Ian Celebrating Fifteen with Jax Grands

They played raquetball, too!

Minions, Minions Everywhere

Cael, Anna, and Kevin

Audrey Saige

Kevin and Bob, Anna's 13th Bday minions from Emily and Clara

Little Fishes

Lifeguard Audrey

Anna

Cael

Eva

Jocelyn

Lewis

Ian

Silly Sibs

Learning to Fly

Bee-autiful Audrey!

Audrey Labor and Delivery Notes

This post may only interest me, but I have to keep track of these things somewhere!

This time around instead of limiting my herbal intake to red raspberry leaf, I tried several new herbs and had excellent results.  My labor, which is usually a 12-24 hour affair, was MUCH quicker (the midwife almost didn't make it in time) and less painful.  There were more Braxton-Hicks and pressure, but that is way preferable to prolonged contraction pain.  Another benefit has been that my bleeding after birth has been almost nothing.

I want to make note of the herbs I was using so that if I can't find the exact products next time I can create my own brew as necessary.

Mountain Meadow Herbs Gentle Birth Tincture:
Blessed Thistle Herb
Red Raspberry Leaf
False Unicorn Root
Partridge Berry Herb
Blue Cohosh Root
Ginger Root
Skullcap Herb
Motherwort Herb
Wild Yam Root
Bayberry Root Bark
Other ingredients: vegetable glycerine, distilled water, 5% organic grain alcohol
Used as suggested for last five weeks: 1/4 tsp--2x/day for week one, 3x/day for remaining weeks

Sherry's Last Six Weeks Pregnancy Tea
Red Raspberry Leaf
Partridgeberry
Shepherd's Purse
Spikenard Root
Nettle
Comfrey Leaves
Alfalfa
Blessed Thistle
Peach Leaves
Peppermint
Suggested dosage was four cups/day.  I probably got close to that most days but was not overly careful.


Note to self:  Labor for Audrey started at bed time with strong hourly contractions.  About halfway through the night the contractions were coming about every twenty minutes.  This is when I should have called the midwife because a little before 5 a.m., after two or three hours of this routine, I suddenly felt like I was ready to push--only no one else was ready!

Culinary Medicine

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.--Hippocrates

The doctor of the future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather will cure and prevent disease with nutrition.--Thomas Edison

Brain Cells to Toenails

Dr. Nicholas Gonzales, explaining how he’s used intensive nutritional therapy for the last 25 years to treat advanced cancer and other incurable diseases.  He says it’s almost impossible to over-emphasize the importance of food as an influence on our health. 

Everything in our body, every brain chemical, every enzyme, every molecule in our liver, our toenails, this stuff comes from one place.  From our food.  

HT: Kelly the Kitchen Kop

Heart Sense

A recent article by Dr Lundell may sound shocking to many, especially coming from a respected heart surgeon of over 25 years’ experience.  “Inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease,” he declares. “Without inflammation being present in the body, there is no way that cholesterol would accumulate in the wall of the blood vessel and cause heart disease and strokes...if we chronically expose the body to injury by toxins or foods the human body was never designed to process, a condition occurs called chronic inflammation.”

And what does Dr Lundell consider the biggest culprits of chronic inflammation? “The injury and inflammation in our blood vessels is caused by the low fat diet recommended for years by mainstream medicine...the overload of simple, highly processed carbohydrates (sugar, flour and all the products made from them) and the excess consumption of omega-6 vegetable oils like soybean, corn and sunflower that are found in many processed foods.”

Modern Wheat , a Questionable Character

The gliadin protein of wheat is degraded to a class of polypeptides called exorphins that bind to morphine receptors in the brain. Wheat exorphins are responsible for appetite stimulation, as well as the behavioral outbursts in children with ADHD and autism, the paranoid delusions and auditory hallucinations in people with schizophrenia, and even trigger the manic phase of bipolar illness. Exorphins are also responsible for the withdrawal phenomenon that 30% of people experience when they stop consuming wheat, the mental “fog,” fatigue, physical exhaustion, and even depression that usually lasts several days. You have, in effect, an addictive relationship due to the appetite stimulation effect and the awful withdrawal that results with cessation.

--William Davis, MD, author of Wheat Belly


Here's the link to the entire Q & A  where Dr. Davis elaborates on the changes wheat has undergone since biblical times and lots of other interesting stuff.  Our family can attest to the value of working through the withdrawal described above to realize an improved quality of life in so many ways.

Wisdom with the Tea Leaves--Pt. 2

These truths from the tea box reflect on healthy aging:

When the heart is at ease, the body is healthy.

~Chinese Proverb

You're never too old to become younger.~Mae West

As we grow old . . . the beauty steals inward.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Low Carbs and Low Blood Sugar

This response from Bee to a question posted on her yahoo chat group clarifies our experience upon transitioning to a high fat / low carbohydrate diet  eight months ago.  (The first few months were a bit of a bumpy ride to say the least.)  It also provides insight into weight loss issues:

There is a period of time you will experience more hunger when your body is still "trying to" switch over from running on carbs/sugars to running on good fats. Once the switch is made, you won't have such hunger pangs, nor the extra weight.
 
Both the anticipation of carbohydrates and the actual eating of them cause our bodies to secrete the hormone insulin which deposits both fatty acids and glucose in fat tissue and it keeps those calories trapped in fat tissue once they get there.
 
As long as we respond to carbohydrates by secreting more insulin, we continue to move nutrients from our bloodstream in expectation of the arrival of more, so we remain hungry or at least not fulfilled.
 
During this transition the body is expecting to deal with glucose but there is none coming in the diet, and so there is still too much insulin in the circulation. The liver will not give up its glycogen (storage form of glucose) due to high insulin in circulation, which would help to stabilize blood sugar if it were released, and our blood sugar drops. Even if we eat fat and protein, the insulin will serve to store those nutrients rather than allow them to be used for fuel.
 
In other words insulin induces hunger and prevents satiety, even though fats easily satiate the appetite once your body switches over, but that takes time.
 
Once your body changes over, and doesn't secrete insulin as an automatic response so you won't feel so hungry, and your weight will decrease.
 

--Bee Wilder www.healingnaturallybybee.com

A Chef's Perspective on Dining Out

Below I've quoted the intro and conclusion of a guest post on Healthy Home Economist. What this chef says here is exactly why eating out is an extremely rare event in our household.  For more of Emily Duff's story, go to the HHE blog here . 

Joke: What does a chef make for dinner when she has the night off?

Answer: Reservations!
It’s true. Most working chefs rarely cook at home. Perhaps that is because we have been told that it is not healthy to take our work home with us at the end of the day.
I am an exception. I am a retired NYC restaurant chef, cooking instructor, wife and mother and I prepare all of my family’s meals at home. That’s right, breakfast, lunch and dinner, seven days a week, at home. I prefer it that way. I know what we are eating and we always feel good after a meal.

The Real Truth About Eating Out

After all these years, I know the bitter truth about what you are getting when you dine out.
Let me enlighten you.
Most cooking oil in professional kitchens is a mix (25/75) olive oil to cheap canola oil. Most frying oil is made from GM soy and practically all corn products: tortilla chips, soft tacos, polenta, grits, etc. are GM as well.
Seafood is mostly farm raised. Eggs and poultry are rarely pastured unless noted on the menu and then the entree is at least $30. All bacon has nitrites/nitrates and dairy is unfortunately pasteurized (the occasional raw milk artisinal cheese will find its way onto the better menus). Pork is seeing a change since you can’t throw a ham hock these days without hitting a menu that features a pork belly dish on it (thank you Momofuku).
Most produce is conventional which means that 85% of the mashed potatoes in restaurants today are toxic from pesticides living in the mineral depleted soil.
Grass fed beef, thank goodness, has become the new darling of the restaurant world and is finding it’s way onto many café menus, NYC lunch trucks and even in new fast food burger joints (elevation burger).
When they bring tallow back to fry the chips, that’s when I’ll think about giving them my business. On a recent trip to The Strip House (I was taken by a friend for my birthday who knows I love steak), I ordered the special grass-fed Delmonico rib eye, crisp goose fat potatoes and black truffle creamed spinach. Sometimes you can hit it bang on the head. The steak alone was $42 but boy oh boy was it GOOD!
When you dine out, Real Food costs big money.

Is It Possible to Eat Out Safely?

My simple advice is to stick to the more expensive restaurants and the ones that offer better, Real Food choices on their menus.
If you can’t afford them, stay home and cook!
Once upon a time restaurants were only for the rich and famous. I assure you that you are not missing much. I send my family off each day with food that I lovingly prepare. I do not believe in letting anyone else feed and nourish my family. That is my sacred right as a wife and mother, which is hilarious considering that I fed people for a living for many years, and I thank you all for trusting me. Someday, I sincerely hope to have the privilege to do it again. But not in NYC. My restaurant space that was once renting for $3,000 a month is now going for $14,000 and those numbers just don’t add up.

Born and raised in NY, Emily Duff has been cooking professionally in NYC since 1988. Emily worked for farmers Wilklow, Bradley and Dent from 1989 – 1991 at the Tribeca Washington Farmers Market and Brooklyn, Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket. Her café Henrietta’s Feed & Grain (1993) was one of the first eateries to employ a completely seasonal menu based on the bounty of local growers from NY and NJ. The Feed & Grain earned her a reputation of being a chef true to flavor and respectful of ingredients while creating and serving honest, delicious, healing food. Emily enjoyed cooking in restaurant kitchens all over NYC until she retired in 2002 to continue her work in private catering and plan a family. In 2005, after giving birth to her daughter, Emily set forth on a dedicated path of learning in the field of Traditional Nutrition and Natural healing.  The birth of her son solidified her dedication and saw a marriage of her passions: Health & Wellness, Food & Family. Family2Table is her vehicle for sharing all that she has learned in her 20 plus years of work. You can read her blog at family2table

Into the Wild Movie Review and an L.A. Times Nutrition Article

Titus and I finally got around to seeing Into the Wild last night after first hearing about it a couple years ago (see March 2009 story telling).  The occasional nudity, foul language, and general adult foolishness keep it from being appropriate viewing for children, but we think it is indispensable for young adults (still skipping the nudie parts).  So much fodder for discussion there!  We fully intend to view it with our children as they enter adulthood in order to help them understand more fully where certain types of folly lead.

In other news, L.A. Times  just printed an article that confirms what we've been learning around here about the benefits of orienting our diets in a high healthy fat, low carb direction.  Several months ago,  Bee Wilder helped us pull together various things we've been learning over the past few years and focus on candidas control in a specific way using the type of diet described above.  We've been making focused efforts in that direction since August and have seen numerous benefits in our family's health.  There are lots of success stories on Bee's site where people have written in to describe their progress in everything from diabetes to fibromyalgia, which serves as further confirmation that this is a good way to eat for many reasons.

Economic Wisdom in from a Government Leader of a Different Era

"Be assured that it gives much more pain to the mind to be in debt, than to do without any article whatever which we may seem to want.” — Thomas Jefferson, Letter to his daughter Martha (14 June 1787)

HT: Life in a Shoe blog

Odds and Ends Online

We recently had several little things our family was in need of, and I didn't want to pay shipping for several different sources. http://www.mothernature.com/ to the rescue! And shipping was free on orders over $49.

Ectopics

Here's a link to a very enlightening article that was first brought to my attention by its publication in the Samaritan Ministries newsletter we receive:

http://inashoe.com/2008/06/11/ectopic-pregnancy-and-the-sanctity-of-life/

The more I learn about the medical field, the more I realize the importance of asking questions.

---As a side note, I found Kim's post for today (something like "Milestones of Motherhood") very accurate for my experience thus far!