SUCH A STRESSFUL WASTE!
© Colin Addison
First published in Soul Seekers December/January 2007

It's a fair bet that most of us regularly, even habitually, purchase heaps of vitamin and mineral supplements and swallow then ‘by the ton’ to make us healthy. We stand over our children to make sure their multivitamins have been swallowed to make them healthy. Likely that the greater proportion of the millions of Kiwi dollars spent on supplements are spent on vitamins in their confusing and overwhelming numbers, packs, weights and varieties. Yes, these are the basis of a multi-million dollar industry.

But that’s what ‘wellness’ is all about, isn’t it? After all, some keen souls have assimilated the adage “Mineral, minerals and more minerals” with its message of ensuing radiant health? What’s the expense matter, if improved health and resistance to infections is, virtually, guaranteed? That’s the message from TV advertisements featuring prominent sports personalities; they should know if anyone does! Long ago, that was why we as children just had to eat up our greens to get those vitamins and minerals. What a brilliant exampleBreakthrough! Popeye was! He must have doubled the production of spinach.

Excuse me, please? May I suggest a word by way of putting a spanner in the works?

Assimilation

Without that function, all the likely goodness of those supplements, indeed of any food, is utterly wasted. Without the body’s ability to assimilate nutrients, it perishes. At the very best, it sickens and becomes highly stressed. Conversely, a body can first become stressed and then be unable to assimilate those vital nutrients.

Nutrition is not just about sorting foods into convenient dishes and combinations. It often is, but a more holistic effort is needed. The starting point is assimilation: the process by which nutrition can perform its tasks after digestion. That process will be compromised by stressing factors such as worry, overwork, toxic shock, malnutrition, antibiotics, refined food, rush and bustle, anxieties common to the whole gamut of human experience. Oh, yes, there’s also the impairment of the immune system by any one of these, but with a focus on environmental factors. Seventy per cent of the immune system is based in the gut.

How thoroughly depressing. But hope is at hand. My keyword?

Greeblies

Such a good word because organic chemistry has such tongue-twisting words it can be applied to those little guys we know not a jot about, but without whom we die. Let ‘Greeblies’ be the name of all those tribes of wee beasties who live and should thrive within our bodies’ digestive system, the ‘automatic transmission’ by which our lives are sustained, motivated and enriched. The synonym for ‘Greeblies’ is ‘Probiotics’. The antonym for ‘Greeblies’ is ‘Antibiotics’ (antibiotics kill probiotics). ‘Greeblies’ are benign bacteria. Yes, acidophilus is the well-know one, but just one ‘tribe’ of the twelve normally resident in your body.

Fact 1: a few tens of thousands of bacteria can fit on the head of a pin.
Fact 2: many tens of thousands would be needed to weigh one gram, 1/1000th of a kg
Fact 3: the optimum healthy human body is home to 1.8 kg of benign bacteria -
probiotics.
Fact 4: without your complement of probiotics, you will die.

That ‘crew’ or complement operates in different departments performing a multitude of life-giving (pro-life) tasks. These include the manufacture of essential enzymes to facilitate assimilation and which are vital aid to the liver. That hardest-working organ, has over 500 functions, as well as support for the immune system. Probiotics then are not just about digestion. Probiotics are the living life-support for the body. It is worth repeating that without them, you are dead. Digestive enzymes are but one ‘department’.
A scenario. You have had a major operation during which you have been anaesthetised. Antibiotics have been administered to help fight any infection. Your total probiotic ‘crew’ has been killed. You are severely stressed. You are an invalid in greater need of probiotics than either vitamins or minerals. These you will need afterwards when it is again made possible for your body to assimilate them. Stress itself is ‘cured’ by the probiotics.

Probiotics are commonly called ‘benign flora’ and the association with flowers in a garden is apt. If the entire flower garden (body) is sprayed with weed-killer (antibiotics) and devastated, the first growth to appear will be weeds (yeasts) - anything but benign. If probiotic replacement is delayed too long, an all-out battle for ownership [of the body] will result during which you, the owner or inhabitant of your body, will feel most unwell. At best, a diet enhanced with vitamins will alleviate this situation, but only probiotics will restore the balance and lead to wellness. Then and only then will the ‘super food’ quality of vitamins and minerals, or more simply a wholesome diet, complete the wellness programme.

For over twenty-five years the buzz-word “superfood” has been used in quite meaningless, vague connotations. Correctly, it was applied to algae food forms, but even these have been superseded by a succession of ‘super formulations’ laboratory designed using naturally sourced, not synthetic ingredients, and exclusively of US origin. There have been three of four generations of these down through the years. Amazing developments, but not one included a probiotic profile. Earlier known simply as ‘digestive enzymes’, these needed to be taken separately.

Breakthrough!

Out of Australia came a unique act of science, a product that provided all the body needs described in our earlier scenario to ensure a full recovery and, thereafter, optimum performance at all levels. Aptly, it was named ‘Superfood Plus’, a formulation meeting the key criteria for whole body (holistic) health; a simple solution to a complex problem easily illustrated by bullet points:

Certified organic super food
Scientifically pre-digested to suit invalids and impaired digestive processes
Includes the full balanced profile of vitamins mineral and amino acids
PLUS the ‘twelve tribes’ of probiotic bacteria to repossess the entire digestive system

A breakthrough indeed with all anticipated needs within the one convenience pack.

Now we do have a real choice. Some consumers may elect to stay on this product forever; others will use it as a pick-me-up. Still others will experiment (in a smoothie). There are just two things to remember: the product is potent so only a tiny amount is needed to start; your time commitment is needed for its work to be done so allow a six months term for this. Otherwise, you will simply waste time and money to prove nothing.

Be assured, the bonus available from such a simple ‘food’, albeit a super one, will be a life-enhancing one in which anyone, old young fit or infirm, can participate. So good to know all the hard work and thinking has been done for you isn’t it? Takes away the stress, right?

**Ask for the CD

Colin Addison is Founder of The Blase Company (1988) Limited now trading as Nature's Star NZ Ltd; Freephone New Zealand only 0800 11 67 33; Auckland local 572 0200; e-mail naturesstar@xtra.co.nz.