Today Oprah has let everyone know why eating organically is so important.
“In honor of our Earth—I love her—I’m asking all of you today to implement just one green idea to help the fight against global warming.”
—Oprah
Oprah’s Organic Guru, Sophie Uliano, says you don’t need to buy everything organic, sometimes it’s not available but there are some fruits and vegetables that you definitely want to buy organically because they are the most heavily sprayed.
“Look for organic raisins, potatoes, green beans, cucumbers and strawberries. Can’t find them organically? Make your own veggie spray with grapefruit seed extract—found at your local health food store—to help wash away any chemicals that could be on your fruit. Rinsing simply isn’t enough. “All you do is spray it on the vegetables, leave it for 5 or 10 minutes and rinse them off, and you’ve got rid of a lot of pesticide residue,” Sophie says.”
Read more about what Oprah, Sophie and Julia Roberts say about organic on Oprah.com by clicking here
Sandra Bullock says she like to keep everything organic, including her household cleaners.
Sandra Bullock’s Homemade Window Cleaner
3 tablespoons Vinegar
1/3 teaspoon of Liquid Vegetable Soap (eg Castile soap)
2 cups water
To get streak-free windows, Sandra mixes three tablespoons of vinegar, a third of a teaspoon of pure liquid vegetable soap, like castile soap, and two cups of water in a recycled spray bottle. “It cleans your windows like crazy,” she says. “Oddly, the vinegar smell doesn’t linger.”
You can also discover how she uses Lemon as a natural disinfectant and how her restaurant cleans the grill using baking soda & vinegar.
I have some wonderful news to share. For those of you who have read my previous posts, you’ll know I was diagnosed last year with a tumour in my thyroid and another in my breast and an underactive thyroid which is Hypothyroidism (Hashimoto’s disease).
After strong persuasion from my doctor I agreed to a biopsy of my breast tumor and learned that it was benign. Personally I believe that a benign tumor is just one step away from malignant cancer and it needs to be treated as really BIG warning sign.
I am now delighted to announce that after seven months my thyroid is now functioning normally again (TSH = 2.5). My live blood cell microscopy analysis was wonderful to watch too. There was much less candida/yeast and my cells were flowing nicely, not clumped together like some sections were last time.
I was very depressed and frustrated in January when I found that after the first 4 months of being very dedicated my thyroid functioning had reduced further and my TSH levels had escalated to 60, an extremely high level. I was so deeply depressed I was actually very concerned and was half worried / half hoping that my doctor would prescribe thyroid drugs. Thankfully he didn’t.
When my doctor told me the good news now, he said he was surprised back in January that I was able to get out of bed given my results. Part of me wishes that I’d known that then because I think it would have helped to known that because I was very impatient with myself pushing myself to get up and work and exercise.
It helped somewhat to know that an underactive thyroid is very, very common and that even Oprah was experiencing it too.
I asked my doctor why I went backwards after that first four months. I wondered if it was the residue effects of getting my amalgam mercury fillings replaced but my doctor said no, he didn’t think so but he didn’t have an answer for me. He took me off the iodine supplementation because my results indicated that I unfortunately was one of the rare people who didn’t benefit from ongoing iodine supplementation. He said that was a shame given the great benefits iodine has for the breasts.
I decided to stop taking the $100 a month supplements he’d recommended (L-glutathoine and R-lipoic acid). It was probably irrational but I was annoyed that I’d been so disciplined in taking them several times a day for over 3 months and not only had I not seen any improvement, I’d actually gone backwards.
Here’s a summary of what I did from mid January to mid April 2008:
Food: alkaline diet (also known as the candida diet - no sugars, dairy, wheat, yeasts or fruits other than berries and green apples) - I was really unhappy about this at first, even a little angry.
Replaced soy milk with rice milk
Selenium supplementation
measured my acid/alkaline levels daily (my morning urine rarely got over 5.5 except for 1 day in March when I had chocolate on my 35th birthday. I then realized just how much my emotions affected me)
exercised daily & Vit D - starting with a gentle walk which was mainly to get my Vitamin D 20 minutes of sunlight. I found my energy levels rising and increased this to occassional jogging & workouts.
3 minute meditation / breathing exercises
engaged mind - set 30 day goals and had an accountability partner to keep me focussed
cleanse 1 - to kick off the intense alkaline diet I did a 10 day herbal cleanse which was quite gentle eating only vegetables and beans and a small amount of brown rice or cous cous. One of the benefits of doing this was by the time I started the alkaline diet it didn’t feel as restrictive.
cleanse 2 - near the end of the three months I came across Dr Hulda Clark’s Liver Flush “The Cure For All Cancers“. Having heard that the liver and gall bladder are renown for holding negative emotions like anger and frustration plus can help rid infection from the body I thought it couldn’t hurt and may even help. I have no idea if that helped but I’ve now done it twice and have been amazed at the gall stones the liver flush gets out of the body!
This was as much an emotional journey as it was a physical journey.
Oprah’s expert Dr. Christiane Northrup says “In many women thyroid dysfunction develops because of an energy blockage in the throat region, the result of a lifetime of ’swallowing’ words one is aching to say. In the name of preserving harmony, or because these women have learned to live as relatively helpless members of their families or social groups, they have learned to stifle their self-expression.” Adds Northrup: “It’s no coincidence that so many more women than men have thyroid problems. Thyroid disease is related to expressing your feelings…”
I know this is very controversial but I prefer to think that we can and do create our world, including illness. To me the alternative - thinking that we just randomly become ill for no reason - is very disempowering.
So, after realising how much my emotions affect my body I decided to express my true feelings more. For certain reasons I had started declining invitations and avoiding certain people. Saying ‘No’ was good for me but I gave lots of excuses rather than the real one. I got so good at this I even had myself almost convinced. Even when I did admit to myself it wasn’t the real reason, I convinced myself that it would be rude to give the real reason.
It was very scary at first but I started telling my real reason and not the polite excuse or more convenient reason. At first I did get negative reactions that justified my fears but even then having my fears come true was somehow freeing. I found I didn’t care so much about what other people thought as much as the respect I had for honoring myself. After that, I even grew closer to some friends by being so rawly honest.
I hope by telling my story it will encourage other people.
When I was following the candida diet (no sugars, no fruits), fresh sweet corn became my substitute.
I was amazed to discover that even the corn silk does incredible things for the body. The corn silk is the fine delicate strings surrounding the fresh cob of corn under the outer green husk like leaves.
Here are some of the benefits attributed to corn silk tea:
To make the tea, simply collect the corn silk and steep for 10-15 minutes. Naturally, you’ll want to use organic corn or at least corn that has not been exposed to pesticides.
I make mine by pulling off the corn silk from 1 cob. I discard the black ends & place the fresh corn silk into a tea infuser. Then I cover it with boiling water enough for 1 or 2 cups and leave for 10 - 15 minutes to diffuse. It becomes bright yellow.
It has a light refreshing taste and is not unpleasant. If you enjoy green tea, you’ll probably enjoy corn silk tea too.
