1. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” – Benjamin Franklin

2. “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” -Hippocrates

3. “The greatest wealth is health.”  – Unknown

4. “If you don’t take care of your body, where are you going to live?” – Unknown

5. “If you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it.” – Common Sense

6. “Health is like money, we never have a true idea of its value until we lose it.” – Josh Billings

7. “From the bitterness of disease man learns the sweetness of health.”  ~ Catalan Proverb

8. “Mainstream medicine would be way different if they focused on prevention even half as much as they focused on intervention…”  – Anonymous

9. “The best and most efficient pharmacy is within your own system.” – Robert C. Peale

10. “Don’t eat anything your great-great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. There are a great many food-like items in the supermarket your ancestors wouldn’t recognize as food.. stay away from these.”  – Michael Pollan

11. “The part can never be well unless the whole is well.” – Plato

12. “He who takes medicine and neglects to diet wastes the skill of his doctors.” – Chinese Proverb

13. “Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.” – Thomas Jefferson

14. “The groundwork of all happiness is health.” – James Leigh Hunt

15. “A healthy body is a guest-chamber for the soul; a sick body is a prison.” – Francis Bacon

16. “Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages.” – Louis Pasteur

17. “I am not my body. My body is nothing without me.” – Tom Stoppard

18. “It is easier to change a man’s religion than to change his diet.”- Margaret Mead

19. “Eating crappy food isn’t a reward — it’s a punishment.” – Drew Carey

20. “No disease that can be treated by diet should be treated with any other means.” – Maimonides

21. “Each patient carries his own doctor inside him.” – Norman Cousins

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Skin Sensitivity isn’t Just About Genetics

When your skin is sensitive to everything, daily living can be a challenge. I get a kiss on the cheek and I break out. It’s terrible. Can you relate? The good news is you can ease skin sensitivity naturally if you follow these steps.

What Causes Skin Sensitivity?

• Fair Skin

I’m so pale I make a sheet of paper jealous. Sometimes, it’s in your genes. Fair-skinned people have thinner skin, making it more sensitive to chemicals, the sun, and even touch.

• Inflammatory Skin Conditions

Inflammatory skin conditions like acne, rosacea, dermatitis, eczema, and psoriasis can increase skin sensitivity even when you’re not having a flare-up.

• Food Intolerance

Food intolerance is a commonly-overlooked cause of skin sensitivity as it increases your body’s inflammatory response and histamine production. Gluten, food dyes, and aspartame are common culprits.

• Environmental Toxins

The shampoo, soap, and make-up you use every day could be triggering and increase in your skin sensitivity. Be sure to read the labels on your favorite cosmetic products. May commercial products contain harmful parabens, phthalates, and sulfates that dry out and damage your skin.

Ease Skin Sensitivity Naturally

If you’re fair-skinned, you’re likely to have sensitive skin for the rest of your life but there’s still plenty you can do to ease the discomfort.

1. Mild, Preservative-Free Soap

Your first step to treating your sensitive skin is to choose a mild, preservative-free soap. Unscented castile soap is gentle on your skin and cleans thoroughly without drying.

2. Coconut Oil

Virgin coconut oil is liquid gold for sensitive skin because of its strong anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties. Unlike expensive lotions, it’s completely preservative-free and very healing for your skin. Use it as an all-over body lotion when you step out of the shower for soothing relief.

3. Mineral Make-Up

Conventional cosmetics aren’t the best option for your skin; whether it’s sensitive or not. Most conventional cosmetics are nothing more than a concoction of cancer-causing chemicals, dyes, and fragrances you should avoid anyway. All make-up is originally made from minerals but when you choose organic mineral make-up, you’re not getting all of those dangerous chemicals.

4. Sharp Razors

Sensitive skin often means unsightly razor bumps with every shave. To cut down on reactions due to skin sensitivity, make an investment in a good quality razor with disposable blades. Can’t afford one? Try this trick: Take the razor you already have and sharpen it but running it up the leg of a pair of jeans. Don’t “shave” the jeans or go against the grain. You should only make upward motions for 50-100 strokes. This sharpens the razor so you enjoy a closer shave.

5. Threading

Tweezing and waxing your eyebrows and other facial hair can be enough to make you cringe if you have sensitive skin. Threading is a great alternative option because it uses no chemicals and pulls hair out in larger clumps. This means with threading, you cut down on both grooming and recovery time.

Sensitive skin takes special care. A few dietary and lifestyle changes is all you need to ease your skin sensitivity and feel healthier and more comfortable than you have in years.

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Sources:

http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-side-effects.html

http://doctornalini.com/cancer-causing-cosmetics-poisions-in-your-bathroom/

It’s fitting that the acronym for the Standard American Diet is SAD. With the US Industrial Revolution, our food has changed more in the past 80-100 years than it has over thousands of years. This has left our food supply over- processed and chemically laden with preservatives, antibiotics, herbicides and pesticide residues. This has also left us with digestive systems not evolved or equipped to handle any of it! In addition to this declining quality of our food supply, lifestyle habits in the US foster stress. When stress and poor food choices collide, the outcome may be detrimental.

In the US, we tend to be very outcome oriented, always in a rush and operating on a vicious work-reward cycle, taking little time to notice how our bodies are responding to the foods we consume. Reaching for something to eat that is convenient and quick takes precedence over actual nourishment. A typical Standard American Diet (SAD) consists of high calorie, low nutrient, low fiber, high sugar, refined and processed foods with labels claiming to be healthy or natural. If a food manufacturer claims their food to be healthy or natural it’s probably best to steer clear of those items. These words are not federally-regulated and food manufacturers will jump at any chance to cash in on trending health food claims.

Once bad eating habits are a way of life, the body adjusts and you may no longer know what it feels like to feel good. You crave the bad stuff and this is by design! Addictive qualities in your food are increased in the manufacturing process to keep you buying more. The good news is that you can get addicted to the good stuff too. Once you make changes to healthier more nutritious foods you will feel the effects not only physically but mentally. I promise the simple act of paying your body this respect by fueling it with healthy nutritious foods will empower you on your path to a healthier lifestyle!

It’s time to re-establish our relationship with food. Honor nourishing our bodies as the sacred ritual that it is.  Food fuels our physical bodies allowing us to explore and experience this crazy, wonderful and gorgeous existence of ours. Like our ancestors, we need to start eating what’s available seasonally, without pesticides, herbicides, processing, preservatives or Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).

Here are some tips to kick-start your path towards healthier eating!

Read labels: Avoid anything you can’t read or understand. If a product is loaded with ingredients, I just set it down and move on. Ingredients should be simple. Peanut butter ingredients should be peanuts, maybe salt. Spaghetti sauce should be tomatoes, basil, oregano, garlic, etc. Oils, preservatives, food coloring, artificial stabilizers, added sugar, additives are NOT necessary.

Eliminate processed foods: A twinkie is not a food! Eat whole foods and very minimally processed foods as much as possible.

Eat Fruits and Vegetables: As the foundation of a healthy diet, consider fruits and vegetables your fountain of youth. Rich in vitamins, nutrients, antioxidants, fiber, and water, it’s hard to understand how so many can resist that gorgeous nutritional profile.

The relationship you have with food is an intimate one. The food that we eat not only satiates our hunger but provides the nourishment that every cell in our body needs to function properly. Contemplate for a moment the experiences your body enables you to have. What will your life be like if you a have strong able body vs. a weak and malnourished or fatigued body? Our bodies are the vehicles that allow us to experience this fabulous human condition we call life–for better or worse! There are not many things you can control in life BUT the food you eat is one of them. It also just happens to be the best medicine and disease-preventative gift you can give yourself.

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Guest Post by: Anita H. is from Syosset, New York and has worked with organizations such as PULSE of New York, North Shore LIJ and Cold Spring Hills Nursing Home. She blogs for Addison Fields, and has a plethora of publications in sources such as Newsday and Our USA Magazine. She is pursuing her PhD in health care/business administration.

What is Religion Really Selling You?

Religion is all around you. It’s in everything you do, every thought you have, and in everything you buy. Religion sells everything and the longer you blindly follow along, the weaker and more compliant you become. And that, my friends, is the idea. After all, if you weren’t hooked, how could religion sell you more of its product?

If you’ve never thought of religion as a marketing campaign, you’re not alone. When you go to a church, temple, or mosque, you’re intention is to commune with friends and family, hear the word of God, and be absolved of any sins you may or may not have committed during the week.

But how do you feel when if you skip a week? Guilty? You’re programmed to feel that way. How do you feel when a friend or family member decides to stop attending? Angry? Fearful for their soul? You were programmed to feel that way.

Marketing companies have known for hundreds of years that the fastest way to sell a product is to influence your emotions. First, they present a problem, evoking feelings of fear, guilt, frustration, etc. Then, they provide a solution in the form of whatever product they’re trying to sell.

You can see an example of this anytime by watching late-night television. Let’s pretend for a moment the product is a new shampoo. You see a woman, perhaps 40, with dull, limp lifeless hair wearing no make-up and expression so pathetic it borders on clinical depression. In the next clip, she has supposedly used the new shampoo and her hair is full and lustrous, she’s smiling brilliantly, and her make-up, teeth, and clothing are flawless.

This marketing technique is very easy to implement and almost foolproof based on human psychology. We are pleasure-seeking, pain-avoiding people. It’s at the very core of who we are and we can’t change that. It’s in our genetics. People selling religion are aware of this and use it to their best advantage.

For example, if you have a strong religious belief, you are likely to fear going to Hell and not being reconnected with God. If an established smooth-talking pastor preaches about sin, hellfire, and damnation and tells you that the way to avoid all that is to invest in his church and his ideals, you’ll be motivated to do it.

Your feelings of fear and guilt will prompt you to send in a donation or buy a product to “balance the equation” and alleviate your anxiety. With the single click of a button or the writing of a check, you’ve gone from the woman with the dull, lifeless hair to the happier, more attractive woman who has used the product.

You didn’t even realize how anxious you felt until that feeling of blissful relief washes over you.

You’re okay. You’re safe. It’s a delicious illusion.

It Takes Nothing to Become a Religion

Nearly every religion comes from sacred ideals and peaceful teachings. Its original intent was to bring people closer together while helping them to evolve in deep and profound ways. Over the centuries, something got lost in translation. Starting a religion used to be a painful and bloody process.

Now, all you have to do is fill out a form! Within a few short weeks, you are free to frighten, control, swindle, and use as many people as possible with reckless abandon. You’re allowed to do all of this without having a pay a dime in taxes. Does that sound more like a cult?

There is no difference between a cult and a religion except for how society views it.

Why You Hunger for a Leader

You, right now, are starving. You were born hungry and you continue to be. Why? You’re not allowed to feed that hunger.

Food is not food anymore. What you eat now are a bunch of processed, food-like products filled with neurotoxic chemicals designed to make you sick, docile, and easy to control. Sex isn’t even sex anymore. Millions of men struggle with erectile dysfunction and millions of women find sex too painful to bear. You’re allowed to watch all the sex you want on TV but you’re not allowed to actually have it

If we can’t get the nutrients we need and sex is no longer an option, we are left with an empty and desperate feeling we may not even be fully aware exists. This creates in us an intense desire to be “saved”, which religious leaders take full advantage of.

Since you’re filled with doubt and confusion, you’ll seek a leader. Someone who will take you from the darkness you’re in now and pull you into the light.

Psychologist, Abraham Maslow (1970) explained the order of human need in his famous “Malsow’s Hierarchy of Needs”.

He felt that human needs were divided into 5 basic categories. It’s designed in a pyramid as follows:

5. Self-Actualization – A state of well-being where you know your place in the world.

4. Esteem – A state of having few doubts about yourself. You are recognized by others.

3. Belongingness and Love – A feeling of having close friends and family connections.

2. Safety – A feeling of being safe from physical and psychological danger.

1. Physiological – Primary desires are the focus; food, water, shelter, and sex.

Malsow believed that human beings are forever striving to meet one or more of these goals. When lower-level needs go unmet, they become the sole driving-force in your life. Think about that for a moment. You’re not eating nourishing food and you’re not having sex so you stay stuck in the first level of that hierarchy where you’re so desperate, you’ll eat anything (figuratively speaking).

Fear and Guilt – Religion’s Most Powerful Marketing Tools

You’re Being Made to Feel Guilty all the Time

The mark of a good leader is simple; he cares. That’s it. He looks at you with the love, compassion, and understanding you’re not getting at home and pulls you in with dynamic speech and promises of relief.

He tells you he understands that you are a sinner, that you’ve done wrong, that you are not worthy of love at all, but that you can be saved. By both creating and deepening those buried feelings of inadequacy, fear, and guilt, he’s got you. He’s put you in that dark place and you’ll do anything to get out. And there he is, holding out his hand.

Religion and Politics – In Bed and Making Babies

Religious leaders aren’t the only ones who create a feeling of fear only to turn around and relieve it. It’s an old political trick that’s worked for hundreds of years. Politicians get your vote by frightening you. It’s that simple.

They sell themselves as a product to you by scaring you into believing the other guy or the other way is wrong and amoral. There is no such thing as a separation of church and state. When hot-button issues like gay rights or abortion come up in politics, its religion that takes the wheel.

Immediately, you are lead to believe that if gay people are allowed to marry or women are allowed to make choices about their bodies, they will be thrust into the fiery pits of Hell. If that wasn’t bad enough, anyone who does not actively and aggressively try to stop these “evils” from occurring will go right in there with them!

What a great way to start a war and make us all paranoid about each other.

An excellent example of this is the 2012 election campaign video, “Test of Fire”. This thinly-veiled political muck actually has the gall to suggest that if you don’t vote Republican, you’re voting against God!

Beyond the Collection Plate – Megachurches Make Millions

Why Would You Have to Pay God to Love You?

Ditch-digger turned Evangelical Bishop, T.D. Jakes has been quoted as saying, “Jesus is the Product”. He is the founder and owner of a Dallas, Texas megachurch called “The Potter’s House”. He makes millions of dollars every year for preaching and selling his religious products. Does he donate this money to improving the lives of others? No, he drives a Rolls Royce and owns a private jet and makes no apologies for it.

Preacher Joel Osteen, founder of the LakewoodChurch in Texas, not only has his own Christian mini-conglomerate; he also has a company that produces and cells CDs, DVDs, and TV programs. Though he may not personally ask for money during his sermons, he’s rolling it. Does he donate his money to improving the lives of others? No, he spends 20 million a year for TV advertisements so he can suck more money out of you when you buy his products!

Religion Keeps You Dependent – Spirituality Sets You Free

In the 21^st century, Jesus and other religious prophets have become products. They are bought and sold with no more respect than that given to a prostitute. Megachurches are tax exempt and make millions of dollars each year, selling salvation and pocketing the change.

As human beings, we strive for spiritual evolvement. We’ve been told countless times by religious groups and the media that we are not okay as we are.

Religion is controlling. It is designed to keep you weak, compliant, and following along in the desperate hope that you’ll find peace in another life by suffering in this one. It is directed by a small group of people who tell you what to do, what to say, how to act, and how much to spend.

Trust Your Intuition and Go Within

Spirituality is a feeling of connectedness to a Higher Power. It needs no middle man and asks nothing but adherence to the natural instinct to better ourselves and the lives of others. It’s all-encompassing and universal.

God is not the problem and never has been. It’s the marketing of God that uses fear and deprivation to control you. Once you awaken and understand you need no middle man to make that connection, you can finally close your wallet, and open your mind.