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Russell-Mikki-Margaret
100+ years holistic experience

 

 

 

   
 

 

   
 

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Freedom From Illness—Optimum Choices

 

January 2014, News from Optimum Choices
Welcome to the monthly Freedom From Illness e-newsletter from Russell Louie and Margaret Auld-Louie at Optimum Choices. This newsletter is sent to the friends of Russell & Margaret, customers of Optimum Choices, as well as people who signed up for a drawing at our booth at a fair or event. If you wish to unsubscribe, see the bottom of this e-mail for instructions. To receive this newsletter in your e-mail, click here: Subscribe Newsletter.
 

Contents

January Sale
Free e-Book
Food Paradigm Shift, Part 1
Contact us

January Sale

Discount Code = 5HAPPY

From now until next month's e-newsletter is published, we are offering a 5% discount off your entire order. Simply enter "5HAPPY" (the number "5" and the word "HAPPY" with no spaces) in the Discount Coupon box of our shopping cart. You must press the green [Recalculate] button in the lower left to see this discount calculated in your order total. Then select the green [Go To Payments] button to complete your order. This discount is only available to our customers who read this e-newsletter and order online. This discount is not advertised to the general public. This discount may not be combined with our autoship, volume, referral bonus, professional or other discounts. Discount is valid until next month's e-newsletter is published with a new discount code.

HINT: for maximum savings, order any Starter Pack (three bottles) of BioPreparation, BioSuperfood and/or ALPHA-G for a 5% discount AND in addition, get the 5% discount above, for a total of 10% off the full retail price of three single bottles. No other discounts can be applied.

HINT: if you ever miss our monthly e-newsletters containing the current month's discount code, you can always go to our home page and select the green [Newsletters] button in the left column. Then click the appropriate year and subsequent month buttons to view our current month's e-newsletter and "secret" discount code.

 

Free e-Book

To help you with your healthy New Year's resolutions, from now until our next monthly e-newsletter is published, every order qualifies for a free e-Book. Choose any one of our e-Books below:

Save Your Dog or Cat
Secrets of Longevity: Optimum nutrition for people
How to become a canine massage provider

In the Special order (mailing) instructions or Discounts box on the second page of our shopping cart simply enter "FREE e-Book" and tell us which title you would like with your order.

 

Save Your Dog or Cat e-Book Secrets of Longevity e-Book How to become a canine massage provider e-Book

 

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Current News

Because of the amazing demand for our "wholistic" consulting and revolutionary products, we have to limit every inquiry (e-mail and telephone) to 15 minutes in order to help all those in need. After the first 15 minutes we charge our normal consulting fee. Please make use of all the free resources available 24 hours/day, by clicking on the buttons in the left-hand menu of every product page. Thank you in advance.
 

Did you indulge too much over the holidays? Want to get a head start on your New Year's weight loss/dieting resolution? Take advantage of the above monthly discount, order a Starter Pack of BioSuperfood and go to our Weight Loss-Dieting web page to learn how.

Want to get in shape for 2014? It does not matter if you are an athlete, have a toned-body or are a couch—potato NOW is the time to start. Read how on our Sports Performance, Healing Injuries and Surgeries web page. Then take advantage of our above monthly discount.

Want your pet to live to be 15-20 years old and still be relatively healthy? The average life of a Golden Retriever is now only 7-8 years old. One of our clients decided to give the bio-algae concentrates product, BioPreparation, to her dogs and both her Goldens lived to be 15 years old. Take advantage of our monthly discount and your pet may enjoy the same longevity.

 

New Video

Optimum Choices has 90+ years of wholistic experience to help you achieve
 Freedom From Illness

whole food products vs supplements
Click on video above

Are you flushing 80% of your supplement's benefits down the toilet?

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Food Paradigm Shift, Part 1

by Margaret Auld-Louie

Purchase direct from farmers and save $Do you want to know...

  • Why Russell does not look 61 years old?

  • How does Margaret keep her nice figure?

  • How to get the healthiest food for your family?

  • Why we buy food direct from farmers and save money?

Did you know that if you buy food direct from farmers instead of stores, you can get food that is healthier for your family as well as better tasting? This is true even if you have been buying much of your food from the health food store. You can also save money by buying direct from farmers. However, buying direct from farmers is different from buying at the supermarket. For instance, not everything is available all the time. You may need to order food in advance, sometimes months in advance. But the rewards of buying direct from farmers are worth the extra effort. Read on for why to buy from farmers and how it is different than buying from stores.

Better Health

If you are eating supermarket food, the food is full of toxic pesticides and antibiotics, as summarized in this graphic: healthychild.org/farm-to-fork-our-toxic-food-system/. But while you can avoid these toxic chemicals by buying organic foods, even much of the organic food found in stores has been raised with factory farming methods. Organic chickens are still raised in CAFO’s (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation), meaning that tens of thousands of chickens are packed into a barn indoors. When Consumer Reports tested chickens for bacterial contamination, the organic chickens were even more highly contaminated than conventional, not surprising given that they are raised in the same CAFO’s as conventional chickens. Organic and free range eggs come from chickens raised indoors (“free range” just means that there is a little door at one end of the barn; not that the chickens go outside).

Organic foods can be factory farmed, just like conventional—what writer Michael Pollan calls “industrial organic” in his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The problem with factory farming is that raising plants or animals on such a large scale makes it difficult to raise them in a way that is healthy for them or that maximizes the nutrients in the food. What matters is increasing production while minimizing cost. For instance, vegetables and fruits need to hold up to mechanized harvesting. Also, the food needs to be suited for long-distance transportation. This may mean growing varieties of fruits or vegetables that are low in nutrients but hold up to this handling. Animals need to grow as quickly as possible but the varieties that grow fastest may not be the healthiest for us to eat.

Factory-farmed animals, including organic, may be raised indoors, or fattened in a feedlot, so that they are not eating the diet nature designed for them. Therefore, when you eat them, the animals are not as healthy for you, either. For example, chickens are omnivores but when raised indoors cannot eat the bugs and small animals, in addition to grasses, that nature designed them to eat. Cattle fattened in feedlots on soy and corn are eating an unnatural diet that would kill them if they were not slaughtered after a short period in the feedlot.

If you have a sensitive body, you may even be able to tell the difference in the healthfulness of foods raised differently, by how your body feels when you eat it. For instance, sometimes I feel sick when I eat eggs, even organic, “free range” eggs from the health food store. But if I eat eggs bought direct from farmers, where the chickens are raised outdoors in pasture, I do not feel sick. I also feel better when I eat grass-fed, pastured meats, where the animals spend their entire life outdoors on pasture, vs. the “natural”, “organic” meats from the health food store. Unless marked as “grassfed” or “pastured”, the store meats have been raised indoors or finished in feedlots. Even most bison (buffalo) is finished in feedlots.

Better Taste

Besides being healthier for you, food grown by small, local farmers usually tastes better than factory-farmed food. One reason is that small farmers can grow varieties that taste better, rather than having to raise varieties built to withstand the rigors of mass production. They may even grow what are called “heirloom” varieties of plants or animals, varieties that are never factory-farmed because they cannot be easily mass-produced. These heirloom varieties are often much higher in nutrition and taste.

Better taste can also indicate that the food contains more nutrients and is healthier for you. Small farmers may apply more nutrients to the soil, since they are concerned with quality of product and the health of the vegetables, not just maximizing production for minimal cost. They may have a mixed-used farm of vegetables and animals, meaning they can use the manure from their animals to fertilize the vegetables. Of course, large scale organic farms may use manure, too, but where does it come from? Does it come from factory-farmed animals? If so, the quality of the manure will be lower, since the animals were not as healthy.

In my experience, food from the smallest farms often tastes the best. For instance, a farm supplying 100 CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) members may taste better than a farm supplying 5,000 CSA members plus 20 health food stores or 40 farmer’s markets. Obviously the second farm is producing on a much larger scale, and the quality sometimes suffers due to that, though it will probably still be better than food from a giant organic conglomerate that supplies the whole nation with food.

The best-tasting eggs I have had came from farms with around 100 chickens out on pasture, not farms with thousands of chickens, though it is possible to produce excellent eggs from thousands of chickens if you have sufficient land to rotate them on. Some farmers will stick chickens outside in dirt pens and call them “pastured”, but their eggs will not taste as good as chickens running around on true pasture, eating bugs and grasses.

Meats from animals raised 100% on pasture also tend to taste better. Now that I am used to eating pastured meats at home, I often have a hard time choking down the bland, tasteless meat from stores or restaurants that have not been pasture-raised. Animals raised on lush, healthy pastures are taking in more nutrients than their feedlot counterparts, leading to both better tasting and healthier meat. Feedlot animals would typically only be given the minimal nutrients needed to make them grow, not all the nutrients they need to be healthy.

Lower Cost

As anyone who has sought out grass-fed, pastured meats knows, buying these meats in stores is very expensive. Even buying meat at farmer’s markets can be cost-prohibitive if you are buying single cuts. However, if you invest in a large freezer and buy meat in bulk, you can reduce the cost per pound to an affordable amount. It will still be more than conventional meats but may often cost less than the “organic” or “natural”, non-pastured meats at the health food store. Then you can plan meals from your freezer instead of having to run to the store every week.

Likewise, if you sign up for a vegetable share thru a CSA, that can be more affordable than buying vegetables at the farmer’s market or health food store. The concept of a CSA is that you pay in advance for a whole season of food, becoming a member of the farm and you get a “share” of the vegetables produced. In my experience, the vegetables may also be fresher and better quality than what I find at farmers’ markets.

If you’re used to buying conventional food at the supermarket, you may not understand why food direct from farmers costs more. Supermarket food is cheaper for several reasons:

  1. Much factory-farmed food is subsidized by the government, especially the corn and soy that are used to feed animals.

  2. Small farmers producing food in small quantities don’t have economies of scale. The mass production of factory farms makes cheap food possible.

  3. Small farmers typically use higher-quality food for their animals and higher quality nutrients for the plants, which cost more. For instance, organic, non-GMO (genetically modified) feed may cost several times what conventional feed costs.

  4. Small farmers may be growing heirloom varieties of plants and animals, which grow more slowly and therefore cost more to produce (but have better taste and nutrition).

Do not assume a farmer is gouging you because they are charging $6 or $7 a dozen for pastured eggs. Unless you know all the farmer’s costs and how they do their farming, you can’t make a fair judgment about what price they should be charging. Most farmers I know are just trying to cover their costs and are not getting rich. Farmers raising chickens outdoors have losses due to predators, something not encountered by farmers raising chickens in CAFO’s. Even farmers charging what seem like high prices may have difficulty covering their costs. For example, I used to get raw goat milk from a farmer who charged $75/month for a share (1 gallon/week). That is quite a high rate but despite that, she could not make a living and went out of business.

In a talk by farmer Bill Hyde of Happy Farm on the Sustainability of Farming, at the Denver Chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation in July 2013, I learned more about the costs that small farmers encounter when raising food. He did a detailed analysis of the cost to raise a dozen pastured eggs, factoring in all the costs that we do not think about, such as land, labor, utilities, transportation, supplies, etc. Using conservative figures for all the costs, he calculated a cost of $12.07 (including the carton) to raise and sell a dozen pastured eggs. No farmer charges that much for pastured eggs. At most, they charge $7/dozen. How do they recoup their costs, then? As Hyde explained, for a small farmer to be economically viable, they need one of the following:

  • They have a “day job”

  • Their partner/spouse has a “day job”

  • Volunteers work at the farm

  • They have money from grants

  • They inherited the land (as in the case of famous farmer, Joel Salatin)

I recently talked with another small local farmer, who runs the Mini Moos and Kids Too! goat dairy. He produces pasteurized goat milk, cheese and duck eggs. He has 90 goats in his dairy. He told me he works a 40 hour/week outside job, then spends evenings and weekends making cheese and going to farmer’s markets to sell his products. His wife spends 8 hours/day every day just milking the goats. She also provides all the care of the goats and does all the bookkeeping. The farmer said he gets about 3 hours sleep/night between running the farm and working his job. Somehow he manages to stay healthy despite this.

I hear similar stories from other farmers I talk to—in almost every case, one member of the couple is working an outside job to bring in income. In the case mentioned above of the raw goat milk farmer who went out of business, she was divorced, so had no partner to help support the farm. The Weston A. Price Foundation says that farmers can make more money by selling value-added products, such as butter, cheese and yogurt made from raw milk. But local laws may prohibit this. In the state of Colorado, where I live, only raw, fluid milk is legal. Farmers in Colorado cannot legally make products from raw milk and sell it.

Depending on what part of the country you live in, costs for farmers may vary, due to climate, vegetation or the local economy. In Colorado where I live, it’s difficult to raise chickens due to the harsh climate (chickens are descended from jungle fowl, so don’t do well with either snow or very hot, dry weather). We have grown accustomed to cheap chicken from the supermarket, but it has taken CAFO’s to make cheap chicken possible. Prior to that, chicken was the expensive meat, only served for special dinners. In Colorado it’s difficult to even find pastured chicken, and most of it is very expensive. So, if cost is a consideration, keep in mind that the cheapest pastured meat will be from the largest animals—beef, bison and pork—if bought in bulk (quarter, half or whole animal).

The most common complaint we hear is that all the above is too expensive. So is medication for diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol and their subsequent side effects. One can spend even more money on treating obesity and weight loss/dieting that never keep the weight off five years later. The choice is up to you. We have made our choice.

If you want to know the "wholistic" food principles we follow and the holistic research we used to educate ourselves, get a copy of our e-Book, Secrets of Longevity: Optimum nutrition for people, free this month with any order.

To be continued in Part 2:
Margaret Auld-Louie was raised on supermarket food in an suburban environment, so she had to make a total mental shift when she started buying food direct from farmers. She is the resource list editor for the Denver chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation and enjoys meeting farmers and finding new sources of healthy foods.

 

Contact us           

 Russell, Margaret & MikkiMikki at Great Salt lake

E-mail

General Information: info@OptimumChoices.com

Telephone:
303-271-1649
866-305-2306 (toll-free)
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Golden, CO 80403-1533
U.S.A.
We are an Internet-only, mail order company and do not stock products
for local pick up (except for emergencies). Please visit one of the local retailers at:

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