disease. Couch potatoes are far more prone to the condition than men and women who get regular exercise—particularly weight bearing exercise. Osteoporosis is a complex condition. To prevent it, you need to understand it. And, despite all the fear-mongering surrounding the disease, learn the ropes. Then you can take action to halt bone loss and to reverse it no matter what your age. BEWARE OF DRUGS Most people believe that a prescription drug plus megadoses of calcium supplements are the answer to strong, healthy bones. But bisphosphonate drugs like Fosamax, Actonel, and Boniva carry serious side effects, including—believe it or not—an increased risk of bone fracture! Users of prescription drugs have more osteoporosis than people who do not take any medication. Bone loss is by no means inevitable as we get older, despite our being told that on average we experience about 1% loss of bone mass a year. But, like hypertension and insulin resistance, bone loss is another silent killer. How do we stop it in its tracks? It’s easier than you might think. MEET THE BIG FIVE Together, specific nutrients—omega 3 fats, vitamin D3, Vitamin K2, magnesium, and calcium help build the nutritional foundation for creating and restoring bone strength. They need to be supplied in good balance by eating natural foods and shunning the packaged convenience stuff that fills supermarket shelves. I call these nutrients the big five because, together with putting yourself on a program of regular weight bearing exercise, this combination forges strong healthy bones. Vitamin K2 is especially important, by the way, since one of its major physiological skills is moving calcium into your bones and teeth and removing calcium from parts of the body where it does not belong, such as your arteries and soft tissues. However the right nutrition can only do its stuff to protect your bones if you also you incorporate weight bearing exercise or whole vibration training in your life. MILK & CALCIUM PILLS—NO GO As for drinking milk? Forget it. We are constantly being told to drink more milk and take more tablets of calcium. Yet in the United States, the intake of calcium by supplementation or through milk drinking is the highest in the world and they have the highest rate of osteoporosis. In Oriental countries such as China where milk is not drunk and the intake of calcium is one of the lowest in the world, osteoporosis is virtually unknown. The Chinese get their calcium the way cows do—by eating green plants. Equally important not to do is take calcium pills. You need to get your calcium the same way grazing cows do by taking in lots of organic fresh greens which are full of it in a form that your body can make good use of. You see, calcium metabolism is a complex process and the absorption of calcium from water or mineral salts tends to be highly inefficient. Only somewhere between 20-30% of the calcium you take in through supplementation or processed foods will even be absorbed. And most of that will either get filtered through your kidneys then excreted in urine or sweat, eliminated through feces, or stored in your body’s tissues where it does not belong, contributing to heart disease. BUILD STRONG BONES Doing weight bearing exercise regularly at least three times a week is the second second thing you need to do if you want to protect your body from bone loss or reverse bone loss after it has started. There is something else important about weight bearing exercise—something I discovered for myself at the age of 50 when I decided I wanted to learn weight training from a Welsh champion weightlifter. It’s this: Working out with weights weights combats age degeneration and makes your body sing. There are three ways of approaching weight-bearing exercise. First, you can get yourself a few dumbbells, watch a good video for beginners and get to work. Second, you can do exercise using only your body weight to carry out the various movements so you don’t need dumbbells at all. Third, you can do accelerating training on a Power Plate. This is a great way to enhance bone density and build strength, and it is easy enough that even the weak and disabled can benefit from doing it. Also called whole body vibrational training, the Power Plate has a platform, which moves from front to back as well as vertically and horizontally. Power Plate training is readily available in studios where you can work with someone who teaches you how to use the equipment and show you how to hone your skills as you become accustomed to the process. You can also buy a Power Plate to use at home, but they are pricy. Having said that, I did buy one three years ago. I’ve used it three to five times a week ever since both for strength training and deep relaxation. In 2013 a research project involving 28 post menopausal women who practiced this kind of vibrational training three times a week for five minutes at a time, in only six months increased their bone density and strength by 2%, while the control group lost 0.5% in bone density during the same period. THE BEST SUPPLEMENTS Calcium, Vitamin K2, Vitamin D3, magnesium and omega-3 oils work together to build strong healthy bones and to restore strength to bodies that have lost strength. The best way to get vitamin D3, which builds bone density by encouraging the body to absorb calcium, is to get out into the sun for half an hour or more each day. If you choose to take vitamin D3 in supplement form, make sure you also supplement with Vitamin K2 to ensure that calcium from your foods are directed to bones and teeth. Vitamin K2 also helps your body remove calcium buildup in other areas of the body where it does not belong, such as the arteries. These two vitamins along with magnesium work brilliantly together to promote healthy bones. By the way, the ratio of calcium intake to magnesium in the body should be 1:1. EAT FOR YOUR LIFE Here is a quick checklist to follow if you want to build bones and keep them strong: Throw out all the packaged processed foods that the majority of the Western world still eats. The sugars, grain based carbs and artificial ingredients they contain deplete your bones of calcium and disturb the balance of nutrients you need most for increasing and maintaining bone density. Never drink sodas—even sugar-free. Eat from 50% of your foods raw and organic. Make green vegetables the cornerstone of your meals and also drink a glass of freshly made vegetable juice once a day. Replace table salt with Himalayan salt, as it contains more than 80% of the mineral elements your body and bones need to thrive—including both sodium and potassium in good balance. Get plenty of animal based omega-3 fats and avoid the golden oils sold in supermarkets or anything containing them like the plague. Use seaweeds in your salads and soups. Eat plenty of leafy green vegetables like kale and spinach, which are rich in magnesium—as are sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds and avocados. Use a top quality magnesium supplement daily to work well with calcium, Vitamin D3 and vitamin K2. Do weight bearing exercise at least three t imes a week for 20 to 30 minutes at a time. Recommended Reading: Ppro The Calcium Lie By Dr Robert Thompson Read The Calcium Lie by Dr Robert Thompson or Dr Kate Rheaum-Blue’s book Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox: How a Little Known Vitamin Could Save Your Life Buy The Calcium Lie On Amazon Here are some of my own preferred nutritional supplements: Zoi Research, Vitamin K2 & D3 Take 1 softgel daily or as directed by a health care practitioner. Buy Vitamin K2 & D3 Nordic Naturals, Omega-3 Purified Fish Oil, Lemon Each serving of Nordic Naturals Omega-3 liquid provides approximately 1725 mg of important omega-3 fatty acids, generously fulfilling the daily recommendation by international experts of a minimum of 500 mg per day. Omega-3 fatty acids are essential for good nutrition and overall wellness. Since the body cannot produce these fats, they must be consumed through diet or supplementation. Buy Nordic Naturals Source Naturals, Magtein, Magnesium L-Threonate Magnesium (Mg) plays an essential role in supporting cognitive function and brain health as well as bone support. Suggested Use 3 capsules daily, preferably 2 capsules during the day and 1 capsule 1-2 hours before bed. Start with 1 capsule daily and gradually increase to 3 capsules day Buy Source Naturals

Coffee smells good and tastes great. It delivers quick energy bursts to clear away your brain fog. But the caffeine from the coffee bean can soon burn out, leaving you nervy and exhausted. Drinking coffee distorts insulin balance, triggers blood sugar distortions and creates unconscious addictions that are hard to kick. Mainstream medicine tells us that it’s the caffeine that causes problems. We are also taught that all caffeine is the same. Well, I’m here to tell you, it just ain’t true. Not all caffeine is the same When I was nine years old, I was in Brazil with my parents. There we discovered a plant also rich in caffeine which switches on your energy and keeps it going without the negative downsides associated with coffee-drinking. When this exotic plant is organically grown and carefully harvested to preserve its caffeine, along with many other plant factors that make it so powerful, it delivers energy, increases your strength and stamina and, unlike coffee, does not burn you out. The plant is called guaraná. It’s named after an Amazonian tribe—the Guaranis—who recognized its power centuries ago. It grows wild in the exotic Brazilian rainforest in the form of a red berry. And it holds the energy secret of Brazil, and many other South American countries. In Brazil, guaraná is a drink more popular than coffee. Thanks to its complex combination of health supporting plant factors, the naturally occurring caffeine—unlike coffee—is released slowly into your system. As a result, the energy boost that guaraná brings you is not short, nervous and abrupt with a rapid energy drop-off. It’s uplifting and it lasts without distorting your metabolism. Western medicine confused Western medicine has long been ignorant and confused over guaraná. You’ll find all sorts of contradictory, not to say absurd pontification about its so-called dangers if you surf the web looking for information about it. Don’t bother. For centuries, guaraná has been the best kept secret in South America for increasing physical and mental stamina, increasing positive motivation and keeping the population going day after day without the toxic chemicals in coffee and other energy drinks. Guaraná supports all twelve of the body’s fundamental systems important for human health. In the past 50 years, many research projects in the Southern Hemisphere have turned up remarkable truths about this amazing plant. By all means, look online and learn about this marvelous plant, but forget searching for good information from American or European scientific research projects. They don’t exist. Western medicine has hidden its head in the sand and turns out the same-old, same-old nonsense claiming that guaraná is nothing more than plain old caffeine so you might as well take a No-Doz pill or swallow another cup of java. But clinical studies from the Southern Hemisphere have much to tell. The alkaloids in guaraná, say researchers, stimulate our myocardium and central nervous system, reducing our fatigue while enhancing alertness. Guaraná is a superior health tonic. Its seeds hold from 4 to 8% caffeine including large amounts of saponins, terpenes, tannins and flavonoids. Its seeds are fatty. When you grind them into a powder they are not water-soluble, which is a major reason why the special caffeine they contain is only slowly metabolized by your body. This protects from the nervousness and abrupt drop-off you get from coffee. This also means that guaraná’s seeds are able to act as “carriers of energy” through the body. The energy they bring therefore has a calmer, cooler quality that both revitalizes and relaxes. Guaraná also enhances physical and mental performance and promotes thermogenesis by nutritionally stimulating the body’s Beta receptor pathway, breaking down stored fat and allowing it to be turned into energy. Warning Avoid Energy Drink Claiming guaraná Now here are some important warnings, so please listen: Should you decide to explore what guaraná can do for you, you must make certain that the product you choose is genuine guaraná imported from Brazil that contains the whole plant—instead of some cheap derivative which is only caffeine. Believe me, cheap imitations of the real thing are rampant. Big-selling drinks are riddled with plain old caffeine listed as guaraná on their labels. So are all those sports drinks and macho “energy boosters”, designed to attract men and women naïve enough to believe that they will get bigger muscles by using them. Stay away from such rubbish for the sake of your health and your pocketbook. Guaraná must never be mixed with a lot of other stuff, which could well make you sick. Guaraná is a substance only meant for adults. It is not for children, pregnant or breastfeeding women or anyone with fibrocystic breast disease. You should consult your health care professional before using it. Finally, use only one or two tablets of guaraná a day. More is NOT better. When to take them? Take only one tablet thing in the morning. If this works well for you but you feel you want another energy boost later in the day, you can take a second tablet at lunchtime. Find out what works best for you. But never take guaraná late in the day—it might interfere with your sleep. the very best guarana product I’ve investigated many guaraná products on the market. Here is what I believe to be the very best: Guarana Energizer Guarana is a natural herb imported from Brazil. It has been used for centuries by the Native Americans of the Amazon as an energizer. Order Guarana Energizer from iherb Each guaraná tablet contains approximately 200 mg of natural occurring caffeine. This is 1 to 2 times the caffeine in a cup of coffee. I’m keen to hear from you about your own guaraná experience. Do get in touch by adding a comment below:

If you’re not yet nourishing yourself with green power, it’s time to take the leap. Green helps create vibrant health and dazzling rejuvenation. It costs little and its gifts are easy to access. If you’re looking for a simple but life-changing move you can make: go green. There are two intense substances which contain virtually everything you need to live at the highest levels of wellbeing. One is blood. The other is chlorophyl. These fluids are nature’s most potent carriers of the ineffable life force. Without them, no living thing would exist. They have something remarkable in common. It was Nobel prize winner Hans Fisher who first pointed out that the hemoglobin molecule and the chlorophyl molecule are virtually identical, except that at the core of this pigment that gives human blood its color and oxygen-carrying capacity, you find the element iron, while the molecular core of chlorophyl is magnesium. So close is the relationship between blood and chlorophyl that when we feed crude chlorophyl to anaemic animals, it can restore normal red blood cell counts within 15 days. Yet chlorophyl which has been chemically refined to remove its “impurities” shows no corrective effect on anaemia. On the contrary, it can poison the bone marrow – the site of red cell production. Green supplements such as spirulina and chlorella are fine – if expensive – but they fall way short of what you can get from drinking the life-blood of a green plant itself. Spinach, cabbage and nettle juice – all rich in chlorophyl – are successfully used to treat heart disease, gum disease, cancer, allergies, atherosclerosis and many other conditions – even depression. To make use of green power from plants, you need to go straight to the plant itself. Here’s the surprising news: even green juices lovingly gleaned from your favorite juice extractor fall short when it comes to turning your body on to green power. To create a good alkaline balance, rejuvenate your body, regenerating your life and make you look and feel great, you need access to the totality of whatever greens you are using – not just make your juice and toss the fiber away. Much like whole foods, superb, life-enhancing green liquids are only made through whole juices. This means you need to harvest their goodness with the help of a powerful blender – something I value so much that I consistently travel the world with mine. The fiber that is thrown away in ordinary juicing holds some of the most valuable treasures of a green plant. Ordinary juicing creates a fractured food, discarding much of the potent protection the plant has to offer against aging and illness by protecting the body against toxicity. It wastes a lot of the plant’s powerful anti-oxidants too. Get into whole juicing and you can toss out most of the expensive supplements you’ve been relying on to keep going. Whole green juicing does it far better. Fresh, green, organic salads are great. I love them, but the body assimilates many times more vital nutrients from whole juices. Why? Because, blending green leaves with water in a powerful blender breaks down the cell walls of the plants – these are some of the strongest molecules in nature – setting free their life-giving elements. This is something neither conventional juicing nor chewing salads give us access to. Green leaves are far and away the most nutritious part of most plants. In addition to vital minerals and vitamins, they carry traces of alkaloids in combinations specific to each plant species. These nitrogenous organic compounds of plant origin have important physiological and psychological actions on human wellbeing. Taking in the minute quantities of alkaloid mixtures from green leaves strengthens the immune system and promotes mental and emotional clarity. It even fosters greater spiritual awareness. Your supermarket, your greengrocer, and your garden offer a wide variety of green leaves ideal for whole juicing: kale, bok choy, mitsuna, lettuces, radicchio, spinach, turnip greens, grape leaves, chard, silver beet, celery – the list is virtually endless. Many vegetable tops that we throw away like turnip greens and the tops of lettuce are great for this purpose. So are herbs like parsley, mint leaves, lemon balm, basil, young dill and fennel. Best of all, next time you go for a walk in nature, don’t forget the wild edibles like purslane, sorrel, dandelion – both the greens and the flowers, chickweed, and even young stinging nettles. These free foods are wonderful sources of green power to help you transform your life. Just make sure you know the wild plants you pick and are able to differentiate their leaves from non-edible or poisonous species. What is the secret of making green power drinks taste great? You can add some fruit if you like, or honey or agave for sweetening. Experiment to find out what tastes best to you. Personally, I like my whole juices straight up, with the addition of a little stevia – the only calorie-free, natural sweetener in the world. It comes as a white powder which looks like sugar but is 200 times sweeter and carries none of the negative effects of sugar. It also comes as a liquid and in a green powder form made from the dried leaves of the stevia plant. A South American plant, stevia itself is an excellent source of green power. It grows happily in the garden or a pot sitting in your kitchen window. Just add a few leaves to your blender along with a mixture of edible greens, a few ice cubes and a cup or two of pure water. Blend and enjoy. Drink a couple of glasses of green power each day. It keeps well in the fridge or a thermos, so you need only make it once. You’ll be surprised at how life-changing this simple, inexpensive practice can be for you and your whole family. Kids love green drinks spiked with a banana or pineapple, apple or orange.

People at the higher reaches of human health don’t face the future with fears of getting old and falling prey to degenerative disease. They live with a sense that the best is yet to come. They know they’re capable of moving toward an even higher state of health and fulfilment as the years pass. They’re not ruled by run of the mill notions about aging which teach that getting older includes illness as a “natural” part of life. They know different. Their view of aging is closer to that of the world famous age researcher Johan Bjorksten, who insists that aging is a question of bringing “as many people as possible as many more healthy vigorous years of life as possible.” LEARN THE SECRETS Thirty years ago my daughter Susannah and I wrote a ground-breaking bestseller about the wonders of high-raw eating called Raw Energy. Ever since then, I have been flooded with letters from around the world. People write to tell me about their experiments with high-raw eating and all the payoffs it has brought them. Together, with new information from many areas of natural medicine, they have added missing pieces to the original Raw Power puzzle. All this has expanded exponentially the understanding of how to use diet to encourage healing and enhance health. MY SEARCH FOR HEALTH I had been chronically ill as a child—one “infection” after another, nightmares, anxiety. But no-one seemed able to help me. Then a wonderful break came my way. I met some remarkable doctors. These were men and women highly trained in orthodox medicine where drugs are the primary means of treating symptoms. Yet these were doctors with a difference. Disillusioned with the conventional, symptomatic approach to medicine, they chose to look deeper and ask questions: “What can be done to help a living body heal itself from inside without the negative side effects of toxic chemicals in drugs?” These physicians in Britain, the United States and Europe, were enormously generous with their time and their knowledge. They shared with me research findings and information which they had spent decades learning: How to detoxify my body using a high-raw or all-raw diet. How to enhance my energy. And—most important of all—how to trust my body’s ability to heal itself. CHECKING IT OUT I practiced what they taught and experimented with countless natural techniques. Their knowledge and generosity turned my life around. I learned that my tendency to “infection” was in fact food allergies. I learned that, after years of eating convenience foods, my body had become toxic. I watched and marveled as high-raw eating cleared the toxicity, the illness, and the depression. I lost fat from my body spontaneously. I felt great. I had so much energy that my children used to tease me by suggesting I start smoking to put a damper on my vitality. (There is nothing worse than waking up to an ultra-dynamic, hyper-cheerful mother.) I never looked back. It was these changes that threw me into a career in health: TV programs, articles, books, seminars, workshops, creating teaching modules for universities—the lot. I saw clearly that few of us ever live out our potentials for dynamism, creativity, good looks and radiant health. I felt passionate about sharing what I had been taught and had experienced for myself with others. My children also became intrigued by the changes they saw happening to me on a high-raw diet. They loved the delicious foods and natural sweet treats which we learned to prepare together. WHAT WE FOUND OUT Here’s what we found out happens when you eat high-raw, low-grain foods: You have more energy and vitality and look better. You lose weight more easily and keep it off without counting calories. You benefit from the “information” that organic live foods carry to your cells in the form of electro-chemical light energy and complex nutritional information which improves health and radiance. You get the best possible complements of vitamins, minerals and trace elements as well as essential enzymes that are destroyed when foods are cooked. Eating raw foods strengthens immunity, making you more resistant to disease, degeneration and allergies. Many chronic conditions disappear when people switch to a high-raw low-grain diet and—best news yet—they often don’t return. Long ago, I’d learned that the Germans, the Austrians, the Swedes and the Swiss had for generations catalogued the health promoting effects of eating foods high in raw fresh vegetables and fruits. Such a diet had long been credited with the healing of long term crippling diseases like arthritis and cancer, gastric ulcers, diabetes and heart disease. I unearthed reports of how athletes, taken off their usual diet high in cooked foods and put onto a way of eating in which between 50-75% of their foods were raw, not only lost none of their physical prowess, they even improved their performances. MEET RAW POWER An optimal experience of human health and vitality is possible when what we eat and the way we live is in line with what we have been genetically predisposed to thrive on. Such a simple idea. Yet what dazzling payoffs it can bring. New information from many areas of natural medicine can add missing pieces to the original Raw Power puzzle, expanding exponentially the understanding of how to use this way of eating to encourage healing and improve health. Raw foods carry light energy—photons—gathered by plants and animals from the sun’s own energy. These biophotons interact with our body’s own light-based, energy-based cellular control and communication systems—the living matrix—to heal, to energize, to bring mental and emotional clarity and to help keep our bodies strong and resistant to the buildup of toxic waste which invites disease and degeneration. And, Raw Power eating has three beneficial characteristics to it: A high-raw diet is the way our ancestors ate to which we are genetically adapted an on which we therefore thrive. It has to include adequate adequate but not excessive top quality proteins. It’s a way of eating which is low-or-no-grain and low-or-no-sugar that does not include manufactured convenience foods. RAW POWER TRUTHS An all-raw diet is useful temporarily for deep detoxification and encouraging the body to heal both acute and chronic diseases. It is not advisable for most people to eat nothing but raw foods for long periods. People who carry on with eating all-raw for years may continue to feel well, yet they often lose power and stamina both physically and mentally. Sometimes they even find it hard to live in the “real” world. This is often because they do not get enough top quality protein foods which establish firm architecture for body and psyche. Adequate protein is far healthier for bones than a low-protein diet. Organic and free range meat, fish, game and eggs can contribute enormously to your power and vitality and help protect from premature aging and degenerative disease (this is something I, like many others, for years did not know to be true). Too much sugar and too many sweeteners like honey, raw sugar, rice syrup and malt extract which all-raw foodies often get, are not good. They disturb insulin balance, predisposing us to insulin resistance and all the degeneration that brings with it. The majority of people living on a conventional Western diet show signs of insulin resistance syndrome. This epidemic of abnormalities includes high blood pressure, distorted blood fats or triglycerides, high cholesterol and blood sugar disorders. It carries with it an increased risk of just about every age-related disorder you can name: from eye problems, heart disease, nervous system disorders, obesity, diabetes and Alzheimer’s to chronic fatigue, exhaustion, anxiety, depression and poor sense of self worth. Why? Because the way they are eating and living is so far removed from what their bodies are genetically programmed to thrive on. Eating a no-grain—or a low-grain—diet, together with moderate quantities of quality protein foods and plenty of non-starchy vegetables and fruits reduces fatigue for virtually everyone while it eliminates weight problems, banishes inflammation and further enhances health, energy and good looks. Today’s fruits and vegetables lack yesterday’s nutrition, so a few well-chosen natural nutritional supplements can further enhance well-being. We need if at all possible to go for organic foods and so help avoid the toxic build-ups that can occur from foods grown using conventional farming methods. Finally—and most important of all—high-raw low-grain eating helps rebalance metabolism, allowing the body’s own remarkable inner power for healing to regenerate and rejuvenate the whole person. YOU DESERVE TO THRIVE Few of us reach our potentials for radiant health, energy, clarity, emotional balance and creative power. This is what I call life at the peaks—quantum health. By this I mean a real leap into a totally different way of life—which most people don’t think is possible. I mean a way of living where you awaken in the morning feeling fresh and good about yourself and your life—a state of being in which your physical and mental potential have the best chance of being used to full effect—that realm of consciousness in which your capacity for fun, passion and excitement over just being alive can soar like a joyous child. For real health is not just the absence of disease. It is a dynamic state of mind, body and spirit which makes it possible for us to participate fully and spontaneously in life, whatever it throws at us. I suggest you get into Raw Power and thrive.

The second most cultivated and widely-eaten fruit in the world is the apple. It seems we had to be well into the 21st century before science finally discovered its nutritional value. Not long ago, Medical News Today featured an article about the top 10 healthiest foods. Apples were number one. Apples are extraordinarily rich in antioxidants, flavonoids, and marvelous dietary fiber. The phytonutrients and antioxidants they contain help reduce our risk of developing cancer, diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. But there’s lots more news, too. MAGIC FROM A HUMBLE APPLE Recent studies show that apples have the ability to improve neurological health as they are rich in quercetin, which reduces cellular death caused by oxidation and inflammation of neurons. According to research carried out at the University of Quebec, apples also reduce our risk of stroke. A large study involving 9,208 people showed that those who ate the most apples over a 28-year period had the lowest risk of stroke. At Florida State University, scientists praised the apple as “a miracle fruit”. Older women who ate apples every day had 23% less LDL—the bad-guy cholesterol—and 4% more HDL—the good cholesterol, over a 6 month period. Meanwhile, researchers at Cornell University discovered that apples can help “protect neuron cells against oxidative stress-induced neurotoxicity”. This reduces our risk of developing disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. Also at Cornell, researchers discovered that an apple a day may help prevent breast cancer. There is some mounting evidence that apples help reduce the risk of diabetes. A large study involving 187,382 people showed that those who ate 3 servings of apples a week had a 7% lower risk of developing type-2 diabetes compared to those who did not. Finally, researchers at Oxford University discovered that eating an apple everyday can be just as effective as statins are in preventing vascular death in people over 50. It’s about time that contemporary research is starting to celebrate the power of the apple. I have known for 50 years that apples are a miracle food. With so many benefits and uses, it is hard to list them all. HEADSTART TO A HEALTHIER LIFE One of the best ways to trigger rapid detoxification in your body, and get you started on a way of living that will keep you healthy all around, is to do an organic applefast for a few days. Of course, no one experienced in the art and science of fasting should fast on water for more than a couple of days, unless they are under the watchful eye of a health practitioner well-trained in natural methods of healing—and never if they are pregnant, suffering from kidney or liver disease, or on drug therapy. But an apple fast is different. In truth, it is not a fast at all. You eat as much as you want—but only organic apples, in place of regular meals. Like the traditional water-fast, the applefast is a powerful tool for stimulating the process of detoxification on which high-level health depends. An applefast can be used in many different ways, each of which is powerfully helpful. First, if you are keen to change the way in which you’ve been eating, an apple fast can get you off to a good start. It spurs the rapid elimination of waste, clears away food sensitivities—which can be present as a result of eating convenience foods, too much carbohydrate and sugar—and it can banish the ravages of unnatural appetite that develops due to chronic overstimulation of the digestive system. After your first 2 or 3 day applefast, try to set aside one day each week for applefasting. A once-a-week, one day applefast is a great boost because a day a week on apples is an excellent discipline. It’s a practice that helps us break through ingrained habit patterns which make us unconscious and mechanical in the way we live, and largely unaware of what we’ve been eating. Finally, you can also use the applefast whenever or for whatever reason you have slipped and eaten something that you know your body was not happy with. For example, if you discover you have eaten more than you really wanted, or your system has become somewhat polluted because you were trapped in a smoke-filled room the evening before. A day of applefasting quickly helps correct digestive disturbances and internal pollution problems which can result. It left unchecked, being out of sorts can trigger unnatural and excessive appetite. In effect, an applefast puts you back on track again, and can have you feeling great when you wake up the following morning. APPLEFASTING—HOW LONG If you’re keen to get off to a good start with detoxification, set aside two or three days for an applefast. Buy a box of organic apples. Usually the greengrocer will give you a good discount when you buy a box at a time. Or, buy three or four different kinds for variety to get you started. They must be organic. Eat as many as you like, but eat the whole apple, including the peel, the seeds and the core. You must chew it all very well, until the last drop of flavor has been extracted from the fruit. The only part you throw away is the woody stem. The apples you eat must not only be organic, they need to be fresh and eaten raw too. You can munch these crisp organic fruits au naturel, or you can grate them and sprinkle a little cinnamon on top. You can even put them in a blender with clean water to make a whole apple drink. Eat apples whenever you’re hungry throughout the day. How long you carry out your first applefast depends on how convenient it is for you to munch on nothing but apples, and on how you feel. Usually a couple of days are enough to give you a good start on spring cleaning the body from within. Three days is as much as any healthy body should do on his or her on, without being under the supervision of a health practitioner well-versed in fasting and the use of living foods. No pregnant or lactating woman should do an applefast, nor should anyone with a kidney, liver or heart complaint, for in such cases a sudden change of diet carries with it potential dangers to health. But, if you are generally well, then a short applefast is a great way to clear the decks for a new way of healthier living. When your day or two on apples alone is finished, then you can start the next morning to apply your healthier way of eating based on fresh foods. ONCE A WEEK TREAT It really is a treat, too, as you’ll find after you’ve got into the swing of it. To lay aside one day of rest from the three-meals-a-day routine and spend it applefasting gives your digestive system a break. It helps clear your mind and encourages the letting go of old poor eating habits. It’s also an excellent tool for giving an extra push to the detoxification process. For me, applefasting is a pleasure. When I travel, and hate being faced with some of the airplane, hotel and restaurant food which I would otherwise be forced to eat. So instead, I carry a sack of apples with me, and munch away. I always find it increases my energy and has me sailing through whatever I have to do. I tend to vary the day of my applefast from week to week. Most often, it is Monday, because I feel that this is a good way to start the week. But when I have a commitment which entails lunch or supper or Monday, I simply shift it to a day later during the week. THE QUICK CORRECTOR In many ways, the most useful thing of all about the applefast is that you can call on it when you most need help to get you back on the rails again. Each of us occasionally finds ourselves in a situation where we’ve eaten something that we would rather not have eaten. You may find your system has been upset by some dish you were served the day before, which has forced the return of false appetite, and does not seem to want to go away until your digestive system is calmed and your body is balanced once more. Or perhaps you’ve overeaten—old habits die hard, and you must be patient with yourself if this does happen—or you’re under heavy stress for some reason, and feel you need help to smooth things over. The applefast is ideal as a “quick corrector” in any of these situations. Spend a day munching organic apples, and it well you to rights again, so that when you awaken the next morning you feel more centered and more yourself, ready to get back to eating good-quality foods with renewed enthusiasm and energy. CLEANSING CRISIS Very occasionally when someone goes on an active program of detoxification beginning with the applefast, he or she has the experience of a headache at some time within the first day or two, or feeling moody or having an upset stomach or loose bowels. This is a sign that your body is throwing off wastes at such a pace that you are experiencing what is known in natural medicine as a cleansing crisis. In fact, this happens to very few people. If you happen to be one of them, be glad. Even though it may be a bit of a nuisance for a few hours, it’s actually a good sign. Your body is taking the opportunity to get rid of a lot of debris that it wants to eliminate. If a cleansing crisis does take place, make time to relax—in a darkened room if possible—and be kind to yourself. It’s quite a feat to be ridding your body of so much old debris at once. The cleansing crisis will pass quickly, leaving you better than ever. BEWARE THE CAFFEINE MONSTER People most likely to get a headache as part of the cleansing crisis are those who’ve been drinking several cups of strong tea or coffee a day. This kind of reaction is triggered by your tissues dumping a lot of stored caffeine into your bloodstream all at once in order to clear it from your body. The first time this happened to me, I had been in Vienna for six days, where everybody drinks coffee—and very strong coffee indeed—all day long. Not being much of a coffee drinker myself (apart from a cup of bitter Turkish coffee once every six months after a middle-eastern meal), while there, I decided to go along with the custom. The day I left the city, I got into an airplane to return to London and to my usual way of eating, and found I was struck down by the most appalling headache which lasted about four or five hours. It was no fun, believe me. But when it passed, I did a 3 day applefast. I was left with the most wonderful feeling of freshness and lightness—the way you feel on a beautiful summer’s morning when there is a light breeze blowing. This sense of lightness is a common one for people who turn to an applefast to clear their system of stored wastes. It more than makes up for the headache or tummy upset that heralded its coming. When you experience a headache as severe as the one I had that day, it makes you appreciate even more how valuable a one-day-a-week applefast can be, and what a source of pleasure and energy. It’s something I would never want to be without.

Early on in the twentieth century, a few scientists—mostly in Germany—experimented with chemicals as a means of fertilizing food crops. They found that a mixture of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (NPK) would grow big yield crops of good-looking vegetables, grains, legumes and fruits. But little interest was taken in their discoveries until the end of World War II. At that time most foods were still grown pretty much as they had always been—by farmers who manured, mulched, and rotated their crops to keep soils rich and in good condition. To put it another way, most food was grown organically, although nobody had even coined the word; for this was no more than what traditional farmers throughout the world had done for thousands of years. MASS DESTRUCTION BEGAN HERE When the war ended, big chemical conglomerates who had been involved in the manufacture of phosphates and nitrates as war materiel found themselves stuck with huge stockpiles. They went looking for new markets. Aware of the early research into chemical fertilizing, they turned towards farmers, and began to sell them artificial NPK fertilizers at costs low enough to make it all look very attractive. These purveyors of chemicals also spread the false belief that NPK is all you need to grow healthy crops. There were unfortunately two very important facts that the chemical hawkers left out. Probably they did not even know. After all, it was not good for their profit margins to know. The first is that, although plants grow big on artificial fertilizers, they do not grow resistant to disease. The second is that the health of human beings eating food plants grown this way is, sooner or later, seriously undermined. CHEMICAL VICTIMS Plants grown only on NPK are deprived of essential minerals and other micro-substances they need to synthesize natural complexes in roots and leaves, which ward off attack by insects, weeds and animals. So before long the new artificially fertilized vegetables and fruits began to develop diseases. The chemical hawkers were quick to the rescue. The answer to this problem, they said, would be found in using more chemicals. That is how pesticides, herbicides, nemacides and fungicides came into being. They provided chemical companies with yet another exciting business opportunity—especially since the longer you fertilize chemically, the more depleted in organic matter your soils become, and the less they contain of the minerals and trace elements needed to synthesize natural protective complexes during growth, so the more pesticides you need. So as time went on, more and more pesticides and other chemicals were sold. Before long another important fact began torear its ugly head. It was this: like plants, human beings need a lot more than nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus from the foods they eat too, to maintain their own health. Your body cannot make minerals. It has to take them in, in a good balance, from the foods you eat. In addition to nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, it requires magnesium, manganese and calcium, selenium, zinc, copper, iodine, boron, molybdenum, vanadium, and probably other elements as yet undiscovered as well, to stay healthy. These elements need to come from the foods you eat. Generally they do, when foods are grown organically in healthy, traditionally fertilized soils. But they are increasingly missing and unbalanced in the foods we buy today, thanks to our legacy of chemical farming. EARTH’S BLESSED CREATORS The organic matter in healthy soil is Nature's factory for biological activity. It is built up as a result of the breakdown of vegetable and animal matter by the soil's natural 'residents'—worms, bacteria and other useful micro-organisms. The presence of these creatures in the right quantity and type gives rise to physical, chemical and biological properties that create fertility in our soils and make plants grown on them highly resistant to disease. When it comes to human health, they do a lot more. The minerals and trace elements we need to look after our metabolic processes, on which health and leanness depend, must be in an organic form—that is, taken from living things like plant or animal foods. You cannot eat nails—inorganic iron—for instance, and expect to protect yourself from anaemia, or chew sand—inorganic silica—and be sure to get enough silica, the trace element that keeps your nails and hair strong and beautiful, and helps protect your bones from osteoporosis. It is the organic matter in soils that enables plants grown on them to transform inorganic iron and silica into the organic form which is taken up by the vegetables and fruits, grains and legumes. Destroy the soil's organic matter through chemical farming, and slowly but inexorably you destroy the health of people and animals living on foods grown on it. Eating food grown organically protects from significant mineral deficiencies, as well as from distortions in mineral balances. What few people realize is that an overload of one or more mineral elements alters your body’s ability to get enough of other minerals, undermining the people's health. No such protection is available when foods are chemically grown. So eat organic even if you have to grow your own foods in the garden or feed on sprouted seeds you grow in your kitchen window. Your body will bless you with energy, protection from early aging, and the sense of wellbeing that many long for but few as yet experience.