This is a video clip from the movie Fat Head (which I haven't seen)
The way we live, work and eat now has never before been experienced. Technology, chemistry, cars, Big Macs, cell phones, x-ray, chemical "medicine"...I feel like a walking science experiment. I am living in a science experiment I did not sign up for. For years I have been aware that evolution takes thousands of years, and I know I have not suddenly evolved to be at- one with concentrated radiation, chemical preservatives, cigarette smoke with hundreds of chemicals, antibiotics, artificial lighting, etc..For years I have looked around wondering, "Is this OK?"
I have been doing a lot of thinking over the past few years about stuff. Basically, if that weren't here for me to use, how would I do this thing I am doing? Could I do this thing I am doing? These thoughts quickly turn to food. For example: Fake soy meat. If chemistry and heavy machinery were not available, I would not have this thing in my hand to eat. The chemistry and machinery have not been around for much time at all, so therefore my body is probably not recognizing this as food (it isn't food, actually). So my next question is, what would I eat if said things weren't around?
I am exploring these concepts now. One concept I am currently exploring the world of "paleo" or "primarian" diets (read: way to eat). Very interesting stuff. In a nutshell:
In plain language, base your diet on garden vegetables, especially greens, lean meats, nuts and seeds, little starch, and no sugar. That's about as simple as we can get. Many have observed that keeping your grocery cart to the perimeter of the grocery store while avoiding the aisles is a great way to protect your health. Food is perishable. The stuff with long shelf life is all suspect. If you follow these simple guidelines you will benefit from nearly all that can be achieved through nutrition. (courtesy of Crossfit.com)
Our bodies are amazing. Adaptable, rational, huge frontal lobes, thumbs, voice boxes, self conscious reality...couple that with surgical advancements and emergency medicine, and we are really an incredible species! But I ask this, just because we can, does that mean we should? Just because we can eat junk and drink alcohol and smoke and then roll ourselves into the hospital and let our surgeons and pharmacists patch us up and medicate us (at the expense and sanity of our loved ones), does that mean we should?
There are so many opinions out there regarding which diet is king. The diet that is king is the one that works for you on all levels; not just weight loss or gain but also hair and skin health and muscle tone maintenance. Soon, I will start incorporating the unique thing about food that The Zone, Paleo, McDougalling, Blood Type diet, etc. do not mention. This thing is the energetic quality within food. Food is not just something that should be broken down under a microscope and found to be only carbs, fats, proteins, Vit C, or the newest rage, Vit K2MK4.
The medicine I have spent years studying talks about nourishing aspects of food that cannot be seen in a lab. Rather, these aspects are regarded as a higher power available in food to promote longevity. Food as medicine. Some examples are using asparagus the help eliminate water accumulation in the body through the kidneys. Modern science tells us that this is due to the diuretic nutrient "asparagine". However, Chinese medicine practitioners knew the effects of asparagus many years before the technology was around to "prove" it. Celery is used in my medicine to treat something called "wind-damp" which roughly translates clinically as arthritis. We now know that celery is high in natural silicon which helps renew joints, bones, arteries, and connective tissue. My father swears by celery seed capsules for his arthritis!
I intend to write more about the food energetics found in the recipes I post.
Bonus: excellent article on soy written by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, Ph.D.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Organic Hard and Fasts...
I am going to list foods that if you eat nothing else organic, these are the ones to choose:
1. Peanut butter- Peanuts, cotton, and soybean are crop rotated, highly genetically modified, highly pesticided. Not to mention this creates an Aflatoxin bonanza for the peanuts, which leads to liver damage and severe allergic reactions in humans)
2. All nut butters
3. Fats. Inc: Butter, eggs, oils (never eat Canola oil, it was genetically modified in 1974, an unsaturated, unstable fat prone to fragmentation-> free radicals. Look at your bottle of Canola oil. It says vegetable oil. Are your vegetables oily and fatty? Hhhmmm...Also think about the insane amount of Canola oil the average person ingests in their diet if they do not prepare their own food. Restraunts almost only use Canola 'cause it is CHEAP)
4. Dairy
5. Meat (at least hormone and antibiotic free)
Of course, I advocate eating at least 70% organic, but if you cannot, these are key players.
I will update list if I think of more!
Update:
6. Soy products- heavily pesticided and commonly genetically modified, hence, also make sure it says GMO- free
7. Corn- same as soy, needs to be organic and GMO free. You will find this difficult, as corn is in a ridiculous amount of foods. Michael Pollan in his book Omnivores Dilemma posits that our nutritional demise all starts with corn...
1. Peanut butter- Peanuts, cotton, and soybean are crop rotated, highly genetically modified, highly pesticided. Not to mention this creates an Aflatoxin bonanza for the peanuts, which leads to liver damage and severe allergic reactions in humans)
2. All nut butters
3. Fats. Inc: Butter, eggs, oils (never eat Canola oil, it was genetically modified in 1974, an unsaturated, unstable fat prone to fragmentation-> free radicals. Look at your bottle of Canola oil. It says vegetable oil. Are your vegetables oily and fatty? Hhhmmm...Also think about the insane amount of Canola oil the average person ingests in their diet if they do not prepare their own food. Restraunts almost only use Canola 'cause it is CHEAP)
4. Dairy
5. Meat (at least hormone and antibiotic free)
Of course, I advocate eating at least 70% organic, but if you cannot, these are key players.
I will update list if I think of more!
Update:
6. Soy products- heavily pesticided and commonly genetically modified, hence, also make sure it says GMO- free
7. Corn- same as soy, needs to be organic and GMO free. You will find this difficult, as corn is in a ridiculous amount of foods. Michael Pollan in his book Omnivores Dilemma posits that our nutritional demise all starts with corn...
Hard and Fasts...
Rules, people. Rules.
I am going to create a series of posts about DO NOT's. Let's just say I have a few. These are rules for people who want to be genuinely healthy, inside and out. For people who really understand food is not just this thing we do, but rather is who and what we are. You know that old adage "You are what you eat"? It's true.
What ever you ingest, your body has to deal with it. If you eat an orange, your body is happy. It says "Fiber, you go over here. Vitamin C, you are very important, you go here, here, aaaaannnnnd here. Ooohh, look at all that potassium!".
Now think about what your body would say about a Big Mac: "Yay lunch! My owner takes such good care of me! Okay, what have we got here? Alright, I can make out some protein and fat. Here's the bread! I see Enriched bleached wheat flour. Well, can't do much with that. Yuck, synthetic vitamins! I'll just tuck those away over here and deal with those later. High fructose corn syrup, Okay, I can pull some fructose calories and use those for energy. Whats that? We're already dealing with over 1000 calories in the whole meal? Start packing all this away as fat, people! Our owner won't need all this today! Okay, micronutrients, what have we got? Ammonium chloride. Diacetyl tartaric acid esters of mono- and diglycerides. Sodium steryol 2 lactylate. Artificial color. partially hydrogenated soybean, corn, canola, and/or cottonseed oils. Fungal enzymes?!? Calcium disodium EDTA. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed! Oh jeez, here comes the soda! Why does my owner keeps doing this to me? I just want to keep my owner happy. What's that? He just got a call from his doctor saying he is hypertensive and pre diabetic? Oh no, now he is mad at me and thinks he can't trust me and that I am this uncontrollable thing!"
(Don't believe me? Just go here. Have some fun looking at Big Mac Buns. While you are at it, check out the fat free vinaigrette dressing. It has propylene glycol alginate. Just Google some of those words, and then guess if any of that is found in a carrot, an avocado, lettuce, or Rudys Organic Whole Wheat Buns...)
So can we guess what today's DO NOT is?
DO NOT EAT FAST FOOD.
Forget it exists. Drive by these joints and be glad you have chosen to respect your vehicle (your body, not the car, silly!). IT ISN'T FOOD!
It is chemically laden intentionally addictive JUNK. Go home and spend 15 minutes making your own burger if you really want one.
I am living proof that you can live with out fast food. In 10 years, I have had bites of a Subway veggie sub 3 times. It has been at least 14 years since I have had Mc Donalds (Mc Death as I like to call it), Burger King (Booger Fling), Carls Jr, Taco Bell (Toxic Hell), Wendys, Arbys, the list goes on and on...wait! 7 years ago I had a Bean burrito from El Pollo Loco. At least they admit their chicken meat is crazy!
Listen, it's just a choice. A choice to see clearly and choose yourself. And if you make the choice to not eat fast food, in three years, when you are on that road trip with your kid to their new collage, and you drive longer than you thought, and are crazy hungry, you can pull into an El Pollo Loco and order the bean burrito, or go to Arby's and get the least offensive thing, and eat it. Because your body CAN deal with the occasional surprise.
I am going to create a series of posts about DO NOT's. Let's just say I have a few. These are rules for people who want to be genuinely healthy, inside and out. For people who really understand food is not just this thing we do, but rather is who and what we are. You know that old adage "You are what you eat"? It's true.
What ever you ingest, your body has to deal with it. If you eat an orange, your body is happy. It says "Fiber, you go over here. Vitamin C, you are very important, you go here, here, aaaaannnnnd here. Ooohh, look at all that potassium!".
Now think about what your body would say about a Big Mac: "Yay lunch! My owner takes such good care of me! Okay, what have we got here? Alright, I can make out some protein and fat. Here's the bread! I see Enriched bleached wheat flour. Well, can't do much with that. Yuck, synthetic vitamins! I'll just tuck those away over here and deal with those later. High fructose corn syrup, Okay, I can pull some fructose calories and use those for energy. Whats that? We're already dealing with over 1000 calories in the whole meal? Start packing all this away as fat, people! Our owner won't need all this today! Okay, micronutrients, what have we got? Ammonium chloride. Diacetyl tartaric acid esters of mono- and diglycerides. Sodium steryol 2 lactylate. Artificial color. partially hydrogenated soybean, corn, canola, and/or cottonseed oils. Fungal enzymes?!? Calcium disodium EDTA. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed! Oh jeez, here comes the soda! Why does my owner keeps doing this to me? I just want to keep my owner happy. What's that? He just got a call from his doctor saying he is hypertensive and pre diabetic? Oh no, now he is mad at me and thinks he can't trust me and that I am this uncontrollable thing!"
(Don't believe me? Just go here. Have some fun looking at Big Mac Buns. While you are at it, check out the fat free vinaigrette dressing. It has propylene glycol alginate. Just Google some of those words, and then guess if any of that is found in a carrot, an avocado, lettuce, or Rudys Organic Whole Wheat Buns...)
So can we guess what today's DO NOT is?
DO NOT EAT FAST FOOD.
Forget it exists. Drive by these joints and be glad you have chosen to respect your vehicle (your body, not the car, silly!). IT ISN'T FOOD!
It is chemically laden intentionally addictive JUNK. Go home and spend 15 minutes making your own burger if you really want one.
I am living proof that you can live with out fast food. In 10 years, I have had bites of a Subway veggie sub 3 times. It has been at least 14 years since I have had Mc Donalds (Mc Death as I like to call it), Burger King (Booger Fling), Carls Jr, Taco Bell (Toxic Hell), Wendys, Arbys, the list goes on and on...wait! 7 years ago I had a Bean burrito from El Pollo Loco. At least they admit their chicken meat is crazy!
Listen, it's just a choice. A choice to see clearly and choose yourself. And if you make the choice to not eat fast food, in three years, when you are on that road trip with your kid to their new collage, and you drive longer than you thought, and are crazy hungry, you can pull into an El Pollo Loco and order the bean burrito, or go to Arby's and get the least offensive thing, and eat it. Because your body CAN deal with the occasional surprise.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Simple, delish fish recipe
This recipe caught my eye over at the website for Tao of Wellness. This is the website of the Drs. Maoshing and Daoshing Ni, owners and founders of Yo San University, my Alma mater. This recipe in particular comes from Dr. Mao, under the intention "Heart Health", and originally uses salmon. Since wild caught salmon is so over fished now, hubby and I opted for wild caught cod. It was a wonderful substitute.
Basically what I am giving you is a sauce and cooking instructions, both of which are from the Mao's recipe. His recipe gives you more stuff to do with it, like eating as a salad, with the sauce as a dressing, and cooking leeks with it. We tried cooking the leeks with it, but I think they were too big, as they didn't cook all the way through.
So with no further ado, here is an extremely simple and delicious fish dish!
14 oz Cod filet (serves two)
sliced fresh ginger
1/2 c. Rice vinegar
2 T. white miso
1/2 to 1 tsp. powdered ginger
Heat oven to 375.
In a saucepan, warm the vinegar. When warm, add in miso and ginger powder, stirring to combine.
Lay the cod on a sheet of aluminum foil, gathering up the edges to make a bowl shape. Lay the slices of fresh ginger over the fish. Spoon the sauce over the filets.
Roll the edges of the aluminum foil together to make a tent.
Bake for 30 minutes.
Options:
Leeks- slice in half lengthwise, then slice the halves into thirds lengthwise. Place over filet, over the ginger, and pour sauce over the whole thing. Tent and bake.
We had this tonight with the Celeriac and Parsley soup. Yum!
Basically what I am giving you is a sauce and cooking instructions, both of which are from the Mao's recipe. His recipe gives you more stuff to do with it, like eating as a salad, with the sauce as a dressing, and cooking leeks with it. We tried cooking the leeks with it, but I think they were too big, as they didn't cook all the way through.
So with no further ado, here is an extremely simple and delicious fish dish!
14 oz Cod filet (serves two)
sliced fresh ginger
1/2 c. Rice vinegar
2 T. white miso
1/2 to 1 tsp. powdered ginger
Heat oven to 375.
In a saucepan, warm the vinegar. When warm, add in miso and ginger powder, stirring to combine.
Lay the cod on a sheet of aluminum foil, gathering up the edges to make a bowl shape. Lay the slices of fresh ginger over the fish. Spoon the sauce over the filets.
Roll the edges of the aluminum foil together to make a tent.
Bake for 30 minutes.
Options:
Leeks- slice in half lengthwise, then slice the halves into thirds lengthwise. Place over filet, over the ginger, and pour sauce over the whole thing. Tent and bake.
We had this tonight with the Celeriac and Parsley soup. Yum!
Celery Root and Parsley Bliss; An amazing, simple soup...
This soup makes you feel the way you felt the first time you laid eyes upon your high school crush- hopeful, slightly breathless, and kind of peacefully exuberant! However, unlike the highly unpredictable outcome of said high school crush, the end result of this soup recipe will turn out brilliantly!
Celery Root (Celeriac) and Parsley Soup
**First a word to the wise. Peeling celery root is a workout. Just use a sturdy vegetable peeler, but have a knife handy if you really need to slice something off. I got through one and a half roots before needing to bring in hubby reinforcement!
Coconut oil (Olive is fine also)
½ yellow onion, sliced into half-moons
2-3 voluptuous cloves garlic
2 large celery roots, totaling about 2-2 ½ lbs, sliced into ¼ inch thick slices
8 cups broth, or enough to cover celery root (I used one carton Imagine Organic reduced sodium chicken broth, and one container Imagine Organic no- chicken Chicken broth. They make a lovely combination)
1 fluffy bunch flat leaf parsley (rinse well, chop roughly)
Optional to add at end;
Lemon juice
Salt
Black pepper
In a large pot, sauté onion in about 1 tbsp coconut oil until slightly translucent. Add minced garlic, sauté 1 minute more. Pour in broth and add celery root. Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer and cover. Cook for about 40 minutes. When celery root is fork-tender (think mashed potato texture), turn off heat. Let cool for a bit, say 15 minutes.
Ladle out extra broth into a separate bowl. You will add this into the blender shortly.
Add the bunch of parsley to the main pot, try to use mostly leaves, some stems are OK, mix in well. Scoop out 2-3 cups of the soup into the blender. Blend until smooth, adding some of the broth back in for desired consistency (I used it all throughout the 3 batches I blended). As you blend each batch, pour it out into another pot.
*If you run out of broth to add, use water, just not more than ¾ cup max, so as not to dilute flavour (yes, I tend to add in extra U's- it's the old English romantic in me I suppose).
TASTE. Then decide if you want to add any of the optional ingredients. Personally, I didn’t.
Not one of the three people I gave this soup to had ever tried celeriac, let alone eat parsley, and they all LOVED it.
Excellent for dinner or an early light breakfast with a soft boiled egg on the side!
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Who would have thunk?
Wow. Life can sure change quick!
While my gut and heart are on the same page, my brain is still resisting surrender. Tomorrow is my Grad exam, which I have to pass in order to qualify to sit for my licensing exam in January. I couldn't care less.
This year has been hard. Not on the outside, where all can see, but on the inside. As the year progressed, so did my discontentment. Weird things began happening- like my feet and ankles hurting so bad I could barely make it through my shifts. Extreme neck pain, not wanting to get out of bed in the morning (I usually love waking early), and just basically walking around wondering "whose life is this? Nothing feels...right..."
When I got the news in the beginning of August that the date for the boards had been moved up a month (meaning I HAD to pass this upcoming grad exam, with no chance for a do-over next semester) I felt like I was drowning. I searched high and low for- what I like to call- the fear. The fear motivates you. It quickens your blood, sharpens your focus. It's a spastic sort of passion that makes you want to take care of business! My fear was totally MIA. Gone. In it's place was just a sort of emptiness...and guilt, the Bad Voice (you should care, you are supposed to do this, don't you want to get out there and help people???) And of course, the insecure voice (but all your friends are doing this...you will be the last one to finish...you are going to be left out!). Aaaargh!
I knew I was in trouble. I was having a hard time being around myself. I was having a hard time being myself. My instincts said, 'Listen, what would you tell one of your patients to do if they felt like this?', and I promptly answered back, 'I would tell them to get regular treatments.'
So I did. The acupuncturist I saw specializes in treating the spirit. She helped me realize that I need to live MY life, not the life my fellow classmates were living, nor the life that had been outlined so nicely for me by my school, showing a nice 4-year model sequence. Once it really sunk in that I needed to take a step back, and that it was OK to do so (!), I asked myself 'How do I want my life to look?' Aahhhh...suddenly I could breathe. Actually, suddenly I could exhale. I could Let Go.
I am very happy now. I am sitting for that exam tomorrow, just to give it a go. I will sincerely take it again in January, then spend a few months taking National exams, then the licensing exam in August. In the meantime, I am taking a yoga training course (one of my forgotten passions), cooking again, and generally walking around with a permanent grin on my face. My feet don't hurt, and I do not wake up with a sense of dread. I am not a person who can just force myself through something. I have to feel passion in my heart. I have to know in my guts why I am doing something. I do not want this process to be something I can't wait to have over- I authentically want to enjoy the journey. If I constantly walk around wanting to finish, then I am never living in my present... my now. I accept nothing less than living in my present moment. If I try to forget that, my body suffers. My loved ones suffer. My patients suffer. It's no good!
This is a hard thing for my mind to sit with. Well, I figure I have about 25 years of conditioning to retrain! Whenever I hear my mind (the small self) trying to convince me I am not good enough, or am being a baby, or whatever- I just take a deep breath and ask myself 'Where's the fire? Whose race am I trying to be in?' and then I feel myself soften a little. And the True Voice answers, 'I see there is no fire, no race.' I am just here, now. Loving my life, loving the journey.
I want to leave you with something my friend Becca posted the other day on her blog http://beccalosangeles.com/;
While my gut and heart are on the same page, my brain is still resisting surrender. Tomorrow is my Grad exam, which I have to pass in order to qualify to sit for my licensing exam in January. I couldn't care less.
This year has been hard. Not on the outside, where all can see, but on the inside. As the year progressed, so did my discontentment. Weird things began happening- like my feet and ankles hurting so bad I could barely make it through my shifts. Extreme neck pain, not wanting to get out of bed in the morning (I usually love waking early), and just basically walking around wondering "whose life is this? Nothing feels...right..."
When I got the news in the beginning of August that the date for the boards had been moved up a month (meaning I HAD to pass this upcoming grad exam, with no chance for a do-over next semester) I felt like I was drowning. I searched high and low for- what I like to call- the fear. The fear motivates you. It quickens your blood, sharpens your focus. It's a spastic sort of passion that makes you want to take care of business! My fear was totally MIA. Gone. In it's place was just a sort of emptiness...and guilt, the Bad Voice (you should care, you are supposed to do this, don't you want to get out there and help people???) And of course, the insecure voice (but all your friends are doing this...you will be the last one to finish...you are going to be left out!). Aaaargh!
I knew I was in trouble. I was having a hard time being around myself. I was having a hard time being myself. My instincts said, 'Listen, what would you tell one of your patients to do if they felt like this?', and I promptly answered back, 'I would tell them to get regular treatments.'
So I did. The acupuncturist I saw specializes in treating the spirit. She helped me realize that I need to live MY life, not the life my fellow classmates were living, nor the life that had been outlined so nicely for me by my school, showing a nice 4-year model sequence. Once it really sunk in that I needed to take a step back, and that it was OK to do so (!), I asked myself 'How do I want my life to look?' Aahhhh...suddenly I could breathe. Actually, suddenly I could exhale. I could Let Go.
I am very happy now. I am sitting for that exam tomorrow, just to give it a go. I will sincerely take it again in January, then spend a few months taking National exams, then the licensing exam in August. In the meantime, I am taking a yoga training course (one of my forgotten passions), cooking again, and generally walking around with a permanent grin on my face. My feet don't hurt, and I do not wake up with a sense of dread. I am not a person who can just force myself through something. I have to feel passion in my heart. I have to know in my guts why I am doing something. I do not want this process to be something I can't wait to have over- I authentically want to enjoy the journey. If I constantly walk around wanting to finish, then I am never living in my present... my now. I accept nothing less than living in my present moment. If I try to forget that, my body suffers. My loved ones suffer. My patients suffer. It's no good!
This is a hard thing for my mind to sit with. Well, I figure I have about 25 years of conditioning to retrain! Whenever I hear my mind (the small self) trying to convince me I am not good enough, or am being a baby, or whatever- I just take a deep breath and ask myself 'Where's the fire? Whose race am I trying to be in?' and then I feel myself soften a little. And the True Voice answers, 'I see there is no fire, no race.' I am just here, now. Loving my life, loving the journey.
I want to leave you with something my friend Becca posted the other day on her blog http://beccalosangeles.com/;
Written by Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
Autobiography in 5 Chapters
Chapter One
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost… I am hopeless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
Chapter Two
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I’m in the same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
Chapter Three
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in… it’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
Chapter Four
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
Chapter Five
I walk down another street.
Which chapter are you living?
Lots of love, Karen
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
