Health

Miracle Drugs

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Jesus went about all the cities “healing all manner of sickness and all manner of diseases among the people.” Matthew 4:23. Matthew tells us that because of His work of healing, “His fame went throughout all Syria and they brought unto Him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments . .. and He healed them.” Matthew 4:24. The Lord Jesus did great works of healing and at times He used natural remedies. On one occasion we are told that He spat on the ground, and mixed the spittle with the clay. He then applied it to a man’s eyes and his sight was restored. “The cure could be wrought only by the power of the Great Healer, yet Christ made use of the simple agencies of nature. While He did not give countenance to drugs, He sanctioned the use of simple and natural remedies.”Counsels on Health, 30.

Today many people, sick and suffering from disease, put their faith entirely in medical doctors and in prescription drugs to cure their ailments. Instead of putting all our trust in the arm of flesh, we should follow God’s eight laws of health—pure air, sunlight, abstemiousness, rest, exercise, proper diet, the use of water, and trust in divine power. Natural remedies like charcoal, water treatments and the use of simple herbs can be used to restore the sick to health.

A true Christian physician should always point his patient to Christ for their healing, since all true healing comes from Him. “The physician should first gain the patient’s confidence and then point them to the Great Healer. If their faith can be directed to the true physician, and they can have a confidence that He has undertaken their case, this will bring relief to the mind and often give health to the body.” Ministry of Healing, 244.

There is a lesson in the life of King Asa in the Bible: “And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians. And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the one and fortieth year of his reign.” 2 Chronicles 16:12, 13.

 

Abused and Overused

 

Most of us have used antibiotics. They were discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming, and their use initially had great results. They have saved many people from infectious diseases. Doctors have used them routinely in relieving people who have illnesses.

Unfortunately, these antibiotics have been abused. They are being used more liberally now than ever before. The antibiotics used today to fight infections are very potent and powerful. It is not just penicillin anymore. Broad-spectrum antibiotics are being used on little children because antibiotics are losing the war against the infectious diseases. Overprescription has become a major concern in this country with our doctors.

“Antibiotics are prescribed at an alarming rate in this country. Obstetricians and gynecologists write 2,645,000 antibiotic prescriptions every week. Internists give out 1,416,000 in the same period and pediatricians and family physicians lead the way prescribing over five hundred million dollars ($500,000,000) worth of antibiotics each year to treat just one problem—ear infections in children. Another five hundred million plus is spent on antibiotics to treat other pediatric illnesses. “Over the past fifteen years, antibiotic prescriptions to young children have risen a staggering fifty-one percent. Antibiotics have been prescribed for conditions that do not warrant their use. After congressional hearings and numerous academic studies on this issue, it has become the general consensus that forty to sixty percent of all antibiotics in this country are mis-prescribed.

“In 1983 more than fifty-one percent of the more than three million patients who saw doctors for treatment of the common cold, were unnecessarily given a prescription for an antibiotic. Antibiotics do nothing for the common cold because the condition is viral in nature. It is no accident that the most allergic generation in history has also been raised on antibiotics.” (Lendon B. Smith in Beyond Antibiotics, 3.)

Several times a week I see a new patient whose allergies appeared or became much worse after a course of antibiotics. “Recurrence rate [of middle-ear fluid] were significantly higher in the antibiotic-treated group than in the placebo group. Children receiving amoxicillin for chronic middle ear infection experienced two to six times the rate of re-occurrence.” (Ibid.)

Antibiotics, which literally means “against life,” are often the first choice of treatment for many ailments.

 

Personal Experiences

 

Let me share with you some personal experiences I have had with people who were taking antibiotics.

A mother brought her four year old to me. The little girl had tubes in her ears from recurrent middle ear infections. In fact, the child had been on four different antibiotics, stronger each time in the last couple weeks.

The mother said, “I was told to come and see you—that maybe you could help us.” The doctors had already pierced the child’s ear drums and now they wanted to do surgery, to open it and clean it out. “Can you help me?” the mother asked. I responded, “I can try, but first of all I need to ask the question, ‘Is your child on dairy products?’ ”

She said, “Yes, she is.”

“You need to get her off. She does not need milk, because milk is causing excess mucous. Secondly, I want to put some drops in your child’s ears. Drops that contain Saint John’s Wort, Mullein, and garlic. Things that are going to be probiotic for your child rather than antibiotic. They have the ability to kill certain germs without the side effects that you are experiencing with your daughter.”

The child was pale and sickly. She screamed and did not want to hold still when I was ready to put the drops in her ears. I put two drops in one ear. The little girl looked at me, smiled, turned her head over and pointed at the other ear. In two weeks the mother came back. She had taken the child off dairy products and she had continued using the ear drops. The mother came and thanked me. The child had not had another ear ache in two weeks. Before this the little girl had been in pain every day.

 

Side Effects

 

Another mother brought in her five year old child that had been given antibiotics for years. This child had a swollen spleen and an abnormal liver panel when she came to see me. I asked her the question, “Has this child been on antibiotics?”

“Ever since she was two years old,” the mother responded.

“You know, I need to read you something about the effects of antibiotics. Yes, they have been beneficial, but today they are too frequently prescribed for conditions that they are not even needed for.”

I read this to her from the book The Encyclopedia of Natural Health and Healing for Children: “Antibiotics do have associated side effects, some of which may cause irreversible damage. This is another reason why antibiotics should be the last choice for treating bacterial infections. All antibiotics are unsafe during pregnancy as they can cross into the baby’s blood stream through the placenta. Between 25% and 75% of the mother’s concentration of penicillin or tetracycline crosses into the baby and the common side effects include liver damage, allergies, destruction of valuable intestinal bacteria, vitamin K deficiency, interference with the absorption of nutrients and can induce thrush, diarrhea, skin rashes and phlegm.” Marcea Weber in The Encyclopedia of Natural Health and Healing for Children, 12, 13.

She said, “What do I do?”

I said, “I would try to bring in some natural things into the child’s diet such as herbs.” I gave her several herbs including Echinacea and Golden Seal. I also advised her to take the child off dairy products and give her lots of live, fresh foods.

The mother came back in a week and wrote out a check to Modern Manna for $50.00! I said, “Well, thank you.”

She said, “Thank YOU. After I put my daughter on the program you suggested, the spleen shrunk to normal and the liver panel came back fine. The child has not been on antibiotics since I saw you.”

Another woman came to me who had rashes all over her body. I asked her, “Have you ever had these before?”

“Just when I take penicillin. But I am not taking any penicillin. Why do I have these rashes all over my body when I am not using the drug?”

I asked her if she drank milk or used other dairy products. She said that she did.

I said, “Do you know there is penicillin residues in milk? Quit drinking it for two weeks and let us see what happens.” She came back in three days and the rash was gone.

Did you know that farm animals receive thirty times more antibiotics, mostly penicillin and tetracycline, than people do? Fifty percent of the antibiotics produced in America are given to animals.

Have you gotten just a little idea of what antibiotics can do? Consider also the hundreds of people who suffer from diarrhea and constipation because the good flora of their large intestine has been destroyed by antibiotics. When you take an antibiotic, it does not single out bad bacteria. It kills the good and the bad. This explains why many times a woman will have a yeast infection immediately following a round of antibiotics. The good bacteria, necessary for the intestine, and also for keeping the fungus in the vaginal lining under control, has been destroyed.

There are untold numbers of people suffering from allergies, because of leaking gut syndrome caused by antibiotics and other drugs, like alcohol and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like acetaminophen and ibuprofen—aspirin type drugs. There is also a connection between antibiotic over-prescription and immunal suppression diseases.

 

Super Bugs

 

We are not the only ones realizing the danger that antibiotics can be. Newsweek, in an article called “Antibiotics —The End of Miracle Drugs” said this about the threat: “When a colony of bacteria is dosed with, say, penicillin, most die. But a few lucky microbes by chance harbor mutant genes that make them immune to the drug. They survive. The mutants pass on their resistant genes to their progeny. One bacterium can leave 16,777,000 offspring in twenty-four hours! The mutants gladly share their resistant genes with unrelated microbes. Antibiotic uses have stimulated evolutionary changes unparalleled in recorded biologic history.

“Even more ominous, there are signs that these bacteria are very clever. Microbiologist Stanley Falkhell at Stanford University puts it, ‘In ways scientists never suspect, it turns out the germs can become resistant to antibiotics they have never even met.’

“In women receiving tetracycline for a urinary tract infection, for instance, Ecoli developed resistance not only to tetracycline but to other antibiotics also. It is almost as if bacteria strategically anticipate the confrontation of other drugs when they resist one. One of the problems that we are facing today in America is that we are getting too many antibiotics in our people. Over-prescription is a problem and when you overprescribe antibiotics to people, it kills off the weak bad bacteria, but these mutant ones survive and change and become resistant.” Newsweek, March 28, 1994.

Bacteria are becoming so resistant that in 1993 alone, nearly fourteen thousand people died in our hospitals because the antibiotics could not kill these “super-bugs.”

The pharmacuetical industry can not keep up with the ever changing microbes. New resistant strains of old diseases are springing up. That means that patients are suffering and dying from illnesses that science predicted forty years ago would be wiped off the face of the earth. The scientists were wrong. Before science catches up with the microbes many more people will die.

Now is not the time to depend upon antibiotics and drugs to take care of ourselves. It is time for us to aid our immune systems to fight these things. We are suppressing our immune system, not only through drugs, but through the foods we eat, and the life style we live. We need to now take charge and become educated in what we can do to fight off these diseases.

 

Use Only as a Last Resort

 

Charise and I have used an antibiotic only once, for two days on our children. I do not tell people not to ever take an antibiotic, but use it only as a last resort. I knew a lady who would not use an antibiotic on her child. She was praying mightily to God to heal the child of an ear infection. She did not use the antibiotic and the child went deaf in one ear. You see there may be times when you need to do something of that nature, but today these “wonder drugs” have created an anti-miracle because of over use. Instead of building up, they are actually suppressing the immune system.

One of the diseases that is growing rampant today is candida albicans or candidiasis. A good flora keeps yeast within our bodies in check. We all have candida in our bodies, but it is held in check because of the good bacteria. So when you take in antibiotics killing off the good flora, these yeasts proliferate. And some of the problems are these. Chronic fatigue, loss of energy, bloating, gas, diarrhea, constipation, vaginal infections, frequent bladder infections, menstrual complaints, depression, irritability, an inability to concentrate, allergies, chemical sensitivities,and low immune function.”

 

A History of the War on Infectious Disease

 

“The view of infectious disease was divided into two camps. There was Louis Pasteur, and another theory by a Russian biologist named Metchnikov. Pasteur believed that if we could identify the germ and isolate and treat it with drugs that we are going to eradicate all disease and illness. Metchnikov on the other hand said, ‘I don’t think so.’ His life work centered upon the healing power of the body and its battling against infections. Metchnikov taught that the correct way to deal with infectious disease was not by administering chemicals but by strengthening and where necessary exploiting the body’s own defenses.

“This view was in stark contrast with that of Pasteur who believed a germ could be found for every malady. He contended that if the germ could be isolated and treated with treatment devised to kill the germ virtually all disease might some day be eradicated. Pasteur came to realize that his theories about germs were erroneous. Just prior to his death he is said to have uttered the words, ‘Metchnikov was right.’ The terrain is everything, the bacteria is nothing. Pasteur recognized that it was not bacteria that were responsible for disease but the terrain, the surrounding land and the inability of the host to combat them. If the host was strong or the immune system was active, the organisms could not get a foothold. If the host was weak, the organisms could settle in and overcome. Pasteur had come to the conclusion that myriad factors including diet, nutrition, stress, heredity, environment, and state of mind had a profound effect on resistance to microbes.” Beyond Antibiotics, 14. (These are the two views that were held.)

In 1967, the surgeon general of the United States, at that time, William Stewart, said, “It was time to close the book on infectious diseases. We have basically wiped out all infection in the United States.” The Coming Plagues, 33. They set out to conquer infectious diseases around the world, and in the U.S. they were going to concentrate on chronic diseases.

How is it then that today we find that the infectious diseases are back—deadlier than ever in America. We are seeing viruses and bacteria beginning to hit the United States like never before, and our “wonder drugs” are losing the battle because of the mutant germs.

“Since the nineteen fifties we have seen the development and overuse of antibiotics. The use of hormones, birth control pills, the development of immuno suppressive drugs, prednisone, mytheltrephate, chemo therapy, the introduction of various chemical and toxins in our environment, and significant changes which have occurred within our diets leaving our foods tainted with pesticides, depleted in nutritional value, loaded with sugars and dyes. Can we really continue to believe that these incredible changes have not affected the well being of some and eventually perhaps all of us?” Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and the Yeast Connection, X1.

The Bible says the devil came to steal and destroy and kill. Jesus Christ is not “anti-biotic,” He is “pro-biotic.” In Him is life and life eternal. We need to learn that by living healthfully and eating the right foods, we can strengthen the immune system.

 

Contaminated Vaccines

 

Dr. Leonard Horowitz, a Harvard graduate with his masters in public health, has recently done a great deal of research into vaccine contamination. In an interview, published in American Freedom Magazine, December 1996, he said this: “‘This month’s Money Magazine has the first article ever published in the United States that actually tells the truth about polio and DPT vaccine. Today’s oral polio vaccines are littered with monkey virus contaminates which are causing everything from Simian Cytomegalo virus associated with chronic fatigue to encephelopathy.’

“Should one be apprehensive about taking flu shots? ‘Regarding the flu shots: My mother received the swine flu shot and she among 10,000 others developed Guillian-Barre Syndrome, which is a common vaccine contaminate reaction. It’s a progressive neurological breakdown,where the body’s normal white cells start eating away the myelin sheath around nerve cells.’” American Freedom Magazine, Volume 1, Number 8, December 1996, page 19.

 

Inspired Counsel about Drug Medication

 

In conclusion, consider this counsel from God’s inspired messenger: “Drugs never cure disease, they only change its form and location . . . When drugs are introduced into the system, for a time they seem to have a beneficial effect. A change may take place, but the disease is not cured. It will manifest itself in some other form . . . The disease which the drug was given to cure may disappear, but only to reappear in a new form such as skin disease, ulcers, painful diseased joints, and sometimes in a more dangerous and deadly form . . . Nature keeps struggling and the patient suffers with different ailments until there is a sudden breakdown in her efforts and death follows.” Healthful Living, 243.

Some of the most common diseases today are auto-immune diseases. Fibromyalgia which causes pain in the muscles and joints, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome, lupus, the list goes on. What has been causing these problems? Ellen White told us, with the use of drugs the disease is not cured, it just disappears and later manifests itself in some other way.

 

How to Build a Strong Immune System

 

What can we do to build our immune systems and fight off disease?

  1. Follow the eight laws of health, which is God’s plan.
  2. Maintain an ideal weight by decreasing the number of calories you eat.
  3. Eat a moderate protein, high complex carbohydrate, vegan diet rich in omega-3 fatty acid.
  4. Eat lots of fiber rich food like fruits, vegetables and cereals that reduce the transit time in the colon. This will help to get carcinogens, the bile acids and other fats that can cause cancer, out of the system.
  5. Avoid all animal products. Now is no time to be drinking milk.
  6. Keep salt intake low and avoid food additives and preservatives. Avoid condiments like mustard, vinegar, black pepper, baking soda and baking powder. Avoid caffeine and tobacco and alcohol, of course, but avoid other people’s smoke also.
  7. Consume large amounts of fruits, vegetables and legumes for their phyto-chemical properties. Whenever possible, try to obtain foods that were not artificially grown and are uncontaminated with pesticides.
  8. Eat plenty of raw fruits and vegetables for their enzyme content.
  9. Have X-rays only when absolutely necessary.
  10. Avoid refined sugar and nutra-sweet. (These are related to systemic lupus, fibromyalgia, and multiple sclerosis.)
  11. Use water filters whenever possible. Wash your hands several times each day and limit eating in restaurants.
  12. Use stress reduction techniques, such as walking, and taking a vacation.
  13. Make Bible reading and prayer a part of your day.
  14. Have a positive attitude.
  15. Avoid drugs unless absolutely necessary.

If we fail to follow the basic plans that God has given His people, we are going to be caught in the fray. The Bible also says that if we are obedient to His commandments and we follow His statutes, none of the diseases of Egypt will come upon us because the Lord who heals us has promised.

“The Lord gave His word to ancient Israel, that if they would cleave strictly to Him, and do all His requirements, He would keep them from all the diseases such as He had brought upon the Egyptians; but this promise was given on the condition of obedience. Had the Israelites obeyed the instruction they received, and profited by their advantages, they would have been the world’s object lesson of health and prosperity. The Israelites failed of fulfilling God’s purpose, and thus failed of receiving the blessings that might have been theirs. But in Joseph and Daniel, in Moses and Elijah, and many others, we have noble examples of the results of the true plan of living. Like faithfulness today will produce like results. To us it is written, ‘Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.’ I Peter 2:9.” Counsels on Diet and Foods, 26, 27.

 

Spiritual Digestion

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We are marvelously created. Ellen White tells us that we should study anatomy and physiology. It should be one of the first subjects that we teach our children. We should be equipped with the knowledge of how to care for the human body.

Cells are the tiny building blocks of the body. They make up tissues, and tissues make up organs, and organs make up the systems within the body. The body has a number of systems that work together.

One of those systems is the respiratory system. It is amazing how we can breath! We take air into our lungs through the pocket-like alveoli cells, and oxygen is transferred into the blood stream and nourishes every cell in the body.

Another is the lymphatic system. It has two hundred and fifty thousand miles of lymphatic vessels, which work every day to remove toxins and poisons through the lymph fluid.

The musculo-skeletal system contains six hundred different muscles, and over two hundred bones. There are other amazing systems within the human body. Truly, we can praise the Lord and say, “Thank you Lord, for this wonderful body that you have given us.”

“I will praise Thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Thy works and that my soul knoweth right well.” Psalm 139:14. We are fearfully and wonderfully made by our God, the Creator, Who made us in His crowning act of creation.

 

Physical Digestion

 

The digestive system is another truly remarkable system, whereby we take in food and it is processed so that the nutrients can be absorbed into our cells, giving us life. In this week of prayer article, this is the system we will study.

The body has an irregular-shaped tube that begins in the mouth and ends in the anus. We take in food through the mouth, then the teeth are used to physically break down food through a process called mastication.

The whole point is to take the solid matter and break it down so that it will eventually be usable in the blood stream. The salivary glands are in the mouth. They produce approximately a liter of saliva every day. Saliva moistens food and contains digestive enzymes, such as amylase, which break down carbohydrates.

The tongue, a little organ with which we speak, also has another purpose. It is used to push the food to the back of the throat, so that it can be swallowed into the esophagus.

The esophagus is a long, narrow, muscular tube that carries the food down to the stomach. Food is pushed along through this tube by a wave-like motion called peristalsis. This action is so strong that even if I were standing on my head, it would be able to push the food to my stomach.

Next the food enters the stomach through the cardiac sphincter at the end of the esophagus. The food is further broken down by contractions in the stomach’s muscular wall, and the gastric juices, hydrochloric acid and enzymes. The food is now broken down to what is called chyme pronounced kime). After it is in the stomach generally for one to four hours, depending on the type and combination of food that was eaten, it passes through the pyloric sphincter into the small intestine.

The small intestine is approximately twenty feet long. The food passes through three sections. The first is the duodenum, the second is the jejunum and finally the ileum. The mucous lining of the small intestine contains thousands of microscopic glands called intestinal glands that secrete intestinal digestive juices. The circular folds of the intestine called plica are covered with thousands of tiny finger like membranes called villi.

Through the villi, the nutrients are absorbed from the chyme through the walls of the intestine into the blood stream. It is here in the small intestine, that the liver comes into play.

The liver is a remarkable organ. It weighs about three pounds and sits right underneath the rib cage. It is often referred to as the largest gland in the body. It produces about a pint of bile per day. Bile is the substance necessary for the breakdown of fats. It emulsifies fat globules into smaller particles.

The bile is stored in an organ called the gallbladder. The gallbladder releases bile when fat is brought into the body. It is stimulated by a hormone which causes it to contract and secrete its contents into the duodenum. For example, an olive is eaten, which has a high fat content, the gallbladder releases bile that was made by the liver to break it down into little portions.

The liver cells play a major role in the metabolism of several kinds of food, and their absorption through the small intestine into the blood stream where the nutrients can feed the cells.

When leaving the small intestine, the chyme passes through another sphincter into the large intestine. The large intestine is about five feet long, and forms the last part of the digestive tract. Its contents are now referred to as fecal matter. In the large intestine, materials that escaped digestion in the small intestine are acted upon by bacteria, and additional nutrients may be released from the fiber and absorbed.

The pancreas produces pancreatic juice, one of the most important digestive juices. It is necessary for the breakdown of foods from large material into nutrients that can be absorbed by the body. It contains tripsin, amylase, protease, lipase and other enzymes that help break the food down so it can finally be absorbed into the body.

 

You are What You Eat?

 

There is an old saying that says, “You are what you eat.” One day I was sitting beside a wise old woman who was more than eighty years old. She was eating a fresh avocado, and fresh tomato with some whole grain bread. I commented that you are what you eat. She looked at me, shaking her head, and said, “No, you are what you digest. If the food is not digested, whereby the nutrients can be extracted and put into the blood stream, of what value is it?”

Later in Mexico I visited Charlotte Gerson of the Gerson Clinic. There I learned that there was another phase in this process that I had neglected. I was listening to one of her lectures,where she was talking to a number of people who were terminally ill. She was talking to them about the nutrients within the food and how important they are in healing, and she said, “You are what you,” “digest,” I interjected. She looked at me and said, “No, Danny, you are what you assimilate.”

That is why she gives an eight ounce glass of juice, every hour, for thirteen hours a day, to cancer patients. She also feeds them a good vegetarian diet, high in calories, because, she saysmost cancer patients are starving. Their cells are starving, they need nutrition and the juice is in a form where there is little digestion required. Webster’s defines assimilate as: “The conversion of ingested food to substances suitable for incorporation into the body and its tissues.” Charlotte Gerson said, “unless we can get the nutrients to cellular levels they are worthless.” In other words, through the process of proper chewing, proper combinations of food, proper foods that are high in enzymes and the proper work of the stomach and the small intestine, we can not actually assimilate the nutrients. “That is where life is.”

Plants, fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, and seeds, through digestion and assimilation, become our flesh and bones. Consider a lettuce leaf. This vegetation makes flesh and bone. It is from the plants that we are built up. How is it, that the food we eat becomes flesh and bone? Plant foods are good enough for the animals to make their flesh, but what about a human body?

Ellen White says, “Those who eat flesh are but eating grains and vegetables second hand, for the animal receives from these things the nutrition that produces growth. The life that was in the grains and vegetables passes into the eater. We receive it by eating the flesh of the animal. How much better to get it direct, by eating the food that God provided for our use.” Counsels on Diet and Foods, 313. Properly chosen plant products—grains, fruits, nuts, and vegetables contain all the nutrient properties to make a healthy body.

 

Spiritual Digestion

 

Let us turn now from the physical to the spiritual. “When Jesus then lifted up His eyes, and saw a great company come unto Him, He saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? And this He said to prove him: for He himself knew what He would do. Philip answered Him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little. One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, saith unto Him, There is a lad here, with five barley loaves and two small fishes: but what are they among so many? And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves; and when He had given thanks, He distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down: and likewise of the fishes as much as they would.” John 6:5–11. In the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus worked a miracle and fed all that came to see Him. He made ample provisions for every person present.

“And when they had found Him on the other side of the sea, they said unto Him, Rabbi, when camest thou hither? Jesus answered them and said . . . Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.” John 6:25, 26. In other words there was great temporal blessings for those that followed Christ. He provided food for them. Five thousand were hungry and Jesus multiplied two little articles of food and fed every one. Jesus said to them: “Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you: for Him hath God the Father sealed.” John 6:27.

Those in the end who have the mind of Christ will not be people who are satisfied with the temporal—the fish and the loaves, but spiritually filled people. People who are eating of the Word of God and are totally satisfied. Through eating the Word of God a change is taking place in their lives. Thereby His people are sealed.

The Jews said, “Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” John 6:31. They could not see the spiritual applications of the words of Christ. They were still looking at the earthly.

Jesus answered, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world . . . I am the bread of life: he that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst.” John 6:32–35.

When food is eaten, the life of that food becomes part of you. “The giver of the manna was standing among them. It was Christ Himself who had led the Hebrews to the wilderness and had daily fed them with the bread from heaven. That food was a type of the real bread from heaven. The life giving spirit flowing from the infinite fullness of God is the true manna. Jesus said, ‘The bread of God is that which cometh down out of heaven and giveth life unto the world.’ ” The Desire of Ages, 386.

 

Set Your Affections On Things Above

 

How many of us are looking to the temporal and to the earthly. Esau should have had the birthright, but instead he sold it for a pot of lentils. He sold his spiritual inheritance to satisfy his temporal wants. How many of us are looking to the earthly, wandering in the wilderness, perhaps murmuring against the health message from heaven, and some even eating from the flesh pots of Egypt. Instead, should we not be looking for the spiritual food from heaven?

The Jews murmured against Christ, but He answered them, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.” John 6:53. If you do not eat life, you will not have life.

Christ is now taking them from a temporal thing to a spiritual one. He is saying, “I provided the fish and the loaves, I gave you everything you needed for your temporal needs. I am the bread, eat of Me, and you shall never hunger. You shall never thirst if you drink of Me.”

He is saying to you right now, “Except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink of His blood ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life: and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him.” John 6:53–56.

What does it mean to eat the flesh of the Son of God? How do you drink His blood? “Only the day before, the great multitude, when faint and weary, had been fed by the bread which He had given. As from that bread they had received physical strength and refreshment, so from Christ they might receive spiritual strength unto eternal life.” The Desire of Ages, 386.

“To eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ is to receive Him as a personal Savior, believing that He forgives our sins, and that we are complete in Him. It is by beholding His love, by dwelling upon it, by drinking it in, that we are to become partakers of His nature. What food is to the body, Christ must be to the soul.” The Desire of Ages, 389.

Apply what we have learned about physical digestion and assimilation to partaking of Christ. Food cannot benefit us unless we eat it, unless it becomes a part of our being. You are what you eat. You are what you digest. You are what you assimilate.

In the same way Christ is of no value to us if we do not know Him as a personal Savior. A theoretical knowledge will do us no good. We must feed upon Him, receive Him into the heart, so that His life becomes our life. His love, His grace must be assimilated. We take food into our mouths, but that is not enough. Similarly, we take the Word of God into the mind, but that is not enough. We may walk around with our theological knowledge and our theories. We may argue about what is truth, but unless our lives are changed, we have not assimilated Christ.

“Are you a follower of Christ? Then all that is written concerning the spiritual life is written for you, and may be attained through uniting yourself to Jesus. Is your zeal languishing? Has your first love grown cold? Accept again the proffered love of Christ. Eat of His flesh, drink of His blood, and you will become one with the Father and with the Son.” Ibid.

Jesus answered the unbelieving Jews. “Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” John 6:61–63.

Do you want this spiritual process of a supernatural change to take place in your life? My friend, you must assimilate Christ. Make His life your example in everything. He wants to make you a new creature. Will you allow Him to do this work in your life? I urge you to make that choice today.

We eat the plants and they become our flesh and blood. What about when we eat Christ’s word? “As our physical life is sustained by food, so our spiritual life is sustained by the Word of God. And every soul is to receive life from God’s word for himself. As we must eat for ourselves in order to receive nourishment, so we must receive the word for ourselves. We are not to obtain it merely through the medium of another’s mind. Each must eat for himself. Each must assimilate the Word of God for himself.

“We should carefully study the Bible, asking God for the aid of the Holy Spirit, that we may understand His word. We should take one verse, and concentrate the mind on the task of ascertaining the thought which God has put in that verse for us. We should dwell upon the thought until it becomes our own.” The Desire of Ages, 390.

How many of us are content with getting up in the morning, and sleepily reading a couple of pages from the Spirit of Prophecy? Maybe we are even reading the Bible through, but have we assimilated the Word? If it does not become a part of us, and His life become our life, it has no value!

“The Word of God is the seed. Every seed has in itself a germinating principle. In it the life of the plant is enfolded. So there is life in God’s Word. Christ says, ‘The words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit, and they are life.’ John 6:63. ‘He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life.’ John 5:24. In every command and in every promise of the Word of God is the power, the very life of God, by which the command may be fulfilled and the promise realized. He who by faith receives the Word is receiving the very life and character of God.

“Every seed brings forth fruit after its kind. Sow the seed under right conditions, and it will develop its own life in the plant. Receive into the soul by faith the incorruptible seed of the Word, and it will bring forth a character and a life after the similitude of the character and the life of God.” Christ’s Object Lessons, 38. What about your spiritual life, is it languishing? Are you giving it the nutrients of the Word, and assimilating it until it becomes your very own?

As the nutrients in the food give us life, so the Word of God gives us spiritual life. It gives us health and strength, and helps us to grow. No wonder the prophet Jeremiah said, “Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts.” Jeremiah 15:16.

We serve a personal God, who loves each of us individually. This quotation makes it very clear: “In His promises and warnings, Jesus means me. God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that I by believing in Him, might not perish, but have everlasting life. The experiences related in God’s Word are to be my experiences. Prayer and promise, precept and warning, are mine . . . faith thus receives and assimilates the principles of truth, they become a part of the being and the motive power of the life. The Word of God, received into the soul, molds the thoughts, and enters into the development of character.” The Desire of Ages, 41.

God is speaking to each of us. He has a special message for you and me in His Word. We need to study the Bible, and contemplate it, until we see the meaning that God has for us.

 

The Leaven

 

In the book Christ’s Object Lessons, there is a study on leaven. It is the leaven, that when applied to the meal, causes growth. “The leaven hidden in the flour works invisibly to bring the whole mass under its leavening process; so the leaven of truth works secretly, silently, steadily, to transform the soul. The natural inclinations are softened and subdued. New thoughts, new feelings, new motives, are implanted.” Christ’s Object Lessons, 98.

Eating the Word, is taking His words into your mind, and by faith it becomes your very being. “A new standard of character is set up—the life of Christ. The mind is changed; the faculties are roused to action in new lines. Man is not endowed with new faculties, but the faculties he has are sanctified. The conscience is awakened. We are endowed with traits of character that enable us to do service for God.” Ibid.

I pray that from this day forward you will open the Bible with a new hunger to receive God’s words for you. Then communicate what you have learned and experienced with others.

“Christianity proposes a reformation in the heart. What Christ works within, will be worked out under the dictation of a converted intellect. The plan of beginning outside and trying to work inward has always failed, and always will fail. God’s plan with you is to begin at the very seat of all difficulties, the heart, and then from out of the heart will issue the principles of righteousness; the reformation will be outward as well as inward.” Counsels on Diets and Foods, 35.

Eat of the Lord, read His Word, study it carefully. In the Word of God is contained all the power and the promises for you to be changed. “By looking constantly to Jesus with the eye of faith, we shall be strengthened. God will make the most precious revelations to His hungering, thirsting people. They will find that Christ is a personal Saviour. As they feed upon His word, they find that it is spirit and life. The Word destroys the natural, earthly nature, and imparts a new life in Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit comes to the soul as a Comforter. By the transforming agency of His grace, the image of God is reproduced in the disciple; he becomes a new creature. Love takes the place of hatred, and the heart receives the divine similitude. This is what it means to live ‘by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’ This is eating the Bread that comes down from heaven.” The Desire of Ages, 391.

When the Holy Spirit speaks to the heart, the truth is not only digested, but assimilated. The assimilation is sanctification. It is a total renewal and change of the heart and mind.

I challenge you today, while we are in the sealing time: make a total surrender to the Lord. Allow Him to perform this supernatural change in your mind and life. Assimilate the Word. Let it change your life completely.

Ellen White had this special message for us today: “Now is the time to prepare. The seal of God will never be placed upon the forehead of an impure man or woman. It will never be placed upon the forehead of the ambitious, world-loving man or woman. It will never be placed upon the forehead of men or women of false tongues or deceitful hearts. All who receive the seal must be without spot before God—candidates for heaven. Go forward, my brethren and sisters. I can only write briefly upon these points at this time, merely calling your attention to the necessity of preparation. Search the Scriptures for yourselves, that you may understand the fearful solemnity of the present hour.” Testimonies, vol. 5, 216.

 

The Cow and Her Milk — Tasty or Risky

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Twenty times in the Old Testament the promise was given that God’s chosen people would ultimately enter a land flowing with milk and honey. The fertile environment of Canaan was anticipated with eagerness, for there every nutritious agricultural product, both for man and animals could be supported. This goal was realized, flourishing under the magnificence of Israel’s greatest kings, David and Solomon. The animals were healthy because their food was good. Blessings accrued to those who followed the promised plan of God in strict detail.

Now we live in a different age. The greed of mankind has commercialized the agri-business to the place where home gardens are a necessity.

“The Lord desires His people to move into the country where they can settle in the land and raise their own fruits and vegetables, and where their children can be brought in direct contact with the works of God in nature. Take your families away from the cities, is my message.” Medical Ministry, 11.

We could study with profit the moral advantages, social advantages and spiritual benefits of country living today. Let us look for a moment at the physical enhancements we can have from home grown natural foods. Looking at God’s plan for the children of Israel we see that our Creator wanted each one to enjoy the work of their own hands. Building and living in their own hand-crafted house, eating and enjoying the fruits and vegetables of their own garden was God’s plan for His human family, ordained on earth as the foretaste of the heavenly land.

Almost a hundred years ago these nutritional benefits of vegetarian food were given for Seventh-day Adventists to share with their friends and neighbors around the world. “Flesh was never the best food; but its use is now doubly objectionable, since disease in animals is so rapidly increasing.” Ministry of Healing, 313 (1905). “Animals are becoming more and more diseased, and it will not be long until animal food will be discarded by many besides Seventh-day Adventists. Foods that are healthful and sustaining are to be prepared, so that men and women will not need to eat meat.” Testimonies, vol. 7, 124 (1902).

“The light given me is that it will not be very long before we shall have to give up using any animal food. Even milk will have to be discarded. Disease is accumulating rapidly.” Australasian Union Conference Record, July 28, 1889.

I could share many similar references, but today let us study the subject in the light of modern science. The winter of 1996 brought to the subject of animal disease an international cry of alarm. Mad Cow Disease, discovered in England in 1986, then exported to countries around the world, became the topic of international concern. Caused by a protein, which can not be cultured, this transmissible agent, called a prion, can cause many serious diseases. Most such syndromes attack the central nervous system, brain and spinal cord. Three “Mad Cow” equivalents have been documented in humans: Kuru, Gerstmann-Straussler syndrome (GSS) and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). All three of these diseases can be transmitted to laboratory animals by inoculation. They have been found in chimpanzees, monkeys, rodents and seem to all have a common cause, namely a prion. There is a similar disease in sheep called scrapie. Libyan Jews living in Israel have acquired the human form, CJD, after eating lightly cooked sheep brain, or other delicacies such as sheep eyeballs. Primitive societies in the South Sea islands have transmitted Kuru through ritual cannibalism. Now we know that this disease can cross major species.

The most probable cause of Mad Cow Disease, scientifically called Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), involves the abominable feeding practice, using scrapie-infected sheep meat and bone meal in cattle feed. The United Kingdom, in November of 1989, passed a ban on the human consumption of bovine offal. These include brain, spinal cord, thymus, spleen, tonsils and intestines. More recently a ban on feeding all bovine by-products to pet and farm animals was imposed after the successful experimental transmission of BSE to a pig. There was a Siamese cat from Bristol, England who developed symptoms of BSE after eating pet food made from a beef carcass. Mac, the hapless feline, died of a spongiform brain lesion which we could call the “mad cat disease.” BSE is a killer. The Mad Cow Disease has killed more than 161,663 cattle since it was discovered in 1985!

Dr. Virgil Hulse, a physician, veterinarian, and research scientist, has just published a book outlining these dangers (Mad Cow and Milk Gate). One of the worst is the feeding of unusable bits of cow and sheep back to the animals in the form of protein supplements. Most farmers did not realize what they were feeding their animals as the pellets are marketed primarily as animal protein supplements. Similar supplements are also given to cattle in the form of ground up chicken feathers, with inevitable contamination as is evident in any slaughterhouse or poultry factory. The American agri-business is just as guilty of these practices as in England, supported by vehement denials of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that there could be any risk to human health. Interestingly, as I write this article a news note comes through the AMA weekly physician’s paper that the FDA has decided to ban this practice, phasing it out by the end of 1996. But our government may be “closing the barn door after the horse has already escaped.”

Cows and sheep and other ruminants are all by nature vegetarians. Thus it is biologically unnatural to feed a cow any substance derived from dead animals. First, these herbivorous creatures become carnivores, and later they are cannibals. Finally, they end up on the dinner table of the unsuspecting consumer. The meat from a dead cow with its bones, blood meal and soy bean is mixed up into pellets, advertised in dairy magazines with colorful pictures promoted to increase the cows milk production, thus making them “super cows.” Common sense should tell us that this practice is a bad idea.

Last summer it was my privilege to speak on the subject at two camp meetings in Europe. On a plane flight back from Stockholm to London I met a fascinating couple. Breakfast was being served on British Airlines. The gentleman politely asked the stewardess if the meat on his tray was beef. She replied with customary British tact, “No, it is not. We do not serve beef.”

The gentleman retorted, “Is that the policy of your airline?”

Replied the stewardess, “No it is not our policy. We just do not do it!”

One more question, he asked, “why?”

She replied, “Because no one would eat it; and we don’t like to waste food!”

So I had my bran muffin, fruit and granola while the gentleman ate his slice of pork. After the trays were collected I turned to this man and engaged him in conversation. Both the business man and his wife were international consultants to the dairy industry, experts from California who had just spent a week on a British farm. The news they shared was interesting and not likely to appear in the London Times.

When it became obvious that Mad Cow Disease had caused the deaths of several young people and was clearly transmissible to humans, the British beef industry was in a quandary. Should they incinerate all 11 million British cattle, start over and try to regain their international credibility? The thought was frightening to the future of agri-business in the United Kingdom.

What I learned from these friends on British Air fascinated me. This compromise was reached. Three million cows, namely the ones who had consumed animal products likely to be tainted with BSE are slated for cremation. This enormous multitude of cows now waiting on “death row” cannot be processed in a few weeks. There are less than a dozen incinerators (crematoriums) for cows in the United Kingdom. So these cows stay on the farms with a bounty on their head in which the government will pay the farmer as the cow goes to its final ashes. What to do in the meantime? The cows have to be fed. And, to earn their keep the cows are milked. Into the food chain goes the milk of condemned animals who, given enough time, are likely to develop BSE.

Normally cows trust man, but man became their worst nightmare. Cows have become our primary recycling agents in this twisted society. We feed cows orange skins, almond husks, dead sheep and chicken manure. Yes, cows eat dead sheep and dead cows! This unconscious cow cannibalism is supplemented by the feathers from chickens and turkeys, ground up and mixed up with the sheep and cows to become cow food. Fortunately, they don’t know what they are eating or they would really get mad. Sold to the dairy men as dairy supplements that contain a special bypass protein called PNP, protected natural protein, this is used to get more milk from the dairy cow. Traditionally a single cow would produce twenty gallons of milk a day. Today the average is more than three times that much.

We wonder why there is not more BSE-like disease in the United States. But there is in America an epidemic of “downer cow syndrome” which could be a mutated strain of Mad Cow Disease. Our country has hundreds of downer cows each year and no means for routinely diagnosing their cause. Many physicians, veterinarians and other scientists have warned the government of this BSE “time bomb” about to go off in our country. The BSE scientists in England have virtually all given up eating beef. If a human eats an infected beef carcass he has a 50% chance of developing Mad Cow Disease, called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. This sad affliction causes loss of memory, grinding headaches, tripping and stumbling as the nerves of the victim’s legs give out.

The muscles grow slack and flabby with loss of coordination and lethal psychotic stupor. Finally, they develop blindness and ultimately death. The average life expectancy from the onset of this disease is four months. That’s why we call BSE a time bomb.

The times in which we live call for a return to the original diet: fruits, grains, nuts and vegetables. I believe it is also time to advise our friends and neighbors to choose alternatives to milk. Avoid, too, the consumption of eggs; and, in short, make the diet completely vegetarian without recourse to any animal products at all. There are some wonderful recipes that can enable an average cook and homemaker to prepare healthful nut and seed based milks. I include a few, and we can offer many more in our recipe books and cards. All one needs is a blender, a little time, and some ingenuity. Commercial products are also available with milks based on the soybean, rice and other grains. Solait, Better Than Milk, Eden Soy and Rice Dream are just a few of the products available. Soy based cheeses are also easy to prepare and constitute excellent substitutes for any recipe that would use dairy based cheese. The risks are too great to wait much longer. In soy based milks you will obtain more magnesium, an excellent grade of protein, and completely avoid the risk of lactose intolerance with its annoying symptoms of abdominal cramps, gas and diarrhea. 75% of adults of Afro-American descent and as many as 40–50% of whites and Orientals lack some or all of the lactase enzyme. These therefore have an intolerance to milk.

Galactose, another sugar in cow’s milk, is normally transformed into glucose, even by the baby. Some infants, however have lactose intolerance manifested by the failure to thrive, a development of cataracts and other symptoms. These babies usually do very well on soy milk. Bed wetting in children can be improved when milk is removed from the diet. Constipation is relieved, particularly in the elderly. Colic in babies is relieved when mothers breast feed their infants or use a soy formula.
But most important is the reduced cholesterol, the elimination of oxidized cholesterol, and the lowered risk of arteriosclerosis or hardening of the arteries. Powdered milk, powdered eggs, whey, smoked fish, meat or cheeses all contain oxidized cholesterol, a very toxic substance to the blood vessels. Cholesterol is found only in animal products. It is best not to eat any cholesterol containing food at all.

Of immediate concern, however, is the risk of cancer, now common in beef cows, dairies and other domestic food animals. Pasteurization offers no protection against many viruses including hoof and mouth disease, lymphosarcoma virus and the prions that cause transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. These prions are so resistant that they survive radiation, formaldehyde and heating to 300 degrees Centigrade (700 degrees Fahrenheit)! Disease in animals has increased rapidly. The use of milk is becoming too unsafe for me to use it on my cereal.

We have just begun to discuss the reasons for vegetarianism. The life you save might be your own. May the Lord give health to His earthly friends as we live through the last days.

 

Making Your Own Milk:

Almond Milk

 

3/4 cup almonds, blanched

3 1/4 cups water

2 Tbs. honey

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. vanilla

1/4 cup Soyagen

Blend almonds with small amount of water first, then add remaining water and ingredients. Whiz until smooth. Strain, chill and serve.

Cashew Milk

 

Blend:

1 cup cashew meal

1 cup hot water

Add:

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. vanilla

3 Tbs. honey

3 cups water

Blend until smooth. Chill and serve.

Rice Milk

 

2/3 cup hot cooked rice

1/3 cup cashew meal

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. salt

1-2 Tbs. honey

3 cups hot water

Blend until smooth. Chill and serve.

Oatmeal Milk

 

2 cups cooked oatmeal

4 cups water

1/2 tsp. salt

1 ripe banana

1 tsp. vanilla

2 Tbs. honey

Blend until smooth. Chill and serve.

Sesame Milk

 

1 cup sesame seeds, light

1/4 tsp. salt

2 cups water

1/4 cup honey

Bring sesame seeds and water to a boil. Simmer ten minutes. Add remaining ingredients. Blend until smooth. Chill and serve.

Health – Galloping Consumption

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Has anybody noticed the “galloping consumption” taking place at our food tables and eateries?

“It is often asserted that the present generation lives more in twenty-five years than our ancestors of two centuries ago did in fifty. It may be said with equal truthfulness that the present generation eats as much in twenty-five years as our forefathers did in fifty, and in one half the time.

“Haste in traffic, haste in business, haste in education, haste in pleasure, have led to haste in eating, drinking, thinking, sleeping, until physical degeneracy and premature decay stare us in the face on every hand. But of all the evils resulting from the terrible momentum of modern life, hasty eating is the most far-reaching and the worst.

“That nature intended man to find a real pleasure in eating, is evident from the fact that natural foods are variously and delicately flavored, and that man is endowed with the sense of taste to appreciate these flavors, and with the sense of smell to enjoy natural odors. The surface of the tongue is the seat of the sense of taste; hence the pleasure that attends eating does not consist in the amount of food that can be disposed of, nor in the rapidity with which it can be eaten, but in the length of time it remains in the mouth, stimulating this sense of taste. It would be well for the rapid eater to take notice that the taste buds are on the tongue and not scattered throughout the length of the esophagus or in the walls of the stomach.” The Practical Guide to Health by Frederick M. Rossiter, B.S., M.D., Review and Herald Publishing Assn., 1910, pgs. 555, 556.

I think each one of us has noticed this “galloping consumption” activity either in our own homes or at fast food places and restaurants. When you go out to eat you will see many people gulping down their water or coffee to help “wash” the food down. It seems as if many cannot get the food down fast enough.

“Nature furnishes man with thirty-two teeth, some for breaking off pieces of food, and others designed to crush it. The entire anatomy of the mouth clearly indicates that food should remain in it some time before being swallowed. If food remains in the mouth only a few moments, an insufficient amount of saliva is secreted, and mingled with the food; hence salivary digestion is but partially performed. If mastication is neglected, the food is not properly crushed and so is not readily acted upon by the saliva or by the gastric juice. Food that is poorly masticated is swallowed in chunks, which resist the action of the gastric juice for a long time, and produce irritation of the walls of the stomach.

“Hasty eating produces a sensation of thirst, hence the common practice in America and other countries of rinsing down food with tea, coffee, ice water, etc. This delays digestion by diluting the little saliva and gastric juice that have been given time to form; the cold drinks also lower the temperature of the gastric contents, so that digestion is completely at a standstill until the temperature at which digestion takes place is restored, and the fluid has been absorbed.

“Hasty eating leads to overeating, so that the entire digestive system is overburdened, causing all the organs to do too much work—to put in extra time—to rid the system of this surplus food. Excessive consumption of food eventually leads to a consumption of the tissues, either in general or in part, because of the poisons circulating in the fluids of the body and retained in the tissues.

“The galloping consumption of food, or eating on the run, is not only a great physical evil, but is a social evil as well. We have come to such a pass that conversation at the home table, if no guests are present, is very little practiced; for galloping consumption and fluent conversation cannot be carried on at the same time. Thus far it is the conversation that has suffered, while the consumption is increasing at a high rate, the hearty laugh, that proverbial digestive tablet, and the light and airy table talk that make the charm of social eating, are in these days classed among the luxuries of life, and made the accompaniment of evening dress, cut glass, and three-hour banquets or elegant dinners. But they really belong among the necessities, and should accompany slow eating, careful mastication, and a quiet frame of mind. A longer time spent at the table every day in thoroughly preparing food for the different processes of digestion, would save many a man and woman years of misery, ill health, and disappointing, ineffective work.” Ibid., 557–559.

Understanding a little bit more about how we are to chew our food in preparation for digesting it, let us not be part of the galloping consumers at our tables. We are to give glory to God in all areas of our life, which includes the chewing of our food.  Let’s try a little “trot” instead of a “gallop”.

Health – Far Reaching Consequences

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The food of which we partake has far-reaching consequences to our well-being. Depending on what goes into our bodies, we may have healing and increased good health or we may have a withering up and a tendency toward disease. We all daily have choices to make.

I know there are people who believe food has basically nothing to do with health. But there are some who may be interested in the following information which offers some insights into the effects of eating certain foods.

“Many of the elderly in the United States—and quite a few of the not so elderly—experience terrible pain in their joints. Their fingers may become twisted and swollen, and they may be unable even to button a coat without large doses of anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin. Many come to feel crippled and useless.

“By the age of 35, 35 percent of Americans have diagnosable arthritis in their knees. At least 85 percent of those over the age of 70 have it, and many have it severely. There are 180,000 people in the country today who are bedridden or confined to a wheelchair because of this disease.

“The official position of the Arthritis Foundation is that diet and arthritis are not related. But, astoundingly, there has been very little research done to justify this assertion. Up until now, virtually all arthritis research money has gone to test drugs.

“At Wayne State University Medical School, however, there were a few medical researchers willing to investigate the heresy that diet might have something to do with arthritis. They put six rheumatoid arthritis patients on a fat-free diet. The results were startling. In seven weeks, all of the subjects showed total disappearance of their symptoms. When fats were reintroduced into their diets, it took only three days for the symptoms to reappear.

“In 1981, the British Medical Journal reported another instance that suggests the Arthritis foundation’s conclusions might be premature. It involved a 38-year-old woman who for 11 years had been suffering from steadily worsening rheumatoid arthritis. Three weeks after doctors removed all dairy products from her diet she showed signs of improvement. In four months, her arthritic symptoms had completely disappeared. She remained free of symptoms until, in the interests of scientific curiosity, she once again ate some cheese and milk. The next day her joints were swollen, stiff, and painful. Fortunately, her symptoms again disappeared as she resumed her abstinence from dairy products.

“In parts of the world where the diets are low in fats and cholesterol and moderate in protein, and where the consumption of processed and junk foods is minimal, even old people who have done hard physical work their whole lives are essentially free of arthritis. This presents quite a contrast to United States, where so many are crippled by the disease that it is rare to find an older person who is not affected.

“One study found not a single case of rheumatoid arthritis in a rural black South African community of over 800 people who ate no meats or dairy products. Another study found that black South Africans who ate significant amounts of meat and other high-fat foods had almost four times the incidence of arthritis as those whose diet was very low in meat and fat. …

“Gouty arthritis is acknowledged even by the Arthritis Foundation as being diet related. In fact, gout is one of the most easily controlled of all diseases when proper dietary guidelines are followed.

“Gout occurs when uric acid in the body forms needle-like crystals that become deposited in a joint. When that happens, there is severe pain and swelling in a joint, often the big toe.

“Avoiding foods that are high in either purines or protein has been shown to be of enormous benefit to gouty arthritis sufferers. Shellfish, fish, poultry, beef, pork and legumes are all high in purines.

“Some people, particularly Filipinos, are especially susceptible to gout. But on a low-purine, low-protein diet, gout is almost nonexistent, even among those people most genetically disposed toward it. During World War II, when gout sufferers in occupied European countries were suddenly forced to consume fewer meats and dairy products, the incidence of gouty arthritis plummeted.

“There are many kinds of arthritis, including osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, gout … The connection with diet and gout is crystal clear, but far more work needs to be done … The evidence strongly suggests that diets very low in saturated fat, low in protein, high in fiber, and without any cholesterol would be best for the prevention of arthritis and as an important element in treatment.”

Excerpts from Diet for a New America, John Robbins, pages 267–269.

What you eat does make a difference on how your body reacts.

Spirit of Prophecy states: “The eating of flesh meats has made a poor quality of blood and flesh. Your systems are in a state of inflammation, prepared to take on disease. You are liable to acute attacks of disease, and to sudden death, because you do not possess the strength of constitution to rally and resist disease. …

“Meat eating deranges the system.” Healthful Living, 99. [Emphasis supplied.]

Colorful fruits and veggies – the darker or more brilliant the color, the more antioxidants it has. Good ones include blueberries, cherries, spinach, kale and broccoli. Beans are an excellent and inexpensive source of protein. Our Lord has given to us such a wide variety to choose from. Feed your body healthfully and you will have a healthful response.

Is It Time to Give Up Milk?

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Many years ago we understood that animal products like milk could be wholesome additions to our diet if used in small amounts at a time. As Seventh-day Adventists we also had read from the writings of Ellen G. While that we should anticipate a day to come that we could no longer do that with any assurance of safety. We were warned in 1902 “that the time will soon come when there will be no safety in using eggs, milk, cream, or butter, because disease in animals is increasing in proportion to the wickedness among men.” Counsels on Diets and Foods, 356. 1902 was a long time ago and the world is certainly more wicked than in that time. That day has come! The diseases in animals have become very widespread and so intense that they have begun to pose a serious threat to humans. Scientists have always proclaimed that it was impossible for many diseases to cross the specie lines from animals to man. It appears now that long held belief does not always hold true.

Diseases now are being transmitted across specie lines in two categories: prion diseases and retro-virus caused diseases. Prions still are not totally understood. We are not sure exactly how they act in transmitting disease but researchers have found positive correlations between their presence of the transmission of at least one disease; that of BSE (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy) in animals and the occurrence of CJD (Creutzfeld Jacob) disease in humans. BSE is more commonly known as the “mad cow disease.” Prions are simple protein molecules and how they could transmit disease is not yet understood. What is understood is that neither cooking or even pasteurization can kill or inactivate them. In fact, research has proven that they can survive 300 degrees centigrade for extended periods of time. This temperature would reduce the meat or milk to carbon or ash but the prion would still be quite intact! There is no safety in ingesting any form of animal products, even cheese and gelatin. The makers of gelatin maintain that they have so processed the animal product that it has now become a pure chemical and could not therefore cause disease. Those who have examined the technique they utilize in processing have seen that the prion can easily survive all six of their procedures.

A second category of disease transmission involves the retro-viruses. This new family of viruses poses an even greater danger to humans than even the prion. A retro-virus has the ability to incorporate itself in to one’s genetic makeup. That is to say that it actually becomes part of the host. The virus now becomes basically immune to all the weapons of the human immune system because the body does not recognize it as being foreign. The only way to totally eradicate the viruses is to kill it’s host! Lets avoid these viruses at all cost. Some of the diseases caused by retro viruses are HIV, BPV, BLV, and BIV. BPV or Bovine Papilloma Virus, a disease associated with cancerous tumors in cattle, has been isolated in commercially prepared milk available in retail outlets as long ago as 1979. It appears that as SDA’s we should have seen the light on discontinuing these food sources long ago. In the United States it is estimated that up to 80% of the commercial dairy herd may carry BLV or Bovine Leukemia Virus. This disease can be transmitted from the infected lymphocytes of a diseased animal since milk is made up largely from lymphocytes it seems very prudent to avoid milk at any cost. There is evidence that it is very possible for infected lymphocytes to cross the intestinal membrane barrier and enter the blood stream in a virulent state. Also there is no guarantee that the genetic information of the retros is deactivated by pasteurization. Even though the active virus may have been “killed” by the heat, the particle can still be absorbed by the intestines. It is entirely possible that the genetic information from the particle may still be incorporated into the human. It is estimated that 40% of the dairy herd may be infected with BIV or Bovine Immunodeficiency Virus. BIV is the Bovine counterpart of the human HIV, the virus that eventually turns into AIDS. One very startling discovery is that HIV and BIV have common genetic material: the “Trans-activating gene” or more commonly called a Ta T gene. The reason this is so frightening is that even though humans may not be susceptible directly to BIV, the BIV Ta T gene may be able to trans-activate or trigger latent HIV particles in the human and indirectly cause HIV in humans. Some medical researches feel that many more humans than is presently imagined are carrying either latent or deactivated HIV viral particles in their bodies that their immune system has been successful in controlling. With sufficient dietary “doses” of BIV infected foods, these latent particles have an excellent possibility of being activated and the human host developing a full blown case of AIDS. Tests with chimpanzees which have similar anatomical and physiological make up as humans have clearly demonstrated how real this possibility is.

These things may sound quite frightening, but we must remember that God so loves us that He gave us warnings in advance so that we would be able to avoid these diseases by simply not eating those things that are no longer safe. In Romans 1:17 we are told that “the just shall live by faith.” Those who survive the end times will have to be so full of faith in God’s wisdom that they will accept His directions for every aspect of life

Health – Alfalfa, A King of Herbs

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The herb alfalfa, called lucerne or purple medic, is good for man or beast. Alfalfa is a plant we can use with complete safety. It is non-toxic, non poisonous and non-habit forming. This qualifies it as one of many herbs which are beneficial for mankind. It is “seed bearing” and a green herb, fulfilling the Biblical specifications in Genesis 1:29 and 30.

The Nutrition Almanac by John D. Kirschmann (Nutrition Search, Minneapolis, Minnesota. 55402) says, “Alfalfa is a leguminous plant which is particularly rich in Vitamin K. The seeds, seed sprouts, and leaves of the plant can be eaten.” Here is a statement from Alma R. Hutchens in Indian Herbology of North America (Merco, 620 Wyandotte East, Windsor 14, Ontario, Canada) showing many values in this plant: “It is only in recent years that we moderns are rediscovering its valuable nutritive properties, which include organic minerals of calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium, plus all the known vitamins, including vitamin K and the recently discovered vitamin B-8 and vitamin P.”

North American Indians adopted alfalfa quickly for human use, as well as for animals. This is a perennial herbaceous plant, with two stems. Leaflets: Three toothed above. Flowers: Violet. Calyx: Five-toothed. Corolla: Papilionaceous, six lines long. Stamens: Nine united and one free. Pod: Spirally coiled and without spines. The small, violet-purple or bluish flowers bloom from June until August. In some regions it is cut every month as cultivated food for both man and animal.

Alfalfa’s organic salts are among the richest known, the depth and spread of its roots enabling it to absorb its valuable nutrition as far as 125 feet below the earth’s surface.

Alfalfa was discovered by the Arabs and is one of the first known herbs. They called it the “father of all foods.” This is interesting, as they knew only by evidential experience. It is only in recent years that we moderns are rediscovering its valuable nutritive properties.

It is helpful for every condition of the body, whether it be maintaining or regaining health, as the contents are balanced for complete absorption. It may be used by itself or blended with other herbal teas.

  • W. Walker, D.Sci., in his book, Raw Vegetable Juices, 29, 30 (Pyramid Books, New York, first printed in 1936), gives his views on alfalfa and alfalfa juice:

“Alfalfa is a particularly valuable leguminous herb, not only rich in the principal mineral and chemical elements in the constitution of the human body, but it also has many of the trace elements obtained from deep in the soil where the roots reach down 30 to 100 feet.

“Of specific value I would point out the rich quality, quantity and proper balance of Calcium, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Choline, Sodium, Potassium and Silicon in Alfalfa. These elements are all very much needed for the proper function of the various organs in the body.

“While Alfalfa is widely used as forage for livestock, it is nevertheless of immense value, in the form of juice, using only the leaves, when it can be obtained fresh. It is also known as Lucerne grass, while in England it is known as Purple Medic.

“Because Alfalfa adapts itself to widely varying conditions of soil and climate, even thriving on alkali soil, there is no excuse for not growing it on one’s home grounds, as it is usually difficult to obtain when living in the city.

“When we are unable to obtain fresh Alfalfa, we sprout Alfalfa seeds and eat the sprouts with our meals. They sprout easily and they are very beneficial.

“Vegetation miraculously transforms and vitalizes inanimate substances into living cells and tissues.

“Cattle eat vegetation, raw, for nourishment. They take into their system one living organism and convert it into a still more complex live organism.

“Vegetation, on the other hand, whether vegetable, fruit plant, or grass, takes inorganic elements from the air, from the water, and from the earth, converting them into live organic elements. It takes nitrogen and carbon from the air; nitrogen, minerals, and mineral salts from the earth in which it grows; and oxygen and hydrogen from water.

“The most vital and potent factors in this process of conversion are the enzymes and the life-giving influence of the rays of the sun which generate chlorophyll.

“The chlorophyll molecule is made up of a web of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen atoms around one single atom of magnesium. It is interesting to compare this design with that of the hemoglobin of our red blood corpuscles, which has a similar web of elements girdling an atom of iron instead of the atom of magnesium.

“We find in this analogy one of the secrets of the value of chlorophyll to the human system. Strict vegetarians—whose diet excludes grains and starches but includes an abundance of fresh juices with a good proportion of the green juices—are healthier, live longer and are more free from degenerative ailments than those who eat mostly cooked foods and little or no raw vegetables and juices. It would seem that we have here fairly conclusive evidence as to which diet regimen is the correct or natural one for healthy human beings.

“One of the richest chlorophyll foods we have is alfalfa. It is a food that builds up both animals and humans, all things considered, into a healthy, vital, and vigorous old age, and builds up a resistance to infection that is almost phenomenal.

“The juice of fresh alfalfa is too strong and potent to be taken by itself. It is best taken with carrot juice, in which combination the individual benefits of each juice are intensified. It has been found very helpful in most troubles with the arteries and dysfunctions connected with the heart.”

In alfalfa we have a plant that even animals such as dogs and cats will go and find when they are sick. They are “led” to this and other herbs by instinct which tells them it will heal them. Perhaps even humans have such an instinct, if they only would “listen.” As a small child, and a very sickly one at that, I used to go out in the springtime and pick young alfalfa leaves and eat them. For this I am grateful, because I feel I was given additional help to fight off some of the sicknesses with which I was born.

I remember reading, years back, the story of a father, mother, and some children who were in a concentration camp where the food and living conditions were far below standard. People were dying from malnutrition, but this family found a small clump of alfalfa growing in the corner of the concentration camp grounds. Each day they would chew thoroughly a sprig or two of the alfalfa and found as a result that the entire family felt strong and healthy. They would beg others there to do the same, but were laughed at and ridiculed. However, they continued eating the alfalfa (new growth coming on continually) as long as they remained imprisoned in that area. When they were released they were in good health, while their friends who had refused to follow their advice had either died or were very sickly and suffering from severe malnutrition.

An alfalfa plant in your flower or vegetable garden would supply fresh salad greens or a healthful “green” drink to add to other vegetable juices most of the year. It is, of course, a perennial, coming up year after year. It would be wise also to have on hand some alfalfa tablets, powdered alfalfa in capsules, dried or bagged alfalfa for teas, and the seeds to sprout. Alfalfa sprouts are delicious alone or in salads and are very nutritious! We have been given, in this herb, the “king of chlorophyll.” If we use alfalfa regularly, with a proper diet also, we should have radiant health!

How many times have we thought that alfalfa was “just fodder for the cattle?” Any of us who have lived on a farm would have no more considered alfalfa as “human food” than a “mess of fried nails” as an iron supplement. It is true, however, that alfalfa IS the “fodder of all foods.” In fact, the very name, “alfalfa” comes from the Arabic and translates into English as “the father of all foods.”

Alfalfa belongs to the family Leguminosae, the family of legumes, beans, or “pulse” as it is known in the Scriptures in the book of Daniel. Other members of this family include lentils, pintos, and kidney beans.

Parts of the Herb Used

We use the whole herb; that is, the leaves and smaller stems. Alfalfa best lends its properties to water. This means that when an infusion or tea is made from alfalfa leaves, we can obtain 90% of the potassium contained in the dried alfalfa plant, 85% of the magnesium, 75% of the phosphorus, 50% of the nitrogen, and 40% of the calcium when we brew and drink that cup of alfalfa tea. Speaking of nitrogen, alfalfa is a splendid plant to grow near other plants that need nitrogen. Alfalfa can be planted and then turned back into the soil to enrich the land for other crops.

Medicinal Properties of Alfalfa

Alfalfa has been reported to be an appetizer, diuretic, tonic, nutritive (especially calcium) antianemic, and antihemorrhagic. Because the taproot of alfalfa penetrates beneath the soil to a depth of 65 feet or more, it is reported to absorb minerals from the subsoil which are inaccessible to plants having more shallow roots. The root of the alfalfa plant grows 10 times as fast as the stem during the first three weeks of its life. The depth of the root is attested to by a former Kansas State Secretary for the Department of Agriculture.

Alfalfa leaves are extremely rich in calcium. This accounts for the claims of herbalists and doctors concerning the benefits of using alfalfa for repairing tooth damage and strengthening the structure of the teeth. Calcium is also necessary for proper muscle function—that includes the heart muscle as well. Calcium regulates the heart rhythm. How much simpler to indulge in alfalfa early in life rather than a pacemaker in later life!

The protein content in alfalfa is quite high; in fact, pound for pound it outranks beef, milk, and eggs. Also, alfalfa is full of non-toxic, non-mucus forming elements which promote healing of the body.

We have often heard that there is no vegetable source of vitamin D. The sun, of course, is our favorite source. But did you know that alfalfa contains 4740 International Units of vitamin D per pound? We’ll talk more about this later.

In addition to the aforementioned nutrients, alfalfa also contains vitamins K, A, E, B, and U. Vitamin K is essential in the clotting of blood and is a preventative measure against hemorrhages. Many historical hemophiliacs would have benefited themselves had they considered the lowly alfalfa plant as something more than “munchies” for their herds. We know of several cases where women who have just delivered babies have eaten alfalfa tablets like candy directly after the birth in order to shorten the postpartum bleeding time. Alfalfa is also a remarkable herb to bring in milk in a nursing mother. It has also been observed that vitamin K is instrumental in lowering high blood pressure.

Vitamin E is contained in alfalfa to the tune of 173.8 mg per pound. Vitamin E is essential for the proper functioning of the reproductive system, and the vitamin E found in alfalfa is so much more valuable than the synthetic variety which is not readily assimilated by the body.

As mentioned earlier, vitamin D is found as 4740 International Units per pound of dried alfalfa. There is 173.8 IUs of vitamin E in the specimen we gave for analysis. All of these figures will, of course, vary with the time and season of the harvest. Our sample had 9.4 mg per pound of vitamin K, the clotting factor.

Alfalfa also contains a saponin, which is a substance that forms colloidal dispersion (a soap suds-like reaction) when shaken with water. The steroid saponins have been recently successfully investigated for their suitability as cortisone and hormone precursors.

Alfalfa can be used as a beverage, as well as medicinally. When taken daily it can improve the appetite, alleviate urinary tract disorders such as the retention of water, and give relief for digestive and bowel problems such as peptic ulcer. A combination of alfalfa and peppermint makes a very pleasant tea for the refreshment of mind and body.

According to May Bethel, author of The Healing Power of Herbs, 1968, alfalfa contains 8 known enzymes which are instrumental in food assimilation. Bethel also quotes Dr. W. H. Graves, D.C., who has successfully used alfalfa in cases of diabetes, rheumatism, bright’s disease, toxemia, jaundice, neuralgia, insomnia, nervousness, syphilis, constipation, lumbago, hardening of the arteries, dropsy, prostatitis, anemia, skin eruptions, poor complexion, and inflamed bladder. Graves also mentions alfalfa as a blood builder and is beneficial for building teeth and bones.

Alfalfa sprouts have experienced a resurgence in popularity. Once they were the “in thing” among health fanatics; now they rival iceberg lettuce in the supermarkets across the nation. Alfalfa sprouts can be enjoyed alone, as greenery on sandwiches, in soups, salads, and other vegetarian delights.

Growing Alfalfa Sprouts

Select a good variety of alfalfa seed. Usually natural food stores have them in stock, purchased explicitly for sprouting. Put about 1-2 tablespoons of dried seed into a clean glass quart jar. Instead of the original jar lid, use a flexible piece of screen and a rubber band to top the jar, preventing seeds from falling out while rinsing.

Alfalfa sprouts are inexpensive to grow at home, and rank among the world’s most nutritive substances.

Alfalfa may be sprouted at home in approximately three to four days. According to research reports, the sprouts contain the highest amount of vitamin B-12 on the fourth day of germination.

In harvesting alfalfa for drying, it is best to collect it before the flowering of the plant, for at this time the greatest potency is within the leaves. Alfalfa should be dried in the shade and stored in jars or containers with tight-fitting lids to preserve the nutritional value. When reconstituting dried alfalfa as a tea, it is best to use steam distilled water.

A form of alfalfa was known as early as the fourth century B.C., when Dioscordes, a physician who traveled with Alexander the Great, employed the wild plant for the difficulties with the urinary tract. In the Soviet Union and in Europe, alfalfa tea is considered a traditional beverage.

For more information contact: www.christopherwebsites.com

Health – Charcoal, Use it More

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Recent studies about the use and effects of charcoal have yielded some amazing results.

Dr. Thomas Janossy of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences reported about a Russian study in which they put the charcoal into the drinking water of a control group of rats. These study subjects drank black water their whole lives. The lifespan and the health differences were striking. The “charcoal rats” lived 40% longer and were far healthier than their control counterparts. That makes sense because charcoal adsorbs poisons in the body. Dr. Janossy said that it controls the pathogenic bacteria in the gut. Because charcoal helps heal the gut, its ability to absorb nutrients is enhanced. Because it helps in removing the waste material from the whole body, it lowers the toxic load. So, charcoal is one product that targets so many things and so many processes. (See CharcoalRemedies.com, p. 60.)

Charcoal and Cerebral Malaria

“It is estimated there are 400–600 million cases of malaria each year in Africa and that between one half and one million African children die each year as a direct result of malaria. Up until recently the standard treatment had been the use of the powerful toxic alkaloid drug Quinine. Considering the list of lethal side effects and 31% failure rate, it is debatable which was worse, the disease or the cure. …

“Three observations led researchers to examine a potential role for activated charcoal (AC) in the treatment of severe malaria. First, a number of studies have demonstrated that AC is highly effective at adsorbing a range of cytokines … AC is able to remove these cytokines from the blood including the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) which is associated with malaria. Second, the lethal effect of TNF is associated with its delivery to the intestinal lumen via the bile duct. This raises the possibility that AC in the intestinal lumen might directly reduce cytokine availability. Third, oral AC has for many years been used in the clinic to suppress chronic kidney disease, by indirectly controlling inflammation.

“With these facts researchers designed a study to calculate 1) to what degree AC would prevent Cerebral Malaria and 2) because AC dramatically reduces the effect of Quinine, to determine to what degree AC might interfere with the effectiveness of the malaria treatment of choice, artemisinin.

“The result? Researchers concluded: ‘We found that oral AC provided significant protection against … Experimental Cerebral Malaria (ECM), increasing overall survival time (95%) compared to untreated mice … .’

“… By the way charcoal also works for cholera, typhoid, infections, dysentery, poisonous insects, wounds … .” Excerpts from www.charcoalremedies.com/charcoal_prevents_malaria [Emphasis supplied.]

Charcoal has often been put into the closet and forgotten about. If charcoal can adsorb the poisons and remove them from the system, why would you not want to take something that may improve overall health? The following is a little history you may not have heard before—interesting!

“A chemist in the year 1813 surprised everyone when he swallowed five grams of arsenic trioxide poison that was mixed with charcoal with no adverse effect. This mysterious property of charcoal was discovered around 1500 B.C. by the Egyptians and since then it has been part of industrial and medicinal purposes. An activated carbon is potent in absorbing [sic] any gas or fluid most effectively compared to other natural products.

“There is an old history behind the discovery of activated carbon. The first recorded use of this miraculous product was in 1500 B.C. when the Egyptians used them to absorb [sic] foul odor from the putrefying parts within the intestinal tract. …

“Later in 1700s, the charcoal emerged again and was used for absorbing [sic] excessive bile secretions in the body. By the mid 1800s, the charcoal was prominently used by the army and navy surgeons to relieve their soldiers from different types of open cancer and for soothing pain. Charcoal was admitted in the London Pharmacopoeia for the general use of army and naval military hospitals and civil hospitals.”

Excerpts from www.medindia.net/patients/patientinfo/medicinal-properties-of-activated-charcoal.htm

Praise God for natural ways to aid the body in healing over abnormal, artificial ways which may harm the body. Truly we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14).

Note: “Activated charcoal works by trapping toxins and chemicals in its millions of tiny pores. …

“It doesn’t absorb the toxins, however. Instead it works through the chemical process of adsorption. In the body, absorption is the reaction of elements, including nutrients, chemicals and toxins, soaked up and assimilated into the blood stream. Adsorption is the chemical reaction where elements bind to a surface.” https://draxe.com/activated-charcoal-uses/ [Emphasis supplied.]

Health – That Hungry Brain

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In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Every known thing today had its origin in the six days of creation week. On the sixth day man was formed of the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7), from the very same elements from which the earth was created. God blessed our first parents, Adam and Eve, instructing them to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, giving them dominion or rulership of all of creation. In order to have dominion over the earth that is around you, you must have dominion over the earth from which you are made.

God gave the human race every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it would be theirs for food (Genesis 1:29).

The nutrition, the elements from the ground in the foods that we eat, and our lifestyle, has a direct reflection on our general health and also brain functions and thoughts. We know that the physical structure of the brain is the medium through which the mind works to receive spiritual messages and enable a relationship with God.

If you build a house, it must be built from the basement up and not from the attic down. The body is the physical foundation, the basement is the structure of your life and the brain is the centerpiece of our interface with God. Without a sound physical structure, there will be impairments in our relationship with God. Nutrition influences memory so that the brain, the capacity to learn, and the ability to have self-control over behavior and moods are affected by the food eaten.

Each day we ingest any number of compounds that we know influence mental function. We do not want to be under the influence of drugs and alcohol but under the influence of the Holy Spirit. That is the influence that convicts us to eat according to the will and word of God. We are in a battle for the brain, the operating mechanism of the mind. God does not talk to your finger or your toe; He communicates with your mind.

If a person decides not to eat vegetables, they may very well become one! Repeated poor food choices and eating habits can set fundamental patterns in the production of the brain chemicals that regulate appetite and mood so that they become a victim of mood swings, food cravings, poor sleeping habits, and other emotional problems.

Diseases That Dull The Brain

We know that the enemy seeks to destroy, and his ultimate purpose is to separate all whom he can from God. The brain is continually stressed if the body does not get enough rest or exercise, and is continually being eroded, making it impossible to make intelligent decisions to stand for truth.

An experiment was carried out on 1,800 people who were tested on their learning and memory ability. They were poor performers because of the presence of diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and smoking, all of which negatively affect brain function.

It was discovered that one risk factor caused a 23% decline in performance. If another risk factor was added, there was a further 23% decline. The more risk factors a person had, the greater the risk of developing memory and learning impairments. One risk factor is 23% decline. Two risk factors, 46%. Three risk factors, 69%. Four risk factors, 91%. If there are five risk factors the person is in big trouble! What did Jesus say? If the good man is not at home, the thief will come to crush, kill, and destroy. The enemy wants to get in there and decapitate you through lifestyle measures while you are sitting there eating food.

Elevated LDL cholesterol is linked to a four-fold increase of dementia. Dementia is senior moments that stay. You just can’t remember what you were going to say and you just hope the person you are standing in front of will have mercy, and say he/she has senior moments too!

Elevated total cholesterol is linked to a three-fold increased risk of dementia. Dementia means mental, thinking, inability to think, because the enemy has been stealing his way into the brain through our foods. God would have us eat according to His purposes and His design so that we may function with optimal performance.

The Purpose of Eating

The purpose of eating is to receive nourishment. We are admonished in 1 Corinthians 10:31 that, “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” We should be more mindful of eating only that which is nourishing, according to God’s purpose.

The heart feeds blood to the brain. Foods that are eaten are processed through the digestive system; then through the liver before entering into the bloodstream and circling around the body and then feed the mind. It has been found that older diabetic women have a 74% increased risk of inability to think because of diabetes. The brain cells which fire electrical messages have pathways where nerve transmission moves along by various codes and circuits. These brain circuits are made up of brain cells which are nourished by what is put into the body.

The Purpose of Drinking

The body needs hydration and also cleansing. It is God’s purpose that we keep the body that He gave us healthy, eating that which is nourishing, and drinking according to that which is cleansing. Some beverages, e.g., soda pop, alcohol, coffee, to mention a few, which are consumed in extremely large amounts, are not beneficial for either hydration or cleansing. Some nutritious beverages like juices consumed appropriately meet another purpose. These should be consumed in moderation. Drinking pure clean water not only hydrates the body, but refreshes and also cleanses. There are also a number of herb teas that are cleansing or nourishing, or both.

We transgress the law when we “knoweth to do good, and doeth it not” (James 4:17); by killing ourselves slowly on the installment plan or by neglecting the laws of health, it is still murder. The enemy wants to destabilize the physical foundation so that the attic comes tumbling down. And the enemy wants to destroy your body so that your mind cannot know God. We have been told that God will say to some, “I never knew you” (Matthew 7:23), because you were not able to know Him.

Studies have been done on the effect of insulin resistance on the pancreas, the retina, and other organs. What about the effect on the brain? No one seems to consider the brain. For every Alzheimer’s patient, there are eight older people who suffer enough memory loss to significantly harm their quality of life, yet have no dementia-causing disease. This is because the physical body is being so stressed that the mind is being drained. Diets high in saturated fats, refined foods, and refined sugars cause brain drain.

Drinking beverages that are not cleansing to the body causes the body to rebel. The body begins to marshal water from the muscles and other parts of the body in an attempt to dilute whatever has been put into the stomach before passing into the intestines, and then into the bloodstream, and liver. The body gets all the water it can and tries to rush it over to the kidneys demanding them to “do your job; get rid of that stuff, because this guy doesn’t know what he’s doing!” These stimulating, dehydrating drinks are destroying us as a people.

If the brain is not sufficiently hydrated, it may lead to impairment with respect to reasoning. The thing that separates man from the animal kingdom is the ability to reason. Man has been so equipped with the power of choice but, if the right electricity is not supplied, the equipment will not function and learning, reaction time, alertness, among other things, are affected. When found in a difficult spiritual situation, it is imperative to be able to reason correctly, and be able to react in a quick fashion. Some of the ways the brain is tested with mental status examinations are to check if the attention span is impaired, concentration, the working memory, dialing a phone number, and picture recognition.

A person who is always making lists, and never completing any of them, may be suffering from poor eating habits. Word recall, abstract reasoning, and being able to conceptualize the message require understanding concepts and intellectual performance. All of these things are affected: short-term memory; long-term memory; spatial memory, like a rat in a maze; logical memory.

High fat and sugar cause problems with the structure of the brain, affecting its function. High fat and sugar alter blood sugar metabolism, promoting high insulin levels and hinder the oxygen-nutrient access causing free-radical damage.

Twenty years ago anti-oxidants and free radicals were unheard of, but now this is common language in the medical field. These things cause damage to the body when not eating healthfully, impeding circulation and intensifying nutrient deficiencies and hormones in the brain so that the nerve cells are damaged.

Time For an Oil Change

The body needs oil and the body needs cholesterol, but the stomach does not need cholesterol. Cholesterol does not need to be ingested. The body makes cholesterol from the fats that you eat, from the right fats, so we need an oil change. Taking out that old, dirty oil and replacing it with good oil may improve the attention and cognitive function, and in the elderly, lower the LDL cholesterol and elevate the HDL. LDL is the bad type just because we generally have it too high. The HDL is supposed to be high because it functions to help keep things in balance.

Exercise is the main thing that helps HDL, and proper diet lowers the LDL.

Plant foods provide phytochemicals, vitamins, minerals, superior fats, and superior proteins. Plant foods promote lower dementia risk. Remember your veggies. If you don’t eat your vegetables, you might become one! If you don’t eat your vegetables, your brain is going to be drained and will not be able to function properly. Low fruit and vegetable intake is linked to higher levels of damage to nerve tissue, resulting in shrinkage of vital memory centers.

Antioxidants have a beneficial effect on almost any degenerative human disease. Eat smart to be smart!

May God give us a desire to want to serve Him fully and to be loyal to Him so that we will not be slowly impressed with the enemy’s character and paralyzed from the neck up, but that we will have His liberating influence and receive His seal.

Used by permission by Vicki Griffin and produced by Hope Media Ministry. Visit the website at www.hopevideo.com. Hope Media Ministry, P.O. Box 752, Ada, Michigan 49301

Health – Rescue Your Eyes

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I went to have my eyes checked recently and when the tests had been run on my eyes, the optometrist informed me that my eyes had not really changed much but still decided to prescribe slightly stronger lenses. At the time I did not think anything about it. However as my eyes were adjusting to the new lenses, I found that the more I used my glasses, the more dependent I became on wearing them and the less I could see when taking them off. I then realized that my eyes were depending on these crutches to see.

When a muscle is being supported and not being used like an arm that is in a sling for a period of time, and because it is not being used, the muscle wastes and becomes weak. The same is true when eyes are looking through glasses continually; the eye muscles have no need to strengthen and after awhile you find you are totally dependent on the glasses. Since they do not have to work on their own, the eye muscles get weaker and weaker and eventually there is a need for the lenses to get stronger and stronger.

Eyes need to be exercised. Many people spend many hours each day in front of a computer staring with little or no eye movement. If the eyes are not in front of a computer staring, they are often in front of the television or some other technological apparatus, staring. Are you staring and causing your eye muscles to become weak and useless? We may exercise our bodies regularly, but the majority of people don’t even think about exercising their eyes. Eyesight is generally taken for granted until one day things look a little blurry or foggy, and then we run to the optometrist to get some crutches for our eyes, which in the long run do not help. We make them worse because we do nothing to improve them. We just continue to stare.

Our eyes were made for motion, just as our bodies were. The muscles of the eyes need to be exercised. You have heard the saying, “What you don’t use, you lose.” This is also true with the eye muscles. Like any neglected muscle, eye muscles that do not have to work because of crutches (glasses) weaken over time. As a result, you become dependent on glasses which need to become increasingly stronger.

When did you last let your eyes just relax and gaze out over the ocean, or even a forest or beautiful shrubbery or some other beautiful scenery to appreciate God’s creation? We drive to work, staring all the way. We stare at a monitor all day, and then drive home. Along with all of the stress to our bodies, we now have stress to our eyes. Stress puts pressure on the eyes, which finally results in visual problems. The eyeballs cannot hold clear, distinct images. The eye muscles that would otherwise get naturally balanced exercise from the natural light and eye activity of the outdoors become weak and slack. Eyes also need to be nourished with a healthy diet, and when the body is toxic so are the eyes. The percentage of people wearing glasses is increasing, and more and more people have problems with their eyes.

Strengthening your weak eye muscles and improving your vision is possible, but it takes time. Your eyes are worth that time!

Under normal conditions it is an automatic response requiring no effort to see, but as soon as any effort is needed to see, strain is produced. The words on a page should come into a relaxed eye and not the eye reaching out or straining after the words. Strain is evidenced by a general fatigue, headache, itching of the eyes, inflammation of the eyes or eyelids or in blurring or reduced vision. Each of us needs to learn how to relax the eyes so we can do away with the strain and to help improve the sight.

Some people think that all they need to do to rest the eyes is not use them. That is not true. Anything that rests the mind will also rest the eyes. Eyes tire less quickly when reading an interesting book than when reading something that is not interesting.

You might want to start with some good common sense eye exercises. Here are a few ideas and suggestions to get you started. If you will begin doing these right now, the muscles in your eyes will begin to strengthen and you may be surprised at the improvements that are possible.

One of the first things you need to do is remove your glasses for at least an hour a day or longer. During this time your eye muscles will have a chance to adjust themselves.

Your eyes need to learn how to relax. So often we strain to see when seeing should come naturally. If you are wearing glasses, remove them during these exercises.

Blink your eyes! The older a person gets, the less they blink, and our lifestyle activities and jobs do not promote blinking. Blinking the eyes keeps them moist, and the moistness is very necessary to keep your eyes comfortable and relaxed. Do not force your eyes to blink; blink them naturally. In fact, to get into the habit of blinking, try blinking after each line you read. Blink while driving. When you catch yourself staring, blink! You will be amazed at how good your eyes feel after a while by just training them to blink, because this is very relaxing to them, as it helps remove the stress.

Relax your eyes! Lack of relaxation not only tenses the muscles, but pulls the eyes out of perfect focus. Here is one simple exercise to relax your eyes on and off throughout the day: Sit facing a picture or calendar, etc. Look at that picture. Close your eyes gently, cover them with the palms of your hands. Do not press on your eyes. Rest your elbows on the table or knees, etc., because you want to be relaxed. Relax, move your head a little from side to side. After a minute or so, open your eyes and blink. That picture will look much brighter and clearer because your eyes were able to relax for a moment.

An exercise to do each evening: Sit in a comfortable chair, get a little timer and set your timer for 5, 10, 15 or 20 minutes. You will probably start out with 5 minutes because that will seem like a long time if you are not used to relaxing. Close your eyes and cover them with both hands to keep out all light. Do not press on your eyes. Do not think of anything emotional. Relax and let your mind think of relaxing things for the next 5, 10, 15 or 20 minutes. When the timer goes off, uncover your eyes, open and blink several times. The eyes really feel good after being relaxed. This exercise alone will bring much healing to the eyes. This is a natural treatment for vision problems and is really great to relieve eye strain.

Strengthen your eye muscles. Many eye muscles will be stiff and not very flexible because of wearing glasses and/or lack of movement because of staring most of the time. Do not over exercise your eyes to the point of soreness, and if you do, skip a couple of days of exercises and then begin again. Increase the exercises gradually. You will be able to feel the muscles gaining strength as you use them more and they will feel much better, and in most cases healing will take place. Here are six simple exercises to begin with. Remember to remove your glasses.

While keeping your head very still, look up as far as you can (do not strain) and then look down as far as you can. Keep head still. Repeat 12 times or less if muscles are sore. Then relax. Blink rapidly several times.

Continue to hold head very still. Move your eyes from left to right 12 times. Relax and blink rapidly several times.

Continue to hold head still. Look down at your right side; then up towards your left eyebrow 12 times. Relax the eye and blink.

Look down at your left side; then up towards your right eyebrow 12 times. Again, relax and blink.

Combine the last two exercises, i.e. hold head still and look down at your right side, up towards your left eyebrow; then down to your left side and up towards your right eyebrow. Do this 12 times without moving head. Relax and blink.

Move your eyes gently around in a circle, 6 times from right to left and 6 times from left to right. Relax and blink.

Hold the index finger of your right hand about 8 inches in front of the eye, and look from the finger to any larger object at least 10 feet away. Look from one to the other 10 times, rest for a second and repeat the 10 times two or three times. Do the exercise fairly rapidly.

Remember, if your eyes get sore, discontinue these exercises for a few days, because your eyes are not used to exercising. Give them a rest for a few days and then continue when soreness has disappeared. It is like your body. When you are not used to exercising and start new exercises, the body muscles get sore and you need to stop until they feel better and then begin again.

You will really be amazed how these few exercises will increase the mobility of your eyes and make them less susceptible to strain. Exercise them daily.

Remember, the eyes muscles will not work or exercise themselves and if not used tend to become even weaker, so if you do not need to wear your glasses, don’t. Glasses are “crutches” for the eyes. Also, do not stare; keep your eyes moving and blinking so they are not strained. Our eyes need plenty of light, so reading in a dark room is hard on the eyes. Get out-of-doors and enjoy God’s creation. Let your eyes bathe in the beautiful natural colors that He has painted in nature for our delight. Wearing glasses continually keeps the sunshine filtered out of the eyes which is a great loss, because sunshine is a great doctor. However, never look directly at the sun, which can be damaging to the eyes. Glasses should be used only when absolutely needed, and the rest of the time, go without them.

Another way to keep your eyes moving is for every 15 minutes that you are reading or staring at a computer, etc., look away from whatever you are doing and look at something at least 15 feet away for 15 seconds to relax the eyes and remove the strain. Eyes need action. You might think of 15 (minutes for reading)–15 (look 15 feet away)–15 (for 15 seconds) or 20–20–20 to remind you to do this. But integrate something that is easy for you to do in your schedule.

God has given us only two eyes and we need to take care of those eyes. Good healthy habits for your eyes must be learned and practiced and become part of your life.

Other suggestions: The herb Bilberry helps improve the flow of blood through the capillaries in the eyes and also helps improve sharpness of vision. Eyebright is great for bathing the eye or using it as a compress (damp cloth over the eye). It has an anti-inflammatory action and is very soothing.

If you have a juicer, drink at least one glass of carrot juice each day. Put a slice of cucumber over your eyes for about 15 minutes, which is very cooling and refreshing to the eyes and helps remove eye strain. Eat plenty of vegetables like carrots, spinach and broccoli, which are great sources of Vitamin A. Eat dark green vegetables, nuts, avocados and bananas for your Vitamin B complex. Carotene helps improve weak eyes, and some good sources for that are carrots, broccoli, cabbage and peas. These are just a few to get you started!

Take care of your eyes. If you can, do your own research for your own eye health at the library or other sources that are available to you. May God bless you as you decide today to take care of your eyes as they are a most precious gift from Him.