Perhaps you’ve been pleased with how you’ve been eating. You’re following Raymond Francis’s book, Never Be Fat Again, eating a nutrient dense diet, taking good supplements, avoiding toxins and exercising. You’ve given up counting calories and diets that made you feel deprived, stressed and irritable, and you’re quite happy losing weight slowly but steadily.  You’re feeling like you’ve finally got a handle on this thing called food. Then it happens. At the Farmers Market you’re hungrier than you anticipated. A baker there sells organic, gluten-free, whole grain muffins.  Although carbohydrates are a problem area for you, you’ve had these particular muffins before without difficulty, so you eat one, and it hits the spot. Back home you get a distressing phone call from a friend that makes you feel anxious. Making lunch, you add wild rice to your chicken-vegetable soup.  You mean to add only half a cup, but end up adding a cup and a half. After finishing the soup you’…

It only makes sense to do whatever we can to strengthen our immune systems during the continuing COVID pandemic, and one of the best ways to do that is by supporting a thriving and varied population of beneficial bacteria in our intestines.More than 2/3 of immune cells are located in the gut, where they work synergistically with up to trillions of beneficial bacteria to support immunity.Beneficial gut bacteria activate and support almost every aspect of both innate and adaptive immunity. They increase production of and activate macrophages (the first responder immune cells that literally have pathogens for breakfast—they engulf and devour them) natural killer cells, messenger cells (cytokines), B-cells and T-cells; and they strengthen the gut lining; modify the immune system so it doesn’t overreact and cause too much inflammation; improve absorption of many nutrients; and produce their own natural antimicrobial substances. One of these, acidophilin, is more powerful than pharmaceutica…