Labels: environmental toxins, kitchenware, teflon

by Kristina Amelong 

(PART 2 of Kristina's personal wellness story entitled "Golden Arches")

During that first year at McDonald's, I mastered every station in the grill area: buns, regular grill, quarter pounder grill, and fish filet fryers. Working my 2- to 3-hour shift, a few times per week, I answered a need that I hadn't yet been aware enough to recognize, let alone articulate: I had purpose in my life.

Labels: alternative health, diet and lifestyle, fast food industry, natural healing

SOURCE: Ten Days to Optimal Health (Amelong 2006)

Labels: Fibromyalgia, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, stress

by Stephanie Carnes
OHN Contributor

Pasteurized dairy is heated to high temperatures to kill pathogenic bacteria. Most dairies—including those that sell pasteurized, organic milk—often have filthy cesspools with cows standing in manure several feet deep. The factory dairy cow is also fed a mash full of antibiotics and hormones such as rBGH, waste products, and sometimes meat from infected animals, even though the cow is an herbivore (vegetarian).

Essential Guideline: 
Avoid pasteurized yogurt, cream, butter, cheese, cottage cheese, and ice cream.

Very few of us can truly digest today’s commercial dairy products. The reason for confining our cows in feedlots and feeding them grain rather than grass is that they produce more milk—especially when injected with biweekly hormones. Today’s grain-fed cows produce three times as much milk as the old family cow of days gone by. Unfortunately this industrial process leads to health concerns for both the cows and those who drink their milk.

Products from grass-fed animals offer a balanced ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids. On the contrary, industrialized animals whose diets are made up of grain have a high concentration of omega-6 fat which contributes to many diseases. Animals who eat grass contain at least two to four times more omega-3 fatty acids in their meat and milk. These omega-3s are formed in the chloroplasts of green leaves and algae that they consume.

Additionally, the protein in pasteurized cow’s milk is the leading cause of food allergies in both adults and children. The fat in pasteurized and homogenized milk has been altered and no longer comes with the lipase enzyme that is needed by the body to digest the milk fat. Ask around. You’ll be surprised to find how many people have already figured out that giving up pasteurized dairy has decreased the number of colds they get, the sinus problems they have, the number of ear infections their children get, and the amount of bloating they experience.

Raw dairy is a superior food, but only if you can obtain if from a farmer who has healthy animals that eat green nutrient-dense grass and has its enzymes intact.

For more info view our raw milk Resource Guide.

SOURCE: Ten Days to Optimal Health (Amelong 2006)

Labels: omega fatty acids, pasteurized dairy, raw milk

by Kristina Amelong 

(PART 1 of Kristina's personal wellness story entitled "Golden Arches")

What is well-being? How do we create well-being within our own lives? What do we need to learn to attend to life’s challenges with a growing vitality?

In her diary, A Burst of Light: Living with Cancer, Audre Lorde writes, "Another secret is to find some particular thing your soul craves for nourishment -- a different religion, a quiet spot, a dance class -- and satisfy it. That satisfaction does not have to be costly or difficult. Only a need that is recognized, articulated, and answered."

My journey of well-being began at McDonald's, the day I turned 16. I showed up drunk that first day, or, more accurately, hung over -- I had been drinking an assortment of stolen liquor since 8 a.m. By 4 p.m., the start of my 3-hour Friday night shift, I boasted a respectable hangover.

My job was buns. My entire focus centered on the hamburger bun, top and bottom -- the same bun found in the Happy Meal. I was to listen for the woman in the blue uniform to call out some number of burgers, always a multiple of two.

"Twelve burgers!"

As I split each white bun in half, I placed the tops face down on one stainless steel tray and the bottoms face up on a separate stainless steel tray. I then put the tray of the bottom buns, lying face up, in the toaster.

The waiting part was the hardest -- standing with nothing to do (which I was quickly trained not to do). This nothingness invariably led my attention to just how deathly ill I felt. At one point, I ran to the bathroom to throw up. Luckily, no one seemed to notice.

Sixty seconds later, the bun buzzer went off. I scrambled to take the stainless steel sheet and its buns out of the toaster, without losing any. Once this was done, the tops went in. Next I placed the perfect amount of mustard, ketchup, onions, and pickles on the bun. Once accomplished, I called out, "Cheese on a dozen?"

The woman in the blue uniform responded, "Eight, please."

Finally, I placed all twelve tops onto the tray of twelve burgers in one elegant move. Done!

Throughout the years, five in all, I delighted in the burgers I flipped, the French fries I brought to a crispy perfection, and the Coca Cola I passed off with a smile. But preparing and serving the food weren't the only skills I learned.

While my time at McDonald's may have contributed to my later chronic illness, in many ways it also helped to save my life:

• I learned how to think and how to work with people
• I learned how to be a part of a team and how to show up
• I learned how to listen, work hard and respond flexibly to new situations
• and, I learned how to improve myself

Now, at 46, I am continually awed at how the skills I learned at McDonald's help me to stay healthy, grow emotionally, and attend to life's challenges. Join me as I share my journey of well-being in continued posts.

READ NEXT POST IN THIS SERIES

Labels: addictions, alternative health, diet and lifestyle, natural healing

by Stephanie Carnes
OHN Contributor

Scientists have concluded that cancer "is purely man-made" after finding almost no trace of disease in Egyptian mummies.

Author Fiona Macrae discusses some of the scientific findings: "Tumours were rare until recent times when pollution and poor diet became issues, the review of mummies, fossils and classical literature found. A greater understanding of its origins could lead to treatments for the disease, which claims more than 150,000 lives a year in the UK."

Michael Zimmerman, a visiting professor at Manchester University, said: "In an ancient society lacking surgical intervention, evidence of cancer should remain in all cases. The virtual absence of malignancies in mummies must be interpreted as indicating their rarity in antiquity, indicating that cancer-causing factors are limited to societies affected by modern industrialisation."

"In industrialised societies, cancer is second only to cardiovascular disease as a cause of death. But in ancient times, it was extremely rare," said Professor David, who presented the findings to Professor Mike Richards, the UK's cancer tsar and other oncologists at a conference earlier this year.

"There is nothing in the natural environment that can cause cancer. So it has to be a man-made disease, down to pollution and changes to our diet and lifestyle."

SOURCE: Mail Online-Science & Tech - 15 October 2010

The Origin of Disease

In 1949, Linus Pauling, the founding father of molecular biology, and author of Vitamin C and the Common Cold, Cancer and Vitamin C and How to Live Longer and Feel Better, made public his theory that the origin of disease is based on specific changes in genetic materials due to environmental influences, which in turn modify physiological function.

In addition to an increase in environmental toxins and chemicals found in our polluted air and water, each year the FDA approves more and more chemicals for use in foods. These chemicals increase shelf life, kill bacteria, improve taste, replace fats, replace carbohydrates, and replace protein. The main goal of food is to supply our bodies with a natural healing capacity through nutrient rich sources. However, many of us now eat chemicals for our nourishment instead of vital macronutrients. To our food suppliers, profit is the key factor in food production.

Unfortunately, for the consumer of these fancy foods, food additives are often neurotoxic and/or carcinogenic. Thousands of the processed foods on the market are loaded with synthetic chemicals, which inside your body overload your organs of elimination. These chemicals are then stored in your cells, where they cause damage. Where the chemicals are stored is different in every individual. This is why one person might end up with cancer and another with irritable bowel.
Here are a few items on the market today that are widespread contributors to ill health:

Processed meats – Full of synthetic chemicals that weaken our bodies creating toxicity and a demand for extra nutrients just to cope. Lead, aluminum, and mercury are used in conventional processing.

Pasteurized dairy - There is also evidence that pasteurized dairy consumption causes immune-system reactions that trigger arthritis, atherosclerosis, type I diabetes, and increased risk for cancer.

Sugar and unnatural sugar alternatives – Too much causes the digestive tract to slow down and creates an overly acid body that can lead to chronic heart burn and the wearing down of all body systems. The more sugar you eat, the more nutrients are required to keep your body in balance!

Refined or denatured foods – Protein powders, high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, and white flour.

MSG or monosodium glutamate – This increases your chance of obesity and can permanently shift neural mechanisms in your brain that will alter mood.

Table salt – Strains your body due to being highly refined by drying at over 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit. This changes its chemical structure and strips all nutrients.

It is important to realize that all diseases have their root in toxicity and cellular malnutrition! The above food facts are not meant to scare. Rather, they touch on the simple reality that eating healthy, non-toxic foods will assist our bodies to be able to fight disease naturally instead of creating an environment that leads to disease.

Dietary changes and detoxification are two main focuses of the Optimal Health Network. Colon cleansing, along with diet and lifestyle changes, will assist your body in eliminating stored toxins and can be a valuable tool in optimizing health and well-being.

SOURCE: Ten Days to Optimal Health (Amelong 2006)

Labels: cancer, diet and lifestyle, environmental toxins, MSG, processed food