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Archive for July, 2011

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A Summer Lunch

Posted by Maureen Diaz on July 27, 2011

Chilled Tomato-Basil with Cucumber Soup

With all the bounty coming in from the garden and orchard, I thought I would quickly share today’s lunch menu with you; perhaps it will prove inspiring.

First, a fresh tomato-basil with cucumber soup, raw, made in my Vita Mix (an indispensable tool). Everything from the garden, except the garlic (sadly, we haven’t managed to fit that in yet).

Sopprasetta Salami, aged cheddar.

Gingered Carrots and Sauerkraut with garlic & jalapeno.

Organic, un-cured sausage sautéed with butter, olive oil, onions, garlic, tomatoes & green pepper and topped with raw Monterey Jack farmstead cheese. Served over a bed of buttered brown rice spaghetti, for the men in the family (I pass on the grains for now).

And for dessert a smoothy (which, actually, was served first :P ): raw, whole milk yogurt made yesterday/overnight with our own fresh milk, just-picked blackberries from the orchard, a hint of vanilla & a touch of honey.

How difficult is that? Not at all, I assure you, and everyone seems quite satisfied :)

Now go ahead-toss a tasty, but simple, meal together for your family with farm-fresh foods and produce from your garden, patio, or local farmers’ market!

Maureen Diaz is a homeschooling mother of 9, a WAPF chapter leader, and a certified LW Nutritionist. She also has produced 3 cooking DVD’s including her latest, Liberation Wellness Home Cooking. Check out & order her DVD’s on her website, www.nourishingtraditionalcook.com 

Posted in Butter, Cheese, Family Wellness, farm fresh, Fermented Foods, fresh and local, LCHF, liberation diet, liberation wellness, Local Foods, Maureen Diaz, raw milk, real food, real foods, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Jimmy Moore’s n=1 Experiments: Atkins Nutritionals Protein Shakes

Posted by Jimmy Moore on July 26, 2011

Little did I know when I started my n=1 experiments in May 2011 that they would so quickly capture the intense attention of my readers and the manufacturers of the products I am testing. It all started with Dreamfields pasta which unfortunately tracked virtually identical blood sugar response as white pasta despite their claim that one serving size has 5g “protected carbs” on blood sugar. When I asked Dreamfields President Mike Crowley to explain why this happened in an interview, all he could say is “we stand behind the nutritional claims of our low-carb pasta.” I was disappointed to say the least.

Then last month I moved on to Julian Bakery SmartCarb breads made into grilled cheese sandwiches using coconut oil and cheese (which is how many low-carbers who were purchasing this bread probably used it). The blood sugar testing results I shared started a firestorm of responses from a representative there named Heath Squier (who ironically showed very similar poor blood sugar control after eating the SmartCarb #1 bread which he described as “great results”) who claimed his 1-2g net carb breads produce “almost no increase in blood sugar” in anyone who consumes them alone. He went on and on about how the couple of grams of natural sugars contained in the cheese I consumed with his breads led to the huge spike in my blood sugar and that this made my test results invalid. This was totally bogus and I knew it was merely a smokescreen excuse.

Nevertheless, I gave Heath the benefit of the doubt and retested my blood sugar consuming just the SmartCarb breads alone. The result? My blood sugar results were even worse eating just the bread than they were with the coconut oil and cheese. A lot of hemming and hawing ensued after I published my second set of tests and I continually asked Heath for a logical explanation about what happened to my blood sugar when this bread is supposed to be “low-carb.” All I ever heard from him was that my “results are not typical” and that within two weeks there would be plenty of examples from the over 100,000 customers nationwide that would counter my results. It’s now six weeks later and there’s only been this one blood sugar test result from a Type 1 diabetic eating SmartCarb #1 bread published so far. I welcome more people who doubt my results to test for yourself. Again, that’s what this n=1 experiment is really all about.

After all, lest anyone following my n=1 experiments forgets, this is merely one man’s blood sugar response to a series of food products purporting to be “low-carb” and ANYONE can replicate them for themselves quite easily (if they don’t mind pricking themselves as many as 10-15 times each day for the glucometer readings). What I happen to see with my blood sugar levels doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing will happen to YOU! So, as my friend Jenny Ruhl says on her popular “Blood Sugar 101″ web site, you just gotta “Test test test!”

When I started testing my blood sugar levels and posting the results on my blog, some of my fellow non-diabetic friends and readers scoffed at the notion of testing blood sugar levels since we’re not diabetic. But anyone who has read my blog or listened to my podcast for any length of time already knows that keeping blood glucose levels under control is of the utmost importance (the amazing Dr. William Davis from “The Heart Scan Blog” refers to this kind of self-testing as “Glucomania”). Out of control blood sugar levels is arguably the worst thing metabolically for your body to endure. Consuming foods that keep blood sugars stabilized as opposed to an erratic up and down rollercoaster ride is ideal for optimal overall health.

That’s why so many of us with compromised metabolisms and hormones that are out of whack enjoy livin’ la vida low-carb so much. Keeping our carbohydrate intake limited primarily to green leafy and non-starchy vegetables while consuming ample amounts of healthy fats and proteins from quality sources of meats, eggs, cheeses, nuts, seeds, and more makes improved metabolic health and balanced hormone levels happen rather effortlessly. This is the very essence of low-carb living that helps keep so many of us happy, healthy and satisfied better than any other way of eating out there bar none! The miracle that is low-carb has kept me motivated to keep sharing about it for over six years and I plan on continuing to shout it from the mountaintops for many more years to come.

Because we all live busy lives, it can sometimes be a bit hairy trying to find access to good nourishment for our bodies that won’t compromise our low-carb lifestyle commitment. At the same time, so many companies out there claim to have good low-carb products for people who are on-the-go. Today I have the first set of product test results from what is arguably the biggest name in low-carb food manufacturing and distribution today: Atkins Nutritionals.

Bearing the famous name of the late great Dr. Robert C. Atkins, this company has been putting out low-carb protein shakes, breakfast bars, candy and other such foods for people on carbohydrate-restricted diets for over two decades. People write to me all the time asking whether these Atkins products are good for people following a low-carb diet. My answer has always been the same: try them for yourself, test your blood sugar response, and respond accordingly. Since I’ve given out that suggestion so many times over the years, I wanted to do it for myself over this past week to see what my results would be as part of the next phase of my n=1 experiments. With such an enormous product line, I decided to start off my testing with the Atkins Daybreak Protein Shakes.

Keep in mind, I don’t normally drink protein shakes. I’d personally rather have some delicious local pastured farm eggs cooked in some coconut oil that takes me three minutes max to whip up in a pan. But I know some people get tired of eggs or can’t stand them, so they may be considering adding the Atkins shakes to their low-carb menus. If I were going on a trip somewhere and wanted to have a snack on hand for the plane or car ride, then perhaps I would turn to the Atkins shakes as an option. I wonder what would happen to my blood sugar after consuming this product that claims to have just 2g net carbs? That’s what I wanted to find out while comparing the Atkins shakes to their major competitor Kellogg’s Special K Protein Shakes as well as other typical breakfast beverages that people would consume, including orange juice (UGH!), 2% milk, and raw whole milk (sold legally in my home state of South Carolina).

Because it’s been kinda busy in the Moore household since finding out Christine is pregnant after 16 years of trying to have kids and my jam-packed podcast recording schedule this month, I was only able to test in 15-minute increments for two hours instead of the more preferred three hours. Even still, the results I received provided some truly incredible information that I think you will find both noteworthy and eyebrow-raising. Hopefully it inspires you to do some testing of your own.

Are you ready for the results? Check ‘em out:

Atkins Daybreak Wild Berry Protein Shake
SERVING SIZE: 11 fl oz
CALORIES: 140
TOTAL CARBS: 10g
DIETARY FIBER: 7g
SUGARS: 0g
NET CARBS: 2g
TOTAL FAT: 9g
PROTEIN: 10g

Blood sugar testing results–July 14, 2011 from 9:15AM-11:15AM

Fasting reading: 105
Peak reading: 108
Low reading: 93

Atkins Daybreak Creamy Chocolate Protein Shake
SERVING SIZE: 11 fl oz
CALORIES: 140
TOTAL CARBS: 10g
DIETARY FIBER: 7g
SUGARS: 0g
NET CARBS: 3g
TOTAL FAT: 9g
PROTEIN: 10g

Blood sugar testing results–July 15, 2011 from 8:15AM-10:15AM

Fasting reading: 98
Peak reading: 108
Low reading: 92

Kellogg’s Special K Strawberry Protein Shake
SERVING SIZE: 10 fl oz
CALORIES: 180
TOTAL CARBS: 29g
DIETARY FIBER: 5g
SUGARS: 18g
NET CARBS: 24g
TOTAL FAT: 5g
PROTEIN: 10g

Blood sugar testing results–July 16, 2011 from 7:00AM-9:00AM

Fasting reading: 105
Peak reading: 127
Low reading: 81

Simply Orange Original Pulp Free 100% Pure Orange Juice
SERVING SIZE: 13.5 fl oz
CALORIES: 190
TOTAL CARBS: 45g
DIETARY FIBER: 0g
SUGARS: 41g
NET CARBS: 45g
TOTAL FAT: 0g
PROTEIN: 3g

Blood sugar testing results–July 18, 2011 from 8:45AM-11:00AM

Fasting reading: 104
Peak reading: 142
Low reading: 104

Southern Home 2% Reduced Fat Pasteurized/Homogenized Milk
SERVING SIZE: 8 fl oz
CALORIES: 130
TOTAL CARBS: 12g
DIETARY FIBER: 0g
SUGARS: 12g
NET CARBS: 12g
TOTAL FAT: 5g
PROTEIN: 8g

Blood sugar testing results–July 19, 2011 from 9:00AM-11:00AM

Fasting reading: 108
Peak reading: 117
Low reading: 102

Milky Way Farm Raw Milk
SERVING SIZE: 8 fl oz
CALORIES: 160
TOTAL CARBS: 12g
DIETARY FIBER: 0g
SUGARS: 12g
NET CARBS: 12g
TOTAL FAT: 9g
PROTEIN: 9g

Blood sugar testing results–July 21, 2011 from 8:30AM-10:30AM

Fasting reading: 101
Peak reading: 106
Low reading: 99

Here’s a composite graph of all of the blood sugar readings from these experiments:

What did you think about these test results? Here are my quick observations:

  • The Atkins shakes seemed to have a minimal impact on my blood sugar
  • That Special K Protein Shake dropped my blood sugar nearly 40 points in 30 minutes
  • Predictably, orange juice produced a huge sustained blood sugar spike
  • There was severe hypoglycemia only with Special K (not even OJ)
  • 2% milk showed a slow rise in blood sugar and then not that much
  • Raw milk, despite having 12g carbs, saw a flatline glucose response
  • I felt most hungry after consuming the OJ and Special K protein shake

    It appears that the Atkins shakes aren’t such a bad option for me when I’m on the go or away from home and need a quick something. It’s also curious that raw milk performed the best among all the tests I conducted. Does this mean I should add it into my low-carb diet as another real food source of fat and protein as well as other healthy nutrients despite the extra carbohydrates? Perhaps I will. You just never know what you’re gonna find out when you test your blood sugars on various foods. One thing is for certain: I won’t be drinking orange juice or Special K Protein Shakes again anytime soon!

    We’re just getting started with the Atkins Nutritionals n=1 experiments though. Now that the Atkins shakes performed well for my blood sugars, how about those Atkins Advantage bars meant as a snack or meal replacement? We’ll see what if any impact they have on my blood glucose numbers in August and then I’ll tackle the Atkins Endulge candy bars in September. It’ll be interesting to see what happens and I’ll be sure to share all the results here at my blog when I start testing again in about a month. For now, my fingers need a rest from all the pricking. If you have conducted blood sugar tests on the Atkins shakes, then I’d love to have you share your results in the comments section below.

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    Jimmy Moore is the popular blogger, podcaster and author of Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb who lost 180 pounds on the Atkins diet in 2004 and quickly established himself as a highly influential layperson in the field of health and nutrition. His wildly successful Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Blog has been educating, encouraging and inspiring readers since 2005 and his accompanying iTunes podcast The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore is one of the most listened to health broadcasts online today featuring hundreds of enchanting interviews with the leading voices in the world of diet and healthy living! Jimmy’s latest book compiling all the knowledge he has learned along his journey is called 21 Life Lessons From Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb: How The Health Low-Carb Lifestyle Changed Everything I Thought I Knew. He lives in Spartanburg, SC with his beautiful wife Christine and their three cats!

    • Posted in blood sugar, jimmy moore, livin lavida lo-carb | 2 Comments »

    Fresh The Movie

    Posted by Kevin Brown on July 25, 2011

    FRESH the movie

    Wild Alaskan salmon is one of the most sustainable and healthy fish you can find. But if we don’t act now, it may disappear forever. Critical breeding grounds for wild salmon are endangered by the proposed construction of America’s largest open pit copper and gold mine, deep in the heart of Bristol Bay, Alaska.

    Next year, developers plan to apply for permits for the construction of Pebble Mine. It’s not too late for us to stop them if we act now. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently considering requests from stakeholders to use its power under the Clean Water Act to protect Bristol Bay. In partnership with Parent Earth and Trout Unlimited, we’re combining grassroots forces to take action.

    Tell the EPA: Protect our natural resources, not corporate interests. Toxic mines do not belong next to the world’s last great wild salmon fishery.

    Pebble Mine would cover 20 square miles in the Bristol Bay watershed, in a seismically active region, and require the construction of the world’s largest earthen dam for a 10 square mile waste containment pond. Up to 10 billion tons of toxic mine wastes could be produced. Any release of these wastes could cause irreparable damage to the Bristol Bay salmon runs.

    Even worse: while our wild salmon are under threat, genetically-modified salmon may be introduced to the market any day. From our friends at Parent Earth, we’ve brought you exclusive footage with Paul Greenberg, best-selling author of Four Fish. Check it out! He explains why hybrid Frankensalmon has no place on our tables, especially when we have an abundant, healthy alternative.

    Speak up now to protect our nation’s most valuable 40-million strong salmon run. Tell the EPA: Pebble Mine poses an unacceptable threat to Bristol Bay’s delicate ecosystem.

    It’s not just salmon that is at stake here—this is a fight for balanced, nourishing ecosystems. We’re standing up for the preservation of natural resources over artificial substitutes, for protecting public goods over corporate interests.

    Sincerely,

    Ana, Crystal, Sarah & Nicole
    The FRESH and Parent Earth Teams

    © 2008 FRESH the movie – New thinking on what we’re eating.

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    Posted in Big Agriculture, Family Wellness, Food freedom, heart disease, liberation diet, liberation wellness, Nutrition, raw milk, weston price | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

    Surviving With Local Plants

    Posted by Kevin Brown on July 25, 2011

    Lehigh Valley Chapter of  THE WESTON  A. PRICE FOUNDATION®

    c/o Alan Stangl, DC, 933 N 4 St, Allentown PA 18102 – 610-434-7562

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

    For Health News, Food & Farming News, Community News, and Calendar Listings:
    For more info, contact Alan Stangl, DC, (610-434-7562) or Martin Boksenbaum (610-767-1287)
    —————————
    7/29/11 — Surviving With Local Plants
    John Keim, an Amish farmer noted for decades helping the sick and injured, will speak about “Surviving With Local Plants” in Sayre Hall at the Cathedral Church of the Nativity, 321 Wyandotte Street (Rte 378), Bethlehem — just south of the Hill-to-Hill Bridge. Doors open at 6:00pm. The presentation begins at 6:30pm. Free admission (donations welcome). Sponsored by the Lehigh Valley Chapter of The Weston A Price Foundation, a nonprofit organization.
    John will talk about:
                      •  re-localizing food production as a matter of survival
                      •  caring for life-threatening situations with local plants
    More about the Event
    Local producers may bring grass-fed, organic, and/or biodynamic products for sampling or sale. Attendees can check out the produce tables before and after the presentation (bring your coolers!). Books & videos will also be available.
    Ample on-site parking lot. Large parking lot accessible from Wyandotte; small parking lot accessible from W 3rd St.
    About the Speaker
    John Keim, author of Comfort for the Burned and Wounded, is a farmer, blacksmith, and healer. A keen observer and insightful thinker, John has developed procedures, protocols, and nutritional programs for healing people in emergency and life-threatening situations. These protocols have helped people grow new skin on scalded and burnt areas, saved limbs from amputation, rid people of infections and swellings, and stopped hemorrhages.
    About The Weston A. Price Foundation
    The Weston A. Price Foundation is a nonprofit, tax-exempt charity founded in 1999 to disseminate the research of nutrition pioneer Weston A. Price, DDS, whose studies of isolated nonindustrialized peoples established the parameters of human health and determined the optimum characteristics of human diets. Dr. Price’s research demonstrated that men and women achieve optimal physical form and health, generation after generation, when they consume nutrient-dense whole foods and the vital fat-soluble activators found exclusively in animal fats, whereas they have numerous physical form and health problems when they switch from their traditional diets to the displacing foods of Western commerce, such as foods made with white sugar and white flour, canned goods, and commercially-processed foods.
    The Foundation is dedicated to restoring nutrient-dense foods to the American diet through education, research and activism and supports a number of movements that contribute to this objective, including accurate nutrition instruction, organic and biodynamic farming, pasture-feeding of livestock, community supported farms, honest and informative labeling, prepared parenting and nurturing therapies. Specific goals include establishment of universal access to clean, certified raw milk and a ban on the use of soy-based infant formula.
    About the Lehigh Valley Chapter (WAPF-LV)
    WAPF-LV hosts public presentations dealing with food, nutrition, health, and food-producing systems, and publishes a newsletter. As part of WAPF-LV’s efforts to connect local food producers and consumers, we also publish a directory of local farms. For more info, contact Alan Stangl, DC, (610-434-7562) or Martin Boksenbaum (610-767-1287).
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    Posted in Big Agriculture, Family Wellness, Food freedom, heart disease, liberation diet, liberation wellness, Nutrition, raw milk, weston price | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

    Healthy News

    Posted by Kevin Brown on July 25, 2011

    Lehigh Valley Chapter of  THE WESTON  A. PRICE FOUNDATION®

    c/o Alan Stangl, DC, 933 N 4 St, Allentown PA 18102 – 610-434-7562

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

    For Health News, Food & Farming News, Community News, and Calendar Listings:
    For more info, contact Alan Stangl, DC, (610-434-7562) or Martin Boksenbaum (610-767-1287)
    —————————
    7/30/11 — Natural Treatments for Scaldings, Burns, Bone Fractures, Swellings, Wounds and Other Injuries
    On Saturday, 7/30/11, an all day presentation/workshop with John Keim, an Amish farmer noted for decades helping the sick and injured, on  “Natural Treatments for Scaldings, Burns, Bone Fractures, Swellings, Wounds and Other Injuries”. It will be held from 8:30am – 4pm at Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church, 3355 MacArthur Rd (Rte 145), Whitehall.
    Some of the natural treatments John will cover: leaf dressings, poultices, natural salves, methods of use, the monitoring of treatments, foods, supplements.
    $25/person; $45/couple. Brown-bag lunch – snacks available. Send checks payable to WAPF-LV to WAPF-LV, c/o Alan Stangl, DC, 933 N 4 St, Allentown PA 18102. For info & to register: 610-434-7562 or 610-767-1287 or wapf-lv@wapf.org
    More about the  7/30/11 Event
    Registration will enable us to better plan for the amount of snack foods (being made available by a farmer) to have at the presentation/workshop.
    Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church, on Rte 145, is 2.5 miles north of Rte 22, just beyond the shopping malls & cemeteries. Right at light onto Municipal Dr, 1st left onto Joab Rd. On-site parking.
    This is a special presentation of the Lehigh Valley Chapter of The Weston A Price Foundation, a nonprofit organization.
    Note:
    On Friday, 7/29/11, John Keim, will speak about “Surviving With Local Plants” in Sayre Hall at the Cathedral Church of the Nativity, 321 Wyandotte Street (Rte 378), Bethlehem — just south of the Hill-to-Hill Bridge. Doors open at 6:00pm. The presentation begins at 6:30pm. Free admission (donations welcome). Sponsored by the Lehigh Valley Chapter of The Weston A Price Foundation as one of its ongoing quarterly public presentations.

    About the Speaker

    John Keim, author of Comfort for the Burned and Wounded, is a farmer, blacksmith, and healer. A keen observer and insightful thinker, John has developed procedures, protocols, and nutritional programs for healing people in emergency and life-threatening situations. These protocols have helped people grow new skin on scalded and burnt areas, saved limbs from amputation, rid people of infections and swellings, and stopped hemorrhages.

    About The Weston A. Price Foundation

    The Weston A. Price Foundation is a nonprofit, tax-exempt charity founded in 1999 to disseminate the research of nutrition pioneer Weston A. Price, DDS, whose studies of isolated nonindustrialized peoples established the parameters of human health and determined the optimum characteristics of human diets. Dr. Price’s research demonstrated that men and women achieve optimal physical form and health, generation after generation, when they consume nutrient-dense whole foods and the vital fat-soluble activators found exclusively in animal fats, whereas they have numerous physical form and health problems when they switch from their traditional diets to the displacing foods of Western commerce, such as foods made with white sugar and white flour, canned goods, and commercially-processed foods.
    The Foundation is dedicated to restoring nutrient-dense foods to the American diet through education, research and activism and supports a number of movements that contribute to this objective, including accurate nutrition instruction, organic and biodynamic farming, pasture-feeding of livestock, community supported farms, honest and informative labeling, prepared parenting and nurturing therapies. Specific goals include establishment of universal access to clean, certified raw milk and a ban on the use of soy-based infant formula.
    About the Lehigh Valley Chapter (WAPF-LV)
    WAPF-LV hosts public presentations dealing with food, nutrition, health, and food-producing systems, and publishes a newsletter. As part of WAPF-LV’s efforts to connect local food producers and consumers, we also publish a directory of local farms. For more info, contact Alan Stangl, DC, (610-434-7562) or Martin Boksenbaum (610-767-1287).
    Enhanced by Zemanta

    Posted in Big Agriculture, Family Wellness, Food freedom, heart disease, liberation diet, liberation wellness, Nutrition, raw milk, weston price | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

    Enjoying the Bounty of the Season

    Posted by Maureen Diaz on July 25, 2011

    Garden Produce

    A portion of what a 5 minute foray into the garden yielded

    You may have wondered where I have been lately. It isn’t that there has been nothing to write about, nor that I’ve no longer an interest in this blog. But rather, we have been busy as beavers around this place, working hard and enjoying the bounty of the season!

    Our family has a lovely 10 acre parcel in a mountain valley of South Central Pennsylvania. And on that piece of ground we raise much of our family’s food, something which I think most families could actually do so long as they have at least 2 or 3 acres of dirt and a little determination :)

    For years we have raised a family cow for fresh milk, yogurt, butter, cheese, kefir, and meat (the annual calf or two). This year our “Lady” blessed us with 2 calves-quite a delightful surprise! We will have plentiful beef in the coming years and for now have lots of good, rich milk, abundant manure for the garden and pastures, as well as enjoyment as we all work together in the care of these animals.

    It doesn’t take a lot of land to raise chickens, and we have about 160 of them growing right now, some for eggs and most for meat. We started butchering 2 weeks ago and have already enjoyed our first delicious chicken dinner, with more in the freezer- mmm! There is nothing like a meal of roasted chicken stuffed with fresh herbs and homemade butter! We look forward to many such meals, accompanied by vegetables still warm from the sun and fruit from our orchard!

    Years ago a variety of fruit trees were planted and an orchard formed. Were we to do it all over again, I believe it would have been lovely to simply incorporate these beautiful trees into the landscape. However as it is, we now have a beautiful, mature orchard which bears much fruit. The peaches are just on the brink of being ripe, and the blackberries will also be  coming in by the bushel: I feel some blackberry/peach smoothies coming on, made with our own creamy yogurt and a touch of local, raw honey. What could be better?!

    While we still could do far more with the land we have, I am grateful for what we have accomplished and what it brings to the table: milk, meat, eggs, vegetables, fruit, and perhaps next year there will again be honey, lamb and pork. I want to encourage you to see what you can do where you are. Much of our salad greens & a few tomatoes were grown in a container on a porch, as are bountiful herbs. Chickens don’t take up much space at all, and are easy to raise (fun, too!). And all it takes is about 1-2 acres per large animal for meat and milk (for goats and sheep, even less), when managed properly. With today’s uncertain times and our government making it difficult at best to obtain good quality, nutrient-dense, and clean food, maybe it’s time we all think about what we can do to provide for our own?

    Maureen Diaz is a homeschooling mother of 9, a WAPF chapter leader, and a certified LW Nutritionist. She also has produced 3 cooking DVD’s including her latest, Liberation Wellness Home Cooking. Check out & order her DVD’s on her website, www.nourishingtraditionalcook.com 

    Togetherness makes this job fun!

    When the day’s chores are done, it’s time to go fishin’!

    An assortment of chickens growing in a portable pen

    Posted in Family Wellness, farm fresh, Food freedom, Food Politics, Food Safety, fresh and local, grass fed beef, liberation wellness, Local Foods, Maureen Diaz, Nutrition, raw milk, real food, real foods, Total Wellness, vegetables, wellness | Tagged: , , , , | 4 Comments »

    Posted by Kevin Brown on July 22, 2011

    NEWS RELEASE


    SAVE YOUR SUPPLEMENTSWrite the FDA Now – Here’s Why & How

    By Scott Tips

    July 19, 2011

    Everyone with even an ounce of common sense has grave concerns about the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s recently released Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues.  This Agency sprang this trap on both industry and consumers without seeking any prior input from us at all.  It had almost 17 years to seek our opinion before coming out with this document, and now they are giving us a miserly 90 days to respond with our comments.  Why is this issue so important?

    The Erosion of Our Health Rights

    When the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) was passed, contrary to what the mainstream media falsely reports, the law did not remove dietary supplements from the regulatory oversight of the FDA.  What it did do is to remove the FDA’s arbitrary powers of life and death over supplements so that they could be treated more like foods rather than as drugs.  The innovative tidal wave that was unleashed as a result of this breakout from regulatory prison resulted in some 1,000 new products a year in this market.  What an incredible difference DSHEA made, and we all benefitted from the prison break.  Oh, wait, the FDA’s drug-industry bosom-buddies did not benefit.  And that is something they have never forgotten and have been fuming over ever since.

    Not without their cohorts in U.S. Congress, the drug industry’s lobbyists have been pushing for years to hamstring DSHEA and its freedoms.  For more than a decade, they have failed.  But for the last several years, they have succeeded with sausage-slicing tactics that have gradually eroded DSHEA.  First, there was the Adverse Event Reporting law, then the law mandating “Good Manufacturing Practices,” and after that came the so-called FDA “Modernization” Act – each one designed to ratchet up the pressure on supplements, to drive out the smaller supplement manufacturers who could not keep up with the increasing regulatory costs demanded of them by these laws that were touted as making already-safe supplements “safe,” and to gradually eliminate individual supplements.  Were these laws ever truly designed to protect consumers?  No, these laws had only one purpose in mind: To make supplements more expensive, less available, and to drive the consumer back into the filthy arms of the drug pushers.

    This latest nonsense is straight out of the warped minds of the FDA’s Berchtesgaden nest of anti-health thugs.  They could care less about good health, certainly care less about you or me.  This has been proven so many, countless times over the decades of the Agency’s existence that there can no longer be even a shred of doubt.  The revolving door between the drug industry and the FDA is a never-stopping one.  Just witness its recent hiring of Johnson & Johnson’s executive Spielberg who was tapped by FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, as the latest deputy commissioner within the Office of the Commissioner to oversee the Agency’s drug and device centers.  This is not an exception, this is the rule.

    The Compromise

    Unfortunately, when DSHEA was passed, a compromise was reached in order to get unanimous passage.  The parties agreed that all dietary supplements not marketed as of the date of DSHEA’s passage (October 15, 1994) would be “new dietary ingredients” (NDIs) for which notification would be sent to the FDA.  At the time, some did not think much was wrong with this compromise.  After all, most supplements had already been discovered.  But, now, almost 17 years later, the health-food market is awash with these new dietary ingredients, such as resveratrol, ubiquinol, GABA, curcumin, and bioperine.  Notifications to the FDA have been made for many, but what is to happen to them now, with the FDA changing the law, all on its own?

    Fantasy Land

    This draft Guidance is a step into fantasy land.  One night the FDA went to sleep and had a wonderful dream, a dream about a land where bureaucrats reigned supreme and the common citizen answered to every edict that flowed from the lovely bureaucrats’ mouths.  If the bureaucrat said jump, then the citizen would jump; if the bureaucrat said roll over, then the citizen would roll over.  It was a wonderful place, this bureau-paradise.  But then the FDA woke up, and the non-dream reality was not nearly that perfect, yet the urge to make it bureau-perfect remained.  Hence, these constant bureaucratic attempts to whittle down our freedoms until we can only jump to the tune of some unknown functionary sitting in some unknown office thinking that he or she knows better for us than we do.

    This draft Guidance is just such an attempt.  It turns the law on its head by changing a very basic notification system into an approval system subject to the arbitrary whims of the FDA.  It requires very safe NDIs to go through unnecessary, expensive tests so that they can meet drug-like safety requirements.  In essence, this Guidance ignores the incredible, proven safety record of supplements, both new and old.  The FDA can produce no dead bodies whatsoever coming from the use of these new dietary ingredients.

    Yet the FDA, ignoring the many tens of thousands of actual dead bodies coming from its expensive drug-approval regulatory regime, wants to imprint that badly flawed drug-approval regime upon the dietary-supplement market.  In doing so, it ignores the clear intent of Congress when passing DSHEA that “the Federal Government should not take any actions to impose unreasonable regulatory barriers limiting or slowing the flow of safe products and accurate information to consumers” and that “the right of access of consumers to safe dietary supplements is necessary in order to promote wellness.”

    Flood Them with Letters

    The Guidance document is not law, but it is a clear expression of how the FDA intends to enforce its interpretation of the law.  This interpretation is badly flawed.  And its implementation will result in unnecessary high costs, arbitrary discrimination against small- and medium-sized businesses that will put thousands of people out of work by destroying jobs in a time of economic decline, and the loss of many useful and healthful supplements.

    The FDA must withdraw this Guidance document at once, consult with industry and consumers on a longer-term basis than this miserly 90-day period, and come out with a new Guidance that better reflects the realities of the marketplace and the safe track record of supplements, including those with NDIs.  The FDA’s proposed document is unauthorized under Law and will guarantee a backlash of legislative action the likes of which have not been seen in this legislative arena since the passage of DSHEA in 1994.  The NHF suggests that the cut-off date for NDIs either be eliminated entirely or else pushed forward to a date 15 years after 1994.

    Please mail, fax, or e-mail your protest letter (Click Here for Sample Letter) to the FDA as soon as possible, but in no event later than October 1st of this year.  They need to be awakened from dreamland.

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    Click here for the permanent link to this news release, use this link to inform others.


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    National Health Federation: Established in 1955, the National Health Federation is a consumer-education, health-freedom organization working to protect individuals’ rights to choose to consume healthy food, take supplements and use alternative therapies without unnecessary government restrictions. The NHF is the only such organization with recognized observer-delegate status at Codex meetings.

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    Posted in Big Agriculture, Family Wellness, Food freedom, heart disease, liberation diet, liberation wellness, Nutrition, raw milk, weston price | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

    SOY: Beneficial or Detrimental?

    Posted by Beck Anderson, RYT 200 on July 14, 2011

    In the health food section at my local grocery store, there is a healthy amount of space dedicated to soy products. If an unsuspecting person decided I want to eat healthy, and went to the Health Food Section uninformed, he or she would assume all items in the section were healthy. But is soy healthy?

    Soy was first used in Asia as a cover crop to enrich soil. Much later Asians used it to season and enrich their meals, only after the Chinese learned to ferment soy beans to make foods like tempeh, natto and tamari. In the West, soy was first used to make paper coatings, glues and even in fire-fighting foam. In the 1950s food companies began producing soy isolate and soy lecithin. Now soy is everywhere: soups, imitation meats, non-dairy creamers, infant formulas, cereals, protein powders, etc.
    Read the rest of this entry »

    Posted in Dr. Kaayla Daniels, Kaayla T. Daniel, Uncategorized, wapf, Weston A. Price Foundation, weston price | 1 Comment »

    How Often Should I Brush My Teeth?

    Posted by Dr. Richard Walicki on July 11, 2011

    Sounds like a pretty basic question for a dentist, doesn’t it? In fact, I’m not really asked that question often because “everybody knows” you should brush your teeth twice a day. But should you really?

    After all, you can pick up almost any tube of toothpaste and it says right there” brush twice daily, or as directed by your dentist”.

    Some time ago, I started asking patients how often they brushed their teeth when they came in for their periodic cleanings. The most common answer – by far – is “twice a day.” My next question is usually, “Yes, but when during the day do you brush?” As you read this, many of you who do brush twice daily are thinking “when I get up and again before I go to bed.”

    If you have experienced dental cavities, that could be part of the problem.

    When I mention this to patients I usually get this sort of silent stare. It’s kind of a cross between, “well that makes no sense at all” or, “then I might as well just give up.”

    Let me explain.

    It starts with an understanding of what causes dental cavities. There are a few basic elements. The most obvious is that you need to have a tooth. Additionally, you need cavity-causing bacteria. Then you also need a fermentable carbohydrate. This is an important point. Carbohydrates include sugars and starches, but the process of fermentation creates acids. Once the acids form, there is another element that comes into play: time.

    If we break these factors down further, it is useful to look at what we can control in the cavity-causing process. For the sake of argument, let’s assume we are starting out with a full set of teeth, so that’s not entirely in our control. Next, there is the factor of cavity-causing bacteria. We all have both good and bad bacteria in our mouths. While I could get into a discussion of promoting the good and suppressing the bad, this is also not always easily controlled.

    The next two factors, however, we have a great deal of control over.

    We can control what we eat. Recognition of which foods are acid forming is also useful. But I’m a realist and understand that sometimes we are just going to eat (or drink) those things anyway.

    And this is where the time factor comes in.

    A little analogy may be helpful here. What would you do if you spilled a strong acid on your bare skin? Chances are you would run right over to the nearest sink and try to wash it off. But what if you had a leather jacket on and didn’t notice right away? First of all, you would end up with a hole in your jacket, but eventually – with time – it would reach your skin and start to hurt.

    It’s much the same with teeth. Your enamel is a protective layer that doesn’t have any feeling because it is mostly mineral and doesn’t contain any nerves. But given enough time, the acid – even a weak one – breaks through and gets to the underlying softer and more sensitive areas.

    So, don’t give it time.

    Change your brushing habits and do so after every meal. About a half hour after eating is ideal. If you absolutely can’t brush on occasion, chewing a sugarless gum (preferably containing xylitol) can help.

    What most people do, though, is wake up and brush. Then they have breakfast and don’t brush. The acids that are formed following the meal slowly dissolve our tooth enamel. Roughly when the acids wear off, they have another meal or a snack and freshen up the acid. Few people brush after lunch, so it’s a few more hours of wearing the enamel away. Just when that acid wears off people freshen it up again with dinner. They don’t always brush after dinner either, so the acid now has even more time to work. Finally, they brush before going to bed. This cycle can, and typically does, go on for days, weeks, months and years. Given enough time, the cavity becomes large enough to require a filling.

    So, if you only eat two meals a day, brushing twice a day is probably fine. But if you eat three times a day, how often should you brush? You get the idea.

    The really odd thing is that I can go over this with someone thinking they get it. A couple of years later, I’ll ask: “How often do you brush your teeth?” Believe it or not, the answer is often the same as when I asked the first time. Hopefully, however, you will get it. Remember also that you can’t ignore flossing and expect to escape cavities, even if you do brush after every meal. The area between your teeth can’t be reached by the toothbrush bristles. About a third of all cavities filled by dentists occur in this location.

    Nevertheless, if you follow the advice above I think you will find yourself encountering far less tooth decay over the years. Hoping it works for you as well as it has for me.

    Posted in Dr. Richard Walicki, health, oral health, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

    Raw Milk Freedom

    Posted by Kevin Brown on July 11, 2011

    On May 16th, Representative Ron Paul asked,

    “If we are not even free anymore to decide something as basic as what we wish to eat or drink, how much freedom do we really have left?”

    Paul was talking about the FDA ban on the interstate sale of raw milk for human consumption — milk that has not been pasteurized. The ban began in 1987, but the FDA didn’t really begin enforcing it seriously until 2006 — when the government began sting operations and armed raids of dairy farmers and their willing customers.

    The New American reports:

    “Even if the FDA were correct in its assertions about the dangers of raw milk, its prohibition on interstate raw milk sales would still be, as Paul termed it, ‘an unconstitutional misapplication of the commerce clause for legislative ends’ …

    Saying he is ‘outraged’ by the FDA’s raids on peaceful dairy farmers and their customers, Paul has introduced legislation … ‘to allow the shipment and distribution of unpasteurized milk and milk products for human consumption across state lines,’ in effect reversing the FDA’s unconstitutional ban on such sales.”

    The “Food Safety Modernization Act” that was enacted earlier this year gives the FDA almost unlimited authority to decide if food is harmful, even without credible evidence. But farmers who have been persecuted by the FDA for selling raw milk, like Amish Farmer Dan Allgyer, are not backing down. Allgyer’s case is going to court.

    Citizens are irate that the FDA allows damaging junk food, but prevents people from making an educated, informed food choice in purchasing raw grass-fed milk.

    According to the Washington Times, Attorney Jonathan Emord, who has defeated the FDA in court eight times, is focusing on the deeper issues that this case stems from. Emord says:

    “We would not be here today were it not for the fact that over the past seventy-five years, the Congress of the United States has delegated away to some 230 independent regulatory commissions the power to make law, the power to execute the law, and the power to judge law violation. That delegation of governing power from Congress to the unelected heads of the regulatory agencies violates the Constitution, which vests exclusively in Congress the obligation to make law”.

    Kevin Brown is President of Liberation Wellness and co-author of the Liberation Diet. He serves as a Fellow on the National Board of Fitness Examiners, and is president of Visionary Trainers. Kevin and his wife Tracy are Chapter leaders for the Weston A. Price foundation, a non-profit organization that is helping restore real food to its rightful place in the American diet.
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    Posted in Big Agriculture, Family Wellness, Food freedom, heart disease, liberation diet, liberation wellness, Nutrition, raw milk, weston price | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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