Vitamins & Minerals

Some mind-opening experiences or thoughts…

Have you ever thought of food instead of vitamins and minerals? Gaining nutrition mostly from food… that sounds vaguely familiar. However, with the way food is nowadays (with much less nutrition than in our great grandparents’ day (see previous post), no wonder doctors and nutritionists are urging us to be sure to take our vitamins as a way of ensuring our health. Nutrition mostly from food… It took some “turning my mind around” to get me used to the idea. Doctors did say a while back that we don’t have to take vitamins or supplements. Just eat “right.” Now, virtually all doctors say that we should take them everyday… So when I started eating and drinking the foundational foods (Sunrider), I was surprised to hear from my mentor that instead of taking vitamins, I could just eat and drink these foods. It took some time adjusting to the concept. I just stopped buying the vitamins at the health food store. An easy decision due to budget constraints anyway. Money I would’ve spent on vitamins, I spent on Sunrider’s nutrition-dense foods instead. I learned that nutritional gaps would be covered with this program; with some adjustments (additional food-based nutrients) according to individual needs, i.e. menopause.

I’ve been on that nutrition program (The Basic 5) for over 3 years now. Have gained health as I got older; and strength too. Gained health as I got older; that might be thought of as an oxymoron”. I am seeing many people in my generation–unfortunately–having more ailments (such as arthritis) and a lot of them succumbing to degenerative diseases (I’m in my 50s). I feel lucky that I regained most of my health and energy. I’m surprised that I have more energy than when I was in high school (I was dragging myself around though, due to a dependence on coffee/tea and sugary foods). Considering that I was on a downward spiral of getting worse in my health (RSI (repetitive strain injuries from the computer), fibromyalgia, depression and low energy with blood sugar imbalance causing brain fog, among others), I’m amazed how those symptoms got reversed. BTW, I’m not saying that Sunrider cured me though. It was the nutrients that supported my body in the correct way that got my body to the point of healing itself—that made the difference. The awesome thing (here I am using that word again) is that my body cured itself! That’s another mind-opening “thing” for me to comprehend! Wow just about sums it up for me…!

 

Our Food Supply Today

I’m paraphrasing of all things, an astrology reading for Virgo by Rob Brezsny (thanks to Rob Brezny of Free Will Astrology). This is from a November ‘07 reading, if you’re curious (and BTW, I’m not a Virgo):  ”Because of  changes in agricultural techniques, food is nowhere near as nutritious as it used to be. Vegetables grown on modern factory farms have 27% less calcium and 37% less iron than they did in 1975, for example, as well as 21% less Vitamin A and 30% less Vitamin C.  So if you want to avoid being starved of essential nutrients, you either have to eat a huge amount, take supplements or consume organic food… “I  beg to differ with Rob about the organic food. Although it is an improvement from the cheaper food that’s harvested from chemically fertilized soil, even organic food has less nutrients than in our great great grandparents’ day. See this article which was referred by Dr. Dees (PhD, Nutrition) for more complete info.  

“Keep it clean and moving and the toxins don’t have a chance to sink in, take hold, destroy your body and cause disease”, says Diamond.

Friends and relatives have asked how I’ve managed to keep my weight down. These 2 factors make up a large part of my secret: Harvey Diamond’s approach plus Sunrider! The nutritional suppport from Sunrider made a crucial difference, it made keeping the weight down all the more easier (paraphrasing Dr. Aadil Palkhivala “…when you’re body’s fully nourished, it feels free to let go of stored toxins & fat”). Note: Even though I didn’t set out to lose weight, it still happened as an unexpected benefit in my goal to get healthier and stronger.

This article is from Rob Cooper’s (fellow Sunrider distributor) website (http://www.formerfatguy.com/articles/harvey-diamond.asp):

Best selling author Harvey Diamond served in Vietnam and is a survivor of exposure to the Agent Orange herbicide used to defoliate the jungles of Southeast Asia.

When diagnosed with a condition with no known cure that destroys the muscles of the body, he, like many of his buddies, was told to prepare to die.

Now thirty years later, one of the few remaining survivors with this debilitating condition, he credits his survival to his maintaining a healthy and fluid lymph system.

Years of research forms the basis for his current international best selling book, The Fit for Life Solution, How to Identify and Successfully Eradicate The Cause of Pain, Fatigue and Disease – NOW!

“A poorly functioning immune system that can’t fend off toxins is guaranteed to cause disease”, says Harvey Diamond, author of the acclaimed Fit For Life book series. “Only a strong healthy immune system will keep toxins from lodging in your body.”

“Keep it clean and moving and the toxins don’t have a chance to sink in, take hold, destroy your body and cause disease”, says Diamond.

Here are Harvey Diamond’s “10 Tips for Keeping Your Body at Maximum Health”:

Eat living foods as much and as often as you can [in addition to eating lots of living foods, we recommend eating/drinking Sunrider Whole Foods to fill nutritional gaps, since modern soil conditions don't provide enough nutrients. For example, it takes 12 cups of spinach to have the same nutritional effect as 1 cup in our greatgrandparents' day).].

You are a living body, so feed that body living food. Eat lots of fresh and cooked vegetables, raw or slightly cooked, and fresh fruit. Plants are filled with the nutrients, compounds and substances that promote life, something canned and frozen foods tend to lack. These essential materials allow the immune system to strengthen itself and work more effectively and more efficiently. Eat organic fruits and vegetables whenever possible to avoid pesticides, herbicides, insecticides and chemical fertilizers. Many of these residual chemicals are toxic or can’t be digested, broken down or flushed out of your body. Pesticides and many chemicals bio-accumulate in the cells or bones in your body and eventually may trigger cancers or other toxic chemical disease reactions.

Eat fruit correctly – alone – or before anything else.
Fruit is to be eaten alone. Alone fruit turns into energy faster than any other food because it is the only food that does not require digestive energy. It should be eaten before other anything else. It should not be eaten with anything else, or after a meal. When eaten alone fruit tends to be alkaline when it enters you stomach. However, when fruit is combined with wheat, meat, dairy or vegetables it turns to acid in your stomach. As a result, it doesn’t get digested and instead ferments producing alcohol, which in turn promotes a build up of toxins over time, and is one of the primary causes of diseases such as cancer.

Eat more salads.
Salads are living foods. Every time there is a great discovery of a compound that helps cancer or other human maladies, it comes from the plant kingdom. You’ll never find an amazing discovery that has been isolated in a pork chop.

Reduce animal products in your diet.
Scientific evidence abounds showing that animal products, especially meats and poultry raised in feedlots with antibiotics and artificial hormones, are associated with more and more diseases. The human lymph system is not designed to break these artificial materials down so they can be washed away. They tend to remain and build up in our bodies, creating stockpiles of toxic chemicals that eventually can overwhelm the body’s immune system.

Reduce or even eliminate dairy products from your diet.
Dairy products are a real health hazard to many people. They contain no useful fiber or complex carbohydrates and are laden with saturated fat and cholesterol. Milk is often contaminated from pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics. Dairy products are known to be a major cause of allergies, constipation, obesity, heart disease, cancer, and other diseases. Many doctors including the late Dr. Benjamin Spock, America’s leading authority on child care, have spoken out against feeding cow’s milk to children. Doctors have shown it causes anemia, allergies, and insulin-dependent diabetes. More and more studies are showing that dairy products may actually cause osteoporosis, not help prevent it, since their high-protein content leaches calcium from the body. Dairy products create an immense amount of mucus in your body and your lymph system has to work overtime to rid the body of this unnatural product.

Eat light in the morning, preferably fruit or vegetables or juices. Go light at lunch. Lay off the heavy sweets in mid-afternoon. Don’t eat heavy just before you go to sleep.
Digestion requires more energy than any other function of the body, which is why you feel tired after eating, and why you rush to the coffee machine to perk you up. Eat a light breakfast. Leave about three hours without eating before you go to sleep. The body needs to rest, not work on digesting food that saps energy for healing.

Drink lots of pure water every day.
The living body is about 70% water and through natural daily movement and evaporation your body loses 2 quarts of water a day. You need to replenish water because your body does not manufacture it on its own. Drink a minimum of eight, eight ounce glasses a day to replace the 2 quarts of water your body loses. The medical benefits of water are many – there are more medical miracles associated with water than any other substance known to mankind. It is the single most important food you can ingest and is known to help treat and even cure heartburn, backache, headache, upset stomach, diabetes, heart disease and even cancer. If you have any of these diseases, you may just be suffering from dehydration, along with 75 percent of the rest of the population.

Exercise daily. Exercise more and more every day till you change your lifestyle.
You can improve how you look, how you feel, and how much you enjoy every day. You’ll get more energy from increasing how much you exercise even if you just start with a twenty minute walk every day. Physical activity is essential to get you heart pumping blood moving through your system to bring oxygen to your brain and flush toxins from your body. Movement and activity cleanses the lymph system. Find something fun and do it regularly. Get energized and spice up your life.

Take fewer prescription drugs.
Medications are only necessary when you are sick. The rest of the time medications can compromise your physical and mental fitness. Drugs and medications may also interact with each other and produce negative side effects. The body can’t break down many drugs easily. Like pesticides and hormones they build up in the muscle, bones, skin and cells of your body and interfere with normal body function. Study what you are taking and search out natural alternatives, and make the switch. Find an herbal food consultant or find a dietitian or nutritionist to help you.

Think positive thoughts. Find the rainbow in everything.
You attitude is the most important factor that will influence what happens to you in your life. Develop and keep a positive attitude about everything. Be grateful for everything, for everyone and for every moment of your life. Wake up and start each day by repeating positive thoughts out loud fifty times! Watch what happens then! Ask who can I bestow love upon rather than who loves me or worse, who is out to get me today. Ask what can I do to make someone happy rather than why should I be happy today, or worse, who’s going to yell at me and make my day miserable. Look for find and focus on the good things around you. Choose to spend your time thinking about the good things you find. See your life as a glass half full, rather than one half empty. You attitude will make the difference in your life.

These are just a few of the phenomenal ideas and strategies you’ll find in Harvey Diamond’s book The Fit for Life Solution, How to Identify and Successfully Eradicate The Cause of Pain, Fatigue and Disease — NOW!

The Fit for Life Solution, How to Identify and Successfully Eradicate The Cause of Pain, Fatigue and Disease – NOW! is available at bookstores nationwide, and online from Dragon Door Publications, Web: www.dragondoor.com

Calli & Fortune Delight

Here is a great article written by
Dr. Van Beveren, Ph.D., CNC, CNS

Calli and Fortune Delight
A Perfect blend of green and Black Tea

Calli and Fortune Delight are blends of black tea, green tea, and cleansing herbs. The basis for these formulas dates back nearly 5000 years in Chinese history.

The Chinese associate the simple principles of yin and yang to most everything. Including health principles. Yin, for example, is “in” or nourishes and yang is “out” or cleanses.

Focusing on cleansing, we know that the body needs to remove waste from its normal metabolic processes. The body must also remove harmful material taken from the environment as well as the food supply, thus the need for yang must be part of any balancing program.

For thousands of years the Asian cultures have consumed large quantities of green and black tea for the benefit of cleansing as well as balancing. Today, western scientists have acknowledged that there are major benefits to black and green tea, mostly because of the flavonoid content.

These same scientists looked at the tea drinking countries of the East. The cultures that averaged 4 or more cups a day of black or green tea had the lowest incidences of most common western disorders.

Recent research has shown the value of green and black tea for various imbalanced states associated with poor diets. Research also shows the value of drinking the teas before, during, and after meals.

Green and black tea come from the same herb, Camellia sinensis. The preparation is the difference. Green tea is heated whole with dry air or steam, while black tea is fermented, rolled and allowed to dry.

The different drying methods allow for different anti-oxidant phyto- nutrients to remain. The scientific verification of the value of black and green tea gives a key reason to choose a blended product to replace coffee, herbal tea, soft drinks, and even bottled juices.

Calli and Fortune Delight are blends of Camellia Sinensis, in both the green and black form. The difference between traditional forms of black and green tea and Calli and Fortune Delight is:

Calli and Fortune Delight are concentrated.

It would be difficult to drink enough black and green tea to actually enjoy the preventative benefits of catechins. However, Calli and Fortune Delight are concentrated, thus making the catechins strong antioxidants.

Calli and Fortune also have other herbs added to the combination for their cleansing benefits and phytonutrient qualities, while green and black tea is from one herb.

Sunrider has produced these herbal beverages for 25 years. Calli is in an unbleached tea bag, while Fortune is in an instant powder form.

To keep it simple, the main difference between Calli and Fortune is that Fortune Delight is an instant and Calli needs to be brewed.

Therefore, drink either but drink them daily.

Both Calli and Fortune come in a variety of flavors that provide functionality as well. For example, Cinnamon Calli or Cinnamon Fortune are great with meals. The special formulas with the addition
of cinnamon are both soothing and beneficial for the digestive process.

Calli night is great before bed, but it is also enjoyable in the middle of the day during a deserved “time out” period. Calli mint is perfect for that morning wake up beverage.

There is also benefit to drinking before, during and after each meal as well as a refreshing beverage throughout the day.

Both Calli and Fortune have been tested by gas chromatography to show the presence of the important tea catechins and other flavonoids, whose health benefits have been recognized worldwide.

So much talk about free radical damage has people everywhere scrambling for convenient sources of anti-oxidants. Sunrider’s extensive testing has also shown the presence of necessary antioxidants in both products.

Unlike most teas that are simply ground herbs placed in a tea bag, Calli consists of concentrated herbs sprayed back on to a carrier leaf that has been soaked in herbs and flower essences. Therefore, your introduction of hot water is basically “reconstituting” the concentrated formula.

Other tea products must be soaked longer in smaller cups because they are not concentrated . Calli’s concentration makes it a great value. Sunrider’s own quality-processing facilities insure that the key
phytonutrients, like the tea catechins and other flavonoids, are always present.

Calli can be enjoyed hot or cold, but it’s best if you start in hot water. In heating the water, stop just as it begins to boil. The boiling increases too much oxygen from the water leading to flat tasting tea.

Because of Calli’s unique production, it is suggested that the bag be placed in a full pot of water for about 5 minutes and used only once.

Fortune Delight has many of the same characteristics as Calli, however, Dr. Chen has prepared
it in an instant form for convenience.

It can be mixed in hot or cold water. Also tastes great iced with Sunny Dew or Sunectar added. It is always a good idea to add either product to Calli or Fortune as it helps the pancreas. These are great nutritional combinations for the entire family to enjoy.

The key to deriving the nutritional benefits of these products is consistency. Take them to work, to restaurants, on vacation, wherever you go. The ongoing interest in combating free radicals, as well as the recognized need for cleansing the body, set Calli and Fortune Delight as THE beverages of choice for the next century.