all about cucumbers

1.Quick pick me-up - Cucumbers are a good source of B vitamins. Put down your sodas and coffee and eat a cucumber slice.

2. Rehydrates body and replenishes daily vitamins - Cucumbers are 95 percent water, keeping the body hydrated while helping the body eliminate toxins. Cucumbers have most of the vitamins the body needs in a single day. Don't forget to leave the skin on because the skin contains a good amount of vitamin C, about 10 percent of the daily-recommended allowance.

3. Skin and hair care - If you don't like to eat the skin, it can be used for skin irritations and sunburns as aloe would be used. Place a slice over puffy eyes and its anti-inflammatory properties help reduce puffiness. The silicon and sulfur in cucumbers help to stimulate hair growth.

4. Fight cancers - Cucumber are known to contain lariciresinol, pinoresinol, and secoisolariciresinol. These three lignans have a strong history of research in connection with reduced risk of several cancer types, including breast cancer, ovarian cancer, uterine cancer and prostate cancer.

5. Home care - Eliminates a foggy mirror. Before taking a shower, rub a cucumber slice along a mirror and it will eliminate the mirror fogging up. Instead of WD40, take a cucumber slice and rub it along a squeaky hinge and your door will stop squeaking.

6. Relieves bad breath - Take a slice of cucumber and press it to the roof of your mouth with your tongue for 30 seconds, the phytochemcials will kill the bacteria in your mouth responsible for causing bad breath.

7. Hangover cure - To avoid a morning hangover or headache; eat a few cucumber slices before going to bed. Cucumbers contain enough sugar, B vitamins and electrolytes to replenish many essential nutrients, reducing the intensity of both hangover and headache.

8. Aids in weight loss and digestion - Due to its low calorie and high water content, cucumber is an ideal diet for people who are looking for weight loss. The high water content and dietary fiber in cucumbers are very effective in ridding the body of toxins from the digestive system, aiding digestion. Daily consumption of cucumbers can be regarded as a remedy for chronic constipation.

9. Cures diabetes, reduces cholesterol and controls blood pressure - Cucumber juice contains a hormone which is needed by the cells of the pancreas for producing insulin which has been found to be beneficial to diabetic patients. Researchers found that a compound called sterols in cucumbers may help reduce cholesterol levels. Cucumbers contain a lot of potassium, magnesium and fiber. These work effectively for regulating blood pressure. This makes cucumbers good for treating both low blood pressure and high blood pressure.

10. Promotes joint health, relieves gout and arthritis pain -Cucumber is an excellent source of silica, which is known to help promotes joint health by strengthening the connective tissues. They are also rich in vitamin A, B1, B6, C & D, Folate, Calcium, Magnesium, and Potassium. When mixed with carrot juice, they can relieve gout and arthritis pain by lowering the uric acid levels

Symptoms to expect when you improve your diet

SYMPTOMS TO EXPECT WHEN YOU IMPROVE YOUR DIET
Excerpted From An Article By Dr. Stanley S. Bass, ND, D.C., PhD

Perhaps the greatest misunderstanding in the field of nutrition is the failure to understand and interpret the symptoms and chang

es which follow the beginning of a better nutritional program. A remarkable thing happens when a person improves the quality of the food he consumes. When the food you ingest is of a higher quality than the tissues from which the body is made, the body discards the lower quality tissues, to make room for the higher quality materials to make healthier tissue. During this process of regeneration, lasting about 10 days to several weeks, the emphasis is on breaking down and eliminating lower quality tissue. The vibrant energy often found in the external parts of the body, the muscles and skin, moves to vital internal organs and starts reconstruction. This movement of energy produces a feeling of less energy in the muscles, which the mind interprets as weakness. At this time, more rest and sleep is often needed, and it's imperative to avoid stimulants of any kind which will abort and defeat the regenerative process. Remember, the body isn't getting weaker, it's simply using it's energies in more important internal work rather than external work involving muscle movements. With patience and diligence, a person will soon feel more energy than before.

By ingesting higher quality foods, the body begins a process called "retracing". The initial focus is on eliminating waste and toxins deposited in the tissues. However, the process creates symptoms that are often misinterpreted. For example, a person who stops consuming coffee or chocolate may experience headaches and a general letdown. The body begins discarding toxins (caffeine or theobromin) by removing them from the tissues and transporting them through the bloodstream. However, before toxins are passed, through elimination, they register in our consciousness as pain, in other words, a headache. These same toxins also stimulate the heart to beat more rapidly, thus producing the feeling of exhilaration. The letdown is due to the slower action of the heart which produces a depressed mind state.

The symptoms experienced during "retracing" are part of the healing process! They are not deficiencies. Do not treat them with stimulants or drugs. These symptoms are constructive, even though unpleasant at the moment. Don't try to cure the cure. The symptoms will vary according to the materials being discarded, the condition of the organs involved in the elimination, and the amount of available energy. They can include: headaches, fever/chills, colds, skin eruptions, constipation/diarrhea, frequent urination, fatigue/sluggishness, nervousness, irritability, depression. The symptoms will be milder and pass more quickly if one gets more rest and sleep. Understand that the body becomes healthier by eliminating wastes and toxins. Had they remained trapped in the tissues, eventually they would have brought illness and disease, thus causing greater pain and suffering. "The body is becoming healthier by eliminating toxins".

Finally, don't expect to improve your diet and feel better and better every day, until you reach perfection. The body is cyclical in nature. Health returns in a series of gradually diminishing cycles. For example, you may begin eating better and start feeling better. After some time, you experience a symptom such as nausea or diarrhea. After a day, you feel even better than before and all goes well for a while. Then you suddenly develop a cold, the chills and lose your appetite. Without the use of drugs, you recover from these symptoms and suddenly you feel great. This well-being continues for a time until you break out in a rash. The rash flares up, but finally disappears, and suddenly you feel better than you've felt in years. As the body becomes pure, each reaction becomes milder and shorter in duration, followed by longer and longer periods of feeling better than ever before, until finally you reach a level, plateau.

Heartburn, Indigestion, Reflux??

By Ruth Sackman

Have you ever been diagnosed with Heartburn or Acid-Reflux? Both of these problems can be result of an over-acidic diet. One of our major nutritional goals for optimum health is maintaining a proper acid/alkaline balance. It is important that our diet is slightly more alkaline-forming than acid as this is the environment which is most conducive to health and the body's natural repair process.

We are talking about the acid or alkaline ash that remains in the body after metabolism, not the actual content of the food. For example, lemon is an acid-containing food, but it leaves an alkaline residue. In fact, an excellent way to combat acidosis would be to drink water with fresh lemon juice.

The body always strive to maintain a proper acid/alkaline balance, though the more we help it along by eating the right balance of foods, the less wear and tear on the system. If an acid condition persists, however, the body will draw minerals from other areas to try to neutralize the situation. For instance, calcium, an alkaline-forming mineral, may be released from bones. This is a short-term solution which, over time, can lead to osteoporosis. Chronic over-acidity removes oxygen from the blood and can result in lowered immunity and premature aging, kidney stone formation, muscle loss, back pain, gout and other joint diseases. Chronic degenerative conditions, like cancer, tend to develop in an over acid environment. Over acidity also can produce that tired, headachy, fuzzy-headed feeling many people get, especially after eating.

There is a simple method for measuring pH (the symbol used as a measurement for acidity/alkalinity) in the urine. One can buy nitrazine or litmus paper in most drug stores. A half-inch or so of tape is dropped into a small amount of urine collected in a container. The tape turns to a color that is compared to a special chart on the package which corresponds to the acid/alkaline numbers - a pH of 7 is considered neutral; lower than 7 is acid, above is alkaline. A single urine test cannot give the total picture. The test ought to be repeated in early morning and several times during the day, and over more than one day, to establish a pattern. The numbers should not be consistently extreme on the acid side (called acidosis), or on the alkaline side (alkalosis). Either extreme is out of the normal healthy range. The ideal is a slightly alkaline pH reading of 7.365 - 7.45, but within the range of 6.0 - 7.5 is considered a healthy place to be.

The typical American diet is acidogenic, consisting of foods that have an acidifying effect on the body - too much meat, processed foods, refined sugars, chemical additives, caffeine, alcohol, as well as most prescription drugs, etc. A plant-based diet of whole, fresh vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds, whole grains, etc., will naturally have a more alkalinizing effect.

It should also be noted that chronic low-grade stress, so common in today's busy, fast-paced world - is acid forming. The antidote would be to try to acknowledge and manage stress, and to incorporate activities like meditation, yoga which help relax and rebalance the system.

Clinicians have determined that a proper balance for regaining health is best achieved by eating about 80% alkaline-forming foods and 20% acid-forming. For maintaining health, usually 60% alkaline and 40% acid is adequate. Some practitioners suggest the following formula for every 10 foods eaten: 6 should be vegetables, 2 fruits, 1 protein, 1 starch and whole, organic grains. I have added another ingredient - fermented food, such as yogurt or naturally fermented vegetables, like sauerkraut or kim chi. Fermented food provides the beneficial intestinal flora that is a natural need of the colon.

One of the basic principles that doctors have discovered from long clinical experience and study is that healing is essentially the process of the body ridding itself of toxic materials. When at rest or asleep, the body focuses its energy on attempting to repair any biological dysfunctions, as well as "housekeeping" to release stored toxins from cells into the bloodstream for elimination. Therefore, the most toxic time is in the morning. While most people have been told repeatedly that a substantial breakfast is the best way to start the day, in many European health clinics the very opposite is the practice. They begin the early morning mostly with fruits which serve as cleansers, followed by other foods on the alkaline side because this is one of the best ways to neutralize over-acidity from accumulated toxins and to stimulate the muscular activity of the intestines to eliminate wastes. After the period of morning toxicity is relieved, one can then start on the day's normal food intake.

People have asked me why it is that primitive man survived without a clue about his pH or what percentage of his foods should be acid or alkaline? Ah, life was simpler then! There were no fast food outlets or refined foods. There were fewer choices, so people naturally ate a more unadulterated plant-based diet. Today, we have a lot more food options, but it's still relatively simple to eat well: just stick to a wide variety of whole, unprocessed foods (vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds, whole grains) with small amounts of flesh foods, a daily dose of fermented. Avoid processed/junk foods, refined sugars, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, soda pop, routine use of pharmaceuticals, etc. 

Check your pH periodically and adjust your food intake to average in the alkaline zone. Find ways to diffuse chronic stress.

Source: www.rethinkingcancer.org

(Note: Experts often disagree about the pH of some foods, based on different testing methods or interpretations. What's important to remember is that the human body is an amazing survival machine and Mother Nature gives us a lot of leeway. She would like us to aim high, but perfection is not necessary or even attainable. This chart gives sufficient general guidelines to help you make wise choices.)

Acid/Alkaline Food Chart

Alkaline Foods		Acid Foods
Alkaline Vegetables Asparagus Artichokes Cabbage Lettuce Onion Cauliflower Radish Swede Lambs Lettuce Peas Courgette Red Cabbage Leeks Watercress Spinach Turnip Chives Carrot Green Beans Beetroot Garlic Celery Grasses (wheat, straw, barley, dog, kamut etc.) Cucumber Broccoli Kale Brussels Sprouts	Fruits Lemon Lime Avocado Tomato Grapefruit Watermelon (is neutral) Rhubarb	Meats Pork Lamb Beef Chicken Turkey Crustaceans Other Seafood (apart from occasional oily fish such as salmon)	Dairy Products Milk Eggs Cheese Cream Yogurt Ice Cream
	Drinks 'Green Drinks' Fresh vegetable juice Pure water (spring, distilled or ionised) Lemon water (pure water + fresh lemon or lime). Herbal Tea Vegetable broth Almond Milk	Others Vinegar White Pasta White Bread Wholemeal Bread Biscuits Soy Sauce Tamari Condiments (Tomato Sauce, Mayonnaise etc.) Artificial Sweeteners Honey	Drinks Fizzy Drinks Coffee Tea Beers Spirits Fruit Juice Dairy Smoothies Milk Traditional Tea
	Seeds, Nuts & Grains Almonds Pumpkin Sunflower Sesame Flax Buckwheat Groats Spelt Lentils Cumin Seeds Any sprouted seed	Convenience Foods Sweets Chocolate Microwave Meals Tinned Foods Powdered Soups Instant Meals Fast Food	Fats & Oils Saturated Fats Hydrogenated Oils Margarine (worse than Butter) Corn Oil Vegetable Oil Sunflower Oil

Whey protein is Way better!

Whey Protein

Whey protein, derived from milk, is superior to other protein sources for promoting muscle growth and repair. It is absorbed faster than either casein or soy protein and is higher in BCAAs, ultimately leading to greater muscle synthesis (1, 3). In addition, its high leucine content serves as a trigger for muscle growth. Whey is also the most satiating protein, helping achieve fat loss and an improved body composition.

With the numerous advantages conferred by protein, and whey in particular, incorporating this macronutrient into a dietary and training plan will help any athlete get a leg up on the competition:

• Whey is classified as a fast-absorbing protein. It is absorbed faster to maximize peak muscle growth for high-intensity and strength athletes.
• Compared to other protein sources, whey is higher in BCAAs. BCAAs serve as a trigger for muscle growth after resistance training exercise. 
• Whey protein enhances recovery after exercise because it elicits a higher insulin response that speeds up glycogen resynthesis.
• Enhanced recovery from whey protein enables greater training volume to support increased muscle growth or more frequent training.
• Whey protein stimulates greater fat oxidation following a test meal compared to other protein sources like casein or soy.

Although the goals and training techniques used to improve performance varies by athlete, protein has unanimous benefits among all athletes and exercisers of any kind and should be a central component of any good dietary strategy. 
www.fatbgone.org

Nanoparticles

(NaturalNews) Nanoparticle technology has been in popular use by skincare and cosmetics companies now for roughly a decade. The process takes normal sized, visibly detectable particles of materials like mica and other common ingredients and turns them so small they are invisible to the naked eye.

What would be the purpose behind micronizing particles? This makes products a more desirable consistency and caters to a perceived consumer demand for particular consistencies and ease of application. A perfect example is the use of nanoparticles of zinc oxide in sunscreens to reduce the "chalk white" effect that full sized particles can cause when applied to the skin.

The problem with nanoparticles

Minerals like zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, commonly used in sunscreen lotions, foundation and other liquid types of lotions are harmless in their normal size. They simply sit on the skin rather than absorbing in to the skin since they are too large to penetrate its protective barrier.

However, when these are broken down into nanoparticles which are often smaller than the size of a red blood cell, they are easily absorbed into the skin. There is research showing that nanoparticles of zinc oxide and other ingredients like aluminum collect in parts of the brain and cause cell death.

These particles are so easily absorbed that they are detectable in all areas of the body, including vital organs. Animal studies have shown that when they are applied to the skin, they penetrate tissues and cells causing damage when they begin to build up. The tiny size gives these particles the ability to travel the body extensively and can enhance their toxicity.

Nanoparticle use not just found in cosmetics and personal care products

Nanotechnology is not just used in topical skin care products. It is also used in food colorings, food packaging and even glare proof coatings on sunglasses. These are all areas of opportunity for these nanoparticles to be introduced into the body where they can cause tissue damage.

Basically any consumer product that can benefit from a smoother consistency or requiring a certain look can use this particle technology to achieve this. This means we are likely using products now that contain these microscopic particles without realizing it.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/036564_nanoparticles_personal_care_products.html#ixzz22xsEzrQE

A wise man states:

Top Ten GMOs to avoid

Genetically modified foods have been shown to cause harm to humans, animals, and the environmental, and despite growing opposition, more and more foods continue to be genetically altered. It’s important to note that steering clear from these foods completely may be difficult, and you should merely try finding other sources than your big chain grocer. If produce is certified USDA-organic, it’s non-GMO (or supposed to be!) Also, seek out local farmers and booths at farmer’s markets where you can be ensured the crops aren’t GMO. Even better, if you are so inclined: Start organic gardening andgrow them yourself. Until then, here are the top 10 worst GMO foods for your “do not eat” GMO foods list.

Top 10 Worst GMO Foods for Your GMO Foods List

1. Corn: This is a no-brainer. If you’ve watched any food documentary, you know corn is highly modified. “As many as half of all U.S. farms growing corn for Monsanto are using genetically modified corn,” and much of it is intended for human consumption. Monsanto’s GMO corn has been tied to numerous health issues, including weight gain and organ disruption.

2. Soy: Found in tofu, vegetarian products, soybean oil, soy flour, and numerous other products, soy is also modified to resist herbicides. As of now, biotech giant Monsanto still has a tight grasp on the soybean market, with approximately 90 percent of soy being genetically engineered to resist Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup. In one single year, 2006, 96.7 million pounds of glyphosate was sprayed on soybeans alone

3. Sugar: According to NaturalNews, genetically-modified sugar beets were introduced to the U.S. market in 2009. Like others, they’ve been modified by Monsanto to resist herbicides. Monsanto has even had USDA and court-related issues with the planting of it’s sugar beets, being ordered to remove seeds from the soil due to illegal approval.

 

4. Aspartame: Aspartame is a toxic additive used in numerous food products, and should be avoided for numerous reasons, including the fact that it is created with genetically modified bacteria.

5. Papayas: This one may come as a surprise to all of you tropical-fruit lovers. GMO papayas have been grown in Hawaii for consumption since 1999. Though they can’t be sold to countries in the European Union, they are welcome with open arms in the U.S. and Canada.

6. Canola: One of the most chemically altered foods in the U.S. diet, canola oil is obtained from rapeseed through a series of chemical actions.

7. Cotton: Found in cotton oil, cotton originating in India and China in particular has serious risks.

8. Dairy: Your dairy products contain growth hormones, with as many as one-fifth of all dairy cows in America are pumped with these hormones. In fact, Monsanto’s health-hazardous rBGH has been banned in 27 countries, but is still in most US cows. If you must drink milk, buy organic.

9. and 10. Zucchini and Yellow Squash: Closely related, these two squash varieties are modified to resist viruses.

The dangers of some of these foods are well-known. The Bt toxin being used in GMO corn, for example, was recently detected in the blood of pregnant women and their babies. But perhaps more frightening are the risks that are still unknown.

With little regulation and safety tests performed by the companies doing the genetic modifications themselves, we have no way of knowing for certain what risks these lab-created foods pose to us outside of what we already know.

The best advice: steer clear of them altogether.