The most of the foods your immune system requires to be healthy and strong are of animal origin: meat, animal fat, organ meats, fish, eggs and high-fat dairy (particularly fermented). These foods will provide protein, fats and fat-soluble vitamins, so necessary for your immune system to be healthy.
Vegetables combine with all of these foods very well and will provide some extra nutrients and cleansing substances. Homemade sour cream, butter and ghee should be on the menu every day (unless dairy is not tolerated).
We all have different heredity and constitution. If your predecessors were Vikings or Eskimos, then chances are that you will generally need to eat lots of fish, meat and fat. But if your predecessors came from a Mediterranean culture or some tropical area of the world, then you will probably need more carbohydrates in your diet. As a result, anyone of the popular diets suits some people and does not suit others.
Also, throughout our lives our bodies go through cycles of building itself up and cleansing itself. For building itself your body needs very different nutrients from those it uses for cleansing itself (animal foods are generally building, while plant foods are generally cleansing).
We all have an autonomic nervous system, which is responsible for your heart beating, for your digestive system feeding you, etc. The autonomic nervous system is made out of two branches: a sympathetic nervous system and a parasympathetic nervous system. These two systems generally work in opposition to each other providing a very complex balance in every function of the body.
Depending on an infinite number of factors (daily cycle of activity and sleep, season, weather, stress, infection, feeding / cleansing, your occupation at the time, etc.) you will shift from being ‘sympathetic dominant’ to ‘parasympathetic dominant’.
These two branches of our nervous system require very different sets of nutrients to be fed: one likes meat and fat, while the other needs more plant foods. Only your body knows what proportions of protein/fat/carbohydrate it needs at any given moment of your life.
How do we feed ourselves properly? The answer is: get back in touch with your body’s inner intelligence.
Mother Nature gave us senses of SMELL, TASTE, DESIRE for a particular food and a sense of SATISFACTION after eating it. So, when your body needs a particular mix of nutrients, it will give you a desire for a particular food, which contains just that right mix; this particular food will smell divine to you and taste wonderful, and you will feel satisfied after eating it.
So, the only way for us to serve our bodies properly with the right food is to be in touch with our senses!
The DESIRE for a particular food is the main way your body tells you what it needs at any particular moment nutritionally. So, when you get hungry, stop and think: ” What is the most appealing food for me right now?” The answer will come immediately, and just the thought of that particular food will fill your mouth with saliva. Desire is your inner body intelligence talking to you, letting you know what it needs to keep you healthy, energetic and happy. If you listen to your desire every time you eat, you will be able to digest that food well and it will do you only good, because you have eaten it at the right time, just when your body asked for it.
TROUBLE is that in our modern commercial world people’s desires for food has been manipulated through the use of addictive and taste-altering chemicals in processed foods. Listening to your desire only applies to natural foods – foods that Mother Nature has designed. Stop eating processed foods and your normal sense of desire for food will return.
The sense of SMELL gives your body a lot of information about the food: is it safe to eat, has it been contaminated by chemicals or microbes, is it fresh, and most importantly, is it appropriate for your bodily needs at the moment? So, before putting anything into your mouth smell it: if it is the right food for you at the moment, it will smell very appealing. If it is not the right food, it will smell repulsive. Respect your sense of smell and listen to it.
TROUBLE is, that many people in our modern world have a damaged sense of smell due to use of manmade chemicals, such as laundry detergents, domestic cleaning chemicals, so called air fresheners and perfumes block the limited number of smell olfactory receptors in your nose. Once the receptors are blocked by a chemical, any new molecules of that chemical coming in have nothing to attach to, so you cannot smell it anymore.
To restore your sense of smell, remove all smelly/perfumed chemicals from your environment. In a few weeks time your olfactory receptors will clean themselves up and your sense of smell will return.
The sense of TASTE is one of the channels of communication between your body’s inner intelligence and your conscious mind. This the way your body tells you it needs a particular mix of nutrients, by giving you great pleasure from consuming them in the form of food.
The TROUBLE is that many people have an altered or dulled sense of taste due to regular consumption of processed foods. Many processed foods contain taste-altering chemicals, which are deliberately added to the ‘food’. These chemicals are not only toxic, but can alter your perception of taste for a long time, so it is essential to stop consuming processed foods in order to restore your normal sense of taste.
Working with a holistic dentist is very important, as many dental materials in the mouth can make it toxic and alter your sense of taste.
The sense of SATISFACTION after eating. If you have eaten a meal appropriate for your body’s nutritional needs at the time, you will feel fully satisfied.
It is important not to overeat, so you don’t feel ‘stuffed’. However, if you listen to your sense of pleasure from food, then you will not overeat because you would stop eating as soon as the food stops being pleasurable.
Cravings for sweet foods are common due to unstable blood sugar level. It takes time to normalize blood sugar and the most effective way to deal with it is to increase your fat consumption, particularly animal fats. So, consume plenty of animal fats with your meals.
The GAPS Diet is not set in stone; you have to adapt it for your unique body, for its unique daily needs. The GAPS diet gives you the list of foods to work with. When you eat these different foods and in what proportions is up to you. Listen to your body’s needs, communicated to you through the senses of desire, smell, taste and satisfaction. Your body will let you know what proportions of protein, fat and carbohydrate to have at every meal.
Use your senses of smell, taste, desire for food and satisfaction from eating it to guide you in your decisions: when to eat, what foods to eat and in what combinations. And remember: you are unique, so what suits your neighbour may not suite you at all.
For more information on GAPS please refer to her book
Gut and Psychology Syndrome: Natural Treatment for Autism, Dyspraxia, A.D.D., Dyslexia, A.D.H.D., Depression, Schizophrenia, 2nd Edition Paperback – Nov 15 2010
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Dr. Natasha McBride: GAPS was created by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, MD, MMedSci (neurology), MMedSci (human nutrition) in 2004 after working with hundreds of children and adults with neurological and psychiatric conditions.
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What is the relationship between your microbiome (friendly gut bacteria) and your immune system?
Seventy per cent of your immune system is this microbiome, your gut bacteria. You have trillions and trillions of microbes living in and around your body that are a constantly exchanging with you.
GAPS Diet has become known all over the world, helping children and adults to recover from very serious health problems.
Some people do well with following the Full GAPS Diet, which is the easiest to implement and is very suitable for following as a permanent lifestyle. Many people have to go through the GAPS Introduction Diet, which is more difficult to follow, but it achieves deeper healing of the gut and the rest of the body.
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In my Blog, Facebook and email Posts my goal is to maximize my physical performance and mental clarity, body composition, and most importantly my overall health with a wholesome diet and exercise.
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We have had a very challenging year this year.
My most sincere wishes for a Happy Holiday and a healthy, safe and blessed 2023.
The main cells in your immune system are the white blood cells. Your immune system is also made up of friendly bacteria known collectively is called the microbiome or flora. Those microbes help you in many ways from absorption of nutrients, to recycling of bile, to immune defenses. They’ll make it so there’s just not enough space or food for a pathogen to live.
Our white blood cells actually make enzymes to help break down and kill microbes and pathogens. Our white blood cells generate mucus and inflammation and these pathogens get caught up in this mucus web, it’s like quicksand.
Our immune system has a memory. When there’s a microbe that actually comes back into our body, the immune system actually tags it because it as a memory of that and it can destroy it. So it actually learns over time by being exposed to pathogens. That’s called building up your immune system and this is why as a child it’s not very healthy to keep a child just so utterly sterile that they’re never exposed or they’re never sick. It’s a natural part of building the immune system.
Dr. Natasha McBride says, it has a lot to do with the state of the patient’s epithelial surface of the digestive system.
Approximately 88 percent of our body’s immunity is found in the lining of our gastrointestinal (GI) system.
The immune system is there is to stop invaders from moving out of the digestive tract into the body. Over time, without the beneficial bacteria and proper balance in the gut, toxins, opportunistic bacteria, and parasites chisel away at the physical barrier wall and can create “leaky gut”. Once there is an opening in the wall lining, pathogens escape from the GI, travel through the bloodstream, penetrate the blood–brain barrier, and wreak havoc on the specific functions of our cells, causing diseases.
Pathogens are shown as grey dots in the image below.
Essential or beneficial bacteria in our digestive system engage a very important member of the immune system – the lymphoid tissue of the gut wall. As a result, a healthy gut wall is literally infiltrated with lymphocytes, ready to protect the body from any invader. Scientific research shows that in people with damaged gut flora there are far fewer lymphocytes in the gut wall, which leaves a poorly protected.
The most important immunoglobulin in the gut is produced by lymphocytes in all mucous membranes in the body and secreted in body fluids. It is found in breathing passages, nose, throat, bladder, your urethra, vagina, saliva, tears, sweat, colostrum, breast milk and of course the mucous membranes of the digestive system and it’s secretions. Its job is to protect mucous membranes by destroying and in activating invading bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites.
People with abnormal gut flora can’t destroy viruses, bacteria and other invaders.
Millions of children and adults around the world are exposed to viruses if these people have well functioning gut flora then these viruses do them no harm.
When the gut the flora is damaged the whole immune system in the body gets out of balance. This process makes the person immune-compromised.
What causes a healthy gut to become imbalanced?
Poor diet, antibiotic use, low digestive enzymes, alkalinity, acidity, chemical toxins, environmental toxins, radiation, blood sugar irregularity, stress, and pregnancy- and birth-inherited gut imbalances.
A healthy gut has an approximate ratio of 8:2 of beneficial bacteria to opportunistic bacteria. The beneficial bacteria feed on certain types of opportunistic fungi (candida and the like), create an internal wall of defence against pathogens escaping the intestine, and help digest foods to be transformed into energy.
When the proper ratio is out of balance, the beneficial bacteria can no longer protect the walls of the gut. Pathogens, including opportunistic bacteria, wear down the enterocytes and break through the intestinal lining. Having escaped the gastrointestinal system, the pathogens now enter the bloodstream as antigens. There they create an autoimmune response, attack cells, break through the blood–brain barrier, and create an environment conducive to disease.
What can damage our gut flora?
These are the foods we avoid, because the human digestive system has not been designed to digest them well, and we get virtually no useful nutrition from them. Please see the list of Foods to avoid below.
Please see the list of Recommended foods below.
Please see the list of Natural fats below.
Learn more about Healing your gut with the GAPS diet.
Disclaimer: The content of this email or Post is not intended for the treatment or prevention of disease, nor as a substitute for medical treatment, nor as an alternative to medical advice. Use of recommendations is at the choice and risk of the reader.
I invite you to Follow my Blog, Facebook or be added to my email distribution list. My focus is to maximize my physical performance and mental clarity, body composition, and most importantly overall health with a wholesome diet and exercise.
I will bring you compelling articles on Ketogenic and GAPS diets, the Super Slow High-Intensity Exercise Program and supplements.
To follow my Blog, please click the Follow button to receive an email when the next posting is available. Hint: You may have to click the Accept and Close button before follow is available.
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If you wish to contact me by Email, please email lpolstra@bell.net using this form.
I invite you to Follow my Blog, Facebook or be added to my email distribution list. My focus is to maximize my physical performance and mental clarity, body composition, and most importantly overall health with a wholesome diet and exercise.
I will bring you compelling articles on Ketogenic and GAPS diets, the Super Slow High-Intensity Exercise Program and supplements.
Disclaimer: The content of this email or Post is not intended for the treatment or prevention of disease, nor as a substitute for medical treatment, nor as an alternative to medical advice. Use of recommendations is at the choice and risk of the reader.
Last week I posted, Feeding Versus Cleansing Part One. We learned about Helen who was brought to Dr. McBride’s clinic by her worried aunt. Helen was 21 years old, and was dangerously underweight and getting thinner by the day. She was a tall girl – 185 cm (over 6’ 6”) in height with a weight of 51 kg (112 lbs.). She looked emaciated, pale, her eyes were dull and her voice feeble.
This Post is the continuation of last week’s Post. Here is the link
Many people would be surprised to hear that human beings can live exclusively on animal foods. Dr. McBride has patients who live entirely on animal food with great results, both children and adults. Patients with ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease and severe mental illness do very well on a No-Plant GAPS Diet. These people live on meats, including organ meats, animal fats, meat stock and bone broth, fish (including shell fish and molluscs), fish stock, fresh eggs and fermented raw diary – kefir, sour cream, ghee, butter, cheese and yoghurt. In some severe cases of ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease this is the only diet that allows them to be well, to stop all medication, to reach their normal body weight, to remove all digestive symptoms and to function to their full capacity. In severe cases of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and other psychiatric conditions this diet can be a saviour. Some of these people have lived on this diet for 2 years or longer and have no desire to change their eating habits, because this diet works for them. Some of them tried to add a little vegetable or fruit to their regimen and found that their symptoms started returning, so they had to stop.
One of the healthiest group of traditional people in the world Weston A. Price found in his research were Masai people in Africa who ate no plant matter at all. They are nomadic people travelling with their cattle and everything they eat is provided by their animals. They eat meat, organ meats, milk and sour milk. When they were asked why they don’t eat fruit found in their habitat, they laughed and answered that fruit was food for their cows. These people had no diseases of our modern ‘civilised’ world whatsoever: no heart disease, no cancer, no degenerative conditions, their childbirth was easy and healthy, their bodies were trim and muscular, their life span was long and they had beautiful healthy teeth. Apart from perfect physical health these people were intelligent, joyful, peaceful, friendly and happy, no psychological problems at all. But when some of them moved to a city and adopted a modern diet, they started getting the same diseases people suffer from in any modern country.
So, the fact is humans can live without plants. However, we cannot live without animal foods!
But what about all the plant-based diets shown to help with chronic disease? Why are cold-pressed good quality plant oils shown to be beneficial for so many degenerative conditions? What about all the antioxidants, enzymes, vitamins, minerals, bio-flavonoids and other substances in plants which are shown to be beneficial to health?
The real purpose of plants is to be CLEANSERS. While they are unable to feed our bodies to any serious degree, they are wonderful at keeping us clean on the inside. They also provide energy for the body to use in the form of glucose and some co-factors (helper molecules) in the form of vitamins and minerals, but their main purpose is to keep your body clean and free of toxins. Indeed plants are equipped with powerful detoxifying substances, which can remove various man-made chemicals, pollution and other toxins we accumulate in our bodies. Plants are particularly powerful cleansers when consumed raw. Their juices absorb in the upper parts of the digestive system contributing a plethora of detoxifying substances and co-factors; juicing of raw greens, vegetables and fruit is a major part of any cleansing protocol.
When the plant matter moves further down in the gut it feeds the gut flora in the bowel. Human bowel is an equivalent of the rumen of the herbivorous animals; it has a rich population of microbes, which can convert some plant fibre and starch into useful nutrients for the human body, such as short-chain fatty acids.
However, the problem with fibre and starch is that they feed equally the bad and the good microbes. How good this plant matter is for you depends on the composition of your bowel flora: if it is healthy the fibre and starch will do you good, if it is unhealthy the plant matter will feed the pathogens in your gut, which will flourish and produce many toxins and do a lot of damage.
When we cook plants we reduce their cleansing ability, but make them more digestible, so they provide some building materials for the body to use. Unfortunately, these materials cannot build the body to any degree: they are largely carbohydrates, which the body can use for producing energy and store as fat. When plants are severely processed (grains in particular) they provide the wrong building materials for the body causing disease.
Consumption of products made out of flour and sugar (very processed plants) are the major cause of pretty much all degenerative health problems in our modern society: weight gain, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, psychological and neurological problems in children and adults, infertility, polycystic ovaries, immune abnormalities, etc.
A cleaner body always feels better than a toxic one. That is why so many people feel well on the plant-based diet in the first few weeks. But when the body finished cleansing you need to start feeding it with animal foods. If that point is missed the body starts starving and deteriorating. With Helen’s vegan diet she was cleansing herself until she literally got ‘washed out’. She has missed the point when her body has finished cleansing and needed to start feeding. That is why she lost so much weight despite eating large amounts of grains, beans, nuts, fruit, vegetables and vegetable oils. This diet was not feeding her. Her menstruations stopped because her body was starving and conserving whatever precious resources it had left; it could not afford to waste them on monthly menstruations.
Vegan (plants only) diets can be seen as a form of fasting. They do not feed the body properly but provide it with a lot of cleansing. While your digestive system is busy processing plant matter (so you don’t feel hungry), the diet will provide your body with large amounts of cleansing substances. The ultimately toxic people are cancer victims; they require a lot of cleansing. That is why most nutritional cancer – treatment protocols are vegan. Remember that vegan diets are only suitable for a period of cleansing. They must never be chosen as a permanent life-style. When your body has finished cleansing it will need feeding, and that is when you have to introduce animal foods. If that is not done the body starves, starts cannibalising itself and problems start developing.
Vegetarian diets, which include animal foods, can be adopted as a long-term strategy. It is possible to be a healthy vegetarian as long as you continue eating some animal foods to provide feeding/building substances for your body, such as plenty of eggs and full-fat dairy.
There are many forms of vegetarianism: some eat fish, some eat eggs and dairy, some allow occasional consumption of meat. People who get into trouble are those who decide to stop eating meat and live largely on processed foods. They get ill very quickly. This group of people is particularly prone to diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cancer.
Another group of people who get into trouble are those who follow low-fat vegetarianism. A lot of impetus for removing fats from the diet comes from counting calories as fats produce the highest amount of calories per gram. Looking at food in terms of calories is another example of how inadequate our food science can be. Human beings cannot live without fats. Mother Nature took billions of years to design our foods, everything she put into them is essential, including fat. Every component in a natural food is balanced with all other components, they work as a whole. To remove fat out of a natural food is to make it incomplete and unbalanced; the human body cannot thrive. Low-fat vegetarianism typically leads to degenerative diseases of the nervous system and immunity.
In summary, there are two groups of natural foods on the planet and each of them has its own role to play in the human physiology.
Animal foods – meat, fish, eggs and dairy – are largely building/feeding foods. They feed the cell regeneration in the body allowing the body to maintain its normal physical structure and chemical composition. Animal foods are essential for your body to function. Your body manufactures a myriad of protein-based chemicals every day – hormones, enzymes, neurotransmitters, etc. Animal foods are particularly important for growing children, as their bodies need large amounts of building materials on a daily basis.
Plant foods – grains, beans, fruit, vegetables, herbs, nuts and seeds – are largely cleansing / detoxifying foods and do not feed the body to any serious degree. They keep the body clean on the inside by helping it to remove toxins and wastes. They provide energy for the body in the form of glucose. They provide some micro-elements for the body to use: minerals, vitamins, phytonutrients and co-factors.
There is some overlap: animal products, particularly raw, have a considerable cleansing ability while plants have some feeding ability, particularly when cooked, fermented and sprouted.
So let us enjoy both the animal foods and the plant foods. The important thing is to keep them natural with minimal processing.
Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride is a medical doctor with two postgraduate degrees: Master of Medical Sciences in Neurology and Master of Medical Sciences in Human Nutrition.
I invite you to Follow my Blog, Facebook or be added to my email distribution list. My focus is to maximize my physical performance and mental clarity, body composition, and most importantly overall health with a wholesome diet and exercise.
I will bring you compelling articles on Ketogenic and GAPS diets, the Super Slow High-Intensity Exercise Program and supplements.
To follow my Blog, please click the Follow button to receive an email when the next posting is available. Hint: You may have to click the Accept and Close button before follow is available.
I thrive on feedback. Please let me know you are interested in the content by clicking Like, Commenting or sending me a message or email about the Post.
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Disclaimer: The content of this email or Post is not intended for the treatment or prevention of disease, nor as a substitute for medical treatment, nor as an alternative to medical advice. Use of recommendations is at the choice and risk of the reader.
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