Gonna Quit going to see Doctors...

Yep, I'm thinking to quit going to see any doctors. (No, not really, it's just a negative thought wave I was having.) It seems every time I go, they find more problems, with some now showing up as severe.

I am a firm believer that we are all responsible for the consequences of our actions (including what and how we choose to eat), and I'm no different than anyone else in the aspect of how those choices affect us individually. However, I DO wish I had been better informed years ago about what consequences our food choices have on our health.

My food choices have been great for the last several years, but not so for the first 60 years of my life. (I think I can thank mis-information, advertising and greed for that.) I cannot change the earlier damage that's just now showing up, although hopefully I CAN keep it from getting worse by continuing a healthy, real food diet. I also hope I can pass along lots of healthy food information!

My young (under age 40) primary care physician will not agree with all my food choices, but I have to remember she's a product of what she was taught in medical school, which generally has little emphasis (if any) on good nutrition. She has already recommended a low- to almost non-fat diet and we know the brain thrives on saturated fats!

Medical schools teach how to treat or cure diseases, not how to prevent them. I simply cannot buy the concept of a low-fat diet (and those are too high in bad fats anyway), the excessive sugars found in many fruits and grains, and "foods" filled with fake chemical ingredients... vs. the real foods Nature intended.

Institutional Food, Again

After being MIA for about 2 weeks, I'm starting to think about food and health again.

Recently I started throwing up blood (which I hadn't done for 6 years), and my sister called 911 for an ambulance. They took me to the local hospital (where they don't have an endoscopy team) so they transferred me to Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, NC, about a 2-1/2 hour drive. There they put me on a ventilator in order to do an EGD to stop the bleeding without possibly obstructing my airway, and I NEVER want to be on a ventilator again. To awaken and find my wrists and ankles tied down, and a balloon-feeling thing in my throat was frightening.

They repaired a Mallory-Weiss Tear (usually caused by forceful or long-term vomiting or coughing) and a small adjacent arterial bleeder in my stomach. I spent 2 days in ICU, and almost a week in a regular room. I have enough punctures from IV's and blood draws and blood sugar finger pricks that I look like I was fighting with a porcupine and lost. Both arms are black and blue from the armpit to my fingers. 

For 4 days I was only allowed a plain liquid diet, and that was unpleasant. Most liquid things available were high in HFCS or sugars, and high in sodium.
 
Institutional Food, BLECK! This hospital, part of a medical school, was better than most I've seen, and they even have a gluten-free section on the menu. That encourages me to think not ALL institutions are destined to serve swill.

I did have a decent slice of grilled salmon with a baked potato and broccoli once I was allowed solid food. 

When they discharged me, the hospital sent me back to Virginia via Greyhound, to the bus station downtown last night. Fortunately my neighbor had the day off and drove into town to fetch me. We have a foot of snow on the ground, and it was 10º here yesterday early in the morning, whereas it was a balmy 45º when I left Winston-Salem in the afternoon. I'm glad to be home, though.

They discovered I have a small aneurysm on the aortic arch, which we will watch and probably repair in 3 months unless it gets worse sooner.

In the meantime, my doctors said my recuperation will be slow. All the UTI-kidney problems I had back in November and December are part of the overall trauma that led up to this. I have zero energy, and I'm sleeping 15-20 hours a day. Some of that is due to the medications, which will not continue for very long (I hope). 

I go back in 2 days for a hospital follow-up, more blood work, and a full pulmonary function test. Then I have some appointments booked in March, and in May we may do the surgical repair of the aneurysm if I have healed enough. Thankfully, it's half the distance I was driving for medical care at UVA medical school and I really liked the medical team approach at Wake Forest. I'm cancelling the appointments already scheduled next week at UVa since the Wake Forest appointments are for the same things.

UVa and Wake Forest are ranked almost the same in Medical School Rankings. Of course, I worked many years for the #1 ranked medical school, Johns Hopkins, so I have a bias... but Hopkins is too far away for me to seek treatment there.

I have to draft and print a copy of the dietary protocol I follow for my digestive health doctor, and it may prove to be fodder for a post here. My docs spent a lot of time trying to get my electrolytes balanced, and my hemaglobin up. They seem to think the imbalance was from extended body trauma and not my diet, from what I could tell them I eat. This is the first time I've seen Residents, Fellows, and Doctors willing to discuss food/diet that's NOT the S.A.D. (Standard American Diet). Of course that wasn't ALL of them, but quite a few.

William Davis, MD, on Wheat Belly

The book Wheat Belly by the Cardiologist William Davis has been on my Wish List for months now, and I have read many favorable things about the book, and the connection of modern wheat to our obesity crisis. Just yesterday I came across a series of 6 YouTube videos where he explains the basis for his book.

I thought some of you may be interested in watching them if you have a lull in this hectic holiday season. By the Way, he has a cookbook, Wheat Belly Cookbook: 150 Recipes to Help You Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health that will be released Dec. 24.
 

Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VklT8uL8yo

Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYBvDee69lk&feature=BFa&list=UL3lq_5o9_iy4

Part 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMJaXx4DAOg&playnext=1&list=PL57233F3B3DBB6113&feature=results_video

Part 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLVjiDIwhuo&list=PL57233F3B3DBB6113&index=4

Part 5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0NKcJfcPw4&list=PL57233F3B3DBB6113&index=5

Part 6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lq_5o9_iy4&list=PL57233F3B3DBB6113&index=6

His Blog

http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/

I've been trying to eliminate a lot of wheat from my daily fare, but it's hard... wheat is IN everything! However, I have ordered some Einkorn flour to mix with almond or coconut flour for those few things I'm not yet willing to give up.

Train them young with good food

If I remember correctly, it says in Proverbs something like "Train up a child in the way he must go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it." 

I want to link that idea to real food, but I'm also wondering if behavior, just like health, isn't somehow food related?

I'm thinking about today's kids who are now in, or approaching, their semi-adult years... and whether they are really so much like (or unlike) we might have been (or were?) at their age, or is there something else/more going on?

The youngsters I see around here seem to concentrate entirely on using their opposable thumbs. I really have no problem with that (form of communication) although it's not my preference; it's their other behavior that interests me. So, I am wondering about whether there's actually a common cause like food for much of the behavior I see. (Don't misunderstand, please. I have many friends with great kids.)

I don't care what outlandish things kids wear, or the ghastly make-up and choice of attire, or their time enmeshed in texting... those are merely trappings, and I think some rebellion is a normal part of growing up. What I do care about is whether they have respect for anything, a real education, a sense of wanting to contribute to the community or the world, and some idea of what their families have provided for them.

I shall use my half-sister's daughter who lives here as an example. She's 24 and thinks the world owes her the lifestyle she covets. She was a late-in-life only child, born when my sis was 40, and who is still a single mother. The Kid lives on Ramen noodles, sugars, and other packaged starchy carbs, with an occasional chili or meatloaf thrown in every couple of months. (My sis can afford better food but the kid chooses what's quick and easy... and addictive.)

When she was about 4, the kid and my sis moved in with my Mother for a few years, and I spent a few months living there while building an addition on Mother's house for them. As with all my time ever spent living at home, Mother prepared a balanced meal for supper every night, much of it from her garden: salad, meat, green vegetable(s), usually a small side carb, and then a token light dessert. My sis never came to the table, but her kid did. She'd play with her food, end up restricted to the table until she "finished"... which she never did... and finally Mother would give in out of pure exasperation and let her go upstairs to Mommie. Around 8-9:00 my sis would come downstairs with the kid and give her pie/cake and ice cream or some other sweets she bought just for the kid. (It didn't help that the kid got almost any toy she wanted from the get-go either.)

I have no reason to think her eating habits ever changed; certainly her sense of entitlement never did. In all the years I visited, I never saw anything different, nor do I see it now that we technically live together, even though this house is divided into separate living quarters for me. The kid was diagnosed as ADHD when she was in elementary school, and has been on various meds ever since… that is, when she will take them. Frankly, if she wants to focus on something, she’s extremely able to focus, meds or not.

The Kid has had no job for over 2½ years, won't even consider temp work, and is looking for a sugar daddy. She won't even wash their dishes except maybe once a week under duress, and she has a mouth that would make a seasoned sailor blush. (If I had ever talked to MY mother that way, I'd have been toothless long before I was grown!)

I have to wonder how different her life might be (or might have been) if she had been encouraged by her mother to eat balanced "real food"  dinners when our Mother was still alive and cooking for them... and later on, fed real foods while she was growing up. Could it actually be that simple? What kind of future generations could we raise IF we fed them healthy, nourishing foods?

If it turns out her ADHD problems could be somewhat mitigated by healthy food, what might that mean for other kids today? Is there even much research being done on the emotional or psychological states of our kids and foods? I do see research on obesity in kids today, and those skirt as much of the industrial food issue as possible.

There is no way I can see to change this kid's eating habits; I've tried, and the habits are too ingrained. (Plus, it’s not my kid nor my responsibility either, except as a concerned person.) 

My own eating habits haven’t changed much in the 50+ years I have been providing for myself either, except to exercise some discernment in real food choices as industrial food has become bleck. 

My mother trained me right…

The Amazing World of Whipped Cream

Whipping cream is an almost dead gustatory art, gone the ways of Beef Wellington, puff pastry, and home-made demi-glace. Probably has to do with the availability of imposters, and a generation who have never savored real whipped cream.

Since my dietary changes a few months ago, the only dairy I can have is either real butter or cheese, and fermented products like yogurt... with one exception: I can have heavy cream in my coffee (as long as it is not ultra-pasteurized) and it is extremely difficult to find.

One of my small treats that's becoming a rite, is whipping some of that heavy cream for my coffee on Sunday mornings. I fondly remember reading in The Little Prince many years ago about the fox, and rites: "Rites are actions too often neglected. They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours."

I have always loved whipped cream. As a youngster in high school (and the oldest grandchild), I was permitted to whip the cream for our extended family's Thanksgiving pumpkin pies. My grandfather still had my grandma's old tall and somewhat narrow thick glass container, barely wider than the old hand beater we used. The jar (and the beaters) went into the freezer for several hours before whipping the cream; it is essential for success that everything be well-chilled. One small half pint of real cream when whipped would fill the jar, and be just enough for everyone to have a dollop on top of their slice of pie.

Cream with a milkfat content of 30% or more (light cream is 30%-35%; heavy cream is 36% or more) will double in volume as air bubbles are captured into the network of fat droplets by whipping. You just have to be careful not to over-whip the cream or you will have butter for your pie! It was my job to also add the correct amount of powdered sugar as I was whipping. Just enough sugar will stiffen the mixture, and help reduce the risk of over-whipping as long as you are careful. Too much and the whipped cream will weep. I use just over a measured tablespoon, and taste... it sometimes needed a bit more, depending on the sweetness straight from the cow.

Did you know whipped cream with sugar added is known as Chantilly Cream, or Crème Chantilly across the pond, and sometimes also has a bit of vanilla added? I didn't, but I may try a bit of vanilla whipped in my whipped cream since I cannot have sugar.

You can also make a chocolate whipped cream by adding a tablespoon of cocoa to the cream before whipping. That might be interesting in my Sunday coffee too!

The internet offers up ways to save left-over whipped cream, or keep cream you have whipped in advance and placed in the refrigerator from weeping. I cannot imagine either... we had the anticipation of the pie while the cream was being whipped at the table, and we never had any left over! However, if you must, you can add a half teaspoon of cornstarch to a cup of heavy cream before whipping. (Powdered sugar contains a bit of cornstarch; it may be enough.) Old cookbooks say you can keep left-over whipped cream up to 2 days by putting it in a small strainer over a bowl to catch the drippings, and cover well before placing in the refrigerator.

Whipped cream for a frosting is possible if you stabilize it with gelatin. For each cup of cream, you need 1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin and 2 tablespoons cold water. Mix the gelatin and water in a small saucepan with a heavy bottom over low heat, and stir until melted. Cool, set aside, and start whipping the cream. When the cream barely starts to mound, slowly drizzle the gelatin mix into the cream with the beaters running. Beat until it is stiff enough to frost your cake or pipe through a pastry tube.

I always heard you cannot freeze whipped cream, but a couple of sites say you can as long as it is sweetened and flavored first. But why would you want to?

The imposters

Reddi-wip, from Con-Agra Foods, actually uses real cream in their ready-to-use pressurized containers (Original, Extra-Creamy, Light, Fat-Free, Non-Dairy, and Chocolate), and is propelled by nitrous oxide (and approved by the FDA), the same gas that is used as a weak anesthetic by dentists. I'm not sure how the Fat-Free and Non-Dairy versions can possibly be made from real cream, though.

Cool Whip is a brand of imitation whipped cream named a whipped topping my its manufacturer. Cool Whip Original is made of water, hydrogenated vegetable oil, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, skim milk, light cream, and less than 2% sodium caseinate (a milk derivative), natural and artificial flavor, xanthan and guar gums, polysorbate 60, sorbitan monostearate, and beta carotene (as a coloring). In some markets, such as Canada and the United States, Cool Whip is available in an aerosol can using nitrous oxide as a propellant. Cool Whip was formerly marketed as non-dairy, but in Jewish dietary traditions, Cool Whip was classified as dairy rather than parve (non-meat and non-dairy) because of the sodium caseinate (which is derived from milk). Some Cool Whip now also contains milk and cream.

According to a Wired Magazine article, Cool Whip consumers are paying 41 cents per ounce for mostly water and air: twice the cost of homemade whipped cream. “A delicious blend of sugar, wax, and condom lube.”

Kellog's Boycott and Food Labeling

No, not the boycott of Kellogg's cereal company for dropping their sponsorship of Olympian Michael Phelps after he was caught on film smoking from a bong... but instead, the boycott by the Organic Consumers Association to stop Kellogg's from using GMO (biotech) sugar.


If you joined the OCA boycott, you probably received this letter from Christina, their "Consumer Specialist":

Thank you for your comments regarding the use of biotechnology ingredients. Like you, we want only the best ingredients to go into our products.

Biotech ingredients are safe and have become common in the open market. Sixty to seventy percent of packaged foods in the U.S. include biotechnology crops. Even organic ingredients can contain biotech ingredients due to cross-pollination.

We use biotech ingredients based on the backing of groups including the World Health Organization, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the American Medical Association that confirm there are no safety concerns.

You have placed trust in us to provide healthy, nutritious, and safe food. We will continue to evaluate our ingredients, suppliers and product formulas to give you the best products possible. Please be assured your concerns will be shared with our nutritionist and food developers here at Kellogg.

Sincerely,

Christina Calleros
Consumer Specialist
Consumer Affairs, Kellogg's

I do agree with the statement: "...have become common in the open market. Sixty to seventy percent of packaged foods in the U.S. include biotechnology crops. Even organic ingredients can contain biotech ingredients due to cross-pollination."

However, the statement that GMO's can contaminate organic crops... is an admission growing biotech crops is not a controllable situation. And the fact that 60-70% of packaged foods in the US now contain GMO's is alarming, or worse, since NONE of them are labeled as such. (I have recently read the percentage of GMO's in foods is actually much higher.)

If I believe GMO's are harmful for my health (and I do)... how could I possibly avoid them if they are not labeled?? 


Lectins are naturally found in most foods, but how much lectin varies with different foods. The amounts of lectins present in many foods are not thought to be high, or as potentially toxic as lectins in just a few food groups. Common foods with known toxic lectins include all soy and wheat products including oils from these substances.  Lectins are often spliced into modified varieties (GMO's) in order to enhance “natural” pest and fungal resistance. Furthermore, lectins have been associated with leptin resistance, a pre-diabetic condition linked to obesity (and is very similar to insulin resistance). 

How would a pre-diabetic who is studiously avoiding grains and legumes know he was still getting lots of lectins in his other packaged foods via 'biotechnology' if they aren't labeled?

Hide your Salt Shaker

 Rock Salt Photo from nate steiner's photostream

Now the Feds want to regulate salt...

The Food and Drug Administration is planning an unprecedented effort to gradually reduce the salt consumed each day by Americans, saying that less sodium in everything from soup to nuts would prevent thousands of deaths from hypertension and heart disease. The initiative, to be launched this year, would eventually lead to the first legal limits on the amount of salt allowed in food products.

"We can't just rely on the individual to do something," said Cheryl Anderson, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who served on the Institute of Medicine committee. "Food manufacturers have to reduce the amount of sodium in foods."

So, the FDA wants to regulate the amount of salt in manufactured foods, which on the surface sounds like a good idea. In my opinion, manufactured 'foods' are way too high in sodium. Of course in my opinion manufactured foods aren't real foods at all, but that's not relevant to this post.

Salt essential for animal life in small quantities, but salt is harmful in excess to plants and animals. The sodium it provides regulates the heartbeat and the body’s balance of fluids. And not only does salt keep you alive, it’s also pretty tasty. Salt flavor is one of the basic tastes, making salt one of the oldest, most ubiquitous food seasonings, and salt is essential to much of our food preservation. 

Salt works in tandem with fat and sugar to achieve flavors that grip the consumer and do not let go — an allure the food industry has recognized for decades. “Once a preference is acquired,” a top scientist at Frito-Lay wrote in a 1979 internal memorandum, “most people do not change it, but simply obey it.”

So instead of controlling the salt, maybe the Feds should control ALL the known but hidden addictive ingredients so prevalent in our foods, and making us fat and unhealthy?

Back in March, when I wrote about gun control, I questioned why the government has the right to regulate things like helmet laws, or seat belt laws. Now that the Feds are in the Health Care business they want to regulate things which, in their opinion, will make us healthier? (And save them money on our healthcare costs?) As long as the Feds continue to promote the erroneous opinion that natural saturated fats are bad, and GM products are good, we will have rising health care costs, and salt has very little to do with it.

I drink real cream (not half and half) in my morning coffee... the almost real stuff (not totally real because it is pasteurized). What would keep them from deciding that's too much saturated fat in their opinion, and they outlaw cream? Or that no one should ever have a cocktail because it leads to alcoholism in a few people?

Corporations enter the Battle

Cargill is the world's largest marketer of salt products, with the ability to sell over 18 million tons annually. Last November, they kicked off a campaign to spread their own message, with star chef Alton Brown, to promote cooking with salt. They are aware of the health concerns and are recommending 'smarter salting'...

“Salt is a pretty amazing compound,” Alton Brown, a Food Network star, gushes in a Cargill video called Salt 101. “So make sure you have plenty of salt in your kitchen at all times.” Mr. Brown suggests sprinkling it on foods like cookies, fresh fruit, ice cream and coffee. "You might be surprised by what foods are enhanced by its briny kiss."

I'm not against salt at all, and in fact I agree with Alton Brown on the importance of salt in foods. I just wish Mr. Brown wasn't speaking for Cargill. I use salt in my cooking (haven't tried it ice cream) and most of the salt I use is grey salt, full of minerals, hand harvested from the coast of Brittany. Much of my food would taste pretty bland without a pinch of salt. (Salt used in cooking and at the table, coupled with naturally occurring salt in foods, all together add up to well under 1/4 of the average daily intake of most Americans.)

It's not the salt alone that I worry about. I'm leery of giant corporations in general, for the power and influence they can bring to bear, and more so when they launch a dedicated 'sales' campaign. Over this past winter, road salt increased 156% in some areas. Grocery prices are up and expected to increase 7.5% every year for at least the next 5 years, especially staples... and certainly salt is a staple in every kitchen.

Here are some remarks about Cargill, from Wikipedia:

Cargill, Incorporated is a privately held, multinational corporation, and is based in suburban Minneapolis, Minnesota. It has grown into the country's largest privately held corporation (in terms of revenue).

Cargill's business activities include purchasing, processing, and distributing grain and other agricultural commodities, and the manufacture and sale of livestock feed and ingredients for processed foods and pharmaceuticals.

The company also supplies approximately 22 percent of the United States domestic meat market. All of the eggs used in McDonald's  restaurants in the United States pass through Cargill's plants. They are the largest poultry producer in Thailand.

I'm sure the battle will go on, and probably with a furor, since the FDA thinks it is their appointed duty to save us from ourselves.

The White House Kitchen Sticky Wicket

Photo courtesy of foxypar4's photostream

We all know First Lady Michelle Obama is on a "laudable food crusade in America -- promoting the healthful benefits of fresh, local and sustainably grown nutrition, including produce raised in the world's most famous vegetable garden: that photogenic patch of organic land on the White House South Lawn." (source)

The foods chosen by the White House occupants have been in the news again a couple of times recently. The NY Times carried a story about the pastry chef and Mrs. Obama's stipulations about sweets.

The White House Pastry Chef, Bill Yosses, said Mrs. Obama "stipulated that dessert would be a rarity, not routine, at family meals, and that portions should be scaled down." He is also in pursuit of the perfect pie crust which includes lard and not (partially hydrogenated) vegetable shortening!

However, when a writer for the Huffington Post recently contacted the White House with questions about whether their sources of eggs, dairy products, beef, pork, poultry and other meats were local, sustainable and organic, or if some/all of it was from confined animal feeding operations (CAFO's), Mrs. Obama's press secretary declined to "answer at this time".

I'm sure that would be a political sticky wicket to answer, considering the deep pockets of BigAg. Mrs. Obama is on record suggesting the elimination of processed foods and incorporating more fruits and vegetables into our diets. During the 2008 campaign trail, she told The New Yorker in a candid moment that her family had shifted to organic, free of pesticides, petrochemicals, antibiotics and hormones. Yet the track record of our government food regulatory agencies remains poor.

The New York Times reported that Laura Bush "insisted fresh, organic foods be served in the White House, but did not broadcast that information to the public".

Standard American Diet

Look Familiar? This latest evolution of Man looks like Homo Consumericus to me. Body-wise and Health-wise, it is what we are becoming on the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.). Yes, it IS SAD, and I will be writing a number of posts starting in May addressing many of the the fault(s) and what we, as individuals and families, can do about it. Stay Tuned.

Naysayers

Photo from * Abhi *'s photostream

I'm already hearing from acquaintances who strongly disagree with what I am posting about soy. And that's okay ... the First Amendment guarantees our Right to say what we think (and the Right to have poor nutrition if we so choose!). As my old pastor said, "I may not believe what you have to say... but I would give my life to defend your right to say it."

Nothing I have seen in this life is ever just black and white, and no person I've ever met or read about has all the answers. I merely write what I uncover and how it applies to my heath. If what I write also happens to be of interest or possible benefit to you, that's wonderful. If it offends you, please don't read it.

What disappoints me, though, is that these are intelligent people who have bought lock, stock and barrel* the long-running and expensive advertising myth about soy. There's a current ad running on TV that says soy has been in the diet of Asians and other ethnic groups for thousands of years, and that there is correlation to lower incidence of disease in that population. So it must be safe, right?

Technically, that TV advertising statement is correct. Soy has been consumed for thousands of years, but in it's fermented form (like soy sauce, tamari, tofu and tempeh which break down the antinutrients), and even then, they ate it more as a condiment or only in small quantities. You can be sure it wasn't Roundup Ready soy, either.

As far as disease, native cultures around the world had far better health and much less disease, thanks to the unprocessed foods in their diet. Since they also had no refrigerators, much of their food was fermented to keep over the winter, and historically, their grains were soaked before cooking.

The medical literature is full of case studies showing startling increases in disease with the introduction of 'western (i.e. processed) foods' . That initial observation was the foundation of the research by Dr. Weston Price: the comparison of disease including tooth decay in the western diet of processed foods vs. the health-building diet of unprocessed foods eaten by native cultures.

There is also a lot of controversy about soy milk in infant formula. I'm not going to wage a crusade against that issue (infant formula) because it's all been documented already. It's basically a battle of BigAg profits vs. health, and personally I question any medical research supported by grants from BigAg, right along with pay-offs via campaign contributions and 'gifts' to elected officials who "assure" our food quality.

*although a well-known phrase since the 1800's, I like how Rudyard Kipling used it: "The whole thing, lock, stock and barrel, isn't worth one big yellow sea-poppy." ~ The Light That Failed