Milk - it's for the cows

I think it's interesting that we never want to believe what is right in front of our eyes. I decided about three months ago to try out the Whole30 way of eating by cutting out all grains, legumes and dairy. It has been successful in that I experienced increased energy and just an in general feeling of well being. This was something that didn't come easy as I slowly gave up one beloved grain after another, some easier than others, but I had just recently learned to absolutely love brown rice and now I had to give it up. Dairy, on the other hand, is the thing I just wasn't able to let completely go, loving my coffee with cream.

I decided to share these ideals with my twenty something son who embraced the concepts and immediately began to apply them to his diet as well as my granddaughter's diet. After a couple of weeks of being on this new eating regimen my son tells me he is convinced that he has a dairy allergy. I accept his new realization and move on. I know that I don't have this problem because I have dairy every day.

This past month our Crossfit gym is having a Whole30 Challenge so for 30 days, in order to comply, I have to give it all up. In less than two weeks I may have just found that I have a dairy allergy. I gave up grains a while back, I gave up dairy 10 or so days ago. Since giving up dairy, my skin has started to clear, my joints hurt a lot less and I have effortlessly lost two pounds. I told a friend two days ago that I feel like Tony the tiger and if that ain't cheezy enough to tell you how great I feel without dairy in my life then I have no idea what else to say.

When my kid tried to tell me I turned the other way. I love cream in my coffee but come on, Tony wins. Adult animals do not drink milk, why do humans? Because we can may not be as smart as it sounds.

McDonalds - double cheese burger with fries please

The drive thru is almost open! This is my thought daily as we drive by on our way home from work and watch each hurdle of the elaborate remodel of our local McDonalds. This new store front is being made to look modern and fresh to attract people to their new and improved healthier menu options. What? Do they really need to fancy it up to get their clientele? Is a person like me, obsessed with what I eat, lured into their trap? To be honest, there is a certain fascination in watching the transformation take place each day as we pass by. The new design beckons me to come inside or drive through the new fancy two lane, nine foot clearance ordering avenues, even me, someone who hasn't eaten at a fast food joint such as this in so many years I can't recall the last occasion.

How do I explain this phenomenon? It's the beauty, it's the change, the new, the exciting...and it will bring in people slightly less stronger than myself just to check it out. Really, I sorta want to go in just to check it out, the newness, the pretty...I checked out the new Safeway after they remodeled it and was slightly disappointed that it had changed more on the outside than inside. Disturbing.

The pretty is the reason, that is it. Why does it sell? As humans, why are we so attached to new, pretty, changed, upgraded, more, better, fresh, updated...? What is our attraction to these descriptions? It is apparent that other specie of animal do not care about visualization, or at least the same as our own. Hell, my dog sometimes eats our other dog's crap; is that her pretty? I do not know. What I do know is that she doesn't judge me on looks and is very fair in that way.

I think most of us can agree on natural things that remain beautiful over time without change or upgrading, they are always beautiful, even when we get used to them. It is only man made views that we need to keep changing to meet human natures approval. Our tendency to pretty begat whole advertisement campaigns that have stayed the true course since industrialization became a reality. And it works...indeed it does...since we are all about the pretty.


McDonalds serving now at a better and more beautiful location. Eat it up and take in the views.

We are all fanatics, in one way or another, whether it be a hobby, a special interest; or one might be vehemently sick, while the other fanatically healthy. I am currently subscribed to the latter. I am obsessed with being healthy and that obsession has happened for a couple of, what I consider to be, very good reasons. For one and probably the most obvious, I would like to live as long as possible but I have a couple of other endearing factors as well.

My mom died of cancer pretty young. It was a devastating period of time. My husband’s mom died late in life at 88 years old. She was pretty healthy for the most part but could not be left alone after a stroke robbed her memory and not to mention the debilitating depression that followed. Two completely different circumstances but both with the necessity for care giving and the feelings of helplessness that come with it. I know what it feels like to care for a dying parent with fragile hopelessness. It is humbling and heart breaking to say the very least. By taking charge of my health, I hope to minimize disease so that when my time comes along, I will have left as little of an emotional footprint as possible on those who find themselves there in my time of need.

The more selfish side of my health obsession is that I want to be able to do the things I enjoy late into my years. I didn’t realize until later in life that I really don’t enjoy watching things as much as I do actually doing them. I want to be able to show my family, long into life, glimpses of the world through my eyes and offer a palate with which to “develop” a desire of their own along the way. I don’t want to spend the late years of life in a nursing home staring glibly at a television, forcing loved ones to make time for senseless zombie-like visits. It’s just not my style.

Some might view me as being a fanatical foodie and I am okay with that. If it helps me reach my goal, and I think it has served me well so far, then how can I argue with results. I choose to go without disease, if I can help it, peacefully in my sleep the night before a day filled with great plans. I want to just not show up one day.

Burgerville - where you go when you know.

One of the things that stands out along my journey of food education is the degree of public desensitization. I pick up on conversations and it hurts my heart to realize some of the perceptions regarding the humanities of today's world. In my head are some of the these ideals that have been trapped over the last couple of years that I must release. It is like a festering trap.

When a child prefers breast milk over a man formulated alternative, the child is not being sneaky or picky or spoiled. On the other hand, they are quite possibly still connected to an instinctual behavior and know better than the parent that which will supply the nutrients he or she needs to survive. Ironic?

A child out of control and a parent who offers up the simple explanation of the seemingly natural state of being on a sugar high. All those close in proximity nod in understanding. What are these insulin spikes doing to their little systems and how does this set up their health for the years to come?

We have no time. Food comes in a box, a can, a bag, in plastic...it's made into this and into that and it's easy and fast and sugar laden, not to mention the added bonus of the chemical preservatives. Convenient. I can't count how many times in the past I had ripped off the cardboard tab of some processed, easy to prepare, all in one meal to feed my family for dinner. I sometimes cringe in the shame of it. What is easy today will most likely come back to haunt in other, more time consuming ways health wise. In retrospect, is it really that convenient after all?

The prevalence of diagnosed diabetes increased from 0.9% in 1958 to 6.3% in 2008. In 2008, 18.8 million people had diagnosed diabetes, compared to only 1.6 million in 1958. (CDC.com) Although by 2008 the population had grown by 43%, diabetes had grown by 91% in growth comparison.

I wonder if big business food processors really have our health in mind when they are sealing up that last box of the day. I'm leaning toward not.

Support your local farms, farmers markets, grow your own. Eat whole foods.

http://eatwild.com/

Burgerville, do you know what you get when you go?

Big Pharma - are you a statistic?

Some years back, I developed psoriasis. I reached out to various dermatologists over the years and they each had something to offer me in the way of relief while maintaining the stance that there was no cure, only treatment. I eagerly took their advice and prescriptions every time. Nothing worked. The creams, the gels, a total waste of time, until I came upon the real doctors who had the good stuff.

The light treatments came next and made things worse but that was okay because there were far better "fix all" pharma to suit my needs. The last prescription I was given was a drug used to treat cancer. I might as well have been dead while on this drug. I cannot really explain how badly I felt during this time. I think back now and don't even know how I functioned at all. I remember associating getting out of bed in the mornings to peeling a banana, me being the peel, the mattress, the fruit. Every day was not just a chore it was a monumental accomplishment to get through and I hated everything and everybody. I can promise you it was the hardest thing I have physically ever done. Those that know me, know that is a statement into itself as a comparison since a year or so ago prior I had climbed my ass up Mt Hood (and some others) and was taking 9 mile runs on a regular basis.

But alas, the doc tells me they can give me a better drug that if I were willing to give myself injections that I would be just fine. They could get me back to the climbing and running, no problem. All I had to do was let them diagnose me with arthritis and that would suit my needs. Okay? Really? They asked that I go to this specific doctor to be diagnosed and I did and yes, he did, based on a few verbal questions diagnose me with arthritis. Really? Does this happen?

Project go-ahead. You can have the drug! Yes! But wait a minute. Being an intelligent thinking person, I pause to think of why this was all so easy and what the purpose really has been all along. I ask, what if I want to take a break from the drugs for a while to get my head together. After a scathing email lecturing me on the dire straits of my condition if I refused treatment I realized I was on my own. Then I get sick, the best thing that could have ever happened to me.

You see, you can't take the cancer meds when you're sick or you could end up with pneumonia so it is recommended that you skip your dosage while you are sick. I did. Almost immediately I felt a difference. I realized that, OMG, they were killing me with these drugs. And no, OMG, I don't want your new drugs either. This is when my journey of self healing began and still continues.

I have learned a lot so far and I continue to learn. I have learned things I don't specifically need to know for my specific condition, it just comes with the territory, but it is all useful and good stuff. My healing journey has just taken on a life of it's own but that's okay. I initially started this particular blog tonight about something different but this is what turned out and so it is. I will just go back and change the title.

Blogging, an animal of it's own. Like an alpaca, the hair just grows out of control but shit, alpaca wool makes great stocking caps so not all is lost. It's just a bad hair day.

We're not a part of "Nature" - we rule it, right?

Somewhere along the way we, as humans, have lost our connection with the rest of the natural world. It is human "nature" to not want to admit that we are, now in some fragmented fashion, a part of nature. We are the rulers of our earth, is it not true?


Birds, many species of birds, build many different types of nests based on their specie. I often wonder how a bird knows what type of nest to build? What size, what shape, how high...? How do they know? What "DIY" place do they get their instructions? Is there an instinctual energy that surrounds the planet that at one time we were in sync with that now evades our specie as we have evolved? The industrialization of our society, the perceived control severing the connection, continually setting the stage for disaster...are we, in fact, bulldozing the mother tree?

...and nature laughs, the jokes on you.

You freakin' idiots. You don't need blueprints to build a nest and progress is a matter of perception.

GMO Alfalfa - coming soon to a cow near you

With the deregulation of Monsanto's newest GMO (genetically modified organism) product, alfalfa, comes a whole host of new things to consider, one of which is the delusion that we have any control over the food we purchase in the open market. Seriously, this is disturbing. Since alfalfa is pollenated by bees and insects and has a pollination radius of five miles, eventually all alfalfa will be GMO. To add insult to injury, this will one day give Monsanto exclusive control to all alfalfa grown in the U.S. Can you say monopoly?

What, you say? You don't eat alfalfa? Ah, but the food you eat does and just as you are what you eat so is the vessel from which your food comes.

What to do?

Monsanto wins again.