STOP!! Before you pickup those vitamins..... Read the label!

I was at my local warehouse store and happened to cruise down the "vitamin" section and *this* one caught my eye… It's a very popular brand… Centrum! Flavor Burst!- mixed fruit…. Sounds fun, right?? A vitamin that looks and tastes like candy?!?  How can you go wrong??
 
Here are the ingredients…..
 
Ingredients: Sucrose, Corn Syrup, Water, Hydrogenated Coconut Oil, Choline Bitartrate, Maltodextrin, Acacia. Contains < 2% of: Ascorbic Acid (Vit. C), Beeswax, Biotin, Blue 1 Lake, Blue 2 Lake, Calcium Pantothenate, Carmine (color), Carnauba Wax, Cholecalciferol (Vit. D3), Cyanocobalamin (Vit. B12), dl-Alpha Tocopheryl Acetate (Vit. E), Folic Acid, Inositol, Lac-Resin, Lecithin (Soy), Modified Corn Starch, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Potassium Iodide, Pregelatinized Corn Starch, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vit. B6), Red 40 Lake, Titanium Dioxide, Vitamin A Palmitate, Zinc Sulfate. Contains: Soy.
 
 
Yummmm!!! Doesn't this just SCREAM "healthy" to you?? <<insert sarcasm here>> I'm particularly fond of the following ingredients<<more sarcasm here>>:
·         Sucrose (no explanation needed)
·         Corn syrup (no explanation needed)
·         Maltodextrin (MSG?)
·         Blue 1 Lake (no explanation needed)
·         Blue 2 Lake (no explanation needed)
·         Carmine (yummm… insects!!))
·         Carnauba wax (surfing anyone??)
·         Cyanocobalamin (cyanide anyone??)
·         dl-Alpha Tocopheryl Acetate (nothing like a synthetic chemically processed, petroleum based source of E)
·         lac-resin  (yummm….more insect stuffs!)
·         lecithin (soy- as a practice… I tend to stay far far away from conventional soy… no GM for me thanks)
·         natural and artificial flavors (flavors of what??? What does that mean??)
·         Modified Corn Starch (ummmm…. Well….. it's obviously modified== genetically that is… and likely MSG…)
·         Red 4 Lake (no explanation needed)
·         Titanium Dioxide (possible carcinogen based on the rate of incidence of respiratory tract cancer in rats.. wtfuzzy??? Umm… this is also used in milk.. niiiice, huh??)
·         Vitamin A Palmitate (just say no to synthetics!)
·         Contains: Soy (no explanation needed)
 
Look, I'm no chemist, biologist, or doctor… I'm a girl, who reads labels, and is good with research and "googling." It doesn't take a whole lot of acronyms after your name to figure out that this "adult vitamin" is something you may want to decline… The fact that it's even considered a vitamin and "good" for you is ludicrous… Obviously, the FDA is not looking out for the consumers best interest.. You know, buyer beware, and all that fun stuff! How's this for a novel idea….. eat WHOLE foods!! That's right, folks! REAL food! You know… the stuff that doesn't come out of a box or a laboratory. Maybe a vegetable or fruit here and there??  What are your thoughts?? Are you ready to mow folks over in a race to get this "vitamin" to add to your "medicine" chest??

Ingredients matter! What's in that dog food?? ((Beneful))

For your dog's sake, please understand what it is you are feeding him/her (the same is said and applied to horses, cats, and other animal companions). Beneful is NOT a quality food. In fact, Dog Food Advisor gives this product its lowest rating, a score of 1. The ingredients alone make the nutrition geek in me cringe and shake my head.  Don't fall for the attractive commercial and marketing ploy of this being something to feed your pet. 

I've listed some of the ingredients that have me concerned:

Ingredients: Ground yellow corn, chicken by-product meal, corn gluten meal, whole wheat flour, animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols (form of Vitamin E), rice flour, soy flour, sugar, propylene glycol, meat and bone meal, animal digest, , dried peas, , added color (Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 2), garlic oil, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of Vitamin K activity)
 
Corn, corn gluten meal, wheat flour, rice flour, soy flour, sugar, food coloring are NOT appropriate "food" for a carnivore. Additionally, corn and soy are high GMO crops. Rice has been linked to having high levels of arsenic. Meat and bone meal, animal digest, animal fat are also red flags to me.  This points to 4D ingredients. Whenever an animal (meat source) is not named you are opening up a can of worms and a host of potential health issues.  These items can be anything and from anywhere including diseased cattle, restaurant grease, euthanized pets, and slaughterhouse waste. Menadione has been linked to liver toxicity and allergies. Learn to read ingredients and discern what they mean. As you may already know I am a proponent of feeding a species appropriate diet (my carnivores are raw fed), if you are not able to go there, understand what the words mean under ingredients and feed the highest quality that you are able. Please be sure to read the linked article.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/dog-owners-blame-beneful-for-their-pets-illness-010813

Healing a healer..... Sushi's story.

Sushi is an elder kitty with compromised health.  He recently had surgery for gall bladder blockage and has a damaged liver. Sushi is also a healer. He will often aid his human when she is not feeling well. He will place himself on or around wherever she may be experiencing malaise. One of her concerns is that he will expend his energy to help her and this will drain him and take away from the healing he himself needs to stay well.   Last December I was attending a Christmas party his human was hosting at their home. She (the human) informed me that Sushi had not been his usual active, voracious, and happy self and she was concerned (she has a "history" of losing her heart animals around winter solstice). She took me in to where Sushi and her other kitties were "hiding" during the party. I could see that he wasn't feeling well. I offered him Reiki, telling him he could partake, or not, whatever he deemed necessary. As soon as I offered, my Reiki "turned on" and I could feel Sushi soaking up the energy.  The next day his human contacted me and informed me that he was doing much better and was back to his happy, bouncy, hungry self.

A couple of weeks later his human contacted me to tell me that Sushi was feeling unwell again and his energy was wrong. He was subdued and not very active, nor was his appetite as it usually was. As soon as she sent me a photo of him my reiki "turned on" again. I offered him distance reiki which he accepted. I explained to his human that there have been rather huge energetic shifts recently and as both a healer and a feline Sushi was likely feeling and tuning into those shift. Again, after the session, his human contacted me to let me know that he was greatly improved and back to his active, ravenous self.

During the session I "asked" him if he would be interested in being attuned. I explained to him that if he is attuned he can pull from universal source and will not need to dip into his own reserves. I am excited to report that both Sushi and his human are interested in having Sushi attuned to Reiki and I will be attuning him within the next couple of weeks.