By Donald Payne
Hello again, dear reader. The beautiful North Valley spring is upon us and our land. Flowers are blooming and growth is all around and within us all.
I encourage everyone this year to use the growth energy of spring to develop a new focus—we need to develop a new health model—a new health model that focuses on a deep understanding and maintenance of our naturally healthy, systemic functions. Learn how your biological systems work!
Our culture needs a shift in focus: to elevate the importance of long-term health and well-being over immediate short-term gratification (and profit). And we need to shift our focus from primarily dealing with the symptoms of disease to dealing with the understanding and maintenance of wellness, for then and only then will our health-care system be true health care and not just “disease” care. This continued education has been the force, attitude, and direction of so many of our natural-food and natural-supplement companies, along with internal education, realization and greater awareness of the complexity of our own health issues, and a greater understanding concerning the working of our own bodies.
One look at our current medical model will show us why a change is needed. Millions of people are suffering, by being obese, by having high blood pressure, and of course, being on expensive medications that cure nothing but only treat the after-the-fact symptoms of the “dis-ease”—so no cure, then side effects to medication, then another drug, still no cure, and more side effects from medications. What is the result? A person’s quality of life begins to suffer and still there is no personal growth to overcome the original problem. Sorry endings abound.
This is not to say that drugs are “bad.” Indeed, drugs save lives every day and they certainly have their place in our medical-care needs; however, as I say, a shift in focus to a “wellness” model is what is needed.
Some of our supplement companies that use wellness as their model are Source Naturals and its sister company, Planetary Herbals. Even Source Naturals’ brand multivitamin and mineral formula is called Wellness Multiple and its famous Wellness Formula is the most used immune system booster in the natural-products industry.
I use Source Naturals’ N-Acetyl-Cysteine for my lungs and liver, plus N-Acetyl-Cysteine helps rid the body of heavy metals, such as lead, mercury, arsenic, and cadmium, and a large number of toxic chemical pollutants.
Another great wellness company is Eclectic Institute. Has anyone not used Eclectic Institute’s Nettle/Quercetin for seasonal allergies? I use Eclectic Institute’s Phenomenal 7 Organic Powder (a blend of seven powerful antioxidant fruits) and/or Eclectic Institute’s Nutrigenomic Berry Powder (another blend of powerful antioxidant berries) in my carrot juice or even in a little apple sauce, which gives us great antioxidant potential and tastes great too. Eclectic Institute also was the first company to use organic alcohol to extract herbs for all of its herbal tinctures. It’s a great visionary company, not only helping you to heal yourself but also helping to heal the earth.
When we think about healing the earth, we should be extremely conscientious abouthealing our oceans, which is exactly what Nordic Naturals Fish Oil Company promotes. All Nordic Naturals’ fish oils surpass all pharmaceutical standards for purity and every batch of fish oil is third-party tested and shown to be free of heavy metals, dioxins, and PCBs.
I use Nordic Naturals Ultimate Omega daily; two capsules give me 650mg EPA and 450mg DHA. Whenever you buy an omega-3 product you should always know what the milligrams of EPA and/or DHA are. They are important components of fish oil. I have seen some fish oils that say 1,000mg and are then filled with leftover fish-body oil that contains no DHA or EPA! Those products are useless!
Nordic Naturals has definitely gone the extra mile to create great fish oils, but Nordic Naturals also fights against global overfishing, protecting, of course, its own business. And if you are making those vegetable and fruit smoothies you can use Nordic Naturals’ liquid Omega-3—one teaspoon as you blend—and get even more of the EPA and DHA than in any pill on the market. See me for information about fish oils and Nordic Naturals.
I have talked in the past about New Chapter’s organic supplements. New Chapter was absolutely the first company anywhere to be so committed to creating a completely certified organic line of supplements that it put off releasing them for sale (losing money!!) until the supplements were done properly and could then truly be called “organic.” New Chapter has been such a pioneer in educating all of us in the natural-foods industry about communicating with you, our customers, about the value of living a quality life and how to augment that with quality supplements. I’ll tell you some of my favorites:
#1. The best herbal sleep aid is New Chapter’s Tranquil Nite: One pill one hour before bedtime really does help me get to sleep soundly at night.
#2. New Chapter’s Zyflamend, for inflammation pain and amazingly, prevention and treatment for certain prostate cancers. New Chapter was the first company to educate us all regarding the use of the turmeric extract curcumin and all of its anti-inflammatory and antidegenerative disease uses.
#3. A tie! A tie between New Chapter’s Supercritical Omega-7 (sea buckthorn) and Supercritical Stress Advantage.
The Supercritical Omega-7 is so beneficial for all soft tissue linings, such as in the bladder and linings of our ureters (tubes from the kidneys to the bladder). It is helpful for burning or inflammation of the urinary tract and I use it myself because it is so healthy for skin and hair. Young branches and leaves were fed to horses in ancient Greece, which resulted in an extremely healthy shine to the horses’ coats. This accounts for the genus name Hippophae, which means “shining horse.” As for Supercritical Stress Advantage, New Chapter took nine herbal adaptogenic tonic herbs that have been used for thousands of years in Asia, India, and America all the way to the Arctic Circle to help us and our adrenal glands adapt to unusually stressful situations. Our adrenal glands (the stress glands) use an enormous amount of nutrition normally, but under pressure situations they use even more: B vitamins, vitamin C, calcium, magnesium, vitamin E, and so many more nutrients. Our adrenal glands produce not just adrenalin but also DHEA, pregnenolone, progesterone, estrogens, testosterones, and cortisol. All of these hormones require nutrients for their manufacture. The adaptogen herbs do not have an agenda of their own—they help our adrenal glands adapt their output of hormones and uptake of nutrients for our different stresses in life and help us to adapt to our stressful environment. In this world? Talk about stress!!
New Chapter did a great job creating Stress Advantage. It really helps me with my work and life to ward off my own adrenal exhaustion. I pray you try it and it helps you too.
Summer is coming, dear reader. The heat signals great activity and growth. Please use this wonderful seasonal energy to create this shift in focus for your lives. Eat, think, and live to manifest and maintain your own wellness. Let us all “call back our wandering minds from external phenomena and return home, back to our bodies, internal world.” After all, we are human beings, not human doings.
Peace be with you.
Donald Payne
S&S Produce & Natural Foods