Wednesday, November 10, 2010

The Ocean Provides

Our connection to our outside world is sometimes lost today, in our modern fast paced lifestyles, since much of our time is spent inside. I think, almost without exception though, people enjoy fresh air, warm sunshine and being outside experiencing nature. It's this connection with nature that we sometimes take for granted and don't always realize the many benefits we gain in experiencing nature. Living so far away from the ocean in the middle of the Goitre Belt in south Eastern Ontario, it's not surprising to find people who don't know of the healing benefits that are experienced by those who live closer. Though a close proximity to the ocean will provide health benefits by association, breathing ocean air contains several minerals including iodine molecules, it doesn't equate with understanding it's healing benefits. And so to understand nature, it's best to experience it firsthand, with an ocean therapy experience.

For thousands of years of recorded human history, from the ancient Egyptians in 5000 BCE to ancient Greece, from the Roman baths to the first seaside Thalassotherapy clinic set up in England in 1791, the ocean has been known for it's healing benefits. Around the world today, the healthiest people on the planet with the lowest rates of cancer, heart disease, auto-immune disease are the Japanese, Korean & certain Chinese populations. This is no accident, this is their connection to the ocean that is taught from birth. Young girls in Korea are taught that the amniotic fluid surrounding the baby in mothers tummy is the same as the ocean. During pregnancy and post natal, Korean women utilize seaweed to relieving pain & discomfort just with application to their bellies. It is also a regular part of their diet, eating seaweed is as common as macaroni is here. After the birth of the baby, it is tradition for the mother-in-law to make seaweed soup known as Miyuk gook for the new mother who eats this 3x day for about 100 days. This allows the nutrients from the seaweed to replenish the nutrients that were lost during childbirth. We've met many older Korean women here in Ontario, who always ask us, why don't Canadian women know to use seaweed. With some of the best sources of seaweed in the world, I'm sure it won't be long before Canadian women are learning about the healthiest food & treatments 'growing in their own backyard'. Most of the seaweed Canada produces is exported to Japan & Asia for food consumption & our seaweed fertilizer is sold around the world, but in Canada cannot be sold as fertilizer, go figure.

Many of the auto-immune conditions people face these days are caused by diet. Living a North American lifestyle with fast-food, good restaurants and processed food delights it's no wonder we see so much unease or disease in people. On top of that we're living in a very chemical world, where toxins are used directly on our foods to control pests & weeds. So our soils become minerally deficient and then our vegetables become minerally deficient and then our bodies become minerally deficient and that's when disease creeps into our experience. We are not getting the vitamins & minerals from our foods as we once did. Since the ocean is a plethora of nutrients that are concentrated in seaweed to contain 10x to 100x the vitamin & mineral content of land vegetables plus a host of other polysaccharide immune boosters like fucoidan, laminarian & alginate, we are what we eat takes on a wonderfully healthy experience.

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