Glyphosate is the most commonly used herbicide in the world and, according to a recent study, it has been found in the urine of 93% of Americans tested. Genetically modified foods like corn, soybeans, canola, and sugar beets contain the highest concentrations of glyphosate, but there’s another source of glyphosate exposure that we should be concerned about. Articles about glyphosate and grains frequently refer to the herbicide as a desiccant. Desiccants are sprayed on crops right before harvest to kill them and dry them out, making the crop uniformly ready for harvest when the farmer needs them to sell the crop – no need to wait for mother nature.  These non-GMO grains will likely have high levels of glyphosate sprayed on them. But organic grains have also tested positive for glyphosate.

Although most EPA -registered pesticides are prohibited in organic production, there can be inadvertent or indirect contact from neighboring conventional farms or shared handling facilities. As long as the operator hasn’t directly applied prohibited pesticides and has documented efforts to minimize exposure to them, the USDA organic regulations allow for residues of prohibited pesticides at or below 5 percent of the EPA tolerance.” – USDA

Must Read: How to Avoid GMOs in 2018 – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering

Grains

Non-organic and non-GMO wheat, barley, buckwheat, millet, and oats are frequently sprayed with glyphosate as a desiccant shortly before processing.

Wheat

A few years ago Tropical Traditions did some research on glyphosate levels in wheat. Commercially available conventional wheat products from Canada, Montana, and South Dakota all tested positive for glyphosate. These are not genetically modified crops. “The range was from 0.07 mg/kg to 0.09 mg/kg.” For a GMO crop, “the range is typically between 3.3 and 5.7 mg/kg.”

Glyphosate is not allowed to be sprayed on organic wheat, which Tropical Traditions also tested for glyphosate.  They were contaminated, with a range “from 0.03 to 0.o6 mg/kg, just slightly lower than the conventional grains we tested.” Organic rye and organic millet tested clean at the time. But this was from December 2015. We’re guessing the situation has only gotten worse.

Related: How to Heal your Gut

Oats

EWG tested more than a dozen brands of oat-based foods. Glyphosate was found to be present on most of the oat-based foods tested, including organic products. Another recent study of glyphosate an oat products found that 5 of 16 popular, organic oats or oat-based products contained glyphosate residue.

Barley, Buckwheat, Millet, Flax, Sorghum

Traditionally these crops dry out and are then ready for harvest.  A combine harvester is used to harvest the grains. Farmers used to own these, but now farmers are much more often renting them.

When they come by with the combine, you have to be ready. There ain’t no ‘this is ready, need you to come back next week for that section.’ No. You’ve got to have your whole field ready. That’s why they spray. If it’s a real organic farm, like one that ain’t bullshitting, you need to own your own combine. But that’s getting more and more rare.” – Anonymous farmer

According to Tom Ehrhardt, co-owner of Minnesota-based Albert Lea Seeds, sourcing grains not desiccated with glyphosate prior to harvest is a challenge. “I have talked with millers of conventionally produced grain, and they all agree it’s very difficult to source oats, wheat, flax, and triticale, which have not been sprayed with glyphosate prior to harvest,” he says. “It’s a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell policy’ in the industry.” – Non-GMO Report

Along with wheat and oats, glyphosate is used to desiccate a wide range of other crops including lentils, peas, non-GMO soybeans, corn, flax, rye, triticale, buckwheat, millet, canola, sugar beets and potatoes. Sunflowers may also be treated pre-harvest with glyphosate, according to the National Sunflower Association.” – EcoWatch

Quinoa, amaranth, wild rice, sorghum, and spelt are also likely candidates for glyphosate desiccation, but we don’t see any testing be done on them. Regardless, contamination from drift is likely a problem for all grains, and pretty much all foods grown outside.

Related: Stop Eating Like That and Start Eating Like This – Your Guide to Homeostasis Through Diet

Legumes

Like grains, beans pods aren’t all dried and ready at the same time, a serious inefficiency if you’re selling large quantities of beans like chickpeas, lentils, peas, and white beans. But the need for uniform drying at the same time has also made legumes a target for glyphosate desiccation. Monsanto (now Bayer) recommends using Roundup as a desiccant for lentils and dry beans, and the CFIA found that roughly 47% of beans, lentil, and pea products tested had glyphosate residues.

Nuts

Technically, peanuts should be in the legumes category. From an eating standpoint, they’re more like nuts. They’re also one of the most heavily herbicide/pesticide-treated crops, and a study of the popular Skippy brand natural peanut butter found that the product contained 11.7ppb (parts per billion) of glyphosate.

Almonds are another potential source of glyphosate exposure, especially once they’re processed into almond milk. A screening of glyphosate usage levels released in 2015 by the Environmental Protection Agency reported that 85% of almonds farmed in the U.S. were treated with glyphosate.

Must Read: Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections

Canola

Canola seeds are harvested and crushed to create canola oil and canola meal. Canola crops are almost always genetically modified and contain high levels of glyphosate.

Sugar

This section could easily be titled sugar beets. After all, 95% of sugar beets grown in the U.S. are genetically modified to withstand Roundup. Glyphosate is used on both sugarbeets and sugarcane extensively. Sugarcane is hit with a double dose of the chemical, both as an herbicide and as a ripening method. Glyphosate is the only sugarcane ripener approved for use in the United States, so any sugarcane grown in the U.S. likely comes with glyphosate residue.

Wine

10 out of 10 wines tested positive for glyphosate

An anonymous supporter of advocacy group Moms Across America sent 10 wine samples to be tested for glyphosate. All of the samples tested positive for glyphosate — even organic wines, although their levels were significantly lower.” – Healthy Holsitc Living

What About Bob’s Red Mill?

On their website Bob’s Red Mill addressed the concerns on January 6, 2015:

The majority of our conventional wheat is grown close to home in the Pacific Northwest, where growing seasons are typically longer and the practice of desiccation is as such rarely used. We’ve been told desiccation is not a practice used by our individual farmers.”

But on September 5th of this year, Sustainable Pulse reported:

Bob’s Red Mill is facing a federal class action, filed in San Francisco Friday, after the world’s most used weedkiller, glyphosate, was discovered in both its organic and non-organic oats.

Related: How to Detox From Plastics and Other Endocrine Disruptors

Avoiding Glyphosate

There is no bubble strong enough to protect you from glyphosate in 2018. Even a diet consisting entirely of organic products will have considerable levels of glyphosate residue due to pesticide/herbicide drift. Not all of us are able to dedicate the time and money needed to extensively research every single thing we eat. Other options include growing all of your own food or getting really good at detoxing. We also recommend shopping at your local farmer’s markets and finding farmers that care as much about this issue as you do.

More Sources:

• Which of Your Foods are Sprayed with Round Up Just 3 Days Before Harvest? – Natural Society
• Grim reaping: Many food crops sprayed with weed killer before harvest – The Organic and Non-GMO Report
• DOZENS of Food Crops Treated with Pre-Harvest Roundup (it’s not just wheat!)
  – The Healthy Home Economist
• Got Monsanto’s Glyphosate in Your Lunch?
  – Moms Across America
• The Terrible 10 Foods that Contain Monsanto’s Roundup – Care2
• Safeguarding with Science:
  Glyphosate Testing in 2015-2016 – Canadian Food Inspection Agency
• Herbicides as Ripeners for Sugarcane – BioOne Complete
• Glyphosate Found in Urine of 93 Percent of Americans Tested
• Canola – Non-GMO Project

The Cornucopia Institute reports that GMO salmon is being sold as sushi and sashimi in Canada. AquaBounty Technologies is a Massachusetts-based biotechnology company that produces genetically modified fish called “AquAdvantage,” that they say is “The World’s Most Sustainable Salmon.”

AquaBounty is the first and only company selling genetically engineered salmon. Scientists inserted a growth-hormone gene from Chinook salmon and genetic regulatory elements from the ocean pout into Atlantic salmon.

Although AquaBounty, the makers of engineered fast-growing salmon, have refused to tell the public where their product is being sold, their CEO recently bragged to investors that it is being used in the Canadian buyer’s “high-end sashimi lines, not their frozen prepared foods.” Consumers must continue to be wary of the origin of their food: know your farmer!” – The Cornucopia Institute

Ron Stotish, AquaBounty’s CEO, told investors last Thursday that they have sold 4.5 tonnes of it in Canada so far this year, and that,

The people who bought our fish were very happy with it. They put it in their high-end sashimi lines, not their frozen prepared foods.”

Related: How to Avoid GMOs in 2018 – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering

In Canada, GM fish does not have to be labeled as such. Consequently, customers may not know if the salmon they ordered is genetically modified.

AquaAdvantage Salmon is engineered to grow at twice the rate of regular salmon while consuming up to 2 percent less feed than regular farmed salmon.

This is an untenable situation. The fact that, once again, the company has let slip a piece of information to investors — but is information Canadian consumers need and don’t have — exposes how much it is that Canadians need labelling.” – Lucy Sharratt of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network

Recommended: How to Heal Your Gut

The FDA has approved AquAdvantage salmon for human consumption, but wild salmon is big business for Alaska, so Senator Lisa Murkowski and other Alaskan officials in Congress got the FDA to block AquAdvantage imports until new GMO labeling regulations are in effect for food labels.  Senator Lisa Murkowski introduced the amendment prohibiting the import of the GM eggs needed to produce AquaBounty’s salmon, and she co-sponsored legislation mandating the labeling of genetically engineered salmon.

Purdue Pharma, creators of Oxycontin, developed and patented a new drug earlier this year aimed to help those addicted to opioids to stop top taking them. This new drug is a fast-acting form of buprenorphine. It’s a mild opioid intended to ease withdrawal symptoms.

Previously, the drug was prescribed in tablet or as fast-dissolving strips. This new prescription is a “wafer” that dissolves in the mouth within a few seconds.

Many have blamed Purdue Pharma for the epidemic of opioid painkiller addictions and deaths. Many are expressing outrage that the Sacklers, the family that owns Purdue, has profited from opioid addictions, and now plans to profit from the antidote.

Related:

• Opioids No Better than NSAIDs for Chronic Back or Arthritis Pain
• Puget Sound Mussels Contain Opioids, Antidepressants, and Chemotherapy Drugs
• Drug Firms Profiting From Addiction – Shipping Massive Quantities of Opioids To West Virginia

https://www.facebook.com/colbertlateshow/videos/2100395890224014

In exchange for a shot that most recently rendered a mere 1 in 10 who people who receive it protected, you get an increased risk of actually getting the flu and exposure to side effects like headaches, fever, sepsis, convulsions, asthma, other respiratory problems, and paralysis. While many of those side effects can lead to permanent issues, a new study from the Kaiser Permanente Northern California finds that the vaccine’s ability to protect you from the flu may not be so long-lasting. The risk of getting the flu rose by 16 percent twenty-eight days after getting the vaccine, and that risk continued to increase throughout the flu season.

Related: Influenza Vaccine – A Comprehensive Overview of the Potential Dangers and Effectiveness of the Flu Shot

The Study

Published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, the Kaiser Permanente study looked at 44,959 individuals who had tested positive for the flu from September 2010 to March 2017. Subjects had been given the inactivated flu vaccine. Those who had been tested 42 to 69 days after being vaccinated had 1.32 times the odds of testing positive for any variation of influenza than those tested within 14-41 days of receiving the shot. Patients tested more than 5 months after their shot had 2.06 the odds of testing positive for the flu.

Related: How to Heal the Gut

The Pressure

The pressure to get the flu shot (or any vaccine) is intense. Many employers, especially in the healthcare field (go figure), require it, and advertisements and media proclaiming the importance of protecting yourself and the others around you from the flu are everywhere. If you’re in a situation where the flu shot becomes a must, it’s imperative you don’t treat it as actual protection from the flu. In fact, the first thing you need to do after getting the shot is getting the preservatives used in the vaccine out of your system.

Related: How To Detoxify and Heal From Vaccinations – For Adults and Children

The System

The flu shot is not about the flu. If it was, they would have dropped it a long time ago. It seemed like every article released about the vaccine last year included a quote from a carefully selected expert, designed to communicate to you how important it is to get the flu shot…in spite of this article you finished reading about how ineffective it is. This latest study is no different. Researchers concluded that health care providers should carefully consider the timing of the shot during flu season.

But let’s face it. If anything, the manufacturers of the flu vaccine will cite this study as a reason to vaccinate people more than once during flu season. Twice the profit and twice the protection! What could go wrong…??

Sources:

• Study: Flu vaccine protection starts to wane within weeks – CIDRAP
• Intra-season Waning of Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness – Oxford Academic
• Influenza Vaccine – A Comprehensive Overview of the Potential Dangers and Effectiveness of the Flu Shot – Organic Lifestyle Magazine

The gastrointestinal (GI) tract of a healthy mammal is home to a complex community of bacteria. This microbial community is often called “microbiota,” “gut flora,” or “beneficial bacteria.” These microbes have evolved with us to coexist in a mutually beneficial relationship.

An Introduction to Gut Microbes

We need beneficial gut microbes for proper B vitamin production, digestion, and assimilation. Some bacteria also synthesize vitamin K. In fact, we need bacteria for synthesization, digestion, and assimilation of many vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats, and many other nutrients. Healthy bacteria also keep the population of other microbes (like candida) down to healthy levels. Healthy bacteria colonies form a biofilm that keeps the intestinal wall healthy and acts as a barrier against pathogens. Healthy bacteria move slowly and crowd out unwanted pathogens. A healthy gut biofilm is a home to thousands of different beneficial bacteria, the more the better. And they don’t just reside on our gut. Some of them can and do pass through the gut wall and they live all over our body. It’s often said that bacteria in our body outnumber our own cells by about ten to one. That’s incorrect, but there are more bacteria cells than human cells in the human body. The ratio is about 39 bacterial cells to every 30 human cells.

If you have ever been to a bio-dentist, they may have shown you what your mouth bacteria looks like under a microscope. Generally, the fast-moving bacteria are up to no good. You can see these guys frantically swimming around looking for trouble, banging against the teeth and gums, maybe looking for a good spot to burrow in and make a home, feed, and reproduce. If you have teeth and gum issues try this: take the capsule of a probiotic, break it open, and empty the contents into your mouth. Leave it in there. Move it around. Swish it around when you’ve built up some saliva. You should notice that some of the pain subsides. Now picture how this works in your gut. Incidentally, oral health is a very good indicator of gut health.

Without enough healthy bacteria, the whole body suffers. Gut microbes can change brain chemistry and alter endocrine functionality. Depression is tied to irritable bowel syndrome. Autism is believed to be caused by or at least exacerbated by an unbalanced gut. In my experience, every single autoimmune disease resides in the body of someone with an unhealthy gut.

Hopefully, you’re getting an idea of how important healthy bacteria are to our health. We need them for good health for many reasons, and likely most of which we aren’t even yet aware of yet.

It should be noted that the phrases “good bacteria” and “bad bacteria” are pretty inaccurate. Bacteria are only responding to their environment. “Good” bacteria, under bad circumstances, will become “bad” bacteria very quickly.

Candida

We all have candida spores in our gut even if we’re healthy. They’re practically indestructible. Anything we could do to kill them would probably kill us. They can reside in the body dormant without causing problems for an estimated six months.

Antibiotics kill bacteria and antibiotics can also kill other pathogens including fungi. But yeast spores are left to rule. When there is an opportunity to flourish candida turns fungal, becoming pathogenic.

Common Causes of Candida Overgrowth

• Alcohol
• Antibiotics
• Vaccines
• Amalgam Fillings
• Refined foods
• Smoking

An often overlooked way that candida gets fed is damage to the body. Cells are mostly made up of glycogen and starch. Damaged, dying cells feed yeast and other pathogens.

Leaky Gut

The gut is permeable, so to some extent, it’s always leaky. A health gut biofilm doesn’t let unwanted things pass into the bloodstream. Some of the “good” bacteria will get through, but that’s ok. Remember, there are bacteria all over our body. We want the good guys, not the bad guys. If candida takes over, an abundance of candida increases zonulin levels, the substance that controls the tight junctions between enterocytes in the gut, which leads to weaker junctions and the development of leaky gut. And here’s a scary fact for you: candida filaments also penetrate directly through the wall of the gut lining and contribute to leaky gut in this manner as well. In other words, picture centipede looking things with very long legs that kind of drill into the gut lining. The intestinal wall will also get dry and cracked. All of this makes for a gut that is much more permeable than it should be. At this stage pathogens and undigested proteins make it into our bloodstream, overwhelming the body’s immune system. Proteins have to be broken down completely or else the body sees them as foreign proteins and reacts accordingly. This is how most allergies happen.

And that gut drilling thing candida does – it does it all over the body as well, opening up pathways for infection throughout the body.  It’s easy to see how candida wrecks havoc on the liver. Consider the gut-liver axis. 70% of the blood flow to the liver is flowing from the gut. The liver quickly becomes overwhelmed with the toxins produced by candida.

I could go on and on about candida, but I’m attempting to write my shortest gut-health article to date, so I’ll stop here. But if you want to know more, read Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections. I’ll bet it’ll blow your mind. Candida is a fascinating creature.

Supplements

If you want to see a list of the top 25+ supplements for killing fungi, this is your list. Below is a list I put together a supplement stack with just a few that work very well to put the gut back into homeostasis.

• Activated Charcoal: Binds with positively charged things in the gut, like candida in its pathogenic form, and many of the toxins it produces, which then gets defecated out of the body. (more on activated charcoal)
• Astragalus: A potent antimicrobial that also is anti-inflammatory, boosts the immune system, slows tumor growth, helps prevent and reverse diabetes, and more.
• Berberine: This plant-root alkaloid extract has confirmed and potent antiviral, antibacterial, and anti-fungal properties.
• Biotin: With the presence of the B vitamin, biotin, it is said that yeast is unable to change into its mycelium form. On the other hand, there are some studies that suggest candida can feed off of biotin.
• Black Walnut: Studies have shown that black walnut can effectively kill canker sores, herpes, and syphilis sores. The husks of black walnuts have potent anti-fungal powers; more powerful than many prescription drugs. Fungi and parasites thrive in an acidic environment.
• Caprylic acid: A the fatty acid in coconut which contains antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal properties. Coconut or coconut oil by itself does not have very strong antimicrobial properties.
• Chlorella: It’s not an anti-fungal, but chlorella is negatively charged like charcoal and has a host of other benefits that counter candida symptoms. Chlorella also helps remove heavy metals and limited amounts of positively charged candida from the blood.
• Cinnamon: A potent natural antifungal with tons of other health benefits. Read more on cinnamon.
• Clays: Like activated charcoal, bentonite clay can bind with candida and heavy metals and other positively charged items to pull them out of the body through defecation.
• Clove: This strong smelling spice contains some of the same compounds as oregano oil. Studies have shown that cloves contain powerful antimicrobial and anti-fungal compounds.
• Cranberry: There is nothing better for a urinary tract infection than unsweetened, unadulterated cranberry juice. Click for Recipe.
• Diatomaceous Earth: Often called DE for short, this supplement is another negatively charged chelator (like charcoal and bentonite clay, but not as effective in that way), that also kills pathogens, but candida biofilm protects itself well from DE. More on DE.
• Enzymes: Hemicellulase, protease, and Cellulase have been shown to break down the cells walls and the biofilm of candida. These must be taken within a protective capsule that will break apart in the gut and not the stomach acid. More on enzymes.
• Garlic: Allicin, a compound in garlic, has antifungal, antibacterial and antiviral properties, and garlic helps strengthen the immune system. Read more about garlic.
• Goldenseal: A popular herb that has been used by Native Americans for hundreds of years, with potent antimicrobial activity, including some pretty decent antifungal properties.
• Goldenrod: Goldenrod is antifungal, diuretic, diaphoretic, anti-inflammatory, expectorant, astringent, antiseptic, and carminative.¹⁰
• Magnesium: Breaks down the toxic metabolites (byproducts) of candida albicans. Read about homemade calcium and magnesium here.
• Molybdenum: Also breaks down the toxic metabolites (byproducts) of candida albicans.
• Mushrooms: Fight fire with fire, and fungi with fungi! Many mushrooms produce natural anti-yeast factors to prevent other fungi from taking over their turf. The reishi mushroom is well known throughout the world for its plethora of health benefits, including powerful antifungal properties, but there are many other mushrooms that help clean the gut as well.
• Lemongrass: Lemongrass oil is the most powerful antibacterial and antifungal essential oil.
• Neem: This plant’s properties include immunomodulatory, anti-inflammatory, antihyperglycaemic, antiulcer, antimalarial, antifungal, antibacterial, antioxidant, antimutagenic, and anticarcinogenic.
• Oil of Oregano: This extract is very well known for its ability to kill off pathogenic activity, and there are plenty of studies that demonstrate its efficacy.
• Olive Leaf Extract: This extract is known for killing fungal and pathogenic bacterial infections without harming healthy bacteria. I suspect this is because it’s weak and doesn’t penetrate biofilm.
• Pau D’Arco: Also known as Lapacho, this supplement has received worldwide attention in recent years due to the numerous studies proving its amazing health benefits including the ability to kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria and difficult fungal infections like candida.
• Probiotics: Most everyone knows to take probiotics to fight yeast infections, but make sure the probiotic is of quality. Lots of cheap probiotics break down in stomach acid and the ingredients end up actually feeding yeast. Also, they need to be able to pass through stomach acid and into the gut to do its job. Taking probiotics with antimicrobial supplements will reduce the effects of both.
• Spirulina: For purposes of candida killing, it works just like the other aforementioned algae, Chlorella. Check out How to Grow Spirulina at Home
• Turmeric: Turmeric is a potent antimicrobial herb with proven antifungal properties and a host of other amazing health benefits. Check out How to Optimize Curcumin.
• Undecylenic acid: This fatty acid is six times more effective than caprylic acid. It’s been shown in studies that candida cannot build a tolerance for undecylenic acid, which probably makes it the most potent candida killer on this list.
• Wormwood: This is a potent antimicrobial’s active ingredient is Artemisia, and it is better known the world over for its ability to kill parasites.
• Zinc: helps with protein digestion, enzymatic reactions, energy production, antioxidant functions, and it is imperative for proper mineral balance. It’s common to see a zinc deficiency in a candida-laden body.

Fungal Supplement Stack – Knock Out Yeast, Candida, Mold, Fungus

The first three should be plenty for most people, but for really prominent fungal issues or for impatient people with a bigger budget I’d recommend all of these:

• Formula SF722 – Thorne Research
• Syntol AMD – Arthur Andrew Medical
• Berberine 500mg – Thorne Research
• MycoCeutics MycoPhyto Complex – EcoNugenics
• MicroDefense – Pure Encapsulations
• Abzorb Vitamin & Nutrient Optimizer (500mg) HCP Formulas

I recommend taking the SF722, Berberine, MycoCeutics, and Microdefense with meals, and the Abzorb and Syntol separately, on an empty stomach (like in the morning and before bed). The Abzorb and the Syntol are a bit redundant, but I find good results using both if the budget can afford it. If money is really tight, just get the SF722 and put your money into your diet.

Diet

You could probably take lots of SF722 every day and eat like the average health-conscious person does and be fine. If you don’t want to take supplements forever, you’ll need to adopt a much healthier diet.

Here are three articles I put together on diet. This is indicative of how my family eats every single day. The first article has recipes for cranberry lemonade and salads.

• Detox Cheap and Easy Without Fasting – Recipes Included
• Start Eating Like That and Start Eating Like This – Your Guide to Homeostasis Through Diet
• How to Make the Healthiest Smoothies – 4 Recipes

Make cranberry lemonade every day. The cranberry lemonade helps keep the kidneys and liver working optimally. These organs typically get sluggish quickly when lots of candida are killed. If salads are #1, this cranberry lemonade is #2, and supplements are a distant #3.

Eat a very large salad (7-9 cups) for breakfast. The salad has at least 10 different vegetables and a few different herbs.

Don’t let anyone cook or prepare your food for you. This means no boxes or cartons or almond milk. Make it yourself. No restaurants, not premade dinners, no prepackaged meals, your foods you buy should have only one ingredient.

Start off with cranberry lemonade and a huge salad every morning. For lunch, for those that aren’t very sick, do a smoothie or snack on some nuts and/or fruit, or we finish that massive breakfast salad.

For dinner, cook from scratch, which will take preparation and time, but it gets easier. Try rice and beans, quinoa, lentils, millet, and amaranth. Some of these foods are not recommended on candida-cleanse diets, but I feel they are beneficial when one is eating the aforementioned salads. Also, we add lots of raw vegetables and herbs to our dinners as well. For instance, the rice and beans go great with raw chopped tomatoes and avocado, diced onions and garlic, and shredded turmeric and ginger. Eat raw herbs and cooked herbs together for maximum health benefits.

The salads are the most important part of this protocol. More than supplements, more than anything save getting enough water, the salads are imperative. Eat lots of raw vegetables. Eat a variety of them. Your fridge should be full of produce! There is nothing more beneficially life-changing than developing a salad habit when the salads are big and diverse and homemade. They do more than any supplement or any other food to clean the intestinal walls of filth and develop a beneficial gut ecosystem.

For those with very serious gut issues, legumes and grains may be a no-no for the first few weeks at least, but when enough salad has been consumed, the gut should be able to reap many benefits from cooked foods like the dinner meals aforementioned. I recommend, for those who are very sick and who have a hard time digesting foods, to slowly add in the aforementioned dinner foods into salads first.

Sweet fruit should be severely limited, and for those who are chronically ill, avoided until the gut is working well. Grapefruit, cranberry, avocado, lime, and lemon do not fall under this category.

Juicing with fruits is not much better than refined sugar, so don’t make the common mistake of thinking a fresh-juice fast is going to get you well.

Modern fruit has too much sugar in it; I don’t recommend being a fruitarian, especially with an abundance of candida. The key to fixing the gut is a very wide variety of fresh raw vegetables and herbs. Some fruit is great, but too much fruit can send even a healthy gut into fungal overload.

Wheat and oats should be avoided until gut health is restored. Wheat and oats tend to be drenched in glyphosate before they are harvested, and wheat has a host of other issues regarding health. If you want to eat bread, make your own using heirloom seeds and old-school practices. Check out Gluten Intolerance, Wheat Allergies, and Celiac Disease – It’s More Complicated Than You Think for more information.

Variety

You need a lot of different kinds of bacteria to make a healthy gut colony. Different bacteria like different foods, and the most beneficial bacteria like the healthiest foods. Raw vegetables and herbs feed the gut the best, producing the healthiest bacteria. If you think about it, nature really wouldn’t work any other way. A lot of health practitioners want to limit the diet when someone is sick. They also often say to avoid raw produce. These two ideas are wrong! I work the other way. Limit sweets, including fruits, and eliminate refined and processed foods, but expand your healthy whole foods that don’t feed pathogens, and fresh raw produce is best.

Six Months

It takes around six months for spores to die off. It takes about as long for the gut lining to heal. Fortunately, you can build a healthy biofilm full of beneficial microbes much faster than that. Unfortunately, spores are ready to come to life as soon as they’re feed. For anyone with systemic fungal related health issues, it takes six months of being very careful and strict on the diet – six months from the day, after all, symptoms are gone – to really get rid of candida, other fungi, and chronic illness.

Sources:

• Scientists bust myth that our bodies have more bacteria than human cells – Nature
• Why gut bacteria are essential for a healthy immune system – Medical Express
• The role of gut microbiota in immune homeostasis and autoimmunity – NCBI

Air pollution leads to people losing the equivalent of one year of education, says a new study conducted in China. Developing countries are more likely to have poor air quality, and 95% of the world’s population is breathing unsafe air. This has resulted in an estimated 6.5 million premature deaths worldwide from air pollution in 2016. We’re aware of the toxic effects of air pollution on our health and environment, but this study looks at some of the more subtle side effects of unsafe air. A year’s worth of education is what people are losing on average. Xi Chen at Yale School of Public Health in the US, a member of the research team, said,

Polluted air can cause everyone to reduce their level of education by one year, which is huge…But we know the effect is worse for the elderly, especially those over 64, and for men, and for those with low education. If we calculate [the loss] for those, it may be a few years of education.”

The Susceptible

In addition to the elderly, at-risk populations include children, men, low-educated people, and individuals with mental disorders. This study also identified how air pollution impacts cognitive ability. Subjects were more likely to lose language ability, rather than math ability. Longer exposure also meant a greater decrease in these abilities and a greater likelihood of developing dementia and mental illness.

Recommended: Myth of Moderate Alcohol Benefits Debunked, and How Science Gets Corrupted

China

China is notorious for their poor air quality. More than half of the people that die from air pollution every year, more than three million people, live in China and India. The government has been focused on improving their air quality, closing down 500 factories, forcing 300,000 older cars off the roads, and reducing coal consumption by a whopping 30 percent. But that is likely not enough. Less than three years ago, the smog and air pollution in Beijing was at eight times the level considered healthy by the World Health Organization.

Can We Fix It?

Air pollution is a serious health hazard. Like many of the emerging causes of disease, it is a problem of our own making. Factories in all of their forms (industrial and farmed) have permanently altered our atmosphere and left billions worldwide at an increased risk of physical conditions like heart disease, emphysema, cancer, and asthma, among others. Studies have previously confirmed that air pollution can affect cognitive performance, but now the link between the loss of overall intelligence and air pollution has been drawn.

Recommended: Glyphosate Found in the Majority of Oat-Based Products

China has already put programs in place to combat air pollution. That will provide crucial intel into whether or not air pollution can be effectively dealt with for ourselves and the next generation.

Sources:

• Air pollution causes ‘huge’ reduction in intelligence, study reveals – Guardian
• Beijing creates anti-smog police to tackle air polluters – Guardian
• Pollution Linked to Nine Million Deaths A Year Worldwide – Organic Lifestyle Magazine
• Pollution linked to one in six deaths – BBC News

We’ve all heard many times that a glass of wine a day is good for you. Improbable, considering what alcohol does to the gut, but study after study seemed to verify alcohol’s heart-health benefits. The only problem was that the studies never actually said that moderate alcohol consumption is healthy. In fact, most studies simply pointed to potential benefits of red wine, and the studies were flawed in many ways, but the news ran with the idea that a regular drink is good for us because this is what most of us wanted to believe.

How Industry Corrupts Science

One recent study was attempting to lay the doubts to rest and confirm that a drink or two a day was, in fact, beneficial to our health. The problem is that this study was funded by the alcohol industry.

One of the many problems with previous alcohol studies is that if you compare a group of people who only drink a moderate amount to people who don’t drink you’re comparing people with restraint to people who may or may not have restraint with other lifestyle choices. A person who only has one glass of wine a day is likely going to have more willpower than the average person. For instance, maybe many members of the non-drinking control group don’t like alcohol but instead smokes and eats junk food all day.

A proper study on the effects of alcohol would randomly assign one group of people to drink a moderate amount while they assign another group of people to abstain. This is tough to do with a large enough control group, but in 2013 the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), set out to do just that. The Moderate Alcohol and Cardiovascular Health study was poised to be a breakthrough in public health. The 10-year, $100 million government trial is now underway.

The NIH is said to be one of the world’s foremost medical research centers. it’s a federal agency that invests more than $30 billion of taxpayer money into health research yearly. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism is an agency under NIH  that oversees the alcohol industry.

The idea is to pay thousands of people to drink in four continents. This amounted to 3,500 daily drinks for six years. The math proved to be incredibly expensive. NIH decided to rely on the alcohol industry to foot the bill. In October of 2017 Wired reported that,

Five corporations—Anheuser-Busch InBev, Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Heineken, and Carlsberg—have since provided a total of $67 million. The foundation is seeking another $23 million, according to its director of development, Julie Wolf-Rodda.”

In May of 2018, The New York Times published a scathing report that showed the NIH’s ties to the alcohol industry. The article opens with:

It was going to be a study that could change the American diet, a huge clinical trial that might well deliver all the medical evidence needed to recommend a daily alcoholic drink as part of a healthy lifestyle.

That was how two prominent scientists and a senior federal health official pitched the project during a presentation at the luxurious Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Fla., in 2014. And the audience members who were being asked to help pay for the $100 million study seemed receptive: They were all liquor company executives.

The Times article reported that documents and interviews proved that the NIH courted the alcohol industry with a plan to endorse moderate drinking as healthy. The alcohol industry previewed the trial design and was allowed to vet the researchers.

Besides the industry influence, two other major problems with the study include the fact that the study is too short to see increases in cancers and other health issues that could be linked to alcohol consumption and too many people are excluded from the study. People are not allowed to partake in the study if they have never had a drink or have a history of addiction, psychiatric care, liver problems, kidney problems, and certain cancers.

You’re picking off the people who are most likely to have the harms.” – Dr. Richard Saitz, chair of the Department of Community Health Sciences at Boston University

Incidentally, research has shown that alcohol consumption in any amount increases the risk of breast cancer.

A month after the Times article was published Stat News published an article titled, NIH rejected a study of alcohol advertising while pursuing industry funding for other research.

…at the 2015 meeting the director, George Koob, would leap out of his seat and scream at the scientists after their PowerPoint presentation on research the agency had eagerly funded on the association between alcohol marketing and underage drinking. ‘I don’t fucking care!’ Koob yelled, referring to alcohol advertising, according to the scientists.

Fortunately, thanks to all of the journalist reporting on this corrupt clinical trial, NIH terminated it last June.

A New Study Not Funded By Big Alcohol

It may not be wise to put any credence into a vaccination study funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, but they aren’t tied to the alcohol industry. The Lancet has just published a study stating that all alcohol consumption is a health risk, moderate or not.

The Global Burden of Disease study looked at alcohol consumption in 195 countries between 1990 and 2016 and analyzed data or people ranging in age from 15 to 95. Researchers compared people who completely abstained from alcohol to those who had one alcoholic drink per day and to people who drank more.

With the non-drinking group, 914 people out of 100,000 developed an alcohol-related health problem such as cancer or suffered an injury. An extra four people would suffer an alcohol-related health problem or injury if they drank one alcoholic drink a day.

For people who had two alcoholic drinks a day, 63 more developed a condition within a year and for those who consumed five drinks every day, there was an increase of 338 people, who developed a health problem. Two alcoholic drinks a day equated to 63 more people developing a health condition, and five drinks every day increased the number of people who developed a health problem to 338.

The study reports:

Alcohol use is a leading risk factor for global disease burden and causes substantial health loss. We found that the risk of all-cause mortality, and of cancers specifically, rises with increasing levels of consumption, and the level of consumption that minimises health loss is zero.”

To an individual, the one drink a day idea doesn’t look like much statistically but keep in mind, the study is looking at one year. It’s taking into account people’s drinking habits and health within one year’s time. This does not represent the likelihood that one may be diagnosed with cancer after drinking a glass of wine every day for a decade. It’s near certain that the longer one drinks regularly the greater the risk of adverse health effects. In addition, Prof Sonia Saxena points out that while, “One drink a day does represent a small increased risk but adjust that to the UK population as a whole and it represents a far bigger number, and most people are not drinking just one drink a day.”

Conclusion

Alcohol has a few health benefits, but this doesn’t make it healthy. Every health benefit alcohol can provide is better achieved through diet and exercise. To put it bluntly, nobody who suffers from chronic disease can get well while consuming alcohol.

Our biggest concern with alcohol consumption is that it severely disrupts the gut flora. Beneficial bacteria gets killed and washed away, as well as pathogenic microbes, but guess what gets left behind. Yeast. It’s incredibly difficult to kill Candida spores. Alcohol irritates the gut lining and harms the healthy gut microbiome. Then it raises blood sugar, and Candida is left to flourish in its wake. For more on how this works, check out Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections.