1. Bee Pollen – One of the Healthiest Foods
2. Our Bodies and Minds are Intimately Connected
3. Overweight and Malnourished – Yes, These Can Go Together
4. Saturated Fat Wrongly Vilified
5. Bilberry Eyes

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1.  Bee Pollen – One of the Healthiest Foods

The health benefits of bee pollen make it one of the most nutritious foods on earth.  It contains all the essential nutrition that one requires to live. Bee pollen has over 5000 enzymes and co- enzymes, which is a lot more than is found in any other food.  Bee pollen has antibiotic properties, and has been used to treat bacterial and viral infections as well as the cold and flu.

Scientists and some doctors around the world are beginning to take a much closer look at the benefits of bee pollen in treating numerous medical conditions.

This truly super food is made by bees from the pollen of the male stamen of the flower. The bees collect and carry the pollen using their hind legs, and when you look closely at a worker bee you will see the little baskets of pollen.

Therapeutic Health Benefits

The different therapeutic health benefits of bee pollen come from the antioxidant and disease prevention properties of the vital phyto chemicals (carotenoids and bioflavonoids ) it contains. As well as vitamin B complex it has vitamins A, C, D, E, selenium and lecithin

An interesting fact about bee pollen is that it cannot be synthesised in a laboratory. When researchers took away a bee’s pollen-filled comb and fed her a man-made pollen, the bee died, even although all the known nutrients were present in the lab-produced synthesised food.

Using the very latest equipment, thousands of chemical analyses of bee pollen have taken place, but there are still some elements of bee pollen that science just cannot identify.

Five Times More Protein than Meat!

Bee pollen is denser in protein than any source from animals. It has up to 5 times more protein than meat, and has the highest source of vitamins found in a single food in nature.

Some of the reports about the benefits of bee pollen are its effectiveness in lowering cholesterol levels, its help in the relief of chronic fatigue syndrome, its improvement of memory and alertness, its enhancement of the immune system, relief of certain skin conditions, enhancing the appearance of the skin, and boosting energy. Pollen is an extremely rich source of rutin, which is a flavonoid necessary for strengthening the capillaries. Because the human body cannot make its own flavonoids, it’s important that they be supplied through our diet.

Bee pollen also acts on the hypothalamus in the brain, which controls our appetite by creating a feeling of fullness. This is a natural way of suppressing appetite. Bee pollen also contains lecithin, which helps to boost your metabolism.

The list of bee pollen benefits is truly a long one. If you decide to try this super food, you should consider the source and buy it, if you can, from mountainous areas, or other pollution free environments.

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2.  Our Bodies and Minds are Intimately Connected

Your mind and body are intimately connected.  This is an established fact, and the science behind it is called psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), the study of the interaction between your mind and your immune system.

For example, happy and well-adjusted people with a sense of purpose in their lives tend to have far less sickness.  When you’re feeling good about yourself, and about life in general, the likelihood is that you will want to look after your body, eat nutritious food, enjoy going for walks, and sleep well.  On the other hand, if you are depressed and feeling down day after day, you will lack the incentive and the energy to look after yourself properly.  You are liable to neglect to take exercise and to eat all the wrong kinds of food, so that before long you’ve started piling on the pounds.  Alternatively, a state of depression can make you lose your appetite, so that your end up seriously underweight, your body starved of the nutrients and minerals it needs if your immune system is going to keep you free of disease.  Either way, depression can cause anxiety and stress, which have a detrimental effect on your body and severely tax its capacity for self-healing.

Mind And Body Interact All The Time

For several centuries medical students were taught that mind and body occupy two completely separate compartments, with no interaction between them.  This was a dangerous myth that blinded doctors to what was really going on in the lives of many of their patients.  Now it’s established beyond doubt that your mind and body are in direct communication with one another, and good doctors understand this.  The science of psychoneuroimmunology has also established that your body’s immune system works more effectively when your mental and emotional state is in positive mode.

Negative thinking tends to result in negative outcomes.  Positive thinking originates in your mind, and its effects can be experienced throughout your body.  Setting your sights clearly on getting well again will hasten your recovery from illness.  The truth of this is something you will prove for yourself the more you put it into practice.  It is something that even many cancer patients have discovered to their benefit.

Positive Thinking

Positive thinking in the face of illness is something that our families and friends will welcome, and by that welcome further encourage.  This is not to say that we should engage together in the kind of make-believe that refuses to face up to reality.  Positive thinking accepts reality for what it is, but focuses on whatever potential for good there may be even in situations where negative thinking might normally seem more realistic.

Remember that where illness is concerned, we are not in the kind of situation where we face an unfolding physical disaster external to ourselves and over which we have little or no control.  The physical challenge is internal to ourselves, and because our mind and body are intimately bound up with one another, the process of healing can start in our mind and carry through into full recovery.

Believe You Can Be Healed

Take as your starting point the positive belief that you can be healed, and refuse to let yourself be distracted by negative thoughts.  Establish the daily routine of re-affirming your positive belief.  Reinforce that belief by engaging in positive, life-affirming activities, and seek out the company of people whose own positivity reinforces your own.  It’s when we feel no longer in control of the situation that negativity takes over.  Believe that what is best really can be, and let this belief determine your restoration to health and happiness.

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3.  Overweight and Malnourished – Yes, These Can Go Together

The majority of us probably think that the current obesity epidemic is caused by an abundance of food, when in actual fact it may be caused by a lack of food – the right kind of food, packed full of vitamins and nutrients.  A frightening number of people in the UK – and this is true also of the United States – are suffering from malnutrition even though they are overweight, simply because they are not eating the right kind of food.

The sickest and fattest areas of the UK are also those where far more people than on average are unemployed and on benefits.  A large number of people at or below the poverty line see no other alternative than to eat  cheap, starchy, sugary, fatty convenience foods in order to stave off hunger.  As a nation we need to think about how this all came about, and what we can do to correct it.  It surely cannot be the case that the authorities have made the cynical calculation that the problem will be solved through all the early deaths that will result from people not eating the right kind of food.

Bordering On The Criminal

To my mind what is being done to our food is bordering on the criminal.  The cost of processed foods has decreased at the same time as wholesome, natural foods like fish, poultry, vegetables and meats have become much more expensive.  It used to be the rich who were fat – think of King Henry VIII – but now it’s the poor who are fat, and the rich who are thin because they can afford to eat proper food, full of natural vitamins and minerals.

One of the most disturbing aspects of our society is the terrible food that is served up in some of our hospitals and care homes.  As far as I know, many of our hospitals no longer even have a kitchen.  The food is prepared somewhere else, and brought to the hospital.  What a way to look after our sick!  And what a false economy, for bad food simply increases the ill health in our society, and stretches the resources of our health services even more. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that eating freshly prepared, good quality food would speed people’s recovery, and help to create a feeling of well-being.

Time spent Planning Meals Is Never Wasted

Don’t ever fall into the trap of thinking that you’re far too busy to be able to make the time to eat the right kind of food instead of convenience foods.  Remember that many convenience foods are full of sugar and starch, and lack essential nutrients.  It’s because of a lack of nutrients – and not a lack of food –  that your body sends out the signal that it’s still hungry.  So the solution isn’t to eat more of the same.  All that does is store up fat and all the troubles that come along with it.

Time spent planning your meals is never time wasted.   You don’t even always have to cook a meal to eat healthily.   A  big bowl of salad with some smoked mackerel or salmon, for example, is full of vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids.  It takes very little time and effort to prepare, and you have a nutritious meal, with a minimum amount of effort.

Convenience Foods

When I was young, convenience foods weren’t as available as they are today, and there weren’t all the tragically obese people that we now see around us.  We ate freshly-prepared, home-cooked meals, and most people were slim and healthy.  Rarely did you ever see a fat child.

What is the driving force behind people, even when they know better, eating addictive, sugary junk food?  We starve, exercise until we’re about to drop, read up on all the dietary advice, and with little or no result.  To shed all the hard-to-get-rid-of fat, the solution is proper nourishment.

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4.  Saturated Fat Wrongly Vilified

Recent studies have shown that one of the benefits of coconut oil is its help with weight loss. Before 1920, coronary artery disease was very rare. Saturated fat has been wrongly vilified as the cause of high cholesterol and heart disease for the last 60 years. People have been encouraged to eat polyunsaturated vegetable oils, and even today, I see adverts advising people to eat margarines for a healthy heart.

Polyunsaturated fats, and soya bean and other vegetable oils turn rancid. The free radicals caused by this wreak havoc in your body. Arterial plaque is the result of free radical damage in your blood vessels.

A Diamond Among Saturated Fats

Coconut oil is a diamond among saturated fats. It has numerous health benefits, including ones associated with blood sugar, which is why it is of value to diabetics.  Blood sugar is an important issue for anyone who is concerned about heart disease and obesity.  Dietary fibre helps control swings in blood sugar by slowing down the absorption of sugar into the bloodstream, helping to keep blood sugar and insulin levels under control. Coconut fibre does an excellent job in doing just that, and this is why Coconut is an excellent food for diabetics.

If you are diabetic you should eat foods that have a low glycaemic index. Adding coconut to your food, including those high in sugar and starch, will lower the glycaemic index. So cooking with coconut oil, or baking with coconut flour, regulates the release of sugar into the bloodstream, and helps prevent spikes in blood glucose levels. Biscuits and cakes baked using coconut flour do not affect blood sugar levels as much as wheat-baked goods do. Good news if you are diabetic, and still want the occasional treat of eating cake or biscuits with your tea.

The Role Of Dietary Fibre

Fibre sweeps the intestinal contents through the digestive tract, where toxins and carcinogens are flushed out of the body. This process stops toxins that irritate intestinal tissues causing cancer from getting lodged in the intestine. Colon cancer is one of the world’s most deadly forms of cancer, and studies show that people with a high fibre intake tend to have a low rate of colon cancer. Studies were carried out with rats and mice.  Some were given low fibre, and others high-fibre diets. They were also given drugs, food additives and chemicals, which proved to be poisonous to the animals eating low fibre, but those eating high-fibre had no ill effects.  This study shows that eating a high fibre diet absorbs toxins and carcinogens.  Fibre in your diet absorbs cancer-promoting toxins in your body.

One of the explanations as to why fibre protects against cancer is that it accelerates your intestinal movements, so that harmful toxins are speeded through the digestive tract and quickly eliminated, so giving these poisons less chance to damage your body and promote cancer.  Coconut fibre does an excellent job of absorbing and clearing these toxins which accumulate in the intestinal tract. Coconut fibre can also, by halting the harmful effects of enzymes, prevent tumours from forming in the colon.  You can enjoy many of the health benefits of coconut by using a little coconut dietary fibre every day. Even small amounts of fibre added to your daily diet can have fantastic beneficial effects.

Your Children Will Love It!

You can add a couple of tablespoons of creamed coconut to drinks, smoothies, soups and casseroles. It can also be eaten as a spread. Instead of butter or jam, try some on your oatcakes, bread or crackers. Delicious……………… and your children will love it!

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5.  Bilberry Eyes

Strengthening Our Capillary Walls

Many people have eyestrain and headaches because of working at their computers for hours at a time. Taking bilberry helps to improve vision and tired and bloodshot eyes.  The healing powers of bilberry are considerable.  Bilberry works by strengthening the capillary walls, and so helps prevent easy bruising, bleeding , poor circulation, and varicose veins. It also improves circulation, which allows nutrients to pass efficiently to the retina. This is the reason why conditions such as cataract, macular degeneration, and poor night vision can be combatted using bilberry as a treatment.

Bilberry Jam And The RAF

During World War Two, British RAF pilots said that after eating bilberry jam their night-time vision seemed to improve. Some years later studies began on bilberry and its beneficial properties for the eyes.  The researchers found that antioxidants called anthocyanosides are the reason for the healing powers of bilberry. These antioxidants aid in reducing cellular damage by improving circulation through the capillaries – the tiny vessels that connect the arteries and veins.

As mentioned above, the antioxidants in bilberries offer protection against macular degeneration. Free radical damage from sunlight and smoking are among the causes of macular degeneration. As it is non-toxic, it’s worth trying it for our while to see if it improves your vision.  Another use for bilberry is in the treatment of varicose veins. It improves the appearance of varicose veins, and can stop them from getting worse.

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