Increasingly, as if you will find a "new" discovery parade for the most recent cure-all, probiotics attended again to the forefront. WHEN I browse the varying articles and studies, I am struck by how far afield we have come from normal, common sense.As a way to maintain a sound body, you will find a tripod of health: body, mind, and spirit. Knock out one leg of that stool, and the stool topples over. Probiotics, diet, health supplements address only the "body" leg of medical tripod. So let's start there.Anything taken externally, whether it is natural or medical (chemical or surgical) to get the physical, has only ever been intended as temporary support until we've regained or achieved the necessary consciousness to aid complete and perfect health; much as you may use a crutch to recuperate from a broken leg. When the leg is healed, we throw the crutch away once we should throw the supplements and medications away.The body knows how exactly to be well and healthy, as that is its natural and inherent state. Think of all the times you've had a cold, or the flu or perhaps a cut or bruise. They always go away. The body, created by Infinite Intelligence, doesn't need to discover how to be well, but rather is always striving to come back to health, its normal set-point. Our job, as a conscious human being, is to make the options - our choices - that support Life. That is to say choices that are probiotic.These choices, if we have been living naturally and following our internal prompts, always feel good, fun, joyful, and delicious. Your body, itself, tells us what it needs regarding nutrition; and we, if we have been listening and aware, then eat those foods. The body tells us when it's tired and needs rest; if we are listening and living naturally, we fall asleep and awaken refreshed. Your body tells us when it is cold; and if we are listening, we go inside, don a coat or sit by the fire. The body tells us when we are full; if we have been listening, we cease eating, pleasantly satiated. The body due to its Innate Intelligence - the life span Force that enlivens it, is constantly directing us if we have been listening.This same Innate Intelligence or Life Force exists in all living things: animal, vegetable and mineral. It simply may be the "spirit" leg of the heath tripod. So it is essential that we focus on the still small voice within guiding us in every things, including health, always towards our good.The "mental" component of the tripod is where all the trouble begins and ends. The human mind using its hubris and arrogance believes that it's the infinite intelligence rather than our spirit Infinite Intelligence (knowing). The human mind is what confounds and complicates everything, over-shouting the still small voice every chance it gets. The human mind will argue with the info of Innate Intelligence that we don't have time and energy to eat, or we can not afford to eat healthy food, or that we don't have time and energy to be home resting. The human mind will argue a vitamin supplement is a quick fix, that a "professional" knows more than I do; that in a choice between ethics and money, money wins. The human mind will tell you to stay in the job your hate, because the money is good; and it'll tell you to take the "safe" road, because it is afraid and lives in the land of Lack. They are the decisions that we make every day that lead us into life-style and relationships that are as toxic to your body and chemicals are.For example, as science attempts to unravel the secrets of good nutrition and health, they omit or ignore or discount the idea of Infinite Intelligence or Life Force, since they don't understand It and cannot quantify It. Therefore, they think that by isolating certain nutrients, that the benefits of that nutrient are complete in relationship to the biological body and cells. For instance, scientists study, suppose, Vitamin C. They isolate it from its original state that it is within, let's say, an orange. They identify it by its chemical composition and name it Vitamin C of a particular type. Then a nutritional company or perhaps a drug company will duplicate that chemical complex and manufacture it synthetically and patent it. Why? Because you cannot patent the Vitamin C within an orange, but in the event that you create your personal synthetic clone of it, it is possible to patent that and sell it as "a supplements". It's about money; and the marketing is about causing you to believe - contrary to your own knowing and Innate Intelligence (good sense), that it's better to buy the pill instead of simply eat the whole food, the orange. This whole process may be the human mind process; not common sense, not Innate Intelligence, rather than your Knowing.This brings us back again to the "body" part of the health tripod. Everything we do to and for the physical body to maintain or even to regain physical health. These things include medicine, alternative therapies, nutrition, supplements, and the meals we eat.So let's get back to the clone of Vitamin C that is not Real Vitamin C. To start with, it has been separated out of its natural habitat of the orange and no longer gets the synergistic benefits of the rest of the nutrients found within that Infinite Intelligence-created orange. Another nutrients within the orange were gathered together by Infinite Intelligence in the orange with the Vitamin C to work together one with the other - just like a symphony shall we say. Altogether they release their blessings of nutrition to the buyer in a concert. One triggers another, one enhances another, and within the body, they trigger certain enzymes or other mechanism to break it down and with nutritional perfection and elegant harmony are absorbed into the body where they nourish and sustains the cells, the essential building block of your body. This can be a symphony of naturally occurring whole foods in the act of nourishing the living body. The clone does not have any idea of the music.While it is not quite the stuff of Frankenstein for science to understand food and nutrition in relationship to our body, it is when these elements are separated right out of the Whole Picture and peddled to convey the same efficacy as the Real thing, which they cannot do. Recall for a minute the specific Frankenstein creation: he was patchwork parody of the Real human, not elegantly Real.When these synthetically created nutritional clones are ingested in to the Real body, your body in fact does not recognize them and either sloughs them off (every wondered why your urine is so bright yellow when you're taking nutritional vitamin supplements ) or they're treated as toxins. If the body identifies them as toxins (foreign substance), it will attempt to eliminate it from your body or surround it with fat cells much like putting the theif into solitary confinement. [Did you ever wonder why we are so fat such large numbers?] Appears to me, via common sense, my very own Innate Intelligence exactly like yours, that the more toxins - synthetically/chemically produced foods (neo-nutrition) we eat, the more toxins the body is attempting to deal with therefore produces the fat to surround and contain them to safeguard the vital organs of the body. The living body's single imperative, after all, is to live. This is basic biology 101.The rube is that the majority of the food designed for consumption grown within the United States is synthetically altered in a few fashion. First the seed, itself, is genetically modified from its original Infinite Intelligent state. Monsanto has done a grave and potentially catastrophic disservice to the world by altering seed - again for the reason of patent - in order that now farmers have to buy seed each year.Haven't you pointed out that you can't grow a fresh corn crop from the old corn seed or that year's tomato seed won't grow a next generation of tomato? My very own Innate knowing noticed this phenomenon years back and thought then that was very strange. Particularly when the natural process of pollination would have eventually - by evolution - evolved a new seed that was adapted to a particular climate or locality or pest. Once again, it is the mandate of all living things - Life Force, Innate Intelligence - to call home. And in so doing, living naturally and organically, every living thing will change and become naturally stronger and more resilient to its environmental challenges or perish. In our body, this job is particularly handled by the immune system.All you have to do is look to the cock roach to start to see the amazing ability of Infinite Intelligence to adapt forever (probiotic). It is this very process of adapting and changing to environmental challenges - evolution they called it in high school - that creates the nutrition - antioxidants for example - that people ingest through eating a complete food, that helps our bodies meet their own environmental challenges.However, as a result of these genetically modified seeds that require chemicals in the proper execution or herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers to cultivate, the essential nutrition that we require to be healthy is currently absent from these food; and in addition, these foods contain more toxins (synthetic chemicals) that people ingest into our bodies. They are not whole foods; they are corrupted foods.As a result of these corruptive foods, the front line digestive and immune systems are seriously compromised. Once the digestive tract is compromised, we cannot be nourished. Once the immune system is compromised, we fight disease.That's where the recent surge in demand for organically grown, non-genetically modified foods has arisen. To put it simply, organic, whole, Real foods contain much more potent and available nutrition for our bodies to use; plus they come complete with Innate Life Force as well as without toxins. Studies prove these foods are up to 60% higher in available nutrition than industrially grown foods.The long term ramifications of synthetically grown foods are now evident by the amount of Americans that are sick. Diabetes has become a "life-style" complete with its magazines for diabetic living. Immune diseases are epidemic: multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome to name but a few and not to mention cancer and heart-related disease. Every one of these dis-eases can be directly traced back to our food supply and the resulting epidemic of malnutrition in Americans and the toxin load.Better living cannot be found through chemistry in terms of health, food, nutrition and the environment. Synthetic chemistry and its own manipulation for profit makes corporations rich, farmers poor, and kills people.By about 40 years, the body begins showing the effects of the deadly combination of slow poisoning with the accumulation of toxins compounded by years of malnourishment. The drip, drip, drip effect reaches critical mass and your body cannot manage any more, cannot cope, and begins to break down showing myriad symptoms of dis-ease. Nutrition is what the body uses to repair and rejuvenate itself, but minus the proper nutrition derived from whole foods, the cells themselves cannot restore, renew or replenish to their natural state of health. Toss on the strain of accumulated toxins, and it is, "Houston, we have an issue."This brings us to rebalancing the Health Tripod.The medical world has evolved into a lucrative business of treating outward indications of disease with an increase of synthetic drugs with no intention of addressing the cause. This can be a mindset of sickness, not wellness. At its core medicine believes neither in the fundamental Infinite Intelligence of the body nor its ability to heal itself. But rather as its centerpiece are sickness, disease and decay.Alternative health methodologies tend to be more inclined to honor the Infinite Intelligence of the body and treat symptoms of dies-ease with probiotic methods: moving energy (Life Force) in your body, support with herbs and nutrition in addressing the physical complaint. In addition most of these modalities will, to greater or lesser degrees, address another two legs of the Tripod: mind and spirit as well. Each one of these methods are good for you, as long as your brain leg of the tripod believes and knows this as well. If you don't believe in the Infinite Intelligence of your body, you should opt for medical treatment.Due to the medical model heavily influencing our Western thought, even alternative therapies have adopted "medicine-like" models for treatment of dies-ease, such as prescribing supplements and herbal remedies for regular use. But these shouldn't be taken as "medicine" on an extended term basis, but rather used intermittently to support your body until body/mind/spirit regains balance.This brings us to the present phase in American healthcare, which is the onslaught of "natural supplements". But once again, the consumer should be educated and cautious, as some of these will be the products of the chemical laboratory too, and not the products of whole grown food. As previously discussed, these "nutritions" when isolated from their synergistic fellows in the complete food form do not provide you with the same healthful effects to your body. They are generally more chemistry and always minus the support of the rest of the nutritional army found in a whole food. This is largely what you see on the shelves at the drug store, the vitamin store and online. They are a poor relation to natural whole food nutrition. And remember, the body may identify these as toxins as well, sloughing them off or storing them in fat, but definitely not imparting any Real nutrition to your body for use.Here is where in fact the consumer must take responsibility for his/her own health insurance and come to understand the options clearly: synthetic chemistry, synthetic supplements, or whole organic food and whole food superfood supplements.No longer can we afford to be ignorant of what's being offered to us out there for "health" benefits. You must be intelligent and use your personal good common sense for regaining and maintaining optimum health.Two things are needed, fundamental and essential, for complete and perfect health: 1. complete pure untainted available nutrition; 2. the body's capability to process and absorb the nutrients.1. Complete, pure and untainted nutrition comes from organically grown whole foods, period.a. Buy organically grown/raised foods whenever and wherever possible in the widest variety possible. Try growing a few of your own. There's a reason that foods are available with seasonality. Infinite Intelligence has provided us the vast and complete selection of nutrients our bodies need for cellular health with a veritable buffet of foods: animal, vegetable, and fruits in balance and moderation, and more importantly, as the body uniquely informs you.b. When buying a supplement, you need to determine that it is, in fact, a whole food supplement. Quite often they are called superfoods. An operating definition of superfood might be any food that's saturated in enzymes, phytochemicals, vitamins, minerals, Chlorophyll, and antioxidants. In a perfect world the goal is always to be free from anything manufactured and obtain complete nutrition from your own wide spectrum selection of whole food selections. A word of warning: ensure that the whole food supplement, the superfood, is organic.2. Probiotics are crucial to the absorption and assimilation of whole food nutrition.1. To begin with, the "new" probiotic supplements are not some new invention or creation of modern science. They're natural, living organisms which are found in the intestinal tract. In fact, they're found in the intestinal tract of each creature that digests food and makes waste. Probiotics (good bacteria) are provided to us naturally by Infinite Intelligence in whole plant foods (vegetables, fruits and grains).2. It is most important to understand, is that probiotics are living organisms with a life, a function and a mission. Their function could very well be to say they are the front line troops of one's body's immune system. In the digestive system it is their job to keep any "bad" bacteria in balance. When "bad" bacteria are out of balance and in control, the body cannot absorb nor assimilate the nutrition necessary for Innate Intelligence to restore the body to perform and perfect health3. Probiotics assist in the digestion and elimination of spend from your body. If the body isn't eliminating its own waste and toxins, they are stored, via fat; and in the colon, if not eliminated completely, set up a world of decay: the perfect culture for dis-ease.4. Warning: probiotic is word being used on labels now to make you buy.First, the product itself should be organic (yogurt, kefir, kambucha). Second the cultures should be LIVE.5. If you are investing in a superfood enriched with probiotics as a supplement (addition); then once more, be certain that the superfood is organic and that the probiotics have been cultured in sunlight (not killed by heat); and they haven't been cultured from feces.Just like with nutritional vitamin supplements, manufactured probiotics can be found in the market place as well. When a manufacturer can identify a probiotic in nature (in food), it isolates it by its chemical composition and manufactures it synthetically, patents it and provides it a patented name. As with synthetically created vitamins, patented probiotics will be treated by your body as yet another foreign substance. The body then must either discharge and eliminate it, or store it in fat. The supposed "cure" has just added to the problem.Since the digestive tract is the most critical place where nutrition is either absorbed and assimilated and offered for cellular health or not, that is a particularly sinister place to introduce synthetics, because neither will the nutrition be made available to the body nor should the body have to cope with yet another chemical impostor of the Real.It is appalling if you ask me that people find ourselves in this invest the year 2008. Also I cannot understand how we could be so morally bankrupt as to reach methodically poisoning our people for the sake of money. However the truth of the problem is that each folks must take charge of our very own health and wellness no longer entrust it to "others."The formula to regain and keep maintaining health and soon you die is easy: body, mind, spirit. And the rule is that whenever anybody of the three becomes out of balance, the stool falls.You most probably will address your wellbeing only when you notice a physical symptom, but that is your opportunity to address the mind and spirit areas of your life, as well; for one or both of these aspects are out of sync if your body is ill.We are a built-in being. In the same way the knee bone is linked to the shin bone, the body is connected to the mind is connected to the spirit. The body is only the casing that contains mind and spirit for a physical adventure here on the planet; and I think you'll agree that without health, the physical experience is less than optimal, to be sure.If you are trying to regain (or maintain) your God-given state of complete and perfect health, you should use what methods and practices that you feel are correct and appropriate to aid your physicality whilst you do the required explorations in mindset and spirit, bringing you back to your perfectly balanced Health Tripod.What we think, what we believe is what we experience. With the knowledge of a thing that is unpleasant and not fulfilling comes the chance release a the beliefs and mindsets that got us here, and to choose new thoughts and new ideas which are probiotic - pro Life - and support us in complete and perfect health. The Whole Tripod.One final note: we have been dynamic beings, therefore constantly changing. The requirement to pay attention (be aware) and make conscious choices moment to moment may be the essential job of spirituality and self-mastery, which a prolonged process. You never get it done.Applying your spirit, listening to the Innate Intelligence within, will always cause you to your good. Always.Kathy Kirk grew up gardening in Ohio and Pennsylvania. She has a BS Degree from Cornell University in business. Currently she lives in the trunk country of San Diego County where she grows organic herbs and garlic. In the past she has formulated her very own skin care and nutrition from her own garden. Now Kathy can be an Independent Representative for One Group and the Miessence, Mivitality and MiEnviron products, including the Superfood Probiotic InLiven, Fast Track Liquid Probiotic, and Berry Radical Antioxidant - all whole food superfoods and certified organic. Miessence and MiVitality comprise the first extensive selection of 100% Natural Certified Organic Personal Care Products in the world that are certified organic by both Australian Government and the USDA. Plus they are formulated to food grade standards. Kathy is committed to being a voice of common sense in the "green" world and supporting others in trusting their own good common sense. You can read her other articles at her blog http://www.honestskincare.blogspot.com Her website is [1] where one can shop the Miessence products. Kathy can be reached at honestskincare@gmail.com and she welcomes you, your questions and comments.