 Greetings friends. This is Survival Doc. Here we are in the fall. The cold and flu season is upon us. Now some of you might be thinking about running out to get your flu shot. Well today I just wanted to share with you something about my flu shot because today I just took my flu shot. Alright here is my flu shot. Right here. Vitamin D3. Now the medical research actually shows that Vitamin D3 is more effective at preventing the flu than the flu shot. Why isn't it promoted? Because pharmaceutical companies don't make billions of dollars on Vitamin D3 like they do on the flu shot. Now Vitamin D3 is known as the sunshine vitamin. Normally it is made in the summertime by ultraviolet action from the sun acting on your skin converting cholesterol into Vitamin D. Well naturally during the winter season the sun is lower in the atmosphere. It comes through more atmosphere which filters out more of the UV radiation. We also wear more clothes and so we get very little UV radiation from the sun during the winter months. That is one of the reasons that the cold and flu season is in the winter months because that is when our immune system is down. And Vitamin D3 is one of the most important vitamins that we need to boost our natural immunity. So not only does it help you prevent the colds and flu and bronchitis and things like that but it also helps your immunity against all types of diseases. They've also found considerable evidence showing that Vitamin D3 is even effective at helping your body fight antibiotic resistant tuberculosis. This is the tuberculosis that antibodies are not effective against. And it does this by boosting your immune system so that your own immune system can handle the tuberculosis. Now in order to fight tuberculosis the recommended dosage of Vitamin D3 is 10,000 international units a day. That's a high dosage and some people recommend that type of dosage. I don't recommend that type of dosage except for during short periods or during times of an emergency such as if you are exposed to tuberculosis or if you actually have tuberculosis. During the normal times during the cold and flu season I recommend 2,000 international units of Vitamin D3 twice a day for a total of 4,000 international units of Vitamin D3 a day. Now you may ask why Vitamin D3? What's the difference between Vitamin D3 and the other forms of Vitamin D such as Vitamin D2? Well Vitamin D3 is actually the most bioactive form of Vitamin D and what that means is it's the form of Vitamin D that your body most easily absorbs and uses. Now another problem that people often suffer from during the cold and flu season or during the winter season is a condition known as SAD. And SAD stands for Seasonal Affective Disorder. For some people it can be a very debilitating form of depression. But for a lot of us we may not be severely depressed but we just call it the winter blues. It's just a lower amount of mood or a poor mood during the dark season of the year or during the winter when we don't get as much sunlight. Well the reason for that is for the same reason that our immune system is depressed and that is because of lack of sunlight or because Vitamin D3 actually has been found to improve your mood. So not only does D3 help improve your immune system but it also helps to improve your mood during the cold and flu season. Vitamin D3 is one of the vitamins that I recommend that you store up large quantities of in case we have a long prolonged emergency. Because during a prolonged emergency you're going to be under a lot of stress. Your stress suppresses your immune system and so you're going to need all the immune support you can get. Also there may be contagious diseases flying around like the flu, maybe even biological attacks or diseases such as tuberculosis, antibiotic resistant tuberculosis. And I consider Vitamin D3 to be one of the most important items that are in my survival emergency kit. Now these, this particular Vitamin D3 here contains 4,000 international units per two tablets. So these are 2,000 international units per tablet. This is the size that I recommend 2,000 per tablet. That way you can take two a day, take one in the morning and one in the evening and that way you get your 4,000 international units of Vitamin D3. And during times when you're exposed to the flu or you have the flu or you're sick or you have tuberculosis you can actually increase that up to 10,000 international units a day. Now while I'm on the subject of vitamins I want to talk about survival or prepping when it comes to vitamins and nutrition. Now during the time of an emergency we may be eating stored food that we've had in stores for quite some time. Alright the longer food is stored the more nutritional value it loses. In particular it's vitamin content. So during emergencies if we're living on our stored food not only are we under more stress because of the whatever emergency situation is around us. When we're under more stress we need more vitamins. Our bodies actually burn more vitamins when we're under stress. So not only do we need more vitamins but at the same time we may be getting fewer vitamins from our food because we're eating food that's been in long-term food storage. So for that reason I recommend that your food storage supplies include vitamins. It's particularly a high-quality multi-vitamin and multi-mineral and also a calcium supplement. Here is a multi-vitamin that I use here's a calcium supplement supplement that I use and also don't forget children. Make sure they also store up some chewable vitamins that children enjoy particularly vitamins that contain vitamin D3. Now one of the places that you store vitamins is in your body. Your body actually stores vitamins particularly fat soluble vitamins like vitamin A, vitamin D and other fat soluble vitamins. Your bodies can actually store these for quite some time. Your body also stores minerals. When you're not getting this nutrition in your diet then your body draws upon its storage bank that is in your body. Now most Americans have chronically poor nutrition which means their bodies are nutrient poor from the start. So even during good times most Americans are nutrient poor. So one of the things that you can do as a prepper is to make sure that your body has a good storage of vitamins and minerals during good times so that when the bad times come you can draw on your storage. And as an example of that your bones are a place where your body stores a lot of minerals such as calcium, magnesium and trace minerals. They found out that women who suffer from osteoporosis actually could have benefited if they had taken more calcium when they were little girls. Because when they were little girls their body was building up its nutrition stores and it was putting minerals in the bones for later use in life. So then when these women get older and they suffer from menopause and some of these conditions that may cause weakening of the bones if they actually had a good storage from the beginning when they were girls. And there have been medical studies that have shown that when women are given good nutrition as little girls that actually helps them throughout the remainder of their life including in old age. And this is just an example of how your bones store minerals and your bones are actually called by some authorities your calcium bank. And what do you do when you need a little extra money? You go to the bank and you make a withdrawal. Well that's also what your body does when it needs a little extra minerals that it's not getting in your diet. It goes to your bones and it makes a withdrawal. So my point is when the crap hits the fan you don't want to start in a condition where you are already nutrient poor where you already have depleted your calcium bank account and your mineral bank account. So during good times you want to take a good quality natural vitamin and mineral supplement and don't forget the minerals including all the trace minerals. And in addition to that I would most multivitamins have a little calcium in it but I actually take a calcium supplement in addition to my multivitamin. So you want to be building up during well right now as part of your prepping you need to be building up your store of vitamins so that when the crap hits the fan you can draw on your internal bank. And at the same time you want to store vitamins in your survival supplies so that if you're not able to buy the vitamins at the store you have some in storage particularly vitamins that you may need during severe stressful times like flu season or during a biological attack or if there's an epidemic raging around vitamin D3 because it boosts your body's natural immune system is what is what I consider the most essential vitamin to store. Plus again the fact that during the winter months your body's not getting vitamin D3 unless you take a supplement because you're exposed to less ultraviolet radiation. Don't forget children don't forget to store vitamins for children. And there's one other thing I want to mention I've talked about rotating your food storage which means that you don't want to just put your food away and forget about it you want to use the food you have in storage and constantly replace what you use always using your oldest first. So you want to rotate your food by putting your new food behind your old food on the shelf moving your old food toward the front so that when you grab that can of food you're grabbing the oldest one and this way you rotate your food and that's why I say buy what you eat and eat what you buy. Well that also applies to vitamins because just like food vitamins have a shelf life so you should be taking your vitamins don't just buy vitamins and put them into storage you should be taking them and by taking them you're also rotating it then you're constantly buying additional vitamins put them in the back move the older ones to the front take the bottle from the front which will be the oldest one and that way you're constantly rotating your vitamins. Now about expiration dates as with canned foods the expiration date or best if used by date on vitamins is just a guideline it does not mean that the vitamins are bad after that date has expired. What happens is the vitamins just lose their potency which means that if a vitamin is like a year or two beyond its expiration date or best if used by date the vitamin will not harm you it does not hurt you to take expired vitamins. What happens is the vitamins just become less potent but there is still some nutrition there you may have like half of the vitamin C content that it had when it was new but that's okay because half is better than none and if you're taking some real old vitamins you can even increase the doses double the dosage but don't throw your vitamins out just because that date has expired you can take your vitamins past that date but ideally you want to constantly be using your vitamins to build up your internal storage you want to be using your vitamins which means you want to be constantly each month constantly replacing what you're using and rotating your vitamin storage so that it is always fresh. This is survival doc reminding you be prepared or be prepared to be pleased