Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Using Colloidal Silver for Healthier Fruits and Vegetables

Using Colloidal Silver for Healthier Fruits and Vegetables

by Angela Kaelin

Many grocery stores and chain supermarkets now sell organically grown fruits and vegetables, which is great because there are special nutritional benefits that come from eating organically grown food. Organic foods are healthier because they are not irradiated, they have less exposure to synthetic pesticides, they have higher nutritional content, and overall, they taste better.

Unfortunately, recent outbreaks of salmonella and E. coli in commercial produce across the nation have cast doubts on the safety of the U.S. food supply.

So how can you enjoy the benefits of highly nutritious, organic foods without risking exposure to harmful bacteria like salmonella and E. coli?

In this article you’ll learn how to use a safe, natural mineral supplement called colloidal silver to keep your family safe from food-borne pathogens that can contaminate commercially purchased fruits and vegetables. And you’ll also learn how to use colloidal silver to ensure the safety and quality of foods you may choose to grow organically in your home garden.

A Serious Problem with Commercially Purchased Produce

Even if you purchase expensive, certified organic produce at your local grocery store or supermarket, there can be significant risk of food poisoning. First of all, there are few special procedures in place to keep organic (or non-organic, for that matter) produce free of harmful pathogens such as mold, fungus, bacteria or viruses. That’s because, in part, you never know how many people have handled the produce, or what kind of sanitary precautions they may, or may not, have used.

For example, many nasty episodes of “stomach flu” are now known to be caused, in reality, by eating produce contaminated with norovirus, which almost exclusively ends up on fruits and vegetables when food handlers fail to wash their hands after using the bathroom.

What’s more, hepatitis A, also known as infectious hepatitis, is also widely spread by food and produce handlers via the fecal-to-hand-to-oral route. As many as 270,000 cases a year take place in the U.S. alone, according to CDC estimates. In one recent incident, contaminated green onions were served to customers of a single restaurant in Pennsylvania, leading to a large outbreak of hepatitis A in the United States. And in Canada, over 19,000 people had to be vaccinated for the virus after a produce worker in a grocery store contaminated fruits and vegetables he was handling. How many incidents of produce contamination and infection go unreported each year is difficult to ascertain.

Meanwhile, the FDA not only employs questionable methods to kill pathogens in the nation’s commercial food supply, but oversights on the safety of both domestic and imported produce regularly fail.

Colloidal Silver to the Rescue

As I mentioned above, there is a simple, all-natural mineral supplement known as colloidal silver which for over 100 years has been known to have very powerful antibiotic qualities. Because it is all-natural, and only trace amounts are generally used for the purposes described throughout this article, it is completely safe for plants, animals and humans. And therefore, it can be used to great benefit when growing organic fruits and vegetables. In fact, prudent use of colloidal silver will virtually eliminate crop-borne pathogens. This in turn helps increase crop yields, and makes growing your own organic produce far less expensive, far healthier and far more rewarding.

What’s more, anytime you can’t grow your own organic fruits and vegetables, and have to purchase fresh produce from commercial sources, you can use colloidal silver as a safe and powerful fruit and vegetable wash to help kill harmful bacteria before they find their way to your dinner table.

I’ll show you how to use it both ways, in this article.

Why Is It Best to Go Organic?


In popular usage of the term, “organically grown” refers to foods that are fed nutrition-rich, naturally decomposed organic materials, such as is found in compost. Growers simply mix the composted materials in with the soil in their garden. In other words, rather than using synthetic fertilizers, chemicals and pesticides that are absorbed into the plants and can in turn contaminate human tissues and cause disease when you eat the fruits and vegetables, organic foods are grown the old-fashioned natural way. Decomposed organic material is used to nourish the plants, rather than synthetic fertilizers and chemicals, giving them added strength and nutritional density.

What’s more, because decomposed organic materials are full of beneficial SBO’s (i.e., soil-based organisms, ranging from earthworms, grubs and beetles, to colonies of beneficial microbes that help break-down the organic materials and release nutrients to the plants), it is well known that plants grown organically have far less chance of being contaminated through the soil by harmful pathogens while they are growing. That’s because the process of competitive inhibition helps prevent contamination.

In other words, the same plethora of beneficial SBO’s which help break down organic materials into simple nutrient molecules for plants to absorb also act to compete for territory with pathogens in the soil, and prevent those pathogens from colonizing and contaminating your plants.

In fact, foods grown in soil that is not rich in organic compost have far greater chances of picking up infectious microbes than foods grown in soils that are rich in organic compost. This is why, for example, crops grown on farms using modern artificial farming methods rather than old-fashioned organic farming methods are far more easily contaminated with potentially harmful pathogens when, say, farm workers relieve themselves in the fields rather than taking time to walk to a bathroom. When there are few SBO’s in the soil to compete for territory with pathogens, the pathogens can colonize and spread easily, and the crops can be quickly infected. But when organic farming methods are used, the dense concentrations of SBO’s in the soil help prevent pathogen contamination from spreading.

Artificial fertilizers and chemicals used in conventional gardening and farming also deplete the nutritional value of the food, whereas organic gardening and farming practices dramatically increase the nutritional value of food. A university study shows that organic foods have a higher nutritional value and they contain more healthful anti-carcinogenic properties. Most people say they taste better, too.

Studies also show that growing food organically dramatically increases yields. The increased productivity of the plants decreases overall production costs, as well. In short, organic gardening can provide you and your family with more safe, highly nutritious, inexpensive food than you may have thought possible.

Dangers of Irradiation

Another reason certified organic foods are widely considered to be superior and more desirable to conventional store-bought produce is because they have not been exposed to the controversial practice of irradiation.

The FDA has approved the irradiation of the U.S. food supply without completely studying the possible effects on human health. Industrial byproducts of nuclear power plants, particularly EPA-regulated, cancer-causing cobalt-60, are used in this process. The FDA's purpose in using these radioactive isotopes on our food is to “sterilize” it, so that it can be stored in warehouses and on store shelves for longer periods of time without spoiling.

They also irradiate food in an attempt to destroy harmful bacteria, but the process fails to fully address the fact that some pathogens simply aren’t deterred by radiation. As the author of this article, “The Unknown Dangers of Irradiation,” points out, “Some [bacteria] are not affected by dosage levels used on foods. These include the botulism-causing Clostridium and Deinococcus radiodurans, which actually repairs its own DNA after exposure. Surviving bacteria pose a concern because they inevitably produce resistant generations until irradiation becomes an ineffective method of sterility.”

In short, for all of its highly touted benefits, the reality is that irradiation can be a very ineffective way to destroy the pathogens that cause food-borne illness.
The FDA Fails to Protect Consumers from Food-Borne Bacteria

FDA oversights on the safety of both domestic and imported food have been extremely inadequate.

The Consumer Federation addresses these failures in a letter to the FDA. It cites the illnesses and deaths linked to outbreaks of salmonella and E. coli in fresh produce sold in stores in recent years. These bacteria are particularly dangerous for the very young, the very old, pregnant women and those with compromised immune systems.

The FDA has no special guidelines for inspecting either domestic or imported produce. Surprisingly, only a small percentage of imported food of any kind is inspected by the FDA. According to this May 2007 article in USA Today, only 1.3% is government inspected and most of this is found to be “unfit for human consumption.”

Even if these food products are inspected, and manage to pass inspection, they can be contaminated later, during processing. For example, as mentioned earlier, the people handling your food in the grocery store before you bring it home can easily contaminate fruits and vegetables simply by failing to follow proper sanitary procedures after using the restroom.

The Solution?

Clearly, the government is not adequately protecting your health or that of your family. So you are going to have to protect yourself.

The best solution, of course, is to grow your own organic fruits and vegetables, whenever you can, and use safe, natural colloidal silver to help eliminate any harmful pathogens, and to help boost the vitality and yield of your plants.

And if you absolutely have to purchase your fruits and vegetables from commercial sources, you can also use colloidal silver as a produce wash to help eliminate harmful pathogens before you eat them.

Why Use Colloidal Silver?

Colloidal silver is widely known as the world’s most powerful natural antibiotic and antiseptic substance. For centuries, people have harnessed the power of silver to prevent contamination by pathogens and to fight infections of all sorts.

For example, to this day silver-based products are used in hospitals on burn victims to help keep their burnt flesh from becoming infected by the deadly pseudomonas bacteria. In many hospitals silver is still placed in newborn babies’ eyes at birth in order to prevent infectious microbes in the mother’s birth canal from infecting the baby’s eyes and causing blindness. Silver is also now used in catheters, to prevent urinary tract infections. It has been used in wound dressings to prevent infections since the late 1800’s. It is used in diabetic stockings to prevent diabetic ulcers from becoming infected. It is used in the NASA Space Shuttle for purification of the water supply for the astronauts. Indeed, it is now so widely used in medical, business, military and industrial applications that it has literally become the fastest growing natural antiseptic agent in the world, in terms of usage.

What’s more, silver is the most broad-spectrum antibiotic on the face of the earth. It is known to kill up to 650 different pathogens, while prescription antibiotic drugs kill only a handful each. And it generally takes only a very small amount of silver to do the job, which makes it harmless to humans due to the low levels used. Finally, silver, being completely natural, has never been demonstrated to cause pathogens to mutate.

There are two extremely compelling reasons to use colloidal silver when growing food organically:

First, bacteria, fungus and other pathogens attack plants just like they attack humans. And the healthier your plants are, the better able they are to withstand these pathogenic onslaughts. Using very small amounts of colloidal silver in the soil around your plants allows them to absorb some of the microscopic silver particles, which in turn helps make them super-resistant to pathogens. This in turn increases your crop yield. But more importantly, it helps protect you and your family from ingesting foods contaminated with pathogens.

Second, lightly spraying colloidal silver onto the stem and leaves of your plants prevents unhealthy pathogens such as fungus, bacteria and even viruses from colonizing the outer surfaces of the plants.








In short, the use of colloidal silver makes for healthier plants, and healthier plants have a better chance of fighting off harmful microorganisms. Not only is silver in trace amounts harmless to human beings, but silver absorbed into the plants you eat has significant added health benefits for you, too, including superior immune support and more rapid healing. (For more on this important topic, see chapter 10 in the book, The Ultimate Colloidal Silver Manual, titled “How Silver Provides Surprising Nutritional Support to Human Biological Function and Immunity.”)

The bottom line is this: Silver is a mineral vital to human health and immunity, and regularly eating fruits and vegetables grown organically in soil containing trace amounts of silver can provide an added layer of protection for your own health and well-being.

What’s more, spraying the stems and leaves of your plants with small amounts of colloidal silver further enhances their health and vitality, and help keep infection away from you, too.

Safe for the Environment

If you have been following The Colloidal Silver Secrets Blog, you’re probably already aware that some radical environmentalist groups, backed by Big Pharma, have attempted to portray silver as being harmful to the environment by calling into question its effects on soil, water and wildlife. But, these groups often confuse waste from caustic, chemically prepared photographic silver (little used since the advent of digital photography) with safe, natural colloidal silver, which is nothing more than pure mineral silver suspended in water. It’s the same silver that came from the earth in the first place.

What’s more, these environmental groups all too often fail to acknowledge that trace amounts of silver are naturally occurring elements in soil. In fact, much of the earth's farming topsoil is now depleted of its rich natural silver content by over-cultivation. Indeed, in many cases the silver content of plants that for centuries have provided the human body with trace amounts of mineral silver are now woefully inadequate. Adding small amounts of colloidal silver to your organically-grown fruits and vegetables merely restores the natural mineral silver content that has long-since been lost.


How to Use Colloidal Silver on Your Plants

Whether you have a small family garden, or a larger operation, spraying colloidal silver onto your plants and on the soil around your plants is a highly economical way to keep them healthy and pathogen-free.

Only very small amounts of colloidal silver need to be used. If you purchase colloidal silver at health food stores or through online sources in high concentrations, ranging from 20 ppm to 500 ppm or more, you’ll generally save money and you can dilute it with distilled water to 5 ppm for use on your plants. Better still, by purchasing an inexpensive home colloidal silver generator, and making your own high-quality colloidal silver for less than 36 cents a quart, you can use generous amounts of colloidal silver when necessary, or cover larger crop areas, and you’ll never have to worry about affordability.


Use a simple plastic plant mister available at any Wal-Mart or local gardening outlet to lightly mist all of your garden plants with the diluted colloidal silver. (Don't use plant misters with metal canisters, as the silver will fall out of suspension in solution and adhere to the sides of the canister.) If your plants are experiencing infections of any kind, spray the affected area thoroughly. Multiple applications are safe. Spraying silver on tomatoes can reverse blight after just one treatment. More severe cases of infection may require daily spraying until the problem is alleviated. Spray the plants when you first notice signs of damage.

You can also dramatically reduce mold growth in sprouts by using colloidal silver diluted to 5 ppm in your sprouting tray when you prepare your seeds, either for planting or for eating in soups, salads and other recipes.

Don't forget to spray your indoor house plants, culinary and medicinal herbs, as well. This not only improves the health of the plants, but it reduces bacteria and fungi that can cause indoor allergies.

In the garden, be sure to mist lightly with colloidal silver around the soil of your plants, too. You can do so several times a week if you like. This way, the tiny silver particles enter the soil and are absorbed by the plants, making them healthier and hardier, and better able to withstand any onslaught from fungal, bacterial or viral pathogens. Just don’t saturate the soil with silver, as that could cause a die-off among the many kinds of beneficial microbes that continuously turn organic materials into compost. A little bit of silver misted lightly over the topsoil won’t hurt, and will provide many added benefits to your plants.

Organic gardening is a great way to get your entire family involved in a fun activity while learning greater self-reliance. And using colloidal silver in your garden helps make your efforts more successful and productive, and your home-grown foods significantly safer than store-bought foods.

Use Colloidal Silver to Wash and Disinfect Produce

When you can't grow your own fruits and veggies, protect yourself from potentially harmful pathogens by cleansing your produce in a colloidal silver fruit and vegetable wash.

Use a solution of at least 5 to 10 ppm.

Combine the following:

1 cup of water
½ cup of vinegar
2 tsp. salt (dissolve completely)
¼ to ½ cup homemade colloidal silver

You can soak your fruits and vegetables in this solution or you can put it in a spray bottle and spray them.

Either way, let the solution remain on your food for at least five minutes before rinsing and preparing as usual.

The vinegar in this solution helps to break down any waxy substances that are applied to fruits and vegetables. Water alone will not penetrate them, in fact, many pesticides are designed to be water-resistant. Salt helps to pull out any microscopic bugs. The colloidal silver will safely kill any harmful fungal, bacterial or viral pathogens.

Avoid cross-contamination in your kitchen by washing your hands after each different food you prepare, and by taking care to sanitize any surfaces that have come in contact with raw meat or poultry. You can easily do that by spraying or washing your counter tops, cutting boards and other surfaces with this same solution, or even by using straight colloidal silver.

This colloidal silver vegetable wash is a safe, highly effective way to destroy disease-causing pathogens on your store-bought fruits and vegetables at an economical price. Commercial vegetable washes are expensive, may not effectively kill bacteria and sometimes contain sodium laurel sulfate, a corrosive agent that degenerates human tissues.

Colloidal Silver for Food Safety

The bottom line is that you are the only one who can protect yourself and your family from contaminated food!

Organic gardening with colloidal silver provides a sensible and highly effective solution to the problem of food-borne bacteria and the serious and even life-threatening illnesses it can cause. In addition, when you must buy fruits and vegetables from any commercial source, you can be sure that it is at least safe from harmful pathogens by using your own colloidal silver fruit and vegetable wash as outlined above.

In short, the judicious use of colloidal silver can save you money at the grocery store and at the doctor's office.

Learning More about Nature's Most Powerful Antibiotic
Colloidal silver is an amazingly effective natural antibiotic. And there are many more ways your family can benefit from it.

To learn more, consider getting a copy of the brand new Colloidal Silver Secrets video. In this jam-packed, 60-minute video you’ll learn how to use colloidal silver to cure infections and disease, and dramatically improve your health, well-being and quality of life while saving tons of money in doctor’s costs, to boot.

Based on over 12 years worth of research and interviews with over 2,000 experienced colloidal silver users, this video was created with the intention of giving beginners a wealth of new insights into colloidal silver usage they simply couldn’t get through any other single source. The Colloidal Silver Secrets video contains potentially life-saving information your whole family will benefit from.

More experienced colloidal silver users will benefit from the in-depth information on colloidal silver usage found in the newly updated, 547-page edition of The Ultimate Colloidal Silver Manual. This painstakingly researched book takes you even deeper into the documented medical history and uses of colloidal silver, including three full chapters of specific dosages for specific types of infection and disease. This book is an indispensable addition to your personal natural health care library.

Finally, click here to learn more about saving money by making your own safe, high-quality micro-particle colloidal silver, quickly and easily, in the comfort and privacy of your own home, and for less than 36 cents a quart.

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