I am so very glad that I came across this awesome blog! I am new to this whole blog thing but am rather enjoying it, I love being able to step into the heads of so many different individuals. With that said, I have not yet had a chance to watch the Food Matters video, but I have heard great things. I intend to purchase it very soon!

I am actually a Certified Holistic Nutritionist, and a quite aware of all the madness that is taking place with our food supply, our water, all of the chemicals we place on our skin from trusted companies who manufacture our cosmetic products, the chemicals that are in our household cleaning products, pesticides, fungicides, genetic engineering, bovine growth hormones etc. We live in a world that can be very scary if you do not educate yourself about prevention. You just have to do your research and know what is out there that offers healthy natural alternatives to all of this.

In the case of “Food Matters”, food absolutely does matter! Nutrition is the foundation for all health, it is the healthy, whole foods that we consume that provide our body with needed nutrients to function at optimum capacity. Imagine living off of highly processed foods that provide absolutely no nutrients for the body, this it not healthy for adults, and this is definitely not healthy for growing children. Your body is basically running on empty! Your body can only function under these circumstances for so long before illness begins to take place.

Now about physicians, there are caring doctors driven by good intentions, and there are doctors driven by dollar signs, pharmaceutical intensives. Maybe it is unfair for “All” doctors to be labeled as wanting to work in the “sickness business”, but it is also unfair for individuals who practice Holistic medicine to be considered “Quacks”. This is a never ending battle that will continue to go back and forth, for how long? Who knows?

But what I do know and have written articles about is that there are many organizations that do thrive on the continuance of illness. There is no money in “well” people, and that is a fact! Pharmaceuticals are designed to keep you sick, they are not here to provide a cure or heal. Healing only takes place within the body, and It will never heal itself if it is continuously burdened with toxins such as pharmaceuticals, processed foods, and unhealthy life style etc.

There is so much that I could write about, but it really does not matter unless people are willing to educate themselves about these issues. This blog is a wonderful start!

I believe there is a place for physicians, which include serious infection, medical emergencies and surgery. As far as prevention goes, they do not provide that. Doctors are only trained to deal with illness once it is present in the body, and then they only treat the symptoms, they do not get to the root cause, I could give too many examples of this situation, some ending in death, all of them my friends & family members.

One of which was my mother, who had a large box filled with pharmaceuticals, that she believed were there to improve her quality of life. She would tell me that she felt as though they were making her worse, which they were. So she would go to the doctors and tell them about her symptoms that the drugs were causing. She would leave the office with a new drug, to suppress the first set of symptoms. She was caught up in this vicious cycle! What most do not realize is that Pharma-drugs weaken the immune system and disrupt the body biochemical balance. My mother was very unhealthy and filled to her hair follicles with drugs, her immune system withered away and she died of Immune cancer. Now I am not saying that the Pharma-drugs were the sole culprit, but they played a huge role. She ate unhealthy, lived unhealthy and she remained in a state of negativity. Negative emotions also weaken your immune system and place constant stress on the body (which is cancer causing). So yes food does matter, but so does lifestyle, mental attitude & spirituality.
The “whole” person consists of Mind, Body & Spirit. These all must be addressed, not just one or two of them but All of them.

As I write this I am brought to tears, because so many cases of death could have been prevented. But in the case of my friends and family who have passed due to illness, they had no belief in prevention or holistic health, they believed that their doctors could heal them or save them. And they had the right to believe that, I happen to believe in the healing power of nature. But as I Holistic nutritionist, I do not have the right to push my beliefs on any individual, or advise them to not seek the care of a physician, no nutritionist has the right to do that. So I patiently waited for my mother to seek natural means of help, but she never did and that was journey. These situations in my life have driven me to continue my studies in Holistic Medicine, cancer research, and natural prevention. This is what my God has put me here for and this is what I live for. God has afforded me the opportunity to assist many people through holistic health education…and my journey has just begun.

Oh, I am sorry if this is too long, once again I love this Blog!

Stefanie Striker- What helped you naturally lower your blood pressure if you don’t mind me asking? I am trying to add more potassium to my diet.

Side note- I ordered the Diva Cup after reading all the good reviews and I LOVE iT!!!!!!!

Unfortunately I have to disagree with you regarding the effectiveness of popping vitamins. There are a large number of European studies (I never believe US studies – to hard to follow the money trail :)) that show they have no effect vs. placebos. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/vitamin-supplements-do-us-no-good-and-may-be-harmful-809607.html

I think I’ll stick with my local farmers market for my vitamins.

I also have strong feelings about the correlation between food, nutrition and health and I am excited to watch the video. When I was suffering from food allergy symptoms and suspected that I was gluten intolerant I could not get my doctors to take me seriously. I finally put myself on a wheat-free diet and later was tested through an independent lab to confirm my allergies.

Thank you for your commitment to spreading the word about food health!

I am not sure where you live, but most of the people I know who have suffered through cancer and chemo were told about milk, meat, etc. They were all also told how and when to use vitamins. The Journal of the American Medical Association said in a formal statement that regardless of age or health status, all adults should take vitamins since we don’t get the nutritional support we need from our foods. The biggest concern over vitmains and supplements is that they are not regulated or governed by any oversight body, like the FDA. I realize the FDA has many problems to begin with, but at least they offer oversight outside of the company itself. For vitamins and supplements, NO ONE is checking the company or the product to ensure safety, effectiveness or potency. There are many independent studies that show in many cases that what is on the label of the vitamins, IS NOT what is in the pill. Because of this lack of accountability, the medical community can not recommend carte-blanche the use of vitamins as a cure. It is up to us to find vitamins and supplements made by a company we trust and one we know is checking the ingredients. Choose your vitamins from a company that is a registered pharmacy (also make and sell other OTC items like ointments, lotions, fever reducers, etc). They are required to test and are held to a higher standard of accountability then vitamins coming from other companies.

Overall, I would strongly encourage everyone to be their own health advocate. Put forth your own ideas and have honest discussions with your care providers. Doctors spend most of their time seeing patients and trying to keep up with the literature in their fields. However, it is not possible to know everything. If you, as a patient, find information you think is valuable to your case, please present it. If your doctor does not listen to you or take you seriously, FIND ANOTHER ONE. There are many wonderful doctors out there who put patients first.

To clarify a couple of points: Doctors do not spend 8 years in medical school. Medical school consists of 2 years classroom education followed by 2 years of 4-12 week-long hands-on rotations in various medical specialty fields (Pediatrics, OB/GYN, Internal Medicine, Surgery, etc). After graduation, medical students become residents in their chosen field where they spend 1-7 years learning at the bedside. Doctors can not possibly spend more time on nutrition during school and residency. They should not spend more time earning nutrition than they spend learning basic pediatrics or internal medicine. They are learning to be medical doctors not nutritionists. Doctors have spent many years (and lots of money – most seriously in debt when they leave school) on their training, but they can’t be experts on everything – which is why they specialize. We wouldn’t settle for a dermatologist to deal with our cancer! People should consider seeing a nutritionist to get the proper information and direction for their diet, fitness, etc. The information learned from the expert – the nutritionist – should be shared then with the doctor.

It is up to us as individuals to create a total health and wellness program for ourselves and for our families.

I totally believe you are what you eat. We now eat only organic whole foods, and I am even making our bread now (really bread should only ever consist of a very few ingredients – have you ever read an ingredient label on a pkg of bread???) and in that time our daughter’s health has improved greatly! Her latest appt with the allergist went so well that she came up NEGATIVE on all her skin tests! Her RAST tests still show some low/med levels on most of the foods but acceptable for wheat and soy! So I am buying organic flour and like I said – making bread! And really the only change was in eliminating processed foods. Our daughter has severe asthma attacks as a reaction to a food trigger and she also has severe constipation, in fact from the time she was weaned she was on either mineral oil or miralax… so from the ages of 1 to 5… now with real food she doesn’t need any “help” and her asthma is improved so much that when she has an attack it is always minor.

And we joined a CSA farm nearby to get our organic produce close to home. Every week we will be eating food in season, fresh from the earth in which it was grown giving my family as much nutrition as possible. We will also put in a little garden of our own.

I am definitely going to watch this video.
Can I recommend some books? Fast Food Nation, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food

I do wish they had been a little more fair to doctors. Every doctor I know doesn’t want to be in the “sickness” business. They honestly think they’re helping people get better. It’s why most of them became doctors.

That said, doctors are certainly players in a larger system that must keep us sick in order to stay in business and turn a dollar.