BREATHE

Lately, I’ve been thinking a great deal about breathing. It’s something we do every second of every minute we are alive. Breathing is something that happens without our concentration. And it is the most vital action we take. Like water, without the air we breathe, well, we just wouldn’t be. So, given that all of us breathe for all of our lives, we ought to be experts at it, right?

Actually, most of us are not. Singers, wind instrument musicians, ballet dancers, and athletes get training in breath control, but most of the rest of us are only amateurs when it comes to breathing. Many of us breathe shallowly, or forget to breathe for extended periods of time and then suddenly draw in a great gasp; some of us are troubled with sleep apnea (which is apparently often related to being overweight.) When we are under stress, we tend to hunch our shoulders up protectively around our ears. This interferes with the depth of breath we are able to take.

Funnily enough, even though I am being critical of our breathing expertise, it would be fair if you were to exclaim “But I’m still alive,” right? I mean to hear me tell it, we should all be gasping for air like fish on a dock and sick as dogs if we can’t even do the job of breathing right, right? Well, of course that’s not true. The good old human body is ever resilient to the way we treat it. It finds ways to survive even when we fill it with white flour and sugar, drugs of all descriptions, don’t give it enough O2 and H2O, or leave it awash in CO2, at least for a while, until it has just dealt with too much junk. That’s when true chronic sicknesses creep up on you insidiously. What we are talking about here, as always, is the joy of doing better than surviving, by thriving.

As a brief refresher on the mechanics of breathing, when you breathe air in you are using a large group muscles, the most important one of which is the diaphragm (if you are doing it right.) You draw air in through your nose, down your trachea, and into your lungs, where the acres of alveoli (about 800 million tiny air sacs) in your lungs transfer the gases that your body needs to function into blood in your circulatory system. Your heart pumps the blood through your arteries making oxygen available to all the cells of your body so that they may function at optimal level.

The same cells that take, also giveth away. They deposit the unwanted gases in the form of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) back into the blood stream, and veins bring them back around to the lungs where they are breathed out. Phew. It’s a long process that takes moments to happen.

So with all this partial breathing, this hunching of shoulders, this shallow stuff going on, smoking and air pollution, you can see that your body is in danger of not only not getting fresh resources with which to build and maintain cells, but that it is in danger of getting plugged up with toxic gasses. When you consider the act of breathing in this fashion, you can get the idea of why breathing thoroughly and deeply is pretty important. What’s more, breathing thoroughly can stave off loss of sight and hearing, lessen pain and lessen the hot flash effects of menopause (no, really!), and keep your brain working well.

Just as most actions requiring skill or coordination improve with measured deep breathing, so it seems to me that intellectual and spiritual activities require deep and expansive inhalation and exhalation. Whether you meditate, pray, practice yoga, or engage in proactive relaxation, the advice is always the same: breathe deep and breathe well.

One of the standard exercises for those wishing to practice deep and complete breathing is to count your breaths. Sit in a chair with your back straight, breathe in for a slow count of five (one thousand one, one thousand two, etc.) Then, hold your breath for a slow count of five, finally exhaling for a slow count of five. Repeat several times. If you couple this with using your diaphragm to control your breaths, and visualizing the complete use of your lung space, you will be making great strides towards breathing well.

As usual on our journey, this has been but a brief visit to this month’s subject. For more information on breathing properly and its benefits read Bragg’s Super Power Breathing for Super Energy High Health & Longevity, available at good book and health food stores.

Remember to do better than survive—thrive.

CHANGE

Change. We hear the call to Change all around us, from the campaign of our newly inaugurated President, to the cars we drive, to the shoes we wear. Everyone seems to be crying for change. And change would be a great thing in a world full of war, lies, racism, pollution, and paranoia. Have we promoted change by the way the majority voted three months ago? Is our new President going to make change, and will that change be for the better? What about the economy? Change, however, comes with a price for most people: stress.

At Amelia’s Garden, I have noticed an increasing number of customers coming in looking for supplements that will help them to calm down and to sleep. There has been a marked increase in the number of people who admit to depression and scattered concentration. People with digestive problems are surfacing more and more. When we used to assist people once or twice a week with such concerns, now we are speaking to several people in a day about them. Stress can be the cause of all three of these groups of symptoms.

If you are feeling the stress that comes with Change, there are several things you can do to battle it. A healthful diet is always a most important choice. Eating foods that actually contain vitamins, minerals, amino acids and enzymes will goes a long way toward getting you back on an even keel. Organically grown foods are far more likely to contain adequate amounts of all of the above. Drinking lots of water is absolutely vital to beating stress.

Be sure to take a good food based vitamin-mineral complex; take an additional Complete B supplement, as the B vitamins are the first thing your body turns to under any kind of stressful conditions. The proper balance of calcium and magnesium might be all you need to get a good night’s sleep, feel happier, or digest your food well. Supermarket vitamins are not a good choice. Please go to a good health food shop or an alternative health therapist for advice on food and supplements.

Endorphins, neurotransmitters released by the pituitary gland and hypothalamus, reduce pain and the negative effects of stress. Strange as it might seem, putting our bodies’ under the physical stress of athletics or climax, can reduce the effects of mental stress. A brisk walk in a pretty area, or a jaunt with a loved one can relieve some of the crushing effects of the worries we all face right now. Keeping our senses of humour, and remembering to laugh, or watching an old horror movie also releases endorphins. Eating chocolate and chili peppers (together or apart) has the same effect. Giving or receiving a massage also releases endorphins.

Beyond that, there are herbs, essential oils, amino acids, and other preparations that can assist to calm you down, cheer you up, or help you digest your food. Every body is different and reacts differently to remedies, so be prepared to experiment a little. Usually, you can find something that will keep you off the dangerous path to an addiction to a chemical compound. As one of our customers said the other day, “I am tired of taking prescription drugs, just to need another prescription drug to counteract the problems that the first one created.”

Finally, remember to breathe. Remember to see the beauty all around us. And what of this world full of wars, lies, racism, pollution, and paranoia? Don’t forget it is also a world that contains great beauty, joy, vision, and, all important, small kindnesses. And that is a world worth changing to save. Namaste.

A TRICKLE MORE WATER

Remember my eighty four year old friend who is still climbing mountains? She has taken Dr Batman’s book seriously, and also worked quite hard to keep herself in good shape, as well as drinking copious amounts of water. Dr Batman said that once your mouth is dry, you are already in a state of dehydration. Don’t wait to feel thirsty. Often, hunger pangs, according to Dr Batman, are a sign of thirst. Meeting hunger pangs with a glass of refreshing water will dispense with out of bounds hunger, very good for the figure! Another point that it is important to take in is that as we get older, we actually lose our pre-emptive warning system for water need. The older a person is the less likely he or she is to feel thirsty. This is another reason to do the math and practice drinking enough water.

Excuse me? How do I practice drinking water? Well once you have taken the weight of your body in pounds and figured half that amount as the ounces of water you should drink per day (and then I would say add another 50% to that) I would urge you to take a day when you can give a little time to this process. Fill up large containers with as much water as your calculations tell you that you need on a daily basis, and set yourself the task of drinking that amount of water over your day. If you figure out that you need one gallon of water, you might want to divide that amount by the hours that you expect to be awake over the day, and drink the divvied up portions at set times, tapering off a little before bed, so as to have as restful a sleep as possible.

Of course, to begin with you will probably be rushing to the loo a lot more than you are used to, but there are a couple of effects of practicing water drinking that might surprise you. As your body remembers how to store and use water, the restroom visits will slow down to a more normal rate. You may also find that even though you thought you were drinking plenty of water before starting this, once you start, you will suddenly notice how much you want that water! All this will probably not happen in just one day of practice. The more you can do this, the healthier your body will become, and I believe the more it will remember to remind you to drink.

Once we are drinking water, it is important not to negate all its benefits by using the wrong container. Numerous scientific research studies have suggested that hard plastic (No 7) bottles, such as those used for baby milk and as water bottles, leach out bisphenol A, or BPA, an estrogen mimicking chemical which has raised concerns amongst scientists that it can alter development of the brain, the prostate, and behavior in children and fetuses. Further evidence suggests that the harm just keeps on coming even as you mature: heart disease and breast cancer has been linked to BPA, as well. So, besides the indisputably atrocious effect plastic bottles have on the environment, they can also have an atrocious effect on you!

When at home, fill a glass or ceramic jug with water and drink from that in a glass glass. If you use a Brita water filter jug, try not to let the filtered water sit in it for any great length of time, or purchase the type of filter which fills from the tap. When on the move, a stainless steel water bottle is one of the best ways to carry drinking water. I keep a one gallon apple juice bottle in my car for refills when on the road. If you set it in a small box, the bottle won’t roll around, but remember to take it inside at night during the winter in case it freezes and cracks. If you must use a plastic water bottle for a short term, drink out of Number 1 plastic, and don’t freeze, heat, scratch, crack, or reuse it… just to be on the safe side.

Well, this trickle of water has reduced to a drip, drip, drip. Do read Dr Batman’s book, Your Body’s Many Cries for Water, stay aware of our environment, and stay well.

A Happy and Joyous New Year. Namaste.

GUSHING ON ABOUT WATER

Last month in our discussion on Water, we examined how important water is to your existence and maintaining good health; considered in a general fashion that it is vital to all life on a molecular and cellular level; spoke briefly about Dr Batmanghelidj’s work on the medical applications of water to cure already dis-eased bodies; and talked about the practical aspects of consuming water, such as don’t drink unfiltered city water (at least on a regular basis) and do drink lots of the good kinds of water.

Why is unfiltered city water so diabolical? As mentioned previously, this has to do with the treatment the water receives before it comes along your pipeline. Most cities and towns “purify” water with chemicals such as chlorine, fluoride, and chloramine.

While chlorine is well known to be the stuff that turns our hair green and our laundry white (go to a natural food grocer for good alternatives to putting more chlorine in our water table!), its effects on the body and the earth are highly questionable. Chlorine’s main purpose in water is to kill off bacteria in city water pipes, and, although chlorine is known to be a toxin, very little information is available about what long term low level consumption will do to the body. Another interesting fact about chlorine is that when it comes into contact with decaying organic matter, such as leaves, it turns into a family of chemicals known as trihalomethanes (THM). The most infamous of the THMs is chloroform. All of these THMs are carcinogenic in even the smallest amounts: don’t drink the pool water.

Fluoride still persists with even the many health conscious individuals as a mythical health hero. Some of its effects on the body have been known since a 1992 Canadian study by Dr. Harry Limeback, but have been ridiculed by the scientific establishment and media. After more than a decade of corroborating studies, it is now being linked with very serious disorders, including cancer, affecting teeth, bones, the brain and the thyroid gland, as well as lowering IQ. More evidence is coming forth on a regular basis that fluoridation of our water and our toothpaste is a very poor idea. We will be visiting fluorides again on our journey to good health.

Chloramine is the third of the big three popular chemicals used in municipal waters. This is often used in addition to chlorination. When used as an alternative to chlorination, it does not have the distinctive chlorine odour that water treated with straight chlorine has and so water is more palatable. It does, however, turn water green, as can be witnessed by filling a white bucket with chloraminated water. It is a compound of ammonia and hypochlorous acid (which is created when chlorine dissolves in water). It is highly toxic to fish and many other animals, and must be removed before adding tap water to aquariums. Is it toxic to us? Well, at least not immediately. It is allowed in public water pipes at a level of 3ppm. Whereas chlorinated water can be boiled or left standing in a jug for twenty four hours to allow the chlorine to outgas, chloramine treated water is much more stable and has to be treated with another chemical to remove this chemical.

Well water can also contain chemicals as chemicals used at ground level drain into aquifers. This is from water that leaches off industrially farmed fields and sometimes from industrial plants, such as coal powered power plants, paper production factories, etc. Bacteria also often show up in well water, some of them harmful. Test your well water to be safe. If you live in a town, test your tap water.

And what if you find your drinking water is full of chemicals and / or bacteria? Filter or distill it! Water filters and distillers come in many forms. The most affordable filter is probably the Brita water filter, which you can purchase at many supermarkets. There are also filters and distillers by companies such as New Wave and Waterwise that are excellent. The distillers from Waterwise range from stove top to whole house. The filters attach to your kitchen tap and can be mounted above or below sink level. They need to be changed much less often than the Brita, but are more expensive. Beyond that there are whole house filters and distillers, but do avoid softening your water with salt. While reverse osmosis, another filter method, produces really lovely tasting water, I find the process problematic. A large proportion of water treated by reverse osmosis is expelled as waste water, which unless you use a gray water system is gone, as the Raven might have said, forever more.

It is said that the most delicious and nutritious of waters with exactly the right balance of minerals is rainwater. If you have a “clean roof”—one made of metal or coated with certain safe elastomeric paints--and a means of collecting rainwater from said roof into a clean container, go for it. Remember to test it first with a home kit or through a laboratory. Did you ever think that drinking water could be so complicated, but well worth it!

Namaste.

WATER!

If you want to nitpick, water is not a food. Without water, however, we would all be little heaps of ash weighing about 6.5lbs each and not having this discussion. What I mean by that is that water comprises between 45 and 75% of our bodies, depending on our sex, age, weight and health. Together with air, water is the single most important element to life on earth.

Our cells function because of the presence of water as a conduit through which nutrients flow in and toxins flow out of our bodies. Water, good clean water, is the scout and the guide for all our other nutrients. Without adequate water in our bodies, we will literally shrivel up. On our way to the dehydrated status of mummy, however, we would experience disease and pain.

Drink filtered, spring , distilled, well, or ionized water, but never ever drink unfiltered tap water. (Test and /or filter well water.) Most city or town water goes through treatment plants where a lovely cocktail of chemicals, chlorine being the most famous one, is added to clean it up. As mentioned above, water is supposed to help you rid yourself of excretive matter, not add more in! Municipalities also commonly add fluoride to tap water. We will examine this practice at another time.

How much to drink? One rule of thumb suggests that you calculate half your body weight in pounds and drink as many ounces a day as equals the total: in other words, if you weigh 150lbs, then you need to drink 75 ounces or ½ gallon plus an additional 11 ounces of water per day. This is if you do not travel, smoke, drink, exercise, are pregnant, eat a poor diet, live in a hot or cold climate (sometimes), or live in an exceptionally arid climate (Arizona!), or at a high altitude (The White Mountains!) When you take these factors into account, you are looking at more like a gallon of water per day.

A handy website tool can be found at www.nutrition.about.com/library/blwatercaluclator.htm, where you will be asked nine questions, the answers to which will result in a calculation of the exact amount of water recommended for you by the website. The tool is somewhat limited in that it suggests that you can achieve your daily intake of water through drinking soft drinks and juices. This is a fallacy! Any drink that contains caffeine or sugar acts as a diuretic on the body. (There is a lot more wrong with soft drinks than just sugar and we will look at this in another article.)

If you want to know more about water, and why it is so darn important to you, read Dr Batmanghelidj’s brilliant book, Your Body’s Many Cries for Water, available at Amelia’s Garden. Dr Batman, as he was known to his friends, a London trained medical doctor, was held prisoner by the Iranian government at the time of the revolution. Although he was sentenced to death, he became useful to the prison as he was able to help over 2,000 fellow prisoners who had become ill with no access to outside help. His wonder drug? In most cases it was water.

He found that diseases ranging from ulcers, to constipation, to tinnitus, to heart conditions, to allergies, and asthma responded miraculously to water. Eventually, the government released Dr Batman saying that they had discovered that he was innocent of his perceived crimes, and he was free to come to America, where he researched and expanded upon his theory, and eventually wrote Your Body’s Many Cries for Water.

I first read Dr Batman’s book in 1997 while studying for a certificate in nutrition, and have since recommended it to many, including to a retired nurse I know, who after having had her gallbladder removed, was having much trouble with constipation. She read the copy of the book that I gave her, followed Dr Batman’s recommendations, and has never had trouble since. She was so impressed with the results that she took the book to her Medical Doctor to share its wisdom with him. His reaction was one of deep skepticism, but my friend was and has remained in restored good health. She is now in her eighties, and is very active having recently climbed the highest mountain in Washington state, and can attribute much of her continuing good health to remaining properly hydrated.

Live long, friends, and drink Water! Namaste.

THE THREE GRACES

Last month, while examining the theory that Healthy Food is any food that does you more good than it does you harm, we arrived at the juncture that advises us that to keep food healthy and doing your body good--so that you can enjoy a long and dis-ease free life-- there are three primary rules. Let us call them the Three Graces: Moderation, Variety and Purity.

Knowing what the rules are is one thing. Now, you need to go and practice them. To practice them, there are some tips to make their existence and their application more comprehensible. For example, I must own up that I struggle with one of the three rules—a lot. Those of you who know me will be able to guess that that would be the first grace, Moderation. Some foods just taste so good that it is hard to put them down once you start! I assure you, that I am not a model-like woman (mentally or physically,) preaching from her pulpit of perfection. I do know how hard it is to dance with the Three Graces.

I know that there are some guidelines of how to moderate your food consumption: when to stop eating. There is a saying that one should “eat until one is eight parts full.” Physiologically, our stomachs are only the size of our fists. That is not a lot of space that needs filling. When we eat, our stomachs tell our brains when to stop, but rather like the tail on an Irish Wolfhound (very prone to damage as they wack it against all and sundry with their big happy hearts) there is a delayed reaction time of about fifteen minutes between one body part and the next. That is why, when we sit down to eat, bolting our food is really a bad idea!

Taking the time to enjoy your food, chewing, putting down your fork between bites, relaxing, having a brilliant conversation over a long meal in the Mediterranean style, are all actions that facilitate letting your brain get the message from your stomach that you are feeling eight parts full. By the time you brain processes that message, your body should have actually got enough to eat.

Variety is important to us for more reasons than just that it is fun and interesting to have lots of different foods on the table. As mentioned last month, our western diet (the Standard American Diet, which is known by nutritionists as “SAD”) is based on relatively few food choices. Go down any aisle in the supermarket and read the labels on boxes of processed foods. Although the ingredients list is usually long and frightening with its selection of chemical additives and taste enhancers, the real food that is present there is typically either corn, or wheat, or rice, or soy that has just been dressed up by the addition of chemically enhanced foodstuffs. The problem with a diet limited to so few types of food eaten consistently is that it can cause the body to become sensitive to that food. By sensitive, I mean allergic. That is why there is such a high incidence of gluten intolerance in our society today. This means that your body is actually rejecting the nutritive value of wheat and other gluten rich grains. It is not just grains that you can become allergic to, either.

Milk is another big culprit in the form of lactose intolerance. Here, the body loses its ability to create lactase to deal with lactose, and hey presto, you now have a worrisome allergy that the previously perfect body with which you were conceived has to deal with. Sugar, in all its forms both obvious and secret, causes numerous problems, often eventually including Diabetes. Years ago in Scotland, I knew a chap who really liked bananas. I mean really. He ate over fifty a week. Eventually, his body rejected them, and he just couldn’t have them anymore. Don’t be that banana-eating Kilt-wearing Scot! Variety in your diet will keep the monster at bay, before it comes a calling.

We discussed Purity in fair depth last month. One way to start to get deeper into playing by this rule is to read labels. I am an annoying and inveterate food label reader (I also read labels on clothing for fiber content, but that’s another story.) When you are out shopping, become a food detective. Find out what is in the kid’s favorite box of Fruit Loops or Cheerios, or that “health conscious” consumer’s box of Total cereal before you throw it in the shopping basket. Even processed foods that are made with organic ingredients should be inspected. You will be amazed by what you will find!

Good detecting and good eating, dear friends. Namaste.

FOOD THAT DOES MORE GOOD…

At the start of our adventure in food last month, we proposed a hypothesis that “Healthy Food is any food that does you a great deal more good than it does you harm, and that does no harm to the people who grow it and the earth it is grown on.” This month, let’s take a look at the first part of the premise: Healthy Food is any food that does you more good than it does you harm.

The observant reader will note that this statement does not presume that there is any food that can do you only good. Any food, consumed in excess, will harm you. It is said that you can even drown in an overconsumption of water. Hence, the first rule of healthy eating is that of Moderation, as advised by Buddha.

Eating in moderation means that we give up on the 28oz bucket of coffee from Circle K on our way to work. It means that super-sizing—even just king-sizing are no longer part of our lingo, or desires. The typical meal served in some American restaurants would feed a family of four in third world countries for a week! Smaller portions mean more room for dessert (sometimes)!

It means that when the next mealtime comes around you will really enjoy your food because you will be hungry. When we go from one meal to the next without working up an appetite, either through overfilling ourselves at the last meal or through couch potato syndrome, the enjoyment of food is practically lost. It is amazing how good good food tastes when you are hungry.

Eating in moderation means that you can enjoy the foods of the earth in their immense variety and with great pleasure. It allows the eater to be free of slavery to any one delicious food, and to be able to sample the true cornucopia of flavours and scents and textures that distinguish one food from another. Did you know that even though there are thousands of types of edible plants in the world, the food in today’s Western diet comes from fewer than one dozen kinds of plants? Corn, wheat, and rice account for more than 75% of all human grain consumption. That’s a shame when there are other delectable grains, such as amaranth, rye, buckwheat, and quinoa that add variety and interest to any table.

What else is meant by “any food that does you more good than it does you harm?” Generally speaking they are foods that haven’t been tampered with by us humans, except in the most basic ways. In other words, what is known as “whole foods.” These include fruits, vegetables, whole grains, grass fed animal flesh and dairy, and the foods made from these foodstuffs. What most definitely are not included in the list of good foods are processed foods, fast foods, and foods containing chemicals.

Just what sort of chemicals are we talking about? Residues from petrochemical fertilizers, chemical pesticides, heavy metals, and herbicides, as well as residues of antibiotics, organophosphates, and hormones, have been found in much of the food available today. Where you will find one or the other or a combination of these chemicals most commonly is in conventionally, or industrially, grown foods. (Traces of residues have also been found in organically grown and wild caught foods, but the occurrence of chemical residues in these neo-traditionally produced foods tends to be a fraction of that found in industrial foods, when present at all.)

Amongst the factors that dictate how likely it will be that residues will be found in non-industrially produced foods, are the length of time that the production farm has not used any synthetic chemicals, how remote it is from farms that do use chemicals, and the integrity of how the food is handled from farm to table. We will take a much closer look at aspects of both Industrially farmed foods and Neo-traditionally farmed foods in future articles.

If you have got a taste for knowing more about what is in your food, have a look at NaturalNews.com, a website that devotes itself to “Natural Health, Natural Living, Natural News.” It contains some 25,000 plus articles on health and nutrition, the environment, technology, energy, politics, and more.

Thank you for reading about Healthy Food this month. Eat Healthy Food in Moderation, Variety and Purity. See you on the road next month.

Namaste.