Hypertension – How To Lower Your Blood Pressure Quickly and Naturally

The problem with blood pressure medications is that they do not correct the underlying issue of the problem. Imagine you have a car with a 6-cylinder engine that is running very rough. You find out that two of your six cylinders have the problem, so you remove them or shut them down. Now your car runs smoothly, but it has to put out a lot more effort to get up to speed.

You should have cleaned all of the cylinders, flushed out the engine, and changed the oil, like an automotive detox. Instead, you cut out two of the cylinders completely, and now four are doing the work of six. And because the car was not meant to do this, your gas mileage is terrible, and more problems will develop soon. How long do you think this engine is going to last?

In order to get off of high blood pressure medications, it helps to understand the cause of high blood pressure.

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

What Causes High Blood Pressure?

The goal is to balance the body’s pH and remove toxins
High blood pressure is almost always caused by thick, toxic blood. Consider that engine analogy, and think of our blood like the car’s motor oil and its gasoline. The cleaner the blood, the easier it is for the heart to pump it through the body. Chronic high blood pressure is a result of the heart working harder to push the blood where it needs to go. Restricting the heart doesn’t seem like the smartest thing to do, does it?

So What Causes This Toxic Thick Blood?

  • Smoking – Smoking anything toxifies the blood, makes it thick, and makes it harder to circulate. This includes marijuana.
  • Toxic Liver – A toxic liver results in dirty, sticky, thick blood full of toxins. And of course, smoking anything makes the whole body very toxic. Junk food, as in refined, processed food, does as well.
  • Kidneys – Kidneys that aren’t at optimum health do a poor job of filtering the blood. Sugary and artificial beverages slow down the kidneys. For non-smokers, getting off of sodas and cheap juices is often enough to lower blood pressure.
  • Candida – Candida seems to be at the foundation of almost everyone’s poor health and with good reason. Almost everyone, even self-proclaimed health experts, eats way too much sugar. Sugar feeds Candida, and Candida thickens the blood as it multiplies, poops, and multiplies some more.
  • pH Balance – Acidic blood is slow, thick, problematic blood because it impedes the kidneys’ ability to function, and causes a host of other problems, many of which also result in higher blood pressure for other reasons.
  • Fibrin – Vascular injury leads to inflammation and damage from free radicals which contributes to fibrin accumulation.
  • Low vitamin D and other vitamin and mineral imbalances.

Hypothyroidism

Hypothyroidism has also been recognized as a cause of hypertension. Previous studies regarding hypertension in subjects with hypothyroidism have demonstrated elevated blood pressure values. Increased peripheral vascular resistance and low cardiac output, known causes of hypertension, are believed to be the possible link between hypothyroidism and diastolic hypertension.

How To Reduce High Blood Pressure Naturally

If you’re willing to get off the drugs and do right by your body, the good news is that high blood pressure is extremely easy to fix. The bad news is that you’re going to have to change your lifestyle. The habits that got you here will have to go.

Low Blood Pressure Diet

The goal is to balance the body’s pH, remove toxins, and increase enzymatic actions. There are some easy short-term solutions for balancing the pH and achieving these other goals, but a diet with lots of fresh raw produce that is devoid of processed junk food is the best and only way to permanently balance the body’s PH and achieve optimum health. Also, eating in this manner eliminates the other toxic accumulation from junk food.

The foundation of a truly healthy diet is raw, fresh produce – 80% should be raw, fresh, organic produce, more vegetables than fruit. It’s this simple: the more raw fresh vegetables anyone eats, the healthier they become. Eliminate processed foods and increase your raw food intake; there’s nothing else that comes close to the power of raw produce when it comes to eliminating ailments and restoring health. Nothing comes close except…

Cranberry Stevia Lemonade

I drink a gallon of cranberry stevia lemonade a day. The difference in my health that I experienced when I started drinking it is amazing. I ate well and I was very healthy, but this took my body to another level.

For a surprising number of people, high blood pressure is simply dehydration. Soda, Gatorade, sugary juices, and coffee either dehydrate you immediately or they dehydrate you in the long run (for instance, Gatorade and cheap, sugary juices will impeded kidney function). When you don’t have enough fluid in your body, the blood gets thick and harder to move. Cranberry juice will help normalize the kidneys, lemon juice will flush the liver and normalize pH levels of the body, and the stevia, I find, simply goes very well with cranberry and lemon.

If for any reason you can’t do cranberry stevia lemonade, drink a lot of clean water. Distilled or spring water (provided the source is reliable) are the best choices to drink and to make the lemonade.

The Body’s pH

Between diet and the lemonade, your pH should balance quickly. If you need it to balance nearly immediately, or your body is extremely acidic (due to toxic accumulation such as drugs like chemo drugs) then try:

Doc Shillington’s Body Balance Formula Recipe:

  • 1 – cup of Organic Blackstrap Molasses
  • 1 – cup of Organic Apple Cider Vinegar

Mix well and take a tablespoon twice a day. I recommend also taking a strong probiotic with this formula as the molasses can feed Candida. This formula tastes horrible in my opinion, but some people actually like the taste, it’s got a lot of benefits, and it’s well worth it.

Other Recipes For Normalizing Blood Pressure

If you want to bring blood pressure down as quickly as possible, especially if you’re coming off medication and/or have a heart problem, the following formulas are an absolute must have to bring the body out of the danger zone quickly and promote long-term healing:

Ginger, Cranberry, Turmeric Tonic

Equal parts:

  • Cranberry juice
  • Ginger juice
  • Turmeric juice

This is an awesome way to start out the morning. Drink a shot of fresh pressed ginger, cranberry, turmeric juice. Ideally, as always, fresh is best. Juice turmeric root with the peel, ginger root with the peel as well, and cranberries. The perfect ratio is equal parts juice. Try to get whole, fresh cranberries if possible. If not, find some organic, unsweetened, un-concentrated/reconstituted cranberry juice with no additives.

Juice a total of  4 to 6 ounces and take the shot on an empty stomach. You should feel the benefits right away.

Doc Shillington’s Brain Tonic Recipe (or purchase here)

Doc Shillington’s Heart Formula Recipe (or purchase here)

Doc Shillington’s Blood Detox Formula Recipe (or purchase here)

Vitamin D

Studies have shown that those with higher levels of vitamin D in their system have lower blood pressure. Unfortunately, studies designed to prove supplementation with vitamin D lowers blood pressure have been inconsistent. Those showing benefits from supplementation have been small studies. But as often happens, the flaw in a large study was easy to spot. In the 7-year double-blind study of 36,282 postmenopausal women no evidence was found to support the idea that vitamin D supplementation reduces blood pressure. However, the dose given was too low (400 IU/day), half of the normal dose (700-800 IU/day) used for clinical purposes.

Coenzyme Q10

While the mechanism by which coenzyme Q10 reduces blood pressure is not fully understood, countless studies have shown significant improvement and reversal of high blood pressure with coenzyme Q10 supplementation.

Magnesium

Magnesium levels are consistently low in those who have hypertension. It’s recommended for most cases to take a mineral supplement that has a balanced range or minerals with magnesium, as opposed to just magnesium alone, especially for long-term supplementation.

Systemic Enzymes

Digestive enzymes break down food. Plant enzymes break down food in the pre-digestive phase of digestion before stomach acid inactivates them. Metabolic enzymes, also known as systemic enzymes, break down foreign proteins and fibrin and clean your blood of impurities. Consider the ramifications of this. Fibrin builds up when the body is damaged. It’s an important part of the healing process. Enzymes eliminate this scar tissue. Enzymes also eliminate viruses.

When a virus contacts a human cell, its external coating connects to the cell and the virus becomes able to contact DNA. This connection to DNA permits the virus to reproduce in a rapid manner. Proteolytic enzymes consume the exterior coating of a virus, rendering the virus permanently inert. They also break up circulating immune complexes in the blood. They enhance the elasticity of erythrocytes and reduce aggregation of blood platelets, increasing blood fluidity and its circulation in tissues. Enzymes are what take out the garbage, and they are the tools to rebuild the body. But the body can only produce so many.

When the body quits, producing proteolytic or protein digesting enzymes responsible for controlling fibrin levels in the body system, the body dies within 24 hours. The more enzymes we supplement the body with and get in our diets, the longer we live. It’s that simple. Heart attack, stroke, somewhere, somehow, the body will cease to function.” – Dr. Tim Kelly

Enzymes are the fountain of youth, if ever there was one. Aging appears to begin between the ages of 27 and 35 when the production of enzymes that dissolve protein begins to diminish. Scars stick around longer and remain more prominent. Aches and pains take longer to fade, injuries become slower to heal, and our body just doesn’t seem to recover like it once did because it doesn’t. We do damage to our body simply by being alive, and the more damage we do, the more enzymes we need to repair the damage.

Everybody can use more enzymes. We cannot get an optimal amount in our food unless we grow most of our own food with best practices to produce the most nutrient dense crops. Even then, we could still use more. Our body produces enzymes, but only a finite amount. The more foods we consume that are void of enzymes, the more we use up our finite supply.

Enzyme supplements fall under two categories: digestive and systemic. Digestive enzymes are taken with food to help digestion. There are also enzymes in raw foods that make it easier to absorb and properly assimilate nutrition.

Systemic enzymes (pancreatic enzymes, proteolytic enzymes, metabolic enzymes) are a bit more complicated. Getting enzymes from the digestive tract into the bloodstream isn’t easy. Enzymes released in the stomach will help digest food but will not survive the stomach acid. This is why systemic enzymes are typically offered in an acid-resistant capsule. The capsule is designed to release in the more alkaline environment of the intestinal tract. As long as the enzymes are taken on an empty stomach, the results have been shown to be spectacular.

Systemic enzymes have been used to treat problems and successfully eliminate ailments ranging from physical injuries, arthritis, heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, autism, herpes, HIV, (seems to work against any virus) fibromyalgia, asthma, and so much more. Most of the research has been published in non-English language journals. This systemic use of oral enzyme supplementation is just beginning to take off in the United States.

There are no reported side effects with systemic enzymes. Massive doses do not cause any problems or side effects, unlike high doses of pharmaceutical drugs or extremely high doses of supplements and herbs. The initial dosage, which is often one potent enzyme pill taken three times daily, 45 minutes before or 45 minutes after a meal, can be raised by three tablets daily every few days until the desired therapeutic response develops. A person given more than 3700 enzyme tablets in one day experienced diarrhea, but this was attributed to the capsules, not the content. The only side-effects from the enzymes themselves will be reduced inflammation and reduction of damaged and decaying cells, fibrin, viruses, and other proteins that have been introduced from a leaky gut or the body’s own mutated proteins (which happens under stress).

Enzyme supplementation is not a quick fix, but over time, they do produce amazing results. Consider systemic enzyme supplementation for repairing the damage done to the body from vaccines, infections, toxins, poor diet or lifestyle choices, breathing the air we breathe, or anything that would cause any damage. Enzymes can help the body to reverse its age. What is age if not accumulated damage?

Conclusion

For those suffering from high blood pressure for a very long time, or those who have any other heart conditions, we also highly recommend Shillington’s Heart Formula and large doses of systemic enzymes right away. And do read Understand Hypothyroidism – Prevention and Natural Remedies if you suffer from hypothyroidism.

Be sure to check out How to Make A Tincture if you plan to make one of the aforementioned formulas, and see the cranberry lemonade recipe here. High blood pressure is something you can eliminate very quickly. You just need to let go of conventional wisdom, embrace natural health, and clean your blood to that your heart can do its job.

Recommended Supplements:
Further Reading:

Sources:



When It Comes to Food Packaging, What We Don’t Know Could Hurt Us

(Cornucopia – Ensia – by Elizabeth Grossman) It’s almost impossible to imagine life without flexible, transparent and water-resistant food packaging, without plastic sandwich bags, cling film or shelves filled with plastic jars, tubs and tubes, and durable bags and boxes.

While storing food in containers dates back thousands of years, and food has been sold in bottles since the 1700s and cans since the 1800s, what might be considered the modern age of food packaging began in the 1890s when crackers were first sold in sealed waxed paper bags inside a paperboard box. Plastics and other synthetics began to appear in the 1920s and ’30s, shortly after chemical companies started experimenting with petroleum-based compounds and pioneering new materials that could be used for household as well as industrial applications.

Fast forward to 2014: Upwards of 6,000 different manufactured substances are now listed by various government agencies as approved for use in food contact materials in the U.S. and Europe — materials that can legally go into consumer food packaging, household and commercial food containers, food processing equipment, and other products.

Recent analyses have revealed substantial gaps in what is known about the health and environmental effects of many of these materials and raised questions about the safety of others. A study published this past July found that 175 chemicals used in food contact materials are also recognized by scientists and government agencies as chemicals of concern — chemicals known to have adverse health effects. Another published in December 2013 found that more than 50 percent of food contact materials in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration database of such substances lacked accompanying toxicology information filed with the FDA about the amount people can safely eat. This database is publicly available and searchable, but the database itself doesn’t include toxicology information about these substances or any details of the products in which the listed chemicals are used.

Presumably, the primary goal of food packaging is to keep food safe to eat. But what do we actually know about the stuff that surrounds our food? What do we know about how these materials may interact with the food they touch, or their potential effects on human health and the environment?

Plastics, Coatings, Colors, Glues

In the U.S., the FDA regulates food contact materials, classifying them as “indirect food additives.” These materials, which fall under the jurisdiction of the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act, include not only the polymers that make up plastics but also resins and coatings used in can linings and jar lids, pigments, adhesives, biocides and what the FDA charmingly calls “slimicides.” The FDA distinguishes these substances from those added to food itself by explaining that food contact materials are “not intended to have a technical effect in such food,” meaning that these substances are not supposed to change the food they touch.

This categorization makes such substances exempt from food ingredient labeling requirements, explains Dennis Keefe, director of the FDA’s Office of Food Additive Safety. In other words, food packaging need not carry any information about what it’s made of. Any such information is voluntary, often geared toward facilitating recycling and sometimes part of marketing campaigns declaring a product “free of” a substance of concern.

“Food packaging chemicals are not disclosed, and in many cases we don’t have toxicology or exposure data,” explains Maricel Maffini, an independent scientist and consultant who specializes in food additives research. Yet a core component of the FDA’s regulation of food contact materials is based on the assumption that these substances may migrate into and be present in food.

In fact the FDA’s system for approving food contact materials — which it does on an individual basis, with approval granted to a specific company for a particular intended use — depends on how much of a substance is expected to migrate into food. This is assessed based on information a company submits to the FDA; the FDA may come back to a company with questions and do its own literature search, but it doesn’t send the substances to a lab for testing as part of the approval process. The higher the level of migration, the more extensive toxicological testing the FDA requires.

“We’re talking parts per billion,” explains George Misko, partner at Keller & Heckman, a Washington, D.C.–based law firm that specializes in regulation. But that’s a level at which some chemicals used in food packaging have been found to be biologically active.

Beyond the Container

But there’s “more than the threshold of migration” that needs to be considered when assessing food contact material safety, says Jane Muncke, managing director and chief scientific officer of the Zurich-based nonprofit Food Packaging Forum. In addition to the materials themselves, Muncke explains, these substances’ chemical breakdown and by-products need to be considered. This means that there are lots more individual chemicals that may be touching food — and therefore be detectable in food — than those present in the packaging as formulated. For polymers — the large molecules that typically make up plastics — these breakdown and by-products “can be significant,” says Muncke.

These additional breakdown and by-product chemicals also contribute to issues of chemical safety assessment, explains Maffini. Chemical regulations typically consider chemicals one at a time, when in reality we’re exposed to multiple chemicals concurrently, including those present in food. So the individual chemical assessments that determine food contact material approvals may not capture all the ways in which a single substance may interact with food, human bodies or the environment. The list of chemicals measured by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health and Nutrition Examination survey offers a snapshot of this issue. It includes in its biomonitoring (testing for chemicals in the human body) not only whole chemicals to which people may be exposed, but also numerous compounds that occur only after these chemicals enter and are metabolized by the human body.

As Muncke and other scientists have pointed out, while food contact materials are not intended to alter food, they are not necessarily inert or biologically inactive. This is where the parts-per-billion levels that trigger the FDA’s testing levels for food contact materials quickly gets complicated.

Back in the 1950s when the U.S. government laid the groundwork for current food additive regulations, the scientific assumption was that the higher the level of exposure, the greater a chemical’s biological effect. The focus of concern then was acute effects: birth defects, genetic mutations and cancers. Since the mid-1980s, however, and especially in the last 10 to 15 years, scientific evidence indicating that low levels of exposure — particularly to chemicals that can affect hormone function — can have significant biological effects has been accumulating rapidly. So has evidence that such exposures can lead to chronic effects on metabolic, reproductive, neurological, cardiovascular and other body systems and can set the stage for health disorders that may take years to become apparent. Yet from an FDA regulatory perspective, such low dose effects are very much still under review as they are, for example, for bisphenol A, a building block of polycarbonate plastic that is used widely in food contact products and — as an endocrine disrupter — has become a focal point in the public debate over safety of food contact materials.

Chemicals of Concern

“The last 20 years has seen more innovation in packaging than almost anything else,” says Misko. So where are the scientists who scrutinize food packaging and contact materials looking to better understand potential exposure effects, given the large universe of these materials?

They are looking both at materials used widely in consumer packaging and at materials used commercially to store and process food. While extensive research into health effects of BPA continues, phthalates, another long-used category of chemicals that has also been identified as having hormonal effects, is receiving additional research attention. One use of phthalates — of which there are many different types — is as plasticizers, often with polyvinyl chloride. Numerous studies, including those conducted by scientists at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Environmental Protection Agency, to name but a very few of those published, have now linked various phthalates to adverse male reproductive hormone effects and have found associations between phthalate exposure and childhood asthma. While the American Chemistry Council says that “phthalates do not easily migrate,” the final report of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission Chronic Hazard Advisory Panel on Phthalates released in July (the panel was convened under the 2008 Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act that also restricted use of certain phthalates in children’s products but doesn’t affect food packaging), found food to be a significant source of phthalate exposure. Recent studies, including those by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, New York University, University of Texas, University of Washington and U.S. EPA, have also found food to be a consistent source of phthalates.

“Food packaging is a big issue,” says Robin Whyatt, professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health’s Center for Children’s Environmental Health. Whyatt’s most recent research looks at the potential association between prenatal phthalate exposure and childhood asthma. The positive links found in her first-of-a-kind human epidemiological study will have to be replicated to be confirmed, but when considered in conjunction with other research, particularly that points to food as an ongoing source of phthalate exposure, Whyatt says this indicates a “need for FDA to conduct a total dietary study” for at least one phthalate. Muncke notes that phthalates are often part of plastics used in food processing and other commercial or industrial rather than household applications.

Tip of the Iceberg

Yet BPA and phthalates — chemicals that have found their way into public consciousness — are just the tip of the iceberg. Other materials coming under scrutiny, says Natural Resources Defense Council senior attorney Tom Neltner, include greaseproof papers that use what are called perfluorinated compounds, chemicals known to be environmentally persistent and associated in both animal and human studies with various adverse health effects. While some of these compounds have been phased out of use in the U.S. and EU, Neltner says they appear to be in ongoing — even increasing — use in Asia.

Among the substances the Food Packaging Forum is looking at are printing inks that can become mixed into recycled papers used in food packaging. “This is a big issue in Europe,” says Muncke, pointing out that thousands of different chemicals can be used in these inks. Other substances that are in FDA-listed food contact materials as part of chemical formulations — or that can be released from those materials — include formaldehyde and a category of chemicals known as organotins that have been found in studies to have adverse hormonal effects. Again, because FDA grants approval for food contact materials on a use-by-use basis, the database of these substances doesn’t indicate for which products the FDA has okayed their use.

Environmental impacts

Some forms of packaging pose environmental hazards as well. Plastic bags (or parts thereof) can clog drains, become entangled with aquatic organisms or disrupt the digestive tracts of birds and other animals. Polystyrene — often used for take-out food and beverage containers — can similarly pose physical hazards for marine and aquatic life if it ends up in rivers or ocean environments. Such materials are slow to degrade and so can persist in the environment, including in landfills. Both plastic bags and polystyrene can be recycled for reuse but convenient recycling options are often not widely available.

Virtually any plastic packaging, whether a plastic water bottle or “clamshell” container will persist in the environment to some degree if not put into recycling. Large quantities of this long-lasting debris ends up being washed out to sea where its impacts are now well documented as creating physical and potential chemical hazards in the world’s oceans.

Meanwhile, PVC plastics can release dioxins and furans — both persistent carcinogens — if subjected to incomplete combustion as can happen in environmentally substandard landfills, particularly in places where garbage dumps are routinely burned to reduce volume as they often are in cities in Africa and Asia, for example. Other additives used in plastics — such as plasticizers, stabilizers and flame retardants — can also be released to the environment during disposal as has been documented innumerous studies conducted worldwide. Many of these chemicals, among them phthalates, halogenated flame retardants and organotins, have adverse effects.

The Knottiest Issue

Given the vast number of chemicals that may be used in food contact materials, what’s a consumer to do, particularly since so little information is readily available about these substances? “We don’t want to scare consumers,” says Muncke. At the same time, she says, consumers who want to play it safe can follow some basic practices. Don’t microwave plastic. Minimize purchase of processed food. In general, reduce home contact of food and beverages — including water — with plastic.

Meanwhile, at least one company is working to commercialize food packaging that is safe enough to eat. WikiPearl, an invention of Cambridge, Mass.–based WikiFoods and Harvard University bioengineering professor David Edwards, makes it possible to package ice cream, yogurt and cheese in edible shells durable enough to protect the food from contaminants and moisture loss. Inspired by fruit skins, the packaging is designed in part to reduce plastic packaging, says WikiFoods senior vice president for marketing and sales Eric Freedman. But exactly what the edible shell is made of is proprietary information.

Which points to perhaps the knottiest issue of all: How to provide the information transparency needed to fully inform the public about the health and environmental impacts of the materials they’re exposed to, while providing companies with information protection they need to succeed in a competitive market.

In its 2013 assessment of food additive chemicals — including those used in food packaging — the Pew Charitable Trusts found that the FDA’s method of assessing the safety of these materials is “fraught with systemic problems,” largely because it lacks adequate information. In the absence of labeling requirements and accessible health, safety and life cycle information, what consumers need to know about food contact materials will likely continue to be anything but transparent.



Increase your IQ with the Right Foods, Herbs, Vitamins, and Exercises for Your Brain

Not too long ago, the general consensus about our IQ was that our intelligence can’t be improved. Though this issue is still debated occasionally, today most of us know that learning a new language and becoming an avid reader have both been proven to increase one’s score on any intelligence aptitude test. The idea that people cannot get smarter is ridiculous, but so are a lot of other conventional medical beliefs still held today.

Contents

If you can take IQ tests over and over again, study them, get help figuring them out, and learn how to do them quickly and well, your score will improve. Some would argue that this is not really increasing intelligence, but it is. Experiences that challenge the brain’s cognitive abilities raise intelligence–real intelligence. IQ tests, while certainly not a great indicator of how well someone will do in life, are a pretty decent indicator of memory, problem solving skills, and other cognitive functions. Obviously, an abundance of these skills is helpful.

A better idea than taking IQ tests over and over again is to do some other brain teasers, learn a language, and learn to constantly exercise your brain. Live life like it’s all about learning, because it is!

Combine these mental push-ups with the right diet, a fitness program, and a few brain boosting herbal supplements, and your focus will be sharp while your cognitive ability will improve significantly.

The more you practice using your brain in various, challenging ways, the better you will get at using it. The better you take care of your brain’s health, the more efficiently and easily it will work, and the longer it will work as well.

How Brain is Connected to Your Gut

Your brain is very connected to your gut. We have a symbiotic relationship with every microbe living inside us, and the highest concentration of microbes is in our gut. In addition, parasitical influences, like candida running rampant throughout our body causing us to crave junk food, can be traced back to intestinal health.

Speaking of candida, this fungus has been identified as a possible cause and a definite contributor to depression. Getting your intestinal health up to par is the most important first step in increasing your intelligence. Healthy gut = healthy body = healthy brain.

Good bacterial health is necessary for balanced hormones. Gut bacteria produce 90% to 95% of our serotonin, the key neurotransmitter responsible for regulating mood. We need bacteria to assimilate B vitamins, which are essential to the function of the nervous system and the brain. Without enough B vitamins, we can’t concentrate well.

Gluten also leads to an overabundance of Candida and a host of other problems in the gut and the whole body which directly affect the brain’s ability to function.

Brain Boosting Herbs

If you’re looking for a quick boost to finish a term paper, there are lots of herbs and other things you can do right away. If you’re looking to increase your cognitive abilities over a period of time, and enjoy life with a clear head and all the focus you need, then the first step for most people is to kill the candida and balance the gut, so don’t skip that section above!

Bacopa

Bacopa is used to treat ADHD, anxiety, brain disorders, poor memory, and tension. Bacopa has been shown to stimulate brain function and improve cognition skills and memory. It also increases serotonin, a brain chemical known to help sooth and relax the mind.

Ginseng

Ginseng is a well-known stimulant that can reduce stress, increase focus and memory, and raise metabolism and energy levels.

Sage

Sage has been shown to improve memory. Sage is being investigated as a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.

Gota kola

Gota kola renews nerve functions, fights premature aging, aids circulation, and improves memory and intelligence.

Rosemary

Rosemary stimulates the pituitary gland, which produces the HGH (human growth hormone) needed to regulate weight and look younger. It also improves memory, along with a host of other benefits.

Rhodiola Rosea

Rhodiola Rosea has been shown to increase energy levels, reduce fatigue, and improve cognitive ability (specifically: associative thinking, short-term memory, calculation, concentration, and speed of audiovisual perception)

Ashwagandha

This herb is to Ayurvedic medicine as ginseng is to Chinese medicine. People use ashwagandha for improving cognitive ability and it treats many other health problems from infertility to inflammation.

Vitamins, Minerals, Fats, and Other Nutrition Our Brains Need

A deficiency in any one of the following nutrients can lead to brain health issues. Even less than optimal levels can impair cognitive function.

Fats

Numerous studies have proven that eating a balanced diet with healthy fats, and/or a fatty acid supplement with omega 3s, are imperative for all brain functions. It’s no wonder, since the brain is about 60% fat (if you exclude water, which makes up about 70%). DHA is a fatty acid chain that is one of the major building blocks of the brain, critical for optimal brain health and function. Of the many fatty acids that benefit the brain and offer noticeable cognitive improvement, DHA is the most significant. Balanced healthy fats are also needed to properly assimilate B vitamins.

B Vitamins

B vitamins are the vitamins of the nervous system and they are needed for the numerous functions critical to every cell in the body. B vitamins are essential for hormone production, stress management, and the metabolism of carbohydrates, proteins and fats. B vitamin deficiencies are not uncommon, and lead to many physical and mental illnesses. Anyone suffering from an inability to concentrate, PMS or other hormonal issues, insomnia, depression, or virtually any other mental health issues should reach first for B complex.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C is more than an anti-oxidant and necessary vitamin for fighting infections and viruses, it is necessary to synthesize the neurotransmitter norepinephrine. It also helps the body flush heavy metals such as iron and copper from the brain.

Vitamin D

Normal brain development and function is dependent on vitamin D. Deficiencies have been proven to impair cognitive abilities.

Vitamin E

Vitamin E is essential to maintain the integrity of cell membranes. Among other symptoms, a deficiency in this vitamin manifests in neurological symptoms including injury to sensory nerves and impaired coordination and balance.

Calcium

The brain requires calcium for secretion of neurotransmitters. The body maintains a specific level of calcium in the blood at all times, pulling calcium from the bones, if the level in the blood drops too low. So deficiencies generally affect bone health, not the brain.

Iodine

The thyroid requires iodine to produce its hormones, which are used in the myelination of the central nervous system. It is also critical in the development of the brain, therefore deficiencies during pregnancy can result in various neurodevelopmental deficits from mild cognitive deficits to mental retardation.

Iron

Iron is essential for proper development of the brain cells that produce myelin and for the synthesis of neurotransmitters. An iron deficiency during fetal development can cause permanent learning and memory deficits; childhood deficiency also causes cognitive impairment.

Magnesium

Magnesium is essential for metabolic reactions required for brain function. Deficiency results in neurological and muscular symptoms.

Selenium

Selenium is required for antioxidant enzymes in the brain and other tissues.

Zinc

Zinc plays a role in neurotransmission as well as catalytic, structural, and regulatory roles. Deficiencies can cause congenital malformations, deficits in learning, and other deficits including attention and learning.

Choline

Choline is another essential nutrient needed for myelination of nerves, neurotransmitter synthesis, and cell membranes and other structures of the brain and nervous system. Deficiency is related to cognitive defects.

Antioxidants

Your brain uses a lot of oxygen, and therefore, it is highly susceptible to free radical damage. This is why antioxidants are critical brain boosters. They protect brain cells by neutralizing free radical damage and preventing premature brain cell aging. Anthocyanins, the antioxidants that are found in berries, have been found to be particularly beneficial to the brain.

Food that’s Good For Our Brains

When you talk about food for the brain, cold-water fish top the list due to their fat content. Fish like salmon, sardines, trout, mackerel, and cod contain significant amounts of omega-3 fatty acids and essential amino acids in proteins that build healthy brain cell membranes and improve cognitive function.

Other great foods for the brain (especially if you’re vegetarian or vegan) include:

  • Avocados, pumpkin seeds, various nuts, and other oils containing healthy fats along with vitamin E
  • Leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables provide antioxidants and brain defending carotenoids
  • Berries give the brain vitamin C, create healthy connections between brain cells, and protect brain cells against free radicals with antioxidants.
  • Turmeric’s active ingredient, curcumin, detoxifies the brain.
  • Cayenne can wake you up like nothing else, rushing blood to the brain. Cayenne is a great supplement to take with other remedies.
  • Ginger protects the brain and has some of the same effects as cayenne, as far as waking up the senses and increasing blood flow.
  • Pretty much all produce nourishes the body and therefore the mind.

Essential Oils for Cognitive Function

Many essential oils are great for temporarily boosting cognitive function, and there are some combinations that work particularly well. Three drops of rosemary with two drops of lemon is a simple recipe to boost memory. Four drops of cypress with one drop of rosemary is another recipe for brain power. So many essential oils offer powerful and beneficial effects with the brain. In particular, rosemary is proven to increase memory by up to 75%. Peppermint, lavender, cedarwood, and sage are other essential oils particularly notable for proven abilities to increase brain function, but the list doesn’t end there. If you happen to have any essential oil around, give it a sniff and see what happens. Better quality oils produce better results.

Use It or Lose it

Our brain works much like the rest of the body in that it is a “use it or lose it” organ. If you don’t use your brain enough, your cognitive abilities suffer. People who really think more than the average person, like scientists and professors, are less likely to suffer from Alzheimer’s and other degenerative diseases of the brain.

Studies show that learning a new language increases intelligence measurably. It’s not just languages though. Learning anything complicated that takes lots of time and practice, that uses the brain in many different ways, will have a noticeable effect on intelligence. If speaking another language isn’t in the cards, learning to play a musical instrument, mathematics, or learning computer languages can offer the same benefits. Learning how to develop websites, for instance, is an excellent way to exercise the brain. I personally had an IQ increase of 6 points after spending a few years learning HTML, PHP, CSS. There are also countless apps and websites with daily brain-teasers and exercises. Most of us know that reading increases our intelligence, but processing a variety of information has a greater effect than just reading fiction or a single other genre. All reading, whether it be fiction, magazine articles, blog posts, or historical, has benefit and can work our brains in different ways.

Exercise itself is huge for brain health! Being physically fit has been show to help with concentration. Exercise regulates proper hormone production, and exercise is the best way to take a break from an arduous brain task.

Be sure to keep taking those free IQ assessment tests when you can, too. What better way to raise your IQ than to practice taking various different IQ tests? There are also lots of toys and games like the classic Rubik Cube. If you really want to turn your noggin into the mind of a brainiac, playing with brain teasers, puzzle toys, crossword puzzles and the like should be a hobby. Collect them and use them on a regular basis.

Breathe Right

Take deep, slow breaths. Breathe so that your abdomen expands with each breath and your ribcage compresses with each exhale. Read How to Breathe for more.

Drink Plenty of Water

Most people are chronically dehydrated. Coffee and sodas are only making it worse. Our brain is made up of 75% water. Sometimes when concentration seems impossible and the day feels like it’s spiraling out of control, chugging a few cups of water can change perception and get things back on track. .

Maximum Brain Function Regimen

Obviously, I eat well, typically consuming lots of produce with beneficial fats, enzymes, antioxidants, and all the other nutrients my body needs. But sometimes I need a boost. If I am tired, having trouble focusing, can’t figure something out, or am in need of some brain help for any reason, I have a protocol I use.

I juice equal parts turmeric, lemon, and ginger. I make about ½ of a cup total, spike it with as much cayenne as I can handle, and take the shot. I follow that up with a B vitamin complex, Shillington’s Brain Tonic, and then Shillington’s Blood Detox. If there’s any chance I have some candida going on (which always impacts my focus) I take about 15 SF722 and 5 FloraMend as well.

And then I make my salad for the day.

If you’ve got a routine you love that gets your mind just right, whether it’s for increasing focus and cognition or elevating your mood, please share with us in the comments below.

Shillington’s Brain Tonic Recipe (or click here to purchase)

This is such an amazing formula, not just for overall long-term brain health, but also to give the brain a boost when it needs it the most.

(Mix the following by volume, and make a standard tincture (click here for instructions) using 100 proof vodka as your menstrum.)

  • 15 – parts Gingko Leaf
  • 1 – part Gotu Kola Herb
  • 1 – part Calamus Root
  • 1 – part Rosemary Flowers
  • 1 – part Cayenne Pepper
  • Optional:- 1 part Kola Nut

A ‘part’ is a measurement by volume.  Blend all ingredients together and make into a tincture using a 50 – 50 Blend of Alcohol and distilled water. For more, see How to Make a Tincture.

A Dropperful is considered to be about 1/2 way up the dropper from a two ounce bottle.

Be sure to shake well before each use.

Conclusion

The most important and significant thing you can do to increase your concentration and other cognitive abilities right away without making any lifestyle changes is to breathe right, take a B vitamin complex, a dropperful of brain tonic (or other herbal combination for brain function), drink water, and do a few squats. For long term, taking something like Shillington’s Brain Tonic, and the right diet makes for a more intelligent, and aware person who isn’t just trying to make it through the day.

If your mind is sluggish, detox. If you smoke anything, stop. It all impairs brain function. So do pharmaceuticals and alcohol. As stated, a healthy body = a healthy mind. An unhealthy body, i.e., a body full of drugs and other toxins, with limited nutrition and little ability to absorb it, makes for a brainwashed sheep who simply tries to make it through the day without getting slaughtered.

Recommended Supplements:
Further Reading:
Sources:


Detox vs. Fasting – Which One You should do?

It’s often argued that a detoxification regimen is pointless because the body is always detoxifying. While this is true, there is also a process of “medicinal removal of toxic substances” which is the definition commonly used by naturopaths, and other alternative health care advocates. So, for the purposes of getting past this inane sticking point, let’s redefine detoxifying, and “detox” to mean a method to expel waste from the body at a significantly greater rate than what the body will remove without such aid.

Personally, I think that sounds pretty good. If you’ve got a better definition, I’d love to read it in the comments.

There is a huge difference between detoxification and fasting, and yet the words tend to be used interchangeably. To detox is to facilitate the removal of toxins from the body whereas fasting is a severe restriction of calories. A fast may be a water fast where no nutrients are consumed, but the typically fast is to eliminate all solid foods while drinking a lot of fluids, including juices, to flush out the body. The Master Cleanse lemonade diet is a well-known example. The Master Cleanse does help to detoxify the body, so it is both a detox and a fast.

People often wonder if a beet juice fast, or a watermelon fast, or some other kind of fast is right for them.

Benefits of Fasting to Detoxify

  • Whether it be a viral, bacterial, fungal, or a parasitic infection, not eating is the easiest way to ensure you do not feed the infection.
  • Fasting quickly resets the taste buds, which can make it easier to enjoy healthy foods when the fast is over.
  • Not eating for a while can reset the appetite, allow someone to come off of the fast with more restraint from overeating.
  • Fasting can break or adjust psychological barriers with weight loss and food.
  • Fasting can kick start a weight loss diet by shedding pounds quickly.
  • For people with a severely compromised digestive system, juicing only, or exclusively consuming fruits that are very easy to digest, is often the best way to quickly facilitate healing.
  • When taking certain tinctures and other herbal formulas, fasting can ensure that no foods or herbs are eaten that could reduce the effects of the formula.
  • It is difficult for a toxic body to detoxify without supplemental support, even with a very healthy diet. Fasting can overcome this, especially when lots of fluids are consumed, flushing the body.

It’s easier to restore one’s health by eliminating all foods, and then slowly adding produce and then other foods into the diet as health improves, learning along the way which foods should be avoided and why, as opposed to simply learning what foods to avoid.

Fasting is great. It’s got most of the benefits of detoxifying, with additional benefits as well. Fasting, when done right, is powerful. Personally, I recommend fasting regularly, but only for short periods of time.

Once the intestinal tract is capable of properly digesting food, if the person’s health isn’t too poor, introducing the right foods into the diet can aid in the detoxification process.

Benefits to Detoxifying Without Fasting

I highly recommend eating while detoxifying. When made right, salads have amazing medicinal benefits. Try one with as many different vegetables as possible, from dandelion leaves to collard greens, and add a bunch of fresh garlic, lemon, and apple cider vinegar. Salads are the easiest way, in my experience, to digest a lot of raw garlic at once. Even if you don’t care for salads, after a fast, this sort of vegetable medley can be very appetizing. Check out 80% Raw Food Diet for more on that.

  • It’s possible to sustain a detoxification regimen longer when eating, which is imperative for ridding the body of many serious health afflictions.
  • Many foods are actually well known to aid the body in detoxification. Great examples are cilantro, garlic, turmeric, and cabbage.
  • Vegetable, spice, and herb health benefits often have accumulative effects when eaten together.
  • It’s easier to get a lot of nutrition and a lot of garlic into the body.
  • When the intestines are healthy, nutrition is better absorbed as food.
  • Enzymes, found in fresh food, also help the body detoxify and rebuild.

It’s true that the body is always expelling waste. To oversimplify things, a sick body, and a body that is getting sick, expels toxins slower than it accumulates them. A healthy body, or a body getting well, eliminates toxins at the same rate or more quickly than the body accumulates them. The right foods help to detoxify the body. Getting enough nutrition allows the body to detoxify on its own. A healthy person who has practiced eating a truly healthy diet that focuses on fresh produce and eliminates toxic food almost always eliminates more toxins than accumulated. These are the people who do detoxify every day, all day. Some assistance via supplementation, every now and then, can increase the body’s ability to detoxify from environmental toxin accumulation.

Regardless, Get Nutrition

Restricted calorie programs don’t have to restrict vitamins and minerals and other important nutrients. We recommend a good multivitamin/mineral formula regardless of whichever detox protocol you choose. Even when we eat very well, it can be hard in this day and age to get enough nutrition from our food. Especially while fasting, a nutrition powder can significantly affect the results in a positive way.

Make sure any detox you do addresses candida. If you’re looking for an inexpensive, and easy detox, click here, and see Make Your Own Nutrition Formula for a recipe, or check it out to see some of the best ingredients to look for when shopping for yours.

Recommended Supplements:

Further Reading:


Johanna Budwig Cured Cancer Naturally and Here’s How

Cancer. The very word causes a recoil, a visceral awareness that our statistical probability of “catching” this “disease” is astronomically high. Current statistics tell us 1 out of 2 men and 1 out of 3 women will be diagnosed with some form of cancer in their lifetime. More than 1 million Americans are diagnosed each year, and this number does not include all forms of cancer.

We run for the cure, we walk for the cure, we donate more than a billion dollars a year to the American Cancer Society in search for a cure, but still no cure is found. There’s no shot, no magic pill, no elixir that will wipe out cancer. Well, actually, there might be one. We do keep hearing about miracle cures from cannabis oil, but it isn’t available to the one million American citizens who will be diagnosed with cancer this year. Big Pharma has not yet figured out how they can package and sell it without decimating their lucrative cancer treatment income. So the cancer industry chugs along, with annual spending on medical care for cancer treatment totaling around 125 billion a year. Big business. Very big business. Through this conventional treatment, how many will die horrible, painful deaths, their bodies as ravaged by the “treatment” as by the disease? And why? Because there is no cure for cancer? Actually there is.

Johanna Budwig

“I have the answer to cancer, but American doctors won’t listen. They come here and observe my methods and are impressed. Then they want to make a special deal so they can take it home and make a lot of money. I won’t do it, so I’m blackballed in every country.” These are the words of Johanna Budwig. No, she was not a charlatan or a quack. Johanna Budwig was a German scientist, a six time nominee for the Nobel Prize, who held two doctorates, one in medicine and one in pharmaceutical chemistry. She also studied biochemistry, physics, and psychology. Johanna Budwig found the cure for cancer in 1951.

Budwig had been appointed by her government to lead research into the process of hardening oils into solids–in other words, how to make margarine. Through this work, she was the first to discover that trans fatty acids (hydrogenated oils) are detrimental to health. At the same time, she discovered how to cure cancer, along with other diseases including diabetes, liver dysfunctions, cardiovascular problems, and arthritis.

Budwig discovered that cancer cells are simply cells that did not have the nutrients needed at a molecular level (with the right photons and neutrons) to properly mature. She also discovered that unlike the red blood cells of healthy people, the red blood cells of cancer patients did not contain a fatty layer. This discovery led to her cure, a cure with a 90% success rate. (It is good to note that many of her cancer patients were stage 4, sent to her after failed surgery and radiation. One can’t help but wonder if she would have achieved a 100% success rate with early state cancer or even late state cancer without earlier conventional treatment. )

She cured cancer through diet and nutrition. Her diet is a nutritionally dense , additive free, diet without animal products with the exception of quark (a cheese) or cottage cheese that is mixed with flaxseed oil. This mixture of oil and protein gives the body the needed nutrition to heal itself on a molecular level. Cancer cells are sloughed off or absorbed and the body is restored to health within three months.

Budwig wrote and published six books and many articles. She would have contributed more, had she not spent many exhaustive years in litigation with margarine companies and was restricted through the courts, at times, from publishing.

Further Reading:
Recommended Supplements:
Sources:
  • Cancer Facts
  • Halme, Erkki, The Role of Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids in Overcoming Cancer and Immunological Factors in General, Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients. Oct 90, Issue 87, p 710-711.
  • Cartmell, John W., Cancer: A Patient’s Perspective, Frontier Perspectives, Fall 97, Vol.6, Issue 2, p66, 4p.
  • Lake, Rhody, Famous Cancer Cures, Alive: Canada’s Natural Health & Wellness Magazine. Apr1998, Issue 186, p72-74. 3p.
  •  Roehm, Dan C., The Biologic Electron, Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients, July 90, Issue 84, p 480, 3p.
  •  Dr. Johanna Budwig, a Remarkable Scientist, Alive: Canada’s Natural Health & Wellness Magazine. May2004, Issue 259, p170-170. 1p. , Database: Alt HealthWatch

 

 



More Bad News For Sugar – Research Confirms it is a Leading Cause of Heart Disease

(NaturalNews – John Phillip) Just in case you needed yet another reason to stay away from added dietary sugar sources, nutritional scientists now confirm that our obsession with consuming sweets is killing us by dramatically increasing risk of death from cardiovascular disease and heart attack. A host of known risk factors including elevated blood pressure and triglycerides, along with cholesterol abnormalities such as oxidized LDL cholesterol and poor HDL/LDL cholesterol ratios are all attributable to a diet filled with empty calories fueled by sugar consumption. Interestingly, researchers have determined that the increase in cardiovascular risk factors is not attributable to weight gain commonly associated with excess sugar intake; sugar directly raises heart disease risk independent of weight gain.

A research study team from New Zealand’s University of Otago, publishing in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, has conducted a review and meta-analysis of a large cohort of dietary studies comparing the effects of higher and lower added sugar consumption on blood pressure and lipids, both of which are important cardiovascular risk determinants. Lead study author, Dr. Lisa Te Morenga and her students have uncovered solid and documented evidence that eating sugar has a direct effect on risk factors for heart disease, and is likely to negatively impact blood pressure and blood lipids. Dr. Te Morenga noted, “Our analysis confirmed that sugars contribute to cardiovascular risk, independent of the effect of sugars on body weight.”

Sugar and refined carbohydrates increase risk of hypertension and cholesterol abnormalities

The scientists analyzed a total of 49 nutritional intervention trials conducted between 1965 and 2013. Comparing diets where the only intended differences were the amount of sugars and non-sugar carbohydrates consumed by the participants allowed for the measurement of the effects of these diets on lipids and blood pressure. 37 trials reported the effects of dietary sugars on lipid metabolism while another 12 yielded results on blood pressure. The team then pooled the available data to determine the impact on measurable risk factors that affect human health.

The team noted that some of the data provided by the studies was skewed as the research was funded by the food/sugar industries. When they factored out those biased results, they found a startling pool of data conclusively demonstrating the negative impact of high-sugar diets on cardio-metabolic risk factors. Small increases in blood pressure, as little as 20 mm Hg systolic and diastolic, can double the risk of a heart attack, while changes to cholesterol metabolism can alter the delicate endothelial lining of the arteries affecting plaque formation and blood clotting.

While the food industry and media outlets continue to promote a wide spectrum of processed, sugar packed foods as a means to boost their bottom line profit margins, millions of uninformed people continue to consume 156 pounds of added sugar each year. Recently, sugar has been making news as it has been associated with increased risk of many forms of cancer, as well as stroke and Alzheimer’s dementia. The evidence should be clear to any health-minded individual — eliminate all sources of empty sugar and refined food products in favor of foods in their natural form to dramatically lower the risk of heart disease and most chronic illnesses.

Sources for this article include:
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2014/05/07/ajcn.113.081521
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-05/uoo-sii051414.php
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140515095633.htm



4 Reasons Why Farmers’ Markets Boost Health, Body and Soul

(DrFrankLipman – Frank Lipman) In the last decade or so, hundreds if not thousands of farmers’ markets have opened their gates, creating a thriving alternative to industrially produced food and the impersonal food shopping experience. And while they haven’t totally replaced the supermarket, farmers’ markets are definitely taking a bite out of the industrial food business by offering an easy way to connect with beautiful, fresh, healthy food – and I couldn’t be more delighted.

With access to this healthy shopping option now easier than ever, here are four essential reasons why I believe farmers’ markets are fantastic for your body, mind, and spirit – and why everyone should support them.

1. Farmers’ Markets Are … Good for Your Body and the Earth

There’s a lot to like about food from the farmers’ market. For starters, it’s the farms themselves. Most are small, non-industrial, hands-on, often family-run or cooperative operations with close ties to their land. They tend to value and treat their land right, using low-impact, pesticide-free, sustainable farming methods, which are kinder and less poisonous to the soil and the food that’s grown in it. The result is produce that’s pretty close to organic, minus the official USDA certification.

When these nearly-organic foods arrive at the market, they’re fresh and unadulterated, not having been subjected to the preservative and ripening treatments used on much of the picked-too-early, trucked-in-from-2000-miles-away produce found at a typical supermarket. Even if you don’t count the smaller carbon food-print, you can’t ignore the fact that the stuff is fresh, having been picked at its nutritional peak, just a few hours before it’s in your hands – making farmers’ market produce among the healthiest you can buy.

2. Farmers’ Markets Are … an Excellent Way to Shed Extra Pounds

Granted it won’t happen overnight, but buying the majority of your produce, and when possible eggs, meats, and poultry, at the farmers’ market will help you drop weight. How? Simply by preventing you from buying cartfuls of health-sucking, weight-boosting processed crap. You’ll be choosing from whole, healthy, unprocessed foods – virtually nothing in a box, bag, or can.

You won’t fill your car with a trunk-load of added sugars, sodium, chemicals, or preservatives, thoughtfully wrapped in endocrine-disrupting plastic packaging. You’ll be buying and eating clean, nutrient-packed foods, and eliminating a vast majority of the processed food ingredients that have been keeping you fat and sick.

3. Farmers’ Markets Are … an Uplifting Sensory Experience, Not a Depressing Chore

For most of us, a trip to the supermarket is anything but enjoyable; it’s just one more mind-numbing chore on our never-ending to-do lists. A visit to the farmers’ market, however, is an event – and an experience that engages the senses. There are vivid colors to excite the eye, produce to sniff and squeeze for freshness, and at some markets, on-site musicians adding a live soundtrack to the festivities.

There are the wonderful aromas of produce, freshly-picked, presented in the raw, or handmade, baked, churned, cured, or fermented into wonderful, healthful treats for your table, many of which you can ask to sample before you buy. How many supermarkets provide this kind of an experience – and do it all outdoors, no less?

Farmers’ markets deliver not only the freshest, most earth-friendly and nutrient-dense options in town, they also connect us with the simple, pleasures of discovering, tasting, touching and smelling whole, real foods in an atmosphere that’s inviting and exhilarating, not dreary or exhausting.

4. Farmers’ Markets Are … Good-for-the-Soul Social Events

At the supermarket, there’s little opportunity for human interaction, and with the rise of self-serve checkout machines, the shopping experience can wind up being an insular, solitary one as you troll the aisles, stuck in your own head. Not so at the farmers’ market, which can be a daily or weekly opportunity to connect with your neighbors as well as the real, live people who grew your food.

Amazing, isn’t it? The guy (or gal) standing behind your food can tell you about their unique growing processes, how the plants were treated along the way, how to store your purchases and even how to cook them when you get home. When’s the last time that kind of knowledgeable exchange happened at your local supermarket? My guess would be never.

Another bonus is the easy interaction and natural conviviality between like-minded shoppers, foodies, and farmers, all sharing their knowledge and appreciation of nature’s bounty on offer that week. In our fragmented and disconnected and screen-obsessed lives, I think of farmers’ markets as the ultimate antidote. One of my patients describes her local farmers’ market as “a cocktail party minus the cocktails.”  She stocks up on produce, conversation, and social connection every week.

Locate a Local Farmers’ Market

So this weekend, instead of trudging off to the so-called “supermarket,” head outdoors to the market that really is super for you. To find a farmer’s market in your area, check out Local Harvest’s directory of more than 30,000 family farms and farmers markets. Also have a look at the USDA’s database of more than 8,000 farmers’ markets – and don’t forget to bring your own tote bags to carry home all your purchases! 

For more of my favorite healthy food resources – where to find a farmer’s market, get wild fish, find grass-fed meat and more, see my post on “12 Great Food Resources”.