Do's & Don't :Dietary principles and guidelines

Do's & Don't
Some suggestions of what you should do and not to do for a Healthier Lifestyle


The Do's

One of the best things that everyone could do to improve their diets is to increase the amount of fresh (organic) fruits and vegetables that they eat every day.

Fruit and Vegetables :

Fruit and vegetables have an abundance of vitamins, enzymes and minerals, as well as fiber and also high water content. If you eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, you will get an excellent supply of nutrients (without consuming excess calories), as well as consuming an adequate amount of good roughage, which will prevent constipation.

A healthy body is 70-80% water. Many illnesses are a direct result of the body becoming dehydrated. It is therefore very valuable to have a diet that is made up of about 70% high water content foods, i.e. fruits and vegetables, which is probably the best source of purified water. You should aim to have at least five servings of fruit or vegetables per day.

Drinking fresh organic juices daily is a fantastic source of nutrients and energy. Eating fresh fruit in the morning can be very beneficial (Avoid oranges and orange juice if you are living in a country where oranges don't grow these are picked green and are bad for the stomach and the kidneys). Fruit is very cleansing and easily digested. Fresh fruit is better than dried fruit. Ripe pears and prunes are especially good for constipation. Avoid eating raw fruit after a meal. One should always wait for half an hour after eating fruit before eating a different type of food, as this allows the fruit to enter and be digested in the small intestines. Otherwise it will be held up in the stomach and begin to ferment and putrefy. Only eat fruit three hours after a starch (carbohydrate) meal and four hours after a protein meal.

Sprouts:

Raw foods are "Living Foods" and can greatly improve vitality and energy levels. Apart from fruit and salads, fresh homegrown sprouts (mung bean, alfalfa, sunflower, buckwheat, radish, etc.) are a great addition to the diet. They are easy to grow and an excellent fresh, organic nutrient rich food source. A raw food diet might, however, make you feel worse for a time as it starts to detoxify the body. It is best to start a raw food diet after a good fast/purification.

Nuts and Seeds:

Nuts and seeds are an excellent source of some of our most important mineral, protein and essential fatty acid requirements. Having raw nuts and seeds (unsalted) on hand for snacks or using with your meals can be very beneficial. Combining and grinding up pumpkin, sunflower, linseed and sesame seeds, makes a very digestible food seasoning and supplies your daily need of amino acids. Soaking almonds in water overnight before eating them is also good.

Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs):

These are the very important good fats that you need to have in your diet to maintain optimum health. It is very important to get enough essential fatty acids (EFAs Omega 3 and Omega 6). The best source of EFAs is hemp oil or linseed oil. They are also found in olive oil and fish oil, but these are lacking Omega 6. Oils should be cold pressed and organic. These unsaturated oils can be added to food after cooking or make into sauces and salad dressings. Avoid heating or cooking with oils, if possible. If you do need to use oil for cooking, use olive oil sparingly. Always store oil in a cool place and out of the light. (If kept in a fridge they may go cloudy but this is not harmful). Saturated fats (those fats which go hard at room temperature) are generally very bad for the body and best avoided. For a spread, butter (in moderate quantities) is much better than margarine.

Whole Grains:

Have three or four portions of whole grains throughout your day. Recommended whole grains to eat include: Millet, quinoa, buckwheat, oats, rye brown rice, corn and whole meal wheat (if you are ok with wheat products see later). These provide an excellent source of slow releasing energy, to keep your body's energy levels stable throughout the day, as well as providing fiber to help your digestion. Quinoa is a particular useful grain, as it has a very high protein content.

Protein:

A very adequate and healthy supply of protein can easily be obtained from grains, lentils, nuts, seeds, vegetables and even fruit. If you are not a vegetarian, try to eat only organic white meat or unfarmed fish, especially oily fish (mackerel, sardines, salmon, trout, herring, etc.) a couple of times per week, as these are a good source of Omega 3 EFAs too.

Friendly Bacteria:

Your large and small intestines are the home to millions of bacteria. 70% of these should be friendly bacteria, as these help you to digest food and also keep the bad bacteria/organisms in check. The most useful friendly bacteria are Acidophilus and Bifidus which you can increase by supplement with good quality tablets (80% of acidophilus products on the market were found to be dead) such as those made by Biocare or Solgar, or also, less effectively, by eating live yogurt with these bacteria in them.

Eat Organic:

As much as possible, try to eat organic products. These are free of pesticides, herbicides and hormones which can be toxic and harmful. Organic food generally has a much higher nutrient and energy content. In the same way avoid Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). which have not been adequately tested at all and could pose many, as yet unforeseen, health problems in the future. It is also best to eat locally grown food, where possible, as these will be fresher, have more energy and will have created less pollution in the process of being brought to you, and will support people who live locally.

Cooking Methods and Utensils:

Use cooking methods, which minimize the loss of vitamins, minerals and enzymes from your food. Steam vegetables lightly so that they are still crunchy, rather than frying, boiling or roasting. Grill or bake fish or meat rather than frying or roasting.

Avoid Microwave cooking. Food that has been cooked by microwave is dead and causes dangerous chemical reactions in the blood and distorts the molecular structure of the food rendering them carcinogenic and harmful. Preferably use glassware and enameled pots and pans. (Do not use aluminum utensils).


The Don'ts


Refined Food:

Refined foods have been stripped of much of their goodness and their vitamin and mineral content. They are also often known as empty calories or anti-nutrients, because they use up a lot of the body's necessary vitamins and minerals, as the body tries to deal with these "foods".

Sugar:

Only 600 years ago, the average person never ate any sugar it was a courtly luxury that only the very rich nobles and royalty could afford! Today the average person eats his or her own weight in sugar every year!!! It is not a natural part of the human diet.

Herbivores and omnivores are naturally attracted to the sweet taste of carbohydrates such as fruit, vegetables, whole grains, beans and lentils. This should be the natural source of sweetness in our diets. Sugar is a very empty calorie source and is well known for robbing minerals and vitamins from the body. It also disturbs natural blood sugar levels (continued use can damage the pancreas' ability to produce insulin and can over time lead to adult onset diabetes), which results in up and down energy levels, mood swings and irritability. All forms of concentrated sugar (white/brown sugar, honey, syrup, glucose, malt, etc.) are fast releasing, which rapidly raises blood sugar levels. If this sugar is not needed by the body it is stored as fat. Sugar is also extremely addictive, which is why it is found in most processed foods its repeat sales are much increased! (Blood sugar levels are also greatly upset by alcohol, coffee, tea, fizzy drinks and cigarettes).

Reduce	Alternatives
Sugar	Fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains and whole foods
Honey, malt, glucose and syrup	If you do eat honey, then buy an unheated and untreated form, preferably from a local supplier
Artificial sweeteners (these have been found to be very harmful)
Refined and overcooked foods

Bread and Wheat:

The gluten in white bread (or white flour based foods) and even brown bread (which is often made from white flour with brown colouring!) irritates and lines the intestines which damages the body's ability to digest food. The refining process not only removes the vitamins, minerals and roughage, it also begins turning the wheat into a simple carbohydrate from a complex one. As a result, it will disturb your blood sugar levels in a similar way to sugar, creating energy highs and lows, mood swings, etc.

Reduce	Alternatives
White flour and bread	Whole meal flour and bread
White rice	Brown rice
Sugar, sweet cakes, biscuits	Fruit and dried fruit
Instant processed meals	Meals made from fresh natural ingredients

Dairy Produce:


Milk and cheese are often said to be an important source of calcium. However, this calcium is very difficult for the human body to absorb and use. Calcium needs to work in balance with magnesium in the body, but it is very lacking in milk, so relying on milk for calcium could lead to a magnesium deficiency. Abundant amounts of calcium can be found in green leafy vegetables, almonds, apricots, seeds etc. Milk products are very mucous forming, which inhibits food absorption through the intestinal wall, as well as causing mucous congestion in the nasal passages and lungs. Many people these days are also allergic to dairy products. Cows milk is meant for calves not humans

Live yogurt, however, can be very beneficial for the friendly bacteria that it contains, if not eaten in excess. Also butter in moderate quantities does not seem to be a very harmful dairy product.

Reduce

Milk and cheese

Alternatives

Soya (not genetically modified!), oat or rice milk

Sheep or goats milk

Salt:

High salt intake is linked with high blood pressure and heart disease. It also impairs mineral utilization. Constant and regular salt intake also reduces our taste buds' sensitivity, resulting in us needing to keep having salt to taste properly. If salt is greatly reduced or removed from the diet, the taste buds will recover and we will regain our natural taste sensitivity.

Reduce

Added salt Products containing salt


Alternatives

Flavor food with herbs, spices, ground seeds, Lemon, mustard, etc

Meat and fish:

If you are not a strict vegetarian, aim to eat only organic meat and unfarmed fish, so as to avoid the harmful hormones, pesticides and dyes that are found in normal meat and fish. Red meat has been linked to coronary and digestive diseases. It is hard for the human digestive system to digest and has a high saturated (unhealthy) fat content. White meat (chicken, turkey etc.) is much healthier. Fish is a very good source of protein, EFAs and minerals (although perhaps in today's polluted and over fished seas, it is becoming less of a healthy or sustainable option). Oily fish are best (mackerel, sardines, herring, etc.).

Reduce

Red meat

Non-organic meat

Farmed fish


Alternatives

Organic white meat

Unfarmed fish, especially oily fish.

Quinoa, soya, tofu, nuts, seeds, lentils etc.


Margarine and Oils:

If you use margarine, use only a good quality non-hydrogenated one, e.g. Vitaquell or Vietasieg. Hydrogenated oils can be very harmful to the body. It is actually much healthier to use butter in moderation than margarine. Avoid cheap vegetable oils and frying foods. Preferably just use olive oil.


Reduce

Margarine

Anything with hydrogenated oil in it

Frying foods


Alternatives

Butter

Olive or non-hydrogenated oil based foods

Steaming, grilling, baking foods.


Drinks:

Tea and coffee are stimulants, which stress your adrenal glands and make your energy level erratic. Many soft drinks have a similar effect as well as having very high sugar content. The sweetener Aspartame, used in diet drinks, is very harmful to the body and continued consumption of it can lead to Lupus Syndrome and Multiple Sclerosis!! Soft drinks and cheap juices often also have a lot of artificial additives and colours in them, so are best avoided. Alcohol is a close relative of sugar and has very high calorie content. It is also a mild poison and over time can greatly damage the liver.


Reduce

Coffee and tea

Hot chocolate, cocoa

Fizzy drinks, non-organic juices

Diet drinks


Alternatives

Water, Rooibos Tea, Dandelion root coffee

cereal drinks (barley coffee), herb teas

(made with just the fresh herbs), carob drink

Fresh, homemade, organic juices

As with most things in life, moderation is best. Do the best that you can with improving your diet without getting fanatical or being hard on yourself, when you don't choose to eat well. Go at your own pace, learn about your diet and adopt healthier eating habits, as you are ready to, then take time to acknowledge and appreciate your resultant better health and well being.

We recomend Harvey and Marily Diamand's book "Fit For Life"
Available from Amazon

For More Information Go to :

http://www.moinhos-velhos.com/do%27s-and-don%27t.htm

Review :Fasting Detoxification Blood Purification

Blood Purification

Fasting For Purification Of Your Blood

The best juices for blood purification are lemon juice, beet juice, carrot juice, and the juices of all leafy greens. Leafy green juices are particularly important because they supply chlorophyll, an essential part of any blood purification therapy. Chlorophyll not only cleanses the blood of impurities, but also builds up the blood with important nutrients, promotes regularity, and inhibits cellular damage from radiation. This makes chlorophyll helpful in the treatment of many disorders. Wheatgrass, barley, and alfalfa juices are all rich in chlorophyll.

Hundreds of chemicals - ranging from gases such as carbon monoxide to toxic metals such as lead to natural substances such as fat - can find their way into the blood and impair its function. These foreign substances enter the body through the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink, and surfaces with which we come in contact through our skin. Because these substances act on the blood in different ways, the adverse effects they produce may vary widely.

Fasting

At one time, Paavo Airola, N.D., Ph.D. referred to fasting as the royal road to health and long life.
Fasting is a popular method of detoxification because the body can begin extricating the noxious materials rather quickly, allowing the purification of the blood and for the body to commence the healing process. Literally, fasting means to deprive oneself of food for a specific period, usually for therapeutic or religious purposes. Medical journals have presented articles that support fasting as a therapeutic means of ridding hazardous materials from the body (Imamura et al. 1984).

Fasting is a time-proven remedy. Its use goes back many thousands of years, really to the beginning of life forms. As a healing process and spiritual-religious process, it has continued to be more intelligently applied, we hope, in the last several thousand years.

Moinhos Velhos Fasting And Blood Purification Valley

The Essenes, authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls, also advocated fasting to purify themselves and commune with God. This was one of their primary healing methods. The Essene Gospel of Peace, transcribed by Edmond Bordeaux Szekely from the third-century Aramaic manuscript, suggests that Satan, his evil spirits, and his plagues will be cast out of our being by fasting and prayer. The Essenes believed that disease came from Satan (they claimed that it took three days without food to starve Satan) and from sins upon our body-the temple, which must be purified for God to reside there. To bring God into our life more completely, we would fast on water ("today we know that juice fasting is the best method for purifying and detoxification") and "go to the waters (stream, lake) and find a hollow reed, insert it in our rear ends and flush the evils from our bowels."

For many philosophers, scientists, and physicians, fasting was an essential part of life, health, and the healing process needed to recreate health where there was sickness. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Galen, Paracelsus, and Hippocrates all used and believed in fasting therapy. Most spiritual teachers also recommend fasting as a useful tool. In a booklet from the 1947 lecture entitled Healing by God's Unlimited Power, Paramahansa Yogananda suggested that fasting is a way to increase our natural resistance to disease, stating that Fasting is a natural method of healing. When animals or savages are sick, they fast. He continued, Most diseases can be cured by judicious fasting. Unless one has a weak heart, regular short fasts have been recommended by the yogis as an excellent health measure. Yogananda referred to an Armenian doctor, Grant Sarkisyan, who had treated many patients successfully with fasting therapy for such disorders as asthma, skin diseases, digestive problems, and early stages of arteriosclerosis and hypertension.

Fasting increases the process of elimination and the release of toxins from the colon, kidneys and bladder, lungs and sinuses, skin and purifies the blood. This process can generate discharge such as mucus from the gastrointestinal tract, respiratory tract, sinuses, or in the urine. This is helpful to clear out the problems that have arisen from overeating and a sedentary lifestyle. Much of aging and disease, results from biochemical suffocation, where our cells do not get enough oxygen and nutrients or cannot adequately eliminate their wastes. Fasting helps us decrease this suffocation by allowing the cells to eliminate and clear the old products. But we have also seen that clients who do not suffer from overeating nor a sedentary lifestyle, who have been vegetarians for years, have a build up of mucous layers in the gastro intestinal tract, and have experienced dramatic positive changes with our juice fasting program.

Perhaps the most important benefit of fasting is that it thoroughly cleans and purifies the bloodstream.

Blood is responsible for delivering nutrients and oxygen to every cell in the body, and it must also carry away metabolic wastes from the cells for excretion in the kidneys and lungs.
Blood is also the body's immunological watchman, circulating white blood cells, enzymes and other immunity factors are on 24-hour-a-day 'search-and-destroy' missions against invaders.
Dirty blood simply cannot perform these functions properly. As a result, malnutrition sets in, resistance plummets, toxemia becomes a chronic condition, and germs have a field day invading your most valuable tissues.
Unless you live an ascetic life far from civilization and avoid all dietary folly, your blood and other tissues are bound to accumulate toxins and generally lose their functional vitality.

Twenty five years ago I was so incapacitated by arthritis that I was practically bedridden. After trying all the available medical treatments, consulting dozens of doctors, and several fruitless stays in hospitals I was becoming progressively worse. My hands and fingers were stiff and in constant pain. I could not bend myself, walk, or even turn myself in bed. In addition, I had a chronic ovary inflammation and constant migraine. I was suffering from a bad case of insomnia with resulting nervous exhaustion. I also was chronically constipated. . .

I felt hopeless. Nobody could help me. I could not see my way out of the indescribable suffering I had to endure. But my spirit was strong and wouldn't give up. I was not willing to accept my lot as a bedridden invalid for the rest of my life. With the typical Scandinavian sisu and perseverance I rebelled against my fate. I wanted to live, become healthy again!

A book by a British physician, Sir Robert McCarrison, gave me new hope and became the turning point in my life. It opened my eyes to the relation between nutrition and health. I started to experiment with myself. I changed my diet. I fasted. I drank fresh vegetable juices and broths made with cooked vegetables. I drank herb teas. I took enemas and utilized colonic irrigation to cleanse my intestines of accumulated toxins and wastes. I read all I could on the nature-cure methods and picked up ideas here and there. I met the famous Danish raw-diet pioneer Dr. Kristine Nolfi, M.D., and read and studied her book The Living Foods. I also took heat treatments and hydrobaths. I must admit, I didn't have much faith in much of what I did, but desperate as I was, I was willing to try anything.

Imagine my surprise when I started to feel better and better! The stiffness in my joints started to disappear. I slept better; pain gave way, and after just a few months I was, to my and everybody's amazement, completely cured!

This was 25 years ago and I never had a sick day since. No traces of arthritis... Would you like to see how flexible and elastic my body is...?

Now when I cured myself I was so overjoyed with the discoveries I made that I wanted to share them with others and help as many as I could. I visited Dr. McCarrison and he advised me to open a clinic and help other arthritics regain their health.

Encouraged by the enthusiastic endorsement of this great scientist, I transformed my seven-room apartment in Copenhagen to an arthritis clinic. Patients came from everywhere. They were brought in on stretchers; they came supported on crutches; they came in wheelchairs. And after four to eight weeks on my simple regime they left the clinic on their own feet, without wheelchairs and crutches. The grateful patients spread the news of their cures and a long line of patients were waiting to come in under my care.

My arthritis therapies and extraordinary results became widely publicized in the press. The Norwegian Medical Association invited me to present a lecture on my therapies before the leading medical authorities of the country....

My fame spread to Sweden and a wealthy benefactor offered the Brandal, a beautiful estate with a large villa, for my disposition, to be used as a rheumatic clinic. I accepted gratefully. That was 13 years ago. During these years we have helped thousands of arthritis sufferers. . .

If you don't purge yourself of these toxins on a regular basis, toxemia gets worse and worse, until the body cannot stand it any longer and either purges itself spontaneously in form of diarrhea, acne, pimples, boils, 'liver spots', foul perspiration, body odor, bad breath, and so forth, or else it simply gives up the battle and succumbs to cancer, tuberculosis and other fatal conditions.

Fasting also eliminates acidosis from the bloodstream itself. In fact, the unpleasant side effects felt during the first three days of a fast are due entirely to these acid crystals and other toxins entering the bloodstream en masse for elimination.

Detoxification is the foremost argument presented by advocates of fasting. "Detoxification is a normal body process of eliminating or neutralizing toxins through the colon, liver, kidneys, lungs, lymph glands, and skin. This process is precipitated by fasting because when food is no longer entering the body, the body turns to fat reserves for energy. "Human fat is valued at 3,500 calories per pound," a number that would lead one to believe that surviving on one pound of fat every day would provide a body with enough energy to function normally. These fat reserves were created when excess glucose and carbohydrates were not used for energy or growth, not excreted, and therefore converted into fat. When the fat reserves are used for energy during a fast, it releases the chemicals from the fatty acids into the system which are then eliminated through the aforementioned organs. Chemicals not found in food but absorbed from one's environment, such as DDT, are also stored in fat reserves that may be released during a fast. One fasting advocate tested his own urine, feces and sweat during an extended fast and found traces of DDT in each.

A second prescribed benefit of fasting is the healing process that begins in the body during a fast. During a fast energy is diverted away from the digestive system due to its lack of use and towards the metabolism and immune system. The healing process during a fast is precipitated by the body's search for energy sources. Abnormal growths within the body, tumors and the like, do not have the full support of the body's supplies and therefore are more susceptible to autolysis. Furthermore, "production of protein for replacement of damaged cells (protein synthesis) occurs more efficiently because fewer 'mistakes' are made by the DNA/RNA genetic controls which govern this process." A higher efficiency in protein synthesis results in healthier cells, tissues and organs.This is one reason that animals stop eating when they are wounded, and why humans lose hunger during influenza. Hunger has been proven absent in illnesses such as gastritis, tonsillitis and colds. Therefore, when one is fasting, the person is consciously diverting energy from the digestive system to the immune system.

Guest House Patio

Finally, the most scientifically proven advantage to fasting is the feeling of rejuvenation and extended life expectancy. Part of this phenomenon is caused by a number of the benefits mentioned above. A slower metabolic rate, more efficient protein production, an improved immune system, and the increased production of hormones contributes to this long-term benefit of fasting. In addition to the Human Growth Hormone that is released more frequently during a fast, an anti-aging hormone is also produced more efficiently. The only reliable way to extend the life span of a mammal is under-nutrition without malnutrition. A study was performed on earthworms that demonstrated the extension of life due to fasting. The experiment was performed in the 1930s by isolating one worm and putting it on a cycle of fasting and feeding. The isolated worm outlasted its relatives by 19 generations, while still maintaining its youthful physiological traits. The worm was able to survive on its own tissue for months. Once the size of the worm began to decrease, the scientists would resume feeding it at which point it showed great vigor and energy. The life-span extension of these worms was the equivalent of keeping a man alive for 600 to 700 years.

It seems that there are many reasons to consider fasting as a benefit to one's health. The body rids itself of the toxins that have built up in our fat stores throughout the years. Fasting purifies the blood, the body heals itself, repairs all the damaged organs during a fast. And finally there is good evidence to show that regulated fasting contributes to longer life.

However, many doctors warn against fasting for extended periods of time without supervision.

We have over 30 years experience in fasting, and we have been facilitating our supervised Fasting and Blood Purification programs at Moinhos Velhos for the past 16 years.

More Information :

http://www.moinhos-velhos.com/blood-purification.htm