A great clip explaining the link between exercise and mental health.

Video exploring mental health and treatments to depression by exercise.

Interesting article on the popular health craze: eating only raw foods. While popular consensus is that raw food diets can aid detoxification, there is no comprehensive scientific evidence to support the adoption of a fullscale, permanent switch to raw food…The article below can be found by following the link provided and makes for some interesting reading!!!! The raw food diet contains fewer trans fats and saturated fat than the typical Western diet. It is also low in sodium and high in potassium, magnesium, folate, fiber and health-promoting plant chemicals called phytochemicals. These properties are associated with a reduced risk of diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. For example, a study published in the Journal of Nutrition found that consumption of a raw food diet lowered plasma total cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations. http://altmedicine.about.com/od/popularhealthdiets/a/Raw_Food.htm

Taken from the Body Ecology site (Donna Gates)

Please consider these three questions carefully:

1. Do you often feel you lack the energy you should have?

2. Do you experience gas, bloating and/or feeling tired after eating?

3. Do you have trouble digesting some vegetables, dairy or meats?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you may very likely be lacking in the enzymes needed for proper digestion. Enzyme deficiency is very common but also more dangerous than most people realize, because improper digestion can lower your immunity ad harm your health.

The Body Ecology system of health and healing focuses on improving digestion; one of our most important recommendations to do so is to take digestive enzymes.

Why You Need Enzymes

Stress, antibiotics and other drugs, or a diet high in processed foods can diminish the enzymes in your stomach necessary for proper digestion. Even improper food combining – for example, eating starches and proteins in the same meal — can dampen your natural “digestive fire.”

Over time, improper digestion harms your inner ecosystem and your immunity. A healthy inner ecosystem is made up of the friendly microflora (good bacteria) that reside in our intestines and keep us healthy and strong.

When you eat, you could be breaking food down, but not digesting it. Improper digestion can lead to food remaining in the digestive tract longer than it should. When this happens, it starts to ferment in your body, producing sugars that feed yeast and other pathogens. This causes further damage to your digestion and lowers your immunity, along with keeping your body from absorbing all the nutrients in your food.

The origins of butter go back thousands of years to when our ancestors first started domesticating animals. In fact, the first written reference to butter was found on a 4500- year old limestone tablet illustrating how butter was made.¹

In India, ghee (clarified butter) has been used as a staple food, and as a symbol of purity, worthy of offering to the gods in religious ceremonies for more than 3000 years.²

The Bible has references to butter as the product of milk from the cow, and of Abraham setting butter and milk from a calf before three angels who appeared to him on the plains of Mamre.³

For millennia, people around the globe have prized butter for its health benefits.

So how did butter become a villain in the quest for good health?

At the turn of our century, heart disease in America was rare. By 1960, it was our number one killer. Yet during the same time period, butter consumption had decreased – from eighteen pounds per person per year, to four.⁴

A researcher named Ancel Keys was the first to propose that saturated fat and cholesterol in the diet were to blame for coronary heart disease (CAD).

Numerous subsequent studies costing hundreds of millions of dollars, have failed to conclusively back up this claim.⁵

Yet the notion that a healthy diet is one with minimal fat, particularly saturated fat, has persisted. While Americans drastically reduced their intake of natural animal fats like butter and meat, the processed food industry, particularly the low-fat food industry, proliferated.

When the baby boomers were children, concerned mothers began to replace butter with margarine. The margarine manufacturers told them it was the healthier alternative and mothers believed them. In those days no one asked, “where is the science to prove it? I want to know before I give this man-made, plastized stuff to my children. After all we humans have been eating butter for thousands of years?”.

As a result, since the early 1970’s, Americans’ average saturated fat intake has dropped considerably, while rates of obesity, diabetes, and consequently, heart disease, have surged.

Reducing healthy sources of dietary fat has contributed to a serious decline in our well-being, and those of us that speak out against the anti-fat establishment are still largely ignored .

Is Margarine Better than Butter?

No! This is a tragic myth. Butter is a completely natural food essential to your health – especially when you eat organic. Also, please make the extra effort to obtain high-quality organic, raw butter.

Margarines, on the other hand, are a processed food, created chemically from refined polyunsaturated oils. The process used to make these normally liquid oils into spread-able form is called hydrogenation.

Margarine and similar hydrogenated or processed polyunsaturated oils are potentially more detrimental to your health than any saturated fat.⁷ For more information on why you should avoid all processed oils read Why the Processing of Consumable Oils Has Devastated America’s Health.

Include Real Butter as part of Your Body Ecology Lifestyle

As many of you already know, I am a strong proponent of including a variety of healthy oils and fats into your diet. Together they work as a team to supply your body with essential fatty acids for longevity, hormone balance, heart health, sharp vision, glowing moist skin and energy. The wonderful variety of oils and fats certainly includes organic, preferably raw butter. Cultured raw butter is even better.

And why would I be so insistent that you eat butter? Take a look at the long list of the benefits you receive when you include it in your diet:⁸

1. Butter is rich in the most easily absorbable form of Vitamin A necessary for thyroid and adrenal health.
2. Contains lauric acid, important in treating fungal infections and candida.
3. Contains lecithin, essential for cholesterol metabolism.
4. Contains anti-oxidants that protect against free radical damage.
5. Has anti-oxidants that protect against weakening arteries.
6. Is a great source of Vitamins E and K.
7. Is a very rich source of the vital mineral selenium.
8. Saturated fats in butter have strong anti-tumor and anti-cancer properties.
9. Butter contains conjugated linoleic acid, which is a potent anti-cancer agent, muscle builder, and immunity booster
10. Vitamin D found in butter is essential to absorption of calcium.
11. Protects against tooth decay.
12. Is your only source of an anti-stiffness factor, which protects against calcification of the joints.
13. Anti-stiffness factor in butter also prevents hardening of the arteries, cataracts, and calcification of the pineal gland.
14. Is a source of Activator X, which helps your body absorb minerals.
15. Is a source of iodine in highly absorbable form.
16. May promote fertility in women.⁹
17. Is a source of quick energy, and is not stored in our bodies adipose tissue.
18. Cholesterol found in butterfat is essential to children’s brain and nervous system development.
19. Contains Arachidonic Acid (AA) which plays a role in brain function and is a vital component of cell membranes.
20. Protects against gastrointestinal infections in the very young or the elderly.

Raw, Organic Butter is the Best

Believe me this is only a partial list. If a woman is pregnant, hopes to become pregnant or is nursing her baby, I think it should even become a law for her to eat butter for her baby’s developing brain, bones and teeth.

The best butter you can eat is raw, organic butter because pasteurization destroys nutrients. Unfortunately, the sale of raw butter is prohibited in most of our 50 states.

You can, however, make your own healthy butter, and it is easier than you think. Look into our Body Ecology Culture Starter, which you simply add to organic cream. After letting this mixture sit at room temperature for 24 hours, chill it, beat it with a whisk, and voila! You’ll have healthy, probiotic butter that is delicious!

Cultured butter is full of health sustaining good bacteria like lactobacillus planterum, and lactococcus lactis. These microflora are essential for a healthy inner ecosystem.

Sources of Healthy Butter

If you don’t want to culture your own butter, I recommend butter from grass-fed animals only. A good source is U.S. Wellness Meats.

I also recommend Activator X and Vitamin rich butter oil, made by Green Pastures.

Heart Healthy-the Body Ecology Way

Completely eliminating butter and other healthy animal source fats is NOT the Body Ecology way. It is not how our ancestors thrived, and not what nature intended.

How much should you eat each day? Like sea salt, your own body will tell you how much to eat. If you crave it, eat it, your body needs it. If the quality is excellent you can feel confident it will be good for you and you’ll soon see the benefits yourself. If you are following the Body Ecology Food Combining Principle and eating as we recommend (adding at least one source of fermented food or drink to your diet) you will see your body reach its idea weight. The raw butter will help you develop beautiful muscles.

The Body Ecology program is gaining recognition for being a premier way of healing candida and other immune dysfunctions. And what’s more, it’s a heart-healthy, super-slimming, anti-aging way of life, which is crucial to your health as a whole.

By Donna Gates

URL: http://bodyecology.com/07/07/05/benefits_of_real_butter.php