The advice and informational content does not necessarily represent the views of mother's market and kitchen mother's recommends consulting your health professional for your personal medical condition.

Hello, I'm Kimberly King and welcome to the mother's market radio show, a show dedicated to the truth theory and goodness of the human condition. On today's show, with the cold and flu season and full swing, it's time to discuss how we can keep our immune system in tip top shape and avoid getting run down this winter, plus later... We'll tell you what's going on around town. But first step, joining us today is nutritional consultant and certified natural health professional value home, Valerie appears in front of thousands of people each year and speaks on a variety of topics, as well as giving many seminars at mother's market.

Welcome back, salary. How are you? A wonderful Kimberly. It's so great to be back with you.

Well, it's great to have you, and before we get to today's topic, please fill our audience in on your background in nutrition... Well, I've been studying nutrition for over 20 years now. Boy, that went by fast.

And I just love it when I was in college, I was a biology minor and a foreign language major, so it's like a foreign language after memorize all these crazy words in that, and I love the way when I started learning about nutrition, how it fit in with our human body and the science behind it, so I was really got excited and passionate about it, and that passion remains 20 years later, so I still love to learn and share everything that I learned with others. Well, you can definitely see your passion and hear about it, so today we're gonna talk about immune health and these problems seem to be on the upswing, so what are the possible causes of this... Well, one of them, there's a lot of issues with our food supply not giving us the right nutrients we need to keep our immune system healthy, sugar in particular, depresses the immune system for about six hours as it is, two teaspoons of sugar, just depresses all of our white blood cell activity for six hours, so it is a big problem, hydrogenated oils, which are very big in our food supply, are building improper cell membranes throughout our body that don't communicate well, so those are some big issues and then things like chemicals in our food supply, cigarette smoking, you all that is my kids, any time they sell so remote, they always have to call it out to the people that are smoking, they're like they're making... And I know it's a big deal now, and when I was growing up, everybody smoked right, and now it's a rare thing, which is great, but I do the same thing by... If I see someone smoking on a sidewalk ahead of me, I just hold my breath to a log past them is I can't handle it at all now, and we should do the same thing for sugar. Shouldn't we? That that's right.

I just... I still... So no sugar. That's right.

Well, Steve is a great substitute for sugar, it tastes wonderful, now they've done a great job with improving the taste so much better for your body, but the less sugar that we can at least, if we minimize the impact of that and not just be consuming it all day, every day. That's the big statistical at that point... Why is it called the immune system?

Well, it's a huge system of organs, glands, cells, and it all has to cooperate at all, is to understand what each other is doing, so it's a very big... It's like an orchestra, and you've got your conductor who's telling everything what to do, and all these cells should be communicating with each other, so you've got things like the thymus gland, which is making a lot of immune cells, and many of our immune cells are born in our bone marrow, interestingly, and then they go to the thymus and turn into other type of cells, we've got things that are like a little PAC-Man called macrophages that are trying to eat them up, we've got things that inject different enzymes into bacteria, viruses and try to kill them that way.

So there's just all kinds of interesting things going on with that. Immune system, I love your analogies. This is great, I can see the patient, what are the supplements that can support immune health?

Well, there are a number of them, and some of my favorites, vitamin D3. We should all be Amy to get our vitamin D3 levels up. We don't make it from the sun as efficiently as we used to for a number of reasons, but mainly because of our chlorinated water and soap, we wash it off the surface of the skin before it has time to actually get into our bloodstream and raise our D3 levels.

So D3 is a supplement, I think is such an important one for all aspects of immunity, because D3 low D3 is involved with developing virtually every degenerative condition, cancer, autoimmune, diabetes, heart disease, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, all have to do with low vitamin D3. So preventing that deficiency is simple and inexpensive, so we might as well just do it a... Blood levels in this country of D3, 10 to run in the teens or the 20s for many people, which is desperately low, doctors tell us to get to 30 or 40 in our blood levels, but that's adequate. Not optimal, the vitamin D Council recommends 60 to 90 or even 60 to 100 as your blood levels of D3, so that's a good place to be aiming for, your blood levels never go up unless you're taking at least 5000 units a day.

So the RDA recommended daily allowance is only 600 international units a day, which is enough to prevent you from getting rickets, but it's not enough to keep your health at its optimum level, so you wanna really take, I think for adults, 5000 units a day for teens and young adults is an excellent amount of D3 to get those levels up and keep them up after age 50, many of us do better with 10000 units a day, which is far above that RDA Recommended Daily Allowance by the government, babies need it right from the get-go. If mother is supplementing and breastfeeding, then she's giving it to the baby that way, but if that's not happening, they have little drops that are a thousand units per drop, one or two drops on the baby's tongue every day would be perfect. Throughout their toddler years that they did a study in Scandinavia where autoimmune was very high because of the lack of sunlight up there, the lack of D3, so they started a big group of thousands of people and they gave them 2000 units a day from the day they were born till they were 18 years old, and that group of people had an 80% reduction in development of autoimmune diseases.

What's simple? inexpensive as I'll get out. And it's really an important one.

So D3 is one of the things that we can do to really support our immune system, probiotics are the next thing, those are the good bacteria we should have in our gut, and probiotics are gonna be... And they make natural antibiotics for us, they make natural be vitamins for us, they take up space so that bad guys can't colonize down there, so there are a number of things that these really work to our advantage, this wonderful probiotics, and we can get them from a couple of different sources, fermented foods like yogurt, Keefer, sour crowd, kimchi NATO, which just smells awful to not to aforementioned soybean food from Asia, and it's nothing that we Americans want to... The Saint, even part of it that really do... As reason for that... No, we don't need that.

Okay. That are raised with it, they love it, and that's a good fermented foods, you can also get probiotics as supplements, and those tend to be a lot more potent things like Acela ambitious, but we really have lots of different types in our gut. And one of my favorite brands that they have at mother's market is nature and probiotic, so that the aether have some really, really nice fermented foods, they ferment in their vegan products, they either for men, organic brown rice or organic carbon beans to make their probiotics. So they do, and they make their own, which most companies don't, so that's just a lovely brand, and they make one called healthy Trinity that's really potent, and they also make a healthy start kit, which has three of a lesser potency, that's easier when you're getting used to new probiotics in your system, a little bit gentler for the body, but that's an excellent way to go.

And then one other thing I think is super important for the immune system, there are some nutrients called beta glue cans, beta-Glu canes can come from yeast, they can come from mushrooms, and it can come from certain kinds of grains like oats and barley, but all these different sources are shaped a little differently, and I really like the yeast-based beta glue cans because of their shape, they kind of fit like a key in a lock into the immune cells and turn them on and make them really work at their best. So the product that they have at mother's market, it's called immune health basics, that specializes in this type of beta glue cans, and they are just one of the best things that I've ever seen for the immune system, they are... The ones in the immune health basics are called Well, muon wgp, and this particular type of beta-Gohan has been studied more than any other is we have a lot of scientific evidence about our nutritional supplements these days, but not the kind of studies that the immune health basics has with 30 million worth of human studies having been done on this particular product, so one of my favorite studies that they did was for the Canadian military, the Canadian military was looking for an immune supplement that would help their soldiers in every way, help them to keep their immune system strong in the face of high stress, which of course they always have as a soldier, it's fight or flight every day, and they also wanted something that could protect them from chemical toxins, from environmental toxins, from viruses, from bacteria, and even keeping the cells in their body operating at their best. So they did a study and they used 500 different drugs and supplements in this study and did all these different tests on their soldiers, and the one that came out as number one out of 500 different things was immune health basics, really amazing stuff. So whether the challenge is viral, bacterial parasitic chemical or just things going wrong with our own DNA and ourselves, this helped our immune system identify the problem much more quickly, target what needed to be targeted and do the job, makes our immune system operate the way it's supposed to in essence, that's incredible. It is a really cool supplement, they also have done studies on seniors on firefighters with their upper respiratory problems on children, there's Children's tubes available as well.

So it's just such an important thing for us to stay healthy, and I love the expression, which is a credit Ben Franklin for this one. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Good old Ben, he had all kinds of good in... Yeah, did his almanac. Yes, exactly. So he was a brilliant mind, and certainly that is true, and so when we take something like the immune health basics on a daily basis, it keeps our own immune system operating the way it should, so they can identify things quickly, it's when the immune system gets tricked and food that we really run into trouble, and cancer cells are a good example of that, cancer cells, we all have cancer cells in our body at all times, under normal circumstances, our immune system gets a message that there's something wrong with this cell, the DNA is not quite right. It's time for it to go. There's something called program cell death or apoptosis, where the cell should get the message that is time to self-destruct or some little part of the immune system comes and takes care of it and cleans it up, but cancer cells, if the immune system is not operating correctly, can start to hide, and then once they grow, they start to Rob nutrients, they grow their own blood supply, and they form a coating around them that hides them from the immune system, so that's the situation that we don't want to have happen.

We want our own immune system to be identifying these things every day and saying, okay, once you go, you're out, you're not gonna thrive here, so this really creates an environment in the body, and especially when we're combining it with good levels of D3 probiotics and not loading ourselves with sugar all the time, now we've set up our body for a really positive immune experience so that we can really do what we're supposed to do, it's all about preventing nutrient deficiencies and preventing the overload of toxins, I think that those are the basic causes of all illness that we experience in this country today, so we wanna keep ourselves going strong, we want our own little Canadian army around that, to that cancer from them. I like it. Our own Canadian are, that's a... Waits is some fascinating information. I think this is great, and thank you for explaining. I really love your analogies and all of this, and you're Ben Franklin saying So... This is Ben. Yes, yeah, exactly.

Well, great Information, and right now we have to take a quick break, but more on our immune system information and so stay with us. Valerie, I love this information.

So, I thank you, www Facebook Smart Chicken.

And welcome back to the mother's market radio show. And we wanna remind you that if you've missed any portion of today's show, you find us on iTunes by searching mother's market, or download the show from our website, mother's market dot com, click the link for radio and listen to the past shows, plus download our Healthy Recipes and money savings coupons, all available at mother's market dot com. And now, back to our interview with nutritional consultant, Valerie Hall, and we're talking about the immune health, and this is so interesting, we've been talking a little bit about supplements, but let's talk a little bit about food.

Food is so important, supplements are just that they're a supplement to our diet, and they're gonna be able to work a lot better if we base them on a healthy diet rather than if we just throw some supplements on top of junk food, it's not gonna work so well, so food wise, the things that are really impacting our whole immune system, let's talk about beverages first, because soda pop is just a disaster for the body, so... I'm so sorry. Everyone, it's just a disaster. It's whether it's sugar or artificially sweetened, whether it's... Caffeinated or not deaf, it doesn't matter. They're all pretty negative on the body, in fact, one of my nutrition books called it disease in a can, which I firmly believe a good marketing tool and then... Yeah, that's... Yeah, and the other thing that's really Wild is that some of these things that we sell here in the United States, the energy drinks are illegal in their controlled substances in Europe, you too about the... Like at talking about the ones that are with super caffeinated, I shouldn't mention Brandon, you know what I'm talking about, the super caffeinated webs that are one step beyond color, those are controlled substances in Europe, so they are really impacting our immune system in a very negative way, the beverages that we should be drinking water first and foremost, if you want something with a little caffeine green to your black tea is gonna be more constructive to your body, coffee, most people can handle one cup of coffee, but if you're drinking five cups of coffee a day, that can be a problem. hopes. That was me in college.

I know from personal experience, secondly, just in trouble.

Everything in moderation, I had many lives in this lifetime, so lots of different experiences. That's another book, right? Exactly.

So we wanna get away from soda, and if you love something with bubbles in it, I'll tell you how to make a natural soda that's gonna be much more positive for your health, you start with bubbly mineral water, something like ion Pellegrino perrie, that comes out of the ground with bubbles in it, because that has accessible minerals that our bodies can use, whereas if you have something with artificial bubbles like club soda or regular soda pop, they add phosphoric acid to tap water, and that's no good and it pulls minerals out of your bones, so that's why how it comes to us in the first place is important, and then you can use the flavored Stevia drops, and they have some fantastic tasting ones at mother's market and all the local health food stores, they make about 15 different flavors of flavored Stevia drops. Now, including a lot that are appropriate for a soda, they have a Cola, they have a root beer, they have a vanilla which makes a really nice cream soda, orange lemon, all kinds of different ones, and then other flavors that they do in Stevia include hazel nut and berry and chocolate and raspberry, and all kinds of interesting peppermint coconut, all kinds of great flavors, so you can do a lot with cooking. My favorite brand of Stevia is Sweet Leaf, and they have a great website, sweet leave dot com with tons of recipes and how you can incorporate this, keep in mind that Stevia is much sweeter than sugar, and so you're not gonna use nearly as much, so it's actually pretty cost-effective as a sweetener and no negative aspects to stevia, it's a good carrier of Chromium, so it actually helps your blood sugar balance, it feeds the good gut bacteria, those probiotics that we mentioned earlier, as opposed to sugar, which is gonna create an environment that makes bad bacteria thrive and your gut instead of good, so this is a really positive change for your body if you can get away from sugar and start using Stevia in its place, I even make a fabulous fudge for the holidays with coconut oil, and those recipes are all on coconut oil, dot com, very easy, coconut oil and un-sweetened organic cocoa powder, and it's about a 2-1 ratio to oil to one cocoa powder, and you met coconut oil, you get a whisk and you whiskey in your cocoa powder and you can sweeten it with any natural sweetener that you like, So Stevia is great in it, you can add some of those flavors if you want a different flavor in your fudge, sometimes I put shop nuts in there, a little bit of reasons or cranberry or something like that, but it's a real fun thing to play with over the holidays, it's easy, it's fairly inexpensive, it makes a lovely gift, it's perfect for all those people on your list, you might be gluten-free, sugar-Free, and it toasts really good, other natural sweeteners have also taste good in it, Zila is a pretty good one, you can also use, there's a new one called tree Livia, which has a couple of different types of... It has low Hand Fruit and Stevia and tree halos, so that's a really interesting one that tastes good, so there are better natural sweeteners out there, and Stevia doesn't have any impact on your blood sugar, so it added no negative impact on your immune system, most of all, and when you go back, and this is just a kind of an odd question, but if you were to go back to eating natural sugar afterwards... I bet you play havoc with your toit could definitely. You know, we don't realize how food makes us feel until we get away from it for a little while and then re-introduce it. Boy, people are just amazed at how much better they feel when they get away from gluten, when they get away from dairy and when they get away from sugar, and if they do that for a month or two and then they try those things again, they can notice all kinds of problems happening, skin problems, digestive problems, fatigue and energy problems, I mean, it's really runs the whole gamut, what those different foods can cause, but we just don't ever put it together when we're eating them every day, we don't realize that's what's giving us headaches on a regular basis and things like that, so we wanna stay away from the artificial sweeteners, the aspartame, which is equal or neutralize the super LOS, which is spend all have their negative aspects for our immune system in our health.

So that's one of the biggest things we can do food-wise, we wanna be building healthy cell membranes throughout our body as well, so the way we do that is with good oils, and the good oils are gonna be your wonderful omega-3 essential fatty acids. Those are wonderful for us, we get them from fish and other things in the ocean, like LG, Kalahari krill, so they're coming up with all kinds of different sources of omega-3s now, and then from the land, we get them from flax seed and gas, things like that.

So those are gonna be excellent for our cell membranes, coconut oil makes wonderfully healthy cell membranes, it's wonderful for your brain, wonderful for memory and mood. Butter, there's a new butter that's become very popular. It's not really new. It's really old. It's organic grass-fed butter, fabulous for us. There's nothing wrong with butter and coconut oil when it's in these fabulous forms, the organic, the wonderful and grass-fed butter has all kinds of benefits for our bones and teeth, it's really quite amazing what it can do for us. So those are some of the things I use most often in my kitchen, or the coconut oil and the organic grass-fed butter, I use some olive oil, extra virgin and organic, but I don't wanna heat olive oil for too long because it turns into a trans fat it's a really fragile oil, so cold or in a salad dressing or maybe just heated for five minutes at low heat in a sauce, that kind of thing, I'll use olive oil, but I don't wanna fry with it, I don't wanna bake with it... That's not the appropriate use for olive oil, when I look at those cooking shows and they're Slater in the salmon in the EVO and frying it up, I'm like, No, what are you doing?

Stop it.

Tanner talk you to... No, apparently not.

Apparently not. So those are gonna be some great food things, adequate protein is important, and for people who follow a vegan and vegetarian diet, there are several things you can't get in that diet, be 12, so you gotta be supplementing with that DHA, which is one of the Omega-3s from the ocean, so you need an algae-based Omega-3 if you're gonna follow a vegan lifestyle as well, and making sure you get enough protein is an important thing for people who follow that kind of a lifestyle, they've got really good tasting vegan protein powders. Now, some excellent ones by natural factors and Garden of Life, and got a whole bunch of wonderful vegan protein powders available now, so you've got all kinds of things food-wise that are really going to make a difference, and then I wanna just wrap up with those supplements that I was talking about earlier, the Vitamin D-3, a 1000 a day for infants to age for 2000 a day for elementary school kids, 5000 units a day for teens and young adults, and 10000 a day for those the age of 50, I think our wonderful amount of vitamin D3 to be taking... If you are somebody who is taking higher amounts of D3, you wanna make sure you get your blood levels checked periodically every six months or so, and see where your levels are.

I also tell people to stop taking D3 for about three days before your blood test, so that you don't get a false high reading from the D3 you took that morning of the blood test, so that'll tell you where you are... For real, for real, just not from the supplement, and then the other thing that we really wanna do is those probiotics that I mentioned earlier, the nature and brand, really high quality, but good probiotics or eat a lot of fermented food that will give you great probiotics as well, and the immune health basics that I mentioned is such a profound one for getting your immune system to operate the way it's supposed to, it's about one milligram per pound of body weight is the recommended amount, so the adult ones come in a 250 milligram and one of those a day, handles, most people, there also is a 500 milligram, which is better for people who already have an immune challenge going on, so they can do more, and for kids, they've got a 50 milligram, two little Coble wafers that taste good, you won't have to arm with the kids to get them in, they're easy. So those are some of the things that I think can really make a difference. That's great, well, interesting information, and I love how you balanced it out with the supplements and then the food as well, so we know kind of where to go and then of the amounts as well with the vitamin... The D3, so important, it's so important.

Yeah, well, great, great information, Valerie, it's always so pleasurable to talk with you, so thank you very much, thank you so much. Campbell's always a pleasure to speak on behalf of mother's market and their fabulous radio show.

Well, thank you and always come back in the meantime, you can get more information on Valerie on her website, Valerie Halton dot com, and learn more about her natural approach to making us all healthier and look forward to our next visit.

Thank you, thanks for listening to the mother's market radio show. And for shopping at mother's market, the advice and informational content does not necessarily represent the views of mother's market and kitchen, mother's recommends consulting your health professional for your personal medical condition.