10 Ways to Improve Your Health

“Man does not die, he kills himself.”

SENECA

1. PREPARE YOUR OWN FOODS

The last fifty years has seen a massive influx of packaged convenience foods. They have also seen a massive influx of degenerative diseases. People these days say that they don’t have time to cook, but if they’re dead they won’t have time to cook either! They only way to really avoid chemical preservatives, coloring agents and artificial flavours is to PREPARE YOUR OWN FOOD FROM SCRATCH.

2. CHECK YOUR pH AND BRING UP YOUR ALKALINITY

pH is measured on a scale of 0-14, with 7.0 being neutral. Our blood’s pH level must be close to 7.365 for us to remain alive. If the blood moves 0.2 either way, the body dies. So our bodies do whatever it takes to keep the blood balanced, which means it robs nutrients from our bones and tissues in order to keep our blood balanced. Healthy cells are alkaline. When their pH begins to drop below 6.8-7.0, they start to become diseased. At less than 6.4, the body cannot optimally assimilate vitamins and minerals. And when a cell’s pH drops below about 3.5, it dies. If we think of our bodies like a swimming pool, we can understand that we need to maintain pH balance to avoid the growth of unhealthy organisms. Every enzyme system, cell, organ and gland is influenced by pH.

As pH is a measurement of acid and alkalinity, our body’s pH is largely affected by what we consume and whether it leaves an acid or alkaline ash in the body. However, foods that one might consider acidic aren’t necessarily. Such things as lemons and apple cider vinegar are acidic outside of our bodies, but once we consume them, they actually leave an alkaline ash. When we consume acidic foods, our bodies are forced to rob minerals from ourselves in order to digest and maintain a healthy blood pH. When our bodies can’t keep up with neutralizing the acidic foods etc, we end up with acid waste in our body. However, we can’t have it circulating in our blood, so it is deposited into our tissues eventually causing degenerative disease. Unfortunately, 90% or more of most people’s typical diet is acid forming. No wonder degenerative diseases are running rampant.

But not only what we consume causes acid wastes. Some of the greatest causes are stress, tension, negative emotions, anger and fear. We begin to see how directly related our emotional/spiritual life with the food that we eat and our body’s health. If we are eating acid forming food, and feeling guilty about it, then we are giving ourselves a double whammy!

BRING UP YOUR BODY’S pH BY:

Drinking Raw Apple Cider Vinegar (diluted) and Lemon Juice

Drink Mineral Broth

Replace Table Salt with Sea Salt

Take Digestive Enzymes

Drink Alkaline Water

Eat Alkaline Foods

THE LEMON TEST

This test should be performed at least two hours after eating. Squeeze the juice of ½ of a lemon into a bit of water and hold it in your mouth as long as possible. Wait 60 seconds. Check your pH every 60 seconds for a total of 6 tests. 8.0 or higher means you have good alkaline reserves. 7.0-8.0 is good, but you are only ready for a light cleanse at this time.

3. EAT ENZYME RICH FOODS

Enzymes affect every aspect of our existence and are responsible for over 80,000 processes in our bodies. They are the substance that makes life possible. Our bodies can’t produce enzymes—we are given at birth what we will have to last our lifetimes. We can live a full life eating no enzymes, but we will have inferior offspring. An enzyme-free diet also leads to a pathological over-enlargement of the pituitary gland which regulates other glands and is a centre for our Spiritual Energy. ENZYMES are LIFE FORCE.

Enzymes in food are destroyed when you heat the food over about 105 – 118 degrees F. It is important to eat raw foods, but even these need to be enhanced through soaking, sprouting and fermenting.

ENZYME INHIBITORS are present in all seeds/grains to protect them from being consumed by bugs and going rotten. They need to be deactivated before we eat them to make the nutrition available.

Deactivate Enzyme Inhibitors by:

Sprouting increases enzyme content up to 20 times

Soaking flour in a warm, acidic liquid for 12-24 hours

Sour Leavening

Culturing and Fermentation.

Ripe fruit and vegetables are actually quite low in enzymes by the time they get to your house and benefit greatly from fermentation.

4. EAT FERMENTED FOODS

Fermentation is practiced on every continent of the world to:

Preserve foods and remove toxins

Aid digestion by breaking down proteins and carry beneficial bacteria to

the colon

Make food more nutritious and enzyme-rich

Increase immunity building powers of food.

Soaking and Fermenting foods breaks down the PHYTIC ACID which blocks the absorption of zinc, calcium, iron, magnesium and other minerals. This is essential to make grains and seeds a nutritious part of our diet.

Microbial Cultures are essential to life’s processes. They are our ancestors and our lives are a partnership with them. There are 100 trillion bacteria living in our bodies, some that cause us problems and many that protect us. They are our INTERNAL ECOLOGY. By fermenting foods in your environment, you become connected with the Wild Forces of your environment, becoming ONE. Fermented foods are a direct link to the LIFE FORCES of the EARTH. Bring magic into the food you eat!

5. REPLACE SUGAR WITH MINERAL RICH SWEETENERS

White sugar is one of the most detrimental things that we consume. Anything that is white has had all of its nutrition and minerals stripped out of it. This means that our bodies must supply the minerals that are necessary for digestion and conversion.

Replace white sugar with:

Raw Honey

Molasses

Turbinado Sugar

Raw Cane Juice Sugar

Raw Agave Syrup

Stevia

Maple Syrup

6. MAKE YOUR OWN SALAD DRESSINGS

The oils that are used in commercial salad dressings are not stable and pose a major threat to your health. Making your own dressings using Cold-Pressed Olive and Flax oil will give your body nourishing fats that it can utilize.

FATS are carriers of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E & K. They are building blocks for our cells and hormones and should account for 25-30% of your daily calories.

All FATS are a combination of:

SATURATED – most stable, best for cooking with

animal fats (butter) and coconut oil

MONOUNSATURATED – next most stable, don’t heat too high

olive, almond, peanut and avocado oil

POLYUNSATURATED – essential Omega 6 & 3, go rancid very easily

never heat these oils and keep them refrigerated

flax, sunflower, corn and canola

The DANGER with fats is that if they are heated and exposed to light and air they go rancid and create free radicals in your body that actually attack your cells. Many commercial products are also full of additives and have had harsh chemicals and high heat used in the production methods.

HYDROGENATION turns Polyunsaturated fats into a solid. They generally mix cheap oils with tiny metal particles, add emulsifiers, steam-clean, bleach, dye and then add flavour back in. It makes TRANS FATS that are unrecognizable by your body and yet your body can’t just let them pass through so they are stored in your body.

7. CHANGE YOUR DRINKING HABITS

By drinking liquids at meal time, you are diluting your stomach acids and making it much more difficult for your body to digest the food you are eating and get any nutrition out of it. Cold drinks, especially, put out the “digestive fire”. Make a point of consuming water and other nutritious drinks between mealtimes.

Replace caffeine and sugar drinks with nourishing drinks. There are so many great herbal and fermented options for nutritious, enzyme-rich drinks.

8. EAT LESS AND CHEW MORE

The Chinese Secret to Long Life is to chew, chew, chew your food. The digestive enzymes that are used to break down sugars are present in our salvia. When we do not chew our food properly, we don’t give it a chance to mingle with these enzymes so that they can do their job. We also then send big chunks of food down into our stomachs where most of us are already low on hydrochloric acid so the food never gets properly digested.

Eat less—most North Americans consume far more food than they need to. It becomes a vicious cycle where our bodies are needing energy from food to have more energy to consume more food. We are seriously overburdening our digestive systems and our pocketbooks!

9. EAT LOCAL AND FRESH FOODS

Every time something comes into contact with something else there is a transfer of energy, whether it is visible or not. By becoming aware of where our food comes from and how it has been grown, we are becoming aware of the energy we are consuming.

Foods that are harvested early and shipped long distances are not only a burden on the environment, they have almost no nutrition and life force left by the time they reach your mouth.

Local foods, especially those you have grown yourself and eat immediately upon harvesting, rock!

10. FOLLOW YOUR INSTINCT

Everybody’s dietary needs are going to be different. What’s right for one person may no be right for someone else. Learn to follow your instinct about what is right for you. Tools to help you with this include muscle testing and using a pendulum.

Janet Pearson

Master Herbalist, Certified Colon Hydrotherapist