Sugar: Trick or treat

If you must eat sugar, then you must eat unrefined sugar, which comes in many forms.

What are the unrefined sugars?
Sugar has had a lot of bad press for quite a few years and that bad press is deserved for refined sugars and for artificial sweeteners. However, the jury is still out as to whether it is deserved for unprocessed, unrefined sugars derived from plants which have much more about them than simply the level of sugar they contain.

It is probably wise to limit your total sugar consumption, but if you must eat sugar, choose a variety from the following natural sugars and experiment with their different flavours.

If you have or are at risk of diabetes, pay special attention to the GI rating given below – the lower the better. Check this link to find out more about GI ratings. http://www.glycemicindex.com/ 

These sugars all come from plants one way or another, even if in one case the honey bee converts it for us. Unrefined sugars from plants other than sugar cane The following sugars can all be kept in the pantry. When you need to use a sugar, you can enjoy the challenge of which one to select.

Stevia (GI 0) 

Stevia is perhaps the most healthful sweetener we can use, although there is discussion on this currently. It comes from South America where it has been traditionally used as a sweetener and also as a treatment for diabetes and high blood pressure.

You will find it in your health food shop as a powder that is 300 times sweeter than sugar or a liquid and a liquid that is 10 to 15 times sweeter than white sugar. You may even find it in the health section or sugar section of your supermarket.

Stevia is not broken down or processed by the human body so is considered safe. It is totally calorie-free and has no effect on our bodies' production of insulin.

You might need to experiment with where you can use stevia. Some brands can leave a mild bitter aftertaste in drinks and in some recipes, so check out a few different ways of using it before you reject it as an option.

If you live in a mild enough climate and have a “green thumb” you can grow it yourself. You can eat the leaves or cook with them.

Learn more at http://www.naturalnews.com/022692.html#ixzz1NcZPIoGS 

Xylitol (GI 7) 
Despite its scary sounding name – I normally avoid anything with X’s in the name because it is bound to be man-made –Xylitol is actually a natural substance found in fibrous vegetables, fruit, corn cobs and various hardwood trees, like birch.

Xylitol looks, feels and tastes exactly like sugar but it is not the same as sugar. When you first start using it you might suffer digestive upsets (which might be a warning to take care).

From a sugar toxicity point of view, you can safely eat or drink up to 40 g per day, the equivalent of 10-12 teaspoons of sugar and your body will release very little insulin. Insulin production triggers our bodies to store rather than process fats and carbohydrates, thus causing us to put on weight.

Learn more at http://www.naturalnews.com/022692.html#ixzz1NcZWiwms 

Agave syrup or nectar (GI 15-30) 
Agave nectar is made from the roots of agave plants. Agave has a wonderful taste and a relatively low glycemic index, but is fairly highly processed so should be used in moderation.

Raw honey (GI 30) 
Raw, unprocessed honey is the best. Try to get honey that has not been heated, from bees that live as far away from human beings as possible. Tasmanian honey is fantastic. Try Leatherwood for a real taste treat.

Honey is loaded with antioxidants, minerals, vitamins, amino acids, enzymes, carbohydrates and phytonutrients and has the ability to kill bugs, all sorts of bugs. If you get a cut, smear on some honey. Some say that eaten regularly, it will clear skin; that eaten every morning it can help prevent constipation. We all know it is good for coughs and colds.

For more on honey products read Honey: medicine in a jar. 

Palm sugar (GI 35) 
Palm sugar is a new favourite from the taste point of view but very controversial from an environmental standpoint. Make sure you get palm sugar from sustainable plantations. It is made from the sap of the Palmyra palm, date palm, sugar date palm and coconut palms, from which the sugars are extracted and dried naturally with no further refinement. It has a strong delicious taste.

Palm sugar is a nutrient-rich, low-glycemic crystalline sweetener that looks, tastes, dissolves and melts almost exactly like sugar.

It is naturally brown in colour and rich in a number of key vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients, including potassium, zinc, iron and Vitamins B1, B2, B3 and B6.

 Learn more at http://www.naturalnews.com/028996_palm_sugar_natural_sweetener.html#ixzz1NcZplapX 

Apple juice (GI 40) 
You can use concentrated apple juice as a sweetener. Apple is a superfood in its own right.

Barley malt syrup (GI 42) 
Barley malt syrup is considered to be one of the healthiest sweeteners in the natural food industry. Barley is processed through several cooking stages to extract and concentrate the sugars.

Amasake (GI 43)
This is an Asian sweetener made from cultured brown rice. It has a thick, pudding- like consistency.

Maple syrup (GI 54) 
Maple syrup is made from the sap of maple trees. It is rich in vitamins and minerals and also contains powerful, disease-fighting antioxidants. Despite the fact that it has a relatively high glycemic index – higher than some sugar cane sugars, it contains ingredients that might inhibit the development of Type 2 diabetes.

Learn more at http://www.naturalnews.com/026296_molasses_health_sugar.html#ixzz1NcbrFDEE 

Unrefined sugars from sugar cane 

Evaporated cane juice (GI 55) 
Evaporated cane juice is often considered unrefined sugar, but juicing is a refining process and evaporating refines further. Get unevaporated cane juice if you can.

Black strap molasses (GI 55) 
White refined table sugar is sugar cane with all the nutrition taken out. Black strap molasses is the nutrition that was taken away. A quality organic unsulphered molasses provides iron, calcium, copper, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium and zinc and is alkalizing to the body. You can use it as a tonic. Drink 1-2 tablespoons added to warm water three times a day.

It is very strong flavoured and an acquired taste, but with experimentation you will discover how to use it. It works in teas or hot cereals, on pancakes and waffles or dessert items, or can be used as a glaze for cooking.

Learn more at http://www.naturalnews.com/026296_molasses_health_sugar.html#ixzz1NcbrFDEE 

Rapadura and sucanat
Rapadura is the pure juice extracted from the sugar cane using a press and mild heat. Otherwise it is a totally natural and balanced sugar food.

Sucanat is similar to rapadura but just a bit more processed and jaggery is more processed still.

Muscavado, Turbinado, Demerara and 'Organic Raw Sugar' are all refined. They should be avoided if the healthier options are available.

Refined and manufactured sugars

What’s wrong with refined sugar? 

Never use any refined sugars. They all disrupt blood sugar levels and fat metabolism. These include:

• raw sugar or turbinado 
• white sugar
• caster sugar 
• fructose (GI 17) 
• high fructose corn syrup 
• brown rice syrup (GI 25) 
• refined honey 
• glucose (GI 100)
• maltodextrin (GI 150)  - this turns up in many nutraceuticals and protein supplements so read your labels

What’s wrong with artificial sweeteners such as aspartame?
Never use artificial sweeteners. This includes all aspartame products. Aspartame has been demonstrated to be a very toxic food additive and if you value your health you will avoid it. The same can be said for all the other artificial sweeteners.

They are harmful in more than one way. They do not satisfy the body’s craving for sweet foods, meaning you eat more and more to get the hit you are looking for. The extract below is from naturalnews.com:

“Apart from causing obesity and depression, sweeteners have been linked to insomnia, headaches, giddiness, loss of memory, nausea, pre-menstrual syndrome, panic attacks, epileptic fits and even overstimulation of breast glands leading to breast cancer. Aspartame in particular may cause extensive damage to the central nervous system. Once it has entered the intestinal tract, aspartame is converted into two highly excitatory neurotransmitter amino acids, aspartic acid and phenylalanine, as well as into methyl alcohol (wood-grain alcohol) and formaldehyde (embalming fluid).”

Learn more at http://www.naturalnews.com/022785.html#ixzz1NcY7bvwE

There's more to water than you might think

Water is the single most important factor for good health. Life depends on water for virtually every process but particularly for its ability to dissolve and transport many other substances through the body.

How water is meant to be
A Japanese researcher, Masaru Emoto took water samples from around the world, slowly froze them, then photographed them with a dark field microscope with photographic capability. Clean healthy water creates beautifully formed geometrical crystals, similar to those on the left, while polluted water is too sick to form any crystals at all. Filtered, distilled and reverse osmosis water generally does not return to its natural crystalline form, but is more attractive than tap water.

What’s wrong with tap water?
Our tap water does not form crystals. This should be a warning to us. Left are images of tap water taken by Emoto.

Unfortunately the water available to us through our taps is contaminated. In addition to natural ground water contaminants, there is the added chlorine, fluoride and aluminium, all of which are toxic in their own right and all of which reduce the capacity of tap water to do what water has to do in our bodies.

As a result, a huge bottled water and water filter industry has built up. Unfortunately, every form of supposedly clean water has its down side, so compromise for most of us is necessary.

What’s wrong with bottled water? 
Many of the options available to us other than tap water use bottles. Glass bottles are fine, but plastic bottles are not. Most contain Bisphenol A (BPA) which leeches into the water and confuses the body’s hormonal system. (You will find BPA in canned foods also.) However, manufacturers don’t have to put BPA into their plastics, so find brands that specifically advertise that their water is BPA free.

This article tells you how to work out how safe your plastic bottles are.
http://www.naturalnews.com/031346_food_containers_plastics.html

Spring water and mineral water

One of the best types of water to drink is spring or mineral water from a good spring. This kind of water has lots of good dissolved minerals and a minimum amount of harmful elements. However, by the time it has been bottled in plastic and those bottles have been degraded by heat and time, there are new contaminants and potentially very dangerous ones added to the water. Spring and mineral water bottled in glass with no additives is good if you can get it. Always check the manufacturer and see if they add anything to their bottled spring water. Many do.

Flat water is normally referred to as spring water. Carbonated water is normally referred to as mineral water. Both can contain high levels of minerals, so check the bottle labels to see what salts they are high in.

Carbontated water can be bubbly because carbon dioxide has been added or because it is naturally high in bicarbonate.

Rain water
Rainwater should also be a good source of clean water, but unfortunately there are many contaminants both washed out of the air and washed off a degrading roof. You will need a water filter, but as there is no fluoride in rainwater, a good water filter should remove all the likely contaminants.

Distilled water 
Distilled water is water that has been heated and the steam collected and cooled back into water. This water is very pure and contains no additional elements. It is a good idea to supplement it with a tiny amount of sea salt to add some minerals back into it. All the normal provisos apply regarding plastic bottles. Distilled water is fluoride free.

Reverse osmosis water
The reverse osmosis process is also able to remove almost all contaminants. Much bottled water, such as the water in those big 11 or 15 litre blue bottles, is reverse osmosis water. As with distilled water, add a little sea salt and pay attention to what plastic bottles the water is stored in. It should be a BPA free plastic. Revers osmosis water is fluoride free.

Water filters
There are many forms of water filter on the market and roughly speaking, you get what you pay for. Many leave particles behind and almost all leave fluoride behind.

...for rain water
You can use water filters to remove most contaminants, including biological agents, from rain water. Check with your water filter vendor to find the correct filter for your needs.

...for tap water
There is really no satisfactory way of removing fluoride from tap water. Standard water filters are able to remove chlorine, aluminium and other contaminants from your tap water, but they are unable to remove the fluoride, arguably the most dangerous contaminant of the lot.

There is one process now on the market to filter out fluoride, but it uses aluminium in its filtering process. As aluminium in its own right is extremely dangerous, the process seems risky to me.

Revitalised water
There are many processes out there that apparently render contaminated water less harmful. One such process is the Grander process which you can read about at http://www.grander.com.au. There are also processes that claim to revitalise water and return it to the natural crystalline form identified by Emoto.

All salts are not equal

What are mineral salts

There are 84 mineral salts in our bodies. They are one of the main building blocks of our bodies and we do need them to stay healthy.

They help maintain the normal volume of blood in the body and also help keep the correct balance of water in and around the cells and tissues. These salts play an important part in the digestion of food and are essential in making the heart beat correctly. They are also necessary for the formation and proper function of nerve fibres which carry impulses to and from the brain.

Table salt
We are being told to reduce our table salt intake, so why? Table salt is sodium chloride. There is nothing wrong with that in itself, but it is only one of 84 different mineral salts and needs to be balanced with the other 83 if it is to be used correctly by the body. There is far too much sodium chloride added to manufactured food so we should always be sure to use a more balanced and complete salt so that we get the full range of mineral salts our bodies need.

Himalayan salt
Himalayan Crystal Salt is obtained from ancient inland deposits of salt and includes all of the 84 natural minerals and trace elements found in your body. It is not refined in anyway. Salt is essential for detoxifying, so add the purest salt, Himalayan salt, to your diet to aid with detoxification. You can also add some to your bath water and if you need it your body will absorb it.

Vegetable salt

Vegetable salts are prepared with fresh, organically grown herbs combined with natural sea salt and allowed to “steep" for up to one year before the moisture is removed.

Sea salt or damp grey sea salt
Sea salt is made from sea water drawn direct from areas that are considered free of toxic residues in the water. There are a few of these on the market.

• Maldon Salt is made from sea water drawn from the river Blackwater in Essex.
• Cornish Sea Salt is harvested from water drawn from the ocean off the Cornish coast. 
• Welsh Halen Môn is made from water drawn from the Menai Straits. 
• Coarse grey Celtic sea salt comes from the North West of France. It is harvested manually without any mechanical manipulation and is certified organic. The salt crystals are unwashed and completely natural with nothing added and nothing removed. 

Soy sauces

Soy sauce is produced by fermenting soybeans. It is the only soy product that should be eaten, but there is so much GM soy on the market now that you should take care that your soy sauce is made from non GM soy. Many soy sauces are produced using wheat. Tamari is normally wheat free, so if you are gluten intolerant pay special attention to side effects of soy sauces. They are also highly likely to contain added MSG, so make sure yours is clearly labelled MSG free.

Honey: medicine in a jar

Don’t be scared away from honey products because of the sugar content. Top quality cold extracted natural honey is medicine in a jar. Honey products are extremely rich in nutrients including some that are not available from plant based products. This makes them extremely valuable for vegans and vegetarians.

However, for honey to have these wonderful healing properties it must have been handled correctly. It must be: 

• Pure 
• Raw 
• Unheated 
• Untreated 
• Cold extracted 
• Packed in glass. 

When honey is heated it degrades and the health giving chemicals are converted into HMF (hydroxymethylfurfural). The HMF levels in a honey are used to test just how much the honey has degraded.

You will find a wealth of information about honey on this site. http://www.maharishihoney.com/ The Maharishi brand uses additional Vedic processes to further enhance their product.

There are many different bee products; not just honey. Each works in slightly different way to help us heal.

Manuka honey
UMF Manuka honey was first discovered in New Zealand. All honey has some antibacterial properties, but Active UMF Manuka honey is especially potent.

It is effective against a wide range of bacteria and fungi including helicobacter pylori, the stomach-ulcer causing bacteria and "Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. This is the MRSA superbug, otherwise known as "golden staph", that is infecting many who have open wounds while in hospital. In other words, it can treat infections that antibiotics cannot. When purchasing Manuka honey, make sure it does have a legitimate UMF rating. The higher the rating the higher the price.

Other healing honeys
Manuka honey was the first to be tested for its anti-bacterial qualities, but it is not the only honey with them. Other honeys are being tested and are now finding their way onto the market. One such honey is the Maharishi brand produced in Australia which claims higher anti-bacterial capabilities that Manuka UMF30 for one of its honeys.

Royal jelly
Royal jelly is food for a queen. The queen bee is fed on Royal jelly and lives up to 8 years compared to the normal 8 weeks of other bees. Royal jelly is much prized in eastern medicine as a longevity supplement.

Royal jelly is a natural source of concentrated vitamins, including the complete 'B' complex, as well as 16 minerals, 18 enzymes and 18 amino acids.

Propolis
Propolis has the highest antibiotic properties found in nature. Since ancient times, propolis has been used to treat stomach aches and ulcers, open wounds, abscesses, coughs and colds.

Some cancer sufferers have found that taking propolis has helped their white blood cell counts to rebound after chemotherapy.

Bee pollen
Bee pollen is flower pollen mixed with nectar. Bee pollen is used to promote general health and well-being and can help to reduce allergies to flower pollen. Some people are allergic to bee pollen so it is normally packaged with a warning.

Bee pollen is the most nutritionally rich of all products from the beehive, containing 22 amino acids. Bee pollen is the only plant source of Vitamin B12 and so is useful for vegans who can get seriously ill from Vitamin B12 deficiency. 

Much of this information was summarised from http://www.superbee.com.au/, another great information source on honey.

A new model of health

Mainstream or allopathic medicine rarely "cures" degenerative diseases.

If you doubt this statement, just look at the "cure" statistics. I use the word "cure" very deliberately as it is a word rarely used by modern medicine any more. Instead, the symptoms of the disease are "managed" by a lifetime on drugs.

My own approach to health and healing has evolved from a lifetime of personal research, but perhaps the most important influence has been the theories of Hulda Clark. You can read these in her most famous book, The Cure for all Diseases, available as a free download. My model is a variation of the Hulda Clark model of health.

The story goes like this.

The toxins

We are living in a highly polluted, highly toxic world that is getting more toxic by the day. Chemicals and heavy metals are entering our systems at ever increasing rates from toxic air and chemicals added to our water and food. They are changing the micro-climate inside our bodies. This changed micro-climate in turn provides perfect conditions for parasites to get out of control.

The parasites

Parasites are any living thing that exploits rather than serves our bodies. The term includes viruses, bacteria, fungi and various types of worms. These all breed and multiply when our systems provide conditions they like and lack the defences to control them.

Our body's response - a disease

Then along come the diseases from which we each variously suffer. The disease is simply how our individual body tries to cope with the invasion of parasites. One body might get fibromyalgia, another cancer, another arthritis, in response to the same parasitic invasion. Each of these diseases is our friend - our body's attempt to slow and maybe even stop the parasitic invasion.

The two steps to curing disease

In many cases, we can ignore the actual disease and focus first on reducing our colony of parasites. Once we have reduced the parasites and stepped back from immediate danger, we then need to detox the chemical or heavy metal contaminants that have enabled the parasites to get out of control in the first place. We must have a two pronged approach:

• reduce parasites then
• detox the chemicals and heavy metals that create the climate they love.

Is diagnosis important?

Allopathic medicine does give us some capacity to diagnose disease. However, disease is merely the symptom of our response to parasites. Allopathic medicine rarely helps us identify which parasite is behind the disease. In a few cases, such as hepatitis and H.Pylori, it does identify the parasite. In these cases, we can target the parasite with an appropriate treatment. But these are the exception rather than the norm. For most degenerative diseases medical diagnosis does not help us identify the parasite.

Can medical treatment help?

Some allopathic treatments DO kill some parasites: chemotherapy, radio therapy and antibiotics all kill some parasites, but they are so highly toxic in their own right that they add to the toxic overload problem we are already suffering. They provide an even better micro-climate for the next round of parasites to get out of control, so they only ever afford us temporary relief from our problem. Many drugs do not even do that. Many simply keep us alive artificially by dissolving cholesterol, widening the arteries and the like, whilst having no impact whatsoever on the parasites or toxins that are causing the problem. Medical treatments can be useful to get us back from the brink if our situation is dangerous or critical, but they rarely cure us of anything.

Step 1 - Using plant foods to kill parasites

Our other option is to use the phytochemicals in food to target the specific parasites. Phytochemicals in food kill parasites without further adding to our toxic overload problem. In some cases those phytochemicals can also help us detoxify very serious toxins as well, something that chemotherapy and radiotherapy cannot ever do. (For more on the power of foods, see Let food be thy medicine.)

However, using food to target parasites can be a bit hit and miss, particularly if we don't know which parasite we are targeting. Apricot kernels are reputed to cure 33% of people who have been sent home to die with untreatable cancer. You can read more about apricot kernels in World without Cancer by Edward G Griffin, also available as a free download.

A 33% cure rate is pretty good for terminal patients, but what about the other 66%?

Apricot kernels have a high success rate because the anthocyanins in them are able to kill a wide range of parasites, but they are not able to kill all parasites. This is true of all the foods that have been shown to be successful for some cancers. Their phytochemicals kill some but not all parasites.

So where does this leave us? If we can identify the parasite we can target it with a particular plant food containing the necessary phytochemicals. If we cannot identify the parasite, we must take a broad brush approach. We must consume the widest possible range of foods naturally high in parasite-killing phytochemicals so that we can see which work for our unique set of circumstances.

We eat apricot kernels and the widest possible range of "purple" foods to get the anthocyanins, we eat beetroot for the liver, we consume olive leaf, and pomegranate, we drink paw paw and green tea and the list goes on. There is a very long list of very tasty foods that have been shown to turn many diseases around and return the body to health. One or more of these WILL reduce our colony of parasites down to temporarily manageable levels. That's the easy bit. It just takes a bit of application to find out which foods make us feel better (or trigger the biggest healing reactions).

Step 2 - Using plant foods to detox

The hard bit comes next. We have reduced our disease symptoms to manageable levels or removed them altogether, by eating fabulous, strongly flavoured foods. Now how do we detoxify our systems and restore a healthy micro-climate so those pesky little critters cannot get out of control again?

Not all diseases fit the model above. Some diseases, particularly the brain diseases like MS and Alzheimer's are probably the direct result of the toxin itself rather than of a parasite. These people need to start where others finish. Detox, detox, detox.

There are also foods that help us do detox. Turmeric, sunflower seeds, beetroot, coriander, garlic and many others are useful in two ways. They have high levels of parasite killing phytochemicals and they also have lots of phytochemicals that combine with heavy metals and petrochemicals, render them harmless and take them safely out of our systems. They help us both kill parasites and detoxify.

...and the importance of water

This is where water starts to become very important, but not just any water. Healing springs were traditionally healing springs for good reason, and that reason is not some kind of invisible magic. The various minerals in spring water also combine with toxic chemicals and heavy metals and render them inert so that we can flush them away safely.

Silica, one of the most common elements on earth, combines with a huge range of dangerous toxins and takes them safely out of our systems. Mineral waters are not a foolish luxury. In this day and age of seriously high levels of toxic exposure, mineral waters that are genuinely high in a wide range of minerals are critical to maintaining our health.

Feedback
Please let me know of your own experience with parasites, toxicity and using food to heal.