Labels: cancer, tanning bed, UV exposure, vitamin d

by Stephanie Carnes
OHN Contributor

Protein deficiencies contribute to mood disorders, digestion problems, hormonal imbalances, cardiovascular problems, detoxification problems, pH imbalances and muscular-skeletal disorders. In addition, insulin intolerance, a pre-diabetic condition, is an important factor influencing your body’s need for amino acids.

Amino acids are “building blocks of proteins” and combine in thousands of ways in order to produce all of our enzymes, hormones, and neurotransmitters, as well as to build every structural part of our bodies, including the skeletal structure of our cells (Biochemistry, Second Edition, Matthews, Van Holde, 1996). 
Plant Proteins vs. Animal Proteins

Though some people argue that one can get the essential amino acids by combining various plant sources of protein, dependence on plant sources alone for essential amino acids is problematic for a number of reasons:

1) Many plant sources of protein contain such small quantities of protein in comparison to their carbohydrate content, that one would have to ingest an excessive amount of carbohydrate foods just to ingest enough essential amino acids.

2) Many people are not able to digest protein very well. Depending on only plant sources of protein to get therapeutic amounts of certain amino acids often overloads your system with toxic nutrients. For example, if you rely on nuts and seeds as a primary protein source, you are altering your body’s ratio of omega 3 to omega 6 fats, creating an imbalance. This imbalance of omega 3 to omega 6 fatty acids is now known to cause many health problems.

3) Due to the amount of stress most of us are under in the modern world, our livers are being excessively taxed. The amino acids, l-methionine, l-glutathione, and l-glutamine, all of which are found in abundance in animal protein, need to be consumed in therapeutic amounts. Without animal protein in your diet, it is very difficult to do this. Only animal protein possesses the eight essential amino acids in the quantities and proportions necessary to accomplish the healing process.

A Note to Vegetarians: It is possible to be a healthy vegetarian, but you will need to consume the right quantities of both protein and fat from raw, grass-fed butter, cream and milk, and pasture-raised raw eggs. Whether or not you can be optimally healthy, and a vegetarian, is determined by your own body.

The Dangers of Soy 

Many people who prefer to eat plant protein eat a lot of soy and they don’t realize it is deficient in the sulfur-containing amino acids, methionine and cysteine. In the United States, soy foods are highly processed, which denatures the protein and increases levels of carcinogens. In addition, soy contains lots of phytoestrogens that have negative hormonal effects, as well as trypsin inhibitors that inhibit protein digestion and affect pancreatic function. Soy foods can also cause deficiencies in calcium and vitamin D. People with thyroid problems need to avoid soy altogether. Finally, it is now thought that soy foods consumed in large amounts may contribute to cancer.

Find High-Quality Protein Sources

When seeking out the highest-quality animal proteins, sometimes it is important to go to great lengths to do so. Typically, in the United States what we mean by eating protein is the consumption of lots of grain-fed, antibiotic-and hormone-laden, and over-processed beef, pork, chicken, and dairy products. In addition to being pumped full of unhealthy substances, cows, pigs and chickens are most often left in cages, without any access to their traditional diets or sunshine.

According to the renowned cancer specialist, Virginia Livingston-Wheeler:

“…most chicken and nearly half the beef consumed in America today is cancerous and pathogenic. Her research has convinced her that these cancers are transmissible to man.” -Nourishing Traditions, Sally Fallon

The Optimal Health Network recommends finding safe fish without mercury contamination, organic, pasture-raised eggs, pasture-raised or grass-fed, non-grain-fed, lamb, ostrich, elk, buffalo, beef, goat, chicken, turkey and wild game. This list also includes dairy from pasture fed cows, goats and sheep.

How much protein do I need to be healthy?

Since most people have spent years eating lower-quality proteins and a diet based on carbohydrates, it is essential to your long-term health that you nourish yourself with high-quality proteins in order to rebuild your health and cleanse your system. Also, it is important to know that if you eat sugar, you will need more protein than if you don’t eat sugar. Just this fact alone points to a higher need for quality protein for most people today.

Not one plan fits all when it comes to protein consumption. Protein needs vary according to one’s age and activity. For some people, just eating an organic egg or two, a cup of raw cream, a full glass of raw milk, and some chicken broth throughout the day, supplemented with nuts and seeds, is plenty of animal protein. Another person may find he needs as much as 2 servings of lamb, 4 oz of fish, a few slices of raw cheese, a handful of pumpkin seeds and a serving of grass-fed beef all in the same day.

Eating raw meat or at least rare meats, including organ meats, will dramatically improve your health. When you have food cravings, are tired, weak, or when your concentration is poor, reach for protein. Protein helps keep that all-important blood sugar in balance. Eating protein at every meal is required for optimal health.

SOURCE: Ten Days to Optimal Health (Amelong 2006)

Labels: amino acids, grain-fed animals, soy, vegetarians

by Stephanie Carnes
OHN Contributor

Most people have been erroneously convinced that fats and oils are damaging to one’s health. This is a lie. Unfortunately, the importance of fats and oils in the human diet has only become widely recognized within the last few years. Fats and oils are our most important nutrient!

If we think logically, we know this. We live in a fat-phobic world where fat is one of only three macronutrients: carbohydrates, protein and fats. We need all of these three macronutrients. Fats are the macronutrient that allows us to feel full, to mini­mize food cravings, and to most fully meet the energy needs of our organs. Our bodies use fats as a supply and store of energy: a gram of fat contains more than double the amount of energy present in a gram of carbohydrate.

Why is sufficient fat and oil consumption necessary for optimal health?

Healthy fats and oils replenish our cellular membranes with needed nutrients. It is the fats that keep our cell walls strong. By maintaining the structural integrity of our cells, fats pro­mote the full functioning of our rebuilding and cleansing mechanisms. Toxins, in order to leave our bodies, need to be taken from the cells and bound to a carrier of toxins. Most cleansing programs only carry toxins out of the main circulation. How do we get toxins out of the places where they are stored? Eat high-quality, raw fats.

Fats are binding agents. Fats bind tox­ins more than any other substance. Most of us don’t and haven’t ingested enough high-quality fat over the years to safely remove the toxins that are stored in our bodies. This is an absolutely essential reason to increase your fat and oil intake.

Does it matter if they are raw or cooked?

It is important to eat a large amount of your healthy fats and oils raw. Raw fats are crucial for health because they contain lipase, the fat-splitting enzyme. Lipase prepares the fat you eat so that it may be utilized by the cells and the organs. Without sufficient lipase in your body, your body cannot properly utilize the fats that you eat and your pancreas becomes over­worked.

What about saturated fats?

Saturated fats from animal sources—portrayed as the enemy by the United States Food and Drug Administration and consequently by American culture—give the body the raw materials it demands from us in order to be optimally healthy. Saturated fats form an important part of the cellular membrane by giving the cellular membrane rigidity; they protect the immune system and enhance the utilization of essential fatty acids.

Saturated fats are needed for the proper development of the brain and nervous systems. Low-fat diets contribute to depression, because our brain is made out of fat. There is a high-fat diet used by the medical community to control seizures. This diet consists of 80% fat and is known to work better than drugs. Additionally, our liver is made of 80% fat. You must eat raw fat in order to regenerate your organs.

Isn’t lowering my cholesterol levels a good thing?

High cholesterol is not the cause of heart dis­ease. In spite of the offi­cial advice that tells us to lower the amount of satu­rated fat in our diet, we still have an epidemic amount of heart disease!

Cholesterol, a saturated fat we are all familiar with, is the precursor to bile acids, which are needed to digest and absorb long-chain fatty acids. Cholesterol is also recognized for its physiological importance in the skin and the intestines where it plays an important structural role as a com­ponent of the organ membranes. Cells lining the digestive tract are particularly rich in choles­terol. Among its other various roles in the cell are the signal­ing activities that, for example, tell the gastrointestinal mus­culature when to contract.

“I don’t know how many people I have seen relieved of their chronic constipation, as well as any related Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), when they finally ate enough cholesterol in their daily diet,” states Kristina Amelong, creator of the Optimal Health Network. She advises [for people who are chronically ill], "It is possible that you may need to start with at least one stick of raw butter a day, along with copious amounts of cod liver oil, raw cream, avocados, and coconut oil.”

Will eating more fat make me gain weight?

The answer in short: No! Not if you're eating the right kinds of healthy fats needed by the body for nourishment and detoxification. Our livers—and not our food—make the cholesterol that our body uses for repair. Foods high in cholesterol help to repair the liver. As the body heals, it needs more cholesterol to repair the liver and to replace broken-down cells.

Even the Framingham studies, which the pharmaceutical com­panies use to promote cholesterol-lowering drugs, show that the higher the cholesterol level and the more fat in the diet, the longer the study participants lived and the more optimally the participants weighed!

Healthy vs. Unhealthy Fats

Even though fats are a nourishing food, there are fats that are damaging to the human body. The following newly used fats are not to be used in your diet, as they will cause many health imbalances over time. These imbalances can include but are not limited to cancer, heart disease, immune system dysfunction, sterility, learning disabili­ties, growth problems and osteoporosis.

Fats to Avoid:

• All hydrogenated oils such as margarine Soy, corn, and safflower oils
• Cottonseed oil
• Canola oil
• All fats heated to very high temperatures in processing and frying
• Bleached and deodorized oils

Fats to Enjoy:

• Avocado
• Black Currant Oil
• Borage Oil
• Butter, grass-fed raw
• Caviar
• Coconut Oil
• Cod Liver Oil
• Egg Yolks, organic and raw
• EPA Fish Oil
• Evening Primrose Oil
• Flax-Seed Oil
• Fortified Flax
• Ghee, raw
• Grapeseed Oil
• Nuts, soaked raw (not peanuts), very high in omega 6—use sparingly
• Nut Butters, raw (not peanut butter), very high in omega-6, use sparingly
• Olives, non-hybrid
• Olive Oil, organic, expeller-pressed extra virgi
• Raw or rare grass-fed buffalo or beef
• Raw or rare ostrich or elk
• Raw or rare fish
• Seeds, soaked
• Sesame
• Tahini

High-quality animal fats are your best source of healthy fats, such as raw, grass-fed butter—one of our best health foods!

Adopting a New Normal

The transition to healthy eating involves a change in food buy­ing patterns, more at home preparation and cooking. Incorporating more healthy fats into your diet will provide the essential nutrients for cellular membranes, hormones and hormone-like substances. Fats are also the best tool for keeping blood sugar balanced and are high in essential nutrients needed to fight toxins and rebuild healthy, vibrant cells.

If you fall back into previous unhealthy eating habits, you’ll be able to notice a difference in how you feel. In a way, bad eating habits will be self-correcting if you prefer health over the yucky feeling that occurs when you eat the wrong foods.

SOURCE: Ten Days to Optimal Health (Amelong 2006)

Labels: healthy fats, saturated fat and cholesterol, Ten Days to Optimal Health

by Stephanie Carnes
OHN Contributor
Looking at our healthiest ancestors' diet to determine what foods are therapeutic has turned out to be enormously successful. Nutritional researchers have studied cultures whose entire population was much healthier than ours is today. Dr. Weston A. Price, along with other well-known nutritional experts Sally Fallon, Dr. Robert Atkins, Donna Gates, Dr. Joseph Mercola, Dr. Andrew Weil, and Dr. Jordan Rubin, all present a common theoretical premise: many of the foods our healthiest ancestors ate are now so vital to the well-being of our bodies due to their nutrient content, that they can be considered healing to the body, or medicines!

Nutrient Content of Food

Dr. Weston A. Price. was a prominent dentist and researcher who conducted studies during the 1930s and the 1940s regarding the prevention of tooth decay, gum disease, and orthodontic troubles. He sought to understand what makes humans healthy and what allows humans to have perfect teeth—not what pushes people toward illness.
Dr. Price analyzed the nutrient content of different foods to communicate to the world what nutrients gave health to whole populations of people. After visiting over fourteen tribes, clans, and villages whose members all displayed remarkable freedom from mental, physical, and emotional imbalances, he and his wife discovered all were vibrantly healthy people, as long as they were eating traditional diets!

Image 1 Caption: The "primitive" Seminole girl (upper left) has a wide, handsome face with plenty of room for the dental arches. The "modernized" Seminole girl (upper right) born to parents who had abandoned their traditional diets, has a narrowed face, crowded teeth, and a reduced immunity to disease. The Samoan girl (lower left) was born to parents who ate nutrient-rich native foods. The Samoan boy (lower right) was born to parents who had abandoned their traditional diet. He has crowded dental arches, and will be more susceptible to dental decay.
Image 2 Caption: "[The brother on the left had] excellent teeth and [on the right] rampant cavities. These boys were brothers eating at the same table. The older boy, with excellent teeth, was still enjoying primitive food of oatmeal and oatcake and sea foods with some limited dairy products. The younger boy, seen to the left, had extensive tooth decay. Many teeth were missing including two in the front. He insisted on having white bread, jam, highly sweetened coffee and also sweet chocolates. His father told me with deep concern how difficult it was for this boy to get up in the morning and go to work." Read more in Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price, DDS.

Price’s Dietary Principles

Through his continuous research, Dr. Price concluded that tooth decay and degenerative diseases were irretrievably linked and stemmed from the same cause—one’s diet. Listed below are eight universal dietary principles that Dr. Price witnessed in every society that he studied:

1. Ate up to ten times the amount of natural, non-synthetic, vitamin A, vitamin D, and Activator X in the diet as did most people of Dr. Price’s day.
2. Never consumed refined or denatured foods including: protein powders, high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, white flour, or fruit juice.
3. Used both cooked and raw foods in their meals, especially animal foods.
4. Ate raw foods high in enzyme content: dairy, meat, honey, cultured vegetables and tropical fruits like papaya. Furthermore, consumed lacto-fermented foods and drinks such as kvass, yogurt, and kefir.
5. Always fermented, soaked, sprouted, or naturally leavened their seeds, grains, and nuts.
6. Ate significant quantities (30%-80%) of their total diet in fat. In every case, polyunsaturated fats comprised only 4% or less of the fat in the diet. Omega 6 and omega 3 fats were in a ratio of 1:1, and generous amounts of saturated fats were also eaten.
7. Included unrefined salt in their diets.
8. Used bones for broth.

Determining Your Own Optimal Foods

Many of us descended from very different cultures with very different eating habits. You may be asking, "Do I eat the foods indigenous to where I live now or where my ancestors lived?” Instead of thinking rigidly about the foods your ancestors ate, take the common dietary factors from each of the healthy cultures that Dr. Price studied to determine your optimal foods. The foremost point to keep in mind is that no matter what ‘diet’ you choose, you need to eat foods that are rich in specific nutrients in order to be optimally healthy.

The Optimal Health Center (OHC) plan is an easy-to-follow, clinically proven, traditionally based, and solidly researched dietary program that not only supports the body's nutritional needs but aids in healing such illnesses as Irritable Bowl Syndrome-IBS, Candida albicans, and diabetes, as well as other food intolerances and allergies. This plan is outlined in Kristina Amelong's book, Ten Days to Optimal Health.

SOURCE: Ten Days to Optimal Health (Amelong 2006)

Labels: Dr. Weston A Price, Ten Days to Optimal Health, Traditional Diets

by Stephanie Carnes
OHN Contributor

It is oppressive the way in which all people are systematically hurt by the belief structures and behaviors of their society. People are forced into decisions that cause their bodies to express disease. We are lied to and made to believe that things that are harmful to health are actually good for us. Why? Because our culture is fixated on profits. In his book, Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You To Know About, Kevin Trudeau explains why the United States government, the major food companies, and the drug companies systematically promote ideas that may cause people harm.

Our current societal structure prioritizes profit above health. Health is created or destroyed by the way we set up our lives. If we eat well, we tend to be healthier. If we rest deeply and daily, we tend to be healthier. If we are close to other people, we tend to be healthier. If we exercise and spend time outdoors, we tend to be healthier. If we have a rich spiritual life, we tend to be healthier. If we nourish our emotional selves, we tend to be healthier. When all of these activities are combined, most people are going to express health genetically and not disease. Unfortunately, most of us aren’t able to pull all of those elements together.

Profitability Before Health

For example, most people don’t eat foods that support their optimal health. Most of us don’t even know what it means to eat well. Foods and all other ingestible products are produced to have long shelf lives, be conveniently transported, and to be produced with the lowest overhead and the highest profitability. Very few producers of foods, supplements, pharmaceuticals, and other bodily products place health above profitability. Most foods are available primarily for the purpose of the suppliers to make a profit and not for their high nutrient content. Diet ought never be based primarily on the needs of the economy and the way in which the economy encourages people to eat. For example, one in four people in the developed world eat at McDonald’s every day.

Limited Access to Quality Food

What are the nutritional resources that our body needs in order to be optimally healthy? What is optimal nutrition? Is it possible to practice an optimal diet within a culture that values food for profit over food for health?

The average person has very little incentive or education that would lead them to seek out and to choose optimally nutritious food. Most people have limited opportunities and motivation to choose the best possible nutrition for their body. However, access to fresh, healthy food is increasing across the board. All it takes is a little extra effort to find sources of produce, meat, and dairy that don't contain the pesticides, hormones, and additional processing.

Where Can I Find Healthy Foods?

A first step to locate economical sources of natural food might be to network in your region. Collect phone numbers and mailing, email, and Web addresses of everyone you can find who is interested in local agriculture.

Although many large supermarkets have added organic foods to their shelves, the selection is often limited. Large chain stores ought to be the last place you shop. Here’s why:

1. Concentration on Retailing Destroys Communities: Large chains do not source locally because they need suppliers who can supply identical products to all their stores.
2. Large Chains Destroy Small Businesses: Retail profits do not go to a local area but to shareholders who have no interest in local communities. By contrast, the money you spend locally circulates dollars in your community and generates jobs.
3. Multinational Trade Means Greater Food Transport: Supermarkets prefer to do business with major players—even if they are around the globe. This means that the food will be transported long distances, contributing to excessive use of fuel and resultant global warming.

Try to find a local food cooperative or farmers market in your area to locate sources of healthy foods. Food cooperatives are membership-based buying organizations that distribute natural food products to consumers. Most co-ops were founded during the 1960s and 1970s to offer natural foods that most supermarkets would not sell.

By understanding how environmental and political factors influence our lives and our cultures, and by healing those scars of oppression, we will be more fully able to eradicate degenerative disease and be optimally healthy.

SOURCE: Ten Days to Optimal Health (Amelong 2006)

Labels: access to quality food, farmers market, food cooperatives, industrialized food system, nutrition

by Stephanie Carnes
OHN Contributor


Fasting in Today's World

Labels: environmental toxins, fasting support, health consultations, healthy fats, Ten Days to Optimal Health

by Stephanie Carnes
OHN Contributor 

Labels: allergies, Arthritis, Candida albicans, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, detoxification, diet and lifestyle, fibroids, Fibromyalgia, high blood pressure, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Ten Days to Optimal Health