How it all begins… You know when people say we, as humans, came from the Sea? Well, if you think about it, it’s true…we spend 9 months in-utero living in sacred plasma, immersed in protective water, gaining nutrients directly into our intestines by our Mother. This plasma is created by the Mother’s body, therefore that “Sea” is only as nutrient-dense as the Mother’s diet is. As the Fetus grows in this milieu, it may need nutrients that it’s not getting and the fetus will automatically pull these nutrients out of storage from the Mother ‘s cells leaving Mom to feel “depleted” or “tired” during her pregnancy. This can be very prevalent when the baby’s Adrenal Glands are being formed. Also, if a Mother’s body is overly toxic while growing a fetus, the body will create “morning sickness” to rid itself of heavy metals and pollutants to be brought up in the morning. After the Liver cleanses from 10pm-2am nightly. The wisdom of the human body is remarkable!
When my twin sister was pregnant with her first child, she would tease me and tell me that she ate a whole box of Captain Crunch knowing I would be upset at the risk it put for the child (Sugar is a neurotoxin for a baby). I would yell, “You can’t grow your baby’s brain of Captain Crunch!” But this scenario is played out everyday, as many Mothers-to-be are confused on what is best for a growing fetus. In General, many people don’t know how to eat instinctually anymore or what to ingest while growing a life inside. Some of most important nutrients for a growing fetus are Essential Fatty Acids, mainly, EPA & DHA for brain development. Unfortunately, many children are getting the wrong kind of nutrition and we are now seeing in-utero babies with tumors and anomalies in their bodies because of the choices the Mother’s are making.
(See the famous study of Dr. Pottenger’s 9-year Cat study to give insight on the generational health breakdowns because of diet).
After gestation, the baby starts to give signals that they are ready to come into the World. The body begins to produce hormones to start contractions in the Uterus. This begins the surge of Oxytocin to the Brain (The Love Chemical) to quell pain and serve as a very important part of human survival. But, we have to back track for a minute and talk about the life cycle of a female. For Human Female Mammals, Estrogen is supposed to surge at about the age of 15, thus begins the menstrual process in a young woman. With Each month, a woman’s Uterus will contract to give an unfertilized egg. Now, why is this important? Because…we are supposed to feel PAIN in those contractions every month! This pain gets us ready for the pain of childbirth!
(Just to note here that I’m not ignoring the fact that there are 6 year olds getting their periods and developing full breasts at 10 or that most women in this county are on birth control or bio-identical hormones, unnaturally feeding Estrogen and Progesterone into our systems so that our whole Endocrine System is muddled and struggling for balance. Excess Estrogen is the #1 contributor to breast cancer. Many women will never know the true, natural cycle of womanhood because of all the artificial hormones, both taken orally and in our food & water supply).
Let’s get back to the delivery…
When the Uterus contracts, a woman’s innate self wants to squat down to open the pelvic floor, but instead we are made to lay on our backs (for the doctor’s sake) and also given, in most cases, an epidural which cuts off that supply of the love drug, oxytocin, to the brain. An Epidural also shuts down the ability for progesterone to help contract the Uterus. (They really set a woman up here for the end result of surgery). When Pitocin is given to harshly and unnaturally contract the uterus so hard that the baby becomes in danger, the next words a doctor will utter is “C-Section, Stat!” Well, duh, of course you need to cut because you just made the whole, beautiful process of childbirth an impossibly and taken that gift from a female’s life.
After the child is born under bright lights and loud sounds, it’s is briskly taken away, when through the process of evolution, that newborn is meant to lie on the mother’s belly to be soothed by her heartbeat until he/she is ready to breastfeed. These traumatic experiences can be felt throughout a person’s lifetime and cause deep, emotional scaring.
So, I mentioned the big deal about why the Mother needs to surge the Oxytocin Hormone and here’s why… That hormone is created to flow throughout a woman’s body in labor and when the baby is born, the mother is so “high” that she is addicted to her child, literally. Then, when the baby takes its first, nutrient-rich suckle at the breast, the Oxytocin flows into the baby and makes him/her “dependant” on Mama. See how it works? It’s set up not to fail. Both are addicted and will rely on each other for life.
Why does all of this matter? Well, for one thing, it’s too bring to light how far removed we are from nature and for all of us not to accept that Cesareans should be the standard. Cutting the gestational time from your baby is unnecessary and many doctors now will not take responsibility for a “natural birth.” Also, remember, if a doctor can get a surgery out of a patient, he can take that trip to Hawaii while you lie healing from your body being cut in half and trying to care for a newborn. It’s a shameful process.
(See the Documentary,” The Business of Being Born” by Ricki Lake for insight on this topic).
You are in 1 of 2 categories – 1, having been breast-fed and 2, not having been breast-fed. I hope you are in the first group. When we finally get to suckle on Mama’s breast, we are ready to create a whole ecosystem in order to set ourselves up for the rest of our lives to assimilate foods. Our newborn bodies are completely sterile inside and what gets added first will affect us until the day we die. This first liquid that comes from Mom is something called COLOSTRUM. This is a life giving fluid that flows through into the baby’s intestines and creates the perfect environment in order for beneficial bacterium to grow. This process needs to happen quickly so that an infant can take the breast milk and break it down into Carbohydrates, Fats and Proteins (MACRO NUTRIENTS).
If you are in the second category, you didn’t go through this process and you are probably, today, still dealing with the affects of missing that important step in human development.
I know, because I wasn’t breast fed and now know that even though I was diagnosed with what they called “Colic” as a newborn, was not something that just happened but that I was having horrible reactions to a product that was never meant to pass over my lips…Cow’s Milk formula.
There are basically two sources of Formula, Cow’s Milk and Soy Milk. Both cause severe complications in the human digestive system. With both Formula types we are providing a denatured, broken down, Pasteurized, Homogenized weak source of nutrition. Cow’s breast milk is meant to build a 700-1,500lb cow, not a 7lb human. A newborn’s blood ph is 7.7, a higher alkalinity than adults, with cow’s milk testing in at an acidic 6.6, which puts a baby into an acid state right from the beginning.
Remember, if the human body is acidic, it has to get minerals from the bones to buffer the acidity and lower the ph to survive. Other issues with milk include a deficiency in iron, vitamin E and essential fatty acids for infants and increases the risk of sever dehydration as the body has to work overtime excreting the excessive amounts of minerals like calcium, sodium, & potassium. Also, the high amount of protein and fat in cow’s milk are extremely difficult for infants to digest and absorb, often giving rise to gassiness, vomiting, allergic reactions, fussiness, bloating, etc. The fact that cow’s milk is pasteurized exacerbates the problem since there are no enzymes left to help break it down. Milk is highly acidic and mucus producing and sets a child up for a lifetime of autoimmune issues, both severe and mild. We often see kids with runny noses, but this truly is a constant state of allergic reaction as their little bodies produce mucus to try and drain out the toxins being fed to them. Makes sense, right?
Soy Milk, the other option for modern times should never EVER be used for human consumption. Almost all (90%) of soy is Genetically Modified and Soy is also one of the hardest plants for humans to breakdown. It is also a Phytoestrogen, meaning it mimics estrogen in the body, which can create a whole list of conditions especially for a male child. (A mother should never ingest soy while pregnant for these reasons as well).
If a child is formula raised, it never gets the variety of human milk that passes from a mother loaded with different nutrients that she is eating so that her baby can benefit from a wide variety of vitamins and minerals. If she eats broccoli, this gets broken down and passed to her baby, whereas with formula, the child’s diet never varies and most formula –fed children end up with allergies, not because they are weak but the body is struggling, trying to rid itself of the toxins obtained from their formative months.
I recently heard a doctor say to parents of a newborn who was rejecting his bottle, “It’s strange, 50% of the babies are allergic to milk formula and 50% of them are allergic to soy.” Which left the parents baffled, like, okay, now what? My question of course, is, why isn’t this stay-at-home mother breast-feeding? And, if the odds are so stacked against the two options in the marketplace of formulas, what are we doing about it and are we setting these children up for childhood problems down the road?
The last word about this is the part I am most passionate about and that is the set up for beneficial bacteria in the digestive system. I believe this is where all human ailments start – the lack of the good bacteria in our digestive tracks not allowing us to absorb nutrients. Babies are starving for vitamins and minerals but often don’t have the right internal culture to get what is needed. Very frequently, babies have a condition called Candida or thrush, which is inflammation of the internal alimentary track with no beneficial bacteria so that Candida Albicans overgrow in the gut until it becomes a big open sore throughout the body and can take years to recover from. Shame on the system for making us believe that somehow formula could be just as beneficial as breast milk, it is in fact the opposite, it is poison.
(Visit notmilk.com for further information. There are many other resources instead of cow’s milk like Breast Milk banks, where nursing mothers dry ice and send their milk to infants in need as well as raw nut milks and the second best choice after Mother’s milk, raw goat’s milk, as they have a similar protein structure to our own and is easy to digest).
So that’s how it all starts and you may want to correlate any health issues that you have now to how it all got set up in your early life.
Childhood…
Children’s bodies are strong and full of life force with a bank account of enzymes, which are proteins that cause all activity in the body (mechanical) and also enzymes to break down food into Micro nutrients (digestive). We are only born with a particular amount of these digestive enzymes in the Pancreas of the human body. This means that every time a child eats cooked food, he or she begins to quickly use up the bank account of enzymes and the body has to begin to pull enzymes from elsewhere and not the pancreas. Is it any wonder that childhood diabetes is the number one disease in children today? This disease is the complete breakdown and depletion of this organ. It is unequivocally lifestyle-related!
On the other hand, if a child (or adult) eats live, whole, natural, untreated, unheated foods, this will help build the bank account since all living foods hold their own enzymes. So, when a child eats a carrot, his own little body doesn’t have to give away enzymes since the carrot has plenty of enzymes to work in his body. Get it? WE NEED MORE LIVE, ORGANIC, ENZYME-RICH FOODS TO SUSTAIN LIFE! I If you know any child that has diabetes, this can be completely reversed with diet – don’t be fooled to believe a child has to suffer and take insulin – it is well documented that anyone, children and adults can be insulin free with a healthy diet in as little as 30 days.
(Check out the documentary, Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days)
Autism…
This very prevalent problem is a travesty in the United States (up by 600% this year). Let’s look at the real issue with this condition… First we have a Mother that may not be the healthiest of people – stressed, poor diet, candida, heavy-metals, lacking vital nutrients, taking hormones, etc., even though she may “look” like she’s in good condition, we may not know if her DNA/RNA has been disrupted in any way. While pregnant, some nutrients are just not able to be given to her child and her child is born, structurally fine but with delays and abnormities. The issue with vaccines and these children is that they almost always have a completely collapsed immune system and when you add a virus into an already struggling body, the child becomes even more shut down from the toxic overload and nutrient deficiency.
What I’ve seen in my years of observation with these children, albeit, a far, since it is not my expertise, but when these children receive a lot of good nutrition, cultured foods, removal of all dairy (which is a poison to the human body), sugar (the same chemical structure as heroin), dyes (derived from coal tar), all casein/rennet (the protein in cheese that is like glue in the small intestines) and all gluten (another gummy protein) these children response phenomenally. With supplementation, diet and time, a child’s whole immune system can be rebuilt so that they may have the lives they deserve.
In childhood, almost all diseases or strange anomalies in children can be traced back to lack of nutrients, a lack of beneficial bacteria in the digestive tract or an overwhelmed immune system. You must always remember that you can change almost any condition from UN-balanced to balance in a short period of time, but it takes stepping out from the model of the SAD Diet…Standard American Diet.
He’s my beef with Western Medicine...
Doctor’s need to give results and with anxious parents breathing down their necks, they feel like they need to give a remedy quick to those parents when their children are suffering. Therefore the use of ANTIBIOTICS (meaning “anti-life”) is being given to children even when it could never help the problem. (A Virus, i.e. the common cold is an example). Even when most children are in need of building their good gut flora, which they didn’t get as a child, and need to have in order to build a healthy immune system, doctors instead treat children with anti-biotics (ANTI-Life) obliterating all good and beneficial bacteria in their system and compounding the problem. Consider a strong course of PROBIOTICS (“FOR- life”) when a child gets sick. Also, never ‘feed a cold” since the body will use it’s energy to digest instead of heal. Children need good bacteria, good water and rest to help the body build a strong, lifelong immune system. We are meant to ride out colds and flus so that we train our body to build strong T-cells- our fighting Army against foreign invaders. Remember that cutting this process short with over the counter drugs and suppressants only drives the bacteria further into the body to come back at a later date even stronger.
All of this makes sense, right? We can’t blame those that cared for us because they didn’t know. It’s not like our health teacher got up in front of class, pulled up his shirt and told us about our organs, where they are how they work all together. I have clients that come in and tell me their liver hurts as they hold their back. (The Liver is on the front, right side). I get it because I had no clue how to operate my body until I became sick and had to learn quickly.
Let me get off my rant about doctors, hospitals and the moneymaking industry that is anything but healthy in this country. Let’s get into the nuts and bolts of living a clean and energetic lifestyle!
Okay, let’s get the obvious out of the way. Dairy, Soda, Artificial Sweeteners, Sugar, Coffee and Alcohol will kill you slowly. It’s that simple. You want to shorten your life, have any of these often and lots of factory-farmed meat and you will be digging your grave with your fork. All of these are toxins and if you never cleanse and get them out, they will stay in your body till you die and are most likely the cause of how you got sick in the first place. I won’t go into EMF pollution, interior outgassing, pollution and radiation that add to the overload on your body besides what you’re ingesting. Just know that you are swimming in a soup of issues that could be adding to a health condition in your body.
Personally for me, it’s my amalgam fillings- full of toxic mercury - that is wreaking havoc on my nervous system making me anxious and emotional. Therefore, I have no choice but to do all I can to help release the vapor gases from my blood by eating certain foods and doing an infrared sauna every week until I can get all of these horrible, brain-eating metal fillings out of my mouth! What’s your health issue? I bet it can be helped with your diet, and that’s where I come in. Choose your top health concern and let’s use diet and detoxification to help you have the radiant health you want!
Here’s something you can start doing right away…
WE, AS HUMANS, NEED GREENS! If you have any hope of dying of just old age and not of some dreaded, debilitating disease, you must consume as many greens as possible.
We have a synergistic relationship with plants. They breath out oxygen and we take that in, we breath out carbon dioxide and they need that to survive and create photosynthesis, the life force that makes edible plants become energetic food for us. Brilliant.
We are made up of many things including minerals. Minerals are the building block of our bones, blood and electrolytes. We cannot survive without them. Each mineral has a specific charge on it, a positive proton and a negative ion…we need these for energy along with enzymes. If we do not have enough, we feel tired and run down because we don’t have our batteries “charged!”
Here’s the best way to bring greens into your life without eating like a rabbit…drink your greens in the form of a GREEN SMOOTHIE!
I have been doing green smoothies for many years and have found it to be the most important piece of my diet that I will never give up. This simple addition to my diet has changed my health most dramatically. I’m not a big salad eater, so polishing off 1 lb of greens would be a challenge for me, but blending it first and breaking it down completely is so easy to eat. This is what I do everyday and it has changed my life.
What to do:
Add three dates, a ripe banana, 1/2lb of organic spinach, 1/2 lb of organic spring mix with 1 liter of water into a blender. Then DRINK! It is delicious, sweet, energizing and satisfying. You will want to start your day with it all the time because of how much natural energy it gives you. If I miss a smoothie I feel out of sorts and drag through my day. This is the basic recipe and you can have fun changing up the fruits and greens in your daily health drink.
(Read, Victoria Butanko’s, “Green For Life” Recipe book for detailed info on green smoothies!)
How it works:
Alkaline vs. Acid
The charged minerals in greens alkalize the body and help push out acids that have built up in the cleansing process during the night. (All systems cleanse during our sleep). Getting alkalized calms the body and creates a sense of peace in our constitution. (Think of a docile cow that eats green grass all day- they are so placid and happy). Because the greens are blended, you are getting a lot of fiber to push waste through the intestines and because it’s already broken down, the digestive system doesn’t have to work as hard to utilize the food.
Try it, you’ll love it and so will your kids, if they aren’t too acid already. Acid follows acid, if the body is out of balance, anything green will not taste good until you can become alkaline then you can taste the sweetness of vegetables and even sweet fruit can taste sugary! It’s magical to feel Zen and nourished after a lot of greens.
Remember, disease only can survive in an acid body, so it’s important to get those minerals in!
A great way to look at nutrition as you are getting healthy is to focus on bringing in the “Good,” and as you get healthier, the “Bad” will just fad away. Why? Because you won’t crave things that make you feel tired and weighed down. I grew up in the Philadelphia area and LOVED cheese pizza. In fact, we had it several times a week including school lunch. I couldn’t imagine life without pizza and vowed that I would never give it up. As my desire for good health challenged me to find other foods besides “fast foods” to eat, I took on the challenge of giving up dairy for 2 WEEKS! That was 15 years ago and to this day, I still say that was the hardest thing I ever did. At the end of those 2 weeks, I couldn’t wait to get back to my milk and cereal, ice cream, mac n’ cheese, etc.…and, you guessed it, every bite of dairy made me sick to my stomach. My body was now telling me the truth – it doesn’t belong in the human body!! I invite you to take this challenge as well. Figure out what is making you sick and tired and start putting in things that create life, not drag yours down!
TRY NEW THINGS!
One day, when I was on the road to good health, I went to the grocery store and bought everything in the produce department that I had never seen before. Did you know that we basically eat the same 10 foods all the time? It’s true – keep a food journal for one month and see that you eat the same thing for weeks, it’s fascinating. So, I had all these strange things I had never seen before and certainly did not know how to cook. Think Rutabagas, Parsnips, tamarind root, jimica…I laid them all out and stared at them, looked up their nutritional content and started experimenting. Who knew Jimica was so sweet and light, it’s now one of my favorite “starchy” foods in the summer. Durian, a fruit out of Thailand looks like a spikey football and smells weird but it is my absolute favorite food of all time – I just had to have the courage to try it!!!! You’ll find your favorites too, but remember, try to eat what is provided locally and eat seasonally so that your body can be in rhythm with the Earth’s flow. (I only eat Durian when it’s in season in that Country and it’s a treat for me, but mostly, I eat what California provides, where I live and it is a treasure chest of goodness. Can someone say FIGS!!! Yum!
CLEANSE!
Detoxification – It is my deepest passion because of the miracles I have seen in both sick and well people. We are brought up knowing nothing about how to care for this vehicle we live in. The human body seems to be a challenge for us to figure out and yet once you understand your unique engine, you empower yourself to know how to fix your body when symptoms show up.
The way we detox is through the Lungs, Skin, Colon, Kidneys, Blood (Lymphatic System), and Liver. There are methods such as dry skin brushing, netti pot, eating raw foods, taking herbs, sweating and taking the time to do periodic cleansing which involves eating clean, wholesome, organic and nutrient-dense food for a period of time. There are many cleanses, but the best place to start is by doing a session of Colon Hydrotherapy. This will clean the colon, help release Bile from the Liver and hydrate the Colon. You will then have a better idea of the type of cleanse you need and with the support of your Colon Hydrotherapist, you will be assisted in choosing the best path in the Holistic Health realm, where it’s not about chasing the reason of symptoms, it’s about addressing the mind, body and spirit as a whole. Become your biggest cheerleader to yourself and educate yourself on how to heal your body so when you need it, you’ll know what to do!
Remember, happiness in your heart and joy in your being is more important than a Kale Salad!