The Power of Turmeric

I've written on tumeric before, but I have never tasted raw tumeric root.  It is as you see pictured below, maybe even a little more orange inside that what is presented here.  Initially, it tastes like a carrot, but a carrot with a zing.  If you're tired of eating carrots, then try raw tumeric root.  It's tastier, and it helps to reduce inflammation on your liver.  

If you want to learn of all of the benefits of turmeric, then check out this list and this post.  It inhibits Alzheimers, so if you are concerned for yourself or loved ones, you might want to read this short paragraph. It's a great brain tonic.  The trick is to find a way to get the spice into your system that makes it easy.  I consider this spice the most important also for liver health.  So don't miss it.  Find a way to get this into your system--a fruit smoothie, a vegetable smoothie, something tasty with a plain yogurt. 

COCONUT BUTTER IS HEART ENERGY

Coconut Butter: Heart Energy

Everybody finds their own path to 5 or 10% more health, more vim and vigor and vitality. Vigorous, competitive exercise achieves this goal pretty quickly.  Beyond vigorous exercise, there are some foods that help you reach this goal. Generally, it is functional foods that do this best.  We all pay attention to the effects of foods.  For me, raw milk has an excellent effect on boosting my immune system after a particularly stressful week.  Eggs sunny-side up also have a fortifying effect.  When it comes to heart strength, I reach for raw coconut butter.  I take 2 tablespoons on the recommendation of Dr. Donald Miller.

Not only is the food functional in that the energy is directed straight to my heart but the butter, which is more like a lightly sweetened paste, also tastes delicious.

ANTI-DEPRESSANTS: ARE THEY POISONS?

There are lots of good foods, vegetables, fats, meats, herbs, and spices out there to keep us healthy and to treat conditions, most conditions, and restore us back to a vibrant state of health more or less.  I encourage everybody to use food to medicate yourself but use it judiciously.  Above all do not use pharmaceuticals to treat conditions.  I was a school teacher for a few years and I used to hear how teachers were using this or that signature pharmaceutical to tinker with energy, headaches, stress, and whatnot.  Teachers took full advantage of their health benefits.  In fact, for some, their health benefits were more valuable than their salary and more important than their work.  I know how cynical that last statement sounds, but there was a weird psychological dependence develop with some individuals and their psychiatrist.  It seemed reckless and over zealous to treat psychiatrist as their personal and on-demand pharmacy.  Still, I was amazed at how teachers were using their bodies almost as laboratories.  And anybody who has tried this diet or that diet has done the same thing, but I think doing so with food carries far fewer long-term adverse effects.  If someone goes on an all-protein diet, for example, and they begin to lose the energy and strength they felt after the first week of such an onslaught of protein, then incorporating green leafy vegetables into their diets restores a balanced hormonal response and they begin to feel better.  But be on a drug regime for several weeks or months or years and then come off of it spells some serious, long-term consequences to organ and nerve tissue and blood.

Last night I was reading an article about anti-depressants and learned that the Eli Lily drug, Prozac, is made of fluoxetine hydrochloride.  That's right, fluoride, that toxic and notorious nerve destroyer.  Prozac is bad, though the pharmaceutical companies and their shills will celebrate its virtuous and harmless effects.  This stuff is not harmless.  Read the article just above that I linked.  If you're not feeling yourself and you want a quick fix, reach for food.  But never, never, never surrender self-ownership and stewardship of your condition over to doctors who are essentially drug dealers for the pharmaceuticals, like DOW, Pfizer, GKSmith, Monsanto, and others.  It's not worth it.  In fact, you will come to regret as that gentleman has in the article.  If you want to feel better, reach for pineapple.  If you want to feel better reach for a piece of cheese.  Get some good fats into your system, even bad fats which are certainly less harmful than Prozac, which is essentially a chemically-induced blunt trauma.  Don't do these things to yourself.  To your body, your good, strong body, be gentle.  If you are looking to rebuild or repair or restore nerve impairment, there may be no better medicine to achieve that result than a little light exercise.

Energy of American Ginseng

American ginseng stimulates, and Chinese ginseng calms.  I really liked this chart here of the benefits of ginseng.  It gives cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy more energy. You can purchase ginseng root in root form or in capsule form.  If you purchase the root form, you'll need to prepare it.  So, how does one prepare ginseng root?  I mean it is not like ginger, which you can eat directly or added to meat and other dishes specifically to enhance the flavor.  Ginseng can be added to soups or boiled to make tea.  This is the version I would consume it in, for you can add some honey to enhance the flavor.  Other alternatives, if you're ambitious enough, are to use the root as an infusion to oils or honeys and other liquids, vodkas even.

Where Is the Outrage?

I started this blog to post the benefits of food in restoring health and vigor.  I did this in part for my family and for my friends in case they preferred turning to food to restore them.  And for most of us, any ailment represents a ratio of health.  We're only so healthy as our immune system.  If it is 80% functioning, then that 20% of poor function puts our health at risk for something slight--a fever, aches and pains, joint stiffness, whatnot.  So with food we try to tinker with percentages.  We eat spinach, kale, or chard along with a piece of chicken or beef, and we increase that percentage from 80% to 85% even after a single meal.  If we incorporate healthy meals into our daily lives, we can increase the strength of our immune system from 80 or 85% to 90 or 95%.  For healthy people, we work with percentages; truthfully, we all work with percentages.  But imagine people, kids, without the 80% or even 70% of their immune system working.  Imagine the children of Iraq.

A world far from ours.  Or so it seems.  It's the appalling story of depleted uranium on the mothers, the fathers, and the babies in Iraq.  The Pentagon and everyone and anyone in the weapons industry knows of the health hazards of depleted uranium on human health.  They know.  But the deny the effects, so that they can go about their murderous ways.  The hatred and the fear that was so easily generated by the U. S. war propaganda against Iraq back in 2003 was appalling.  And the American television put the war of "Shock and Awe" on air as though it were a summer and national blockbuster enjoyed endlessly and comfortably from the living room of one's home.  We saw bombs bursting and rockets' red glare, an image that fit right in with our anthem.  Though we could imagine far worse devastation, we would not learn of the depleted uranium until afterwards.  And learn we did.  It kills people.  Not right away.  The death is a slow one.  The death is a painful one.  And as the U.S. is guilty of war crimes around the world and throughout history, those who conducted the war remain anonymous.  Those who destroyed the holy cities of Fallujah and Najah are protected and off the radar.  Here we are half way through 2013, and the effects of war in Fallujah and Najah and throughout Iraq are still felt.  But don't all cities, with the exception of Washington, D.C., have some aspects that are holy?

 

"No End In Sight," Iraq documentary by Charles Ferguson.

My question is, "Why did it take so long for the Norwegian delegation to learn of this?"  For the world has known about depleted uranium and its crushing effects on human health for years.  Have you seen the documentary Beyond Treason or The Hidden Wars of Desert Storm, both of which describe the criminal health effects from that first invasion?  There were so many lies surrounding this first Gulf War of 1990.  The U.S. government called it Operation Iraqi Liberation.

Here is Beyond Treason, released in 2005.  NB: graphic images.

 

The Hidden Wars of Desert Storm, released in 2001.  In the second half of this documentary, which I saw for the first time in a showing at Cal Tech Institute in Pasadena back in 2001 with local artist, Steve Hardy, there is some disturbing images of children deformed by the bombing and by the depleted uranium.

Again, what took the Norwegian delegation so long?

Then there was the Iraq War of 2003, launched by Bush, initially titled "Operation Iraq Liberation."  The acronym, O.I.L., was not lost on anybody, so the administration altered the title of the campaign to "Operation Iraqi Freedom," blunting the goal of greed inherent in war.