Dietary Basics, Part 2

16. Some experts are really into legumes, some not. Soaking is essential. (and anytime I say “soak” I mean pouring water over the bean or grain, letting it sit overnight, and then pouring off the water and rinsing. If you want to go the extra mile here then you add a teaspoon of lemon juice to the soak water…I use whey from my kefir-making, but that is harder to come by).

17. Dairy is really best eaten raw: raw butter, raw milk, raw cheese (which is the easiest to procure, but is very acidic due to its concentration). The easiest dairy for most folks to digest is raw goat’s milk made into kefir or yogurt, with the temp never going above 105 degrees. It is untrue that you can’t make yogurt at that temp: I do it all the time! And speaking of probiotics, sauerkraut is great: but do not buy the canned, or cook the fresh. We are aiming for the “live” food here.

18. Certified organic extra virgin olive oil is best for raw use on salads (and that form is pretty much a guarantee that you are getting top quality, as adulteration in olive oil is rampant).

19. For cooking, use ghee or coconut oil (saturated oils are not damaged by heating; all the polyunsaturated oils are, and they’ve been messed with in manufacturing),

20. One of my favorite cookbooks for finding recipes that reflect the info I’ve given you is Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. lots of way cool advice on how to do fermenting, bone broths, soaking, etc. plus “regular” recipes. If you pop onto my website ( www.irisherbal.com , you can click on books, find it there, and it will take you to Amazon.com.

21. Herbs and spices are medicine! Add lots to what you are cooking. Go ethnic! Play! We’re finding that common ordinary herbs and spices are incredibly active: anti-inflammatory, cancer-cell-death-precipitators (turmeric, for example), and they make meals taste better and more interesting, especially if you are cutting down or eliminating sugar.

Raw Milk: Unsafe? Or Politically Unsafe?

I have been drinking raw milk and raw milk products (from both goats and cows) for over a dozen years. This is especially interesting since one of my first childhood memories is my pouring a glass of milk down the laundry room drain…and getting caught. My mom’s response was to give me Bosco ( a chocolate syrup) so I’d drink my milk…

The following is taken from an article by The Alliance for Natural Health:

To hear the media tell it, our lives are in jeopardy if we drink unpasteurized milk. But the facts tell the opposite story.

A new study from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declares that raw milk “cannot be considered safe under any circumstances,” and essentially advocates for stricter laws and enforcement against raw milk on the state level. The study claims that the rate of outbreaks caused by unpasteurized milk and products made from it was 150 times greater than outbreaks linked to pasteurized milk.

However, according to the Weston A. Price Foundation, the CDC has manipulated and cherry-picked this data to make raw milk look dangerous—and it has dismissed the same dangers associated with pasteurized milk. If we really examine the raw data, we find that pasteurized milk products cause nearly twice as many illnesses as raw milk products, but illnesses from dairy products still constitute only 1.3% of the total, with raw dairy products coming in at less than half of a single percentage point. All of this is minor compared to the health risks of taking prescription drugs or even entering a hospital.

Even more importantly:  there has been not a single death from consuming raw milk in the 38 years the data has been collected—compared to over 80 deaths from pasteurized milk products during that same time period.

The time frame examined by the researchers dramatically skewed the results as well. The authors analyzed data from 1993 to 2006. Perhaps they chose that range because one year later, in 2007, 135 people became ill from pasteurized cheese contaminated with e. coli and three people died.

Another factor that is completely neglected is the source of the milk. Most food contamination products originate in large factory farms or CAFOs. Many people would consider unpasteurized milk from a family farm safer than pasteurized milk from a CAFO, but of course the government does not want to alienate Big Farma by getting into such qualitative distinctions.

To read the entire article, you can access it HERE.

Meanwhile, here is a great visual from Natural News:

 The isolated image shown below can also be accessed at: http://www.naturalnews.com/infographics/Raw-vs-Pasteurized-Milk-v2.jp…

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/035130_raw_milk_infographic_pasteurized.html#ixzz1oflVHly3

PS: Respond to the Raw Milk Raid

The recent state and federal raid on a private food buying club in California that was selling raw milk is explained more thoroughly HERE where you can also respond by contacting your Senators and Representative. Please help support the right of every American to participate in a private food club that sells raw milk (or other natural farm grown food regardless of whether the mainstream finds the food strange or supposedly dangerous).

More on Mercury; Dealing With the Big Picture

Heavy metals, including mercury, cause havoc in various bodily systems. Regularly decreasing the toxic burden on the body is a positive move toward greater health. There are now many products and protocols available for doing this. I and my clients have used several with good results. My favorite, however, is a product called HMD (Heavy Metal Detox) which is backed by a 3 year double-blind placebo study. You can read about this liquid chelator HERE . And by the way, Iris Herbal Products sells this 4 oz. tincture cheaper than Amazon. At present, you need to call toll-free 877-286-2970 to order it.

Thinking about mercury pollution as we in the Southwest are experiencing a massive drought, and a big chunk of the country is dealing with record-breaking high temps, and the Tea Party wing of the radical right is explaining how they intend to shut down the EPA (after they successfully played “Chicken” with the national debt), I am led to my strength and curse: seeing clearly the Big Picture. So here are a few “exposes” that have crossed my computer desk today that eloquently describe in part or in whole our current “reality.”

For those who wish to confront their fears about environmental decline and how to adequately address the current situation of global warming, here is an article from AlterNet that is sobering in that it gets real about power, corporate control (of everything), privilege (of those of us living in industrialized states), and what has worked (and not worked) in social change movements.

If you don’t believe the corporate greed machine is really that insidious, then check out this wonderfully scathing indictment of the Supreme Court by Hightower, that can be read here. 

Oh no, you say, we have freedom of the press, look at all you’ve shown us courtesy of the alternative media…and that is my point. Mainstream media (except National Geographic and a few other bolder entities) is not giving us important news about anything alternative unless it has already been co-opted by a multinational. Here is an article about the recent intergovernmental raid against a buying club that dared to sell raw milk.

Next week I’ll start exploring the many and fascinating alternative views to Type II Diabetes and its treatment and prevention.