Celiac Disease

If your earthly existence depended on it, could you stop eating one particular food if it just about instantly reinstated your health entitlement? Wouldn’t it blow your medulla oblongata if the guilty foodstuff, wheat of all things, was the source of your illness?
“I’m inexplicably depressed. My rumbling gastrointestinal tribulations, asthma, iron deficiency anemia, heart burn, low energy and early osteoporosis bring me down”. Unable to connect the dots, for decades, Ima suffered. The darling 65 year old, bless her heart, couldn’t understand why she was constantly bloated and cramping, flatulent and couldn’t summon the gumption to socialize. She already conceded her familial genes were responsible for her uncharacteristic early-life osteoarthritis.
After carpet bombing her innards with pharmaceutical drugs, her doctor tested for Celiac Disease (CD). Gluten intolerance appeared. One week into a wheat-free diet, she’d never felt better; human, joyful, eager to socialize by hanging with her silver-haired homeys; free. It’s startling how many seniors have undiagnosed CD because of wheat; one of the world's most important food crops. Her blessed relief lay right before her eyes.
Until the mid-1990’s people didn’t believe CD could develop in older people because it was considered a disease of childhood; ‘failing to thrive’. Foods made from wheat and certain grains contain a protein called gluten. If you have CD, every time you eat gluten an immune reaction aggressively attacks your vila destroying healthy tissues of the small intestine where nutrients are absorbed. This leads to a cascade of health tribulations. Even teeny amounts of gluten trigger the response.
In her mind she ate what she sincerely perceive as healthy cuisine; Raisin Bran with berries and walnuts for breakfast, whole wheat bread and lean turkey breast sandwich at lunch and in between some whole grain crackers and carrot sticks. At night, Ima ate brown rice, a breaded chicken breast with a dark green leafy salad with blue cheese dressing. Her absolutely favorite restaurant meal was a garden salad with croutons, Pasta Bolognese dusted with Parma and ‘more gooey garlic bread please’ washed down with a mug-o-beer. Sounds benign, however, most of these foods and beer contain various forms of gluten.
Ima Bovit, which she apparently wasn’t, is 1 in 10 Americans who needlessly suffer from the ancient malady; frightening allowing for the high death rate when undiagnosed. Mayo Clinic research teams studied data from the 45 year of follow-up of Air Force subjects showed those with undiagnosed celiac disease have a 400% higher risk of death than non-Celiacs. Two physicians I quizzed admit the medical fraternity has been sluggish to diagnose the ubiquitous disease which shortens life expectancy-- are you ready for this--- by a whopping 4.5 times. Its curious contemporary doctors can’t diagnose CD because as far back as 250 AD, Aretaeus of Cappadocia included detailed descriptions of a disease. He referred to his patients as kolliakos, meaning, ‘suffering in the bowels,’ later translated it to Celiacs.
Naturopathic PhD DR. Chuck Landon of Indianapolis shares “When CD symptoms should be the first condition that comes to mind, it’s often misdiagnosed. Modern medicine does not consider CD first because I believe they don’t have a drug for it. Celiacs get diagnosed as having irritable bowel syndrome, which in my opinion is a symptom, not a disease.”
It takes two to four weeks of a strict gluten-free diet before you start to feel groovy again, though some people get their mojo back within days. However, don't challenge your inner ecology by eating a large amount of wheat to see what happens. This is serious biz, so don’t loaf around. You could end up sicklier than before and cost you some serious bread. Gluten-free products abound at your community grocers. Not only is gluten found in grains like wheat, barley, rye, oats, malt and rye. It’s also added to countless foods. For example, some ice creams and ketchups contain gluten as a thickening agent. The simple answer: read labels to avoid wheat products and foods prepared with wheat. Be conscious and put food and disease in the same context; it may save your life. For excellent information and list of foods with gluten: http://customchoicecereal.com/blog/
Read recently published books and then turn to websites / support blogs run by Celiac organizations, noted celiac research centers and trusted Integrative Nutritionists. Dr. Landon suggests, “If you have any of the symptoms mentioned, simply eliminate all gluten bearing foods for a month. If things clear up continue on. Consult with an Integrative Physician and nutritionist who specialize in celiac disease before you embark on your quest for a return to wholeness. Sun dappled vegetables, fruits, beans, seeds and meats are gluten free foods”.
Ima thought her diet was above reproach and accepted age. Get checked for CD and free yourself.
The simple act of transcending just one pleasurable food can be life transforming.

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Stevia Not Truvia-Corporate

Hail Stevia!
Savvy Americans are awakening from a slumber of blind-trust after discovering the white sugar they’ve been eating is a proven human toxin; not the least compatible with the needs of the holy temple’s biochemistry. Ergo plagues of diabetes, hypoglycemia, hypertension, elevated cholesterol and triglycerides, increased arterial plaque, immune suppression, insulin resistance, obesity, H1N1 and heart disease freely loiter about a once-healthy citizenry. Bluntly, sugar sucks.

Subsequently, enlightened Americans seek rational alternatives to sugar and trustingly reach for the omnipresent pink, blue, and yellow packages of sweet death. When shopping, strut by the Sweet and Low, made from succulent coal tar, skip the tasty neurotoxin Nutra-Sweet, then waltz past deceitful Splenda; another abomination of a loving cosmos’ creations. Jim Turner, Chairman of the Board of the Health Advocacy Group Citizens for Health describes varying degrees of gastro-intestinal problems resulting from Splenda use. "... from irritation all the way up to serious bleeding ulcers requiring surgery," says Turner. Other health professionals report cases of cardiac problems, various allergic reactions. Instead, grasp a friendly green box of Sweet Leaf Stevia. All others fall short, since they are chemically altered.

Stevia was discovered by 16th century by Spanish Conquistadors who learned about stevia from the local Guarani and Mato Grosso Indians who used stevia leaves to sweeten their medicines and teas. Unfortunately, it’s only recently become available to Americans. Think of stevia like oregano or basil; however it leaves a sweet taste. No need for processing.
Modern scientific interests in the Stevia plant dates to the early 1900’s, however sugar lobbyists fought hard to keep their addictive, Diabesity-inducing, immune-suppressing crystal crap on the shelves in a mind-numbing constellation of processed food sludge. White sugar is irrefutably addictive, wielding its insidious power over the brain similar to opiate drugs of abuse.

The average portly, diabetic and constantly-sick American eats nearly 150 pounds a year. (Visualize 15 ten-pound bags). Overindulgence; sugar be thy name.
Caveat Emptor; we won’t get fooled again! Truvia is not the real thing baby. Truvia is another monstrous contrivance from the nutritional terrorists at Cargill whose total indifference regarding the wellbeing of their fellow countrymen borders treason. ‘Truvia’, also known as rebiana, is made by taking the best leaves of the stevia plant, drying and soaking them then isolating the active compound. In a moment of false hubris, the damaged bullies at Cargill Corporation felt God-like and altered Stevia’s original molecular structure, marking its turf like a dog to own it outright; God weeps at such selfish superiority. Why can’t man leave God’s work alone? Sweet Leaf’s founder, Jim May told me Stevia is made with only two ingredients; inulin, a natural vegetable fiber and Stevia leaf extract. Inulin is beneficial to good digestive health as it stimulates the growth of good intestinal flora supporting immune function. Sugar, the pink, blue and yellow death offers no health recompense.

Unlike sugar, no health issues have been reported, that is, unless you eat 4 pounds a day and rub it all over your body then snort it. Indigenous Japanese, where Stevia’s very common, accepted sweetener, have safely used stevia for generations. Alternatively, sugar trashes our immune system. Do you smell what I’m cookin’?

With diabetes and obesity a huge financially-depleting national health problem, none of you dear readers deserve to innocently put anything into the temple that comprises health. Health is about food, not synthesized doo-doo. Yes, it’s getting creepy out there. More and more we’re reading newspaper and TV reports revealing yet another product we trusted is, alas, seasoned generously with immoral corporate greed. Knowledge is power.

WISH TV-Celiac Disease Increase Baffles Doctors

(Gluten-free) Flourless Pumpkin Pancakes w/Homemade Blueberry Syrup

Over the last 50 years Celiac Disease has become much more common, affecting 1 out of 100 people. Doctors attribute this increase to changes in our environment and processed food-like substances alien to human physiology. (Mayo Clinic)
Celiac Disease is our immune system reacting to gluten in the diet by attacking villi in the small intestine where nutrients get absorbed A gluten-free diet is a must for people with celiac disease or an allergy to products containing wheat. Unfortunately, it goes largely undiagnosed.
It's not so easy being gluten free. Not only is gluten found in grains like wheat, barley, oats and rye, it's also added to many foods as a thickening agent. For example, some ice creams and even ketchup contain gluten. The simple solution: avoid wheat products and processed foods made with processed wheat.
At home Sandi and I prepare these fiberlicious, healthy and non-gluten pancakes for the family. If you’re discreet and don’t shine a floodlight on the change, no one will notice because they taste so darned good. Recently we’ve begun adding organic pumpkin puree and ground flax seed to goose up the nutrition, fiber and omega 3 essential fatty acids.
Please avoid Aunt Jamima Pancake mix as well as her Syrup. The pancake dry-mix brims with aluminum anti-caking agents, refined white flour (the villain) and the ‘syrup’ is composed of harmful High Fructose Corn Syrup and yummy artificial flavorings. Opt for the real thing. You and your loved ones deserve the best. Instead of artery detonating butter, try Smart Balance omega 3 fortified butter substitutes.
This scrumptious recipe yields many little pancakes or several biggies

Ingredients:

Gluten-Free Pancake Mix (Bob’s Red Mill & Hodgson Mills @ Grocery)

4 organic egg whites

1/3 cup of pumpkin puree

2 tbs. ground flaxseed meal (use a coffee grinder)

½ cup chopped walnuts

½ tsp of ‘real’ vanilla extract

1 tsp of cinnamon and a pinch of nutmeg
Directions:
Whisk the egg whites till lightly frothy.
Warm up the skillet or griddle to medium high heat
Per instructions, in a large bowl, mix spices and incorporate together with a wire whisk
Work in the egg whites, pumpkin puree, flax, walnuts and vanilla.
Lightly spray a griddle or pan and cook at medium heat.
Flip them only once when you see the first tiny bubbles form.
While the pancakes are browning, over low heat, gently warm the ‘real’ maple syrup.

Shut off the heat before it comes to a boil then add 1 cup of fresh or frozen blueberries.

Set aside
Serve immediately topped with your fresh, homemade blueberry syrup.

Grilled Cheese and Asparagus Recipe

Everyone loves the traditional American Icon, the Grilled Cheese Sandwich and tomato soup. We grew up on them with a steaming bowl of salty canned tomato soup. Well, how’s that working out for you? If you still make them with white bread, butter and Velveeta, well, you might consider altering the ingredients a bit to render this artery clogger a pleasantly satisfying, healthful lunch.
The processed white bread spikes blood sugar levels encouraging diabetes and contains nothing of any nutritional value. The Velveeta cheese is nothing but oil and then there’s the butter - well, you know.
This new version using Smart Balance, Soy Cheese and Whole Wheat Bread fools even my toughest critics; the grandkids. Simply don’t make a big deal of the change and no one will notice. Serve the sandwich with carrot, celery, radishes or broccoli pieces and buy BOXED soups in the healthy section of your grocers. Pacific brand is lovely. Brand name sops contain astronomical amounts of salt plus the interior lining of canned foods from coast to coast have been discovered to contain BPA; a carcinogen.
Prepare the classic sandwich in the traditional manner, over medium heat. You’ll be quite pleased.
Ingredients:Smart Balance MargarineEzekiel Bread-Loaded with fiber and proteinCarrot, celery, broccoli or asparagus spears as garnishGalaxie Brand Soy cheddar Cheese SlicesOrLow fat cheddar

Eating Resolutions 2010

Celebrate Life with Real Food

Teetering and sipping his sixth Eggnog, Uncle Jimmy slurred, “Isn’t life glorious? I’m so ‘bleshed’ to be alive to share this-hiccup-special day with my loving family”, as he and his Chicken Liver Rumaki ingloriously kerploped into a heap on the gift- wrap strewn floor.

Do you brawl with nutritional self-control? Who doesn’t during the holidays? We’re human. Do you have heart disease, diabetes, Crohn’s, RA, cancer or superfluous tonnage? Consider the grand-daddy of ironies; we celebrate meaningful life events by eating poor quality foods which slowly sabotage the privilege of pure health.

By now readers of this column are privy to valid scientific research signifying the most common ingredients humans worship; sugar, AP flour, animal fat, butter, kayo, cream, cheese and salt, are literally addictive. Yep, just like crack. Eating noxious, factory-refined foods stimulate the holy temple to produce the opiate Dopamine, the feel-good drug. Combine with addictive coffee, soft drinks, cigarettes, alcohol and pharmaceutical drugs, clearly we’re been molded, not by choice, into dead-food junkies. It’s not your fault, however. You simple trusted Betty Crocker and Ronald McDonald to be responsible. We can take down the ethically malnourished, out-of-touch corporate Fat Cats by ignoring their products. They don’t own you. Impractical and idealistic? Time has come today to challenge the twisted paradigm of factory produced food and to rejoice in our gift of life by returning to a more natural, preordained, non-suicidal, wholesome and sustainable way of eating and living. There are too many largely preventable chronic diseases here in America. Responsible scientists tell us these Post Industrial Revolution diseases are created by bogus, man-made food-like substances; main-stream brand name foods we consider our best buddies. Think before you eat. Carefully reflect upon your health-enhancing efforts thus far; remember eating consciously now yields handsome dividends as you age.

There are many ways to be a good steward of your temple. Avoid plastic food. In 2010, focus on foods of plant origin. Fruits, vegetables, beans, legumes, grains, nuts and seeds are not only good for you but their production requires fewer earthly resources. Selecting nutrient-rich living foods maximized healing nutrition and makes your food dollars count. Fat, sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, MSG, food colorings and salt-laden choices take up much shelf-space in today's supermarkets. Spending on whole food rather than excessive processing and packaging is smart money.

Think globally, eat locally. Every dollar spent on local foods is an investment in local agriculture and farmers. Keeping land in agriculture helps assure food security for future generations.

Reduce "food mile" intake. The mileage on your dinner plate represents fossil fuels burned and carbon dioxide emitted. Long distance food and beverage distribution means wear and tear on vehicles and infrastructure, eventually requiring dwindling natural resources to restore.
Spice up your kitchen with local products. Change the family your diet from season to season according to what’s available from local farms. Tender greens, asparagus, and new potatoes in spring provide delicious prelude to a cornucopia of summer fruits and vegetables. Fall heralds in an abundant harvest of hearty roots, apples, pears and gourds that store well.
Go old school. Buy just what you will eat and don't squander food. When cooking in larger batches, freeze half. Ninety-Eight Million pounds of good food gets tossed out into the trash each year. That represents 44 billion dollars. We can do better.

Yes, I’m besmirching decades of hallowed American eating traditions, however, there comes a time one must ask oneself, especially if you’re chronically ill, “Gee, how’s that working out for ya?”

Happy New You!

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Slim Fast Skullduggery

If you’re snug and comfy with malnutrition and tossin’ your cookies, sugary Slim-Fast, the expensive glucose-laden, nutritionally bogus milk supplement is for you. Actually, take it back to the store ASAP.

Ten million cans of Slim-Fast are currently on recall due to the presence of Bacillus cereus, a common, soil-dwelling bacteria scuba-diving inside the cans.The cause: human oversight. Bacillus cereus is the only living ingredient in Slim-Fast’s otherwise palled, dead ingredients which have been pasteurized, processed, tweaked, refined and cooked, void of any redeeming virtues. Any drink touted as a weight-loss tool made chiefly from processed, refined sugar-water and milk should be prohibited from being sold. Slim Fast’s careful not to make specific claims of weight loss, but the beverages are clearly marketed as a weight-loss tool. Apparently they deem Americans badly informed and gullible.

Big Food’s marketing behaviorists subliminally train Americans to lust for convenience, the IED-embedded path to healthiness. The Slim-Fast diet plan is mind-numbingly simple. Open a can and drink it, “…and we pray to the money gods you don’t have the awareness to decode the ingredient label.” The four main ingredients of the junk-food beverage are skim milk, sugar, fructose and cocoa. Further ingredients include various vegetable oils, emulsifiers and a worthless stew of pharmaceutical synthetic vitamins our cells don’t comprehend. Artificial vitamins, cheaply manufactured and peddled in supermarket pharmacies, lack the essential molecular structure of the absorbable cold-processed food versions (Usana is #1) and are ineffectual and unlikely to improve the body’s cells; hence the idiom “Dead Food.” Because it’s sold in a can, the vessel’s internal lining is likely loaded with plastics containing Bispheol-A (BPA). Research links BPA in canned foods to infertility, prostate and breast cancer. What a mess.

If you honestly want to lose weight properly and become more energetic, beautiful and healthy, focus on calories-in versus calories-burned. However, this means the quality of your food choices become vitally important. It’s not rocket science that most contemporary chronic disease would vanish if Americans ate preordained, healthy whole foods from the generous Cosmic Apothecary.
However, humans diminish the quality factor of calories choosing artificial flavor and instant gratification over nourishment. Staying healthy requires nutritional literacy, effort and possibly sacrificing one of your favorite dead foods for a living version.
You’ve got a potentially explosive predicament when attempting to lose extra chunk in the trunk with this depraved liquid nonsense. Eat less; focus on fresh, pure and clean foods and drinks; exercise and say farewell to short-term Snake Oil. You’re smarter than that. Evoke the “if it sounds too good to be true” rule.

The truth can be ugly and elusive. I express regret for pooping in your cereal, but there are no weight-loss miracles. With nutritional literacy you won’t need Big Food manipulating your health equity or waist-line.

Fiber: Roto Rooter of the Digestive Tract

My friends take delight when Sandi and I cook holiday dinners for them. Although, more than once, I’ve received a next-day thank-you call accompanied with the observation, “Wow, dinner was great, but things came out of me this morning that I ate when I was 6.” TMI!
The point being, their diet was so deficient in fiber, when it was introduced the colon did what comes naturally: Peristalsis. Now that the holidays have arrived, human nature diverts from the road of nutritional righteousness. This season, evade disease and extra tonnage by decorating your bowls and bowels of sugar plums with more fiber. Let me explain.

Your inner ecology is a labyrinth of pipes. Like all pipes and fixtures, keeping the distance between point A and point B in good shape requires, if you’ll excuse the disturbing visual, a plumbers snake. Maintenance. To stay healthy and active, everyone needs to keep the colon rolling along like White River in the spring. The human body is truly remarkable, but it has limits. Growing up, we were taught our innards could handle whatever we fed it. I’ve learned, however, our temple simply cannot handle the types and amounts of meats and processed plastic foods we feed it without traumatizing the colon — the largest organ, which houses 80 percent of the immune system.

Due to a lack of fibrous foods containing soluble and insoluble fiber, meals take forever to exit, setting up a deadly milieu. Most fiber-less folks carry about 10 meals backed up; fermenting, stewing and releasing methane while brewing toxins inside the dark sanctity of the holy temple. The average fiber-less American has roughly 10 to 15 pounds of concentrated poo and undigested food seething in the bowel. Beginning to grasp the odoriferous implication of a fiber-less diet?

Elvis Presley died of a heart attack and a drug overdose whilst sitting upon his throne, but he still made it onto a stamp. Elvis’ fiber-less diet included mashed taters and gravy, unctuous meats, gobs of bacon, sausage gravy, fried anything-that-moved and sweet potato cream cheese pie. Macho? I think not. It takes much more courage to eat a fibrous, nutritionally dense vegetable. During his autopsy doctors made a startling discovery: The King’s colon weighed close to 60 pounds! The average human colon weighs around four pounds. Thankyouverymuch!
I hesitate haranguing your tastes in food, but the average 50 year old meat-eater has up to eight pounds of indigestible food in their bowels. This decaying food is the common cause of what many people mistakenly think of as the “price of good living” — soaring rates of colon and pancreatic cancers by the age of 50 or 60. How charming.

Humans wouldn’t require such snaking if they’d regularly include fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans, ground flax seed, quinoa, steel-cut oats, wheat germ, rice bran or oat bran in their dally edibles. If you’re fraught with holiday constipation and resort to Ex-Lax, a toxin which artificially stimulates your digestive tract to release a log jam, be sure it’s not the same night you take a sleeping pill. Enough said.