I am going to share with you possibly the most important piece of
advice you will ever receive about nutrition. This piece of advice
is not about supplementation. It is not about what you should be eating.
However this piece of advice affects every other dietary choice that you make.

Are you ready?

Chew your food!

Chewing is the first step of the digestive process. The fancy word
for it is mastication. What it means is that what you put in your
mouth is ground up into smaller pieces and mixed with some digestive
enzymes to begin the digestive process.

What is the digestive process? To understand the process, it’s best
to first understand the purpose. The purpose of digestion is to extract
beneficial materials from what you eat and expel the rest. This process
involves breaking down your food into smaller and smaller pieces.
When some of those pieces are small enough they are absorbed into your
bloodstream. Other components, like insoluble fiber, continue on through
your intestines and help to expel other waste products and to clean the
surfaces of your intestines.

So what does this have to do with chewing? If you do not properly to your
food, what you have eaten will go through your digestive system as large
pieces of food. You do not have teeth anywhere else in your body. After
you swallow your food, there are no other opportunities to break up large
pieces of food. The acid from your stomach and the enzymes from your small
intestine will only be able to act on the exposed surfaces. Chewing properly
is the only way to grind up your food so that it is small enough to allow
the rest of your digestive system to extract as many of the available
nutrients as possible.

So the next time you eat, put a little thought into the first step of
digestion. Chew your food.

Dave Saunders is a certified nutritional educator, wellness
coach and author. He is also the host of a weekly, nation-wide
telephone lecture on health and nutrition. For additional
information, please visit http://www.glycoboy.com or email Dave at
dave@glycoboy.com

So many Americans are turning to what they believe to be a “health food”, but are actually hurting their immune systems. Soy is NOT a health food. If you have an autoimmune disease or are pregnant, you should be especially careful to avoid foods made from soy.

Just 4 tablespoons of soy per day is enough to cause estrogen dominance and hypothyroidism. Estrogen dominance is BAD news for the autoimmune sufferer. This hormone is proinflammatory and will make your autoimmune symptoms worse! Additionally, hypothyroidism suppresses immune function.

Hypothyroidism can also make you cold and fat. Who wants that?!?! I noticed after I switched from cow’s milk to soy milk that I suddenly no longer needed my air conditioning, even when it was over 100 degrees outside.

Note: I am not saying to drink cows milk either. A good substitute for soy milk is the delicious almond milk.

A study of babies born to vegetarian mothers, published in January 2000, found that mothers who ate a vegetarian diet during pregnancy had five times the risk of delivering a boy with a birth defect of the penis. The authors of the study suggested that the cause was greater exposure to plant estrogens in soy foods popular with vegetarians.

Soy is also naturally high in MSG. I have seen soy food companies who label their foods MSG free. They are lying and unfortunately, they can legally do it!

Learn more at:
http://www.mercola.com/article/soy/

http://www.thewholesoystory.com/index.php

http://www.soyinfo.com/dangers.shtml
http://www.dldewey.com/columns/soyupdf.htm

Heidi Whitaker is an author and popular speaker on the topic of nutritional support of autoimmune disease. An advocate for alternative health solutions, she co-founded http://www.healthydivas.com, a resource center for those autoimmune sufferers looking for real answers outside of what conventional medicine can provide.

Nutrients form the basis for your body, emotional and spiritual needs. Fruit, vegetables, carbohydrates and fish and lean meat is important, but we’ve all heard the scare stories, ‘Mad cow disease’, ‘bird flu’, ‘radioactive fish’, ‘GM crop nightmares’ - and the coincidental timing of all these has made some consumers think twice about what they eat. Following these and many food-borne illnesses that have erupted across the international community, many people have made adjustments to their grocery lists, opting for organically grown meats and vegetables.

But what of the soil that each of these is derived from (cows eat grass too!). The sad fact is our soil is deficient. This is not only the result of a consistent showering of pesticides and fertilisers, but also through our own methods of farming that have only during the past 100 years or so become radically altered from our forebears gentle methods.

All over the world these food scares erupt - and while some may be founded in fantasy, others are quite frighteningly true. However, whatever you read or hear about, it really is up to you to decide what you want inside your body - and the good news is, that its easier than you might at first believe.

To be 100% sure that your food is safe and free from any harmful additives, you cannot go far wrong with organic fruit, meat and vegetables and free-range eggs. Even simpler, if you have a farmer near-by make their day (and a friend!) by buying their fresh eggs - you can see for yourself the chickens having ‘free range’ of the paddock. Or if you have access to the web, look at these informative sites: www.farmgatedirect.com www.freedomfood.co.uk And, when you make determined efforts to compare prices stacked on supermarket shelves, organic foods can be found to be often very similar!

But another way is to ensure that you have enough of the healthy stuff inside you is to ensure vitamins and minerals are inside you by supplementing. Hundreds of examples all competing for shelving space line the supermarket store aisles and it is all down to basics ingredients when hunting for the best one. The golden rule is, the minimum amount of additives or additional ingredients inside the capsule, equals the best natural product. And why is natural best? Because it suits the human body holistically.

Take the simple A, B and C Vitamins.

• Vitamin A is needed to help your eyes, skin and growth

• Vitamin B crowd help a fight multitude of ailments (PMS, epilepsy, exhaustion, mental/emotional breakdowns and also help the adrenal gland).

• Vitamin C is a crucial requirement on a daily basis to help boost energy, fight arthritis and offer protection for our immune system. Any physical, mental or emotional exertion can rid the body of it almost completely.

To ensure you received all or any one of these vitamins into your system, you’d need to eat a variety of liver, oily fish, nuts, dairy produce, whole grains, citrus fruits and juices, potatoes and salads. And there’s also iron, zinc, iodine and calcium to think of - these are gained through consuming a whole bunch of other foods … most of us don’t eat any of these foods - the majority of us stick to a familiar over-cooked (heat kills the enzymes needed to break it all down*), over-processed diet that simply lacks all of these! To ensure you get the best everyday, chose a vitamin supplement that has the best natural ingredients - ensure you take a little time to read all that’s detailed on the side of the bottle. Simple really!

*NOTE: Ask us for our truly fascinating newsletter on Enzymes - it’ll make you think twice about preferring overcooked veggies with your next meal!

www.geocities.com/bestherapies3

About The Author

Kaye Bewley, Complementary Therapy Web Retailer at BESTherapies3 and a member of the Alliance for Natural Health, has set up this nutritional health business in order to help people find a natural - and fun - way to health. Her BESTherapies3 web site is designed to help you find out what can go wrong with your body, emotions and spirit - and lists a few things you can do to prevent the problems arising or aid the ailments you already have. Take a look for yourself at: www.geocities.com/bestherapies3

bestherapies3@yahoo.co.uk