Twenty Ideas for Healthy New Year’s Resolutions December 30, 2007

Christmas is over.

We are still on vacation, though, visiting family. It’s cold in Seattle, but it’s wonderful to be with our family.

I’m thinking about goals for the new year.

1. My first goal is to lose the extra 30 pounds of baby weight by her one-year birthday, April 13th.

2. I also want to get all my finances and paperwork in order (nothing short of monumental).

3. And get out of debt. This one is totally do-able. (I mean for all my credit card debt. The student loans don’t count.) And once I’m out of debt, I get to start investing in real estate, which I am really excited about.

4. Spring cleaning — I want to sell all of the accumulated junk in the garage on eBay and the like.

Those are the main things. I have lots of other smaller goals. Like expanding my vegetable and herb garden and composting and making more of my household cleaners…

Here is my question to you… Do you have any New Year’s resolutions that are related to your health and the environment? No?

Maybe you could add one or two. Here are some simple things you can do that would make healthy and/or green resolutions for 2008…

1. Stop eating high fructose syrup. It’s industrial corn soaked in battery acid. Read the labels and stop eating this.

2. Use cloth shopping bags. You can get them for a coupla bucks at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s. I take them with me everywhere in my car these days — and I even use them at Target.

3. Stop eating soy or vegetable oil. It causes heart disease and cancer. Cook with butter, lard, coconut oil, palm oil, and/or olive oil (make sure it’s real olive oil — not the faux olive oil you buy at Costco or Trader Joe’s).

4. Start taking probiotics. Take a supplement. Drink raw milk. Make your own kombucha or kefir or kvass or sauerkraut.

5. Use cloth diapers. It’s really not so hard. I made the switch; so can you. If you don’t know how to do it, email me and I’ll post all the tricks.

6. Limit bread and refined flour. If you want bread, eat any of the following kinds:

whole grain (like Mestemacher German rye breads: http://www.germandeli.com/mebr.html)
sprouted (like Ezekiel or Alvarado St. Bakery)
REAL sourdough bread
best of all, freshly milled, soaked and sprouted homemade whole grain bread.

7. Eat grass-fed beef and dairy products. Grain-fed cows are sickly and pumped full of antibiotics. Grass-fed cows live 3-4 times longer and live happy, full lives.

8. Eat raw dairy products — NOT pasteurized! Pasteurization exists mostly to mask bad milk from unhealthy cows. Buy raw dairy products from trusted dairy farms. They are healthier and much more nutritious, since they have all the enzymes and probiotics intact.

9. Make your own cleaning products. All you need is Borax, baking soda, white vinegar, some Dr. Bronner’s, some essential oils, and some citric acid. If you don’t want to make your own, buy the healthy kind at Whole Foods.

10. Try to buy local. Is it really necessary to buy that foodstuff that comes from New Jersey when you live in San Diego? Think about all the miles traveled, all the wasted gas and energy. Buy local for the environment.

11. Join a CSA. It’s great to buy organic produce but when you join a CSA, you are actually making a pledge to the farm. Letting them know that they can count on you to support them for the next season. I believe everyone in America should be supporting a local farm through a CSA subscription. To find a CSA near you, go to http://www.localharvest.org.

12. Start taking cod liver oil. Dr. Oz called it the supplement that everyone should take. I agree. Not only does it prevent osteoporosis but it also prevents — and even reverses — cavities. I started my baby on cod liver oil when she was 5 months old. (Not all cod liver oil is the same. We buy ours here: http://www.radiantlifecatalog.com/)

13. Avoid genetically modified foods. Yes, this means most packaged and processed foods. You should give them up anyway because most of them contain soy oil and high fructose corn syrup and other toxic crap you don’t want in your body.

14. Buy non-Monsanto seeds. See my blogroll to the right for sources of seeds that are not tampered with by Monsanto.

15. Eat more organ meats. Don’t like liver and onions? Have some foie gras. Or take cod liver oil and desiccated liver tablets. But make sure you get your organs.

16. Stop eating soy. It’s an endocrine distrupter and seriously messes up your thyroid. It can make you infertile. Stop now.

17. Make bone broths. Beef broth, chicken broth, fish broth. Simmer in a big stockpot and freeze for later use. This is one of the healthiest things you can do.

18. Reuse and recycle. Don’t throw away plastic yogurt containers. Or glass mayonnaise jars. Or paper bags. Reuse them for something else. And recycle everything you can.

19. Stop brushing with toothpaste. The fluoride and glycerin are giving you cavities. Use Tooth Soap or Dr. Bronner’s — or sea salt.

20. Filter your water using a reverse-osmosis water filtering system.

Enough for now. That should give you some ideas. (The ones on this list that I have not done yet I am committed to doing in the new year.)

High-fat, Low-carb December 22, 2007

OK let me first post a disclaimer: Our scale is not the most reliable. I don’t trust it. That said, I am going to weigh myself at the gym today and see what it says.

Now, let’s go on to my news.

I just weighed myself and it looks like I lost 6 pounds since Tuesday.

All I can say is holy moley, maybe this high-fat low-carb thing really does work!

I posted a while back about how Seth lost 7 pounds. We were following the Eat Fat Lose Fat program. However, we slacked off of it due to a number of reasons:

(1) One day we ate too much coconut oil (we were trying to ramp up quickly to 3.5 TBS per day) and both felt nauseous and had diarrhea. (This happens. Most of us are used to eating a low-fat diet, so it’s important to ramp up slowly. See the top question on this FAQ.)

(2) Seth kept badgering me about how this diet could possibly healthy (he hasn’t read the book). Kept worrying that he would gain weight.

(3) We were eating too many grains and not enough fat. I didn’t realize this until I started using this online tool that keeps track of everything you eat. It charts everything on a pie graph so you can see the percentages of carbs, fat, and protein you are eating every day.

So for the past 4 days, I entered everything into FitDay and tried to eat at least 50% fat and keep my carbs down to 10-15%. It is not the easiest thing to do. You have to eat lots of butter, coconut oil (I have taken to drinking at least one cup per day of herbal tea with a tablespoon of coconut oil), and olive oil.

I’ve also found that it is hard to include grains in your diet in order to make the numbers work. They are way too high in carbs.

I don’t mind not eating grains since we don’t eat that many of them anyway. They are hard to digest (unless they are soaked and/or sprouted). Plus, since Seth has been diagnosed with leaky gut, we are going off gluten until further notice.

So I’ve been making lots of salads with meat and cheese. I’ve been eating lots of eggs and dairy and meat and fish, lots of fresh organic (raw and cooked) vegetables. Lots of good fats. I still have my coffee (organic) with whole (raw) milk in the mornings, and a little stevia. And I have a glass of wine or two in the evening.

I’m excited. We are leaving now for swimming class. I will let you know what the scale says at the gym. (If it says any different, I’m throwing our scale in the garbage.)

UPDATE: I weighed myself at the gym. The scale there said the same thing. So I lost 6 pounds!

UPDATE 2: I was wrong… it was only 4 pounds. I had my starting weight wrong! Still, 4 pounds in 4 days is a lot!

Sally Fallon on Fats and Why They are Essential December 21, 2007

Fascinating interview with Sally Fallon, President of the Weston A. Price Foundation on essential fatty acids and why saturated fats are critical to good health.

Also how good saturated fats like butter, lard, duck and goose fat, and coconut and palm oil were driven out of the marketplace by corporations profiting off of soybean oil:

http://www.metrofarm.com/assets/podcasts/2007-12-01_567dfat.mp3

A Quiet Revolution December 21, 2007

My friend Angelique wrote this to me in a an email the other day:

We’re in the middle of a quiet revolution. Things that seem radical now will seem a lot less so in give or ten years, maybe even one or two years. Things are changing and they’re changing fast, right underneath our feet. I think we all have to do what seems right, breaking the conditioning is critical to change. I was talking to a friend this weekend about how one person saying one thing in a crowd changes everyone’s perceptions. That kind of ripple effect is very powerful, whether words or actions. My mom retires in three years to a farm and if I’m not married (or even if I am!) I might end up there - running an organic farm for her.

I didn’t tell her I was going to post that. I hope she doesn’t get mad at me for posting it. Oh well — it’s important. Too important not to post.

Angelique blogs. I think I’m the one who convinced her to start blogging in the first place.

This is what I love about blogging. It’s a way for us to communicate with each other and find strength in numbers. We are so cut off from each other these days — so isolated from community. With blogging, we can share ideas, plans, thoughts. Thoughts are things and they grow when we share them.

When I was a little girl, my godmother Elaine used to send me books. Every birthday I’d get a book. It made me feel very special. Elaine died when I was 5 or 6 — I don’t remember ever meeting her; I was too young.

My favorite book she ever sent was a book called “Swimmy” by Leo Leoni.

It was the story of a tiny little fish. He organized his school of fish to form one big giant fish — and they tricked their predators into leaving them alone.

This is the opportunity blogging give us. The opportunity to band together and demand the life we want. Demand real food, not processed garbage. Demand welfare for animals. Demand rights for small farmers. Demand sustainability. Demand practices that will keep us alive on this planet and enjoying this planet 100 years from now.

And by banding together, we demonstrate our numbers to the Powers That Be. Predators like Monsanto and Dow Chemical and the USDA. They are not bad people. Just like sharks are not bad. Sharks are just trying to eat. But we have a choice about whether we will be eaten. Sharks have found ways to increase their power. Incorporating, lobbying, public relations (also known as propaganda).

We have blogging.

I was surfing around tonight and somehow I found this blog called Nature Moms. It’s written by a cancer survivor and mom named Tiffany who is trying to live a more natural life. She posted a review of Joel Salatin’s book, “Everything I Want to Do is Illegal”.

This is a book I’ve been looking forward to reading for a while now. Joel Salatin is a farmer and a revolutionary. An iconoclast. Here’s a quote:

I want folks incensed that their government has sold our collective freedom birthright for a bowl of global corporate outsourced pottage.

Virtually all of the processed foods currently sold at supermarkets could be supplanted with community-based entrepreneurial fare. Does your heart ache for this? Mine does.

Mine does too.

The thing is this. We don’t know what we don’t know. We don’t know that there is anything wrong with the way we are living. We go along with the status quo. That’s what everybody else is doing. Why should we be any different?

And then something hits us. Hard. A diagnosis of cancer. Our child diagnosed with autism. Oh, sure we were willing to live with a myriad of other maladies — obesity, diabetes, arthritis. It’s only when our lives or the lives of our children are threatened that we sit up and take notice. Pain, we’re used to that. Suffering, yeah, what else is new. But losing our life? Losing our child? Wait a second — not so fast!

And that is when we start to reexamine the way we are living. We start to realize things. we start to have ideas. Revolutionary ideas.

Maybe vaccines are not the best choice for our children. Maybe they are in fact dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. Maybe we should avoid pesticides and bovine growth hormones and genetically modified foods. Maybe we should stop drinking fake (pasteurized) milk and stop eating fake white bread and drink real raw milk and eat real whole grain sprouted bread.

Maybe if we did, our children wouldn’t have to sit at special “peanut allergy” tables in the cafeteria. Maybe we wouldn’t all be so fat that we can’t climb a flight of stairs without getting winded. Maybe so many of us we wouldn’t be dying of cancer or diagnosed with autism.

Maybe we should return to the way our grandmothers did things. Bone broth and cod liver oil and seeds passed down from generation to generation — not “Round Up Ready”.

Who’s running the show here folks? Is it us or is it them, the multinational corporations? Isn’t it time we took back the reins of our own lives?

Gandhi was a revolutionary. A radical. So was Deepak Chopra in his time.

Now Gandhi is a hero and Deepak is a bestselling mainstream author.

Things change. People affect change.

Life is short. Way too short to live in fear. Way too short to hide and accept second best.

We deserve excellent health. We deserve prosperity. We deserve to have it all.

Problem is, we don’t know what we’re missing.

We don’t know what we don’t know.

No Poo: Day Three December 21, 2007

My hair still looks great. No greasies whatsoever. Soft, shiny, luscious.

I washed again yesterday with the Terressentials hair wash. This time I washed it twice, the second time leaving it on for an hour. Then I rinsed with diluted apple cider vinegar and lemon juice.

I thought no poo was no washing. It’s not no washing. It’s NO SHAMPOO. Using clay and aloe vera is fine. It doesn’t hurt your hair. Natural acids like ACV and lemon juice also don’t hurt your hair. Contrary to what a lot of stylists say. I read so many warnings of the dangers of lemon juice from stylists online.

Of course, they don’t want you putting lemon juice on your hair at home. Then you wouldn’t need to go to them.

It’s interesting because the people on the No Poo communities online are all about going longer between washings. On the Terressentials website, they say you should wash with the clay every day multiple times for a week.

The No Poo people believe that the longer you go between washings, the more your hair will detox and it will get back to its natural state in time. It seems to me that it is not about WAITING and slowly detoxing but rather it is about getting the gunk out.

So washing repeatedly with clay speeds the process and helps your hair return to normal. This way you don’t have to go through the greasy phase (which can last weeks or months!).

I’m going this morning to get my hair trimmed. Not a lot — just a tiny bit. I want to get some of those damaged ends off.

No Poo: Day One December 20, 2007

I’m really excited about my hair.

I used my new Terressentials clay hair wash today. It’s made of all natural, edible, organic ingredients including aloe vera, bentonite clay, and essential oils.

I followed their instructions and washed my hair three times. The third time, I left the clay on, wrapped up in a towel, for over an hour, then I rinsed it out. After I rinsed (very thoroughly — it’s clay after all), I did a final rinse with diluted apple cider vinegar and lemon juice.

Terressentials and all the no poo people online say that when you stop using detergent- and polymer- (plastic-) based shampoos, you will go through a “detox” period that will last anywhere from a few days to a few months.

They say it’s because commercial shampoos (SHAM + POO = LIE + CACA) are full of detergents that strip your hair. When your hair is stripped of its natural oils, it produces excess oil. Which means you gotta wash it more often. Which makes you use more shampoo. Which strips your hair more and makes it produce more oil. You can see where this is going.

Commercial shampoos also deposit polymers on your hair. I don’t know what polymers are exactly but I know they are plastic.

I also know this can’t be a good thing. These polymers and other gunky stuff are there to make your damaged hair look better. In other words, this shambolic shampoo is designed to damage your hair and then disguise the damage.

Nice, eh?

When you detox off shampoo, you are sloughing all this plastic and other toxic chemicals out of your hair. Which makes it look greasy — all that gunk being excreted.

The good news is, once you get past that, you have your original hair again. The hair you had as a little kid. Shiny, soft, strong and healthy — not damaged and broken.

Anyway, everyone says the detox period typically lasts for weeks or months and you have to walk around with super-greasy hair. As committed as I was to going no poo, I was not looking forward to that part.

So I figured I’d wait to go no poo until after the holidays. I didn’t really want to spend Christmas with a greasy head. I could just imagine all the photos of me looking like a dirty hippie.

Anyway, about 3 weeks ago, I switched over to a shampoo I found at Whole Foods — Hugo Botanicals. I figured it wouldn’t be as bad as regular shampoo. I think I was correct in that assumption.

However, it does still have a lot of nasty chemicals in it. But not as many as the others, which is why I think my hair started detoxing. For the past few weeks since I started using this stuff, my hair has gotten oilier and oilier. And I’ve been washing it every single day!

So I think I’ve been detoxing for a few weeks now. Or at least I haven’t been putting as many bad chemicals on my hair and I haven’t been stripping it with as many detergents — so it has been getting oily.

So I decided today, since I’m experiencing the worst of both worlds — greasy hair detox plus still using bad chemicals — I would go ahead and start the no poo regime today.

So today is my first official day of no poo.

I have to tell you the Terressentials hair wash is AMAZING. My hair is so clean and shiny and gorgeous. I’ve never ever seen it this way. And it smells so good.

This is only the beginning. I have looked at the photos on the no poo communities online. Their hair is amazing. And they don’t wash it. At least not with shampoo (they use water, baking soda, sea salt, and clay, and rinse with vinegar or lemon).

I thought “no poo” meant going without washing but it doesn’t. It just means not using the shambolic stuff. However, I think if you don’t use shampoo and use clay or baking soda or what-have-you instead, in time you will not need to wash as often. Maybe once or twice a week instead of every day.

I know my hair is going to get more beautiful. I still have some nasty old highlights that will be cut off eventually. And the longer my hair goes without all these chemicals and plastics, the nicer it is going to get.

I’m really happy and excited! I can’t wait to wash my hair again tomorrow.

My Christmas list December 18, 2007

Reverse Osmosis Water Filter
This is my number-one priority, since I am constantly having to lug distilled water back from the market. Needs to remove fluoride. Not sure which one to get yet. If anyone has any suggestions, please comment.

Shower Filter
Needs to remove chlorine — I hate getting out of the shower feeling all itchy. Again, please suggest a good one if you know of one.

Excalibur 9-Tray Dehydrator
http://www.amazon.com/Excalibur-Tray-Dehydrator-Dehydrater-Excaliber/dp/B000I6MXZG
This is what I want after the water filters.

KoMo Fidibus 21 Grain Mill
http://www.naturaleurope.com/ne/KM-001.html?id=27Qr7yQj
We’re not eating a lot of grains but I do want to be able to bake my own bread on occasion. I just ordered a sourdough starter and I’m excited about it.

KitchenAid Professional Mixer
http://www.amazon.com/Factory-Reconditioned-KitchenAid-RKG25H0XER-Professional-5-Quart/dp/B000EJX7SE/ref=pd_sbs_k_title_9
Has to be the Professional — not the Artisan. Factory-reconditioned is fine. Again, we’re not doing a ton of baking since we’re not doing a lot of grains, but it would be nice to use this for kneading.

Some kind of composting system
I don’t know what kind yet. I don’t know how to make this decision — guess I need to do more research.

Chef’s Salad with Fennel, Apple, Blue Cheese and Roast Beef December 18, 2007

It’s cold and rainy tonight. A good night for a hot bowl of soup. But I didn’t really feel like cooking, plus I had a lot of lettuce in our CSA box. So I decided to make a fresh and nourishing winter salad. Good fats and raw vegetables and fruits!

Chef’s Salad with Fennel, Apple, Blue Cheese, and Roast Beef

Red leaf or butter lettuce
2 eggs
8 oz turkey (can also use chicken breast)
8 oz roast beef
1 fennel bulb
1 apple
1 avocado
2 oz raw milk blue cheese
Olive oil
Apple cider vinegar
Dijon mustard
Sea salt
Fresh ground black pepper

Boil the eggs for 17 minutes, then run under cold water.

Wash, tear, and dry the lettuce, and arrange on two plates.

Chop the turkey and roast beef and spread on top of the lettuce. Thinly slice the apple and fennel and arrange on the salad. Reserve the fennel tops (the feathery dill-like greens). Chop the avocado, and arrange on the salad. Slice the hardboiled eggs and arrange on salad. Crumble the blue cheese on top.

In a bowl, whisk together 3 parts olive oil and 1 part apple cider vinegar. Add Dijon mustard a small dollop at a time to taste.

Drizzle dressing on salad. Tear the feather dill-like fennel tops with your fingers and sprinkle on top. Season with sea salt and a little freshly ground black pepper.

Serve with a glass of crisp white wine or bubbly, like a New Zealand Marlborough sauvignon blanc or Prosecco. (Unless you are watching your weight, in which case make it kombucha, or beet kvass. Or chilled lemon-infused vodka.)

(Serves 2)

Jack LaLanne vs. Ancel Keys December 18, 2007

They say a picture’s worth a thousand words. Here are some photos of Jack LaLanne, who is 93 years old, compared to Ancel Keys at 100. Stunning. Which one would you rather be when you are old?

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/low-carb-diets/jack-lalanne-vs-ancel-keys/

In case you don’t know, Ancel Keys is the father of the low-fat diet. Jack LaLanne (until very recently) has always promoted a high-fat, high-protein diet.

Terressentials December 17, 2007

Oh my goodness! I am so excited about the new personal care products that just came in the mail.

I know, that’s a dorky thing to say. Who gets excited about personal care products?

The thing is, I’ve been researching all this stuff for a while and almost all of the personal care products we use are FILLED with nasty chemicals. That wouldn’t be a huge problem except for the fact that we absorb these chemicals — not only through our nose but through the pores in our skin.

I found a company called Terressentials. Apparently the founder of the company used to be very sick. She got cancer (she thinks it was from the DDT her father was unknowingly spraying when she was a kid) and had multiple rounds of chemo — which made her highly sensitive to chemicals. She kept having reactions to store-bought personal care products which were supposed to be healthy and organic — but had lots of hidden chemicals and pesticides.

Which is why she started making her own products. They are 100% organic and totally edible. The idea is, anything you put on your body you should also be able to eat. Doesn’t that make sense?

Anyway I just tried the body lotion and lip balm and they both smell and feel amazing and delicious.

The shampoo is another story. A good story…

Apparently shampoo, conditioner, and other styling products are not good for your hair. They are filled with toxic chemicals. They strip your hair of its natural oils and leave a nasty residue on your hair and scalp. They damage your hair.

But here’s the rub: the residue they leave makes your damaged hair look healthy. Which is why you have to keep using them. Your hair will look like crap if you stop. But the more you use these products, the more you damage your hair.

A fun little vicious cycle, eh? Kind of like high fructose corn syrup.

Anyway, there is a way to be free of commerical hair products. It’s called no poo.

I know, it’s a dorky name. No poo. Sounds like toilet talk (that’s what my mom used to call our childhood potty humor). But the idea is, if you can break yourself from using shampoo, conditioner, and other hair products long enough (takes a few weeks to a few months) your hair will be free of all the synthetic gunk and return to its natural state.

What is your hair’s natural state? You probably have no idea.

I bet you my natural hair state is magnificent.

I can’t wait to start using this Terresentials hair wash. By the way, it’s made out of mud. Aloe vera and bentonite clay and other natural junk. No detergents or chemicals or other nonsense.

Considering there is a detox period of at least a few weeks, I am going to wait until the new year to start. Still, I can’t wait!

More about how to detox and get back to your original hair: http://www.terressentials.com/hairhelp.html

More about the founders and the company: http://www.terressentials.com/greenstandard1.html

The Terressentials website: http://www.terressentials.com/

PS: For this to work, you also have to stop dying and highlighting your hair with chemicals. I have not highlighted my hair since last summer and plan to use lemon and sun from now on.

How to heal a leaky gut December 16, 2007

I am reading about how to heal Seth’s leaky gut.

Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride writes:

Gut Dysbiosis compromises the roots of your health and well being.

For example, two major body systems, The Digestive System and The Immune System, cannot function effectively. The damaged gut wall becomes “Leaky” affecting food uptake and bowel action.

It is no coincidence that susceptibility to allergy, illnesses such as IBS and Autism, and intolerance to certain foods is related to this condition.

(http://www.bio-kult.com/gutdysbiosis.html)

The suggested diet is:

No processed foods
No gluten
No dairy
No soy
No sugar

What is left to eat?

Natasha Campbell-McBride recommends the following (her diet is specifically aimed toward autistic children with leaky guts but it should work the same for adults):

Meat, fish, poultry, organ meats, and eggs, raw if possible
Fresh vegetables and fruit, raw if possible
Nuts and seeds (properly soaked)
Lots of garlic and onion
Lots of cold pressed virgin olive oil and coconut oil
Some whole grains: buckwheat, millet, and quinoa (once or twice a week, properly soaked)

She also recommends 1-2 teaspoons of cod liver oil daily. Cod liver oil is supposed to help heal the gut lining. Many people are concerned about overdosing on vitamin A but Dr. Campbell-McBride says it would take 4 teaspoons per day for an adult to overdose.

In addition, probiotics are recommended. We are using Threelac now but will switch to Campbell-McBride’s Bio-Kult.

She also recommends certain things you can do to help detoxify the body of the heavy metals and toxins (this is often what causes leaky gut):

Stop using chemical soaps, shampoos, toothpastes and laundry detergent.
Wash hair with an egg yolk and rinse with apple cider vinegar.
Take detoxifying baths daily alternating with apple cider vinegar and Epsom salts.
Eat foods with nitrilosides: buckwheat, millet, apricot kernels, peach kernels, grape seeds, apple seeds, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, bean sprouts, Lima beans, macadamia nuts
Juicing - lots of freshly juiced fruits and vegetables help the body detoxify — minimum of 2 cups per day

Campbell-McBride on juicing:

A combination of pineapple, carrot and a little bit of beetroot in the morning will prepare your child’s digestive system for the coming meals, stimulate stomach acid production and pancreatic enzymes production. A mixture of carrot, apple, celery and beetroot has a wonderful liver cleansing ability. Green juices from leafy vegetables (spinach, lettuce, parsley, dill, carrot and beet tops) with some tomato and lemon are a great source of magnesium and iron and good chelators of heavy metals. Cabbage, apple and celery juice stimulates digestive enzymes production and is a great kidney cleanser.

They say it takes 1-2 years to really heal. I am going to order Dr. Campbell-McBride’s book, “Gut and Psychology Syndrome” (available only on the Amazon UK site: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gut-Psychology-Syndrome-Depression-Schizophrenia/dp/0954852001).

We are going to start in the new year.

Links:

http://www.dietarysupport.com/detox(art).html

http://www.dietarysupport.com/essentialdiet(art).html

http://www.bio-kult.com/GAPS.html

Nourishing Traditions December 14, 2007

I just got an email from a friend of mine. She’s from Turkey, but living in America. She has a baby boy — I met her in my mother’s group.

She writes:

“I’ve been reading Nourishing Traditions and smiling all the time: This lady is telling almost everything I knew from my mom and grandma!! Except some recipes it is the healthy Turkish way of good eating, waoww !! Thank you for mentioning it, there is so much about it I would like to talk with you.

I was making my own yogurt, yogurt drinks, kefir and cream cheese for some time already but this week I got inspired and started to make BOZA, a fermented drink which I was craving for… I will also order Kombucha starter and also offer it to Adam, I hope he will like it. When my aunt was pregnant with my cousin she started to drink Kombucha every day and after her son was born when he was 8-9 months old we gave it to him too. I can’t wait!!”

Funny because I knew Ebru and I shared a lot of the same opinions about food and health. Whenever I saw her, she was always feeding her baby boy fresh vegetables and fruits. And of course he is so healthy.

It’s a shame that so many of our traditions have been lost. So many mothers are serving processed foods like Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.

I am now making bone broths and homemade cream cheese and whey and sauerkraut. And I’m about to start brewing my own kombucha too. I ordered the scoby from GEM Cultures and it is due to arrive after the holiday. Seth and I have been drinking kombucha for the past couple of months. We don’t miss Diet Coke at all!

King Corn December 14, 2007

Guess what came in my mailbox today? My very own DVD copy of “King Corn”. I ordered a copy from their website, since I missed it in the theater.

I’m watching it now.

It’s BRILLIANT! Horrifying. But brilliant.

They actually make high fructose corn syrup at home. Did you know that high fructose corn syrup is inedible industrial corn soaked in battery acid?

Let me repeat that:

high fructose corn syrup is inedible industrial corn soaked in battery acid

Why in the world are we eating this? It’s in lots and lots of processed foods, drinks, and fast foods.

There is only one reason we eat it. Because it makes money for the chemical companies.

Did you know that drinking ONE soda a day doubles your risk of type II diabetes?

Why are we feeding corn to cows? Cows that are meant to eat grass and hay? They are not meant to eat corn and they get very sick when we feed them corn. Which is why they are pumped with antibiotics.

What the hell has happened to our country? Our farmers don’t eat their own corn or the milk that comes from their cows. This shit is inedible. INEDIBLE.

And we are ruining the land. Monocropping destroys the land.

Why are large chemical corporations controlling our food supply?

How in the hell did that happen? And why are we letting this happen?

Everyone in America should watch this movie. People need to wake up before it is too late.

It’s time to wake up and do whatever we can to support local, independent farms who sell directly to the public.

Here’s the trailer:

Here’s the website where you can order your copy of the DVD:

http://www.kingcorn.net/

The Future of Food December 14, 2007

I just read my friend the latest post on my friend Louisa’s blog:

http://constantstateofflux.wordpress.com/2007/12/14/the-future-of-food-life-stuff-and-eveything-else/

After I read that, “coincidentally” (not), someone else on a newsgroup posted a link to this video about the history of genetically modified food:

This is just an intro; I want to buy the whole video.

The scary thing is that pretty much everything you buy in the grocery store is now manufactured by companies like Monsanto. Everything is sprayed with pesticides and most things are now genetically modified. Anything with soy oil or vegetable oil (which is mostly soy oil). Anything with industrial corn or soybeans. It’s hard to know what’s what because the way they label it, you can’t tell.

For example, did you know that when you buy a food product at the store and it lists “spices” as an ingredient, that can contain anything? It usually (almost always) contains MSG.

It’s disgusting that Monsanto is going out and suing small farmers for saving and reusing seeds. It’s disgusting that there are only FOUR varieties of potatoes grown today. It’s disgusting the way huge corporations have driven small farms out of business.

I’m not buying seeds from catalogs anymore. Why? Because it’s all seeds from Monsanto!

“Virtually every large mail-order garden company in the United States uses a seed broker to supply them with stock.”

“The American nursery trade is a 39.6 billion dollar a year industry. With the purchase of Seminis in January of 2005, Monsanto is now estimated to control between 85 and 90 percent of the U.S. nursery market. This includes the pesticide, herbicide and fertilizer markets. By merging with or buying up the competition, dominating genetic technology, and lobbying the government to make saving seeds illegal, this monolith has positioned itself as the largest player in the gardening game.”

“Monsanto holds over eleven thousand U.S. seed patents. When Americans buy garden seed and supplies, most of the time they are buying from Monsanto, regardless of who the retailer is.”

http://thedeliberateagrarian.blogspot.com/2006/02/garden-seed-monopoly.html

I’m going to step up what I’m doing to change the future of our food. I’m going to join a seed saver organization and start growing all my vegetables and herbs from seed.

http://www.seedsavers.org/membership.asp

Here’s another place to buy seeds:
http://www.rareseeds.com/

Of course everything I grow is organic. But I want truly organic non-Monsanto seeds in my garden. I’m going to rip out everything that’s in there — it all came from Home Depot. Which means it’s all from Monsanto. UGH! It makes me sick that even people who are growing their own food are still unknowingly buying seeds genetically modified by this evil corporation.

I don’t have a lot of land but I have some and we live in sunny southern California — I can grow food all year long.

This is my first New Year’s resolution! I’m excited to start planning my garden. It’s a small step to take, but if more of us do it, it will impact the planet.

Sick baby December 12, 2007

Kate was a little under the weather today. She doesn’t have a full-on cold but she was cranky and out of sorts all day. The slightest thing would make her cry and all day long she wanted to be held and carried. Normally she is so energetic and easy-going and happy — and wanting to be crawling and exploring.

She’s in bed now but she’s woken up a few times since Daddy put her down. She wakes up and fusses for a few minutes, then goes back to sleep. I went in once and rocked her back to sleep — but I think it’s better if I can stay out. She seems to go back to sleep more quickly if I don’t go in.

It’s hard though because I want to comfort her. Poor little sweetheart. I carried her around on my hip all day, and she had 3 naps instead of her usual 2.

If she’s still fussing later, maybe she’ll sleep in our bed tonight.

I did feed her well today. As usual. I’m sure the good nutrition will help her fight whatever is ailing her.

This is what she ate:

Breakfast:
Cod liver oil
Pears
Breast milk & raw milk formula

Lunch:
Turkey stock
Zucchini with X factor butter oil and sea salt
Breast milk & raw milk formula

Snack:
Raw milk formula

Dinner:
More cod liver oil (I gave her extra today)
Turkey stock (leftover from lunch)
Zucchini with X factor butter oil and sea salt (leftover from lunch)
Soft-boiled egg yolk with grated raw liver and sea salt
Papaya (for dessert!)
Raw milk formula

Gelée, or jellied stock December 12, 2007

Okay, so just to clarify: according to Julia, aspic is the jellied stock that contains various items such as eggs and meat and vegetables. It’s a kind of composed salad.

Gelée is the jellified stock that you make aspic with.

Here’s what Julia says (in Mastering the Art of French Cooking) about gelée, or “homemade jellied stock”:

Calf’s feet and veal knuckles contain enough natural gelatin to make a stock jell by itself; pork rind helps the process. They are added to simmer with any of the stocks on pages 107 to 100 and will provide about 3 quarts of jelly.

Use either 2 calf’s feet OR 1 pound cracked veal knuckles AND 1/4 pound fresh or salt pork rind.

What is pork rind? I don’t even know! Ah, it is the skin of a pig. Thank you, Wikipedia.

OK, she says you can also use commercial gelatin… which I think I will do to start. I don’t happen to have a good source right at the moment for veal knuckles and pig skin. However, I do happen to have a whole cannister of powdered gelatin because I use it in Kate’s homemade baby formula (gelatin helps babies digest cow’s milk).

Julia says:

One envelope of powdered American gelatin (1/4 ounce) is the equivalent of 4 sheets of French gelatin.

How to Use Powdered Gelatin:
Sprinkle 1 envelope of powdered gelatin into 1/4 to 1/2 cup of cold stock and let it soften for 3 to 4 minutes. Then blend it into the rest of the stock (use 1 envelope per 2 cups of stock) and stir over moderate heat for several minutes until the gelatin has completely dissolved and the liquid is absolutely free of granules.

How to Use Sheet Gelatin:
If you are living in France (hello, Louisa!), you will usually buy gelatin in sheets. Soak the sheets in cold water for about 10 minutes, until they are soft. Drain them, then stir them in the stock over gentle heat until the gelatin has completely dissolved.

Julia says you can add wine flavoring (port, Madeira, or cognac). We won’t be doing that since we are making baby food.

She also says it is imperative that you test your jelly:

Testing Jellies
Always test out a jelly before using it; the few minutes you spend can save you from disaster. Pour 1/2 inch of jelly into a chilled saucer and refrigerate it for about 10 minutes until it has set. Then break it up with a fork and let it sit at room temperature for 10 minutes. For aspics its broken lumps should stand alone, but not be rubbery. If the jelly is too hard, add unjellied stock and test again. If the jelly is too soft, add more gelatin and test again.

Does eating red meat cause cancer? December 12, 2007

A new study from the National Cancer Institute is proclaiming that eating red meat causes cancer.

This kind of study really bugs me. The science behind it is so profoundly flawed.

They followed a population and studied their eating habits and then concluded that the people with the highest cancer rates were the people eating the most meat.

They didn’t account for all the other possible factors. Like where the meat came from and how it is cooked.

What is most meat cooked in? What are McDonalds hamburgers cooked in?

VEGETABLE AND SOYBEAN OIL!

http://www.mcdonalds.com/app_controller.nutrition.categories.ingredients.index.html

And read this, from a web page promoting soy to ward off cancer (http://www.cancercenter.com/after-care-services/soy.cfm):

Soy Oil is the natural oil extracted from the soybean. It is the most frequently consumed oil in the United States and accounts for nearly 75 percent of our total vegetable oil intake, mostly through processed food products like mayonnaise, coffee creamers, margarines, sandwich spreads and salad dressings. Oil sold in the grocery store under the generic name “vegetable oil” is usually 100 percent soy oil.

Soy oil is in everything! From ketchup to baby formula. Most restaurants use vegetable (soy) oil for all their frying and grilling.

So how can these scientists deduce that meat was the culprit?

These scientists assumed that it was barbecuing and frying meat that causes the problem:

Grilling meat over a direct flame results in fat or meat juices dripping onto the hot fire. That creates flames that contain the harmful compounds, which can then adhere to the surface of the food. That process can happen with chicken and turkey as well as red meat.

“That’s why we recommend if you’re barbecuing, take particularly chicken, for example, you may want to microwave it halfway cooked, and then put it on barbecue,” Curran said. “You don’t want to cook it the whole duration, because that really increases the risk of these compounds forming, which are known carcinogens.”

(http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17122667)

MICROWAVE? Ugh! Has anyone studied the health risks associated with using a microwave too cook your food?

Yes, in fact, someone has. A lot of people have. Including Dr. Bernard Blanc, a Swiss scientist actually tested people’s blood after they consumed food cooked in a microwave:

Lymphocytes (white blood cells) showed a more distinct short-term decrease following the intake of microwaved food than after the intake of all the other variants.

(http://www.cancersalves.com/articles/Microwave.html)

Oh my goodness! White blood cells. I’m no cancer expert, but don’t those factor in quite a bit when it comes to cancer?

And look at this: http://www.proliberty.com/observer/20041013.htm

This guy says that if you plant a seed in two different pots, and water one with regular tap water and the other with water that has been microwaved, the one with the microwaved water will not sprout. Isn’t that interesting? I want to try it.

Isn’t it also alarming? If microwaved water makes it so a seed will not sprout, what does it do to our bodies?

Let’s think about this for a second… people have been eating red meat for how long? Um, since the caveman days. How long have we had microwaves and soybean oil and processed foods? Just the past 50 years or so. And when did cancer start ravaging the population? Um, the past 50 years or so.

Gosh, it must be the meat eating. WHAT? How can you draw a conclusion like that? It’s absurd.

Plus they admitted that the heavy meat eaters in the study were more likely to smoke cigarettes and were less likely to eat fruits and vegetables.

If the people they studied were all non-smokers and were eating raw meat and no processed foods, then there might be a case. A good study might be to compare those folks to vegetarians who also ate no processed foods and did not use the microwave. But you’d have to severely restrict and monitor what they ate.

But you can’t just look at a population, pick one thing out of all the bad stuff they consume, and say that that is what is causing disease.

Here’s the study if you are interested: http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0040325

Aspic, pate and persimmons December 11, 2007

I keep thinking about aspic.

I guess it’s because I am making so much bone broth these days. And feeding Kate broth every day. I know it is so good for her. And she loves it. I often add chicken liver pate to her broth, making it doubly nutritious.

Anyway, I’m thinking she might enjoy aspic. Aspic is broth with added gelatin. The gelatin turns the broth into jelly.

I just read the aspic chapter in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I always thought aspics were so outdated. But now I get it. Broth is great when it’s cold outside. But sometimes you need a cold, nourishing treat for a summer day. And sometimes aspic is good even when it’s not summer — when you’re feeding a baby.

I watched her move a small blob of cantaloupe around on her highchair tray for a good fifteen minutes the other day. She’s developing her fine motor skills. Imagine what she could do with aspic. Is there anything more fun to play with than Jell-o?

I also flipped through the chapter on pates. Another thing I could make for Kate. A way to get good organ meats into her.

It’s a shame so many of these traditional foods have been lost. Mothers used to feed their babies liver and other organ meats. Now they feed them iron-fortified cereal. Personally, I think feeding them cereal sets them up for digestive problems. Unsoaked grains are hard enough for adults to digest — much less babies. I’d rather give her liver.

We got some persimmons in our CSA box last week. They are delicious. Just slice them up and eat raw. I think I’ll puree some for Kate tomorrow.

In fact, I think I’ll soak some persimmons with oats and raisins in raw milk tonight for muesli for tomorrow’s breakfast. According to this recipe on my friend Louisa’s blog.

Eggplant Parmesan Redux: Results December 11, 2007

Tonight I made eggplant parmesan (I posted the recipe yesterday).

Modifications:

I hadn’t soaked my flour so I omitted that. And I forgot to let let the salted eggplant slices sit for an hour so they could weep. I let them sit for half an hour (it was getting late and Seth wanted his dinner).

Also, I fried the eggplant in bacon grease — leftover from lunch (I made bacon, lettuce & tomato sandwiches). There wasn’t quite enough bacon grease in the cast iron skillet so I added some coconut oil.

Anyway, it turned out great. Seth is not shy about telling me about how he really feels about the food I make. He doesn’t hesitate to say something sucks. But he said several times that he loved it.

This was actually the first time I ever made eggplant parmesan, and considering all the changes I made, I’m honestly surprised that it worked.

I will admit that personally I found the eggplant a tad soggy. I think the salting/weeping for a minimum of one hour is necessary. Also, I think the flour would have really made a difference. I had a hard time making the breadcrumbs stick to the eggplant. The flour would have helped that, and would have made it a bit crispier.

I served with a fresh salad of lettuce (red leaf and green leaf) and chopped heirloom tomato, fennel and cucumber, dressed with apple cider vinaigrette. The salad was good but I think adding a little avocado and kalamata olives would have made it even better.

Candida Detox December 10, 2007

Seth was diagnosed with leaky gut a few months ago. He has had a number of symptoms including constant intestinal and digestive problems, an inability to lose weight, inability to concentrate, etc. etc.

Leaky gut is a condition in which your digestive tract is damaged and weakened by a lack of good bacteria.

Good bacteria in the gut kill off toxins. When you don’t have enough, you get an overgrowth of yeast, also known as candida albicans.

I had this condition 15 years ago, when I was in my mind-twenties. I figured it out by putting all the pieces of the puzzle together — since doctors had no idea what was going on with me.

My symptoms were:

Arthritis in my knees, spreading to my hands and elbows
Bad respiratory allergies (constant sneezing, itching, runny nose, watery eyes)
Brain fog, dizziness
Constant fatigue
Thrush (a white coating on the tongue)
Bloating and slight weight gain
Constant cravings for refined carbs, sugar, and alcohol
Sores that would not heal — including open sores inside my nose
Continual sinus infections and other illnesses due to a weakened immune system

I believe what caused the yeast overgrowth was a combination of things:

Repeated rounds of broad-spectrum antibiotics as a child
Repeated rounds of broad-spectrum antibiotics as an adult for my constant sinus infections (caused by the candida!)
Vaccines (I had a recent round when I went back to college)
Eating dead foods lacking in probiotics and enzymes (pasteurized milk and dairy products, no lacto-fermented foods, a lack of raw fruits and vegetables)
Eating meats and dairy full of antibiotics
The birth control pill (I was only on it for a short time in my early 20s but I think it added to the mix)

It took me a while and a lot of research to figure out that it was the candida causing all my symptoms. Western doctors advised me to take pain medication for my arthritis and allergy medication for my sinus problems. They were only interested in treating my symptoms.

I ended up going on a wheat-free sugar-free diet. I was taking anti-fungals like garlic supplements and I was taking high doses of pharmaceutical grade probiotics (prescribed by my chiropractor-nutritionist), as well as a variety of nutritional supplements like bovine adrenal gland and thymus gland to strengthen my immune system.

Within a matter of a few months, I was 90% better and symptom-free. I stayed on the diet and the supplements for a few years until I was completely better — and could eat whatever I wanted with no symptoms. Cake, candy, bread, ice cream — no problem.

It wasn’t until I got on the birth control pill again this summer (prescribed by my doctor after the baby was born) that I started experiencing symptoms again. The biggest clue were the open sores on the inside of my nose. One day I read that the birth control pill contributes to candida — I stopped taking it immediately. I guess I was on it for a few months. Weeks after I stopped taking it, I still had the sores. And my allergies were back!

I tried taking some probiotics I got at the health food store. I’ve also been drinking tons of raw milk and eating lots of lacto-fermented foods. But nothing was helping. Months went by and I still had the sores.

Three days ago I started taking ThreeLac, which I ordered on the internet. I had read about it in Jenny McCarthy’s book, Louder Than Words. It’s what she used to help reverse her son’s autism.

Three days and guess what? Allergies and sores — GONE.

Unbelievable, eh?

Meanwhile, Seth is going through a massive detox. For the past three days since we started the ThreeLac, he is suffering from major yeast die-off. Flu-like symptoms: sneezing, achey muscles, severe fatigue, chills, vomiting.

This happened to me the first time I got over candida — it lasted a couple of weeks.

We reduced his dosage — from 1 packet daily to 1/4 packet. Hopefully it will be a little easier for him.

I’ll keep you posted on our progress.