Self Help

There are many simple things that you can do to improve your health:

• Reduce your consumption of sugar, wheat and refined processed foods.
• Increase your consumption of fresh, whole, natural and organic foods. Seven helpings of fruit and vegetables a day are now recommended so make fresh vegetable soups, gazpacho, guacamole, kale chips, seed bars and snack on great nutrition.
• Drink plenty of fresh water to rehydrate you each day and don’t leave it in a plastic container for too long, especially in the sun. Don’t drink with a meal though as it reduces your stomach acid and impairs digestion.
• Cook from fresh ingredients that you can recognise rather than buying ready meals whenever you can. Use garlic, herbs and spices in your cooking as flavourings rather than manufactured stocks and sauces.
• Make your own salad dressing from a good cold-pressed oil, (e.g. flax seed) and cider vinegar and balsamic to give yourself the good fatty acids that you need.

Other things that are likely to improve your health and well-being as well as the efficiency of your digestion are:

• Avoid stressful situations. They cause you to use essential nutrients that your body needs and contribute to a weakened immune system. If you need to stop and focus on your breathing, slowing it down to get your reaction under control.
• Try to get some exercise as it stimulates the thyroid and lymph system and helps it to dispose of the toxins and waste materials. You can participate in non-competitive exercise such as walking, dancing, keep fit or bouncing on a rebounder if you prefer that to competitive sport.
• Music is a great healer; listen to soothing harmonious music or one of your particular favourites whenever you can.
• Be creative; any creative activity that demands your concentration and produces self-satisfaction will boost the production of your T-cells and therefore your ability to fight any harmful invaders of your body. Creative thought especially when it involves future desires for your life is easy and very beneficial.
• Avoid excess chemicals where you can. Use natural cleaning products, air fresheners, room deodorisers, perfumes, aftershave so that you don’t breathe in a cocktail of chemicals.

Grow your Own

Plant a few rocket and lettuce plants and tomatoes in between your flowers or in a pot on the windowsill and enjoy fresh organic salads all summer. If you buy bagged salad leaves it has chlorine gas added to the bag to keep the leaves looking fresh. By the time you get it there is not much nutrition left in the salad leaves as it is probably about 5 days old. You are also consuming many times the permissible level of chlorine than if you were to swallow a mouthful of water in a swimming pool.

A few raspberries canes (plants) and a tayberry plant in your garden will also give you lots of fresh wonderful fruit for several months. If you can’t grow your own consider having an organic delivery of fruit and veg. You’ll be amazed at how much fresher it is.

Green Smoothies

To make green smoothies, half fill a blender jug with good water (not a smoothie maker, which is not powerful enough. The best blender is a masticating juicer but they are expensive). Then place one or two items of different items of fruit in the jug, followed by two or three good handfuls of green, leafy vegetables. Blend it all until smooth, drink your daily quota and store the rest in sealed, air-tight jars in the fridge to use next time. But drink it as soon as possible and definitely within 2 days as the enzymes are lost quickly.

Fruit: Organic banana, apple, cucumber, avocado, tomato, pepper, mango, pineapple, etc but not melon or grapefruit.

Green vegetables: Organic, kale, celery, spinach, chard, dark green or Cos (Romaine) lettuce, Cauliflower leaves brussel tops, pea shoots, wheat grass, barley grass or kamut grass, edible weeds etc. Be careful with spinach and chard as they are high in oxalic acid which can interfere with calcium absorption and utilisation.

Daily quota: Start with a small glass and build up to 1-2 pints a day in as many as four doses although it is good to have a larger dose early in the day. You will be able to tell if it is helping you to detox as you may get a fuzzy head for a little while, a loose tummy or other symptoms. If these are too much, drop back on your dosage of green smoothies. If you don’t feel anything, increase your dosage.

For a change, have a savoury smoothie such as gazpacho: use cucumber, avocado, tomato, pepper as your fruits and add things like celtic sea salt and garlic.

Keep up the smoothies and within a month you will feel stronger and your digestive system will be working better. Keep going and, together with an alkaline diet, you will help to clear the unwanted acid wastes from your cells that has been building up for years. As you do, you naturally normalise your weight, lose fat, gain muscle tone and strength and feel happier and more confident. It can take up to 18 months to fully detox and regain your health.

You may also need to take alkalising minerals such as potassium, magnesium etc and these can be added to your smoothies. I recommend liquid third state minerals if you do need to supplement these minerals. If iodine is required, nascent iodine is a superb product. Contact me if you need them.

A great book on the subject of green smoothies is ‘Green for Life’ by Victoria Butenko.