Male fern root, also known as Dryopteris filix-mas, Bear’s paw, Knotty Brake, and Sweet Brake, has been used for centuries as a defense against harmful organisms. Beyond that, the male fern root also offers other health benefits for humans such as digestive support and detoxification.

How Does Male Fern Root Work?

The male fern root is loaded with cleansing compounds known as filicin and filmarone. These essential oils are responsible for eradicating harmful organisms by creating a harsh intestinal environment that is toxic to harmful intestinal organisms.

Studies also show that male fern root’s oleo-resins cause harmful organisms in the intestines to become immobile, preventing them from attaching themselves to the interior lining of human intestinal walls. In both human and animal case studies, male fern root was shown to have a dramatic effect on eliminating harmful organisms both inside and outside of the GI tract.

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Here’s another good reason to consider choosing organic fruits and vegetables: the case of a 10-year-old girl who had an anaphylactic reaction to a slice of blueberry pie. Her clinical course has alerted allergists to the possibility that some people can have a severe allergic response to antibiotic residues in food. The young patient had a history of asthma and seasonal allergies as well as anaphylaxis to penicillin and cow’s milk, but she had no known allergy to the ingredients in the pie.

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“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” is as true today as it was when we heard our grandparents say it. In 2015, Americans should know that what we eat, drink and how much we exercise have a profound effect on our health and well-being. Exposure to harmful, cancer-causing chemicals in our personal care products, cosmetics, cleaning agents and foods is raising our risk for cancer. And our children are most vulnerable to the effects of diet, exercise, and environmental toxins, and will predict their future health outcomes.

As a physician, I recognize that we all have an opportunity to enhance our health, and reduce our cancer risk. That is why I became involved with Less Cancer, a not-for-profit organization founded by Bill Couzens that is dedicated to the reduction of cancer risk.

As author of A World Without Cancer, and a board member of Less Cancer, I understand that the special event we’ve planned for February 4th, National Cancer Prevention Day, is necessary to raise awareness and motivate people in all walks of life to do more to prevent cancer. Less Cancer’s event on Capitol Hill will welcome public health and public policy leaders, university students, cancer prevention advocates, legislators and more. I am honored to serve as moderator for the panel discussion, and look forward to a lively exchange of information and insights.

There is so much we can do right now to reduce our cancer risk. Over 50 percent of all cancer is preventable by applying what we know right now. Attention to diet, exercise, avoiding or at least limiting alcohol, ending smoking, protecting our skin from the sun and avoiding stress are important to live healthier lives, with lower cancer risk.

Our children are our future. A critical time of growth and development occurs from childhood to adolescence, when we can improve our children’s health, and reduce their cancer risk. Nutritious meals, including lunch in school, and daily physical exercise, are essential for children and adolescents.

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The liver is the vital organ that filters and detoxifies the blood that comes through the digestive track before it reaches the rest of the body. Basically, it figures out what is beneficial and what’s waste from all the stuff you consume. This is no small feat, which is why it’s nice to help the liver out from time to time with foods that aid its detoxifying powers. Enter the beet.

Beets are a high-antioxidant vegetable that contain a number of nutrients that have been shown to be cleansing and detoxifying. A few of these include betaine, which helps the liver cells eliminate toxins; pectin, a fiber which clears the toxins that have been removed from the liver so they don’t reincorporate back into the body; and betalains, pigments with high anti-inflammatory properties to encourage the detoxification process.

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Snack Box Diet Vegetables

Could it be that we really are eating too many processed foods?

I would say yes!

But what is the alternative?

Is getting back to nature one of them?

For a long time the question has been posed that staying along the lines of “Can eating like Neanderthal or an ape improve our health?”

When we see how many diseases there are apparently connected to high cholesterol and blood pressure –  we’re told that the numbers of these diseases are on the increase day by day. It does rather raise the issue about whether or not our current western diet is actually a major factor or cause, of these cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension, stroke and diabetes.

Paying the Price

That of course leads us onto the second question: “Are we paying the price for eating all these processed foods?”

Dietician Lyn Garton was responsible for taking ten volunteers on a journey back to our culinary roots, where she took a leaf out of our ancestors’ cookbooks, just to see what impact a comparatively short few days of eating much healthier food would have on reducing the risk of fatal illnesses, as mentioned above.

At the end of the test, biological markers for cholesterol and hypertension were measured to see how successful this test was. After the twelve day test, the groups total cholesterol fell by over 23%, and there was a marked decrease in the amount of sodium levels. From all of this, we can conclude that simply by introducing changes into our diet, by moving away from processed foods towards more healthily organically based foods, our health can be dramatically improved.

All the volunteers used in this test were chosen because they had above-average levels of cholesterol, according to the doctors, ranging from between 5 and 6.8. Also the test group confessed that they were eating diets which had very few fruits and vegetables, and were probably very high in trans-fats and many of them were confessing a life of fast, processed food.

Now obviously, the dramatic results from this test were slightly skewed because the volunteers were following a diet that had 5kg of fruit and vegetables a day, which with a balanced controlled carbohydrate diet would prove unnecessary, and in fact the pressures of our modern lives would probably make this totally impractical.

The Value of Good Vegetables.

However, what it does show is that if you want to lower your triglycerides levels then cutting down on processed foods and re-introducing vegetables, nuts and certain fruits into your diet would make that possible.

Here is just a small sample:

• Apples
• Apricots
• Asparagus
• Avocado
• Bananas
• Blueberries
• Broccoli
• Cabbage
• Carrots
• Cashews
• Cauliflower
• Cherries
• Courgettes
• Dates
• Figs
• Grapes
• Hazelnuts
• Honey
• Kiwi fruit
• Mange toutes
• Mangoes
• Melons
• Mushrooms
• Olives
• Paw-paws
• Peaches
• Peanuts
• Pears
• Peas
• Peppers
• Plums
• Radishes
• Raspberries
• Satsumas
• Spring Onions
• Strawberries
• Sugar-snap peas
• Summer Cabbage
• Tomatoes
• Walnuts
• Watercress

To name but a few!

Many of these are allowed on The Snack Box Diet and would add a tasty addition to what you may be eating already.

As we’ve said before, variety is something to aim for in any diet – the more the merrier.

1. Questions

Many folk fail to ask themselves why they want to lose fat. By not asking detailed enough questions, you fall victim to only giving yourself vague reasons and vague goals. If you don’t know exactly where the goal is you will find it almost impossible to score.

2. Quantity

Make sure you absolutely know how much you should be eating for your activity level, and body size. (Height and frame type). Eating too little can be as self-defeating as eating too much.

The other quantities you absolutely must know are the size and weight you want to be when you reach your target. Notice that was size and weight. The most important of these is actually the size you want to be, as your weight can be influenced by the type of exercise you do to help achieve your goal.

3. Quality

You really are what you eat. People who eat junk and processed food on a consistent basis really do have lower health levels than those who take full responsibility for what they put into their bodies.

Just have a look at the long list of preservative and taste enhancers that you find on the ingredients list of commercially produced food.

The only way you can almost guarantee not to be slowly poisoned by them is to prepare your food from quality, fresh and preferably organically sourced ingredients. Which for the most part need not cost any more if you do you shopping wisely.

4. Quitting

In a word… Don’t

Churchill’s admonition to never, never, never give up was spot on particularly for those in the battle against the bulge.

That seemingly weeks going by with no movement in the scales does not mean your overall condition is not improving either. And remeber – using weight to measure how much you have lost is not the best way to see how you are doing anyway

Daily Choices Matter

Studies have shown that each day we make as many as 200 food choices.

Those choices are influenced by many things, even the people we are eating with. While the individually choices may be quite small When you add them together their actual contribution to our health and well being can make a huge difference.

You’ll probably notice that many of our members questions are about small things. They seem to hone in on the details. Yet quite often people say – “Surely, if I just take care of the big things then I don’t really need to worry about the small things?”

Which on the dace of it seems fine. But when you analyse anything, the big things are made up of lots of small things. Meaning that If you take care of the detail in your diet, then each of those things that you take care of will add up and make the big things far more effective.

Here’s a just some of those small things that you might like to consider:

Check the Ingredients

Firstly, when you go to the supermarket or your local shop to stock up, look down the ingredients list to make sure you avoid eating foods that have got artificial sweeteners, MSG and a whole range of additives and colorants. These are the things that many manufacturers have to put into their food in order to put back the flavour and vitamin content that their processing has processed out.

Secondly, try as much as possible to use organically sourced and grown produce.

By sticking to organic (from a reputable producer), you know that you are not going to be eating and digesting pesticides, phosphates, all kinds of hormones and all the other things that commercial food producers use in order to overcome the problems that their fast-food production line cause.

It’s making those healthy choices, the small ones, that all add up to a much healthier lifestyle.

And it’s not just what you eat!

It’s Not Just What You Eat

A small choice you can make every day is just to take the elevator to get up two floors, or take the stairs. Taking two flights of stairs briskly will do far more for your heart than taking the elevator, that’s for sure.

Doing that five or six times a day, is just like jogging to the top of a ten-storey building!

It’s those type of small changes that I’m talking about, those small changes can make a really big difference.

The reason for making those choices is clear.

In Europe, the U.S.. Australia and in fact most of what would be considered the western world, its poor lifestyle choices that (e.g. what we choose to eat, to exercise, etc) account for the leading causes of death. Things like cancer, heart disease, diabetes and the rest.

In fact, the WHO (World Health Organization), in one it’s previous World Cancer Report, have said that the rates of cancer would increase by 50 percent over the next 15 years. Statistics like that are cause for concern.

However, all is not doom and gloom as WHO also suggests that at least a third of the cases could be prevented by folk making better lifestyle choices.

No Need to Make Huge Sacrifices

Some folk think that in order to make these changes they have to make a lot of sacrifices. But in reality, this is just not so.

If you think about it, it won’t cost you much at all to take the stairs (often times it’s quicker than taking the lift). In fact just 20 or so minutes of exercise a day can make the difference .

And to eat organic may cost you a little more each month, but these are all a small price to pay in exchange for a long, healthy, active and sickness free life.

Every year, a few new superfoods make their way into our kitchens and our recipes. While coconut oil, chia seeds and kale may have been the stars of years past, the following newcomers are finding their way into our healthy eating palates and are becoming more widely available.

1. Kefir

On the heels of what I am calling, the “year of the gut,” kefir sits at the top of the list for superfood for gut and overall health. Used initially by the people of the Northern Caucasus mountains, kefir grains were thought to be blessed and were used to mix with milk or water as the nomads of this region traveled from place to place. Kefir, usually a fermented dairy drink, spread in popularity through Eastern Europe, with stories of the fabled drink healing everything from tuberculosis to stomach disease. It was used extensively in the hospitals of Eastern Europe and Russia to heal the sick.

2. Kombucha

Another new star is kombucha, a fermented black tea originally from China. The first recorded use of kombucha was in 221 BC. It then traveled to Japan and spread to India and Eastern Europe. Kombucha was first made using a “mother” colony of bacteria from a mushroom, and then allowed to ferment and brew over time. The combination of sugar, tea and water was allowed to ferment resulting in a fizzy, bacteria laden drink, rich in good bacteria and high in glucaric acid.

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Omega 3 fatty acids are the equivalent of nutritional gold.If you’re looking for some plant-based sources of Omega 3s, be sure to check out the following 17 vegan food sources, not in any particular order due to portion size variation and variations in measuring different food types:

Flax Seeds– One ounce of flax seeds contains 6388mg of Omega 3 fatty acids.

Chia Seeds—One ounce of chia seeds contains 4915mg of Omega 3s.

Hemp Seeds– One ounce of hemp seeds provides 1100 of Omega 3s.

Spinach—One cup of cooked spinach has 352 mg of Omega 3s.

Winter Squash—One cup of cooked squash contains 338 mg of Omega 3s.

Cauliflower—One cup of cooked cauliflower contains 208 mg Omega 3s.

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