Meat and animal products are the only sources of the most bio-available forms of many B vitamins. Include good quality red meat in your diet regularly (not necessarily daily), include liver in your diet regularly as it’s full of B vitamins – cook it slowly on a low fire with a lot of onions for a really tasty dish. Salmon is also an excellent source of B vitamins. Runny egg yolks are full of vitamins and minerals and are beneficial as a regular part of the diet. The list of vitamins in egg yolk is extremely comprehensive and other benefits include essential fatty acids among other healthy nutrients. Cook meat with the bone and regularly consume the water cooked from bone-in meats – those liquids that turn into gelatin in the fridge are full of nutrients that are excellent for your health and for your own bones and digestive tract.
Just to note for interest that in contrast to industrially raised animals, organically raised animals are raised without hormones or antibiotics, are given some outdoor exposure and are fed vegetarian diets (I don’t like to think what industrially raised animals are fed). If circumstances permit, consider organic options for dairy, meat, poultry and eggs, or even better, try to source organic products more cheaply from a local farm from which you could buy direct. You might be able to locate animal products raised with high standards that simply don’t have the official ‘organic’ stamp and these might be affordable for your family. Industrially raised animals are given growth and other hormones, antibiotics, many times lack sufficient outdoor access and eat low quality food.
Fruit and Veg
Eat a fruit and vegetable rich diet – try to avoid those things that are covered with harmful pesticides. The fresh produce items with the highest levels of residual pesticides are: apples, bell peppers, celery, cherries, grapes, nectarines, peaches, pears, potatoes, raspberries, spinach and strawberries. Research showed that the level of pesticide measured in urine dropped after a switch was made from a conventional diet to a diet either omitting or containing organic versions of these specific fruits and vegetables. Produce rarely tainted with pesticides (which you need not buy organic) includes: asparagus, avocados, bananas, broccoli, cauliflower, corn, kiwi, mangoes, onions, papayas, pineapples and sweet peas.1 In addition, fruits with thick or tough outer skins that are peeled off prior to eating (like citrus fruits and melons) could be eaten without raising pesticide levels in the body.
Include dark green leafy vegetables in your diet. Regularly eat cruciform vegetables (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi etc). Drink the water you cook your vegetables in as it contains a lot of the vitamins from the vegetables. Vitamin C (from fruit) also helps iron absorption, so that’s important too. Kiwis are an example of a fruit with high vitamin C levels.
Salt fermented vegetables, like sauerkraut, pickles, olives and other things, also improve digestion and feed the beneficial bacteria in your body.
For Women: Women especially should consume foods rich in B vitamins and iron – liver, red meat, runny egg yokes, salmon, dark green leafy vegetables (like spinach, broccoli and parsley), dates and blackstrap molasses, raw, un-peeled almonds, brown rice and whole grains. Here I’ll just mention for interest that when a new mother gives her baby enough breast milk to prevent the return of her regular cycle, she will have better iron stores than women whose cycles return soon after birth. For this reason, I would encourage giving your baby as much breast milk as they’ll take and not to be quick with solids and weaning – let things come at the baby’s own pace. The break from menstruation is beneficial for the mother in every way.
Helpful Supplements
Eat probiotics (including acidophilus) every day. Your body needs this daily because these good bacteria do not remain in the body long-term. Regular consumption of beneficial bacteria is important for maintaining a healthy bacterial balance in the body.
Take cod-liver oil daily – find a source that’s pure and reliable. Healthspan’s cod-liver oil was tested in the UK and found to be the purest (they ship internationally VAT free for good prices). Some cod-liver oils are sourced in polluted waters and contain harmful substances as a result.
Apple cider vinegar is an optional supplement that can increase energy levels and improve digestion. You can add a teaspoonful to a glass of water and drink through a straw (otherwise it can damage tooth enamel) first thing in the morning and throughout the day. Unpasteurized apple cider vinegar has film floating in it that is made up of beneficial microorganisms which your body thrives on.
Kelp extract is crushed seaweed that is a good natural source of iodine.
Natural remedies and medicines
For infections: Concentrated bee propolis drops in alcohol (not all bee propolis products contain enough of the substance to be of any use), concentrated echinacea drops in alcohol (the highest dosage in case of infection), vitamin C tablets (‘Ester C’ is very good quality) – I took 2,000mg (2g) of Ester C a day for my Strep infection, pro-biotic yogurt, abstinence from refined sugar and limitation of even un-refined sugars (sugar weakens the immune system), addition of coconut oil to the diet (it can be mixed into yogurt) as it contains anti-viral properties. Just to note that pregnant women should be careful from taking high doses of vitamin C during the early weeks of pregnancy. When the pregnancy is established and the tummy has grown large, the dosage I mentioned of 2g of vitamin C a day should be safe. I used vitamin C together with propolis, echinacea, coconut oil and garlic, from around 5 months until the end of pregnancy to get rid of a Strep infection (the infection was gone within a few weeks) and to keep the infection away. Other things that are useful against infections are turmeric, cinnamon, cayenne peppers and raw garlic. Drink plenty of water for an infection too.
For a cough: Use the above measures (for infections) with the highly effective addition of ginger tea throughout the day, made from fresh ginger root and boiled water. Drinking water containing a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar in each glass is also an effective measure. Honey is an effective cough syrup for easing mucus removal. Use honey that specifically states it has not been heated (unpasteurized) as this product contains all of the beneficial microorganisms that are killed by pasteurization.
For high blood sugar: Sour-dough rye bread with no yeast (don’t eat regular bread), apple cider vinegar in water as mentioned above, lemon juice (as a salad dressing, for example), cinnamon (this reduces blood sugar, especially if you eat a teaspoonful a day), whole oats (they reduce cholesterol), whole grains, brown rice instead of white rice, limit intake of potatoes, cut out white flour, get a good vigorous walk every day as walking reduces blood sugar and burns it as energy. Try to avoid plain carbohydrates – choose complex carbohydrates and eat them together with protein, cut out sugar altogether, including brown sugar (and don’t go for artificial sweeteners, they’re not healthy, especially aspartame, simply try to get your body used to savory tastes and cutting sweet things from the diet), limit natural sugars like raw honey, dates, molasses and so on but you can still use these kept in moderation, they are lower on the glycemic index than refined sugar – that said you must keep them in moderation, especially if you have a problem with blood sugar.
For dermatitis of the scalp: Eat a ‘yeast conscious’ diet (see my section ‘Be yeast conscious’). Take concentrated bee propolis drops twice daily (or as per instructions on the bottle). I don’t know quite why bee propolis is effective to reduce dermatitis of the scalp but some research I read suggested that some types of dermatitis are related to Streptococcal infections. Bee propolis is specifically effective against streptococcus, so this could possibly be a link, although I do not know for sure. Use a topical daily application of zincpyrithione directly on the affected area of the skin (found in many anti-dandruff shampoos – read the label) .
About antibiotics: Antibiotics destroy the body’s beneficial bacteria which line our digestive tracts and play an important role in our immune system. Beneficial bacteria can be added to the diet after a course of antibiotics, but that beneficial bacteria added to the diet (found in pro-biotic yogurts, for example) does not remain in the human gut but needs to be regularly consumed. As soon as you stop eating pro-biotics, you lose the beneficial effect of eating those healthy bacteria very quickly as they are not capable of residing in your body long-term. I haven’t researched this but I did read that only bacteria that is transferred (unpasteurized of course) from another living gut will reside and remain in the gut of the consumer long-term – for example a breast-fed baby receives from the mother’s milk all of the beneficial bacteria that line their digestive tract. The bacteria they receive from their mother in infancy then reside permanently in their gut and form the basis of their healthy immune system and digestive system for the rest of their life. Antibiotics wipe these bacteria out! No medicine that God created for our healing has this effect. That’s why I wouldn’t take antibiotics lightly for a condition that could be either suffered or cured another way. Try bee propolis as a natural antibiotic alternative that I have found to be highly effective, together with vitamin C – see my section ‘for infections’. Bee propolis has been called ’nature’s antibiotic’; it’s an amazing product, the substance that bees produce to protect their hive from infection. I don’t doubt that antibiotics have done more good than harm in many cases and have saved lives but I would warn against taking them for conditions which could be treated naturally, or simply suffered without threat of serious consequences.
2) Go natural
Start checking lists of ingredients on packets and choose things with only simple ingredients. Avoid E numbers, artificial preservatives and especially artificial colors as much as you can and avoid Monosodium Glutamate altogether – avoid products that might contain it but not list it, as sometimes it might fall under the listing ‘spices’. Stock cubes can be replaced with simple, unprocessed sea salt (gray in color) which contains lots of minerals and trace elements that are useful for the body. I personally recommend replacing all of your processed, refined salt with unrefined (gray) sea salt. All processed meat (cold meat cuts) that I could find contain monosodium glutamate or other chemical flavorings, so avoid buying these as possible. Many processed cheeses contain artificial colors; if possible prefer those cheeses that do not contain coloring agents.
For Women: Taking care of problems caused by estrogen dominance (infertility, hormonal miscarriages, breast lumps etc).
With cosmetic products, soaps, creams etc, try to go as natural as you can but the products to most avoid are parabens – mutylparaben , ethylparaben etc, everything ending in ‘paraben’. Check ingredients of creams to make sure you’re not using it. It gets absorbed into the body through the skin and floods the body with estrogen, which can cause problems of infertility in women, breast lumps and hormonal miscarriages. If you are suffering from these problems cut out estrogens from your cosmetic products altogether and on top of that, cut out food sources of estrogen such as coffee, soy products and other things – you could even try to find a natural alternative to washing powder which has the same effect on the body as parabens and is absorbed through the skin through the residue of powder on your clothes. Some natural foods (like coffee and soy mentioned) contain high estrogen levels and should be generally avoided (or at least coffee consumed in utmost moderation) but there is a longer list of healthy natural food items that can also be avoided if stricter measures are required to restore fertility, or after a history of hormonal miscarriages, breast lumps etc (some examples are flax oil, dates, cumin). View the full list here – this is not a list for general avoidance but for those who require strict measures because of these hormonal problems. Cans of food are lined with a plastic coating inside which contains bisphenol-A. To quote from a site dedicated to information on fibrocystic breast lumps, the level of bisphenol-A in this lining “is 27 times greater concentration of bisphenol-A needed to cause the breast cancer cells to proliferate in the Stanford Study.”2 If you have cut out estrogen sources, breast lumps should take two years to completely clear and dissolve away. Fertility, however, can improve more immediately, as well as great reduction in risk of hormone-related miscarriages. My own personal experience has confirmed the truth of these things. Try using natural products like coconut oil as an alternative to face creams. It is also good for men to avoid estrogen dominance from food sources and cosmetic products but change in these areas will most significantly help with the female problems I mentioned.
3) Be yeast conscious
A typical western diet creates a predominance of yeast bacteria in the body, which when dominant, overcrowd beneficial bodily bacteria and cause a host of health problems. Everyone has yeast bacteria in the body but if you maintain a healthy diet then these bacteria will be in healthy proportions. Unhealthy proportions can cause vaginal yeast infections in women and in nipples of breast-feeding mothers, as well as nappy rashes and cradle cap in breast-fed babies, toenail fungus, fungal infections of the skin, fungal dermatitis and other problems. Any of these conditions are an indication that you should be more yeast conscious with your diet.
Cut out refined sugars completely (white and brown sugar, glucose, fructose etc.). Replace all refined sugars with unrefined sugars (dates or date honey, unheated (unpasteurized) bee honey, blackstrap molasses) but even these should be eaten sparingly as they still feed the yeast overgrowth in the body – these unrefined sugars contain healthy nutrients for the body, but should be eaten with moderation: “My son, eat honey because it is good, and the honeycomb which is sweet to your taste.” Proverbs 24:13. “It is not good to eat much honey…” Proverbs 25:27. To get rid of yeast overgrowth in the body you may want to cut out even unrefined sugars from the diet for a period of time and relax your strictness afterward. If you are very sugar dependent and have sugar cravings, cutting sugars out altogether for a season can also help to bring you back to a more healthy appetite for sweet things.
Replace simple carbohydrates with complex carbohydrates – replace white flour with whole-meal flour, whole rye flour or other whole flour, replace white pasta with whole-wheat pasta, replace white rice with brown rice (brown rice is less processed and contains the outer husk of the rice). Use whole oats, buckwheat, any other complex whole grains that you can think of. Potato is a simple carbohydrate that is quickly converted to sugar (sugar feeds yeast), but it contains vitamins and minerals so eat it moderately.
Some natural foods contain high levels of yeast spores and can be avoided by those who have fungal problems they are trying to get rid of. Among these are mushrooms and overripe bananas. For more extensive lists, search the internet for information on anti-candida diets.
Avoid commercial yeast. Bread is one of the main things to work on here. Try to find a good, whole grain sourdough bread that is raised with natural leaven (sourdough) and does not contain commercial yeast. Sourdough also contains a host of bacteria that will feed the beneficial bacteria in your body. The problem of yeast dominance is a battle of bacteria in the body, yeast bacteria versus the healthy, beneficial bacteria; feeding the healthy bacteria will help tip the balance in the right direction. Sourdough fermentation and other fermentation, pickling and fermentation of dairy products are processes based on breeding the type of bacteria that is beneficial for your gut and digestive system. You can tell when bad bacteria has bred instead of beneficial bacteria because the food will be rancid or rotten rather than pleasantly sour. The healthy bacteria present in fermented (sour) food items is beneficial to the digestive system. For these reasons, I don’t recommend following a strict anti-candida diet on a permanent basis (which restricts consumption of fermented foods). A very strict diet could be maintained for a period (say a number of months) in effort to eliminate the dominance of yeast bacteria from the body at first, but afterward, a balanced and moderate diet could be maintained, with strictness coming in if and when a problem occurs. If you have had recurrent fungal problems, you could also make a permanent addition of an anti-fungal supplement to your regular diet, such as bee propolis and coconut oil (echinacea is best only for short-term use).
Another alternative to regular yeast bread is sprouted bread that does not contain yeast. Similarly to sourdough fermentation of flour, sprouting allows time for poisons to be leached out of soaked grains and discarded, and begins the process of digestion of the grain, making its nutrients highly available for use by the body.
Since the biblical Hebrew word for leaven and leavened goods indicates a sour taste (hametz), I’m sure that some kind of sourdough method of bread baking was commonly used in Bible times (they certainly did not use commercial yeast), and that this is why the Bible contains many compliments concerning the beneficial health properties of bread. Regular bread you buy in the supermarket today, unfortunately, cannot be worthy of such compliments and on the contrary, will not serve to aid your body’s health in the long-term.
4) Use fats correctly
Vegetable oils are not supposed to be heated at high temperatures and are therefore not suitable for cooking. What did your great grandma use for cooking? Probably lard, or some other animal fat. Remember that the overwhelming number of deaths and health complications from cholesterol and blocked arteries has risen in the days of cooking with canola, soya and corn oils, and was not a phenomena in the days when cooking was done largely with lard. In my opinion, from what I’ve read, animal fat is the most suitable fat for cooking – use butter, animal fat or coconut oil (although it’s a vegetable oil it is a saturated fat) if you can source it cheaply. As I live in Israel, I don’t have access to lard (pig fat) and can’t say I’d be too keen on it anyway, I’d prefer to use fat from a biblically kosher animal. Vegetable oils are damaged when heated and these damaged oils damage your body. Unless a vegetable oil says expressly that it is cold pressed it has also already been heat processed, which means that even before you put it into your saucepan it is already heat damaged. Use only cold pressed oils like cold pressed olive oil for salad dressing. I’ve read many warnings about soy oil and soy products. Although I haven’t researched it in any depth, I’d recommend avoiding soy products – listed in ingredients as simply ‘vegetable oil’ or ‘lecithin’.
Remember that your body needs saturated fats. Think of the meal that Abraham offered to the Lord – red meat, butter, milk (not skimmed milk, I’m sure!), bread. Don’t buy into modern theories about cholesterol because they are not biblical and the problems of blocked arteries might well be caused by hydrogenated and heat-damaged vegetable oils that fill the western diet and appear disguised in many products. Your brain is made up of saturated fatty material, so it seems clear that your brain especially needs these fats for good function. Eat butter with your bread and chuck out your margarine – eating hydrogenated fat is like eating plastic!3
5) Don’t mix plastic and heat
For example, don’t cover your food with cling film and then heat it in the microwave. Don’t pour boiling water into a plastic container if you’re going to consume it afterward. Wait for food to cool before storing it in a plastic container or even prefer to use something made of Pyrex. Don’t use plastic utensils with hot cooking. Don’t drink tea from a Styrofoam cup, many toxins from this toxic, plastic-like material will be released into your drink. Try to avoid Teflon pans when you can. Don’t leave plastic water bottles baking in the sun. Heating plastic releases a pile of dangerous chemicals which are harmful to the body. We personally avoid microwave ovens altogether as I’m not sure about safety of use in food preparation.
6) Drink plenty of water
Water is essential for all bodily functions. Drink plenty of it. 8 to 10 glasses a day are the standard recommendation. Drink more in case of infection. Drink water, not juice or soft drinks.
7) Get regular exercise
I recommend walking, as running and other sports exert too much stress on the knees. Walking a good distance each day keeps the mind active, exercises the muscles, reduces blood sugar, and keeps a person generally fit and healthy, in God’s good grace.
9) Consume unpasteurized, organic milk from pasture-fed animals!
Regular store-bought milk contains antibiotics and hormones from the mother animal. Antibiotics go straight into the milk supply and will be consumed by the one who drinks the milk, as a breast-feeding mother will know. Organic milks should not contain these antibiotics and hormones.
Unpasteurized milk contains all of the beneficial bacteria from the animal and is like a healing cure for some diseases. One of our nephews was cured almost instantly from a specific virus after drinking one glass of unpasteurized goats’ milk. I do favor goats’ milk over cows’ milk for biblical reasons (in the Bible, milking animals are usually ‘tson’, ‘flocks’, indicating sheep and goats rather than cattle, plus of course that lovely verse in Proverbs, “You shall have enough goats’ milk for your food, for the food of your household, and the nourishment of your maidservants.” Proverbs 27:27). I believe research has also found goat milk to be more beneficial and more easily digested by humans than cows’ milk. This said, I’m not against good, unpasteurized cows’ milk from healthy, pasture-fed animals.
What about health risks connected with unpasteurized milk? The animals must be pasture fed. For goats, this means that they’re out eating from the trees (but goats also need a grain supplement). Of course, pasture feeding was the only biblical method (Psalm 23:1,2; Luke 2:8 plus many other examples of biblical shepherding). When the animals are pasture fed, this affects the bacterial balance of the milk of the animals and protects the milk from being affected by disease organisms that can otherwise contaminate the milk. Animals that are not pastured do not have this natural bacterial protection in their milk that comes from eating plenty of grass and greenery, their natural diet, and it is not safe to drink the un-pasteurized milk of these animals (sadly most modern day milking animals are not pastured and hence it is not safe to drink their milk unpasteurized). Other good farming practices also affect safety and good hygiene must be practiced, such as sterilization of utensils, as well as getting the milk from its source to the refrigerator relatively fast (especially with goats).
I cannot agree with theories that an adult diet should contain no dairy products as I find this view contrary to biblical practice. Even in the New Testament, Paul writes, “Who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk of the flock?” 1 Cor 9.7. Dairy products are God-given, nutritious food items.
While I argue for this quality of milk and dairy products, I understand that few people will be able to have access to these, so whatever you consume, give God thanks.4
In conclusion
I have not written these things wanting to cast a snare on anyone but hope that they may be helpful to some. Please take from this what is relevant for you and do not feel burdened with anything that is too difficult for you to keep – there are far more important things in life! To keep some perspective: Matt 15.17-20, “… everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is eliminated …but the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. These are the things which defile the man…”
2http://www.fibrocystic.com/ This site has a lot of good information on the side links ‘xenoestrogen’ and ‘phytoestrogen’ with comprehensive lists of hormone disrupters found in food, cosmetics and so on. I recommend anyone with these female problems I mentioned to read these sections.
3http://www.westonaprice.org/ See this interesting website for more information on use of fats, raw milk, dangers of soy products. I recommend the beginners tour on the right hand side of the home page and ‘our basic brochure, principles of healthy diets’.
4http://www.raw-milk-facts.com/ Refer to this interesting website for some good information on raw (unpasteurized) milk and its safety and health benefits.
