Texas city puts an end to water fluoridation

(NaturalNews) A city of roughly 100,000 people and home of Texas A&M University, College Station, Tex., is definitely no backwoods town. In fact, Money magazine named the city, which is located in a metropolitan area populated with more than 200,000 people, the 11th most educated city in the US. And now that city officials have decided to axe fluoride from the water supply, people everywhere are taking notice. One by one they are falling like dominoes — the cities across America that have decided to stop injecting a toxic, endocrine-disrupting halogen into their water supplies, that is. According to a recent announcement by WTAW NewsTalk 1620, six of the seven city council members in “Aggieland” voted to end artificial water fluoridation, a practice that has been taking place there for more than two decades. The decision will not only save College Station more than $40,000 a year, which is what it costs to purchase fluoride chemicals from industrial waste producers, but it also means that, officially, there will be no more cities in the Bryan – College Station metropolitan area that fluoridate their water supplies. College Station joins a host of other towns and cities across the US that are ending the practice as well, including Spring Hill, Tenn. (http://www.naturalnews.com/033479_fluoridation_Nashville.html), Pottstown, Penn. (http://www.naturalnews.com/033496_Philadelphia_water_fluoridation.html), and potentially even New York City (http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite/Environment/fluoridation_0908110833.html). With momentum building, now is the time for concerned citizens everywhere who live in fluoridated communities to bombard their city officials with information about the dangers of fluoride, and about why removing it is in the best interests of public health. Together, we can put an end to this archaic and barbaric practice. The Fluoride Action Network (FAN), a nonprofit group devoted to broadening public awareness about the toxicity of fluoride, has put together a helpful Top Ten Arguments Against Water Fluoridation guide that will be useful in persuading officials to reconsider water fluoridation. You can view that report here: http://www.fluoridealert.org/top-10-reasons-against-fluoride.aspx FAN has also put together a piece called Why we are Opposed to Water Fluoridation , which contains a wealth of useful information about fluoride, as well as signatures from over 3,000 health professionals who are in agreement about fluoride’s toxicity, and the need to immediately remove it from water supplies: http://www.fluoridealert.org/opposed-water-fluoridation.aspx Be sure to investigate the entire FAN website, which is loaded with useful fluoride information: http://www.fluoridealert.org/ Sources for this story include: http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/128651668.html http://www.wtaw.com/2011/09/22/college-station-council-votes-to-stop-adding-fluoride-to-water-supply/

Philadelphia exurb ends water fluoridation

(NaturalNews) We can only hope that the recent surge in American communities voting to end water fluoridation is an omen to the eventual end of this abominable and toxic practice across the entire country. A recent report in the The Mercury explains that officials in Pottstown, Penn., a northwest exurb of Philadelphia with over 21,000 residents, have decided to stop fluoridating the borough’s public water supply. Reports indicate that, despite the fact that not a single Pottstown resident showed up at any of the public hearings concerning fluoride, the Pottstown Borough Authority voted to remove the toxic chemical on its own, which it had been importing from China. Pottstown had been one of only a few communities in Pennsylvania that artificially fluoridate their water supplies. Only one board member, Aram Ecker, opposed removing fluoride — and he did so, of course, using the same outdated and pseudo-scientific talking points peddled by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American Dental Association (ADA), and others who continue to deny the numerous, more recent studies that show fluoride consumption causes brain damage, thyroid dysfunction, and other health problems (http://www.naturalnews.com/fluoride.html). The move will save Pottstown as much as $60,000 a year, which is roughly what it costs to import the liquid toxin from China, and lace it in the water supply. As a result, the borough’s water department workers will also no longer have to go through the intense handling procedures that are required when dealing with highly corrosive fluoride chemicals. Pottstown’s decision came just one day after Spring Hill, Tenn., a suburb of Nashville, voted to remove fluoride from its water supply, which marks what appears to be the eventual decline of the chemical’s use across the US (http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110818/WILLIAMSON12/308180009/Spring-Hill-drop-fluoride). Sources for this story include: http://www.pottsmerc.com/articles/2011/08/17/news/doc4e4c8b9451e2d973211155.txt

New NASA images show what appears to be liquid water on Mars

(NaturalNews) Images recently captured by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter undoubtedly illustrate the strongest evidence yet that the “Red Planet” likely contains liquid water, and potentially even life forms of some sort. Topping previous speculation linked to suggestive observation that frozen water may exist under Mars’ rock and sand formations, the new discovery suggests that during the planet’s warmer months, liquid water actually comes up from the ground and flows on its surface. “If the features identified, recurring slope lineae (RSL), can be confirmed to represent briny flows, this would be a very significant finding,” stated Christopher Carr, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who is building a device to detect DNA and RNA on Mars. “It wouldn’t dramatically change our understanding of present-day Mars as generally cold and dry, but it would be important to the search for life on Mars.” NASA’s website contains a time-lapse image of the apparent RSL, which researchers believe are gradual trickles of salty water each spanning about half a yard wide and hundreds of yards long. You can view that image here: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/multimedia/pia14472.html Most exploration and research of Mars has been undertaken with the assumption that life may have existed there in the past. But the new observation of liquid water flow during the spring and summer months may indicate that life exists on Mars right now, say scientists. And if this is the case, the next step may be to send manned missions, rather than just unmanned robot missions, to Mars. “That there is water on the surface means that explorers could go to Mars and potentially find extant life on the surface of Mars,” said Robert Zubrin, president and founder of the Mars Society, to SPACE.com. “It underscores the reason why Mars should be the target for human exploration. You’re not going to find life on the moon, you’re not going to find life on an asteroid. We need to send human explorers to the complex environments where the complex skills of human beings are actually useful.” Sources for this story include: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/08/04/nasa-finds-evidence-of-liquid-water-on-mars/ http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/08/10/scitech/main20090617.shtml

Spring babies face anorexia risk, study suggests

Anorexia nervosa is more common among people born in the spring, a new study has found. The researchers say their study — which is the largest to date — provides ‘clear evidence’ of a season-of-birth effect in anorexia.

Super bug breakthrough — manuka honey may reverse antibiotic resistance

(NaturalNews) In less than a week, three different research studies have been released about antibiotic-resistant super bugs. Two were issued as nothing less than dire warnings. For example, as NaturalNews covered earlier, UK scientists are calling for the “urgent need for global action” due to the discovery of a spreading phenomenon — a gene that is turning bacteria into not just super bugs but SUPER superbugs. On the heels of that report, the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) has just sounded the alarm that an impending “health care disaster” is looming unless Big Pharma can find new drugs to combat deadly antibiotic-resistant super bugs. Tired of all this bad news? Keep reading. Because amid all this gloom-and-doom about the threat of deadly super bugs comes yet another study from a third group of scientists that reaches a new and hopeful conclusion. It turns out these researchers have found a way to battle life-threatening super bugs naturally with manuka honey. In fact, manuka honey could be an efficient way to clear chronically infected wounds and could even reverse super bug bacterial resistance to antibiotics. Those are the results of a report just presented at the Society for General Microbiology’s Spring Conference in Harrogate in the UK. Professor Rose Cooper from the University of Wales Institute Cardiff is investigating how manuka honey interacts with three types of bacteria that commonly infest wounds: Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Group A Streptococci and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). She and her research team have discovered that honey can interfere with the growth of these bacteria in a multitude of ways. And that makes honey a strong option for the treatment of drug-resistant wound infections. The idea that honey has antimicrobial properties is nothing new. In fact, traditional therapies containing honey were used in the topical treatment of wounds by numerous ancient civilizations. Professor Cooper is particularly interested in the super bug-fighting potential of manuka honey, which comes from nectar collected by honey bees foraging on the manuka tree in New Zealand. Although manuka honey is found in modern wound-care products sold around the world, the anti-infection properties of the honey have not been used much by mainstream medicine. According to a press statement, Professor Cooper’s group believes this is because the mechanisms of the honey’s germ zapping action haven’t been known. So they are working to document just how manuka honey halts wound-infecting bacteria, including super bugs, on a molecular level. “Our findings with streptococci and pseudomonads suggest that manuka honey can hamper the attachment of bacteria to tissues which is an essential step in the initiation of acute infections. Inhibiting attachment also blocks the formation of biofilms, which can protect bacteria from antibiotics and allow them to cause persistent infections,” explained Professor Cooper in a media statement. “Other work in our lab has shown that honey can make MRSA more sensitive to antibiotics such as oxacillin — effectively reversing antibiotic resistance. This indicates that existing antibiotics may be more effective against drug-resistant infections if used in combination with manuka honey.” The researchers believe their findings may increase the clinical use of manuka honey as doctors are faced with the threat of diminishingly effective systemic antibiotics now used to try and control wound infections. “We need innovative and effective ways of controlling wound infections that are unlikely to contribute to increased antimicrobial resistance,” said Professor Cooper. “The use of a topical agent (manuka honey) to eradicate bacteria from wounds is potentially cheaper and may well improve antibiotic therapy in the future. This will help reduce the transmission of antibiotic-resistant bacteria from colonized wounds to susceptible patients.” For more information: http://www.sgm.ac.uk/news/ http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-04/idso-laf040711.php http://www.naturalnews.com/032004_superbug_bacteria.html

A loaf of wheat bread may soon cost $23 due to skyrocketing food price inflation

(NaturalNews) Within a decade, a loaf of wheat bread may cost $23 in a grocery store in the United States, and a 32-oz package of sugar might run $62. A 64-oz container of Minute Maid Orange Juice, meanwhile, could set you back $45.71. This is all according to a new report released Friday by the National Inflation Association which warns consumers about the coming wave of food price inflation that’s about to strike the western world. Authored by Gerard Adams (no relation to myself, Mike Adams), this report makes the connection between the Fed’s runaway money creation policy (“quantitative easing”) and food price inflation. (http://inflation.us/foodpriceprojections.html) “For every economic problem the U.S. government tries to solve, it always creates two or three much larger catastrophes in the process,” said Adams. “Just like we predicted this past December, the U.S. dollar index bounced in early 2010 and has been in free-fall ever since. Bernanke’s QE2 will likely accelerate this free-fall into a complete U.S. dollar rout.” The upshot of a falling dollar will mean rampant price inflation on the basic goods and services that Americans depend on to survive. Food in particular is likely to be hit hard by price inflation within the decade. The National Inflation Association has released its food price projections in a free downloadable PDF file here: http://inflation.us/foodpriceprojections.pdf It offers statements like this: “NIA is confident that the upcoming monetization of our debt will send nearly all agricultural commodities soaring to new all time inflation adjusted highs.” The Federal Reserve, of course, is currently engaged in the most massive money counterfeiting operation the world has ever witnessed. And it seems determined to keep printing money until all the dollars the rest of us hold are near-worthless. Even the UN sees rising food prices It’s not just the NIA that sees a future with much higher food prices, by the way: Both the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development as well as the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization also predict rising food prices (although not to the same prices as the NIA). This is based on the trend of rising energy prices which directly translate into higher costs for farming, harvesting, transporting and processing foods. Catch the details on that story at http://www.naturalnews.com/029999_food_prices_energy.html The UK Guardian newspaper is also reporting on “soaring food prices” due to fast-rising commodity costs: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/nov/05/wholesale-food-prices-soar I also predicted “food disruptions” in my list of predictions published earlier this year at http://www.naturalnews.com/028167_predictions_2012.html (Many of those predictions have already come true, by the way!) Make no mistake: Food prices are on the rise. And with the Fed watering down the dollar thanks to its insane money counterfeiting policies, the U.S. is headed into a price inflation / dollar deflation scenario that mean you will have to spent a lot more dollars to buy the same food in 2015 as you did in 2010. (If the dollar even exists in 2015, that is…) What does this all mean to you and me? As the spring comes back in a few months, it might be a good time to start thinking about growing a little garden for yourself . We’ll be covering this story in much more detail in the spring, including details on where to get heirloom seeds, how to practice “preparedness” gardening (or “gardening when it counts”) and other similar topics. In the mean time, stay tuned to NaturalNews for tips and strategies on how to do more with less in uncertain times.

Heal yourself in 15 days with the joy of exercising in nature

(NaturalNews) In our 15-day self-healing series, we’ve so far covered everything from juicing and fasting to how to stop making disease. But we haven’t yet covered one of the elements most commonly associated with self-healing: Exercise! But don’t groan: This isn’t going to be some boring rehash of the same old stuff you’ve always heard about exercise, such as “you have to exercise an hour a day.” Rather, I’d like to invite you to think about exercise in a whole new light… about finding the FUN in exercise ! In my view, exercise shouldn’t be something that’s a daily grind. If it feels like work, something’s not right with it. I’m all about finding ways to exercise that don’t even feel like exercise at all — the kind of things that, when you’re finished an hour later, you say to yourself, “Wow, that was exercise, too? Cool!” Obviously, I’m not talking about a treadmill grind here. Sure, a treadmill can burn off the calories and do wonders for your stamina and muscle tone, but to me it still feels a lot like work. That’s why I try to find alternative fun things to do. In fact, I don’t even call them WORKouts. I call them FUNouts! What’s fun? If you think about it, the most fun ways to exercise are things that give your mind something to focus on rather than the exercise . In fact, the “fun” versus “work” factor of exercise is all about your FOCUS . When you mind is focused on the work, every step feels like a mountain to climb, but when your mind is experiencing something else (such as the scenery around you), then suddenly your work is no longer the focus of your attention. That’s why the real secret to effortless, joyful exercise is so incredibly simple that you’ll probably find it funny. Here it is, just three little words that contain a whole lot of wisdom and experience about making exercise fun: Exercise in nature. That’s it: Exercise in nature. And it doesn’t even matter what kind of exercise you do, really, as long as it’s outside, in nature. You can walk, ride, jump, skip, swim, shuffle, push, pull, roll, lift, surf, sail or do just about anything else that involves moving your bod for an hour or so. Walk along a city park or a nature trail. Toss a frisbee with a friend. Slap a volleyball over the net or hurl some horseshoes on a piece of lawn. Jump rope on the sidewalk or swing on a tree branch. Don’t forget how to play Do these things sound silly to you? One thing I’ve noticed about adults is that too many adults have forgotten how to play like children . We all played like children when we were children, right? But when we grow up, we no longer think it’s “mature” to skip along in a game of hopscotch on the sidewalk or toss a frisbee in the park. But in my opinion, we need to relearn how to play like children because “playing” is the best way to get exercise without feeling like it’s work. That’s why I’ve found lots of joy in playing for exercise . I like to ride a trike (a recumbent bicycle with a really comfortable seat) on the sidewalk or do bear crawls in the grass. Neighborhood playgrounds, I’ve found, are filled with all kinds of useful equipment that even adults can often use, from climbing the ropes to swinging around on the “monkey bars” as we used to call them. Part of this successful habit of playing, of course, involves you rejecting the mainstream crowd and getting comfortable just doing what’s healthy and fun, regardless of what the other limited-thinking people might say about it. Just because they forgot how to play doesn’t mean you have to limit YOUR fun to THEIR lack of imagination. In fact, “rejecting the crowd” is the topic of part seven of this 15-day series on self healing: http://www.naturalnews.com/028136_self_healing_crowd_psychology.html If you open up your options, there’s fun to be found everywhere around you in nature. You can play catch with a baseball, kick around a soccer ball or roll around in the spring grass with your family dog. You can learn to juggle, or spin poi (as I do), or take on a serious hike at an exotic natural destination. I do many of these things on a frequent basis, from juggling and playing catch to walking, hiking and biking. My exercise is always fun … and it never feels like work to me. While indoor gyms can be great places to go (especially during the winters), they are not my first choice for FUNouts. That’s why I encourage everyone to follow these three simple steps for finding the joy in your exercise: Step 1) Get outside. Let nature be your playground. Step 2) Learn how to play, and play outside the box! Step 3) Play regularly and with lots of variety. And, of course, don’t listen to non-fun people who judge you for playing. Don’t be that snooty, stodgy grown-up who has forgotten the simple joys of outdoor playtime. Life can be recess, folks! And you can have recess every single day. Just get outside, have fun, re-learn how to play and turn your WORKouts into FUNouts! Previous articles in this 15-day “Heal Yourself” series Part One – Remove barriers to healing http://www.naturalnews.com/028053_self_healing_quality_of_life.html Part Two – Unleash your inner healing potential http://www.naturalnews.com/028060_self_healing_immune_system.html Part Three – You are what you absorb http://www.naturalnews.com/028067_self_healing_digestion.html Part Four – Transform your health by making new blood http://www.naturalnews.com/028075_blood_health_transformation.html Part Five – Experience the healing potential of living plant juices http://www.naturalnews.com/028100_self_healing_fresh_juice.html Part Six – Accelerate your healing with a 24-hour fast http://www.naturalnews.com/028117_self_healing_fasting.html Part Seven – Heal yourself by rejecting the mainstream crowd http://www.naturalnews.com/028136_self_healing_crowd_psychology.html Part Eight – Stop making disease http://www.naturalnews.com/028153_self_healing_disease.html Part Nine – Correct your nature deficiency http://www.naturalnews.com/028203_nature_deficiency_self_healing.html Part Ten – Protect your skin exposures http://www.naturalnews.com/028249_skin_health_consumer_products.html Part Eleven – Eat MORE, not less http://www.naturalnews.com/028298_superfoods_self_healing.html Part Twelve – The Attitude of Gratitude http://www.naturalnews.com/028399_gratitude_self_healing.html Part Thirteen – Secrets of Social Healing http://www.naturalnews.com/028456_self_healing_family.html

Heal yourself in 15 days with the Health Ranger’s living juice recipe (part five)

(NaturalNews) Continuing our 15-part article series called Heal Yourself in 15 Days , today we focus on cleansing your digestive tract and energizing your cellular energy with the help of some living foods . This is in preparation for part six in the series, which we’ll get to tomorrow. Here’s the cool part about this: You don’t need a juicer to do this step . All you really need is a blender and a nut milk bag (a fine mesh bag used to squeeze out the juice). Of course, a proper juicer really helps, but it’s not required. Below, I’m going to give you an absolutely delicious live foods juicing recipe that I think you’ll really enjoy. I’m using special ingredients in this juice that help mask the more bland tastes of the green ingredients, so even if you’ve tried fresh living juices in the past and didn’t like them, check out what you’ll read below… Raw living foods offer one of the greatest secrets to disease reversal and lasting health, and nothing beats fresh living foods right out of the garden. So if you can grow any of your own ingredients for this when Spring comes around, definitely make an effort to do so. Otherwise, buy them at a store or farmer’s market. Here’s what you’ll need (always choose organic): • 1 container of Blackberries (use all the blackberries) • 1 bunch of Parsley (use all the parsley) • 1 bunch of Kale (only use 2-3 large leaves in this recipe) • 1 bag of Carrots (only use 3 large carrots for this recipe) • 1 bunch of Celery (use 2-3 stalks for this recipe) • 2 Pears (use both pears) If you can’t find these ingredients, substitute something close. It’s crucial to have some berries in the mix, however. They are part of the recipe for making it all taste good. After proper preparation (washing, etc.), push all these ingredients through a juicer to generate the fresh juice. If you only have a blender, then blend all these ingredients with water, then pour the juice into a nut milk bag and squeeze out the juice from that. With either method, you’ll end up with a container of fresh juice. This juice will be extremely potent, so mix this with water (add an equal amount of water to the juice). You may also wish to add some stevia if you’d like to sweeten up the taste a bit. Health benefits of the fresh living juice • The blackberries will mask the bitter tastes of the other ingredients with their acidity. This acidity greatly improves the overall taste of the recipe. It also improves digestion of the minerals in the vegetables (you need an acidic digestive environment to absorb minerals). • Blackberries also have a powerful anti-cancer effect through your entire digestive tract, from your mouth and gums down through your colon. • Parsley is a super digestive cleanser. It will help eliminate toxins while providing your body with a burst of chlorophyll that will help cleanse your blood and liver. • Kale is a potent anti-cancer vegetable. It also contains healthy plant-based proteins and healing phytonutrients. • The carrots are used primarily as a sweetener here (they really do sweeten up the juice), and they also contain a wide assortment of beneficial nutrients, most notably beta carotene (from which carrots get their name). • The pears are the sweeteners here. I find that pear juice tastes much better than apple juice in these raw living juices, but of course it’s your choice of what’s best for you. If you’re diabetic or want to reduce the sugars in this recipe, reduce the numbers of pears to just one or eliminate them altogether (when I juice here in Ecuador, I don’t use pears at all. I just use carrots.) Some people prefer to use oranges instead of pears. The tart taste of the oranges in some ways provides a better overall taste. Try the recipe both ways and see what you like best. In addition to all the benefits listed above, these foods are alive with nutrients and energies . They are live foods, not dead processed foods, and they provide both the nutrients and the energies of life! It’s a simple concept, really: If you want to stay alive, eat more living foods. If you want to be dead, eat more dead foods. Your body will thank you The point of today’s living foods juice is to both introduce you to the joy of juicing (if you don’t already know about it), and to prepare your digestive tract for tomorrow’s action item. How much juice should you drink? Just drink whatever amount you feel comfortable with. I recommend an 8 oz. glass of this juice at minimum, but if you only feel like drinking half that much, that’s fine, too. Some people will drink as much as 64 ounces of fresh juice in a day! (Juice Feasting) For the purposes of this 15-day experience you can still eat all your other normal food during the day. This isn’t about eliminating everything else, it’s about adding some fresh, living juice to your day. Ideally, you’ll make this a regular part of your diet because whatever your diet consists of — whether it’s pure vegan or based on McDonald’s cheeseburgers — it will be helped by adding several ounces of fresh juice. Pointers and shortcuts Don’t have time to make your own fresh juice? There are shortcuts, but none of them are as good as actual living fresh juice. You can, if you wish, consume juice from a superfood powder such as EnerFood, VitaMineral Green, Boku Superfood, Delicious Greens or others. These are all reasonable alternatives to fresh juice, but by their very nature they are not as fresh as living foods would be. Do NOT reach for a Naked Juice, or Odwalla juice and make the mistake of thinking they are fresh living juices. All of those juices are DEAD, pasteurized juices made by the big soft drink companies (Coke and Pepsi). None of them are fresh, raw and alive. They still have nutritional benefits, so I’m not saying they’re worthless, but they pale in comparison to fresh, raw juices that you make at home. You can drink this juice between meals, or during a meal, or any time you want. Just drink it quickly after making it, because fresh juice oxidizes in mere minutes. The nutritional quality of the fresh juice you make literally starts to degrade with each passing second. Ideally, start to consume it within two minutes of juicing it, and finish it in no more than five. You may feel some “detox” side effects from this juice, especially if you currently pursue a relatively unhealthful diet. But they should be mild. After all, this is just simple juice from simple foods. These aren’t drugs or extracts. They are the foods your body was meant to consume. By the way, I’m not here to push a vegan diet or a vegetarian diet on you. Decide to eat whatever you wish to eat, for your own reasons. Just add this fresh juice to your day and see what happens for yourself. Even if you gobble down pepperoni pizza and diet soda, these fresh juices will improve your health results in a noticeable way. In case you’re curious, I drink about 16 ounces of this fresh juice each day, right from my own garden. Except I don’t use the pears, and I add in fresh aloe vera gel from fresh leaves that I grow myself here in Ecuador. I grow all my own fresh berries, kale, carrots, parsley, broccoli, cucumbers and more, and these go right into my juice. Just so you know how powerful this is, I just finished a 90-hour fast. Aside from a raw coconut food bar a friend gave me, I didn’t eat any solid food for 90 hours. I did, however, drink one glass of fresh, living vegetable juice each day. If I had been consuming a junk food diet, my energy would have collapsed within the first 24 hours. I would have been dead tired, detoxing in bed and probably suffering through it all. But because my daily diet is so clean, I was able to eat virtually nothing for nearly four days and still have the energy to write these articles, to go hiking up the mountains behind my house and generally get along with a normal day. (Yes, it got difficult on the fourth day, which is why I ended the fast at 90 hours.) Fresh living juice is such a powerhouse of nutrition and energy that even when you eat virtually nothing for several days in a row, the juice you had before the fast keeps you alive, healthy and energetic. That’s been my experience, at least. Tomorrow I’ll talk more about fasting… For today, enjoy your juice!

25 ways to improve your health and happiness in 2010

(NaturalNews) The New Year is upon us, and for many people, it includes a New Year’s resolution for achieving improved health and happiness in 2010. Here are twenty-five health-enhancing ideas to help you accomplish that goal. #1 – Replace sodas or soft drinks with tea or water. #2 – Commit to eating one raw fruit (or serving of vegetables) at every meal. #3 – Add just 5 minutes a day to your exercise routine. Don’t have an exercise routine? Start with 5 minutes a day! #4 – Get more sunshine! #5 – Learn some Pilates. It’s probably the #1 exercise system for core strength and flexibility. #6 – Drink a superfood smoothie every day. #7 – Buy more indoor plants: They purify the air in your home. #8 – Take a quality, wild-harvested fish oil supplement that contains vitamin D. #9 – Eat more quinoa: It’s a high-protein, low-carb “grain” that can easily replace rice or couscous. #10 – When you get out of bed each morning, do five sit-ups first. It sounds simple, but just 5 sit-ups a day can make a difference. #11 – Instead of trying to find a parking spot so close to the grocery store, park farther away. You’ll get a little more walking exercise and a little more sunshine. #12 – Get a good water filter so you can stop drinking tap water (or bottled water). #13 – Pick up a “gentle” art like Tai-Qi or Yoga. It will reduce your stress and improve your physical stamina. #14 – Take a relaxing hot bath with epsom salts and soothing herbs like lavender. It will do wonders for your mind and your muscles. #15 – Get a professional massage! Massage therapy is really, really healthy, and it’s a great way to reward yourself for some of the other accomplishments you’re making. #16 – Grow your own sprouts! With a simple, low-cost sprouting machine, you can grow and eat your own sprouts. Eating just one ounce of sprouts a day still had a huge impact on preventing cancer and boosting immune function. #17 – Prepare for a Spring garden. Sure, it’s cold and snowy right now, but make a commitment to start a garden this Spring, and you’ll reap many health benefits in the months ahead. #18 – Get a mini-trampoline and do some rebounding in your living room. You can even watch movies or documentary DVDs at the same time. #19 – Make a point to get at least eight hours of sleep for 2-3 nights a week (or more, if you can). Most people are sleep deprived, and the health cost is enormous. #20 – Start visiting local farmer’s markets so that you eat more local food in 2010. You’ll be healthier and happier as a result. #21 – Got a job you don’t like? Quit it! Downgrade your lifestyle to live on less money, then pursue what you really enjoy . Being happy in a small house is better than being miserable in a big one. #22 – Get off those medications! Make a point to learn how to safely and gradually get yourself off all the medications you can by eliminating underlying imbalances or illnesses. The fewer medications you take, the healthier you’ll be! #23 – Throw out your television! Are you still watching cable TV or satellite TV? It’s a complete waste of your life (but you already knew that). Disconnect the cable. Read more books and get your information online where news sources are more independent and intelligent. #24 – Make a decision to think of food as nourishment instead of entertainment . Eat what your body needs, not what your taste buds desire. #25 – Teach others how to be healthy! The more you talk with others about healthy habits, the more you’ll follow them yourself. That’s it! I hope you enjoyed these 25 ideas for improving your health in 2010 (and beyond). Of course, one of the best ways to keep improving your health in 2010 is to keep reading NaturalNews! We’ll be bringing you more natural cures, herbal remedies and self-care tips throughout 2010. I’m personally looking forward to sharing a great year with you!