HERBAL REMEDIES
February 2002

Committing ecological suicide

by Brooke Wagenheim

We are living in a most challenging age. We are faced with many obstacles in our lives. Unfortunately, these obstacles become more treacherous all the time, making our lives more challenging, and our health unstable. Most Americans don’t care that the food they eat is not real; their attachment to food is emotional and induced by advertisements. If you live in the city, you have to work much harder to retain your health. Just as the government says, you do not have rights anymore, you have privileges; such is the same idea for your health. Have you ever read food labels? They think so little of your intelligence that they list all the stuff they put into your food to kill you. You see twenty words you cannot even pronounce and you eat it anyways. This is not nutrition, it’s behavior modification.
By informing yourself of what is out there, it makes it easier to make daily choices that affect both your health and your happiness.

Aluminum, Cadmium & Teflon
Aluminum is both pervasive and inescapable in our modern society. It is used and found constantly, in cookware, the lining of containers, appliances, building materials, antiperspirant deodorants, antacids; it is in the air we breathe and the tap water that many people drink. Aluminum occurs naturally and makes up about 8% of the surface of the earth. It is always found combined with other elements in the earth such as minerals and rocks.
Low-level exposure to aluminum from food, air, water, or contact with skin is not thought to harm your health. Aluminum, however, is not a necessary substance for our bodies and too much may be harmful. People who are exposed to high levels of aluminum may have respiratory problems including coughing and asthma.
When food is cooked in an aluminum pot, a reaction occurs between the food and the pot, causing the aluminum to displace any of the other metal minerals that the food may contain. Minerals such as iron, zinc, manganese, chrome, magnesium and copper are displaced from the food into the water and replaced with aluminum. The food may even then have a metallic taste. The body does not need aluminum, it is harmful; the body needs the other minerals that become displaced by the aluminum. Juices and pop in aluminum cans contain aluminum. Citrus is the worst, as it dissolves the aluminum with the acid so that the drink contains traces of it.
Teflon coated pots can also be dangerous as Teflon itself is a toxic substance, and if it is scraped off it can become mixed with the food and ingested. Teflon pots are typically aluminum pots coated with Teflon.
The aluminum in most deodorants can lead to certain types of cancer, as the pores of your skin are blocked and cannot breathe. Osteo-arthritis can occur from taking antacids containing aluminum or magnesium hydroxide, which hinders the absorption of phosphorus which is needed to rebuild the outer layer of bone and tooth enamel.
The clay used to make earthen cookware can also contain toxic substances and enamel pots often contain ccadmium, which is also a toxic metal. Stainless steel pots are made from iron and chrome, both of which the body can absorb. Glassware is also good because it does not interact with food.

Pesticides, Bleach, Coffee & Tea
Pesticides can protect plant destruction by pests, but when it rains the pesticides wash off the plant and enter the soil where they are absorbed by the plant and cannot simply wash off since they are now contained within the plant. So much illness is prevalent in the world; people are eating food laden and saturated with pesticides, poisoning themselves.
The FDA had realized its mistake long ago, but banned only certain pesticides. Rampant poisons are still dumped into our ground/water/food. And to think we sent our “Peace Corps” to third world countries to introduce them to the use of chemicals in farming, screwing up the world and damning the people in it. Who the heck wants to soak their food in diluted bleach just to get the poison out? What a contradiction but this is the only way to do it.
Oh, and coffee, one of the loves of my life, contains properties that destroy choline in the brain, making one forgetful. The reason why many people need coffee in the morning is that it has the ability to raise the sodium level in the body, temporarily alleviating all allergies so that the breakfast can be consumed.
Tea, one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world, contains tannic acid. Tannic acid removes hair from the hides of leather. Because of its toxic effect, it becomes a diuretic for potassium. People who are deficient in potassium should not drink tea, for it can deplete the potassium in the body, which is needed for heart function.
Animals
Many people believe that red meat is bad for you. I personally am a meat eater, as I believe it is a good source of zinc for the body, and have never claimed to be perfect or pure in every way, how could I be, living smack dab in the middle of a city. What is wrong is the way we permit our livestock breeders and veterinarians to inoculate the herd with hormones so that the muscle meat will be soft and tender and the body weight heavier. Because the hormones are passed on to us, the consumer, we often find ourselves gaining weight. There was a phenomenon happening in South America, at one time; young girls, from the age of three years and up were beginning to develop breasts. This was traced to the consumption of chickens that were raised on feed that was enriched with hormones. When the children stopped eating the hormone-fed chickens, the breast growth subsided. Chickens that are fed pesticide-laden food produce tainted eggs. The egg may also have a cadmium taste to it. And of course, if that egg hatches and grows up to be a chicken, it will also be toxic. If you do choose to eat meat, use organic and free-range meat from animals that have been raised on organic feed. The animals have a better chance of not having been locked up in tiny filthy cages that render them angry, miserable and insane.
Sugar
Sugar destroys the B-complex vitamins and phosphorus in the body, causing cavities and osteo-arthritis. Sugar taken in every day produces a continuously over-acid condition, and more and more minerals are required from deep in the body to rectify the imbalance. In order to protect the blood, so much calcium is taken from the bones and teeth that decay and general weakening begin. Excess sugar eventually affects every organ in the body. Initially, it is stored in the liver in the form of glucose. Since the liver’s capacity is limited, a daily intake of refined sugar soon makes the liver expand like a balloon. When the liver is filled to its maximum capacity, the excess glycogen is returned to the blood in the form of fatty acids. These are taken to every part of the body and stored in the most inactive areas, the belly, buttocks, breasts and thighs. When these comparatively harmless places are completely filled, fatty acids are then distributed among active organs, such as the heart and kidneys. They begin to slow down; finally their tissues degenerate and turn to fat. The whole body is affected by their reduced ability and abnormal blood pressure is created. Sugar can also cause deposits in the tear ducts causing Glaucoma. It is a well-known fact that sugar causes dis-ease if a sufficient amount of oxygen is not taken into the body to consume the carbon caused by the oxidation of sugar.
Namaste