WATER

Talk to 9 out of 10 people and they will tell you they don`t like water!!!! What's to like about water???? It's tasteless.I hear people say it tastes bad well if you think so squeeze half of a lime in there, it will then become alkaline so that will make it double good for you....what you heard as a child about water being the staff of life still holds true today.
Most people are chronically dehydrated, which simply means that they are not drinking enough water and it is causing us to have complaints which carry a number of symptoms like "brain fog," "fatigue," and "exhaustion."
I have a friend that loves to blame everything on menopause when her problem comes from not drinking enough water. She doesn`t eat fruit or much vegetables and wonders why she is having such a rough 'change of life'....she is the one I gave the green powder and she has noticed such a difference.
Try drinking an 8 oz. cup of water today on the hour and see what happens. After doing that for two days, YOU WILL REALIZE HOW IMPORTANT WATER IS. Most of your aches and pains will disappear. If your urine is dark yellow and nothing is wrong with you, it is concentrated and carries that awful smell. Your urine is supposed to be clear or light yellow........First of all we should start the day out with a glass of water, and if you are not eating things like melon and chocho and lots of fruits and vegetables which carry water you need to be getting water from somewhere and it can`t be from sodas or sugar juices.
Then we have on the other hand the people who drink 20 glasses of ice cold water per day - yes I have one of those friends too she is constantly thirsty and is obviously not absorbing the water because it is too cold.......
Try getting used to drinking water at room temperature. After joining a line to buy a cube of ice for JA$5 after hurricane Gilbert, I was cured of anything with ice in it so when I heard I musn't have anything too hot or too cold, I was already used to this thing they call ROOM TEMPERATURE WATER.

GIVING THANKS FOR LEARNING ABOUT RAW FOOD

Today is Thanksgiving in the USA, the biggest holiday in the American calendar I would dare say although I believe we should give thanks every day ........ Frederick Patenaude, whose recipes were the first I tried and whose book was the first I read on raw food till I got into it and discovered Nomi Shannon and the Boutenkos etc, also has an interesting take on Thanksgiving - he is a French Canadian and always tells it as he sees it ...........

I do think it's important to sit down and give thanks to the "harvest" and be grateful in general for what life offers us.
One thing I'm especially thankful for is having discovered vegetarianism, raw foods and natural hygiene at a pretty early age. I started when I was 18 (with being a vegetarian), and although I've had a few ups and downs since then, I can say that my life would be quite different if I hadn't found out about this. Now at 33, I have more energy and vitality than when I was 16, and most importantly, I feel in control of my health, rather than being controlled by what happens to my health.
Another thing I'm grateful for is having found out the *right* information about health and raw foods.
For many years, I was confused and even though I thought I was following the best diet in the world, I was not getting the results. Instead of improving, my health was
deteriorating.
Then I discovered a very simple fact: I was eating too much fat! Nuts, oils and avocados were and important part of my diet, and even though I was eating a lot of fruit, I was still not eating nearly enough to give me the energy I was after.
That's certainly one of the most important health principles I've ever learned: eat enough fruit, and eliminate the fat.
Putting it in practice is another story! But I'm certainly grateful that I discovered these principles and many others. Otherwise, I would still be confused and probably not experiencing the health and energy I have now.
The best thing is you can have it too.
You can claim the health and vitality that's your birthright!
I can honestly say that discovering this information about health and the raw food diets is the best thing that ever happened to me. And I'm grateful for that.
But more important than having great information... is actually using it. So take amazing good care of yourself today, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Increase your immunity to colds and flus with bananas

Oh Lord here is one anti-cancer food I'll have to pass on......I don`t have a sweet tooth, and banana is my least favourite food - it has to be unblemished as when its too ripe it's too sweet, I only like 'chiney banana' which isn`t as sweet, turns out now that the pucko, pucko banana is the one to eat..Father you know if I must I must, but make sure I don`t need it, bless me but I going pass on that one... but I'm passing on the information as I get it , so here goes - according to Japanese scientific research, banana contains TNF, which has anti-cancer properties. Report on the research findings state as follows -

'The fully ripe banana produces a substance called TNF, which has the ability to combat abnormal cells.
As the banana ripens, it develops dark spots or patches on the skin. The more dark patches it has, the higher will be its' immunity enhancement quality.
Hence, the Japanese love bananas for a good reason...
The degree of anti-cancer effect corresponds to the degree of ripeness of the fruit, i.e. the riper the banana, the better the anti-cancer quality...
In an animal experiment carried out by a professor in Tokyo U comparing the various health benefits of different fruits, using banana, grape, apple, water melon, pineapple, pear and persimmon, it was found that banana gave the best results. It increased the number of white blood cells, enhanced the immunity of the body and produced anti-cancer substance TNF.
The recommendation is to eat 1 to 2 bananas a day to increase your body immunity to diseases like cold, flu and others.
According to the Japanese professor, yellow skin bananas with dark spots on it are 8 times more effective in enhancing the property of white blood cells than the green skin version'

Well I know you would never find a raw food person eating a green banana which we Jamaicans thrive on. Raw food people love ripe, ripe, soft bananas......and most people I know eat bananas by the twos and threes so isn't it great to know you are doing good without my usual nagging ?

Is Junk food addictive?

Tell me about it.....since I moved back to Mobay I found my favourite mints and every evening I come home and eat them till my tongue burns and I know its killing me...even my stomach burns and imagine the sugar and the chemicals I`m putting in my body ? I wouldn`t even read the ingredients as I don`t want to know....I`m telling you this to show you that even those of us who try and are more disciplined than most, also fall off the wagon sometimes....most of us when we fall off the wagon just feel bad - when I fall off I`m playing around with death. When any of you, whose system is not compromised, slip and slide and when someone like me slip and slide, the result is very different......most people can just brush themselves off and start again, I have to wonder if my slipping has caused my tumour to start growing again...and still I do it.....I guess we are full of excuses for what our addictions over the years have done to us...I get the "I have a sweet tooth" every day from friends when we all know by now sugar is not good for us.... once I taste one of those mints, I have to have a bag.........addictions, addictions!!!!!Remember once you start eating the processed food you feel bad, you look bad and the cravings come rolling in. Research is showing that our brains may react in the same way to junk food as they do to drugs - check out this story in the Telegraph - Junk food as 'addictive as drugs'. Well that should be pretty obvious - just look at all the obese people around you! Do you think they want to be obese? Watch Biggest Loser....they don`t want to be fat, I don`t want to be sick, most of you don`t want to eat the garbage - yet you do (except the young lady who told me she loves MSG, and she was very serious).....
But the fact is we do...over to you Mr. Psychiatrist!

WHERE IS THE PROTEIN IN RAW FOODS?

I`m tired of answering this question so I`ll let the experts answer it for you and also add.... most of us eat way too much protein.....I for one used to eat 80% protein when we need something like 4 % - so here is an article on the subject from www.raw food nation.com

Raw Food Myth: Where’s the Protein?
Comment: What? You’re eating only raw foods now? Well, what are you going to do about protein? You need meat for that. A raw vegan diet doesn’t have enough protein in it, especially if you are physically active and like to workout.
Response:Yes, protein is essential for the structure and function of every cell in our body. It plays an important role in the functioning of our organs and muscle tissues, along with enzyme production. Amino acids are the building blocks for proteins. It is a common misconception that you can only get proteins (or enough proteins to function) from animal products. In fact, plant proteins are more than compatible with our bodies and provide the essentials that our cells need to perform daily tasks.
The World Health Organization states that humans need about 5% of their daily calorie intake to come from protein. This constitutes a healthy diet. Actually, by being a raw food enthusiast, you have the option to get your daily dose of protein from a variety of sources. So no longer do you have to think “gee, I should make sure I have chicken tonight so I get my protein.” Now you have multiple ways to get your protein, from your breakfast smoothie to your afternoon snack. On average, fruits have roughly 5% of their calories from protein and vegetables (especially green leafy ones) have 20-50% of their calories from protein.
Here are some great plant based foods that are packed with the proteins your body needs to make things happen:
Dark leafy greens such as kale and spinach (great in salads, in juices and green smoothies)
Fruits such as peaches, avocados (great in smoothies), and raisins (consider making a raw trail mix)
Nuts such as Brazil nuts, pecans, pistachios (good for snacking)
So go forth and get your protein in more creative ways than ever before!

Cancer treatment enters an exciting era!

HEADLINES FROM THE TELEGRAPH - Cancer treatment enters 'very exciting' era -I have to reproduce this article in its entirety - the author, Richard Alleyne is saying what I`ve been preaching - that prevention is the way to halt cancer...but he is going to use drugs while we can use food!!!!!!!
Well read the story below and come to your own conclusion....

Cancer treatment is entering a “very exciting” era as a number of projects reach fruition that could stop the disease being a major cause of death, Britain’s leading cancer scientist is to claim.
Sir David Lane, chief scientist at Cancer Research UK, believes care will be dramatically transformed as teams close in on techniques that are likely to lead to the creation of a new generation of drugs.
“The next few years are going to be very exciting,” he will tell the National Cancer Research Institute.
“There are new drugs coming through that look very promising. Discoveries that were made 25 years ago are now having their impact in the clinic.
“It would be wrong to raise hopes for patients in the very short term, but it would be unimaginable if we did not turn this work into something immensely useful in 10 to 20 years.
“I think that cancer will become a disease that is not a major cause of death.”
Dr Lane will be the keynote speaker at the annual conference of the National Cancer Research Institute being held in Birmingham.
Dr Lane and the delegation will celebrate the 30th anniversary of his discovery of a human protein called p53, shown to play a pivotal role in the spread of nearly all cancers.
He said that the protein remained at the centre of the research.
“I was only a junior scientist at the time. It was clear p53 was important,” he said.
“However, none of us had any idea that it would turn out to be vital to understanding cancer. It is almost a universal factor we now realise.”
Known as the “guardian of the genome”, p53 is key to the prevention of cancers.
The disease arises because DNA errors build up inside the body’s cells. It is the role of p53 to correct those errors and prevent cancerous mutations from spreading. It organises repairs to damaged cells and, in those beyond repair, it arranges for the cell to be killed off before it can spread and divide.
However, sometimes p53 becomes damaged itself and cannot do its job.
As a result, rogue cancer cells are able to form a tumour.
“In this sense, you can think of cancers as the living dead – they are made up of cells that should have been killed off but which somehow have not and which pass through the body with deadly consequences,” said Dr Lane.
The crucial point about the discovery of p53’s almost universal role in the formation of nearly all of the 200 types of cancer that affect humans is that it has raised immediate prospects of developing treatments for a wide range of tumours.
Hence the excitement among cancer experts and the number of scientific studies now focused on the protein. These studies led last year to the publication of an average of 10 scientific reports on p53 every day.
Many of these studies are already producing results, as Peter Johnson, Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician, will tell the conference.
“We are starting to use our understanding of p53 to select treatment,” he said.
Dr Lane said what was now needed was to develop a drug that could pinpoint a cell with no p53 in it or possessed a mutated form of p53.
It could then destroy that cell before it could spread and cause cancer

'THIS IS IT'

A blog reader asked me what did I think about MICHAEL JACKSON`S 'THIS IS IT'
I had to write it in capitals the respect I have for the man........Genius, THE GREATEST, one of a kind, freak of nature, whatever words you want to use to describe him, he is all that and more. I WILL NEVER SEE ANYONE LIKE THAT IN MY LIFETIME PASS THIS WAY AGAIN ....I'm one of those that believe if you are too brilliant something is always missing like Kanye West but Kanye cannot come one millionth of a percent near Michael.
Now that he is gone and his music is heavy on rotation again I realize that when Michael's music starts you cant miss it. His music is one of a kind.....and everybody I know has all his music on their ipods and always did, and everyone can tell you a favourite song that is played non stop.
This novie shows how special he was....his work ethic was second to none "that's why we call it rehearsal"...also knowing his craft.....he knew every note, every nuance of his music .....we have certainly lost one of the greats and we have also missed a mindblowing concert.
Next thing is my move.....I've been wondering why did I do this ? I said I wanted to move to somewhere away from the maddening crowd, hence I moved to Ochi,missing my friends and refusing to go back to Kingston, MoBay was the choice where I can sit and write my book and be at one with the one.....this place is that and more, you can be one with the frogs, lizards, mosquitoes,it has a stream running through it , it has banana trees, plantain trees, june plum trees, lime trees and on and on but the cable is nearly non-existent the computer moves slower than molasses and the great Cable and Wireless now called LIME says up here is not wired to go any faster than one meg so be careful what you wish for you just might get it...trouble is I know I need to write my book so I don`t need many megs to do that now do I ? Everything I need is here so what's my problem ?......maybe the father gives you what he knows you need and not what you want.

WHERE IS THE FUN IN EATING RIGHT

You know the longer I live ( today is the birthday) the more I realize how everything we do revolves around food. We have no fun without food being involved, no family occasion, no work meeting that food is not involved and as I sit and look it's all processed and all slowly causing us much pain and misery. Just look at a simple thing like water we now hear even that needs to be alkaline......it takes 20 parts alkaline to neutralize 1 part acidic. Acids from stress, refined foods and meat/dairy, and pharmaceuticals are burning out our cells, our bones, blood, organs, and tissue binders, causing disease and much misery. Alkalinity is the answer to reversing this situation but how are we going to know that ? Just talking to someone whose closest friend had cancer of the ovaries in 2006, now it's back colon,anus and somewhere else.No doctor told her to change her lifestyle therefore change her eating habits .
I went to see the Michael Jackson movie 'This is it' which is a MUST SEE....... my son had popcorn with butter ( what's that?) and nachos with cheese - plastic cheese, and a cup of soda ..everybody had basically the same thing only change was some had hot dogs ...I had a bottled water.... no fun and even if it's spring water you don`t know if it's safe......wow how hard is this?
Went to work meeting - teas all different kinds of pretend tea, no real teas were there, coffee, creamer, sugar and splenda and milk, melon...... water,honey dew and cantaloupe, pineapple, danish croissants with plastic cheese stuffing and banana bread. Pepsi or Coke in a jug full of ice, and orange juice full of sugar and ice water.....so I had pineapple ...wow I'm having too much fun!!!! And it continues through the day. I will eat my raw food lunch but if I want to hang with friends after work I`m in trouble again....when can we have a hangout that we can eat something fun like at the Lucky Duck in New York or Cafe Gratitude in California... and if I open one in Jamaica will anybody come?