Pamphlets: Complete Uses I

Melaleuca for the Home

Air Freshener

Room: Combine 3 oz of Sol-u-Mel with 16 oz of water in spritz bottle, spray area lightly.

Upholstery: Combine 3 oz of Sol-u-Mel and 1 oz of Sol-u-Guard in 16 oz water in spritz bottle, spray upholstery lightly.

Use Sun Valley Linin Mist to lightly fragrance linins, curtains, upholstery, and carpet.

Use a Soy Candle or Wax Melts to lightly fragrance and add ambiance to any room.

Appliances

Use 1 tsp of Tough & Tender and 1 capful of Sol-u-Mel in 16 oz of water, spray on unplugged appliances and let sit for 2 minutes, then wipe off.

Baby Wipes (feminine wipes, wet towels, wet wipes)

Use 1 tsp Sol-u-Mel with 1 capful of Nature's Cleanse with 1 capful of Renew Bath oil on Tough & Tender Wipes, paper towels, or a washcloth. Soak paper-towels in mixture, and place in easy-to-grab container for trips, picnics, dog park, amusement parks, theme parks, play grounds, boating trips, or petting zoos. Auto-mechanics, trash collectors, fisherman, and Mike Rowe would benefit from these handy wipes as well.

Add 3 drops of T36-C5 for anti-bacterial cleaning hand wipes.

Cut a star in the top of the container to easily remove paper-towel (for auto-feed, do not separate paper-towels beforehand).

Add a spritz of Sun Shades to paper-towels for easy sun-screen application.

BallPoint Pen

Dab Sol--u-Mel on area (spot test for color-permanence), let sit for 3-5 minutes and dab ink away with wet towel.

Bathrooms

Clean the ceilings 1 oz Tough & Tender in 16 oz water, wipe with cloth.

Use Sol-u-Guard Botanical Disinfectant to disinfect and clean surfaces such as sink, counter, toilet, tub, and floor.

Use PreSpot for laminated countertops and stains.

Mop floor with 2 tbsp MelaMagic and 1 capful of Sol-u-Mel in 16 oz of water.

Use 1 capful of Sol-u-Mel and 1 oz Sol-u-Guard Botanical in toilet, scrub with brush. Add 1 oz Tub & Tender for hard water stains.

(Don't use Tough & Tender on marble or granite!)

Use Clear Power, diluted 1/2 strength to clean mirrors and faucets.

Use Tub & Tile full strength for mold and mildew, let sit on surface for 5 minutes, and rinse.

Use No Work Tub Cleaner after the shower to keep soap scum from accumulating in shower stall and doors.

Use 3 oz Sol-u-Mel in 16 oz of water and 1 oz Sol-u-Guard in 16 oz water in spritzer to eliminate odors.

Mix 1 capful of Sol-u-Mel and 1 oz MelaMagic to 1/2 full bathtub of hot water, soak shower curtain in water for 15 min; or spray

mixture on curtains and wipe off with cloth.

Use Tough & tender in regular dilution to clean walls, carpet, drawers, linen cupboards, and medicine cabinet shelves.

BBQ Grills

Soak grill in 1 oz of water in 1/2 gal of water, scrub clean with brush or foil ball. Add 1 capful of Sol-u-Mel

for really dirty grills

Use Tough & Tender in regular dilution to clean outside of grill.

Bleach Substitute

1 tbsp. of MelaBrite 6x Color-Safe Brightener replaces bleach in the washing machine, carpet cleaner, and upholstery to keep materials looking bright and new.

Blinds

Use 1 tbsp Tough & Tender in 16 oz water, spray on blinds and wipe with a cloth. Use Tough & Tender Wipes for ease.

Use Rustic Touch instead, for wood blinds (don't spray glass).

Really dirty blinds, add 1/2 capful of Sol-u-Mel and let sit on blinds for 1 minute.

Blood

Use PreSpot and leave on for 2 minutes before rubbing stain out. Or, use PreSpot on stain and let sit in laundry before next wash.

Add 1 capful Sol-u-Mel and 5 drops Tough & Tender with MelaPower Laundry Detergent in regular wash cycle.

Bread box

Clean your bread box with Tough & Tender to keep bread fresher longer.

Broiler

Add 1-2 oz Tough & Tender to hot water and pour in dirty broiler, add 5 drops Lemon Brite and 1 oz MelaMagic for grease.

Let sit, scrub, and rinse.

Bugs

Mix 1/4 cup Sol-u-Mel, 5 drops T36-C5, and 1 tsp of Tough & Tender to 14 oz water. Spray on body to keep bugs away.

Add 2 oz of Breath Away to above mix and spray around outdoor areas before enjoying the outdoors.

Spray complete mixture around outside windows and doors to keep insects out of home.

Candle Wax

Press warm iron over damp newspaper over wax spot until wax is absorbed into newspaper.

Use several layers of newspaper to protect iron. Careful not to burn newspaper or melt carpet.

Clean area with regularly diluted Sol-u-Mel.

Carpet Care

Use 1 capful of Sol-u-Mel and 1 oz of Tough & Tender instead of commercial brand carpet cleaners.

Add 1 tbsp of MelaBrite to keep white carpets looking clean and bright.

Rinse carpet with hot water to remove residue since it can attract dirt and grime.

Spray carpet with diluted Sol-u-Mel before vacuuming to remove odors.

Use 1 tsp Tough & tender and 1 capful of Sol-u-Mel in 16 oz of water to remove carpet stains. Add 1 oz MelaMagic for greasy stains.

Ceilings

Mix 1 tsp Tough & Tender in 16 oz water and spray on ceiling, scrub off. Use Sol-u-Mel for stains.

Ceilings Fans

Mix 5 drops Tough & tender in 16 oz of water, spritz on fan and wipe. Use Tough & Tender Wipes for ease.

Use Rustic Touch on clean fans to preserve wood.

Chewing Gum

Remove residue with Sol-u-Mel concentrate. (Check for color fastness on materials before using concentrate.)

Scrub gum out with old tooth brush.

China

Soak Fragile china in 1/4 capful of Diamond Bright in a sink full of warm water overnight. Wash and dry as usual.

Chrome

Use Clear Power fully diluted in distilled water when wiping chrome with rag or paper towels until dry.

Clay Flower Pots

Use 1 tsp of Sol-u-Mel mixed with 16 oz water to spray on flowerpots and scrub clean. Use wire brush or steel wool if necessary.

Cleaning Booster

Add 1 capful of Sol-u-Mel to a cleaning job to remove tough stains and nasty odors.

Concrete Patios

Mix 1 oz of MelaMagic in 1 gal of warm water, scrub surface and rinse with hose.

Copper

Use regularly diluted Tub & Tile to any copper which has tarnished or patina.

Countertops

Use 1 tsp Tough & Tender in 16 oz water, spritzed on counters and wipe clean. For tough messes, let sit for several minutes before wiping.

Use Tough & Tender for dark Formica countertops.

Use PreSpot to remove stains.

Disinfect with Sol-u-Guard regularly diluted.

Crayon

Use concentrated Sol-u-Mel on crayon marks on the wall.

Use PreSpot to remove crayon from clothing. Saturate affected area, let sit, then scrub crayon out. Use full strength if need be.

Desks

Dust with Rustic Touch.

(Do not use full strength Tub & Tile and Sol-u-Mel on wood).

Dirt

Use 1 spritz PreSpot and 1 tsp Melapower on affected area, then wash in washing machine with MelaPower and MelaBrite.

Revive Wrinkle Relaxer prevents stains from setting into clothes.

Driveway & Garage

use 2 oz MelaMagic and 2 capfuls of Sol-u-Mel in 16 oz water and spray on stains. Scrub and rinse off.

Dust Mites

Regularly diluted Sol-u-Mel kills dust mites in vents, fabric, linins, bedding, carpet, and dresser drawers.

Electronics

Keep your electronics dust and static free by wiping them with Tough & Tender Wipes.

Enamel

Classic Tooth Polish will polish enamel too.

Fingernail Polish

Use Sol-u-Mel on affected area, let sit, and wipe with water. Repeat if necessary.

Fireplace

Use 1/2 strength Clear Power on glass.

Use diluted MelaMagic on brick and metal, scrub with brush, and rinse.

First Aid (Auto and Home)

Re-use a container to hold T36-C5, Clear Defense Hand Gel, Renew Intensive Skin Therapy, Triple Antibiotic Ointment, Melagel,

Sun Shades Sunscreen, CounterAct Extra Strength, and Antibacterial Liquid Soap. You also need gauze, bandages, tweezers, scissors,

and plastic gloves to complete the kit.

Floors

Use 4 oz MelaMagic in 1 gal of water to mop linoleum and ceramic tile floors. Add Sol-u-Guard to kill bacteria.

Use 1 oz Tough & Tender in 1 gal of water to dry mop hardwood floors.

Remove scuffmarks with full strength Solu-u-Mel, or on wood floors, use Antibacterial Soap.

Flies

Use 1 tsp Tough & Tender and 1 capful of Renew Bath Oil in 16 oz water, spritz areas prone to flies two or three times per week.

Freezer

Use Tough & Tender regularly diluted to clean walls of freezer, or use Tough & Tender Wipes for ease.

Kill mold or mildew by using concentrated Sol-u-Mel on areas and rinse off with diluted Tough & Tender.

Fruit Juice

Use full strength PreSpot on stain, let sit, then wash as normal.

Furniture

Soak fabric with diluted PreSpot, (check for color fastness), wipe with towel.

On wood, leather, or vinyl, use Rustic Touch to clean.

Gnats

Spray counter tops and surrounding hard surfaces with regularly diluted Sol-U-Mel and wipe clean. Spray air with air freshener.

Spray air filters with Sol-U-Mel concentrate, let air circulate in home.

Lightly spray indoor plant soil with 1/4 TSP Sol-U-Mel and 3 drops Lemon Bright in 16oz of water. Repeat every 4 days for two weeks.

Place 2 drops Lemon Bright into 5 – 8oz of water, pour into 4 to 6 wide-mouthed containers and place around home. Change every day until problem is gone.

Garbage Cans

Use 1/2 cup of MelaMagic and 2 capfuls of Sol-u-Mel in 1 gal of hot water, scrub cans with soft brush and rinse. Spray with regularly diluted Sol-u-Guard and let dry.

Glass

Use Clear Power as directed.

Use 1/4 tsp MelaSoft diluted in 16 oz water to keep lint from sticking to glass.

Grease

Use PreSpot, Sol-u-Mel, and Antibacterial Soap on affected area, let sit, rub out, wash as normal.

Grease Spills

Use full strength MelaMagic on affected area, let sit for 15-20 minutes, then wipe up.

On carpet, rub Antibacterial Soap into spots and blot out.

Greasy Hands

Wash hands with The Gold Bar or Antibacterial Soap.

Put 1-2 drops of MelaMagic in Antibacterial Soap as shop hand soap used after working with grease or oil.

Humidifier

Use 1-2 capfuls of Sol-u-Mel in humidifiers will keep mildew and bacteria from forming.

Use 1 drop T36-C5 to add antiviral qualities to the mist.

Kitchen

Use regularly diluted Tough & Tender with 1 tsp Sol-u-Guard on all kitchen surfaces to clean and disinfect.

Use 2 oz of MelaMagic in 16 oz of water to clean oven, fridge, and microwave. Add 1 capful of Sol-u-Mel for stuck on food or dirt.

Mop floors with 1oz of MelaMagic with 1 gal water.

Use 1 tsp Tough & Tender and/or Lemon Bright in the sink, scrub food and debris and rinse.

Use Diamond Brite to clean scuffmarks off enamel sinks. Tooth Polish also does the trick.

Use full strength MelaMagic to clean grease from the hood.

Use 1 capful Sol-U-Mel in 12oz water, microwave on high for 3 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes, wipe microwave clean.

Lawn Furniture

Use 1 tsp of Tough & Tender and 1 capful of Sol-u-Mel in 16 oz water, spray down furniture and wipe clean.

Lawn Mower

Use 1 tbsp of MelaMagic with 1/2 gal of water, spray mower with solution and let sit, rinse off and let dry.

Leather Softener

Use 1 tsp Rustic Touch and several oz of Moisturizing hand Cream into stiff leather.

Machine Parts

Use 1 oz of MelaMagic and 1 capful of Sol-u-Mel to 16 oz of water, spray on parts, let sit, rinse off.

Paint

Spray PreSpot on acrylic or oil based paint spots to be removed, let sit and then dab out.

Soak paint brushes in Sol-u-Mel to remove paint residue.

Pet Stains

Use 1 capful of Sol-u-Mel to 5 oz of water on affected area, let sit for a minute, and scrub out.

Piano Keys

Use regularly diluted Tough & Tender on a cloth to carefully wipe the keys, dry with cloth.

Use Tough & Tender Wipes for ease.

To remove tape residue, use 1 capful Sol-u-Mel diluted with 1-2 oz water and carefully scrub with soft brush.

(Full strength Sol-u-Mel may discolor black keys)

Plants(Indoor)

Use 1 tsp Tough & Tender to 16 oz of water, spritz onto leaves and soil to get rid of mold, mildew, and bugs.

Plastic

Use Rustic Touch to clean plastic grill covers, toaster oven covers, sunglasses, and other plastics.

Clean plastic containers, tubs, totes, and other like items with normally diluted Tough & Tender.

Clean food surfaces made of plastics with 1 tsp SoluGard and 1 tsp Tough & Tender in 32 oz of water.

Pots and Pans

Use 1 tsp Tub & Tile in sink full of hot water to soak pots and pans. Scrub clean with Lemon Bright.

Refrigerator

Use 1 tsp, 1 capful Sol-u-Guard, plus 1 capful of Sol-u-Mel in 16 oz of water to wipe shelves and bins.

Use Sol-u-Mel concentrated to clean the mold and mildew from the seal.

Rust

Use full strength Tub & Tile on rust spots and stains (except from marble and granite).

If on clothes, treat with Tub & Tile, then wash like normal.

Use Rustic Touch to loosen rusted hinges and bolts. (It also works for lubrication on rusted parts as well).

Saw Blades

Use MelaMagic full strength to clean resin buildup from saw, sharper bit, and router bits.

Shoes

Use Rustic Touch to remove scuffs and shine leather shoes, boots, sandals, and crocs.

Sink

Use Sol-u-Guard to disinfect surface.

Silver

Use dab of Classic Tooth Polish to remove tarnish from silver, rinse thoroughly.

Soak tarnished silverware for 1 hour in warm water with 1/2 capful of Diamond Bright.

Starch

Use 1/2 diluted Revive instead of starch for ironing clothing.

Use concentrated Revive to leave clothes extra stiff.

Static Cling

Use 1tsp of MelaSoft in 16oz warm water to spritz clothes with cling.

Add a spritz of 1/2 diluted Revive for a quick static fix.

Tar

Use Sol-u-Mel concentrate on affected area, wipe with rag.

Use 1 tsp Sol-u-Mel and 1tsp PreSpot on clothes to remove tar, gum and goo; let soak and scrub with brush, wash like usual.

Ticks & Chiggers

Spray skin with diluted Sol-u-Mel to avoid getting ticks or chiggers.

Try using a dab of Renew Bath Oil and a drop of T36-C5 over embedded tick and wait until they back out.

Toys

Soak toys in 1 tsp Tough & Tender, 1 capful Sol-u-Mel, and 1 tsp Sol-u-Guard in 1 gal of warm water.

For stuffed animals, place in pillowcase and wash in washing machine with 1 pump MelaPower and 1 capful Sol-u-Mel.

Fill squirt guns with 1 capful of Sol-u-Mel and regularly diluted Tough & Tender to get rid of mold build-up.

Toilets

Use 1 Capful of Sol-u-Guard and 1 Capful of Tough & Tender to clean toilet regularly with brush.

Use Diamond Brite underneath rim to remove hard stains as needed, use brush as normal to scrub.

Use 1 Capful of No Work and 1 Capful of Sol-u-Mel in toilet tank once per week to reduce hard water rings.

Use 1-5 drops of T36-C5 in toilet tank once per week to reduce odors.

Boil 2 Cups of water then ad 1 TSP of Lemon Brite and 1 Capful of Sol-u-Mel, dump in clogged toilet, wait 5 minutes before plunging.

Washing Machine

Run one empty load on hot with 2 capfuls of Sol-u-Mel and 2 capfuls of Tough & Tender.

For tough grease residue, ad 2 capfuls of MelaMagic.

Wood

Use Rustic Touch to clean and protect wood.

Use moisturizing Hand Cream to remove water stains, let sit, and buff out.

Windows

Use regularly diluted Clear Power to clean glass surfaces. Remove streaks with cheap paper towels or an old rag.

Use 1 tsp Tough & Tender and 1/4 cup of Clear Power in power washer for outside windows.

Wrinkles (Clothing)

Use regularly diluted Revive to spritz clothes, shake and hang them up to dry wrinkle free.

Zippers

Dab some Rustic Touch on metal or plastic zippers to make them slide easier.

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Growing Children & Vitamins

I grew up in a lower-middle income family back in the '80s. Unfortunately, nutrition wasn't at the forefront of my childhood.  I grew up on beans, cornbread, Kool-aid and Hot Pockets.  Consequently, I didn't grow very tall.  I probably am not as smart as I should be either.  
Science now understands that proper nutrition in youth helps growth and development.  This is actually older science with many studies conducted over the past two decades, but the conclusion always points to nutrition equaling health.

For babies, breast milk can't be beat.  For most educated people, like you, this is a "DUH!" statement.  However, I still run across people who are misguided to think formula is better.  No matter how you slice and dice it, formula will never be able to fully mimic breast milk.  There is a caveat though. Just as breast milk contains vital nutrients, antioxidants, omega fatty acids, and antibodies crucial for the best health of the baby, it also contains toxins, artificial chemicals, pollution, and pesticides that mom is exposed to.  This is why it is paramount for pregnant and nursing mothers to clean only with natural cleaners, use only natural bath & body products, and eat as cleanly as possibly (non-GMO, organic, non-processed foods when possible). I also encourage nursing mothers to take a quality multivitamin, calcium, and cold water omega-3 supplement so that their milk contains high amounts of essential nutrients their baby needs.

Infants and toddlers need proper nutrients as well. I run across many parents who expose their young kids to candy, processed foods, and junk foods very early.  Soda is not juice, yet I have known several people teach their children that pop in a bottle or sippy-cup is called juice.  I have seen toddlers suck on lollipops or ask for french fries when they pass by a certain fast food joint.  I have seen babies refuse vegetables but reach for something like a cupcake or candy bar.  Please don't introduce your babies and toddlers to junk food. My boyfriend's ex wife potty trained her four kids with Skittles candy instead of something healthier like fruit leather and the bad habits continued to progress into huge problems later on.  I'm guessing because you are reading this, you're smarter than that.  Children shouldn't be introduced to these types of foods until they are quite a bit older.  Instead, infants transitioning to baby food need a healthy diet of vegetables, legumes, lentils,  the occasional cottage cheese or yogurt, and fruit as treats.  Fresh, clean fish, if available, is also excellent to give to your toddler since they need plenty of omega-3s for brain development.  A wide variety of clean foods limits food allergies. Quality liquid multi-vitamins at this stage is recommended to fill in the gaps their food cannot provide.        

Pre-elementary school kids mimic adults and their eating habits.  If your diet is great, your child's will be excellent too.  I must reiterate the importance of not giving your child candy or junk food at this stage. Which means you can't eat those things in front of them either.  A young man I know can't eat fruit unless it has sugar on it, which he learned from his parents; now, anything else healthier than jelly beans, soda, or ho-hos is mortifying for him to choke down, all because he mimicked how his family ate, thus he suffers from a long list of health problems and he has not even hit high school yet.  A diet of junk food growing up will eventually lead to dental problems, obesity, diabetes, memory problems, stunted growth, clogged arteries, intestinal blockages, allergies, asthma, edema, IBS, cardiovascular issues and/or other major health issues later on in preteen and teen years. Not to mention that kids are mean and the self esteem of unhealthy kids plummets leading to mental issues as well.  Some children start to see tooth decay and periodontal disease as early as age 3. Some children struggle to run on a playground or even climb a flight of stairs before they turn 8. I knew one young child who wore Krocks every day because he couldn't bend over far enough to put on tennis shoes.  The diet at this age is probably the most important because it sets up the brain's connection to food and associations linked to emotions.  This is the stage where children learn to recognize tastes and associate feelings which later develop into attitudes about food.  

Elementary school children and middle school children are difficult to please sometimes.  School lunches are almost as unhealthy as fast food but packing a lunch doesn't guarantee that they eat what you pack.  I remember finding out my son only ate his sandwich then threw his fruit and vegetables away.  What's worse is that he admitted to doing it for a long time.  Having your child choose their lunch helps with this issue but I have found that the kids are heavily influenced by other kids/peers and by television commercials.  The other kids bring in fast food, chips, Twinkies, brownies, soda, energy drinks, candy, sugary yogurt, gummy snacks, and other garbage that your child will also want. Although you can't control everything at this point that goes into their belly, you can control what they eat at home.  Nutritious homemade meals are best.  Minimize processed meals and junk food.  Water or tea (no sugar added) is the best when it is readily available.  Avoid juice, soda, energy drinks, and other types of beverages.  Despite what the USDA says, milk and dairy is not the best choice for children because it contains hormones and other weird pollutants, especially from inoculated, GMO-corn fed dairy cows, which can cause premature puberty, gynecomastia (man boobs), acne, tumors, weight gain and other serious health problems. Having fruit and vegetables on hand to snack on and throw into dishes can be quite beneficial as well.  This is the time to give them multi-vitamins daily since there is less control over what goes into their bodies than you had when they were a toddler. Vitamins not only help with their growth but they help with their development as well.

Preteens and teens are much more difficult to force feed healthy food.  By the age of 12, society has given them the opportunity to experience chemicals such as RED40 and MSG.  MSG is a food additive which causes suppression of satiety and food addiction; and it is hidden in just about every bit of processed food you can think of.  Other artificial chemicals put in foods capture the interest of this age group as well.  I know my son was exposed to Takis by the neighbor kids and he fell in love with the wretched things. I discovered that he had been exposed to a lot more than I could have imagined: Hostess snacks, Ego Waffles, Monster, Gushers, doughnuts, Pop Tarts, and Ramen Noodles just to name a few.  I was flabbergasted but this is what other kids his age normally eat so he must "fit in," plus many of these junk foods taste good.  Thus, it is a losing battle with junk food unless you move far away from any civilization and home-school your children. However, that's where training your children young comes in handy.  Teaching toddlers about good food choices carries on into preadolescence.  Kids who are taught good food verses junk food understand it, believe it, and follow it as they mature.  Kids who have not been exposed to junk food early on normally do not crave junk food when they are older.  And hopefully your teen will have less exposure to garbage foods when they reach this age. This is the age where they need to take a quality multivitamin every day.  As soon as my son started taking Oligo vitamins he shot up two inches almost instantly and then grew another four inches over the next couple of months. He also is never sick, even when other kids expose him to colds and influenza.  I then started recommending multivitamins to other parents and the results are very similar.  The teens who take a quality multivitamin have better health than those who do not and seem to grow stronger, smarter, and with less complications than those who don't.  However, multivitamins should not be used in place of a poor diet.  There's many factors that go on in a youth's health, including antioxidants, macro-nutrients, fiber, and limiting processed foods.


Do I recommend adult vitamins for preteens and teens?  Yes, because they are growing and the human body needs a lot of nutrients to grow, mature, and thrive.  Start with half an adult vitamin with breakfast. When your teen exceeds 120lbs add another half with dinner.  When your child exceeds 125lbs add another half of a vitamin during lunch. By 130lbs your child should be taking two full multivitamins each day.  

What type of multivitamins do I recommend?  I prefer Oligo Vitamins because they have an 87% absorbency rate and they do not oxidize in the intestine.  I have tried several different brands for myself and my son but the results just were not that impressive.  I have heard of other brands that are just as good but the price points are a lot steeper.  
What I do not suggest is buying any brands from the grocery store, mall, or health store.  Quality is a huge issue in these brands because the markup is such that the main ingredients in them have to be cheap fillers in order for their manufacturer (usually in a different country) to make a profit.  My mother, who is quite stubborn, uses a $7 multivitamin from Walmart.  If 25% of the manufacturing price goes towards profits and 60% of the market price goes to the advertising, manufacturing, processing, bottling, shipping, distributing, and the stocking of such product, then less than $1 goes towards the ingredients per bottle, which equates to roughly $0.01 per vitamin. So I asked her these points:

• Do you feel a difference after you take them?
• Can you tell when you miss a dose?
• Is your urine bright yellow?
• Does your skin glow? 
• Do you feel nauseous if you take them without food?
• Are there clinical studies on such vitamins?

In which she couldn't answer "Yes" to any of these.  Again, she is quite stubborn so after explaining to her that she should feel the difference and know when she misses a dose, she changed her answers to a "I am pretty sure they do," even though we can all guess that her multivitamins from Walmart are cheap and worthless.

With quality multivitamins your child should:

• Grow
• Be energetic
• Have a good memory
• Develop normally
• Do well in school
• Have strong teeth, hair, and nails
• Maintain a healthy weight 
• Fight off pathogens quicker
• Have healthy looking skin and good eyesight
• Look, act, and feel  overall healthy

 If your child does not exhibit most of these attributes after a month of use then switch brands.  It might be a trial by fire for a few months before you find the right multivitamin for you and your child.

                  
      

  

                              

           
       

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Understanding the Law of Attraction

Someone recently told me that I need to write a book on the Law of Attraction.  I laughed for a few seconds and put the thought aside.  I have started writing books but never have finished any of them.  Either I get side tracked or find that my interest in the topic fades after the first couple of chapters.  However, when my son texted me with excitement from school today saying that his 8th grade class is going on a free ski trip next week, I considered blogging about the Law of Attraction.  My son has been wanting to go skiing for quite awhile now and I told him that he will go this year.  Sure enough, not a couple weeks after talking about it, he's going with his classmates.  That was easy!
I call the Law of Attraction by a different term.  Most call it "The Secret" after the book written by Rhonda Byrne, but I have heard it called "Intentions," or Intending.  Some refer to it as wishing or manifesting.  The religious call it prayer.  I call it mojo.  No matter what you call it, it is all the same and the outcome is always the same. 

You practice it every day, whether you are aware of it or not.  That raise you got, the stubbed toe that happened before your vacation, the red light that made you late for work, were all forms of Attraction.  What you attract depends on what you think and the meaning behind the thought.

The Different Kinds of Mojo:

• Good mojo is what we all want to attract.  It is a winning scratch ticket someone gave you as a birthday gift, it is the parking space right in front when you are in a hurry, it is the promotion at work that you didn't expect.   Good mojo comes in almost blissful waves and makes life so much easier.
• Positive mojo is luck.  It is the unexpected promotion eventually saving you from being laid off, getting dumped in a dead-end relationship a few weeks before finding the "one," finding money when looking for your keys.  It is the moment that a seemingly disappointing event turns out to be an amazing one.   
• Bad mojo is the bad events that swarm our lives like locusts.  Bad mojo is the speeding ticket, stolen credit card, getting fired from a job because of an illness you can't shake, the unexpected bill that you owe for no real reason.  
• Negative mojo is the backward, almost ironic, events in our lives.  Negative mojo is one step forward but two steps back.  For example, it is winning a couple hundred dollars the same day your car breaks down, buying a game station the week before your TV burns out, or breaking the sprinkler line while landscaping the yard.
• Karmic comeback is what you wish for on somebody else or what actions you perform, which then comes back on you. Wishing a person ill health will surely land you with the flu, or something dreadfully worse.  On the other hand, buying coffee for the person behind you in line, only to have your boss give you a gift card later in the week in appreciation of your hard work.  Karmic comeback is sure to catch up to you one way or another.     

Good mojo is what everyone wants to strive for.  It comes with no strings attached.  It doesn't contain hiccups or speed bumps.  It certainly doesn't come with clauses, contracts, ultimatums, or rain checks.  It is just all around good and comes in abundance to those who attract it.  To attract good mojo, one must first be good and think in good ways.  Think, "Starbucks barista" cheerful and happy.  Almost "gag me" happy even if your mood is anything but.  Give more to people who need it.  Smile.  Be happier.  Do things that make you happy.  Become the happy person you know you should be.  Push the "That Was Easy" button more.  Sing, whistle, or hum.  Then think happy thoughts, "I love when birds sing through my window," "My job is awesome," "I love my car."  Most importantly, wish good things for the best of everyone and all things.   Within a couple of days, good mojo starts flowing abundantly throughout your life.

When my boyfriend needed an oil change on his car he was a little strapped for cash.  I said to him, "don't worry, you'll get your oil change."  The next day I was offered a free oil change for being a veteran.  All I had to do was make an appointment.  So I made one for that Friday and my boyfriend got his oil changed for free.  "That Was Easy!"        
Positive mojo is being unexpectedly lucky in coincidental outcomes, often too ridiculous to repeat.  It is usually a lesson and has an attached motive somewhere.  You can think of it as a bad situation turned out for the best, or an unexpected good outcome from a potentially bad scenario.  In some cases it is one step backwards and two steps forward, other times it is one step backwards and a couple steps sideways before one step forward again.  It is your half-assed, egocentric wishes coming back slapping you in the face!  Although many people wish to be lucky, it really isn't advantageous to be lucky.  Luck often comes disguised with a hidden agenda.  It is important when something bad happens to stay positive, be happy and sincerely cheerful.  Look at the glass as always half full with a refill coming.  But most importantly, to wish for things to come easily for the good of everyone and all things.  

When my sister was rear-ended in her collector's addition Mustang, it had the potential to be a wet, hot, mess.  The kid who rear-ended her had insurance through a shady insurance company owned by a discount traffic law firm.  The insurance company was one of those companies that would be as close to being a scam as a slug is to a snail, but I digress.  The auto body shop my sister took her car to even had a sign on their front desk saying they specifically do not take this insurance.   But despite all the negatives she faced, my sister kept a positive outlook and within a week, her car was fixed as good as new with no hiccups or issues.  Even the lady at the front desk was amazed by how smooth the process was.

Bad mojo are those bad days where one bad thing happens after another.  Or it is the one very bad thing that sends a flood of emotions through you.   It is the event that is hard to recover from.  It is the mess that landed in your lap.  It is the spiral downwards into a chasm of torment and despair.  It is often the negative thoughts creating the reality we fear.  Being fired, getting into a car accident, losing a loved one, or getting sick.   The more rotten things get the more negative thoughts create a deluge of bad mojo.  The deeper the hole gets the harder it is to climb out.  Start with friends and ask for positive feedback.  Ask for acknowledgement and support from them.  Get out and have fun.  Find someone who can help you think happy thoughts again.  Get back to thinking happy.  Remember, six out of seven dwarves are not happy.  Don't find the grumpy dwarf and expect results.

A friend of mine recently fell into the bad mojo trap.  She found herself jobless, relationshipless, dogless, broke, hungry, and then homeless within a matter of a few weeks.  Everything she did was futile because something bad was happening to her around every corner.  And, unfortunately the bad mojo bunny loves leaving rotten eggs everywhere; more bad mojo eggs were laid every time she complained about her life, talked about her troubles, and worried about what bad thing was going to ruin her life next.  She would keep breaking open the rotten eggs only to continue to spiral downwards deeper into the dark hole she feared falling into.   She has yet to recover.           Negative mojo is the irony that leaves your life a complicated mess.  It is the good thing that comes from the bad thing, only to unexpectedly return back to bad again.  Or it is the event that you thought was going to turn out good that ended up to be a slap in the face and a kick in the pants.  I tend to think that negative mojo is worse than bad mojo because negative mojo plays a huge prank on you at your expense.  It would be funny if it wasn't not funny, though many people are laughing at you.  It often comes attached with some ultimatum or hidden agenda written somewhere in an abstract contract you didn't get to read.  It is that event that seems too ridiculous to be real, but too real to ignore.  When stuck in the negative mojo it is often harder to get back into good mojo because you almost wait for the punchline.  When you wait for a punchline, one will show up turning good mojo into negative mojo again.  It is important to surround yourself with positive people and good situations.  Don't expect a trap or wait for a punchline, instead keep expecting good things to happen.  Be happy about what you do have and look at the glass as being half full with another free refill coming.  

I was joking around with my sister that I wanted to drop a 300 hp engine in my old car, which I just spent $2400 to repair.  What I really wanted, however, was to replace my car with an SUV and made that quite clear to the almighty powers that be.   Well, not a couple days later, the head gasket in my car  blew leaving my sister and I stranded a long ways from anywhere on a hot day without shade.  It wasn't very funny.   My dad offered his "gutted for scrap metal" '92 Blazer to me while I save enough for a new car.   I plunked down another $1,000 to fix the old SUV up enough so that I would have a vehicle in the interim.  However, the Blazer doesn't have heat or a working dash and stalls out frequently.  One recent afternoon, I was thinking about my situation and finally realized that I was slapped in the face with negative mojo.  I no longer have a working engine in my old car and I ended up trading it for a SUV; a joke at my expense.   

Karmic comeback is tricky to understand.  Regardless if you believe in karma or not, thoughts directed at other people will come back to you.   From what I observed, karma is more or less the actions, feelings, and thoughts you have which influence the actions, feelings, and thoughts of others, thereby changing outcomes and creating future events; much like a butterfly effect.  I also can simplify it as describing karma as ripples of water in a bathtub: one ripple effects all the water and will touch all the sides of the tub with some waves bouncing back and interfering with the other waves going in a different direction.  This is the best analogy for it is similar to human's instinctive energy cycles.   A fun social experiment is to watch crowds in a busy mall and notice the direction of flow, the waves, the dams, and even the occasional upstream fish that decides it wants go against the flow of traffic.  In the karmic sense, what you create for other people bounces back your way.  Be prepared if what you send out is not your cup of tea.

I once had dated a moron long ago who truly believed that if he prayed hard enough he could burn off all of his karmic debt.  He got this concept from joining a modern cult derived from the 13th century Sant Mat religion, which taught that a person inherits and earns karma (like a point system) and can burn it off by meditating and praying to a secret [dead] person.  I humored him for a few months as he revealed his master's teachings to me.  Yet his entire life was a crap filled, maggot infested, rotten deviled egg.  He had a bum leg from an old auto accident, had sleep apnea, had trouble with his memory, he suffered from prostatitis and E.D., rented a slum apartment in the ghetto, drove an old Geo Metro, had pissed off his entire family, had burned through his retirement account to visit his son out of state who didn't want to see him anyway, and was stuck working graveyard shift in a grocery store making barely enough to scrape by.  Don't ask me what I saw in him, albeit he was good looking with a silver tongue, he also used women and discarded them like fast food containers.  Close to the end of the short time we dated, he tried to teach me how to become "enlightened" through the teachings of his cult leader hoping I would join him on his spiritual journey.  He was an idiot.  But what I did learn was that, 1) karmic comeback happens all the time, good and bad, 2) you reap what you sow, 3) sometimes karma can instantaneously ruin your life, or in my ex's case, eat at it so slowly that it isn't noticeably painful...yet.   Most importantly, I learned to keep on karma's good side because the bad side can be very vindictively vengeful!           
  

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Weight Loss: The Flawed Science and Tipping Point

If you have read my previous posts, you know that I do not buy into calories.  I have been telling people this for a decade now.  It's not to say that calories are imagined, but the measurement of caloric energy has nothing to do with metabolism; unless there's a gnome in your belly lighting food on fire with matches.  Nutritionists, dietitians, and even some medical doctors have argued with me on this point saying calories must be true.  Their argument always comes down to: because that is what they learned from other credible people who learned it, so it must be true.  So when I ask, "who was the first person to invent the kilocalorie," not a single one of the nutritionists, dietitians,or medical doctors could answer me.  The calorie in-calorie out theory is a taught down science and never questioned.  Then there's me. I questioned it.  I argued with everyone I could and wrote papers to prove that this theory is flawed.  But scientists do not like to be questioned or discredited.

It just didn't make a lick of sense how lighting stuff on fire to boil water had anything to do with human insulin, cortisol, ATP, cellular metabolism, synthetic food, edema, mineral absorption, or anything else that biologists and chemists have learned over the past century.  Plus, only Westerners use this method.  If a person travels around the world, every other culture teaches how to eat for the seasons and their body type and how to stay healthy.  Not Westerners.

When I was in medical school, I realized just how much scientists hate to be questioned.  I was not allowed to do research that would discredit or change anything.  Then, as I did the research that I wasn't supposed to do research on, my research was guided, rather coerced, into directions that "made more sense."  I was quite flabbergasted with this. If my findings suggested that something was different than what was normal, I had to change my findings to coincide with normalcy.  That pissed me off!

But then I got it.  Scientists over the last century who have questioned normalcy have been laughed at, scorned, and even chastised.  There have been hundreds of occasions where someone has questioned something and even proven something outside of the accepted norm but have been hushed and squashed by the scientists who keep science normal. This isn't a conspiracy, however one can jump on that bandwagon.  It is just about enterprise and keeping the industries happy and wealthy.  

Let me give you an example.  The China Study is a famous study that happened to leak out two decades ago and consequently, the milk and dairy industry suffered as it was discovered that milk causes tumor growth and estrogen-sensitive organs to develop cancerous tumors.  Other similar studies around the globe also concluded the same findings.  Milk also was found in other cases to cause weight gain and encourage tumors to spread.  But the milk and dairy industry hates findings which impede their profit margin.  All big industries hate when people ruin their business.  In fact, they go crazy when this happens and that's when these huge industries become disloyal and very dishonest.  To save face in any circumstance, industries bribe their own "scientists" with a lot of money to counter the original findings of the independent (low budget) scientist, then threats are made to shut up the people destroying the industries' reputation; lastly, the big industries pay a lot of money to make the bad findings and bad people disappear. Alongside that, the industries push through bills which are enacted, like the ag-gag for example, to keep people naive about the wrongful practices. Name any large industry and this paragraph sums it up.

I too have been laughed at and scorned with my hypotheses and proposals.  I am not a big name, however, so the diet industry has not chastised or threatened me yet.  Is it about money?  Absolutely!  The diet and weight loss industry is a multi-billion dollar industry.  If something were to drastically change how people think about weight loss, the industry would be in a panic.  If weight loss became easy and everyone became a healthy weight, the multi-billion dollar industry would suffer tremendously.   I'm not saying that my anti-belief in calories was directly related to the demise of the diet industry, I just know that the calories theory will be around as long as people buy weight loss food and buy into the belief that physical starvation and deprivation is the way to lose weight.

That is where I am going to tell you the secret.  It's easy to lose weight!  Absolutely it is quite easy.  But it is tough to get to that mentality.  In actuality, it is just a mentality. Most people with substantial fat deposits are mentally struggling with something in their life.  The fat is just a symptom of the mentality which makes losing it ridiculously hard to do.  A trauma or life experience impacts how your brain functions, then you have been bombarded with delicious processed food, and later you were told to limit calories because that is the standard practice.  The industry told you to switch to diet foods, take pills, eat soy and yogurt, avoid eggs and nuts, follow the food pyramid, eat a lot of bread, eat fish, don't consume artificial sweetener, exercise more, watch your calories, don't eat bread but egg whites and bacon are okay, don't eat fruit or vegetables, don't take the pill, drink your food, consume this zero calorie sweetener, take this pill instead, eat Twinkies, drink milk, vitamins make you fat, don't eat fish but eat pork, sprinkle this on your food, create a food diary to count calories, avoid legumes...buy our weight loss product today! 

See, money.

But my advice is free.  You don't need to buy into any diets or go crazy over starvation tactics.  First, find the emotional block you have.  It could be self esteem issues, a trauma, a loss, a negative moment you had as a teen.  Something is bothering you and you need to come to terms with it.  If you need to go see a rent-a-friend (therapist) then do that.  Or a faster way is to find the problem within yourself, write it down on paper and do an emotion burning ceremony where you safely burn the paper.  Do that every day for as long as you need to.  Next, clear out your food pantry and fridge.  Get everything out.  Throw out all the processed, artificial, and crap food.  Third, go shopping for food using these three rules: 1) it can decompose or rot if left outside, 2) it doesn't have an artificial color, sweetener, or weird ingredient added to it, 3) and it is minimally processed without a wrapper inside more wrappers.  Those are the three major rules I teach people when it comes to buying food.  The next step is to eat a lot.  Eat constantly and all the time.  "What?" you say. Yes, if the food you are eating is natural (nothing weird or gross put into it or onto it) then your body will think it is awesome and start to consume its own fat.  This is not something you will ever be taught or ever hear from the industries or scientist who are being paid by the industries because they will lose money.  Simply put, eating an apple with cinnamon and honey will help you lose fat while eating an apple pie from the grocery store will not.  Lastly, keep up the mentality.  Tell yourself you can be whomever you want to be and believe in yourself.  It is natural to fall back into your slump once people start to notice how great you look.  It is natural and I have seen it a lot.  Again, it is all mental.  The mind influences how the body looks and feels.  Once you realize how much, then you will be able to shed fat like it's going out of style.  You won't regret it either!                      

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Getting Rid of $124,500 in Debt

Whoa!  How in the world did I get to $124,500 in debt?  It was a lot of bad choices.  Living above my means for several years, taking in guests I couldn't afford to support, and hanging onto an asset that was more of a debt sponge than a long-term investment.  The credit cards slowly absorbed my inability to get ahead with the bills. Pretty soon I found myself paying for several huge emergencies with the balance remaining on my credit cards and having to transfer those balances to different credit cards to keep up with the minimum payments.
 
I wasn't alone, however.  It is estimated that about 47% percent of Americans could not pay for a simple $400 emergency if one should happen to spring up right now.  Nearly all middle to upper-middle income people would not be able to replace an appliance in their home without using a credit card.  And, even more grim to think about, only a small percentage of Americans pay for their wants and luxuries with cash.  This means that the large majority of us use credit to live comfortably in modern society and most of us have wants vs. needs intertwined in a way that places electronic devices above groceries on our list of priorities.

Taking A Look
My list of priorities is not that bad. I am still using an old cell phone and I don't own a Tablet or Kindle. I don't have cable or any other luxuries. Yet, here I am, still in debt up to my eyeballs.  So how am I going to tackle all of this debt.   First thing was to sit down and list every single debt I had, the total balance in one column and the minimum payment each month in the next column.  For some people, this is a hard task since watching the little payments (the fast food stop last Thursday, the ice cream on Tuesday, etc.) is hard to do.  It becomes an easy habit to just buy stuff without monitoring it.  When I helped my boyfriend out with his finances, he was shocked that over $500 per month went to his food since he never cooked at home.  After every last penny spent was accounted for, I then added all my income.  I have several sources of income and they all vary from month to month so this one was harder for me to do than if I had a regular salary job.  April was very devastating since I had a couple of emergencies to take care of and I didn't receive all of my payments owed for that month, hence the reason I stepped into May almost $2,000 in the hole.  Again, people's financial priorities are askew when their landlord is last on the list to get paid.

After I added all three columns up separately, I subtracted what I owed monthly from what I made.  Oh that number was sad!  In fact, it was a negative number for both April and May.  So I decided to do a projected budget for June and I would just barely break even if 100% of my income came in like it was supposed to.

Bad Assets
I had also realized that 63% of my income was going to my rental unit.  Although rent covered all of the normal monthly expenses, i.e. mortgage, insurance, HOA, remodel loan, it never covered all of the repairs I had to do after the tenants move out, or the necessary eviction costs when needed, the period of vacancy in between tenants, and the tedious process of finding a new tenant.  If I had the property paid off, then it would not be a huge deal and I wouldn't panic with the constant uncertainty of being paid rent.  If my tenants decided not to pay rent, which happened often, all of those bills went directly onto credit.  Over time, that added up to thousands of dollars.  When I sat down and did the math, anywhere from $4,000 to $8,000 per year was thrown into this money pit without so much as a kiss or wink from the other side.   The valuable lesson here is that money pits are not worth it.  Ergo, I am selling it and taking off the shackles this debt sponge placed on my ankles.

Toilet Paper Factor
Another bad decision I made was being too nice to friends whom clearly took advantage of me.   Without dragging you into the details, I let some friends stay with me for awhile.  In so doing, they dragged me down a chasm of debt without a way out!  I dubbed the phenomenon the Toilet Paper Factor.  One sheet of toilet paper is not expensive.  Two rolls are not much more expensive.  But when you add hundreds of toilet paper rolls up over time, it gets outlandishly expensive.  That is exactly what had happened.  The same goes for everything else, over time the stuff you use gets expensive.  The point here really is that little things do add up.  What I learned from this experience is that when you add up the all the bathroom supplies, the laundry soap, the extra cleaning supplies, the water and electricity, the garbage bags, and all the other consumables; and then all the repairs and replacements of household stuff (dishwasher, sewer, garbage disposal, silverware that went missing, Tupperware and Blender Bottles that were thrown away, or the tools that inexplicably went missing) pennies add up to dollars which explode into hundreds, and eventually thousands.  Yes!  Thousands!  Three thousand to be exact.   Three thousand dollars that I will never get back.  Realizing that all that miscellaneous stuff gets expensive is important when climbing out of debt.  I am a frugal person so I couldn't understand why the electricity and water bill doubled, or how anyone could just throw valuable stuff away.  I suppose one could argue that those people didn't care about my stuff, and to a point, that is very true.  But on the other hand, they must have continued their expensive habits into my house after becoming homeless.  Just a little awareness and changing some habits could definitely have changed their outcome.  It is important to know that taking in homeless kith & kin is a very bad idea (they are homeless for a reason), and it is important to modify some habits to reduce unnecessary costs (like shutting off a light or reducing shower time to ten minutes).  

Credit Cards
I was told a long time ago never to take out credit cards.  I wish I followed that advice.  Credit Cards are essentially a virtual imprisonment in which you will never be free from.  Only a very dedicated few will ever be able to get rid of their high-balance credit cards and loans and live debt free.  The banking industry made it this way on purpose.  It isn't anything personal, it is just good business to make millions off of their customers.  One simple way they do this is to compound interest daily, which simply means that they add interest on top of interest on top of interest.  By the end of the month, a card might charge almost $80 for you to carry a balance of $6,000.  That is $80 you will never see again.  Over a year, that is nearly one thousand dollars you will never see again!  If a bank has a million customers with high balances on their credit cards, that can equal billions each year the bank doesn't have to work hard for.  This is no way an insult to the banking system, rather it is quite brilliant.  They loan you money to get something you DON'T really need, like a new smart phone, and you pay them back over time, plus interest every single month you carry an outstanding debt.  You borrow some more money to buy a new game station, and you pay them back plus interest, again, every single month you carry an outstanding debt.  Then your tire goes flat on your way to work.  Then your washing machine breaks and you need a new one.  You will pay a thousand dollars for that game station while it continuously depreciates into only one  hundred bucks.  Meanwhile, the washing machine and dryer break down, some jerk without insurance causes an accident, and the dog falls off the bed and breaks his leg.  Pretty soon, the minimum balances are way too much to handle and the minimum balance goes mostly to paying off the interest.  I know because this happened to me.

Loans
Loans are just as bad.  You put down something as collateral to borrow money promising to pay back the money plus interest compounded daily.  If you don't pay back your loan, the item you put down as collateral will be taken by the institution you owe.  Not only will the bank make thousands of dollars off of you, but they get to keep the item you put down as collateral.  In most cases, they get to sell the item and still charge you for the difference.  If you don't pay your debt, they get to write it off as a loss on taxes and send the remaining amount to a collection agency.  Some people fall into the trap of pay day loans and pawn shop loans.  These are the worst type of loans people can get scammed in to.  Yes, I said scam!  I know this one because I watched several friends get pay day loans to pay their minimum payments on their credit cards or buy something they didn't need (again the priorities thing) and spiral downwards until they were using pay day loans to pay down on their pay day loans to pay down their credit cards to pay their rent.  This is nasty cycle.

Sucking It Up
Faced with an extreme amount of debt, I had to act fast.  I had to figure out a way to make an extra $500 per month to apply to the debt each month.  So I took up a part time job on top of my full time job and other activities I was participating in.  That meant I had to apply time management skills and I had to cut out other activities, like my volunteer work and personal time, such as going to the gym, to just a few hours a month.  When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging and look for a rope to climb out.  Making extra money is that rope when you need to get out of debt.  Furthermore, stay away from get-rich schemes, MLM's, and investment opportunities.  When you are already drowning in debt, participating in these money making ideas can be an expensive venture that most cannot recover from.  The idea is to put down the shovel and quit digging, not to pick it back up and start digging again; when you buy into an opportunity, you continue to dig further.  Getting a good ol' part time job which will give you a guaranteed $125 per week is what you need to start climbing.

Planning For The Future
It should only take you a couple months of extra work to get to where the debt is manageable.  I knew that if I worked a part time job for six months, I could get to where the debt was manageable again.  My ultimate goal is to become debt free before 2020.  I also want to retire on time so managing my retirement accounts is crucial to getting to that goal.  It is important to look at life long goals and set easy stepping stones down so achieving those goals becomes an easy reality.  After the debt is fully paid off, speaking with a financial adviser about retirement plans is the next step.  You will want to open an emergency fund and keep at least six months salary in it.  You will also want to contribute the maximum amount into your retirement fund and open a secondary fund in order to diversify if your primary account is through an employer. 

Living Happy
After you have reached a debt-free lifestyle, achieved a six-month emergency fund, and your retirement account is all situated, having a budget in order to keep yourself from digging another hole is a great idea.  But, better yet, planning a little fun a couple times per year makes for a better life.  Simple things like taking a long weekend vacation or doing something exciting on a day off could break up the monotony of living the rat race.  Plus, saving up for these fun exertions help to keep your goals on track by encouraging you to continue to evaluate and update your budget regularly.  

 
          

         



                

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Natural vs Vegan

I meet a lot of people from all walks of life.  I meet people from rural areas, agricultural areas, city and metro areas, and urban areas.  I meet people who live industrial lives.  I meet people who live farm lives; or even better, redneck lives.  I have even met people who live a mountain man life with no formal electricity or running water.  Then I am bombarded with the diet conundrum.  Some people eat mostly meat.  Some people eat mostly processed foods.  Some people eat farm food.  Others eat just raw vegetables.  I have met people who consume only legumes, nuts and seeds.  Some people eat food I didn't even know can be considered food.  A friend was telling me about a guy she knows who's normal lunch is a bacon sandwich, pop, chips and a Hostess treat.  On the other extreme, I know many people who's lunch consists of carrots, celery, hummus, quinoa, and kale chips. 

Last night, I was giving a presentation to a handful of vegans of different varieties.  Most of them were processed food veganists.   They are the type of vegans who consume industrially-made meat/dairy-free foods.  Processed vegan foods are easy to obtain and often ready made meals wrapped in plastic.  Some meals are even processed and packaged such where you can take off the wrapper and throw into the microwave for a minute before serving.   And although there are many types of processed vegan foods with many different types of manufacturing methods, I will pick on one specific brand to focus my point on.  The point I am going to make is that veganism, in and of itself, is not the same as natural.  Certainly you can be a naturalist vegan or you can subscribe to a vegan naturalist, but subscribing to the vegan culture does not make one natural.

Here's why:
Morning Star is a subsidiary offshoot brand of Kelloggs.  Kelloggs is a large industrial agriculture company in which their agricultural practices rely on GMOs, specifically Round-Up ready crops scattered across the Mid-West.  Kelloggs also owns other offshoot brands, geared toward vegans, such as Bare Naked and Kashi, pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars annually.  None of the products Kelloggs manufactures is genuinely natural.  Here's where the divergence between vegan and healthy happens.  Processed veganism utilize these foods as sustenance, often replacing a portabella mushroom head for a synthetic burger made of mashed soy.  Manufacturing of the soy burgers starts with GMO soy which is processed, refined, dipped in hexane, pulverized, mixed with stabilizers and preservatives, and then formed into patties where it is then cooked and packaged in plastic.  Plastics, when disposed of, potentially ends up in the ecosystem where it harms wildlife.  Furthermore, some of the preservatives include: calcium propanoate (which has been shown to cause neuroinflammation in lab studies), artificial flavorings, unsalted butter (which is anti-vegan), sodium triphosphates (which production damages ecosystems), sodium hexametaphosphate, and other not so good ingredients. Yum. Then, large manufacturing plants use thousands of gallons of diesel fuel to ship their products across the united states (killing bugs and wildlife in the process). As a naturalist, I would take an organic, hand made, locally farmed portabella mushroom sandwich over a synthetically made factory hamburger any day!
But even if a person decides to convert into an organovegan, problems with that arise.  Organic or not, bugs in processed food is more common than you might think.  In fact, the FDA allows bugs (among other animal parts) to be processed in with food.  It is rather unavoidable in large manufacturing plants such as Kelloggs.  Mice, rats, grasshoppers, flies, maggots, worms, crickets, beetles, moths, caterpillars, and other creatures, as well as their feces and body parts, mix in with the plants being processed and therefore cooked within the food.  A processed vegan's meal can contain over 60 insect fragments, hair, scales, and droppings per bite of food. A naturalist is more concerned about the toxins and byproducts put in their food rather than avoiding the consumption of living organisms.
The push for veganism is still harming the environment.  Even though I receive a lot of arguments about this, the amount of pesticides and herbicides which are used taint the water supply and leach into the ground damaging the surrounding ecosystem.  What's worse, land fragmentation due to industrial farming interrupts the natural life-cycles of many animals.  For instance, the removal of grassland to plant GMO soy kills off or moves the wildlife in the local area, urging other predators, such as fox, owls, and hawks to relocate as well.  Deemed as pests, everything from coyotes to squirrels are killed off to ensure the agricultural business maintains crop quota.  One large example is the prairie dogs in the eastern part of Colorado, which are considered a huge nuisance to most farmers, are subsequently poisoned by the hundreds.  With them, the eagles, hawks, fox, coyotes, black footed ferrets, and other animals reliant on the fragile food chain disappear with them.   Then the rabbit population explodes so more poison is brought in to take care of the issue because rabbits are detrimental to farmland.  Other loosely linked animals find themselves migrating into urban areas in the search for territory and food.  Bears, mountain lions, bobcat, lynx, coyote, and fox are all winding up in cities where they normally wouldn't be because they are being pushed out of their natural habitat; thus forcing politicians to find ways of exterminating these pests.  Colorado legislature is currently working on a bill which will push to eradicate the mountain lion, which is heavily supported by hunters and farmers.  Just recently, a bill that would bring back baiting bears to hunt was brought through but thankfully didn't pass.  As industry farming grows, the worse the problem becomes and the more bills are brought through to take care of the ecological imbalance created by industry farming.  A naturalist is more concerned about holistic farming practices, ecological preservation and sustainability rather than modes of increasing crop production world-wide.
  
I promote and encourage a naturalist diet and lifestyle. Now I, myself, am not 100% natural.  I can't be! I live in an urban part of Denver where the growing season is half a year long and I can't leave my house nude to go pick edible flowers in the field behind the library.  If I could, I would.  On the same token, I don't wear hair products or makeup, and I wear mostly cotton or wool clothing.  I hit up the farmer's markets during the summer and the natural supermarket during the winter.  I buy meat and dairy from local farms who believe in holistic/sustainable practices.  I stay away from industrially made items and food.  Yes, I watch TV occasionally.  Yes, I cook on a gas stove.  Yes, I have a water heater in my basement which heats up my water for showering.  But I also garden every year, I recycle everything I can, I compost, I conserve energy and water, and I buy my household consumables from a responsible manufacturing company that doesn't test on animals.  
Last night, the group of vegans I spoke with held themselves higher than me because, in their mind, am an animal murderer.  The slice of cheese I put on my sandwich condemns cows to a horrific death. I invoke rage and animosity in them for my dietary habits, which one person emphasized milk drinkers should be stabbed in the face!  But none of them realized that they were as much a culprit to animal slaughter as I am.  The major difference is that a naturalist believes in helping the environment as a whole while maintaining a healthy lifestyle.  Most processed vegans subscribe to a philosophy of saving animals by keeping them from being slaughtered for food, even if it requires consuming synthetic food.  Most processed vegans I have met are extremely unhealthy and start having serious issues related to deficiency or toxicity problems, i.e. sodium build-up, homocysteine build-up, biotin deficiency, iron deficiency, vitamin B12 deficiency, and thiamine deficiency just to name a few.  In fact, one vegan man I knew suffered from hepatic edema, pancreatitis, and gynaecomastia after being on a processed vegan diet for two decades.  Many of these health problems could be avoided if processed foods were not consumed, vegan or not.  

As I put a load of laundry in my washing machine this morning, I thought to myself, "I wonder how many of those people last night use natural, animal-safe laundry detergent to wash their clothes?"  I would be willing to bet one hundred bucks that none of them use naturally derived, animal-safe, biodegradable products in their homes.  None of them arrived on a bike.  None of them walked in nude (albeit I hope not).  All of them wore shoes, had groomed hair, and had cell phones.  Not a single one of them insisted I turn off the light because it used electricity, for these city dwellers, that would be a silly request.  Not one of them walked into the room in such a way that they didn't leave a carbon footprint or took up space in some way.  


                   

           

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How Not To Get Sick-Ever

     I don't get sick.  Even with others around me coughing, sneezing, hacking, and sputtering, I don't get sick.  My friends often say, "Don't come near me, you don't want to catch what I have."  That's when I tell them that I don't ever get sick.  Now, normally I never say never because that is a recipe for disaster.  But I have been saying that phrase for seven years now and I have had only a couple slight colds that lasted a couple of days with the worst of it being a a slight sniffle.  So when I was recently asked how I never get sick I said, "simple, let me teach you how!"

     First, I am not a hypochondriac.  There is genuinely something to fulfilling your own prophecies.  There is somebody I know who recently quit their job because they have uvulitis (or inflammation of the uvula); supposedly chronic uvulitis is life threatening and incurable.  If you slapped your forehead, just know that I did too.  This person also has thirty other syndromes, diseases, and ailments ranging from the obscure to "roll your eyes,"  all needing medication to treat the phantom symptoms.   It is also good to know that your tax dollars are supporting this person and other people like this, but I digress.  Although difficult to diagnose, it is estimated that hypochondria affects about nine percent of the American population.  In other words, about 1 in every 10 to 11 of your friends are hypochondriacs.  These are the friends and acquaintances who need prescription medication for everything and often come up with the strangest symptoms or excuses at random times.  Many hypochondriacs are in denial, often changing doctors multiple times if the results they get from a medical examination doesn't meet their desired outcome of diagnosis. The best way to figure out if you are the hypochondriac  is to examine how many medications you are taking on a daily basis and how many you need to take for the rest of your life.  If you answered 1) several and 2) all of them because there is no way you can live without them, then you're probably causing a cyclic pattern of fulfilling your own disease-ridden prophecies.

     Why?  The mind and the body are connected in a very interesting way; taking sugar pills have cured people of diseases in what is known as a placebo effect.  The opposite of placebo effect is called the nocebo effect.  It is where a person can convince themselves they are sick due to an external stimuli which induces thought patterns (radio commercials for prescription drugs for example).  The most classic example is feeling pain in the groin after watching someone getting smacked in their groin by a ball.  Another example is carrying a fake, plastic hand in your sleeve for 20 minutes then slamming it in the door and actually feeling the pain.  This is a sympathetic association response to stimuli. Once a person thinks they are sick, more than likely they become sick because of the same mechanisms in action. 

     Now that I probably pissed many readers off, I will go into the second step of how not to get sick.  I have a supplement regimen.  I take a quality multivitamin from a company I can trust.  I also take a lot of other supplements which I will list below.  Not only am I very healthy, but I am disease free.  It was a different story just a decade ago when I was diagnosed with hypertension, pre-diabetes, high cholesterol, high triglycerides and several other diseases and syndromes.  My weight was over the top and every part of my body hurt.  I was told I would have to be on medication for life.  Well, that comment was an eye-opening statement!  That is what started me on my natural health voyage and if I can cure my own body, I know anyone else can.
     My regimen starts out at eight in the morning when I stretch and lightly exercise.  The body movements stretch and constrict the muscles which activate and move fluids from the lymphatic system to my blood stream.  The lymphatic system is the key system to keeping you disease and sickness free.  In Chinese Medicine, natural movement of the body activates Wei Qi, the natural guardian energy that keeps the body disease free.  In Ayurvedic  medicine, movements help tone and balance the Prana essential to achieving balanced health.  
     Throughout the day, I drink water, tea, coffee, and occasionally fruit smoothies for extra fiber.  Fiber is necessary for a healthy digestive system, along with probiotics and prebiotics.  Probiotics maintain healthy bacteria in the intestine which helps to break down nutrients.  Prebiotics are non-digestible organic matter which helps sustain healthy microflora growth.  Studies have shown that probiotics and prebiotics help reduce tumor growth in the colon and large intestine.  A healthy balance of gut flora also helps reduce bloating, gas, and decreases the smell of bowel movements.
     I exercise regularly.  Exercising helps to reduce stress, increase muscle mass, thicken bones, and improve sleep.  Sleep is paramount for cellular repair and strengthening the immune system.  Just a couple hours of normal movement a day can count as exercise.  Climbing stairs, parking further away from buildings, gardening, walking the dogs, and even cleaning house all counts as moderate exercise.  But you also want to strengthen your core by doing core exercises, like planking or burpees, at least three times a week.  I partake in challenges quite often and reward myself with spa days for successfully completing body challenges.  Find them on Facebook, Pinterest, or even start your own.
   Lastly, I find my zen every day.  The real definition of zen stems from the Buddhist religion in which one becomes enlightened through meditation, where one observes the inner consciousness of the whole.  My definition of zen is much simpler, it is that moment where nothing else matters but the fact that you are alive, doing well, and have much more to offer the world.  It is achieved in that moment of quietness and tranquility.  Some simpler forms of this can be watching fish in a fish tank, relaxing in a hammock, or going on a nature walk.  I find my zen before work each day, even if it seems impossible.
 
   These are the list of supplements I take every day:

• Cell Wise:         Cellular Function 
• Florify:              Probiotics
• NutriView:        Eye Health
• Oligo Calcium:  Calcium
• Oligo Vitamin:   Multivitamin
• Omega-3:         Brain Health
• Phytomega:      Cholesterol Support
• Recover AI:     Inflammatory Support
• Replenex:         Joint Health

 I just recently incorporated a new supplement into my regimen called NutraTherm which increases metabolism.  I am not sure how it will effect me and my health so I am leaving this one out for now. 


                

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