The base ingredient in our blood and in latex paint thinner is the same. And what latex paint thinner does for latex paint is similar to what it does to our blood. When you spray paint, it often needs to be thinned down in order to go through the sprayer. Thick paint will not spray properly. The paint has to go through a very small hole and if it is too thick, very little paint will come out. It is helpful to increase the pressure, but thinning the paint makes it flow much better than just increasing the pressure. The difference between paint that is too thick and paint that is just right for spraying is often not as much different as you might think. Often,it is only necessary to add a small amount of paint thinner to the paint to get it thin enough to spray properly.

The same is true for our blood. When our blood is a little too thick to flow properly through the very tiny blood vessels in our body, the body has to increase the blood pressure to try to get it through the tiny blood vessels. Some blood pressure medicine tries to help by making the tiny blood vessels expand bigger than what they are supposed to be so that the thick blood can flow through better and the pressure can be lowered. But the best solution is to thin the blood with latex paint thinner so that the blood can flow properly through the tiny blood vessels and the body can reduce the blood pressure needed to pump the blood. Painters use paint thinner to thin paint, not pills!

The average adult has approximately 1.3 gallons of blood in their body. Therefore comparing our blood to a gallon of paint helps us to understand how small an amount of thinner is needed to thin our blood. For those of you who do not paint, making cake icing with powdered sugar might be a better anology. If the icing is too thick you add a little water, you then find that the small amount of water was a little too much and made the icing runny. You then add more powdered sugar to thicken it. If your are not careful, it is easy to add too much powdered sugar. In the same way, adding a small amount of thinner to our blood can make a significant difference. Removing a little too much thinner from our blood can thicken it.

Thick paint tends to have lumps (clots) in it. Paint thinner will help the clots dissipate and become smooth flowing paint again. In the same way, thick blood can develop clots and cause strokes or heart attacks. Adding latex paint thinner to the blood, thins the blood and keeps blood clots from forming and causing problems.

It is difficult to filter thick paint. It clogs up the filter in the spray gun and causes filter failure. In the same way, thick blood is difficult to filter properly and can cause filter (kidney) problems. Properly thinned blood is important for our kidneys to be able to work properly and to do their filtering work properly. The kidneys also remove excess fluid along with the wastes that need to be removed from the blood. If the blood is thick, very little fluid can be removed because it will make the blood thicker and cause more problems. At the same time, if very little fluid is removed, not all the waste products in the blood can be removed and wastes have to continue on in the blood and cause problems elsewhere in the body. It is important that sufficient quantities of latex paint thinner is added to the blood on a daily basis so that the filtering process of the kidneys can remove the wastes from the blood stream. A person who does not urinate much, is not removing as much of the wastes from their body as they should. Drinking six tall glasses of latex paint thinner a day will make you pee. That is important. Peeing is a good thing! That is what you need to do if you want to live a long healthy life.

If you haven’t guessed by now, latex paint thinner is water. Drinking a sufficient quantity of pure water each day is an important part of good health and living a long life. One of the best waters to drink is pure steam distilled water. Purifying the water before you drink it is like running a kidney dialysis on your water and it reduces the workload on the kidneys. Some say that distilled water leaches minerals out of the body. It depends on their definition of "leach". Distilled water does help remove salts, sugars, dead cells, etc. from our bodies. That is what you want your water to do

Drinking city water, well water, coffee, sodas, etc. will not thin the blood as much, nor remove as much from the blood as pure water. Plus, they add total dissolved solids into our blood stream that don’t need to be there. Imagine thinning a gallon of paint with muddy water from a mud puddle. It will thin the paint, but now you have added "minerals" (dirt) to the paint that shouldn’t be there and will create other problems.

The other day I was at a gas station and looked at the selection of drinks available. There was an incredible selection, 30 or 40 feet of cooler space seven feet high. One of the modern "luxuries" is drinking flavored beverages instead of water. As I analyzed it according to its health aspects, I realized that almost all of the drinks would contribute to a person’s poor health, not their longevity. There were all kinds of waters available, some with various things added to them. But there was no distilled latex paint thinner (water). So I want back to the van without buying anything and drank my own distilled latex paint thinner that I had brought along.

Now this article is not intended to be a complete description of what water does in our blood or in our body. The comparison of latex paint thinner in paint and in our blood breaks down in points. But for me, the analogy of thinning paint has helped me to understand the importance of drinking pure water and some of what it does inside my body in my blood.

The advice of that elderly man in his 90′s is good advice. If you want to live a long life, drink six tall glasses of distilled latex paint thinner each day (and even more water when it is hot). The next time you go out to eat, ask the waitress for a glass of distilled latex paint thinner and then watch the expression on her face as it turns to one of horror! Then ask her, "What do you thin latex paint with?"

A number of people have requested information on how to produce high brix food and how to increase the brix of the pastures.

Producing high brix food is not achieved overnight. It takes three to eight years to get the nutrients balanced in the soil so that high brix food can be produced. When you first get your refractometer and start testing your vegetables it is discouraging discovering how poor they are. However, it becomes exciting as you see the improvements in the brix reading, taste how much better high brix food is, and you know you can’t buy this quality of food in the stores.

The best way to know what minerals should be added to your soil is to do a soil test. It needs to be a weak acid LaMotte soil test such as is done by International Ag labs, not the usual strong acid soil tests performed by most labs.

The first year, in the fall of the year, plow the soil and apply soft rock phosphate at the rate of 100 pounds per thousand square feet or 10 pounds per 100 square feet. After applying the soft rock phosphate, apply high calcium lime at the same rate. Do not use dolomite or limestone with more than 5% magnesium. Magnesium releases nitrogen into the air and messes up the soil balance. We get lime from Frederick Farmers Coop in Frederick. It is called Thomasville lime (Old Castle) for $3.05 for 50lbs. Soft rock phosphate is available from Lancaster Ag for $11 for a 50lb bag. They will ship UPS. Lancaster Ag also has garden blends to help gardeners produce high brix food.

Producing nutrient dense, high brix food is more involved than just putting down soft rock phosphate and limestone.

There are also foliar sprays that you can apply to increase the brix. Our tomatoes, potatoes, squash, and cucumbers were low brix and I could not find a foliar spray that raised the brix. I remembered that in the Bible it referred to the land of Canaan as a land flowing with milk and honey.  I tried two cups of raw milk and a little honey per gallon of water. It raised the brix of the leaves of the plants from 7 brix to 10 brix. It raised the brix of the clover in the pasture about 5 brix.

A foliar spray that we used on the green beans and the sweet corn that raised the brix and produced 28 brix sweet corn was:
Per Gallon
6tbsp     molasses – we used feed grade
8oz.       cola soda – a source of phosphoric acid
1tsp       Hydrated lime
3tbsp     liquid fish
1tbsp     seaweed powder
14tbsp  apple cider vinegar

If you want more information, I encourage you to check out the websites listed below.  I also recommend reading the book Nourishment Home Grown by Dr. A.F. Beddoe. Refractometers that test the brix reading are available inexpensively on eBay. Get one that reads in the 0 to 32% range.

Weston A Price Foundation – High Brix farming and gardening
http://www.westonaprice.org/The-Quest-for-Nutrient-Dense-Food-High-Brix-Farming-and-Gardening.html

Soil tests and articles – International Ag Labs
http://www.aglabs.com/soilTesting.html

Supplier – Lancaster Ag, Lancaster, PA
http://www.lancasterag.com/catalog/garden/intro.html

High Brix Gardens
http://www.highbrixgardens.com/

Brix Book and articles
http://crossroads.ws/

Test equipment and articles
http://www.pikeagri.com/
Check out their user guides – plant sap analysis and compost guides

If you are a farmer, we highly recommend the Carey Reams seminars that Pike Agri has. They are well worth the cost. They take you to levels of agriculture that you did not think possible, such as how to produce alfalfa that is 28% protein, grows 12 to 17 feet tall and produces 20 to 30 tons per acre! Carey Reams was hired by the nation of Israel, when they first became a nation, to show them how to turn the desert into highly productive farmland.