Do You Want Health

Posted by monica on October 19th, 2008 in Uncategorized

By Dr. Joseph Mercola
with Rachael Droege

Sure, the microwave is convenient; what other device allows you to heat your food up in a matter of seconds? And they’re so widely used that you’d be hard-pressed to find a gas station or office building without one. But there’s a reason why I haven’t had a microwave in my kitchen for over 15 years and–much to the distress of my employees–pulled it out of the office over three years ago. This is something that you likely already intrinsically suspect but don’t want to acknowledge due to the convenience factor–microwaves are bad for your food, and they’re even worse for you.

There are many concerns with microwave ovens, among them:

• Carcinogenic toxins could be leached from plastic or paper plates or covers and mix with your food.
• The food temperature may become extremely hot, at temperatures high enough to cause burns or steam buildup that could explode–this is especially problematic for baby bottles, and is one of the reasons why baby bottles should never be heated in the microwave (microwaving can also break down the disease-fighting ability of breast milk).
• Vegetables and other food lose valuable, cancer-fighting nutrients when cooked in the microwave.
• The chemical structure of foods changes when microwaved, with unknown consequences.

There have been very few studies done to determine what kinds of changes occur in foods that are microwaved, but rest assured the changes are significant.

Consider the 1991 lawsuit involving a woman who had hip surgery and died because the blood used in her blood transfusion was warmed in a microwave. Blood is routinely warmed before transfusions, but not by microwave. The microwave altered the blood and it killed the woman.

Microwave cooking vibrates the molecules in your food to levels they were never designed to experience. This tends to damage the highly perishable nutrients so they are unable to nourish you the way they were designed to.

A study published in the November 2003 issue of The Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture found that broccoli “zapped” in the microwave with a little water lost up to 97 percent of the beneficial antioxidant chemicals it contains. By comparison, steamed broccoli lost 11 percent or fewer of its antioxidants.

Besides the loss of nutrients, microwaving forms new compounds (radiolytic compounds) that are unknown to humans and nature. It’s not yet known exactly what these compounds do in the human body. It will likely be a difficult thing to sort out, especially when there are previously unknown compounds being introduced to humans from a variety of sources such as new food products (i.e., olestra) and genetically modified foods.

Perhaps the most concrete evidence of the dangers of microwaves comes from Dr. Hans Hertel, a Swiss food scientist, who carried out a small but high-quality study on the effects of microwaved food on humans. His conclusions were clear and alarming: microwave cooking significantly altered the food’s nutrients enough so that changes occurred in the particpants’ blood–changes that suggested deterioration. The changes included:

• Increased cholesterol levels
• More leukocytes, or white blood cells, which can suggest poisoning
• Decreased numbers of red blood cells
• Production of radiolytic compounds (compounds unknown in nature)
• Decreased hemoglobin levels, which could indicate anemic tendencies

So what can you do to avoid microwaves? Well, my first suggestion is to get rid of it in your home so you won’t be tempted to use it. If it’s not there, then you can’t use it! Then, try consuming a lot of your food raw. Ideally, at least one-third of the food in your diet should be raw, since this is the form that will give you the maximum amount of nutrients. A quick and easy way to consume a large amount of raw vegetables, which is generally great for your health, is by vegetable juicing.

If you do want to cook some food or heat up leftovers, and are panicking at the thought of not having a microwave, I highly recommend trying out the Turbo Oven.

Though I don’t cook most of my food, when I do I use the Turbo Oven. The Turbo Oven not only eliminates the need to cook with additional fats such as oil and butter, but it also prepares delicious and healthy meals that are full of nutrients in half the time of traditional ovens.

With the Turbo Oven, you can cook a whole chicken as quick as 45 minutes whereas a traditional oven could take you up to two hours. It also uses up to 80 percent less energy than standard ovens used in the home. So, you will not only reduce cooking time by 50 percent, but you will save money on energy costs too.

Of course, you can also opt to use your regular oven or stove. This may seem time-consuming at first, but you’ll soon adjust and may actually start to enjoy the natural time it takes to heat up or prepare your food. During this time, you can relax with your family, read, write, listen to music or do anything that will help you to slow down and prepare for the meal you’re about to enjoy.

You may notice that taking more time to prepare your food will transcend to other aspects of your life as well, and you’ll enjoy a slower, more relaxed lifestyle than the majority of those around you.

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Posted by monica on October 19th, 2008 in Cancer Updates

This was such a good article, just wanted to share with you all.

AFTER YEARS OF TELLING PEOPLE CHEMOTHERAPY IS THE ONLY WAY TO TRY AND ELIMINATE CANCER JOHN HOPKINS IS FINALLY STARTING TO TELL YOU THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE WAY .

1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.

2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person’s lifetime.

3. When the person’s immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented-from multiplying and forming tumors.

4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.

5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and including supplements will strengthen the immune system.

6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastrointestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.

7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.

8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction.

9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications.

10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.

11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply. CANCER CELLS FEED ON:

a. Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food supply to the cancer cells. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal,Spoonful, etc are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in colour. Better alternative is Bragg’s aminos or sea salt.
b. Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastrointestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soya milk cancer cells are being starved.
c. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.
d. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains,seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts)and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are
destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).
e. Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine. Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer-fighting properties. Water-best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.

12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become petrified and leads to more toxic buildup.

13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body’s killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.

14. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Florescence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the body’s own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body’s normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.

15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger, unforgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.

16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.

CANCER UPDATE FROM JOHN HOPKINS HOSPITAL , U S

1. No plastic containers in micro.
2. No water bottles in freezer.
3. No plastic wrap in microwave.

• Johns Hopkins has recently sent this out in its newsletters. This information is being circulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as well.

• Dioxin chemicals causes cancer, especially breast cancer. Dioxins are highly poisonous to the cells of our bodies. Don’t freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from the plastic.

• Recently, Dr. Edward Fujimoto, Wellness Program Manager at Castle Hospital , was on a TV program to explain this health hazard. He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us. He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic containers.

• This especially applies to foods that contain fat. He said that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body. Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Corning Ware, Pyrex or ceramic containers for heating food. You get the same results, only without the dioxin. So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else.

• Paper isn’t bad but you don’t know what is in the paper. It’s just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc. He reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one of the reasons.

• Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap, such as Saran, is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food. Cover food with a paper towel instead.

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