An inspiration

[ THIS IS A HEALTH.IT ... NOT A DI.ET]

GAIN BETTER HEALTH WITHOUT PILLS

"Arthritis is a symptom, not a disease"

by Dee Finney

1-10-2001

DISCLAIMER

I am not a doctor
I am not a nutritionist
I am not a diagnostician

This page is not meant to cure you of a specific disease
... but to educate you to possibilities ...

If you are ill, please see a physician!

If you are diabetic, print out this page and discuss it with your doctor!

Just so you know, There is no such thing as a perfect diet.
There is no single diet that is "best" for all.
Diet and health are not "one size fits all" approaches.
Diet should serve the individual.
You should not be a slave to dietary dogma.
Your health is more important than dogma!

"The wheels of the Gods move slowly but surely."

"It takes from two to three years to reach the high point of internal perfection"

Do not eat a heavy breakfast

Do not eat meat every day

Do not eat more than one kind of protein in the same meal

Eat fruit at the beginning of a meal, not at the end

Do not eat acid fruit in the same meal as protein

Do not eat fats with proteins

Do not eat sugar in the same meal with protein

Do not eat sweet fruits in the same meal with protein

Do not eat bread, potatoes, pie, stuffing with protein
i.e. no meat sandwiches

Eat fruits, preferably alone especially bananas

CAFFEINE FAQS

Caffeine is not listed as a drug, but is addictive.  Whether you get it in coffee, teas, or soft drinks, it has withdrawal symptoms like a drug. It induces both psychological and physical dependence like a drug. Caffeine is a stimulant to the central nervous system like cocaine.  Caffeine causes increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, birth defects, diabetes, kidney failure, gastric ulcers, cancer of the pancreas, ringing in the ears, trembling of muscles, restlessness, disturbed sleep, and gastrointestinal irritation. It upsets the blood sugar level, and forces the pancreas to secrete insulin.

Decaffeinated coffee? The process uses highly caustic chemicals which are solvents to permeate the bean which you then ingest.

It takes 24 hours for one cup of coffee to pass through the kidneys and urinary tract.  (For those who drink 7 or 8 or more cups a day, you might want to invest in your own dialysis machine ... or at least invest in the company which makes them.)

Coffee is also acid forming.  

WHY DO WE WORRY WHETHER A FOOD IS ACID FORMING?

The body has a PH balance ... just like you have to balance the water in your fish tank or your fish die. Anyone whoever had a fish tank knows that the water has to be kept at 7 PH. or you lose your fish.

0 PH is absolute acid - 14 PH is absolute alkaline - 7 PH is neutral

The blood in the body is actually 7.35 to 7.40 PH.

Coffee and tea are pure acid. So, the body retains water in the body to counteract the acidity ... which makes you gain weight.

Soda drinks are sweet with sugar or even worse with the chemicals that taste like fake sugar. Sodas contain phosphoric acid, malic acid, carbonic acid, and erythorbic acid. Not to mention that a lot of sodas have caffeine.

White sugar ferments in the body and form acetic acid, carbonic acid and alcohol.

The key to good health is to keep the body PH at neutral or as close as possible.

Always eat sitting down at the table

If not entirely comfortable in mind and body from the previous mealtime, you should skip the next meal.

Do not eat unless you have a keen desire for the plainest food.

Do not eat beyond your needs.

Be sure to throughly masticate your food.

Skip meals if in pain - emotionally upset - not hungry - chilled - over heated - or during acute illness.

50 to 75% of the foods eaten should be raw.

Don't eat late at night before bed.

Don't try to change your whole way of eating all at once.
Your willpower will rebel.  Make little changes over time.

Adjust your ways of eating gradually, so that the body gets used to it.

You DON'T need to count calories.

You DON'T need to weigh yourself.

The body knows what it should weigh.
All you have to do is feed it the proper food to do it's job.
"NOT MORE THAN IT NEEDS!"

If your body is already thin, you still need to lose 'WASTE'

THE TRUTH ABOUT SODIUM (NOT TABLE SALT)

Excerpted from:  Nutrition Almanac - (2nd edition) McGraw Hill - 1984 - pg 88

SODIUM

Description:

Sodium is an essential mineral found predominantly in the extracellular fluids, the vasular fluids within the blood vessels, arteries, veins, and capillaries; and the intestinal fluids surrounding the cells. About 50 percent of the body's sodium is found in these fluids and the remaining amount is found within the bones.

Sodium functions with potassium to equalize the acid-alkali factor in the blood along with potassium, it helps regulate water balance within the body; that is, it helps regulate the distribution of fluids on either side of the cellw alls. Sodium and potassium are also involved in muscle contraction and expansion and in nerve stimulation.

Another imortant function of sodium is keeping the other blood minerals soluble, so that they will not build up in deposits in the bloodstream. It acts with chlorine to improve blood and lymph health, helps purge carbon dioxide from the body  and aids digestion. Sodium is also necessary for hydrochloric acid production in the stomach.

Sodium is found in virtually all foods, especially sodium chloride, or salt. High concentrations are contained in seafoods, poultry, and meat. Kelp is an excellent supplemental source of sodium.

Absorption and Storage

Sodium is readily absorbed in the small intestine and the stomach and is carried by the blood to the kidneys, where it is filtered out and returned to the blood in amounts needed to maintain blood level required by the body. The absorption of sodium requires energy. Any excess, which usually amounts to 90 to 95 percent of ingested sodium, is excreted in the urine.

The adrenal hormone aldosterone is an important regulator of sodium metabloism. Excessive salt in food interferes with absorption and utilization, especially in the case of protein foods. Vomiting, diarrhea, or excessive perspiration may result in a depletion of sodium. Sodium supplements to prevent sodium deficiency may be needed in such cases. The levels of sodium in the urine reflect the dietary intake, therefore when there is a high intake of sodium the rate of excretion is high, and if the intake is low the exretion rate is low.

Dosage and Toxicity

There is no established dietary requirement for sodium, but it is general observed that the usual intake far exceeds the need. The average American ingests 3 to 7 grams of sodium and 6 to 18 grams of sodium chloride each day. The National Research Council recommends a daily sodium chloride intake of 1 gram per kilogram of water consumed.

An excess of sodium in the diet may cause potassium to be lost in the urine. Abnormal fluid retention accompanied by dizziness and swelling of such areas as legs and face can also occur. An intake of 4 to 28 grams of salt (sodium chloride0 daily is considered excessive.

Diets containing excessive amounts of sodium contribute to the increasing incidences of high blood pressure. The simplest way to reduce sodium intake is to eliminate the use of table salt.

Deficiency Effects and Symptoms

Deficiencies are very uncommon because nearly all foods contain some sodium, with meats containing especially high amounts. A sodium deficiency cause intestinal gas, weight loss, vomiting, and muscle shrinkage. The converson of carbohydrates into the fat for digestion is impaired when sodium is absent. Arthritis, rheumatism, and neuralgia, a sharp pain along a nerve, may be caused by acids that accumulate in the absence of sodium.

Beneficial Effect on Ailments

As individual suffering from high blood pressure is advised to maintain a low-sodium diet, since sodium may aggravate this ailment. Resistance to heat cramps and heat strokes my be increased by moderate sodium intake. Sodium helps keep calcium in a solution that is necessary for nerve strength. Clinical studies indicate that low-sodium diets are effective in preventing or relieving the symptoms of toxemia (bacterial poisoning), edema (swelling), proteinuria (albumin in the urine), and blurred vision.

Sodium may be beneficial for the following ailments:

Diarrhea, Adrenal exhaustion, Cystic fibrosis, Leg cramp, Tooth and gum disorders, dehydration, fever, polio.

ESTIMATED SAFE RANGES OF SODIUM FOR HEALTHY PEOPLE

FOODS RICH IN NATURAL SODIUM

carrots - 40 mg	celery - 100 mg	pineapple   -10 mg	cauliflower - 30 mg	spring onions - 5 mg	oranges - 10 mg
onions - 5 mg	tomatoes - 5 - 16 mg	whey - 137 - 217 mg	Swiss chard - 313 mg	whey cheese - 137 mg	broccoli - 55 mg
red cabbage - 30 mg	artichoke - 70 mg	brussel sprouts - 25 mg	Savoy cabbage - 20 mg	rutabaga - 34 mg	peas - 5 mg
sweet almonds - 3 mg	okra - 8 mg	brown rice - 10 mg white rice - 2 mg	egg white - 56 mg whole egg - 63 mg	walnuts - 3 mg	turnips - 78 mg
lentils - 2 mg	collard greens - 17 mg	yellow corn - 8 mg	papaya - 4 mg	sweet potatoes - 17 mg	cucumbers - 4 mg
potato - 10 mg	raisins - 5 mg	green peppers - 3 mg	skim milk - 126 mg milk (8 oz.) = 145	lima beans - 52 mg	Cheddar cheese (1 oz.) = 176
V-8 Vegetable Juice - 750 mg	V-8 Vegetable juice - Low Sodium - 95 mg		American cheese (1 oz. processed) = 490
dried chestnuts	tamarin	kohl  rabi	beechnuts	Dandelion	horseradish
rye meal	coconut  whey	Danish bleu cheese	chervil	parsley
goat's milk	Swiss Cheese			Norwegian whey	requefort cheese
chicken - 63 mg	duck - 89 mg	turkey - 48 mg	beef - 57 mg	mackerel - 56 mg	canned salmon - 270 mg
Pork loin (3.5 oz) = 59 mg	Bacon (3 pieces, or 1/2 oz.) = 303 mg	Ham, roasted (3.5 oz) = 1500			canned tuna - 250 mg

TABLE SALT

Salt is sodium chloride. About 40 percent of salt is sodium and 60 percent chloride.

One level teaspoon of salt = 5.5 g = 2,132 mg of sodium.

Soy sauce (1 tbs.) = 920 mg

Note: if you have cooked or sprinkled any of the above unsalted food with salt add:

50 mg sodium for a light sprinkle of salt per food
100 mg sodium for a heavy sprinkle of salt per food
500 mg sodium for 1/4 scant tsp salt added in cooking

Sodium is also found in many other ingredients used in food processing.
Examples of sodium-containing ingredients and their uses in foods are:

Baking powder--leavening agent
Baking soda--leavening agent
Monosodium glutamate--flavor enhancer
Sodium benzoate--preservative
Sodium caseinate--thickener and binder
Sodium citrate--butter, used to control acidity in soft drinks and fruit drinks
Sodium nitrite--curing agent in meat, provides color, prevents botulism (a food poisoning)
Sodium phosphate--emulsifier, stabilizer, buffer
Sodium propionate--mold inhibitor
Sodium saccharin--artificial sweetener

WHY IS POTASSIUM IMPORTANT?

Potassium is necessary for many body functions. Every time we use a muscle, that muscle needs potassium to make it move. Without potassium, the heart muscle couldn't beat! Potassium is also needed to help regulate blood pressure. Loss of potassium can increase your risk for heart disease.Potassium is abundant in both plant and animal products, but processing often adds sodium and removes potassium. Eating lots of convenience foods and other processed foods can leave you short in potassium.

Sodium Facts on Other Foods Not Listed Above

Whole Health Food Information

Low Salt-Low Sodium Information

WHAT ABOUT AGE?

Excerpt from:  Overcoming Arthritis and Rheumatism by Dr. Bernard Jensen D.C. (year unknown)

The average person has an idea and many doctors have so told patients, that they have rheumatism and arthritis - and that it is inevitable - because they are growing old. When the joints get stiff and hard, when they become painful or immovable, when an X-Ray shows a lipping or a calcium deposit - spurs - on the joints of the spine or elsewhere, many have the idea that it is a "natural process" that develops as we grow older. Many time i hvae heard a patient say, "Doctor has told me that my stiffness is just a natural consequence and it is due to the fact that I am just getting old."

This is the one thing that this kind of work can promise you. This is the thing that can come to you through right living. This work can help you to be a better person - - it is worth getting acquainted with.

Yes! it's a matter of a chemical change. It's not a part of age. There are some people who think that age goes along with this hardening of the tissues.  I realize that as we get older, it's easier to lose control of the chemical balance; our circulation is not as good, it's a little slower. That's not a disease, but we have to readjust our habits as we grow older.

Besides all the strain of life and living, most persons are the victims of devitalized foods which are acid-producing and require alkaline elements to neutralize them. The waste acids produced in the body are irritating to the tissues and so seriously intefere with proper functioning that the digestive juices may no longer have the proper consistency and the acid-alkaline balance "may be disturbed". The alkaline element most heavily drawn upon to neutralize these acids is Sodium.

Not all problems of digestion are because of the food eaten, but because of mental strain while eating - jealousy, hate, worry, fretting, stewing, resentment, can also add more to our production of mental acids, along with an upset chemical balance than anything else.  These types of things use up all of the soft chemical block structure of the bloodstream, namely, the chemical element called Sodium.

Each organ of the body needs it's own balance of chemicals which can only be given to it by good digestion of good foods.  

Whenever we have joint trouble, calcium is out of soution. Calcium is the heaviest of all the elements in the body and when it is out of solution, it will settle in the feet and hands, especially the feet, because they are farthest from the heart. It is out of the bloodstream. It is being deposited because of the chemical bloodstream in combination with so much of the other chemical elements. We cannot have just calcium in the bloodstream, we have to have a proportion of calium as compared to a proportion of other chemical elements. When there is an over-balance of calium, there is usually a lack of some other chemical element. When there is an over-supply of the calcium, a lack of some other chemical element exists. So, you see, there is another point in our healing, we have to balance the bloodstream chemically. When we balance the bloodstream chemically we will balance the joint chemistry, we will balance the bone structure. So, now we have a bodily condition to take care of, not just a joint problem.

We find that this chemistry produces in the body an imbalance in the sodium-calcium structure, so that we have a joint malformation. We find that the calcium that has settled in between the joints actually looks the same as the bone itself. It's actually bone and to dissolve this bone material takes time. It's a constant blood bathing process that is needed. It's a constant circulation of the sodium over this hard calcium to bring it back to the limber stage again. Calcium develops and make bone structure and when you deposit enough calcium you have a good bone structure. When we have this settled in our spine, in our joints, its' called calcification. Calcifying this joint structure makes it immobile. You cannot move that joint structure. Sodium keep shte joints active, young limber, and movable.

Sodium helps us to have elasticity, limberness, youthfulness in our tissues. It is necessary to a normal chemical balance not only to the wall of the stomach, but also to the walls of the intestines. It is necessary to regulate the fluid content and to normalize the flora in the bowel. Sodium greatly effects the fluid balance throughout the body.

Sodium is the great acid neutralizer in the body. The sodium element is one of the blocks that produces youth; it gives us a limberness and the activity of the joint structures. It is stored in the stomach. We must take care of the stomach before we take care of arthritis. We must have a store house of sodium to neutralize the acids in the body, and for that reason we have to know what the sodium foods are, and we have to know how to keep from breaking down the sodium content of the body.

Natural sodium found in zucchini, celery, carrots, beets, and seaweed helps to prevent water from getting into the cells, which otherwise would result in stuffy nose, watery eyes and swollen tissues.

PROPER FOOD COMBINING

Proper food combining is not a '"diet"' diet. Proper food combining is the proper way of eaaating for which the body was originally designed.  It is like returning to 'nature'.

The body is designed to digest complex food ... not complex meals. The glands that produce digestive juices know when to produce it, how much to produce, and how long to produce it.

Even if you 'think' about eating a particular food, your glands will produce the proper digestive juice to digest that food.

Does your mouth water when you put a button in it?  No!  The body knows what is food and what is not.

Remember the last big Thanksgiving dinner you ate ... think about all the different kinds of food you ate all at once, followed by several kinds of dessert.  How did you feel afterwards?  Did you have lots of energy?  No doubt you felt tired, ill at ease, stomach distended, forget wearing a girdle after a meal like that ... forget wearing a tight belt and looking nice for a photograph ...  You probably felt like laying down and taking a long nap ... your stomach needed all your energy to try to digest all that food at the same time.  That is something the body can't do.  No chance ... no way.

Do you have stomach trouble? Do you belch after a heavy meal or feel full? Does food stays in your stomach for hours and hours? Do you taste the food you ate 4 hours later?

You can change that:

It takes about 4 hours to digest fats and proteins (meat, eggs, dairy), 2 hours to digest starches (rice, potatoes, pasta), 1 hour to digest vegetables (salad, cooked or raw vegetables), and 1/2 hour to digest fruit.

Butter vs Margerine.  Choose butter - Margerine is plastic fat!  Cook with Olive Oil!

Here are some combinations that go good together:

Proteins - nuts, seeds, dried beans, dried peas, peanuts, lentils, milk, eggs, cheese, flesh foods

Starches - potatoes, lima beans, mature corn, winter squash, artichokes, chestnuts, yams, pumpkins, grains, carrots, beets, coconuts

Good combinations:

1. Proteins with green and/or low starch vegetables

2. Starches with green and/or low starch vegetables

Acid fruits - orange, grapefruit, pomegranite, strawberry, pineapple, tangerine, lemon, lime, kumquat, kiwi

Sub-Acid fruits - mango, apricot, peach, nectarine, most grapes, apple, pear, cherry, berries, plum

Sweet fruits - banana, dates, raisins, sapote, papaya, fresh fig, Thompson grapes, Muscat grapes, persimmon, dried fruits

Poor food mixture at same meal: Acid fruits and Sweet fruits

Fair food mixture at same meal: Acid fruits with Sub-acid fruits, or Sub-acid fruits with Sweet fruits

Poor food mixture at same meal: Proteins and Starches -Example: Don't eat fish with rice. Don't eat meat with potatoes. OR bread.

Eat acids and starches at separate meals.

Eat protein foods and carbohydrate foods (grains, bread, pasta) at separate meals.

Eat but one concentrated protein food at a meal.

Eat proteins and acids at separate meals.

A good rule of thumb is to combine vegetables and protein together at one meal or starch and vegetables together without protein. It is especially good to follow this rule while trying to heal the digestive tract.