Ralph & Lahni's Paleo Herbalist Blog

Calcium and the Paleo Herbalist

One of the oddest things about adopting the Paleo diet is the way it affects our choice of supplements. For example, one of the premises of physiology is that the foundation of the nervous system is calcium. So, when you are dealing with stress you add load up on calcium. But, one of the oddities of the SAD diet, or Standard American Diet is that grains and beans block the absorption of calcium and other minerals.

When you abandon those foods the large mineral sources in animal protein and vegetables are absorbed much more effectively. This is where it gets interesting. Thanks to the high level of electromagnetic exposure many people deal with thanks to computers, cell phones and AC wired houses, their needs for magnesium has gone through the roof.

Magnesium and calcium are polarities, the first relaxes and the second tightens. When you consume supplements that are high in calcium the body constricts, this may result in tight muscles, headaches, chest pain and heart palpitations. During the pre-Paleo days we wouldn’t have this reaction, and to such small amounts. For instance, I sometimes use an herbal combination from Natures Sunshine called Stress J. One of the ingredients that you notice from the scent is Valerian. That worthy herb is very high in calcium, and while I never had a problem with it before, now taking more than one gives me a calcium headache.

Now, we walk our talk and take a good number of supplements, and Lahni is the Countessa, she loves to count and is a wonder of accounting. So, imagine my surprise when she told me that our supplement costs were down 30%. That happened while we have been feeling much better. For instance this year Lahni has been driving wine tours in our little transportation company. I couldn’t imagine her doing that last year. From last season to this our cost for car washes are down dramatically despite our tours being up 25% or more. Why, because I washed the cars myself much more often because I felt better.

Last year I would head to the car wash to wash our one car because I was tired and in pain. This year I washed the two cars because it saved me money and was good exercise, and then I’d head into the office to write out tour books, Apps and Blogs. 

The only mineral that I take daily anymore is a Magnesium Combination. There is more than one kind of Magnesium and they work on different systems. I used to take large amounts of essential fatty acids. Now I take one Omega 3 and one Super GLA every other day. Because we live in wine country, a place subject to large amounts of airborne yeast, I take daily Flora. One of the things that you learn around the wineries is that bacteria and other microbes compete. So I focus on getting the friendly ones working for me.

Tumors and the Paleo Diet

A friend contacted me about a member of his extended family who was diagnosed with cancer of the liver and gall bladder. The patient was in his eighties and was otherwise pretty healthy. I can hear what you’re thinking, ‘The man has cancer, how can he be considered healthy?’ Well, tumors and cancers are just things the body deals with, and they take their cues from the body’s overall level of vitality.

If the body is experiencing a high growth rate, as in a young child, that rate translates rapid growth. If the person is elderly the cancer will grow very slowly, because the person is growing slowly. Often times during autopsies tumors and cancers are discovered that the body has walled off, the way that an oyster encapsulates a grain of sand into a pearl. As far as that oyster is concerned there is no reason to get rid of that grain of sand, because it has been handily taken of care of. The problem for the oyster comes from being pulled from the sea and the pearl being dug out.

In the same way, the problems escalate when squeezing the breast for a radioactive mammogram burst the protective capsule, spreading the toxin pathogen throughout the system. Invasive surgeries to biopsy can let the nasty genie out of its bottle. Sometimes the best thing to do is keep that cork in place and encourage the body to dissolve the tumor’s hold in the body.

As part of the process of addressing that, let’s look at why breast, reproductive and children’s cancer are so dangerous. Because they are about growth and renewal and when the conditions in the body let a tumor get a foothold it taps into that and thrives. The key is to create conditions that don’t let them get a foothold, and when a tumor is entrenched, create the conditions that help the body dissolve and dislodge it.

The first thing to do is drive out the yeast and then eat a diet that doesn’t promote it. The Paleo diet is one of the best that I’ve seen for that. Without the sticky, sweet grains, sugar, beans and dairy the yeast loses its main foods. Adding in herbs like Pau D Arco, Olive Leaf, Juniper and Uva Ursi help reduce the yeast load while strengthening the glands and organs which are most impacted by the nutritional aberration called the Modern American Diet.

If high sugar levels persist a small amount of Golden Seal daily brings that down. It has the additional advantage of cleaning out infections and healing old scar tissue. But we mean small amounts, low blood sugar, with its weakness, fogginess and anxiety attacks is something to be avoided. Too much Golden Seal, just like too much GTF Chromium, can reduce the blood sugar levels quite quickly.

A sweet, sticky environment is perfect for a tumor to nest in. In the same way an inflamed body, with its rough surfaces gives the tumor something to hook onto. If you look at an athletes muscles under a microscope after a marathon the surface looks like a minefield with frayed and broken strands. A continuing state of inflammation does this as well, abrading the tissue. The Paleo Diet is powerfully anti-inflammatory.     

When you add Omega 3 oil from cold water fish, and for women, natural progesterone sources like wild yam you add the necessary lubricants so the surfaces slide against each other smoothly, reducing damaging friction and heat. Progesterone is one of nature’s most powerful anti-inflammatory materials, manufactured in the ovaries and placenta to prevent rejection of the fetus. Mexican wild yam contains very similar materials that the body can use to feed the hormonal system. But the key is to not cause the inflammation in the first place by consuming the irritating foods that have no place in the Paleo Diet.

Once you provide this kind of low inflammation, yeast free environment it is much easier for the body to work at dissolving and dislodging tumors, because the pearl is no longer needed. 

Arthritis and the Paleo Herbalist

A report came out the other day stating that 1 in 5 Americans suffer from arthritis. That is a horrific statistic and the entire fault of it can be laid at the feet of the dysfunctional Standard American Diet. The other day I was wine touring with a Naturopathic Physician from Seattle, a lovely woman, smart, healthy, educated and dedicated. Even though we all spent most of the day talking about wine country, she and her husband had Googled us and knew about our other work, healing.

They had seen how involved we are in the Paleo Diet of which she is also a big fan. She cut right the core benefit when she said, “It is so anti-inflammatory”. She is so right! One of the first things you notice when you adopt the diet is your pain levels drop. If you have been taking Glucosamine, Condroitin and MSM to rebuild damaged joints steer towards the Paleo Diet and see those supplements work for you like never before. Nature’s Sunshine’s Everflex combination includes these in a body of wonderful herbs. The body is complex, that’s why combinations with their diverse elements work so well for certain problems.

Anytime the letters ‘itis’ is added to a word it means inflammation. The biggest cause of inflammation is excessive acid in the tissue. All foods are a combination of acid and alkaline in varying proportions. Grains, beans, dairy and sugar are all predominantly acidic foods. So are lean meats, fish and nuts. The former group provides small amounts of protein and includes components that block mineral absorption and slow metabolism. That’s why Paleo avoids them. The latter group provides large amounts of high quality protein without restricting absorption. That’s why Paleo embraces them. The body is mostly protein and it needs to be replenished on a regular basis to maintain high vitality.

When a person consumes lots of acidic foods that don’t provide the essential material necessary to rebuild the body’s tissues they break down and become inflamed by the excessive acids. When it happens in the joints it’s called Arthritis and currently one of every five people you know suffers from that. No wonder they are grumpy. Improve your diet, pass on the word about Paleo and make a happier world.  

Attitudes and the Paleo Herbalist

One of the odd results of living with the Paleo Diet is the sense of wonder at what people eat! Honestly I’m used to this. I started studing natural healing in my teens and in my early twenties started my first herbalist shop. My life has been a nutritional experiment, something that many people can relate to. As far as I can recall I’ve never survived on the SAD diet, as in Standard American Diet.

Like many twenty year olds I was briefly a vegetarian. 90% of vegetarians are still in their 20’s. Being a big athletic guy it didn’t sit well with me. Later on I realized that there are no ‘old’ vegetarian societies, the deficiency of the amino acid l-Carnitine, so important to the heart and other muscles, creates a nutritional hole that wears down the vegetarian vitality at an early age. L-Carnitine is only found in abundance in animal or fish. The lack makes vegetarians wrinkly.

Over the years my diet has been quite good and supplemented by high potency herbs and other nutritional products. Early on in my 20’s I steered away from soy products. This was something Jethro Kloss in his book ‘Back to Eden’ espoused, but my body never liked the results it yielded. I still consider it too estrogenic, and like most beans it blocks the absorption of minerals. Every time I hear someone ordering a soy latte I gather my resolve to knock it out of their hand and save them from themselves, but I rarely do.

Not surprisingly I’ve spent years watching people eat things that I don’t even consider food, but as we’ve adopted the Paleo Diet that experience has escalated. We used to eat rice pasta, so when I saw someone having a bowl of wheat pasta as least the illusion was there, it might be rice. But then we gave up rice along with the other grains and now it just looks like a bowl of paste to me, sticky white paste. Real appetizing! The other day clients asked me for a cheese suggestion to go with wine. After telling them that I don’t eat dairy and haven’t for years I suggested a nice Fontina. I remember what it tastes like; I just don’t want to feel the way it makes me fill, stuffy and sluggish.

Do other people go through this, looking in wonder and mild disbelief at what people eat? Feel free to share.

I’m going to write an open letter to Whole Foods and explain that I don’t need such a big store. Just leave the produce section, including the frozen, the meat and fish section, condiments and oils, spices, coffee and wine, the prepared food section because we get busy and the sparkling water section. You can include the chips because sometimes you need a little crunch in your life. Oh yeah, don’t forget the coffee section because that’s where I get my Sunday San Francisco Chronicle. If they shrunk the store imagine how much they would save on electricity. Opps! I forgot the books, keep the books too because knowledge is the key to improving the quality of life!  

Drs. Ralph & Lahni de Amicis are Master Herbalists and Naturopathic Physicians. They run a Paleo Herbalist support group conference call/webinar for those who share those combined interests. For more information and join the group email Lahni at Lahni@spaceandtime.com. You can find more information about their books at www.SpaceAndTime.com.  

Arthritis and the Paleo Herbalist

A report came out the other day stating that 1 in 5 Americans suffer from arthritis. That is a horrific statistic and the entire fault of it can be laid at the feet of the dysfunctional Standard American Diet. The other day I was wine touring with a Naturopathic Physician from Seattle, a lovely woman, smart, healthy, educated and dedicated. Even though we all spent most of the day talking about wine country, she and her husband had Googled us and knew about our other work, healing.

They had seen how involved we are in the Paleo Diet of which she is also a big fan. She cut right the core benefit when she said, “It is so anti-inflammatory”. She is so right! One of the first things you notice when you adopt the diet is your pain levels drop. If you have been taking Glucosamine, Condroitin and MSM to rebuild damaged joints steer towards the Paleo Diet and see those supplements work for you like never before. Nature’s Sunshine’s Everflex combination includes these in a body of wonderful herbs. The body is complex, that’s why combinations with their diverse elements work so well for certain problems.

Anytime the letters ‘itis’ is added to a word it means inflammation. The biggest cause of inflammation is excessive acid in the tissue. All foods are a combination of acid and alkaline in varying proportions. Grains, beans, dairy and sugar are all predominantly acidic foods. So are lean meats, fish and nuts. The former group provides small amounts of protein and includes components that block mineral absorption and slow metabolism. That’s why Paleo avoids them. The latter group provides large amounts of high quality protein without restricting absorption. That’s why Paleo embraces them. The body is mostly protein and it needs to be replenished on a regular basis to maintain high vitality.

When a person consumes lots of acidic foods that don’t provide the essential material necessary to rebuild the body’s tissues they break down and become inflamed by the excessive acids. When it happens in the joints it’s called Arthritis and currently one of every five people you know suffers from that. No wonder they are grumpy. Improve your diet, pass on the word about Paleo and make a happier world.  

We were talking with friends about the Paleo Diet the other day and one of the things it pointed out was how much people don’t know about foods. This was a person who had worked in the food industry for many years. He had bought and shipped millions and millions of dollars of food for his own company and for other companies. One of the companies that he worked with sold their products through Whole Foods. They had been with them for years and it had helped make them a very large operation.

Yet his sense of what made a good protein source came out of the same misconceptions many people suffer from. I was explaining that a key part to boosting the metabolism was eating lean protein first thing in the morning. That’s something like tuna or white turkey breast, 60% to 90% lean protein. He was thinking nuts, 30% lean protein.

Most people think of metabolism as the sole territory of the thyroid. But Chinese medicine quite correctly sees metabolism as coming from three sources, the proverbial triple warmer. Heart and thyroid is one center, digestion is another, and reproductive is the third.

The key here is that when you consume lean protein first thing in the morning it makes the body work harder to use that nutrition and in the process the metabolism cranks up. Once it’s up to speed it tends to stay there. In the same way having the ‘hots’ for somebody cute definitely gets the hormones going and warms up the entire system. Working hard and stressing the heart warms the system.

Thyroid drugs have been among the most prescribed in the nation for many years, but the thyroid, like many glands is very small. The amount of hormone excreted is tiny yet powerful. But, hormonal glands are moderators. The problem our society has is that we depend upon the glands to be prime movers. If you give the body the correct foods; lean meats and fish, vegetables and fruits, nuts and seed and pure water you don’t have to goose the hormonal system with drugs like prodding an animal with a cattle prod.

Anyone who has lost a lot of weight knows that saggy skin often results. Over time it tones up but is there any way to help that along? Fortunately the Paleo Diet is high in lean protein containing l-Carnitine. This amino acid creates the long chain protein strands that tighten the skin. Help the process by supplementing with l-Carnitine daily, preferably on an empty stomach.

All of the amino acids benefit from being taken on an empty stomach because stomach acid can work on them to full effect. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein, and part of stomach acid’s job is tearing apart incoming protein into those building blocks. A Protein has a Program and your digestive system is designed to not let those outside proteins inside.

Spider and snake bites and most other toxic invaders are proteins; they have programs that are different from yours. By taking the amino acids or any protein on an empty stomach you optimize the conversion into something useful. Another product that helps restore the skin is collagen. Nature’s Sunshine’s Collatrim is a good source of this product. For weight loss take it in the evening on an empty stomach. The first couple of hours of sleep are when protein production takes place, fat is burned away and lean muscle produced.

One of the side benefits of consuming protein and amino acids on an empty stomach, or without the sticky grains, beans, dairy and sugar excluded on the Paleo Diet, is a much better mood. A lack of the amino acids that contribute to the brain’s neurotransmitters is a cause of depression, anxiety and related issues. Plenty of lean protein and amino acids throughout the day boosts the mood while it tones the skin. What a nice coincidence!

America is addicted to excessively salty foods and I take that personally. I’ve always been sensitive to salt, it’s irritating, water retentive and if I get too much in my food my shoulders hurt and I don’t sleep well. For many years I’ve never salted my foods. But, my dad loved salt, so does my son and my wife Lahni for many years described herself as a ‘saltaholic ‘.

In Chinese the words for ‘I love you’ are ‘I feed you’. Lahni loves me so she feeds me and often that meant more salt than was good for me. Then we moved into the orbit of Paleo and part of the approach is removing salt. No biggie for me, not so much for Lahni, but over time she has reduced her salt intake dramatically. Now when we eat out if something is salted she finds it excessively so. Good for me and her.

This past week we have been very busy because we live in wine country, Sonoma and Napa, and we run a winery tour company. This is the high season and we’ve been on the road a lot and when we’re not we’re preparing for the next tour. When you have both been out driving all day talking over your shoulder to clients and you come home to a hot house eating out makes so much sense.

After eating out three times over three days I am suffering from salt pain. My joints hurt and my teeth. I sleep fine once I can get to sleep and then I wake up very early, before sunrise. The foods we’ve been eating out are still on the Paleo diet but I made a mistake, I forgot to ask for no added salt. VERY IMPORTANT. Once you get accustomed to feeling good, sleek, toned and young again don’t forget to ask for NO SALT!

If you, like me run into this little wall remember the salt will eventually leave, but if you want to hurry it along use Nature’s Sunshine Products Potassium Combination. This combination of herbs and minerals is a life saver. Sodium and Potassium work in a balance and the Potassium helps drain extra fluids containing both sodium and chloride from the system. Salt is a combination of sodium and the acidic mineral chloride.

Table salt is a bait and switch. The body will crave sodium so it will seek salty foods, but table salt’s sodium is bound to chloride, an acidic mineral that the body uses to break down soap like materials. The body rarely craves chloride but since it comes in the package you’re stuck with it. The problem comes from the body getting a lot more irritating chloride than is good for you. I would write more but I have to get some Potassium Combo from my herb cabinet.

I remember years ago when our friend and mentor Dr. Richard Dicks gave us that phrase, ‘running out of youth’. It beautifully points out a common misstep people take with their health. Children process a wide variety of foods without a problem because so much nutrition is directed to growth. Their digestive systems make the most of whatever they encounter. They are accustomed to eating whatever they want and then they run out of youth and what they eat matters.

Truthfully it mattered what they ate before but they had a big margin of error built in that evaporates for adults. What is aging? Damage! Living cells should look like guinea pigs, rounded, sleek and smooth. When the cells flow through the circulatory and lymphatic systems they should barely leave a footprint. When a person eats irritating foods those guinea pigs turn into porcupines. When they go through tubes they leave scratches that eventually leak. One thing you can say about humans, it’s better when they don’t leak.  

As you go through life your diet may need to change so you can maintain optimal health. Know how to recognize if you are eating the wrong foods? You are sick! 90% of disease begins with diet. Emotional upset can trigger disease easily if the diet is wrong. The way that many people eat today they are walking a tight rope one emotional conflict away from falling into sickness. If your diet is vital, protein rich, free of glues and low in inflammatory fats your emotional body will be resilient, just like your physical body.

After the Second World War 60% to 80% of the American diet was unprocessed food. Currently 80% is processed. The childhood obesity epidemic is the onslaught of today’s fake foods overwhelming that youthful margin of error. There is not enough nutrition in kid’s diets to build the lean, toned body’s they were intended to have. Parents decide their children’s diets and whining about their inability to control what their kids eat is a sorry excuse when your children are sick. The Paleo Diet may seem an extreme change to a child living on chicken fingers, ice cream and chips but the return to good health is an extreme shift to the good that makes well worth the effort.  

White and the Paleo Herbalist

Many years ago when I started in Herbology one of the cardinal rules to restoring health was avoiding pretty much anything white in terms of food. You could still wear white tennis clothes and you didn’t need to write on cream colored paper, but if it was going in your mouth it better not be white.

At that time white represented a big part of what you saw advertised, white bread, white flour, white sugar, white milk and of course all of the things you can make from milk. Most people ignored that advice and thirty years later obesity is common and the government is selling our country’s financial future to the drug and medical companies to deal with generations of people living on faux foods.

As I’ve explained more times than I care to remember the main problem with white flour and milk is the glue. White sugar is sticky too but if it was introduced today it would have to be by prescription, that’s how much it affects the body. As a chocolate lover I’m rather glad that I don’t need a scrip for my afternoon treat, but you get the point.

If your health is great and you want to eat anything you want, why not? The reality is when people eat unhealthful foods they don’t enjoy great health. Keep in mind that great health is not simply the absence of a disease that can be diagnosed by a professional. Great health equates to high vitality, pain free mobility, good attitude and emotional stability, AKA happiness.

One of the reasons I’m such a fan of the Paleo Diet is that it takes those original lessons I learned as a young herbalist to heart. When I would hear ‘avoid white foods’ what they were actually saying was avoid grains, but if you have to eat them then have the unprocessed grain. Over the years I had shifted to sprouted breads and rice pasta and I thought that was pretty good. I gave up dairy years ago but that’s because I must have been scared by a cow as a child. I limited sugar pretty severely, except for a little chocolate. But I was carrying extra weight and spent too much time in pain. When I embraced the Paleo Diet I recognized that it connected to my earliest herbal training and my weight dropped dramatically along with my pain levels.

Now when I use herbs and supplements the benefits are obvious and rapid. They don’t have to work against the resistance that my diet was creating. My mood is improved and I’m enthused again about herbology because I’m seeing its benefits so obviously in my own health again.

I was talking with someone facing a diagnosis of colitis and they were amazed when their MD told them that diet had nothing to do with their problem. They said to me, “How could what you eat have nothing to do with a digestive problem?” Of course they were right to question such a stupid statement, all digestive inflammation issues stem from what the person is eating. The digestive system is essentially a tube starting at the mouth and ending at the butt, it’s designed to work simply and well.

Digestive disease comes from eating foods the body wasn’t designed to process easily; they clog the digestive tract, block the absorption of nutrition and hog the tract so there is less room for high vitality foods. If you fill up on low nutrition carbohydrate snacks you’re not hungry when your body needs high energy lean protein.  

Problems can also arise from infections such as parasites but they mostly arrive via food or drink. There are some exceptions but if the diet is optimal and the digestive effective the body’s resistance to invaders is greater, as well as the ability to dislodge them. Primal diets like the Paleo Diet focus on high potency foods and avoid the high carb, sugar and gluey foods that allow toxic yeast, fungus and parasites to prosper.

Once the person stops jamming those sweet, sticky faux foods into every crevasse of their intestinal tract it is a lot easier to clear out those toxic pathogens and avoid them in the future. The toxins they create in their life cycle are the source of the inflammation. Allergies are the body’s extreme reaction to what it recognizes as contributing to a damaging state of health, the gluten intolerance being a well known example because there is gluten in almost every processed food these days.

To get past all kinds of intestinal inflammation there are two steps, adopt a Paleo Diet so you stop causing the inflammation. Second, use Slippery Elm bark and Bupleurum herb to sooth and calm the bowel. That may seem over simplified but it works because the Paleo Diet is so high in the anti-inflammatory Omega 3 oils and low in the inflammatory Omega 6 found in many processed food. You may want to supplement with additional Omega 3 to help the process along.

You could also use a formula like the Nature’s Sunshine Intestinal Sooth and Build which is high in Slippery Elm. In the same way you can use their Chinese TCM Formula IF-C which is high in Bupleurum. They contain other useful herbs although sometimes simplicity is best. When the body has been frightened into an allergic reaction the less variables you add the better.   

Ralph & Lahni de Amicis are Master Herbalists and Naturopathic Physicians. You can find their books and other products plus a wealth of useful information at http://www.SpaceAndTime.com and you can contact them at Lahni@spaceandtime.com

I so consistently tell people about the value of the Paleo diet in general health and healing that I finally made fold over business cards that explain the basic principles. So far no one has said to me ‘Don’t give me that, I don’t want to be thinner or in less pain’. It could happen! Instead, the next time I see them they still have the card on their desk or in their wallet. Sometimes they’ve ventured into the diet and they understand why I’m so enthusiastic about it.

The point I want to make is that it is not just about fatitude, the extreme need for our population to lose weight. The use of the diet makes the entire healing process easier. Sometimes you get tired of pushing rocks uphill, and when you work with clients who are causing their own health problems through the foods they are eating it feels like that. The Paleo diet provides an easy dietary guideline that seems to work well for everyone.

What is most telling, and in truth is most entertaining in an ironic sense, are people’s reactions when I tell them about the diet. First I tell them what the diet consists of, lean meats and fish, vegetables and fresh fruit, nuts and seeds, and they nod their heads because it all sounds good. But then I tell them what it leaves out, grains (AKA bread, cereal, bagels, the rice under sushi, etc), beans (hummus, chili, chickpeas, etc), sugar (which is in almost everything) and dairy (which is mostly milk sugar). In its most effective approach the Paleo Diet also leaves out starchy vegetables like potatoes and yams, although these can be included after some serious exercise to restore glucose levels in the muscles.  

It’s when I tell them what it leaves out that their eyes go wide and their mouths drop open because I’ve just described 80% of their diet and they can’t conceive of how they could live without these low vitality foods. The reason they feel that way is that these manufactured foods are addictive and they cause cravings and have side effects. Do you really think that the huge packaged food companies would have gotten so big if they just satisfied your hunger and nurtured your body? Of course not, white sugar is almost as toxic and addictive as tobacco, another huge industry. Each one of these food groups have their own considerable downside.  

When you live with the Paleo Diet you’ll notice that more of your food is local and unprocessed. The ingredients on the labels are fewer in number and you’ll feel better for that in so many ways. As we titled one of our books, Good Health is Easy.  

Ralph & Lahni de Amicis are Master Herbalists and Naturopathic Physicians. You can find their books and other products plus a wealth of useful information at http://www.SpaceAndTime.com and you can contact them at Lahni@spaceandtime.com

After 38 years of being in the natural healing field I finally feel like I am getting the hang of this health thing. It has not been for lack of study, I have spent lifetimes in seminars and classes. it has not been due to lack of experience, as an herbalist and naturopath I have consulted with thousands of clients and helped many of them regain their good health. But up to this point the pace of my progress as a healer has been slowed by a faulty premise; that the agrarian grain and legume intense diet that evolved since the beginning of the Neolithic period ten thousand years ago promoted human health. It doesn't and there is no getting around that.

Yes, I apologize to all of those grain and bean farmers and bakers galore, but those foods that have become especially prevalent since the beginning of the industrial revolution cause inflammation in the body and block the absorption of vital nutrition, especially minerals. When people can remove grains, legumes, dairy, sugar and salt from their diets and replace them with lean meats and fish, vegetables and fresh fruit, nuts and seeds their body starts rebuilding the way it was designed to, quickly.

 As an herbalist I have seen that a therapeutic supplement program works much faster and deeper when you shift the diet toward Paleo. When a person realizes that they are causing their disease, their tiredness, their obesity by eating these low vitality foods that society has provided for them, it makes it easier to choose health. The Paleo diet is what nature chose for then.

Drs Ralph & Lahni de Amicis

When you start the Paleo Diet it seems like a huge change, suddenly
the grains, beans, dairy and sugar that have been such a big part of
the American diet are left behind.

Then, as you realize how good you feel the diet gets easier. It is
not just the reduction of pain, the clear thinking and the improved energy
levels, although those would be reasons enough. The weight
loss and toning up of your muscles are also big sellers. But I think that the biggest benefit is the emotional sense of well being.

Many years ago a group of nutrition scientists introduced a concept called
Orthomolecular Nutrition. One of the most important concepts that
emerged from that was how blood sugar levels affect mood. So much
aberrant behavior, violence and outbursts are due to peaks and spikes
in these blood sugar levels.

Modern, hyper refined, carbohydrate rich 'foods' are to blame. When
these foods are removed in the Paleo Diet sanity and calmness can
return. That does not mean you will never get angry again, sometimes
you have good reasons to be angry. But it means you will be less
subject to unreasoned fear, anxiety or sadness, as well as
inappropriate angry outbursts.

The place where a Paleo Herbalist approach helps the most is in rebuilding the body systems that have been damaged by years of having to process the wrong kinds of food.

Where normally we use chromium to reduce sugar levels to take the strain off the pancreas, with the Paleo Diet the sugars are well balanced. Where the body could use some help is in rebuilding the pancreas. It is such a small organ and the modern American diet makes it work so hard that you can't expect it to spring right back.

A good herbal combination like Nature’s Sunshine Pro Pancreas provides the nutrition specific for the pancreas. If you continue to have sugar related problems like sudden bouts of tiredness, anxiety or yeast rashes then the Target P14 comes in handy because it contains Golden Seal which is a wonder for reducing sugar in the blood quite quickly.

One warning, for many years we have used an aggressive herbal program with large amounts of an herb daily; as many as one capsule for every 10 pounds of body weight. With glandular products like Pro Pancreas and P14 you would normally use much smaller amounts. However, when you are doing the Paleo Diet you will probably need even smaller amounts because your body isn’t pushing against the damage and inflammation caused by consuming the wrong foods. We often find one to two capsules daily is quite effective, but it is important to use it over an extended period of time since the damage was done in the same way. For instance you might use it as a daily supplement for 3 months, 6 months or a year.

There is a side benefit of the Pacreas herbal products because in the digestive process the pancreas does not work alone. Its main
partner is the liver who stores extra glucose as glycocen. Toxins can accumulate in the liver but on the Paleo Diet it becomes easier to remove
those toxins because they are not bound up with excess glucose. That’s because glucose is a sugar and we all know how hard it is to clean up wet sugar.

Also things like bacteria, parasites fungus and yeast thrive in excessive glucose environments and it is common for those pathogens to hide out in the liver and other internal organs when they are clogged up with sticky compounds.

The urinary system is another place where the Pro Pancreas and P14 have a beneficial effect. First of all sugar is an acid and when you can reduce the body’s acid load that makes the plumbing very happy. Secondly the herbs that make up these Pancreas formulas are many of the primary herbs that have a beneficial effect on the kidneys and the rest of the system. Key to any holistic approach to healing is that a problem is not solely in any one system and so therapeutic results are shared too!

Like many things nutritional fat is an emotional subject so that the terms low fat no fat send tingles of fear down many a culinary spine. My basic description of the Paleo Diet is lean meats and fish, vegetables and fresh fruit, nuts and seeds and it is an admittedly simple description. Probably the biggest point of contention comes from defining what a lean meat is, because it implies a criticism of fats.

First of all, not all fats are created equally, some are great for the body, others not so much. Even the best fat is toxic if it becomes rancid, which can happen real fast, so the best fats are best when they are fresh. Let’s define what a lean meat is; generally speaking it is any meat where the amount of fat doesn’t outweigh the amount of protein. The body needs good, fresh fats and for an example a deer is about 50 percent fat that it developed feeding on grasses, herbs and barks from the fields and forest floor.

A squirrel or rabbit is 90 percent protein but trying to subsist solely on such a lean protein source will make you sick as the liver falters under the weight of processing all of that protein. Yet having such a lean source of protein occasionally is very good for you because it boosts the performance of the thyroid. Considering that thyroid drugs were recently the most prescribed in the USA having a nutritional solution to that problem is helpful. Sea food is generally quite lean with salmon and tuna being on par with that deer.

Surprisingly two very popular foods are just as lean as squirrels and rabbits, white skinless turkey breast and shrimp. Now the turkey may be a surprise but there is something you should know; traditionally most wild and farm raised turkeys were not white breasted. But a number of years ago a farmer from Sonoma California discovered that a small percentage of white feathered turkeys were also white breasted. He bred for those qualities and the eggs were distributed throughout America forming a new industry. Even today when you drive from downtown Sonoma towards downtown Napa you see large turkey sheds on the hillsides between the grapevines.

What is not a lean protein? Hot dogs, bacon, sausage and lamb to name a few! These run from 10% to 30% protein with the remainder being fat. To make it worse, the best meats come from animals that have grazed and finished on grass, not grains, the biggest difference being the quality of the fat. The former is quite nutritious and the later inclined to cause inflammation and circulatory problems. Besides I don’t recall ever seeing the words ‘grass fed hot dogs’. Generally the lowest quality, fatty cuts are used for these processed meats. That doesn’t mean you can’t have a hot dog now and then, or a nice piece of sausage, but be aware that it’s not helping your healing or weight loss program the way that a higher quality, leaner meat will.

Skinless chicken breast is about 50% lean while dark meat comes in at 30%. If you want to boost your metabolism which one do you choose? It is less about avoiding the fat and more about seeking out the lean protein that the body uses for rebuilding. High quality fats are important as lubricants, as hormonal materials, as cellular components and for energy. Our body uses triglycerides for energy during normal and moderate activities.

If you go to a diet that is too low in fat you will starve your hormonal system. Also fat often is bonded to the mineral sulfur which is a powerful antiseptic and an important component of the skin and joints. It protects the body from yeast and fungus in the same way that tannin, a sulfur compound found in red grape skins allows red wines to age properly even though vines are subject to molds and fungus. Adding onions and garlic to the diet helps and for a more socially acceptable solution supplement with MSM, which is a sulfur compound. Sulfur is traditionally known as the beauty mineral because of its effect on the skin and hair, but it also helps the joints, tendons and ligaments.

Fat, aka lipids is such a complex and emotionally charged subject that is should be broken down into many categories, and in fact it is, but keep in mind that lean protein is a relative term. There is world of difference between bacon and shrimp even though they often wrap the one around the other.