Taymount Clinic

Recipe for delicious Green Sunshine Juice

2010-09-07T11:14:00.000-07:00

Green Sunshine Juice (formerly called Shrek Juice!)

- the top of the morning to you!

¼ to ½ cucumber

1 stick of celery (more if you like it – I hate it (!) but it is a good source of mineral salts)

¼ to ½ lemon

¼ to ½ lime

2-3 apples

1" slice of pineapple (if fruit sugars are not contra-indicated for you)

a large handful of spinach, kale, green lettuce, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, beet tops – anything green and leafy – or a mixture of whatever you have in the fridge as long as it is green and leafy (and edible!)

If your greens are very dark and strong, you may need more lemon, lime and apple. The whole point of this juice is to get the green chlorophyll plant juice in the green leaves into your body in a readily accessible form – fresh living juice. We need to sweeten it and cut the green taste and the citrus fruits and the apples do this beautifully. If you have some pineapple to hand, that goes in well also.

We take ½ to 1 pint each of this every day and it forms a wonderful foundation of nutrition to keep you going during the day. If you have an early start, make it the night before and put it in a vacuum flask in the fridge. It is better fresh, but better old than none!

Shrek Juice = Nutritional Insurance

1 pint of this everyday will give you loads of energy, clear your skin and make you feel more inclined to take healthier options for food choices, almost without thinking.

3 of these per week and you have a 76% reduced chance of developing Alzheimer’s – which is a huge benefit. That was just from one 10-year study on juicing.

Best juicer?

Breville Café Style

Juicer (JE4)

Sturdy machine, lots of stainless steel makes it a strong machine. Efficient and very quick.

Philips HR1861 Pro Aluminium Juicer

Good value – easy to use but not quite as durable as the JE4.

To find the cheapest seller of these machines, do your internet searches through the shopping genie - free application backed by google, yahoo and ebay: download absolutely FREE from: www.comparethebargains.com

Do the normal search and then use the "compare" button on your shopping genie toolbar and it will sort ALL your search results into the cheapest.

Probiotics can help behaviour, ADD and Asthma

2010-08-18T02:05:00.000-07:00

We have a small sample of case studies which have shown us that just giving broad spectrum, good quality probiotics can help a range of conditions not instinctively linked to the gut.

One case was a 10 year old child with asthma. It was suggested that the dysbiosis in his gut was alerting the immune system to potential invaders, in lay terms, it had the immune system on "amber alert" as a baseline state. This meant that anything that came into his system was reacted to instead of tolerated, e.g. pollen, pet hairs etc.

After two months on daily probiotics (between 4 bn and 20 bn), his asthma attacks had dropped from two to three per week down to two to three per month. This was a very encouraging result but as a side effect, his behaviour was also much calmer and his attention span had increased.

His temper outbursts had dropped drastically and his mother reported that he did not "kick off" anywhere near as much as he had been doing prior to the probiotic treatment regime.

It is suggested by this treatment that the level of dysbiosis can greatly influence the state of reactivity generally of the whole body, physically, emotionally and mentally. With the less favourable kinds of bacteria colonising the bowel, the level of irritation and toxicity is greatly increased and the body is highly reactive to any other potential irritant.

Extrapolating from this, anybody experiencing any kind of intolerance, allergic reaction and behavioural disturbance (and this can include depression, anxiety, stress) should try a course of good quality high strength probiotics before they restort to other medicines to suppress the symptoms.

It is suggested that the seat of many problems is the gut flora - at the Taymount Clinic we have many good results from initially attending to the level of good bacteria in the gut. It is worthy of further study that some serious conditions like Crohn's disease and Ulcerative Colitis can be affected positively by making sure the gut flora are the beneficial kind rather than the pathogenic strains.

Sometimes the simplest solutions are the most elegant and efficient.

Yes To Life - Charity to help Cancer victims seek alternatives

2010-08-17T15:49:00.000-07:00

Yes to Life is a charity which is set up to help people seek alternative and integrated approaches for people with cancer in the UK. They will buy juicers, help pay for consultations and generally support the carers and the patients through a difficult and often terminal period. They are still tiny yet do immense work to support and assist and help to keep patients’ options open, so they deserve more help and funding for their generous and loving work. www.yestolife.org.uk

If you want to support this charity, come along for treatments to the Taymount Clnic and from now until the end of the year 2010, Taymount Clinic for Digestive Health will donate £5 from every treatment if you present the code: BLOGY2L. So come and improve your health and do some good for others as well; so when you take steps to look after your own health, you can be helping others to do the same through Yes to Life. Call 01462 712500 for more information or to book your appointment. See www.taymount.com for list of treatments.

Juicing - Why should we juice?

2010-08-13T04:17:00.000-07:00

JUICING? - WHY DO IT?

Why Juice? Why not just eat the stuff?

Loads of good reasons, here are just a few to chew on...

1. Juicing is a way of mechanically chewing up your food before you eat it. Your body is like a juice extractor, you chew the foods up so that your body can extract the nutrient-rich juice and then reject the fibre. Juicing saves your body time and energy – it is like nature’s fast food, healthy fast food. Most of us are too busy to chew properly and this has bad effects like bloating, wind, reflux etc. Juicing gets nourishment into your body in a form it can absorb quickly and easily.

2. You would not sit down to a big plate of greens and fruit for breakfast – so you would not just eat the stuff. Also, we need to eat more fruits and veggies to get the same nutrients that we used to get in our fresh food; intensive farming and long journeys to market, vast storage barns where the produce is stored, all mean that our food has lost a lot of its nutrients but the time we get them home. We should try to eat more seasonally and more locally produced foods to get more nutrients.

3. Juicing enables you to “wrap up” the less attractive taste of nutrient-rich greens and veggies in the sweet and flavourful juices of fruits making the whole thing palatable and getting nutrients inside you that you would not normally have ingested.

4. Because we don’t just eat the stuff!

But don’t we need the fibre?

Yes we do need fibre, we are not suggesting that you replace all your meals with fruit and veggie juices – just ADD the juices to your diet and eat nice high fibre meals as well. People who go on juice-only fasts often have a lot of problems with constipation so we acknowledge fully that we need fibre, probiotics and prebiotics to maintain a healthy colon. So drink your juice and eat your high fibre complex carbohydrates (wholegrain cereals and salads) too!

How much juice should we drink every day?

Studies over 10 years in Israel have shown that just one half-litre glass of green juice taken three times per week can reduce your chances of Alzheimer’s by an astonishing 76%. Think what a daily drink could do! If you get into the habit of taking a large glassful (think of a pint glass) every day and then a refreshing carroty or beetrooty or fruity cocktail for the fun of it any other time of the day, then you are boosting your daily nutrient intake way beyond what most people have in a week. 30 days on that and you will feel the energy and health improvement.

I don’t have time in the mornings to make a juice, can I do it the night before?

Yes, if you can get the juice nice and cold with some ice, put it in a flask and fill it right to the top to avoid air oxidation and keep it in the fridge until you need it, you won’t lose too many nutrients and the quality will be ok. An old juice is still better than no juice!

Which juicer is the best one to buy?

The best juicer on the market is the one that you would use every day. It is no good buying the top of the range technically brilliant machine if it doesn’t suit your lifestyle and spends most of its expensive life in the cupboard – I have been there, done that! A cheaper, less-efficient juicer that is a pleasure to use and one that you keep on the table top and use every day is a far better buy than the gleaming stainless steel beauty that costs you a month’s salary and is too complicated to clean up afterwards.

Great starter models are shown on the “Shrek Juice” leaflet. Other models of juicer are designed for multi-purpose and more advanced kitchen usage and we cover some of those in the demonstration.

Should we only juice organic foods?

In a perfect world, all produce would be organic and yes, that is the best type to buy and juice. But this is not a perfect world and organic foods cost a lot more than conventionally farmed produce. A juice made with conventional fruits and veggies is still better than no juice at all. If you have to compromise, consider that any green leafy vegetable is going to have been sprayed at least once (sometimes many times), so where you have a choice, buy green leafy veggies organically if you can and wash thoroughly all the other produce that you may have to buy conventionally grown. Make the spinach, lettuce, cabbage and kale the first choice for organic if you can; it is much easier to wash the other produce and remove pesticides and chemicals, much harder to get them off crinkly lettuce and kale leaves.

Things like avocados, bananas, oranges and coconuts etc., have thick skins so they should be ok to eat non-organic. Make choices where you can, but don’t worry about it if you can’t. It is still good to juice even if it is not organic.

I’ve got a smoothie maker – can’t I use that? What is the difference between a smoothie and a juice anyway?

Smoothies are blended fruits and vegetables with none of the fibre taken away – it is the whole fruit or veggie blended to a fine pulp and sometimes watered down with fruit juice or water to make it drinkable.

Blenders are the same thing as smoothie makers and neither one is a juicer. You really need a juicer AND a blender in the kitchen.

Stay Juicy - Stay LIVE!

For more ideas on juicing, join in one of the Juicy Workshops at Taymount Clinic - see www.taymount.com for details of the next one. Fun, information, juicy samples and take-home recipe sheet and a chance to try out various juicing machines.

Colon Hydrotherapy - some details

2010-07-28T06:58:00.000-07:00

Colon Hydrotherapy or Colonic Irrigation

Description – Safe, gentle infusion of warm purified water into the lower bowel to bring relief from constipation and various other digestive problems. Can have far-reaching beneficial effects for skin, headaches, weight control and lots of other conditions. Taymount Clinic has highly qualified and experienced staff at Trainer level who will give naturopathic and lifestyle advice and help. Free comprehensive consultation with every first treatment.

Helps with: – IBS, constipation, weight loss, diarrhoea, diverticulitis, bowel cancer, haemorrhoids, bloating, wind, gas, heartburn, GERD, flat stomach (good for pre-wedding preparation).

Content – Colon Hydrotherapy is the safe, gentle infusion of warm purified water into the lower bowel to bring relief from constipation and various other digestive problems. It can have far-reaching beneficial effects for skin, headaches, weight control and lots of other conditions. When combined with relevant herbal and natural remedies, it helps people resolve long-term problems like indigestion, heartburn, GERD, bloating and IBS.

The Taymount Clinic staff are all highly qualified and experienced and teach colonics (see Training Courses) to International and Professional standards, so you can relax in the knowledge that you are in skilled hands for this sensitive and personal treatment. Our therapists are health professionals trained to give naturopathic and lifestyle advice and help. Free comprehensive consultation of up to one hour with every first treatment.

We use very modern and highly sensitive equipment which offers high levels of purification and filtration and extremely gentle slow-fill with sensitive pressure control allowing the therapist to monitor and control the pressure inside the bowel to extremely fine levels. The treatment is gentle, subtle, dignified and comfortable.

Everything that connects the client to the machine is one-use only, completely disposable and is therefore guaranteed clean and safe. The tubes contain and carry away all the waste, water and gas so there is no noise, smell or embarrassment and the treatment is dignified and painless. [picture of disposable pack?]

The infusion of warm, pure water into the lower bowel will start to soak old, hardened compacted waste matter and re-hydrate the body. The bowel will absorb a lot of the water, giving the body a much-needed drink of pure water, leading to feelings of well-being from the re-hydration process alone. Once your body starts to discard old waste matter which has been hanging around too long, you can start to feel fresher, brighter and more energetic . Weight loss is often kick-started or helped along by a series of colonic hydrotherapy treatments.

IBS sufferers often experience relief and calming down of their symptoms – one client said that he knew every toilet between his house and his work place – now after three colon hydrotherapy sessions he can ignore them all and even spent an entire day at an exhibition without checking where all the loos were, and visiting the loo only once! He felt his life was given back to him at last!

Constipation occurs for many reasons and can sometimes be stubborn and chronic (meaning you’ve had it for a long time). A series of colon hydrotherapy treatments can help to clear the colon and re-traing the bowel muscles, leading to better bowel habits being established.

The Taymount Clininc uses OxyKlenz – a bowel re-hdyrator and cleanser (we do not use any kind of laxatives in the clinic) and we have a comprehensive program of probiotic re-colonisationg.

Colon hydrotherapy can help to resolve problems with Candida albicans (thrush) when combined with various herbal therapies and medicines.

Clients leave feeling brighter, lighter and with flatter stomachs; we often see a spring in the step that wasn’t there before!

From your arrival at the clinic - the private parking, the respect for your anonymity and privacy and the peaceful surroundings of Capel Grange, we aim to make your experience of Colon Hydrotherapy at the Taymount Clinic for Digestive Health, dignified, relaxing and restorative.

Lactic Acid Pickles and Fermentation

2010-04-26T02:35:00.000-07:00

I have now got loads of milk whey left from making kefir cheese. I have been reading up about pickling vegetables in whey instead of using vinegar. The Ancient Ones used to make preserved vegetables using whey - it is a nasty modern idea to use highly acidic pickling vinegar. The commercial manufactures use acetic acid instead of lactic acid with all its friendly bacteria. The old method meant that the foods were preserved using lactic acid and the acidophilus bacteria stopped any nasty putrefaction - they did the preserving. These days, the acetic acid kills everything - including your taste buds.

Seriously, if you eat too many pickles, it can lead to stomach ulcers. The Japanese are among the healthiest nations on the planet but they still have a very high incidence of stomach ulcers and this can lead to stomach cancer. The reason for this is the incredibly high number of pickles they eat alongside their very healthy sushi and sashimi.

So let's get back to the old methods and use whey (lactic acid teeming with friendly bacteria - especially when it is whey from making kefir), to preserve our vegetables. They are more fermented than pickled and this makes for a very gentle-on-the-tongue pickle that has an exquisite flavour and texture rather than an acid bite that the commercial pickles give you.

A mixture of shredded cabbage and carrot is called Kimchi and it is a lovely accompaniment to cold meats and fish. Cabbage alone is of course sauerkraut and we are all familiar with that. Red cabbage (Rot Kohl) is often used in Germany and Bavaria, served hot with all sorts of warm, filling winter dumplings and good stuff (remember I eat cooked foods in the winter so I do appreciate warm, rib-sticking knoedels and ham dumplings that the Austrians do so well!).

We eat a lot of sushi and sashimi (raw fish is an important source of vitamin B12 for raw foodies), at home so we often run out of the little packets of pickled ginger, so this was first on my list of new creations. I have found a lovely jumbo piece of ginger root and scraped and sliced it very thinly. I put this in a jar with whey which I have coloured using beetroot powder so it is the traditional pink colour but with no nasty chemical colourings. It is now sitting in the fridge muttering quietly. I will check it in two weeks to see if it is ready. I will let you know how it goes.

So now I still have three litres of kefir whey still left in the fridge. I have a cabbage in the cooler that seems to want to be shredded up with a carrot to make some kimchi. Trouble is, I often go to the trouble of making all this stuff and then nobody wants to eat it. Perhaps I am not doing the sell bit very well....? The question is, am I going to get around to shredding it and putting it in a jar. We will see. I really need a very clever raw recipe for something delicious to make using the kefir whey. I wish I could find a Themomix recipe for making ice cream or sorbet of some kind with the whey. I will keep looking and experimenting.

We have made a start, the greenhouse is hosting a regiment of bean plants, courgette plants and mangetout peas so we are off the starting blocks.
AND - We are in the process of installing a monster polytunnel in the garden at Capel Grange; another step in our drive towards self-sufficiency. I have realised that working in the polytunnel is not only going to be nice and warm as you are out of the wind, but the all the UV rays penetrate the plastic (of course, otherwise the plants couldn't photosynthesise, duh! OK, it took me a while to connect the dots), which means as you work out there, you get loads of lovely vitamin D. As it gets so hot, I can see me working out there in my swimsuit - so who needs a foreign holiday, eh? Just need to install a ski slope and I need never leave Capel Grange....!

I have visions of having gluts of vegetables which I dehydrate and bottle in oil or slice thinly and pickle in whey. I have these earth-mother hallucinations of cupboards stacked full of jars and bottles of nutrition-rich preserved (RAW) foods brimming with enzymes and probiotics which will see us through the winter - organic, wholesome and yummy.

Well - first, you have a dream, then you make a plan from the dream, then you make it happen. Watch this space.

Kefir cheese and dehydrators

2010-04-24T12:53:00.000-07:00

Dehydrator experiment went a bit wrong; the kefir curdled quite alarmingly. It grew more but it made a very acidic yogurt that I didn't like much. So we have decided that we will not use the dehydrator but keep it at room temperature but slightly warm the milk before we put it over the grains, taking the fridge chill off really. That way, we don't retard the growth whilst the milk comes up to room temperature.

I am using the curdled kefir (now reconstituted) as part of a batch set aside for making some more probiotic cheese; I love that feta-style kefir cheese. I shall have to give it a name - any suggestions?
Kefa? Fetir?

Kefir and home-made feta-type cheese

2010-04-24T00:00:00.000-07:00

Kefir
We are growing our kefir on at astonishing rates at the moment. I have sourced unpasteurised milk from Hook and Son (thanks for that link, Janie Turner of Thermomix) and now I am happily slurping 6-8 ozs of gorgeous creamy kefir each morning.
The kefir cheese is just an amazing success. I am so proud of myself! After several revolting and probably health-risking attempts at making a probiotic cheese, I have perfected the method.

You need a large bowlful of kefir - whole milk is best but the raw milk people seem to only sell semi-skimmed, so we are making do with that. Put the whole bowlful in a cheesecloth (this is best done by simply lining a large bowl with cloth and then filling it with kefir. When it is all settled, gather up the corners of the cloth and pin them together and lift gently, hanging the whole thing just above the bowl to drain. After 24-36 hours, you will have a bowl of thin whey and a cloth full of what looks like Philadelphia cheese. The whey is great added to fresh fruit and veggie juices or used in bread making or to make the crackers mentioned below. It is also fab for enzyme-rich pickles- more about that another day.

Scrape the soft cheese into another bowl. I found that you can almost mould the cheese in your hands through the cloth, picking up all the bits stuck to the cloth as you go. Put the cheese ball into the bowl and add salt and mix well. I bought a couple of cheese moulds from the internet, there are several cheese making suppliers on ebay. I line the cheese mould with fresh clean cloth and then pop the cheese into the mould. Cover with the cloth and put the press lid in place. Then I put a heavy weight on top and watch the last of the whey start to ooze out of the holes in the mould. I leave it to compress for a couple of days.

Turn it out of the mould - then a couple more days in the fridge and you will have a large lump of what looks and cuts like white Wensleydale and tastes like a slightly beery Feta cheese. It is just wonderful.

I put this on my dehydrated raw crackers (my version of Scan bran - email me if you would like the recipe: enquiries@taymount.com) and I feel so virtuous, it is a scandal.

Love and kefir grains to the world.
Oh, if you want some kefir grains, you can buy them on the taymount website: www.taymount.com - products - digestive aids

We are just experimenting to see if the kefir grows faster in the dehydrator - in a sealed Kilner jar to keep it from drying out of course. We already found that if you are making bread, the dehydrator is incredible for speeding up the proving and rising process. Just put a shower cap over the bowl to keep the bread dough moist.

2010-04-14T00:55:00.001-07:00

Our new choir, the Letchworth City Chorus - formed only at the beginning of this year, 11 weeks ago, had their first public concert on Saturday. We sang for a concert to raise money for Haiti and we helped raise over £2000!!! More films on You tube of our inaugural outing....

Our pianist is a very talented Robert, who is only 16 years old and does a fantastic job for us, we are very lucky to have such a fresh and enthusiastic pianist who is willing to give up so much of his free time to making this choir possible. What a little gem he is!

OK, so we are not polished yet, but we are happy, enthusiastic and having a really good time. Our next concert is on May 22nd at the Letchworth Free Church. Once again, proceeds to charity, mainly Garden House Hospice and one or two others.

The choir is all about community, we are not experts, 80% of us cannot read music and some may even have trouble holding a tune in a bucket, but we are having a really good time. No audition to get in, just a passion for singing and free every Wednesday evening at Salvation Army church in Letchworth at 7.45pm. Need more members, especially men - so come on guys, come and have some fun raising the roof! All welcome, this is a community choir for the community and we are all really, really enjoying it. We even have a social evening planned for Henlow dogs, so it is not just about singing, it is about being part of the community and not only getting something out of it, but being able to give something back.

Singing is good therapy and we all feel so uplifted and high afterwards, that we hang around like spare parts long after the practice is over, we just want to hang out together and enjoy the buzz. A lot of us piled into the Broadway Hotel for a drink and recap after the show and apparently, some choir members were still up and bouncing off the ceiling at two-thirty the next morning - they were too excited to go to sleep!

We have a very dedicated and passionate leader, Tony Ridgway-Cole, without whom none of this would be happening, so great big thanks to Tony for sharing his dream and letting us help him make it come true. xx

More info: http://citychorus.org/

2010-04-01T09:51:00.000-07:00

Taymount wrap cafe is now open! The only problems are how to stop clients chewing their own chocolate-covered arms off! So we wrap them up in a plastic cover and bury them under a lovely thermal blanket and cook them gently for 40 mins. Then they shower off and get a fine olive oil massage all over just to finish them off. After all this, we scrape them up off the couch and try to get them dressed and sent home! Sometimes a herbal tea will render them sensible enough to drive but often we have a couple of clients drifting aimlessly about until a grown up can come and collect them.
Well, it is one way of getting chocolate-d without a single calorie passing your lips!
Happy Easter!

The Taymount Wrap Cafe will shortly be in operation...

2010-03-24T07:37:00.000-07:00

Yes, you read right - the Wrap Cafe @ Taymount will soon be fully open at the Taymount Clinic.

Offering a menu of delicious recipes to nourish the mind, body and soul (without anything passing the lips and without a single inch on the hips!).

Choose from the following organic and natural mineral body wraps:

Hot Chocolate - all the mystical benefits of organic raw chocolate, as known to the ancient Mayans and Incas - delivered to your body without a single calorie passing your lips!
Chocolate Orange (Terry eat your heart out!)
Chocolate Mint (not just for After Eight!)
Perfect Paradise (Pina Colada blend to exfoliate, polish and moisturise)
La Mer - the finest harvest from the sea to envigorate, detoxify and stimulate your immune system.
Arabian Nights - with luxurious organic raw chocolate and Otto of Rose, this body wrap transports you to visions of nights at the oasis and Turkish delight like you've never experienced it before).

And for the Men:
Peak Experience - pine, eucalyptus and cedarwood offer a mountain fresh masculine blend to uplift, refresh and relax all at the same time!
Mission Possible - This is a secret recipe - but it won't self-destruct in 5 seconds! You will be wrapped in a mixture of kaolin and essential oils to draw out toxins and waste products and cleanse the skin, subtle scents of lemongrass, tea tree and other secret ingredients, make this a fresh, envigorating treatment, with no car chases or explosions in sight!

All our body wrap recipes are designed to deliver scientifically based benefits to the body, mind or soul. Full details of each recipe will soon be available on our Wrap Cafe menu on Doctor Enid's site, coming soon! As fast as I write this, our lovely trainee, Tony, is re-working the menu and adding more subtleties and changing the recipes. Be back soon with the definitive menu...

Antibiotics - the good guys

2009-09-28T02:37:00.000-07:00

Anti-biotics - what exactly are they and why do we need Probiotics?

Anti- means against and bio- means life so they are literally "against life". They kill bacteria. They don't kill fungus and they don't kill yeast or viruses but they kill bacteria. If you have a raging infection, this can be life-saving. However, antibiotics will usually kill most of the bacteria they come into contact with and this can mean your friendly gut bacteria (the good guys) as well as the bad guys doing all the infectious damage.

We have trillions of bacteria inside our digestive system - our bodies have adapted to the presence of beneficial bacteria over the ages and some organisms make things for us like vitamin B6 and vitamin B12 in our colons. This is obviously a good thing. We like that.

So when you knock them all out with antibiotics, you need to put them back in again, or else the yeasts (untouched by the antibiotics) will take over the show. Hence - candida overgrowth (Candida Albicans is not a pop star's name - it is a very unpleasant yeast if it is allowed to get too dominant - another blog on that coming soon). People can go for years feeling less than great because of this nasty little opportunistic organism.

Acti-yog, Yoccult, Acidivia....? Are manufacturers making monkeys out of us?

People respond to advertising and think that if they drink a cute little bottle of sweetened yogurty stuff every morning, or scoff down a pot of fruity creamy sweet yogurt, they are getting their daily good guys. Well these products are not bad; they are not harmful (apart from all that sugar and the "lite" ones have aspartame - don't even get me started on that neuro-toxin!!!), but they don't have the muscles to re-populate your good guys in enough quantities.

Immediately after a course of antibiotics, send in the cavalry!!

Immediately after a course of antibiotics, bring in the cavalry!! Doses of antibiotics are measured in the numbers of live organisms per dose that you are taking. Don't ask me who counts them all, perhaps they use a computer or something.... ? We are talking about an ideal post-antibiotic or post-cleanse dose of around 100 BILLION live organisms in one shot, maybe for two or three days in a row. Here at the Taymount clinic, we use Replete Intensive sachets to deliver just this dose in one pleasant tasting drink taken at bedtime. Thereafter, a daily dose of around 20 BILLION will keep the cavalry topped up. We use our own branded ProBioMAX but we are always looking for the best products to bear our label. This is the best one we have found at the moment.

Frankenstein bacteria...?

Probiotics are subject to the same genetic engineering as larger beasts, sadly. Be very suspicious of anything which offers a strain of bacteria mentioned on the label with a little "R" in a circle, or a patented or unique bacterium inside. You do not want to populate your bowels with GM bacteria. Things in nature cannot be patented; only Frankenstein bacteria genetically modified in a lab can be patented. There may only be the tiniest little change necessary to make it unique and patentable.

...only the tiniest little change but...our DNA is 99.4% identical to chimpanzees. See what a HUGE and HAIRY difference 0.6% variation can make?

But think on this - our DNA is 99.4% identical to chimpanzees. See what a HUGE and HAIRY difference 0.6% variation can make? Do you want natural human-symbiotic good guys or are you prepared to take a risk on the GM probiotics that might behave like chimps in your gut??!!! Might appeal to you-ooo-ooo-ooo but it's not for me-eee-eee-eee. I prefer to drive to work rather than swing from the lampposts!

Go for the natural and the unpatented - avoid the Biffidumb Digestidumb and Acidophilus Chimera and stick to taking a simple and high-dose good quality probiotic capsule or powder daily. A good brand will list the natural organisms by name on the side; I will post a list of the best and most useful good guys in another blog. And Google up "kefir" - more about that another day.

Eat organic veggies and don't scrub them very hard - just wipe off the visible dirt and grit and don't peel unless you really have to - some of the dirt contains great SBOs - Soil-Based Organisms which we really need to keep the bad guys at bay.

The old adage about eating a pound of dirt before you die may have had some truth!!!

Detoxification

2009-04-29T06:57:00.000-07:00

The word "detox" is very in vogue at the moment and probably one of the most over- and mis-used terms in health and wellness contexts.

Detox appears on everything from bath oils to smoothie labels and one can be forgiven for assuming that "detox" is something you can buy in a small box from Superdrug.

So what does detox really mean?

Toxification means poisoning. So It is the de-toxification of the body - removing from the body substances which, if left inside the body, would lead to in-toxification (poisoning; yes, being drunk really is being poisoned).

Potential poisons, or toxins don't just come from cigarettes, alcohol, junk food and pollution. Every time we release stress hormones (adrenaline etc) these also need to be metabolized (detoxified) and neturalised.

We have the potential to poison ourselves (autointoxicate) each and every minute we are alive.

Let me show you....

Breathe in, take a nice deep breath for a count of 4. Hold for a count of 12 and then breathe out for a count of 8. You just detoxed. A bit. Honestly!

Carbon dioxide is the resulting waste gas from many types of cell metabolism. This gas is dissolved into the blood stream as carbonic acid. This acid waste must be removed from the blood stream as quickly as possible to prevent the blood acid-alkali balance - the blood pH - from becoming too acidic. When you breathe out, carbon dioxide leaves the blood once again becoming a gas in the lung alveoli and is subsequently breathed out. So breathing out is a form of detoxing! Simple and cheap. Doesn't come in a box from the chemists!

So the key to successfully maintaining the correct blood pH is to make sure the body doesn't have too high a toxic or acidic load. On an every-day basis, we are in need of detoxing as each and every metabolic process is taking place normally. When you add all the other toxic load that we are fond of ingesting in our modern indulgent and self-destrctive lifestyle, the cigarettes, the sweets, the alcohol etc., then you can see how we have a need to detox more often, more thoroughly and probably with more active measures than just exhaling.

Apart from dead skin and hair cells, each and every cell inside our bodies is alive which means they are metabolising and respiring. They are taking nutrients and oxygen from the fluid around them (interstitial fluid) which comes from the bloodstream and lymph system. Once they have used what they need, they excrete the substances they don't need and/or their products. These go back into the lymph fluid and bloodstream and are eventually broken down (metabolised) and/or excreted from the body in one of four ways. The liver is the master detoxification organ as it handles most unwanted an toxic substances we ingest. However, once it has neutralised various poisons, the liver needs to dump the products of its detoxification processes out of the body. The avenues of external elimination from the body are:

Lungs - through the breath
Kidneys - through the urinary system
Skin - through the sweat glands
Bowels - through the faeces

Ingesting excess animal proteins can result in a high level of acidic waste which needs to be neutralised and excreted (detoxed), so cutting down on your intake of animal proteins is a good place to start your detoxification programme. It goes without saying that cutting out alcohol, cigarettes and high levels of sugar will also assist the body in its work to detoxify. A high intake of sugar will also break down into a waste load of carbonic acid to add to the pile. Reduce your stress levels - make your own "DO NOT DISTURB" sign and use it at every opportunity! Take up yoga, candles, incense and new age music. Do whatever it takes to reduce your emotional and mental stress as they too are toxic.

What else can you do to refresh and clean out the body as a good start to a new year programme of healthier living?

Alkaline foods and drinks will give the body a lighter load of waste disposal and taking nutrition in the form of juicing will give the digestive system a bit of a rest and enable the energy saved to be used to better purposes and enhance detoxification.

An ideal start to a detoxification programme would take into account the four avenues of elimination and aim to support and assist all these avenues.

1. Lungs - go for walks in the fresh air every day - the exercise is also good for the body and a nice brisk walk will assist in the deep breathing and expulsion of carbon dioxide gas. Make a habit of conscious deep breathing. Good for the brain cells too!

2. Kidneys - drink at least 2 litres of clean, pure, water every day. Cola drinks are highly acidic and cups of tea and coffee make you "pee" more than you drink in - a half pint of tea will have you running to the loo to lose three quarters of a pint in the urine. A net water loss for the body. Water is a master solvent - most waste products and toxins are soluble in water and safer in more dilute concentrations; so the more water you give your body, the more it can use for safer detoxification.

3. Skin - sweat is a solution of water and waste products; it is rich in organic substances which makes it so ideal for bacteria to feed on - this is why old sweat smells so unpleasant, you are feeding bacteria on your old rubbish! Clear out your pores of dried salt residues and old skin cells which may block the exit for more sweat. Dry skin brush before your daily shower and clear out the exits for these dissolved toxins. If you have access to a sauna, this is an ideal way to keep the skin clear and allow the sweating mechanism to carry toxins from the body efficiently and safely. Daily skin brushing will soon become addictive, it stimulates the blood capillaries in the skin and makes you glow with good health! Exfoliate regularly in the shower or bath to keep the dead cells from building up and dulling the complexion. Indulge in a massage - especially aromatherapy - as often as you can afford it.

4. Bowels - clear out the bowels with a series of colonic irrigations - a good jump start is three treatments within two or three weeks. After this a maintenance habit of every month or six weeks is a good idea. Some people have their series of three each time the seasons change, this is good practice also. Keep the fibre levels in your food high enough to sweep along all the waste material and prevent toxic build up in the colon after your colonic cleaning. Keeping old waste matter in your colon is re-toxifying yourself daily. Many physicians advocate that all diseases start from a clogged and toxic colon. Cleaning your colon is like having a shower on the inside!

Juice-Fast¹ for a few days and give your digestive system a rest. Apart from sex, the most energy we use on a daily basis is for digestion (well, all of us digest daily....). If we let our juicers do the chewing for us and swallow only the nutrient-rich solutions which they produce (the juices), we can nourish ourselves with the minimum of effort needed from the body. Juice combinations high in green leafy vegetable juices are highly alkaline which helps the body to balance its blood pH with less use of alkaline salts from the bones (yes, your body will take calcium from your bones to neturalise its acid waste load if you eat too many acidic proteins). The best juices for detoxing contain lots of cucumber, celery, fennel and spinach. Five juices and 2 litres of water every day will keep your taste buds and your mouth busy enough not to feel deprived and will give your body marvellous support for its detoxing chores.

One thing to remember - just like cleaning out that cupboard under the stairs.... at first you chuck out the piles of shoes and stir up the dust and make an even bigger mess - likewise with detoxing, you can re-dissolve crystalized toxins which have been stashed in various hiding places around the body - this can make you feel under the weather a bit for the first couple of days. Rejoice in this feeling, it means you are sweeping all the rubbish out from its hiding places and dumping them out of the body for good. The finished product will be clean and tidy "underneath the rug" as well as the bits that show!

The other good thing about detoxing is that it often leads to a noticeable loss of excess fat from the body - this sounds like a great double whammy to start the New Year!
Happy Detoxing.

References:
1 7lbs in 7 days by Jason Vale
This book is an excellent introduction into juice-fasting and takes the beginner through the whole subject of juicing from theory to practical with delicious recipes and timetables, even giving shopping lists to make it easy to prepare. A great place to start your juicing journey.
2 The Detox Miracle Sourcebook by Robert Morse, N.D. Module 7.7, Raw Fruit and Vegetable Juices, p 225
This book is a comprehensive font of knowledge from basic physiology to complete detoxification. A must for the interested therapist and keen amateur alike.

Further Reading:
The Complete Book of Fresh Vegetable and Fruit Juices by Norman W. Walker
Juicing by Michael T. Murray
Juicing Therapy by Dr. Bernard Jensen
Slim 4 Life by Jason Vale

Article – supplementary – feature on juicing and recipes to back up Detox article:

Here are a few delicious-tasting juices which will support your body beautifully during a detoxification programme.

As you progress, try and reduce the amount of fruit in your juices as the more green leafy vegetables you juice, the better for the body; fruits can lead to blood sugar fluctuations which may make you feel more hungry. But, if the addition of fruit makes it easier for you drink the juices, then go ahead and enjoy them as they are.

These recipes will provide masses of enzymes, vitamins, and minerals without loading the body with acid waste. They are particularly high in electrolytes, and some are rich in chlorophyll for purifying the blood the lymphatic system. Chlorophyll is one of nature's best heavy-metal and chemical detoxifiers.² Juices give you nutrition without your body having to work for it. Just what you need when detoxifying.
(Note; the lemons and limes in the recipes do not make the juices acidic; paradoxically, they metabolise to an alkaline "ash" when digested)
Most recipes will serve two people a generous large glassful each:
Le Digestif:
4 apples
1 cucumber
large stick of celery
small piece of fennel
1/2 lemon, peeled
1 lime, peeled.
Freshen Up:
one whole cucumber
two pears
sprig mint
small handful of parsley
one apple
small piece of peeled lime
Apple of My Eye:
4 apples (green ones are best for this one)
1 lemon (half peeled)
1 lime (half peeled)
one whole romaine lettuce
handful of spinach
Non-tequila Sunrise:
1 red pepper and 1 orange or yellow pepper if you can find them
2 peeled oranges
3 large carrots
1 lemon roughly peeled
2 red apples
toss in some fresh apricots if in season
1 whole peach or nectarine if in season
Juice all the above ingredients, pour half glassfuls out, then add:
1/2 small beetroot to the juicer (for the hard-core juicers - omit if you are on the nursery slopes!)
Mix the beetroot juice with the remaining juice in the jug and top up the glasses
(you can almost feel the beta-carotene coursing through your viens from this one!)
Swamp Juice
(we call this Shrek Juice at home, but we do not have permission from the movie makers to use this name here!)
Quantities are for 2-4 people as we always end up sharing this with non-believers and on-lookers!
Large handful of Spinach
Large piece of broccoli stalk
6 Brussels sprouts
Handful of any fresh sprouts (alfalfa, clover, sunflower, etc)
1 stick of Celery
handful of Parsley
3 large Carrots
1 Lemon
1 Lime
1 whole Cucumber
4 Green apples
1/4 Pineapple
- make juice from above ingredients and then add to blender with 1/2 avocado pear, 1 teaspoon spirulina, 1 teaspoon of dried wheatgrass.
drink immediately.

What does Colonic Hydrotherapy actually do ?

2009-04-29T06:54:00.000-07:00

By Dr. Enid Taylor - Naturopath and Colon Hydrotherapy Trainer, Director of Taymount Clinic for Digestive Health

Colonic hydrotherapy has been around for centuries; there is evidence of its use in Egyptian times and in other historical sources as old as 1500BC. There must be something in it for it to have lasted this long!

The basic aim of the treatment is to infuse the lower bowel with warm, filtered water at a gentle rate to fill as far around the colon as possible. The reasons for doing this can vary. Firstly and most importantly, it rehydrates the colon (which absorbs water back into the bloodstream) and thence the whole body. People often find a need to empty their bladder either during treatment (on an open system) or immediately following (on a closed system), as this pure water has entered their bloodstream and filtered back through their kidneys beautifully.

Secondly, people experiencing constipation can find it a real help to have their colons rehydrated. This does not mean that colonic hydrotherapists can claim to cure constipation. Colonic therapists can only advise that infusing the bowel with warm, filtered water, can make it extremely easy to expel backed up waste matter and bring about relief from a pressing problem!
Thirdly, a patient preparing for colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy (medical exploration of the bowel with a camera on the end of a flexible probe) can find it a much more gentle and comfortable way to purge and cleanse the bowel rather than taking violently purgative chemical medicines (e.g. Fleet) to cleanse the area.

The effects of colonic treatment can depend on which method you are using, closed (e.g. Dotolo1) or open (e.g. Angel of Water2).

The closed system offers the chance to relax and be tended to in a gentler way; the fill rate can be slower and the emphasis is on the process, not the outcome. This method is very relaxing and restorative. The open system, by contrast, is a much more dynamic process although it still offers a valuable therapeutic experience.

Both systems leave the client feeling psychologically cleansed and most people report feeling lighter, refreshed, with a flatter stomach and a spring in their step.

The basic tenet of natural healthcare is that the body has an innate drive towards healing itself; given the right nutrients, removal of toxins and suitable environmental support, the body will start to heal. With colonics, the aim is to provide precious hydration. This, in turn, will help the body to expel unwanted and old toxic waste material which in itself will allow healing processes to take place.

Whatever you expect from colonic hydrotherapy, you can be sure that your body will thank you for it. Most therapists will advise a course of several treatments in a fairly short period of time and then a maintenance schedule to make colonic hydrotherapy one of your regular body-housekeeping activities, a very good habit to adopt.

For further reading on the topic, try:
Health Begins in the Colon – Dr. Edward F. Group III or
Dr. Jensen’s Guide to Better Bowel Care – Dr. Bernard Jensen.
1. www.Dotoloresearch.com
2. www.Angelofwater.com

Dr. Enid Taylor ND MCMA
Taymount Lifestyle Clinic (TLC)
01462 817590
 

Dr. Enid Taylor - About me…

I am the 52 year old mother of three daughters, Melissa, 34, Sarah, 31 and Laura, 27 and Grandmother to Daniel, 9 and Amber, 7. I began my complementary health qualifications with a diploma in aromatherapy from Aromatherapy Associates in 1993 and followed that with an Honours Degree in Psychology from City University, London, in 1997. I qualified as a Doctor of Naturopathy in 2002 and have since gained qualifications in several other disciplines including colonic hydrotherapy, thermo-auricular therapy and clinical hypnosis.

My own personal journey has led me to pursue a life-long interest in natural health, weight control and eating habits. Together with my husband, Glenn, also a qualified colonic hydrotherapist, I founded and run the Taymount Lifestyle Clinic (TLC) and Taymount Therapist Training School in Hitchin, Herts (www.taymount.com). TLC offer detox weekends, colonic hydrotherapy, live blood microscopy and various other naturopathic and complementary therapies. I recently designed and wrote the Natural Juice Therapy Course for Jason Vale, the Juice Master.

The Taymount Clinic offers natropathic consulations covering all aspects of lifestyle, diet and health and also offers colonic hydrotherapy, live blood analysis, massage and antioxidant body wraps, and other health-related treatments. The clinic can be contacted through: www.taymount.com or enquiries@taymount.com or on 01462 712500.

Enid