Month: October 2014

Interesting Information: “Reverse Tooth Decay With Nutrition”

Interesting Information:  October 15, 2014

“Reverse Tooth Decay With Nutrition”

 

Did you know you can reverse tooth decay?

You can.

What a novel thought…

 

I was in my dentist’s office about a year ago, and a father and son were talking to my dentist–the son, who looked to be about six years old, having just finished an exam that showed five or six cavities.

The conversation was about brushing more.

Food choices were not mentioned.

BUT, BUT, cavities are a sure sign of poor nutrition.

Here’s a statement by Laurel Blair, a nutritionist, from the January/February 2014 issue of Well Being Journal (33).

I had too much tooth decay.  When I studied nutritional research, I improved the nutrient-density of my diet and began taking high-vitamin cod liver oil.  It’s important the diet contains plenty of natural vitamins A, D, and K2.  At first I did not use butter oil, which is expensive but contains high amounts of vitamin K2; I just used cold liver oil and other nutrient-rich foods for their vitamin and mineral content, and it helped slow or stop the decay.  When I added the high-vitamin butter oil with its vitamin K2, which is essential for proper calcium use by the body, reduced the amount of grains in my diet (I soaked most of the grains I did eat to reduce the mineral-chelating phytic acid), and increased my intake of mineral-rich foods, including bone broth, raw and cultured dairy products, grass-fed meats, seafood, eggs, and organic vegetables, the decay began to reverse itself.  A month after I began taking both the cod liver oil and butter oil with other nutrients, I could actually see new white enamel growing in areas that were previously completely brown with decay!  The tooth now feels hard and mostly smooth, and there is no longer any crumbling of enamel in my teeth.

There are many such testimonials on the web.  And the Weston A. Price Foundation web site has solid information of how to heal teeth.

The best high-vitamin cod liver oil is FERMENTED Green Pastures.  It’s the ONLY cod liver oil that is not heated with man-made vitamins added back.  You can get it and the butter oil online.  Radiant Life is one source.

 

Turkey Tracks: Bonnie Hunter’s Annual Mystery Quilt

Turkey Tracks:  October 15, 2014

Bonnie Hunter’s Annual Mystery Quilt

It’s started!

The first posting has come for Bonnie Hunter’s annual mystery Quilt.

This first posting describes what inspired Bonnie.  This year it was her stay at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan, where she has taught for several years now.  The quilt’s name is “Grand Illusion.”   Bonnie gives, in this initial posting, detailed instructions about fabric choices–and provides numbers to paint chips available at Loews.

Quiltvilles Quips & Snips!!: Grand Illusion Mystery!.

The first clue will come the day after Thanksgiving.  And every Friday morning thereafter, Bonnie will post the next clue–or what to do next.  Bonnie makes her quilts in units that combine to make a quilt.  There will be from 6 to 8 weeks of clues.  Bonnie will reveal the quilt sometime between Christmas and New Year’s.

I have been rounding up fabrics and pawing through my stash since this post came in, and I’m assembling some really nice fabric choices.  I’m excited!

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I’m going to keep my neutrals to the white end of the neutral scale, which will pop the other colors out.  Bonnie says the yellow fabric will be the constant in this quilt.

Last year, you may recall, I did this annual mystery quilt, “Celtic Solstice.”  And I learned so much from reading Bonnie’s detailed instructions and from interacting with other folks around the world making this quilt.  (There is a Facebook group you can join.)

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“Grand Illusions,” said Bonnie, will be less intense than “Celtic Solstice.”

The information on “Grand Illusions” will come off Bonnie’s web site sometime in June, I think.  And the quilt will go into an upcoming book.

GO BONNIE!

Interesting Information: Amy Myers MD: The Functional Approach to Preventing the Flu

Interesting Information:  October 15, 2014

The Functional Approach to Preventing the Flu

 

In Camden, Maine, today, there were signs advertising flu shots outside the grocery store and the drug store.

So, it’s “flu shot” season again.

Flu shots are BIG business and enormously profitable.

 

Amy Myers MD is part of the growing movement toward functional medicine–which seeks to find the causes of illness rather than just treating symptoms.

I signed up for Dr. Myers’ blog posts.  Today’s was on the flu shot.

Take a look?  Take a look BEFORE you get a flu shot.  Please.  For one thing, you can see what’s in the flu shot before you allow those ingredients into your body.

Amy Myers MD.

If this link does not work, paste the one below into your browser:

http://www.amymyersmd.com/2013/10/10/functional-medicine-approach-preventing-flu/

Documentary Review and Interesting Information: Bought Movie: Your Health Brought To You By Wall Street

Documentary Review and Interesting Information:  October 14, 2014

BOUGHT

Your Health Brought To You By Wall Street

 

Take a minute and preview this trailer for BOUGHT.

Why?

If we do not collectively understand what has gone radically wrong in our so-called “democracy,” we cannot possibly take the grassroots steps needed to begin to fix it.  Those steps are always going to involve making different consumer choices, beginning with the choices that impact our health the most drastically.

Science is no longer the arbitrator of what is good for human health.  The market–industry–corporations–has replaced science with their need for profits.  They’ve co-opted our regulatory and legal structures so that they are now toothless.

Well-being doctors are caught in “kool aid loops” produced by industry that does not allow conflicting information into the loop.  Doctors are tied to one-size-fits-all “standards of care” that they pretty much have to practice if they want to keep their licenses. Most docs have no nutritional training whatsoever, so do not understand the roll good, or bad, food plays in human health.

Jeff Hays is a respected and award-winning film maker.

Bought Movie | Jeff Hays FilmBought Movie | Your Health Brought To You By Wall Street.

Many of us are sick.  It’s time to make changes.  Start with understanding the problems.

 

PS:  the DVD will be coming out shortly.

 

Turkey Tracks:

Turkey Tracks:  October 14, 2014

“My Salad”

 

We got a bag of mixed lettuce from our CSA (Community Shared Agriculture) farm, Hope’s Edge, last Friday.

Located just west of me, the farm has had some heavy frosts–though our yo-yo weather continues and today is nearly 70!

So, the lettuce was a welcome treat in our weekly share.  This lettuce has…survived.

When one tries to eat within the seasons, lettuce runs out in the fall.  I personally switch to lacto-fermented foods, like sauerkraut, when the lettuce runs out.  I am so not a fan of the lettuce that gets shipped in here from California in plastic boxes.  That lettuce has been gassed and is very old–like about 18 days old.  Whatever zip was in it is long gone.

I’ve been savoring my bag of lettuce–knowing that the cukes, the tomatoes, the celery are all nearing the end of their days.

Here’s another poem from Jeanine Gervais, who seems to be in a creative mood these days.  She’s eating, likely, what’s left in her garden these days.

My Salad

A Zen Buddhist monk book says

to practice

living

in the moment

say,

“I am washing the dishes

to wash the dishes”

and so I eat my salad

to eat my salad

15 seeds

in tiny halved cherry tomato

raspberry dressing

a pink blanket

covers green leaves

speckled by black pepper polka dots

the white of sliced

radishes

edged

in magenta

a still frame

captured.

By Jeanine H. Gervais

October 11, 2014

Interesting Information: Vandana Shiva is One of My Heroes

Interesting Information:  October 9, 2014

Vandana Shiva is One of My Heroes

I’ve been catching up on back issues of YES! magazine.

There is a thought-provoking article written by Vandana Shiva in the Winter 2013 issue of YES!

As always, YES! makes all its content available to you free online, and the url to this article is at the bottom of this blog post.

Here, Shiva is telling us about the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, initiated by Bolivia.

 

When nature is a teacher, we ­co-create with her—we recognize her agency and her rights. That is why it is significant that Ecuador has recognized the “rights of nature” in its constitution. In April 2011, the United Nations General Assembly­—inspired by the constitution of Ecuador and the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth initiated by Bolivia—organized a conference on harmony with nature as part of Earth Day celebrations. Much of the discussion centered on ways to transform systems based on domination of people over nature, men over women, and rich over poor into new systems based on partnership.

The U.N. secretary general’s report, “Harmony with Nature,” issued in conjunction with the conference, elaborates on the importance of reconnecting with nature: “Ultimately, environmentally destructive behavior is the result of a failure to recognize that human beings are an inseparable part of nature and that we cannot damage it without severely damaging ourselves.”

AND, a bit more on the concept of “separatism,” or man being separate from nature, a belief which allows us to plunder the earth without regard for how that plundering affects all of us in the long run:

As philosopher and historian Carolyn Merchant points out, this shift of perspective—from nature as a living, nurturing mother to inert, dead, and manipulable matter—was well suited to the activities that would lead to capitalism. The domination images created by Bacon and other leaders of the scientific revolution replaced those of the nurturing Earth, removing a cultural constraint on the exploitation of nature. “One does not readily slay a mother, dig into her entrails for gold, or mutilate her body,” Merchant wrote.

Vandana Shiva: Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Forest by Vandana Shiva — YES! Magazine.

Interesting Information: EPA Approves ‘Agent Orange’ Deadly Duo Poison. Take the Factory Farm Free Pledge!

Interesting Information:  October 9, 2014

EPA Approved “Agent Orange” Deadly Duo Poison Yesterday

 

It’s interesting news, but very, very sad.

This vote shows the degree to which our country is owned by corporations.

It is beyond unconscionable that any sane body of people would approve these poisons for our food chain.

Take a look:

EPA Approves ‘Agent Orange’ Deadly Duo Poison. Take the Factory Farm Free Pledge! : Conscious Life News.

Turkey Tracks: “Isn’t This Fun?” Quilt

Turkey Tracks:  October 8, 2014

“Ain’t This Fun?” Quilt

 

Look what’s on my long arm today.

“Isn’t This Fun?”

I made the blocks last March when I spent a week with my long-time quilting friends in Williamsburg, Virginia.  We’ve been quilting together for close to twenty years now.

For years I’ve been clipping the selvage edges of new fabric and ripping a strip.  And, saving uneven strips left over from cutting or ripping a straight edge across the top of fabric.  I gathered up the HUGE MOUND of these strips and took them to Virginia and about 100 blocks came home with me at the end of the week.

Here’s the resulting quilt top–the lattice work and border treatment ideas came from Bonnie Hunter’s quilt “Tulip Fields” in her book STRING FLING.

 

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Here’s a close-up of some of the blocks:

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I’m quilting with a lime green thread…

I’m really enjoying this project.

Turkey Tracks: “Cherry Tomatoes,” a poem

Turkey Tracks:  October 8, 2014

“Cherry Tomatoes,” A Poem

 

I met Jeanine Gervais on the windjammer J&E Riggin this summer.

We were/are both writing/literature teachers at local colleges/universities.

Since the windjammer trip, we’ve been writing back and forth on email, daily.

Here’s the poem Jeanine sent me yesterday.  It really hit home as I had just been out in my own “mid-October” garden, picking cherry tomatoes.  She wrote it herself, of course.

Enjoy!

 

Cherry Tomatoes

My back bends to pick cherry tomatoes

strung like pearls on winding branches

buried amongst rotted vegetables

blackened leaves

the garden in mid-October a shambles.

Cherry tomatoes hidden under

leaves like umbrellas

protected from wind and cold

holding steadfast, saying

Don’t forget me! Don’t forget me!

I am here. I am strong.

Jeanine H. Gervais

October 7, 2014

Interesting Information: Do YOU Have Acid Reflux or Heartburn?

Interesting Information:  October 5, 2014

Do YOU Have Acid Reflux or Heartburn?

 

My cousin Johanna Sweat posted Dr. Mark Hyman’s video on curing heartburn and acid reflux on Facebook in the past few days.

Dr. Hyman is part of the growing movement called “functional medicine”–which seeks to determine the CAUSE of health problems and to cure the cause, rather than treating the symptoms, usually with drugs–like acid blockers used to treat heartburn and acid reflux.

Dr. Hyman has excellent medical credentials and connections, by the way.   He is the new director of The Cleveland Clinic Center For Functional Medicine, for instance.

In the video below, which I hope you will watch, whether or not you have acid reflux or heartburn, he explains that the acid blocker medicines are (1) very powerful, (2) have serious and dangerous side effects, and are (3) a creature of Big Pharma’s profit drive and are NOT AT ALL about your health.  Too many doctors are prescribing these drugs instead of figuring out what the real problem is–which is part and parcel of why our medical system is so broken these days.  As I’ve said before, doctors are caught in what I’m calling a “kool aid” loop where they are captive by Big Pharma information and where contradictory information is simply not getting to them.  Often, our government regulatory organizations are part of this problem as the foxes own the chicken house.

Having said that, I have done other posts on new information coming out now about acid reflux/heartburn and the acid blockers.  There is at least one well-researched book, for instance.

Diet, of course, is one underlying cause of acid reflux/heartburn, but Dr. Hyman also points to other causes  for which one can be/and should be tested.  And it is very clear that another underlying problem is NOT ENOUGH STOMACH ACID, rather than too much–particularly as we age.   You might have a common parasite that is causing the digestive issue.  Or you might have gut issues that include the overgrowth of certain organisms–which can be cured with diet changes.

Do take time to watch, ok?

3 Simple Steps to Eliminate Heartburn and Acid Reflux – Dr. Mark Hyman.