Category Archives: food

First Impressions

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Utility companies are not known for being friendly towards environmentalists…

…so it was with some amusement this morning at the organic grocery that I noticed a couple of young guys in Carhart’s getting what appeared to be their lunch for the day–hummus and some other healthy stuff.

Obviously they were employed in a profession that required them to be outside. Farmers? Not likely to come all the way in town for just a few things. Street dept. workers?  Possibly.

I got my answer when I left the building and saw a utility company truck parked in the lot.

Yeah, so I’m not sure if these guys supported sustainable agriculture (which means a decrease in toxins in the environment if we’re to survive) or if there is a total disconnect and they’re buying organic/healthy food without a care of how it got there….

I’m left to ponder…

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One of our rightwing radio hosts was talking Friday about the return of the robins to the area soooo early.

He tried to say that these were Canadian robins, therefore they were *south* for the winter….

Um, yeah…

I’ve lived in Indiana all of my life, and it has always been a right of Spring for them to return.  We never saw them the entire winter. Never.  That’s why it didn’t make it for the state bird–because it didn’t stay here all winter.

We were always excited when the first robins returned–we’d “stamp” the first one we saw for *luck*.

Canadian robins….pshaw.

 

Gluten Free Watchdog

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…because companies will label their products “Gluten-Free” when they’re really not.  It’s either conscious deception so they can get the $$$ gluten free market dollars, or they’re not really testing their product to be sure that it is gluten free.  As I’ve posted before,  even a little gluten for someone who is Celiac can mean a serious reaction. (hat tip to this blog.)

Watchdog mentions this organization that helps certify food.   This makes food shopping sooo much easier–all you have to do is look for the logo and you are reasonably comfortable buying the product.   There is this, too, which also has a logo to help shoppers identify gluten free food.  There is a link to GF recipes on the main page.

Here is a webpage of the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness.  They, too, help to certify GF foods.  They use a third party to help certify products, which is a bonus. Here is a list of GF manufacturers.  I always want to add a caution that everything can change in a moment’s notice and if a food affects one, whether it’s labeled GF or not, one should be cautious about eating it again.  As they say on the support group–something may be gluten free, but it perhaps is an allergen for a particular person.  Allergies can show up with the typical runny nose, or rash or headache or someone may just feel extra tired after eating a particular food.  Your body will tell you what it needs and doesn’t need–one just has to pay attention.

 

There’s no climate change…

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Well, I shouldn’t be surprised, but yet, I still am about the gushing by the nooz broadcasters on the spring weather…

They were just all over the “nice” weather we’ve had the past few days—-50-and 60-degree days.  They even went out “on the street” to ask the public their opinion about the great weather we’re having….and they were all positive comments on how great it was to wear a light jacket or no jacket at all in January in Indiana…and they even mentioned that all the comments were positive, except one…guess which one didn’t make it to the broadcast?  This was a deliberate choice, folks.  Newsroom editors wield huge power in what gets on the air and what doesn’t.  And what does get on the air has an enormous impact–they know this.

So…I was a little beside myself with this broadcast.  I mean, are people really that dense?  Do they not know what is happening?  Do they even think about how this summer is going to be if we’re having 60-degree weather in January?  Good Grief, how soon they forget when we had 90 degree heat throughout the summer, with a drought, last year, and how dangerously low the rivers were.  Thankfully, we’ve had some good rain and that good snow in December, and the rivers are now up to level.  A small victory, but it won’t last if we start having 80-degree heat in March like we did last year.

But there’s no Climate Change.  These people will just go on their merry way until the last drop of water comes out of the tap…

I mean, seriously, doesn’t anyone think beyond their nose?

What about the too warm water that is a threat to nuclear power plant ability to cool the nuclear core?  If the warming trends continue, we will lose the ability to cool the core….can anyone say meltdown?  I hate to even think of a worse case scenario of a plant in a scramble that cannot be cooled because the water is too warm to cool it.

Another scenario is this.  Discharging hotter water into the already warm water, leading to fish kills and other destruction of the carefully constructed eco system is not a good, well thought out plan.

Speaking of the effects of the warmer weather, the plants are also being affected, as my Sedum Autumn Joy is starting to pop up from the soil.  (I brought it here with me–it’s a plant that I’ve had since my son was a baby.  I dug it up when I lost my house.)

This weather is not normal and not something to be celebrated.

Earth will survive.  We won’t.

Boycott Kellogg’s

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Organic Consumers posted this a while back (I’m sooo far behind in emails).  Financially supporting the companies that truly have the best interests of their consumers at heart is the best way to go.  Well, that and labeling our food.

Read the note on Kashi’s using genetically engineered soy in their “organic” products.  It is such a cop-out to claim pollination was the reason the soy was GMO–an easy way to escape accountability.  Instead of fighting GMO labeling, they should be fighting against Monsanto and the others involved in genetically modified food.  This food is highly likely involved in leaky gut, as the body cannot recognize the grain anymore, and treats it as a foreign substance and that leads to gut inflammation and eventually leaky gut.

A link here to eye problems and leaky gut and GMO’s.  Very interesting.  My eyes have begun to improve–I was using 1.50 readers and now am able to use the 1.25 magnification.  I’m also able to distinguish fine degrees of color, and I had lost some of my ability to determine colors.  I know this by my embroidery thread that I used for counted cross-stitch–the thread is numbered and has very minute distinctions, and it was difficult for me to separate them by color.  I grew so frustrated at it that I just put them all in one bag, unable to organize them.  This began to change when I started to detox.

Here’s a good opinion on the GMO’s.

More here on the global effort to get GMO’s labeled.

A debate between a professor and a neoliberal. (hat tip to organic consumers).

Lastly, I really wonder about the exposure even if you’re not eating GMO foods (or at least trying not to by buying organic).  I say this because every year, around late July, I begin to have more severe allergy symptoms, culminating in September, when I usually have headaches several days out of the month (this has been after mercury poisoning–at least, that’s when I first noticed it).  I found a link here on the increase in allergies and GMO’s.

Here is a paper that must have been written by a Monsanto toadie, it is so slanted towards GMO’s and gives very little attention or support for research towards health concerns.  This is what I was seeing when I was a student in college and I took a class in science writing:  they had a forum at this strongly agricultural school on GMO’s when they were first being introduced in 1997-98 (only we found out later that they had been unleashed onto the unsuspecting public earlier.)

A good blog here on GMO.

 

 

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Related to this is an stunning affirmation of those in power that amalgams are safe.  Just stunning. Absolutely stunning.  (hat tip to organic consumers).  It just goes to show that Washington is bought by those whose interests don’t include the health and well being of the public, but of who has the $$$ to fund their campaigns.

And my previous blog  with this on how not only mercury affects us, but the animals, as well.  My other blogs on it here and here.

And I’m finished.  So much for catching up on my emails. 😛

 

 

Exploring the link between diet and health

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I wanted to explore the health factors that indicate heavy metal poisoning and the African Americans.

I found this link on BET.  Diabetes can be caused by heavy metal poisoning, and high blood pressure is linked to the adrenals and kidneys which can be severely affected by heavy metal toxicity, therefore, affecting blood pressure. And, of course, heavy metal poisoning is closely associated with autistic symptoms.  I say “symptoms” because I’m not sure that the poisoning causes autism, but it most definitely causes autistic symptoms, as has been my experience.

Here’s another site.  I’ve come across a couple of websites geared towards the African American link to autism, but they are exploring the issue of comparison between whites and blacks being diagnosed later.  I’m trying to get away from that because it’s not helpful.  It is not going towards the issue itself of autism and the possible causes behind it.  It’s upsetting to me because the blanket statement that whites get diagnosed sooner than blacks is not my experience, nor others who also diagnosed themselves.   I, a white person, was not diagnosed by any damn doctor, after years of low thyroid, adrenal issues, chronic fatigue, migraines, and the symptoms of autism of wanting to be left alone, wanting to stay in my house and never leave it, diminishing communication skills, memory loss, hyperfocusing, exaggerated startle response, etc.

When I searched for a link with African Americans and heavy metal poisoning, I again came up empty.

I searched “chronic fatigue and African Americans and found this.  As I read the paragraph:

Psychosocial variables may influence the experience of chronic fatigue, especially in individuals of color. Overarching psychosocial realities such as the endemic nature of ethnic/racial discrimination and the complexity of the acculturation process may bear on the experience of fatigue. This study evaluated whether the acculturation process was related to chronic fatigue and racism among African Americans and Latinos. While associations among the predicted variables were not statistically significant, distinct divisions among levels of acculturation appeared between African Americans and Latinos. Membership in a community of color likely increases the complexity of the experience of chronic fatigue in a manner that requires further investigation.

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Okay, what I’m reading from this is that the psychobabble is stating that chronic fatigue is a psychological problem.  Pfft.  Yep, they’ve been telling women that for decades…didn’t even acknowledge that it was a true physical condition until very recently.  These women were just lazy and hypochrondriacs who needed to get a life, when in reality they were the first to suffer the effects of low thyroid and adrenal fatigue from a toxic environment.

Reading this website, the symptom onset after a traumatic event, either physical or emotional, with the compromised immune system is a red flag for an inflamed gut from Celiac or gluten intolerance.  It’s the final straw that breaks the body. I have issues with the link to the psychological, although stress does affect the immune system, I don’t think it’s the cause of it.  It’s too convenient to blame psychological stress than to explore things such as heavy metal toxicity and/or leaky gut. It’s been proven that gluten intolerance can cause psychological symptoms, and this has been known since before WWII.  Therefore, the psychological stuff comes *after* the leaky gut or whatever physical issue is beleaguering the body, not necessarily the other way around.

As a side note, I found this link.  I had forgotten about the Gulf War syndrome being the first serious acknowledgement that chronic fatigue was an actual physical ailment and not psychological.  And the link between Gulf War syndrome and vaccines should not be ignored.

From the website:

“Despite these agreements between FDA and DoD, and DoD’s official subsequent decision to administer the vaccine voluntarily, many PGW veterans claim that they were not told what vaccine they were being given, or what the risks were, either orally or in writing. Many report that they were told not to tell medical personnel that they had received a vaccination, even if the vaccination caused pain or swelling. No record of the vaccine was available in medical records; as a result, physicians who were concerned about any local or systemic reactions were uninformed about the possible causes. Veterans who claim they were harmed by the vaccine or pyridostigmine frequently have no proof that they were vaccinated or took the pills, or that they had an adverse reaction. Moreover, virtually none of the soldiers received more than two of the botulism vaccinations, even though DoD informed FDA they would administer the three shots necessary for protection…

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So, folks…you should run right out and get that flu vaccine.  Run! NOW!

 

More adventures in Gluten free cooking

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(PERSONAL BLOG)

I haven’t had pancakes in a long while–mainly because I had to watch the carbs because of the mercury’s interference with maintaining sugar levels.  That is, I would react strongly to any carb or high glycemic food, possibly bringing on a migraine.

With the admonition from the Celiac.com members stating that I couldn’t cheat, I had to have something akin to a treat, and decided to try gluten free mixes.  One I tried is by Gluten Free Pantry.  I bought their pancake mix, which has some dairy, but I seem to be able to tolerate small amounts.  I made it using one-half of the recipe amounts, with the exception of using two small eggs (that I needed to use up because they somehow got forgotten in the frig and were almost expired…ahem.)– this made them even more fluffy.

Anyway, I tried it the past couple of mornings….and it’s w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l!  A big red flag for anyone who thinks they may be gluten intolerant–when I ate wheat pancakes, they would just lay there in my stomach…for days.  Okay, I’m exaggerating, but yeah, that should be a clue that perhaps my body couldn’t digest it if it feels like a rock.  (They always felt like a rock.  This was “normal” for me–nothing to compare it to until now.)

Of course, Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride is against mixes (processed food).

This page also decries the mixes. Oy.  I guess I’ll have to see how it affects me.  I can tell pretty quickly by my face whether something I ate doesn’t agree with me–my skin looks blotchy and loses its glow when I’ve eaten something I shouldn’t.   It’s amazing how our bodies “tell” us when something is wrong…albeit very subtly.

I didn’t have a migraine this month (woot!)…and feel pretty darn good right now…so I know that I’m on the right track.  It seems the migraines are going to be every other month, for now. Hopefully, they’ll eventually disappear altogether.   🙂

 

 

More on celiac…

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Having support of one’s family and spouse after diagnosis would seem to be a no-brainer, but no, as this post illustrates. Such ignorance and indifference–encouraging someone to sabotage themselves…and as one poster said, they really don’t want to hear about it. <sigh>

I forgot to mention the other day about the confirmation of my suspicions that I had become even more sensitive to wheat and other foods that set off the immune system allergic response–others on the forum remarked that it is a phenomenon that the system, while trying to heal itself, suddenly kicks into overdrive at the offending substance and the reaction is more severe.  Just thought I’d throw that out there for anyone else struggling with this.

 

Celiac

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I can’t remember if I’ve blogged on this website or not, so forgive the repeat if I did~

Celiac.com is a wonderful resource for those with gluten intolerance/celiac.

I was reading the forums from others and it really helps especially during the holidays.  One of the posters has family that don’t understand how serious the condition is and that they can’t eat the normal foods associated with the holidays.  The family member took offense that she would want to fix food for her family (husband and child are affected) separately.

In another post, it really struck home for me–a new member asked if she could cheat a little, as long as she was eating right most of the time.  I have to admit that I’ve cheated, too, and was thinking that as long as I was eating the right foods 90% of the time, that a little bit of cheating wouldn’t hurt.

Wrong.

The other members were quick to tell her in no uncertain terms not to do it.  For one, even if you’re diligent about eating the right foods, you never know when you’ll be exposed to cross contamination (eating food prepared in a facility that also prepares wheat products or even breathing the wheat dust while someone else is baking can affect one, as well).  One member related that she got fed up with the gluten-free diet and for a year or so ate whatever she wanted….she was at a pizzeria when she doubled over in pain and had to be taken to the hospital.  They rushed her into emergency surgery and removed part of her bowel that had literally exploded.  She now has a colostomy and hopes to heal enough to get it removed in the near future.

And on the support group (GAPS), a member posted about her child that had been given crackers by the teacher.  When the parent raised alarm at this, and how this was not allowed, the teacher made some comment that it was *only* six crackers (or something like that).

Incredible!

If the child had a peanut allergy, and this teacher had given him/her peanuts, it would be considered a serious breach of duty.

Even a doctors have told their Celiac patients that they can cheat *a little*.  Wow.

And trying to tell my family about this disease and warning them that it’s inherited and pointing out signs of it has fallen on deaf ears….some even get a little perturbed at me….<sigh>

Monsanto sneaking through power grab legislation

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(sigh) this just gets sooo monotonous…once again Monsanto is trying to sneak through legislation to grab even more power over what is planted in the land. (hat tip organic consumers)

More from organic consumers here on the boycott of companies that have “natural” brands that sunk Prop  37 in California.  They’re worried about money in political campaigns…I’m worried about the money behind stuff like this.  It’s much harder to get attention directed at these campaigns by the media, therefore, it’s much harder to get the facts out there.

They also have a video posted by Jim Goodman.  I don’t have time to watch it today, but wanted to post it for others.