Crimson Clover

This is just a little post with a few pictures.  This is a crimson clover cover crop in the garden over the weekend (Mother's day weekend 2013).  A cover crop is something you grow in the garden for some other reason than to harvest for food.  It can nourish the soil as in the case of legumes (vetch, peas, fava beans, clover), crowd out weeds (buckwheat) and hold the soil and build carbon (oats, rye).

I live in the Pacific Northwest.  I've experimented with a few different cover crops and this is by far my favorite for winter. I sow in September/early October.  I often rake it in around my tomatoes, or brassicas that are still standing.  Then I just cut the plants off at the stem and let the soil be so the seeds can germinate.

 Crimson clover is my favorite for the winter because in May I get this.  Bees come and find food.  I can harvest the blossoms for potions.  It is easy to pull out by hand and throw in the compost to plant the bed.  Or I can cut it down, let it rot a few weeks and till it into the soil.  If you buy it, make sure it is 'Crimson Clover', they're all a little different.

This is a bed that needs rest and repair this year.  I planted some peas nearby for eating.  But after this is done, I'll dig it in and plant buckwheat in May or June.  It will out compete weeds and also be easy to pull out for clearing.  The buckwheat flowers are also wonderful bee food, giving me rich, dark, buckwheat honey (if I'm lucky).  I find I can sow buckwheat into a bed may-July for a cover.  If I've prepped a bed and don't plan on sowing my regular crop in the next 3 weeks, I give it a covering of buckwheat.

I buy my cover crop seeds by the pound.  I have good luck collecting buckwheat seeds for saving too.

Cranberry-Almond Granola

Granola!  I have a good recipe.  We don't eat it for breakfast as much as we use it as a snack and sometimes as a present.  Remember that brief and shining moment back in the early 80's when granola was like this great health food until someone realized it had fat in it, then it was so NOT a great health food?  Whatever.  It's not a super food, but it's not bad for you.  I like to think of it as a very wholesome snack.  Better than having a bowl of cornflakes.  Better than packing a candy bar for a treat for the kids at school.  Not as good as eating a veggie omelette for breakfast.

Well, I'm a big fan of using coconut oil in it.  Wonderful fat!  Then honey, of course.  Just try it.  Don't skimp on either of these ingredients just to make it more healthy.  It's not gluten-free and it's not Paleo.  It's just food.  See it for what it is and enjoy a little treat.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/2 cup honey

2 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
1 cup chopped almonds
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup dried cranberries (or more)
1/2 cup raisins

First, melt the coconut oil and honey together in a small saucepan.  This makes it easier to mix everything together.

Second, measure all of the other ingredients EXCEPT for the dried fruit into a large bowl.  The oats, coconut, nuts and seeds.

Next, pour the honey, coconut oil over it and mix it up.

Press it into a rimmed baking sheet.  Bake this at 300 degrees for 30 minutes.  After the first 15 minutes, give it a good stir, and return to oven.  When it's done, the oats will be very slightly golden.  Don't let them color too much.  (In the picture below, you can see I let them color a little too much.  I always mess up when I'm blogging a recipe or trying to actually write a recipe down.)

While the oats and seeds are toasting, measure your dried fruit into the same large bowl.  You can see that I sprinkled a few tablespoons of ground flax seeds in here with mine.  I also use more than 1/2 cup of cranberries often.  It makes it a little more special.

When done, you should mix the oats and seeds with the dried fruit IMMEDIATELY while it's still easy to stir.  Then keep it in the bowl and give it a stir every 5 minutes as it cools so it doesn't cool in one solid block.

Store your granola in an air-tight container.  It will keep for a week or so.  But you know, it's really super yummy in the first few days, then less yummy after that.  I like it as a snack, or with yogurt.  I send it as a treat in my kids' lunchboxes sometimes.

Minerals

I've been giving some thought to minerals in our diet lately.  I say that because when I take on a new client, the first thing I ask them to do is keep a diet record.  I was just looking at the records of three new clients I have now, and they don't look that bad, really.  But it doesn't seem... well... rich.  The meals sound empty, not chock full of goodness at all.

Even if you're not eating junk food, it seems that most food we eat is really lacking good nutrition.  Most of it very low in minerals.  The minerals I'm talking about includes those major minerals we need as well as trace elements.  We need iron, magnesium, manganese, calcium, zinc, copper, selenium, and a little tiny bits of other things too.  I hear a lot about 'alkalizing diets' and a lot of what I think of in alkalizing diets are introducing more mineral-rich foods.  Not pills with mineral supplements, real food.

I'm not totally against supplements  but to me they illustrate our arrogance at thinking we know everything a body needs from food.  I know humans can live on a wide variety of different diets, but they are all made of complex food stuffs.  We eat plants and animals raised on the earth all assimilating and concentrating minerals in a complex of protein structures.  But we know we have depleted soils.  Especially where I live, in the Pacific Northwest, the rains make our soils acidic and constantly in need of extra lime and fertilizer to get good growth that comes easily east of the mountains.  So I wanted to do a post that, while not a magic bullet to improve your diet, might give you some different ideas on how to get more minerals in your diet.  Here and there... every day... a little of this and a little of that.  It's the way we absorb them best, really.  So here goes.

Depleted soils
Do you grow food in your garden?  When you fertilize, think twice about that bottle of miracle grow.  Is that what YOU want to eat?  You can mix up your own fertilizer and add natural rock powders to your soil.  Lime and dolomite lime give you calcium and magnesium.  And buy a bag of kelp powder.  Mix it into your fertilizer for your soil and give some of the complex mineral and iodine mixture from the sea to your garden.  Feed it to your livestock too.  Some are close enough to the sea to bring a load of actual sea weed home in the truck and mix it into their compost.

Salt
Natural, unrefined salt still contains trace amounts of minerals other than sodium chloride.  Those other minerals give it a complexity of flavor.  Keep a nice grey Celitc Sea Salt of other unrefined salt next to your stove for cooking and on your table.  Yes, it is more expensive.  But it's not really THAT expensive.  Here is a nice little article about salt a friend just sent me.

Sweeteners
Sugar is just sugar.  Like refined salt, it just gives you sweet without anything else.  What about iron-rich molasses?  Or REAL maple syrup?  Or if it's for your oatmeal, how about chopping up a couple of dates and passing on the sweetener?  It may take you time to adjust your tastes to this.  Because it's complexity rather than that straight SWEET flavor you're adjusting to.  Give it a chance.

Bone broths
The mineral-protein matrix of bones is an absolute gold mine for your health.  You can buy bones just for the purpose of making broth, or use the chicken carcass after your Sunday roast chicken.  Cook it long enough (or pressure cook it) so that when you chill it, it sets like jello.  That means you've hit the jackpot.  After you make your chicken or beef broth, divide it into a few different pots and freeze in portions you can use for soup and sauces.  Sally Fallon's book, 'Nourishing Traditions' has a lot to say about this... and many other good things.

Unfermented whole grains
As I have talked about in other posts, whole grains might have a lot of minerals in them, but they aren't particularly bioavailable unless handled with care.  Whole grain crackers and the like are still kind of empty bits of fiber and carbs.  Not bad, but not full of goodness either.  Brown rice should be soaked and cooked for a long time as described here.  Soak your oatmeal overnight in some whey as described in this old post.

Green food
Anything green has a lot of magnesium.  A magnesium is at the center of every chlorophyll molecule, so just keep eating green.  Likely you'll get a bunch of calcium with it too.  Find a way to eat a green salad, sauteed Swiss chard, kale chips, steamed broccoli or roasted Brussels sprouts every day.  At LEAST once a day.  Oh, and then there is the ultimate green vegetable... sea weed.

Sea veggies
Oh, you've just got to get yourself some of this.  What, you've never had them?  Pound for pound, I think they must be the best source of minerals and trace elements.  And there are different kinds that give you different flavor profiles and nutrient profiles.  In 'Eat Your Sea Veggies', I list the ones that I use the most and how I use them.  A day does not go by when I don't put a pince of dulse in some oatmeal, make some miso with kombu and wakame, put a few dark strands of arame in my salad or use the kombu to cook some chickpeas for hummus.

Anyway, these are just some different ideas of different pantry items to always have on hand, and different ways of cooking and seasoning your food to make it more nutrient-dense for you and your family.  You won't feel a difference overnight, but over the years, you will make a much healthier family from it.

Detox phase III: The uncut version of the story

My Detox.  Unedited diary of my experiences.

Week 1

Day 2  Just when I got my head around doing this detox and feeling positive about it, I'm hitting bottom.  I haven't had time to cook or do a good shop and don't have anything to eat for lunch that I like.  So I'm just skipping it.  I feel kind of depressed not being able to eat.

Day 3 I feel so hungry!!  30 minutes after a decent meal, I feel STARVING!  And I'm just giving up wheat and dairy.  I made a beef stew for Pete's Sake!  (Arrowroot is a lovely thickener).  I feel like I'm not getting enough food and I'm worried I'm going to start getting depleted again.

I have hardly any energy to run.  My legs just feel empty.

Day 5  Right, I've got my tahini to make tahini sauce.  I've been having my egg, rice, greens and tahini sauce bowl for lunch and I'm feeling just fine now.  I think I was in a real panic about feeling a little out of control with my food.  But I did a bunch of cooking this weekend and have some good quick bean stews in the fridge to heat up and cooked chicken too.  I've still been having whole milk in my red bush tea in the morning to get me going.  Even downed a glass of creamy, whole milk a few times in the past few days to just keep me going.  But I'm slowing down on it.  I feel like my metabolism is slowing down and I'm not pooping as much.  Odd, should be the other way around.  But I'm working more, busy running this detox.  That could be it.

Week 2

Day 7 Wow, just when I was leveling off, THIS.  The meal replacement smoothies taste vile.  It took me 3 hours to choke down my breakfast and I couldn't even face my lunch until 1pm when I was weak with a headache.  I had my last little glass around 4, but I still didn't finish it.  Other people say they don't mind it.  Steve managed to drink them w/o so much fanfare.  But I've got a headache... the kind I get when I drink wheat grass (more vile swill) juice.  And I feel scattered.  But I made a nice dinner.  Nothing special.  But it was heavenly to just eat real food, rather than 5 pills and a smoothie from a boxed powder.  I know these are supposed to be very high-quality supplements, but I seriously question how powdered food from a box could be healthier than the food we eat.  I wish I had a feeding tube.

Day 8  I just dumped my breakfast down the drain.  It just makes me want to gag.  I hate this.  I don't want to eat.  In my dream I was depressed!  I'm depressed all day just dreading having to eat this way.  I remember feeling this way on the first few days of the first week just cutting out gluten and dairy.  But I don't see being able to eat this stuff.  Just the smell of it makes me feel sick to my stomach.  I added all sorts of good things to it this morning too.  Banana, pineapple juice concentrate. yogurt, almond milk, frozen berries... whipped it for a long time and it came out really thick.  Oh god, it was just MORE vile crap to drink.  I feel like I'm going to cry.  Really.  Maybe I could just save the unopened containers and sell them at cost to someone in the group at the end who wants it.

Day 9  OK.  I did it.  I remember in our get together this week, Josie made one with just berries, ice and a little almond milk and it wasn't as bad as this.  So I did that.  Less stuff.  More watery and easier to just get down.  And I did it.  I drank my whole lunch in under an hour with no gagging.  None of the greens stuff in it, mind you.  But it's a start.  I feel so much better.  Like, I feel totally different.  I don't feel depressed anymore.  God, it happened again.  All that control and anxiety about my food is just CRAZY!  It's like having a 3 year old trapped inside of me.  At least I was able to see it for what it was this time... just a little.  Wow.  Talk about issues.  I hope I don't have to go through this a third time on this diet.

Day 10:  I feel great.  I'm hungry still, but it just doesn't bother me.  I don't like the smoothies, but I get them down.  I'm in a good mood too.  But I do look forward to my regular dinner.  And I really feel grateful for it.

Day 12:  My kids came into our bed this morning and my son was holding my tummy and squeezing my skin saying I wan't 'soft and squishy anymore' and saying he didn't like my detox.  This was a complaint.  I still feel good.  I'm hungry now but I'm going to wait to eat and don't want to stop for a snack.  I feel like since I haven't been able to eat what I want when I want, I haven't been able to indulge my impulses all the time.  Cup of milky tea here, bit of dark chocolate, nibble of cheese.  None of those things are bad, but it's the mindless compulsion and lack of control over my actions that got to me.  It's much easier to brush aside those compulsions as they arise, and they drop back silently each time.  Whereas earlier in the detox, they were much less silent.  Feels a lot like starting a new discipline routine with a 3 year old.  Initial uprising, followed by calm appreciation and respect for healthy boundaries   I don't even feel like planning our post-detox meals.  (But I am planning on a trip to a good bakery to have a nice little nibble.)

Week 3

Day 16:  I feel great still.  I'm bored with these smoothies thought.  We're up to 2 scoops of this cleanse and it really makes it harder to get it all down, but it's just for a few days on the 3-week detox.  You know, I don't have any mid-day reductions in energy.  I do NOT need caffeine at all.  I can totally go without sugar without another thought.  I ate cold fried-rice as a snack today and it tasted WONDERFUL.  I really appreciate food.  And I'm not starving and shaking ever.  This is 15 grams of protein and very few carbs and very little fat.  I've always felt I needed that fat to help with satiety so I wouldn't binge eat.  It helped me so much years ago when that was a problem.  And adjusting to not having that really happy full feeling from fat and carbs was very, very emotional.  But I just feel great.  I'm trying to decide what to do when I'm done.  I think I won't buy chocolate to have as a treat.  I will keep trying to avoid snacking and will continue to keep 15 grams of protein at meals, lots of vegies and keep my carbohydrate intake modest with a low gluten.  I'll go back to keeping a wider variety of grains in our diets.  As for milk, I need to think about that.

Day 20  Wow, the middle path is indeed the harder one.  When I'm 'on a detox' I just don't consider eating sugar, bread, etc.  They are not allowed.  But now that Steve is off of it and I'm phasing it out, I found myself really struggling with the decision about having a sugary treat.  I thought my cravings were gone, but now that I have the option, it's going to be difficult not to go back into old habits.  I'm getting out my sourdough starter to wake it up tonight and bake a few loaves of sandwich bread tomorrow.  We'll see what that does.

Day 21 Detox is over.  I've had some bread.  Fine.  I had some milk.  Fine.  I'm not feeling that great, but I think I might be getting the flu since the kids have it.  At our last meeting, I felt really inspired.  Between 12 of us, we lost 40 pounds.  I lost 5 pounds, and that's a lot seeing that I started at 132-ish pounds. I'm not overweight. One woman discovered that when she tried wheat, she felt terrible.  Really bad.  And while that's a bummer in a lot of ways, she was feeling great on the diet right away and I have an idea this is going to be the start of her feeling a whole lot better.  Another one in our group has Parkinsons.  I really wondered if this would be helpful to him.  But it turns out he was a real 'cookie monster', as he puts it.  I noticed a dramatic improvement in his speech.  And that was probably the best result of all, because he is a really lovely man and it's great to hear his voice clearly.  He says that he's going to keep off the chocolate.  That really inspired me.  Because during the whole detox, when I was feeling sorry for myself having to choke down pills and the smoothies, I would think of him with REAL trouble swallowing and just get on with it.  So I think I'm off my chocolate bar addiction in solidarity.

Parting thoughts

It's hard to say just yet the final results because as I sit her typing 4 days after it's said and done, I have the flu.  I haven't eaten much of anything since finishing our detox except for some ibuprofen to get me out of bed to take care of sick kids.  But I learned a few things about myself.  (And no, the detox didn't get me sick, it was the kids.)

• I had a lot of little comfort food rituals.  None of them were particularly unhealthy, but it feels good to be free of their control.  Now I can take them or leave them with ease.
• It feels good to be more comfortable with the EMPTY feeling again.  Because I went through a spell after having children of being very depleted, the empty feeling meant I was going to bottom out.  I learned to not fear that feeling and just trust I'm going to be OK until I can eat again.  I think the reduction in carbohydrates and increase in protein also stabilized my blood sugar.  So that kept me from bottoming out too.
• That classic issue of attachment and aversion... there is no greater minefield for me than food.  It's why I cook.  It gives me control.  If necessary, I can live on tasteless substance that will just get me through.  It also made me appreciate the flavors of simple, real food even more.
• Most important to me was coming face-to-face with that demon inside me.  That 3 year old that starts to panic when I feel out of control.  I blame, I rage, I cry, I run... twice I saw it come up and abate.  I feel like this demon is more familiar now.  Not as scary.  I know how to recognize her and that I have the strength to wait her out until she goes away.  This feels like a big deal to me.  

What about this detox?    Would I recommend it?
I think this particular detox from 'designs for health' is a really good system for some people, less for others.  This is because I still think you can consume all the good nutrients you  need to push phase II detox along in food and juices.  And you can just eat simple, clean healthy meals for 3 weeks with a bit of a fast in there with great benefit.  And a healthy person who has enough time and interest in preparing these foods could totally do it.

But this system does some things very well:

• It gives you a set of clear, balance guidelines to follow
• The system of the smoothies makes it a very gentle detox.  If your health is rather compromised or you are quite overweight, or have many demands on your time and energy, it's nice to be able to get through the detox without a major healing crisis that you can get on a juice fast.  Those can put you in bed for days sometimes.  The product is formulated to push phase II enzymes strongly, and that really helps reduce those side effects.  The 15 grams of protein keeps you full enough that it's sustainable.
• If you have a bit of extra money and not the time, this system is great.
• The smoothies keep you choices limited.  When all you have to eat is the darn smoothie, you just give up and drink it.  You don't have to figure out what to make and how to make it taste better.  I think living in that black-and-white world can help give us some willpower.

Ideal person: Marginal to poor health, extra money, no time, poor cooking skills.  It is also wonderful for people with type 2 diabetes or insulin resistance.  I think this would put someone with metabolic syndrome (pre-diabetes) solidly on the road to preventing diabetes if they carried on with avoiding sugar and altering their carbohydrate and protein intake.  After you get over all those food addiction and your sweet tooth and start experiencing feeling GOOD, it's much easier to start making changes.

Would I do it again?
Maybe.  I fall into the category of a person with the time and interest in preparing foods.  But it was nice to have a break from it all.  I still have some of the smoothie powder left and I actually think I"ll use it when I'm out on the road seeing clients over lunch so it saves me time and keeps my energy up.  I can't believe I'm saying that after all that complaining.

Do YOU want to do it?
Some friends have mentioned they might want to do this.  You have to buy this product through a practitioner with an account with them.  If I get my act together, I might put their link on my website so you can buy it through me and run a group over email/phone.  I'd like to find a way to get the price down a bit first, so I'm going to talk to them about that.  Let me know if you want to and if there is interest, I'll get into gear and make it happen.  Otherwise, we'll just wait until next year.

My website is www.realfood-matters.net if you want to look out for it.  Otherwise, there are other great ways to detox that are simple.  We can talk about that too.  Anyway, hope you enjoyed this little journey.  I did... not that it's over.  Enjoy the rest of spring!  KK

My detox: Phase II

Right, so on with this detox.  First I should say that I did an awful lot of him-ing and haw-ing about weather or not to do it at all.  The doctor I work with had done this already a few years in a row and used a product from a high-end nutriceutical company.  By that, I mean they make professional-grade supplements.  Dr. Drew thinks a lot of this company and I think a lot of her, so I decided to take the leap.  She said she really liked doing it.  The shakes were good and really filling.  Everyone always loses weight and people drop their cholesterol levels and some really feel a lot better afterwards.

Initially, I thought I would just follow their dietary recommendations, but pass on the supplements.  I mean, it's kind of expensive and what powder or pill could be more nutritious than food?  Especially MY food?  But no, after  awhile, I realized I had to jump in with two feet and experience it first hand or I wouldn't really be able to advise people with this system.

First let me explain what the plan was.  3 weeks.  Week one, you just start with the 'detox diet', begin the 'detox lifestyle' and take about 10 capsules a day containing a bunch of the nutrients needed in phase II detox, as well as milk thistle and other antioxidants to protect the liver from those 'intermediary metabolites'.

Detox diet:  Basically, a clean diet.  No damaged fats, meat should be pastured... no hormones or antibiotics.  But no pork.  Eggs as organic or pastured as possible.  No sugar, no sweeteners of any type save for stevia.  No alcohol.  No caffeine.  No gluten grains and no dairy (except for cultured butter and natural yogurt, if you tolerate them... which I do).  As much of your fruit and veg organic.  The diet does caution against too many sweet fruits or potatoes.  The goal is to obtain adequate protein, lots of non-starchy veg, then minimal  carbohydrates.  They call it a 'Paleo Cleanse' but it's not strictly Paleo.  I don't think they allow soy, but I decided to include organic tamari because it opened up a lot of foods to me and others.  And while the diet discourages a lot of starchy veg, I recommended people keep carbs modest, but that yams and roasted potatoes are good choices.

Detox lifestyle:  Minimize plastic storage containers, microwaves, do skin brushing, exercise, filtered water, Epsom salt baths.  That sort of thing.  Get enough sleep.  Get a massage.  More things like that.

That was all for the first week.  Then the 2nd and 3rd week, you use a meal replacement shake for 2 of your meals and one regular meal.  You can eat as much as you like of food though.  It's not designed to starve you.  I decided to eat a regular dinner, since that's an important family meal for me.

Now, the first thing I tell people when embarking on a diet like this is to 'plan for success'.  Plan what you will eat for breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner for at least 4 days, shop and prep as much as you can ahead of time.  That makes it easy.  Unfortunately, I was not only starting a new diet, I was starting to work outside of the home for the first time in YEARS, and I had less time for cooking and shopping than usual.

I started cutting WAY back on the foods I meant to eliminate around March 1st, but we started properly on March 6th.  My husband Steve decided to do it too... in solidarity, I guess.  So I had to make different things for me to eat, for him to take in his lunch (he usually packs his own, but I could see he needed some support) and of course, something for the kids.  This was already doing my head in.  I'm a big one for everyone eating the same thing (for the most part).  Making 2 different meals was a lot of work.  Sometimes we could eat the same thing when it was a familiar food.  But I just wasn't prepared to battle food that wasn't going to stick around past 3 weeks.

Here are the things I knew I was going to struggle with.  We split a beer most evenings with dinner.  I rarely drink more than 1/3 of a beer, but I really like that little bit.  I LOVE dark chocolate and have come to rely on it more and more as a snack and mood-altering substance.  I don't drink much caffeine at all, but I like to have a cup of rooibos tea with milk in it a few times a day.  Just to sit down, relax, and put something warm and milky in my tummy.  It's very soothing to me.  I love milk.  I don't drink tons, but I put it in smoothies, my scramble eggs, quiches, pudding and tea.  I also love, love, love cheese.  I've got hooked on this lovely brie (Grand Margot, triple cream) and when the kids come home, we often sit down to a bit of fruit, cheese and homemade bread.  Oh, and I don't eat tons of bacon, but nearly everything I make has just a little bacon in it for flavor.  Like a bay leaf, but bacon.  Good bacon.  I've eaten a vegan diet before, so I know how to cook great food for it.  But I'm not used to it anymore.  I get sick whenever I cut out red meat (I've tried many times), and I can maintain a healthy weight, feel good and not overeat by eating a fairly heavy diet.  Changing my diet felt really scary.  Already I'm feeling defensive about it.  We don't go in for a lot of luxuries or entertainment in our family.  We're pretty frugal.  So meals are all pretty special and we eat very well.

I'm already hating this detox and I've barely started.  But here we go.

          Week 1: Detox diet
          Week 2: 2 shakes plus a detox diet dinner
          Week 3: 2 shakes plus a detox diet dinner

 See the next post for a play-by-play of how I did with it.

Liver Detoxification: Phase 1 of my detox

I'm working with a doctor this year supporting a group of patients through a 3-week detox.  So I've been brushing up on the subject of liver detoxification and making educational material.  Both Dr. Drew and I are doing the detox along with the group, so it should be fun.

A 'detox' is a really interesting process.  If you do your own research, you'll find many different approaches.  A classic approach is a fast.  Some people just drink juices.  Some use meal replacements. But anyone can do a detox and understanding how it works helps you know how you should approach it.

Detoxification is something our bodies do every day.  We process and eliminate 'toxins' from our body.  Toxins can be what we usually think of toxins... chemicals we inhale from exhaust and hairspray.  Pesticides on our food.  Chemicals in body care products.  Heavy metals.  But there are also waste products that need to be removed.  Old hormones like estrogen and testosterone need to go.  In the course of a day, we have natural cycles of detoxification.  In between meals, if we allow ourselves adequate time without eating, we do a little detoxification.  Once our liver is done dealing with our meal it can get down to doing other things like detoxification with more gusto.  Night time is when it does the most.  You are fasting from dinner to breakfast and sleeping, so the body's detoxification systems really start to work to eliminate the old and make way for the new.

The liver does a lot of this work.  It uses different vitamins and minerals to chemically alter substances so that we can eliminate them from the body.  Then we can pee them out or poop them out, breathe them out, sweat them out.  It's a great system, along as it's working.  But it needs enough of the vitamins and minerals to process the toxins, it needs enough water to pee things out, you need to be pooping enough to poop it out (which means plenty of healthy fiber, healthy fats and water), and you need to be moving your body enough to pump all your body lymph around.  Finally, you need to not put more toxins in your body than it can deal with and stop eating long enough, frequently enough to give it time to do its job.

You might have noticed that in this world, life isn't fair.  Some people who have smoked for DECADES never seem to get cancer.  But your friend who doesn't smoke and rides her bike to work is struggling with cancer right now.  Well, we all have different abilities to deal with toxins.  Some of it is genetic.  Like, some people have detoxification enzymes that just don't work as well as others. But even with that, we can certainly optimize our detoxification abilities.  By doing this, we really help our bodies to be self-healing.  We clear out all the old junk and give it what it needs to do its job.  Then when we do encounter a carcinogen, there is a really good chance that we can detoxify it and get rid of it before it does us any lasting harm.

Look at this picture.  See how many vitamins are needed in just the phase 1?  All those B vitamins?  And all those amino acids in phase II, not to mention glutathione in both of them.  You need sulfur-based amino acids and vitamin C to make glutathione.  Then in the middle, you can see the term 'intermediary metabolites'.  That's where the products of the phase 1 reactions sit in this sort of detox bardos state waiting for further processing.  In the meantime, they're super-reactive and can damage the liver cells.  So we use our antioxidants to protect the liver and stabilize those compounds until they can move on to their after-lives, and be excreted.  Some of those unlucky people have slow phase II enzymes (or not enough of the nutrients needed) and end up with a bunch of the nasty ntermediary metabolites hanging out causing trouble.

I used to do a regular 24-36 hour fast a few times a month.  But then I had kids and I was either pregnant, nursing, trying to recover from all that or just too busy.  I've worked hard over the years to figure out the best way for me to eat so that I could be healthy, be economical and all that.  And I have pretty good health with a stable, healthy weight.  I've always valued food for healing and never went in for the supplements much.  But I figured if I was going to bring along a group with products I wasn't familiar with, I'd better jump in body and soul and see what it was all about.  Boy was I in for a surprise.

I'm keeping a brief diary of how the whole thing went.  I'll post that as soon as I've brought it all together.  The next entry: http://ripplfamilyfarm.blogspot.com/2013/03/my-detox-phase-ii.html  explains the process further.

Boost your immune system!

Boost your immunity!!

It's that time of year again when influenza has become an epidemic and we're all supposed to get a flu shot because perfectly healthy people are going from a sneeze to the ICU in a matter of days.  I get why we panic about this.  People with weakened immune systems die from it every year.  There have been strains in history which have killed many, many healthy people.  But most of the time, it's going to be OK.  Now, I think everyone has to weight the risk/benefit ratio for themselves when thinking about the flu vaccine, I'm not going to comment on that.  But there are additional ways to improve your immune system, weather you're trying to keep from getting the flu or cancer.  Give your body what it needs to be well and heal naturally, and stop putting garbage into it that gets in the way of healing.  We all need a well-functioning immune system.  Here are some really simple nutrition things you can pay attention to which will help you and your family stay healthy all year 'round.

Gut flora:  The biggest chunk of your immune system is in your gut.  Part of keeping it healthy is maintaining a nice, balanced ecosystem of microbes in there.  Many of us are doing things that are making it hard for a well-meaning microbe to survive in our gut.  We eat too much sugar, take too many antibiotics, eat too many preservatives, we don't eat enough fiber and we don't eat enough GOOD bacteria.  So back off the sugar, put more fresh fruits and vegetables on your plate, avoid preservatives and eat some good bugs.  Stop buying that disgusting yoplait yogurt and buy some good, live, natural yogurt.  Make or buy some lacto-fermented vegetables like kim chee and saurkraut (Bubbies is a good brand, if you don't want to make it yourself).  Try some kombucha or kefir.  You can buy those in the 'nutrition' department of Fred Myers these days.  Even if you consume a serving of one of these just 3 times per week, that's a big improvement.  You can also start taking a good probiotic.  I open a capsule into my children's smoothie sometimes.

Cut the sugar:  Eat a bunch of sugar and you suppress the immune system for hours.  Really.  Juice box, chocolate milk from the school cafeteria (pure sugar), soda, doughnut, pop tarts (can we stop calling that breakfast please?), left over candy cane (really, they broke them out at school last week!), gummy bears on the bus home.  It adds up.

Vitamin D:  You need it.  We get a lot in the summer if we're out in it, but if you live in the northern latitude  you should supplement.  One teaspoon of cod liver oil per day for adults and children 6 and up.  Babies 6 months+ and toddlers get a baby spoon increasing gradually to a teaspoon.  Carlson's is a good brand you can get at Freddy's or most natural foods markets. That's what we do during the school year until you start getting a bit of a suntan.  Remember, you need fat in your diet to absorb vitamin D, which is why I'm not sold on taking it in a tablet.  Spectrum makes a flax oil with vitamin D in it, and I think that's as good as it gets for those on a vegan diet, unless you're going to the tanning bed.  Remember, these oils are fragile, so keep them in the fridge and use them up within a month or 2.

Essential Fatty acids:  Omega-3 fatty acids.  Good for your immune system.  Salmon, mackerel,  egg yolks from well-fed chickens, walnuts, flax seeds.  The best form is DHA and that's only from animals, as the vegetarian form can be difficult to convert if your liver is compromised.  Same advice as for vitamin D.  But I tend to switch from cod liver oil over to just 'fish oil' once I start getting a suntan.  For me, that's April.  The only people I know who get enough from food are my friends who are 'fishing widows' up in Alaska.  Their freezer is so full right now that they eat salmon about 4-5 days per week.

Rest/exercise:  It's pretty well known now that exercise is good for you and your immune system, but if you overdo it, it stresses your body enough to suppress your immune system.  So it's important to balance exercise with rest.  We all need at least 7 hours of sleep every night (most of us need 8 or more).

See, no program to buy into.  Just some good old-fashioned healthy eating, rest and exercise!  Yes, there are other things you can do, herbs you can take, etc.  But these are just some basics.  I hope you all stay healthy this winter!!