Category: Interesting Information

Information I want to share in a non-essay form

Interesting Information: Toaster Death Rant

Interesting Information:  November 18, 2014

Toaster Death Rant

Here’s a picture of the Cuisenart toaster I bought about three years ago and no more than four years ago.

I paid about $70 for it, thinking that buying a “good” toaster was more reasonable than buying a cheap one that would wear out quickly.

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This toaster died this week.

There is one person using it.  One person who does not toast every day.

Can I tell you that I’m pretty sure that my mother had the same toaster for about twenty years.  Maybe longer.

Look at this big honking thing that is now going into the dump.

I will never buy Cuisenart again.  Never.

And I won’ t spend $$$ on a “good” toaster either.

There isn’t one, apparently.

We are now living in late capitalism–where we are at the end of the chain in terms of quality products.  Manufacturers have cut so many corners that they’ve ruined their products totally.  And, these products are using up valuable resources and filling up land fills.  Meanwhile, these products cost the same or, even, more.

It’s INSANE!!!

It’s unsustainable!!!

All the money in the world won’t compensate for a fouled earth.

 

 

 

Interesting Information: The Nine Ingredients For a Healthier America

Interesting Information:  November 17, 2014

“The Nine Ingredients For A Healthier America”

Friend Gina Caceci mailed me The Washington Post‘s copy of this opinion piece by Mark Bittman, Michael Pollan, Ricardo Salvador, and Olivier De Schutter.

The article is all over the web now.

This piece is a call to action to change national food policy so that it is aligned with human health, not industry profits.

At the most basic level, we need the government to separate the USDA from healthy food policy as these goals are massively in conflict.  What has resulted is that, in a nutshell, we are subsidizing soda while “paying for insulin pumps.”  And, too many of us are sick.

This issue has to be viewed from above political party lines–not across or through them.  Surely our health, the health of our loved ones, and the health of our soil and planet will allow us to come together on this issue.

Please, please read this article.  Every word.

And, maybe, email the President and your congresspersons noting the article and asking for meaningful change.

I will.  Today.

Commentary: The nine ingredients for a healthier America | masslive.com.

Interesting Information: Prediabetes/Diabetics: Foods to Avoid

Interesting Information:  November 10, 2014

Prediabetes/Diabetics:  Foods to Avoid

 

Dr. Sarah Cimperman, ND, has assembled a food list for those diagnosed with prediabetes or, really, with diabetes.

I have to say that these are foods that I avoid, and my blood sugar is great.

(And I had my dental check-up this morning this morning:  very health teeth and gums with no bleeding–all of which is due to diet.)

Note:  I totally agree with Dr. Cimperman about COMMERCIAL milk, which is, in my opinion, just imbibing wasted calories.  Commercial milk is a dead food and often contains dangerous additions.  If I could not get my lovely and healthy RAW milk, I would fall back on the raw-milk cheeses, like those from Organic Valley.

Here’s Dr. Cimperman’s list:

A Different Kind Of Doctor.

Interesting Information: Can People Receiving Live Virus Vaccines Transmit Vaccine Strain Virus to Others?

Interesting Information:  November 9, 2014

 

Can People Receiving Live Virus Vaccines Transmit Vaccine Strain Virus to Others

 

I was fuzzy on how live virus vaccines work and what kind of impact they have on humans.

Dr. Mercola’s post today holds some really important information that we all need to understand to make both wise vaccine choices and to begin to make grassroots political choices.  We need to know more about this whole issue because it is very clear that our doctors and our public health officials do not know all the worrisome information about the impact of vaccines on all of us.  And, while we are living in a time when the vaccine noose is being tightened across the nation so that we will soon not have free choice, any real discussion of the whole issue is being shut down, erased, denied, and so forth.  This, folks, is how we got fluoride in our water–and now we can’t get it out easily because too many people are either profiting, or are way out on legal limbs, or do not want to be embarrassed as they recant and admit fluoride in the water is a really, really stupid and harmful practice as fluoride is extremely toxic in all sorts of ways.  Know, too, that some vaccines make the dangers of fluoride pale in comparison.

First, here are the live virus vaccines:  “Among live virus vaccines being used in the U.S. and other countries are measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox (varicella zoster), live virus (nasal spray) flu vaccine, shingles vaccine, and the rotavirus vaccine that’s given to infants for diarrhea.”  I know I’ve read somewhere that polio can be given, also, a live virus vaccine.

Barbara Loe-Fisher is the co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), a non-profit charity dedicated to preventing vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and defending the legal right for everyone to make vaccine choices.

She explains how you can shed live virus in body fluids whether you have a viral infection or have gotten a live attenuated viral vaccine:

“Live attenuated viral vaccines (LAV) that use live viruses try to, in essence, fool your immune system into believing that you’ve come into contact with a real virus, thereby stimulating the antibody response that, theoretically, will protect you,” she says.

“When you get these live viral vaccines, you shed live virus in your body fluids. Just like when you get a viral infection, you shed live virus. That’s how viral infections are transmitted.

Because viruses, unlike bacteria, need a living host… in order to multiply. What these viruses do is they try to disable the immune system and evade immune responses.”

Second, YES, anyone receiving a live virus vaccine can transmit the vaccine strain virus to others.  And, following that, these vaccine strain viruses can and do combine with wild viruses to form…???…whole new forms of viruses--and we have absolutely no idea of the impact of these recombining viruses on humans for either the short or the long term.  NO IDEA.  It’s the perfect illustration of “the law of unintended consequences.”

Do take some time to read this Mercola posting.  We all need to know and understand the information it contains:

Can People Receiving Live Virus Vaccines Transmit Vaccine Strain Virus to Others.

Interesting Information: Eating for Health as Seniors

Interesting Information:  November 9, 2014

Eating for Health as Seniors

The summer 2014 issue of Wise Traditions, the journal of The Weston A. Price Foundation, is all about aging.

Don’t think that because you are not yet old that this issue will not contain information that concerns you.  Many conditions encountered as a senior began in that senior’s earliest years.

Anyway, I am now a senior, and I’ve been interested in how I eat promotes my health.

Here’s a nice little sidebar of information from an article by PhD nutritionist Sylvia P. Onusic on how to make nutrition an “anti-aging” factor:

 

CONSERVING THE DIGESTIVE FIRE

As we age, our digestive forces weaken. It becomes harder for the body to make hydrochloric acid (for digesting protein), bile (for digesting fats) and digestive enzymes (for digesting carbohydrates, proteins and fats). That means that seniors are often not getting the full benefit of their food, even if they are eating well and the food is nutritious.

Attention to the digestibility of foods is key to ensuring optimal nutrition for senior diets. Soups and stews made with nourishing bone broth are ideal, as bone broth greatly aids the digestive process. Vegetables should be well cooked. Salads may not be the best choice for seniors—soups serve them better, being easier to digest. Vegetable purées made with butter and cream are great comfort foods for seniors. Lacto-fermented foods with every meal will help ease the digestive burden.

Government warnings to the contrary, raw milk is a great food for senior citizens. It contains all the enzymes needed for full digestion and nutrient assimilation and represents a complete nutrition package. It is our best source of glutathione, the body’s leading anti-oxidant. Fermented raw milk products, like yogurt and kefir, supply the digestive tract with beneficial bacteria, as well as digestive enzymes.

All grains should be properly prepared by soaking or sour leavening, for optimal digestion. Hard-to-digest grains like extruded breakfast cereals, granola, granola bars and muesli represent a difficult digestive burden for aging digestive tracts.

In addition to proper food preparation, supplements that can aid digestion include hydrochloric acid and ox bile; while the herbal preparation Swedish bitters aids in the digestive of protein and fatty foods.

The goal is not to live forever, but to ensure that all those years at the end are full of vigor and optimism. Making sure the diet is easy to digest will ensure that the “golden years” are truly filled with golden good health.

Sidebar , “Conserving the Digestive Fire,” in “Nutrition:  The Anti-Aging Factor,” Sylvia P. Onusic, Phd, CNS, LDN, Wise Traditions, Summer 2014, 20-31.

Here’s the whole article, which is full of good information.

Nutrition: The Anti-Aging Factor | Weston A Price.

Interesting Information: The Four Seasons Hotel’s Fruit-Infused Water

Interesting Information:  November 6, 2014

The Four Seasons Hotel’s Fruit-Infused Water

 

One of the many delights of staying at The Four Seasons Hotel in Houston was the daily offering in the lobby of two kinds of ice-cold fruit-infused water.

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I would come in from hours of walking and pour a big glass–often mixing the offerings–and be instantly refreshed and soothed.

This batch is made from two kinds of melons.  Another day was pineapple and mango.  And another day was grapefruit and orange.

Delicious!!

Refreshing!!

Interesting Information: “A Smarter Way to Vaccinate”

Interesting Information:  October 27, 2014

” A Smarter Way to Vaccinate”

If you are a parent trying to figure out the vaccine conundrum…

Or someone thinking about getting a flu shot…

I have a gift for you:  Sarah Cimperman, N.D., has an article called “A Smarter Way to Vaccinate,” in the November/December 2014, issue of Well Being Journal.  

And guess what?  The whole article is on Cimperman’s web page–which is great as Well Being Journal does not allow access to its articles.

A Different Kind Of Doctor: A Smarter Way to Vaccinate.

***Cimperman has the best information about vaccines in one space I’ve seen in a long time–including information about individual vaccines.  There is, also, a section on “harm reduction strategies.”

I signed up for her blog.

A naturopath doc does not compete with a md doc, and they are good to know as they come at health problems with an entirely different tool box and with much more time than an md doc can these days.  They really try to figure out what’s wrong, for starters, rather than just throwing drugs at a problem.  And most of them have a certain reverence for diet and the ability of foods to heal.

***

AND, I want to say that I am not totally against the concept of vaccines.  I just want to see adequate science about them–including some long-term studies and some double-blind studies.  I want recognition that there are known and unknown risks with vaccines that are greater than most of us realize.  I want vaccine makers held legally responsible for vaccine damage–especially when there has NOT been adequate testing, as is true with Gardasil.  And I want parents to do their homework before allowing any vaccine to be given to their child.  Or, to themselves.

 

Interesting Information: The Gold Standard: Double-Blind Studies and Cough Syrup, Antibiotics for Ear Infections, and Knee Arthritis

Interesting Information:  October 27, 2014

The Gold Standard:

Double-Blind Studies and Cough Syrup, Antibiotics for Ear Infections, and Knee Arthritis

 

I had a really, really bad ear infection this summer.

Friends kept asking me if I’d been to the doctor to get an antibiotic.

But, somewhere I had read that antibiotics don’t really help ear infections.  And I am SUPER antibiotic cautious anyway as they wipe out ALL your gut flora and fauna, which is increasingly being shown to be a really dumb thing to do.  And, sometimes one’s immune system needs some inflammation to strengthen itself.

I did some selected herbs and some homeopathic treatments, and eventually, the ear infection resolved itself.  (I will not be swimming without ear plugs in our wild water next summer though.)

So…

I’ve been catching up on back issues of various magazines in my read pile.  A sidebar in the November/December 2014 issue of Well Being Journal (7) caught my attention.  The sidebar referenced an article by Steven Bratman, MD, on the importance of using evidence-based medicine in the form of double-blind studies.  Here’s a quote.

The double-blind study has caused a revolution even in conventional medicine. Many old beliefs have been tossed out when double-blind studies were finally done. It’s been discovered, for example, that (as noted earlier) over-the-counter cough syrups don’t work,10 that immediate antibiotic treatment for ear infections is probably not necessary or even helpful in most cases,11-15, 30 and that cartilage scraping for knee arthritis is no better than placebo7.  (The numbers are footnotes).

The whole article can be read at the url below–and it’s a good article on why double-blind studies are so important.

So, now I’m asking myself WHY so much of what is practiced today in conventional medicine has NOT been proven via double-blind studies…

I hope you’re thinking about this issue, too, and asking for evidence of a double-blind study BEFORE you accept any drug, treatment, or so forth…

Double-Blind Studies.

Interesting Information: Eating The Whole Farm”

Interesting Information:  October 26, 2014

Eating The Whole Farm

 

John’s “TUFTS” magazine came in the mail on Friday.

The cover drew my eye as I brought it inside:  a pink plate with a pig’s head and tail drawn on each side, with a fork and knife draped over the plate.

Helene Ragovin’s article, “Enlightened Palate,” (“Tufts,” Fall 2014) discusses chef Dan Barber’s attempts to get people to eat so that balance can be restored to food production.  To achieve that needed balance, people have been encouraged to eat “nose to tail” in order to utilize ALL parts of an animal.  People today, for instance, don’t really eat organs much.  Or take the time to…roast a roast.  Or take the time to…slow braise a pot roast.

Chef Dan Barber co-owns Blue Hill in Manhattan and Blue Hill at Stone Barns, in Westchester County, New York. The latter includes an agricultural nonprofit that surrounds the restaurant.

Barber’s “Eating the Whole Farm” mantra ups the ante on eating and tries to take into account what it takes to produce a crop everyone likes.

Here’s a quote from Ragovin’s article:

So, Barber says, if you want those peak-of-summer Brandywine tomatoes–a water-hogging crop that depletes the soil–you also need to cook with kidney beans, millet, and mustard greens.  Those less glamorous crops build soil structure, replenish nitrogen, and keep plant diseases at bay.  But because not enough people buy them, farers either sell such crops for animal feed, at a loss, or don’t even grow them.  “That’s very dangerous from an ecological point of view, and economically from the farmer’s point of view,” Barber says.

I would add that we should all be eating seasonally and eating a lot of different things.  We are…omnivores.  Too many of us eat the same old things week in and week out.

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.