"john, good news bad news. bad news was the big girl went light and only weighed 1173 lbs. it was the last one weighed and everyone expected well over 1300 and maybe 1400, but you never know the genetic wall thickness of each pumpkin til it hits the scales, and it went light. the good news is my other pumpkin went heavy and was supposed to be 1050 lbs and weighed 1125lbs. so 2 pumpkins over 1100 lbs out of 3 plants in my backyard is still the best year i have ever had especially in the worse weather conditions for growing i have ever seen. i have some other growers ready to try your product, and i am convinced it was one of my major reason for growing bigger this year. thanks again, jeff"

The Flu Family

A(H1N1, H2N2, H3N2, H5N1, H7N7, H1N2, H9N2, H7N2, H7N3, H10N7), B & C

The Flu season is upon us. Add to that rumors of a national mandatory immunization program and people are justifiably concerned, worried or afraid. There is enough information circulating on the Internet to confuse anyone, so I won’t go into what is truth and what is hype or outright falsehood. If I may, let me briefly comment on three issues we see as central to this issue:

1. What can I do to minimize getting any Flu?

Keep one’s immune system high naturally:

1. Essentially a vegetarian diet – an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables, cooked leafy vegetables, cooked whole grains, and a variety of nuts. This menu (balance of alkaline ash/acid ash foods) helps the body maintain the blood at its perfect pH, which impacts many pathogens.*
   
2. Eliminate hundreds of different beverages in favor of water.
   
3. Meticulous hygiene – first personal, then inside the home as well as immediately around the home. Study to eliminate those dark damp places outside the house where germs love to hibernate and multiply - piles of leaves, dense shrubs against the house. Fix areas with poor water drainage, poor air movement, and little sunlight.
4. Eliminate alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, and all other narcotics.
   
5. Exercise out of doors, dressed for the weather, sunshine or cloud.
6. For those of you walled in by cement and pavement have you considered moving outside the city limits?
   
7. Rest, daily rest and a weekly rest. If you have never kept a Sabbath why not now?
   
8. Trust in God. Though our personal lives and the world may look as if they are about to spin out of control, if you have at least a faith the size of a mustard seed, and if you choose to put that faith in the Creator God, the God of all heaven, you will be overcome with peace.
   

Some people, including ourselves, are convinced from years of experiment, that if they take charcoal at the very first symptoms of a flu (queasy stomach, sore throat, rise in temperature…) the flu bug never seems to get a firm foothold.

2. What do I do if I get the Flu?

One thing that all these flu bugs have in common and with other diseases such as Cholera, HIV, or Travelers' sickness, is nausea, vomiting, and/or diarrhea. In other words the body is making it as clear as possible that there is something in the digestive track that is irritating it and the body wants to get it OUT! If charcoal binds poisons along the entire length of the GI tract why then not take some at the very onset of symptoms? Think about it! All these microbes produce toxins that trigger some form of reaction by the body. If charcoal will adsorb any of those toxins then the body is much better able to deal with the real pathogens instead of dividing its energies trying to eliminate the toxins as well. It is well to take charcoal even after the crisis is past. Remember, drink lots of water to keep the body flushed.

By far the emphasis should be to raise one’s immune system as naturally as possible. Drugs, for the most part, depress the immune system. Vaccines overstimulate the immune system driving the disease into hiding only to reappear later in another more dangerous form (for example type 1 diabetes). But hydrotherapy (fever or hyper therapy) mobilizes the body’s entire arsenal of weapons without adding more toxic material. Fever therapy gives a flu-sick body the benefits of vigorous exercise when the body least wants exercise. It does this without adding drug poisons to an already sick body.

A hot bath, sauna, a hot footbath, hot and cold fomentations, all raise the immune index. A hot bath raises the body temperature, which increases the heart rate, which increases the blood flow, which increases the breathing, which increases the oxygenation of the blood, which quickly adjusts the pH of the blood, where even the slightest change will impact the potential damage from pathogens*. A rise in body temperature increases the white blood cell count. Blood is directed away from the internal organs out to the skin exposing the blood to fixed macrophages. And so on. That ancient document, the Bible, recognized the sum total of health perfectly – “The life is in the blood!”

One valuable resource that describes (along with drawings) different common hydrotherapy treatments is the book Home Remedies by the Drs Thrash (former Medical Examiner for the state of Georgia).

We also recommend the Handouts put together by public health speaker Dr. John Clark on the Bird Flu, which are applicable to the whole Flu Family.

* Proteins, including those produced by pathogens (exo/endotoxins), have specific geometric shapes that determine their function (or the body's reaction to them), and the three-dimensional shapes of proteins are affected by the tiniest changes in the pH. The slightest change in blood pH can effectively reduce or stimulate the activity of white blood cells, while simultaneously maintaining or diffusing the toxicity of different pathogens. Simply, what is good for one is not good for the other.

3. Personal Freedom – the real issue?

"Those who won their religious and civil freedoms from the tyrannies of the old world realized they needed to entrench that blood-bought liberty in all its fundamentals. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls who live under tyranny”. It is sad that those who crafted the American Constitution did not, in some respects, pay better attention to Dr. Benjamin Rush—physician, educator, writer, patriot leader, and a signer of the U.S. Declaration of Independence (1745-1813). He wrote, “Unless we put medical freedom in the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize itself into an undercover dictatorship. To restrict the art of healing to one class [of men] and deny equal privileges to others will constitute the Bastille of medical science.  All such laws are un-American and despotic and have no place in a republic. The Constitution of this republic should make special privilege for medical freedom as well as religious freedom.” CharcoalRemedies.com The Complete Handbook of Medicinal Charcoal p. 265

What if this "rumor" of mandatory immunization comes true? Will resistance warrant enforced quarantine? If we surrender on medical freedom can we next expect some mandatory religious law? A national Sunday law? Considering that we are a driven society that truly needs rest, quality time with our family, spiritual rejuvenation, never mind economic or environment issues… what more perfect solution than a government-enforced day of rest? Unless of course you choose to rest on Monday, or Friday, or Sabbath, or no day at all. As for a law that enforces puncturing someone’s body (never mind with potentially deadly ingredients), against their strenuous objection, it would be but one more nail in the coffin of this great land of Liberty. Pray!