Eye Health, Protein, Melatonin, Salt, Vitamin Supplements

In This Issue: 

• • Eyes Love Oranges
  • The Real Scoop on Protein
  • Pistachio Nuts Help You Sleep
  • To Salt or Not to Salt?
  • Vitamin Supplements – Good or Bad?

You’ll Find More Fascinating Health Posts on Facebook –

https://www.facebook.com/HealItAll/ and

Whole Foods Plant-Based, Gluten Free Diet & Recipes Group

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Message from Bernadette Wulf

Greetings!

It is definitely looking like Autumn here in Sonoma County. The pumpkins in the field across the street are bright orange and ready for harvest. My kitchen counters are piled with boxes and bags of apples, fresh prunes (so delicious!), pears, tomatoes, and grapes from backyard gardens – a feast of fruit!

I’ve been on the Medical Medium 28 day raw fruit and vegetable cleanse for the past 26 days, so it has been perfect timing for all that fruit!

September was a busy and productive month! I finally launched my Brigit’s Path Magical Healing Course last week. Check it out if that sort of thing appeals to you.

If you are interested in my art, I’ve also launched a WIP (works in progress) blog that you might enjoy – WIP Blog Posts on Two of my Recent Paintings

For this month, we have some fascinating articles about eye health, how much protein we really need and where to get it, why salt isn’t so good for us, a look at vitamin supplements, and my favorite: how we can get all the melatonin we need for a good night’s sleep from a couple of pistachio nuts!

As always, I would love to hear what you want to read about. Feel free to send your requests, suggestions, questions, or any sort of feedback. I always appreciate hearing from my readers – Email Bernadette

To your health and happiness!

Bernadette Wulf

HealItAll.com & Plant Based for Life

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Eyes Love Oranges

Age related macular degeneration (ARMD) is a common condition that can lead to blindness. Fortunately, there are several easy ways we can start protecting our eyesight right away. It turns out that oranges are a super-food when it comes to eye health.

From eurekalert.org:

The research showed that people who ate at least one serving of oranges every day had more than a 60% reduced risk of developing late macular degeneration 15 years later.

Read more about how oranges protect your eyesight – https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-07/wifm-aoa071118.php

Here are a few more super-foods for the eyes, from naturalhealth365.com:

And experts say that astaxanthin, the carotenoid that gives salmon flesh its pinkish-orange hue, is capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier, directly delivering antioxidant activity to the brain and eyes.

[ ] eating a healthy amount of omega-3 fatty acids found in cold-water fish also helps to cut the risk of age-related eye diseases. One meta-analysis showed that high dietary intake of omega-3s cut macular degeneration risk by 38 percent.

But you don’t have to eat salmon, or any fish, to get all those benefits. Astaxanthin and omega-3s are abundantly available in natural vegan supplement form. Here’s the one recommended by Anthony William, the Medical Medium: It is called OmegaAstin –

The naturalhealth365.com article goes on to say:

But the surprising “sleeper” natural supplement for combating ARMD may turn out to be melatonin, the hormone that promotes natural slumber. In one clinical study, researchers found that 3 mg of melatonin every night helped to prevent further vision loss in patients who had already developed ARMD. [See article below on pistachios to find out how to get all the melatonin you need, safely and naturally. – Ed.]

Read more about the many ways you can protect your eyesight from ARMD – https://www.naturalhealth365.com/macular-degeneration-eye-health-2706.html

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The Real Scoop on Protein

I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of hype about the benefits of high-protein diets. Maybe you even bought into it, but I hope, for the sake of your health, that you will question those claims. They are simply not true.

Of course we all need protein, but not as much as the media (and meat and dairy industries) would have you believe. In fact, too much protein can seriously undermine your health.

The problem with high-protein diets, according to Anthony William, the Medical Medium, is that high protein also means high fat. A high-fat diet is devastating to your liver, brain, heart, and circulatory system, and can also lead to type 2 diabetes.

From http://www.medicalmedium.com/blog/truth-about-protein:

Most of the proteins the liver produces [the ones our bodies can use – Ed.] are created from fruits, leafy greens, and vegetables—not from eating the foods most people see as high in protein like eggs, bacon, yogurt, beef, chicken, tofu, fish, milk, nuts and seeds.

Oddly enough, the foods that the meat-dairy industry has been pushing on us for decades really aren’t the best foods for providing protein and building muscle in our bodies. But then, we should all know enough by now to be skeptical of claims promoted by any industry. 

The Medical Medium article goes on to say:

High fat diets are disastrous for the brain. In truth, there is only a microscopic percentage of fat in the brain. Outside of these low traces of omegas, the brain is mostly a jellyfish-like organ made up of sugar. The brain runs on glucose, not fat, and without enough of it the brain begins to shrink as we get older and it’s deprived from getting enough glucose due to high-fat, high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets that fear fruit and potatoes.

Of course, the brain does need small amounts of fat – the essential fatty acids omega 3 and omega 6. Those are the only fats we really need to stay healthy. Our bodies can form some EPA and DHA from omega 3 in flax seeds, chia seeds, hemp seeds, walnuts, and leafy greens, but it can also be helpful to take an algae-based EPA and DHA supplement like OmegaAstin, or O-Mega-Zen (but don’t eat the capsules of O-Mega-Zen, because they are made with carageenan. I usually pop them into food and throw away the capsule).

Here’s what the article suggests as the ideal diet:

If you are plant-based, you can eat some avocado and some nuts and seeds, but if it’s healing from symptoms and conditions and the best health possible you’re seeking, put your focus on an abundance of fresh fruits, leafy greens, and vegetables, including the carbohydrate-rich vegetables like potatoes and winter squash. If you eat animal products, try to stick to one smaller serving of animal protein per day while bringing in more and more of the fruits, leafy greens, and vegetables.

Anthony William strongly recommends avoiding dairy products, eggs (they feed viruses and bacteria), pork, soy, gluten, corn, and canola oil. By the way, he says “pork kills the liver.” If you are going to eat meat or fish, make sure it is pasture raised or wild, and keep it to one small serving a day or less.

http://www.medicalmedium.com/blog/truth-about-protein

More on the Dangers of Protein Overload

Here’s another excellent article on how excess protein can damage your health from drmcdougall.com – “Bone loss, osteoporosis, kidney damage, kidney stones, immune dysfunction, arthritis, cancer promotion, low-energy, and overall poor health are the real consequences from overemphasizing protein.” – https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2004nl/jan/protein.htm

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Pistachio Nuts Help You Sleep

Dr. Greger has shown that not all melatonin supplements are pure, and the dosages are not always accurate. That means you can get way more melatonin than your body would naturally create, or you could possibly ingest some heavy metals or other contaminants.

But there’s good news! It turns out that just 2 pistachio nuts will provide all the melatonin you need to help your body get a good night’s sleep!

Here’s Dr. Greger’s short video link:

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-to-treat-jet-lag-with-melatonin-rich-food/

How Melatonin Prevents Breast Cancer

Another article from thetruthaboutcancer.com discusses how melatonin can help prevent breast cancer. Here are the highlights:

1. Melatonin can put breast cancer cells to sleep.
2. Melatonin helps to regulate estrogen.
3. Melatonin can cause cancer cells to die. 
4. Melatonin boosts the immune system.

Read more about how melatonin helps prevent breast cancer – https://thetruthaboutcancer.com/5-ways-melatonin-prevents-cancer

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To Salt or Not to Salt?

I love salty, savory foods. I’ll take them over sweets any time. However, I have cut way back on my salt intake for several reasons. Though my blood pressure has always been on the low side, my problem was leg cramps. With a little detective work, I realized that they only happened when I ate a lot of salty foods.

I think that is interesting, because according to this NutritionFacts.org Article, too much salt can also cause cardiovascular disease (CVD), i.e. heart attacks, which are muscle cramps in the heart:

There was a 17 percent increase in risk of CVD for every gram of sodium a day. And, this is for people without high blood pressure. We’d expect the benefit to be even greater for the 78 million Americans with hypertension.

I still use a little Celtic Sea Salt now and then, but drastically lowering my salt intake has solved the leg cramp problem. Instead, I use Coconut Aminos and strong flavored spices to make up for the salt.

It doesn’t take long for your taste buds to adjust. In a couple of weeks, you won’t miss the salt at all.

More about the dangers of too much salt – https://nutritionfacts.org/2018/08/14/dont-be-confused-by-big-salt/

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Vitamin Supplements – Good or Bad?

Do you ever wonder why the media is so adamant about badmouthing vitamin supplements? Here’s a clue. Big Pharma spends about $3 BILLION a year on various forms of advertising – about $90 million on print advertising alone. What they are advertising are drugs to “fix” the problems that result from poor lifestyle choices, faulty nutrition, lack of exercise, and a few causes over which we have no control.

So, why listen to them? What you really need to hear are the REAL facts about supplements. Dig up the scientific evidence that’s being buried right now. To find out more details, just click the link at the bottom of this article.

Article Summary

• Studies clearly showed that multivitamin supplementation reduced overall cancer risk.
• Total fruit and vegetable intake was associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.
• Nutrient levels in U.S. crops have been steadily falling.
• As an end consumer of the present-day food industry, you can no longer state with any certainty that you can and do get all your nutrients from food.
• Men taking a daily multivitamin have a statistically significant reduction in the incidence of total cancer.
• We need bioavailable, synergistic, nutrient complexes only found in whole-food-based supplements.

There you have it. Food based vitamin and mineral supplements are becoming more and more important as our soils become depleted by factory farming. Oh for the good old days when we could count on food to sustain us! Of course, a good organic farmer knows how to build the fertility of the soil, so we get a lot more nutrients from organically grown foods.

More about the benefits of multi-vitamin supplements –https://thetruthaboutcancer.com/multi-vitamins-cancer-prevention/