who's the real culprit?

It seems like a gluten-free pantry is de rigueur in a lot of households these days.  But gluten-free cooking is a bit of a pain in the neck and a blanket reaction. Let's dig a bit deeper.

Several things happened over the past half century to produce more food and make it cheaper. One is agriculture on a humongous scale, the other is the industrialized manufacturing of food.  Both are machine and profit driven.  Any critter that comes in the way of the crop is a bother and threat to the bottom line, and shelf life is the consideration on the supermarket side.  Hence crops are being genetically modified and sprayed with pesticides, Monsanto's glyphosate in this case, and industrial scale recipes were devised to make boxed and packaged foods long lasting.  There is a price to pay for this. In addition, we have made eating more convenient by adding lots of wheat based baked goods for breakfast and snacks, and pizza and pasta for other meals.  Hence, researchers have also played with the wheat strains by modifying them and increasing gluten amounts.

Gluten-free products have become yet another money making addition to the food industry's portfolio, and the ingredients are often way more strange than if you bought a loaf of bread made of wheat and water and yeast. A different consideration is that refined white wheat flour has a very high glycemic index (the body reacts to it like it does to sugar), nothing necessarily to upset your stomach, but it drives your blood sugar up, and if you have diabetes it's best avoided to reduce your insulin intake.  

 Without digging deeper you don't know what your stomach actually reacts to - the glyphosate (a poison!), the gluten excess (sits heavy in the stomach), the strange new wheat strains the body is not used to, or the overall need of your body to eat less grain based foods and more greens and vegetables. Digging deeper entails a process of elimination, which you can start on either end.  Either going all out grain free and slowly adding items back in, or eliminating items out of your diet one by one.  

You might remove refined conventional white wheat flour and try organic white or whole wheat flour. Consider trying the older wheat strains like Einkorn, spelt, emmer, triticale, kamut,  or farro.  They have less gluten and have not been altered as much as the modern wheat types.  Organic is always preferable because it won't have the glyphosate in it, possibly the main culprit in this whole inquiry.  If all that doesn't make your stomach less irritated you can indeed resort to wheat free recipes.  But take a look at gluten-free supermarket products and be amazed at how many ingredients they actually have.  Instead, cook from scratch and use the many gluten free flours now available, coconut, chickpea, green banana, almond, or teff to name just a few. 

Over a year ago I tried the anti-inflammatory Gundry diet for a good three months, a diet that eliminates not only gluten-based products but also all foods with lectins (i.e. nightshades).  It did absolutely nothing for me other than costing more money and more headaches in the kitchen.  However, I had recommended it to someone, and her whole circle of friends adopted it and raves about it’s beneficial effects.  You have to experiment on yourself what works and doesn't work, what's worth the bother and expense, and what's not.  Every body is different!

food, glorious food

One of the many ways to elevate the frequency at which you vibrate (we live in an electro-magnetic universe and everything is made of energy whose quality is measured in frequency) is to improve the quality of the food you eat.  A healthy body vibrates at 62-68Hz, while frequencies below 58Hz weaken the immune system, and we die at around 25Hz.  

All sorts of negative frequencies assault us on a daily basis, from environmental factors and electro-magnetic frequencies (i.e. cellphones and wifis), to negative people and negative emotions (i.e. fear), to stress and dead foods (processed, canned, GMO) to name just a few.  

Hence elevating your frequency on an ongoing basis helps to maintain or even surpass your current level (surpassing is healing). There are many ways to do so with food being one of the really easy ones.  Fresh and organic foods have the highest frequencies, fresh organic herbs vibrate even higher, and alkaline foods are better than acidic foods (see an earlier post on this), hence in my opinion the trend to more vegetarianism and veganism as we evolve.  There are also many other ways to improve your inner vibration, such as using essential oils (rose oil has the highest frequency) or homeopathic remedies. Listening to higher frequency music (528Hz is the frequency that repairs DNA!) is another option, hence sounds baths and sound healing (here a post on that).  Being out in nature elevates your frequency as does laughing (see a post on laughter yoga) and meditation.

If you are aware  of how you feel and if you need a boost, it's really quite easy to build something into your life to rebalance yourself.

a true Halloween treat

Chocolate is my thing, candy not so much.  So when everyone else gets their sugar high today, I will stick to my chocolate high.

Cacao is actually a superfood.  Consider cacao in its raw form a supplement, whether in the form of nibs, beans or powder. Good dark - I like 85% - chocolate has a rich and creamy mouth feel, a deep and satisfying taste that lingers on my tongue.  I used to find 72% just right, that is 72% cacao and the rest cacao butter and sugar.  Now 85% is just sweet enough to please my palate, but not too sweet to make it cloying and addictive. 

The less processed and sweet the chocolate, the closer it remains to a superfood.  Cacao was not incidentally called food of the gods in ancient mesoamerica, where it was used for trading instead of money or gold. Superfood and nutrition authority David Wolfe has all the facts about cacao and chocolate.  What makes us feel so good when we eat high quality chocolate is cacao's high content of tryptophan and serotonin, both anti-stress agents.  Cacao is also exceptionally high in magnesium, the most lacking mineral in our modern diet, and it is the food with the highest anti-oxidant concentration of all foods.  If that is not an incentive to eat more good chocolate...........

homemade chocolate covered strawberries

good food heals, cheap food kills

Americans are spending less now on food, in proportion to their income, than fifty years ago.  Americans currently spend less on food than other Western industrialized countries.  Meanwhile, Americans spend plenty on electronics, cars, clothes and entertainment in ways we did not fifty years ago.  Priorities have shifted, guided and manipulated by government food policies.  At the same time, even though overall life expectancy may have risen, we're dragging ourselves through old age on prescription drug cocktails and expensive medical procedures.

Most of the civilization diseases, as they are called, originate in poor diet.  Most can be healed, or at least ameliorated considerably, with a good diet - less sugar, less meat, more produce in a nutshell.  

Why not shift our priorities to valuing what we put into our bodies and paying the price for it?  Wouldn't you get upset if your new expensive flat-screen TV was made of thin and flimsy material and stopped working after a year? The same goes for the quality of your food, except for this time it's not your flat-screen TV that breaks down but your body.

Food is what either builds or destroys your health, good food is what promotes your body's innate ability to self-heal by repairing its cells and returning them to their original state of perfect health. Aging does not have to mean spending a quarter of your life in decline, but you have to be clear on your priorities. My car is eleven years old and I have no plans of getting a new one.  

no excuse!

Even when we had a teeny-tiny kitchen in our small Manhattan apartment we always cooked lots and had people over for dinner.  Even when we were on a modest food budget we always ate healthy meals.  Even when I don't have a lot of time, I always prepare from-scratch meals.   It's a matter of priorities and strategies. 

Dialing back your meat consumption, maybe a little, maybe a lot - good meat is expensive - is better for your health and the environment, even if you're not on a modest food budget.   But if you are, there are a few other strategies too.  Plant-based foods cost less money. If you can, buy organic for the ones on the Dirty Dozen list and keep to conventional produce for those on the Clean 15 list.  If you cannot do the organics, wash your produce carefully with a produce cleaner to get rid of all external pesticide residue.  Prepare more legumes (vegetable protein).  Legumes (lentils, chickpeas, beans, peas) are very filling, versatile and extremely healthy because of their fiber content. Never waste any food. Make stocks with chicken carcasses or bones, and save your vegetable scraps to make a quick broth for use as a soup base.  Stock up on what's on sale and in season.  Buy tea in bulk, instead of those expensive tea bags, and cut your tea expense by about 2/3.  In general, buying in bulk can save up to 50%.

Working with ready-to-go meal building blocks, which I only assemble at night, helps me to get a healthy dinner on the table even if I've worked all day. Simple, wholesome meals is the idea, nothing lengthy or complicated.  Work your leftovers - I always make and have lots of them.  Make them a new meal component.  Two nights ago, I made leftover chicken into a quick stir-fry by adding broccoli, leeks, noodles and some Asian inspired soy sauce, fish sauce, lime juice and sesame oil - took about 20 minutes.  I always have eggs and cheese in the fridge (for frittatas, omelets, roasted vegetables broiled with some cheese), as well as ready-to-go portion size freezer bags with pre-cooked grains and legumes (for salads, vegetable mixes, as side dishes). When I do have time to cook, I'll make something lengthier that also freezes well (lasagne, eggplant parm, meatloaf, soups). 

And every once in a while I don't cook at all! We’ll have a cheese platter, or pull a bunch of saved leftovers from the freezer, or I’ll make a quick tomato/mozzarella/roasted pepper platter. In my workshops I cover a lot more ideas - come see. Be creative, be simple, be wholesome.

stress help

We all lead busy lives, times are complex and even confusing - yet some people remain calm and deal with it, others not so much.  Do you get stressed or are you taking life in stride?  

Tieraona Low Dog, MD and herbalist, explained on Nick Polizzi's new nine-part series on herbalism, The Sacred Science that we all deal with busy lives but can only eliminate some, not all stressors.  Dealing with stress is instead mostly about resilience, the better way of adapting to the busyness of modern life.  Yet, some of us could use some gentle help, and not of the pharmaceutical kind.

We are discovering, or rediscovering, potent botanical remedies without side effects, that in some cases have been used for hundreds and even thousands of years, but have fallen by the wayside because they were supplanted by pharmaceuticals (that are costly and have side effects).  None of the botanicals have side effects, all of them can be taken long term, none of them are exorbitantly pricey, and you do not need a prescription, although it may pay to see an herbalist in more complex cases.

Adaptogens are herbs that promote resilience and reduce cortisol levels, the fight or flight response, over time.  The most well known adaptogen is perhaps ashwaganda, but there is also tulsi aka holy basil, ginseng, maca and some others.  Ashwaganda root can easily be taken in capsule or tincture form, and is slow acting, so takes effect over several weeks and months.

Then there are the nervines, botanicals such as valerian, hops, skullcap and kava kava that quiet the monkey mind. Kava has been made into a milky beverage in the South Pacific islands for ceremonial purposes for hundreds of years.  Now that people are discovering the beneficial and calming effects of it, kava bars are sprouting up in many places.  Its preparation in tea form is a bit lengthy, hence better suited for get togethers than perhaps everyday supplementation. But it’s also available in capsule form.

The new darling CBD Oil or cannabidiol, which doesn’t have the psychoactive substance of cannabis, besides relaxing, is also used for many other ailments from anxiety to epilepsy, pain management and more.  For those more complex ailments, dosage should be prescribed by a knowledgeable healthcare professional.  However, to take the edge off stress or anxiety, CBD Oil can safely be taken, in order of effectiveness, vaped, under the tongue, or rubbed on the skin.

Homeopathy is another gentle and effective way to help with stress, but self-medication is not recommended. Determination of the best remedy is more complicated and should be prescribed by an experienced homeopathic practitioner, and taken in the proper dosage.

the elephant in the room

Recently, I was not only asked to do some writing for producer Dena Barnett's upcoming documentary, Spiritual Healing: A New Frontier, but also to contribute a statement regarding the elephant in the room.

Which elephant, you may ask.  Well, if Spiritual Healing promises such good results why does it have such difficulty finding acceptance, credibility and traction?  The answer is two-fold and lies in the elephant so to speak.  

First, Spiritual Healing is low-tech and low cost - it costs nothing beyond the practitioner’s time, and requires no technology or other salable “props.”  Hence, if Spiritual Healing became widely accepted and gained traction, it would dismantle parts of the medical-industrial complex, which relies on people being ill, and the enormous reoccurring revenues from doctor’s visits, procedures, and pharmaceuticals that come with it.  Our culture is more profit than wellness driven, and there is enormous resistance to this shift from a financial perspective. 

Second, Spiritual Healing operates within the unseen aspect of our earthly existence, that of consciousness, and consciousness has thus far been science's, and our general cultural underpinning’s, "elephant in the room.”  Science, and the medical establishment in particular, has as yet not been willing to openly investigate the connection between consciousness and illness, and how the mind influences the body’s well or ill being.  Consciousness is the elephant in the room that scientists don't dare to mention for fear of being discredited.  

When we turn this tide, when the scientific and medical establishments openly acknowledge that consciousness influences matter, and not the other way around, that healing and ill being happen on the mental plane, it will be a momentous paradigm shift in human consciousness evolution so big we can't even predict all the implications to our way of life.

Here a related earlier post on healing eras and energy medicine.

your body, your creation

"Your body is your creation......it exists solely to serve you."  What a cool and empowering quote from Mike Dooley's inspirational book Infinite Possibilities.  I know from experience how you can sort of feel stuck in your body.  

If you reflect on how you dress it's easy to see how your clothes and accessories are an expression of who you are and how you think about yourself.  You want your style to reflect who you are.  It's not that different with your body.  Your body is also an expression of who you are.  But in contrast to the clothes you step into and out of, you can't extricate yourself from your body, at least not until you leave this lifetime. 

From a spiritual perspective your body is not you, you merely inhabit it for the duration of your stay here on Earth to enjoy and experience your time here in the physical.  But realizing that your body is an expression of you over which you have a lot of control is a freeing realization.   Your body clearly reacts to what you put into it, what you're exposed to environmentally, how and if you move, and what thoughts you feed it. And just like your style changes over the years, your body changes over the years too.

If you modify the way you nourish yourself your body will change - think weight change and better or worse general physical health. If you decrease or increase your physical activity level, or change the type of physical activity you do (say body building versus dancing), your body changes -  think toned muscles, increased energy, flexibility and endurance versus loss of muscle mass, energy and stamina.  Changes in your exposure to environmental toxins influence your body - think better physical health versus respiratory ailments, nausea, headaches or perhaps even cancer.   Your body even changes if you change your thoughts - think more exuberance, charisma and positivity, which will make you look younger or more  radiant versus depression or anxiety, which will show up in your physical demeanor. 

You and your body are a team that's joined at the hip so to speak.  The closer you work together towards a mutual goal the more your body will reflect who you want to be.

peace and quiet please

When life has been busy I need some quiet time, some solitude.  Just me-time without interruption from others, whether reading time, puttering-around time, or staring-into-nature time.  I can't keep going all the time.  Down time, time with a minimum of mental stimulus, helps to integrate experiences and impressions.  I need to catch up with myself.  When I go too fast and don't stop and ponder I sometimes even get a headache or feel slightly dizzy, which literally tells me that my head is bursting full of stuff. 

We feel cultural pressure to be on all the time, to go all the time, to be on and smiling all the time, to be busy all the time. But it's making us frazzled and stressed, especially if all this activity is coupled with noise.  I love socializing, I love being with people, but I am a better person when I get down time in between.  Peace and quiet are really important.  Constant noise affects our health just as much as constant busyness, as The Scientific American explains.   We need respite.  We need a sanctuary.  

Take some alone time, some bath time, some journaling time, some gardening time, some meditation time for yourself, take a personal day off, and make it a quiet time.  It's good for your sanity, it's good for your health, and it's good for those who live and work with you because you'll be nicer, more collected, and more relaxed.   Here a related post - a new time culture - on taking your time back.

a better lunch

Deli take-out lunches not only cost a lot of money, they are also not necessarily the healthiest choice, what with the bun, all that Deli meat, the bag of chips, and the soda that often goes with it.  Or that "salad bar" that tempts with prepared foods, Chinese or otherwise - oops, forgot about the salad part.  And don't get me started on those fantasy coffee drinks with whipped cream and flavored syrups, the reward for being away from home all day.  Very expensive if you add the cost up over a year, and not exactly beneficial to your health or weight.  

My preferred lunch is leftovers, vegetable leftovers that is.   Since having made a conscious effort to eat more plant-based foods I always prepare a lot of different vegetable dishes, and always enough so we have leftovers. And another thing, I try to keep animal protein, on those days we have some, to dinnertime.  Hence most of my lunches are vegetarian.

Whether you're packing a lunch to take to work, making school lunches for your kids (they've got to be better than school cafeteria food), or eating close to your fridge at your home office, vegetarian leftovers lunches are prepared in a jiffy, are easy on your wallet, your health, and your weight.