Amino Acids! Why Take them? Do you need them?

From cardio health to loosing weight, from the lack there of in infant formula to the importance of understanding that these are the building blocks of proteins...you cannot achieve the amount of amino acids you need with basic diet alone, this is one thing you need to supplement.

Essential Free Form Amino Acids To aid Healing of Systemic Diseases
You can heal many discomforts & diseases, eliminate heavy metal toxicity, and repair damaged tissue.
This formula provides free form amino acids to break down your dietary protein from long chain proteins, into individual amino acids.
You may eat large amounts of protein, but this does not ensure its digestion and delivery to your cells. Platinum Plus Amino Acids addresses the primary protein problem that started some of your deficiencies in the first place. It increases the free form amino acids a minimum of 2500% in a diet of only 50 grams of protein.
Your body starts to rebuild and refurbish it's 80,000 enzyme systems. With Platinum Plus it's not necessary to take digestive enzymes, papain, bromelain etc., most of which are inefficient and/or ineffective. Your body makes its own.
This formula provides the perfect balance of free form amino acids, because some other formulas are out of balance, and may not work.

***For more information or to order these amino acids please click the bottle link below.

***"I wanted to let you know that since I have been taking these amino acids that I can now remember things, where I was once so forgetful and it was dreadful since I am only 27. Thank you for helping me regain my memory. As a side note, I feel stronger and have the energy to exercise and I have noticed that I am loosing the baby-weight easier. Thank you!" ---Elana C., Mother of two, Portland, OR.

Where is your farm?

A few years ago, most customers at farmers’ markets would ask how vegetables and herbs were grown. Customers were concerned about organic growing habits and pesticide use on farms, and inquired about the methods used to grow the produce they were purchasing.Today, the question is asked more rarely. Consumer priorities and the main farm-production question that growers hear is related to place: "Where is your farm?"Customers used to worry about how food was produced; now they worry about where it is from. The power of one captivating idea -- local -- has quickly eclipsed the power of another -- organic.But the organic movement confronted industrial agriculture's use of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers that devastated local ecosystems. It addressed the health of migrant farm workers and the health of people who ate foods with pesticide residues or milk with growth hormones.The local-oriented movement may be avoiding engagement with many of the problems associated with the industrial food system that organic as a movement specifically sought to address.
Grist August 11, 2008

Buying local is now being called the new organic...sadly it is being misused just as much as the organics and natural, free range labels are. It is intended to stand for and help we the consumers:

Fresher, tastier and healthier food
Supporting small, local farmers from your community
Knowing where your food comes from
Increasing food safety

As this above article segment shows that buying local DOES NOT mean that you are buying organic, the fruits and vegetables that you purchase at your local farmers market can still be covered in pesticides and fertilizers, even if grown but two blocks away from you. You have to still be very aware of what your local farmers are doing with their land.

At the same time, the organic certification process established by the federal government is expensive, and some small farmers cannot afford it. This means that some locally grown foods are grown according to organic standards but are not “certified organic.” The only way to know for sure is to confirm it with the farmer.

I shop locally here in Dallas at a large Asian market and have spoken with the manager and even some of the local growers who market to this retail location. Being small farmers, many of them are backyard farmers, they cannot afford to jump all the hoops and red tap to get the label of organic even though they are. Spending a few hours researching your growers and farm land will help you to gain all you need to know and feel good about where you get your goods. I also recommend that you explore http://www.realmilk.com/ to find local organic farmers who raise healthy cattle for meat and milk/cheese.

Scaring Your Kids Away From Fast Foods

According to a study by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), roughly a third of children polled didn't know the main ingredient in French fries.
And, about 10 percent of them thought fries were mostly made of oil; others suggested eggs, flour, and even apples. This may be part of the reason that an estimated half-million children in the UK will become obese or overweight over the next two years.

Food4Thought

In hopes of scaring kids away from fast food, the foundation launched Food4Thought yesterday, a national campaign including billboards and posters of hamburgers, hot dogs and chicken nuggets as they would appear before their common ingredients are melded and processed into the food you see at the grocery store -- gristle, bones, and connective tissue.
The campaign is primarily an attempt to engage children on the subject of why certain foods are less healthy than others, and encourage them to become interested in what they are eating.
Targeting Children, Parents, and Society
But the BHF is also targeting the government, food industry, local authorities, schools and parents to get involved. The BHF has identified three critical areas for change:
Stop the marketing of unhealthy food and drink products to children
Ensure that nutritious food is affordable, accessible and appealing for children and parents
Provide children with opportunities to learn practical cooking skills

Sources:
British Heart Foundation November 7, 2005
BBC News November 7, 2005

Everyone knows that our family is very health focused. But I will admit that all of my children do know a fast food location. We do on the rare occasion make use of such a place. My husband and I try and make it on a few date nights each month and on these nights we may ask the children,"what would you like for dinner?, Its treat night!"

It is the everyday use of the fast food industry that becomes a health concern. I was happy to hear when recently reported in a documentary on TV that places such as McDonald's have seen a decrease of almost a quarter in their profits/customers per year. This is good news for the American populations health. It is about time that we start to wake up and realize on a global scale how dangerous these pseudo foods can be. For any of you who watched Super Size Me you have a firm understanding of this epidemic and crisis.

READ ON REAL FOOD

Continuation on A Sweet Note....

How many sodas do you drink in a day?
How many does your child drink in a day?
How many teaspoons of sugar are in the juice your child had for breakfast?
In the energy drink after the game?
In the lollipop treat after the dental visit?

Maybe you have already started to eliminate the sugar in the house and jumped on the no sugar bandwagon and started using such products as nutra-sweet and splenda. We have learned more about these items in previous newsletters and there will be more in the future, but what I will say here is that you might want to reconsider those attempts of replacing sugar with these above named sugar substitutes.

As sweet as it is, sugar can be a very dangerous substance. One that we as parents are all guilty of taking too lightly. Sugar might give us that immediate high, that sudden burst of energy that we think we would not have gotten else where, but it is an unhealthy high. After the sugar causes its immediate nervous energy in our blood stream it throws our bodies into a state of crisis, our bodies begin to waste energy instead of burning energy in a useful form. The wastes cause drainage on our systems, which in return causes sleepiness, fatigue, anger, and weeping. That’s why your child after a double scoop of ice cream at 7pm finds himself outside running all over hyper and active and not wanting to get ready for bed and then throwing a tantrum at 7:15 about the ball rolling too far down the street, then another fit to try and stay out longer and finally another about getting to bed, but once in bed at 8pm finds himself passed out by 8:04pm. Is this just a child being a child or did the sugar he had before going out have anything to do with the meltdowns and the sudden passing out?

What I look for and do.

When I first learned about sugar I went crazy. I walked out to the garage got the dumpster and sat it in the middle of my kitchen. Opened the refrigerator and my pantry cabinets. I then proceeded to pick up each item and read the ingredients. At first I was only looking for High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). I did not think that there would be that much of this bad product in my home.

To my surprise, I was wrong! Very wrong.

HFCS was in everything. The salad dressing, the mustard, the ketchup, apple sauce, peanut butter and of course the jelly. I even found it in the deli meat. The freezer, well you guessed right, the ice cream, the juice, and the frozen bread products. The pantry was not much better. I discovered HFCS in cereals (some that I thought were healthy), pancake syrups, sauces, canned goods and easy bake packages. My dumpster was bulging at the seams and my kitchen was 80% empty!

Now, I am not suggesting that you do as I did here. But what I am suggesting is for you to get familiar with the products in you kitchen and then don’t re-purchase anything that has granulated sugar, corn syrup, brown sugar, powdered sugar, or HFCS in it again.

I found that the best products in the bread, pasta, cereal and grain section do not have any sugars, not even honey or molasses. I now only buy organic raw peanut butter, jellies made with natural fruit juices to sweeten, yogurts that are plain or have evaporated cane juice or maple syrup, and unsweetened natural organic apple sauce.

Some of my favorite products are:

· Organic Agave Syrup (made from the agave cactus plant, a sweetener for yogurt, granola, oat meal, tea, coffee, on toast, etc.)
· Organic Molasses, unsulphered (great on oats, toast, marinades and dressings/sauces, and baking with it, etc.)
· Local organic raw unfiltered Honey (local is important with honey, it will help reduce allergies and boost your immune system)
· Organic Maple syrup (top pancakes or waffles, yogurt or cottage cheese, makes yummy sauces and much more.)
· Organic Evaporated Cane Juice (use in place of granulated sugar)
· Stevia (great in teas and even some baking)
· Bionature organic Fruit Spreads (great on toast or for PB&J’s)
· Crofters organic Fruit Spreads
· Vegenaise (in place of mayo)
· R.W.Knudsen Juices plain or mixed with pure sugarless seltzer water to create a healthy option to soda other wise known in our home as soda juice.

To review more health alternitives to processed sugar and sugar substitutes, please visit A Sweet Note.

Read Part One

Natures Unspoken Law Part One by David Wolfe

Natures Unspoken Law

"...All animals living in the wild eat their food raw and, almost always, fresh. Raw is one of nature's most basic laws. Only humans and domesticated animals eat cooked and processed foods.

The cooking and processing of foods has become so common that most of us do not even question it. The assumption that cooked and processed foods are as good as raw foods is just an assumption. Most people do not know for sure, because they have never tried a balanced raw-food approach. Einstein once said: "The essential is to get rid of deeply rooted prejudices, which we often repeat without examining them."

Here is a visual experiment to consider: Feed a tribe of gorillas a diet of coffee, donuts, and other processed human foods for a few years. Let us watch what happens. Or consider, a herd of deer who, instead of eating their grass raw, decide to collect it and boil it in a giant cauldron. Picture what would happen in that situation!

What is it that constitutes the basis of human nourishment? Is it refined sugar flowing out of the roaring jaws of factories? Is it the flesh of animals being churned out by combinations of torturous factory farms and horrific slaughterhouses? Is it the milk of factory-farmed cows naturally intended for baby calves? Is it cooked and processed foods containing dyes, flavors, and preservatives?

No.

READ PART TWO

READ ON RAW FOOD

The Importance of Raw Food

"You are what you eat" is a cosmic law. Everybody knows that saying ‹ everybody! It is a concept that has been known in every culture and civilization throughout history. It is written into the fabric of the universe. It is a simple law of Nature that should be remembered each day, and at each meal. Those who wish to heal themselves and the planet, should eat the most healing foods.

"Healing foods" means quality, organic, homegrown, or wild foods and/or superfoods in their raw natural state. Following this principle is not only the simplest way to choose what to eat, but is simply the best way to bring about good health and spiritual transformation." ---David Wolfe

Let's face it. We are busy people who do not like to prepare food. We generally eat out - a lot! If you want to eat raw foods but do not want to prepare them yourself, then your likely to subsist on fresh raw fruit and frequent your local salad bars. If you're lucky, you'll live near a raw restaurant. However, there are many easy ways to enjoy more variety while eating raw foods.I have discovered some valuable, cost effect ways and I would like to share them with you today.

Raw Food Snacks

READ ON NATURES LAWS

READ ON SCARING YOUR KIDS FROM FAST FOOD

More on IBS (Some things you can do)

Science Daily September 04

Researchers may have gotten good results with antibiotics but you don't need them to solve IBS. In fact, a drug-based solution makes no sense. During study on this topic and research done by leading experts I suggest that you find a source of raw milk and then produce kefir out of it or by some orgainic kefir. For those of you who don't know what kefir is, it is similar to yogurt and is very similar to make. All you do is stir in a kefir packet and room temperature raw milk and let it sit on the counter overnight and when you wake up in the morning the bacteria have reproduced and converted the milk into an many hundreds of billions of healthy bacteria.

If you want to try raw milk for yourself, look for a farm in your state by going to Real Milk

To battle IBS, you need to focus on what you are eating and how you are living. A few steps could get you and your intestines back on track:

Make better food choices. Pay careful attention to removing grains and sugars as they typically feed bad bacteria and gluten in particular can cause serious intestinal inflammation in many individuals. Focus on complex verse simple.

If you have problems with the frequency of your bowel movements please consider purchasing some organic flax seeds and grind 2 to 6 tablespoons fresh in a coffee grinder and consume it. It is full of alpha linolenic acid which will balance the omega 3 oils in cod liver or fish oil, but more importantly flax has water soluble fibers like lignans that will decrease diarrhea or improve constipation as these types of fibers are bowel movement normalize. Freshly ground flax seed is a far better option then most fiber supplements on the market.

Add coconut oil to your diet. Coconut oil has been shown to play a role in soothing inflammation and healing injury in the digestive tract. Its antimicrobial properties also promote intestinal health by killing troublesome microorganisms that may cause chronic inflammation.

Add Aloe Vera Juice to your diet. This has also been shown to help inflammation and sooth the intestinal tract to help speed the healing process.

Read More on IBS

For more information and product help please view Bowtrol, probiotics, sensitive cleanse for intestines, colon and parasites.

IBS

IBS

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) affects some 36 million people in the United States. It has puzzled medical professionals and researchers who have posed several theories about its origin. However, research now indicates it is caused by an overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine.
After eating, IBS patients usually experience a combination of bloating, gas, abdominal pain, constipation or diarrhea. These problems trigger an immune response causing flu-like symptoms -- headaches, joint pain, muscle aches and chronic fatigue. Investigators suggest that in IBS sufferers, normal bacteria from the large intestine move into the small intestine, prompting the initial bowel problems.
Bacteria, up to 100 trillion, are commonly found in the intestines; they play several important roles in the large intestine.
Common medical tests would not detect an increase of bacteria in the small intestine, so investigators took an indirect approach. Patients ingested a lactulose syrup and within three hours their breath was measured for gaseous products of bacterial fermentation.
Results indicated that 84 percent of IBS patients tested registered abnormal breath tests that suggested an overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine.
Following double blind and placebo-controlled guidelines, researchers gave patients either antibiotic therapy or a sugar pill. Those with high bacteria levels who took antibiotics reported a 75 percent improvement in symptoms.
Researchers concluded that small intestinal bacterial overgrowth allows gut bacteria to penetrate the intestinal lining and enter the body.

READ MORE ON IBS

More on Excitotoxins

Yesterday, I was sent an informative email regarding this very topic and I would like to share a piece of it with you.

"...you will discover, within 6 months after Aspartame came out on the market in 1984 there was a 10 % increase of brain tumors and 30% increase in diabetes. Medical research showed the increase in brain tumors was not related to better detection methods and there was a definite increase in sheer numbers of new patients. This has been the case ever since Aspartame came out on the market in 1983. Aspartame mainly is toxic to nerve cells and has the potential to cause fibromyalgia, MS, lupus, ADD, diabetes, Alzheimer's, chronic fatigue, and depression., retardation, seizures and MS. Aspartic acid (an ingredient of Aspartame) also causes holes in the brain in mice as does MSG. It also effects neurotransmitter resulting in mental disorders as well. Aspartame are listed as a cytotoxin and has a direct effect on brain function. Unfortunately the FDA has taken a position of rubber stamping this product as safe, no matter what evidence is presented as to the danger of this product. Consumer education is the only way to stop the production of this toxic substance. Write your congressperson and ask them to start an investigation into the poisoning of the American people with Aspartame."

(adapted from Why are Dr. Blake and Dr. Louie so upset? -C. Burrett Cox)

Please take the time to view the link to this insightful video on this dangerous drug!
Documentary on Aspartame

Read more on this.

Read Part One

March News 2008 and Apartame's Not So Sweet News

It is March and the storm clouds blow through the heaven's with moments between of golden rays shining down on our earth.

March find's my family preparing to move from our Emerald City of Seattle to the Lone Star state. We will be making our journey across the lands of the western United States toward the end of this month. However, first we have been blessed with the opportunity to have a short holiday in Maui. All are looking forward to the warm waters and sun filled skies. Sitting on the beach and soaking in the beauty of paradise!

Aspertame's Not So Sweet News

It is time to wake up about this toxin!

Aspertame (Equal, nutrasweet, etc.) the sweetener that so many of us choose to use for dieting purposes or because we are diabetic. If it is not this "fake" sugar, we then choose sucralose (splenda). I was made aware of the dangerous effects of this cytotoxin back in 1996, when I was an avid diet soda drinker myself. We had recenly moved to Seattle with our first born who was not two years of age yet. I had been experiencing severe headaches and dizziness, but never linked these symptoms to my beloved diet soda. One evening while listening to a news report, I overheard that the University of Washington had linked aspertame to brain lesions and possibly tumors and cancer. That's all it took for me! I was done with the diet soda.

Read Part Two

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