Article courtesy of Wally Richards, www.gardenews.co.nz
People that garden regularly are generally more healthy and happier than people that do not, or seldom garden. There are a number of reasons for this such as getting out in the fresh air and the exercising of the body while doing various garden chores. That is on the first level.
While out gardening on a sunny day for 15 minutes or more, two or three times a week will give your body the vitamin D it needs for good health.
(From the Internet) ‘Vitamin D prevents osteoporosis, depression, prostate cancer, breast cancer, and even effects diabetes and obesity. Vitamin D is perhaps the single most underrated nutrient in the world of nutrition. That's probably because it's free: your body makes it when sunlight touches your skin. Drug companies can't sell you sunlight, so there's no promotion of its health benefits.
The healing rays of natural sunlight (that generate vitamin D in your skin) cannot penetrate glass. So you don't generate vitamin D when sitting in your car or home.
It is nearly impossible to get adequate amounts of vitamin D from your diet. Sunlight exposure is the only reliable way to generate vitamin D in your own body.
A person would have to drink ten tall glasses of vitamin D fortified milk each day just to get minimum levels of vitamin D into their diet.
People with dark skin pigmentation may need 20 - 30 times as much exposure to sunlight as fair-skinned people to generate the same amount of vitamin D. That's why prostate cancer is epidemic among black men -- it's a simple, but widespread, sunlight deficiency.
Sufficient levels of vitamin D are crucial for calcium absorption in your intestines. Without sufficient vitamin D, your body cannot absorb calcium, rendering calcium supplements useless.
Chronic vitamin D deficiency cannot be reversed overnight: it takes months of vitamin D supplementation and sunlight exposure to rebuild the body's bones and nervous system.
Even weak sunscreens (SPF=8) block your body's ability to generate vitamin D by 95%. This is how sunscreen products actually cause disease -- by creating a critical vitamin deficiency in the body.
It is impossible to generate too much vitamin D in your body from sunlight exposure: your body will self-regulate and only generate what it needs.
Vitamin D is "activated" in your body by your kidneys and liver before it can be used.
Having kidney disease or liver damage can greatly impair your body's ability to activate circulating vitamin D. The sunscreen industry doesn't want you to know that your body actually needs sunlight exposure because that realization would mean lower sales of sunscreen products.
Even though vitamin D is one of the most powerful healing chemicals in your body, your body makes it absolutely free. No prescription required.’
That is very interesting and it makes your gardening activities more productive to your health than you may have realised.
Gardening also relieves the day to day stress by just simply getting out there with the plants and trees and doing a few bits and pieces. You can come home stressed after a day’s work, change and hit the garden and within a sort period of time you are communicating with Nature and your stress and worries disappear, which is also great for your health.
The most benefits from gardening and your health comes from growing a good range of vegetables and fruit.
Whether you are growing in open ground, raised gardens or containers you can ensure that your produce has all the nutritional value and flavour possible by growing naturally and avoiding man made chemicals.
Good compost with ample animal manures are the keys for containers and raised beds, also the same lain over open soil, will turn, over time, any soil into great gardens full of soil life.
By adding all the minerals and elements into the growing medium will help ensure that not only that your crops are healthy but also brimming with goodness.
Controlling any pests or plant diseases that may occur can be done simply with natural products some of which you likely have already in your kitchen or laundry.
My second book, Wally’s Green Tips for Gardeners, covers many of these aspects.
Once you have your crops ready for harvest you can then decide how you and your family are going to consume them. We all know that raw is the best way to get all that goodness into your body.
This is easy with fruit and salad crops yet there are a number of foliage vegetables which when cooked the goodness level is reduced.
Some of these can be juiced with a slow speed juicer that squeezes the goodness out into a liquid form for you to drink.
Another method is to place the foliage in a very high speed blender with non-chlorinated water and turn them into what is called a Green Smoothie.
A high speed blender breaks open the cell structure of the foliage opening up the total benefits to your health that can be obtained from your own garden.
Health problems abound these days and they are fairly much avoidable if you grow and consume your own produce in the right manner.
As we get older (as I have) we become more concerned about our health and the health of our loved ones, especially when people that we know fall victim to health problems such as cancer etc.
No one wants to be sick or have a terminal illness but few people do much to avoid this situation till often its a bit late.
To this end I have written a third book entitled, Wally’s Gardening and Health which shows how to grow really healthy food (even if you don't have gardens) very simply and how to consume the same for maximum benefits.
I dare say that my Doctor and pharmaceutical companies must hate me as I don't spend much of my money making them rich. My medicines are growing outside in containers or raised beds and I drink a little of them every day to ensure my health and immune system are excellent.