NATURAL HEALTH

What is Natural Health? To most of us making an effort to reach it, it means incorporating body, mind and spirit into our daily lives. It means making decisions that reflect our belief systems. It means making an effort to learn and grow AND make a difference.

 Natural Health is what I call living life as cleanly as possible. Doing this is sometimes a life long process. And while it may seem much harder and more time consuming to live life naturally, it actually is not, it is just different. A commitment must be made if one wants Natural Health. Here are some things that I think everyone needs to educate themselves on in order to achieve a healthy mind, a healthy body and a healthy soul.

BODY
MIND
SOUL

 This link requires a bit more discretion on your part but offers just about every article written on alternative thought and healing/health. Wellness Cafe: Holistic Health Care for People and Animals

 Remember to read everything you can get your hands on, toss away what doesn't make sense to you and hold onto what does.

TOXINS

How can Toxins enter our lives?

1. From the water we drink, especially tap water but also from the plastic bottles that bottled water is kept in.
2. From the chemicals in the foods we eat. Have you read the labels on the food you eat lately??
3. From the pesticides sprayed on our fruits and vegetables. Recent mainstream news is now reporting that consumer groups are concerned about the levels of these pesticides being too high for childrens' consumption.
4. From the water we bathe and shower with. Our skin, the largest organ of our body can absorb chlorine and other compounds. Do you have dry hair, flaky scalp? It could be from the water you are using.
5. From the personal care items you use on your body. Shampoos, soaps, moisturizers, creams, toothpastes, etc.. Most of these are full of chemicals that are absorbed through the skin. Baby oil and vaseline are petroleum based products.
6. From the cleaners you use in your home; all-purpose spray cleaners, laundry detergents, glass cleaners, dish detergent liquids, etc. are all made with highly toxic ingredients. Anything labeled "detergent" is usually a petroleum based product. See Clean Solutions for more information on cleaning naturally. 

Foods you should try adding to your diet

• Whole grains; 100% stoned ground whole wheat breads and pastas. (Be careful...100% WHEAT is not the same whole food.) There are a myriad of grains to try too; millet, barley, quinoa, bulgur wheat, etc..
• Brown rice
• Pure honey and maple syrup
• Legumes; black beans, garbanzos (one of my favorites), northern beans, kidney beans, lentils, pinto beans, etc..
• Organic fruits and vegetables. LOTS of them. Try to commit to just ONE salad per day for a first move. Make your salads exciting. Our salads usually consists of romaine lettuce, spinach, peppers, red onions, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, mushrooms, zucchini, chic peas and sometimes a hard boiled egg or tuna. Pasta can be added to make a meal!
• Natural sugar replacement; succanat, evaporated date juice.
• 100% stone ground flours for baking.
• Brown eggs for eco-diversity.
• Fruit juice sweetened jellys and jams.

Lauren's Recipes
Here are some of my own recipe creations using organic, whole foods. Most are quick and easy as well as healthy and tasty. Let me know what you think, there may be a cookbook in me yet. This page is formatted to be printed.

Foods you should try eliminating from your diet

• Anything containing white sugar or derivatives thereof; corn syrup, artificial maple syrup, jellys and jams, etc..
• Chemicals are running rampant in our foods. READ THE LABELS and eliminate as many chemicals as you can. Especially Propylene Glycol..this is an antifreeze derivative and found most often in personal care products but is known to pop up in foods such as salad dressings and other prepared foods.
• Large amounts of red meat or any meat or poultry product that is not organic and free range. My meat-eating friends tell me the difference in taste is amazing and worth the extra cost. Or you could take the plunge into Vegetarianism! 
• Canned and boxed foods are not REAL and have to be enriched with the vitamins that the once were in the original food. Processing foods strips the wonderful food we eat of nutritional value.
• Processed foods; white sugar, white flour, white bread, white pasta are all nutritionally void with synthetic vitamins added to replace what once was.

What is in your water?

According to Colin Ingram's "The Drinking Water Book" there can be several types of health threatening pollutants in our water:

• Microorganisms - includes bacteria, viruses and parasites. Though most bacteria is killed when the "chlorine" is added, harmful viruses and parasites can be present in tap water even though a water treatment facility is working properly. Two common parasites in particular can cause mild to severe gastrointestinal symptoms (in healthy people).

• Toxic Minerals - (inorganic: not from plant/animal sources)in water that are harmful are: Aluminum, arsenic, asbestos, barium, cadmium, chromium, copper, flouride, lead, mercury, nitrate, nitrite, selenium, silver. Water treatment facilities can reduce these toxic mineral to "safer" levels though not eliminate them. However, water treatment plants do not have the technology to remove asbestos from the water, nor do they test for it. Asbestos-cement pipes have been used throughout most of the US. These toxic minerals can come from a myriad of places; industrial discharge, pesticide run off, even from corroded pipes in your home.
• Organic Chemicals - (manufactured from plant or animal sources...plastic is considered organic) include synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, paints, fuels, plastics, dyes, flavorings, pharmaceuticals and preservatives. Thousands have been found in our drinking water.

• Additives - (chlorine, flouride, flocculents) are added to water by most water treatment plants. Chlorine was thought to be safe but recent years are showing studies that show correlations between chlorinated water and diseases. But what is a serious health threat are the toxic chemicals formed when chlorine combines with organic chemicals in the water.

Flouridation is a widely contraversial topic. The arguments for and against it have been going on for nearly 50 years. The bottom line is that flouride is a poison and the level of ingestion needs to be regulated. However, this regulation is highly unlikely. No one really knows how much flouride a child is receiving because their exposure to flouride can be vast; water used in processed foods, toothpaste, etc.

Flocculents are added to make the particles in water clump together for better filtering. The most commonly used are called polyelectrolytes and have been banned in other countries because some of their constituents are known to be mutagenic and carcinogenic. The EPA classifies these flocculents as "probable human carcinogens" and still permits their use. 

Exercise your Brain - Our minds need constant exercise too. I think it is important to challenge yourself in some way on a semi-regular basis. I love crossword and other puzzles...addicted really. Though I've not had as much of a chance at them since my son graced us with his presence. There are all sorts of puzzles and games for the mind..from logic problems to crosswords. Have fun AND exercise your brain!!! 

Daily dose of crosswords!

 READ a good book - at least a couple times a year. I am an avid reader and can plow through a 300 page novel in a weekend. My husband was never a reader and I discovered that it was because he read too slow. Well, we discovered that by sheer practice his speed increased tremendously. So READ, READ, READ. Some of my dearest childhood memories are of our family reading time. My mother read to us through our teen years choosing age appropriate books as she went. Connor will get the same reading time from his parents. :)

 Educate Yourself - I think we sometimes let our minds get lazy. We take for granted so many things in our lives. We are told something is done a certain way by people in authority (doctors, lawyers, etc. or even friends and family) and we listen without questioning. We buy products for our families without truly knowing if these products are safe. We are making an awful lot of assumptions these days. My husband and I are both pretty anal about such things. We don't buy anything of value without doing our homework. I search the internet, we check out books and read all there is to know and then make a conscious and well informed decision. Whether it is where our son sleeps, whether or not he will be circumsized, immunized and otherized...we use this research and read method for just about everything we do. 

Feeding The Soul: Giving Back

 There is nothing more rewarding than giving back to society in whatever way you can. I urge everyone if you have thought of doing something in this area but haven't yet...please go and do it this weekend. There IS no time like the present. 

A key is finding your individual way of giving back. My husband and I just plain and simple don't have the "time" to give. But we can and do help out in other ways. 

• This year we needed a brand new car to replace the clunker we had. Instead of trying to sell the 12 year old Volvo, we donated it to an Outreach Center that benefits children. They come to tow it away and you get a receipt for the blue book value. Everyone benefits because it makes for a wonderful tax deduction too. Contact the Outreach Center at TOLL FREE (877)703-1200.
• We donate our old (and we recently revised our definition of "old" to mean not worn in the past 2 years) clothes to shelters and women's groups.
• We send money to what I call "individual causes" as they appear in our lives. Individual causes are stories we hear about through the news, internet, friends of families/people who are down and out for a reason. We find out their address and send them at least $50.00...usually more. We get such a tremendous high from writing this check and mailing it that I look forward to the next "individual cause" that comes our way. We love this way of "giving back" and feel it brings us much more joy than just dropping a dollar in a collection cup or making a donation to a large corporation where much of the donations go to administration costs.


Follow this link if you want to check in with the most recent Individual Cause. 

 I believe that thoughts are energy in motion. The spoken word solidifies the thought and sends it out into the world where it floats around waiting to become a reality. This is my expansion on the "negative begets negative, positive begets positive" school of thought. 

SO...keep your thoughts positive ones. And when you slip, imagine yourself deleting the words/thoughts from existance. I use this method of ridding myself of negative thoughts and it truly works. 

Another method of staying positive even when you are not is...FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT. Don't feel like smiling? Do it anyway. Soon enough you'll forget what was weighing you down. 

Help others stay positive too by treating them with kindness and courtesy. Be sure that "hello, how are you?" is your first contact with a fellow human being instead of "Two tokens". Tell people to have a nice day...most people will usually go on to.