by Jonathan Benson
Natural News

The best way to avoid developing colds, influenza, and other viral diseases this winter is not to go out and get more vaccines and over-the-counter drugs.

Your immune system is fully equipped to thwart these conditions naturally on its own, provided you feed it the nutrients it needs in order to maintain homeostasis. Here are five ways to strengthen your immune system naturally using simple food choices:

1) Garlic

This powerful member of the onion family comes up frequently in lists of food and herbs that promote health and prevent disease, and for good reason.

Garlic’s high allicin content is largely responsible for its disease-fighting effects, as this powerful antioxidant compound neutralizes free radicals and quells diseasecausing inflammation. As a whole, garlic has been used for thousands of years to prevent and treat respiratory, bacterial, fungal, viral, and parasitic infections as well. A 2009 study published in the international chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie found that allicin in particular is uniquely effective at targeting free radicals, far surpassing virtually all other natural antioxidants in terms of both its efficacy and efficiency.

According to Dr. Derek Pratt, a professor of chemistry and Canada Research Chair in Free Radical Chemistry, no other known compound, either natural or synthetic, works as effectively as an antioxidant as does allicin. (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090130154901.htm)

2) Homemade chicken soup

Arguably one of the most effective, and delicious, natural remedies for preventing and treating viral infections, homemade chicken soup made from whole, pasture-raised chickens is loaded with disease-fighting nutrients such as cysteine, an amino acid released during the cooking of chicken that, according to Prevention.com resembles the bronchitis drug acetylcysteine. Real chicken broth made from whole chickens, bones and all, also contains a host of beneficial fats, vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that support vibrant immunity.

Gelatin, for instance, which is naturally formed in chicken broth, is a food substance composed of both essential and non-essential amino acids that is critical for regulating immunity, promoting healthy digestion, improving liver function, and strengthening bones. Dr. Kaayla T. Daniel, Ph.D., C.C.N., writing for the Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF), explains in further detail how the gelatin found in natural chicken broth is essential for health. You can read her paper here: http://www.westonaprice.org/food-features/why-broth-is-beautiful. You can also learn how to make your own immuneboosting stocks and soups at home by visiting the following recipe page put together by Healthy Home Economist and WAPF Chapter Leader Sarah Pope: http://www.westonaprice.org.

3) Sweet potatoes

A rich source of both vitamins A and C, sweet potatoes are another essential immune-boosting food. Sweet potatoes are particularly beneficial for your skin, which just so happens to be your body’s largest organ, and the first line of defense against harmful bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens. But this starchy root vegetable also contains nutrients that improve cardiovascular and nervous system health, and also boost immunity.

Sweet potatoes are also one of the most effective foods for boosting glutathione levels in the body. Glutathione is often referred to as the “master antioxidant,” as it plays a primary role in detoxifying cells and fighting off free radicals. In general, high glutathione levels are absolutely vital for maintaining strong immunity, which in turn helps lengthen lifespan and improve overall quality of life. (http://drnevillewilson.com)

4) Mushrooms

Long revered in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for their incredible ability to stimulate the immune system, mushrooms of numerous sorts may hold the key to keeping you and your family healthy during the winter season. Copious research, including a 2009 study out of Arizona State University, has revealed that white button, reishi, maitake, shiitake and oyster mushrooms, to name just a few, all possess unique immune-boosting properties that make them a worthy addition to a healthy diet.
“[Mushrooms] are ‘functional foods’ and/or ‘dietary ingredients,’ which help support the immune system on a fundamental, multi-factorial level,” says acupuncturist and nutritionist Dr. Patricia Fitzgerald. “We need all the support we can get as our immune systems and health are under assault from pollution, stress, contaminated food and age-related diseases as our lifespans increase.” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com)

5) Brazil nuts

One of nature’s richest sources of selenium, Brazil nuts are distinctively beneficial in promoting a healthy immune system. Recognized for its ability to stimulate the production of antibodies, selenium is involved in most functions of cellular biochemistry, and is absolutely essential for proper immune function. Selenium also plays an important role in the production and function of glutathione which, as mentioned earlier, boosts adaptive immunity and promotes the production of white blood cells.

“Dietary selenium is essential for an optimum immune response (as it) influences both the innate, ‘non-adaptive’ and the acquired, ‘adaptive’ immune systems,” explains a 2003 study on selenium published in The Journal of Nutrition, which found that multiple aspects of immune function are dependent on selenium.

by Jon Rappoport
Infowars.com

Whole Foods has announced that, by 2018, it will label all products in its stores that contain genetically-modified ingredients.

Mike Adams, at naturalnews.com, has written an excellent article covering this development. You should read it.

Whole Foods cites customers’ concerns as a major reason for its change in policy. One picture of the future: by overwhelming popular acclaim, non-GMO products at Whole Foods stores will squeeze out GMO products.

The other picture? At some point, customers will lose interest in the new labeling program and buy whatever they want to eat, regardless of whether it contains GMOs.

Monsanto views labeling as less than ideal, but far better than outright county-by-county bans on growing GMO crops. Several counties in California, for example, have already enacted such bans. That’s the real threat to the Monsanto crime empire.

Monsanto, with its very deep pockets, can sustain an endless propaganda campaign aimed at convincing consumers that GMO food is equivalent, in all ways, to non-GMO. So far, this PR blitz has won over most politicians, as well as a major sector of the technologically-educated class.

So what will happen, up the road, as Whole Foods customers move beyond their initial excitement at being able to tell whether they’re buying GMOs? Will they continue to care? Or will the labels evoke about as much interest as fat and carb content do now?

If Whole Foods’ buying public falls into apathy on the GMO issue, presumably the stores will continue to offer GMO products in profusion, because the cash registers keep ringing.

As Whole Foods bosses calculate their strategies, there is another obvious point that must be hammered home. Again. GMO food is nutritionally polluted, deficient, and, in the case of the Roundup Ready crops, drenched with far more toxic chemicals than would ordinarily be present.

Farmers across America, who have locked themselves into contracts with Monsanto, are now facing disaster, because superweeds that don’t fold up and die under assault from the Roundup herbicide are taking over their growing fields.

So the farmers are doing what are called burndowns. Not once, but several times a year, they’re saturating their land with chemicals stronger than Roundup, like Paraquat, which has been banned in 32 countries. The burndowns are undertaken to kill the march of the superweeds. This means more toxicity in the soil and in the food crops.

To present customers with the choice of buying GMO or non-GMO food in stores isn’t like making a distinction between red tomatoes and orange tomatoes. It’s not even an assertion that GMOs are unhealthy. It’s: “let the customer decide.”

By this logic, selling food containing, say, high levels of mercury, is acceptable because “people want it.”

The trouble, of course, begins with Monsanto and its government-agency allies, who insist, based on nothing, that GMOs are safe and non-toxic. From there, it appears that consumer choice is sane policy.

But it isn’t sane. That’s an illusion.

Yes, we can say that Whole Foods has made a step in the right direction, but that’s only true if its customers will really shun GMOs. And in the meantime, this “let the consumer decide” is a deception.

“Well, we’re in business to make money. We can’t just strip all GMO products off the shelves. We have to bow to the free market, to the customer.”

If that’s really Whole Foods’ position, then let them state it clearly. Don’t beat around the bush while you’re breaking your arm patting yourself on the back.

“Yes, like every other retailer in America, we’re selling bad products. We know they’re bad. They’re called GMOs. Nobody should be eating GMOs, but what the hell are we going to do?”

Of course, this kind of honesty would be a killer in the world of consumerism. It’s also one reason why GMO food has proliferated to this point. It’s a rare company that wants to step up to the plate and speak the unvarnished truth.

“Hey, we sell shit. Lots of it. But don’t blame us. You people want to buy it. You want it, we stock it. That’s the reality.”

Try this one on for size. Do you support the sale of ANYTHING, no matter WHAT it contains? Do you support poison in food, along with a major operation of concealment, so that the majority of the buying public isn’t informed that the poison is in their food? Is that okay? Is that LEGAL?

The answer to the last question is, of course, no. It’s not legal.

For the next five years, as Whole Foods starts labeling GMO products in their stores, they should undertake a full-bore education campaign across America. They should book halls and have their execs stand up and say:

“You know that big sign we have posted on our stores? ‘Nothing artificial, ever?’ That’s bullshit. Listen, for a lot of years now, you the consumer and we the seller have been involved in a scam. It’s called GMO food. We want this to end. We also don’t want to go broke. Help us and help yourselves. Here’s the complete evidence that we’ve been selling, and you’ve been buying, food that is harmful to your health. You and we are in an embrace, in this very bad spiral. We have to get out of it.”

That would be a start, but the chances of it happening are on a par with a flea driving a Mercedes on the moon.

And it wouldn’t begin to address the fact that toxic GMO food shouldn’t, by any reasonable law, be sold at all.

You also might keep an eye on corporate mergers and acquisitions, just in case Whole Foods decides to sell itself to a larger (and more predatory) company. Anything could happen in the next five years.

Here are a few of the largest shareholders in Whole Foods. They’re investment funds: JP Morgan Large Cap Growth Select; Wells Fargo Advantage Growth Inv; Fidelity Growth Company; JNL/Mellon Cap Management; T Rowe Price Growth Stock. Given this array of stock owners, it might be easier to step out into the spotlight and promote GMO labeling than to say, “Look, we’re eliminating GMO products from our stores, they’ll all be gone in a few years, no matter what.”

And what will Whole Foods do if, as they gradually place GMO labels on their products, those products continue to sell about as well as they’re selling now with no labels? Will the company keep pushing its pure agenda, or will it simply acquiesce, and end up with a half-GMO and half-non-GMO inventory, to “accommodate all tastes?”

Jon RappoportThe author of an explosive collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com.

(In the below report, Infowars Nightly News investigative team Melissa Melton and Aaron Dykes uncovered the ugly facts about the ‘organic elite’ cooperating with Big Agra, the USDA and even Monsanto, all while deceptively positioning themselves to customers under misleading premises.)

Says Latinnews: A consummate democrat committed to transforming Venezuela to benefit the poor, or an archetypal autocrat bent on amassing personal power? It is axiomatic to call President Hugo Chávez a polarising figure but when on 5 March he finally succumbed to the cancer which he had doggedly fought for two years, the ledger of his political life could be opened and examined. It showed more debits than credits.

The sheer power of his personality and his innate talent for inspiring loyalty by conveying the impression that he cared personally is inimitable within his Bolivarian Revolution.

Venezuelans are likely to elect his anointed heir Nicolás Maduro as a valedictory homage to Chávez in forthcoming elections, but Maduro lacks this talent and he will not be able to sidestep serious economic and public security problems as Chávez could. The warring factions within Chavismo are united now but it is far from clear he can keep them that way.

Venezuelan CNE admitted seven presidential candidates

The National Electoral Council (CNE) of Venezuela admitted today seven presidential candidates of a total of eight registered for the elections of April 14, convened in line with the Constitution.

The session of the CNE rejected the nomination of Gonzalo Contreras, from Cambio Pana party, as he did not submitted the presidential management plan, requirement set in the Constitution and the regulations.

Thus, the list of applicants includes Nicolás Maduro, nominated by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and other 13 political organizations; the opposition candidate Henrique Capriles, on behalf of the Democratic Unity Table, while also repeating Queen Sequera, from Labor Power Party and Maria Bolivar, from the Democratic Party United for Peace and Freedom.

It is also included Christian Pastor Eusebio Mendez, who will represent the organization New Vision for My Country, created in 2012, Fredy Tabarquina Organized by the Youth party of Venezuela and Julio Mora, from Udemo group.

Life sentences given to five Argentinean oppressors

Five Argentinean oppressors accused of committing crimes against humanity against 20 victims held at Campo de Mayo under military dictatorship (1976-1983) were given life prison sentences today.

The sentence was ruled by the Federal Criminal Trial Court No.1 of Buenos Aires against ex de facto ruler Reynaldo Benito Bignone and ex-commander of Military Institutes, Santiago Omar Riveros.

The Judicial Information Center also said that life sentences were also given to Luis Sadi Pepa, Eduardo Oscar Corrado and Carlos Tomas Macedra. Campo de Mayo was a main clandestine detention center in Buenos Aires. At least 4,000 people are estimated to have been held there.

This ruling comes as 25 oppressors are being tried as part of the Operation Condor case. They are accused of illegal assembly to systematically killing political opponents, among other crimes.

by Ethan A. Huff

A recent study published in the Polish journal Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis raises new and pertinent questions about the intensifying link between mercury toxicity and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Far from being the definitively debunked hoax that the mainstream media and so-called “skeptics” have arrogantly declared it to be, the purported connection between mercury exposure, particularly in vaccines, and autism is becoming nearly undeniable, as evidence continues to emerge showing that the official story on the matter is complete bunk.

Entitled Evidence of parallels between mercury intoxication and the brain pathology in autism, the 41-page paper identifies a shocking 20 parallels between mercury poisoning and autism. Among these are intracellular degeneration, neuroinflammation, brain immune response activation, oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation, reduced glutathione levels, mitochondrial dysfunction, pathological changes of blood vessels, decreased cerebral and cerebellar blood flow, and increased levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines in the brain, as well as many others.

Put more simply, the research team, headed by Janet K. Kern from the Institute of Chronic Illnesses in Maryland, identified nearly two-dozen metabolic and systemic changes that occur inside the body as a result of mercury intoxication.

And it just so happens that these same changes also commonly occur in children with ASD, many of whom were injected with mercury in the form of Thimerosal as a result of childhood vaccinations.

“Although there may be genetic or developmental components to autism, the evidence in this current review of the brain findings in autism clearly indicates the reality of brain injury in ASD … (and) the brain injury symptoms which characterize autism closely correspond to those seen in sub-acute Hg (mercury) intoxication,” wrote the authors in their conclusion.

“The evidence suggests that mercury may be either causal or contributory in the brain pathology in ASD, and possibly working synergistically with other toxic compounds or pathogens to produce the brain pathology observed in those diagnosed with an ASD,” they added.

You can read the team’s full review for more details about how they came to these shockingly inconvenient (at least for the vaccine industry) conclusions here: http://www.ane.pl/linkout.php?pii=7212.

Stop injecting your children with mercury-laden vaccines, and tell all your friends and family to do the same Interestingly, J.K. Kernet al. cite earlier work on the subject from 2000 that found a whopping 79 similarities between mercury intoxication and autism, which is outlined on page 139 of the journal (page 27 of the PDF file of the study). From this diagram, you can see for yourself how mercury intoxication exhibits virtually the exact same symptoms as ASD, a fact that even the most dedicated and outspoken skeptic cannot deny.

Similar research published in the Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology back in June found that perinatal exposure to Thimerosal, or exposure to mercury in vaccines shortly after birth, is directly responsible for inducing neurotoxic effects on the developing brain.

Particularly in the cerebellum, mercury was found to stunt gene expression as it pertains to hormone regulation, particularly from the thyroid gland, which is responsible for brain development in humans (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22791642).

With all this in mind, it is clearly not worth the risk to inject your little ones with this toxic poison just because the establishment insists, without any sort of proof, that mercury is safe. The group Coalition for Mercury-free Drugs, also known as CoMeD, has been working for years to get mercury banned from all vaccines and medicines, as it is clearly an unsafe neurotoxin with life-altering affects — but until that time, be sure to avoid all mercury-containing vaccines, and tell your friends and family to do the same.