I’m not an advocate for violent change, but this country needs a revolution. Our systems are so deeply corrupted that I don’t think they can be fixed. They need to be torn down so we can build from the ground up. I think an important lesson we should draw from the Arab Spring comes from post-revolution Egypt. It is amazing that the people there endured so much to throw out their corrupt leader, but they left the system itself intact and turned over control to people who will only make token changes.

I don’t pretend to have the answers, but I think we can learn from the struggles of others around us…

Sat Nam,
Jim Earles

For what it’s worth, since I have consistently been the WeDharma voice for the nutritional viewpoints of the Weston A. Price Foundation, I wanted to offer a link here: http://www.westonaprice.org/thumbs-down-reviews/spent. Although the WAPF did give Dr. Lipman’s book a “thumbs down” review, it was a very reluctant thumbs down. The review posted at this link specifiically says that Dr. Lipman is very much on the right track–and I have no doubt that following his protocols would be extremely useful–but the review also points out that there are a few rather important things which he neglects. I don’t want to be a wet blanket with this post…but I do wish to uphold those important nutritional principles which seem to be absent from Dr. Lipman’s protocols.

Again, sincere good wishes to you on your 14 day program, Megan!
Sat Nam,
Jim Earles

Sat Nam,
Jim

Sat Nam,
Jim

Sat Nam,
Jim

I’m not sure what is up with wedharma currently, but I have 6 posts that have been submitted but never uploaded to the site. They have just been sitting there for some time now, in cyber limbo…

Anyway, thanks for noticing that I’ve been out of the loop!
Peace,
Jim

Sat Nam,
Jim

We are often asked about all natural Vitamin C and how it compares to Ascorbic Acid. What’s wrong with Ascorbic Acid? How does it differ from natural Vitamin C?

Thousands of bottles of ascorbic acid are purchased everyday under the misguided assumption that ascorbic acid is the same as vitamin C. In reality, ascorbic acid is an isolated nutrient that is part of vitamin C but it is not the whole vitamin C.

You are getting cheated if you buy ascorbic acid thinking it is vitamin C. But that may be only a partial injustice! Studies over the last several years demonstrate that people taking high doses of ascorbic acid put themselves at risk for a number of health challenges. One study demonstrated that doses of 500 mg a day or more of ascorbic acid increase the incidence of arterial plaque buildup. Another study indicated that gallstones are more likely to appear in those taking ascorbic acid.

You may ask, what about all the studies done by Linus Pauling and other reputable researchers who have proven the benefits of Vitamin C and ascorbic acid? Let us put a little perspective on this:

Back in the 1930’s ascorbic acid was isolated out of little red peppers by Dr. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi who won a Nobel Prize for his work. What he also found, which has mostly been ignored until recently, was that ascorbic acid was far more biologically available and active while it was still in the red pepper.

Scientists of the era of “Better Living Through Chemistry and Science” (which we have been experiencing for the last sixty years) decided to take the discoveries about Vitamin C and “improve” on Mother Nature.

They found that extracting ascorbic acid from natural foods, such as the red peppers, cabbage, cranberries, gooseberries, or acerola berries, is relatively expensive. Ascorbic acid can be created in the laboratory much less expensively (and of course much more profitably). Scientists discovered that they could take corn syrup, mix it with hydrochloric acid, and voila: ascorbic acid! (By the way, the corn is more likely than ever to be genetically modified and of course not organically grown.)

Years later, scientists discovered what Dr. Szent-Györgyi had discovered about ascorbic acid: it is not as effective when detached from the whole food matrix! So they went about trying to determine what other factors there could be in the whole food that would make the ascorbic acid work better.

First, they discovered the importance of bioflavonoids, so they figured out how to produce these synthetically in the laboratory, to be added to the ascorbic acid. Then they found that ascorbic acid worked better as a mineral ascorbate and they worked on that! Then they found that fat-soluble ascorbic acid was superior, because it went directly to the liver vs. water soluble ascorbic acid. In fact if you put 100 mg of ascorbic acid in the body, within a few hours at least 90% of it would be excreted in the urine. If you put 10 times more into the body to account for a 90% loss it would cause diarrhea. So they experimented with various things and concluded that if you attach the ascorbic acid molecule to another molecule, in one case a metabolite, the ascorbic acid will stay in the body longer (they didn’t seem to care why it stayed in the body longer, but it stayed in the body longer and hopefully that was a good thing).

Today there is a broad variety of ascorbic acid products with various things attached to them. With all this research, time, thought and dollars being put into creating a synthetic vitamin C, the fact remains that none of them can come even close to the potentials of what Mother Nature makes. One important factor that science has not been able to duplicate is the special kind of energy that holds living food together. Whether this energy is found in the enzymes or in the energy patterns of whole food structures, it is unlikely that science will ever be able to reproduce it in a laboratory. This may be one of several reasons why studies have shown that the body will absorb close to 100% of the vitamin C that is consumed as part of a whole food, whereas barely 10% of the “stripped down” ascorbic acid is absorbed.

Again it is an issue of what we are willing to put into our bodies. Mother Nature has created foods for us that are complex and designed to be metabolized by our bodies in a synergistic way.

Natural whole food sources of vitamin C include: Amla, Camu, and Acerola

If you want a true Vitamin C product the way nature intended, discover

Amla C, Pure Radiance C, Royal Camu, and Acerola and Quantum Vitamin C Complex. You’ll be glad you did!

Sat Nam,
Jim

Congressman Dennis Kucinich spoke at Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent
Action (Ground Zero) on Sunday, August 7, 2011 at Ground Zero’s annual
weekend event commemorating the anniversaries of the atomic bombings
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For a nuclear abolitionist, this speech
spoke to both our hearts and minds.

Kucinich spoke of the human heart as the place “where blind fear
hides in dark chambers. It’s there where murderous intensity is
unleashed against our brothers and sisters and the world. It is there
where nuclear explosions first take place. It’s there where the world
ends. The world also begins in the human heart…”

He then spoke of “a new doctrine of strength through peace, which
relies on diplomacy the size of human relations addressing the needs
of people everywhere for sustainability, for housing, for education,
clean water, clean air and freedom from fear.”

Kucinich devoted the rest of his speech to enumerating and elaborating
upon sensible, concrete steps that “will lead us to nuclear
abolition.” Those many steps include revising and repealing the 2010
Nuclear Posture Review, cancelling plans for 12 new ballistic missile
submarines, and cancelling funding for nuclear weapons modernization.

The Congressman from Ohio wrapped things up with the following
statement of hope and action:

Today as we gather in this beautiful setting we have to remember that
our destiny and the fate of the planet is not outside our reach. It
is within our grasp if it is within our hearts to abolish all weapons
and to abolish war itself. On this great day when we reflect upon the
great human tragedy of war and the dropping of the atomic bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki let us resolve that we shall become as
architects of a new world free of fear, free of nuclear weapons, and
free of war.

Peace,

Leonard Eiger
Puget Sound Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (Coordinator) http://www.psnukefree.org
Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action (Media & Outreach) http://www.gzcenter.org
Disarm Now Plowshares (Media & Outreach)
http://disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com
Email: subversivepeacemaking@gmail.com
Blog: http://nuclearabolitionist.blogspot.com
Blog: http://subversivepeacemaking.blogspot.com

Sat Nam,
Jim

In 1935, a year before the journal merged with The Journal of the American Dental Association, Weston Price published an account of his travels through the South Sea Islands in Dental Cosmos.

Here is the reference:

Price, WA. Studies of Relationships Between Nutritional Deficiencies and (a) Facial and Dental Arch Deformities and (b) Loss of Immunity to Dental Caries Among South Sea Islanders and Florida Indians. Dental Cosmos. 1935;77(11):1033-45.

In the article, Price describes how he looked for vegans in the hills of the South Sea Islands, but found cannibals instead:

The native foods in practically all the South Sea Islands consisted of a combination of two types; namely, plant foods and sea foods. The former included the roots and tops of several tubers and a variety of fruits. The sea foods consisted chiefly of small forms, both hard- and soft-shelled, and invertebrates, together with fish of various types.

One of the purposes of this trip was to find, if possible, native dietaries consisting entirely of plant foods which were competent for providing all the factors needed for complete and normal physical development without the use of any animal tissues or product.

A special effort was accordingly made to penetrate deeply into the interior of the two largest Islands where the inhabitants were living quite remote from the sea, with the hope that groups of individuals would be found living solely on a vegetarian diet. Not only were no individuals or groups found, even in the interior, who were not frequently receiving shell fish from the sea, but I was informed that they recognized that they could not live over three months in good health without getting something from the sea. A native interpreter informed me that this had been one of the principal causes of bitter warfare between the hill tribes and coast tribes of that and all of the Pacific Islands, since the hill people could not exist without some sea foods to supplement their abundant and rich vegetable diet of the mountain country.

He informed me also that even during the periods of bitter warfare the people from the mountain district would come down to the sea during the night and place in caches delicious plants which grew only at the higher altitudes. They would return the following night to obtain the sea foods that were placed in the same caches by the people from the sea. He stated that even during warfare these messengers would not be captured or disturbed.

This guide and many others explained to me that cannibalism had its origin in the recognition by the hill people that the livers and other organs of their enemies from the coast provided the much needed chemicals which were requisite to supplement the plant foods. Several highly informed sons of cannibals and a few who acknowledged that they had eaten “long pig” advised me that it was common knowledge that the people who had lived by the sea and who had been able to obtain lots of sea foods, particularly the fishermen, were especially sought for staying a famine. One native told me of having left an Island where he was engaged in fishing because of a tip that came to him that his life was in danger because of his occupation.