Tag: Health

The Lazy Days of Summer??

The August 2011 edition of Country magazine has on the cover: "Easy Season, Relax and enjoy the dog days". Summer might be the lazy days for air conditioned city folks, but they are not lazy days here on the farm. We have been trying to apply the wisdom of the old proverb: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:  Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,  provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man." (Proverbs 6:6-11)

In addition to all our other work, we have been busy canning and freezing as much of our nutrient dense food from the garden that we can so that we have nutritious food to feed our family this winter when all the colds, flu bugs and other sicknesses are going around.

Sweet Corn 2011
This is a bucket of high brix sweet corn (25 brix) from our garden. Our family loves corn and we grow a large patch of sweet corn. Last year the stink bugs destroyed our last planting of sweet corn. This year Cathy was determined that we would get all our sweet corn. Unlike other bugs that are deterred by high brix plants, stink bugs love sugar. We found a repellent that really works. We used a mixture of liquid laundry soap that we got from a health food store and mixed it with water and sprayed it on the ears as the corn was nearing maturity. We had to spray it twice. It turned some of the outer husks brown, but it didn’t affect the corn. Watering with a sprinkler seems to help reactivate the soap also.You can find more at this link: http://www.ehow.com/info_8607847_stink-bug-repellent-home.html

Cutting Corn
Cathy and some of the children cutting the corn off the cob. The corn is first husked, then the silk is removed. Then about 100 ears are blanched at a time in a large outdoor cooker/canner. The corn is then cooled in water, cut off the cob and put into freezer boxes. This year we put 98 quarts of corn in the freezer.

Canning Veggie Soup
Cathy and Kara in the process of canning 41 quarts of beef vegetable stew. In the lower left corner is canned beets. Cathy learned an easy way to wash a large quantity of beets and potatoes. You put them in the washing machine with an old towel and set it on the gentle setting. It works well and takes the work out of washing all those vegetables.

Cooking Under Pressure
There are also times to sit and relax and learn how to cook under pressure! Here Cathy is reading a new cook book about how to use her new 10 quart pressure cooker. She is waiting while salsa is being canned in the the outdoor canner. She and the girls made and canned 76 pints of delicious salsa that day. Salsa is great on eggs – fried, scrambled, and omelets.

Daniel with Spinning Wheel
Recently, our son Daniel made an electric spinning wheel using a sewing machine motor and foot control. It is amazingly simple and works well.

Oh the non-lazy days of summer, when we go to bed feeling like we accomplished something and we feel more prepared for winter. This winter we will sit by the wood stove in the evening and enjoy a good book or use that new electric spinning wheel.

Is Your Food Giving Your Body the Complete Nourishment You Need For Health and Longevity?

In thinking back on what you ate today and yesterday, was the food nutrient dense, produced on fertile mineral rich soil? Did the farmer that raised the food care about your health, or did he/she mass produce it with little regard for what it would do for your health? Were the meat, eggs, or dairy products raised in a healthy environment and fed a nutrient dense, non-GMO diet on pasture? How much variety of different vegetables and fruits did you have? In evaluating your food and beverages for the last two days, on a scale of 0 to 10, how valuable do you think they were in contributed to your ultimate health and longevity? Or did they have a negative impact on your health?

I used to think that eating food was basically like putting gas in a car. I needed a certain amount of calories each day (just like a car needs a certain number of gallons of gas). If I ate too many calories I would get fat, and if I didn’t eat enough calories I would lose weight. The number of calories I ate was the main thing to be concerned about. How naive I was! What I didn’t realize is that unlike a car, our bodies need a wide variety of fuels because there is a wide variety of systems operating at the same time that each has special fuel needs. Because of the wide variety of fuel needs that the organs in our bodies need, it is important to eat a wide variety of foods, fruits and vegetables. An athlete that focuses on building his muscles will consume a large amount of protein and protein powders, but in the process he neglects the fuel that his brain needs and many of the other organs in his body.

Years ago, I had a great-aunt who went on a carrot diet to try to cure a health problem that she had. She juiced carrots and consumed a large quantity of carrots. I don’t know how long she was on the carrot diet, but it was long enough that her skin turned yellow. She decided she had eaten too many carrots! Carrots are an excellent source of certain "fuels" that our bodies need, but they are not a complete food source. The same is true of each variety of grain, fruit or vegetable.

The following is an interesting email that I received about a year ago from a lady in Australia about how certain foods look like the body parts that they supply specific "fuel" for. I have not validated everything that she shares about the different foods, but it gives an excellent illustration of the importance of eating a wide variety of foods.

"Hello, While reading my Bible, I asked God about sheep. I believe that God doesn’t just put things in the Bible for no reason & that everything has meaning that only He can reveal to a person who asks. I forgot about the sheep for awhile & about a week later I was looking something up on the internet (not sheep)& your website popped up and "sheep" caught my eye. I smiled because I knew it was God!!! I loved your articles. So thankyou!!! God has been showing me things too on health, food, environment etc. very similar to what you are finding. I just wondered if you knew about foods looking like body parts?

It’s been said that God first separated the salt water from the fresh, made dry land, planted a garden, made animals & fish…all before making a human. He made & provided what we’d need before we were born.

A sliced carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris & radiating lines look just like the human eye…& YES, science now shows carrots greatly enhance blood flow to & function of the eyes. Carrots get their orange colour from a plant chemical called beta-carotene, which reduces the risk of developing cataracts.

A tomato has 4 chambers & is red. The heart has 4 chambers & is red also. All of the research shows that tomatoes have fibre & are loaded with lycopene (a powerful antioxidant) which is indeed pure heart & blood food. They also have Vitamin K which regulates blood flow.

A walnut looks like a little brain, a left & right hemisphere, upper cerebrums & lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds on the nut are just like the neo-cortex. We now know walnuts help develop more than (3) dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.

Kidney beans actually heal & help maintain kidney function & yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.

Celery, bok choy, rhubarb & many more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium & these foods are 23% sodium. If you don’t have enough sodium in your diet, the body pulls it from the bones, thus making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.

Avocados, eggplant & pears target the health and function of the womb & cervix of the female – they look just like these organs. Today’s research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, & prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this? It takes exactly (9) months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. The name avocado comes from an Aztec word meaning "testicle tree" because the rounded fruits grow in pairs. Avocados have vitamins & minerals that are necessary for reproduction such as Vitamin E. Diets lacking in vitamin E do not support the reproductive function. Vitamin E may also help the sperm penetrate the egg. Deficiency leads to a degeneration of testicular tissues.

Unfortunately I don’t have time to write too much more on this but I must say that what I discovered here is endless. Other examples that you can research yourself are as follows:

Grapes hang in a cluster & look like the shape of the heart. Individual grapes look like a blood cell.

Lungs are made up of branches – bunches of grapes (vine).

Eyes are fish shape (Vitamin A)

Sweet potato looks like the pancreas.

Grapefruits, oranges & other citrus fruits look like mammary glands of the female when the fruit is sliced.

Onions when sliced look like body cells.

Broccoli – green tips on the head look like hundreds of cancer cells.

Pumpkin and squash seeds look just like the prostate gland.

Ginger looks like the stomach.

Raw cheese looks like internal structure of bones.

Figs correspond to male reproductive organs and they hang in twos when they grow.

Olives look like ovaries.

Beetroot are good for blood production and look like blood.

Going away from food I’ll tell you something about elephants that are interesting too. There are Indian elephants and there are African elephants. Indian elephants have ears in the shape of the continent of India and African elephants have ears in the shape of the continent Africa.

God’s insights are endless and amazing. What an amazing Creator we have!!!

Karen

After reading Karen’s email, I had to think of this verse in the Bible that mentioned several foods that resemble body parts: "Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape. "(Deuteronomy 32:14) I am not sure how the oil in wheat germ affects the kidneys, but I did find that to clear the kidneys of kidney stones, one method is to take olive oil or coconut oil along with lemon juice. It appears that oil is important to keep the kidney functioning properly. Most wheat consumed in America today has the oil and the wheat germ removed, even in so-called "whole wheat" products. People do not get the "fat of the kidneys" of the wheat to help their own kidneys.

The correlation between blood and grape juice in the above verse is more than just looks. The Mayo Clinic has an interesting article on the value of grape juice for our blood in which they say:

"Recent studies have suggested that red and purple grape juices may provide some of the same heart benefits of red wine, including:

  • Reducing the risk of blood clots
  • Reducing low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or "bad") cholesterol
  • Preventing damage to blood vessels in your heart
  • Helping maintain a healthy blood pressure

Both red wine and grape juice also contain antioxidants called flavonoids, which have been shown to increase your high-density lipoprotein (HDL, or "good") cholesterol and lower your risk of clogged arteries (atherosclerosis), and may help lower blood pressure."
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/food-and-nutrition/AN00576

The take home message for each of us for health and longevity, is to eat foods that are as nutrient dense as we can find and to eat as wide a variety of foods as we can.

What to Drink for Long Life and Health

A number of years ago when I was working in house construction, one of the carpenters that I was working with told me that over the weekend he had talked with a man in his 90’s. The elderly man told him the key to his long life was drinking six tall glasses of latex paint thinner a day. I did not fully understand the value of what the man had said, until in the last several years after studying the teachings of Carey Reams on human health.

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?"

Meat Glue

It is incredible the bad inventions that the food industry comes up with and puts in our food. It is becoming more and more difficult to eat out or to buy food in the store that will give us true health and longevity. It is becoming more important to buy locally and to know where our food is coming from and how it was raised. One of the latest things is a meat glue that is used to glue pieces of meat together so that pieces of meat can be sold as a "whole" piece of meat. One of my questions is, if it glues meat together, what does it do inside our body? We are made of meat.

The statement that Joseph Gonzales makes in the article below "There’s a 50 percent chance you’re eating it every day, and it could be dangerous", makes me wonder what all they are using it in that is not listed in the articles: Roast beef sandwiches? Turkey breast sandwiches? Lunch meat? Those nicely prepared, ready-to-heat meats and meals in the grocery stores? Etc.

The following is a snippet from the April 24, 2011 WTOP news article titled "Meat Glue – You’ve probably had it, and it could be dangerous"
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=267&sid=2357468

"WASHINGTON – There’s a meat industry secret they probably don’t want you to know. It’s called transglutaminase, more commonly known as ‘meat glue.’

"It’s made from a blood-clotting enzyme from beef and pork plasma that helps turn leftover scraps of meat into whole fillets that can be sold at market price.

"Joseph Gonzales, dietitian for the Cancer Project, says there’s a 50 percent chance you’re eating it every day, and it could be dangerous.

"’All the bacteria is still on the outside of the meat and as you gather them together, they start to fold inward. Now you can’t cook off that bad bacteria because it’s stuck inside,’ Gonzales says.

"The FDA categorizes transglutaminase as Generally Recognized as Safe, but the study was funded by Ajinomoto, the same company that produces it and other products like MSG."

Another article that explains more about meat glue and has some excellent pictures is "Industry-Wide Use of Meat Glue Sticks Together Scraps of Meat to Sell You Prime Cuts"
http://healthfreedoms.org/2011/03/29/industry-wide-use-of-meat-glue-sticks-together-scraps-of-meat-to-sell-you-prime-cuts/

The following is a quote from that article:

"Meat Glue: It sounds utterly repellent; like some pre-industrial, rustic adhesive, but it’s actually a fine, tasteless powder that looks like icing sugar and it makes meat and other proteins stick together like super glue. If you are eating meat, chances are you’re eating or have eaten the glue at some point.

"This sort of thing has been a boon to the food industry, which can now treat all sorts of proteins like meat or fish as just another material to be processed, but in the hands of molecular gastronomists it’s become a way to manipulate food in a way that would have been previously impossible. It’s possible, for example, to make tenderloin rolls wrapped in bacon that hold together perfectly without the need for twine or toothpicks."

Trying to Stay Healthy Wrapped in Plastic and Living in a Sealed Insulated Box, Starving Ourselves From a Food We Can’t See – Update

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One thing I forgot to mention in the original article about living in a sealed box is the chemicals and toxins that are trapped inside the sealed box and that we breathe into our lungs. About 20 years ago, I helped build two non-toxic homes. The houses were built with real wood. There was no plywood, particle board, foam insulation, construction adhesives, or carpet. At the time I thought it was a little ridiculous unless someone was very allergic to chemicals. Now that I realize the importance of fresh clean air, I realize the wisdom in a non-toxic place to live. In a sealed house, chemicals and toxins are in the air from: carpet, carpet padding, upholstered furniture, paint, particle board kitchen cabinets, particle board tables, particle board bedroom furniture, drywall (especially Chinese drywall), plywood, flake board, construction adhesives, etc.

A friend of ours, Ken Matich, mentioned in response to this article that cancer grows in the absence of oxygen. I did a little further research and this is what I found. In 1931, Dr. Otto Warburg, was awarded a Nobel Prize for his discovery that cancer was caused by the cell’s normal oxygen respiration with oxygen-deficient respiration. Dr. Warburg stated "Cancer, above all other diseases, has countless secondary causes. But, even for cancer, there is only one prime cause. Summarized in a few words, the prime cause of cancer is the replacement of the respiration of oxygen in normal body cells by a fermentation of sugar."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Heinrich_Warburg)

Several other quotes by Dr. Warburg:
"All normal cells have an absolute requirement for oxygen, but cancer cells can live without oxygen – a rule without exception."
"Deprive a cell 35% of its oxygen for 48 hours and it may become cancerous."
(http://www.healingdaily.com/conditions/cancer-and-oxygen.htm)
See also http://www.mnwelldir.org/docs/nutrition/sugar.htm

These findings highlight the importance of us getting plenty of fresh air and oxygen for our health. Dr. Alexander Beddoe, one of Carey Reams’s students said that one of the best ways to increase our body’s intake of oxygen is to sing or play the harmonica several times a day. He said that it is not the inhaling that is important, but the controlled release of the air that helps the lungs take the oxygen out of the air. The last several months our family has been singing at breakfast and lunch whenever it works out. The children have learned to sing parts and it is fun singing in four part harmony standing in a tight circle in the kitchen, or sitting around the table, blending our voices together. We joke that the hymnals (songbooks) are our eating utensils for getting our food from the air.

On the healingdaily.com web site, one of the ways that they mentioned that a person can increase the amount of oxygen in their body is to put a pint to one quart of 5% hydrogen peroxide in the bath water and soak in it. When I mentioned this to our son Joel, he said that yesterday when he was at Lancaster Ag, he saw containers with 35% hydrogen peroxide and asked them what it was used for. One of the uses is to use it instead of chlorine in swimming pools. I have been wanting something different for our pool than chlorine. This may be an ideal solution. The pool would then be an oxygen therapy in addition to its other benefits, without the harmful effects of the chlorine. The use of oxygen in bath water to increase oxygen levels is an indication that our skin does absorb oxygen. To see more about the use of hydrogen peroxide in swimming pools, go to:
http://purehealthsystems.com/hydrogen-peroxide-pool-spa.html

One of our customers, Becky Berez, highly recommended the book Health and Light by John Ott. This book was also highly recommended by Dr. Beddoe. I ordered the book and look forward to reading it this winter.

Another friend our ours, Esther Smith, mentioned the dangers of cancer causing chemicals that are released from plastic food containers. She had the students in her chemistry class do a project on food and plastics. She said this:

"Plastics and food are a scary combination. Plastics tend to leach chemicals … particularly old, heated, and/or scratched plastics. Using plastic containers to hold food with liquids cannot be good for health. Older people have old Tupperware they are still using. Too many people do not recognize the seriousness of heating plastics in a microwave or reusing scratched plastic containers for food."

Trying to Stay Healthy Wrapped in Plastic and Living in a Sealed Insulated Box, Starving Ourselves From a Food We Can’t See

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Note: I have learned much about all areas of life from things here on the farm the last five or six years. Things that I probably would never have learned if we did not have a pasture based farm. This article shares some things that I have observed, learned, and that have been rolling around in my mind.

In spite of the technological advancements in modern medicine and a renewed focus on eating organic and eating healthy, Americans are still having a serious problem with major illnesses – cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc. Health care costs keep rising, indicating a growing health problem. We are looking at all areas of our lives to see what might be contributing to these problems. To continue doing the same things that everyone else is doing but hoping for different results for ourselves, is foolish.

When we first started our pasture based farm, I tried to find all the information that I could about raising chickens on pasture. Years ago, it was common practice for chickens to be true free-range. But when the poultry industry converted to confinement raising of chickens, there was much information lost about raising chickens on pasture. I went to the Library of Congress on several occasions and researched in old books about how to raise free range chickens. One of the things that I found in an old book was that the author had observed that chickens do best in the winter if at least part of the south side of the chicken shelter is left open all winter. He stated that chickens need plenty of fresh air and that totally closing the building to keep them warm was more detrimental to their health than the cold. I decided to try it and found that he was right. For the last eight winters, except for one year, we have left the south end of the chicken shelter open day and night all winter. I have been amazed how healthy the chickens have been through the winter months. On average, we have had few chickens die during the winter. When we have young hens that have started laying in the fall months we have had flocks that have laid 80 to 90% all winter without using artificial lighting (80-90% is the number of eggs per day that are laid per 100 hens).


This was during one of the big snows this past winter. Note how the end of the hoop shelter is wide open. The small building on the right is the nest house where the hens lay the eggs.

There were several winters that I felt sorry for the hens, with the end of their shelter open all night and temperatures below freezing. I closed up most of the south end of the shelter. One year we closed up the entire south end at night. But the hens did not do as well. In trying to help them be comfortable, a number of them got sick and died. When we had the same results the second time, I realized that my compassion was misguided. But I still did not recognize the significance of what we had observed.

Earlier this year, one of the things that stood out to me in a seminar that I listened to of Carey Reams, is that for both people and animals, 80% of our food energy comes from the air and sunlight. Only 20% comes from the food we eat. He further stated that of that 80% of energy from the air, 60% is taken in through our lungs and 40% through our skin. While I have not been able to validate that claim, it has made me do some thinking and researching about how our body uses air. We don’t see the air and the nutrients for our bodies that is in it, and so it is easy for us to overlook its importance. Air is a very important part of health and life. We can live for weeks without food, but only minutes without air. Air contains not only oxygen, but also many trace mineral elements. These trace minerals are put into the air through the action of the waves breaking in the ocean. One of the things that helped bring about Dr. Jordan Rubin’s amazing recovery from Crohn’s Disease was that he went to the ocean and lived on the beaches for a number of months. His lungs and skin absorbed minerals from the ocean air and from the sunshine.

One of the things that my mother taught me when I was a boy, was to NEVER get into an empty freezer or refrigerator. She told me that if I did, I could suffocate and die. Here recently, after finding out that the nutrients in the air are more important for our health than what I had realized, I got to thinking about how similar the modern house is to a super size refrigerator in being air tight. Is the modern house a dangerous place to live? In the interest of energy efficiency, houses have been built so that air from outside doesn’t get inside the house, and the heated or cooled air from inside does get wasted by going outside the house. When a house is built, there are multiple layers that seal the air from being exchanged. Outside is the siding. Under the siding, the house is wrapped in Tyvek. Next there is a layer of sheathing, either plywood or an insulation board, both of which seal out air. When I worked in construction, the insulation company even caulked the 2×4 walls where they met the floor and anywhere there were pieces of framing nailed together, to prevent air from getting through the cracks in the stud walls. Inside the house, the walls of each room are sealed with drywall. The only place fresh air can get inside the house is through the windows and doors. Windows and doors are being engineered to seal as effectively as possible to keep air from passing through them and we are being encouraged to replace older windows and doors with these more air tight windows and doors. What is energy efficient is not necessary in our best interest health wise.

Most people today run their air conditioner all summer and the heat all winter. The windows are seldom opened. The average person spends a significant amount of time in a sealed insulated "refrigerator" box of one form or another, living and breathing their stale exhaust with its depleted oxygen and minerals. They spend part of their day in their sealed insulated-box home. They drive to work in their comfortable "sealed box" car. Then they spend eight or more hours in the sealed insulated-box office.

We breathe a huge volume of air each day. The quality of the air we breathe is important. It is an important part of our health.

But there is more about air – the air needs of our skin. Our skin is the largest organ of our body, and yet it is easy to overlook its needs. I was listening to a recording from the 1970’s of a man talking about Iridology—the study of the iris of the eye. The different spots and coloring in the iris of the eye have been found to point to trouble spots and its location in the body. He explained how they could tell when women started to wear nylon stockings and then pantyhose because they could see trouble in those areas in the eye. What really got his attention was when women started wearing wigs as part of the fashion years ago, and it too showed up in the iris of the eye. He said that underwear used to be made with polyester or other synthetic fibers and it caused vaginal infections in women. The manufacturers quietly changed the crotch in pantyhose to cotton instead of nylon. Most underwear was also changed to cotton. I had thought that the reason that almost all underwear and t-shirts were now made out of cotton was because it did not last as long and it provided job security for the clothing manufacturers. I had several polyester t-shirts that had lasted 15 or 20 years.

All this has made us do some thinking and reevaluating of what our family wears. If a woman wears a very thin nylon screen (nylons) – which would appear to breathe – on her legs, and that shows up as a problem spot in her eyes, what about all the other synthetic fibers that we wear? Many clothes have a high amount of polyester in them so that they can be taken wrinkle free from the dryer. Almost all jackets and coats have polyester in the shell, lining, and/or insulation. Many leather shoes have synthetic materials for the insole and inside lining. Many sofas and chairs are made with synthetic fabrics and foam, so when we sit down, the back part of our body is covered with plastic which blocks out air. Our beds are made of synthetic fibers or foam, and we cover ourselves all night with polyester, either in the sheets, blankets, or comforter lining. Has breast cancer has become more prevalent in part, because most bras are made with synthetic fibers that don’t breathe properly? Are we preventing our skin from receiving the nutrients from the air by wrapping our bodies in plastic?

Some of my uncles and aunts and their families are part of a very conservative Mennonite group. They live clean lives. They don’t smoke or drink. They grow a lot of their own food. Many of them live on farms and breathe lots of fresh air, but many of the older people in their group are getting cancer and other serious diseases. One of the things they do, is dress from head to toe in polyester. They make their own clothes, and polyester lasts much longer than cotton. Is the fabric of their clothes contributing to their cancer and other diseases? I don’t know, but it makes me wonder.

Seeing what plenty of fresh air has done for our chickens and realizing the importance of plenty of fresh air for our own health has made our family do a lot of evaluating of what we wear. We do not feel like we have all the answers and we feel like we are merely looking through a keyhole into the next room. We are on a quest to find all the pieces that are needed to have true health and vitality. Eating right is very important, but it is not the whole answer. We would appreciate hearing any of the puzzles pieces that you have.

Food, Inc.

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We recently watched "Food, Inc." Many of you have already seen Food, Inc., and if you haven’t seen it yet we highly recommend it. They take you inside the chicken houses, feed lots, and poultry and beef processing plants and give a behind the scenes view of where food comes from and how it is processed. They give you an inside view of how some of the large multinational companies are bullying farmers into submission to their program. You will see why I said "I’ll NEVER raise chickens" after working on a farm when I was in college where I took care of 75,000 broiler chickens in the big factory farm "jail" chicken house.

We saw Food, Inc. the week before the latest egg salmonella scare occurred with the 500,000,000 egg recall. When I saw the processing plants with the conveyors, shackle lines, pipes, etc. that move raw meat and other food ingredients from one place to another, I was amazed that there has not been a lot more food poisoning. For example: it would be difficult, on a daily basis, to completely clean a big long belt conveyor that carries raw hamburger. There are rollers and other contact points under the conveyor that carry the conveyor belt back to the starting end of the conveyor that would be difficult to completely clean. It is a totally different situation than a small butcher shop where it is relatively easy to clean down the tables and small machines at the end of the day. Because of the difficulty of totally cleaning up the big processing plants, they have to use irradiation, ammonia, and other chemicals with names that we can hardly pronounce to control bacteria from growing in the final food product.

The chicken houses are very similar to the ones I worked in when I was in college. The chickens walk a short distance to the feeder, or a short distance to the waterer and then they plop down. There are so many birds packed together. Every day I walked through the chicken houses and picked up the dead chickens just like the lady does. What you can’t experience in the movie is the strong ammonia smell inside the chicken house from the manure nor do you experience all the manure dust that is continually in the air. My one uncle developed a bad cough from breathing all that dust in his chicken house. He finally had to sell his farm because of his health.

One of the newer changes in most chicken houses today is the windows have been closed up and the chickens never see sunlight. They are dark tunnel houses with controlled lighting so that the chickens can be stimulated to eat more. The chickens never know when it is day or night.

Chickens can be controlled very easily with light. When I worked in the factory farm chicken house, it was fun to play with the dimmer switch. When I turned the lights up the chickens got up and started eating, then when I turned the lights down the chickens sat down. I could make the whole sea of chickens move up and down at will with the lights. The poor chickens never see sunlight!

Another characteristic of confinement raised chickens, and this includes chickens raised in confinement in small chicken tractor pens on pasture is that their legs have difficulty holding them up. They plop down rather than gently sit down. This is mentioned in the movie. When I saw a chicken plop down in Food Inc. I suddenly realized it is not as much a characteristic of our chickens any more, even though we have the same breed of chicken. It is not a breed problem, it is how they are raised. Our chickens get lots of exercise and have strong healthy leg muscles that can support their body. They are not the flabby, weak muscled, couch potato, lazy chickens that people buy in the grocery stores and restaurants. We are what we eat and I wonder how much the way the meat is raised affects the person who eats it to be flabby, weak muscled, lazy, etc.


Our broiler chickens getting plenty of exercise and sunshine and a fresh "salad bar" pasture.


The laying hens eagerly going out to the pasture in the morning.

One point in Food, Inc. that was misunderstood by at least one person is that they said that there are 13 main slaughter houses in the US that process the majority of the beef. That does not mean that there are only 13 slaughter houses in the US. There are still many small butcher shops left. We get our lamb processed at Horst Meats, a small family owned USDA butcher shop that is located on their farm near Hagerstown, Maryland. Our butcher is a relative and we feel confident that we get back the same lambs that we take in. When you purchase pasture finished lamb from us you are supporting not only our farm but also a local small butcher shop that is not part of the factory food industry.

What Food, Inc. does not have time to address is where the other half of the food that the US consumes comes from. Almost half of the food consumed in the US comes from other countries. What are their processing plants like? How do they control food borne bacteria? Are the methods USDA approved? What are the working conditions of the employees like? When we eat at a restaurant, or buy food in the grocery store (organic or conventional), what practices and growing methods are we actually supporting overseas with our food dollars? Is the food really fit to eat? What is the environmental impact in those countries?

When you buy local from us at Jehovah-Jireh Farm, you can meet the farmers, you can see where your food comes from and how it was raised, and you can taste the difference.

Why We Do Not Raise and Sell Pork

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Pork is a main staple in America today and many people enjoy bacon and sausage with their eggs. However, just because "everyone else" is doing it doesn’t mean it is a good thing. With the poor health of the majority of Americans, we need to take a careful look at what "everyone else" is eating and make appropriate changes from what they are doing if we want to be healthy.

I mentioned the poor health of the majority of Americans. I say that because the number one industry in America is the care of sick people—what politicians call "health care". Americans are an unhealthy group of people propped up on prescription medications. The answer is not more doctors and more prescriptions. We believe, and most of you believe as well, that true health care reform needs to start at the food level.

The reform of our food to help others be healthy is the driving force behind why we are farming here at Jehovah-Jireh Farm. We are continually looking for ways to increase the nutritional quality of our eggs and meats.

So why don’t we raise pork? Pork is a negative energy meat that it causes your urine pH to go significantly acid. It takes six days of total abstinence from all pork before the urine pH return to normal. Pork affects one’s body pH for almost a week! Pork is also unique in that it can contaminate what it is cooked in or on, such as cookware or grills. The pork juice can not always be removed by washing the cookware and whatever is cooked in that cookware or on that grill will cause the pH of the urine to go acid! There are a number of people who could not get their pH’s to change until they got new cookware. We find that our urine pH often goes acid (5.5 pH) after we eat somewhere where pork has been cooked in the past, such as a grill, even though we are careful not to eat pork ourselves.

About a year ago Cathy’s mother had a cancerous skin spot removed. It was the same type of skin cancer that took her dad’s life. Her mom decided to go on the RBTI (Reams Biological Theory of Ionization) program.

Carey Reams developed the RBTI program years ago, and was able to help over 10,000 terminally ill patients whom the doctors had given up hope for. Many had cancer. Of the 10,000, he only lost five patients! Part of the RBTI food and mineral based program is to get the urine and saliva pH in the 6.4 range so that the body can heal.

About a month ago, Cathy’s mom went back to the doctor. He could not find any trace of the skin cancer or any of the precancerous spots that she has had for a number of years. She was ecstatic!

Several weeks ago she traveled to Alabama to attend a reunion and stayed in the home of one of Cathy’s cousins. She was served pork several times. When she got home she tested herself, and sure enough, her urine was very acid several days after she had eaten the pork.

Pork is in more things than I ever imagined. Pork is used to make gelatin. Unless the gelatin is kosher or specifically stated as being from a plant or bovine source, it is pork based. Medicine or herbal capsules are made of gelatin. That little capsule if made from pork, is working against your health. Even that small amount of pork in the capsule will cause the urine pH to go acid. Gelatin is in many products. Some are obvious, others are surprising. Jello is made from pork gelatin unless the box states that it is kosher. The Jell-O brand is kosher. Most marshmallows contain pork gelatin. Many candies have pork gelatin in them. Even the strong mints, Altoids, have gelatin in them.

Lard is another pork substance that is found in some potato chips and other foods, and will affect your pH. The Weston A. Price Foundation highly recommends lard and pasture raised pork. Their recommendations are based on copying the diets of primitive people groups, rather than from chemical tests of how the foods respond in the body. The Weston A. Price Foundation has a lot of good information. However, when it comes to pork, test it for yourself and see what happens. Use a small strip of pH paper that you can get at the health food store to test the pH of your urine. Then compare the color of the wet part of the pH paper with the color chart that comes with the pH paper to find the pH.

When a person’s pH goes acid it makes the body more susceptible to sickness, disease, and cancer. It also makes a person more irritable and have a tendency toward anger. We have noticed that in our family on numerous occasions after we have been somewhere that we ate pork or a pork ingredient. As a family we try to help each other out in avoiding pork, but we are not always successful.

Pork is not the only meat that will cause the body pH to go acid. Some of the other meats are tuna, shrimp and other shell fish (seafood), and the other meats that are listed in the Bible as unclean meats. There is a medical reason why they are listed as unclean meats. However, it is not for religious reasons that we avoid eating the "unclean" meats. We do not want to sell you a meat that will undermine your health and the health of those who eat at your table.

Instead of pork, we recommend our delicious pasture raised chicken. Cathy often takes leftover chicken and cuts it up into small pieces and adds it to our scrambled eggs or omelets. If you like bacon, get a type that specifically states that it does not have any pork in it and is nitrate free. For sausage, Cathy uses beef hamburger and seasons it to make into delicious beef sausage patties.

Simple Beef Sausage Recipe
1 pound hamburger
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp sage
1 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
1 1/2 tsp Wright’s Liquid Smoke
Mix well and make into small patties.

Eggs are a Superfood

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Eggs should be considered a ‘superfood’ because they are one of the most nutrient-dense foods and boost health and tackle obesity. That is what researchers say in a study released this month. The researchers analyzed 71 research papers that examined the nutritional quality of eggs and their role in diet.

Dr Carrie Ruxton, a lead author of the reports, said, "The health benefits of eggs would appear to be so great that it’s perhaps no exaggeration to call them a superfood – they are one of the most nutrient-dense foods available. Eggs are not only low in calories but are packed with nutrients that are essential to healthy living. They are an ideal food at every stage of life, as well as being easy to cook and enjoyable to eat."

Some highlights of the report:

Despite being low in calories, eggs are a rich source of protein and are packed with nutrients essential to good health, in particular, vitamin D, vitamin B12, selenium and choline.

Eggs contain the richest mix of essential amino acids crucial for children, adolescents and young adults. A proper balance of the amino acids is required for proper growth and repair. ("If you have children they are going to hurt themselves!" – Myron)

The high levels of antioxidants found in eggs mean they could help prevent age-related macular degeneration – a leading cause of blindness.

One of the key findings was that eggs are an important dietary source of vitamin D. One egg provides more than 20% of the recommended daily allowance. Low levels of vitamin D have been linked with a host of medical conditions including poor bone health, cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, immune disorders and mental health problems.

Eggs could play a significant role in dieting and weight loss.

The latest reports show that one or two eggs a day have no effect on total cholesterol levels for most people. This reverses previous reports that stated people with high cholesterol should not eat eggs.

To read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1256489/Eggs-superfood-boost-health-tackle-obesity.html.

Of course this report is about normal grocery store eggs produced with conventional feed. We strive to provide you with an even better superfood – a Jehovah-Jireh Farm pasture raised egg produced with organic feed. You can taste the difference!

Monsanto – Too Big to Fall?

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Here in the Washington DC area you often hear Monsanto running ads on the radio touting how they are helping farmers feed the world and how they are supporting sustainable agriculture. However, Monsanto is anything but a supporter of sustainable agriculture. They are a giant agricultural chemical and genetically modified (GMO) seed corporation that has done much damage to sustainable agriculture. Many people have lamented how Monsanto has been able to "legally" run rough shod over farmers in developing a monopoly in the agricultural world.

Last month, a little reported, but very significant event happened. France’s Supreme Court ruled against Monsanto, saying that the agrochemical giant had not told the truth about its best selling weed-killer, Roundup. Monsanto had falsely advertised Roundup as being "biodegradeable" and claimed that it "left the soil clean".  Roundup is not biodegradable and it does contaminate the soil.

For years we have been told that when Roundup is sprayed it kills plants, but when the chemical comes in contact with the soil it is neutralized. It has been said so often that many believe it to be true. France’s Supreme Court’s ruling shows proof that Roundup is not neutralized in the soil. The use of Roundup is one of the leading reasons why Monsanto has developed genetically modified seeds. The plants grown from their genetically modified seeds can be sprayed with Roundup and will not die. That enables farmer to spray their fields with Roundup and kill the weeds after the corn or soybeans have come up and not harm the corn or soybeans.

Keep watching. Someday – maybe in the distant future – but someday, Monsanto and their Roundup will likely disappear, never to be seen again.  "I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree.  Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found." (Psalm 37:35-36)

Monsanto’s philosophy is built upon the evolutionary mindset that there is no God and that genetic selection (including genetically modified organisms—GMO’s) is THE answer to improving food production and feeding the world. What is being missed is that while genetic improvement has increased food production, the nutrient density of the food has decreased along with human and animal health. More food has to be consumed to supply the needed nutrients and as a result, obesity is increasing among children. The majority of people and animals today are either on pharmaceutical drugs or natural supplements to try to have some semblance of health. This is a testimony that Monsanto’s method of genetic selection is not THE answer.

God created the soil full of minerals in the Garden of Eden. The soil has been declining ever since. It has been documented that in the last 60 years that the mineral density of the soils has significantly decreased. We need to first rebuild the mineral and organic density of our soil. Then we can select for genetic superiority. The seeds that have been genetically selected by Monsanto to grow in mineral depleted soils do not have the proper genetic expression to grow in nutrient rich soils and produce nutrient dense foods. Many organic farmers and gardeners have discovered this and that is why there is a growing interest in heirloom seeds. The heirloom seeds in improved soils produce higher protein food and nutrient density. Along with the nutrient density is a significantly improved flavor. Our mouths tell us what food is best for our bodies by how good the food tastes.  When a tomato looks like a tomato but acts and tastes more like a tennis ball, you can be sure that that tomato was genetically selected for some other quality than nutrient dense food. Listen to your mouth and eat what is good! If it has a poor taste quality it is poor quality food. That is true of meats and eggs as well.

Links to articles on Monsanto
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8308903.stm
http://www.midnorthmonitor.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2160916  – An article showing how the "inactive" ingredients, the trade secret ingredients, that make Roundup more potent have been found to cause human liver cells to die.
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20080627/n1