The Health Benefits Of the Curry Spice Blend

India is a country with over 1 billion people spread over five large regions. This population is incredibly diverse. Indians speak more than 122 different languages and their cuisines vary greatly among the regions. Despite these differences, there is still something Indians have in common – their love of curry.

The word curry means sauce. Curry is not a spice; it is a combination of spices. Although the combination and ratio of spices varies from one curry to another, many health promoting spices are standard in most curry mixes. Here are features of the most common spices you will find in a curry and how they benefit your health.

Cumin

Cumin is excellent for digestion. The scent alone is enough to kickstart saliva enzymes in the mouth, the essential first step of healthy digestion. Cumin also alleviates gas, acts as a natural laxative, and exhibits anti-fungal and anti-microbial powers. Interestingly, cumin is both a relaxant and a stimulant, and certain components in its essential oil have been said to promote a hypnotic tranquility.

Turmeric

Looking for another reason to start eating turmeric besides its anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant rich, brain boosting, heart healthy properties? Turmeric is also an essential ingredient in most curry powder mixes. To get the maximum benefit from turmeric, pair it with freshly ground black pepper.

Coriander (Cilantro seed)

The benefits of coriander (after the cilantro plant flowers and develops seeds, it is referred to as coriander) are numerous. Like cumin, coriander improves digestion as it relieves gas, prevents nausea, and combats diarrhea. It also acts as a natural anti-histamine, treats mouth infections with its antiseptic powers, helps heal skin conditions, lowers blood pressure, and is a natural source of bioavailable iron. If you feel you might be coming down with a case of food poisoning, grab a handful of coriander. This spice is twice as powerful as the leading salmonella antibiotic – and it tastes a whole lot better.

Ginger

Ginger is a great herb to have in your kitchen, as it gives great flavor to both food and drink and possesses serious medicinal attributes. It’s an anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, antioxidant with a soothing effect on the digestive tract. Health begins in the gut, and ginger helps eliminate gas, relieves nausea, and treats motion sickness. If you’re pregnant and have given into not-so healthy, nausea-inducing cravings, ginger settles the stomach and relieves vomiting. Be careful though! With great (healing) power comes great responsibility. Ginger treats the symptoms, but a healthy diet eliminates the need for ginger in the first place.

Cardamon

When it comes to the price of spices, cardamom has to be content with the bronze medal. While both saffron and vanilla cost more, of the three, only cardamom can claim a place of great prominence in Indian cuisine. Cardamom is a great breath freshener, fighting tooth and gum disease as well as soothing sore throats. It also flushes out toxins, leading to better blood circulation, a better functioning urinary tract, and improved cardiovascular activity.

Cinnamon

An anti-viral, anti-bacterial spice loaded with anti-oxidants, cinnamon can help take down some heavy hitters, disease-wise. Cinnamon is toxic to cancer cells, reduces the growth of cancer cells, protects neurons from degenerative diseases like Parkinson’s, and helps keep heart disease in check. Cinnamon is exceptionally beneficial for those who suffer from or could potentially suffer from diabetes, as it combines reduced insulin resistance with lower blood sugar. There are two types of cinnamon, “true” cinnamon and cassia cinnamon. The cinnamon found in the United States is usually cassia cinnamon. True cinnamon is frequently labeled as Ceylon cinnamon. If possible, try to get Ceylon cinnamon as it contains less coumarin, a naturally occurring chemical compound that acts as a blood thinner.

Cloves

The active, healing component in cloves is called eugenol. Eugenol is anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, and a natural detoxifier. Aside from its use in cooking worldwide, clove has found a place for soothing gum pain and treating root canals in dentistry, as the eugenol and other components in this spice combine to form a mild analgesic. Cloves contain iron, calcium, and manganese and are also an antioxidant. If you want to check the quality of your cloves, squeeze them with a fingernail. If they’re good quality, they will release some of their essential oil. Good quality cloves also float when placed in water, whereas stale cloves sink.

Conclusion

The benefits of cooking with these spices are numerous, and there is no reason you can’t experiment with adding a little bit of Indian flair to your kitchen. Whether you start slowly with adding cumin or clove to your famous rice and beans recipe or you jump in feet first and produce a fabulous curry, the flavors of Indian cuisine are waiting for you. If you aren’t hitting the stove just yet, there are still ways to get the health benefits from these spices. Ginger and curcumin (the active ingredient in turmeric) are both available in capsule form.

See Foods, Vitamins, and Herbs That Kill Cancer for more on how adding black pepper to turmeric increases bioavailability of curcumin about 2,000%. Also, see our two other favorite herbs, garlic and cayenne.

Further Reading:


The Discovery Of the Superoxide Dismutase – An Enzyme and An Antioxidant

Like many great discoveries, the first antioxidants were discovered by accident.

Joe McCord was looking for the function of a different enzyme when he chanced upon a mysterious enzyme that seemed to be present in every form of life except anaerobic bacteria, bacteria that does not need oxygen to survive. In the beginning, neither McCord nor his mentor, Irwin Fridovich, understood the purpose of this enzyme, which they named superoxide dismutase (SOD), but they were convinced that it was important.

This discovery was the beginning of research into antioxidants and free radicals. In the late sixties, when McCord and Fridovich first published their findings, their research was received with little enthusiasm. Most of their peers did not grasp the importance of antioxidants and their role in human health and vitality. Now, decades later, we know a great deal more about how free radicals are generated and the role antioxidants play in the body to protect against their damage.

What Are Free Radicals?

Free radicals are molecules that are inherently unstable. In an effort to become more stable, free radicals will steal electrons from other molecules in close proximity. This electron theft makes the victimized molecule more unstable, and it in turn will steal electrons from other nearby molecules in order to become more stable, and so on. This chain reaction of robbing Peter to pay Paul can cause a great deal of cell damage, as well as cell death.

Free radicals are all around us; they are not easy or even possible to avoid. Many diseases and injuries create free radicals in the body. Alzheimer’s disease, arthritis, asthma, cancer, influenza, sinus infections, and yeast infections all create free radicals. Injuries, even minor ones such as sprains, muscle aches, and strains, all generate free radicals. Toxins generate free radicals and toxins are everywhere – in our food, water, and the air we breathe. Even if our air was perfectly clean, simply taking in oxygen throughout the body generates free radicals.

Unavoidable Free Radicals

Oxygen molecules generate what is collectively known as oxidative stress. Oxygen is actually highly corrosive. Most of us don’t think of it that way because we need oxygen to live; without oxygen our cells would quickly die. But taking oxygen into the body generates a free radical superoxide, an unstable form of oxygen. Obviously, there’s no way to avoid this. Oxygen is just one of our unavoidable sources of free radicals. Metabolizing our food also creates free radicals. Sunlight, smoking, radiation and even eating burnt food can create free radicals in the body.

So why aren’t we all dead yet? That’s where antioxidants come in.

How Does SOD Work?

Superoxide dismutase (SOD) is both an enzyme and an antioxidant that protects against the free radical, superoxide. SOD changes this free radical to hydrogen peroxide. Unfortunately, hydrogen peroxide is still a free radical. SOD then works in concert with another antioxidant, catalase, to change hydrogen peroxide from an unstable free radical to water, a stable compound.

SOD is produced in the body from three minerals: copper, zinc, and manganese. Good sources of copper and manganese can be found in whole grains and nuts. Good sources of zinc include egg yolks, milk, oatmeal, nuts, legumes, and meat.

Antioxidant Supplementation

Joe McCord, now a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, thinks we should find ways of supplementing our diet in order to increase the two antioxidants in our bodies that do most of the work: superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase. According to McCord, these two enzymes are the antioxidants that neutralize 99% of the free radicals in our bodies. By McCord’s reasoning, if we can get the body to produce more of these two antioxidant/enzymes, our bodies would be far more efficient at fighting free radicals.

McCord and his coauthor showed how a supplement containing five plant extracts simultaneously increased the body’s production of SOD and catalase and also decreased the markers associated with oxidative, stress-related aging. Their supplement contained green tea, turmeric, milk thistle, ashwagandha (also known as winter cherry), and bacopa.

So when it comes to antioxidants, more is more. Don’t megadose on one nutrient; rely on several nutrients to do their work in combination. Joe McCord Ph.D, Lester Packer Ph.D., Sanjay Gupta M.D., and Don Colbert M.D. are among the many experts who believe that antioxidants work best as a team. When these nutrients are used individually, the resulting health benefits are meager, if at all. This is one of the reasons why the public is getting mixed results back from scientists about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of vitamins in clinical trials. It is speculated by these and other experts that antioxidants are far more effective when they are in our diet (either as a result of supplementation or through our food) in proportionally combined doses.

Most of the body’s antioxidant protection comes from the combined efforts of vitamins A, C, and E, SOD, catalase, and glutathione peroxidase. These antioxidants effectively prevent the majority of the damage that would be done by free radicals.

If we run low on these nutrients, cell damage can occur as a result. When Don Colbert M.D. was experimenting with different fasts for his best-selling book, Toxic Relief, he experienced this kind of nutrient shortage firsthand. On day seven of his water only fast, he noticed small white splotches had begun forming on the outside of his skin. Due to his medical training, he immediately knew what had happened; he had exhausted his body’s catalase, and his system was no longer able to convert hydrogen peroxide to water. Of course, he broke the fast immediately.

Antioxidants work synergistically. Increasing some antioxidants will help your body increase others. Take glutathione, for instance. Glutathione can both detoxify the body and neutralize free radicals. The liver manufactures glutathione from three amino acids: cysteine, glutamic acid, and glycine.

Glutathione can also be consumed in foods such as fruits, vegetables, fish, and meats. However, the amount of glutathione produced can be increased by increasing Vitamin C and N-acetylcysteine in the diet. The previously mentioned herb, milk thistle (one of the five plant extracts in McCord’s study that was shown to increase SOD production) can encourage the liver’s output of glutathione by as much as 35%!

Vitamin C and vitamin E are well known antioxidants. Vitamin C can protect the water soluble interior of the cell, and Vitamin E can protect the cell’s fatty outer membrane. These nutrients can get pretty complicated. For instance, there are eight different kinds of vitamin E. High doses of vitamin C, or any other nutrient, wouldn’t offer this kind of protection without the combined help from other antioxidants.

Many people believe supplemented forms of antioxidants will do them some good, but they don’t often understand that when it comes to supplemented antioxidants quality really matters, and it isn’t possible to get everything you need from pills alone. Some vitamins that also act as antioxidants are of such poor quality that they are of no benefit and may be actually harmful. Many of these detrimental vitamins are derived from petroleum. For example, a common synthetic form of vitamin E is dl-alpha-tocopherol or dl-alpha-tocopheryl. This form of vitamin E is actually more harmful than going without any vitamin E supplementation at all.

Conclusion

Antioxidants (and many other nutrients) are naturally found in many foods. Antioxidants (the ones that scientists have discovered so far) are especially high in the following foods: artichokes, apples, blueberries, blackberries, black beans, red beans, kidney beans, carrots, cherries, cruciferous vegetables, citrus fruits, cantaloupes, watermelon, pecans, romaine lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, garlic, onions, leeks, pumpkin, cabbage, green tea, and milk thistle tea.

The healthiest diet is an 80% Raw Food Diet. When 80% of your diet is comprised of raw, fresh, organic produce (more vegetables than fruits) your body receives the benefit of nutrient dense foods loaded with antioxidant vitamins and enzymes. To increase nutrition, you may want to add Doc Shillington’s Total Nutrition Formula to your diet. Here’s the recipe to make your own.

Sources:

The Seven Pillars of Health by Don Colbert M.D.

Chasing Life by Sanjay Gupta M.D.

 



How to Detoxify Every Day Without Going Through a “Detox”

In its natural, healthy state, the body is detoxifying at all times. Breathing, digesting healthy, clean vegetables, using our muscles, or just being alive creates toxins in the body that need to be expelled.

With today’s typical modern lifestyle, toxins are accumulating in the body at a greater rate than the body can expel them. Not only do we have much higher levels of toxicity, many of the toxins are not normally found in nature. Once the body is in that vicious cycle of toxic accumulation, disease will set in, organ failure will eventually occur, and doctors will blame it on genetics or age.

Disease has one cause: cellular malfunction. There are two causes for cellular malfunctions: lack of nutrition and too much toxicity.

It is no wonder “detox” is the buzz word amongst the natural health enthusiasts and healers. The problem is, even amongst the natural health crowd, there is a tendency to eat poorly and detox once or twice a year with a juice fast or a smoothie binge, which is typically done in a way that feeds the body way too much sugar, which for most people completely negates the detox.

Now for the good news: your body can handle a remarkably heavy toxic load if you’re getting proper nutrition, enough sleep, your gut flora is balanced, and your gut is healthy. The human body is better off with lots of toxins and lots of nutrition, than it is without nutrition. This does not mean you can eat like crap and take a supplement and then expect to be healthy. Junk food robs the body of nutrition and it unbalances the intestinal flora, leaving the gut in dismal health. If you live under power lines, talk on your cell phone all day, type on your laptop for hours on end, and eat too much Fukushima, parasite laden sushi, you can still be healthier than most anyone you know if you do the following:

How To Detoxify With Diet

Produce detoxifies the body. This is especially true when it’s organic and raw. The trick is to eat a lot of it, to eat a wide variety, and to eat more vegetables than fruit. Make yourself a huge salad with 15 different vegetables and lots of herbs and spices like garlic, turmeric, cilantro, etc. Your base can be kale, collard greens, spinach, or anything leafy that’s not iceberg lettuce. Shred carrots, beets, and radishes.  Throw in some pumpkin and sesame seeds. Don’t worry, we’ll have a link to a recipe at the end.

The thing is, all of those previously mentioned ingredients are known to increase organ functionality, build up optimum cellular function, prevent disease, and expel toxins from the body. Many of the vegetables and herbs can even dispel BPAs and other man-made toxins from the body.

We are supposed to eat a lot of produce. For many years, longer than we’ve eaten any other way, humans foraged for vegetables growing out of the ground. We would walk, all day, walked, see an edible food, eat it, walk some more. It’s estimated that before we used grain agriculture we ate up to 8 pounds of produce a day! Meat takes a lot of effort to find, prepare, and digest. Fruits and nuts were seasonal, but herbs, leafs, and such are always just popping right up out of the ground. Other omnivores can be seen doing this, even wolves. They prefer protein, but they eat vegetables all day, too, in the wild.

Raw, organic vegetables expel toxins from the body in a multitude of ways. Eat as many as you can. Make a big salad every day. Here’s a recipe.

Drink To Detoxify

Make yourself a gallon of cranberry stevia lemonade a day and drink it. If you can’t drink a gallon, don’t kill yourself trying, but most people can do that just fine. The lemon balances the PH and helps boost the liver’s ability to detoxify. The cranberry keeps the kidneys going strong. The water flushes out the body. There’re many more benefits, but those are the biggies. Don’t use a sugar to sweeten it, use stevia or no sweetener. Also, always use distilled water, or unadulterated, naturally mineralized water from a trusted spring source. Here’s the recipe.

Take a Whole Food Multivitamin/Mineral Formula That Detoxifies

Shillington’s Total Nutrition Formula helps the body expel toxins. All of the ingredients play their part, but of particular note are the chlorella and the spirulina, which are not only some of the best sources of protein available, they are powerful heavy metal chelators. (They bind with heavy metals and expel them from the body). Here’s an article to Make Your Own Total Nutrition (or buy it here).

Balance Your Gut Flora

It’s hard to detoxify when your gut flora is full of Candida. Nothing works right when yeast is abundant in the whole body. Candida isthe, or one ofthe, foundations for almost all illnesses. Kill the Candida and limit refined foods and sugars (agave, brown rice syrup, coconut sugar, fruit juices, etc.) from the diet. “Healthy sugars” are sugars found in whole foods. The aforementioned sweeteners feed yeast. Balance the gut flora with salads and cut out the excess sugars. Health will follow. Out best on gut flora is How To Kill Candida And Balance Your Inner Ecosystem.

Breathe Properly

Proper breathing, believe it or not, is an awesome way to help detoxify the body without putting out any effort. What is proper breathing? It’s breathing from one’s abdomen so that the rib cage and stomach expand as you breath in. Most people breath in a way that causes the opposite to happen, making for shallow breaths. This is a nervous breathing pattern we’ve adapted due to our modern, low but constant stressful lifestyle. For more on proper breathing, see How To Breathe.

Conclusion

Most people can repair the body this way without supplements, but supplements do speed up the process. For those dealing with serious or long-term health issues, or those who do not have access to organic foods, supplements may be required. Virtually everyone in modern society has an overabundance in Candida. To speed up wellness, you can knock out Candida fast with Formula SF722, Shillington’s Intestinal Cleanse, and FloraMend.

If you are very ill and in need of a more radical approach to getting well quickly it’s time to learn about Candida, Leaky Gut, and more.

Recommended Supplements:
Further Reading:


No More Gluten – How I Found Health After MS

Putting the Pieces of the Puzzle Together

Learning how to become healthy again after being diagnosed with a chronic, debilitating illness (of which the medical community says there is “no cure”) is like putting a puzzle together when you don’t have all of the pieces. I’ve actually learned a few things in the last 11 months since my MS diagnosis. I realized that I either have celiac disease (which is a disease that causes intestinal damage upon the consumption of gluten) or I, at the very least, have gluten intolerance. Either way, I avoid gluten.

The Baklava Incident

I went out to eat with some girlfriends. I did this every Friday, so I knew how to stick to my program at a restaurant. On that day, however, we got to talking about how well I was doing. I shared with them how I was able to get off of all of my medications simply by changing what I ate. I told them I was better – walking better, feeling better, and having more energy. I thought, “I’ve been good. I’ve stuck to my program so well I deserve some baklava.” It was delicious, but I couldn’t sleep that night because my stomach was turning in knots and my legs, which had been peaceful for three weeks, started to spasm again. I told myself, “Baklava doesn’t taste this good. Nothing does.”

Unwittingly Eating Couscous

I unknowingly ate gluten after eating only raw, mostly organic produce for two months. I made some couscous (which I didn’t know was wheat) and ate it for four days in a row for my evening meal. On day three, my MS symptoms started coming back. My right foot dropped and I was tripping, just like when my symptoms first started. I was also losing my balance and had a hard time walking up and down stairs. Once I realized the connection, I limited my diet to organic produce again and I used Shillington’s Intestinal Cleanse and his Blood Detox for a few days. My symptoms were gone within a week.

Gluten Intolerance

I’ve got my theories as to why there is a sudden rise in gluten intolerance lately, but they’re merely theories. What I do know is that right now, and possibly forever, I cannot eat gluten and be well. I can have certain wheat products like the Total Nutrition Formula, which has wheat grass, but wheat grass, if properly harvested, does not have gluten.

This is how gluten affected me. With other conditions, each person with gluten intolerance may experience different symptoms to different degrees. The most common gluten intolerance symptoms revolve around gastrointestinal issues such as bloating, constipation, gas, and diarrhea — these symptoms occur because the body is unable to digest and absorb gluten properly. Some individuals may also experience heartburn, acid reflux, nausea and vomiting. Gluten intolerance may also cause anemia, unexplained weight loss, fatigue, joint pain, headaches and irritability, mouth ulcers, a white coating on your tongue, an itchy skin rash, or open sores on the skin. Some individuals may experience gluten intolerance symptoms after consuming a small amount of gluten, while others may be able to eat small amounts of gluten without experiencing any major symptoms.

The most important thing I learned is that the safest way to eat is to limit myself to raw, fresh, organic produce. With anything else that I am going to eat, I need to be totally sure it does not contain gluten. I’ve learned that my digestive system will be damaged, and those MS symptoms will come back if I eat wheat or any other grain that contains gluten. And I’ve also learned that anyone with a damaged digestive system needs to stay away from gluten to heal. Check out Balance Your Ecosystem and Make Your Own Multi-Vitamin/Mineral. Check out the first source for my story about being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Recommended Supplements:

Further Reading:
Sources:


Four Things Everyone Will Have To Do To Get Well

In every case I’ve ever seen where unhealthy people with disease-riddled bodies later became vibrantly healthy, they all had to do four things:

  1. They all had to completely get off of all drugs, including marijuana, caffeine, alcohol, any and all prescription drugs, and over the counter medications.
  2. They had to fix their gut.
  3. They had to totally change their diet, eliminating processed foods and eating lots of produce for the rest of their lives.
  4. They had to give up coffee, sweet smoothies, and fruit juices, at least for a while.

Eliminate Drugs

You cannot be healthy while you put toxins into your body. It just doesn’t work. This includes vaccines. Injecting, inhaling, or ingesting chemicals and toxins into the body does not bring about health.

Every time you damage your body’s DNA, you age. Chemicals made in laboratories damage the body’s DNA. To a point, you can detoxify and undo most of the damage done by these substances. You can even reverse damage done to DNA. But at some level, every time you damage your body with chemicals, there is some permanency.

Don’t smoke anything. Smoking introduces too many carcinogens. Smoking always adds toxins to the blood, making the blood thick and putting stress on the liver, kidneys, thyroid, adrenals, eyes, and reproductive organs.

Stimulants cause a reaction similar to an allergic reaction. This puts unneeded stress on the thyroid, the adrenals, and kidneys.

Alcohol acidifies the body, stresses the liver, and promotes Candida growth.

I’m not telling everyone that they should get off of all drugs. I am saying that you cannot ever truly be healthy while regularly using drugs.

Fix Your Gut

Every single person  I have known who was sick  had too much Candida overtaking their sick gut and wrecking havoc on their whole body. Gut health is the source of most and often all of people’s health issues.

Most people can repair their gut with proper diet and time, but detoxification protocol and supplements can speed up the process and are required for some people with severely damaged intestines. Look for a strong probiotic and a parasite killer.

Eat Right

If your gut is in poor health, you have to give up wheat and other sources of gluten to get well. Anyone with Candida overgrowth cannot properly digest wheat. Wheat and soy are almost always produced in ways that cause health problems when they are consumed. Soy and corn in packaged products are almost always GMOs. Genetically Modified Organisms destroy gut health.

You also have to give up refined sugars and processed packaged almost everything. Replace them with salads, lots of produce, and home-cooked, whole foods. Eat raw organic crushed garlic, turmeric, and black pepper with your food.

Eat lots of vegetables. Eat a wide variety of raw organic vegetables. Here are some of the benefits of raw organic vegetables:

  • More enzymes
  • Feeding the right ecosystem and keeping it clean
  • Better digestion and assimilation of all nutrition
  • Strong, clean, light, and vibrant blood
  • Strong, very efficient immune system

Many of these benefits also come with eating fruit, but for anyone who is sick, fruit should be limited as the sugars do feed infection including Candida, bacteria, parasites, and yeast. Certain fruits are great for certain health issues, and fruits should not at all be avoided. They should just be limited until the gut flora is working for you and not against you.

Cooked foods have some benefits as well, but the importance of enzymes is often overlooked, so eat raw every day.

Drink Right

Sugary smoothies, sweet fruit juices (even when freshly made at home), coffee, most commercial teas, sodas, and almost everything else people drink needs to be completely eliminated for a time until health is restored, and then some of them can be consumed in moderation. Drink water. Lots of it. Here’s a recipe for  cranberry lemonade sweetened with stevia. Also, check out What’s the Best Water for Detoxifying and For Drinking?

Conclusion

Some people need supplements and a very strict diet to get results, but a fair majority can heal the body and be entirely ailment free with proper dietary habits and giving up toxic junk. Check out Balance Your Ecosystem for more on gut health, and this 80% Raw Food Diet has an awesome salad recipe to get you going.

Recommended Supplements:
Further Reading:


Why You Should Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup & Aspartame

When chemicals added to processed foods earn a bad rep for causing disease and disability, one would hope the food manufacturers would remove them from their products or the FDA would protect the American people by banning them, but neither seems to be the case – not when big money is at stake. Instead the food manufacturers either launch dis-information campaigns claiming their additives are either healthy or benign, or they confuse and deceive the consumer by using a different name for the same additive. For example, according to The Truth in Labeling Campaign, MSG can be found in food under 50 different names.

With this history of deceit, it comes as no surprise to learn that we now have to look for high fructose corn syrup and aspartame under new names.

High Fructose Corn Syrup

Dr. Mark Hyman has spent more than ten years studying high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), reading and interviewing “most of the ‘medical and nutrition experts'”.

He states the following reasons why we should never eat HFCS and why eating it may kill you.

  1. “Sugar in any form causes obesity and disease when consumed in pharmacologic doses.” Both are dangerous to the body in the amounts eaten by the average American.
  2. “HFCS and cane sugar are NOT biochemically identical or processed the same way by the body.” HFCS not only spikes insulin since it goes right into the bloodstream, it also goes right to the liver triggering the production of triglycerides and cholesterol. New research finds that it is a common cause of leaky gut syndrome. “High doses of free fructose have been proven to literally punch
    holes in the intestinal lining allowing nasty byproducts of toxic gut
    bacteria and partially digested food proteins to enter your blood stream
    and trigger the inflammation that we know is at the root of obesity,
    diabetes, cancer, heart disease, dementia, and accelerated aging.”
  3. “HFCS contains contaminants including mercury that are not regulated or measured by the FDA.” Mercury was discovered. Other contaminants were also detected but as yet are unidentified.
  4. “Independent medical and nutrition experts DO NOT support the use of HFCS in our diet, despite the assertions of the corn industry.” The industry takes comments out of context and passes them off as supportive to their products when they are not.
  5. “HFCS is almost always a marker of poor-quality, nutrient-poor disease-creating industrial food products or “food-like substances”.” Surely we all know by now that nearly all processed food is garbage.

Add to this impressive list the fact that most of the corn in this country is genetically modified. Do you ever want to put this in your body?

So now that the truth about high fructose corn syrup is more readily available, Chex cereal has decided to rename it – calling it fructose. Even while their packaging states that the product does not contain HFCS (which is 55% fructose), instead it contains HFCS-90, (note it is high fructose corn syrup with 90% fructose) and they are calling it fructose.

Aspartame

The makers of aspartame use the argument that orange juice is natural and good for you and all they did was take two of the amino acids from orange juice to make their product. What could possibly be wrong with that?

You can easily find arguments on either side of aspartame safety from a nutritionist with a PhD listing 92 reasons aspartame is dangerous and should be completely avoided to articles claiming test after test has proven it’s safe. It is interesting that those articles always say something about the level ingested. The fact that aspartame changes into formaldehyde in the body is enough for me. I’ve smelled it. Have you?

Again, this is big business with lots of money at stake. So now a rebranding is underway. Aspartame is now aminosweet. Consumer beware.

Though you can save yourself a lot of time and trouble deciphering labels and trying to figure our what the food industry is hiding. Eat – real – food! It’s simple. Check out the 80% Raw Food Diet. If you’re looking for an inexpensive and healthy replacement for HFCS laden beverages, check out this cranberry lemonade recipe.

Further Reading:
Sources:


MSG’s Many Side Effects and Aliases

This”Natural Flavor” Is Not So Natural

Even if you’ve never had a college course in chemistry, you’re likely familiar with the acronym. MSG stands for monosodium glutamate. In the modern era, this food additive is found in nearly every processed food, and you may not realize it due to its many, many names.

The Origins of MSG

According to the FDA, MSG has been used “throughout history”. If by throughout history they mean in Japan for the last hundred years, then yes, but recorded history goes back 10,000 years, not only one hundred.

Kombu dashi is a traditional Japanese broth that has been made for centuries. In 1908, chemist Ikeda Kikuanae isolated the ingredient in kombu dashi’s sea kelp that gave the dish its flavor- MSG. The product that ultimately originated from Ikeda’s work was patented in the U.S., France, and Japan. In Japan, he dubbed the flavor enhancer umami, which means tasty. When Ikeda partnered up with the Suzuki Chemical Company, umami was marketed under a different name, Ajinomoto, which means the essence of taste.

Initially, the Suzuki chemical company struggled to turn a profit selling MSG. For the first four years, MSG was unprofitable in Japan. Ultimately their marketing strategies shifted from targeting food manufacturers and restaurateurs to housewives. This shift in marketing turned a profit for the company. Over time, MSG became a commonly used household ingredient in Japan. Restaurants and food manufacturers later adopted its use and the flavor enhancer came into widespread use throughout Asia and the Western world.

What is MSG?

Monosodium glutamate escaped extensive testing because it is derived from an amino acid, glutamate, one of the building blocks of protein. There are twenty such amino acids; many of which our bodies can produce on their own, while some of them our bodies cannot.

Our bodies naturally produce glutamate. The body not only uses glutamate as a constituent of protein, it also uses it as a neurotransmitter. Our bodies manufacture just enough of the amino acid at a time to maintain brain function. Too much is toxic to our nerve and brain cells. The excess of free glutamate in MSG causes excitotoxicity, a pathological condition that excites nerve cells and brain cells to the point of death.

How Much Is Too Much?

That is what the debate is all about.

MSG is often found in foods that have been heavily processed. Even if MSG is not listed on the label, it is often a by-product of processing food. Enzymes added to processed foods will break down the proteins until MSG or the free form of glutamate is created in the food. Anything hydrolyzed creates the same cause and effect. Health conscious consumers, who are trying to avoid MSG, must take care to learn the different names of ingredients that are high in MSG if they wish to avoid it. MSG is even found naturally in some foods.

Glutamate/glutamic acid comes in a bound form and a free form. The free form of glutamate or glutamic acid is found naturally in small amounts in foods such as cheese, dairy, tomatoes, fermented soy products and seaweed. The bound form of glutamate has not been known to cause adverse reactions in people, except in rare circumstances.

The majority of MSG in the American diet is not of natural origin. The majority of MSG that Americans consume is added to processed foods or created as a by-product of the processing itself. It is also found in much of the food that is served in restaurants. The amount of MSG is particularly high in low-fat foods, canned goods, soups, and gravies.

Until recently, the easiest way to avoid MSG was to avoid processed foods, but in the late nineties, MSG became even harder to avoid. In 1998 the EPA approved the use of sprays containing free glutamic acid to be used on fruits, vegetables, and other plants. Consumers have no way of knowing how much spray has been used, how much free glutamic acid the plant has absorbed, or how much is left as residue on the plant. The spray most commonly used is AuxiGro. At present, consumers can avoid MSG sprayed produce by buying organic produce, but the industry has been requesting permission to use MSG sprays on organic produce as well. So far, organic produce is not sprayed with MSG.

How much is too much MSG? Our research and experience recommends that all MSG that is not of natural origin be avoided.

How Bad is MSG?

MSG sensitive individuals can experience these symptoms within an hour of consuming only three grams.

MSG Side Effects

  • Stomach cramps
  • Nausea/vomiting
  • Diarrhea
  • Migraine headaches
  • Heart palpitations
  • Rapid heartbeat
  • Sharp rise in blood pressure
  • Rapid drop in blood pressure
  • Blurred vision
  • Joint pain
  • Stiffness in joints
  • Achiness all over body
  • Dizziness, & loss of balance
  • Light headed
  • Depression
  • Frequent need to urinate
  • A numbing or burning sensation in the mouth
  • Swelling of the face
  • Pain or tightness in the chest
  • Shortness of breath

In studies with lab animals, research has conclusively confirmed that consuming high doses of MSG causes lesions in the hypothalamus. What is the hypothalamus for? The hypothalamus controls vital functions like heart rate, breathing, body temperature, appetite, thirst, and sleep. The hypothalamus also influences emotions and impulses like anger, fear, love, compassion, empathy, depression, and libido.

In studies with lab animals, young animals that were fed diets high in MSG showed numerous health problems. These problems persisted throughout the animals’ life. Problems like obesity, malformed organs, abnormal reproductive systems, infertility, unprovoked rage, overt aggression, antisocial behavior, impaired cardiovascular responsiveness, and high triglycerides, cholesterol, and VLDL. Many of these animals also showed signs of an impaired immune system. These animals showed abnormal hypothalamic function. These results were duplicated in many different animals, not only with lab mice.

MSG also forces the pancreas to release insulin. This causes the blood sugar to drop and typically makes one very hungry. This is why it is commonplace for individuals to become hungry only an hour or so after consuming foods high in MSG.

MSG also wrecks havoc on our hormones and causes sleep disorders and strong PMS symptoms.

What the Food Industry Does Not Want You To Know

Although the FDA requires that the ingredient monosodium glutamate be listed on food labels, it does not require ingredients that contain MSG to be listed as MSG. If we are to avoid MSG, we must avoid the following ingredients as well. The food industry does not want you to know about these ingredients…

Ingredients That Always Contain MSG

  • Ajinomoto
  • Autolyzed yeast or autolyzed yeast extract
  • Calcium caseinate
  • Calcium glutamate
  • Gelatin
  • Glutamate
  • Glutamic acid
  • Hydrolyzed oat flour
  • Hydrolyzed plant protein
  • Hydrolyzed protein or
  • Hydrolyzed anything else
  • Magnesium glutamate
  • Monopotassium glutamate
  • Plant protein extract
  • Sodium caseinate
  • Soy sauce extract
  • Textured protein
  • Torula Yeast
  • Umami
  • Vetsin
  • Yeast extract
  • Yeast food
  • Yeast nutrient
  • Or anything enzyme modified

Ingredients That Usually Contain MSG

(or MSG is created during their processing)

  • Artificial flavors and flavorings
  • Barley malt
  • Bouillon
  • Brewer’s yeast
  • Broth
  • Carageenan
  • Citric acid, citrate
  • Cornstarch
  • Enzymes
  • Enzyme modified ingredients
  • Malt extract
  • Malt flavoring
  • Malted barley
  • Maltodextrin
  • Monoammonium glutamate
  • Natrium glutamate
  • Natural flavors and flavorings
  • Oligodextrin
  • Pectin
  • Powdered milk
  • Protease
  • Protein-fortified ingredients
  • Seasonings
  • Soy protein
  • Soy protein concentrate
  • Soy protein isolate
  • Soy sauce
  • Spices
  • Stock
  • Ultra-pasteurized ingredients
  • Whey protein
  • Whey protein concentrate
  • Whey protein isolate

Unfortunately, this is not an exhaustive list. MSG is truly one of the best-hidden ingredients on the market. As you can see, it has many guises. Consumers are given other information such as cholesterol, calories, and sugars. But the degree of neurotoxicity (the amount of MSG) is mysteriously hidden on the label.

MSG does not change the actual taste of foods the way substances that are sweet, salty, bitter, or sour do. Instead it alters the taste of food by stimulating the sensation of taste. It is added to foods in the hope that consumers will become addicted. It is added to foods in many different ways, listed as many different ingredients, in the hope that we will not take the effort to learn its many names.

Neuroscientists overwhelmingly agree that MSG is toxic. It kills neurons by exciting them until the neurons die. MSG is an excitotoxin, so it is toxic for everyone, some more than others. Newborns are four times more sensitive to MSG than adults, and individuals with Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, or multiple sclerosis are more sensitive than people without neurodegenerative diseases.

Anyone who is sick and trying to heal naturopathically (which, incidentally, is the only way to actually heal), will have to stop eating MSG. Any parent with a child who exhibits behavior problems needs to find those hidden sources of MSG in their child’s diet and get their kid off of MSG (and every other additive). You’ll see a difference in two weeks or less. The bottom line is this: do you want to eat a food additive that kills your brain cells in addition to doing other damage throughout your body? Do you want to feed it to your child, ever? For any reason?

The FDA assures us that MSG is safe, but a neurotoxin, in any amount, is never fit for human consumption.

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