Rejuvenate with Raw Food

Why raw foods?

Over the years we have been introduced to a multitude of diets and anti-aging programs. They all promise spectacular benefits to health. And while some of them make a lot of sense, they may work for some people and bring disappointment to others. People differ in constitution and metabolism, but there probably is no better way to rejuvenate than through the raw food diet. Although there can be no single recipe for all, the raw food diet advocates claim increased vitality and exceptional health. People with Type 2 diabetes were able to reverse their condition in only thirty days after going on a raw food diet.

Raw food diet is considered to be the secret key to longevity. It has the potential to detoxify the body, reverse degenerative processes, and deliver all the nutrients needed to sustain optimal health. Raw foods contain vitamins, minerals, live enzymes, fiber, amino acids, antioxidants, anti-carcinogens, phytosterols, plant hormones, and many other compounds with high healing potential.

Raw food diet usually comprises of 75-100 per cent uncooked, "living", mostly organic foods. The raw food diet is a diet based on unprocessed and uncooked plant foods, such as fresh fruit and vegetables, sprouted seeds, grains, and beans, nuts, dried fruit, and seaweed. Raw honey and cold pressed, virgin oils are used. Some proponents of this diet also consume raw, unpasteurized, non homogenized milk and cheese. In some cases nutrient rich organic raw eggs are added to the diet.

There are some foods that are better absorbed when cooked or sprouted. These foods include beans, potatoes, egg plants, asparagus, and most of edible mushrooms. (Although it is possible to eat champignons in their raw state, for instance, one should be aware that these mushrooms contain cancer-causing hydrazides that are normally destroyed by cooking).

Raw foods are considered to be more nutritious as heating food above 118º F is believed to destroy enzymes that normally could assist in digestion and absorption of food. Cooking is also thought to diminish the nutritional value and "life force" of food. The vitamin content of many vitamins diminishes during cooking and minerals are washed away. Researchers agree that cooking destroys over 50 per cent of B vitamins, with as much as 96 per cent of Thiamine (B1), up to 96 per cent folic acid, and up to 72 per cent of biotin being lost. It is estimated that 70-80 per cent of vitamin C is being wasted due to cooking. Protein loses almost half of its bio-availability. Researchers found that cooking alters protein into substances that may disrupt cellular function and accelerate aging and degenerative processes. The nutritional value of fats is lost as they change their molecular structure during the cooking process. Foods that have been baked or burned, particularly these with a high starch content, contain highly carcinogenic compounds called acrylamides.

People on raw food diet report that raw food diet has numerous health benefits such as:

• increased levels of energy and stamina
• increased mental alertness
• strong immune system
• improved joint health
• improved skin tone and overall appearance
• better digestion
• normalized body pH
• weight loss
• reduced risk of developing Type 2 diabetes
• reduced risk of developing cardiovascular disease
• decreased risk of many cancers due to better detoxification of the body

There is a lot of fear and misconception about raw food. Many people do not understand how important it is to consume live foods that are not only rich in vitamins, but also in enzymes. When we eat food that is mostly cooked and denaturated through the industrial process, our bodies need enzymes to digest it. Properly chewed raw digest itself and delivers vital enzymes that are so necessary to support bodily functions. Cooked fats, for instance, lack the enzyme lipase and have much less biologically active fatty acids. When we consume raw, virgin oils, they begin their digestion with their own lipase in the slightly acidic environment of our stomachs and enter the small intestine in a predigested form. Cooked fats, on the other hand, reach the small intestine in a highly undigested form and require body's own lipase for their digestion. It is very much possible that this altered fat metabolism plays some role in obesity and cholesterol levels in the blood, as the body is constantly depleted of its own lipase and loses the capability to fully metabolize dietary fats.

Transition to raw food 

After years of living on a mostly cooked food diet it may not be easy to make the transition to a 100 per cent raw food diet. The transition may be much easier if a person is living in a warm climate or begins the process during the warmer seasons, as the body temperature may drop a bit in the beginning and we crave warming comfort foods. Adding warming spices such as black pepper, chili peppers, and ginger, will keep the blood circulating. Learning about raw foods and joining a support group where like-minded people exchange ideas and experience will help one to experiment and become more creative in the kitchen. It is, however, important to introduce dietary changes gradually. A certified health practitioner should be consulted if there are some health concerns or an existing disease.

To begin, one should gradually add more fresh fruits and vegetables to the menu. Replacing boiled vegetables with a raw salad, snacking on raw carrots or radishes instead of chips, eating an apple instead of doughnut, drinking freshly squeezed fruit or vegetable juice instead of soda, or having a fresh fruit smoothie for breakfast, are just a few ways simple ways to start the transition.

Initially, one may notice changes in digestion. Enzymes and fiber in raw vegetables may speed up the digestion, causing some discomfort. But as the body adjusts to the new diet and the intestines are working to remove old fecal matter, the discomfort disappears and digestion returns to normal. The detoxification organs are working to remove toxins that accumulated in the body over the years. At this stage one should reduce the consumption of animal products and introduce more raw vegetables. People who do not wish to give up meat, should opt for the best, organic quality on the market.

The preparation of raw food is rather simple, although gourmets now create elaborate raw food menus. Preparing a salad or making a juice are rather easy and one can use all the ingredients that are in season. More complex methods involve sprouting and dehydration of foods. As one feels more comfortable with raw foods, it is sensible to introduce new ingredients and new recipes. Nowadays bookstores offer a multitude of raw recipe books. There are also many websites and raw food networks offering valuable advice.

After the initial transition and detoxification process, when the body has regained the ability to absorb nutrients, a person on a raw food diet will notice visible changes in the way he or she looks and feels. As we age, our bodies need support. Energetically charged nutrition rich in vitamins, enzymes, bioflavonoids, and other vital nutrients, helps us heal, regenerate, and reverse aging. It is believed that human cells are designed to live about 120 years. The life extension, however, could only be desirable if we were mentally and physically fit at this age. Raw food diet is probably the best strategy to live a very long and healthy life.

By Dominique Allmon

Dominique Allmon©2011

For raw food recipes please visit Passionately raw!

*This information is for educational purposes only. It is not meant to diagnose or cure a disease.



Rejuvenate with Raw Foods by Dominique Allmon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Dangers of Excess Body Fat

By Chad Tackett

Most people's primary motivation for weight management is to improve their appearance. Equally important, however, are the many other benefits of proper nutrition and regular exercise.

Weight management through reduction of excess body fat plays a vital role in maintaining good health and fighting disease. In fact, medical evidence shows that obesity poses a major threat to health and longevity. The most common definition of obesity is more than 25 percent body fat for men and more than 32 percent for women. An estimated one in three Americans has some excess body fat; an estimated 20 percent are obese. Excess body fat is linked to major physical threats like heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Three out of four Americans die of either heart disease or cancer each year; according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination survey, approximately 80 percent of those deaths are associated with life-style factors, including inactivity.

For example, if you're obese, it takes more energy for you to breathe because your heart has to work harder to pump blood to the lungs and to the excess fat throughout the body. This increased work load can cause your heart to become enlarged and can result in high blood pressure and life-threatening erratic heartbeats. Obese people also tend to have high cholesterol levels, making them more prone to arteriosclerosis, a narrowing of the arteries by deposits of plaque. This becomes life-threatening when blood vessels become so narrow or blocked that vital organs like the brain, heart or kidneys are deprived of blood.

Additionally, the narrowing of the blood vessels forces the heart to pump harder, and blood pressure rises. High blood pressure itself poses several health risks, including heart attack, kidney failure, and stroke. About 25 percent of all heart and blood vessel problems are associated with obesity. Clinical studies have found a relationship between excess body fat and the incidence of cancer. By itself, body fat is thought to be a storage place for carcinogens (cancer-causing chemicals) in both men and women. In women, excess body fat has been linked to a higher rate of breast and uterine cancer; in men, the threat comes from colon and prostate cancer. 

There is also a delicate balance between blood sugar, body fat, and the hormone insulin. Excess blood sugar is stored in the liver and other vital organs; when the organs are "full," the excess blood sugar is converted to fat. As fat cells themselves become full, they tend to take in less blood sugar. In some obese people, the pancreas produces more and more insulin, which the body can't use, to regulate blood sugar levels, and the whole system becomes overwhelmed. This poor regulation of blood sugar and insulin results in diabetes, a disease with long-term consequences, including heart disease, kidney failure, blindness, amputation, and death. Excess body fat is also linked to gall bladder disease, gastro-intestinal disease, sexual dysfunction, osteoarthritis, and stroke.  

Reducing Body Fat Reduces Disease Risk

The good news is that reducing body fat reduces the risk of disease. At the University of Pittsburgh, researchers studied 159 people as they followed a weight management program. The subjects were under age 45 and 30-70 pounds overweight. Those subjects who were able to shed just 10-15 percent of their weight and keep it off during the 18-month study showed significant improvement in HDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels, waist-to-hip ratio, and blood pressure. In fact, according to the New England Journal of Medicine, body fat reduction is a more powerful modulator of cardiac structure than drug therapy. For people with a family history of heart disease, an active lifestyle can slow or stop the process for all but those with serious genetic disorders. Studies by Dean Ornish, MD, have shown that a comprehensive intervention program that includes regular physical activity, a low-fat diet and a stress reduction program can even reverse the heart disease process.

Evidence also shows that an active lifestyle and its help in reducing body fat is associated with a reduced risk for some types of cancers: prostate for men, breast and uterine cancers for women.

In addition, regular physical activity and a low-fat diet are successful in treating non-insulin dependent diabetes (NIDDM); for some patients, it has reduced or eliminated the need for insulin substitutes. In general, regularly active adults have 42 percent lower risk of developing NIDDM.

Gaining Weight Happens to Most of Us

The average American gains at least one pound a year after age 25. Think about it. If you're like most Americans, by the time you're 50, you're likely to gain 25 pounds of fat, or more. In addition, your metabolism is also slowing down, causing your body to work less efficiently at burning the fat it has. At the same time, if you don't exercise regularly, you lose a pound of muscle each year. Consequently, people are not only increasing their body fat stores, increasing their risk of disease, but they're also losing muscle, increasing the risk of injury, decreasing activity performance, and further slowing down metabolism.

Very few Americans exercise in any significant way. The President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports estimates that only one in five Americans exercises for the healthy minimum of 20 minutes, three or more days a week. In fact, the average American gets less than 50 minutes of exercise per week. Even worse, two out of five Americans are completely sedentary.

The Answer: Healthy Eating and Physical Fitness

But there is hope. Moderate weight loss - of fat, not muscle - and a healthy and active lifestyle - not dieting - have been found to lower health risks and medical problems in 90 percent of overweight patients, improving their heart function, blood pressure, glucose tolerance, sleep disorders, and cholesterol levels, as well as lowering their requirements for medication, lowering the incidence and duration of hospitalization, and reducing post-operative complications eight times less likely to die from cancer than the unfit, and 53 percent less likely to die from other diseases. Fit people are also eight times less likely to die from heart disease.

So, are you willing to be patient and make gradual changes in your life that will lead to a healthier, happier you? Once you have made the decision to go forward and accept change, the hard part is over. Sure, there is plenty of work to be done, but it really doesn't matter how long this new process takes. If you allow changes to take place over several years, your body will adjust comfortably, and you will be more likely to maintain the healthy lifestyle permanently.

When you begin achieving improvements in energy and physical and psychological performance, the fun and excitement you experience will make the change well worth the effort. Action creates motivation! Good luck: I hope you enjoy all the wonderful benefits of a safe and effective weight management program. 

* Be sure to check with your health care professional before making any changes in your activity or eating habits.

Chad Tackett, the President of Global Health and Fitness (GHF), has degrees in Exercise and Heath Science and Nutrition, is a Certified Personal Trainer, and is a regular guest lecturer to both professional and lay audiences on the principles of effective exercise and good nutrition. Visit GHF (http://www.global-fitness.com) and you'll find easy to follow fitness recommendations, hundreds of exercise instructions and video demonstrations, customized programs, healthy recipes and meal plans, a free nutrition analysis, health club and personal trainer directories, and much more! 

* This information is published for educational purposes only and is not meant to cure or diagnose a disease.

Missed the Train?

 Santa Fe Railway train at the turn of the 20th century

If we miss our train, it makes no sense to keep kicking ourselves for missing it as it moves further away from the station. We simply have to make arrangements to catch another. The train is long gone and there is nothing we can do about it now. It is over and done with. The same applies to many other things. We perhaps carry around regrets, rue about mistakes, tote grudges like heavy suitcases. But to what end? We should learn from these situations and move on. Things are over and done with. The old train has passed and a new one is on the way. Live for today’s train. - Roshi Hogan

Image source here

Spiritual Meaning of Traveling

When traveling is made too easy and comfortable, its spiritual meaning is lost. This may be called sentimentalism, but a certain sense of loneliness engendered by traveling leads one to reflect upon the meaning of life, for life is after all a traveling from one unknown to another unknown. - Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki 

Image by Geoff Barrenger

Healing Properties of Carnelian

Carnelian, also known as carnelian, is a translucent, micro-crystalline chalcedony quartz. It is closely related to sard and sardonite which only slightly differ in color and hardness. Its color ranges from orange and pale red to dark brown and comes from iron oxide (hematite) colloidally dispersed in the trigonal crystalline structure.

Carnelian is a rather prevalent mineral. It occurs in the cavities of many rock formations, but most often it develops silica-rich rocks that solidified at low temperatures but it is also found in volcanic rocks. Carnelian typically forms nodules and cone-shaped masses. Considerable amounts of Carnelian have been found in India, with some of the oldest known deposits in Bengal. Carnelian is also mined in Brazil, Uruguay, USA (mostly in Texas, Colorado, and North Carolina), Botswana, Madagascar, and South Africa.

In the Middle Ages carnelian was called carneolus. This name derived from the Latin word carneus which meant fleshy, made of flesh. The French called this gem corneline which probably came from cornele or cornel cherry in Old French.

Carnelian was highly valued in Antiquity and worn as jewelry. In ancient Egypt the stone was used to protect the living and the dead. The Egyptian Pharaohs believed that the stone has supernatural qualities. They regarded this stone as a symbol of renewal and loyalty. An Isis knot or tyet, made of carnelian was placed on the neck of a mummy to ensure safe passage and a peaceful afterlife. An Eye of the Horus ornament made of carnelian was believed to protect from the evil eye.

The Greeks and the Babylonians believed that the stone would bring luck to those who wore it. The Greeks also associated carnelian with the returning sun and used it as ornaments as early as the Bronze Age. For the Romans, the stone was a symbol of courage and power and was worn in rings and signets that were used as seals to seal documents as the wax did not stick to the surface of the stone. The Buddhists in China, India, Nepal, and Tibet use carnelian for protection and often set it with turquoise and lapis lazuli to enhance its powers. This practice was also known in ancient Egypt.

For ages carnelian was considered to be a stone of power, courage, ambition, and inspiration. It is supposed to increase physical energy and personal power. It is a stone of action which is very useful in all decision making processes as it helps to stay focused and motivated. It is a stone of confidence, creativity, individuality, and self-realization. Carnelian helps dispel apathy and indolence. It helps discover hidden talents and awakens curiosity in the people who wear it.

Carnelian is believed to have the capability to protect the wearer from negative energies. It wards off negative emotions such as anger, fear, jealousy, and resentment. It improves mood and helps to deal with sorrow and depression. Carnelian encourages love and friendship. It helps accept the flow of life and takes away the fear of dying. It brings peace and serenity to a troubled soul as it helps heal trauma and emotional wounds.

Carnelian is associated with the root and the sacral chakras. It clears imbalances in these energy centers and enhances the energy flow within the body. The gem helps establish better connection with the surroundings and ground people who meditate.

On the physical plane carnelian is associated with sexuality. It helps awaken passion and balances sexual energies. It helps alleviate disorders of the reproductive system. In folk medicine this mineral was used to heal impotence and fertility problems. Carnelian is believed to relieve menstrual cramps and other problems in the abdomen area. It was used traditionally to heal disorders of the gal bladder, pancreas, and the kidneys. Carnelian is believed to speed up metabolism, warm and cleanse the blood, and stimulate appetite. It can help absorb vitamins and minerals, rejuvenate bodily tissues, increase blood circulation, and accelerate the healing and detoxification process within the body.

Carnelian is a beautiful, sensual stone that can be placed on the body, worn as jewelry or a talisman, taken as gem elixir or displayed to increase energy of any space. It brings warmth and positivity. Placed in the central area of the house, carnelian brings balance and harmony. To increase creativity, carnelian should be placed in the West. To attract luck and success, it should be placed in the South. Carnelian is a stone of renewal that brings joy and increases self esteem. 

By Dominique Allmon

*This information is for educational purposes only and is not meant to diagnose or cure a disease.

healing properties of carnelian by Dominique Allmon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Valentina Tereschkova - First Woman in Space

Colonel-Engineer Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (born March 6, 1937) was a Soviet cosmonaut and the first woman in Space. She was on the Vostok 6 mission which launched on June 16, 1963, and orbited the Earth 48 times. The flight lasted 70.8 hours.

The Vostok 5 spacecraft was recovered on June 19, 1963, in the Soviet Union. Tereshkova had parachuted from the spacecraft after earth's atmospheric re-entry. She landed about 380 miles northeast of Karaganda, Kazakhstan. 

Tereshkova had been an expert in parachuting and a factory worker before she wrote to the Soviet Space program, volunteering to become the first woman in Space. She was selected out of more than 400 applicants and was subjected to extensive tests and interviews that began in December 1961. 

Two women, Valentina Tereshkova and Tatyana Torchillova were chosen in May 1963, to train for the Vostok 6 flight. Tereshkova, however, was the final choice. 

Tereshkova was given the title "Hero of the Soviet Union," received the Order of Lenin, and was honored with the United Nations Gold Medal of Peace. She never flew into Space again.

Happy Flag Day!

You're a grand old flag,

You're a high flying flag

And forever in peace may you wave.

George M. Cohan

Cellfood - The Amazing Oxygen Supplement

Improve your health with nascent oxygen

Cellfood® is a safe, prescription-free oxygen supplement that has been used successfully by people all over the world for more than 40 years. Cellfood® is a proprietary blend of 78 ionic minerals, 34 enzymes, 17 amino acids including 8 essential amino acids, electrolytes and nascent oxygen suspended in an acidic solution of deuterium sulfate. It is a result of a long research that was first conceived and conducted by Everett L. Storey. 

Everett L. Storey was a scientist involved in the secret American war project known today as the Manhattan Project. He invented the technology that was used to develop the triggering mechanism of the hydrogen bomb. Like many other scientists of the era, he become disenchanted with the results of his work and decided to devote his intellectual powers to peaceful research. Exposed to high radiation during the bomb tests, Storey developed radiation sickness and was wasting from it. However, he created an unique nutritional supplement and was able to cure himself. He was 74 when he died in 1984.

One area of Storey's expertise was the practical application of the deuterium - the only non-radioactive isotope of hydrogen. He believed that the same technology that was used to develop the hydrogen bomb could practically save human lives. Around 1956 he created a formula, that was later given the name Cellfood, and was convinced that his creation was the ultimate solution to end human suffering from disease.

Cellfood® is used to enhance and restore optimal bodily functions. Because of its high Zeta potential and its colloidal structure and composition, Cellfood® is compatible with body fluids such as blood, lymph, and the cerebro-spinal and synovial fluids. Many preexisting conditions can be improved or alleviated because Cellfood® creates aerobic environment in the body and helps the body to mobilize its own defenses. After ingestion it is quickly absorbed through the mucosa. It delivers nutrients and oxygenates and detoxifies the body at the cellular level. It helps to restore the proper body pH and has the remarkable ability to amplify the absorption of other nutrients in the body. 

Cellfood® has the unique potential to split the water molecule in the body into nascent oxygen and nascent hydrogen. Nascent oxygen is a negatively charged singlet atom of oxygen (O-) that binds in the body with the positively charged singlet atom of oxygen (O+) and forms the O2 molecule thus preventing a cascade reaction from so called reactive oxygen species. The O2 molecule binds for instance with the carbon in the body and produces CO2 that is eliminated from the body via the respiratory tract. Nascent hydrogen is used by the body in many bodily processes. Among others, it is used by the body for lubrication, osmosis, transportation of nutrients, reconstruction of the immune system, and in response to systemic inflammation. 

Supplementation with Cellfood® is very easy. The initial dose is eight drops of the concentrate dissolved in a glass of purified water. This dose should be increased to eight drops three times a day taken in a glass of purified water. Because of its acidic taste, some people prefer to take it in a glass of freshly squeezed grape or carrot juice. The mixture should not be allowed to "sit". It should be drunk immediately. It is best taken on empty stomach about 30 minutes before or one hour after a meal. Because Cellfood® increases the absorption of other nutrients, nutritional supplements can be taken about five minutes after the ingestion of Cellfood®.

Cellfood® can be used for detoxification as it initiates the natural detoxification processes in the body. Toxins that have been locked in the body are being released gradually without any distress to the elimination organs. It is important to drink 8-10 glasses of purified water a day and increase the amount if necessary. The initial detoxification dose can be as high as thirty drops a day taken in a glass of purified water. In order to avoid the Herxheimer reaction in the body, the dose should be increased gradually over a period of time after the body's pH has been restored to the optimal 6.4 level. Although Cellfood® can be safely ingested in higher amounts, it is not recommend to begin with high doses as this would lead to toxic overload due to rapid detoxification.

Because Cellfood® facilitates absorption of other nutrients, other products have been developed on the base of Cellfood® concentrate:

• Cellfood® Silica
• Cellfood® Natural Weight Loss Formula
• Cellfood® DNA/RNA (formulation I have only seen in South Africa)
• Cellfood® 100% RDA Multivitamin Spray
• Cellfood® SAM-e Formula
• Cellfood® Skin Oxygen Gel

There are very few supplements on the market that could measure up to Cellfood®. It not only works on the physical level, but helps to restore mental faculties and emotional well being. Taken before sleep, it helps the body to restore and relax completely during the night.

By Dominique Allmon

*This information is for educational purposes only and is not meant to diagnose or cure a disease. Please, consult your health care provider before commencing supplementation.

Cellfood - The Amazing Oxygen Supplement by Dominique Allmon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

67th D-Day Anniversary

On June 6, 1944, 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. General Dwight D. Eisenhower called the operation a crusade in which “we will accept nothing less than full victory.” 

More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end on June 6, the Allies gained a foot-hold in Normandy. The human cost of D-Day was extremely high as more than 9,000 Allied Soldiers were killed or wounded. But in spite of the heavy losses, more than 100,000 soldiers began the march across Europe to defeat Hitler. It took the Allies almost a year to liberate Europe from the peril of Nazism.

Article source here

To read more about the D-Day please click here

One Step at a Time

One step at a time. 

I can walk around the world. 

Watch me. 

 

- Lois McMaster Bujold

 

Image source unknown but greatly appreciated

Cosmic Consciousness

 By Carl Sagan

We live in an extraordinary age. These are times of stunning changes in social organization, economic well-being, moral and ethical precepts, philosophical and religious perspectives, and human self-knowledge, as well as in our understanding of that vast universe in which we are embedded like a grain of sand in a cosmic ocean. As long as there have been human beings, we have posed the deep and fundamental questions, which evoke wonder and stir us into at least a tentative and trembling awareness, questions on the origins of consciousness; life on our planet; the beginnings of the Earth; the formation of the Sun; the possibility of intelligent beings somewhere up there in the depths of the sky; as well as, the grandest inquiry of all - on the advent, nature and ultimate destiny of the universe. For all but the last instant of human history these issues have been the exclusive province of philosophers and poets, shamans and theologians. The diverse and mutually contradictory answers offered demonstrate that few of the proposed solutions have been correct. But today, as a result of knowledge painfully extracted from nature, through generations of careful thinking, observing, and experimenting, we are on the verge of glimpsing at least preliminary answers to many of these questions.

If we do not destroy ourselves, most of us will be around for the answers. Had we been born fifty years earlier, we could have wondered, pondered, speculated about these issues, but we could have done nothing about them. Had we been born fifty years later, the answers would, I think, already have been in. Our children will have been taught the answers before most of them will have had the opportunity to even formulate the questions. By far the most exciting, satisfying and exhilarating time to be alive is the time in which we pass from ignorance to knowledge on these fundamental issues; the age where we begin in wonder and end in understanding. In all of the four-billion-year history of the human family, there is only one generation privileged to live through that unique transitional moment: that generation is ours.