Fever Response

Fevers are a very tightly controlled immune response to a pathogen and serve to make the body less hospitable for unwelcome microbes.  This response is natural, effective and generally short-lived. 

When we suppress a fever we are not treating the illness, rather we are suppressing a critical immune response.  A higher temperature is not necessarily indicative of a more serious illness.  Focus not on what the thermometer reads but how you or your family may be presenting.  A low grade fever in a person who is in great pain and cannot take in fluids is much more concerning than a higher fever in a person who is resting comfortably.

It is a common fear that allowing the fever to continue unchecked, will result in an unregulated spike in temperature that will cause brain damage, hearing loss, and seizures.  The body has carefully regulated mechanisms that prevent infection-induced fever from reaching dangerous levels.  Only in cases of external causes like heatstroke or poisoning are the body’s control mechanisms likely to be overwhelmed or inoperative.

Take Charge! Focus on the Host not the Bug

“It’s going around”.  How many times during the winter months do we hear and say this in reference to cold or flu?  The fact is microbes—bacteria and viruses are all around and inside of us, yet most of us are not perpetually suffering from this proximity.  The germ theory model that many of us have been believing tells us that exposure to a certain bacteria or virus will result in inevitable illness.  But this just isn’t true.  Pathogenic microbes feed on environments where decay, disease, and disorder are already apparent.  It is the level of compromise in the host that determines susceptibility to ‘dis-ease’.  A body that is well taken care of is well prepared.  

So how do we take care of ourselves?

Þ Wash your hands.

Þ Invest in yourself with quality and sufficient sleep.  Having trouble with this one?  Talk to Dr. Chelsea and John about ways to improve your sleep.

Þ Eat whole, pure, natural foods as much as possible.  The quality of foods you eat determines the quality of building materials for cells and tissues.  Be aware that sugar impairs your immune system for hours after consumption and contributes to overall inflammation.

Þ Boost your consumption of vital nutrients and minerals.  You might do this with a daily green smoothie, or by taking the nutrient-powerhouse chlorella.  We like to do both!

Þ Get enough vitamin D—a broad spectrum antibiotic in its own rite and key for optimal immune function.

Þ Get moving!  Our bodies were designed to move and all systems work best when we provide kinetic stimulus.  This is when we feel our best too.

Þ Stay hydrated.  Hydration is critical for all body processes and helps to flush out toxins, and maintain mucosal linings.  Also know, that in a dehydrated state your body releases more histamine during an immune response.

Þ Maintain your care schedule outlined by Dr. Chelsea.  Your body’s immune response is a carefully coordinated and regulated reaction involving many types of cells.  Each of these cells is controlled by the nervous system so be sure to have your nervous system cleared of any interference.

Þ Millions of bacteria inhabit our bodies and many strains are particularly important in the gastrointestinal tract where they outcompete harmful microbes.  Support your health gut flora by taking a probiotic supplement.

 And finally, let your body do its thing!  Have a runny nose or cough?  Understand that these responses are not the illness.  They are your body’s natural and deliberate response to interference (mention the word “interference” to us and receive 10% off Probiotics during the month of November) it is important not to suppress them.  Suppressing our immune capabilities can prolong the imbalance a bug may causing, and drive it to affect more tissues.  Often we get caught up in symptom-talk but these responses are not signs you have an illness but signs that your immune system is up and going and on the job!  Your health this winter and always is in your hands.

The more we can spread this message it will be true health that is going around and not fear—wouldn’t that be nice?

Buckwheat Turkey Soup

It’s almost turkey time!  No need to let the leftovers go to waste when you can make easy, nourishing, and delicious soup.

· 4 cups broth (make from leftover turkey bones)

· 1 cup buckwheat

· Diced carrots, zucchini, squash, any extra veggies on hand.

· Leftover turkey, diced or shredded.

· 1 can diced tomatoes (BPA free can)

· 1/2 cup split lentils

· Hot chili pepper to taste

Preparation:

Boil buckwheat in soup broth until soft.  Add veggies, tomatoes, turkey and lentils.  Simmer until veggies and lentils are cooked, about 30 minutes.  Add chili pepper to taste.

This makes a great lunch for school or work in a thermos, and easily uses up any veggies in the fridge.  Freeze in individual portions for homemade lunches through the Fall/Winter.

Buckwheat—is a gluten free whole grain rich in magnesium that contributes to cardiovascular health, and blood sugar maintenance.

Tips for Helping Kids Eat Healthier– Even the Toughest Cases!

by Kelly Hayford, C.N.C. provided by the ICPA

Children’s bodies respond quickly to their diet one way or the other.  Feed them well and they’ll thrive.  Feed them poorly and they’ll nose dive.  The younger children are when they begin to eat harmful foods and miss out on the nourishing foods their body needs, the more likely they are to develop chronic disease in the future and at a younger age, whether they currently have symptoms or not.

Consequently, the best advice for helping children establish well-balanced eating habits is to start from the beginning by feeding them primarily, whole, fresh, natural foods (80-100%), minimal amounts of naturally processed foods (0-20%), and absolutely no junk foods or fake-food brands.  Keeping kids away from extreme tasting fake food is the only sure way to prevent them for developing a taste for it.  If it’s too late for that, as it is for most people today, systematically transition them off the undesirable foods and re-educate their wayward palates.

This is not as difficult as people sometimes think.  I have seen scores of parents transform their children’s dietary habits with little to no trouble.  And yes, all of them thought “not my kids!” at first, just as many of you may be thinking now.  Although some will fight and kick and scream initially, children learn, make changes, and adapt more easily than adults.  Once made aware of, and taken off the foods that are overriding their natural sensibilities, kids are often surprisingly more attuned to their innate desire for initiating and maintaining a nutritious diet. 

Make Eating for Health a Priority!

You must place the same importance on good nutrition in your household as you do on wearing seat belts in your car.  Seventy percent of deaths in America are due to chronic degenerative disease and the average American loses 15 years of their life to these largely preventable diseases.  So, statistically speaking allowing children to indulge in poor eating habits is even more dangerous than driving without their seat belts on.  As you do with seatbelts, make your words and actions convey the danger of poor nutrition and the value of good nutrition to your children.

Don’t rob your children of the opportunity to establish good eating habits that will serve them for a lifetime.  Developing self-care skills is a critical and sorely neglected part of their education.  You must rise to the occasion and make your responsibility bigger than your excuses.  Make use of the following practical tips to help:

Top Ten Tips for Helping Children Eat Better:

1. Have a heart-to-heart talk and let them participate in decision making before you begin.

2. Make small, incremental changes over time and establish them as  lifestyle habits.

3. Appeal to their interests when talking about the benefits of healthy eating—i.e. every child wants to be strong, healthy, fast, smart, nice looking etc.

4. Educate them about wise food choices.

5. Involve them in food preparation as much as possible, at as early an age as possible.

6. Be an example by Eating for Health as much as possible yourself!

7. Don’t keep temping junk food in the house.  Do keep plenty of healthy foods on hand!

8. Encourage other parents, teachers and family members to make healthy foods available at school and social functions.

9. Pack a bag with nutritious foods when going out to avoid resorting to convenient, albeit poor-quality food choices.

10. Implement the Five Bites, Five Times method described below.

Five Bites, Five Times!

A tried and true method of helping to train children’s and adult’s taste buds to like new, healthier foods, is to serve a food item on five different occasions and have them take five bites each time they have it.  Why?  Because the brain automatically repels unfamiliar tastes in the mouth as an innate defense mechanism  that helps prevent us from eating poison berries, for example.  Having at least five bites, five times, helps override this mechanism and develop tastes for healthier foods as they become  more familiar.  Explain this to your children and make a fun game out of seeing who likes what food the fastest. 

Breath Counting

This simple technique can be more difficult to perform than you might think, but it is a tried and true way to anchor the mind in the present, allowing you to refocus your energy and clear your mind—something we could all benefit from as the month gets busy.  Kids can learn to do this too!

Sit in a comfortable position with the spine straight and head inclined slightly forward. Gently close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Then let the breath come naturally without trying to influence it. Ideally it will be quiet and slow, but depth and rhythm may vary.

· To begin the exercise, count "one" to yourself as you exhale.

· The next time you exhale, count "two," and so on up to "five."

· Then begin a new cycle, counting "one" on the next exhalation.

Never count higher than "five," and count only when you exhale. You will know your attention has wandered when you find yourself up to "eight," "12," even "19."

Try to do this exercise for 10 minutes each day.

Children & Eating For Health by Kelly Hayford, C.N.C. provided by the ICPA

Factoid:  Researchers say that for the first time in a century, today’s children will have a shorter life expectancy that their parents.  - Texas Children’s Hospital Study

The food industry aims their heaviest marketing artillery at children, the most impressionable segment of our society, with the intention of creating lifelong consumers of their fake-food products.  And they’ve been very successful.  Diet-related health statistics that have emerged in recent decades for children are the scariest of all.

For the first time in history, conditions that were previously associated with aging are now showing up in children at younger and younger ages.  Major diseases such as Type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and even heart attacks have now reached unprecedented numbers among our youth.

As the stewards of this next generation we must do everything possible to turn this trend around and give our children every opportunity to live healthy lives.  We’re not only robbing them of their childhoods, but the quality of their adulthoods, and sometimes their very lives as well.

Despite the troubling predictions and burgeoning health crisis that is emerging, an abundant supply of soda and junk food continues to flow into the mouths of our youngsters.  One of the most alarming dispensaries of these anti-nutrients is in the very place children should be safest from manipulative marketing maneuvers– our public schools.

The good news is, you have complete control over what comes into your house and makes its way into your cupboards.  This is also where you have the most influence.  The more you clean up your own diet and restore your own health and energy, the more you’ll be an energetic dynamo and role model for helping your children.  You can also join with other concerned parents in speaking out at your children’s school and community activities.

Factoid:  At Texas Children’s Hospital, the percentage of children and adolescents diagnosed with type 2 diabetes increased from less than 1% twenty years ago to 27% in 2002.

Same Guidelines Apply

When considering what to feed your children, the same universal Eating-for-Health Guildeines apply (see our March newsletter).  Because their bodies are smaller and still developing you’ll want to be even more vigilant, as children are extra sensitive to low-quality anti-nutrient foods and the many noxious substances they contain, such as MSG, food colourings, and preservatives.  They’re also hypersensitive to stimulants such as sugar and caffeine.  Unfortunately the fake foods made especially for kids are loaded with all of the above.

So many children’s delicate systems aren’t able to function properly because they’re not getting the nutrients they need.  At the same time they’re consuming anti-nutrients and stimulants that further interfere with their ability to function normally.  There are millions of children today though to have a host of conditions who are in fact, merely lacking proper nutrition.

Take any child off processed, packaged fake foods, sugar, caffeine and any common food allergens to which they may be sensitive and you will see significant improvement in their behaviour and physical well-being no matter what conditions they may have.  Feed them lots of whole, fresh, natural foods and be sure they’re getting an adequate amount of essential fatty acids and green foods (the two things missing from the Standard American Diet) and the changes you’ll see will astound you.

Factoid:  A study at the ADHD Research Center in the Netherlands, found that 64% of the children diagnosed with ADHD are actually experiencing a hypersensitivity to food.

Make Nutrition a Priority

Unless your child is having an acute situation that demands urgent intervention, please explore safe, natural approaches that emphasize nutritional factors before you subject your little ones to dangerous, traumatic surgeries, procedures, and toxic drugs.

There are thousands of surgeries performed every year on children who have had recurrent ear infections, for example; surgeries that frequently could have been prevented by identifying and eliminating offending foods from the child’s diet.  Either do some research and experimenting on your own or work with a chiropractor or other holistic practitioner who is knowledgeable about food sensitivities.  Also be sure to have your child’s spine checked by a chiropractor, as nerve interference is often at the root of childhood conditions including ear infections and bed wetting.

By now  I hope you are convinced that helping your children to eat well is essential, and have a pretty good idea of what to feed them.  But I know many of you are probably thinking at this point—actually getting them to eat better is another story.  We’ll address that topic in an upcoming article, Tips for Helping Kids Eat Healthier.  So stay tuned!

Toxins in Your Tea

Tea is renowned for numerous health benefits, and can be a calming and warm morning ritual, however closer examination of popular tea companies reveals a little more might be in your cup.  Many brands contain pesticides, toxins, artificial ingredients, flavours, and GMOs.

Most tea is not washed prior to being put in bags, meaning any pesticides the plants were treated with can end up directly in your cup.  For this reason, it makes sense to consider buying organic tea when possible.  An independent lab revealed that 91% of Celestial Seasonings teas tested had pesticide residues that exceeded US limits.  Some of the residues included propachlor and propargite, which have carcinogenic properties.  Steeping your tea bag in hot water increases the leaching capabilities of anything on the tea itself.

Teas listing artificial flavours may be using products derived from the fractional distillation of crude oil or coal tar.  Unfortunately natural flavours may not be much better as that term is vague and may apply to anything that is chemically derived from a natural substance.  Some teas even list cornstarch or soy lecithin—typically genetically modified crops that you wouldn't even think to associate with tea.

Aside from the ingredients it is also important to consider the packaging.  Silky mesh bags may contain plastics that could leach phthalates in to your tea when exposed to boiling water.  Paper bags may be treated with epichlorohydrin, a chemical mainly used in production of epoxy resin and as a pesticide.  Lab tests show that when in contact with water, this chemical becomes carcinogenic, and has also been shown to interfere with male fertility and suppress the immune system. 

For a more detailed analysis of your favourite brand check out this blog post.

Grilled Halibut with Mango Salsa

(Serves 2)

3/4 cup diced mango

1 TBSP cilantro, minced

3 TBSP fresh lemon juice, divided

2 roma tomatoes, seeded & diced

1/8 tsp sea salt

Ground black pepper to taste

1/4 cup white onion, chopped

2 tsp olive oil

1/4 tsp paprika

2—6 oz fillets of halibut or other firm white fish

salt and pepper to taste

1. Salsa:  combine mango, cilantro, 2 TBSP lemon juice, tomatoes, salt, pepper and onion.  Combine and set aside.

2. Combine 1 TBSP lemon juice, olive oil, and paprika in a shallow glass dish.  Place fillets in dish, turning once to coat.  Let sit 15 minutes.

3. Preheat grill to med-high heat.  Coat with olive oil and season fish with salt and pepper and place on grill, about 3 minutes a side.

4. Serve with mango salsa.

Stay Hydrated This Summer Using Celtic Sea Salt

What is Nutritional Yeast

 Nutritional yeast is made from a single celled organism, Saccharomyces Cerevisiae that is grown on molasses, then harvested, washed and dried by heat to deactivate it. It is not the same as yeasts used for baking or brewing beer, and has no leavening abilities. Nutritional yeast can be purchased in flakes or powdered and lends a cheesy, savory flavour to
foods. Use it to give a cheesy flavour to your favourite snacks like roasted chickpeas, homemade crackers or air-popped popcorn. Use in mashed potatoes or on top of dishes instead
of parmesan.
Nutritional yeast is also rich in B vitamins, folic acid, selenium, zinc and protein.

Barefootin'

How keeping little feet in the buff helps babies’ brains and nervous systems develop.

     In her Pathways article, Barefootin’, Dr. Kacie Flegal teaches us the importance of allowing our babies to explore the world naturally without wearing shoes and socks. She explains the function of our two sensory systems, the proprioceptive and vestibular system, and how they directly contribute to the development of our neuromuscular strength, spatial orientation, balance and coordination.
 
     When our little ones wear shoes, she says, it inhibits their sensory development by restricting
the movement of their feet while creating a barrier that prevents the proprioceptors in the feet
from feeling the terrain. Dr. Flegal points out that the sole of the foot is an extremely sensitive
part of the body with as many proprioceptors as the entire spinal column! She encourages us
to take off our baby’s shoes and our own shoes as much as possible to explore and enjoy the
stimulating sensation of the grass, leaves, and earth beneath our feet.

Summer Hydration

The human body is 70-80% salt water with the brain being composed of nearly 85% water! It is essential to have adequate water for optimal function of all cells—good health cannot be achieved without it!
Dehydration is a major stress on the body and inhibits the healing process.

•  One of the first signs of dehydration is pain anywhere in the body—including arthritic pain—It is impossible for joint inflammation or injury to heal without adequate hydration.

•   Water washes away toxic wastes of metabolism. Without proper hydration the acidity within our body increases and our nerve endings will pass this information on to the brain where it is interpreted as pain.
•  A good rule of thumb is to drink 1 litre of water for every 50 lbs of body weight. Your urine should be very pale yellow to nearly clear
•  You should be reaching for your water bottle even before feeling thirsty—once you feel thirsty dehydration stress responses have already begun.
•   Avoid sugary, or artificially sweetened sports drinks and seek to replenish electrolytes during periods of exertion with whole foods, and mineral rich sea salt instead..
•   Many people assume that by drinking beverages other than water they are getting the hydration they need. This is not true. The other substances like sugars, and artificial sweeteners can actually cause water loss to accelerate.

The Role of Histamine

Histamine is an important neurotransmitter that is produced by white blood cells, and is a primary
water regulating agent—moving water from areas of high concentration to areas of low
concentration.
When the body is dehydrated histamine levels are elevated throughout the body as water is
relocated to the most important organs like the brain and heart. This leaves less critical areas
like joints and digestion very dehydrated and inflamed.
The importance of Salt

•  Salt is stored in the cartilage of joints to osmotically attract water to aid in lubrication and smooth joint function.
•  Salt is a natural antihistamine.
•  Salt produces energy in the body and thins out mucous.
•  Make sure the salt you are getting in your diet is healthful, unrefined natural sea salt. It will replenish the minerals in your body and work to keep you hydrated.