Category:

Dying For Health

1/19/2014

This week at the office was a tough one, as we were all rather shocked by the loss of one of our colleagues, who passed away suddenly last weekend. The final word is not in yet, but it seems likely that he succumbed to a diabetic coma, as he had quite severe Type 1 diabetes, and had frequent problems controlling his blood sugar. I had known him for several years, and a more caring, kinder soul would be hard to find. I was deeply saddened, and have spent the week pondering mortality, the shortness of life, and the value of the people I love.

However, I was not as surprised by his untimely demise as some. You may have heard me mention him from time to time as "my vegan friend." Not even 50 years old, he had the look of someone older, and always looked rather sickly and pale to me. I am not necessarily attributing this to his veganism, although, as you may have read in previous blog posts, I don't see it as the healthiest way to eat. I remember thinking as he vehemently espoused the vegan lifestyle to anyone who would listen (or even look in his direction), that I wondered if he would live to 60.... A terrible passing thought to have, but he was one of those I would call a "rabid vegan," who sought constantly to convert others to his way of eating, though the effects it seemed to have had on his body and health didn't really appear to be all that positive.

Don't get me wrong: I feel there is room in the world for all types of eaters - vegan, vegetarian, omnivore, whatever floats your boat - it's ultimately up to you. However, I also know that unhealthy eaters can be found in all of these genres. Affiliating yourself with a certain type of eater doesn't automatically make you healthy, although many people seem to think it does.

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Empire of Corn - Part 2

1/12/2014

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Last week we talked about corn, and especially about the detrimental effects of corn being fed to animals - particularly cattle. We left you with the surprising fact that each person in the US consumes about 1 ton of corn per year. How does one person possibly eat that much corn? Besides feeding meat animals, and your gas tank, here's what happens to most of the rest of that corn:

It is processed.

First, the grains of corn are usually soaked in an acid bath, then ground, the germ separated out, the kernels crushed, then further ground, filtered, spun, etc. Water is added, more acids are added, dissolving, pulverizing, separating into different components, and the process goes on. If it sounds like quite an intensive process, it is. According to Michael Pollan's book, The Ominivore's Dilemma, for every calorie of processed food produced from corn, 10 calories of fossil fuel energy are burned.

Along with corn syrup (not surprisingly one of the largest uses), corn also becomes corn starch, citric and lactic acid, glucose, fructose, maltodextrin, ethanol, sorbitol, mannitol, xanthan gum, modified and unmodified starches, dextrins, cyclodextrins, and MSG - among hundreds of others. Most all of these will be familiar to you if you've ever looked at the label of most processed food items. It's no wonder that you eat a lot more corn than you might think you do!

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Empire of Corn - Part 1

1/5/2014

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Happy New Year everyone!! I hope you had a wonderful, safe, happy and healthy holiday season! It's hard to believe it is 2014, and the new year stretches ahead full of possibility. Let's make it a wonderful year to remember! I know it will be for me, as I'm getting married this year! :-)

I know I promised to report on The Omnivore's Dilemma, and I will share more soon, but I'm not quite finished with it. I read quite a bit of it on Christmas vacation, and it's really such an amazing book! Today I wanted to share just a few tidbits that you may not know - I certainly didn't!

The first part of the book goes into the history of corn, which you would think would be a less than fascinating subject, but it is very well written, and I found myself drawn into the strange world of this exotic and unique plant, which has shaped so much of our culture and food chain, and without which our country would probably look very different right now. Interestingly enough, it is a very co-dependent relationship, as without humans, corn would likely not have survived as a species either!

It is hard for me to adequately explain the ridiculous and convoluted system that has made corn the basis of our entire food system, or the full scope of destruction this system is wreaking on our land, our farmers, and our health. The book goes into it in depth, and for a more detailed explanation I recommend you grab a copy, but here are the highlights:

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What's In YOUR Food? (Battling the Culture of Irresponsibility)

12/15/2013

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Last week I was lucky enough to attend a training conference in Orlando. It was a wonderful change from the below-freezing temperatures we have endured in Ohio for the past month! I took with me to read on the plane, a book I've had sitting on my coffee table for months, but hadn't gotten around to reading yet. Shocking, funny, infuriating, and above all, eye-opening, The Omnivore's Dilemma, by best-selling author (and truly excellent writer) Michael Pollan, exposes things about your food you never knew - and once you know them, you'll never look at food the same way.

I didn't expect the book to be so engaging, and my alternate horrified gasps, frustrated sighs, and surprised laughter drew several odd looks from my fellow passengers. Not the least of which was my young seatmate and co-worker, who asked with interest what the book was about. I explained briefly, but then shared a few examples of what I was learning, after the last of which, she replied - "Never mind - don't tell me any more - I don't want to know!" When I replied, but "knowledge is power," my ever-quick-witted protege countered with "ignorance is bliss."

Witty though her response may have been, this sort of thinking frustrates me to no end, and I encounter it everywhere! Somehow we humans seem to have evolved away from our natural inclination to learn what is bad for us so we can avoid it, and into some strange ostrich-like mindset that, "what we don't know can't hurt us." When it comes to food and what we put into our bodies every day, nothing could be further from the truth!

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Your Health Is Up to You

11/10/2013

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Pardon me for climbing onto my soapbox for a bit today.... It seems that one of our greatest flaws as human beings is laziness. Or perhaps this is a particularly American flaw?

We were not founded on laziness - indeed, our founding fathers (and mothers) espoused just the opposite. Personal responsibility was the word of the day, and is even the basis for our Constitution - the government was to give us the freedom to take responsibility for our own lives in most areas.

But somewhere these values seem to have been lost along the way.... Indeed, it now almost seems that we equate "freedom" with LACK of responsibility. In America today, we seem to think that to be "free" means to have others take care of everything for us, and that is a dangerous philosophy indeed.

Relying on someone else, whether it be your government, the industrial food system, your doctor, or even your spouse to decide what is in your best interest and make your decisions for you is to be well on the way to losing all freedom entirely.

But I will try not to get too political today! As you may suspect, one of the areas where I am most concerned about this trend is health and our healthcare. (I use the term "healthcare" loosely here as what we commonly call "healthcare" is really sickcare.) While you may have your own views on politics and how much control we have over the direction of our country and our nation, one thing we all DO have control over (at least so far) is our own health. And I'm not talking about health insurance or the "Affordable Care Act" or anything like that. (That, again, goes back to "sickcare.")

What I am talking about is our ability to take charge of our own health, and stay healthy and well - so that we hopefully rarely, if ever, truly need to resort to the use of our current "sickcare" system.

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5 Myths About Eating Organic - Part 2

10/27/2013

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Last week we talked about two common myths about eating organic - those who think it's "too expensive," and the nay-sayers who contend that it's not that much healthier anyway. Be sure to check out that post if you missed it!

This week we're covering 3 more myths you may have heard about eating organic foods. The first of them gets my goat a bit, especially since I first read it in a natural health newsletter!

Myth #3: If You're Already Unhealthy, It's Not Worth It

I was a bit shocked to read this conclusion in an article in one of my favorite health newsletters - from an author I usually otherwise almost always agree with and respect. He stated that if you already live an unhealthy lifestyle, eating organic won't make enough of a difference to be worth the cost and/or effort. This was a rather lengthy article, with a lot of other points in it, and to be fair, I do see where he is coming from, to some extent. His point was, you need to clean up other areas of your life first, and then eating organic will be the icing on the cake, so to speak. For example, if you smoke, eat lots of junk food and unhealthy carbs, and don't get any exercise, eating organic food isn't going to magically turn you into a healthy person. In this context he makes sense. We as a species, as I've mentioned before, tend to look for the "magic pill," the "silver bullet," the one cure in a bottle for every ailment or health issue. But the truth is, there are none. There is no pill, supplement, elixir, machine, etc. that can replace a healthy lifestyle. And the same goes for eating organic foods.

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5 Myths About Eating Organic-Part 1

10/20/2013

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Organic has become quite the buzzword over the past decade - with more and more organic foods available in mainstream supermarkets, and even "organic" cleaning products, clothing, and cosmetics finding their way into our shopping carts - both online and off. But what is organic all about, and is it really worth the (perceived) extra cost?

Today, in an attempt to clear up some of the confusion, I will tackle 5 common myths about eating organic foods, although some of these could also apply to organic items in other categories as well.

Myth #1: It's Too Expensive

I've shared my personal experience - including actual food budget and spending - with getting most of my food through organic CSA programs in a previous blog post, so I won't go into that all again here, although there have been a few updates since that post was written. In the interest of full disclosure I no longer get my milk through the CSA, although I'm currently looking into a local herd share program, and I now get the eggs through the veggie CSA twice a month so I do eat more eggs and spend a bit more. My CSA program has also added some other optional goodies such as cheese, and locally grown organic beans, so that has upped the cost a bit when I opt for those items. That said, I still think my spending on groceries is pretty reasonable for a largely organic diet.

I've recently finished reading an interesting book - Organic Manifesto, by Maria Rodale (yes, the granddaughter of that Rodale). In it, she posits that one of the main reasons we perceive organic food as being more expensive is that chemically raised foods are artificially cheap. If it weren't for government subsidies forcing the prices down in order to keep churning out more and more corn, soybeans, etc. on a mass scale, organic foods would actually be CHEAPER than their chemical counterparts for several reasons.

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The Weight-Loss Secret That Doesn't Exist - Part 2

10/6/2013

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Last week we talked about the first part of the weight-loss equation - the foods you eat to fuel your body. But that's only half of the story....

Another reason so many of us are overweight is that our daily living activities are no longer "activities" in the true sense - that is, we took the "active" out of activity! Our society no longer is a manual labor-driven society. We don't spend all day out in the fields growing our food.

In fact, most of us spend all day indoors, sitting down. Then we leave the office and go home, to sit down some more. Then we expect to spend an hour at the gym every couple of days, and lose weight.

This is a backwards approach to fitness. Our bodies were meant to move - all the time! Being confined to a chair for 8-10 hours a day, and of course sleeping 7-8 hours per night, doesn't leave much room to be active. Obviously for the majority of us with desk jobs, it might seem there is not much we can do about this....

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The Weight-Loss Secret That Doesn't Exist - Part 1

9/29/2013

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As this is a health-related site, and obesity is one of the greatest health problems in our country today, you may be wondering why there isn't a "weight loss" page on our site. There are several reasons for this, not the least of which being, we are all about holistic health. That is, treating the body as a whole, and as a connected part of the environment and the world. Unlike mainstream medicine, we don't believe in treating a specific symptom, but rather nurturing and nourishing the body with the things it needs to be a healthy whole. Therefore, we try to approach health as a holistic system, and if you faithfully follow the suggestions throughout the site, weight loss will most likely naturally follow as a result.

Not to mention, there are about as many ways to lose weight as there are overweight people! The variety of techniques, strategies, and programs people use to lose weight are practically endless. And while one strategy may work well for one person, it may do nothing for another, depending on one's habits, lifestyle, and even genetics.

We are a species of instant gratification. We all want the magic pill, the little-known strategy that is going to fix all of our problems, the one simple technique that will always work - we want the secret! Whether it is flat abs, thin thighs, or a smaller behind, when it comes to weight loss, people buy the "miracle cures" hook line and sinker by the truckload. Sadly many are left disappointed. Some may lose a bit of weight, but it is a struggle and many often give up before achieving their goals. Many put back on all of the lost pounds and then some.

So what works? What is the secret?

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Got (Real) Milk?

9/21/2013

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Milk has gotten a bad rap in natural health circles over the past few years. Today I'd like to try and clear up some of the confusion.

Let me first say that I'm not a huge milk drinker, and really never have been. Even growing up on a farm, with the freshest, healthiest milk possible, it just never appealed to me that much - although I do love other milk products like yogurt, cheese, butter, and ice cream (and who doesn't?) :-) And I do cook with milk somewhat often, but I probably don't use that much compared to most Americans.

When I think about milk in general as a food, it has always seemed kind of odd and unnatural to me that we drink the milk of another species (we are the only creature who does this), even as adults - all other species only drink milk as babies - and of course only their own! But perhaps it shouldn't seem so strange. After all, humans have been consuming milk for thousands of years. While in this country we think of milk as coming from cows or maybe goats, cultures the world over have regularly consumed sheep's milk, yak's milk, horse's milk, and even camel's milk. In some societies milk has been a major source of fat and protein, and a fairly important part of the diet for survival. The consumption of milk by humans goes back at least 9,000 years, and it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

But recent critics of milk point to a number of supposedly milk-related health problems. They say that milk increases acidity in the body, is difficult to digest and leads to allergies, and (as my observation above) that it is an unnatural substance for the human body to consume. While all of these concerns may certainly have some truth to them, I take issue with the fact that these critics lump all milk together. As with most foodstuffs, how it is processed makes quite a difference, and as is certainly the case with milk, the wrong kind of processing can not only diminish, but even completely destroy any nutritional properties the food originally contained.

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