Dear Friends,

This week I want to take a deep breath and reflect with you on where we have been over the last twenty months. The newsletters covered many topics, exciting but also alarming. There is so much that needs to be done to improve our planetary conditions: to stop chemicals from pouring into our lands and oceans, clean our environment and food supply system, and so much more! I would like to just remind you of a couple important key issues and prepare us for our coming series of discussions—the medicinal value of using concentrated, pure, powerful foods. I will welcome you into the world of the Therapeutic Foods.

Scanning through the archives of our past newsletters, easily found in our home page under the Publishing Blog Tab, I was encouraged to revisit the wonderful people and organizations that are working hard every day to fight the good fight—saving our failing planet. I highly recommend you visiting the archives, and getting to know these wonderful workers. The links will illuminate the need for more of us pulling together to bring about the needed changes. I know it takes time—but it is important!

Being a zoologist and animal lover, it has been a joy for me to share with you my passion for the creatures of this world, including us human beings. Each week I get to go on a safari into my This Planet Earth DVD set, armed with my Apple iPhoto virtual camera to capture pictures of amazing creatures for us to study and appreciate.

We began our newsletters back in September 2008 with a statement summarizing the consensus of many of the world’s life scientists that,

The network of symbiotic relationships in nature are transforming as habitats are vanishing and ecosystems are collapsing. The higher life forms are struggling to survive with too many species who are moving toward the endangered list.

We labeled this critical situation the De-Evolution of our planet, and for nearly two years have given you the evidence confirming it, citing those of us who are working to correct and reverse the de-evolutionary process.

In the last few weeks I introduced you to Janine Bunyus and her brilliant work at the Biomimicry Institute. Bunyus reminds us that,

We live in a competant universe. That we are part of a brilliant planet and that we are surrounded by genius. (from Bunyus’ keynote TED speech, July 2009).

Nature has had 3.8 billion years of evolution to figure out solutions for living. Her core idea is that nature has solved many of the problems we are grappling with— energy, food production, climate control, non toxic chemistry, transportation, packaging and medicine. We just need to tune into how her various animals and plants and life forms have done it.

Next weeks email will focus on highlights of the powerful medicinal properties of garlic. It has been used for thousands of years and deserves to be examined again. The garlic was the first of our Therapeutic Foods that we introduced six years ago. I am very excited to share with you details about this wonder plant.

Sincerely yours,

Seann Bardell

BioImmersion.com

Clinical Note:

I would like to quickly highlight the Cranberry Pomegranate Synbiotic Formula: Last week a patient told me that she had been suffering from a chronic urinary tract infection over the last year and a half. She had consulted with several doctors, even a urologist but nothing really worked well. Finally a month ago, one of her doctors sold her a bottle of our Cranberry Pomegranate Synbiotic Formula which seemed to help a little at the recommend dose of two capsules per day. Realizing that this product is really a food, the patient on her own decided it would be safe to do some mega-dosing, and in her frustration took four capsules three times a day. It was like “a miracle after all my suffering”—she noticed a major difference in her urinary ease within 24 hours. She continued her dosing pattern for three days and her problem cleared up. She is still taking the product at a 2-4 caps a day. We will analyse the cranberry and pomegranate foods in the next couple of weeks.

The Last Quiz Answer: This amazing creature is the Emperor Tamerin. The tamarins are any of the squirrel-sized New World monkeys from the family Callitrichidae, classified as the genus Saguinus. Tamarin habitats range from southern Central America (Costa Rica) through middle South America (Amazon basin and north Bolivia, however not in the mountainous parts). They are diurnal and arboreal, and run and jump quickly through the trees. Tamarins live together in groups of up to 40 members consisting of one or more families. More frequently, though, groups are composed of just three to nine members. Tamarins are omnivores, eating fruits and other plant parts as well as spiders, insects, small vertebrates and bird eggs.

30 Ways to Get Your Kid to Play Outside Join the Great American Backyard Campout this weekend! These tips from the National Wildlife Federation’s Be Out There campaign will help families get a daily dose of nature—to improve children’s physical, mental and emotional well-being.

Dear Friends,

This Friday April 23rd at 9pm/8C on ABC will be the season finale of Jamies Oliver’s Food Revolution. What has made this short, six episode series so special?

It vividly shows us the facts—the evidence as to the level of ignorance about food in our society, in all socio-economic levels. Of course, we know the facts but to see it manifested in our children via a reality show, is frightening and also motivating.

The Food Revolution has been an educational masterpiece for it graphically presents the gross reality about our children’ eating habit through our school’s breakfast and lunch programs. We see the cause for our nation’s pandemic of obesity. And, most importantly, it makes us want to do something about it! Oliver gives very easy to options for getting involved and becoming a part of the solution—like signing a petition.

If you haven’t taken the time to check Oliver’s work, watch the last show tomorrow night.

The bottom line question we must ask as health professionals is how do we get the masses educated so that they have the will to change the most fundamental aspect of their daily habits—their diet?

What do people want? The simple answer is that we all want to be healthy (and happy). We want to feel good. But most Americans don’t really believe that their dietary habits are the source of their trouble. If they actually did, they would change. If they believed that they could feel better through healthy eating they would change their eating habits—especially if the food is delicious. Watching those kids gobbling up Oliver’s wonderful homemade, mouth watering meals was heart warming. The kids obviously loved this new strange food—real whole, fresh, unprocessed food.

The brutal truth the show aimed to portray was that the way we eat is destroying us. This is the medical consensus across the board, from the holistic and allopathic medical communities to our governmental agencies such as the USDA and NIH. It is a well-established medical fact. How is then that the Amercian public at large is basically ignorant to this fact?

To educate we need to get ourselves inspired about food, sustainability and nature. Here’s a great three day summer seminar that I would love to attend, put on by The Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkley this summer—Sustainability Education: Connecting Art, Science and Design—great people, great food, enlightened ideas and Northern California in the Summer. Why not?

Sincerely yours,

Seann Bardell

BioImmersion.com

Clinical Note:

Knowing the facts is a critical component in the making of BioImmersion’s Therapeutic Foods. Our products are the result of our 30 years of learning how to ask the right questions to ferret out the truth. The creation of the Therapeutic Foods line represents the collaborative effort of many scientists, manufacturing experts, health professionals and farmers from all over the world. Click here to print out the BioImmersion catalog.

The Last Quiz Answer: The pudu (Pudu puda) is the smallest deer in the world, ranging from 60 to 85 centimeters in length. They can be found in Chile and Argentina from sea level to 3200 meters high. They are very cautious animals, checking the wind every now and then by standing on their hind legs when feeding on twigs and bark, fruits, leaves and seeds. Its predators are eagle owls, the cougar, foxes and small cats. When the pudu feels threatened, it flees usually in a zig-zag pattern and have the unique ability, for deers, to be able to climb trees when threatened. It is on the endangered list.

It’s Earth Week this week. Join the celebration. This link connects you to The Biomimicry Institute’s contribution towards Earth Week—The Great TV Rebellion of 2010. Earth Week is an expansion of the Earth Day celebration, founded by Denis Hayes in the 70s, who now heads The Bullitt Foundation—an important person to know about.

Dear Friends,

Last week I introduced you to Biomimicry and the work of Jamine Benyus. As you probably noticed, the link that I gave you last week, to her keynote speech, didn’t connect properly. So, here it is again, working this time— Janine Benyus Keynote Speach at Living Future 2009. This is a masterful presentation. Take a second to see what she is saying, to witness her superb, even poetic delivery.

The whole point of the Biomimcry Institute is to wake us up to our divorce from nature, to tune us in to the multitude of amazing solutions that nature supplies through her living creatures—the animals, plant and microbes of the biosphere—to solve life’s nagging problems.

None of our problems are in need of immediate resolutions more than our rapidly diminishing supply of clean water. National Geographic devotes its April 2010 issue to water, entitling it: Water- Our Thirsty World. Here are some highlights:

Water is life. It’s the briny broth of our origins, the pounding circulatory system of the world. We stake our civilizations on the coasts and mighty rivers. Our deepest dread is the threat of having too little—or too much.-Barbara Kingsolver.

We live on a planet covered by water, but more than 97% is salty, and nearly 2% is locked up in snow and ice. That leaves less than 1% to grow our crops, cool our power plants, and supply drinking and bathing water for households. Some facts:

Americans use about 100 gallons of water at home each day. Millions of the world’s poorest subsist on fewer than five gallons. 46% of people on earth do not have water piped to their homes. Women in developing countries walk an average of 3.7 miles to get water. In 15 years, 1.8 billion people will live in regions of severe water scarcity.

Through our collective mishandling of the earth’s natural resources we’ve raised the Earth’s average temperature by 1.3 degrees F, resulting in changing weather patterns—floods, droughts, hurricanes, rising sea levels, bursting levees. Water is the visible face of climate.

Ecologist Garrett Hardin gets to the heart of the matter in a paper he wrote in 1968 called The Tragedy of the Commons. It addresses the problems that can be solved only by “a change in human values or ideas of morality” in situations where rational pursuit of individual self-interest leads to collective ruin.

We are the problem. Today, people working through powerful transnational corporations, seeking their own self interests, have trampled the commons worldwide and have lead us to the state that we are in— the pollution of rivers and lakes, the warming of our oceans, the depletion of water and ecological disaster’s that we all are facing. But all of us, including our transnationals can be the solution. We just need a change of heart.

Water is the ultimate commons and Ecuador is leading the way in the paradigm shift that must occur.

Ecuador has become the first nation of Earth to put the rights of nature in its constitution so that rivers and forests are not simply property but maintain their own right to flourish. Under these laws a citizen might file suit on behalf of an injured watershed, recognizing that its health is crucial to the common good.

Water is the gold standard of biological currency, and the good news is that we can conserve it in countless ways. This brings us back to the work of Janine Benyus and the biomimicry solution. It is simply a matter of asking the right question and looking to nature for the solution.

I went to Benyus’s website Ask Nature.org, asking the question— How would nature conserve water? This inquiry netted me 2237 examples of possible solutions from nature and companies who’ve utilize some of those solutions. See Green Facts below for one of those solutions.

The best to you all. Happy Spring!!!

Sincerely yours,

Seann Bardell

BioImmersion.com

Clinical Note:

I love garlic. I have been involved in marketing it for over thirty years. It is a great broad spectrum antimicrobial, killing or inhibiting, many pathogens—virus, bacteria, fungus and protozoa—without hurting the good lactic acid organisms. Through your use of it with Lyme patients I have witnessed its amazing curative powers, but wasn’t clear as to its mechanism of action. Last week, I was informed by one of our doctor/customers, that garlic works in Lyme Disease by dissolving the biofilm secreted by these tenacious spirocetes to protect themselves—leaving them vulnerable to eradication.

There are so many wonderful uses for garlic. It takes us 4 to 5 cloves to fill one capsule. Combining that with over 26,000ppm alliin makes for a lot of punch per capsule. No excipients or flowing agents are used in any of our products.

The Last Quiz Answer: The Thorny Devil, a tiny highly specialized lizard from the central Australian desert which lives entirely on ants has each scale enlarged and drawn out to a point in the centre. Few birds could relish such a thorny mouthful and to that extent, they must be a very effective defense, but the shape of the scales also serves another and most unusual function. Each is scored with very thin grooves radiating from the central peak. During cold nights, dew condenses on them and is drawn by capillary action along the grooves and eventually down to the tiny creature’s mouth…The Thorny Devil (Moloch horridus) can gather all the water it needs directly from rain, standing water, or from soil moisture, against gravity without using energy or a pumping device…Passive collection and distribution systems of naturally distilled water could help provide clean water supplies to the 1 billion people estimated to lack this vital resource, reduce the energy consumption required in collecting and transporting water by pump action (e.g., to the tops of buildings), and provide a variety of other inexpensive technological solutions such as managing heat through evaporative cooling systems, protecting structures from fire through on-demand water barriers.(AskNature.org)

Pax Water Technologies. If you click on this link it will take you go to the home page for PAX Technologies and see a company who’s inspired by nature, as exemplified by their spiral shaped mixer designed after the Bull Kelp. “The PAX Water Mixer uses efficiencies of fluid flow, copied from nature, to provide effecient mixing of drinking water in storage tanks. this eleminates stratifcation, keeps disinfectant residuals activity working to maintain drinking water safety and prevents conditions favorable to nitrification.”

Dear Friends,

Over the last two weeks we have focused on the incredible work of Jamie Oliver and his Food Revolution. At the end of last week’s newsletter, in Green Facts, I linked Oliver’s TED award speech. It is about a 15 minute speech and I have re-linked it here in the hope that I might be able to convince you to listen to just a few minutes. This man has given his mind and heart, let alone finances, for our collective cause—the transformation of the food system in America. Let’s support his efforts.

Here it is: Jamie Oliver’s TED AWARD SPEECH.

In March, we spent four weeks on the phenomenal documentary Food Inc. What Oliver and Foods Inc have in common is education—the urgent need to educate our children, their parents, and of course the policy makers. Our problem is one of ignorance. The kind of educational techniques demonstrated and taught by The Food Revolution and Food Inc. can not help but put a fire in people’s bellies for change. And we need change now.

In the weeks preceding our food focus we were looking at the broader topic of nature, ecosystems, and ecosystem services. This week I want to head back in that direction because I have a wonderful treat to share with you. Thank you for your email responses! I was encouraged by Todd Brooks to take a look at the concept of Biomimicry, and specifically at one of its leading apologists, Janine Benyus. The link to her recent keynote speech opens a new way of thinking how nature and technology can interact. We love technology at BioImmersion and devoted a whole tab to explain how we use it to create forward movement: “Technology allows us to be utilitarian and green, worldy and anchored in our communities” (Dohrea). Listen to a bit of this new and exciting science of biomimicry, I think you will be hooked.

Janine Benyus’s KEYNOTE SPEECH in Seattle, WA May 2009.

Benyus’ claim is that a new paradigm is emerging, and that the scales on our eyes are just beginning to shed. We are beginning to see nature for what it is, what we are in relation to nature, and what nature can be for us.

“Nature is 3.8 billion years of evolution old. Homo sapiens are 200,000 years old. So we are toddlers with matches.”

We must move from how we can use nature to how we can learn from nature—nature as our mentor.

Biomimicry is a young scientific discipline seeking to build artificial systems inspired by biological ones. Biomimicry is a design discipline that seeks sustainable solutions by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies. The core idea is that nature, imaginative by necessity, has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with: energy, food production, climate control, non-toxic chemistry, transportation, packaging and a whole lot more.

In her TED Oxford, UK speech given in July 2009 Benyus says:

We live in a competent Universe. We are a part of a brilliant planet and that we are surrounded by genius. “Biomimicry is a new discipline that tries to learn from their genius and to take design advise from them.”

“What people are beginning to remember is that other organisms are doing things similar to what we need to do. But doing them in a way that allowed them to live gracefully on the planet for 1000s of years.”

In this talk she gives numerous examples of companies that are “nature’s apprentices”—they came to nature to seek a design solution. Their guiding question is how would nature do it.

J.R. West, the company that developed Japan’s famous bullet train, had a design problem. It was called a bullet train because the nose of the train looked like a bullet. Their problem: Every time it went into a tunnel it would build up a pressure wave and then it would create a sonic boom when it exited the tunnel. Looking into nature their lead engineer saw how a kingfisher dove into water at high speed without even creating a wrinkle. It was because of the shape of its nose (the beak). So they built the train’s nose to mimick the shape of the of the kingfisher’s beak—problem solved.

In the manufacturing of cement a ton of CO2 is release into the atmosphere for every ton of cement produced. Kolera, a cement manufacturing company, wanted to address this problem, and sought the answer from nature. Borrowing the recipe used by coral reefs, Kolera now uses CO2 as a building block in cement with a net result of sequestering one half a ton of CO2 for every ton of cement made.

Hospital generated infections are now killing more people each year than AIDS, cancer and auto accidents combined. Sharklet Technologies sought a solution from nature for this problem:

A whale’s skin is easily glommed up with banacles, algae, bacteria and other sea creatures, but sharks stay squeaky clean. Although these parasites an pile onto a shark’s rippled skin too, they can’t take hold and thus simply wash away. The scientists at Sharklet have printed that pattern on an adhesive film that will repel bacteria pathogens from hospital surfaces.

A company that Benyus is involved with addressed the question—How does nature gather the suns energy? They developed a new kind of solar cell based on how a leaf works. It is self assembling. It can be put down on any substrate. It is very inexpensive and recyclable every five years. I wonder if they have gone public yet? Isn’t this the kind of company worthy of our investment dollars? The company name is One Sun.

Janine Benyus is clearly one of the workers for change we can follow with delight. She will be the keynote speaker for the 2010 Salt Lake Sustainable Building conference. Her non profit is the Biomimicry Institute.

Sincerely yours,

Seann Bardell

BioImmersion.com

Clinical Note:

And speaking of hospital infection, and therapeutic foods! Our Supernatant Synbiotic Formula was developed to address the mounting problem of life threatening hospital generated infections (nosocomal infections) from organisms such as C. difficele and Staph aureus. Our Bulgarian team of scientists took one year, researching different stains probiotic organisms (lactic acid bacteria) in order to select those with the strongest inhibitory effect on these pathogens. The result of this research was the creation of a formula with 7 lactic acid strains, supernatant (metabolites from selected organisms) and inulin as a prebiotic. This product has proven to be very effective and can be used additionally everyday as a general probiotic supplement.

The Last Quiz Answer: This amazing creature is an Elephant hawk-moth. Moths have unique sub-wavelength structures coating their eyes which dramatically minimize light reflection over a much broader range of wavelengths than conventional anti-reflective coatings. The outer surfaces of moth corneal lenses are covered with a regular pattern of conical protuberances, generally 200-300 nm in height and spacing. These protuberances reduce light reflection by creating a refractive index gradient between the air-lens interface, more gradually transitioning the change in light speed between the air and eye and hence minimizing reflection. These unique structures help moths evade detection by predators in moonlight and maximize light capture for seeing in the dark. Moth-eye inspired antireflective coatings that demonstrate high-performance over large band widths at low fabrication cost have recently been developed for solar panels, with many other potential products applications.

Ask Nature—“Imagine nature’s most elegant ideas organized by design and engineering function, so you can enter “filter salt from water” and see how mangroves, penguins, and shorebirds desalinate without fossil fuels.” “Now imagine you can meet the people who have studied these organisms, and together you can create the next great bio-inspired solution.” “What you’ll see on the site today is a starter culture of ideas—biological blueprints and strategies, bio-inspired products and design sketches, and biomimics you can talk to and collaborate with. Over the next few months, this genetic pool of ideas will grow as we receive natural history information from our partner, Encyclopedia of Life. Our social web will also grow, beginning with tapping into thousands of solution seekers.” Janine Benyus, Co-Founder/Board Prsident, The Biomimicry Institute.

Dear Friends,

Over the past few decades, we have become a fast food nation—consuming a diet that consists of highly processed foods, and eating on the run. The epitome of our condition is exemplified in the new TV reality show Jamie’s Food Revolution.

Last weeks we highlighted Jamie Oliver’s work via his Food Revolution. I hope that you were able to catch last Friday’s episode, the second in this reality TV series, where Jamie takes us into a close-up and personal view of his attempt to change an elementary school’s breakfast and lunch menu in Huntington, West Virginia. Huntington holds the dubious distinction of being American’s most unhealthy city.

One quickly surmises, in lieu of what the kids are regularly eating, the level of their ignorance as to what real food is, and more shockingly, what food looks like! With a regular diet of pizza for breakfast, accompanied with chocolate or strawberry milk, and chicken nuggets for lunch, their precious elementary school children cannot identify a real live tomato, potato, carrot, egg plant, celery, broccoli, etc—they couldn’t name one of them correctly. I was sad.

This week, watch the show on Friday night. Make the time! Jamie Oliver is taking the bull by the horns. We need to support Jamie’s effort. Listen to what he says:

“I believe that every child in America has the right to fresh, nutritious school meals, and that every family deserves real, honest, wholesome food. Too many people are being affected by what they eat. It’s time for a national revolution. America needs to stand up for better food!”

Here is the link to his home page for the Food Revolution. You will see the schedule for the next four shows plus links to past shows, recipes for cooking with real food and much more. Also, there is a petition to sign that will be sent to the President and Congress demanding a change in our school food fare to one that provides real fresh food to children.

There’s a clever touch regarding the signing of this petition: the home page shows a map of the US with all the States, color coded, to show the number of their citizens who have signed the petition. My State of Washington is in the middle of the pack (so far!). California and New York show great participation, with the highest numbers of signatures. It is very interesting to see what States have hardly responded at all—guess who has the least signatures?

Finally, Jamie’s site is a great educational tool. Under the tab, Facts and Figures, it gives the shocking statistics regarding how obesity and diet are affecting America’s health. It gives food facts and information about the federal school lunch program. It informs its readers that today’s generation of children are predicted to be the first that will die at a younger age than their parents due to obesity-related bad health.

What can be more fundamental than getting our food system right? We have forgotten the most basic of life’s requirements—how to properly feed ourselves. Jamie’s got it right. His recipes are elegant, straightforward, simple, wholesome and healthy using real unadulterated food. He would make Weston Price proud. He deserves our full support.

Sincerely yours,

Seann Bardell

BioImmersion.com

Clinical Note:

Let me remind you again of the Therapeutic Foods platform:

BioImmersion utilizes advance technology to capture fresh, raw, organic, high active fruits and vegetables from anywhere in the world at the height of their desired phytonutrient production.

It requires good communication channels with trustworthy individuals employing high technology. Bringing plants, vegetables, berries and berry extracts into a vegetarian capsule without the use of any excipients, while maintaining 100% phyto-nutrient potency, requires the use of distinctive advanced technologies- from Real Time Sourcing to flash freezing on site; from proprietary pure water extraction to sublimation technology (freeze drying); from HPLC analysis to encapsulation in facilities that are GMP and HACCP compliant, Kosher and QAI certified and audited AIB International annually. The Green Technology practiced at BioImmersion to create the Therapeutic Foods line is indeed exciting!

The Last Quiz Answer: This gorgeous creature is an elaborately feathered Bird of Paradise. There are more than three dozen species in the family Paradisaeidae, more commonly known as the birds of paradise. Most are distinguished by striking colors and bright plumage of yellow, blue, scarlet, and green. These colors distinguish them as some of the world’s most dramatic and attractive birds. Males often sport vibrant feathered ruffs or amazingly elongated feathers, which are known as wires or streamers. Some species have enormous head plumes or other distinctive ornaments, such as breast shields or head fans.

Males put their bright colors and unusual ornaments to good use when they display for females. Their elaborate dances, poses, and other rituals accentuate their appearance and put on a phenomenal show that can last for hours.

Jamie Oliver’s TED Award Speech “I wish for every one to help create a strong sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and everywhere to fight obesity.” This my good friends is a most powerful 18 minute speech by Jamie given, this Febuary 2010, at the TED convention. It will make you cry and rejoice at what we can and must accomplish. It should be played in your reception rooms. You will love it!!! Just click on the highlighted link above.