Thursday, September 6, 2007
Nail It
The health of your nails tells a lot about your general health. Your nails are mostly made up of a protein called keratin, which protects the sensitive nerves at the tips of your toes and fingers. Proper blood supply should keep your nails pink. Nail problems usually indicate nutrient deficiency or are caused by emotional or physical trauma.
The Signs and What You Can Do
� Dry and brittle nails indicate a vitamin A and/or calcium deficiency. Eat more carrots, sweet potato and spinach.
� White nails may indicate anaemia or a liver or kidney problem. Include wheatgress in your diet.
� Vertical or horizontal ridges can indicate vitamin B deficiency or a tendency to develop arthritis. Eat more wholegrains, oily fish, avocado and dark green leafy vegetables.
� Round or dark nail tips may indicate a vitamin B12 deficiency. Include shitake mushrooms, tempeh, trout, yoghurt, miso and sea vegetables.
� Splitting nails indicate a reduced hydrochloric acid production. Eat umeboshi plums.
� White spots can indicate zinc deficiency. Eat more oysters, brown rice, pepitas, miso, sardines and legumes. Avoid stress, smoking and excessive sweating.
� Inflammation around the nail bed indicates a Vitamin C deficiency or arthrities. Include broccoli and capsicum and avoid red meat, dairy and smoking.
� Cut and cracked nails mean your body is dehydrated. Drink more water.
� Drittle nails can indicate thyroid problems, iron deficiency or poor circulation. Exercise, relax and include wheatgrass in your diet.
Healhy Nail Tips
� Food high in calcium and magnesium are needed for nail growth. Include wheatgrass and sea vegetables, dark greeen leafy vegetables, sunflower seeds and tofu.
� Essential fatty acids promote healthy hair, skin and nails. Include flaxseed oil, soy products, royal jelly, fish oil, parsley or pumpkin seeds.
� Protein-rich food such as legumes, grains, nuts and seeds aid nail growth.
� Sea vegetables are helpful due to their high mineral content and ability to pull toxins from our body.
� Broccoli, fish and onions are high in silicon and sulphur, which are needed for strong nails.
� Carrot juice is high in calcium and phosphoris, which strengthen nails.
� Avoid chemicals on your hands as they dry them out, cause nail problems and can lead to contact dermatitis.
Feed Your Skin
Like your nails, what is going on inside your body and what you expose it to directly affects your skin's health and appearance. Proper sleep is important, as is avoiding alcohol and environmental toxins and improving poor digestion. Try to reduce exposure to sun in the afternoon as it dehydrates us.
Your Skin Care First Aid Kit
� Bruising: include Vitamin C food such as broccoli, guava and blackcurrants.
� Reduce inflammation and weeping lesions with essential fatty acids found in fish, flax seeds, nuts, seeds and dark green lefy vegetables.
� Lesions and growth: vitamins V foods such as legumes and wholegrains.
� Psoriasis, acne and skin tone: Vitamin A from yellow, green, red or orange foods and wheatgrass. Vitamin D (from the Sun) also helps with psoriasis.
� Eat umeboshi plums and follow rules for good digestion like eating before 8pm, chewing properly, eating simply and do nothing else while eating except eating!
� Do not have alcohol or cigarettes if you want nice skin.
� Avoid processed and refined foods.
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Please visit Naturopedia.com for more on natural health and healing. Click here for the original article.
Addictions – They Seem To Fit Together Like Pieces In A Puzzle
I'm a person who walked away from both drinking and smoking, after engaging in both activities for more than 15 years, and I've always been perplexed at how so called "addictions" seem to fit together. Smoking cigarettes and drinking go together like Peas and carrots. It was always amazing to me how one seemed to go with the other. Smoking was never quite as satisfying as when alcohol was being consumed. And so to, alcohol seemed to elicit the need to spark up a heater. The amount of cigarettes I could choke down while drinking a lot of alcohol was obnoxious! The two activities, or addictions as it were, just seemed to fit together so perfectly.
It's also interesting how the beginning of both practices coincide so perfectly. It wasn't too long after I had my first alcoholic beverage that the stinky lung darts wound up in my mouth. That must be why that I told people for all of those years that if I quit one of these activities, the other would soon follow. And I was right. I ended up finally kicking both of them to the curb at the same time.
I've simply always found it incredibly interesting how addictions such as these seem to fit together. The other one that I used to "enjoy", was feeding gambling machines. You know the old video poker and keno machines? These little bastards can suck up your money like a freakin' vacuum cleaner! And when you play these video slot machines what do the attendants offer you? Drinks! Specifically alcoholic drinks. Yet another way that these "addictions" seem to fit together like a puzzle.
The other very interesting thing about these addictions fitting together like a puzzle for me, was the fact that when I walked away from drinking and smoking, I no longer wanted to even enter a casino. This wasn't at all a conscious act, it simply followed suit naturally. Which I suppose is a good thing. And now I do none of it and am as happy as I've ever been. The bottom line is that these addictions seem to fit together like a puzzle, but the good thing is that once you decide to remove them from your life, they fit together in exactly the same way. That is once you stop drinking, you don't like smoking as much and vice versa.
Lose Weight and Gain Health Using Your Animal Instinct
Diets do not work. Among the people who do them, 98% of the people gain the weight back. Also the stress of not eating as much as you want, makes your system more acid. This causes you to crave more sugar, salt and fat. Then eating these things you crave, causes you to hate yourself and you feel more stress making losing weight even harder. There is a strong connection between obesity and depression.
Here is how it works. No one teaches the animal what to eat and what not to eat. The animal knows instinctively what is good to eat and what is not good to eat. Humans also have the same instinct. The way it works is just eat whatever tastes good and that will be healthy for you and non-fattening. That is why a baby tastes everything. So again whatever tastes good, is good for you. This is why you will spit out spoiled milk. This instinct can help you lose weight.
I love eating Cabbage Crunch from the salad bar at Whole Foods. They are the largest natural foods supermarket chain in the country. Cabbage Crunch contains grated red and green cabbage, sliced almonds, poppy seeds, scallions (green onions), olive oil and apple cider vinegar. Cabbage is one of the healthiest foods for colon health and preventing cancer.
One time I got some. As soon as I put it in my mouth, I spit it out. It was spoiled. But I got my money back and they had someone go there to remove it. Salt can dull your sense of taste. Also salt causes you to eat more thereby making it harder to lose weight.
Butter can be kept unrefrigerated for days without going bad. When it does go bad (rancid) you do not need to taste it. You can smell it (rancid-- having a foul smell or taste). But do not be a person who believes. Be someone who knows. Leave a piece of butter out for days and smell it everyday. Have you ever been behind a garbage truck and could hardly stand the smell? That offensive smell is telling you that you should not eat that stuff.
Mark Twain and fasting experts say that the fastest way to get over the flu or a cold is to fast. This is why you lose your appetite. If someone's sinuses are very congested, maybe he could eat a rancid meal and not know there is anything wrong with it.
But wait! Man has the technology to create rat poison. It tastes like healthy food (good taste) but kills the rat. So man has done that to you. Note that any food unaltered by man (uncooked) that tastes good, is good for you. So if you are stranded in the woods, that is how you would know what to eat. Just taste everything raw and you will spit out the toxic plants since they will taste terrible.
There are poisonous mushrooms called toadstool mushrooms. If you put some raw ones in your mouth, you will spit them out since they taste horrible. But cook them and add salt and you can eat enough of them to kill you. Carnivorous animals love the taste of blood and raw meat since that is what they are supposed to eat.
So man has created fake fruit. It tastes like fruit that exists in nature, but it is addictive, fattening and terrible for health. It is called sweets. So it is natural to like real sweets called fruit, like a baby does. But they have fooled your sense of taste, just like the rat was fooled. But they do not want to kill you. They just want you to become obese so you will buy more of their foods. This is called good business.
You can re-acquire your taste in food and re-learn how to eat. Then you can eat all the great tasting foods you want and be thin, healthy and fit for life. www.phifoundation.org
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Chuck Bluestein is a nutritionist, herbalist and an expert on fasting and weight loss. His website has info on losing weight (including water weight), healthy diet, fasting, natural cures, colds and flus, and how to be happier. Losing Weight
Depression Self Help
