How to Uninvite Mr. Montezuma

Diarrhea or Montezuma's Revenge, can ruin your vacation, keeping you in bed for days on end. Travelers diarrhea is usually caused by bacteria, parasites and viruses. The microscopic bugs at the top of these rather gut wrenching charts are E Coli, the staphylococci, shigella and salmonella species, campylobacter jejune, cryptosporidiosis, and hepatitis A.

Infected food is the biggest culprit, with water coming in second. Ice cream, cocktails served in re-used coconut shells, raw seafood, ice, and food from street vendors are potential risks that can interrupt your adventure with less salacious memories to pass on to family and friends.

If you take a few precautions however and observe some simple guidelines along with having the right remedies in your suitcase, you may be able to avoid a case of Mummy Tummy and enjoy every minute of your vacation.

Tip1

Drink only bottled mineral water when you travel and avoid drinking local tap water even for brushing teeth or ice in your drinks. This is the most important thing you can do to help protect yourself from ingesting organisms that may be in the water wherever you vacation.

Tip 2

Eat only cooked foods. Many raw foods, especially fruits and salads are washed in the local tap water, which may leave deposits on the skin containing organisms that can give you traveler's diarrhea. If you eat fruit, only choose those that can be peeled.

Tip 3

Include hand sanitizer gel and wipes in your suitcase when you travel. Use the wipes before eating or whenever you feel you need a cleanup to prevent the spread of germs while you're out and about.

Tip 4

Watch what you eat. Even cooked foods may contain local products that may be contaminated or merely processed locally, exposing them to organisms native to that environment. If you are not used to eating the local foods, you may get ill.

Tip 5

Take homeopathics and spagyric botanicals such as Colo Chord, Amoeba Chord and Core Olive Leaf from our Energetix product line with you to prevent you from getting sick.

Pineapple Kiwi Colada

The list of ingredients (scroll to the bottom for the list and recipe) is straight forward but contains some great healing properties.

Pineapple:
Pineapples contain a special group of enzymes called bromelain, which function both as a digestive aid and anti-inflammatory compound. Pineapple is also an excellent source of manganese – an essential co-factor in a number of enzymes important in energy production and antioxidant defenses – as well as vitamin C, a powerful antioxidant that protects against oxidative damage to cell structure.


Kiwi:
You may be surprised to hear that Kiwi’s actually contain more vitamin C than an equivalent amount of orange! Their rich concentration of vitamin C, combined with the health promoting carotenoids and flavonoids provide powerful antioxidant protection against the oxidative damage caused by free-radicals.


Lemons and Limes:
As a medicinal agent, lemons and limes are truly remarkable. They have a cooling effect so they are good for fevers. Lemons/limes aid digestion by stimulating the flow of saliva, easing the work of the liver. Their juices act as laxative and diuretic and have antiseptic and antimicrobial properties. Lemons benefit bile formation and therefore support liver function; they improve the absorption of minerals, cleanse the blood and are extremely alkaline.

So how about that Colada? Are you thirsty yet? 


Ingredients:
1 cup of fresh pineapple
1 kiwi
Juice of ½ a lemon
Juice of ½ a lime
Small handful of fresh mint
1 cup of ice
½ cup of coconut milk (we used SoDelicious)
Agave to taste/if at all needed


Preparations:
Put all ingredients in a blender and blend away until smooth.
Serve!

The Heart Truth

Reading the latest statistics on heart disease and stroke truly made me cringe the other day as according to Canada’s Heart and Stroke Foundation heart diseases and stroke take 1 in 3 Canadians before their time.

Believe it or not, cardiovascular diseases are relatively new to human history. Prior to 1910, heart attacks were a rarity. Today however, they have reached epidemic proportions. Over the years, medicine has been improving their ways it can help keep heart patients alive – provided that their first attack is not fatal. Since no one, obviously, wants their heart attack to be fatal how about looking at reducing our exposure to the factors that cause arterial damage such as loading up on daily amounts of supplementary vitamins and minerals that may have cardio protective effects? Or how about looking at making dietary changes to help reduce arterial plaque? Or better yet, how about trying both?

Let’s assume you took these new statistics to heart and you opened yourself up to making dietary changes and wanted to start adding supplements. What would it take and how would such a change look like?

According to David W. Rowland, PhD., a cardio protective diet relies on a wide variety of natural, unprocessed foods:

•          Emphasize on eating vegetables and fruits (4 cups daily). They provide a number of protective factors, including fibre, folic acid, potassium, saponins, phytosterols, vitamin C and flavonoids.
•      Emphasize on eating oats and whole grains to get adequate dietary fibre. Choose whole wheat, whole rye or whole spelt over refined fibreless grains.
•      Consume fish regularly (twice per week) and favour cold water fish such as Chinook, Norwegian salmon, mackerel, orange roughy and trout.
•      Consume fresh garlic
•      Restrict your total fat intake to 30 per cent of calories. Trim excess fat from meat and favour non-fat cooking methods such as baking and poaching.
•      Avoid cured, smoked or processed meats containing nitrates or nitrites.
•      Minimize alcohol and sugar intake
•     Emphasize monounsaturated fats, especially olive oil.

and the following daily vitamin and mineral supplements:

Vitamin C

Vitamin E

Folic Acid

Vitamin B6 and B12

Calcium

Magnesium

Potassium

Chromium

Selenium

Zinc

Many of these suggested changes seem fairly straight forward to me, don’t you think?