People often say that some of the dietary recommendations that we make may be difficult to execute in today's day and age where people drink alcohol, eat fast food and junk more often than not-that in fact, those indulgences are life's pleasures.

I would ask to stop and think one moment on the impact that changing something as simple as diet may have on not only yourself, but on the rest of your family and the years ahead for all of you. 

YOur aging process can slow down, wrinkles that would have been there may be replaced by elastic youthful skin cells, your pant size can be size 4 instead of 8, you may not get sick anymore because you were around others who are sick, your children won't have allergies and their bones will be stronger and less vulnerable to breaking while playing hard as children sometimes do! They wont be needing to go to the doctor for chronic problems like ear infections or tummy aches, and will have a better chance of not becoming really ill with some kind of chronic disease.

You will go into your years healthy without high cholesterol, high blood pressure, arthritis and other degenerative diseases! And when you are an elderly person your chances of living those years cancer free will be better than your piers. And, your side table or medicine cabinet won't be filled with prescription after prescription. Your children wont have to look after a sick debilitated old person. but get to enjoy an active healthy elder parent. Sound silly? It isn't, it is all true!

Changing your diet can impact so many different aspects of your life. Changing what you eat can change your entire life.
 

This is a tough question. I have found numerous different opinions on this subject matter. This article is an interesting one on mercury, figuring our how much one can eat safely, and the politics of information!

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026766.000 

This is from October 2008, but we felt it was important to post bc of the relevance of this issue to the rights of individuals to make their own health choices.

Raw milk for many can be much like the consumption of yoghurt or kiefer, filled with lots of organisms that may boost the immune system--more so even with raw milk bc the word "raw" means it has not been pasteurized. Sounds awful to a lot of you right? But, some people say it has been the reason for life changing quality of health. We drink it in our family!

We dont advise it for everyone. IT depends on the issues they are struggling with and where they are in that struggle. For example, lots of great things can be overstimulating to the immune system if introduced too soon, as in raw milk, yoghurt, or keifer--basically anything with microorganisms. Well, even standard supplements like vitamins may be introduced too soon and worsen a condition-so, one needs to be careful what they introduce and when.

What is most important, is that we as a nation continue to have the right to make those choices for ourselves! And, it seems that in many areas of the country those choices are being threatened. Thanks to Governor Shwartzenegger we still have raw milk in California!

RAW MILK UPDATE
> 
> SB 201 VETOED BY GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER
> Our fight for raw milk in CA continues...
> 
> Despite our hundreds of calls and letters and overwhelming bipartisan support of the Legislature, our bill was vetoed by the Governor. Politics were at play as the Governor ignored testimony from UC Davis and other scientific experts that HACCP (Hazard Analysis) plans and increased pathogen testing are a better way to regulate raw milk than coliform limits. Instead, the Governor succumbed to pressure from the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) and other parties who would like to regulate raw milk out of business.

Are you one of those people grabbing items off the shelf that say "sugar free" and giving them to your family? Lots of people are! They think this means that it is healthier. But, the truth is most things that say "sugar free" have toxic sugar substitutes in them that are so unhealthy for you it isn't even funny! They can cause terrible diseases. It would be better to eat sugar than a sugar substitute. Amongst the natural "sugars" there are many choices, some good, some not so good. This article gives you a run down. We are not saying we agree with every detial in this article, but it certainly is a very thorough and good accounting of the basic facts. You should ask your health practitioner which "sugar" choices may be best for your body!

http://www.greenmagazines.com/organic/alternative-sugars.php 

So, you stop drinking sodas, sugar substitute juice, and all the rest of the "junk" drinks and start drinking your 8 glasses of water a day, and...discover, maybe what you are drinking is not so good for you? There are so many problems with the issue of water, I am not sure where to begin. Maybe we can start by the fact it is cleaned with chlorine. Well, necessary, right? Because this practice has given us germ free water, but, what happens if we consume chlorine? If we consume enough of it, we will be on our way to the hospital. But, what happens to our body if we consume a small amount daily? The amount that one would get from their 8 glass a day intake? There is a study in my dissertation that discusses chronic exposure to chlorine elevating our risks of cancer by 80%! This relates especially to bladder and colon cancer. Could water be the cause of so many health conditions we are having in our society today? Well, this may be a part of the problem. I am certainly not a water expert, but I have been practicing for 12 years now and I have a strong sense of how this may be a contributing factor to many chronic health conditions. What makes things worse is that other things are turning up in our water supply around the country and around the world! What other things? REad the following article, you will be shocked!

http://www.naturalnews.com/022381.html 

Superbugs, like MRSA are becoming huge problems in health and medicine owing to the overuse of antibiotics-yet another reason to reduce the number of times we allow our body to be treated with them unnecessarily. MRSA can be killed with natural herbal remedies as can staphylococcus, streptococcus and numerous other kinds of infections. Using natural resources for these purposes prevents superbugs from emerging due to overuse of antibiotics and it encourages the collective strengthening of our immune systems as a whole as well as individually. This in turn will reduce the liklihood of succumbing to chronic illness, a view upheld by many in the world of alternative medicine. There is a reason why so many chronic illnesses and conditions are increasing in our society. It is the way in which we manage our healthcare, our diets, and our lifestyles. Taking charge of our health and exploring the alternate solutions to medications will improve everything about our life. It will also improve our environment. Did you know that medications are showing up in our water supply! We will have more on that in the next few days. For now, here is the article about plant extracts being effective against the dreaded bacterium- MRSA.  

Years ago, in search of health, I began to study medicine. First, western medicine, and later various kinds of alternative medicines. I was interested in all of them. But, when I stumbled upon Chinese medicine, all of the sudden, it was like, the world began to speak my language. Odd, bc I am not Chinese. Nor dis I have any exposure to Asian culture what so ever at that point in my life. But, when I read my very first book on the subject it spoke to me in a profound way. The first book I read was "The Web That HAs No Weaver" by Ted Kaptchuck. It is a little out there for those Western thinkers, but for people like me at the time, who had been first saved by and then failed by Western medicine, it shouted out all kinds of possibilities-the possibility of health and getting my life back. After reading that book, I quit my job, went to school, and the rest is history. Shortly after graduating, Boaz and I created the following website, which, is ancient. We have not updated it in years. And, since that time, our practices have evolved in two different directions and incorporate other alternative therapies within our Chinese medical practices. But, Chinese medicine remains the foundation of our work. I thought perhaps it would be of interest to many of you on the fundamental aspects of Chinese medicine:
http://www.orientalmedicine.com/ 

One fundamental part of what any alternative healthcare clinic will do for you is review your diet. 
Various practitioners clearly have different dietary styles as well as practice styles. We, at BOMAMED are no different. We are committed to our own belief systems. We advise going off sugar and substituting healthy sweets prepared with agave or maple syrup or fruit sugars among some others. We recommend not drinking alcohol. We recommend staying away from foods that are high in molds. And we recommend staying away from soy. Soy, for asians or other cultures that have eaten soy for generations does not seem to have the same negative effects as it does on ethnic groups not having been exposed to the intake of soy. However, that is not always true, as we have seen asian people having certain kinds of illness that have done better taking it out. This article poses some interesting insight on the topic of soy and just some of the reasons it may not be healthy for you.
http://www.healingdaily.com/detoxification-diet/soy.htm 

Constipation is a huge issue for many people. In fact, so much so, that I stopped asking people, "are your bowels moving normally?". Because, people will always respond, "yes!". Then later in the conversation somehow it will come up that they may only go every three to four days and have done their entire life! People don't even realize what constipation is.There is a lot of misinformation about bowel movements. But, basically, if you are not going AT LEAST one time per day (going more often in a day is much better), then, you are constipated. There are many factors in constipation, such as fibre, water intake, intestinal motility, and more. Often people are not doing the simplest things. What our mother used to tell us as kids WAS important--to eat our vegetables! Veggies and fruits give great fibre to create a good healthy bowel movement. It is surprising to me how many adults I meet that actually hold their noses to get down a few green beans! Seriously! It is kind of funny, but not, because we have to eat healthy unprocessed foods to be healthy. Not only for fibre, but for vitamins and minerals.
In Chinese medicine we have numerous ways in which to view constipation. It is a topic that encompasses pages and pages of text. There are herbal formulas to regulate the motility of the intestines, formulas to add moisture if the body is in a state of chronic dehydration, formulas to dry an overly moist intestinal environment, formulas to create movement in a weakened metabolic system, and formulas to just -make you go in those emergency situations. There are many many choices. The reason for this is that there are many ways in which a person can be constipated. 

When people are overweigtht they think diet, they dont think change. They cut calories, or fat, they dont rearrange their eating habits. Most people dont realize how many pounds they hang onto just by eating things like sugar and alcohol. Sugar and alcohol are not thought of as fatty foods so most people dont cut those out. There is lots more to good health than just cutting alcohol and sugar, but if you only cut those out, you would start getting ahead of the battle with the scale. In fact, after making these and some other simple changes, you would be able to eat alot more than you do now and keep your weight down. Rethinking how you eat and what you eat, and what food give you pleasure can change your while life as well as your body. We at bomamed can help bridge the gap from where your body is now to where you want it to go. We are in fact, what we eat!