pro-piracy

In The Writer’s Toolkit, Part One we discussed voice recognition software and web hosting in your arsenal of handy tools. Today we’ll explore software for project organization (a must if you’re a visual person who needs to see something to get their head around it), free toys to help you edit your manuscript in a smoother fashion and design programs for your creative side.

Project Organization

Are you someone who does better with a visual map or chart in front of you? Me too. I found this cool software that let’s you create visual charts with notes, attachments and even website attachments. It’s called Mindjet.

You can download a free 21-day trial to see if you like it and the tutorials walk you through how to use most of the features. I recently used it to map out a new project and it worked like a charm.

Microsoft Word Toys

If you’re editing drafts of your latest 1,000 page novel and would love to be able to have a split screen to go back and forth between drafts, here’s the best thing since, well, Windows. It’s freeware from Microsoft for XP that allows you to have two, three or four desktops.

It’s called Virtual Desktop and lets you split your screen into as many as 4 separate screens at a time. I usually only use 2 at a time but you can keep opening screens and they’ll lie atop each other.

Go to Microsoft’s website and look on the right side of the page for the Virtual Desktop download.

After you’ve downloaded the freeware, find a blank space on your XP toolbar [the one at the bottom of your screen where all your startup icons are], right click to find tools, click that and look for Desktop Manager. Click that and you should be set. There’s also a read file for these toys that will guide you through the quick setup.

This should avoid the expense of two monitors or another video card.

Design programs

If you decide that you want to design and produce some freebies (like take away cards for your next novel or bookmarks) when you make personal appearances, you’ll want to have a design program that gives you some flexibility.

You can opt for the Adobe Creative Suite but it’s pricey at over $1,300. I like working with Microsoft Publisher because it gives me the tools I need and it’s pretty easy to use.

You don’t want to do any design or creative with graphics or photos in a program like Word because, in my opinion, it’s not stable enough. Placing pictures or graphics where you want them to be and having them stay where you put them is difficult even though the makers of Word suggest that it can be used as a design program.

You can buy Publisher on its own and it’s about $150 or so. You might even find some sales out there or get it on eBay. It’s standard on XP Pro and you may already have it installed but have never used it.

Conclusion

As a writer, you need to have an arsenal loaded with helpful tools that makes your job easier. Check out some of the tools I’ve listed above and drop me an e-mail if you find something you think is worthwhile.

(Originally published on the Writing Etc. website from Filbert Publishing and reprinted with permission of the author, Victoria Rosendahl).

Victoria Rosendahl has published one adult mystery and has begun the Kathy & Martha Mystery Series with the first installment, Bitter Tastes. Check out Bitter Tastes for ideas on how to build a kid friendly web site and feel free to e-mail her at info@vbrosendahl.com.

Last time we talked about the kinds of things to consider when you’ve been invited to speak with kids at an elementary or middle school.

Let’s move forward and look at some key points you’ll want to keep in mind for a memorable visit.

Let kids ask

I always make sure to leave lots of time for kids to ask all kinds of questions. And these questions do not have to be related to my being an author or having written a particular genre of book. I do ask them what kinds of books they like to read and ask them to tell me what book they’re reading right then.

For example, my favorite book of all time when I was a fifth grader was Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell. I recently bought a copy of it and re-read it. It held the same kind of magic for me now that it did in 1966.

If you have a favorite book from when you were in elementary or middle school (it was called junior high when I was going), then mention that. Oftentimes, the kids are reading those very books and will relate what they like about it - and what they dislike about it - so you can have a conversation with them instead of lecturing.

A chapter reading

At some point in your presentation you’ll want to ask kids if they’d like to hear the first chapter of the book. I’ve never spoken with a group of kids who did not want that to occur. Everyone loves to be read to - even adults.

If you’ve written a mystery and have a really good first chapter you will probably have the kids raise their hands and ask you to read the second chapter. If you have time definitely do it.

Offer a challenge

I did this kind of activity when I was in the process of writing the sequel to my first juvenile mystery, Bitter Tastes. Both Bitter Tastes and Mudder are part of the Kathy and Martha Mystery Series.

I read the kids the first working chapter of Mudder and asked if they could give me some help. I wanted them to come up with elements of suspense that would heighten the tension and make the first chapter scarier. The suggestions I chose would be included in the new first chapter and the names of the kids working on that project will be included in the acknowledgment section of the new book.

I got some really great suggestions from the kids and have had many of them ask when the new book would be coming out so they could see their name on the acknowledgment page.

Handouts

I have two handouts that I regularly use when I make an appearance at a school. The first one is a very short, half-page that gives the kids a way to structure their stories into a common theme. This is a tool they can use over and over again for any story they write.

This second handout is actually a freebie that is a bookmark for them and great publicity for me. Everyone who comes to one of my appearances gets a free bookmark and I usually autograph it for them as well. I make the bookmarks in my home office using 110-pound card stock and a color printer. With the sophistication of desktop publishing there is no problem making a really attractive and memorable bookmark.

If you decide to make a bookmark on your own don’t forget to use the back side as well. You don’t have to limit yourself just to the front and make sure that your web site address appears at least once if not twice on this bookmark.

Conclusion

Visiting schools is a wonderful way to give your time and talent to kids. It’s also the world’s best laboratory for writers of juvenile fiction because the kids you speak with are your audience.

You won’t receive better feedback anywhere else.

Victoria Rosendahl has published one adult mystery and has begun the Kathy & Martha Mystery Series with the first installment, Bitter Tastes. Check out Bitter Tastes for ideas on how to build a kid friendly web site and feel free to e-mail her at info@vbrosendahl.com.

One day you wake up and announce to the world that you would like to write a novel. Pardon the pun, but that is a novel idea. At some point in time that is what everyone dreams about. Let’s face it; we all have a story to tell, don’t we?

In reality though, how does it all really come about?

For me, the writing itself is relatively easy. The sentence structure; the punctuation; the correct spelling are all general tools that don’t cause much of a problem for me. And I assume that is true for a lot of other writers.

In my opinion the challenging part of writing is dreaming up the topic. It takes much thought to come up with a story line and develop a plot. Creating scenes is a taxing exercise of the mind. Putting the actions in a readable sequence is also tricky. The story must flow and force the reader to stay interested enough to turn the pages.

In my personal experience it may take anywhere from a few weeks to several months to figure out how I’m going to make a story work. Once I identify the subject matter that I want to write about a subconscious energy sort of kicks in. Even though I continue to live daily life, the inner thought process is constantly at work trying to figure out the details of the story.

One trick that I found was that exercise helps me to reach a state of relaxation that allows for my mind to reach an open phase. While jogging I have found that the demands on the respiratory system and muscle groups have allowed for me to reach a freedom from within.

Another valuable time of discovery is in the middle of the night or shortly after awakening in the morning. For some reason the mind is not clogged and burdened with the goings-on of everyday life. Still another mind-enlightening time is while I am driving down the interstate in my car. During those moments I have found that it is always a good idea to have a pen and pad of paper easily accessible to jot down ideas.

At any rate, as I mentioned earlier, the time that it takes to sort events out in my mind varies. One of the things that I love to do is create characters. I can actually see them and hear them. Once the scenes are figured out and put into the proper sequence, then I have the freedom to place my characters into the action and have them deliver the message of the story.

It is fun to create twists and turns as the story is delivered. It is enjoyable to place hard-to-attain hurdles in the path of a main character as he or she travels on their journey. It is pleasurable to exploit their weakness and make them vulnerable to the actions of the other characters. Most of the characters have some sort of a purpose. Even if it is merely wallpaper in the action of the story, they seem to fill out the scene is some way, shape, or form.

So, in a nutshell, even if you decide to sit down and write a novel, just remember that it takes a great deal of planning to actually decide how the story is to be told. It is so very important to have an orderly procession of events and actions that follow in a logical manner. Characters have the freedom to deliver the message. The trick is putting them in situations that allow for the message to be delivered in an entertaining and meaningful way.

Good luck! Writing is a fun exercise of the mind. You’ll find that it becomes a little easier if you do some sort of pre-planning before you start. After all, when you take a drive in your car it is always better to have a destination in mind. Otherwise you merely wander aimlessly.

James Ross, a University of Missouri-Columbia graduate, went to a keyboard and let the words flow through his fingertips. Lifetime Loser is his first novel. Consumed by the writing bug, he is working on more books. Visit James Ross.

We don’t hook a reader with logical exposition, flat narration or argument. We must get to the part of the reader’s life that is involuntary, automatic: the five senses and mood/emotion. In that way we convert “tell” into “show.”

The visceral approach to description brings a story to life. It shatters the time tired clich

Bundy checked his watch and cursed as he hurried through the front door of the high school. It was the first session of his computer course, and he was late. He rushed down the hallway carrying his laptop, perspiration sliding down his neck. He was only a couple of minutes late, but Principal McDougal had been keeping a close eye on him. The old battleaxe was trying to build a case that he should be terminated for incompetence. What is wrong with her anyway? This is the school system, not some big corporation that had to make money. She needed to get a life and leave him alone.

He slipped into the classroom, which was filled with students. They all looked enthusiastic and ready to learn.

I hate enthusiasm.

He didn’t really want to teach night school classes for adults, but he needed the money. Damn credit cards made it too easy to buy stuff. And his wife Peg had lost her job at the department store because of that stupid fight with a customer. So what the guy was seventy-five, he had landed a few good shots on Peg. She was only defending herself when she threw him into the TV’s. The display holding all the sets had collapsed, smashing everything. They fired her on the spot, but at least the store had dropped all the charges. That’s Peg’s story, anyway.

“Okay class, let’s get started,” Al said. “My name is Al Bundy and I’m a teacher at this school. This short course is called Protecting your PC. For those of you who haven’t figured it out, I’m going to teach you a few basic measures you should do to keep your computer safe.”

“Are you a computer science teacher?” one of the women asked.

Al straightened up. “Physical Education.”

The class tittered. “But I’ve had plenty of experience with computers,” Al added.

A big middle-aged guy shouted out, “Besides porn?”

The students roared, which really got under Al’s skin. He would have thrown the guy out of the class, but the bastard looked like he could kick Al’s butt. Then a dopey twenty-something guy in the front row started waving his hand impatiently.

Al sighed. “What do you want? First state your name, then ask your question.”

“My name is Tony Balboa.” He picked a piece of paper off his desk and held it up for Al to read. “This here schedule says this is the Introduction to Sex Education class. Taught by Jessica Mathews. You’re not her, so what the hell is going on?”

Al walked up to Balboa and snatched the calendar out of his hand. Tony had drawn a circle around a description of the sex education class. Al spotted the problem immediately. What a freaking idiot!

“The sex education class was last week. This is last week’s calendar.”

The idiot scratched his thick black hair. “Let me see.”

Al handed the calendar back to Balboa. Tony studied it and then said, “Shit!”

Al smiled at the young idiot’s confusion. “Well, Mr. Balboa, I suppose you want to leave now. Don’t let us waste your valuable time.”

Balboa scratched his head again, staring at Al through puzzled eyes. “So this class is about computer shit?”

“Fraid so. Just dumb ol’ computer stuff.”

Balboa nodded his head, as if he had decided something. “I’m going to stay in this class. My nephew has a computer, but I don’t know how to use it. I need to learn this computer shit.”

Al was tempted to try to change his mind, then sighed and mumbled, “What the hell.” It didn’t matter. Balboa would stay for this class, realize he was in over his head and never show up again.

“Okay,” Al said to the class. “Now let’s really get started. When you use the Internet, you run the danger of unauthorized software getting into your computer. These undesirable programs could really foul up your PC. They might trash your system, steal information from your files, take control of your PC or just do things to annoy you. These nasty programs are called viruses, worms and Trojans.” He looked over the class, hoping there might be some intelligence out there. “Can anyone tell me what these terms mean?”

“Let me answer,” Balboa shouted. “I know what a Trojan is.”

“No, Balboa, not that kind of Trojan. We’re talking about software.”

“Yeah, soft wear, that’s what I use.”

“Balboa, I want you to shut up and listen for the rest of the class. There’s an outside chance you might learn something.”

“Thank you, professor.”

Al leaned back against the front desk. He believed in heavy class participation, not because it was a superior learning technique, but because it allowed him to offload the work to students. If Balboa would shut up, he could get the smart kids to teach most of the class.

A geeky looking kid in the front row raised his hand. When Al nodded, he said, “I’m Wayne B. Click. I design relational databases for ISpy Consulting.”

“Not that I want to throw a wet blanket on your party, but why are you taking this class? This is an introductory course, designed for people who don’t know squat about computers.”

“I understand, Professor Bundy, but my analyst said I had to get out and meet people.” He shrugged. “Maybe have sex with some women, too.”

“I’m not really interested in your situation, Click. Just explain a computer virus.”

“Well, a computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without permission or knowledge of the user. A virus can only spread from one computer to another when its host software is taken to the uninfected computer, for instance by a user sending mail over the Internet, or by carrying it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, or USB drive. A computer worm is different. A worm can spread itself to other computers without needing to be transferred as part of a host. A Trojan Horse, like the Greek legend, is a program that looks like another, harmless program. A user is fooled into using it; then it does something nasty.”

Click shrugged. “Is that okay, Professor Bundy, or should —.”

“Shut up, Click,” Al interrupted. “I mean, you did great. Now does anyone have a question?”

A leggy blond in the back row raised her hand, pulling a very short skirt to the top of her thighs. Al moved a couple of strides to his right, trying to get just the right angle to improve the view up her skirt.

If she were only in the front row, but no, I have to get losers like Balboa and Click up here.

“The young legs … lady in the back,” Al said.

“My name is Sharon Pebbles, Bindy.”

“Bundy, my dear, but you can call me Al.”

Sharon shifted in her seat, and to Al’s delight, her skirt did the impossible by moving higher. She paused a second, and slowly crossed her gorgeous legs. He’d never seen so much skin in a classroom. Al couldn’t speak; for a moment he feared a stroke.

“Bindy, I’m not really interested in all these technical terms. Can’t you just tell us what to do to protect our computer.” She stood up, ending Al’s dreamy view. “Otherwise, I might as well leave right now.”

“Please sit down,” Al squeaked. After clearing his throat, he said, “We are just getting to that part of the class.”

Since Sharon continued to stand, an impatient look spreading over her pretty face, Al decided he had to act fast or this luscious idiot might actually leave. He couldn’t risk calling one of these idiot students; he would have to do the work himself.

“The most important step to protect your computer is to take regular backups. At least once a month, make a copy of all your key data files. Anything that you can’t afford to lose, back it up and store it offline.” He was relieved when Sharon took her seat, restoring his wonderful view. “I backup my files weekly, just to be extra safe. In addition, some really important files — for example my financial information — I back up every day when I finish working with them.”

“I got one,” Balboa shouted. “I know what you should do.”

Why me, Lord?

“Okay, Balboa, what do ya got?”

“It’s so simple, you’re gonna love it!”

It would have to be simple.

“You planning to tell us anytime soon,” Al said. “Class will be over in a few minutes.”

“Here it is,” Balboa said. “Turn off your PC overnight. If it’s off, nobody can stick a Trojan in it.”

Al was prepared to laugh, but the damn thing made sense. He himself had a bad habit of leaving his computer on overnight, where it was vulnerable.

“Good suggestion, Balboa. Turn it off overnight or at any time it’s not in use for several hours. A computer can’t be infected while it’s off.”

Al looked over the class. “Anyone else with an idea how to keep your PC protected?”

“Never give up confidential information to a stranger,” the big middle-aged guy said. He must be six-one and pushing two-fifty, with a beefy face to match. “Watch out for emails, text messaging, chat rooms, everything. You fool around with that freakin’ stuff and they’ll pick you clean.” He looked around and smiled. “Only give confidential information to websites you trust. This is friendly advice, because youse are my classmates.”

“Sir, your name, please,” Al said.

“Vinny Soprano.”

“Didn’t I see you in the news last week?”

“You didn’t see nuthin.”

“My mistake.”

Soprano was staring at him, and he didn’t look pleased. Time to wrap this up.

“Well, class, that’s enough for today. Next week we will get into the specifics of anti-virus software.” He moved over again, ready for one last look at Sharon. “See you next week, same time, same place.”

Just as Sharon uncrossed her legs, Balboa stepped in front of him, blocking his view. “Great class, Professor Bundy. See you next week.”

Al collapsed against the side of the desk. Maybe I could have the class moved to another building. The students filtered out, leaving him alone in the classroom. Or another night. He packed up his laptop and walked toward the door. Or another country.

(Originally published on Dan Ronco’s website and reprinted with his permission).

Dan Ronco’s expertise in engineering and computer science infuses his fast-paced techno-thriller Unholy Domain with detail and authenticity. His second novel, it warns of the looming clash between religion and advanced science. Visit Dan Ronco.

In the April issue of Roundup Magazine, W. C. Jameson, the author of several books and a just published novel, discussed at some length “The Honesty of Blurbs.” He cited numerous examples of how these comments printed on the book jacket, or back cover of paperbacks, most frequently were ‘dishonest.’

Among his examples, were the author who asked for a blurb, and was surprised that the person whom he had asked, wanted to read the book; a blurb that was delivered to the author at his request, rather than the publisher, and appeared in press as a much altered, and improved version of the original; of publishers who admitted that blurbs they applied to books frequently, were written for them at their request, by another of their authors. Many readers do not depend upon these blurbs in selecting a book. However, if they do, I must concur with Jameson’s conclusions that the reader may or may not receive an accurate evaluation.

There is another matter that is just as dishonest to the reader and, perhaps, even more dishonest and detrimental, to the author and publisher. This is the book review done by a reviewer who, for one reason or another, does not really read the book. We all are aware that one can read at many levels - while also watching television, while half-asleep, as an assigned chore, or for actual personal enjoyment. Each attention method, obviously, would produce a different review.

Over a number of years I have had, as an author, more than a hundred research papers, as well as six textbooks, a lexicon in four languages, and a recently published novel, all subject to review. In no way, have I been able to find fault with most of the reviews, and have complete respect for the reviewers’ opinions.

In the recent past, I have found an increased level of annoyance with reviews, however. I have read several novels that are not as reviewed. Too often, it appears that the reviewer has been participating in some of the activities sited above while reading the book in hand. His evaluation may result from an undesirable assignment, or has come about in some other unpleasant manner. Regardless of cause, results usually take the form of criticism of historical fact, when the fact is there, but the reviewer missed it. Or, there may be criticism of a character’s language or actions that contain thinly veiled sarcasm. Or again, the reviewer may not be compatible with the book, and instead of providing a truthful overview, will again resort to criticism. Regardless, I have found the review erroneous, and of little help in a pre-evaluation of the book.

It is true, that it is not an easy task to provide an unbiased review, if one or more factors result in book-reader incompatibility. However, a reviewer, in such circumstances, is doing a disservice to the editor, the author and the reader, and should turn the task over to another.

As an editor of a scientific journal for a number of years, I provided almost countless papers and books to reviewers. Reviews are a requirement for the health of science. I believe they serve a similar purpose for the health of material provided for enjoyment. As an editor, I always expected a reviewer to read a book, or paper carefully. If they could not equate, they merely informed me and I would assign it to another.

One can postulate that application of the same policy to pleasurable reading that one applies to scientific books and papers is too stringent. However, the cost of publishing and purchasing books today is far more expensive. Nicely bound paperbacks easily reach the fourteen to sixteen dollar range. Would it not seem appropriate to at least provide an honest evaluation for a reader, and incidentally give the author and its publisher a break?

The book ratings that the reader provides in passing, such as those by Amazon readers, have no alternative but to be accepted for what they are. But, parenthetically, usually they are quite accurate. On the other hand, would it be too much trouble for editors and publishers who request reviews, to be a little more careful in their handling of reviews and reviewers? Incorrect, or badly done, reviews can be bad for all levels of the industry. Done correctly, they are helpful to all.

John H. Manhold is a retired professor and scientific journal editor. He is an author of several textbooks, a lexicon in four languages and now novels that often require extensive research. He provides coaching on various types and phases of writing. Please see John Manhold for more information, and an address.

This interview is an excerpt from Kevin Gianni’s The Healthiest Year of Your Life, which can be found at http://thehealthiestyearofyourlife. com. In this excerpt, Jon Barron shares on herbs, supplementation and the scary truths about today’s foods and disease.

The Healthiest Year of Your Life with Jon Barron, creator of Base Line Nutrition and author of Lessons from the Miracle Doctors.

Kevin: Sure, you talked about disease and using herbs to help. When does someone know they need to have herbs? I mean, is it just for disease or can people use these things for cleansing? I mean, I think a lot of people get confused as to when they should cleanse or when they should take herbal supplements.

Jon: Okay. Let’s actually give a quick look at the base line of health program. The base line of health is sort of a summary of what I learned from virtually all of the doctors. Doctors like Dr. Christopher and Dr. Shultz and guys like that who are doing programs that basically treat people as a whole entity and where it starts is you have to remove the toxins from the body. Basically we are being poisoned all the time now by choices we make and by things we have no control over. There are over a 100,000 new chemicals that are brand new, never existed before that have been introduced into the environment in the last hundred years and they are out of control. You get them in your water, your drinking water. Here’s something a lot of people don’t know is that virtually all tap water that you drink contains traces of pharmaceutical drugs.

Kevin: Yeah.

Jon: All of the heart medication and cancer medications, so on, and people getting chemo when they urinate it goes out into the water. There is nothing in the treatment system that is designed now to remove those things. The amounts are small and authorities say that they shouldn’t effect you they are so small, but no one really knows what the effect is of having these things every day for years is.

Kevin: And, we don’t know if they have a half life or anything like that, do we?

Jon: No, we know nothing. It’s like a grand experiment going on right now. I think we are getting strong indications of what the results of that experiment are, but number one is you’ve got to clean those things out and that starts for most people with intestinal cleansing and detoxification. Not because it’s most important, but it’ s sort of for two reasons. One, it’s the area that we tend to focus the most abuse of the foods we eat. I’ll give you one great example of that. When I was giving a talk, a pro bono talk in the Virgin Islands a few years back to high school kids, I was trying to talk about health and nutrition and I could see their eyes just rolling up into the back of their heads. They were bored out of their minds. I said, all right, let’s give you a different example guys, how many of you eat pizza? The whole crowd said yeah. Have you ever thought about what you eat? Huh? Okay, have any of you ever helped your parents put up wallpaper? About half of them had and I said, what did you make the wallpaper paste from? It’s made from white flour and water. Okay. So you’re crust is basically wallpaper paste. Let’s talk about the cheese. Have any of you ever used Elmer’s glue? Whose picture is on the front of Elmer’s glue? Elmer the bull.

Kevin: Yeah.

Jon: Why? Because all of the forerunners to Elmer’s glue is now made from synthetics but in the early days, all of the glue similar to Elmer’s was basically made from casing, the stuff that makes cheese stringy. So when you eat pizza you are eating wallpaper paste and Elmer’s glue. What do you think the odds of that coming out cleanly are? That’s one of the reasons we have to do intestinal cleansing. Over the years we so abuse that intestinal tract. You’ve got to clean it out and all the other cleans depend on it. Because things like the liver cleans dump out to the bile duct and if you have any blockage in the intestinal tract, the toxins you flush from the liver can’t make it out through the bile duct. They back up into the blood stream and make you feel really ill. After you clean out, you need to do things like rebuild the beneficial bacteria. Beneficial bacteria provide huge functions. Not only in terms of digestion, but they’re actually responsible for about 60% of your immune function. The simple fact is most people have almost none left.

Kevin: Wow.

Jon: Why? Antibiotics and chlorine primarily. You drink tap water and you get chlorine in the water. What is the purpose in the chlorine? To kill bacteria. When you drink, it does kill the bacteria in your gut and makes your pores a vacuum and it tends to fill that space with bad guys. The other is antibiotics. If you are buying commercial dairy or meat, it’s packed with antibiotics. That’s designed to, by its name, kill bacteria. So most people are in a state of disbiosis where the beneficial bacteria is virtually gone and they have large amounts of ecoli and other things that at least all the conditions, such as Crohn’s Disease, IVS, ulcer and colitis, colon cancer. Colon cancer virtually unknown 60 or 70 years ago and today it’s the second leading cancer among men and women combined, after lung cancer. The next thing you need to do, you want to start supplementing with enzymes because most people eat – man is the only animal that eats cooked processed food at sustained temperatures of over 118 degrees to destroy enzymes. You have to make up that loss, because food is designed – all food that you eat, if it’s in a raw state, has enzymes necessary for some digestion in the food. You cook it, their gone. You have to make up the difference. What happens is you tend to bump high amounts of stomach acid to compensate and with high amounts your pancreas goes into overdrive to produce digestive enzymes. In the end you burn out your ability to produce hydrochloric acid. That’s of course, along the way, having produced so much that you burned your gut out and had acid reflux and you burn out your pancreas’ ability to produce enzymes. You basically lose the ability to digest food over time. That’s one reason people, as they get older and don’t get nutrition out of their food. You have to change your diet. You cannot keep eating the same stuff that people are eating and think you are going to be well. Most diseases today are self inflicted. One of the great ones is diabetes. Diabetes is a huge, huge epidemic right now. A couple of years ago the U.S. Government came out with a stat, a prediction that said that every child born in the United States today and that was from 2003 I think they did this – that any child born today – would have been 2003 – their odds of being diabetic are 50%. All right so one in three, 50% is either black or Hispanic.

Jon: Type two diabetes used to be called adult onset. They got rid of the adult onset, because of diet – kids are getting it now. You’re finding kids – 16, 17, 18 – diabetic and pre-diabetic. All you have to do is understand a sugar soda is just under a teaspoon of sugar for every ounce. So, when you see those kids walking around – 10 year olds with those 32 oz big gulp sodas from the AMP and mini marts and Seven Eleven. There is just under a cup of sugar in that thing. Kids are having one or two of those a day.

Kevin: That’s amazing.

Jon: A diet needs to change. There are so many things about a diet we can talk about – supplementation. I’ve heard doctors say that you don’t need to supplement if you just eat a balanced diet but what diet are they talking about? Are they talking about the foods that are grown today or that were grown 50 years ago, because there is a huge difference? The green revolution certainly has produced more food but there is a simple logic of mathematics here. You can’t grow more food out of the same land without thinking you are going to trade something off. What we are doing, we are trading off quality for quantity. Foods today don’t have the same amount of vitamins and minerals they had 80 years ago. In fact, it takes you 80 cups of spinach to get the same amount of iron that you use to get from one cup of spinach.

Wheat has half the protein it once had. So a lot of the nutrients are going out of food that were once there.

Kevin: Is this for organics, as well?

Jon: Organic is an interesting animal. All organic means is that they are using organic fertilizers and they are not using pesticides, but it doesn’t tell you how much organic fertilizer is being used on a field or whether there remineralizing the soil and there are farms that they use five tons of organic fertilizer on an acre and there are those that I call super organic that use up to a hundred tons.

To read the rest of this transcript as well as access The Healthiest Year of Life experts just like Jon Barron please click here! Kevin Gianni is an internationally recognized health advocate, author & film consultant. He has helped thousands of people take control of their own health naturally. For more information visit raw food diets and holistic nutrition

This interview is an excerpt from Kevin Gianni’s The Healthiest Year of Your Life, which can be found at http://thehealthiestyearofyour life. com. In this excerpt, Jon Barron shares on herbs, tinctures, antibiotics and probiotics.

The Healthiest Year of Your Life with Jon Barron, creator of Base Line Nutrition and author of Lessons from the Miracle Doctors.

Jon: Now, I mentioned Echinacea, it’s a great one. A lot of people are not aware, but good herbalists can identify 100 or 1000 or 1500 herbs by taste or smell. They can tell you how strong they are. It’s like, there’s no machine yet that can match the pallet of a wine expert. No machine can match the taste and smell of a good herbalist. I can do maybe 100, 200 herbs. I’m not even close to 1000 or 1500. Echinacea though is a simple one. Every herb has what’s called a signature characteristic. If you have two bags of peppermint tea and you brewed pots up and one of them tasted like dish water and the other had a really nice strong, crisp peppermint taste, anyone would go, oh that’s good peppermint and that stuff stinks. And they would be absolutely right. The signature characteristic of peppermint is the peppermint taste. The signature characteristic of Echinacea is that it numbs and tingles the mouth. The more it doesn’t, the stronger it is. You can run tests on the active ingredients they know and it will verify that they are far stronger than the ones that numb and tingle stronger. I’ve gone to health food stores and bought 30 brands of Echinacea, tested them and actually when I did this 10 years ago I found only one that had any activity at all. 29 of them, the only Echinacea of value was the word that was on the label. There was nothing inside.

Kevin: Really.

Jon: Yeah, they could have been using Echinacea but it was of such low grade that it had no impact.

Kevin: So, let me get this straight again. It numbs.

Jon: And tingles the mouth. You take Echinacea tincture and you squirt it in your mouth, two droppers. Take two droppers and swish it around in your mouth for about 15 seconds and swallow it and you should find your mouth numbing and tingling and actually saliva should be flowing and if it’s really strong, it will actually start to make you gag in your throat, because your throat starts to catch. The more it doesn’t, the stronger that Echinacea is. The one thing we could do very easy is if we took the same stuff and we would brew it the two ways and one of them is if we used good quality Echinacea and the first one would numb and tingle your mouth and would blow people away. In fact, I actually use to walk around with three bottles. One that I bought at the store, a commercial Echinacea that had virtually no activity but was a very popular brand, to the one we created using a higher quality herb which is about three or four times stronger than that and then that same herb brewed the new way with the new technique that we had and we’ve since measured it and it’s a 100% stronger.

Kevin: Wow.

Jon: Yeah and actually what would happen is I did it once in a large scale demo. I will never do it again because people started gagging all over. Their throat started seizing up it was so strong. So we had a few go, ugh, ugh, ugh – several hundred of them.

Kevin: So I imagine that the value in terms of price is – I mean, you go to get these tinctures, they’re fairly expensive regardless, so it would make sense if it is any extra money, is it extra money to get –

Jon: You know actually, it isn’t extra money because you actually get more bioactive ingredients out. You’re actually making stronger stuff. You actually use less of the good herb than you would otherwise. Actually, the process lowers the cost so what you are doing and what you’re paying for is still the quality of the herb but the process actually makes the cost a little less for us because we get more high quality tincture out of a slightly less herb, because it does so much better. Also, one of the things I mentioned, you have water and alcohol as the solvents making the tincture. That still leaves behind anything that is oil soluble and we found a way that we can use that process to also pull out the oil soluble bio-chemicals.

Kevin: Oh, that’s cool.

Jon: Yeah, which makes it even stronger, but you use good quality herbs, good quality Echinacea – we have one formula, an antipathigen formula. It’s not even a tincture actually. It’s a pressing of garlic and horse radish and habanera and things like that and it’s got liquid zinc in it, grapefruit extract, olive leaf extract.

Kevin: Wow.

Jon: It’s an antipathigen formula that was so strong we actually were contacted by people in the government who wanted us to send them some 100 bottles and we did. It was tested for bird flu, Ebola, small pox, anthrax. It went to the Department of Defense, U.S. Army, Walter Reid Medical Hospital and an agency that I’m not suppose to mention but they’re all initialed and we were told that it passed all their tests.

Kevin: Are you serious?

Jon: And they sent it out. We were told it was going to an outside lab for verification and we wouldn’t hear again unless it failed the test. That’s the last we heard so I don’t know.

Kevin: Wow.

Jon: But we know it works and for colds and flus like that. That’s actually a topic worth discussing on why antibiotics and antiviral don’t work and why natural substances do.

Kevin: Yeah. That’s very important.

Jon: The problem is that when you take an antibiotic and an antiviral, you’re actually breading super bugs. It’s very simple. When you take an antibiotic, anything that survives it, by definition is one that has a resistance to that antibiotic or antiviral.

Kevin: Sure.

Jon: So what you’ve left now is a pool of those that have a resistance. They breathe, they duplicate and you’re actually sort of breeding bacteria and viruses that are immune to the antibiotics and there it turns out they have the ability to pass that immunity onto other species, they’ve found. So if you get immunity going like in a staff, the next thing you know, all bacteria has that resistance. That’s why antibiotics are a problem; well, one reason. The other is they are one dimensional. They kill bacteria in one way. They either, like some, will break the cell wall open. Others will work and stop the energy production, the mitochondria of the cells, but it’s one thing that that antibiotic does so it makes it very easy for bacteria to build a resistance. There are now bacteria, for example, that have protection on the cellular wall against the antibiotics. So when it’s a one dimensional pack, it makes it makes it very easy for these very primal structures, which reproduce rapidly in a matter of weeks, viruses in just a few weeks, bacteria in 12 months to or six months to maybe a year and a half can start to develop a resistance and passed around.

Even natural substances — take garlic — we use garlic in ours. We use 30 cloves crushed so you have the juice of 30 cloves in one bottle and it smells it, but garlic has over a hundred substances in it that are known to be antibiotic, antibiotics. So it’s not just a hundred times more effective. You now go into gaming theory because you get them in combination. In different ways you start to actually get hundreds of thousands of combinations of these things that present a resistance to these viruses and bacteria. You combine a few other ingredients and you actually have a combination that starts to go into, you know the rival the number of stars in the universe because it goes up expediential, which is why that even though things like garlic have been around since the dawn of man, they still work against bacteria. Garlic at one time was used against anthrax. Those poor men, the poor farmer’s protection for anthrax on their animals and it worked. In groups though. There were farmers feeding their animals in Korea kimchi which is high in garlic and it was stopping bird flu. It works and it’s impossible for bacteria and viruses to build a resistance, because they’re so complicated.

Kevin: Now in terms –

Jon: That’s something to keep in mind the next pandemic that comes around.

Kevin: Sure. Now in terms of the good bacteria, the good flora in your stomach, will garlic will wipe that out, as well.

Jon: Garlic actually is pretty benign. There’s sort of a regression. There are certain things you don’t want to do. One for example, is goldenseal.

Kevin: Yeah.

Jon: Is one that kills bacteria, great for limited use, but know if you use it regularly it will kill your good bacteria.

Kevin: Got you.

Jon: Coidal silver is another one. It tends not to be kind to intestinal bacteria. So if you use it on a daily basis, that’s a problem. My recommendation for coidal silver is use it for external use and use it internally only for extreme situations.

Kevin: Sure. Great. That’s good information because I’ve always wondered that if it’s an antibiotic, wouldn’t it kill the bacteria. So that’s good.

Jon: Yeah, it depends. It does. Some are more benign than others. Garlic though is one that’s actually quite benign to the beneficial bacteria.

Kevin: And if you were taking something like goldenseal or something like that, would you recommend taking a probiotic with it or it’s not even worth it.

Jon: Well, I recommend – yeah if you’re using it daily, you use your probiotic. Otherwise, after any round of antibiotics, anything you’re using that’ s killing bacteria, you want to use probiotics again.

Kevin: Yeah. Why don’t you just talk about the base line of health programs and just some of the things that you offer under that huge umbrella of just incredible information and products?

Jon: Yeah. If I saw something that somebody else was doing well, I wouldn’t duplicate it. But we created those products that I thought weren’t being done well enough or weren’t easily available. Where people weren’t using consistently high enough quality herbs or whatever, so we offered detox formulas, supper food formulas, enzymes and a couple of formulas that are worth noting is we make what is we’ve been told by people who’ve tested it is the strongest probiotic enzyme formula, which we haven’t talked about yet, but in one of the more important formulas you could use is a high proteases formula that you take without food to go into the blood stream.

Kevin: Okay.

Jon: Where there it will do things such as kill bacteria and viruses in the body because they all have protein coverings, if you will, that could be broken down. It also breaks up clots in the blood, repairs it, eats up scar tissue. They’re great things. Another formula we have uses certain combinations of herbs that slow down the digestion, the simulation of high glycemic, carbohydrates, so it stops insulin spikes.

Kevin: Got you. Well, Jon, you’ve given us a ton of information and I think that anyone whose listening to this call can take something from it and that’s extreme value so thank you so much for doing that.

To read the rest of this transcript as well as access more information on creating and living a healthy lifestyle and hear from other health experts just like Jon Barron please visit http://thehealthiestyearofyourlife.com.

To read the rest of this transcript as well as access The Healthiest Year of Life experts just like Jon Barron please click here! Kevin Gianni is an internationally recognized health advocate, author & film consultant. He has helped thousands of people take control of their own health naturally. For more information visit raw food diets and holistic nutrition

This interview is an excerpt from Kevin Gianni’s The Healthiest Year of Your Life, which can be found at http://thehealthiestyearofyourlife.com. In this excerpt, Jon Barron shares his personal journey to becoming The Health Renaissance Man and treating the whole body verses isolationists medicine.

The Healthiest Year of Your Life with Jon Barron, creator of Base Line Nutrition and author of Lessons from the Miracle Doctors.

Kevin: Let’s start by just giving a brief introduction about yourself so everyone knows. Why don’t I let you tell the story and then we’ll move on to the real information.

Jon: All right, let me sort of keep it short. I’ve been involved in health and nutrition for over 40 years.

Kevin: Wow.

Jon: I actually started working with foods when I was like 16. My father was one of the first food technologists in the country and I actually worked with him designing some foods – designing, of all things, an ice cream line at the age of 16.

Kevin: Okay.

Jon: When I went to college I was planning to become a doctor. I went in as premed. There were a couple of things; one is, I wasn’t dedicated to it but the bigger problem was that I was becoming very disillusioned back in the mid 60’s with where medicine was going. And, even at the age of 17 back then, I was writing the relationships with diet and ageing and supper foods that were available then, such as bee pollen – how they could affect ageing. Along the way, I began to sort of search out the people who were doing it and these are people who I would call miracle doctors. Back then, if you want to learn alternative health, you didn’t have all the choices you have now. You didn’t have newsletters, you didn’t have schools – it was – the doctors who were doing it were all worried about getting thrown in jail. Even today in half the states in this country, it’s illegal for even a medical doctor to prescribe alternative treatments for things like cancer.

Kevin: Wow.

Jon: So back then it was even worse to find these doctors. You had to find someone who knew someone, who knew the doctor because you were so paranoid, but the guys who were practicing back then were doing some amazing things and what I learned is that people who had been told they were going to die, were getting well. They base it on people who had gone through – and cancer, of course one of the big one. People had gone through a round of chemo and surgery. Nothing worked and they had been sent home and would come to these doctors and were getting well. We’re they all getting well? Of course not, but a significant percentage of those who were told they were going to die did recover.

There are a couple of interesting things that I noticed is it didn’t matter which doctor that I was talking to, they were all doing variations on a theme and this became the essence of the base line of the health program is they tended not to treat disease in the same way medical doctors do. Medical doctors are into magic bullets. I think there is an outgrowth in the history of medicine and science in general where everything gets categorized and isolated and the body gets treated like an engine where you know, if something goes wrong with the carburetor, you swap out a part. So the idea of treating the body systemically is gone from medicine. It’s all down to individual pieces, which works great if you’re in an automobile accident or your name’s John Wayne Bobbitt. If you’re John Wayne Bobbitt, you are better off with a surgeon than an herbalist.

Kevin: Absolutely.

Jon: But when it comes to the major diseases we face where they tend to have multiple causes to be systemic in nature, that approach doesn’t work as well. The standard treatment or one of the main standard treatments for cancer is chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is designed to kill a cancer, a particular manifestation of it, it doesn’t get to the root cause unless you believe that you get cancer, because you are suffering from a chemotherapy deficiency.

Kevin: Sure.

Jon: If you’re not, it isn’t doing it. In fact chemotherapy is a known carcinogen. The idea of medicine, of treating everything in isolation, in treating with bullets, doesn’t work well. What the miracle doctors were doing is they would treat the body as a whole and I found it didn’t matter if people were coming in cancer or MS or whatever, they put them on essentially the same program which was designed to deal with the whole body at once. The theory is, they are not treating disease, they are just trying to optimize the body’s ability to do what it’s designed to do and if you think about it, the body is actually a pretty remarkable machine, all the things it does. It’s designed to stay healthy, to build, to rebuild and repair itself. That’s what it does and it’s only when you interfere with that that you start to run into problems. An interference is you either overload it with things that it can’t handle, toxins or you don’t provide it with enough nutrients. A simple light on that is you can’t build the same body out of pepperoni pizza, beer and ding dongs that you can out of real food.

Kevin: Yeah.

Jon: You get calories and that’s again a sense of isolation. Anyone who thinks that doctors know nutrition or goes to doctors for nutritional advice, they don’t study this. In medical school they either get no classes, none on nutrition or they get one and a class is one hour a week for six to eight weeks. That means your medical doctor, in general, has six to eight hours of nutrition. If you read two good books, you know more than your doctor.

Kevin: Yeah. That’s the truth, isn’t it?

Jon: All you have to do is look at a hospital food and anyone who believes that promotes nutrition is out of their minds, but this is what doctors believe promotes nutrition and you are listening to these people for advise on nutrition – big problem.

So coming back to my background, I learned from these guys that they treated the body as a whole. They didn’t treat certain diseases. The other amazing thing that I learned from them is – I found within 15 or 20 minutes of meeting people, they can almost universally – they would lean in and they would tell me who was going to get well. It didn’t matter how ill they were and sometimes there were people who were really ill and were like days from death, they will get well. What would happen is everybody comes in saying the same thing, you know. I’ve been here – dah, dah, dah – does this happen, I’ve been told I’m going to die, I’ll do anything it takes to get well and then these guys, the doctors, would lay out a program and this is program that deals with the whole body – the whole thing, you have to clean out, you have to detox, you have to change your diet, all these things and suddenly there would be a look that would come across people’s faces. Some would say, okay, I will do this better than anyone has ever done it before but a large number of people would say, wow, that’s really complicated. I thought you were just going to give me an herb or something. It seems easier to have it cut out and that was an amazing attitude. As I said – something that I would hear as I would go give lectures all around the country – I would talk about the base line of health program doing all of this healing for the whole body – don’t treat specific diseases – the whole thing. At the end, people would swarm up and they go, wow, that’s incredible. I never it phrased like that before. It makes so much sense. You’ve got to do the whole body right. Well, I have this condition, what pill should I take.

Kevin: Yeah.

Jon: And they all go back to that magic bullet. So, what I learned is you have to deal with the whole body and the people who get well are that people that understand that and make a commitment to do. The more of a commitment you make, the better your odds are. No guarantees, only odds. I would joke – we’ve all heard the story of the guy who lives 80 years, smoking and drinking every day and doesn’t die of disease, he dies because he gets shot by a jealous husband who finds him in bed with his 20 year old wife. It could happen and you hear about it occasionally, but the odds are, if you smoke and drink every day, you are basically going down in your 50s with lung cancer or cirrhosis. Those are the odds. You eat well every day, you can drop dead like Jim Fix the runner did. But in general, your odds are much better of living longer.

Anyway, back to my background – I work these, I’ve studied with them – I began to write down what they did and so for actually about 30 years, I’ve been putting out newsletters and trying to sort of document what I learned about treating the body as a whole and different programs they would use and also along the way – about 20 years ago – I began to formulate because these guys wanted to practice medicine, not make formulas. So I began to learn how to make the formulas that would be effective in treating these things and what I learned is, in most cases the problem with most formulas is they are not strong enough and people don’t use enough. They are afraid of them. If you are using natural formulas, you have to use strong enough ones and they, you have to use enough and a lot of the reason people don’t go strong enough is cost. Good quality herbs, for example, cost a lot more than bad ones. Herbs actually carry grades based on their quality.

It’s a little like cooking herbs – if anyone’s done any cooking – you can buy saffron, Mexican saffron – get a big bag for about four or five dollars. You can get Spanish saffron – you get a little vile with like 12 threads in it and that can cost you $18.00 – a huge number. But the difference is it takes you a couple of teaspoons to flavor a dish with the Mexican saffron. One thread will flavor an entire dish – one or two threads of the Spanish, it’s that much more intense. Well you see the same kinds of things in herbs. You can buy ginseng for $5.00 a pound or $400 to $600 a pound for the organical wild crafted. That’s a huge difference. Put them in your formula and on the label, they both say ginseng but which one actually works. So you have to use good enough quality, high strength and that’s how you get results. That’s really a round about sort of way of saying what do I do which is sort of like – I write about the things I’ve learned. We have a newsletter now on jonbarron.org. It’s free and goes out around the world. It actually mails to virtually every country in the world and my favorite stat on that one is that I have six e-mail addresses that all end in fda.gov for subscribers.

To read the rest of this transcript as well as access The Healthiest Year of Life experts just like Jon Barron please click here! Kevin Gianni is an internationally recognized health advocate, author & film consultant. He has helped thousands of people take control of their own health naturally. For more information visit raw food diets and holistic nutrition

Fat burning foods refer to specific type of foods that either burn fats accumulated in the body or improve metabolism. Adding these types of foods in your regular diet, you can easily wash out the fat from your body and keep yourself fit and healthy. Fat burning foods and exercises are the ideal solution for individuals who are on a weight loss program. Foods that burn more calories than the amount of calories contained in the food itself are also known as fat burning foods.

Fat burning foods that burn more calories during digestion then they contain are generally high in two things, fiber and water. Celery is a good example. Fat burning foods, or negative calorie foods, are supposed to be so low in calories that digesting these foods burn more calories than they contain.

Fat burning foods are readily available and will definitely fit into your budget as well. Fat burning foods not only helps us to lose weight naturally but also increase our body rate of weight loss. So include these foods in your daily diet helps speed up weight loss, build a healthier body and put you on the road to a healthier lifestyle.

Plus eating every 2-3 hours is the basis of a good fat burning diet because it helps keep your metabolism burning your fat stores and also you do not have to concentrate on the food you’re taking in. Lack of activity combined with lack of attention to diet causes your body then ignores fat stores and works on what you are eating, packing the rest of the excess calories away for a rainy day since it feels you are not eating frequently enough.

Try eating some of the following fat burning foods and do some exercise, it will boost your metabolism and burn calories (fat) at a faster rate for several hours even after exercise.

Apples

Apples are rich in Vitamin C and antioxidants need to fight disease. Apples are a fat burning food which will help shed and maintain extra pounds. Apples are simply terrific to deal with losing the fat. Pectin in apple restricts the cells to absorb the fat; and also encourages water absorption from the food which helps in releasing the fat deposits from the body.

Beets

Beets are a strong diuretic that focuses on the liver and kidneys. Beets flush out floating body fats. Beets flush out floating body fats and cleanse blood corpuscles that can contain fat deposits. Beets also contain chlorine that stimulates the lymph, which helps flush out fatty deposits.

Garlic

Garlic is known to break down fat deposits and is also an antiseptic and an antibiotic, making it a good component of any diet. Chili and cayenne peppers are considered fat burning foods and will also spice up some otherwise bland dishes. Garlic - A natural diuretic containing mustard oils that create a cleansing action in the body.

Green Tea

Green tea burners and diet supplements have been found to be very effective in lowering cholesterol so as to reduce the chances of stroke. By increasing the rate of calorie burning, green tea also helps in weight loss. Green tea is often cited as having the most potential. Although it is somewhat unclear as to weather it is the ingredients in the green tea that give benefits, or the green tea as a source of caffeine.

Grapefruit

Grapefruit has been shown to reduce insulin levels. If you are one of the many who are insulin resistant and your body is overloaded with insulin, try having half a grapefruit before each meal. Grapefruit may bring back memories of fad diets-gone bad, but the citrus fruit may actually help improve insulin levels, making us feel less hungry. Big on satiety from its high fiber and water content, grapefruit’s low in calories and can aid weight loss when incorporated into a healthy diet.

Eat More Fruit

In studies of peoples eating habits it was noticed that fruit eaters ate fewer calories overall, this could be because having a snack a couple of times a day with three reasonable meals will help to maintain a good blood sugar level, which helps to control your hunger.

So, next time you need to satisfy a sugar craving, reach for this low-calorie, high-fiber snack. Fruits like apples, peaches, grapefruits, and oranges, at only 60-80 calories apiece (or less), are a great addition to almost any nutritional plan. Just make sure the majority of your carbohydrates are of the complex type. Fruits make for great snacks and should replace the high fat snacks that we normally eat.

Fruits rich in vitamin C like limes, lemons, oranges, grapefruit and tangerines have fat burning properties. Some of the other fat burning foods are asparagus, beet root, broccoli, cabbage, carrot, apple, blueberries, and watermelon.

Eat More Protein

Eating protein can help you burn fat. One of the reasons is that it requires a lot of energy to digest protein and the body burns calories to get that energy.

Finally

Don’t expect fat burning foods to be the easy way out of weight loss, they will do the their job but for greater results you’ll need to get up and get moving, go out play with the kids, clean the house, just get out and do something. The more you move the harder your metabolism will have to work to keep up and the greater the fat burned!

Visit www.EscapeFromFat.com now and discover why most doctors and so-called diet gurus and fitness experts are either lying or don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to how to lose weight and keep it off successfully!