integrative health

One of the biggest medical cover-ups in history involves root canals. The biggest mistake I ever made with my own health was listening to a dentist who told me I needed a root canal. This damaged my immune system for years. It also set me on a search which lasted more than a decade to figure out why, as a result of allowing a root canal into my mouth, the health of my whole body was damaged. Your dentist will probably tell you, as mine did, that a root canal is a great way to replace an infected or damaged tooth. The sales talk goes something like this: “We clear out the pulp-filled cavity down to the root of a troubled tooth, then replace it with an inert material so you won’t have to have your tooth pulled. Then we sterilize it, seal it and put a crown on the top.” Here’s what you need to know: Root canal procedures are not safe. And the irony of it all is that your dentist probably doesn’t even know this. The American Dental Association—together with most dental colleges around the world—has been denying the dangers implicit in root canal procedures for generations. Way back in the 1920s, world-renowned dentist and dental researcher Weston A. Price carried out exhaustive studies on the fundamentals of dental infections and how they can cause systemic bodily infections and degenerative diseases. After years of study, Price reported that he was never able to find one root canal-treated tooth that did not eventually become seriously infected. Since then, exhaustive research by other cutting-edge dentists, who have been courageous enough not to buy into the official party line, has confirmed Price’s findings again and again. Most people think of their teeth as things separate from the rest of their body. Each and every tooth in your mouth is a living entity, just like the organs and glands in the rest of your body—your stomach, pancreas, thyroid and so on. Each tooth has its own nerve and blood supply, rising up the main canal into the inner pulp chamber, then branching out into minor canals which communicate with the surrounding area and bone. These are called lateral canals. The bulk of the tooth—the dentine—is a porous structure, made up of a network of tiny channels known as tubules. This complex network of living microscopic tubules are so numerous that, if you were to lay them end to end, they would extend to an amazing two or three miles in your smallest teeth, and as far as 10 miles in your molars. These tubules are infinitely small, yet they are wide enough to incubate dangerous bacteria and toxins, which can seep into the rest of your body. It’s here in the dentine and the tubules that you find the crux of what makes root canals potentially dangerous. All root canal teeth are completely dead. And no dead tissue should ever be left in your body. Would a surgeon removing a necrotic organ in your body leave pieces of it in your tissues? Absolutely not! Yet this is exactly what takes place in a root canal. When a dead tooth is sealed, the environment becomes anaerobic. Bacteria can then morph into their anaerobic forms and reproduce prolifically within the dentine, creating noxious toxins. You see, a root canal is an ideal medium for this to take place by supplying warmth, nutrients, and water. The immune system is unable to deal with the problem because the dead tooth has no blood supply. Yet most, if not all, dentists still believe that leaving a dead root canal tooth stuck into your jaw will cause no problem. And this is exactly what endodontists—dentists highly-trained as root canal specialists—do. They clear out all blood vessels, connective tissue, and infected nerves from your tooth’s pulp chamber. Then they widen and reshape it in preparation to receive the filler substance, which is often gutta-percha. By doing this, they are attempting to create sterility. But here’s the rub: No amount of medication used in an attempt to sterilize these tubules has ever shown itself capable of accomplishing this. There is simply no way of eliminating bacteria hidden in the tubules. They can harbor masses of bacteria and diseased tissue. And, since the tooth is completely dead—nothing more than a moribund hunk of material—your jaw becomes the ideal place for toxic by-products to be produced. Because a dead tooth’s blood supply and oxygen supply no longer exist, bacteria present in the space between the upper gum and the crown of the tooth can easily make their way into the porous dentine tubules, not only infecting the area around the dead tooth but your gums as well, causing gingivitis and then periodontitis. Then pathogenic bacteria can begin to travel to other sites in your body to create serious health problems, like inflammation and heart disease—even building up plaque in your arteries. Similar to the Clostridium botulinum bacteria, which creates the hideous toxin associated with botulism, hundreds of mouth bacteria, deprived of oxygen, behave in a similar way. To quote Robert Kulacz D.D.S. and Thoman Levy MD, “…like the oxygen-starved environment of a contaminated vacuum-packed can of food, the harmless bacteria of the mouth will produce similarly potent toxins when trapped in the oxygen starved environment of the dentine tubules of a root canal treated tooth.” Fair warning. But root canal procedures are great money-makers. Each year, endodontists in the Western world carry out a mind-boggling 30 to 40 million root canal procedures. I found out about all this the hard way when I came to experience for myself just how devastating the seepage of pathogenic and poisonous by-products can be. My own body was having to work hard to support my immune system. I was suffering with strong pain in areas of my body for which there appeared to be no apparent cause. I devoted many months to researching the worldwide root-canal cover-up—reading books and interviewing experts. As a result of what I learned, I chose to have two root canals removed from my mouth by a brilliant oral and maxillofacial surgeon. Within a couple of weeks of his doing this, the horrible pain in my body which I’d been forced to put up with for years, as well as the fatigue that accompanied it, disappeared. So here’s the bottom line: Refuse to accept what you are told about how safe root canals are supposed to be, regardless of how nice your dentist is. Carry out your own research. Discover first-hand the truth behind the root canal cover-up. It could change your health and your whole life for the better. Read some of the books I have listed below. Also contact responsible organizations for information on root canals, such as the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology. You’ll be glad you did. If you want to learn more, here is where to go: Dental Infections and the Degenerative Diseases by Weston Price DDS Chronic Fatigue, ME and Fibromyalgia—The Natural Recovery Plan by Dr Alison Adams Roots of Disease—Connecting Dentistry and Medicine by Robert Kulacz D.D.S. and Thomas Levy M.D Root Canal Cover-Up by George Meinig D.D.S  F.A.C.D It’s All In Your Head by Hal A. Huggins D.D.S. M.S. Whole Body Dentistry by Mark A. Brenner and Stephen Sinatra M.D. The Toxic Tooth: How a Root Canal Can Make You Sick by Robert Kulacz DDS

When World War I ended, manufacturers of chemical weapons did not know what to do with their company’s deadly products. A few inventive scientists—mostly in Germany—came up with the bright idea that these killer chemicals could be used on food crops. After all, since they killed enemies in wartime, surely they could be used to wipe out insects, fungi and other pests on farm crops. Who knows, they might even serve as fertilizers for farmers. CHEMICAL FARMING IS BORN They discovered 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 years later, at 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 by then. By the time World War II ended, chemical conglomerates involved in the manufacture of phosphates and nitrates as war materiel found themselves stuck with huge stockpiles. So they went looking for new markets. Aware of the early research into chemical fertilizing, they began to sell them artificial NPK fertilizers at costs low enough to make it all look very attractive. DECEPTIONS BEGIN These purveyors of chemicals spread the false belief that NPK is all you need to grow healthy crops. However, there were unfortunately two very important facts which chemical hawkers left out. Probably they did not even know. (Or perhaps it was not so 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 plants grown this way can be seriously undermined. Plants grown only on NPK are deprived of essential minerals and other micro-substances which they need to synthesize natural complexes in roots and leaves that ward off attack by insects, weeds and animals. SOIL LIFE DESTROYED So before long, the new artificially fertilized vegetables and fruits began to develop these diseases. Chemical hawkers were quick to the rescue. The answer to this problem, they told us, was to be found in using MORE chemicals. This is when pesticides, herbicides, nemacides and fungicides came into being, providing chemical companies with yet another exciting business opportunity—especially since the longer you fertilize chemically, the more depleted in organic matter all 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. As time went on, more and more pesticides including other even nastier chemicals were sold. Before long, another important fact began to raise its ugly head. It was this: like plants, human beings need a lot more than nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus from the foods they eat to maintain their own health. MINERALS VANISHED 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, your body requires magnesium, manganese and calcium, selenium, zinc, copper, iodine, boron, molybdenum, vanadium and other trace elements, some as yet undiscovered, to stay healthy. These elements can only come from the foods you eat. This they do, so long as the foods you eat are grown organically in healthy, traditionally fertilized soils. But they are completely missing and unbalanced in the foods we buy today, thanks to our legacy of chemical farming. 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. GIFT FROM MINERALS The minerals and trace elements you need to trigger your metabolic processes, on which health and leanness depend, have to be in an organic form—this means they have to be taken from living things such as plant or animal foods. You cannot eat nails—inorganic iron—and expect to protect yourself from anaemia, or chew sand—inorganic silica—and be sure to get enough silica, the trace element to help keep your nails and hair strong and beautiful and protect your bones from osteoporosis. It’s the organic matter in soils which 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 which we then eat, making these nutrients available to our bodies. Destroy the soil's organic matter through chemical farming, and inexorably you destroy the health of people and animals living on foods grown on it. Organic methods of farming also help protect against significant distortions in mineral balances—an increase in one or more mineral elements which can alter the availability of others. This can also undermine your health. No such protection is available when your foods have been chemically grown. STRUGGLING TO COPE Your body has a remarkable ability to compensate for a mineral or trace element missing from your food. But, after years of our eating nutritionally-depleted foods, multiple deficiencies are virtually ubiquitous. According to large scale studies, these days almost none of us get the minerals we need to ensure that our metabolic processes work adequately—processes on which health, leanness, and the immune system depend. And the deficiencies we have developed from this, as well as the metabolic distortions that come in their wake, cannot easily be corrected. Popping the latest multi-mineral tablet from your corner pharmacy or health-food store won't do it, by the way. NATURE’S OWN Nutrients in foods exist in complex synergy and affect each other. They also interact and work together in your body. A balance of bio-available minerals and trace elements in fresh, organic foods is infinitely more complex than vitamin fanatics would have us believe. To restore balance once it has been disturbed, you need to return to good wholesome food—supplemented with extra green plants such as kelp, spirulina, chlorella, barley grass or alfalfa. However, this is a slow process taking months and even years. OSTRICHES EVERYWHERE Our indiscriminate use of chemical pesticides, herbicides, insecticides and other chemicals has quite literally poisoned the land we live in, and fostered degenerative diseases throughout the world. It was Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, who, back in 1947, warned that this would happen. At the time, she was viciously attacked for her brilliant book. Chemical interests did everything in their power to discredit what she wrote. Now, more than half a century later, her prophetic words have turned out to be terrifyingly accurate. Since Silent Spring, many laws have been passed and many official agencies have been set up throughout the world designed to regulate the kind and quantity of chemicals used on the land. They vary greatly in their approach and powers from one country to another. Sadly, they all have one thing in common: an inability to stop or significantly alter the ubiquitous poisoning of lands, people, animals and the earth itself. So the poisoning of our air, land and water continues. In most countries it grows worse year by year. Like ostriches, we often bury our heads in the sand, hoping that what we don't see won't hurt us. Meanwhile, each year, billions of gallons of chemicals are sprayed onto crops. In the US alone, billions of pounds of pesticides are spread over the soils including herbicides, chemical fertilizers, rodentocides, and other chemical contaminants. GO ORGANIC Even better... grow as many of your own fruits and vegetables in the garden, in the windowsill of your kitchen, or anywhere you can find good soil that has not been chemically treated. Organic growing will help protect you from significant distortions in mineral balance. Conventionally grown fruits and vegetables are sprayed with pesticides—petrochemically derived compounds which behave like low-dose synthetic oestrogens in the body. Many are also treated with fungicides or wax. Each one of these chemicals contributes to the toxic overload which ages your body rapidly, putting pressure on your liver and encouraging free radical damage. When it comes to maintaining good insulin balance, you do not want this to happen. A stressed liver has trouble managing glucose and controls insulin poorly. Shop as often as you can in stores which offer organic produce and non-GMO foods. Not only do organic vegetables taste better, the organic matter in healthy soil is nature’s factory for biological activity that, when you eat them fresh, is communicated to you. Organic vegetables supply us with an excellent balance of minerals, trace elements, and vitamins. The organic matter in soil is built up as a result of the break-down of vegetable and animal matter by its natural residents - worms, bacteria and other micro-organisms. The presence of these creatures in the right quantity and type, which you never find in factory farming, gives rise to physical, chemical and biological properties which create fertility in our soils and make plants grown on them highly resistant to disease. This resistance to illness and degeneration is then passed on to us when we eat the foods.

You know the old saying: “Good things come in small packages.” Well, it’s true. Flower essences are sold in little dark-glass dropper bottles. Open one. You’ll discover that, unlike herbal tinctures or essential oils, the liquid inside—from a chemical point of view—is nothing more than water mixed with a little alcohol. This is the medium in which the vibrational energy of a flower (or a gem) has been preserved. You see, the healing power of a vibrational essence depends not on its chemical constituents, but on the frequencies and energies it carries—the spirit or soul energy of the flowers or gems themselves. ENERGETIC FIELDS Where herbs and essential oils bring about direct biochemical and physiological changes, vibrational essences—rather like homeopathic remedies—influence the body via its energetic fields and electrical pathways. So do acupuncture, pulsed electromagnetic treatments, prayer and the laying on of hands. They can all transmit vibrational life-force energy. Dyed-in-the-wool materialists, still totally unaware of fifth entity physics, are surprised by how profoundly healing such energy treatments can be. Provided the vibrational essence chosen is an appropriate one, its health-enhancing effects are deep and long lasting—sometimes even permanent. Let’s examine flower essences carefully. They are made from living blossoms, harvested at the peak of their vibrational power. They influence our emotional and mental states by changing our body’s own vibrational state as well as altering our consciousness. These changes then filter down to a physical level, where they can do many things: energize, stop erratic eating patterns, clear chronic fear and anxiety and increase self-confidence, to name only a few. They can even—to me most interesting of all—help us align our outer lives and the way we choose live them with the nature of our unique innate essential being. When this happens, not only do we experience natural joy and creativity, we experience a sense of expanding freedom. We find it easier to live life by our own rules. We gain access to our unique authentic power. This helps us become aware of what we feel most passionate about, and empowers us to live an authentic life. VIBRATIONS AND WHOLENESS Flower essence healing is only one aspect of what is now known as vibrational medicine—a form of treatment about which have been hearing more and more as the century 21st century develops. British physician Peter Mansfield, one of its pioneers, describes this rather well in his book Flower Remedies. “Vibrational healing,” Mansfield says, uses “the different energy patterns present in nature to modify the vibrations within living bodies, leading indirectly to changes on the physical plane. This encompasses on the one hand methods which use the vibrations directly—light, sound, magnetism etc.—and on the other, methods which involve the preparation of essences from the source of the vibration, which can be absorbed into the body.” PROOF OF THE PUDDING Psychologists and doctors examining the effects of carefully chosen flower essences report that they are completely safe. They can be remarkably effective in helping patients deal with simple troubles—like insomnia, low energy, and fear of flying—as well as deeper issues. Dr Jeffrey Cram at the Sierra Health Institute in California gave subjects either a flower essence or a placebo and then exposed them to stress-inducing fluorescent lighting for long periods. He found, that unlike the placebo which had little effect, flower essences significantly reduced the muscle tension and erratic brainwave activity associated with stress. Meanwhile, Italian medical researchers who tested the effects of flower essences on patients suffering from depression and anxiety found that a surprising 89 out of 115 anxious, depressed and stressed patients who took part in the experiment were greatly helped by flower essence treatments. MAKE IT SIMPLE One of the best practical descriptions I have come across of how flower essences work, comes from the highly respected American researcher, and flower essences creator, Patricia Kaminski. “Just think about a hologram,” she says. “Each separate part of a holographic picture contains images of the whole. This is how it can be used to recreate a three-dimensional image. So it is with a flower essence. One drop of a flower essence holds within it all the energy characteristics of the flower it was made from.” An essence carries the spirit or soul of the flower in its energetic architecture. It communicates this healing blue-print at a very deep level to the energy fields of a human being using it. VISIONARY DOCTOR The first flower essences were created in the 1920s by a highly respected British immunologist and bacteriologist. Dr Edward Bach had become dissatisfied with the way orthodox medicine so often seemed unable to help patients suffering from both chronic and acute illness. Studying the work of the father of homeopathy, Dr Samuel Hahnemann, Bach discovered that many of his own beliefs about the nature of healing echoed Hahnemann’s findings. Like Hahnemann, Bach insisted that it works best to treat the patient, not the disease. Early in his career, Bach prepared bacterial vaccines then administered them to people homeopathically. The results of his work were widely acclaimed by his peers. They carved out a place of high esteem for him in the medical world. The vaccines he made were widely used—some still are. But Bach was not satisfied. He knew in his heart that there is more to healing than treating symptoms. He was convinced that the most effective healing can only take place at the very deepest levels. Bach knew that mental states like anxiety, worry, unhappiness and fear not only undermine vitality, they compromise the immune system, making us highly susceptible to illness and degeneration. He reasoned that, if he could find methods for clearing such negative states, this might well be a key to preventing and curing both acute and chronic illnesses. No matter what symptoms it presents, Bach insisted that any illness is the result of disharmony deep within. RESTORING HARMONY In 1928, Bach began to explore the possibility that the energy of flowers could do this for human beings. He chose to turn his back on a successful career in London and retreat into the wilderness of Wales in search of ways to help suffering people. Bach fasted, he walked in the hills, he opened his mind and his heart to nature, calling out for her help. His intuitive gifts were greatly expanded by the way he was living and eating and by his having abandoned a sophisticated industrial world for raw simplicity. As he came face to face with one herb and flower after another, he became aware of the vast life-force each carried. He also noticed that the healing energies which each held intensified greatly at just the moment when these plants blossomed. Over the next seven years, he worked with these plants in search of a way of collecting their life-healing energies. Gradually, he was able to identify the unique characteristics of each and to understand the kind of disharmony which they help clear. He formulated a group of 12 now-famous flower remedies known as ‘Twelve Healers’. Later he went on to expand them until finally he ended up with a group of thirty-eight flower essences. They are still today known as the Bach Flower Remedies. HEALING FOR THE MASSES So impressed was Bach by the results he got using these flower essences that he decided to leave behind forever his successful orthodox medical practice to devote himself full-time to their development, as well as to teaching people how to use them. Bach had observed that people were becoming more and more divorced from nature—and therefore from their own essential soul nature as well. He believed that in an industrialized world, flower essences are an effective way to counter the destructive processes that resulted from “desensitization” of people which he saw happening all around him. This was a process which he became certain was central to the development of disease. His flower remedies helped re-establish bonds not only between people and nature, but between a human being’s outer personality and his intrinsic soul nature—his innate essence. Before long, Bach’s beliefs would lead him into serious conflict with the medical establishment—especially his insistence that flower remedies should be available to everyone, not just to trained medical practitioners. LIVE YOUR TRUTH The Bach philosophy is simple. It says that each of us has incarnated on the earth to live out a unique divine purpose—our soul’s destiny, if you like. When we are diverted from doing so, either by our own resistance or by learned thought patterns, trauma, emotional repression, inner conflict, or the influence of others, then our personality is not able to become a free expression of our unique soul energy and we get sick. We become anxious, fearful, irritable and angry, thereby lowering our resistance to disease. In time, depending on our genetically inherited weaknesses, we often end up in pain, ill, and degenerating rapidly. Illness, Bach insisted, has its purposes. It is there to warn us when we are going in the wrong direction—to help make us aware of what needs to be honored in our lives that we may not yet be honoring. To be healed, a harmony between our outer life and our inner purpose needs to be re-established. Flower therapy is a powerful way of doing this. Not only does it release stress and trauma. It can help clear repression of our innate life energy and creativity. Most important of all, it can help us realign ourselves with our essential being as well as with nature herself. When this happens, much illness is healed and many degenerative processes are reversed. FOUR-FOLD WAY To Bach, health is not the absence of illness so much as it is an ability to identify its messages and act on them. This does not mean that we should blame ourselves if we become ill. Doing so would only result in further emotional repression. Instead we need to become aware of whatever emotional discord hides beneath a persistent cold or stomach upset and then be prepared to address it and finally let it go. To Bach, healing is a four-fold process. It asks that we: Recognize that we can overcome all difficulties Realize that illness is an expression of disharmony between our outer life or our personality and our soul Discover the cause of this disharmony Clear the cause of disharmony and strengthen the areas in our lives where the expression of our soul nature has been weak. ALCHEMY OF FLOWERS Bach’s explorations into the healing power of flowers, like the work of Kaminski and other flower essence developers, harks back to the ancient art of the alchemists. According to alchemy, when the four elements—earth, air, fire and water—come together in balance then a fifth substance, a quintessence, is created. This quintessence in turn becomes the healing force for body and soul. Bach collected the dew that gathered on plants in the early morning. This dew, he believed, contained the quintessence he had been looking for. It was a perfect fusion of the four elements. In these sparkling drops, he identified the earth that feeds the plant, the natural air in which it grows, the water element in the dew, and fire from the energy of the sun—on which all life depends for its existence. In his healing work, Bach relied strongly on his intuition when figuring out how to work with these elements in relation to extracting the essential healing body of each flower. For days before he investigated the healing potential of a flower, he would himself welcome into his body the physical and mental symptoms of the condition he was seeking to make a remedy for. Then searching for the right plant, he would place a petal or flower in the palm of his hand or on his tongue, register its effects on mind and his body, and record his findings. Gradually he developed a method for transferring a plant’s healing energy to spring water rather than continuing to collect morning dew. It is simple: You can easily learn to do it yourself. To identify the emotional states that each flower essence helps clear, Bach relied on intuition, as has every natural healer, wise woman and mystic throughout the ages. But being a fine scientist, he also “proved” or tested them out on one person after another until he became clear about their actions and confident of their effectiveness. The best of the flower essences prepared today are made in very much the same way—inspired by intuition, observation, conjecture, folklore, herbal tradition, sometimes even shamanic journeying, where the person expands their consciousness to connect with the spirit of the flower and learn from it. Then, once made, each flower essence is rigorously tested on volunteers and colleagues, the sick and the well, and information about its effects is recorded. DEEPEST HEALING Flower essences have been in existence for almost a century now—ever since the visionary Doctor Bach wandered in the Welsh hills in search of a new way to heal the fundamental underlying cause of all illness—classic splits we all have to deal with sooner or later, between soul purpose and the outer life; between mind and body; between emotions and enforced behavior. It’s at this deepest level of human life that flower essences work their finest magic. They bring greater integration and access to authentic power. They can help us shrug off much of the polluting physical, mental and emotional rubbish that prevents each of us from living out the essential beauty and creativity of our true nature. Bach himself knew that once we heal these splits within, the body’s innate tendency to restore harmony will encourage healing to take place on a physical level as well. That is just how flower essences work. They are gentle yet powerful catalysts. They can not only be used to shift emotional or spiritual patterns which we get stuck in. They can also help us remember at the most fundamental spiritual level who we are, then teach us to allow our unique inner radiance to shine forth. Next week we’ll explore how to connect with the essence of flowers yourself, how to make your own flower essences—it’s simple to do—and all the wonderful ways to make use of them enhancing your wellbeing and enriching your life. See you then...

Want to control your weight? The key to this may be simpler than you think: Get more sleep. A brand new study of 1800 sets of twins reveals that those twins who slept nine plus hours a night had a drastically increased ability to combat genetically-predisposed weight gain, compared to the twins who slept less than seven hours. What this means is that, when you do get enough sleep, your genes become less critical in determining how much weight your body lays down. You will no longer at the mercy of your DNA. If at the same time you make good lifestyle choices like eating a healthy diet, and getting some regular, enjoyable exercise, can set the stage for living a long, slim, healthy life. If you are someone who has long struggled with weight control, this is great news. A few extra hours of sleep a night could throw the ball of weight control right back in your own court. MEET YOUR ALLY The word leptin means ‘thin’ in Greek. Leptin is an important hormone which helps regulate your metabolism. It tells your brain when you have had enough to eat—the experience known as satiety. Earlier studies have shown that, when you are sleep deprived, your body’s levels of this hormone drop, and you develop what is known as leptin resistance—a condition which interferes with fat burning. Meanwhile, levels of another important hormone ghrelin (leptin’s hunger-signaling counterpart) rise. This results in your experiencing increased appetite and food cravings—especially for carbohydrates like grains, cereals, sugars and junk food—all the stuff which makes us fat and undermines our health. NIGHT AFTER NIGHT John Keats in his ‘Sonnet to Sleep’ called sleep the “soft embalmer”, praising its “careful fingers” and “lulling charities”. How right he was. The benefits sleep bestows on us extend far beyond weight control. Sleep helps heal our bodies and our minds—enabling us to integrate new information with ease. When we are sleep deprived, however, our bodies come under biological stress. They begin to respond in negative ways in an attempt to protect us: Muscles get tense. Heart rate and blood pressure go up. Digestion becomes disturbed and your stress hormone, corticosterone, floods the system. Then your body lays down yet more fat deposits while refusing to let go of the ones already there. But here’s the rub about sleep deprivation. In case you think you can “catch up” after prolonged periods of too little sleep, you can’t. For sleep to become an ally in your fat-fighting armory, you need to get plenty night after night. WHAT’S BEST The new twins research shows that some of us need nine or more hours sleep a night to receive weight control benefits. But there are no hard and fast rules. So instead of trying to adhere to a strict eight or nine-hour-a-night regime, listen to your own unique body. When you do, it will tell you how much sleep you should be getting. Life factors such as age, stress or illness, occupation, sex, diet and pregnancy mean that some people will need more sleep, and others less. Check this out: Are you often tired upon waking? Do you get sleepy throughout the day? Experiment. See how you feel after different amounts of sleep, and find what works for you. Your entire being—not least of all, your slimmer waistline—will thank you for it. To here more click here

This is a remarkable documentary that takes a look at the Cancer cures that have been available and worked for thousands of patience around the world through-out the century that have then been suppressed or simply have never been allowed to reach the public eye. This documentary is worth seeing to learn how the natural treatments that have been used for centuries are now being outlawed and suppressed because they pose a threat to the Medical industrial complex. The filmmaker has provided the film for free hear and if you find that it has been helpful and you world like to share it please support him by purchasing a DVD version and distribute it (as are the filmmakers wishes) to anyone you feel would benefit. Description In the last 100 years dozens of doctors, scientists and researchers have come up with the most diverse, apparently effective solutions against cancer, but none of these was ever taken into serious consideration by official medicine. Most of them were in fact rejected out-front, even though healings were claimed in the thousands, their proposers often being labeled as charlatans, ostracized by the medical community and ultimately forced to leave the country. At the same time more than 20,000 people die of cancer every day, without official medicine being able to offer a true sense of hope to those affected by it. Why?

We live in a world where fats—especially the saturated, animal-based variety—are falsely accused of being our greatest enemy. Meanwhile, the polyunsaturated fats, whose benefits are often celebrated, are not as good for our health as we have been led to believe. In fact, they can be very dangerous. Science has moved on since much of the erroneous “fat research” appeared some 40 years ago. But politically correct dietary advice and mainstream public consciousness has not. Health-supporting evidence has come to light. It’s vitally important you learn about it: A lot of saturated fats–which we have long been told are dangerous–are, in truth not dangerous at all. They do NOT cause heart disease as we have been taught. In truth they are GOOD for us. So are many other fats which our forefathers ate but which we have long been told to avoid. The trick is to choose the right kinds of these fats in your meals. When you do this, your body, health and looks will be revolutionized. THE BAD SCIENCE For generations, fats have been surrounded by all sorts of false beliefs. One of these is that “saturated fat is a prime cause of heart disease”. This theory is based on the 1950s ‘lipid hypothesis’, by the scientist Ancel Keys. This erroneous research greatly benefited the vegetable oil and food processing industries, who suppressed alternative views. Over sixty years later, many still believe it. Another myth: “The Western diet has increased in saturated fat over the last century”. This is absolutely wrong. In fact, the reverse is true. At the turn of the century, most people got their fatty acids from saturated or monounsaturated animal-based sources: Lard, butter, tallow, etc—and they were better off for it. But from 1910 to 1970 in the United States, the proportion of animal fats declined from 83 to 62%. Butter consumption went from 18 to 4 pounds per person per year, all because of the promotion of margarine manufacturers. What has increased is the amount of fats we’re taking in the form of refined vegetable oils, margarines and junk fats—by a whopping 400%—during the same period. And our health as a species continues to suffer. THE REAL CULPRITS Here’s something else that might shock you. Analysis of the fat in artery clogs reveals that only about 26% is saturated. The rest is mostly polyunsaturated! In actual fact, saturated fats are our heart’s preferred source of “food” to draw on under stress. They help our bodies perform many other functions too, building our cells, strengthening our bones and immune systems. As for polyunsaturated fats, most of which are in the form of omega-6 fatty acids, these tend to become rancid quickly when heated—such as during cooking or food processing. They then become a health-undermining source of free radicals, “marauders” inside our bodies. Polyunsaturates can do our body a great deal of harm, attacking our cells and damaging DNA. Little wonder that time after time, studies show a high link between consumption of these fats with cancer and heart disease. (Whether rancid or not, too much omega-6 in the diet is dangerous. This is just beginning to be discovered.) Yet most of the fats in modern diets come from these vegetable oils—with many diets consisting of up to 30% polyunsaturated fat. So don’t do yourself a disservice by believing what those P.C. diet gurus tell you. A good hard look at the evidence shows us quite the opposite is true. OUT OF WHACK - OMEGA 3 BENEFITS Omega-6 and omega 3 fatty acids, when in the right balance, help your body in all sorts of ways. They increase your cells’ sensitivity to insulin, helping your body regulate its blood sugar. They increase metabolic rate and fat metabolism, so more of your stored fat can be burnt as energy. Paleontologists have discovered that our ancestors consumed them in the ratio of 1:1 or 2:1 (omega-6 to omega 3 fatty acids). However today, in our Western diets, the balance between these two fatty acids has become all screwed up. Modern diets contain a ratio of about 22:1—far too high for optimal health. This excess can cause all sorts of problems, from weight gain to cancer. What can we do about it? For a start, you never have to worry about getting enough omega-6s. They’re everywhere. What you do need to do is increase your intake of omega 3 fatty acids]. A great way of doing this is to start taking a good-quality fish oil supplement. Good Fats and Bad Fats - GET SAVVY Another vital way to address the imbalance of good and bad fats in our diets is to get savvy about what oils we are using daily—in our cooking, baking, dressings, and everything else: Safflower, Corn, Sunflower, Soybean and Cottonseed Oils are very high in omega-6—over 50%—and are badly processed, using all sorts of nasty chemicals. Avoid them completely. Canola Oil has been associated with fibrotic heart lesions; is high in sulfur and easily turns rancid. Steer clear of it at all costs. Olive Oil is monounsaturated rather than polyunsaturated, so is the safest vegetable oil you can use. It’s well-suited to dressings and can be heated at moderate temperatures. Make sure it’s cloudy (not filtered) and a golden-yellow color. Sesame Oil is reasonably stable and can be used on occasion for frying. But don’t overdo it, as it is still high in omega-6. Coconut, Palm, Palm Kernel and Red Palm Oils are much more highly saturated than the other vegetable oils, so are the safest, healthiest oils you can cook with. Coconut oil in particular is very good for you, containing antiviral and antibacterial properties and plenty of medium chain triglycerides which support weight loss. BUTTER ‘EM UP If you’re like millions of others, you buy margarine in the belief that it’s “better for you” than butter. Here’s an order: Avoid it like the plague. The process used to make margarine, known as hydrogenization, does horrendous things to the already-rancid vegetable oils it is made from. Not only does it contain all sorts of additives you should steer clear of. It’s linked to both cancer and heart disease, and can cause chronic high cholesterol. On the other hand, natural, good quality butter contains many essential nutrients. In fact, it may be the only good source of fat-soluble vitamins in the American diet! Experiments comparing the health of margarine eaters with butter eaters continually find in butter’s favor: In one such study, the risk of developing heart disease in butter users was half that of those using margarine. Infants and children especially benefit from butter for their normal growth and development. Use this delicious stuff liberally—and without guilt—in the knowledge that it will do you no harm, and your body will thank you for it.

Our body and flesh falls victim to the very molecule which brings us life: oxygen. Of course we could not live without oxygen. In the special energy factories of each muscle cell, called the mitochondria, we use it to burn fuel to give energy. But oxygen in the wrong place, or used in the wrong way, can age you fast. For instance, in the presence of certain chemicals in the body, or ultraviolet light, collagen fibers in the skin can oxidize and become cross-linked, rather than remaining in orderly rows. In this way they lose their pliancy and you form wrinkles. When your skin wrinkles, when rubber windscreen wipers harden and crack, and when the hide of an animal is turned into leather by a chemical process, what has taken place is cross-linking as a result of free radical damage which is a phenomenon that occurs in the presence of oxygen and appears to be central to the aging process in the whole body. In effect cross-linking is simply a process in which undesirable bonds are formed in the presence of oxygen. These chemical bonds can be between proteins (as in the case of cross-linked collagen), lipids or nucleic acids which make up the cells' genetic material - the DNA and RNA. Some cross-linking is necessary in order to give your tissues strength and make them sturdy. But inappropriate cross-links which occur in the aging process only increase the risk of cancer, arteriosclerosis and a number of other degenerative diseases such as arthritis. As Johan Bjorksten, one of the world's most famous age-researchers who formulated the cross-linking theory of aging says, `many of these cross-linked molecules lead to agglomerates which cannot be broken down by any body enzyme, but will increase in the cell and gradually crowd out other constituents, thereby causing continued decline in the cell's activity and the ability to cope with stresses'. From an aesthetic point of view - how your skin looks - such a decline in cellular activity implies a slowing down of the reproductive process in the skin as well as the hardening and bunching together of the skin's supportive collagen which makes it prone to wrinkling and to sagging contours. what causes cross-linking? There are a number of powerful cross-linkers which have been implicated in the aging process in humans - chemicals or energy sources which increase the level of cross-linking and therefore the rate at which your body ages. They include ultraviolet light, acetaldehydes, ozone, ketones (which are found in the blood of diabetics and people on a high-protein carbohydrate-free slimming regime), heavy metal ions such as aluminum, lead and cadmium, X-rays and free radicals (highly reactive atoms or molecules which can form toxic peroxides that damage and destroy cells). Many common environmental influences contain chemicals which belong to this list. Acetaldehyde occurs both in cigarette smoke and as a common urban air pollutant. It is a potent cross-linker. So is the aluminum which may be absorbed through regular use of some antiperspirants, and cadmium, a build up of which can occur in your body when you drink coffee regularly. Drinking alcohol spurs the production of acetaldehyde in your liver which can trigger further cross-linking, as can eating any kind of rancid oil or fat, since these react with radiation or form free radicals as a simple part of their metabolic breakdown in your body. Lying in the sun or on a tanning bed (no matter what kind of ultraviolet rays manufacturers tell you have been filtered out) may well be the single most dangerous practice of all to your skin. It damages the genetic materials of the skin cells, the collagen, and the lipids in the cell walls by causing them to undergo several types of free radical reactions including peroxidation and cross-linking. aging and oxygen question Oxygen plays an important positive part in protecting the body from age-related damage too. `Maximum oxygen consumption' is the way scientists measure your body's ability to transport and make use of oxygen for cell metabolism. As you get older this ability decreases at the rate of about 1 percent a year. The lower your oxygen consumption the less vitality you have and the more susceptible you are to many illnesses. An aerobic exercise program followed regularly over a few weeks can recapture 40 years worth of oxygen capacity which has been lost through a sedentary way of life before. Vitamin E supplements of 600-800 IU a day can increase the utilization of available oxygen by as much as 40 percent. avoiding the cross-linkers Before you even consider what kind of nutritional defense you might make use of to protect your body from the cross-linking process, start by eliminating as many of its known causes as you can from your life - like exposure to the sun when your body is unprotected by a sunscreen, cigarettes, drugs and alcohol. Then you are ready to consider how you can make use of what is known about the `cures for the random damage free radicals and cross-linkers cause'. protection - the second line of defense It is almost impossible to live in a twentieth century urban environment and avoid all these cross-linkers. So the second move in combating cellular aging is to consider incorporating into your diet fairly large quantities of substances which have antioxidant properties - substances which have an ability to protect the body's genetic materials, proteins, from age-related damage. A great deal of research done in the past 30 years indicates that there are some very effective substances for doing this. According to many of the most respected age-researchers such as Bjorksten, Denham Harman, Al Tappel and others, eating properly and adding these substances to your diet can minimize the amount of free radical damage to your body. These `age retarders' are often called antioxidants because they have ways of combating damaging oxidative reactions caused by radiation, chemicals and free radicals. Some are substances which occur naturally in our foods, although you would need to take them in much larger quantities to make use of their anti-aging properties. They include catechols which are found in bananas and potatoes, the phenolics - found in grapes - vitamins such as A, E, C and members of the B Complex - especially B12, pantothenic acid, B6, and the bioflavonoids which occur in the white soft inner skin or pith of the peel of citrus fruits - as well as beta carotene and some amino-acids such as cysteine (available in eggs), tyrosine and L-dopamine, plus the trace minerals zinc and selenium. Many age researchers now recommend taking fairly high quantities of the vitamins, minerals, food substances and amino-acid `age retarders' as protection against free radical damage and cross-linking. stay away from the cross-linkers Don't smoke. Stay away from people who do, particularly if you are in an enclosed area or small room. Not only does the acetaldehyde cross-link with collagen, the benzopropyrene (another chemical in cigarette smoke) depletes your system of vitamin C, making it unavailable for the production of new healthy collagen and encouraging skin to wrinkle faster. Stay out of the sun unless your body is protected by a high potency sunscreen which filters out both UVA and UVB rays. Never allow your face to tan at all. Protect it with a total block when you are in the sun. (There are some excellent after-shave tinted moisturizers for men and gel make ups for women which give you the look of a healthy tan if you like without causing damage to skin - or harmless `instant tan' lotions). Beware of unsaturated fats. Not that your body doesn't need them, it does. But in small quantities only. Because polyunsaturates are so very unstable chemically, they easily become rancid (as do shell-less nuts which contain them incidentally). And rancid or highly processed lipids are dangerous. The best oil to use for cooking is cold pressed virgin olive oil, a monounsaturate which is remarkably stable. You can get other essential fatty acids from eating fish, shellfish, game, whole grains, avocados, nuts and seeds. Go easy on the alcohol. Better yet, give it up altogether. Not only does it trigger acetaldehyde production in your liver, it depletes your body's supplies of some of the most important nutritional 'protectors' against free radical damage and cross-linking vitamins C and B1. A glass of wine a day can aid digestion - but if you find you can't stop after a glass (and many people can't), then temperance is probably the best choice. Check on heavy metals. Consider having the presence of heavy metals in your body investigated. This can be done in a laboratory from a small sample of hair. An increasing number of doctors concerned with preventive care are using hair mineral analysis as a part of their diagnostic equipment. If high levels of heavy metals such as lead, aluminum, chromium, arsenic and so forth are found they can be gradually removed from the system by careful use of specific nutritional substances such as vitamin C, pectin - a form of fiber which occurs in good quantity in apples - and garlic oil. Banish deodorants. Avoid the use of antiperspirants containing aluminum salts which are absorbed through the skin. Give up drinking Coffee. Besides causing a build up of cadmium, the caffeine in coffee can cause other age-related changes.

Frequently discussed yet little understood in the context of our post industrial society is the value of ecstasy and the power of the erotic. For power it is of an order that is both frightening and tremendously creative. It is no accident that in all of the Eastern religions it is the erotic which symbolizes man's pathway to realizing the Divine. In our capacity to experience ecstasy at the deepest levels may lie both the key to our survival and to our ability to create. Recent studies of the human brain and its interfaces with the body have for the first time in history begun to chart biologically what takes place when one allows oneself to enter fully into an erotic state. The results of this research are not only helping us see just how important this can be to health and wholeness, they are also making us conscious of just how far away the so called sexual revolution has taken us from our being able to experience our own ecstasy. For the mechanistic approach to sexuality with which we have lived for the past thirty years, with all its sex-manuals and all its advice on 'how-to-do-it-better', instead of leading us towards a state in which we are more able to plunge into the irrational, oceanic, all-trusting state which every ecstatic encounter demands, has taught us to intellectualize sexuality making it into something which too often we do and watch ourselves doing, something which we learn about, something which we try to control. Yet right at the core of the truly ecstatic experience is a fundamental demand that we give up all control so that we are able for a time to allow ourselves to dissolve our boundaries and merge into a celebration of the body, of life itself and in doing so to experience our own wholeness. Each man and woman in reality has not one brain but two: The rational brain or the neocortex which like an immensely complicated computer enables us to make conscious choices and to collect, store and interpret the data we receive from our sensory organs and the subcortical nervous system or the primitive brain . This primitive brain is sometimes referred to as the 'reptilian structures' because from an evolutionary point of view it is the oldest part of the brain and also because, unlike the conscious mind, it can never be disassociated from our basic adaptive systems - the hormonal system and the immune system on which our survival depend. Your emotions and your instincts are bonded to the activity of your primitive brain which through the hypothalamus communicates via nerve cells with the rest of the body and via hormones regulates the activity of all the other endocrine glands with the aid of complex feedback mechanisms. When you experience joy the hormonal balance is not the same as when you grieve or when we engage in intellectual thought. This complex feedback network between mind and body, mediated through the primitive brain might be called our primitive adaptive system. On the quality of its responses and how well it is balanced with the actions of the neocortex depends how healthy we are physically, mentally and emotionally. But being human in the so-called civilized world is not always easy. The neocortex or rational brain in our society has become highly developed. It is this development which gives us the capacity to make rational decisions, to examine reality and to consciously manipulate the outside world to our advantage. In a truly healthy person the balance between the two brains is good. However the rational brain has the ability to inhibit the primitive brain. And in the modern world this neocordical inhibition of the primitive brain (on which our experience of joy and our hormonal and immune strength depends) has been carried to extremes. So much is this the case that we have undermined our ability to experience ecstasy, diminished our capacity for joy and lost our trust in the knowingness of our instincts. Take the experience of childbirth for instance. Instead of being able during the birth process simply to give over our bodies to the event and trust that at the right time the appropriate hormone will be secreted to dilate the cervix, bring the child into the world, lead us instinctively to nurture it at the breast, we tend to try exerting conscious control through our reason. In doing so we inhibit the primitive adaptive processes for we no longer trust them. We shift hormones in inappropriate ways and loose touch with the ecstatic experience of surrender to the body as well as with all the joy this can bring. In short we bring into play the rational brain at an inappropriate time and we suffer for it. (So incidentally does the baby.) We experience ourselves as separate from what is happening to our body, and we feel pain. It is not our highly developed rational brain that is the problem but the inappropriateness of allowing it to come into play in such circumstances which results in a sense of separation and our anguish. For human instincts, which need to be trusted and allowed freedom to be if we are to come to live in real health and wholeness, are fragile things. They are easily repressed and inhibited, constantly changed and controlled by the power of the neocortex - so much so that in most of us these inhibitions have become so unconscious and so habitual that we are not even aware of them have no possibility of choice. We have quite simply forgotten how to let go and trust to our body so we deny the power of human instincts. Then, instead of working with us they tend to work against us. Each woman is a great deal more than her rational mind. To be whole, to be truly healthy, to live the power of her own individual beauty she needs a highly developed emotional and instinctive life as well as a strong rationality. Each woman needs to be able to trust her body and, at appropriate times, such as in childbirth or lovemaking, to be able to abandon herself to it fully. Then the highly developed neocortex which is responsible for the development of culture and rational achievement instead of working against ones energy by inappropriate inhibition serves to channel her instinctive and the emotional life in tremendously exciting and creative ways. Then she is able to experience joy in simply being the way a child does - a joy and a radiance which does not depend upon what she does or what she has or on how clever she is or on how admired she is but simply on being. How does one rediscover this kind of trust in the body and in ones instincts? The answer is not simple. It involves experiment, listening, adjustment and it usually comes slowly, in fits and starts, through learning to trust and through becoming aware when instinctive responses begin to take place and simply allowing them to happen - particularly in the realm of ones sexuality - a realm in which the primitive brain, if it is allowed, probably comes into its own more easily than in any other. For the erotic - the ecstatic - has a power far beyond the experience of pleasure it brings. Ancient philosophical and religious traditions teach that the font of sexual power, known as the kundalini, lies coiled like a sleeping serpent at the base of the spine. When it becomes aroused this powerful procreative energy, the most powerful energy known to human life, begins to uncoil and to rise up the body activating its energy centers or chakras one by one. There are said to be seven chakras - locusts where the life energy which controls all biological processes, interfaces with the physical body. Each chakra appears to control particular endocrine glands and each is said to manifest a different quality of this powerful instinctive energy which makes human development possible. For instance the first or base chakra which lies near the base of the spine deals with survival while the next chakra, located in the pelvis looks after specific procreative energies. The chakra at the solar plexus is said to be involved with the will, the heart chakra with compassion, the throat with ones higher creative energies and so forth. The seventh chakra at the crown of the head is known as the thousand petal lotus. It is believed to be responsible for man's spiritual development at the highest level. When strongly activated it is believed to emit a radiance which you find depicted in every religious tradition in the form of the halo painted around the head of saints, the Christ, the Buddha and all the rest. The kundalini or life force is not something which can be aroused or activated through any rational effort of the conscious mind. For its energies, being sexual in the very deepest sense of the word (a sense which encompasses self-expression and creativity in every way from giving birth, to art, to the Dionysian celebration of the erotic in sexual intercourse,) are irrational in nature and belong to the realm of the primitive brain. As such they defy definition and elude any who would classify, categorize or try to control them. Since we belong to a civilization which has placed great premium on classification and control and which therefore has sought to conveniently ignore or dismiss as nonexistent any part of experience which does not fit into the rational and controllable, we often feel particularly unsettled whenever the force of these profound life energies surface. They can make us decidedly uncomfortable. For if we follow them we risk dissolving the boundaries of self and we fear a loss of the very control which the overdeveloped rational mind so loves. Yet the irony is that it is this very loss of control that we often most long for. For without an ability to live the instinctive as well as the rational we can never experience wholeness. Even more important, without it, the full creativity of our humanness being can never be realized. For it is the inhibition of this ability to experience the ecstatic and to trust in it that brings in its wake the sense of powerlessness and meaninglessness so widespread in our society. As black American writer Audre Lorde says in her book Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power (The Crossing Press, Freedom, CA), 'The Erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling...As women we have come to distrust that power which rises from our deepest and nonrational knowledge... It has been made into the confused, the trivial, the psychotic, the plasticized sensation. But the erotic offers a well of replenishing and provocative force to the woman who does not fear its revelation, nor succumb to the belief that sensation is enough.' Exploring the realms of ecstasy, the truly erotic in ones life, is a long way from experimenting with all the mechanistic sexual stuff you will find in the popular press that tells you how to get more pleasure sex by doing this or that to your partner. Sadly the sexual revolution instead of freeing us to explore ecstasy and helping us learn how to surrender ourselves to the realm of instinct thereby bringing a healthy balance between our two brains, has tended even to relegate sexuality to the realm of the neocortex. When this happens, the ecstatic becomes the pornographic and the powers of creativity are wasted. For health and wholeness we must somehow find a marriage between instinct and reason. It is a union which like any marriage takes time to develop and grow, but a union which in terms of your health and beauty and your wholeness can bear infinite fruit.

There is a well-known saying about computers: “garbage in, garbage out.” The same can be said of your body. It’s no use thinking of the food you choose to eat as if it were a dead fuel. Yet most people do. It is an assumption which results in all our dreadful degenerative diseases, from high blood pressure and atherosclerosis to cancer, chronic fatigue, mental confusion, weight gain and the other conditions for which we are urged to swallow dangerous pharmaceuticals, believing that we are doing the right thing. Here’s what you need to know about starches such as grains and cereals. We’ve been taught that these foods are wholesome, salt of the earth fare. The smell of freshly baked bread celebrates home and comfort. It brings us a superb form of fiber to protect from constipation—or does it? Here is my advice: If you value your health and strength, cut down on or even eliminate grains and cereals from your diet. Your body was never designed to handle them. Sounds revolutionary? It is. But following this advice can not only help make you well and get rid of excess fat. It can restore lost vitality to your life. BACK TO THE FUTURE Here’s why. The genes you have inherited from your ancestors matter. It can take 100,000 years or more for the human body to make a single, natural alteration in its genetic structure. It is not true that your distant ancestors wandered through forests munching on wild fruits like gorillas. For thousands upon thousands of years, they were dwellers in grasslands. They walked bipedally and lived mostly by digging up starchy tubers, roots and corms, which have something in common with today’s potato and taro. Neanderthal man relied on these starchy plants for more than 250,000 years, also hunting and eating herbivores and fish. What scientists now call the Paleolithic diet consisted of 15 to 20% of these carbohydrate foods such as tubers, rhizomes, roots and corms, along with between 50 and 70% fatty animal foods, as well as insects, eggs, birds, reptiles, and creatures from lakes and the sea. Depending upon where these early humans lived in the world, some also gathered foods such as coconuts. Sweet fruits such as those we eat today were non-existent. So were grains. GO WILD, GO FREE At the top of the human food chain, our Paleolithic ancestors were characteristically tall and strong, with incredibly healthy teeth. Their high-meat-high-fat foods together with a relatively small percentage of these vegetable carbohydrates created an amazingly health-giving human diet that has hardly been seen since. They hunted mammoths and fought for their right to them with wild animals who also hunted and ate them. Whether our political and religious leanings like it or not, it still is their protein-oriented, flesh-based diet that remains the healthiest for us today. On such a diet that the forces of natural selection have refined and moulded us to function best. To put it another way, we have been genetically programmed to eat this way for hundreds of thousands of years. HERE COME GRAINS The agricultural revolution began some 10,000 years ago. With the coming of agriculture, man shifted away from his high-protein, low-carb diet. Gradually cereals, fruits, and starchy vegetables began to play a big part in human nutrition. Their bodies suffered for it, as ours still do today. By 4000 years ago, when the agricultural revolution was in full swing, a lot of physical degeneration had taken place. Men and women had shrunk in height. Dental decay and malformation of the jaw had become widespread. Disease epidemics began to shorten the human lifespan. This moment in history marks the very beginning of what nowadays are known as the diseases of civilization, including obesity. It’s hard to imagine a more different scenario from the healthy, nomadic ways of our ancient hunter-gatherer forefathers. Anthropologist Kathleen Gordon at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC describes this well when she says, ‘Not only was the agricultural “revolution” not really so revolutionary at its inception, it has also come to represent something of a nutritional “devolution” for much of mankind.’ WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? What’s wrong with grains and cereals? Plenty, and we are not told about it. For generations, we’ve believed that grains and cereals are good for us. Sadly, the truth is that there are plenty of reasons not to eat them often—and, for many people, not to eat them at all. Most grains can cause humans toxic effects. For instance, corn—the domesticated form of the teosinte grass—can create pellagra. Many of us are starch-sensitive as a result of toxins created by our gut bacteria as they try to digest starches. Our 21st century bodies have never been genetically adapted to thrive on them. Research affirms this fact. Grains and cereals contain anti-nutrients to protect them from predators such as birds and insects. They can exert negative effects on human metabolism. These toxins can include lectins and alpha-amylase inhibitors, which behave like allergens. Lectins are especially important anti-nutrients found in many places, especially in grains, legumes, seeds and nuts. They can trigger digestive problems such as nausea, diarrhea, bloating. Your body creates antibodies in response to lectins which can, in turn, launch an attack on your own body, causing autoimmune issues like celiac disease, lupus and multiple sclerosis. Lectins damage the walls of your intestines, creating “leaky gut” so that large particles of food cross the intestinal barrier to enter the bloodstream directly, creating food sensitivities and overwhelming the immune system so it starts attacking your body causing eczema, weight gain, depression and migraine. The best way to reduce lectin’s negative health effects is to cut down on your consumption of grains and cereals or even eliminatee these foods altogether. All grains and cereals are full of phytic acid—a mineral blocker. It prevents your body from absorbing vital minerals such as magnesium, calcium, zinc, copper, and iron. Finally, there is the fiber issue. We’ve been told we need to eat cereal grains to make sure we get enough whole grain fiber. Yet grain fiber contains toxic proteins, including gluten, and roughage that can actually damage the intestinal wall. Cut down on grains, cereals and legumes to create a low toxicity way of eating to keep you slim and fit, and protect you from rapid aging and degenerative diseases. This is your first step towards freedom. SAFE STARCHES What are the safe starches? They include white rice, potatoes, sago, tapioca, and sweet potatoes, provided they are organically grown. Akin to what our ancestors lived on for hundreds of years, these starches can improve your gut health. They also provide useful minerals such as potassium. These foods must be cooked gently so that any natural toxins which they contain are neutralized. Brown rice is not great because the phyten it contains can provoke an immune response. But there are no known auto immune antibodies generated by white rice protein. When it comes to potatoes, you should know that the solanine and chaconine toxins they can contain are generated when potatoes are exposed to light and heat. This is why it’s important to keep them in cool, dark conditions. Any potatoes that have become discolored or not fresh you should throw away. There are other sources of what appear to be safe starches, including buckwheat, amaranth and quinoa, but these have not yet been thoroughly researched. I refer to them as the faux grains. They can be great for baking and to replace the usual grains and cereals. People who choose to use them usually do very well on them. They do not appear to cause weight gain or digestive problems, provided you eat them in moderation. You can make wonderful baked goods from them, such as white rice noodles, pasta dishes, rice crackers to replace wheat crackers, sugar-free muffins, pancakes, and biscuits. To learn more about these delicious safe starches, click here. DECEPTIVE PROGRAMMING Grains and cereals are cheap to manufacture. And they are also highly addictive. For more than half a century, food manufacturers intent on making a profit have been producing a great variety of hyped foods by fragmenting and reducing raw material foodstuffs—including grains and seeds, cereals and legumes—to simple “nuts and bolts”. These are then whipped up into the manufactured convenience foods that most people pick up from supermarket shelves. You know the kind of thing: Ready-to-eat in a minute meals, to cakes, breads and packaged, denatured stuff that makes up three quarters of what most people eat these days. Flour and sugar-based convenience foods full of junk fats have an ultra-long shelf life. Most, in truth, are nothing more than junk foods, devoid of any nutritional value other than calories. The processed fats they contain, together with masses of artificial chemicals used as flavorings, colorings and preservatives, are far removed from the foods you need for health. It is little wonder many human beings today— even those in economically privileged countries—stuff themselves with dangerous pharmaceutical drugs, yet do little more than survive. STOP EARLY AGING Our high-carbohydrate, low-protein diet is a disaster for long-term health. Here are just a few of the negative effects of living on it: Raised serum insulin levels, causing insulin resistance and resulting in metabolic distortions which undermine health and vitality. Lowered basal metabolic rate, leading to weight gain and low energy. Increased adipose tissue growth accompanied by a gross reduction in lean muscle tissue. Acceleration of biological aging. Development of food allergies or sensitivity, especially to grains, legumes, cereals and dairy food. Development of over-active immune system and eventual immune failure. Soaring incidence of degenerative diseases, including heart disease, obesity and cancer. Such a way of eating brings about serious problems with blood sugar levels and causes endless suffering to people with diabetes. And it never reduces high blood pressure. People who lose weight on such a diet never keep it off. Yet the myths we are fed by the media and multi-national corporations persist. We find ourselves stuck in a frustrating circle of misinformation, temptation and self-blame. I believe it’s time to strip away the false “truths” and get back to basics. SET YOURSELF FREE I’ve worked with huge numbers of people who have changed their way of eating—by cutting out convenience foods based on refined flours, grains and legumes, and starchy vegetables—lose their cravings sometimes as quickly as in a few weeks. This feels like they have been set free from a life in prison. Their appetite diminishes, their blood sugar levels stabilize and their life transforms. Before long these people feel uncomfortable when they eat more than their body actually needs. For them, the transition to nutrient-rich-calorie-poor way of eating becomes a graceful, natural experience. They report that they have never felt better, while friends and family tell them they look wonderful. I would never have believed this had it not also happened to me. You will only know what it can do for you when you get yourself into a low-grain-and-cereal way of eating, or even eliminate these foods altogether. I challenge you to find out for yourself.