Raw Foods Help You Stay Young

Healty Living - Raw Foods

Many Americans spend huge amounts of money in an effort to keep their faces youthful and their tummies taut - whether it's by a plastic surgeon's blade or by the cosmetologist's hypodermic of Botox, it is almost amassing what people will do to "look younger".

But the age-fighting secret that most people don't know is that along with getting enough exercise and rest, your greatest weapon is in your daily shopping habits. Choosing the right foods can give your skin that dewy glow of youth. Can keep that spring in your step. And may even fight off diseases like Alzheimer's and cancer.

Many in the medical community believe that one key to slowing the aging process lies in foods that help keep your immune system happy. According to Dr. Mark Liponis, corporate medical director of the prestigious health spa Canyon Ranch and author of "UltraLongevity," many diseases that we consider necessary evils of aging - arthritis, heart disease, dementia, even the stereotypical "look" of an aging body itself - have roots in excessive inflammation. This systemic inflammation is caused by an immune system that is not up to par.

Building a stronger immune system requires a diet rich in whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans and seeds. Raw foods have the maximum nutritional benefit. Organic Raw foods would be at the top of the list.

With Raw foods vitamins and minerals have not been destroyed in the cooking or pasteurization process. Eating refined fats, sugars and other highly refined and processed foods can actually have a negative impact on your immune function. Limit the amount of sugars and fatty meats you consume and eat lots of raw vegatables and fruit and you will see awesome results.

Echinacea - One Herb Proven To Boost Immune System

Echinacea a herbaceous plant (in botanical use simply herb)
There are nine different species and are commonly called purple cone flowers.

I know this is kinda side tracking from my normal post of Health and healing foods. I thought this herb worth mentioning.
One of my family members brought Echinacea to my attention, as an immune system booster so since this and our healthwealthfree
network of websites are based on replacing Pharmaceuticals with diet and health foods, I thought a clip on the benefits of echincea was worth a post. Go through the "cold and flu section" of whatever store you happen to frequent and look at the huge array of "Medication"
for colds and flu symptoms and NONE of it designed to CURE anything.

In the 1950s, the German pharmaceutical company Madaus began studying echinacea. Since then, nearly 400 studies have shown that echinacea can be used to improve the immune system in numerous ways. These include increasing activity T-cells, interferon and natural killer cells. Echinacea also destroys many types of viruses and bacteria. Echinacea even makes cells stronger and more resistant to invasion. That's a pretty impressive list of abilities for one herb.

In a study conducted in China in 1990, even people who were perfectly healthy found that echinacea temporarily increased their immune response, even raising their levels of interferon. Echinacea is often used in China with the herb ligustrum in an immune restorative therapy called fuzhung. This treatment, which has been found to increase the manufacture of immune cells in the bone marrow, is sometimes referred to as a deep immunity reaction because it creates more disease-fighting cells, rather than simply stimulating existing ones.

E. angustifolia (one of the Nine species of echinacea) is used as a fortifier of the immune system, mainly to prevent flu and minor respiratory diseases.Native Americans learned of E. angustifolia by observing elk seeking out the plants and consuming them when sick or wounded, and identified those plants as elk root.