{health}

{health}

I haven’t posted much in my health cat­e­gory. I have to admit I’m a bit  ner­vous about it. Peo­ple come to their con­vic­tions pretty strongly in this area, I have found.

And I don’t want this to be a strong divid­ing line between friends.

Per­son­ally, I see great advan­tage to using a mul­ti­tude of approaches to health. It’s not one size fits all for us.

For our fam­ily, we start by striv­ing to main­tain our health. We eat real food, pre­pared mostly from scratch. I don’t say that to brag or bind any­one to my way of doing things. I just think it tastes bet­ter com­ing from real food rather than a box. And, let’s face it. It’s cheaper when you are cook­ing for many peo­ple to grab your own ingre­di­ents rather than a small amount that might come in an expen­sive pack­age. So, I have learned to cook this way. And, I do think it is health­ier for our bod­ies to elim­i­nate as many chemical-sounding things from our diet. I hon­estly can’t imag­ine doing the box thing any­more. It isn’t appeal­ing, and I don’t think it could pos­si­bly be much faster than cook­ing from scratch once you have the tech­nique down, but I sup­pose it might be. One caveat: two of my chil­dren like boxed Mac & Cheese. I don’t fight it. I used to like it, too.

And, by and large, we don’t drink sodas. We sel­dom have any juice in the house unless we are hav­ing guests, and I remem­ber to buy some. We are water drinkers. Almost exclu­sively, except for the tea and cof­fee, of course.

So, we tend not to get sick very often. We live post-fall, so we do get sick on occa­sion. What I do in those sit­u­a­tions depends on what is going around and what I think we have caught.

I have exper­i­mented with var­i­ous herbal tinc­tures, home­opa­thy, essen­tial oils, and chi­ro­prac­tic care. I have found vary­ing degrees of suc­cess with each of these meth­ods. I have a cou­ple of desk ref­er­ences that I turn to for advice on our med­ical care. I always seek that advice when we are first fac­ing an ill­ness. I love how thor­ough they are. And I seek out peo­ple I know are knowl­edge­able in this area if I am stumped.

Lately, I have been con­cen­trat­ing on learn­ing more about how to use ther­a­peu­tic grade essen­tial oils. What I love about them is that they are made from the plants that God cre­ated. We read ref­er­ences in scrip­ture about their use in bib­li­cal times. They are not chem­i­cally cre­ated. They are not going to come with a long list of adverse reac­tions and com­pli­cated dis­or­ders result­ing from their use like phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. Nor do they come with a long list of ingre­di­ents. I like that.

What bugs me about them is how the new age move­ment uses them with­out glo­ri­fy­ing God in the process. That can tend to make them look like they should be off-limits for the Chris­t­ian in some people’s minds. I get that. But, so many other gifts from God have been abused by non-Christians (and Chris­tians alike, sadly). Like food. And sex. And money. And alco­hol. None of those things are con­demned in scrip­ture when used prop­erly, with thank­ful­ness to God, in the con­text of which they are given (ie, sex within the bounds of mar­riage). It’s when we start idol­iz­ing them that we get in trouble.

So, can Chris­tians use essen­tial oils, while glo­ri­fy­ing Him for His beau­ti­ful gift to us in heal­ing? I think so. I am so thank­ful for what I have learned about them, and how my fam­ily has ben­e­fited so much from their use. They have become my pri­mary go-to resource for our health needs. From a cough to vom­it­ing to sleep­less nights, I have found essen­tial oils to be an incred­i­ble aid to our family.

I have also just dipped my toes into the world of Juice Plus+. My mom has begun tak­ing the Fruit, Veg­etable, and Vine­yard blend cap­sules to see if it will help her body dur­ing her fight with can­cer and the chemother­apy that goes with it. My prayer is that she will find great aid on a cel­lu­lar level. I have heard so many amaz­ing tes­ti­monies about how Juice Plus+ has helped peo­ple in their dif­fi­cult can­cer bat­tles. Sto­ries about putting it in the feed­ing tube of a patient who just couldn’t eat any­more.  Another story of a woman with non-Hodgkin Lym­phoma who was told fif­teen years ago that she would have to have chemo for the rest of her life to keep the can­cer at bay, who dur­ing her sec­ond round of chemo started tak­ing Juice Plus+ and has never had to have chemo again.

And not only that, more than 20 Juice Plus+ research stud­ies have been con­ducted in lead­ing hos­pi­tals and uni­ver­si­ties around the world. So, we’re not just talk­ing anec­do­tal sto­ries, which I’m glad about.

I have heard how excel­lent juic­ing is for a body. Get­ting good qual­ity, organic fruit and veg­eta­bles in the quan­tity needed for juic­ing is extremely expen­sive. Juice Plus+ appears to be an alter­na­tive way to get those nutri­ents in our bod­ies with less mess, less expense, but with all the ben­e­fits. So, we will see how it goes. One ben­e­fit is that when I bought the Juice Plus+ cap­sules for my mom, they gave me a free sup­ply for one of my chil­dren. So, I have one of my chil­dren on the Juice Plus+ for free. As long as my mom is on them, my daugh­ter will have them. And, if we decide to put any­one else in our fam­ily on them, we get another sup­ply for a sec­ond child, and so on. Not a bad perk!

I’d love to hear any sto­ries you might have about Juice Plus+. Have you used it before? What are your thoughts? I was telling my hair styl­ist about it, and she said she used to take the Gum­mies they sell. She said they were so good that she would want to eat them like candy. So, that’s good news for the kid­dos. You know how some gummy vit­a­mins aren’t very tasty? Appar­ently that isn’t the case for these!

What are you doing to keep your fam­ily healthy? I am con­stantly desir­ing to learn more, research more, and learn how to bet­ter care for my fam­ily. I will say that most of my chil­dren have never been on antibi­otics. Ever. A cou­ple have, but that was before I knew any­thing about how to keep my fam­ily healthy and using more nat­ural means for fight­ing off dis­ease. I’m not say­ing that we would never use them. They are cer­tainly valu­able in some cases. God has obvi­ously spared us those crit­i­cal health crises that require the aid of the big guns. But, the whole idea of tak­ing them for every snif­fle is beyond me. We don’t use Tylenol, Advil, etc., very often either. Very rarely. They can be toxic for your body. Tylenol can cause issues with your liver. Advil can cause issues with your kid­neys. And more. Google side effects if you haven’t before. I used to think that we could take as much as we want, as often as we want, that it was just free for my body to use as I wanted. Of course, that was MY faulty think­ing. They don’t say that on the bot­tle. They give dosage rec­om­men­da­tions and cau­tions. But, I never much thought about that.

So, I’m learn­ing. Hope­fully, I will con­tinue to learn. My desire is that my chil­dren will know the things I am strug­gling to learn and mem­o­rize as more of a sec­ond nature kind of thing. They already know which essen­tial oils to go to for many things they might encounter: burns, bug bites, stuffy noses, coughs, sore throats. They don’t even have to ask me any­more. They just go to the oils and apply them as needed, or dif­fuse them beside their chairs or beds. I love it. And they are learn­ing how to look things up in the desk ref­er­ence. They come to me for a sec­ond opin­ion, or for coun­sel on how to specif­i­cally use an oil if they haven’ t used it before. We’re learn­ing together, which is pretty neat.

*Note: In our home, we choose to use Young Liv­ing Ther­a­peu­tic Grade Essen­tial Oils because we believe they are the best on the mar­ket. When look­ing for essen­tial oils, be sure to use only ther­a­peu­tic grade, which are safe for inter­nal use. If you would like more infor­ma­tion about Young Liv­ing Essen­tial Oils, please feel free to con­tact me either through a com­ment on this post, or through my con­tact form.  

 

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Comments

  1. Are the Juice Plus Cap­sules sold in the mar­ket, like Sprouts? I have wanted to do essen­tial oils, unfor­tu­nately the price of them does not fit in our bud­get. I enjoy read­ing and learning.

    • Hi Kelly,
      No, they aren’t avail­able in the super­mar­kets. I can get them for you though, even deliv­ered directly to your home. You can go to my web­site to find more info on how to order here: http://tc20595.juiceplus.com/. Or, I can talk directly to you about it. On that link, you will find the “about us” link. In the drop down menu, they have a library cat­e­gory with a few videos that explain the research behind JP+. It’s pretty neat. I’m still learn­ing the basics, but from what I am learn­ing, I am impressed. Still have so much more to learn though! Also, since you said you enjoy read­ing and learn­ing (you’re a girl after my heart!), check out the clin­i­cal research tab. Fas­ci­nat­ing!
      Hope­fully, more peo­ple will be able to jump into the dis­cus­sion and share their expe­ri­ence.
      Bless­ings to you!
      Tonya

  2. Good post, Tonya, as always.

    One ques­tion and one thought. :-)

    I don’t know a sin­gle thing about Juice +, so my ques­tion isn’t about that prod­uct in par­tic­u­lar, but about juic­ing vs. whole fruit vita­mix­ing (I know, that’s not a word ). Have you any idea why juic­ing might have more or bet­ter ben­e­fits than just mak­ing a smoothie with the whole fruit/veggie? Do you think it would be because you can drink more clear flu­ids than more dense flu­ids, so you’d end up get­ting more nutrients/vitamins in? I love my vita­mix, being able to toss in all kinds of fruits and veg­gies whole, but maybe for health ben­e­fits (with the excep­tion of the extra fiber from vita­mix­ing) it’d be bet­ter to juice? Just curi­ous. Of course, it’d be much eas­ier to just swal­low a neat lit­tle pill. :-)

    Re oils and new age influ­ence, we just can’t stress enough the impor­tance of learn­ing about and steer­ing clear of cer­tain, spe­cific prac­tices asso­ci­ated with some of them. Oils them­selves ~ a-ok. Some prac­tices which are pro­moted by some com­pa­nies and their founders ~ not ok at all. We’ve really got to be wise in this regard and not eas­ily dis­miss the con­cerns some are rais­ing with regard to the lat­ter, while still reap­ing what­ever ben­e­fits the oils them­selves may provide.

    Always love read­ing what you have to share and how you share it. So ten­der hearted and sweet.

    • Thanks for your com­ment, Deb­bie.
      Great ques­tion about the juicing/Vitamixing. I won­der if the juic­ing gives you the bulk of the nutri­ents in a smaller end prod­uct, so you can add more to the serv­ing? I don’t know. But, I would think it would leave the prob­lem of too much sugar with­out the ben­e­fit of the fiber to counter it. I love my vita­mix also.
      With the JP+, you do need to drink 8oz of water with them to ensure that they are rehy­drated in your sys­tem. It’s the real fruit/vegies that you are get­ting, not some sort of recre­ation of fruit/vegies.

      And with the oils, I com­pletely agree with you! We have to use dis­cern­ment, and not use prac­tices steeped in new age/occultist prac­tices. We must be wise as ser­pents, gen­tle as doves.

      And, thanks so much for your encour­age­ment. Funny, I feel that I just ram­ble. It’s what’s on my heart, so I put it out there. I’m hon­estly some­what sur­prised that peo­ple are able to fol­low my train of thought some­times. haha

      Bless­ings,
      Tonya

      • So are the Juice+ pills basi­cally just dehy­drated fruit/veggies?

        And if I could be just half as wise as you are when you ram­ble, I’d be glad of it. :-)

        • Yes, Deb­bie, they are. They have a pro­pri­etary process to dehy­drate them so quickly so that they don’t lose any of the nutri­ents. At least that’s how I am under­stand­ing it. Every ingre­di­ent is listed on the label. If it isn’t on the label, it isn’t in the ingre­di­ents. No fillers. No junk.
          HA! You are quite wise! I learn so much from you.
          Bless­ings,
          Tonya

  3. First of all, you are brave to write a post on this topic! The can of worms is now open (though not to eat). I like your com­ments about eat­ing real food — though I have found that limiting/eliminating meat/milk/eggs has ben­e­fit­ted me, as well as try­ing to eat a vari­ety of foods includ­ing the often over­looked greens, nuts & seeds. I also eat/drink soy. You can find a lot of plant-based ben­e­fit infor­ma­tion from places like http://www.nutritionfacts.org, engine2 diet, http://www.forksoverknives.com/, http://www.drmcdougall.com/, Joel Fuhrman “Super Immu­nity”, The China Study, and many other places. Dr. Greger (on the nutri­tion­facts web site) has had neg­a­tive things about Jui­ce­Plus so I’m not into that. I pre­fer smooth­ies (whole food, fiber and all) to juic­ing, where much of the ben­e­fit is tossed out. We ate a lot of kale this sum­mer in smooth­ies. Being close to vegan I take occa­sional B12, and if I feel some­thing com­ing on I’ll take a lit­tle extra zinc and vit­a­min D (espe­cially this time of year.)

    I balk at essen­tial oil use, though I admit I have pep­per­mint, tea tree, & oregano on hand. They are botan­i­cal extracts, but are not actu­ally “oil” — for some rea­son the name both­ers me. Some folks are so into the oil thing it starts to feel like a cult from my per­spec­tive! And the whole new-age sort of thing — yea. It can get weird.

    Amen to your com­ments about OTC — there’s a place for it but we go spar­ingly. As for antibi­otics, I know I would have at least 2 less chil­dren around in this world with­out them, need­ing highly inva­sive surgery as babies. We prob­a­bly go to food for help the way you use oils — gar­lic, gin­ger, spices, etc, there is much to learn about. The only other thing I would add to your post (which you prob­a­bly skipped because it’s assumed) is prayer for heal­ing. I often for­get that this should be my first action before look­ing for any other health-promoting avenue.

    • Hi Lida,
      I did open that can, didn’t I? 😉 {and hence the fear and trem­bling…}
      I believe the forksoverknives peo­ple pro­mote JP+. But, I need to ver­ify that to be cer­tain. Kale is fab­u­lous! I dis­cov­ered it this sum­mer, and loved hav­ing it as the main green in my salad, also putting it in my wraps and such. But, you know my fam­ily: they are not real strong in the eat­ing greens department.

      We have had great suc­cess with our oils. I know some peo­ple just don’t get it, and that’s okay. Again, I don’t think it’s one size fits all. We have ben­e­fited greatly from them. We have our favorites, like you.

      Oh, and THANK YOU for men­tion­ing the prayer aspect! That is fun­da­men­tal and pri­mary in all sit­u­a­tions. God is the Great Physi­cian. And, yes, it is my pre­sup­po­si­tion that we begin there. Should have stated it though. We’ve seen way too many cases where clearly God is the One who con­founded the doc­tors. He alone heals through the var­i­ous means we employ.

      Bless­ings,
      Tonya

  4. Tonya, you have started the Haz­ardous Jour­neys for Women by doing this post…brave woman…wife of brave man.

    Nice job with the bal­ance and love.

    Bill

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