Will this choice add to my lifeforce or will it rob me of my energy?
–Debbie Ford
The Right Questions, HarperCollins, 2004

Am I looking for what’s right or am I looking for what’s wrong?
–Debbie Ford
The Right Questions, HarperCollins, 2004

by ken winston caine

Reliable, detailed monographs on medicinal herbs are available free, online, from the North Carolina Consortium on Natural Medicines.

They come in three flavors:

1. For health professionals.

2. For everyone else.

3. For growers.

You can access any of them.

They are limited to herbs that can be grown in North Carolina — so you won’t find an extensive list of medicinal herbs here. But the information you will find is very thorough and well vetted.

Find them here: (more…)

by ken winston caine

Naturopath Leslie Taylor maintains an extraordinary database of known information about medicinal herbs on the rain-tree.com website. A nice feature: It includes the scientific (and other) citations.

Much of the information comes from Taylor’s book, The Healing Power of Rainforest Herbs.

To look up an herb, go to: (more…)

by ken winston caine

I have just made the most remarkable 3,000-year-old discovery that instantly soothes aching, inflamed muscles and nerves and relieves pain and inflammation.

And can’t believe that it’s taken me all this time. I must have first read about this technique at least 30 years ago and “learned it” again in numerous herbal medicine courses over the years.

The forgotten, ancient medical miracle used thousands of years ago in India and China and in other folk-medicine traditions in more recent centuries?

The ginger compress.

Just a hot, moist pack of ginger placed over acutely inflamed muscles and nerves.

I’d never tried it, having lost faith in herbal compresses years ago when I found that most I experimented with seemed to have no discernible healing power beyond the effect of the moist heat. Not so with the ginger compress. It really works. REALLY works. Fast.

It costs pennies, takes seconds to make. You probably already have the makings on hand in your house if you raid the spice cabinet and improvise a bit. And it instantly draws away the swelling and pain… Even better, the effect is lasting.

I’ll tell you how I made it in a moment. (more…)

A report on a couple studies — one published in Chinese — suggests a strong link between bra wearing and breast cancer.

Other studies report a link between bra wearing and breast cysts and breast pain. The cancer link has not been medically established, but has not been scientifically disproven either.

The first and largest study that suggested such a link was by Sydney Singer and his wife Soma Grismaijer. They conducted a five-city survey of 4,500 women in the U.S. While that’s a large sample for a study, the work has been criticized as not meeting high medical research standards. The couple’s alarming findings are summarized on the website 007b.com as follows:

• 3 out of 4 women who wore their bras 24 hours per day developed breast cancer.
• 1 out of 7 women who wore bras more than 12 hour per day but not to bed developed breast cancer.
• 1 out of 152 women who wore their bras less than 12 hours per day got breast cancer.
• 1 out of 168 women who wore bras rarely or never acquired breast cancer.

That tallies to a 125-fold increase in the incidence of breast cancer among women who wore bras around the clock versus those who rarely or never wore bras.

The American Cancer Society dismisses the study and its conclusions as not being scientifically rigorous and says, “There is no other, credible research to validate this claim in any way.”

However, it appears that is not quite true. (more…)

by ken winston caine

Need more motivation to give up plastic in your food supply?

Here’s a current scientific assessment about the apparent danger of just one chemical that leaches into our bodies from plastic bottles and containers — as well as from plastic coatings and linings that are used in canned foods and in cardboard food-and-drink boxes.

Getting plastic out of your store-bought food supply is nearly impossible to do. Plastic is used everywhere now. Over the past 25 years, it has almost universally replaced once-standard glass jars and unlined “tin” cans and waxed cardboard and waxed paper and foil packaging.

And maybe most shocking, just about a decade ago ingestible plastic suddenly appeared in the produce section of grocery markets.

It’s the shiny coating sprayed onto many fruits and vegetables.

The plastic sheen makes them look attractive in the supermarket and extends their shelf-life by sealing the surfaces, which slows the rate of surface oxidation and makes them appear to be fresher, longer.

Just try to avoid plastic for two weeks and you’ll see why I say that it is nearly impossible.

Dr. Joseph Mercola reports on “a statement by several dozen scientists, including four from federal health agencies” that analyzed 700 studies and concluded humans are exposed to dangerous levels of a chemical found in many plastics used for storing, preparing and serving food and water.

The chemical, bisphenol A, also referred to as BPA, is an estrogen-like substance known to cause cancers and reproductive disorders (more…)

by ken winston caine

It is possible that bottled water is making you fat . . . and that it causes cancer.

Really.

The plastic bottles of designer water that you see people carrying everywhere are NOT good for you…

Packaging water in small plastic bottles has staggering environmental costs — both in the manufacturing process and in the waste-stream created when the bottles are used and tossed in the trash. You’re beginning to read a lot about that aspect of the $15 billion bottled-water obsession.

What you’re not hearing about — yet — are the little-known, but severe, personal health costs — the long-term damage you can suffer from consuming foods and liquids packaged and stored in plastic or plastic-lined containers.

It may take mainstream health and media another 10 years to get onto this. But you shouldn’t wait. You should get onto it now.

Writer Charles Fishman’s fascinating and exceptional piece of in-depth health-and-business investigative journalism in this month’s Fast Company details exactly how the plastic bottled water craze is hurting you and the planet.

Click that link and read the article.

Should you stop drinking water?

Should you stop carrying water with you?

No.

No, no, no, no, no…

The solution is simple: (more…)

Let me share this urgent message I received today:

SPREAD THE WORD

Tell Congress to shift funding from chemical-based agriculture to more environmentally friendly organics!

“According to the subsidy data from the Environmental Working Group, one giant cotton farm collected $2.95 million through crop subsidies in 2005, nearly as much money as the federal government spent on its primary research program for organic agriculture last year — $3 million.”
– The New York Times, July 4, 2007
“The Debate Over Subsidizing Snacks”

Dear Supporter,

New York Times reporters aren’t the only ones poring over the information in EWG’s Farm Subsidy Database. The unfair funding distributions have everyone’s attention and EWG Action Fund’s Grow Organics Campaign (www.ewg.org/organics/petition) for organics funding is taking off. Thanks to your generous support, we surpassed our goal and raised a total of $45,000! These vital funds will help our staff meet with lawmakers to gain support for crucial changes in the Farm Bill.

But organics aren’t safe yet. In just a two short weeks the full House will vote on a new Farm Bill, which could be the first to include significant funding for organics. To make this happen, our Representatives need to hear from us! Add your voice to the Grow Organics petition today at www.ewg.org/organics/petition.

More than 17,000 of you have signed on to level the playing field for organic farmers with the petition so we’re more than halfway to our goal! Now is the time to (more…)