RUSTY HILGER, FORMER RAIDERS QB, SHARES GAME PLAN

R usty Hilger, former Los Angeles Raiders quarterback will be in Porterville Saturday, Feb. 24, from 1-3 p.m. Raiders fans and football players can get his autograph and have a picture taken with him. Rusty will share his game plan and strategy for his biggest competition ever; the battle for his life over cancer. He will be at 379 N. Hockett St., Porterville.

Along with Rusty, I will be introducing a new program for children in our community. The idea for the program began when I stopped for a moment at a schoolyard fence and took a look around. The happiest little voices on Earth were ringing in the air. The little bodies are running, chasing, standing, sitting, and I began to remember my school yard days. I remembered standing on the school porch steps at recess looking out across the school yard and seeing every inch of school yard covered with twirling colors coming from the hoola-hoops that encircled every child’s waist. I didn’t know what to do, because I didn’t have a hoolahoop to twirl.

The hoolo-hoop kids came from parents who put garden vegetables on the table, and if they wanted fast food all they had to do was go to grandma’s house. She always had a pie coming out of the oven. Grandma always said, “I gotta make a pie ‘cuz ya never know, someone might come over.” Families gathered around the table after church and enjoyed mom’s good cooking. Towns were smaller and most families grew up on a little piece of land where they could have a cow or two and a few chickens. Hospitals were small and everyone had a family doctor they seldom ever saw. Every child carried their lunch sack to school. Apples and bananas in the lunch sacks were eaten and never thrown away.

The children we are seeing across the schoolyard fence, today, live a different life. Almost everything they eat is grown on mineral deficient soil. Then the mineral deficient food is cooked and processed into bags, boxes or cans. Processing damages or removes nutrients such as fat. When fat goes, it carries the fat-soluble vitamins with it. The fat-soluble vitamins (A, E, and carotenoids) are the body’s antioxidants that help protect our cells from cancerous activity. The minerals and vitamins are where the food’s flavor and color reside. Money can’t be made if food that doesn’t look or taste good, so artificial flavors and colors are added. Our children’s bodies are trying to grow up on artificial nutrients. What does a body do with artificial nutrients? Make artificial hearts, muscles and bones? How well can an artificial brain express happiness and love?

How many hoolahoop kids were destined to get cancer? About one in 50. How many of our kids, today, are destined to get cancer? About one in two. That’s a tremendous burden on us to take care of them, saying nothing of the burden on them to go through it. If their body isn’t standing in the cancer line, there are other lines to stand in; diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, fibromyalgia … OK enough already! What are we going to do about it?

Michele and I have been thinking and talking about this for a long time. We are preparing a child oriented program that will help children understand more about how their body functions at the cellular level. The program consists of simple scientific experiments, physical activities, and food preparation with a built-in motivation and rewards system. We’ll think of nutrients as money we can use to pay our heart to keep working. We’ll train the taste buds to enjoy nutrient dense foods. And, because even our children know more about how a car works than their own body, we’re going to think of our body as a living car. We’ll learn to restore, maintain, fuel, and drive our living cars for award winning, maximum efficiency.

Children who learn to drive their living cars with efficiency will: 1. Get better grades. 2. Raise the public schools’ Academic Performance Index (API) scores

3. Reduce lifetime medical expenses and live higher productive lives.

4. Help family members and friends live healthier, and when the time comes,

5. Make a higher productive and healthier next generation.

6. Become more highly skilled athletes and

7. Reduce the obesity rate in our metropolitan area (Visalia/ Porterville are second in the USA).

We will present more information next Saturday at the Body and Soul & Earth (BASE) Restoration Celebration event.

Until then … Take charge! … Sylvia Sylvia J. Harral is a digestive health specialist and Michele Stewart-buller is a pilates master trainer. They each have more than 15 years experience. Send your questions by e-mail to familyhelm@hotmail.com; by mail to Family HELM Health Center, 379 N. Hockett St., Porterville, CA, 93257; or by phone at 202-9105.