Omnivore's Dilemma

Michael Pollan's 2006 New York Time's best seller is a 400 page, eloquently written novel based around 4 meals followed from sunlight to stomach. "The pleasures of the one [meal] are based on a nearly perfect knowledge; the pleasures of the other on an equally perfect ignorance." (p410) The third and fourth meals, lost in this quote, were equally steeped in knowledge as the former.

To start, Pollan acknowledges the current abysmal state of American health. The prevalence of heart disease, diabetes, and new disorders popping up overnight. This is what spurred him to entrench himself in this research, why was this happening? In the first section, he starts on the farm of Iowa corn grower George Naylor, whose family farm has transformed from multi-organism just 100 years ago into the modern day monoculture of corn. From here, Pollan asks the question, have we domesticated corn or has corn domesticated us? After reading Pollan's description of the history of corn, you'd start to believe that the plant has a mind of its own. In this section, Pollan uncovers the simplicity of farming corn: "driving and spraying" as Naylor says, and how it has changed from what used to be a very cerebral occupation to one relying on mega corporations and petroleum. For example, corn may be planted every year due to the involvement of pesticides and fertilizer (thank you Haber-Bosch process...turning nitrogen and hydrogen captured from the air into ammonia and eventually ammonium nitrate). Before this, nitrogen consuming corn had to be cycled with nitrogen providing soy year after year. After the corn had been grown and harvested, with a long summary of the political nuances (or atrocities if you asked Naylor) thrown in, Pollan follows the corn to the local grain elevator and onto the processing plant, although the processing plant only sees a fraction of the corn output. In the processing plant, each corn kernel is broken down and about 30 different basic food components are made, including the now infamous High Fructose Corn Syrup. HFCS is made by treating the corn-based glucose with the enzyme glucose isomerase. (Isomers: 2 compounds having the same chemical formula yet a different structure. In this case, glucose being a 6-carbon ring and fructose being a 5-carbon ring.) Fructose is sweeter than glucose, meaning less of it needs to be used and hence less money spent. Pollan also tells the story of corn through a steer he bought named #534, who grew up in a feed lot and was eventually slaughtered in a place Pollan was denied access. Reading about Pollan's trip to the feedlot (classified as a CAFO-concentrated animal feeding operation) will make you want to turn vegetarian, or at least avoid all commercially made meat. #534's diet consisted of corn flakes (more easily digested by the cow who is not supposed to digest corn), liquefied fat, molasses, and urea, along with the cocktail of antibiotics and growth-hormones. All the components needed to supply a cow with each element necessary to build protein. Remember though, cows are ruminants whose stomachs are set up to eat grass and allow the bacteria which colonize its stomachs to ferment it, making it digestible. Two of the best statements made during this section included "another vet told me the diet [fed to the cow] would eventually 'blow out their livers' and kill them. The other was that "I don't know enough about the emotional life of a steer to say with confidence that 534 was miserable, bored, or indifferent, but I would not say he looked happy." The entire experience of corn was summed up by the essential corn meal, McDonald's, eaten at 65 mph.

The second section starts on the lush hills of Polyface farms where Joel Salatin considers himself a grass farmer. His farm is a tightly wound system made to intertwine many different organisms. Sun feeds grass, grass feeds cows, manure grows grubs, grubs feed chickens, chicken poop feeds grass, and the cycle starts over again. Salatin has many of these circles of holons (holon is a term coined by this particular industry to mean a part of the whole) which keep his farm as self-sustaining and healthy. In this section, Pollan takes a foray into the organic industry and how it has grown from underground political movement into money making government run industry. After describing his week of working on Polyface farms, Pollan describes in depth the slaughtering of chickens which occurs on the farm in a open-air slaughterhouse, which allows patrons to watch the actual killing and cleaning of the product, a statement about the cleanliness of the whole farming process, which of course has very little waste as everything is recycled and reused in some way to grow another food. This section leaves you yearning to go into the garden and start your own little circle of holons. Of course Pollan ends it with an organic meal made with fresh slaughtered Polyface farms chicken.

The third section focuses on a meal made with ingredients, all of which have been hunted or gathered. Before going into the details, Pollan spend many pages describing the mental intricacies needed to be overcome before one will go hunting or even eat meat, basically answering the question of why eat meat? Why not be a vegetarian? Backed up with the stories of the pig he hunted, the mushrooms he collected, and the vegetables he gardened, Pollan prepares an exquisite meal, shared with his family and the people who helped him gather all the ingredients.

If you have stumbled upon this website or are a dedicated reader, you need to read this book. It will change the way you think about food at its most basic level as well as help you decide if you want to have the composition of a human being or of a corn chip with legs.

EWG Cosmetics and Toiletries Database for Toxins

http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/


From the EWG website. Check out your shampoos, deodorants, lotions, and any other type of toiletry or cosmetic for it's toxicity level. I explain more in the prior post entitled.

Ignorance is bliss.

Carb Loading

I was walking through the athletic building of my school yesterday when I overheard a coach talking to their team about a game taking place today. They were instructing the team on what to eat that night in order to be at peak performance for the game. The advice? Pasta or pizza. Whole wheat was better. Some sort of heavy carbohydrate meal.

Hearing this my face went into a half-smirk, not surprised by the advice which had been given. This is what coaches have been telling their teams for years, but doctors also used to prescribe cigarettes back in the early 20th century. Now I'm not about to call out the coach as I feel if people want my advice they can come to me or read this website. After a quick call to Mama Doc who shared my appalled opinion, here is how I really feel.

Carbohydrates obviously are a necessary part of the human diet, but people commonly mistake what type of carbs we need. The simplest carbs are in the form of single ringed sugars. The 6-carbon form is glucose and the 5-carbon form is fructose. These compounds are recognized as such by their sweetness and are digested very readily by the body. As an example, a hummingbird, whose diet consists mainly of nectar which is basically pure glucose, will subconsciously bypass the stomach and instead allow the glucose to go directly into its intestines for direct uptake into the system for energy. The reason for this is that these simple sugars are very easily digested by all organisms. If you eat a piece of fruit which contains lots of fructose, you'll notice that you get a quick energy burst and that you get hungry again very fast. The fruit is quickly digested and the energy form that fruit is used in lieu of glycogen stores in the body.

As humans understood more about carbohydrates they started finding other sources. Sucrose became a popular drug in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries, causing slave labor and plantations to be planted in the West Indies. If you don't think it's a drug think again. It's a refined white powder which gives you a high and is addictive. How is that not a drug? The problem is with table sugar, named sucrose, which is a glucose and fructose bound together (look at where the arrows are pointing). The common thought process of humans would be that "Hey, it's one bond. How hard can that be to break?" A certain enzyme should be needed to break that bond. Humans contain this enzyme, called Invertase or Sucrase. Remember, with enzymes, the name always ends in -ase and will describe the type of job it performs. It's my thought that the human body will contain less sucrase vs. the amount of sucrose ingested, causing for mal-digestion. Also, sucrase has another job of "protect[ing] insulin". What this means I don't know but there must be a connection between this enzyme and the cause for over ingestion of sucrose and diabetes. As far as why sucrose is worse that natural sugars, it lacks the other vitamins and minerals that also come with the fruit source of sugar. Refined sugars should be left to natural sources such as honey, maple sugar, and agave nectar. These sources will also contain enzymes, minerals, vitamins, and other proper nourishment.

As far as polysaccharides (multiple sugars), there are 3 major types. Cellulose is a chain of glucose molecules bound differently to each other than the other poly-glucose known as starch. The third is glycogen, which is the storage method of glucose molecules in the body. These molecules will be hundreds if not thousands of molecules long vs. the smaller 2 and 1 molecule long glucose, fructose, and sucrose.

So what does this all mean. Complex poly-carbohydrates are tough to break down and require lots of energy. At that, are we really meant to eat them? If you believe in evolution, then you believe we came from apes. Apes live in the jungle. When is the last time you were walking through a jungle and saw a huge field of wheat? Sucrose is a smaller and easier to break down molecule, but is very refined and lacks the other nutrients that would be in a "whole food". If you took a sugar cane or sugar beet, the main sources of sucrose, they would look very different than refined white sugar powder. Table sugar is a drug, period. There are better options to use as sweeteners such as maple syrup, agave nectar, and honey. I'll harp on artificial sweeteners in a later post. The best option for carbs is fruit but is quick energy.

So what should those players have eaten for dinner? I would suggest a salad with lots of veggies and a good cut of grass-fed meat, but hey, what do I know?

Alternative Methods for Aiding Down's Syndrome

Down's Syndrome (DS) is a mental affliction that affects 1 in every 700 or so children in America. The cause is a malfunctioning split in the chromosomes, causing there to be 3 copies of chromosome 21 instead of the normal 2 copies. This happens in the anaphase of meiosis typically in women. In fact, as the age of a mother increases, the probability of the child having DS increases to almost 80% in women at age 50. Of course, the number is far lower, 30%, in women at age 45 having children. The information makes sense though. Figure that as women age, their normal functions such as egg production will tend to malfunction more often. The next questions is, how can people go about alleviating the symptoms of this incurable disease, creating the best life possible for the child?

This article shares the story of a former body builder and her quest into nutritional therapy for her child. When I read this, my first question had to do with the fact that she was a former body builder. Did she supplement her workout with unnatural forms of help, trying to get bigger? Could this have aided into the malfunctioning of her egg production? Anyway, she consulted many therapists and eventually formed a formula called NuTriVene-D. This formula consisted of antioxidants, folic acid, B-12 and a "'smart drug' called piracetam'." The article did not divulge information as to what piracetum was.

So what was the formula doing that helped out the child? The article states that dating back to the early research into DS, children tend to have a lack of nutrients and weakened immune systems. The vitamin-D surely helps out the immune system and the other vitamins help combat the lack of nutrients. You figure that the disease will progress as these nutrient stores deplete, causing the body to not run at full-capacity. The folic acid also helps with a hindered metabolic function called methylation.

The last aspect of the formula are the extra anti-oxidants which appeared to me as the key ingredient. The article explains that the extra chromosome (called Trisomy 21) causes a certain enzyme, "SOD (superoxide dismutase)", to be extra active, creating high levels of the free-radical superoxide (right). The quick chemical explanation is that oxygen likes to have 8 electrons surrounding it. In superoxide, the one oxygen is satisfied yet the other is not. This is dangerous because the extremely high electronegativity (the ability of an element to attract an electron to itself) of oxygen causes it to steal an electron from ANY SOURCE POSSIBLE! This means that the superoxide molecule will damage anything it comes into contact with. It acts a lot like chlorine gas in this manner and chlorine gas was once used as a very harsh form of chemical warfare, deemed inhumane by the Geneva Protocol in 1925. With the increased production of superoxide in the body, the child would tend to age at a faster rate and the body would spend a lot of time trying to fight this. The increased anti-oxidants would help trap and rid the body of these molecules.

So you can see that nutritional support for these kids is key and I'm sure that there is a lot more that can be done. The article also talked about depression and seizures occurring. Doses of Omega-3 fatty acids could help with these. I would also seek to eat a well balanced diet with lots of fruits and vegetables to get even more antioxidants and vitamins into the bodies. I will say that this disease is one that I don't understand well but I have seen in my life. I know 2 kids, now adults, who have DS and have gone on to graduate high school and are working members of the world. The advances in technology for DS have allowed them to lead purposeful lives. Ones that have meaning and bring joy to others. If you know someone with DS, take the time to get to know them and find out about their lives. They are cool people.

Bison and Venison

Last night, my roommate and I had a taste-test of fresh venison vs. fresh bison. The venison was hunted in upstate New York and the bison was farmed in PA. Both were very good with a slight edge going to the bison. It was more tender, less gamy. Venison tends to be tough though when cooked rare to medium rare, is spectacular. The bison had texture similar to fresh tuna. A piece of the rare almost melted in the mouth. Yum.

The most interesting part to the night was the fact that I cooked the meat on my George Foreman grill. The grill is at an angle and will allow grease to drain off. The chicken my roommate cooks is extremely greasy whereas these meats provided very little grease and a surprising amount of water. It was kind of shocking to see but made a lot of sense. Meat should be water based and this proved it. Just another argument for grass-fed meats, not shot up with hormones.

Kids and Drugs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5gvsMzgprA

First off, watch this video. The kid just came from the dentist and was given Nitrous Oxide for the surgery. His reaction, though funny at times, clearly shows that he has been messed with. For anyone thinking about trying this drug, this should be a deterrent. At the same time, should he have been given the gas? Why not a local? How much was his brain destroyed by this? In reality, it probably was not hurt much, but the possibility is there. Anyone who uses nitrous oxide is essentially suffocated due to a lack of oxygen. The same goes with kids who suck on helium. They should get light-headed and typically do from the lack of oxygen. Kids should be educated in how important oxygen is to their brain growth, especially when they are young.

Just a thought....

Staying Healthy When Sickness is All Around Us

This time of year, my classroom can erupt into a concert of coughing multiple times a period. So how can this be avoided? A couple quick suggestions as I wait for my next class.

1) Vitamin D. Cannot stress enough how important this stuff is. I've remained sickness free for two straight winters and I give a lot of credit to D (D3 to be exact). You can find it at a local whole foods. In fact, I've been very sleep deprived the past couple weeks (10 hours total past two nights right now!) and in years past, I would have been going through tissues like a Hollywood producer goes through screenplays. Yet I'm still awake, somewhat lively, and able to go to work and function properly.

2) Vitamin C. When I used to get sick as a kid, the remedy was a concoction consisting of C, Zinc, Echinacea with golden seal (the taste still haunts me), and lots of sleep. Today, I try to keep a consistent diet of C into the body and I have a couple tricks to do it. I drink a lot of water as it is a major reason for staying healthy. Nothing can replace the clearing of all the waste in your body. Putting a simple lemon wedge in the water is a great way to add some vital nutrients in a very simple and cheap manner. Lemons cost about 50 cents apiece and is clearly cheaper than a C supplement.

Best of luck and remember, a well built and properly armed immune system can stave off any bug!

The Chinese Baby Formula Mishap

If you follow the health news articles, you heard about the Chinese baby formula stories that left around 50,000 infants getting sick and 4 dead. Many questions arise because of this but the two that I thought of were 1) What did they do? and 2) How did they get away with it? One article out of the November 28th 2008 issue of Science magazine (sciencemag.0rg) explained the chemical mastery that the Chinese showed in beating the system and saving a buck, clearly at the expense of many children.

I've explained milk's make-up before on this website. It's a basic mixture of fat and water that contains lots of protein and nutrients. ( See 3 entries ago for more detail) When testing formula for quality, the tests basically look at nitrogen amounts to determine protein volume. What the scientists did was cut their milk formula in third, making it thinner than normal. They then supplemented melamine, "an industrial chemical used primarily for as a plastics stabilizer and fire retardant" (Science article p1). The nitrogen in the melamine tricked the test into thinking it had plenty of nitrogen. This allowed the company to put out 3 times as much milk formula for the same price. Brilliant.

What they did or didn't know is that melamine will cause kidney stones, a clear sign of toxification. This same chemical caused problems with the pet-food recall of last year where melamine was part of the formula with cyanuric acid. The two combined to form melamine cyanurate stones (p1).

The problems now lay in the fact that the system needs more regulation and there just are not enough people to do so. The money is in the product side of the coin, not the regulation. The first step in the right direction has been taken though with the opening of 3 FDA offices in China (p2). Yes it is a positive step, but just like the many sports here in the US, the chemists are 3 steps ahead of the testers. It will be tough to keep up.

What you can do is clearly breast feed your child. Breast feeding is beneficial in so many ways, including a bonding of mother and child. The human body is also so in-tuned to this that the make up of a mother's milk will change from subtle differences like the growth of teeth or the smell of a baby's waste. The brain will sense these things and make the necessary alterations. Amazing. Lets hope that this sad story has a positive outcome in some way.

A Child's First Caffeine Experience

The Super Bowl. It brings so many memories. Some great, some awful, and a lot of them awfully blurry. Last night's was definitely blurry for one child at the party I went to.

The kid is about 2 years old I would say. Full of life, promise, and boat-loads of caffeine last night. I've met this kid. He's a typical two-year-old with a typical bad diet. Rambunctious at times but who isn't. Last night, he was in heaven. Smiling from ear to ear as he ran and jumped on one person's lap. Barking orders at them for about 5 seconds. Listened to 2 seconds of rebuttal, and quickly jumped off their lap and hauled it around the corner. Yes, sounds like your typical hopped up little kid. But here's where it got interesting.

He had a cup (Mountain Dew by the way), he had another, and was cut off. At that moment is when the temper tantrum came on. Yelling that he wanted more. Which did not come his way. He eventually forgot he wanted more and ran off to cause more terror. Happy as a clown and just unfocused.

Later, as it was wearing off. He got sleepy. But instead of going to bed, he ate almost half a box of munchkins. I was amazed.

So here's my question. How can we expect kids as young as 5 and as old as 18 to act calm and focus in school when we are allowing them to be hopped up on caffeine? I see kids just about every day drinking soda in my class. I drank soda a lot when I was younger too and look back saying what was I thinking? I wasn't thinking. I just needed my next fix. It's no wonder people get addicted so easily to any substance. We are training them from a young age to do so.

Before I end, I'd like to say I was in Starbucks the other day having a meeting, though neither of us bought anything, and saw what had to be kids around age 12-14 buying venti coffees. How is this legal? How has caffeine not been regulated to an extent yet? These are questions that we should be looking at if we are trying to breed a generation that will be better than us, not weaker.

Osteoporosis: Real or Fake?

I'm sure most people would read this headline and claim me crazy, but here's a simple question to the general public. Where was this disease 25 years ago? In this article the author explains that as recently as 25 years ago, Osteoporosis was a little known disease that only afflicted the very old and fragile. So the question is, how did this disease become one of the most diagnosed and treated disease in such a short amount of time? Did we simply not know about it then? Has recent dietary changes caused the changes? Or has it been a media made disease?

The article explains that a company made the hormone replacement drug Premarin in the early 80's but that no one was using due to obscurity. In '82, they hired a PR company to make the disease known and the rest is history. Safe to say, this disease has been media driven. Since the 80's pure word of mouth and fear has caused Premarin and other hormone replacement drugs to become some of the most popular drugs on the market.

The companies did such a good job of marketing because they claimed the therapy to be preventative. Now we all know that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, but was hormone replacement really the necessary way to go? The idea is that osteoporosis is caused by menopause which also correlates to a drastic drop in hormone levels. But more has come out since then. Many countries and organizations do not agree with the thresholds that the WHO set as claiming somebody with osteoporosis. All the numbers can be found in the article but the findings are drastic. One thing they do agree on is that osteoporosis is diet and lifestyle related.

The factors that will help lead to weak bones seem to be the following: smoking, over-medication, too much caffeine, poor diet, not enough exercise, too much alcohol, and many others. Note that a lot of these are moderation related. Hmmm...

Anyway, what can you do? First off, read the entire article. There is lots of good information and I can only relay so much. Second, make sure your intake of all the components of bones stays high. These include potassium, magnesium, calcium (more on this in the next post), silica, and other basic minerals. As well, refrain from exposing the body to many harmful toxins like the ones listed above.

As a parting thought I'd like to look at bone density. This is the new limit that is being tested to determine if someone is prone to get osteoporosis. They say that bone density is highest in the early twenties and that you need to develop as much as possible before that. But why? Why can't the body continue to grow and stay strong past the primes of our lives? This could be due to the fact that most humans will decay after the early twenties due to poor diet and lifestyle. I say with the right diet and exercise, any human should be able to bounce back from poor bone density and get back to health. Remember, the body is amazing and probably capable of way more than we give it credit for.

Strong Healthy Bones, Bright Eyes, and a Healthy Grin...But At What Cost?

Milk is as American as apple pie, yet the wholesome substance is starting to froth up some controversy. In this article, a few schools have taken action in the Chicago area. Some removing specific milk types (flavored, chocolate, whole, 1%, 2%) while others are doing the COMPLETE OPPOSITE and adding them. So what gives? The arguments are as follows.

-Removing: the non-plain white skim milks will add sugar and other artificial flavors, aid childhood obesity.

-Adding: children are more likely to drink the flavored milks and drinking milk is better than not drinking milk.

So the question is, who is correct? Just like most questions asked here, the answer is not that simple. At that, both of them may be incorrect. Lets start at the beginning.

Milk is the basic mixture of a fat (oil) and water. Think back to your high school chemistry class. Oil and water do not mix and therefore will form what is called a suspension. A good example of an everyday suspension is vinaigrette. The vinegar is water based while the oil is clearly oil based, meaning they will not mix. In my opinion, milk is the ultimate baby food because of the mixture of a fat and water. Each nutrient/vitamin in your body is either water soluble (ex. vitamin C) or fat soluble (ex. vitamin A) and therefore, milk can be a great medium for dissolving all these nutrients and passing them from mother to child.

The problem is that while milk is great for babies, adults are not really meant to consume it. I want you to think about every animal you know. Name one that will consume milk in the wild after weening from its mother and growing up. Note that I said in the wild because we definitely feed cats milk after they grow up. I hope you came to the same answer as I did which is none. No animals consume milk after weening, so why should we be any different? More proof can be found in the fact that lots of people become lactose intolerant as they get older. This most likely occurs as the enzymes produced by the body change, hindering the production of lactase.

I can only think of two more arguments that can be made in milks defense. One can be the fact that many civilizations relied on milk/cheese/other dairy products for a majority of their diet for the past many thousands of years. To those people, I can only point to the fact that these cows were most likely grass fed cows, roaming pasture after pasture and producing milk that for the most part was healthy. The difference between those cows and today's cows was primarily diet. A cow eating grass, its natural diet, will produce a much better quality milk than those of today which consume grains. At that, most cows today are shot up with a multitude of hormones and antibiotics to promote growth and to stave off infection. These additives get transferred into the milk and directly into you...yummy. Lastly, almost all of milk today is pasteurized, a process where the milk is flash heated to kill bacteria. This process will also kill all the natural enzymes, making the milk essentially dead. I wrote a previous blog about this on May 20th 2008 entitled Pasteur His Prime. In summation, they simply don't make today's milk like they used to.

The other argument is the primary argument of the FDA which is that everyone needs lots and lot of milk to build strong bones. If the title reminded you of those commercials that used to run back in the mid-nineties, then you probably got the jingle stuck in your head like I just did. In fact, I always enjoy singing the jingle for my classes every year, proving how effective advertising can be. Anyway, while calcium is important, I've read a couple articles recently stating that other aspects of bone may be just as/more important than calcium. These aspects are magnesium, potassium, silica, and others. Bones are very similar to concrete in that it is a mixture that makes them up. Concrete is made of cement (calcium), sand (silica, used to make collagen), water, and gravel (other metals). If you take a mixture of concrete and continue to add more and more cement without adding other ingredients, you'll eventually make really brittle concrete. Hmmmmmmm.

The moral of the story is that we are over calcifying our bodies and the results are being seen because of it. Kidney stones are very common nowadays and so are calcified deposits in and around arteries.

So if you did not want to drink milk, where could you get your calcium from? Well calcium is a very important component of chlorophyll, the sunlight grabbing compound found in leafy greens such as spinach and broccoli. If you think about it, where do cows get all their calcium from to make all that milk? Are they suckling from each other while we are not looking? No! They eat lots of grass! More on this to come.

In conclusion I leave you with two notes from this article. It stated that one Chicago school is starting to sell hormone-free milk at three times the cost of regular milk. How much of that do you think they sell? How many families can afford that? Also, the article added another quote that made me question their insight. "A half-pint of low-fat chocolate milk has 3 teaspoons of added sugar—the same amount found in a packet of cinnamon oatmeal or half a banana, for example, the Midwest Dairy Council reports" I want to know how they compare added sugar, most likely sucrose, to a banana which will contain fructose or glucose. A natural source of sugar is always preferable to refined sugar which is essentially a drug. So as I tell my kids, I do not have all the answers, but I do offer another perspective that they can use to make their own judgments. How do you feel about milk now?

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

Well it's that time of year again. The weather is getting colder...maybe, the sun is out for shorter periods of time, and people are getting sick. Any loyal reader will know about how important a Vitamin-D3 supplement is by now and so I won't waste this space to rehash that. What I will talk about is a great, easy-to-make soup that is as classic as Cool Hand Luke.

Any good broth based soup will have homemade broth and will NOT use a bouillon cube. Gross. But the question is what is broth and how is it made? You'll typically hear the broth referred to as stock but that's just another name. Stock is water that was heated with a combination of mirpois (2 parts carrots to 2 parts celery to 1 part onion) and the flavoring. I've heard of chicken stock, fish stock, beef stock, pork stock, lamb stock, vegetable stock. Basically anything can be made into stock, though I will focus on the chicken stock for now. For this soup, I bought a whole chicken and added that, the mirpois, salt, and fresh ground pepper to a large pot with lots of water and cooked. It took about an hour or two to fully cook the chicken and get the really good flavor. You can then pull the chicken and debone it for its meat which will be added back into the soup. (BE CAREFUL. THE CHICKEN WILL BE HOT!!!!!!!) About a half an hour before serving, I added two types of noodles, one made from rice flour and one from a corn/quinoa mix. I liked the rice ones better though both were good. If the soup was just for me, I would not have added the noodles but I made for a bunch of people and thus added them. Anyone on a gluten-free diet may use these noodles as they are not made of barley, wheat, or rye, the gluten containing grains.

Always remember to taste and add seasoning until desired. I added some fresh rosemary as well though I don't think the flavor came out. Enjoy!!!

Fractal Broccoli

If any of you just read that and completely knew what I was talking about....then kudos. A fractal is a geometric pattern that is a constant repeat of itself, meaning that the overall picture is simply a pattern that when focused on will resemble the same thing. Note the pattern on the right how each little side pattern is a microcosm of the main pattern.

So what does this have to with food? Well the past week I went to the local market and found some fractal broccoli. It really was a sight to see and took me about a week to eat since I just like looking at it. After searching for similar searches on the Internet, I found that it is an Italian form of broccoli that has a nutty flavor to it. I tried it raw and it tasted like, well, broccoli, though with a much better texture. Broccoli to me seems very fibrous whereas this type was tender, very tender. I sauteed it with some baby bok choi in oil, garlic, salt and pepper. It was delicious. The next questions is where to find it? Honestly, I have no idea. I saw it at the local farmer's market but I also went to this market just about every week and this was the first time I saw it. I know you can order seeds online and try planting it but who knows what conditions it likes and whether or not it will excel? If you find it, enjoy!

Bottled or Tap?: Appendix 1

Just in reference to the blog I posted yesterday, I found this article in today's Philly Inquirer. It is about different plastics and how they can effect male sex organs.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/magazine/20081027_Male__interrupted.html

Bottled or Tap?

As far as questions go, this one certainly is not age old. As recently as 10 years ago, bottled water was almost unheard. And even though this revolution came about in my lifetime, I'm having trouble remembering when it first happened. It seems like the market just got flooded with the source of life and took it within stride.

But now it's 2008 and there are more things in the diet to worry about then ever before. We have the capabilities of detecting individual atoms and electrons let alone the components of water. So you'd think by now that this question would've been answered. Bottled water has nice packaging and a clean taste while tap water is, well, out of the tap. We've all also heard the horror stories of water containing bacteria in places of poor sanitation. This question really is larger than it seems.

Water has an innate ability to dissolve many substances that occur naturally. Due to it's polarity (meaning the molecule has a positive and a negative side, kinda like how a magnet has a north and south), the water molecule will be attracted to anything else that is polar. This includes any salt (a mixture of a metal and a non-metal) and an abundance of natural molecules. This is good in that water works as a great filter system and can also retain necessary minerals that are ingested upon drinking. Unfortunately, it will also retain all the synthetic materials that we have produced and littered the world with over the past century. Water also has a really high resistance to heat meaning that it can keep the same temperature relatively easily, making it ideal as a temperature regulator. Bacteria and other microorganisms may thrive in these temperature safe environments. All of these attributes make water a source of life as well as death.

So back to the initial question, tap or bottled? To answer this question I'd like to view each on the particulate level. Tap water will have come from a local source and have been treated locally as well. In actuality, the water is being shared by everyone in the community and is recycled by treating it. Many treatment plants will give you a tour if you request one. In this process, the water will be screened for larger and smaller particulates as well as treated with chlorine as an antimicrobial. After a final filtering, the water is ready to go. In the right area this type of water is not ideal but definitely clean. In the wrong area, this type of water is scary. Anything with an off taste (I mean really off) or with color would be wise to steer clear of. Now obviously not everyone has this option but I think there are better options.

Bottled water on the other hand has a source high up in the lakes of some place that frankly you've never visited. A lot of these companies may have natural sources like those but I have not seen them nor would I be shocked if it was not really there. And frankly, even if there were a couple of companies that did have legitimate pure sources of water, they would be so outnumbered by the major beverage company brands that it would be tough to either spot them or rely on them. If you look at a lot of bottled waters, they are linked to a major beverage company that is most likely simply packaging simple filtered tap water and charging you an arm and a leg. So if we assume that the bottled water is simply filtered tap water, does that make it better? Lets not forget the packaging.

The plastic packaging has been around for awhile and clearly has had much use, but we haven't seen any major side effects or cries about it until recently. Recently, you hear a lot of concerns about bottles being BPA free. There are whole lines of carry-along water bottles that are BPA free and becoming a trend. BPA is a chemical used in the making of the plastic bottle which is a polymer. Basic polymers are long strands resembling spaghetti. When making one, you will get you a point where there is a soup of these spaghetti noodles. A cross-link is needed to attached to every spaghetti strand and align them. Depending on what properties the cross-link has, many different types of plastics can be made. Cross-links can be springy (bouncy balls) or rigid (hard plastics). BPA is one of those cross-links and has been known to leech into the water, especially at high temperatures or after being in high temperatures. Recently, I've seen lots of articles about plastic baby bottles having ten times more BPA in their fluids after being run through the dishwasher. The greatest concerns for BPA is that it is an endocrine disruptor. On one of those discover channel shows they visited a creek where fish were changing sex during their lifespan due to high concentrations of BPA.

So this is scary stuff. In the end, I'd have to say tap water rules over bottled water in the right circumstance. Also, it's much better on the wallet. Now when drinking that tap water I would recommend using some sort of filter but I will visit those in a later blog.

Using Alternative Therapies to Help Break Addiction

It's common knowledge on this post that Well Being Journal is a favorite magazine and it wouldn't be fair to not mention that magazine because this blog is simply a summary of an article found in the most recent issue.

Addiction is common in today's society and very easy to fall into. My friend Tootie always said that you really don't know someone until you know their vice. I feel these addictions fall under that category as a vice or something that people rely on to feel "in control" of their lives. I would go as far as to say that everyone has been addicted to something in their lives. As rug rats, we have favorite toys that we cling to and bring everywhere. Around 10, lots of kids have their first full blown addiction to sugar. Now lots of people have given me guff about sugar being a drug but listen to the argument. It's a refined white powder, that gives you a high, and is addictive. How is that not a drug? By the late teens many kids will now have multiple addictions to other substances such as caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, marijuana, or other street drugs. At that, many young adults could have addictions to prescription drugs as well. I knew many kids in college who had prescriptions to adderall or other ADD medications and around finals time they became popular people.

But what causes addiction? The obvious thirst for the attained high has to be the number one cause. That is at least the mental aspect. With enough use there will also be a chemical dependence that the body will develop and crave. It doesn't take much either. As an experiment, you can eat a piece of chocolate one night and note the time. The next night around the same time, or after the same amount of time has elapsed after dinner, note if you crave another piece. The few times that I've ran experiment like this I've noticed cravings. After a point the body becomes so dependent on the substance that withdrawing from the substance causes side effects that can alter mood.

Knowing that stopping addiction is hard (I know people that have quit addictions many times, yet have never stopped), here are some alternative therapies that could work in conjunction with whatever you are currently trying.

1) Supplements: Vitamin-C for it's antioxidant powers of cleaning your tissues. Omega-3s for assistance with fat-soluble toxins. Glutamine to help curb cravings (the article suggests 1 gram, 4-6 times a day on an empty stomach). The amino acids tyrosine, phenylalanine, tryptophan, and the vitamin niacinamide to help with depression and sleep. These supplements can be found in the extracts of valerian, scutellaria (skullcap), passiflora (passionflower), and chamomile. They also suggest chromium drops for help with sugar addiction.

2) Perspiration including exercise, steam baths, and saunas. This helps excrete the toxins the body is eliminating.

3) Exercise will help anyway to fill tie normally used to, well, use and also release good endorphins to help counter depression.

4) Acupuncture has been used with good success to help fight addiction and specifically smoking addictions. The article suggests five ear points that have been used with success. The five points are lungs (obvious), kidney and liver (detox), spirit gate (labeled shen men, for anxiety, stress, and sensitivity), and parasympathetic (labeled as autonomic point, for balancing the nervous systems and help with blood circulation). These points can be stimulated by rubbing them and applying pressure, though are best stimulated by seeing a licensed acupuncturist.

5) Social behavior and simple social contact can help with addiction as well. Having strong emotion attached to this social contact can be very helpful as well. Simply look at how much help AA or NA (narcotics anonymous) has helped with people overcoming these addictions. I also correlate this phenomenon to the correlation with emotion and the immune system (see the post Molecules of Emotion for more). A lot of times people will avoid social contact due to being high or feeling like they lose control of the situation once they leave home. Going out can cause people to leave their comfort zone and use different emotions and molecules in the body which will help the body overcome old habits.

In essence, overcoming an addiction is hard and anyone who has done so will agree. Stopping use usually takes way longer than expected but is rewarded with praise from other trying to do the same. As you proceed into your journey I only wish you luck and strength.

Vitamin D and the Sun

If you are a persistent reader of this blog, you would have realized by now that the sun and vitamin D has turned into a hackneyed topic. But there it was, again, featured in a short article in the most recent issue of Well Being Journal. I cannot stress enough the importance of keeping vitamin-D levels high as we transition from the summer into the fall. Think about all the ways in which you are getting LESS vitamin-D during the fall.

1) Playing outside on weekends has turned into going to indoor places, meaning less activity and less sunlight.

2) Meals. You may have eaten lunches or dinners outside while using the grill, but those have turned into indoor meals.

3) Vacation is over and so your week of immense amounts of sun has turned into no sun. Sure, you get a few minutes as you walk from your job to the car and vice versa, but it's not like what you were getting over the summer.

4) Clothing is now long sleeved which means less exposure even on those car trips where your left arm gets tanner than the right.

So what does this all add up to? Essentially the need for vitamin-D is still out there. It's important to supplement to ensure your health stays high. But Immune response was not the only beneficial quality of the sun. The article went onto include other benefits such as calcium absorption, pain relief, blood pressure drop, and endorphin release.

The one thing that struck me the most was that the beginning of the article stated that vitamin-D is made by having the body pool cholesterol near the skin so it can absorb the UV light and turn into vitamin-D. This got me wondering, but before that let's add a little background.

Cholesterol is a basic steroid that the body produces naturally. It contains the typical steroid backbone of four fused rings with three of them being 6-carbon rings and the final being a five-carbon ring. From this basic molecule, the body can change what are called "functional groups" to make it a different molecule. The functional groups are the chemicals attached to the ring structure. Many molecules will take this form including most messenger hormones like testosterone, progesterone, and adrenaline. I guess what I'm saying is that cholesterol is very necessary to our diet and high cholesterol could stem from a great many problems. As we run low on hormones, the body will produce cholesterol in order to make that hormone, so if that hormone keeps getting used, the body will continue to generate cholesterol. Eventually, the body will start to store the cholesterol for use which will lead to high levels of cholesterol.

So we now know that cholesterol is the precursor to vitamin-D. Now here's my question, as we become deficient in vitamin-D around this time of year, do we as humans produce more cholesterol to try to make more? It this another cause of high cholesterol? Looking at it in this light, is high cholesterol a problem in the first place or simply a warning sign of some sort of deficiency of another hormone?

Nonetheless, it safe to say that a prescription for all of us should be some sunshine and fresh air. Go for a walk during your lunch hour. Walk the dog in the morning, and I mean WALK the dog. Go for a walk when you get home. Make it a date and it'll be doubly productive.

So it is best to take a vitamin-D supplement to make sure your body stays healthy and energized.

Does the paleo diet provide weight loss?

When people ask me about the paleo diet this is one of the questions that I get asked most. I'm not here to promise a version of a fad diet because the paleo diet is not that diet. This is a diet for people seeking health and relief from whatever is ailing them. Will some weight melt away? Most likely. I know I definitely saw some weight loss, especially in some areas of my body I never expected. This could have been due to what I was eating but also could have been due what I wasn't eating any more now that I was out of college, which is when I started the paleo diet. In the following two years, my weight has fluctuated depending on the time of year but I'm starting this new school year with a simple rule that I feel can easily be followed.

No seconds, no picking.

I'm one of those people who pick constantly while cooking. Also, due to the fact that I cook in quantity, there's always seconds of which I take frequently. Now should this rule be followed to the letter? Probably not. But keeping it in the back of your mind will help in those times you want seconds but know you shouldn't. School lunch? Seconds are probably not needed. Grass-fed sausage baked in homemade pesto? Yea, I'm taking seconds, but only a little.

So this rule needs to be followed in a way that you stay sane. Unlike other rules that shouldn't be broken like the no trans fat rule, this is one that has some flexibility to it. And I bet you'd be amazed at how much less full/bloated/distended you feel.

To bring it back to the initial question, does the paleo diet provide weight loss? I would say yes but it isn't the ultimate goal. Health is. I'll leave you with a story from high school. A friend asked me what kind of fat I was. I explained that I ate a lot and took seconds frequently. He labeled me as "pig fat" which I've kind of lived by since. This is my way of leaving that behind and moving forward with a weight loss tactic to supplement the health driven paleo diet.

Getting Over the Sorrow

"Everybody hurt.....sometimes." Such a simple quote that resonates in me from my youth. I still remember the music video for this song where everyone is stuck in traffic, doing their own thing to pass the time whether staring into space or arguing with other passengers. Now there was most likely a reason why R.E.M wrote the song, but it's message can be felt with anyone due to the fact that yes, everyone has emotions and some of those emotions are sorrowful. It's actually been proven that humans are not the only animals to feel sorrow and tests have proven that animals such as elephants will mourn the loss of a loved one.

Recently, the Mets got barred from the playoffs for the second straight year with a less than spectacular performance in the final game. This obviously stirs up some sorrow for a team that I've poured my heart and soul into for an entire season, watching over 2/3 of the 162 games of the regular season. Now this isn't the best example of sorrow since there are lots of worse things in the world than a team not getting the desired result, but I'm still using it as an example. So how do you get over the sorrow and move on? There are many different ways and I'm here to outline them.

1) Laugh. Never underestimate the ability of laughter and a smile to perk up your day. The simple act will get the good endorphins flowing and getting you to feel better. My personal tactic is watching a old classic funny movie. On Sunday it was "Dirty Work", one of my personal favorites. But this type of laughter not only helps with sorrow but sickness as well. I had a pitching student who came to a lesson sick as a dog. After 15 minutes she was ready to cry from the pain and congestion. I told her to do what I did and to go watch a funny movie. The next week she said it helped a lot to laugh and she got over the sickness much faster than normal. This tactic is almost like tricking the body into feeling like it's healthy, starting the healing process.

2) Write a letter: And it does not necessarily need to be sent or read by the intended reader. For the Mets this year, I wrote a long winded email that took 2.5 hours to write, venting all my frustrations and allowing myself to focus on the future and what I think the club should do. Lots of people go through this form of venting when they visit a shrink, but writing a letter is way cheaper. It's a way to vent your frustrations and allow your voice to be heard. This process also gets the emotional chemicals in your body to start to flow, firing the much built up molecules. Imagine if you will an long awaited explosion of emotion. A sort of orgasm of the mind. And the fact is that the simple act of writing the letter allows for the chemical release.

3) Music: The type of music listened to can dictate emotion as well. I know personally I have certain bands/songs that I correlate to times in my life that had a particularly strong emotion attached to it. When I went through my emotional climax this summer I completely changed my music to get a different flavor going in my life. Another example was when I was in college. A roommate had been dumped by a girl and he proceeded to listen to the same depressing mix for about a month. It wasn't until he changed his music did he start to come out of his funk and get back in the game.

4) Food: It's important to watch your diet and not lapse back into comfort food once the sadness has set in. The comfort food will leave you feeling run down and even more depressed. Stay healthy, takes lots of Omega-3s (I noted this in a prior post Depression in Sports), and use food as a tool, not a crutch. I also know that when Papa Doc gets upset, he likes to make a large meal. The actual process of cooking can be very relaxing in itself but I've always said that cooking should be accompanied with a drink and music. Get into the mood. Get lost in the food and the environment. Cooking is also nice because it brings joy to the ones you love when they eat your food and praise it. It's the necessary confidence boost.

5) Dress: Your feeling is always reflected by your dress. When you feel dreary, sweats and a hoodie are the typical. When going to a wedding, you may be uncomfortable, but knowing you look good can be rewarding. Personally, when I knew I had a big test in college, I got up extra early, showered (a rare early morning occurrence in college), dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt, and gladly accepted the compliments before going to class. I firmly believe that the compliments boosted my confidence, allowing me to perform better.

So there you have it. Get up and out of the sorrow! Use these tricks to feel better and get back out there. Whatever the source of your sorrow, these tricks can help.

Monkfish

The best fish you've never tried is awesome for three reasons.

1) It's cheap
2) It's tender, often referred to as the "poor man's lobster"
3) It is UGLY

I fell in love with monkfish while working at a little Italian restaurant during my college summers. We used to serve it as a Friday night special. Anyway, there are many ways to cook it with the best most likely being sauteing in butter and pepper, but for those of us looking for a more healthy alternative, here's a nice recipe that is easy.

I take the monkfish and put it in a baking dish. Make sure to coat the bottom with olive oil so the fish doesn't stick to the pan. Next, the fish must be seasoned. Recently, I've been using spices that come from Penzeys, an awesome spice store with a wide variety. For white fish, I like using the Sunny Paris and it goes great with monkfish. After seasoning with that and a little black pepper or the Florida Seasoned Pepper (the best spice they offer at Penzeys), I cut up some lemon wedges and lay them on top. Put in the oven for about 20 minutes on 350 and let it go. After, the lemon comes out either slightly dried if it stayed on top of the fish or juicy if it fell to the pan and soaked up the oil. Either way, you can use the lemon for juice to squeeze or to simply eat whole like I do.

For sides, I tried this last night and for a bad kitchen set up like I have, it was easy and tasted well. Cut a couple small eggplants and grill them on the George Forman grill. You can then do the same for kohlrabi. After they are grilled, you can toss them in some olive oil and pepper for a great side dish. Note that I got the kohlrabi idea from our friend over at My Paleo Kitchen.

When done, it was an awesome meal that was fresh and delicious. I tried taking a picture with my phone which turned out harder than expected. Looks like I'm not the cameraman that Naomi at My Paleo Kitchen is.

I buy my monkfish at wholefoods (wild caught, $10.95 a lb) but wherever is good. Good luck!

note: I was going to add a picture of the monkfish but once again it is UGLY! Though I don't hate on ugly fish, I will refrain from scaring people away from this great fish.

May I have some fish in my OJ please?

Read an article from the NY Times about the trend of infusing many of our favorite traditional foods with vitamins and minerals. This trend has been in effect since the 1940's when vitamin-B was added to flour only to see rates of pellagra decrease. From there, certain other major additions such as iodine in salt and vitamin-D in milk allowed for the extermination of other prominent diseases.

Despite these early positive results, today's additives take on an entirely different form. These are not major vitamins and minerals that simply need to get into the body. A lot of these minerals are dependent on co-factors that are present in the natural sources where the additives are found. In a NY Times article from early 2007 which was a sort of entry to my own nutritional foray, the chemicals contained in a typical thyme plant were listed, at least a handful of the over 1,000 present. How many of those chemicals work in conjunction with others? Also in the article did it state that for a while doctors thought that supplemental beta-carotene had positive side effects in the body and that it was only later did they realize that it actually helped promote cancer.

So who's to say that these don't work the same? At that, who's to say that whatever medium these additives are in don't cause them to alter in some way in the body? Sure you can get some great vitamins from new Coke Plus, but does that vitamin B6 alter into a different chemical in an acidic environment? These are essential questions that we really cannot answer for sure because in vitro research is different than in vivo research. My question is how the FDA allows these products through without thorough research.

In conclusion, I'd like to add a quote from the article. "But whether the nutritional benefits of the original foods survive in additive form is still to be determined." Trust yourself, not them.

Happy Birthday!!!!

Wow. One whole year. It seems like yesterday that this blog was started out of the brains of two young fellas with only health on their minds. So after one year, it pays to look back and see what was learned and in what capacity, the changes that were made, and the stories that keep us going.

I'll never forget it. It was in line at the school BBQ that Karol and I hatched our brain child. We had spoken about health and nutrition previously but this was something completely different. If you look back at those original blogs, you can tell the youth in the writing and the vast amount of knowledge we tried to cover. It was a diet blog that was trying to change the world.

After school got into its pace the blogs slowed down and seemed to be longer. Recipes started showing up as I had time to cook. It was at this time that the grass-fed meat started showing up on my plate. And I'll take it to the grave, but grass-fed meat is simply better. When I bite into a piece of grass-fed meat, it's chewier, tighter, meatier. Grain-fed meat feels fibrous, like it's grainy. Try it yourself, you'll see the difference. It was also around this time that I started buying the Well Being Journal, a magazine dedicated to staying healthy and not masking the symptoms of sickness. After buying a few issues, I ordered a three year subscription.

As the year changed I was turned onto The Secret by Mama Doc. Like always, I dove in head first, focusing all my thoughts onto positive thinking and visualizing the things I wanted in life. After staying in that mind set for a couple months, it was time to reevaluate. I think the secret (it's a book and a movie about the power of attraction and positive thought) can be good but it's not the cure-all. I also believe that negative thinking does have the power to run someone's life and send it down the drain.

With March came softball season which means no time for me. I was teaching everyday, coaching everyday, giving hitting and pitching lessons two nights a week along with Sunday mornings, and also spending my Sunday afternoons tutoring. I was busy to say the least and this was reflected in the website by an absence of posts. I vow not to let that happen again this year as I missed spewing my thoughts to my loyal readers, however few you may be.

The beginning of '08 also brought with it Monavie. Just like The Secret I dove in head first, raving about its energy giving abilities. After a few months of reflection I still think it is a good supplement though definitely not the panacea it claims to be. For someone like me or you who pay very close attention to their diet, it is not necessary, but for someone who eats a typical western diet, it could be very helpful as a source of fruit, which they are presumably not getting a lot of, and antioxidants, though I have since read an article that these juices only contain certain antioxidants and leave some free radicals in the body untouched.

The start of summer brought carefree days and traveling. The motto of the summer was "when in Rome" and boy did I follow it. Kangaroo pizza in Australia? You bet. My Nanny's chocolate cake in Florida? Just like when I was a kid. Fenway Frank at a Red Sox game? I had two. And I still believe that indulging is necessary for sanity and comfort, but it's important to control what you eat when you can to indulge when you want. It's rare that you'll see me eating the nachos in the cafeteria at school but I will eat my friend Dana's down the shore. They're awesome.

As the summer waned, Mama Doc and I spent time making basil and making summer rolls. We also spent time eating crabs and steamers even if the only reason was to dip some fresh bread into the juices. It's these moments that you truly bond with people as food has that power. A family friend has always said that when you go out, it's important to order what you want and not worry about the bill. You're having a good time and that enjoyment is what you are after. If you are going out to simply put food into your stomach you might as well stay home and take something out of the freezer. With a little ingenuity, a simple yet exquisite meal can be whipped up in no time.

As the new school year starts my diet is taking a new turn that I will speak about when I'm done in a couple months. As this past year has seen it share of new challenges the next year will as well. I look forward to sharing my findings as this website moves into its next phase. I've started writing about the total health experience of my life including such things as Feng Shui and Molecules of Emotion. I think it's important to know about all the influences in our lives whether they be positive or negative. As this website morphs like a blob in a 1980's horror flick I hope to hear more of your comments. Please write in with your stories and thoughts as I'm always looking to learn. And that truly is the key to life, never admitting that you're no longer a student. Keep learning and keep making adjustments. Thanks for reading.

Schools Becoming Hazard Zones

Mama Doc recently sent me an article concerning the pollutants in the classroom. This was concerning to me primarily because I'm a teacher and essentially live in my classroom for a good 9 months. Despite the fact that I was concerned, I had no intentions of posting a blog because it really doesn't concern a majority of people. What changed my mind was reading a completely separate article concerning the SAME TOPIC!

What the articles (other one) stated were that classrooms are harboring lots of polluting chemicals in many different forms. The classic pollutant would be asbestos, a multi talented building material used in large quantities before its toxicity was discovered, though it has since been joined by a multitude of other chemicals. The classroom and teaching itself has evolved from the dull and boring "chalk talk" sessions into an interactive wonderland, able to hold the increasingly waning attention spans of our students. To update these classrooms, it required the involvement of these potentially harmful chemicals. Here are the biggest culprits.

- White boards: I had the pleasure of using one of these for a single period of my first year. The colors allow for visual learners to better see the connections and better retain the material. The problem comes when you start adding those volatile chemicals that keep the pens fresh and writing competently (these are the ones that students will sniff jokingly). At that, the easily erased dried leftover can pool on boards and erasers alike. These leftovers can be kicked up into the dust in the air where passage to the lungs becomes increasingly easier.

- Electronics: These will include computers, projectors, and others. Though helping connect classrooms to the vast information of the Internet, the wiring and coatings are polluting the rooms. The insulating materials can get into the air when the cooling fans blow them out at small but dangerous amounts.

- Textiles: All of the carpets, drapes, and other amenities have been coated with fire-retardant/stain-repellent chemicals that do make it easier to clean, yet more harmful.

Though these are the main offenders, it's important to remember that there are many more that are either not known or flying under the radar. All I know is that with this new information coming out, I'm just happy I teach in a chemistry lab where I have a blackboard, a fume hood, and chemicals that I know what they are.

Pesto!

One of the benefits of living at home for the summer is the fresh garden veggies and herbs that Papa Doc grows. One of the biggest crops he has is basil which makes for some amazing pesto. Here's the recipe for making it. Mama Doc and I will boil up some gnocchi made from potato starch and simply mix it with the pesto for a very easy and delicious meal.

Unfortunately I don't have exact portions because cooking is a lot like art. Throw all this stuff together and fix it to taste and consistency! I use a food processor to buzz it all in a few minutes. It's really the easiest way to make pesto.

Basil, washed. Lots of it!

Garlic. We use fresh from the farm garlic for it is more potent and less is needed. Make sure you buzz this before adding other ingredients because it will get lost otherwise and not get chopped.

Pecorino (parmesian cheese). I'll use about a half a slice that you can buy at a store. Due to the saltiness of the cheese, adding extra salt is not needed. Grate first.

Pepper. Enough said. Please fresh grind it. I use an antique coffee grinder to grind my pepper. Works perfectly.

Pine nuts. The secret ingredient.

Olive oil. After you add it all it will have trouble buzzing. As you pour in the olive oil, it will become easier and get to that consistency you want.

If you have a different recipe I'd love to hear it. Good luck and this may be the last chance you get to get fresh ingredients!

Feng Shui for a Healthy Life

Feng Shui has become popular enough in the past decade that it can be considered a commonly known method. After brief forays into Feng Shui during my high school years, with good success, and a crystal hanging from my car mirror (note: the only accident coming when I had a new car and no crystal), I recently decided to bring the far eastern practice back into my life. But before I get into my changes, I'd like to tell you a story of tragedy and triumph.

The Cassell brothers are very successful in their own right being professional athletes. Matt a backup quarterback to arguably the best quarterback ever, Tom Brady, and Jack a relief pitcher for the Houston Astros. These aren't exactly the most glamorous positions in professional sports but it sure beats working at Target.

Last Sunday, Tom Brady went down with a torn ligament in his knee, ending his season and thrusting Matt into the limelight. He led his team to victory and is in line to be the starter the rest of the season. On the SAME DAY Astros' starter Wandy Rodriguez left after the first inning and Jack had to come in for relief. Pitching four good innings, the Astros went on to win and stay in the race for the playoffs.

Now any normal person would call that a coincidence. But I ask you one question, what are the odds? This seems too improbable to be left to a coincidence. In a moment of mathematical clarity I tried to calculate the odds. Now I'm not going to claim to be a great mathematician or even claim that my algorithm is correct. In fact, I'm going to say it's not correct, but is at least in the right direction. By my calculations, the odds of two brothers playing MLB and NFL and each being a backup and coming in for an injured starter on the same day would be around 1 in 7.7 quadrillion (7,700,000,000,000). This is statistically improbable ad begs for another reason, say an outside force or energy driving the world. And here's where Feng Shui comes into play.

Families are connected and it could have been from something the parents did that brought this good chi to the kids. I can't speak for them but I can speak for myself. I live in an awkwardly shaped room and had my energy blocked by a bad bed placement which kind of blocked my entrance door. I rearranged the other day and even made a little nook in my relationship corner consisting of some plants my roommate tried to kill over the summer (he claims otherwise, but look at that brown leaf!) and some geodes I collected as a kid. That night, not one but two friends contacted me when I hadn't spoken to them in months. Coincidence? I still can't say no. What are the odds of that? Probably less but I'm not about to go calculating that.

So what can you learn from Feng Shui? I've learned that everything must be balanced in this world and if you don't balance it, Feng Shui will. For instance there are five elements of Feng Shui (water, wood, fire, metal, and earth) and these elements must be in balance for good chi flow. I read a book in which each element was described and what personality trait would go with it. I came to the conclusion with the help of Mama Doc that I lacked a little fire. The author recommended wearing something soft life suede, silk, or jade until the next birthday to balance the fire, and this is where the story gets interesting.

Over the summer, I had purchased two necklaces, one of jade and one of opal. The clasp of the opal one broke immediately and is currently being fixed, but this forced me to wear the jade one. After two months of wear, I read this Feng Shui book, seeing that it had sought to balance my chi for me. Wow.

So when thinking about your life as a whole, don't simply make it diet. Allow yourself to bring other practices into your life for a whole health experience. Since rearranging my room I feel so much healthier and better and I hope you can find this as well. Please send in questions.

Molecules of Emotion

Dr. Candace Pert was a simple scientist trying to make it in the "Old Boys Club" mentality of the laboratory science world. In this world, getting your name published in a paper means everything. Certain scientists will even string out information into multiple papers simply to be published multiple times! For proof, I was speaking to a friend last night who when asked what he accomplished exclaimed that he'd been published three times.

Though her time in the laboratory science field was an exciting one. In the early seventies, levels of detection were getting smaller, enabling for the discovery of a whole slew of molecules. Among these were neurotransmitters and their respective receptors. These molecules are the communication in your brain. When a transmitter molecule is secreted it goes to another part of the brain, filling the receptor like a lock and key and causing a chain reaction of other chemical changes in the body. Her discoveries later would find receptors all over the body including digestive tract and immune cells, proving a complex communication between the body and mind.

As Dr. Pert continued to make discoveries, her name grew until she became well respected in her field. As life hits highs though it will also hit lows. Through multiple events, Pert eventually made some forays into the cancer and AIDS research fields, coming up with her own ideas that seemed to be years ahead of their time. As her life continued, she eventually hit a point where modern medicine wasn't doing it for her, and that's where the book got interesting.

Molecules of Emotion turned into a book combining the biochemistry background of Dr. Pert with the alternative medicine she learned in her later life (she uses the term complimentary medicine which both Mama Doc and I like better). Even for the scientifically challenged, she does a great job explaining all the terms and even adds easy to understand pictures. There is also a glossary for those who still struggle with some of the language. Using her receptor science background, she explains that there are certain molecules programmed into the body for each emotion and that these emotions were once keys to survival. For instance, wolves and humans use the same facial muscles when enraged. This would stem from the same molecules being used in the body, showing emotion as a key component of evolution. Though the book isn't all science. She uses the story of her life as a way of showing her path to health. It's also very inspirational for any young female scientists trying to make it in a male dominated sector.

Her main point by the end is that the body-mind connection is extremely strong and should not be overlooked. There's a great story early in the book that Descartes made a deal with Pope allowing him to dissect the bodies of dead people on the terms that he keep away from the soul, mind, or emotions. This simple deal set the course of history where for years the mind and body were separate entities. She along with multiple other complimentary heath professionals are fighting the war to bring them back together.

As the summer wanes away for me, I've taken the time to reflect and have come up with the best example of this book in my life. Dr. Pert talks about having emotional blocks that can hinder the best communications in the body. She offers that the best therapy is to release that emotion, whether it be positive or negative, and allow the molecules to flow freely once again. This summer, I visited a friend whom I'd been thinking a lot about. We had a long heart to heart upon which I release a lot of pent-up emotion. Days later I was feeling like I had "moved on" and saw only my future. With my confidence at a new high, I was able to freely go about my life without that constant thought in the back of my head. I guess the moral of the story is that if your life has your tires spinning with no traction, figure out what emotion is keeping you there and release it. How do you do this? Depends on the emotion. If it is sadness, a good cry will help, though at the same time the opposite could be it. Go play with a friend's dog or child. Relax and step back to a time when you had no worries. If it is anger, write a long letter addressed to that person. Whether you send it or not won't matter since you will have fired those neurons, releasing those emotions. Fear? Go ride a roller coaster and scream your head off. She writes a list of the eight basic emotions (sadness, disgust, anger, anticipation, joy, acceptance, fear, and surprise) and correlates them to the primary colors. Two or more can be combined to make other emotions (joy + fear = guilt or sadness + anticipation = longing). Simply reading this book will get you into the emotional mindset, tuning you into these emotions.

Best of luck reading Molecules of Emotion, if you have questions don't hesitate to write in and ask them.

Less Sleep Makes Golfers Worse

Yes, the scientists have made this phenomenal breakthrough! Getting more sleep will help your golf game. Wow. Who would've thought that getting a better nights sleep would help you in a sporting event?

Now that I've got the sarcasm out of my system, lets take a look at this. I found the article in the Tuesday August 26th sports section of the Daily Record and felt it was worth noting. The golfers they looked at were suffering from sleep apnea, or interrupted breathing during sleeping hours, causing the brain to wake up multiple times (even up to 100!). As a full nights sleep has not been attained, the person will be, irritable, impatient, inattentive, and generally slow. Now imagine this on the golf course or even better yet imagine it after a bad shot when the Happy Gilmore putter throw will immediately follow.


While the article focuses on sleep apnea, I'd like to focus on general sleep. People are getting less and less sleep these days and even when they're asleep it isn't that good deep sleep. So why are people getting less and worse sleep? Could it be dietary? Absolutely.

The number one culprit for this must be caffeine (I have a large caffeine post coming up in which I will add more detail). Most people don't know it but it takes multiple hours for even a small amount of caffeine to be excreted from the body. Imagine someone who drinks multiple cups a day! When they're trying to sleep their body is still in an excited state, hindering their ability to sleep. If they can't sleep well they will be tired and drink more coffee, causing for worse sleep. it's a vicious cycle.

I'm sure there are other foods. I know personally, I usually sleep through the night except days I decide to indulge. I wrote about one particular incident (Sleepless Nights 12/3/07) when three beers kept me up all night. Other foods that could disrupt sleep include sugar filled desserts.

So how does sleep work? There are four stages of sleep where stage one is the lightest sleep known as REM sleep. This is where you dream, and why you can incorporate outside sounds to your dreams. Interesting note: the brain will temporarily paralyze the body during this type of sleep to hinder it from enacting vivid dreams. From there, stage four sleep is the deepest and is the restorative sleep. A normal sleep cycle will last about an hour and a half. Caffeine intake will hinder the body's ability to reach this stage four sleep and in turn miss out on this powerfully helpful sleep stage.

In the end, it's better to avoid this maligned foods which lead to this less beneficial sleep. A quick story to finish up. When I was younger and coming home late at night, I couldn't get up to my room a single time without waking the Docs. Coco and Amber, our two labs, didn't help by barking, but even after they passed, the Docs continued to wake when I got home. Compare this to a couple weeks ago when I got in from a night out, got upstairs, got ready for and into bed and did not wake them. The next morning they even asked me at what time I had gotten home! It's also worth noting that we now have two new dogs, Daisy and Pumpkin, who did not wake up either. You could chalk this up to them not being good watch dogs (most likely not true since Corgis are known as have exceptional hearing) or to the fact that their diet is healthier than what we used to feed the labs. Maybe they sleep more soundly as well?

Eating Seasonally

Just picked up some great honeydew at a local farm stand and briefly wanted to state how thrilled I am with the options of local fresh fruit. I wrote awhile ago about how a sustainable garden will produce different foods for local wildlife as the seasons change. Even as the summer continues and the temperature changes, different plants will bloom and whatnot.

So what's the point? I feel a lot of people, especially kids, get caught up in the one or two fruits they like and stick to those all year long. Apples are good, but are best in the fall when they are in season. Why go with an under-ripe piece of fruit when a great batch of berries is sitting across the aisle? The human body was meant to work this way.

Different chemicals from different fruits during different seasons. As we continue to become a society relying monoculture farming and fewer foods, it's important to keep a variety in the diet.

So what can you do? GO GET A FRUIT YOU'VE NEVER LIKED!!!! Try it again! I recently warmed up to honeydew (still don't like cantaloupe) and I'm so happy I gave it another try. The taste buds do develop over time and so you may like that fruit you once detested.

Thai Summer Rolls

During the summer, dinner gets a little more fun. Ask any ordinary person and they would say it's the heat. Ask me, it's the happy atmosphere, especially on vacation. All that vitamin D and stress release makes people open to new ideas instead of looking to drown their sorrows in the stuffed crust of a $5 pizza.

Mama Doc and I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and make a delicious dinner with lots of fresh ingredients from all walks of life. This is a great meal when you have time to cook, hence the on vacation remark. It takes time but can be a lot of fun if you include the cooking essentials of music and a drink. The drink of choice that night was a mixed drink of vodka (triple distilled) and a mixture of fresh cranberry juice and pineapple-tangerine.

The essential of the meal is the rice wraps. These can be found at any local Asian market. The ones we had were approximately 8 inches in diameter. From there, the ingredients really are up to you. We decided to add fresh Boston lettuce, leaves separated, rinsed and dried, carrots and red pepper both julienned and fresh garden cilantro to each. We then added a fish to each in the form of shrimp, jumbo lump crab and raw ahi tuna. You can add one fish to each or mix and match to your hearts desire.

To make them, moisten the wraps by dipping them in a bowl of water. Remove and add ingredients, then roll. It's not very complicated. After rolling them all, you simply need to make the dipping sauce!

The spiced chili sauce combines 1/4 cup diced scallions (white part only), 1 finely diced plum tomato, 1 tsp minced jalapeno pepper, 1/2 cup fresh lime juice, 1/4 cup rice vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste. You can also add cilantro if you please. Do note that the recipe for both calls for fresh mint as well as cilantro, but Mama Doc and I are both cilantro fans and didn't want that flavor to be masked.

This truly is a wonderful summer meal; though the true beauty is that you can add WHATEVER YOU WANT! Don't like crab? Substitute some fresh yellow tail. Don't like seafood at all? Substitute some julienned zucchini or summer squash. Go ahead and try anything. Be creative! Think outside the wrap!

Dietary Cure For Acne

Written by the same author as The Paleo Diet (Dr. Loren Cordain), The Dietary Cure For Acne is a small spin-off harping on the same basic concepts and diet. The basic difference is that the focus is not on overall health but rather on the causes of acne and how an inflammatory diet will promote this common health problem.

So what causes acne? Well, it basically breaks down to four steps which are all interconnected.

1) Blockage: The skin has a certain system of ejecting old dead cells on the surface; though in order to do this, it must first break down the linkage proteins between each cell. With an improper diet, the enzymes responsible for breaking down these linkages will not function properly and the dead cells will stick together for a longer duration of time. This in turn will keep them on the outer surface of the skin longer, helping to block pores.

2) Oil Secretion Overload: Each hair follicle in each pore contains a gland responsible for the secretion of oil. When hormone levels fluctuate, these glands secrete extra oil to try to balance them out. This is one of the reasons acne is so prevalent in pubescent teenagers. We were all there once. Our hormones are COMPLETELY haywire; thus, leading to over secretion of oil. After puberty, it is an inflammatory diet that can lead to these skewed hormone levels.

3) Infection: Once sealed, the pore produces the extra oil and is now prime real estate for a certain strain of bacteria to set up shop. It is this reason that antibiotics have been successful in fighting acne, but what are those same antibiotics doing to your gut flora? Once the bacteria take over, the immune system goes to work by causing...

4) Inflammation: Those lovely red sores on your face with bubbling white heads. Did you know that white pus is actually dead white blood cells fighting that bacteria?

So that's how acne is caused. But what does the author talk about for the rest of the book? There are essentially three other sections. The first is an explanation to how some foods cause certain enzymes to malfunction or other problems leading to the prior four steps. The second is a list of food to avoid and a list to eat. If you follow the paleo diet, you know what foods to eat and which to avoid. The third is a set of letters from reader who have had great success with the story.

If you have questions please write in or pick up the book! It's very short (96 pages) and can be read very quickly. There is even a video on youtube by a kid who followed the book and had great results (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S08VGSbvgR8&feature=related). Best of luck!

Vacation and Stomachs

Just a quick note while enjoying the last bits of my crab dinner and beach vacation.

I recently spent the week with some friends at a popular Atlantic Ocean beach town and observing was one of the joys. Every single member of our group (except two of us)had some sort of stomach pains that had them running for the toilet at a moments notice. My guess is that the combination of a) partying b) eating more and c) some poor food choices led to the urgent scampering.

Which leaves the two of us. Tim's reason for feeling alright was a combination of being used to the partying and making some wiser food choices. He's also someone who has picked my brain frequently for advice on food, but that's a whole different story. (See: A Paleo Diet Success Story from 3/4/08) As for myself, the food going into my body was definitely better. I avoided any bread and fast food, but lot of our meals were shared between all of us so these were the two major components I missed. Bread is huge including rolls for sausage and peppers, pasta, and pancakes. I also took immense amounts of enzymes and even noticed a great difference when the carb/sugar enzyme ran out (vacation = more sugary drinks vs. the normal vodka and club with lime).

So what's the moral? This stuff works. This was a great experiment to watch and clearly proved the worth of better food and enzymes despite higher cost. It's your health, your life, and your decision.

Depression in Professional Sports

Yeah, it's possible.

Recently, Shawn Andrews, a guard on the Philadelphia Eagles, who had been missing from training camp, finally reported and claimed he was suffering from depression. The obvious question is, how does that happen? Most of the country would claim he makes millions of dollars which should lead to happiness, yes?

To quote my grandfather (we'll call him Pop-pop): "Money does not buy you happiness, only freedom." How true. Here is a man who has been through a lot in Andrews. His depression could stem from many areas including a friend who died in the past couple years, though it was that overweight friend that fueled Andrews to eat better and get his weight under control. He has since become a top player at his position.

If you read one of the many articles (check any Philly area paper), you'll read that he is on medication and will soon see a mental health expert. But are their other ways?

Free safety Brian Dawkins claimed he fought through depression in 1996 but eventually weaned off the meds through "prayer" and a strong supporting cast. (article) I'm sure this method is worthy. I've been through tough times and one in particular back in my senior year of high school. Three independently tough things came down on me at once including the death of my Pop-pop and what helped me the most was going back to school and playing on a sports team. The camaraderie was beneficial to getting my mind off of the sadness and into a more positive mode. Dawkins method is viable, but there has to be something physiological.

When Papa Doc saw the article, his immediate response was to give Andrews more fish-oils. There is one study where a study group in a prison was given omega-3 oils vs. a standard diet for another group. The omega-3 group behaved so well and were generally so much happier that the study was stopped midway with results proven.

Fish-oils can be found all over the place right now. I even hear ads for them over the radio, but what are they and how do they work?

Omega-3s are fatty acids that are made by cold water plants. As the plants get eaten by the fish, the fish inherit the fatty acid and start to stock it. Eating these fish provides us with a good portion of the necessary fat. The typical ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 fatty acids in the body is 1:2. With the huge influx of Omega-6s to the Western diet through corn, other grains, and farmed fish, that ratio has grown to around 1:20. Mama Doc even read recently that if provided with a choice between a hamburger and farm-raised tilapia, you would be better off with the hamburger due to the large amount of pro-inflammatory Omega-6s in the fish. Wow.

So what happens in the body? Omega-3s are natural brain food, helping form synapses between brain cells, increasing mental speed, focus, and capacity. The best example of this can be seen through the Vikings who resided in the cold-water areas of Scandinavia. With all the fish they ate, they were able to figure out seafaring before the rest of Europe, helping them become the first civilization to sail the open waters and land in North America. As time went on, they lack of resources in their landing cites (Greenland, Northern Canada) hindered them from proliferating but that's a whole different discussion.

So Omega-3s are wonderful for the body, mind, and through the transitive property the spirit. Hopefully Shawn Andrews reads this website and will give Omega-3s a shot. For my spirit, it would help to back a winning football team this year. Go Birds.

Paleodieter's Handbook: The Camping Trip

Of the many vacation types, camping may be one of the trips with the most hassle to maintain a paleolithic diet. Notice I don't say toughest because I think it can be easy to maintain a healthy lifestyle, but the onus must be on you. Once you get to the campsites, your options will be crap, crap, and more crap so proper preparation is essential.

I will set the scene of a typical camp trip to give an example of how a typical day might go. If you go to a state camp grounds, you'll be in a small campsite with the possibility of electric. For the purposes of this blog though we will assume no electricity. The main source of refrigeration will be a cooler or two with the main cooking source an open flame in a fire pit (would you have it any other way?) Each day will provide a bunch of hours hanging out with a few hours set aside for hiking, fishing, biking, and various other outdoor activities.

Each day will start the same. Another member of the group will inevitably wake up way earlier than you and rush you to do some outdoor activity. I'm all for this, but sleep is sleep and I like it. Fishing on the other hand must be done early so this is a necessary time to be up when camping. These days, a fruit and nut bar is perfect for a quick meal before hiking. Breakfast can be eaten upon return when there is time to hang out. I also found that drinking a fruit smoothie or V-8 juice was filling yet energizing in the morning. Proper fruit smoothie mixes can be found. Simply remember to read labels and don't hesitate to put something down if an ingredient makes you uncomfortable.

One of the friends I went on this trip with is a habitual coffee drinker. One cup in the morning and that's it. He told me after 4 days without coffee that he noticed he got hungrier earlier than normal, especially when hiking. Could a caffeine habit needing to be kicked be helped by a small breakfast to replace the false energy generated by the coffee?

Now that the morning excursion is over, it's time for breakfast. Assuming you only have a cooler and are refreshing the ice daily, this and other big meals can consist of any style of meats that you may have bought at farm markets or Wholefoods. You can find great cuts of bacon that contain no preservatives at these places that always taste wonderful. Good omega-3 eggs also come out well over an open flame. Do be careful when cooking over an open flame as they are less stable and tougher to control than say charcoal. The building of the fire can be a great lesson to a youngster and also lots of fun. Remember, the most important part to any fire is air flow.

Other large meals can be sufficed by burgers, sausages, ribs, or basically any other style of meat. Make sure you purchase it at the right place and know the background whether grass or grain-fed. Butcher shops will always tell you the food source of their meat though when need be , veal is mostly grass-fed.

The tricky part comes with the snacks. Camping with kids will make it difficult since they will eat all the time and not simply at meal time. Fruit will be good but tough to keep around with the cooler getting very wet from melted ice. It may be easier to travel with citrus type fruits which of course are out of season during the summer months in the north part of America. It's probably best to ask a worker where a good local farm market is. If not available, I only wish you the best of luck. Fruit can be had with some creativity but if camping for a week it may be difficult to take. Dried fruit can be a good backup plan but is less healthy than fresh fruit.

Nuts are always good snack items and have a variety. Cashews, almonds, walnuts, pistachios, and many other are all good items, but peanuts ARE NOT! Peanut butter is not a good choice either. There is a posting from October 2007 (Health Nuts?!) that explains why peanuts are bad. Other nuts butters can be brought and possibly put on celery or apples for an easy snack. Other rice based crackers seem to be necessary in this situation. With many snacks needed, especially for families, rice cakes and rice crackers will provide what saltines and animal crackers used to. Some Terra chips can also be a better choice than some of their greasy counterparts.

As for desert, there really is no replacement for a good fire-roasted marshmallow. Especially when done right with brown on the outside and the inside all gooey. Yum. The key is to have a couple and not an entire bag. If smores are desired, you can find good dark chocolate. As for the cracker, you may have you be a little creative in choosing a substitute that is healthy and desirable for yourself.

Too recap, it's best to take care of shopping yourself. Lara bars and other similar products make a good pre-morning hike boost before a proper breakfast can be had. Good meats can be cooked for good meals with a variety of fruits and rice crackers for snacks. Fruits may be tough to keep and should be packaged right. Dried fruit can be a good alternative and get paired well with nuts. Dessert should be a time to indulge but don't go wild. Remember, a healthy body is a happy body!

Kids Foods Deemed Unhealthy....No Way?!

Can you sense the sarcasm?

Ask anyone to remember their child years and most will have a song or slogan or cartoon character they can relate to a food item. These advertisements are plastered all over kids TV networks, ads, and packages to simply attract the kids. Add in a toy and they are like wet sauerkraut in the major company's hands.

A recent article on philly.com (link here) spoke of an analysis of 367 kids products of which 90% were deemed unhealthy. Shocking right? Well, the bigger news is that this study excluded candy and soft drinks. So the 90% was for the everyday foods that parents willingly buy their kids and pack in their lunches.

These sugar, fat, and salt rich foods are destroying America's youth and causing a multitude of the problems that are seen today. I'm sure the study didn't even touch on artificial colors or flavors.

Even more disturbing is that 62% of these foods had some sort of nutritional claim. The article gives examples such as "made with real fruit juice" or "no artificial flavors". In my experience, the more a food has to claim its nutritional benefit, the worse it is. Imagine that person who tries to convince you they are smart by all the knowledge they know. That person either isn't smart, or is an a-hole.


So how can you teach your child to eat healthier? The simplest way is to set the proper example. Your child will eat what you eat. You can find some great cracker alternatives at whole foods. Our favorites are the Nut-Thins made by Blue Diamond. They come in almond, hazelnut, and pecan. I've attached a picture to help you find them.

You can also give your child fruits and veggies to bring to school. Baby carrots pack easily and taste good. If they won't eat them, give some cashew butter to dip them in. Spread some almond butter on some celery sticks. There are ways to get veggies into the diet. Pack some grapes or other fruits that taste good and travel well.

The key still is to set the example. Make time for food. If you snack on unhealthy foods, your child will too. Show that food isn't simply a necessity, but rather a way of living. Be creative and eat healthy. Your body and future teen will thank you.

A Vampire's Worst Nightmane

Anyone who has watched, read, or played anything dealing with vampires will tell you that garlic is a major repellent. So what does this have to do with my life and the paleo diet? Despite being a major part of any paleo dieter's diet, garlic is a highlight from my latest trip of this glorious summer.

I had the pleasure of visiting some family this weekend in northern Connecticut. The town they live in is a modern marvel of sorts in that that do not allow neon signs and overall are very quaint and quiet. It's always fun going up there for the simplicity.

Anyway, this particular trip was beneficial for multiple reasons, the most being the time I got to spend with my 5 year old cousin. With some deep thoughts on my mind, it was refreshing to act like a child again, running around the yard and allowing myself to tackled by him, playing hide and go seek, and being pelted by about 25 watermelon seeds as I taught him how to revel in this fantastic past time. When talking about stress-release as a form of health care, I highly recommend this.

Back to dieting, my cousin happens to have some great paleo diet resources around her area. In order of proximity, her next door neighbor and cousin on our non-related side has honeybees and has some of the best honey I've ever tasted. It's so fresh and can be used in a multitude of ways. We actually made a bean salad consisting of fresh green beans mixed with oil, white balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, lemon zest, and a drizzle of honey. It was fresh and delicious but did need to marinate a little to fully bring all the flavors together. These neighbors also grow lots of fresh fruits and veggies which I was lucky enough to be the beneficiary of. They brought over blueberries and broccoli, which I barely got a bite of the broccoli before the 5 year old gobbled it all up (how many 5 year old kids do you know eat broccoli straight?) The blueberries we some of the best I've every had. This was obvious when compared to:

The blueberries from a local farm. while good, couldn't hold a candle to the homegrown ones. This once again proves that homegrown fruits and veggies are far and beyond tastier and healthier. Now luckily she has this farm close by to provide all the veggies and fruits she needs. The produce was very good and I recommend finding a local farm stand or farmer's market for produce shopping over the summer. You can even buy extra produce and can them for the tough winter months. This can save money as well when produce prices go up during the winter. I'll try to put out a post about canning soon.

The top of the mountain still belongs to the local garlic farm. This stuff is absolutely outstanding. Harvested very recently, the purchased goods still aren't ready to eat as they need more time to cure. After hanging in a cool, dry area for a couple more weeks, the fresh garlic is so good that the Docs and I will even chop it fresh into a salad. The funny thing was when we bought all this garlic the girl working the stand exclaimed "you guys must be healthy!" Garlic truly is one of the healthiest substances int he western diet and should be eaten more ofter. Fresh when you can though powdered still has its merits.

Try searching for local farms or garlic specific farms online to see if any are close. If not, garlic should become a staple of your paleolithic diet. There are so many recipes for garlic or recipes that contain garlic that it's not even funny. The simplest is to saute some fresh greens in oil and garlic, chopped or sliced. You can also cut the top off a head of garlic and drizzle some oil on top to roast in the oven.


Later in the season, this farm will produce it's 10-[lb bags of garlic which the Docs and I will eat all winter. With lots of extra heads, Papa Doc stuck some cloves (a head is consisted of cloves) into the garden which sprouted with ease. When the garlic sprouts it shoots up what is called a scape.
These scapes can be harvested and cooked. I enjoyed the second harvest which due to the harsher summer weather the Docs said weren't as tender. They can be sauteed in the manner described earlier.

So garlic can provide nutrition in a variety of ways. Enjoy this wonderful bulb as it not only taste exhilarating, but also cleanses the body of toxins. There's also the whole vampire thing as well....

Sanity Tip: Moderation

Being a teacher, the summer is...well...the best time of year. With it comes three months of freedom from the burdens of work. That's the good part. The bad part is that this freedom will frequently cause you to stray from other strict regimens that are typically followed. For me, my diet is everything, but when traveling I enjoy immersing myself in the customs of the locals. You know the saying. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. The summer is especially nice for me since I get to go to the Docs house near Philadelphia. With this stay comes hanging out with friends and enjoying all my old favorites. For example:

Cheese steaks: Chopped up steak with onions, peppers, and cheese whiz all on an Amoroso roll. Reason number one to not get a cheese steak outside of Philly is the roll. The roll is everything.

Tomato Pie: A large square pizza with only sauce and a small amount of sprinkled Parmesan cheese. This stuff is amazing. Yet there is only one place to get tomato pie around here called Corpolese. Have you ever seen that episode of The Office where Michael orders pizza from the wrong place? If you get tomato pie from the wrong place, it is not even worth entertaining.




Pizza: Philly isn't known for its pizza but this one local place called Franzones is simply my favorite. So many good memories. Worth ordering once a summer. Their sauce is so sweet. MMMMM.

Now that I'm drooling at the mouth, it's worth noting that I will/have eaten these things this summer. The important part is that I'm not eating these every day. I had them once. ONCE. After that it's back to business. The important word to keep in mind is:

MODERATION!!!!!!!!

Get it out of the system and move on. Mama Doc always said "I'm not going to waste calories on stuff I don't like." Now she said this in reference to preferring chocolate ice cream over vanilla, but she's right. In a dire health situation, it's important to not cheat. If you are following the paleo diet simply to feel better, it's ok to stray once in a while. If and when you do though, make it worth wild. Eat a piece of tomato pie. Heck, eat two. Get a cheese steak. Recently, I was visiting friends in the Boston area and I got fried clams in Ipswich which has some of the best fried clams in America. Did I feel guilty, no, because guilt builds stress. Pick the foods you REALLY like and have them. Cheating will ease the taste buds and the following day of grogginess will remind you why you are on the paleo diet in the first place.

Remember, moderation. Control your diet when you can to cheat when you really want to. I would appreciate any stories people have with their cheat foods. You know mine now lets hear yours.

Summer Shopping and Seaweed Salad

Yes, I realize that many of you just cringed at the word seaweed, but the vegetable of the ocean is one of the most healthy things you can eat. If you are reading this blog I'm sure you know that cold water fish are very high in omega-3 fatty acids which are good for brain development, repair, and many more, but where do you think the fish get the acids from? Seaweed. I don't know if it is in the greens or the precursor is in them but the stuff is just healthy.

Anyway, being a teacher, the number one perk are those three glorious months over the summer where school is reduced to camp and days are filled with what you WANT to do. This Monday, after camp, I took a nice stroll down the street to the local farmer's market. To me, these markets are gold mines of fresh fruits, veggies, and herbs. Why go to a regular supermarket when these markets have better quality and better prices despite worse appearance. I understand visual aesthetics are very important to many consumers, just look at the wide usage of artificial colors which have no other purpose but to increase visual appeal, but if your getting good quality foods, you can simply follow the advice of Jimmy Soul who wrote this famous song (If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life...and I digress).



So I stroll down to the market. I get a packet of blueberries, gooseberries, 2 homegrown squash, 2 homegrown zucchini, and homegrown chives for $10. 10 dollars!!!! If I were to buy that produce at any supermarket, I'd be paying at least fifteen, if not twenty out of season. The quality is outstanding as well. When produce is homegrown, it simply feels, smells, and taste different. All the senses are stimulated they way they should be because the produce is grown the way it should be.

Gooseberries (shown above). Wouldn't you try these? Thought so.


So I come home to make lunch. I had recently bought a packet of fresh seaweed at the local Chinese supermarket and had no idea what to do with it. After a quick phone call to Mama Doc, I decided to make a simple seaweed salad. I understand that most seaweed salads contain jellyfish (also sold at the Chinese grocery store) but I didn't have any. I chopped one squash, one zucchini, and the seaweed and seasoned it with salt, fresh ground pepper, and a little honey. It was awesome. Now understand that the seaweed has a strange texture that will turn lots of people off to it, but the health benefits are immense if you can deal.

Please email with questions but making your own version of your favorite store bought items can be not only psychologically rewarding, but also monetarily rewarding ($6 for a huge mixing bowl's worth vs. $4 for a small container of pre-made at the supermarket). Good luck and please comment or email with any of your own ideas. Remember the farmer's market.

A Chicken By Any Other Name

Chicken is chicken is chicken....right? Wrong.

The roommate and I cooked up some dinner last night. The centerpiece? A whole, free range, grass-fed chicken. Er, two halves of chickens. At least that's how they were packaged. The chicken was bought at a local farm market where the Docs load up on grass-fed meat. I of course load up when I go home and raid the freezer. Now any chef will tell you that a dinner is only as good as it's weakest part, which makes this dinner so special. I'd been hankering for some french fries for the past few weeks and figured this would be the perfect opportunity to whip some up.

The Recipe
All the chicken needed was some seasoning. The Kid (my roommate) mixed a bunch of spices together for a nice dry rub. I have some great spices from Penzeys Spices who have some great mixtures if you are unsure of yourself or simply don't have the time to play around. Mama Doc uses Sunny Paris on white fish and I like the salt-free spices they have. As he seasoned, I cut some organic yams (I don't recall the types but there were at least three different ones). Some were orange and some were white, but all were delicious. I seasoned the yams with salt, pepper, and some chives. I normally used rosemary when I make fries but the store was out. After everything was prepped, it was all thrown into a large baking dish and put in the oven at 375 for about 40 minutes.

The Outcome
The potatoes were awesome. Seasoned well with some being mushy and some being crunchy. I guess whatever certain yams were used had different consistencies. As The Kid described them, they were "um...good?" So convincing... Anyway, the chicken came out succulent. There wasn't much meat but I believe it was due to it being grass-fed. The meat was hidden under cartilage, bones, and other parts, but it was all extremely tender and juicy. As with any meal, it's not about quantity but quality; and this meal was quality.

I can't stress enough how good grass-fed meat tastes compared to it's grain-fed counterparts. The chicken served at my school has this grainy texture predicated off the grains fed to chicken all it's life. Red meat works the same way where the grass-fed kind is simply more tender and juicy. By now, the grass-fed trend has had the cover thrown off it and this type of meat can be found. The quality is worth the money and the health benefits are a clear thumbs up as well.

Symbiosis

It doesn't take a brainiac to observe the havoc humankind is ravaging on this earth. Global temperatures are rising, polar ice caps are melting, and most alarmingly, multiple different species of animals have had population numbers plummet. The counter-arguments for the first two are rational, but there shouldn't be a logical reason for these animals to be dying off.

Which begs the next question. Why are these animals dying at alarming rates? Rising temperatures give way to climate changes which are most likely the primary cause. Not all species are as adaptable as humans. Imagine that friend who is either too cold or too hot. Exactly. Certain species can survive in such a small temperature range that changing climates will force them to move into a different and potentially hazardous new habitat. Other changing temperatures will allow warmer weather species to travel more north into previously area which were too cold for it. For example, the red fox has recently been seen in arctic fox territory where it can easily out-bully the smaller arctic fox.

Though temperature isn't the only reason habitats are changing. Humans have impacted food-chains in a variety of ways. In many eastern suburbs, humans have killed predators such as coyotes due to their interference with chicken and sheep farming. The side effect of this was and still is the proliferation of the now predator-less deer. This leaves most deer very malnourished and seeking food in human areas. This wandering inevitably leads to car accidents and other awful events. As well, chemical interference has left its fingerprint all over the place. Now say the slightest chemicals can barely alter a human life, but a much smaller organism can be overwhelmed by the same chemicals. If the tiny organisms (think plankton) are altered, that could hurt their predator, and up and up the food chain until all are harmed.

Lastly, humans have impacted the plant life around us. If you go outside and take a look around, I'm willing to bet that lots of the plants you see would be non-existent say 500 years ago. When Europeans came to this country, they brought the plants and animals with them they were used to. In Jared Diamonds Guns, Germs, and Steel, he speaks about how Europeans who settled in South Africa were able to live there but unable to survive just to the north because the Tropic of Capricorn was crossed, changing the climate and hindering their plants to live. With this story as an example, it's no surprise that Europeans would seek to change their environment into comfort foods and nostalgic visuals. This of course impacts the habitat by not only changing food supplies to local animals, but also changing shelter habitats for smaller rodents. Imagine being a larger animals living in tall grasses when suddenly a new plant suffocates the grass out and the canopy suddenly drops to half the size. You'd feel out of place, yes? This change can be monumental enough to wipe out an entire species.







Don't these look delicious?







So where am I going with this? For those of you who love the outdoors and like to eat healthy as well, there is a great opportunity to do both. When you go to plant your garden this spring into summer, maybe consider trying some local fruits and plants that will keep your garden alive and healthy. Local birds will feed there all year as the food supply will sustain all summer instead of booming and subsiding. Local bees will be more attracted and pollination will go up, boosting harvest. All this fresh produce will keep your body running smoothly all summer. Lastly, local fruits can add variety to your by now repetitive dietary habits. Audoban magazine has had a couple great articles on local fruits and plants. Once can be seen here. Imagine a summer of eating American persimmons, wood strawberries, and lingonberries. That's what I thought. Best of luck and make sure you read about the plant before you put it in the ground. It's very disheartening to take the time to plant something and then watch it die. As for me, it's dinner time.

Pasteur his prime

The stars align perfectly sometimes to give you some wealth of information that was unexpected. Other times, they leave you out to dry. Then there are the stories that involve some combination of both. This is one of those.

I coach a high school softball team which has been the main reason for the blog drought. Our scores frequently get published in the paper and so a subscription naturally followed. About two days into daily delivery, there was an article in the business section of the Daily Record (Morris County New Jersey's paper) talking about raw milk and the mini craze that has spawned.

Stars right? Correct. So what's the catch? This past weekend I visited the Docs and of course gave the article to Mama Doc. With an opportunity to write the blog, I am now two months removed from reading the article and cannot find it online. Awesome.

So here goes. Luis Pasteur invented Pasteurization in 1862 as a form of killing bacteria. Note that Pasteurization is different than sterilization which aims to kill everything. Pasteurization simply kills most of them, leaving it unlikely that disease will occur. This happens through intense heat over a short period of time.

Obviously as this heat kills the bad germs, it can also cause important proteins and enzymes to degrade, leaving them useless. And that's where the raw idea comes in.

If you were to leave milk unpasteurized, what would the benefits be? The article went on to talk about how levels of certain beneficial proteins and enzymes were much higher when raw milk was tested against pasteurized milk. These proteins led to healthier people as the article recalled a couple personal testaments.

The flip side of the argument spotlights the potential harmful effect. Bacteria and germs are clearly dangerous, hence the reason for Pasteurization. So are the benefits worth the potential risks? The article talks about how Pasteurization was extremely necessary back then because water sanitation was, well, putrid. A lot of the germ caused diseases around the turn of the century was due to improper water treatment. With that all cleaned up, the germs in milk can be defended properly by the immune system without the potential harm of other germs.

So what about you? First off, know that raw milk is probably hard to find. The article spoke of this mini-craze happening in Wisconsin, milk capitol of USA. I'm sure it can be found and probably at a few key strokes. With the internet, anything can be found. Raw food has the power to heal but in the end, it's your decision whether to trust it or not.

When is enough enough?

Sorry for the layoff in posts. Spring time is hectic for me and April seems to be a particularly busy month. It's months like these that I truly rely on my diet to keep me going when sleep and relaxation time is at a minimum. Even with all this running around (Two weekends in Philly, one in Florida, three jobs in full swing, and softball everyday) I've still been able to keep my energy up and stay healthy.

Today's post is simple yet very deep. Once again tapping the resource that is the Well Being Journal, one of the side panels mentioned a study into French diet. Thinking about it, the culture there is very bread heavy and people smoke like it is their job. So how do they stay on the leaner side unlike the obesity that plagues Americans? As is put, Americans are subconsciously taught to stop eating via external cues. I know you can all hear your parents telling you to "not waste your food." For most Americans, this external cue is the empty plate, bowl, or whatever. Because of this, we are essentially eating to what our eyes light up to. The French on the other hand work off of internal cues, quitting their meal when their stomach says "I'm full."

This is a tough thing to overcome since it's been ingrained into most Americans to finish the plate. I know I still will typically eat the whole plate because I was taught that way. To counteract this, anyone can simply take less on their first plate, hoping that the empty plate will signal the end of the meal. Another possibility is to make a meal and only take a little, putting the rest in the fridge immediately. When out to eat, you can order as you go. This works very well at sushi restaurants and not so good at say a typical American Regional Cuisine place, though restaurants will typically do what you ask.

Once again I apologize for the layoff and promise to get back to the posts when I can. Enjoy!

An Organic Thought

So why did I first go organic? Honestly, I knew they were simply better for you, though I didn't know specifics. For a while I had bought organic when possible but didn't mind the occasional conventional. In the latest Well Being Journal there is a great article on why organic is better.

The first reason is obvious and the one I actually knew about. When you think organic you think pesticides. Obviously they are not used on organics. And I know your thought pattern: "But I wash the fruit! Shouldn't that get rid of the pesticides?" The answer is no. Washing it will help, but the pesticides are being absorbed by the plants. It's in the soil. Yuck. Peeling it will help as well, but now you're losing valuable nutrients only stored in the peel.

Mama Doc found an article on the Environmental Working Group's website (www.EWG.org) listing the fruits with the highest pesticide count. The list can be found here. No surprise that peaches and apples are at the top. Those suckers are way mass produced.

According to the article, pesticides in the body can cause damage, specifically mental attention problems like ADHD.

For the next key point to the article, I want you to imagine the show Wife Swap (yes, I'll admit to watching it a couple times). On the show, they take a well-to-do mother usually from the LA area and switch them with a mother usually from farmland USA. When they show the kids of these families, the kids from LA are usually so spoiled that they freak out when something doesn't go their way. The kids from the farm on the other hand work hard every day and have built character.

So what does this have to do with fruit? In conventional farming, the ultimate objective is money, meaning that the land is heavily fertilized and the fruit is meant to get in the stores ASAP. Everyone's had a tomato that looked so ripe, yet was green inside and tasted like, well, an under-ripe tomato. This is the child from LA. With every advantage given (fertilizer, pesticides) the plant has had to do no work to develop essential proteins and anti-oxidants to survive and instead takes all its food and convert is to starch. At the other end of the spectrum we have the homegrown tomato. So rich with flavor that you can literally eat them like an apple. These plants have been given good nutrients through their soil consisting of lime, ashes, manure, compost, and other lovelies (thanks Papa Doc for those long weekends of yard work!) With the proper conditions and environment, the plant has had to develop natural defenses to fend off bacteria, insects, and other natural enemies. That's the plant I want.

When I took botany my freshman year, we learned about how fruit ripens. I don't recall the actual method, but I do remember my teacher telling us that a lot of fruit companies will artificially ripen fruits prematurely to look better and sell faster. Is that a company I want to give my money to? Is that the type of fruit I want to eat? Most importantly, is that the type of fruit I want my loved ones eating? Especially a kid who's developing? (No Mom, I don't have a kid).

I would put a link to the article but it is not online yet. If you are passionate about health, I do recommend getting a subscription to this magazine. You can also buy it at Wholefoods.

To Vaccinate or Not to Vaccinate?

Recently read an article on CNN.com that a huge vaccine war is going on in the courts. The story is that a bunch of families, some 4900 of them, have sued the vaccine companies over the fact that the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine caused autism in their child. I've been around the vaccine argument for years for the simple reason that my brother and I were the only two kids in my entire k-12 school to NOT be vaccinated. I got question after question after question about it. My response always remained very simple. "My parents don't believe in it." or "If you all are vaccinated, what do I have to worry about?"

I've led a very healthy life and can say that I do believe vaccines cause a variety of problems when given in their normal regimen. I'm not saying vaccines aren't helpful. Traveling to Africa, yea, I'd probably get a couple vaccines. But living in America? Especially in the comfort that lots of us live in? Not needed.

There are multiple problems with vaccines. I'm not the most well versed in all of them but I do know a couple. First and foremost, imagine you are a student taking an introductory biology class. The first things you would learn would be the make up of a cell. Now imagine right after learning the make up and function of the organelles of a cell you got bombarded with a quiz about ion pumps, electric signals, and various other upper level question. Would you be able to handle those questions? Would you be scarred for life and basically avoid biology questions? That's what I thought.

The same thing happens with the immune system. It needs time to develop and must develop at its own pace. It starts light with things like simple bacteria, which it doesn't get enough practice as is with all the anti-bacterial soaps and cleaners and purell - though that's an entirely different blog. Now at 15 months, the immune system, still growing and not nearly at it's peak, is hit with these intricate diseases, all at once, and it expected to roll with the punches? How? Correlate it to smoking. They say second hand smoke is most dangerous for children because their lungs are still developing. These vaccines could essentially stunt or stop the growth of the immune system.

The other problem with these diseases is the mercury. Don't we know mercury is poisonous? Why would we be injecting it into our bodies? An article in the well being journal (not available yet) says that the common flu shot has 10x the acceptable level of mercury for a grown human which becomes 25x the acceptable amount for a child. The mercury comes in the form of a preservative. Mercury can have all kinds of adverse effects, most specific to brain development.

Looking at this information, you have to think these families have an argument. I truly wish them the best and hope that their example brings people to the realities of vaccines.

With some words of wisdom from my favorite chemistry teacher, I decided to post this assignment I completed for class after a discussion last month. We read two articles about the legitimacy of advertised drug facts and effectiveness and were asked to compose our thoughts...Enjoy!

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Drug companies, in general, are businesses at heart. Although their advertised goal is to promote the well-being and improved health, their economic goals are first on the list of priorities. Most patients and doctors take the advertised facts about drugs, such as Lipitor and Fosamax, without thinking much of it. According to the Businessweek article on statin(cholesterol-lowering) drugs, studies have show that the number needed to treat, or NNT, is very high for most of these medications. For example, Liptor’s NNT is 100, which means that 100 people had to subject themselves to the possible side effects of this medication, good or bad, for one patient to have a measurable benefit. However, the Jarvick commercial put out by the company showed that nearly 36% of patients received the cholesterol-lowering benefits of the med. Patients go into treatment believing that there is a 36% chance that the medication will help lower their LDL and risk of heart disease, when in fact their chances are substantially lower based on the NNT. “Even medications we consider effect, we see NNTs in the 20s or higher” cites the Businessweek article. Taking prescriptions without knowing all the facts is terrific from a business front, as the companies can let people pay month after month of prescription copays while they wait for the supposed benefits. Sometimes the true benefits will never come, but just cover the symptom.

The article from Alternative Medicine talks about some of the pharmacological make-ups of different medications, like biophosphonates ( ie. Fosamax, Actonel). These medications are anti-resorption drugs, meaning that they suppress the osetoclasts that dissolve old bone, but fail to promote osteoblasts that make new bone. Now, would older people rather have medically-enhanced old bone, or new, younger bone? Exactly. But the drug companies don’t promote this little-known fact that could damage their business and reputation. If people knew how Fosamax worked, several thousand would probably stop treatment. The stupidity and ignorance of humans is used for economic gain. They scare patients into believing that without a drug, preferably the one they are marketing, their bodies will fall apart. At the heart of every drug company is a businessman trying to earn a living, even if it means altering the facts to make a buck. “Publicity…is mostly about profits not about health” says the article, and it is exactly right.

Osteoporosis and high cholesterol carry real risk. No one has denied that, but in today’s media-filled society it can be hard to navigate whether an advertised pharmaceutical or a natural remedy is the best way to go. In high-risk cases, sometimes medicines are needed. For the person whose LDL is 350, a prescription should be taken. But the person whose cholesterol is 200, medications are not always worthwhile, especially when there are other options. The Businessweek article cites that “both lifestyle changes [Mediterranean diet or more fish] brought greater declines in heart attacks than statins…being physically fit is also important” (Carey 56). The Alternative medicine article also tells us that there are several easy ways to decrease chances of osteoporosis while improving overall well-being, such as temperance,cessation of smoking, and exercise. The Alt. Medicine article explains that getting up and lifting handweights or participating in yoga can help strengthen muscles and bones at once. This can occur at any time in your life, even” folks in their 80s confined to wheelchairs” who “improve bone density by lifting 2-pound weight several times a week”. Dietary changes, like taking one multivitamin a day can have similar benefits in preventing heart attacks, fractures, and other conditions. It seems so silly to take a pill when some easy remedies could be just as effective, with added benefits to your health.. Our bodies were never made to handle the amount of chemicals we take in daily, and sometimes a natural method is the best solution.

One thing the drug companies usually fail to specify in their advertisements and “unbiased trials” are the side effects outside of the general headache and dry mouth. Sometimes, these side effects can exacerbate the symptoms. When I was first diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, my doctor suggested that I take a medication called Flagyl, a bowel-specific antibiotic to help prevent infection of the ulcerations. Most of the literature I read online was positive, and people had generally good outcomes with treatment. After I had finished the course of antibiotics, a family member came across a clinical trial where a high percentage of patients had side effects similar to the symptoms of the disease, while still getting the pharmacological benefits of the medicine seen in biopsy of colonic tissue. Looking back, I realized that most of the information I was using came from the manufacture and websites like webmd.com that make their profits based on advertising and sales. The companies also forget the typical western medicine mindset: there are lots of things to try. I went through each tier of the IBD medications, from OTCs through oral chemotherapy drugs, because each one I tried failed to produce the needed clinical benefits. I’ll never know if Flagyl did its job internally, since some of the side effects could have mimicked my disease. When people, like me, jump from one medication to the next when the supposed result fails to show, companies lose profits. This is not a flaw in business, but in research and development. If doctors can perform standstill surgery and transfer organs from one person to another, they should be able to weed out the side effects and leave the benefits before letting a prescription hit the pharmacy shelf. Maybe it’s the competition between manufactures or the businessmen pushing for something new to inflate their company, but this issue in the pharmaceutical industry is a big problem and can cause some awful consequences for patients who place their lives in the hands of their medications.

Prior to reading this article, I never really thought much of the drug companies and their mission. I figured that my doctor knew how to navigate the pitfalls of the different medications and would help me through this process. Thinking back to all of the medications I have tried since my Crohn’s disease diagnosis a few years ago, it makes me wonder if some of the drugs I’ve tried had any pathological benefit. Recently, I started treatment with Amitiza, a drug relatively new to the market, but it failed to show any real benefits, despite my doctor’s confidence in its powers. I will still continue to take my medications based on medical recommendation, but I might think a little more carefully about how I choose treatments in the future.

References: Businessweek, January 28, 2008- Do Cholesterol Drugs Do Any Good? John Carey Alternative Medicine, April 2007- Who's Selling Osteoporosis? James Keough

Vitamin D: Version 2.0

PDO has already sung the praises of Vitamin D a few times and will continue to as long as it is a viable blog. In the most recent Well Being Journal (quite possibly my favorite magazine on the subject) there was a side bar about Vitamin D and it's ability to alleviate many of the typical pains of our bodies. These symptoms include depression, back pain, cancer, impaired immunity, macular degeneration (gradual loss of vision), and insulin resistance and pre-eclampsia ( a serious pregnancy problem affecting the mother and unborn child) in pregnancy.

If you think about Vitamin D as a nutrient, it is one of the few that humans derive from the sun, the Earth's greatest energy source. If you think about it, the sun is responsible for all the plant growth on the Earth, providing the energy for the endothermic reaction of water and carbon dioxide to create glucose. This glucose is then used to fuel the plant as well as to help make cellulose, which is what the cell walls are made of. (Note that I did not look up the glucose being combined to make cellulose, I only assumed it because cellulose is a polymer of multiple glucoses.) If the sun can do this amount of wonders for plants, imagine what it can do for the human body! The answer to that thought is Vitamin D.

Having insufficient amounts of Vitamin D has to be one of the largest problems in America today. First off, people do not get out into the sun enough anymore, especially during the winter. Is there any wonder why winter is cold and flu season? I've gotten colds during the summer but it only occurs when I've gotten really run down and basically foregone sleep for a week. It's in these moments of weakened immune support that the viruses can take over and effect the body. With the lack of D in the winter, the viruses do the same thing.

It's understandable that in the winter people don't get enough D, but what about the summer? Shouldn't there be plenty of sun to do around? The problem is that with the increasing fear of cancer, as warranted as it may be, people pile on the sun block and literally block the sun from producing the necessary Vitamin D. Last summer, I wore sun block maybe twice, and I spent a lot of time in the sun from vacation to baseball camp to playing volleyball in Tim's pool. Your body has natural defenses to stop the UV from affecting us but our diets and lifestyles prevent those mechanisms from working correctly.

So what can you do to increase your D levels.

1) Supplement: Take one every day. When you go to the store, make sure you are buying Vitamin D3 which is the important one. I mean, they are all important, but D3 is the one you want.

2) Go easy on the sunscreen: I understand you don't want to get burned. But how about this: If you allow yourself to get out into the sun a little every day, you'll build up a tan. Ok, so you have trouble tanning. Give yourself 5-15 minutes of screen free tanning before you lather up. This will at least let you get some vital rays and allow you to build up a tan. It doesn't have to be so white and red, allow there to be a brown area.

3) Eat some D rich foods: Unfortunately for the queasy, the foods richest in D are the internal organs. But there are some good ways to prepare them. I know a bangin' livers recipe, though it does involve some flour. Maybe use rice flour? Anyway, coat the livers and pan-fry them until crispy. Throw in some rehydrated cherries (dried cherries soaked in hot water) and pine nuts. After these cook for half a minute, add some reduced balsamic vinegar. Plate on some lettuce though frise is the best.

I leave you with this thought. Earlier in this blog I mentioned that one symptom of low Vitamin D levels is depression. Have you ever noticed that during the summer everyone's mood heightens? At that, in an area where people allow themselves to sun a lot (at the beach) their moods are extremely heightened? I will chalk some of that up to the fact that those people down the beach are on vacation and quite possibly drinking, but the D has to be a factor.

Donde Esta Motrin???

Every Easter the Docs go to the beach and get some much needed relaxing in. Every year I am invited and try to take advantage of this amazing weekend. I unfortunately couldn't go this year because I was buying a car. I even had Tootie do the whole "This is Aaron and this is his first new car" bit from the Saturn commercials. Note that my car is used but practically new. Anyway, with the Docs going south and me going to their house for the night, I invited some friends over to share stories and drinks. A few hours into the night one of my non-drinking friends asks me if I have any Motrin. I go upstairs to look and guess what?

Pain Killers Were No Where To Be Found!!!!!!


Now this is a house where pain meds typically were kept but rarely used. The fact that there weren't any really has to speak volumes about the state of health in the Docs house. If you polled 100 homes, how many would have some sort of pain meds. My guess is all 100 and maybe 99 if you found the rare house that either didn't believe in them or recently ran out. Even more proof that the pains in our bodies, especially headaches stem from what we eat and what we allow to enter our bodies. Happy Easter and safe trip home for the Docs!

A Quick and Easy Chicken Meal

There I am. 1 hour before a fantasy baseball draft and I haven't even begun cooking yet. Luckily I had thawed a half chicken from the freezer. Now let me tell you about these chickens. They come from a local farm market and are grass fed free range chickens. In my experiences the grass fed meat simply tastes a lot better. Let bland and more flavorful. I've also noticed that the texture is very different. Less stringy and grainy and more tender. It reminds me of biting into a nice piece of sushi. You don't fight through it but it doesn't have that raw feeling.

So what do I do? Take a bag of potatoes. I prefer fingerlings but any potato will work. Cut them as thick or thin as you prefer, though I like thin. My usual potato recipe is soaking them in oil, seasoning with pepper (and salt if you desire), and then adding some rosemary and roasting them. Yum. In this case I seasoned them in oil, pepper, and paprika. I did the same with chicken. After seasoning them, I set the oven to 450 and allowed it to cook for about 25 minutes. All in all, the meal was prepared, cooked, and eaten in just under an hour. Nice.

Important note: Free range chickens will have pink hew to them when you bite into them. This DOES NOT mean they are undercooked but simply free range. When I worked at a restaurant we continually had people sending their meal back and we had to explain that this was normal. The cook always said that regular chickens were bleached to get rid of that color but I'm not so sure about that. I'm sure it has to do with another reason. If anyone knows can they please write into PDO and let us know! Thanks!

p.s. Happy 50th Post to PDO! When Karol and I started this we said if we got to 50 we knew we were a legitimate blog. Well, here we are!!! Thanks to all our readers for supporting us!

Health for Dogs: Xylitol

Xylitol is a natural sweetener found in some fruits. It is also found in corn and is extracted primarily from corn for commercial use. What makes it different from other sweeteners is that it is a sugar alcohol, most easily figured out by its -ol suffix. Other sugars will have the typical -ose suffix. Welcome to the world of organic chemistry. People can most commonly find it in sugar-free gum like Orbit.

I'll admit I enjoy a piece of gum now and then. Actually, I quit chewing since the chewing action tightened my TMJ which triggered headaches. Since going gluten-free though I've been able to chew lightly (and occasionally heavily while coaching) and have not gotten headaches. Unfortunately my dog Pumpkin also enjoys Orbit and enough so to eat an entire pack of it. Uh oh.

There are two levels of xylitol poisoning in dogs. The lower level kicks in at 100mg/kg and shows hypoglycemia (a rapid drop in blood sugar) sometimes resulting in death. The second level kicks in around 500mg/kg and results in liver failure. So once realized that Punky (that's what I call her) ingested this gum, Papa Doc and I needed to induce vomiting. How did we do this? With hydrogen peroxide. Two and a half table spoons later she let 'em rip in about seven different spots on the floor.

Now for safe measures we took her to the emergency clinic overnight but there are a couple morals to learn from this story.

1) If you own a pet, know what foods are bad for them: There are many for dogs including chocolate and grapes.

2) Induce vomiting when needed: This can be used in many situations including alcohol poisoning in humans. Though I wouldn't recommend ingesting hydrogen peroxide. They do sell ipecac for this purpose. Remember, it's better to clean up vomit than lose a life.

3) If you have a dog, watch what you leave out: See above. Also see Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card and torn to shreds in about 1992.

I am happy to report that Punky was ok. Also, her picture was taken since the hospital wanted it for the website.



Pumpkin (left) and Daisy (right). Call them Punky and Doo Bug for short.

My Cell Phone??!!

That's right. I'm claiming it here that cell phones are a gigantic reason for stress.

Imagine a nice relaxing evening. At home. Watching your favorite movie. Eating your favorite snack. Drinking your favorite drink. It's just about to get to the good part. You know, the one that made you first identify with this particular flick. It's really getting good when.......RING RING RING!!!!!!!

This story doesn't need to be finished. You all know how it ends. I'll tell you this though, being on call 24 hours a day can put a damper on and relaxation time you may get. It may also never really let you sink into that down deep relaxation that you need.

Working in a high school has allowed me to see how much cell phones truly have crept in our lives. I had study hall last period yesterday and was talking to a student about her cell phone (Come on. Last period, the week before Spring break. What kid is going to be studying?). Anyway, the question came up as to how many text messages she had sent that day. Five minutes later she finished her count at 65. 65!!!!! I don't send that many texts in a 2 week span. And the Docs haven't sent 65 in their life. Combined.

I had some thoughts recently that we are breeding a generation of kids who are prone to separation anxiety. Think about it. Even when they are alone, they are talking to someone. They never use their brains to think. And I digress....

This observation/thought started me thinking about adults and how they have become attached to cell phones as well. Constantly being asked to focus on their environment and someone else at the same time. It's frustrating people. I know. So here's what ya do.

1) Turn the ringer off: You can hear it vibrating. It happens about 2-3 times a week in my class. It's a much more pleasant sound than something alarming you. All mammals are programed to be alerted by high pitched loud sounds. It's like taking a shot of espresso when that thing goes off. And for those of you who have personalized ring tones, has it ruined your favorite song yet? Worried you won't hear it? Put it on a table or something that will resonate.

2) Once a week, take the phone and shut it off: Especially past 10. No one's calling you. And if someone is, you'll call them back. It's ok...

3) When you go away for the weekend, shut it off: This may be my favorite thing about visiting the mountains with Tootie. You think you'd be concerned, but you end up relaxing and focusing on whatever is making you relax. Do be sure that you call a loved one and give them a number that will be on. This could be your friend. You could also put it on silent and quietly check every few hours. This way, you can call back your loved ones if needed and not call the friend you haven't spoken to in a few hours.

Try it out sometime. You might just get off the hooked.

A Paleo Diet Success Story

Let me tell you about my friend Tim. He grew up in a tough neighborhood, with a tough family, in a tough situation. Needless to say he did not have the best opportunity to eat healthy. Now with most people, poor eating will lead to being overweight. Not in Tim's case. He has been 5'5" and 120 lbs since I met him almost 6 years ago. The simplest way to describe Tim is that he is exactly the same as me....except he was dealt a different hand of cards in life.

A couple months ago he asked me exactly what I do in my diet. Since then he's not completely paleo but has made some changes. Wraps or salads instead of sandwiches. No fast food. Water, water, and more water. Fruit as a snack. Monavie. These are the basics and the results have been astounding.

In two months Tim has put on 12 lbs of muscle. What little fat he had is actually GOING AWAY and yet he still continues to put ON weight. His stomach is a true six-pack now and his chest is fuller. He feels so great, I hear it every phone conversation.

Yes people, a paleo diet success story. Let us know what yours is.

The Resurgance of Cavities

water, sucrose syrup, glucose-fructose syrup, citric acid, natural and artificial flavors, salt, sodium citrate, monopotassium phosphate, ester gum, sucrose acetate isobutyrate, red 40, blue 1.

Quick. What product does this ingredient list belong? I would do a contest but three factors keep me from making the leap.

a) We don't have a prize.
b) We don't have a large enough following.
c) Someone could easily copy and paste the ingredient list.

Moving along, the mystery drink is........Gatorade!

That's right. The drink that most people believe is pretty healthy for you contains so much crap that even dentists have noticed a huge difference.

A week ago, I had a nice conversation with local dentist Dr. Edward Smith who told me that though being almost completely eradicated, cavities have made a huge comeback.

For those of you who don't know, plaque is actually a bacteria that lives in your mouth. These bacteria thrive off of sugar and therefore would love to live in the mouth of a sugar-freak (translation: a very high percentage of people in America). As more sugar is consumed, the plaque proliferate and will breakdown teeth, leading to cavities. To further this, the bad odor of halitosis comes from gases released by the bacteria as a by-product.

As we spoke, he told me that one of the major reasons for this resurgence was the implementation of Gatorade into every day life. Now let me add that Gatorade has done an EXCELLENT job of marketing their product. Do you exercise? Drink Gatorade to replenish those lost electrolytes. Don't like the calories of normal Gatorade when drinking it off the field? Drink Propel, the low calorie (and artificially sweetened) choice.

As I continued with Dr. Smith, I also learned that he has noticed an absolute correlation between people who floss regularly and their level of fitness. This could be due to either the fact that people who care about their health also care about their teeth or to the fact that not flossing generally helps deteriorate health.

I pursued this and actually came up with a couple questions he was unable to answer. First off, the mouth is one of the quickest ways to get something into the bloodstream. This is explained by the phenomenon of smokeless-tobacco. Since bacteria breakdown sugars, do they give off any sort of acid as a by-product? Will this leech into the bloodstream and cause possible problems? If anyone can answer this please let us know.

So be careful about what you tell your loved ones is healthy. This is the second post done on Gatorade at PDO and clearly isn't the last. Just look at that ingredient list. And by the way, those ingredients don't include HFCS which is contained in most of the Gatorade flavors I know of.

Nature Versus Everything Else

It's hard to find people that don't think Natural or Organic foods are better than any artificial or genetically modified foods. But just how much better and essential they are seems to be lost in the discussion. I recently read a great article in the Well Being Journal about the need to shift from Chemical Based to Natural Foods.

The usual foods you find in a supermarket are nearly always grown with artificial fertilizers and enough pesticides that their benefits become diminished to ever greater extents. Especially since the so-called minimum nutrient levels in the soil are barely maintained. The companies that grow these foods have one idea in mind: Profit. And the more products, whether it be livestock, fruits, or vegetables, they can grow for the least amount of money, the more the profit. Now this ends up working in nobody's favor except the company's. The livestock are fed high glycemic foods so they get fattened up and reach their needed weight with less food. This causes them to be high in poor fats, low in beneficial nutrients, and in general give the consumer less of what they need and more of the very stuff we should be avoiding. Non-natural fruits and vegetables are grown with plenty of chemicals to ensure they grow fast and become large, and sometimes are given chemicals just to enhance their taste. And the gentically modified ones are made to grow faster and larger and are specially designed to survive pesticides like round-up, which kills everything... unless the plant is genetically modified to survive it. Now an important note is that plants absorb a lot of what's in the ground and quite literally they are a reflection of the quality of the soil, so they end up absorbing the pesticides and chemicals in the soil.

You might think well if the FDA allows these chemicals to be used it must be alright to eat them, right? This is a very unencompassing view of bigger picture. What ends up happening is these chemicals are stored in your body since it takes a great effort on your body's part to expel them, more on this soon. So as the chemical load increases your body suffers ever more, and even worse is that some of these chemicals can combine with each other. Certain cocktails of these chemicals can and most likely will combine with other ones to form ever more toxic ones. Some of these chemicals can even become addictive and the process gets only more detrimental to your health as you start to crave those chemicals and the foods they are in.

The low nutritional content of these foods is also a cause for concern, because you end up needing to eat more just to meet your necessary intakes but at the same time you fill yourself with even more toxins. As the chemical load begins to increase certain diseases that now plague western society become ever more common. Heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis, schizophrenia, autism, and I would be very surprised to meet someone who doesn't know at least one person with ADD or ADHD. The bottom line is that these diseases barely existed a century ago and now their prominence is going up in an ever increasing rate in western society.

Luckily for us we are not yet at that point of no return, although we are certainly not getting further away from it. The best start is to buy organic, or even better, buy from local farmers that you know and take great care in what they grow. This will not only eliminate all those nasty pesticides but give your food a much richer and larger variety of vitamins and nutrients. And even if you have to eat non-paleo, as long as there is no artificial substances in your food you should be fine. For example the Romans had their version of unmodified wheat called spelt, and for the most part they still lived lives unplagued by those we consider so common now. Even those with wheat intolerances now are fine with eating spelt or those with milk intolerances are OK with goat's or sheep's milk, because both spelt and goat/sheep milk are for the most part unmodified and are not grown with the large spectrum of chemicals we have now. The modification foods does nothing in our favor and we should do well to avoid it when possible.

Now what if you've been eating non-natural foods for quite some time, what should you do to expel all those toxins that may have built up over the years? My message to you is relax, stress certainly won't help, and our bodies can be quite remarkable in keeping themselves balanced and healthy, but only if they have the necessary materials. Our bodies can and will filter whatever is dangerous but to do so requires a bit of effort and unfortunately without those necessities fulfilled, the process cannot be fulfilled either. Therefore eating the right foods is a must.

Overall the best thing you can do is to eat mostly organic/natural foods. As always moderation is stressed, no point in cutting off everything and anything that is possibly not 100% natural. You'll only stress yourself out more and the consequences of stress can be paramount. You should also eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables for they not only contain the nutrients and vitamins you need but also great deals of anti-oxidants and phytochemicals whose benefits can make the largest difference. Finding local farmers who run small natural farms is by far the best you can do, but don't feel bad if you can't, Whole Foods and Trader Joe's are great choices too and some supermarkets now have an organic sections as well.

Combine natural foods with drinking plenty of water, getting enough rest, getting out and about, being active, and you should be filtering out any build-ups of those chemicals in no time, and ensuring your health for the future.

Paleo Dieters Handbook: Surviving a Conference

Guess where I was this weekend? No surprise but I was at a conference this weekend and was also at one about a month ago. It can be a tough time to be a paleo dieter. Typically, these conferences are held at hotels where your options are the crappy hotel restaurant and the grossly overpriced hotel store ($4.00 for a large bottle of water!!!!) Now for each conference, there are really three types of people there. The first day trip and sleep at home, the second live close and stay there anyway, and the third fly in from far away and have no idea about the area. The third option is clearly the toughest which is why we will focus on that one, though the other two were how I went through these last two conferences.

Rule number 1: Don't be so hard on yourself!

You're under enough stress as it is so adding that extra guilt might put you over the edge. Allow yourself to cheat a little. Conferences can be special occasions of bonding and you don't want to be the party pooper. Remember, abide when you can so you can cheat when you need to. Example: I ordered the cheesecake for dessert this past Saturday night.....and I basked in every bite of its creamy glory.

Rule number 2: Hit up a super market.

After flying in, ask the reception desk for a local market. This won't work as well for the conferences held at the airport hotels but I'm sure you can find fresh fruit somewhere. Also, I recommend buying some bottled water. You can also buy some nuts, chips (remember, rule number 1), and a bottle of wine. Example: Papa Doc and I had a cache of fruit and wine in our room. Fruit for breakfast, wine with dinner. No need to leave the room after 10.

Rule number 3: Fruit and nut bars, fruit and nut bars, and more fruit and nut bars.

I think I lived off of these things. One for breakfast after that piece of fruit and typically one more during the day when needed. Brands I endorse include Think Organic, Clif Nectar, Lara Bars, and anything else that is comprised of basically fruit and nuts. I find that the primary ingredient in the bars I like the best are dates. With these bars, I feel that the less the ingredients, the better. Example: After raiding the Docs house of Lara Bars, I found out that they had been bought by my brother. Sorry! Example number 2: I supplied Karol with some clif nectar bars before this most recent conference and he basically lived off of the them. Karol has the metabolism of a hummingbird.

Rule number 4: Don't forget the pills.

The four biggies for me. 1) Enzymes. Never leave home without these. Can help digest any meal and allow you to make it through the speakers without needing to find a bathroom. 2) Omega-3s. Gotta keep that brain sharp! 3) Anti-oxidants. Monavie makes gel packs for this specific reason. 4) Vitamin-D. Conferences are basically one big cesspool of disease. Vitamin-D is probably the best way to fight these diseases. Even if it's during the summer, you're not getting out much to soak up the sun. Example: Sunday, I felt a sore throat coming on. Some vitamin-D helped that go away. The important part is that I fought the sickness with less than 6 hours of sleep.

Rule number 5: Water water everywhere.

Staying hydrated is the other way to fight the diseases. Yea it's a rip but it's worth it. Hopefully, your company/school sent you to this conference and is also picking up the tab! You can also try to buy a case at the market and keep it in your room. The Docs and PDO are now anti-water bottle but this is one situation I would make exceptions. You can also try to find a non-nalgene water bottle to carry with you. Example: None needed. Drink some water.

Rule number 6: Go out when you can.

Hotel restaurants can be expensive and crappy. Upon arriving, ask the desk what local restaurants are good. You'll find a decent meal and get away from the throngs of people you've been with all day. Example: Papa Doc and I found this French Thai place 2 minutes from the hotel and it was byo. On top of that, we didn't see one other person from the softball conference...go figure?

Following these general rules will help you stay healthy in a time when most aren't. The conference this past weekend was for a chess tournament. I've never seen so much Wendy's eaten. Everywhere you looked there was someone with a burger, fries, or a soda. This explained why 80% of the people there were either overweight or grossly underweight.

If you have any suggestions on how to amend the rules please let me know. Like the constitution this is a living document. We'll even post your story.

Healing Laughter

This idea came to me a couple weeks ago when I had a student come in not feeling well. At the end of the day, I told her to go home, get some rest, and most importantly to watch something funny. When I saw her next, she said she did that and had honestly felt better.

Rewind back a couple years when a roommate of mine got dumped and listened to the same depressing music mix for just about a month straight. Through that music, he stayed depressed and even depressed the rest of us a little. I still believe that if he had tried to make himself happy through music and movies/tv, he would have healed faster.

Now picture a peeved teacher walking into a classroom after losing an extremely close softball game in which the other team cheated followed by the teacher getting a ticket. For the first half of the class, the teacher remained scowling and upset. After the class got him laughing, the day got better and he even enjoyed himself a bit. I still have a distinct memory of breaking that smile and a rowdy student yelling "He's Back!" (if you didn't figure out that teacher was me....)

So next time you are sick or depressed, surround yourself with some positive people, watch something funny, or simply do something to bring happiness back into your life. It will brighten your day!

Poo Transplants

Yes...you read that correctly. I've recently been reading a book called What’s Your Poo Telling You?(stop laughing) and it's actually a really good book. Each little section covers a specific type of poo ranging in size, consistency, and color. While each section first starts off with nicknames and a funny blurb about the poo, the next part goes into some interesting explanations for why your poo is in that particular form.

One section of the book speaks of a green poo which means there is a certain type of bacterial infection in the body. After, it goes into a new procedure in which poo is transferred from a healthy colon into the colon of a patient suffering from colitis of a certain type of bacteria. The reason behind the transplant is to introduce good bacteria back into the colon and promote their repopulation.

My first reaction...wow.
My second reaction...wow.
My third reaction...what a good idea.

Thinking outside the box, the ideas that made this world great. Please add poo transplants to that list.

Is your nose running? You'd better catch it.

For about the past 5 days I've had a runny nose with no other symptoms of sickness. Something was clearly going on since I couldn't seem to shake it. Driving home yesterday, I realized that the runny nose coincided almost exactly with the night that I ran out of Vitamin D. Wow. What an idiot I was.

So yesterday, I began a new bottle of Vitamin D and 24 hours later, I am sniffles free and ready to rumble. More proof that Vitamin D is in the top three ways of fighting sickness. What are the other two? Sleep and water. Vitamin D can be bought in health food stores anywhere and probably can be bought in the supermarket. GO GET SOME!!!!

Andie's Homade Soap

I want you to do something for me tomorrow morning. While in the shower, please read the ingredients on your soap or shampoo bottle. Are there more than 10 words you have trouble pronouncing? That's what I thought. I know what the proper words are but then again I majored in chemistry. What about you? Why in the world would you trust these chemicals to get you clean when you can't even sound them out?

The saying goes that cleanliness is next to godliness meaning that grooming is a necessity of life. Every species grooms themselves. Cats have a rough spot on their tongue that helps them clean their fur like a fine tooth comb. Dogs lick themselves. Birds have a special oil secreting gland above their tail that they use to groom their feathers. (Note: I could talk about the preening process of birds for another couple of paragraphs. I'll spare you.) It's natural to want to clean yourself. So we know the why, but how is the question.

Soap is a special molecule known as an emulsifier. This molecule has one end that is polar (bonds to water) and one end that is non-polar (bonds to oils). This is why you typically hear about emulsifiers in cooking, especially when you need to bond a water-based substance to an oil-based substance. The best cooking emulsifier is an egg yolk. And I digress. Soap is wonderful in this manner because your skin is oily and it bonds to it. After it is bonded, it snags onto the running water and gets whisked away.

This is good and all, but the chemical companies has changed soap for a number of reasons. These most likely include avoiding that dry skin feeling after washing, looking pretty, smelling pretty, and keeping costs down. Remember, the companies are in it for money, not your health.

The problem is that the chemical they use are not meant for human use. Remember, your skin is a living breathing organ. It has pores not only for excretion (your skin is the largest excretory organ in your body) but for absorption as well. One of the reasons amphibians need to remain moist is because they breath through their skin. Putting these chemicals onto your skin can cause many reactions including rashes, hives, general irritation, and pore clogging. "Natural Health" magazine (formerly "Alternative Medicine") put out a great list of ten chemical you want to avoid. You can find the article here. The clogging of the pores has to be the worst. Imagine all the toxins festering in your body that are unable to be released when your pores are clogged. I shiver just thinking about it.

So what can you do? First, identify all the products that contain synthetic chemicals and you use for cleaning purposes. My list includes, soap, shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, dish soap, detergent, and deodorant. Wow. Lots of healthier products can be found with a little research, but like many things in your life, the best stuff is typically right under your nose.

Andie is a colleague of mine at the school we teach at. She is the best dance teacher at the school and has an awesome daughter to boot (she's about to graduate too. Two sport captain.) I don't recall how it came up but I found out that Andie made homemade chap stick as I was going through my initial chap stick phase. We started talking and it turned out she also made soap. I had to try this stuff. Here's how I feel about this stuff. I had a buddy visiting for a couple days and when I found my bar of soap going much faster than anticipated, I kindly asked him if he would like to buy some so he didn't use mine. The stuff is like gold. Through our conversations, I learned that Andie got into soap making when six years ago she simply needed a hobby. She bought a book, did some trial and error, and one day perfected her recipe (she wouldn't give it out....neither would I for that matter if it took me four years to find the right recipe). Now, she says that she "can't go back", and I agree.

She says the process is long and can be dangerous. If you watch fight club, they give a general overview of the process but one of the key components of soap is lye. Lye is like bizarro hydrochloric acid. Just as strong, but different make up. After the soap is made, it takes three weeks to cure, hence why I was so protective of the soap. Typical ingredients include oils of coconut, palm and various nuts (i.e. sweet almond), essential oils and herbs for scent, and seeds or oats for color or texture. She mixes up the flavors with year round favorites like lemon grass , mint, and coconut with seasonal selections like pumpkin spice and balsam fir. There's also her personal favorite rosemary. Likewise, her chap sticks come in a variety of flavors like mint, berry, cocoa butter, and my personal favorite vanilla (using one currently).

To put it simply, her stuff is great. It's also very affordable. If you would like to try some, please email her at adeventer@mobeard.org. I'm sure she'd have no problems answering questions if you have any concerns or hesitations. Please remember that your skin is an integral yet overlooked part of your health and any paleo diet follower should be concerned about it. Happy scrubbing!

A Food, A Thought, A Question

Since I have started my nutritional journey, the one question I still haven't been able to answer is where do root veggies belong? I believe fruits and veggies are good while grains are generally bad, but what about those tweeners? Celery root, parsnip, and most of all potato. Yea it's easy to figure out that deep frying these foods is generally unhealthy, but going a little exotic, how is a puree? What about scalloping them? I used to believe that they were generally ok, but I tried not to go heavy on these complex starches. The balance may have swung though.

In the same VegNews magazine that the advertising blurb was in, there was another blurb about a simple difference between the 98% DNA similar chimpanzee. "...humans have about seven times as many copies of the amylase gene in their saliva than chimpanzees..." (VegNews, February 2008, p26) So what's the significance?

An enzyme is a molecule that breaks down food into usable parts. Amylase is a starch to sugar enzyme in the saliva. Try chewing on a saltine. If you chew long enough, you can actually taste it turning sweet as amylase goes to work. With this enzyme in place, it is the thought of the author that humans could take advantage of root veggie (potato) and bulb (garlic and onion) ancestors. This provided important nutrients that allowed humans to adapt and evolve away from chimpanzees.

With some solid evidence that humans were meant to eat these natural foods, I'm starting to get convinced. I also thought back to the tribes in Indonesia who have lived off primarily taro, a root vegetable, for centuries. So I ask the nutrition community: what do you think? How do you personally deal with potatoes and such? Do you have a good story? Please reach out to us here at PDO. Thanks!

Monavie

If you haven't heard of this stuff I would not be surprised. I only found out about it 10 days ago and already feel its effects. It is a juice drink combining 19 different fruits yet only one remains the all mighty. The acai (pronounced "ah-sigh-ee") is a berry found deep in the heart of the Amazon rain forest. It is the healthiest fruit on the planet. The ORAC (oxygen radical absorption capacity) scale measures a fruit's level of anti-oxidents and the acai comes in at #1, nearly twice the score as pomegranate. So what makes Monavie so special?

Besides the acai, Monavie contains multiple other fruits including pomegranate, wolfberry, and blueberry to provide other daily sources of fruit intake. As well, Monavie is a great company. They have started the MORE plan to put millions of dollars back into Brazil to keep it pristine. I spoke with a woman from Brazil and besides her stories of how acai is rampant through their diet, she said that Monavie is doing lots to help.



If you haven't heard of a fruit, it means it's good for you.



So what does it do? Taken twice daily in small portions, Monavie provides the daily fruit and anti-oxident intake needed to remain healthy. I have heard many stories about old injuries healing and pain due to fibromyalgia dulling. Personally, in 10 days of use, I have made two observations. 1) I feel more energetic. I was already very healthy, but I still had trouble waking up in the morning and staying awake mid-afternoon. Since I've started, I'm more awake in the morning and don't hit the swoon like most people do. 2) My bowels have become more regulated.

Something else I like about the company is that they ARE NOT selling their product to the super markets. They are only going through relationship marketing. Wouldn't you trust a good friend with personal experience over a television ad? Thought so. I was told about Monavie through a friend and have since enjoyed my experience. I have begun sharing it with other people as well and hope to spread the word.

The world is starting to hear though. Recently, Oprah and Rachel Ray both devoted parts of their shows to Monavie, talking about how it not only is uber-healthy, but also great tasting!

For more reading on Monavie, please visit www.monavie.com. If you are interested in making some cash on the side distributing Monavie, please email me at amittica@gmail.com. Drink it. Feel it. Share it!

Advertising: Does it work?

In the latest issue of VegNews Magazine, I found an interesting little blurb about advertising. It stated that a test was run in which 63 preschoolers were given a multitude of foods in McDonalds and plain containers. In every taste test, the children favored the McDonalds food by more than a 3:1 ratio. This shouldn't sound surprising since kids love the golden arches. The kick though is that the food in the Mickey D's container and the plain one were the SAME FOOD!!!! This proves that marketing and advertising is brainwashing our children into liking this crap.

And it's so simple! In college, I realized that I could study more effectively if I listened to wordless music since I could then remember the material more easily when I replayed that music. This is the reason I allow my students to listen to IPods during tests.



If kids wise up, McDonald's might just claim Ronnie went insane and to launch its new marketing campaign.

There is another lesson to be learned here though. Mama Doc always said that the best mattress companies were the ones that didn't advertise much since they put more money into actual mattress research. This same theory applies to the food industry. Watch some Saturday morning cartoons and soon you’ll realize the companies that advertise the most are the ones whose food costs the least to produce. Fast food, cereal, candy, junk food. All of it is pure crap and costs next to nothing to produce. These companies take all that profit and advertise with it. This theory has been backed by Super Size Me as well as a recent article in “Well Being Journal.”

So when you watch TV with your kids, talk to them about what is going on. Don’t let them be brainwashed.

Digestion is Key to Health Part 2

Part 1 of this article review focused on the types of food that lead to bad digestions. Once these foods get into the body without the proper enzymes, they go wild and cause major havoc. How does it happen though?

-CICs: Circulating immune complexes are basic large pieces of undigested food. The job of your stomach and the enzymes are to break down the food into its most usable parts. Imagine you owned a car repair shop and someone gave you some spare parts. You could use them almost immediately, yes? Now imagine someone donated you a car. You would accept it but it may sit in your lot for a few months before you get the time to deal with it. Eventually, it would just take up too much space and be a nuisance. This is was CICs do. The body was not meant to deal with these large undigested proteins and once in the system, the reaction is unpredictable.

-Too Much Stomach Acid: Stomach acid is supposed to be released as a supplement to digestion. In today's enzyme poor diet though, too much of the acid gets released to "overcompensate" for this lack. This will lead to such common problems as ulcers and acid reflux. But what does the public do to compensate for this? Antacids and other pills. "Ultimately, though, it passes even more quantities of poorly digested food into the intestinal tract, which leads to gas, bloating, bad digestion and chronic digestive disorders, in addition to blowing out your pancreas..." Enzymes will clearly help here, easing the burden of the digestive system. The article also gives a great suggestion of drinking 2-4 ounces of aloe vera juice to soothe irritated tissue. If you think about it, you use aloe to ease irritated skin after sunburn and shaving, why not use it internally?

-Too Little Stomach Acid: After years of working overtime to "compensate" for your enzyme poor diet, the body eventually loses its ability to produce the acid. According to the article: "A person over age 40 who visits a doctor's office has about a 90% probability of having low stomach acid." Too little acid will lead to very undigested food. The human digestive system was built around stomach acid which controls the pH. At the wrong pH, pepsin, a major digestive enzyme, does not work optimally, further leading to poor digestion. Absorption of vitamins and minerals lowers as well since the pH is off. This can lead to "severe B12 deficiency". Also, bacteria can now proliferate in a less harsh environment.

-Food Allergies: As larger food proteins enter the body, they are viewed as allergens and attacked by the body. When the body sees that protein again, it will have a harsher reaction.

The good news is that there is help. The Docs and other doctors sell enzymes and know how to get you on the proper regimen. A practitioner can be found at http://www.loomisenzymes.com/. The Loomis website also has some articles that can be read if you want to learn more. I highly recommend finding someone to help you get started. You can see that the problems stemming from lack of enzymes is substantial. It's your health. It's your body.

Article can be found at:
http://www.nutritionalwellness.com/archives/2007/aug/08_stomach_acid.php

the secret life of b's

(vitamin b12 that is-...my best attempt at a creative title...)

B vitamins have been newsworthy lately. Roger Clemens, one of the New York Yankees star players, swore that his injections were simply vitamin b12 and painkillers, not the anabolic steroids declared illegal by MLB. Though it may give you some extra spunk(not to the same level as HGH of course) , B12 is an important part of our dietary needs and its absence is greatly missed by the body.

B12 is one of the b-complex vitamins containing cobalt. It is vital to healthy red blood cells and hte production of DNA. B-complexes usually come by means of a protein you've ingested, especially fish and red meat. Once it enters the stomach, it is broken down by hydrochloric acid, HCl, and makes its way through the small bowel to the ileum, the vital part of the small bowel where it joins with the colon, appendix, and cecum. If your b-12 needs cannot be met through foods, supplementary vitamins can help.

If there is not enough of the vitamin in the system, your body works sort of like a machine. It will send up certain red flags that you can't miss, but need to identify before it leads to a problem. Fatigue, weight loss, and idiopathic anemia are the most common symptoms. They seem pretty generic, but are precursors for things to come. When some of your foods start tasting metallic, like Ralphie licking that frozen pole, it can also be a sign of a b12 absence. Over this past summer, I was facing a flare of my Crohn's disease, and for some reason, this time it decided to attack my ileum, that piece of intestine that is responsible for absorption. Unfortunately, typical MDs don't always think of a vitamin deficiency causing a symptom. Finally I convinced one of my doctors to run a vitamin panel that discovered my problem-a severe shortage of b12. I started with oral supplements, and that seemed to help. Sometimes, b12 injections intramuscularly can be more effective in severe Crohn's disease of the ileum. Luckily, I found my deficiency in its early stages. If not caught in time, it can lead to severe problems. Some people reported neurological symptoms, like tingling in the hands or feet, and, in severe cases, irreversible nerve damage. It can also lead to pernicious anemia, when no b12 is found in the body and the red blood cells stop receiving oxygen. Injections can restore the supply quickly. Before intramuscular injection became widespread, this was fatal. According to the IOM, there is no chance of toxicity from too much b12. Sometimes, several sources of the vitamin can be what you need.

Some people are more susceptible to b12 deficiencies, including people with celiac disease, or an intolerance to the sprue found in wheat products. Strict vegans can have this too, since they are not consuming proteins. Even those with peptic ulcer disease or heartburn that use acid-reducing medications, like Prevacid, Prilosec, etc, since the HCl is absent to break down the protein. Lactose intolerance individuals, like me, need calcium to help b12 absorption, and the lack of dairy products can cause both a b12 and calcium deficiency!
The moral of the story is love thy b-12, because it's presence in the body is vital to our health and well-being!

Use this table to find sources of b12 to incorporate into your paleo diet....(from the US Office of Dietary Supplements)

Food	Micrograms (μg) per serving	Percent DV*
Mollusks, clam, cooked, 3 ounces	84.1	1400
Liver, beef, braised, 1 slice	47.9	780
Fortified breakfast cereals, (100%) fortified), ¾ cup	6.0	100
Trout, rainbow, wild, cooked, 3 ounces	5.4	90
Salmon, sockeye, cooked, 3 ounces	4.9	80
Trout, rainbow, farmed, cooked, 3 ounces	4.2	50
Beef, top sirloin, lean, choice, broiled, 3 ounces	2.4	40
Fast Food, Cheeseburger, regular, double patty & bun, 1 sandwich	1.9	30
Fast Food, Taco, 1 large	1.6	25
Fortified breakfast cereals (25% fortified), ¾ cup	1.5	25
Yogurt, plain, skim, with 13 grams protein per cup, 1 cup	1.4	25
Haddock, cooked, 3 ounces	1.2	20
Clams, breaded & fried, ¾ cup	1.1	20
Tuna, white, canned in water, drained solids, 3 ounces	1.0	15
Milk, 1 cup	0.9	15
Pork, cured, ham, lean only, canned, roasted, 3 ounces	0.6	10
Egg, whole, hard boiled, 1	0.6	10
American pasteurized cheese food, 1 ounces	0.3	6
Chicken, breast, meat only, roasted, ½ breast	0.3	6

So, if Roger Clemens is telling the truth (if being the operative word), he could be helping his body with all that additional b12. If not, the steroids could cause a calcium and b-12 shortage and he'd really need those vitamins!

thanks to http://dietary-supplements.info.nih.gov/factsheets/vitaminb12.asp for some more information and the chart....

I'm the new kid on the blog block, so if I've left something out of the this post that you have a question about, I'll do my best to answer via email.

Veggie Recipes 3.0

Brussel Sprouts....what was your reaction when you read those words? Yea, I thought you were disgusted. I will show you the light though. These once hated veggies have seen a revival in my world and I sense one coming in yours.

So why another veggie recipe so soon? Well, a PDO reader commented on the cauliflower article with a question about brussel sprouts. 'Did I have a recipe?' About 3 years ago, Mama Doc and I perfected a brussel sprouts recipe and have been serving it at thanksgiving for a couple years now. It's very similar to the cauliflower but with a couple changes.

1) Wash and halve sprouts. Cut off bottom nub before halving.
2) Toss with extra v, salt, pepper. (This could be done with any spice you wanted to use if you like one in particular)
3) Roast in 425-450 degree oven for about 20-30 minutes. USE YOUR BEST JUDGEMENT TO DETERMINE WHEN THEY ARE DONE!!!!!!!!
4) Drizzle with a balsamic reduction and crispy prosciutto. Mix and serve!

The prosciutto is easy to make. By some very thinly sliced prosciutto and put into a 450 degree oven until crispy. This will take only a couple minutes so watch it like a hawk. I've burned a slice or two in my day and the meat gets very smoky.

In cooking, a reduction is any liquid that is heated to evaporate the water and concentrate the main ingredient. This can be done with wine, cream and vinegar to name a few. Pour some balsamic vinegar into a pot and heat it. After it heats up, some brown stuff will come to the surface. These are the impurities. Keep going. Stir it wit a spoon to determine how viscous it is. Once it gets to the point where it sticks to the spoon and is noticeably thick, shut the heat off. The vinegar will now be a thicker, sweeter version of the vinegar.

So there you have it. Another great recipe to try. Please comment with any questions as you can see we are listening!

Happy New Year!!

Starting at a young age and continuing until 2 years ago, I made a New Year's resolution every year and promptly forgot it a week or two after. This past year was different though. I had time to think about my resolution. I wanted to make it something attainable. Something which I could see the end result know what the process would be. So what happened last year?

I fulfilled my resolution.

So this year I encourage you to join me in making a definite resolution. Mets pitching coach Rick Peterson once said: "If you have a vague plan, you will get vague results." Think about that quote. Relate it to your life. How many times has this been true? For me it's been many and starting last year, I applied it to my resolution.

Now if you are reading this blog, you must fall into 3 categories. 1) You stumbled onto this website by accident and were wowed by the excellent use of language. 2) You are a family member or friend. 3) You are interested in health and are looking to improve your nutrition. Its those people in group three whom I want to speak to. If you are truly interested in improving your health through nutrition, make a resolution which is tangible.


Bad Example: I will improve my nutrition.
Good Example: I will avoid high fructose corn syrup.
Bad Example: I will lose ten pounds.
Good Example: I will take smaller portions on my plate.
Bad Example: I will eat less fast food.
Good Example: I will cook more meals.

So go ahead and make your resolution. Make it meaningful, thoughtful, and tangible. As for me, I'm still thinking.

Veggie Recipes 2.0

Well, Mama Doc has done it again. It seems like every time I speak with her, she's whipped up another astounding treat. Now this was a woman whom we used to joke about by saying her specialty in the kitchen was nachos. Though her nachos are terrific, it seems this was the case only due to her working long nights and not having the time to create delicacies.

So before I tell you about her latest foray into the world of veggies, let me first apologize for my family to Mama Doc. We're sorry. You have continued to out do yourself in the kitchen over the past 15 years (I want to say it's been that long since nachos were on the menu once a week).

Mama Doc latest recipe is so simple to make it's sickening. Here's step by step instructions.

1) Buy 1 head of cauliflower.
2) Separate the florets from the stem.
3) Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
4) Toss florets in salt, pepper, and olive oil.
5) Put cauliflower into over for about 45 minutes.
6) Remove and eat.

That's it, and I know your asking yourself how can this taste good? Well, the sugars in the cauliflower caramelize while in the oven and make this dish sweet. If you don't know what caramelizing is, here is a link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmelize

This dish could be eaten as a snack or served as a side for dinner. Whenever, it truly is delectable.

Enjoy!!!

From Scrawny to Brawny

So how many of you out there are skinny and have trouble gaining muscle. I know I did. But I have a story that will make you think twice about how to grow big.

Around the time I was sixteen I noticed most of my friends where quite big and muscular. I began to become a little self-conscious of my fit, but incredibly thin and lean physique. Now I know many of you will say its better to be skinny than fat. But I'd have to say it's better to be lean and muscular than either. With this all having taken place before I got on the paleo diet I tried the whole sports nutrition deal with all the supplements and the gym, but no matter how hard I tried it never quite gained the beach body physique.

For months I tried and tried but to no avail. I finally gave up and merely sticked to my swim team, which I'm sure some would say doesn't help grow big muscles but rather lean thin ones. Well one way or another it stayed that way.

But there was a surprise in store for me. Once I began the paleo diet I felt much healthier than ever but I never expected to gain toned muscle like I had tried to before. Well once swim team started practice again, I starred at shock at the results that came. I was bigger and stronger then ever. Even bigger than some of my other friends who used to train on weights all the time. It took me a while to understand why but I came to this conclusion.

The paleo diet is natural and leads your body to be as natural as possible. Well Paleolithic humans had to be strong and fit to survive in those dangerous days so naturally they had a tendency to grow muscles. Well, ever since I started to lean towards natural living, my body took the same path and my muscles did to.

With all the nutrients and good proteins I was getting it's no wonder why. But it truly made my day. This is no joke, but I went from wearing size M clothing that fit me with some room to spare, to the point where now if I put on a M shirt I can't move my arms freely. I need Large sizes and those fit me just right.

So for all of you guys who think its just not possible for you to gain any mass, despite all the exercise, I strongly recommend going on the paleo diet, and committing to some moderate exercise. You won't be disappointed. I mean it worked for me, and I used to be made fun of for being so scrawny, so why shouldn't it work for you, it is natural after all.

A Possible Autism Cure

I will not claim to be well learned about Autism, but by reading Animals In Translation by Temple Grandin, I feel like I have a better grasp of it. I highly recommend this book especially if you are an animal lover. It will give you a better perspective of how animals view the world which will help you be a better owner.

Grandin's states that by herself being autistic, she better understands animals because they view the world more similarly. That is that autistic people do not think in words but rather in pictures. That's why changes in light and simple movements such as fans are fascinating to autistic people.

After doing some research on autism, I learned that "since the early 1990's, the rate of autism has increased exponentially around the world." That begs to ask, why did this happen?

I consider the early nineties as a turning point in the history of mankind. Among other changes, people started getting personal computers and baseball started its steroid era. These examples make two great points. The information age was starting and with it people became more harried. Along with this, the scientists were getting very manipulative, creating newer foods that were built for this mile-a-minute world.

So is it really unrealistic that autism disorders have increases since then? Look at all the brain disorders there are now. A lot of it has to be connected to the change in diet.

Scientific America publish a short story on gluten and casein free diets and how they could improve the symptoms of autism. The article explains that these two proteins, which can damage intestinal lining and lead to leaky gut syndrome, are possible candidates for causing autism. Though know that "the causes of autism are so poorly understood and the disorder is so variable" that there could be many causes.



Ponder this. For years, gluten and casein heavy diets littered America, though we never saw these exotic problems. We saw simpler problems such as ulcers. After the diets of kids dramatically changed to include such artificial favorites as fruit-by-the-foot, gushers, and cooler ranch Doritos (the flavoring is extremely artificial, even including trans-fats), those intestinal holes allowed such garbage into the body that the brain basically went haywire! On another note, a whole generation of kids thinks that the raspberry is naturally blue.

By the time these kids are put on these specific diets, gluten and casein are most likely the final culprits to be eliminated and the body can begin restoring homeostasis.

The fact is, what parent of an autistic child doesn't want to see them get better, so it's worth a shot. There are many gluten and casein free guides to help you along the way and with the Internet at your fingertips, information can be found in seconds. Good luck.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-autism-diet

Digestion is Key to Health Part 1

So have you ever been doing something for a bunch of years and then one day finally get it explained to you? Well that's what happened to me a few days ago.

About 6 years ago, the Docs started their foray into the nutritional world by focusing on enzymes. The patient undergoes a urinalysis (it's exactly what it sounds like it is) and figures out what food comes out undigested. From there, some simples tests are run to determine what enzymes the patient is to be put on.

Some early observations I had made were that when I didn't take my enzymes, I felt like my food sat in my stomach longer. Also, I felt more lethargic and generally needed a good hour after eating.

According to this article, the human body was meant to "eat enzyme rich food and chew your food properly." Now we all know that most of today's food is NOT enzyme rich and most people DO NOT chew properly. Mama Doc always told me 30 times a bite was proper chewing. I'm lucky if I chew half that amount. Quick note: When I took my urinalysis , one of the things it said was that I didn't chew my food enough. This was determined by the multitude of food particles in my urine...scary. So the question begs, how does not chewing and having essentially dead food hinder us?

First, saliva contains the enzyme amylase. If you don't believe me, chew on a cracker for a while and notice that it eventually becomes sweet tasting. That is the amylase altering the starch into sugars. Chewing your food is a sort of first step digestion that frequently gets overlooked.

Second, I want to focus on what the purpose of an enzyme rich food is. These are fruits and veggies. So lets look at fruit. To the plant, it is a vessel meant to spread its seed. It pays for the fruit to be attractive and taste good so animals will eat them and spread it seed. Once in the stomach, the built in enzymes will digest the fruit part, leaving the seed to be passed far away where it can germinate.

It's good to know that once entering the stomach "These enzymes would then 'pre-digest' your food for about an hour - actually breaking down as much as 75% of your meal." This was the moment that the light went on for me. My earlier observation of food sitting in my stomach was answered, knowing that it takes time for the body to begin digestion. Once in the stomach, any enzymes will begin working, but acid isn't released for some time.

So where did all the enzymes go? All processed and artificial food will have no enzymes, rendering them simply dreadful for health. As well, "any sustained heat of approximately 118-129 degrees F destroys virtually all enzymes." So by cooking your meals to high temps, you are killing its activity. Another reason a largely raw diet is so good for you.

So supplement with enzymes. By the end of this 2 or 3 part blog, I will provide information on where enzymes can be found. Part 2 will come soon where the rest of the article is dissected.

Article can be found here:
http://www.nutritionalwellness.com/archives/2007/aug/08_stomach_acid.php

Wok Away If You Want To. It's Okay If You Need To.

If you know where that quote comes from, then you love Def Leppard as much as I do...

Now let me set this situation up for you. It's Monday night. You have nothing to eat. There's a nice meal defrosting for you but Tuesday is cooking night. What do you do? If you are me and my friend Tootie, then you go to the local Asian market and get some of your favorites. General Tso's chicken, sauteed squid, and hot and sour soup.

In the words of Dave Chapelle character Tyrone: "Taste like it smells!!!! Delicious." It was awesome. I loved every bite. That was the good. Now here's the bad and the ugly.

I felt like I had a brick sitting in my body when I woke up the next day. All day it was there. Couldn't pass it in the five trips I made to the bathroom. I haven't made that many visits to the lavatory since my buddy Bacon and I split a 30 slider crave case from White Castle senior year of college.

What made me feel this bad? My guess is the heavy sauces most likely laced with MSG and other preservatives. The last time I had Chinese food I stayed with simple sauce less pork fried rice and boneless spare ribs.

So I bid farewell to Chinese food for at least the time being. Will I see you again? Quite possibly. Will this happen in the near future? Most likely not.



Oh General Tso, why must your chicken taste so good?

Sleepless Nights

Go ahead. If I know you, you are tempted to make a joke about why I couldn't sleep last Friday night. Well let me go ahead and tell you that whatever you are thinking...it's wrong. Here's why I wasn't sleeping.

I drank beer. And not lots of them. Throughout the night, I had 3 total while out with some friends. Just a low key night which led into an early rise morning. I ended up waking at 3:30am, which was about 2 hours after I fell asleep. From there, I woke probably 3 more times before 9 when I got up for good.

So why did this happen? Here's my guess. I've been beer-free for almost 2 months now. When I go out, I drink vodka and seltzer with lime. So the beer and the gluten in the beer most likely had something to do with my sleeplessness. In fact, I can remember having a similar night a few months ago after having a few cold ones.

So what to do? Continue to avoid beer. What should you do? Avoid whatever makes you stay up at night, whether that be beer, coffee, candy, or whatever.

Gluten-Free Sugar-Free Pumpkin Pie

Turkey day at the Docs' household was to say the least a smashing success. I could go through all the dishes we had but it would be a lot of typing. One thing I did learn this thanksgiving is that a meal can still be good with out sugar and flour. Just about every dish was sugar and gluten free. The one that wasn't was my Nanny's famous chocolate chocolate cake. So with the gluten in it did I have a piece? Oh yea...and I enjoyed every sensational bite. (Pause to clean up the drool) And I'm back. Here's a dessert Mama Doc and I made which was a success.

Crust:
2 and a half cups crushed pecans
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
4 tbsp unsalted butter melted

Chill crust in fridge until hard. Then add filling.

Filling:
1 15 oz can of pumpkin puree
3 eggs
3/4 cup maple sugar flakes
1 tbsp fresh grated ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp powdered cloves
1/4 tsp nutmeg
grated rind of 1 lemon
1 cup creme fresh

We baked this at 350 and it took about an hour. I would set the timer to about half an hour and check frequently after that. Be careful not to use too high of a temperature since the nut crust will burn more easily than a normal one.

You can add more maple sugar flakes if you prefer something a little sweeter. This pie was NOT as sweet as a typical pie and some people may be turned off by this. You can also add sweetness by adding whipped cream.

Hope all your holidays were happy, healthy, and safe!

The Sun: Friend or Foe?

Hey everybody, I have a question for you? Do you think the sun is your friend or your foe? The first thing that probably pops into your head while trying to answer this question is Ultraviolet radiation. The majority of us, myself including, have been spoon fed by the media, magazines, and even doctors, that Ultraviolet radiation is ultra-bad for you. (Sorry for the horrible joke) Anyway there is a problem with this, they all look at this one sided. Ultraviolet radiation does indeed cause cells to mutate, possibly to cancer cells, but the UV rays are also important for the bodies production of Vitamin D.

For of you that don't know, Vitamin D is one of the most important vitamins out there. It's benefits stretch a wide variety of types. For one it helps maintain bones and helps them grow strong, just like the Milk companies advertise but this way avoids all those nasty Caseins, milk's equivalent of Gluten. It also increases the bodies production of natural killer white blood cells. The fancy name aside, these are the white blood cells that quite literally kill any mutated or stray cells that mutated from your normal cells. And the great thing is that they kill cancer cells too.

Oh and for all you Psoriasis suffers, ever heard how the over production of skin cells is caused by the activation of T-cells for no apparent reason, which leads to your plaques. Well Vitamin D also blocks the activation of these T-cells, preventing Psoriasis at the source. Some of you may also know that UV radiation is medically one of the methods used to treat Psoriasis. Well now you why, because UV radiation D produces Vitamin D which helps prevent Psoriasis. I started taking Vitamin D myself and it certainly has improved my situation greatly, but moisturizers are still a good idea. I'll get into how you should get Vitamin D in areas with low amounts of UV and sunlight soon.

So already we can see how Vitamin D is essential to us. From a Paleolithic viewpoint our ancestors came from Africa, a place with enormous amounts of UV. Well our ancestors didn't have sunblock there, but instead they utilized the UV to produce Vitamin D, which ironically, and gratefully, also decreases your risk of skin and all other forms of cancer. In the Paleo world the Sun is natural, it's what organisms evolved to deal with and even utilize. So wouldn't it be logical that what's natural for our bodies is good for us, after all that is the whole point of the paleo diet.

Now if you live in an area where you don't get many rays, or have a job thats mainly indoors, or your even in an area where the sun don't shine, at least for part of the year, have no fear. Vitamin D supplements are just as effective. The recommended dose by the label is around 400 i.u. But current research points that around 1,000 or 2,000 i.u. is even better. Some even suggest a dosage of a whopping 10,000 i.u. After all this would make sense in Africa our Paleo ancestors got incredible amounts of UV.

The pinnacle point I must address, and I'm sure some of you are already thinking about this: if UV radiation is so good for you, then why are there so many cases of Skin Cancer in the world, even though it produces the wonderful Vitamin D. This has a simpler answer than you might think. Because Gluten, Caseins, and other non-paleo foods help deactivate you immune system, which also includes those fancy natural killer white blood cells, and cause a havoc throughout your body, your immune system become way sub-par. Not only is your immune system being deactivated, but it's also busy trying to fix all the other damage done to your body by those non-paleolithic foods. So preventing cancer, important as it may be, may be an impossible thing for you immune system to do occasionally, which combined with the vast amounts of sunlight that your body usually protects, cancer is then usually a ticking time bomb.

Finally a small note about sunscreen. Though i recommend using it if your fair skinned and going to the Caribbean, but only for the first couple of days and a low SPF at that, it does block the UV radiation that supplies us with Vitamin D. Not only that but some forms of chemical sunscreens have been found to promote cancers once they get absorbed into the deeper layers of the skin, where if they are hit by a ray of UV the become Super-Free-Radicals (look at prior post "A Microwave Goodbye"). These are extremely dangerous and help explain one interesting fact: The largest amounts of cases of skin cancer are in the populations that use sunblock the most. SO think twice when reaching for that sun-tan lotion next time and give your body the Vitamin D it deserves.

Tryptophan, the Thanksgiving Nyquil

Or so they have you thinking. Last year, I assigned an extra credit assignment over Thanksgiving break that was essentially a short research paper on tryptophan. The response I got was very interesting. Almost all students correctly identified tryptophan as an essential amino acid, meaning our bodies DO NOT produce it and we must obtain it from the foods we eat. To add to that, most students found the same information that the known fact that tryptophan is found in a large proportion in turkey and is the primary reason for Thanksgiving day drowsiness is in fact an urban legend. This would either result from all of them using the same source (highly likely) or that it is in fact an urban legend. I'm willing to lean toward both column A and column B being correct.

So what causes the drowsiness? Here are two thoughts.

1) Over eating: Think about it. How do you feel after a huge comfort meal....pretty satisfied and relaxed, yes? Me too. Anyway, an overloaded computer system will shut down and/or slow down. Why wouldn't a human body work the same?

2) Heavy carbs: Remember back to Thanksgivings past. How many things on your plate contain carbs? Pre-paleo diet, the Docs meal consisted of the best cornbread stuffing you've ever had. To go with this, we usually have some flour thickened gravy and dinner rolls. This of course went with your traditional veggie, jello-mold, turkey, and various cookies and pies. There are some heavy carbs in there. Those heavy carbs contain gluten which has been found to have an opioid effect on the body. This correlates to a small pain-killing effect. Think about how you feel after eating a huge pasta meal. Yea...and I digress. Anyway, post-paleo diet, the stuffing is now sausage based, the gravy has been switched to a roasted garlic sauce (invented by yours truly....hey, being able to cook is a wonderful trait to have), and the dinner rolls are still there since the extended family still enjoys them. As for the desserts, pumpkin pie can only be had once a year, and if you steal my pumpkin pie, I may steal your soul in retribution. As for the other pies and cookies, remember, we preach moderation, not restriction. Thanksgiving is definitely one of those days you splurge. You've got the family, football, AMAZING food, if you can't splurge on Thanksgiving when can you?!

Though I plan on posting once more before Thanksgiving, please enjoy your meals, your company, and the post meal naps.



According to urban myth, this bugger should come with a warning label. "May cause drowsiness."

The Ion Effect

Do you know someone who just knows when it's going to rain? You know, they have that old sports injury that starts to nag them when the weather turns. Well here's your explanation why.

The book "The Ion Effect" (I know books get underlines but this website does not have underline text) was about the air we breath and how it has a larger impact on our lives than we think. The book is based around the life of author Fred Soyka, an American transferred to work in Geneva where he was found to get bad migraines, constant cold symptoms, a nervous feeling, and loss of sex drive among others. From there, he found that he was one of the 25% of the population that cannot handle a positive ion overload in the air.

Now what does this have to do with Geneva? Well, he found that when he visited other places, all the symptoms went away, yet upon return, they all came back. Geneva is one place in the world that suffers from being in the direct path of a largely positive ion wind (7 total in the world). These include Sharav in the middle east near Israel, Santa Ana in southern California, the Chinook in western Canada, and the Foehn in southern Germany and Switzerland.

"These winds are often associated in popular mythology with illness ranging from migraines to psychosis. The Santa Ana winds are often called "the murder winds". A study by the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München found that suicide and accidents increased by 10 percent during föhn winds in Central Europe. The causation of Föhnkrankheit (English: Föhn-sickness), however, remains to be proven." (wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%B6hn_wind)

The book relays these stories, noting that surgeries are postponed when the Foehn blows. The people are scared of these winds. Though the book goes into the science behind pos-ion winds and why they are bad. Turns out, when pos-ions are overloaded, the body releases lots of serotonin which can feel exhilarating at first, but as our bodies cannot break down all that serotonin, it eventually makes us feel truly crappy.

As bad as these pos-ions are for you, the opposite neg-ions are just as good for you. The book goes on to show research of businesses that installed neg-ion generators in one room of an office but not the other. The neg-ion room was found to be more productive, missed less work days, and was generally happier.

So here's my question. Do you work in a place that has lots of electronics? Synthetic fibers in furniture/clothing? AC or central heating? Hermetically sealed sky scraper? All these things are huge generators of pos-ions, and there's not many chances to replenish the air. If you answered yes to these questions, do you feel stuffy at work? Do you feel irritated? Does it spill over into your personal life? Getting a neg-ion generator could work wonders for you. The book explained that a migraine doctor had his patients go through a treatment of sitting in front of a neg-ion generator and most felt much better.

Anyway, they are expensive, but here is one place you can get one.

http://www.sharperimage.com/us/en/catalog/categoryview/catid__101?cm_ven=adwords&cm_cat=Media&cm_pla=air_purifiers&cm_ite=negative_ion_air_purifier.

If this doesn't work for you, here are some more ideas.

1) Go for a walk. This will get you some fresh air at least. Unfortunately, the big cities are breeding grounds for pos-ion overloads, so try to get out of the center parts.

2) Go to water, especially sprayed water. This would include waterfalls and fountains. Great for neg-ions.

3) Spray some water around your office. This could at least trap some of the pos-ions. Making it a little better.

I highly recommend this book. Being a chemist, it blew me away, though it was easy to understand without my rich chemistry background. This could be the answer for lots of you who suffer from unexplained headaches or other problems. Enjoy!

The Cardinal's Valuable Lesson

And no, this is not a story about religion, baseball, or football. Instead, this is a look into the ornithological world. Being an amateur ornithologist, it is interesting to compare the diet and repercussions of the birding world to our human one. The story of the Cardinal is one that can easily be linked between the two.

Now I'm sure all of you know what a Cardinal is. It is the common tiny song bird that is completely red...at least the male is. But how does the male turn that bright Crimson color? Well, it comes from the food that he eats.

In fact, the specific food that he eats (primarily berries) will contain either the pigments or the precursors to the pigments that give him that vibrant red color. A bird that is better at gathering food will appear more red.

And guess what, the more vibrant red a male is, the more attractive he is to the opposite sex.

So what can we take from this? It really goes back to the old saying: you are what you eat. Everything you consume goes directly into how your body operates. Now that you know this, imagine this situation.

Two young athletes. Both budding stars in their sport. One follows the paleo diet. Eating whole foods, natural foods, and supplements it with essential vitamins. How do you think this player's muscle will form? How will he recover from injury? Now imagine the second athlete. He goes to fast food joints after practice and wolf's down cookies at lunch. How will he feel when it comes to game time? How will he recover from injury?

But the real question is not necessarily how will he recover from injury but more so how will he recover from day to day? If you've played an organized sport on a high level, you know that if you truly practice hard, there is a little recovery period from day to day. Say you are constantly overloading your system with foreign foods that need to be dealt with. This will leave little energy for recovery and the season will eventually takes it toll on you. On the flip side, the athlete eating properly will recover well each night and be at their best on the playing field.

Remember, it only takes one shot to secure a starting spot. You never know when it's coming and I'm sure you want to be at your best when it happens.

Ladies and Germs, Presenting...Probiotics!!!

Has something ever happened to you, large or small, that really made you think there is an energy flow the attracts things your way? Well this is one instance that absolutely backs up that thought.

About 2 months ago, I went out to get the mail when I found an "Experience Life" magazine in my box. Not only have I never heard of this magazine but the name and address part of the magazine had been cut out. The weird part is that it contained an article on probiotics, an article which I had been searching for. Freaking weird.

The article contained a lot of introductory information about probiotics and how to add them to your life. For those who don't know, probiotics is the term for the tiny bacteria that live in your gut, helping you digest food and generally living. In fact, the article stated that it was a truly symbiotic relationship. We provide food and a home, they help us digest food. Truly win win. Of these 100 trillion bacteria, most of them live in your colon, where they feast on your extra helping.

But where do we get these bacteria? The first organisms to entrench themselves in the GI tract come from the mother's birth canal. So they are truly your first friends. Which begs to ask the question, will a child born from a c-section be effected by not gaining those first bacteria? From there, children gather different strains of bacteria through what they touch and put in their mouth.

Now I know that most mothers will be saying 'Oh no! My baby will get an infection!' But listen up, with out these first bacteria, the immune system will never get it's practice fighting small bacteria, enabling it to bolster its defenses. After lots of practice, wen a true bad bug comes along, the immune system will be primed and ready for action. A true reason not to buy into all the anti-bacterial hype...but I digress.

So how can we help these little guys do their job? The article goes on to explain 7 ways to aid. These include eating small meals instead of large ones, eating healthy whole foods (fruits and veggies), avoiding sugar and processed foods, getting a full nights sleep, and most importantly, avoiding stress. Employing these tactics into your life will really make you feel better and help these guys help you.

Just remember, "...the human digestive system hasn't changed in thousands of years, but our diet has shifted dramatically," (p64)

http://www.lifetimefitness.com/magazine/index.cfm?strWebAction=article_detail&intArticleId=717

Experience Life Magazine, July/August 2007. Article by Catherine Guthrie

Trick or Sweet

Halloween originated as an end of the summer festival which I guess can be compared to a pre-dark ages Labor Day. No matter how it started, Halloween has turned into a modern day candy fest. I work with students and they were appalled when I mentioned the word homework on Halloween night (I gave them no homework...yea, I'm that teacher). Kids these days are going trick or treating late into their teens, and for essentially one reason. Candy.

So here are the two essential questions. 1) How do I put out treats that comply with the paleo diet? (Note: This question could also be rephrased as how do I become the least popular house on the block?) 2) I run a paleo diet household, how can my kids enjoy their Halloween and still eat healthy?

The true answer is that these days, there's really no way to eat healthy Halloween treats. So here at paleo diet online, we are going to once again preach moderation. Don't binge on a dozen pieces of candy a night. Enjoy your one and end it there.

With that out of the way, here's a go at how you can at least avoid the most unhealthy treats.

- Avoid trans fats. These will appear on ingredient lists as "partially hydrogenated oils" Trans fats are the single worst aspect of the modern human diet and I would go out on a limb and say that most candies have them. Pure trans fat is essentially margarine. So envision that gooey yet stiff concoction and then think about all the candy bars that contain it. Yea...scary.

- There's nothing wrong with fruit or nuts. Sure the kids won't want that healthy fruit interfering with their unhealthy sugar, but it's a little better than the pure garbage that's wrapped in foil. So go with chocolate covered treats, dried fruits, or candied apples, though watch out since the chocolate covering may include trans fats.


mmmmmmmm....candied apples




- Pure chocolate usually includes very basic ingredients. Now unfortunately, one of these is sugar, but if you had to choose between just sugar and sugar and trans fat, take the sugar. Really dark chocolate has less sugar but kids most likely will not like it's bitter taste.

So in actuality, there are very few ways to eat healthy at Halloween time. My only suggestion is be creative and practice moderation.

Happy Halloween!!!

Fighting A Cold War

OK. Sorry about the overly dramatic title, but those of you who get colds will agree that it's the last thing you want. I recently got a cold and thought it would be especially useful to talk about how one should handle it through the paleo diet, especially with the incoming winter months.

So what does the average person do right away when they get a cold? Take Tylenol or Advil. Well beyond the fact that these are minor pain medications, and only make you feel better while not doing anything to help your body fight the cold, they do much more harm to your body than you think, especially to your kidneys which have to filter the medication out. So what should one do when they get a cold, what's the paleolithic way to do it. Well in general you want to try to get as much sleep as possible. I do not have delusions, so I know that in today's world that's nearly impossible, but do try to get at least an extra hour or so. It really does help since all the bodies efforts then go into fighting off the infection.

Next of all we have nutrition. This is the make it or break moment of your cold. From experience I have found that when you initially have a cold it only affects your sinuses and head at first. But if your body does a poor job of protecting itself, it will invade your entire system, and then things only get worse. The best thing to do is beat the cold in the very initial infection. First thing I do is eat enormous amounts of vitamin C. Sometimes this alone will get rid of the cold the very next day if done early enough. So take supplements, drink some orange juice, and especially any fruits and vegetables you can think of for they really provide the nutrients and minerals essential to fighting of infection. Finally I take some Echinacea and Goldenseal supplements. These are natural extracts from plants that give you immune system the boost it needs.

If you feel like going even further, and I'm sure you do if you have a cold, you can make some raspberry tea. No not from a packet, although teas are always great provided they have little or no caffeine, but real raspberries mixed with warm water. Raspberries have naturally occurring penicillin in them, and the natural form by the way does not have all those negative effects usually associated with antibiotics. So what I do, please feel free to change a thing here or there, is take a packet of raspberries in a big cup, crush them with a spoon and mix them around inside (I like unsweetened drinks, but feel free to add a little honey if you want), and poor in some boiling water. Let it sit for a while and you'll have some great tea. Just note the raspberries will take up most of the space so you might need to eat them with a spoon at some point. Last, but probably most importantly, drink buckets of fluid. Water, natural juices, caffeine free teas, and even more water. THIS IS ESSENTIAL. Giving your body enough water helps it flush your system of infections and actually makes your cells expand and have stronger walls, which in turn makes them harder to penetrate by viruses. Drink water.

Now there are a couple of things you should avoid. Strenuous activity for one. Your body needs to focus on building white-blood cells and antibodies, not lifting weights or jogging, although exercise does help reduce the chances of getting infection. Don't drink Gatorade, please. I remember my doctor telling me to drink Gatorade to get some key electrolytes, which you can get fruits and vegetables. But Gatorade has high fructose corn syrup... and more importantly, fructose, which is horrible for you. It's actually am immuno-suppressor, as we'll talk about in a post soon to come. If there's really one thing you should do, it's relax and try to enjoy your time as much as possible, after all the brain has amazing effects on your body's health, so try watch a comedy or read a fun book.

So how do I know this will all work? Because my family and I have always done it and it has worked nearly every time. With the minor exceptions of when everything goes wrong and I get a cold during finals, or while traveling, it has always kept me from getting a full blown cold. With my most recent cold I started having symptoms on Saturday afternoon, and felt fit and well again by Tuesday night. That's just around three days, and the symptoms never got worse than a slight congestion and minor headache. Wouldn't you like the same for yourself?

Rate Your Health

This blog came to me yesterday. I've been eating a healthy paleolithic diet for just over a year now and I simply feel great. But I still have this memory of being in high school health class being told to check my heart rate when I woke up on a Saturday morning. I remember to this date that my rate that morning was just about 85. I thought wow, that's probably pretty high.

So what does this have to do with yesterday? Well my school had its fall blood drive yesterday and I donated platelets for the 3rd time. Before donating though, you must get your vitals checked, and my heart rate checked in at 62.

Now let me tell you, I come from a family with history of high blood pressure and general heart problems. This rate is very good coming from that family. Same with my BP which checked in at 110/70. I feel this happens for 2 reasons.

1) Omega-3 oils. Karol has already blogged about these amazing oils but they are definitely worth mentioning again. They are good for the heart due to the fact that they make the arteries more elastic, allowing for the blood to more easily flow.

2) Caffeine. I used to drink some soda and coffee but have stopped since reading a book on caffeine this summer. I will be blogging about this book and other caffeine related topics much more during the second semester...trust me. Anyway, one of the reasons caffeine is so bad for the arteries stems from the fact that caffeine puts the body into a flight or fight state of alertness. In paleolithic times, this fight or flight response only came about when a human was in danger. Due to the adrenaline rush, the plaques in the blood, which are there to block any infiltrations to the system, become stickier. This allows the scared human to more easily "temporarily" stop an internal bleed until they could get out of harms way and allow the body to properly heal.

Well if a human is constantly in this fight or flight mode, their blood will always be stickier, allowing for the build-up of artery clogging plaques.

Read that over again if you are confused. But my last word is that heart disease is the #1 killer in America. Think about your life and you'll realize that you probably know someone who has died from a sudden heart attack. If this is not true, then you most likely know someone who knows someone. If that is not true, then you know me, and I knew a kid in high school who dropped dead of a heart attack.

Love your heart. Keep it healthy.

A Microwave Goodbye

The first microwave was produced in 1947, officially changing the way people ate. Though they didn't become popular until the late 60's early 70's, they are now an essential to all kitchens from in home to restaurant. In fact, I used to work at a restaurant and the night after a special, we were zapping that same special and serving it. It truly was a "miracle" as it hastened our cooking time. But what has this cooking miracle done to our health and how does it continue to affect our daily lives?

2 words, free radicals.

Now I must say sorry to get chemical on you, but I am a chemistry teacher and I need to justify the hours upon hours of work that I put in during college. So the first question is, what is a free-radical? For the nerdy answer, go here:
http://www.healthchecksystems.com/antioxid.htm

Now for the quick and dirty explanation. A free radical is an atom with an unpaired electron that looks to obtain an electron from any source possible or in layman's terms the same as an oxidant, as in the opposite of an anti-oxidant. Now if you haven't heard of an anti-oxidant, please come back to civilization you hobbit. The job of anti-oxidants is to find these oxidants and eradicate them, hence why it is so important to eat your fill of anti-oxidant rich foods.

Microwaves send out waves of light less energetic than visual light (longer wavelength, smaller frequency). These microwaves excite water molecules which heat to high temperatures and transfer energy to the other objects in the microwave. As this is occurring, the other food is absorbing these waves and producing free-radicals. In organic chemistry, when needing to add a halogen (chlorine for example) to a molecule in a synthesis, you would take a chlorine molecule (containing 2 chlorine atoms), hit it with light to split it and create 2 chlorine radicals, and these radicals can add themselves easily. When you eat these foods, you add free-radicals to your body which need to be seized and eliminated before doing damage.

So maybe you should reconsider using that microwave to nuke your food every night. You can always throw something in a toaster oven and it could heat up just the same. Another alternative idea could deal with heating up liquids. Instead of nuking your cold coffee, put it into a tea pot. Sure it takes 2-3 extra minutes at most, but it's worth it. The question still remains, would I use a microwave? Yes, but not every day. Remember, we here at Paleo Diet Online preach moderation, not restriction.

Tomatoes to Die For

I know it's the end of summer but Mama Doc just tried this new recipe that was just astounding. Why this has to do with summer is because the main ingredient is tomatoes, which obviously grow over the summer. Now this past summer, Papa Doc grew enough tomoatoes to feed the a small third world country so it would've been nice to have this recipe about 2 months ago. We ended up giving countless tomatoes away, and what we couldn't eat or give away became squirrel food. Anyway, enough fluff, here's the recipe.


Slow Roasted Tomatoes

Wedged tomatoes, any type of tomatoes
Sliced fresh garlic
Olive Oil

Put in oven at 225 degrees for 9 hours. The slow roasting process will carmalize the sugars in the tomatoes and taste oh so sweet. If you don't have 9 hours to kill in the house, you can cook these over night, though I warn you that when the carmalization process begins, it will wake you up with it's sweet aroma. So good luck and enjoy!!!

IMPORTANT!!!!
The settings were changed on this blog recently to allow readers to comment without a blogger sign in name. So please tell us how we are doing or feel free to drop suggestions about things you want to know about. We look forward to hearing from you!!!

P.S. $100 Mama Doc is the first person to comment. Love you Ma.

Healthy Beef

Ok, so beef's got a bit of a beating lately from the health community. They say that it's high in fat, it isn't cleanly handled, or that it can lead to severe diseases. But there is good news and that is that all these worries can be thrown away if you buy the right type of beef at the right stores.

To start, let's talk about pasture fed cows. These cows are not fed enormous amounts of grains and soy to be fattened up and are mostly fed what cows actually eat: GRASS. Some places even eliminate grains and soy all together and feed them only the types of foods cow should eat. This simple change in diet has great effects. Not only does it reduce the fat content in beef, but it makes the muscles thick, dense and juicier, since the cows are free to graze and actually have an open environment. The diet also increases the amount of omega-3 and reduces the omega-6 content, which our previous article explained, has great health benefits.

These pasture raised cows are also totally natural. No hormones or antibiotics. This is obviously good and really doesn't need explaining.

Finally, the cows should not consume other animal remains. What I mean by this is that cows cannot be fed the remains of a processed animal, which they grind up and feed to the other living animals. This is the chief way that diseases like mad-cow are spread. One cow infects the rest when its remains are fed to the other cattle. Plus cows should not be fed animals in the first place, their HERBIVORES! By making sure the Beef you buy adheres to this rule, you can be sure the the likelihood of contracting diseases from beef, already rare, will be quite improbable.

No let's take a look at what this Beef would resemble. It's lean, feeds on what it was meant to, lives out in the open, and is free of artificial products. I would have to say this is exactly the type of animal humans hunted and ate back in paleolithic times. But adhering to all these rules, beef is not only a great choice of food, it's paleolithic as well.

You may be asking where is the world could one find such good beef, and that next to starting your own farm, it's quite impracticable to find it, right? Wrong again. "Organic" beef adhering to all the rules mentioned above is found in every "WHOLE FOODS" Store and "Trader Joe's".

I myself recently enjoyed a wonderfully delicious steak from "Trader Joe's from New Zealand. It had all the info about the steak conveniently placed on the label, unlike other store's beef. I have to say it was so lean, one medium sized Rib Eye was enough to fill me up, I had the other one I cooked saved as leftovers for the next day. It was so jam-packed with lean protein and good fats, that it filled me up just great.

I also felt better too. I did not have that groggy feeling afterwards as some of you might be familiarized with. That groggy feeling is due to the enormous amounts of fat in beef, and even though the protein sometimes takes a lot of energy to digest, it's always the fat the knocks you down.

Now you know. Organic beef is a great way to follow the high protein needs of the paleo diet. So next time you want to have a nice steak, make sure you go to Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, or any other store that you find that has real paleo diet beef.

Health Nuts?!

And by nuts I mean are you serious? Recently, I was visiting friends when they snacked on a granola bar. Curiously, I looked at the ingredients and was shocked. I bet if you asked 100 people if granola bars were healthy, 85% of them would say yes, yet the ingredients on this bar were far from healthy.

Ingredients: Roasted Peanuts - primarily thought of as healthy, yet they are susceptible to a mold that releases an aflatoxin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aflatoxin. (Quick note: I know as an educator I should be vehemently against wikipedia, but I find it useful for scientific terms as the general public typically will not post false information about them due to a) lack of knowledge b) lack of interest.

High Maltose Corn Syrup, Sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Fructose. Yes, this granola bar has 4 different types of sugar, not to mention the sugar contained in the crisp rice and wheat flakes ingredients.

Various grain and dairy products - there were lots of these products in the bar, which their health matters could be argued due to their gluten and casein contents.

Artificial colors - I mean, they're artificial. Plus, does anyone remember the whole yellow 5 being linked to low sperm count craze in the mid-nineties? Well this granola bar contains yellow 5.

Various oils, anti-caking, and preservatives. What would a bar be without these things?

So the question still begs to be answered, if not snacking on this, then what? Here are some options.

Nuts. And true nuts, not fake nuts. Fake nuts would include peanuts, soy nuts (both legumes). Real nuts would include almonds, cashews, walnuts (very healthy. packed full of Omega-3s), and other things that grow on trees. Legumes come from the ground.

Dried Fruit - It's fruit which is obviously healthy, just with the water taken out. Certain dried fruits will contain Sulfur Dioxide which is a preservative and not the healthiest thing around (Quick note: Sulfur dioxide is major gas that is emitted during volcanic eruptions). Still, choosing between a little SO2 and HFCS, I know what I'm taking.

Fruit and Nut Bars - These are becoming very popular. I've even found boxes of Lara bars at Costco. Lara bars are great. Multiple flavors, easy to carry, great for car rides...And I know your major question is how do they taste? Well, they taste good, but I've found the major problem people have with them is texture. No crunch really which people like. I'm still eating these instead of so called healthy granola bars.

So read your ingredients people. Remember, advertising has 1 purpose, to make money.

Omega Olive Oil

I recently became obsessed with Olive Oil, not just because of it's extraordinary health benefits, but because it tastes so good too. Naturally curious, I did a bit of research about olive oil.

So let's start out by cutting out a couple myths people might have heard. The first is fat is bad for you. And yes people do actually believe that sometimes. Fat is not only required to gain certain nutrients and such, but it is literally required to build new cells. So if you stop eating fat, sure you make some on your own, but your making your body do a lot more work than it needs to. Next you got that you need to limit your fat intake. True only if your eating the wrong types of fat. I have yet to hear of a person overdosing on olive oil, which contains the right types of fat, and having horrible diseases caused by it.

Let's explore the various types of "fats". We have our good old regular fat, which is plain and boring. We have saturated fats, which we should try to avoid if possible. Then we have trans fat which increases your bad cholesterol (LDL and small-LDL) and decreases your good cholesterol (HDL). Trans fat should thus be avoided at all costs, since all it does is ham you from the inside. Then finally we have the Omega-Fats, and yes they are extremely important.

First of all we have omega-9 fats, aka. mono-unsaturated fats. These should actually consist of the majority of your diet, since after all, it's what makes up most of your body. These are thus so much better than the regular fats, since they actually come from paleolithic sources and are the fats we evolved to eat.

Next we have omega-6 and omega-3, both are also known as poly-unsaturated fats. These two are the key elements to explaining a lot of where most peoples' diets go wrong. First of all, in general you need to consume only 3 at most, 1 would be best, omega-6 fats for every omega-3 you take in. A 3:1 to 1:1 ratio. Unfortunatly the average person tends to have a ratio from 12:1 up to 30:1 !! Ya I didn't believe it either at first. So let's not worry about the omega-6, we have enough as it is, and focus on getting more omega-3s.

You might be asking yourself, or me, why is omega-3 so important? Well to start of it reduces the amount of fat you store, so it will actually help you loose excess fat :), and for you body-builders out there, omega-3 actually increases your muscle growth, so you will definitely want to get more. It helps improve the cholesterol in your blood, and allows the lining of your blood vessels to be much more elastic, so it does in fact reduce the chances of heart disease by a large factor. There's all these wonderful things about omega-3s and much more too.

So now let's look at where you can get those omega-3s, in a convenient but tasty way. Olive oil for starters is a great choice. It has a ok omega-6/3 ratio of 10:1, but most of the oil is actually omega-9, so no need to worry. Olive oil, and especially virgin olive oil which is of higher quality and taste, tastes just wonderful. In the Mediterranean countries they practically drown their food in it, and wouldn't you know it, they have very little heart disease. You also have canola oil with a wonderful 2:1 ratio, great for food and cooking as well. Flax seed oil is the best if you have a huge deficit of omega-3s since it ratio is skewed the other way around as 1:7 =D. Fish oil capsules are just about the same as flax, so their great as a supplement as well.

BY ALL MEANS!! Avoid Sunflower and Corn oils. They are the culprits behind our ratio problems today, containing way too many omega-6 and little, if any, omega-3s. I know this may seem like a silly thing to worry about, but take note corn is used in nearly everything today, so watch out. Soybean oil, as well as peanut oils, should not be used because they are just concentrated storage tanks of lectins, which we'll get into later for the harm they cause as well.

All this information might seem overwhelming, and by all means don't stress yourself about it, just next time your in the market, look at the ingredients of the oils you buy and make sure your buying the good stuff. I myself now make sure I eat my fats correctly, and boy do I feel great, and not to mention it helps my workouts by making them much more effective. I feel better, tire less, and my skin is much more elastic, plus it sooths my ongoing acne. So many pluses to have. So what are you waiting for. The next chance go get yourself some olive oil, or any other good oils, and use then on whatever you want, from salads to fish to... well anything you want.


Note: Mixing omega-3s with refined sugars, like the ones found in table sugar and sweets, causes them to chemically change and become omega-6s! Thats the last thing you want. So don't mix soda and those oils, even in your stomach. Natural sugars in fruits and vegetable will not trigger this chemical reaction, so please feel to enjoy your next healthier, and I promise, much tastier meal with the good oils we're meant to eat.

Homegrown Meals

I made dinner Tuesday night, no coincidence. But when I looked at each ingredient, I realized that each one came from a knowledgable source. That is I knew the origin of all my ingredients. Here's what they were.

Eggs
Peppers
Tomatoes
Garlic
Crab

The meal was a sort of exquisite scrambled eggs. The eggs came from a local farm. The Docs know the farmer and he will drop off around 4 or 5 dozen eggs every month or so. He's even dropped off duck and goose eggs before. There is something about his eggs that simply make them different. The shells are thicker, the albumen is thicker, and the yolks are thicker. Truly "better" eggs.

The peppers and tomatoes came from Papa Doc's garden. Once again, just better veggies. You know when you cut a store baught tomato the liquidy seed part goes all over the place? Well Papa Doc's tomatoes stay together. Once again, just "better" quality. Probably comes from forced ripening from the veggie companies.

The garlic came from a farm up in Northern Connecticut where my cousin lives. They brought about 500 cloves of garlic for dispersal among our friends. The garlic is so fresh and once again simply "better".

The crab is special. I caught it this weekend with my buddy down the jersey shore. We were out on the bay at 6:00 am catching 2 bushels of crabs with his family. It was the two of us on a boat. Once again, the freshness made the crab simply "better".

So this really was a special fresh meal. One of if not the only meal I've eaten where I knew the origin of every ingredient.

Dressing it Up

Salads are healthy, yes? I would have to concur with that, but lets take a look at a typical salad eaten in today's society.

Lettuce
Cucumbers
Tomatoes
Croutons
Salad Dressing

This is what I would call a typical house salad. Nothing spectacular, just good old fashion house salad. First off, let me say that if you are eating salad....kudos. That's the first step to eating healthy. Second off, let's pick this salad apart and take a look at what could be making it less healthy.

Though I'm sure I will take flak from people about this, the croutons in my opinion are not healthy. The gluten is not part of the paleo diet and doesn't mix with veggies. This post is not about gluten though. There will be one someday, but not today. This one is about salad dressing.

As I started the paleo diet, all my meals essentially turned into salads. With it came the salad dressing, but which to choose? As I started looking at the ingredients of most salads, I was horrified to find, among other ingredients, HFCS (high fructose corn syrup), emulsifiers, artificial colors, and other non-natural ingredients. These companies were trying to desicrate one of the last healthy homes for paleo eaters. Since, I've found only a handful of salad dressing that don't include HFCS, I've had to get creative in the dressing room (ok, that was a terrible pun). Here are some ideas.

1) There's always good ol' oil and vinegar. And for extra measures, you can substitute walnut oil for a good kick. There are also various types of vinegar you can try.

2) Mustard. Ingredient wise, I've found mustard to be pretty basic. If you like the taste, it can make a tasty salad with chicken.

3) HFCS free salad dressings. But these usually have something like xanthum gum in them, which I don't know much about, but I do know they use in industrial processes. Yum......

4) And by far the most creative....Fresh herbs. Nothing like spicing (now that's a good pun) up your salad with some fresh basil or fresh cilantro. With some fresh ground pepper and maybe some walnuts or almonds. Now that's fresh, healthy, and tasty.

If you come up with any good recipes, please share them with us! Karol's email address is posted on the right side of this web page and if it's good we'll post it and give you credit!

The Commercials Don't Lie

"America runs on Dunkin." At least that's what the commercials say. But I'm starting to think that they actually are correct in their statement. I was in DD this morning buying munchkins for some students I meet with on thursdays. After ordering, the cashier gave me this skewed look and asked: "No coffee?"

Though I was not at all shocked by the question, it did make me think that convience stores and coffee shops have become a sort of morning gas station for people. Without their coffee fix, they truly cannot get through the day. I'm not saying that I'm appalled by this. Everyone has their vice. I just think it's rediculous that certain drugs, and yes, caffeine is a drug, are allowed and some are taboo simply due to being grandfathered into our society.

Gator....hinder?

You play hard, and sweat hard. And sports drinks implore you to drink their brand so you can perform better. But what's going on? And how does this impact the inner paleolithic human?

Electrolytes are ions such as Na+, Cl-, Ca+2, I-, K+, etc (sorry, I don't know how to do superscript). These electrolytes help control channels between inner and outer fluids of muscle and other cells. When you become depleted of these electrolytes, like when you sweat profusely over a long period of time, your channels don't work as well and overall performance will decline.

Sports drinks typically will infuse water with these electrolytes to better replenish you. This will help and most likely helped athletes when they first came out. But recently, these sports drinks have laced their beverage with other sweeteners like HFCS (high fructose corn syrup), sugar, and other sugar syrups to as they say "give you energy".

Now last time I checked, these weren't very natural sources of sugar and therefore cannot be seen as healthy. Now the problem isn't these sugars over a game time or whatnot, but the problem is today's youth drinking these drinks all the time. I witnessed/participated in it. Everyone thought these drinks were healthy.

Now what about a natural source? Alternative Medicine magazine printed a small blurb about coconut water, which has 15 times the amount of electrolytes. Could this be used as an alternative sports drink along with the author's recommended use of healing hangovers. Enjoy.

http://www.alternativemedicine.com/common/news/store_news.asp?StoreNewsID=13750&storeID=02AD61F001A74B5887D3BD11F6C28169

Soy and its Dark Side

Ok, so I'm sure the majority of people have heard that soy is incredibly good for you. No it isn't. I personally can vouch for that. About two years ago, when I was still a vegetarian and thought it was the healthiest choice out there, I ate soy like a madman. You name it: soy milk, edemame, and soy-meats. About two years ago as well, I was also plagued with severe acne. I used everything. I tried proactive, tried recommended OTC creams, tried prescription creams, you name it and I've probably tried it. I was ready to accept my horrible look until, just about the time i heard about the paleo diet and started following it, my acne started to lessen.

Now when I started this diet I was not incredibly strict, and ate soy now and then from the huge amount I still had in the fridge. I noticed that every time I ate soy I would break out with some acne. I was curious about this and after finding out more about what the paleo diet had to say about soy and a bit of research of my own, I found some drastic news. Soy protein actually adds estrogen to your body. Quite literally its like taking an estrogen pill every time you eat soy. Not only that but because your artificially adding estrogen to your body, estrogen not made by your own body, your body stops producing estrogen on it's own, which yet again causes other hormones to be produced in different amounts. And you know how acne is caused by imbalances of sex hormones during puberty. Well I did the math, the artificial addition of estrogen into my body was actually worsening the causes of my acne.

So I now pose a question to you. Why on Earth would you possibly want to eat soy? It messes with your balanced production of sex hormones, it causes women to stop producing their own estrogen, and it causes men to become more feminine, as well as produce pot bellies. So you have nothing to gain, but a lot to lose.

1 Simple Rule

Picture this scenario. You're trying the paleo diet to see how it effects you and you're at a party. In front of you is a schmorgasboard of deliciousness just waiting to be eaten and savored. Now, because the diet is new, how do you remember what to eat? Well, here is the 1 simple rule that can remind you of what is good and what is bad.

Color

Think about it. Back in paleolithic times, what lacked color? Everything that was eaten was alive and therefore trying to spread it's DNA. To achieve this, color was used as an attractant. So when choosing foods, sing "Stop in the name of health" to certain colors and sing "Come on baby fill my belly" with others. The rule is simple:

Avoid: Brown, White.

Favor: Red, Green, Purple, Blue, Yellow, Orange, and basically any other rainbow choice.




Sure there are exceptions. Like eggs. Packed full of goodness, but they have white. On the other hand, there are blue corn chips. Good color, filled with omega-6s.

But be careful. Look for artificial coloring. The combination of water, sugar, and color may look and taste great.....anyway, you get the point. So heed the color rule...and cheat every once in a while if you need to. Remember, it's about moderation.

2 Frightful words

Trust Me. Two words I've said many times to my students, yet two words that when spoken, I rarely believe. But that's exactly what I'm saying to you. Trust me. Not to put words in your mouth, but I'm sure your next one is....why? Well, here's a little Casa family history.

My parents (we'll be talking about them a lot, so our nickname for them is going to be The Docs) are chiropractors with a very successful practice. Since my birth (and I'm being literal since I was born at home), I've been treated as an alternative health child. No immunizations, no antibiotics, no pain killers, nothing. (Some quick facts. I have since had an immunization. Tetnus. I've had an antibiotic, which went with the tetnus. BTW, this is what happens when a 4 inch piece of wood from a trash shed goes through your wrist. I've taken 4 pain killers. 2 Advil, 1 Tylenol, 1 Excedrin. I've been to the hospital twice, both accidents, not health related.) When I got a cold, it was zinc, C, and echinacea with golden seal (still makes me gag). When I had a headache, I got adjusted and took a nap. I've done almost everything to get better that no one has ever heard of.

Most remarkably, I typically missed 1 day of school a year due to sickness (or really wellness because sometimes what is called being sick is really your body doing what it has to do to clear out). And the one year, there's a good story to go along with it. When I woke up, I felt like what comes out of my dog's back side. After sleeping in and watching The Price is Right, The Docs had finished seeing patients for the morning and did some acupuncture on me. The set of points the performed were the Alarm and Associated Points, essentially the reset button for the body according to acupuncture. Immediately after, I was bouncing round the room, phishesque.

After high school, I went to college and majored in chemistry while minoring in biology. It was with this experience that I landed a chemistry teaching job at a local private school. It was at this juncture of my life that The Docs' practice was moving in a new direction. Diet and nutrition.

For years, I had been taking enzymes to help digestion but that was about it. I had figured that certain food was bad for me but hell, it was college. As I started getting interested in nutrition and with some help from The Docs, changed my eating habits and supplementation (still taking enzymes), I became very healthy. First, my knee injury went away. This was a nagging injury that had been there for a couple months and disapeared in a matter of days. Second, I lost 25 lbs, and it basically melted away. Sure I added some exercise, but it was minimal at best. Third, I felt more awake and energized, and did it without coffee.

So trust me. I'm proof that some simple changes can be greatly beneficial.

p.s. Thanks and much love to The Docs

Vitamin D

No not the singer's illegitimate love child, but the super molecule whose surface is just being scratched. I will most likely make multiple blogs about vitamin D as there is so much to say about it, but here's a start. I read an article recently in a special edition of "Alternative Medicine" magazine. The article was about vitamin D and its benefits. Among them was the ability to aid the immune system in fighting disease and ability to make a person generally happier.

2 examples. The first being seasonal depression. People claim it's from the cold weather, but it's more likely linked to lack of sunlight and vitamin D production. Also, winter time is flu season. Now, is the influenza virus a special organism that works better in the cold or are our immune systems comprimised from lack of vitamin D?

Second, my buddy Tootie lives on the beach and has worked in the lifeguarding business for years now. He claims that every september, right after work is done, he gets sick with something like brochitis. This year was different as he went on a surfing trip right when work was done. This kept his vitamin D production up and helped ward off disease. Also, he claims that around mid summer, when his tan is fully developed, he gets mildly depressed. Coincidence? I think not.

So make sure you get lots of sun. Your body will thank you for it.

The Goji Berry

Through various sources and health clubs I was able to find one particular item that is more than worth noting . This is the Goji Berry.For those of you who have no clue as to what it is, to put it simply it's a small red berry with an incredible concentration of anti-oxidants. The berry grows in the Himalayan Mountains and has been known for its health promoting effects since the Tang Dynasty (around 800 A.D.).

Don't worry you won't have to go out and find a store that actually sells the goji berries in order to receive its wonderful effects, although you are more than welcome to. There is a company called "FreeLife" that sells goji juice. The juice goes under the name "Himalayan Goji Juice". You drink only 1-4 fl. oz. (30-120ml) daily, so even one bottle lasts a while if your the only one drinking it. It comes in one liter bottles and "FreeLife" continuously sends you more once you become a member.

On the website www.freelife.com there are many testimonials of amazing results and you should take a look at their website for more info. For a small drink of goji juice everyday, the results are spectacular, and it's certainly worth the price. I recommend it for everyone.

The Mountains

I spent this past weekend in the mountains, simply to regroup and get ready to charge forth into the work year. For those of you who don't know, I am a teacher and have spent the past 3 months essentially not working. Anyway, in a recent book I'm reading called "The Ion Effect" (I know book titles get underlined but I cant figure it out) by Fred Soyka with Alan Edmonds, it explains why the mountains are such a good place to visit.

"In certain hill and mountain areas, for instance, a combination of the sun's rays, cleaner air, and rock strata that are more radioactive than most of the earth's surface can produce higher concentrations of both kinds of ions [positive and negative],with the balance swinging heavily in favor of negative ions. In part this is because in the mountains there is less dust in the air to consume the neg-ions. It is no coincidence that throughout history mankind has gone to hilly areas to rest and recuperate, particularly from respiratory diseases." (p23-24)

So this is one scientific reason for the mountains being a serene healing spot, but I'm sure there is a psychological factor to it as well. Just being away (and trust me, my cell phone went off this weekend to simply get away) and not dealing with life. So go on vacation, get away. It can only be good for your health.

Leaving the Dark Side

Or is it? Being someone who goes against the grain almost has to be someone who believes in the force and isn't scared by the powers that be, but I bet if you spoke with most people, they would see things from a different perspective. I've been eating paleolithically for a little over a year now and it truely has changed my life. It is in this blog that this phenomenom known as the paleo diet will be discussed. The discussions will involve article and book reviews, alternative methods to common problems, and generally anything that has to do with diet and nutrition.

The next question for you is why listen? Well, the answer will reveal itself in the next posting. So good luck and never stop the search for good health.

The Paleo Diet Blog

Hey, for all of you who don't know, this blog is about the the Paleo Diet, the diet we were biologically meant to eat. We'll discuss various ideas, experiences, new research, book reviews, and more. If you have and questions please feel free to leave them in the comments box.