Asleep To What We Put In Our Body

This is yet another example from the blog post of June 13, 2017.  In this example Amy Lou is asleep when it comes to her mind and body,and what she pours into her body.

It is one of the most common examples of being asleep that I think there is.  Most people do not even realize they do this and even if they did, they have no clue how to get out of it.  Diet programs and practices rarely help because people are not as conscious as they want you to believe.

Here is an excerpt from the blog post, Are You Asleep about Amy Lou.  Yes, she is health conscious because she drinks her diet sodas and consumes the low fat snacks and food as stated on the packaging of the food item.  Her body reacts with headaches and fatigue, but she blames this on stress and age, not on being asleep.

For a long time, I thought drinking soda was just as good as drinking anything else.  It was liquid and I knew my body needed liquid, so why did I need anything else?  I'd drink an occasional glass of water or some iced tea that had water in it, and thought everything was fine.  I didn't realize that I was just fooling myself.

Our bodies are made up of around 70% water, and yet we deprive it of one of the most basic things it needs.  All these other forms of liquids just don't do what our body needs.  It has to process and try to pull out useful water from what we consume.  This requires much more work and is often not very effective.

Drinking water is one of the best things you can do for your body.  It is mainly what I drink now, but it took me some time to make the shift.  If I don't drink enough water in a day, not only do headaches show up, but I feel the fatigue and fog in the brain.

Another part of being asleep in what we do to our body is the food we put in it.  Far too much processed food is consumed as being "nutritious" when really it is not.  We fail to put whole foods into our bodies, instead hijacking with sugar and processed stuff that has little value.  I'm sorry if the food industry does not like that statement, but if you want to be healthy - increase whole foods you consume, not frozen and packaged and processed stuff.

Another asleep behavior is not reading the contents of what you buy.  If you do read labels, you are ahead of the curve, but you have to read every label.  I swear, they sneak stuff in all the time that makes me scratch my head.  Why we are obliterating our food, I'll never understand.  It is being asleep at the highest levels.  I'm not even talking about GMO's here.  This is more than just GMO.

You've most likely heard that what we put in us is what we get out.  Yet, we shove the unhealthiest junk into our bodies and then wonder why they can't keep up.  We've heard it a million times, but we discount and neglect it as something we should tell others, but not practice ourselves.

Even though I try hard not to be asleep, I still fail on this one too.  Yes, I do the smoothies every morning packed full of phytochemicals from whole foods.  That helps, but I still need to be aware and conscious of what I eat, and make sure whole live food is a major part of my day.

Make sure you check out the next part in this 11 part series

 Part 8 is "Constantly Connected To The Job"

 

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Is The Food You Eat Killing You?

I know at one time, I never really worried about what I ate.  In fact, I doubt I even understood what good nutrition was.  I grew up in a home that had a big garden and so we enjoyed fresh vegetables much of the year or even canned produce through the winter.  I didn't realize for a long time that vegetables came from the store.

Unfortunately beyond that, we didn't practice good nutritional eating skills in the house I grew up in.  We didn't have an overabundance of candy or soft drinks, but we had plenty of cookies and other things.  Until I got sick in high school, much of our food was fried or cooked in ways that weren't healthy.

I'm glad we didn't have all the candy that there is on the shelves today.  I'm glad we didn't have the sugar flavored coffees and endless supplies of junk food.  Heck, I'm grateful we didn't have "normal food you now buy" that is so adulterated with foodstuffs and ingredients which in my view, are not healthy.  The food manufacturing industry wasn't quite as toxic as it is today.

Consume far too much sugar...

These days, everyone consumes far too much sugar.  In fact, if people really stopped to look at how much sugar they consume in their day, maybe they would wake up.  Maybe you're one of those people like I was that didn't pay attention to this.  Don't just assume that the products you buy or the things you eat don't have added sugar.

Most people barely eat whole foods in a day.  They miss out on the phytochemicals, the enzymes and the raw vitamins and minerals.  They miss out on the live stuff that helps fuel the body and keep it healthy.  The whole foods helps counteract some of the junk that we stuff into our body.  Every day, we do a whole food smoothie and you can read about it in my blog post at Making Whole Healthy Food Smoothies.

Sure, you may have gotten this far in life and have no health issues that you know of at this moment.  The more junk and sugar and non-whole food stuff that you consume, the more you're taking on a risk that could get life threatening.  It really can.  Just observe the increase in cancer and diabetes and other health ailments.  So many of these things can be prevented or reduced, but once we get past that point of no return, then we play havoc with our lives.

Start paying attention to what you eat...

If you want to change the course of things in your life and really take care of your body, then start paying attention to what you eat.  Know what is in the stuff you consume.  Read the labels.  Take notice of it.

Make little changes each day.  Trying to change all at once can be overwhelming, but make it a goal that you replace something that is junk or full of sugar with something that is more healthy.  Replace soft drinks and coffee with pure water, not some adulterated sugar flavored beverage that claims to be healthy.

Start making yourself whole healthy food smoothies using a Blentec Blender.  I will tell you that this has been one of the best things we ever did.  We don't get sick and we don't do flu shots.  We have a much more responsive and healthy digestive system.  We feel better and don't need to go to the doctor constantly for everything.  Whole food smoothies are nature's medicine.  If you truly care about your body, you will strongly consider doing this.

Take an inventory of what is in your cupboard and look at all the sugar amounts plus other ingredients.  Now, I do realize the food manufacturers try to hide some of the ingredients and there are some I don't think they actually list on products.  Be careful when reading the labels, because sometimes they are very tricky.  Get to know what you consume.

We've only got one body in this lifetime.  If we abuse it, it will try to keep up for a time. If we continue abusing our body, it will not be there for us.  Minor changes in what you eat can make big differences.  We all owe it to ourselves to be the healthiest we can be and we owe it to the ever increasing costs of health care to try to help ourselves, rather then just sit back and let our food kill us.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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I Love My Blendtec Blender

When they say this is the last blender you'll ever need, I believe it.  We started using our Blendtec Blender in 2009 and I love it!  We were a little concerned about spending as much as we did on this blender when we bought it, but those concerns were short-sighted.

We use our Blendtec Blender every day to do whole food smoothies.  You might have read other blog posts that I have written reviews about this or have seen my YouTube video, but this blender gets heavy usage.  I'm sure it will last us many more years to come.

Our whole food smoothies include grinding up avocado seeds, whole apples, beets, carrots and many other things.  When it blends these things up, it blends them well.  Seeds, skin and all.

I know I saw on some videos before I bought our Blendtec Blender that it would grind up a broomstick handle.  Of course, we don't do that with our blender, but that's good demonstration of just how powerful this is.

Most Diseases Are Reversible With Food

Did you know that most diseases are reversible with food? According to Jeff Primack, from QiRevolution.com, he has developed Food Based Healing Smoothies that have helped many people.

Just attempting to eat healthy is not enough because so often we either process, freeze or mutilate our food to the point of losing so many of the important nutrients, enzymes, vitamins and minerals. Just because we eat frozen vegetables or processed foods with healthy things in it, does not mean we are eating healthy.

Fruits and Vegetables contain naturally occurring photochemicals which Jeff calls, the spark plugs of the immune system. Humans do not generally get enough of them. Phytochemicals hide in the cellulose fibers of seeds, stems, skins and rinds of the fruits and vegetables we eat.

When is the last time you ate the entire apple including the seeds, stems, and apple peelings? Do you realize that the best part of the apple is in the seeds, stems and skin? Or you ate an avocado with including the seed and shell? What about the cucumbers that you buy in the store where you normally peel off the skin and eat the inside? (granted a waxed cucumber is probably not the best thing and our food industry is determined to wax every cucumber sold or charge outrageous prices for ones they don't). Just think of the fruits and vegetables you eat and how much of the "good stuff" of these do you throw away?

What Jeff Primack teaches, is how to make a smoothie using a high powered blender (found on Amazon - Blendtec TB-621) and dumping in all the fabulous phytochemical rich foods. We've been doing this for almost two years and not only does it really (and I mean really) help digestion, but we don't get the colds and flu like everyone else is getting. In fact, I overheard a conversation the other week about how these two people had been through two or three rounds of a cold and flu and it was almost foreign to me what they were talking about. If I feel anything like a cold or flu coming on, the smoothie usually knocks it out so quick that whatever was hitting me comes and goes within a day at the most.

At first, I wasn't sure if I could drink the smoothies. They taste good but sometimes you get ingredients that have off flavors and then it makes it hard to drink the smoothie. Once I got accustomed to it, I really don't mind it at all. It is part of our routine in the morning and we have gotten the prep work down to a science now so that it is not hard to prepare the stuff to put it in the blender. Our biggest problem is living in an area where produce in the stores is sometimes difficult to find. Sad that this happens, but it is true so it makes it a challenge at times.

There are so many nutritional things out there from Green Drink Mixes to Juice Plus to NingXia Red to Healthy Chocolate and so many other things. I know all these places have their research and their success stories and so on and so forth. I'm happy for them. However, when you have to start spending considerable money each month on a processed product that you can only buy from certain places or through some Multilevel Marketing (MLM) system, the questions in my mind run over each other trying to get answered! Sorry, but I'm just not into buying a product that someone claims and regurgitates the claims that it is the best thing since oxygen was discovered!

With the smoothies, I am using natural food that I can buy at my local market or I can grow on my own. I put it in a blender for a couple of minutes and drink it. That is all the processing there is. There is no heating and cooling and pressing into a pill or powder. There is no freezing or bottling and letting it sit in a warehouse or on a truck. There is no wondering what is truly in the product because I can see with my eyes and with my hands, just what is going into what I am consuming.

Even if phytochemcials are not something I specifically know about, it is not hard for me to understand how eating whole, natural and fresh fruits and vegetables is very healthy for a person. We've all been taught that we need to eat our veggies, so it is not difficult to understand how beneficial this is. If you're skeptical, than why not put it to the test? What do you have to lose? After all, I don't make any more money telling you about this if you do it or you don't do it. I'm just passing along something that I do and have had very positive benefits from.

Here are some examples of specific foods for specific diseases.

Kiwi - Helps to reverse Asthma
Avocado: Helps reverse heart disease, plaque in arteries and losing weight
Asparagus: Naturally Reverse Cancer & Detoxification
Bitter Melon: Naturally Reverse Diabetes and Improve Blood Sugar
Reishi: For Reversing Heart Disease, Chest Pains, Asthma & Depression
Maca: For Energy, Better Sex, Menopause, Fertility

Take a moment to look at Jeff's website along with the videos that he has put up on YouTube. It will explain much more and will give you further insight into the healing smoothies. If you want to get the smoothie formula book that I use, see the image link below to purchase this on Amazon.


Further Reading
1) Food Based Healing And Smoothies
2) Smoothies, A Year Later
3) Qi Revolution - Jeff Primack
4) Food Based Healing Introduction

Blog Post & Images (c) 2/20/11 Don Shetterly - use by permission only
http://www.donshetterly.com

Asparagus the Cancer Fighter

According to Jeff Primack of Qigong.com, Asparagus has more Gluthathione than any other food. Gluthathione is a phytochemical that helps with detoxification of the body.

While you can receive injections of Gluathathione, it has been suggested that better results are obtained by eating asparagus.


According to Wikipedia, Gluathathione has the following functions:

1) It is the major endogenous antioxidant produced by the cells, participating directly in the neutralization of free radicals and reactive oxygen compounds, as well as maintaining exogenous antioxidants such as vitamins C and E in their reduced (active) forms. Note: Endogenous antioxidants are antioxidants that are made by our bodies versus exogenous antioxidants that we get by eating antioxidant rich foods.

2) Regulation of the nitric oxide cycle, which is critical for life

3) It detoxifies many foreign compounds and carcinogens, including heavy metals such as mercury, lead, and arsenic.

4) It is essential for the immune system to exert its full potential

Jeff Primack's action strategy for cancer is to boost the immune system and detoxify the body. He suggests lightly steaming asparagus rather than eating it raw. The cancer strategy he uses calls for eating asparagus every day in addition to other foods that are high in phytochemicals.

For more information on Phytochemicals, see my blog post on May 14, 2009.


Blog Post & Images (c) 12/14/10 Don Shetterly - use by permission only

Smoothies, A Year Later

It has been over a year since we bought the Blendtec Blendor and started making our own smoothies every morning. After attending a Qigong Event put on by Jeff Primack, we decided to give this a try. (see post on Food Based Healing and Smoothies).

To be honest, I was not sure what to expect. We weren't trying it because we needed to solve some health problem or disease. If anything, we wanted to work on better digestion and better overall nutrition for ourselves.

While I know there are many claims made and many recipes given for the smoothies that state they are for all types of health conditions, I have no way to prove this one way or the other. So for the people that want definite proof of what these will and will not do, I can not give that to you. If you are looking for someone that is going to call this a fraud, you will not find that here either. I'm just stating my review of what this has done for us and why we chose to do this.

First off, regardless if I can prove what phytochemicals are in a smoothie, I am smart enough to realize that eating fresh, raw vegetables and fruits is one of the best things you could do for your body in a day. What better way to get much needed nutrients into your body without processing the ingredients and cooking or freezing them. Just how many of us would sit there in a day and eat this quantity of vegetables and fruits complete with the skin and seeds. I doubt very few of us would do this. So regardless of what anyone may think of the science behind this, it seems like a very healthy thing to do. So much food that we consume in a day is frozen, cooked and processed that by the time we eat it, there is little value left to what we consume.

Second, his claim about helping and improving digestion is right on. I can completely agree with him on how it does this and it makes a world of difference in how my body physically feels. I did not realize this until we started on the smoothies and while stress, anxiety and other factors may impact digestion, the smoothies do help.

Third, since we've been doing this, we do not get sick with flu/colds like we did. We never really got sick that much before but usually once a year, we would get a cold or flu. Sometimes we feel like we may be picking up some bug that is circulating around the community but it doesn't get that severe nor does it pull us under. I've actually found that if I am feeling a little under the weather and I drink a little more of the smoothie, that the symptoms go away much quicker. It is like a major pick me up for my immune system or that's how it feels. Most likely, we were all taught growing up that if we eat our vegetables and fruits, that we will be more healthy so it stands to reason that this would be the case. Again, I'm just trying to apply common sense here.

Fourth, is that I've been noticing how my tastes for various foods are beginning to change. Things that I once craved are no longer something that I have to have. Foods that I never really cared much for are beginning to taste differently to me and attract my attention. I'm finding that overall, foods have much more taste and flavor in them then they once did and that I'm choosing more wisely what I eat.

Fifth, there are some of the vegetables that we would never eat in a day that have significant health benefits for a body. We just don't care for the taste of them by themselves but when they are mixed together in the smoothies, it is fine. Granted, some days the smoothie tastes different than others, but overall, we have no problem drinking it every day. At points, I've wanted to take a break from it for a few days and so I listened to my body and did that. After a few days away, I'm more than ready to start it up again.

There are many health drinks, health pills, juice products out there today and while I know people make claims of the analysis and research, I have to question them. Anything that is processed in my view and opinion has already lost part of the battle for me. Plus, many of these so called "health drinks and nutritious products" will drain your wallet quickly. Someone is getting wealthy from them and often it is the company that makes the products. Many of these companies employ a multi-level marketing (MLM) to help push their product and so income becomes the reason for people to get you to try this. Yes, I understand that it is cloaked in the benefit to the person, but if they weren't getting a commission from it, would they still be pushing the product as hard? I remember a couple of these products where someone hounded me to buy it so badly that it got to the point where I wanted nothing to do with the person. Telling them no, meant nothing. It was almost as if a used car salesman was trying to sell me a car I didn't want.

The best thing with these smoothies is that we can go down to our local grocery store and buy everything we need. It isn't like we are having to make special orders to any particular company and attempting to earn commissions in the process. In fact, we could grow everything in our garden if we so desired which would be the best way. After all, why should you have to pay outrageous prices to drink or eat something that claims to make you healthy and cure all. That sounds a little too far fetched for this brain to agree with.

I see the ads on TV for the yogurt based products you can buy that claim to regulate your digestion in so many days. Of course, I'm sure they have extra sugar in them and they are processed foods. It is advertising and marketing to sell a product but in the end, one has to use common sense as to what they are eating and what they are buying into. With the smoothies, you don't add sugar and outside of blending them for a couple of minutes, there is no processing to them. There is no packaging to throw away either by doing the smoothies like there is when you buy these products from the store. So, in a small way, you are helping the environment rather than adding to the problem.

I just want to say that I don't get paid a thing in writing this blog post. I'm not earning a commission or selling anything. All I'm doing is telling you about something we do and we have seen a positive benefit to it, so we have kept it up. When we started it, we weren't sure if we would keep doing it forever but now it is part of our morning routine. We've worked the process out so that it is not a difficult thing to do every day. The BlendTec blender we bought is still going strong and we actually use it to make regular fruit smoothies and homemade peanut butter. The cost of the Blender was quite high at the beginning but seeing how it has performed makes us happy we purchased this and didn't attempt to buy some other brand.

So at the end of the day, each person of course has to decide what is best for them to do. No one size fits everyone. I'm telling you my personal views and opinions as I review what this has done for us. Some people are concerned if Jeff Primack is a fraud but to be honest, it is like everything that you hear - learn from the people, take that which works for you and keep everything in perspective. Not everything you hear is completely thought out at times and not everything you hear is a fraud. What Jeff Primack shared in the Qigong Seminar has worked for us and we'll continue to do it. Outside of that, it is up to you to evaluate what effects it may have upon your life. I was happy to see that Jeff Primack was very careful about the claims he made and how he was really trying to apply common sense to what he was saying.

If you have been doing the food based healing smoothies, please feel free to leave your stories of how it helped or how it didn't help you. I'd love to hear them and I'm sure others would to. Of course if the comments are meant in a mean spirited way, they most likely will not get posted. If it is respectful comments that are balanced, than most of the time, they are posted to the blog.

For Further Reading: Food Based Healing Smoothies

*For more articles, check out the Mind Body Thoughts Blog

Healthy Strawberries

Strawberries are one of my favorite fruits and we use them in our smoothie each day. Here are a few little tidbits of information about strawberries.

• 1 Cup of strawberries has about 45 calories and is packed full of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals.
• 1 serving (approximately 8 strawberries) provides 100% of daily requirements of Vitamin C
• Rich source of phenols a powerful antioxidant that helps to keep the heart healthy, guard against cancer and act as an anti-inflammatory.
• The USDA found that strawberries help slow the decline of age-related loss of cognitive and motor skills.
• The nutrients in strawberries nourish brain cells increasing brain health and function.
• Help provide a source of vitamin C and phenols to help prevent vision problems.
• Good source of potassium and magnesium which help to lower high blood pressure as a result of sodium.
  

Sources:

1. whfoods.com
2. Hands and Knees Gardening Blogspot
3. Hubpages.com - The Amazing Health Benefits of Strawberries
4. Organic Facts - Healthful Benefits of Strawberries
   

Food Based Healing & Smoothies

In May, I went to a Qigong Seminar at the Orlando Convention Center put on by Jeff Primack from the Supreme Science Qigong Center. It was a great seminar and one particular part of it was about food based healing. I will be honest in saying that sometimes I'm a little skeptical about these food based healing/nutritional programs. There are just too many out there claiming that their nutrition concepts and their products are by far the best thing since oxygen was created. With that said, this presentation was not "radical" statements but more down to earth, logically conceived thoughts. So it had my attention. We had considered "juicing" and "juice plus" and the "green drink" before this but were not completely sold on the concept of these things. Plus they were processed products being sold by some company that was getting rich off the concept. I really have a problem with that when it comes to my health.

If you go to qigong.com you will see much of the information that he presented in the seminar on this topic. In a nutshell, it is taking vegetables, fruits and herbs with the use of a high powered 3 hp blender to make smoothies. As he explained, this is not the same thing as juicing or taking supplements or other products. By using raw vegetables, fruits and herbs intact, you get the most benefit because of the phytochemicals that are located within the skins, stems, seeds, etc. The parts that most in our society discard as waste is where the true health benefits of these food items are located. Juicing removes these things and so while you are getting fresh juice, you're missing out on some of the greatest naturally occurring compounds for healthy living. Even all of these supplements, health candies and foods and all the other products on the market, do not have what you can find in raw foods. Processing does nothing positive to foods and so with the 3 hp blender, you're able to keep the foods intact but masticated enough where your body can easily and quickly digest them. I know I'm glossing over the fine details here but if you go to the link at the beginning of the paragraph, you'll see the details behind what I'm saying.

One of the biggest things that got everyone's attention towards the end and had people hysterically laughing was when he said if you do the smoothies every day, you will have big bowel movements (increased digestion). Amongst the gasps in the audience, he assured people that this was a good thing because it removes toxins from our body. Someone asked him how long that took, and he said when he first started doing the smoothies, it was the very next day. We found the same to be true basically. You do not necessarily need to go out and purchase things like Activia to do what natural foods from the grocery store can do for you.

Another thing he shared was that in his smoothie recipe book, there are many recipes that help people recover from all kinds of health conditions. Not only does it help but many people have reversed cancer, diabetes, heart conditions, and so on. I have no way to prove that but he has stated that many people have shared with him how the smoothies not only helped them but it reversed these serious conditions.

The thing I like about this is I am not buying some supplement that has been processed from someone that is getting rich from me. There is just too much of that out there and every time I see it, my eyebrows raise a few feet in the air. There are many claims made and there are many getting rich off of those claims. I have tried these things too and again, I'll just ask that you really and truly consider the "marketing" of these so called cures.

The smoothies are simple. It is pretty simple to cut things up and prepare. We use a recipe that is just for general health and includes the following items - cucumber, avocado, beet, fuji apple, corn, strawberries, lime, cilantro, rosemary, basil, mint, Goji berries, distilled water. Of course if you want the exact amounts, the recipe and more information can be found in the Smoothie Formulas book by Jeff Primack. Almost all of these products we buy in our local grocery store so it isn't like we have to purchase anything real expensive from any one person. The Goji berries are the only thing we have to go to a health store to buy.

Like I said, it isn't easy to prepare this and only takes a few minutes. We purchased the Blendtec 3 hp blender which isn't cheap but it grinds all of this up into a smoothie. Most regular blenders just wouldn't have the power to do that. We drink around 20 ounces of it a day or sometimes more depending upon the quantity made that day.

When we considered doing this, I thought I was going to not want to eat anything else after drinking that much smoothie. I was surprised that within a short time, I am hungry and have a strong desire to eat. This may be due to the fact that the food is so highly digestible in this state that the body absorbs it quickly.

If you do these smoothies, you won't be disappointed and it will not take long for you to see the results. Plus, there is no way I would normally eat all of these ingredients every day. I had never eaten beets or avocados before in my life. The herbs, especially the mint, helps give it a good flavor along with the strawberries. We're learning how to make it so that it tastes a little better to us as well but it has become part of our daily routine.

So, don't just take my word for it that it has helped the both of us greatly, but check it out and read more about it. And if you are wanting to enhance the health of your life, try it out for yourself and see if you don't see the benefits from it!

And NO, I do not make one cent on recommending this or writing this post. I am just doing it because we are pleased with the results. In fact, we purchased our blender directly through the online Target store website and got it a little cheaper plus had free shipping. I would recommend though that you purchase the smoothie recipe book or other information he has so you'll understand what you are doing better.

Just a final side note - the blender for this works in making all kinds of things. It is so simple to use, clean and it will blend anything together you put in it. It is an amazing blender!

For Further Reading: Smoothies, A Year Later

Phytochemicals

I first heard about Phytochemicals at a recent Qigong seminar I attended in Orlando with Jeff Primac of the Supreme Science Qigong Center. He was lecturing on Food Based Healing that he is a big proponent of and it had everyone's attention.

According to Wikipedia.com, they are chemical compounds that occur naturally in plants. They have been used as drugs for many years. Some examples include Hippocrates prescribing willow tree leaves to reduce fever, Salicin (Aspirin) from the white willow tree as an anti-inflammatory and pain reliever.

On phytochemicals.info, phytochemicals are non-nutritive plant chemicals that have disease preventive properties. There are more than a thousand known phytochemicals. While it is known that plants produce these chemicals to protect themselves, recent research suggests that they can protect humans against diseases. Some of the well known phytochemicals are lycopene (found in tomatoes), isoflavones (found in soy) and flavanoids (found in fruits). They are not essential nutrients and are not required for the body to function.

There are many phytochemicals and while each of them work differently, here are a few ways that they work in our bodies

• Antioxidant - protect our cells against oxidative damage and reduce the risk of developing certain types of cancer. Some sources include onions, leeks, garlic, fruits, vegetables, tea and grapes.
• Hormonal Action - Isoflavones found in soy imitate human estrogens.
• Stimulation of Enzymes - Indoles found in cabbages stimulate enzymes that make the estrogen less effective and could reduce the risk for breast cancer. Protease inhibitors are another phytochemical found in soy, beans, citrus fruits and cherries.
  
• Interference with DNA replication - Saponins found in beans interfere with the replication of cell DNA which can help to prevent the multiplication of cancer cells. Capsaicin found in hot peppers protects DNA from carcinogens.
• Anti-bacterial effect - The phytochemical allicin found in garlic has anti-bacterial properties.
• Physical Action - Some phytochemicals bind physically to cell walls which helps to prevent the adhesion of pathogens to human cell walls. Some sources of anti-adhesion properties are cranberries.

For a list of phytochemicals, go to http://www.phytochemicals.info/phytochemicals.php

According to Jeff Primac of the Supreme Science Qigong Center, phytochemicals are the sparkplugs of the immune system! They are found mainly in the skin, stems and seeds of fruits and vegetables. However, many times we throw away the best part of the fruits and vegetables and eat the part that has no phytochemcials. Of course, it is important to note, that to eat the seeds, stems and skin of most fruits and vegetables, one would take many hours a day to chew and digest these things.

Jeff states on his website that you can heal and prevent almost all forms of disease with natural food found all around us. Inside our food there is great healing power, but it gets lost with cooking, juicing or refining. Fortunately Jeff has found a way using a very high powered blender to blend all these fruits and vegetables together in a good tasting smoothie!

At the seminar, we actually got to try the smoothie and I was pleasantly surprised. Jeff has went out of his way to try and develop recipes that taste good but get the most bang for the buck. And guess what? All it takes is a high powered blender, a bunch of fresh fruits/vegetables and a few minutes of your time each day. For more information, go to Jeff's website and learn all about it. I know I'm going to be doing the same thing!