Foods That Help Digestion

Having  good digestive health is one of the most, if not the most important, way towards overall good health. There are foods that will help digestion and foods that hinder digestion. In this article we are interested in foods that help digestion. It is a well known fact that most of the diseases that are killing millions of people are the result of bad nutrition. The high fat diets that include such foods as french fries, fat laden meats e.t.c. have contributed to an increase in constipation and an increase in leaky gut syndrome and cardiovascular diseases and all sorts of cancers. These disease are almost unknown among those that have a plant based diet. The following are the foods that help digestion in a healthy gut:-

• fruits
• vegetables
• wholegrains
• seeds
• nuts and plant based protein such as those found in soya 

Improving bowel movements through eating plenty of the foods mentioned above that help digestion and also doing  colonic cleansing has been shown to deal with diseases such as migraine headaches. Dr Schulze, a well known herbalist, has reported that when he run natural remedies clinics in the USA he saw hundreds get healed from diseases such as migraines and diabetes just by improving their bowel movements and nothing else. The faecal matter that stays for longer periods than intended in the body results in toxins getting back into the body causing all sorts of problems and diseases

Recent research in the UK at the Newcastle University in England on type 2 diabetes has shown the importance of diet to heal diseases. The study has shown that a low calorie diet can cure type 2 diabetes. This is something that Natural Remedies and herbal experts have known all along that sticking to a plant based can lead to healing from supposedly incurable disease. Science is only catching up on what herbal experts such as Dr Richard Schulze have been saying all along. 

Dr Schulze who advocates a vegan diet for people with incurable diseases has seen people with diseases such as diabetes and cancer get cured by patients who adopt a vegan diet that results in good digestive health. I would encourage you to read Dr Richard Schulze book There are No Incurable Disease to learn what he has he did to treat patients with incurable diseases who had been told by doctor that their disease were now beyond healing. This body of ours is a wonderful machine that can heal itself and prevent diseases naturally if we only make sure that it is perfect condition by eating foods that help digestion.

As already pointed out learn more the book There are No Incurable Disease to appreciate what your body is capable of doing and you will be amazed even though I know that your first thoughts are of doubt about the title. Above all eat the foods above and you can achieve good health that you crave.

How to Cook Vegetables

Agatha M. Thrash, M.D.

Preventive Medicine

More vitamins, minerals, and delicious flavor are lost in preparing vegetables than in any other aspect of the culinary art. Legumes and grains have to be cooked until tender or sprouted to be best utilized. Fruits are most often eaten raw. But our poor vegetable friends are commonly man-slaughtered by sitting, soaking, peeling, and worst of all, boiling.

Vegetables have an abundant supply of vitamins and minerals that are essential to the life of each cell, and thus for optimum health and pleasant dispositions. From the point of view of nutrition, the chief purpose for eating vegetables is the high vitamin and mineral content.

The following steps in preparation will ensure maximum nutritive value: 

1. FRESH. Ideally, vegetables should be gathered just before being cooked (one of the joys of a garden!). But whatever your source, choose vegetables that are as fresh as possible. For example, know what days produce comes in at your grocery store. 

2. WASH QUICKLY and dry immediately to prevent the water-soluble nutrients and natural flavors from being washed away. 

3. CHILL in a dark place as quickly as possible. Some B vitamins are destroyed by light and at room temperature. Vitamin C is destroyed by contact with oxygen. Cut, chop, or shred vegetables when chilled, and if it will be a while before serving or cooking, return to refrigerator.

 

4. SOAKING causes the greatest loss of nutrients. Boiling—soaking while cooking—is soaking at its worst. Studies have shown 4 minutes of boiling a whole vegetable causes losses of 20-45% of total minerals, 75% of natural sugars, and even greater losses of some vitamins. Since vegetables are frequently soaked both before and during cooking, and boiled longer than 4 minutes, these losses are commonly greater. 

5. PEELING, next to soaking, causes the greatest nutritive loss. The minerals are concentrated immediately under the skin. The peeling helps hold the vitamins, for example, by keeping oxygen from destroying the vitamin C. Peel vegetables only when the skin is tough, bitter, or too uneven to clean thoroughly. 

6. COOKING TIME: The shorter the cooking time, the more delicious the flavor and the greater the nutritive value. Make it a rule to cook vegetables in the shortest time possible, just until crispy tender, guarding carefully against overcooking. The bright colors, as well as flavor and texture, will be preserved yielding a much more palatable dish.

METHODS 

STEAMING or WATERLESS cooking are two of the best methods. If you do not have waterless cookware, use only enough water to keep vegetables from burning; or use one of the collapsible steam racks which adjust to fit almost any size pot.

PAN COOKING or “STIR-FRYING” is an excellent method also. Bring enough water to cover the bottom of a frying pan (about 1/4 cup) to boil using medium heat. Add sliced or chopped vegetables, stirring frequently until desired doneness. Add water tablespoon by tablespoon as needed to keep vegetables from sticking to the pan. Cooking time varies from 5-20 minutes. Summer squashes (for example, crookneck, zucchini) are done in 5 minutes; broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage in about 10 minutes; and carrots may take 20 minutes. Onion, green pepper, pimiento, celery, herbs, and salt may be selected to season vegetables.

PRESSURE COOKING should just be reserved for “emergencies,” as, despite the convenience of immediate results, the increased temperature does kill more vitamins. The pressure cooker, with its rack, may be used for steaming with the pressure not applied.

May you enjoy the wide variety of vegetables—rich in flavor, filled with nutrients, bright with color, and delightful in texture!

For more information contact:

Uchee Pines Lifestyle Center

30 Uchee Pines Road #75

Seale, Alabama 36875

Tel. 334-855-4764

www.ucheepines.org

Frying or Deep Frying Food : How Harmful Is It?

Chips Frying

Frying food is one of the reasons why cancer is on the rise in the developed world. Frying food alters the chemical structure of the oil in  food creating an abundance of cancer inducing free radicals. Free radicals can be countered by eating food rich in antioxidants such as fruits and vegetables but these too can be destroyed by the frying process as well. Frying food therefore negatively affects the body's ability to heal itself and prevent diseases naturally and is therefore harmful to the body.

Frying food also destroys the nutrients in the food on top of disturbing the sensitive oils contained in foods such as oily fish. Therefore while frying foods makes the food attractive by browning it and making it palatable it however makes the food harmful to our bodies by making it carcinogenic and should be avoided if we are to live a healthier life.

Even the smoke that emanates from the frying process is also bad for those cooking the food. Studies have shown that those who fry food on a frequent basis and therefore expose themselves to the smoke frequently have a higher chance of lung and throat cancer than those who do not.

Drs Agatha and Calvin Thrash gives us and insight on what happens when we fry or deep fry our foods.'Temperatures up to 600-700 degrees F. may be obtained. If fried foods become burned or scorched, temperatures up to 1000 or 1100 degrees F. may have been reached. At these temperatures ``cis'' fatty acids are converted to ``trans'' fatty acids . . . in other words, the unsaturated fats behave as if they were saturated. Thus, fried foods are more likely than un-fried foods to increase the likelihood of hardening of the arteries. When fat is reheated to frying temperatures the second time, as in a deep fryer [or a popcorn vendor], the fat is more likely to develop the cancer producing agent acrolein.' (Dr Agatha Thrash, Nutrition for Vegetarians, p. 46)

There are however some foods whose oils are least disturbed by frying them. The list is as follows:-

• butter;
• tropical fats;
• peanut oil
• sesame oil;
• canola oil; and 
• olive oil

True Cancer Prevention - Bobby Scales MD

In this video presentation Dr Bobby Scales presents ways to prevent cancer. He reveals lifestyle changes that help us to fight cancer such as the consumption of vegetables and fruits which are now consumed less and less by modern society. Good nutrition can prevent cancer in 30 percent of the cases. These foods have been shown by research to fight off cancer in cancer patients as well. 

Natural Ways of Dental Care

Agatha M. Thrash, M.D.

Preventive Medicine

In teeth we have a masterpiece of creative genius. They have a beautiful color, a firmness without being cemented in, and an accuracy that enables one to trap a tiny sesame seed between two points and crush it, a task the fingers would find difficult to accomplish. Even the jaws are ideally rranged to hold the teeth firmly in response to pressure stimulation. The beauty and utility of the teeth constitute one of the wonders of the body.

The most common cause of loss of teeth before the age of 25 is dental caries and the commonest cause after 25 is periodontal disease (pyorrhea, a degeneration of the gums and tooth socket). Both of these are related to diet.

Dental caries can best be treated by starting before the child is born with a good, simple diet for the mother consisting principally of fruits and whole grains for breakfast and vegetables and whole grains for dinner, all other things being taken sparingly, especially sweets and fatty foods which are laden with empty calories.

Readily available and fermentable sugars are especially injurious to the teeth and no child should be trained to like them. It is quite possible to train a child to enjoy being on a simple diet from infancy up, if a little trouble is used to avoid the sweet beverages including fruit juices, desserts, and snack foods. Sweets are not essential for children, and they will never know that they are supposed to like sweets if the sweetest thing that they are accustomed to having is a banana. Parents should not eat sweets in front of them, nor otherwise allow them to know that sweets are the expected food of children. In countries of the world where sweets are never used children grow up having a taste for natural sweets, and never miss the sugary things that our society feels are essential to the enjoyment of life.

Switching quickly back and forth from hot to cold foods is not good for the teeth, as microscopic cracks in the surface may be caused. Even if the teeth were not involved, the use of very hot or very cold drinks is not good for the stomach. The worst habit of all is that of crushing ice with the teeth. Cracks enlarge over the years and teeth may become quite brittle. Fillings are affected, since fillings pull away from the tooth and saliva seeps into the newly opened spaces carrying germs and food with it.

Similarly, children should not be allowed to eat between meals. From the ages of one to three a child should be trained to eat no more than three meals a day and should never be given between-meals feedings. It should be as strange and unusual to take food between meals as to take some strange or foreign food or alcoholic beverages and drugs. A child taught in this way from infancy up has no difficulty accepting these matters. It has been shown that the number of caries a child has is determined directly by the number of times he eats during the day. Sweet beverages and milk as well as “junk foods” contribute to the number of caries-producing risks the child experiences. Water is the preferred beverage as it cleanses the blood better than any other beverages, and is especially important in helping to produce a large quantity of cleansing saliva which reduces tooth decay.

In adults the most common cause of tooth loss is periodontal disease. Again a large part of the problem is diet, and the same simple diet recommended for children to prevent caries will also prevent periodontal disease in adults. Lots of raw fruits for breakfast, plenty of raw vegetables for dinner, and a small supper consisting of whole grain bread or whole grain cereal (not that shaken from a box but cooked in the kitchen), with some natural fruits or some dried stewed fruit or canned fruit without sugar is sufficient for a supper meal. Do not forget that milk contains milk sugar and tends to cling to the teeth and the gums when taken between meals or at the end of a meal.

A very thin film of gingiva grows down from the margin of the gums and forms a veil over the depression between the tooth and gum, protecting the deep groove between the teeth and the socket from getting food or germs in it. The use of a hard bristle brush can permanently injure these delicate veils, and may even destroy them entirely.

For periodontal disease, faithful use of dental floss, massaging the gums with the fingers, keeping a charcoal tablet in the mouth almost constantly when treating the inflamed gum, and the use of hot mouthwashes using only hot water at about 110 degrees can be effective in gradually eliminating pyorrhea, provided one is vigorous and persistent in the treatment.

To cleanse the teeth two things are needed: a soft bristle, small toothbrush and some dental floss, the unwaxed being better than the waxed. The proper motion for brushing the teeth is back and forth (not up and down as was taught 25 years ago) in a small jiggling motion, the soft bristles being directed in a 45 degree angle toward the gum margin. The upper teeth are first brushed, and then the lower. Toothpaste is not essential, but may be used in small quantities. If a large quantity is used the foaming action is actually retarded and less removal of food particles is possible. A small lump of toothpaste about the size of a rice grain is generally all that is needed. Use dental floss for each tooth, tilting the floss first against one tooth and then against its neighbor until it is “squeaky clean.” If fruit stains get on the teeth, these may be removed by charcoal tablets or powdered charcoal used with a toothbrush. Tablets may be allowed to dissolve in the mouth, and distributed by the tongue across the teeth. Good functioning teeth are a strong adjunct to good health throughout life.

For temporary relief of a toothache, a poultice made of common chickweed, or a bag of wet goldenseal tea leaves already used once to make a cup of tea (fresh is too strong), can be applied directly to the tooth beside the inside of the jaw and the affected tooth. Often a toothache can be relieved by such a simple measure in a matter of a few minutes.

No discussion of dental disease is complete without mentioning halitosis. The most common cause of bad breath is decaying food matter either between the teeth or in the nasopharynx. If the teeth are cleaned frequently with the method mentioned above, the offensive breath may be eliminated entirely by just such treatment. The elimination of pyorrhea or postnasal drip, or properly cleaning removable dentures or prosthetic appliances will go far toward eliminating bad breath. Vigorous brushing of the tongue will remove much mouth odor. To drink plenty of water helps to cleanse the teeth and to provide a vehicle to remove odors from the mouth. Periods of emotional stress can cause an offensive breath. Remember that “exercise neutralizes stress.”

I would urge readers interested in learning more about simple but powerful natural remedies to consider buying Dr Agatha Thrash's book 'Home Remedies: Hydrotherapy, Massage, Charcoal, and Other Simple Treatments'. It is a book that tackle the issue of natural remedies from a scientific point of view. Agatha Thrash is qualified medical doctor and worked in a company producing vaccines before he came to view natural remedies as the most effective way of dealing with diseases. No wonder the book is the most research book on natural remedies that I have ever seen as it is written by someone who has seen life from both sides.

If you need more information you can contact Dr Agatha Thrash on the following address:

Uchee Pines Lifestyle Center

30 Uchee Pines Road #75

Seale, Alabama 36875

Tel. 334-855-4764

www.ucheepines.org