54. A Good Time at the Dental Surgery Clinic

Women are always looking for a new, chic way to tie a scarf. I’ve got one for you. In reflection of the festive season, I suggest a scarf of red and green, perhaps in a natty plaid. Loop the middle of the scarf under your chin, lifting both ends straight up. Tie a loose knot on top of your head, and draw one end down and forward over your shoulder to show off the fringe to nice advantage.

Now take a gel ice-pack, the nice supple kind, and slip it into a fat, cozy sock from your bag of unmatched ones that you just can’t bring yourself to throw away. Then slip the sock à la ice-pack inside the scarf, down one cheek—the sore one, curving it under the jaw. This will enable you to go about a certain amount of business while hopefully curbing the swelling and pain in the jaw as the freezing slowly comes out. .

If you opt to omit the sock, you may frostbite your face. Come crying to me, and I’ll sell you a little spray bottle of my colloidal silver gel, made with half colloidal (double strength) and half aloe vera. It’s what I gave my son Lindsay last weekend when he came home with a reddish brown brand on his cheek after a sledding (snow-mobiling) trip in frigid temperatures.

But back to the ice-pack and my article: if you haven’t just had dental surgery, this post may be of no use to you—unless you find some entertainment value in it.

On the subject of freezing coming out, I thought perhaps it would be less traumatic if it thawed more gradually, because it was happening now and it was a humdinger. I quickly hit upon a brilliant way to slow down the thawing process. I dug a pint of Häagen Dazs vanilla ice cream out of a special place in the freezer where I have been hoping that no one else would find it. I began to eat it, directly out of the container, letting it float over to the very damaged side and slowly melt there, calming the inflammation. It felt very, very soothing, and it tasted very, very good.

In the middle of this inspired therapy, my son Ben came out into the kitchen. He stopped short when he saw me eating ice cream, and being a man of few words, he simply raised his eyebrows—very high. He knows, as does anyone who knows me, and anyone who has followed my blog, that I don’t “do” desserts, because my body doesn’t tolerate them, and that ice cream in particular, in the past, has thrown me for an awful whammy.

But I’ve recently made a discovery: Häagen Dazs is made only from real ingredients: cream, concentrated skim milk, sugar, egg yolk, and vanilla extract. None of the other strange things that you’ll find in various combinations in every other brand I’ve checked: glucose-fructose (bad!), pectin, mono and diglycerides (derived primarily from partially hydrogenated soy bean and canola oil. They may also be synthetically produced). Salt, sodium bicarbonate, potassium sorbate, sodium citrate, xanthan gum, phosphoric acid, glycerol monostearate, natural (read: unnatural) flavour, sunflower oil, soy lecithin, stabilizers, guar gum, cellulose gum, polysorbate 80, locust bean gum, carrageenan, calcium sulphate, colour, and tartrazine.

So I gave the Häagen Dazs the acid test one night a while ago and had a generous serving right before bed. And contrary to my recent past experience, I went straight to sleep and slept eight hours. It was such a profound experience that I remarked to my dear husband Greg in the morning: “I’ve fought this health battle for so long and suddenly realize I only ever had a Häagen Dazs deficiency.”

By contrast, he and I recently had dinner out, and when he ate his dessert with the usual two scoops of vanilla ice cream, I decided to hazard two little nibbles of his cold garnish—and within five minutes, my head was spinning. So although sugar is not a good thing, it would seem I can handle a little, but evidently it’s the rest of the ingredients that create chemical chaos in me.

Perhaps you’re wondering what the subject of this article really is. It seems to be all over the map. It reminds me of how we wrote back in some of the arts classes I took in university. Stream of consciousness, we called it. And we would read aloud what we had written to the rest of the class. No one was ever censored for rambling self-indulgence—or rank indecency for that matter. Forbid that anyone should inhibit the creative and intellectual process! And there were other influences in effect. It was the early seventies: what can I say?

But, dear readers, we were in the kitchen, with Ben watching me eat ice cream. I said in my most compassionate voice, “I would share this with you, son, but I’ve been eating it right out of the carton and I’m concerned that I may have some terrible germs and I wouldn’t want you to catch anything from me.”

Ben had been my designated driver for the day: the oral surgery clinic had told me that I would be considered legally impaired for 24 hours following my procedure. When we arrived there, I told the surgeon I was really looking forward to this. Probably not something he often hears. I clarified: “I’m looking forward to getting this behind me.”

You see, for at least a year, I had been trying to face the fact that fatigued adrenals that are not responding to treatment are very likely being kept under stress by chronic infection in the mouth. Over time I embraced the inevitable, found a “biological” dentist, who gave me a hi-tech 3D x-ray, which a radiologist then goes through carefully, millimetre by millimetre, and looks for trouble spots. This culminated in the removal of two old broken-off teeth as well as the discovery of three more, seemingly functional, crowned teeth that were all infected and poised to erupt at any moment.

It was these three molars that were removed today. The surgeon also had to do a bone graft, which required another incision back where my wisdom teeth once stood, to “harvest” some material to plant in these newly emptied sockets.

I had opted for sedation and had assumed that that meant I would be mellow but conscious throughout. Not so. They had just slipped in the IV and I was watching my pulse reading out on a screen: “74” (I guess I was just a tad anxious), then “72, 71 ...” and the next thing I knew they were telling me to climb off whatever I was on (was it a wheelchair or a gurney?) and climb onto a bed. I couldn’t believe they expected me to get there on my own steam, but I did. Then I lay there floating in and out of stupor.

A young man was wheeled in and told to climb onto the bed next to mine. I don’t know what he came in on either. I found his arrival fascinating and turned partially onto my side to watch better. Apparently the attendants found my interest inappropriate; they pulled the curtain between us. But they pulled it back again before they left. Good.

I turned toward him again. I guessed him to be in his early thirties. “How’re you doing, buddy?” I asked, as well as I could with a fat, numb mouth and a pile of gauze clamped between my teeth.

He answered with a question: “What happened?”

It was hard to understand him: he had a wad of paper towel protruding from his mouth that looked like a large origami crane had crashed and died there.

“I think you had some teeth pulled,” I offered.

“What happened to you?”

“I had three teeth pulled.”

“I had four,” he raised me, obviously remembering something.

We lay in silence for a few seconds.

“This is a good way to meet people, isn’t it?” I said.

He laughed, making a tortured sound. “You’re funny.”

He said something I couldn’t understand. “You’re mumbling,” I said. I asked him to repeat himself. He did. It sounded like, “This is the worst day of my life.”

So I repeated it as best I could with my own limitations, with a questioning inflection at the end, as a means of asking if I had heard correctly.

“No,” he said, “this is the best day of my life.”

“The best?”

“Yeah. I feel so good.”

“Yeah, me too. It’s the drugs.”

“You like it?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too.”

I thought a moment. “I haven’t done drugs in ... (It crossed my foggy mind that perhaps he would ask me why I didn’t do drugs anymore and I would share with him about Jesus. I strained my brain to think and calculate) ... thirty-five years.”

“Me either.”

“You weren’t even born thirty-five years ago.”

He started to laugh again. It sounded more like sobbing, and the origami crane flapped above his mouth. “You’re the funniest person I’ve ever met.” And he sobbed some more.

A man pulled back the outside curtain with a suddenly yank and stared intensely at my new friend, obviously thinking he was crying. “Are you laughing?” he asked briskly.

“Theth,” came the muffled affirmative through the bird’s wings. The man left.

“You’re mumbling again,” I said. “Would you please try to speak clearly?”

A man came in and told me my son was here and I could get up now. He stood there waiting.

“You’re going to let me get up by myself?” I asked dubiously.

“Yep.”

“I’m not sure I can walk by myself.”

“Yes, you can,” he said.

I have no idea if he supported me with an arm. I floated like mist away from the bed, turning carefully back once to say goodbye to my friend. I was sorry to leave him. I wondered if I should give him my phone number. Or would he think that was inappropriate? “Good luck, buddy,” I said aloud; then I turned and swam out to the waiting room where I was put under the care of my son.

I was quite spacey on the homeward ride, and Ben was quietly amused. Once we got home, I wandered around the kitchen and various other places, slowly getting together a meal for the two of us, mine rendered unrecognizable by the blender. It was after that that the freezing began to disappear in earnest and the pain and swelling came on like a rhinoceros. I threw my usual pharmaceutical phobia out the window and swallowed one of the pain pills they’d given me, and I got out my red and green plaid scarf to rig up an ice-pack. Oh, and I’m taking the antibiotics, along with colloidal silver, which together afford a synergistic effect. Not taking any chances here. A week ago, a woman at the farmers’ market told me of a lovely young Filipino gal, part of a group she attends, who passed away just recently, suddenly, with no warning. An autopsy revealed that she’d had a silent infection in her mouth.

The swelling looked like it was going to get serious. I thought of some natural anti-inflammatory capsules I have in the cupboard and took a couple. The main ingredient is turmeric. That made me think of a turmeric drink that my wonderful massage therapist described to me. I didn’t have all the ingredients she uses, but, hey, considering my cooking skills were fostered in a remote cow-camp on Canada’s largest cattle ranch, improvisation was learned early on. (The memoir of that time in my life, Yes, I Really Was a Cowgirl, is available on my website: a great Christmas gift for that hard-to-buy-for person.)

So I cooked up a mixture of turmeric, coconut oil, water, coconut sugar, cinnamon, and honey, and then stirred a spoonful of it into a mug of warm milk. Not unpleasant at all. Very soothing. So I sat there sipping quietly, occasionally adjusting my scarf and ice-pack, thinking about Christmas and friends and family and how I’d like to wish everyone a merry holiday and a blessed New Year.

53. Signing Off and Heading in a New Direction

It was two months ago today that I last posted an article. Here is what’s been happening:

It was in early January that God began to try to get my attention about some of the priorities in my life. I found Him putting His finger on my health writing, indicating that it was getting in the way of other things that were more important. Not that the health writing hasn’t been important, but that the season was changing, so to speak, and it was time for a shift.

At first, not willing to completely quit this research and writing that I have so enjoyed, I rationalized that I needn’t stop writing for the newspaper; I just needed to make it last on my priority list instead of first. Fact is, I have been working on another new project since last summer, and in January I could see that, imminently, I had to dedicate a lot more time to it. (More about that in a minute.) But I wasn’t willing to give anything else up; I thought that I could just work harder and faster and smarter. The point is, sometimes when God is trying to change something, we try to cut a deal with Him and tell Him how we can work it all out. Then He just keeps quiet and waits till we’re ready to listen.

For the next few weeks, I tried to keep Here’s to Your Health on the back burner and only sit down to read and write when I’d accomplished other things in other areas. It didn’t work very well: I typically have kept three or four potential articles simmering continually, always reading and digging a little more throughout the week until I sat down to write each Monday morning. I had trouble not thinking about it. So in early February I emailed the editor at the paper and said I’d like to pull back a bit and just send in an article once a month. He thought it over for a couple of weeks and then wrote back and said he’d decided to just discontinue the column.

I was so surprised—and disappointed. I wanted to renegotiate and get the column back. But I knew in my heart it was time to let it go, at least for now. It’s still difficult: there are a half a dozen topics I could rattle off in a moment that I would dearly desire to lay out and pass on to my readers. But God knows best, and I really am trying to listen, even though it took a while to be willing.

The new project I mentioned above is a musical. I wrote the stage play last summer; in February I began the arduous and painstaking and intensely pleasurable process of transcribing 27 songs into musical score. I’m pretty much done the first ten, at least the first phase of the first ten. But since I last came home from Vernon, over three weeks ago, I haven’t had time to touch it. Been so busy, I’m really glad not to have Here’s to Your Health on my plate anymore.

Here is something that you, my readers, could do for me: Please let me know of any large churches or Bible schools or the like that have a ministry in the area of musical theatre. (This is the kind of venue where the musical belongs.) I have been sending out the stage play to interested parties for them to read and consider. Bear in mind that this musical could be produced anywhere in the world that English is spoken: distance is no barrier.

Thank you, in advance, for sending me any helpful leads. Below is my last article—at least for the foreseeable future. I will miss writing for you all.

You can email me at nancy@ogdenfish.com.

52. Iodiphobia — Part II

One day I went into Value Drug Mart in Wetaskiwin, one of two places in town that have begun to carry Lugol’s Solution since my writings created a demand for the product. A question about iodine had come to me from a reader, and I wanted some professional input. In the course of my chat with the pharmacist, he gave me a “Material Safety Data Sheet” from a company that manufactures Lugol’s iodine.

As I read it over, it was interesting to see how this information reflected and fed the current medical “iodiphobia,” the fear of iodine. The first thing that leapt off the page at me was this statement: “The substance is toxic to thyroid.” This is one of the “Potential Chronic Health Effects.” How bizarre this statement is in the light of the marvellous track record of this iodine solution in resolving thyroid issues (see previous article). It’s bizarre, too, when I consider my own case: Four years ago, my hormone doctor wanted to put me on thyroid medication, as my blood work indicated that I was “hypo.” After stalling her off for six months, prayer and intuition led me to Lugol’s as a solution for anxiety (see Blog #1), and in the process, my thyroid issues righted themselves. Recent blood work indicates that all is still well in that department, even as I continue on with a dose that is 240 times the recommended daily allowance.

Back to the Data Sheet: the Health Effects information indicates also, “Chronic ingestion of iodides may produce ‘iodism,’ which may be manifested by skin rash, running nose, headache and irritation of the mucous membranes.” I am personally familiar with these side effects; however, they are not properly iodism but bromism. Generous doses of iodine (a vital nutrient) displace bromine (a nasty toxin in our air, water, and food supplies) and cause these symptoms, as well as others, as the kidneys struggle to clear the overload. A simple salt cleanse (see Blog #21) will quickly relieve the overload along with the symptoms.

The information sheet continues: DEVELOPMENTAL TOXICITY: Classified Reproductive system/toxin/female, Development toxin [POSSIBLE].

That’s strange. Reams of evidence show that iodine is crucial for reproductive health in both men and women. Iodine deficiency is one of the causes of infertility and miscarriage; and iodine deficiency in birth mothers is the single greatest cause of mental retardation in children, worldwide, so says the World Health Organization. Two women have reported to me personally that, since taking Lugol’s, they have had complete (and medically verified) resolution of fibrocystic breast disease, a precursor of breast cancer. And Lugol’s seems to have cured my own daughter from debilitating dysmenorrhoea and suspected polycystic ovary syndrome.

The data sheet warns, too, that Lugol’s is “slightly hazardous in case of skin contact (irritant, permeator, may cause burns).” Yes, it surely permeates, quickly and deeply. This is a very good thing when you want to treat a wound. I have also treated many skin lesions with Lugol’s. Damaged skin tends to stain much more than normal skin, and even as I have treated spots for days, weeks, and sometimes months on end, I’ve never had a problem with the normal skin around the lesion becoming irritated. My conclusion is that Lugol’s can be hazardous—to abnormal skin.

There is some evidence that people who have managed for years on an iodine deficient diet, once moving to an iodine-rich area, have then developed hypothyroidism. This observation has led to the conclusion that sometimes iodine can cause thyroid malfunction.

I have two thoughts here: One is that when the body suddenly gets sufficient iodine and yet still is deficient in selenium (which is crucial for the conversion of T4 to T3), the body is thrown off the balance it has managed to maintain.
The other idea seems even more plausible: These studies involved foreigners moving to the U.S., which in the studies is categorized as “iodine-rich,” because of iodized salt. However, the tiny amount in salt, and poor form as it is, is not much help. At the same time, the U.S. is the most goitrogen-toxic country in the world. The human system is bombarded with chlorine, bromine, and fluoride at every turn, all of which blast our tiny reserves of iodine into oblivion.

Iodine is so necessary for so many functions in the body. It falls to us to think for ourselves, to recognize that there are pharmaceutical interests that have reason to poison the reputation of this wonderful nutrient. Drs. Guy Abraham and David Brownstein say, “The toxicity of iodine depends on the forms of this element. ... The manmade organic forms of iodine are extremely toxic, whereas the inorganic non-radioactive forms [of which Lugol’s is one] are extremely safe. ... It can be ingested safely in amounts up to 100,000 times the RDA.”

51. Iodiphobia — Part I

If you ask your doctor about taking an iodine supplement, chances are about 95 out of 100 that he or she will tell you unequivocally to stay away from it, on the grounds that it may damage your thyroid. And yet I learned, way back in secondary school, that iodine was crucial for thyroid health. Why the disparity? What is the truth?

It was around 1860, three decades after Jean Lugol figured out how to make a water-based solution of iodine, that doctors discovered it would cure hypothyroidism. For the next 70 years, Lugol’s Solution was used successfully in treating this ailment, with the optimum dosage ranging from 12.5 to 37.5 mg per day.

The present-day view is that iodine is especially dangerous for those with a hyperactive thyroid and that it may even cause hyperthyroidism in a previously healthy person. Much to the contrary though, the clinical track record a century ago showed that hyperthyroidism, too, yielded to supplementation with Lugol’s, a combination of elemental iodine and potassium iodide. Here, though, the range of effective dosage was very wide, varying from 6 mg per day to a staggering 180 mg. The most common effective dose was 90 mg, and the success rate was 90 percent.

Again, why the disparity in the medical establishment’s opinion on iodine, on its safety and efficacy? What changed?

Well, in about 1930 the first pharmaceutical (synthetic) thyroid hormone was developed. Suddenly there was a profit-minded reason to begin to throw doubt on an inexpensive, unpatentable remedy that had served three generations of doctors and their patients. The shift was gradual at first. But in 1948 a study was done by two researchers, Wolfe and Chaikoff, and they came to some alarming conclusions: rats that were given large doses of iodine showed evidence of their thyroid failing to continue to convert T4 hormone to the active T3 form. This would be one of the working definitions of hypothyroidism. So can we conclude, as these two men did, that iodine can cause malfunction of the thyroid?

Now let me step back and explain something. Whenever there is a nuclear disaster, the emergency protocol is to dose those who have been exposed with 130 mg of iodine. This is because one of the by-products of a nuclear meltdown is radioactive iodine. If you are iodine deficient, your thyroid will hungrily gobble up this toxic form of the element, and there’s a good chance that not far down the line, you will have thyroid cancer.

If, however, you are ingesting generous doses of iodine, your body will not uptake any more because its systems are already satiated. Similarly, if you have a lab rat that you’ve supplemented to the point of iodine sufficiency, and then you administer radioactive iodine so you can track its movement through the thyroid, guess what? Nothing, or very little, will happen, because the rat’s thyroid does not need any more iodine at this time, and it will be flushed, more or less harmlessly, out of its system.

These two researchers, however, concluded that the large supplements of iodine had shut down the thyroid. This seems to have been accepted as fact now, pretty much across the board. Referred to as the Wolke-Chaikoff Effect, this “theory” is taught in medical schools today. I find myself wondering who funded their research.

Even forward-thinking physicians are afraid to mess with iodine, fearing the scorn of colleagues, the full fury of the pharmaceutical industry, and even accusations of malpractice. My own naturopath, knowing my interest in the subject, gave me a lot of current iodine research material that he studied in school. But although he is impressed with what iodine has done for me, and keeps saying he would probably really benefit from it himself, he seems reluctant to actually recommend orthomolecular doses to his patients, suggesting instead kelp supplements or watered-down plant-sourced iodine drops.

Dr. G. E. Abraham is one of the foremost experts on the subject of iodine today. He says this: “A century ago, non-radioactive forms of inorganic iodine were considered a panacea for all human ills, but today, they are avoided by physicians like leprosy.” He has coined a term for this irrational, ill-informed fear: iodiphobia. Tongue in cheek, he describes the symptoms of this “syndrome”: “split personality, double standards, amnesia, confusion and altered state of consciousness. Medical iodiphobia,” says Abraham, “has reached pandemic proportion and it is highly contagious.”

Summing up about iodine, this is what he says : “Of all the elements known so far to be essential for health, iodine is the most misunderstood and the most feared. Yet, it is by far the safest of all the trace elements known to be essential for human health.”

50. A Good Time for the Great Taste

This week’s story is about a trip to McDonald’s. Now Mickey D’s is not known for contributing to our good health. But laughter is a great tonic, and when I re-read this old story, I got a good chuckle.

Personally I haven’t eaten anything from McDonald’s in about 14 years, ever since an overdose of MSG turned me into a shrieking banshee inside of 15 minutes. My four kids had the misfortune of being in the vehicle with me at the time.

But this other incident goes back a full 25 years, to when I still considered the Golden Arches to be a treat. At least it meant I didn’t have to cook. Are you old enough to remember when that jingle played on the radio? “You deserve a break today / So get out and get away / To McDonald’s / We do it all for you!" And then the tag: "A good time for the great taste of McDonald's!"

Here is the story, from February 1988:

It was a Saturday, sunny and cold. The mercury had settled out around minus 30º C. The air was clear, shimmery and sparkly as diamonds. We were headed for town as a family to do a much-needed grocery shopping.

It was one of those grim times in the life of the self-employed when Payables and Receivables were competing to see which could go higher without crashing; a time when Cash Flow was just a technical term in an accounting textbook. A cheque had come from somewhere, which we’d been able to cash personally, and I had also rummaged through all the coat pockets for any forgotten jingles.

The plan was to head for town by 9:30 or 10:00, get the shopping done, and be home in time for lunch. Heaven knows we couldn’t afford to eat out. But plans are one thing; execution another. The truck refused to start on this cold morning. It required an hour and a half of propane torches, stovepipes, methyl hydrate and so forth before we were finally rolling.

But finally, rolling we were: my husband, our sons (Ben, a long three, and Lindsay, not quite two), and I, eight months pregnant with our third. As we passed by McDonald’s, I noticed that Big Macs were on sale, two for the price of one.
“Hey,” said I, struck with my first great idea of the day, “let’s go to McDonald’s after we get the groceries.” I immediately had three agreeing votes. Our boys have understood about McDonald’s since almost before they understood anything else. Ben, long before he could talk, used to go all stiff and start to scream whenever we passed by there without turning in.

When I came out of Safeway, I had a second great idea. “Hey,” I said, “generic apple juice was only 79 cents a litre. Let’s just go through the Drive-Thru, get our burgers and a straw, and we’ll have our whole lunch for less than five bucks.”

Within minutes we were parked in the lot, unwrapping our burgers, passing our litre of juice back and forth. We had moved the boys from the back of the super-cab to sit between us. My husband, in anticipation of selling his truck, had just spent 80 precious dollars having the interior professionally cleaned. I wanted these burgers to stay under control.

It was a little cramped, elbow to elbow, four abreast, not to mention my soon-to-be-born baby resting awkwardly in my lap, but things went pretty smoothly for a couple of minutes. Then Lindsay started to squeal in frustration. As he had worked industriously at the front of his Big Mac, the meat patties had slid out the back. Now they lay on the floor in a little puddle of Super Sauce, the object of my little boy’s rage.

Deftly I scooped them up, got the whole kit re-assembled, and handed it back. With my clean hand, I groped for some of those extra napkins we had asked for.

I returned to my rapidly cooling McChicken, carefully fielding plummeting globules of mayo and wilting lettuce onto the napkin draped over my protruding stomach. Suddenly, for reasons known only to him, Lindsay squirmed sideways and reached for my clean coat with both greasy hands, one of which still clung to his half-eaten burger. I quickly pinned both wrists in one hand, grabbing for more napkins with the other. Meanwhile, Ben suddenly stood up and turned around to see something that was going on behind us. He was hastily straightened out by his father but not before leaving little mustard and ketchup tracks on the plush velour seat-back.

At once I realized I had broken out in a sweat. Excuse me, ladies: bloom. Little drops of bloom were springing out on my forehead below the edge of my wool hat. How could it be so hot in here when it was minus 30º outside the truck? Was it a rush of hormones brought on by Baby Number Three, in utero, or a direct influence from Numbers One and Two? It seemed there wasn’t enough oxygen in the truck for all of us. I fumbled frenetically at the window release and stuck my face out into the delicious bracing chill. As my head cleared, I became aware of Lindsay again, leaning way forward, intently working at something under the dash. I leaned down, too, to have a look. He was inserting the remaining half of his Big Mac into the tape deck.

It was then that I had my third and best idea of the day. “Let’s get out of here,” I said. As we mopped up and drove away, I pondered to myself just what would have happened if he had succeeded in pushing that burger all the way into the stereo set. As quickly as I asked the question, I knew the answer: it would have played “You Deserve a Break Today.”

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Visit Nancy's Life Lessons blog: www.ogdenfish2.blogspot.com

49. Beloved Sleep

Just as absence makes the heart grow fonder, so sleep, when it becomes elusive, seems a very precious thing. So it was that I misunderstood a Bible passage 20 years ago, caught in the grip of insomnia and moving rapidly toward a nervous breakdown. It was one night while trying to go to sleep that I read a promise in the Psalms: “…so He gives His beloved sleep.” In my rest-deprived state, I thought God was calling sleep itself a beloved thing. It certainly is a blessing. With four small children and a strung-out, exhausted body, I had come to understand that sleep is not a right but a privilege. As far as God calling it “beloved,” however, I was mistaken.

He was referring to me as “Beloved,” as well as anyone else who might have ears to hear, telling us that He wants us to enjoys restful sleep, and so it is that He gave the first part of the verse: “It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows.” Day after day of dragging yourself out of bed too early, staying up too late, and continually chewing over your problems and concerns will eventually put you in a state where you can’t go to sleep when you want to or, if you do, you can’t stay asleep more than half the night.

It was four years ago that my hormone doctor first told me, “You need to be in bed by ten o’clock.” And that means with the light out, settled down. How slow I have been to learn this! And I’m still learning: The later I go to bed, the harder it is to go to sleep and the sooner I will wake up. Yet getting to sleep before 10:00, I might sleep eight hours.

Several alternative health practitioners have told me some interesting things about sleep patterns. If you find you wake up between 1:00 and 3:00 a.m. on a regular basis, it often means your liver is bogged down and sluggish and that you would benefit from a liver cleanse or a supplement like dandelion root or milk thistle (silymarin). Waking between 3:00 and 5:00 consistently may mean adrenal problems.

For people prone to hypoglycemia, blood sugar dropping too low in the night can be a cause for wakefulness. I usually have a snack before bed. If I wake up in the night and feel I won’t be able to go right back to sleep, I get up and eat again. Avoid sweets, even fruits, for these snacks: aim to include three components: a complex carb, a healthy fat, and a good source of protein. That can be as simple as a half a piece of whole-grain toast spread with peanut butter or another nut butter. A rice cake or two, buttered (or not) with a piece of white cheese (avoid those fake orange colourings!) is another simple choice.

Before I have a snack though, I always have a glass of water with some sea salt in it. Adequate salt is important in regulating sleep, and if you’ve been under stress your adrenals may be fatigued and not controlling your salt levels properly.

For menopausal women, sleeplessness may be as simple as too-low levels of progesterone; then again, if it’s hot flashes and night sweats that are waking you up, you may also need some estrogen. With all the factors in our environment that are upsetting our hormonal balance, with or without menopause, we are fortunate in this day to have the option of hormone analysis and bio-identical hormone replacement treatment.

Over 50 years ago when my brother John was about four, he went through a time of sleep-walking. One particular night, when my parents were having a cocktail party, he crept downstairs to the edge of the living room, sound asleep. Then to the shock of the unsuspecting guests, he let out a war-whoop, hurtled into the room, and went springing from chair to chair. There were several doctors there in addition to my father: their consensus was that John needed a calcium supplement. Sure enough, that soon got him sleeping soundly through the night.

Calcium certainly is key for restful sleep, but we also need ample magnesium and Vitamin D with it. Interestingly, when we’re stressed, our calcium and magnesium levels drop. Then, ironically, when we’re deficient in calcium and magnesium, the body tends to get stuck in flight-or-fight mode, perpetrating the stress.

Make sure your bedroom is completely dark (or drape a dark cloth over your eyes), to enable your body to produce melatonin. And try taking a melatonin supplement.

Lying awake can be awfully frustrating, but don’t go there. To lie quietly, not with resignation so much as relinquishment, is a much healthier way to pass the time. Try praying. And even if you don’t believe in God, spend the time in peaceful, grateful reflection. As the psalmist said, commune with your own heart upon your bed.

48. Sweet but Dangerous

A few weeks ago I wrote to challenge my readers to “Stop the Pop.” I said then that I would write another article to explain more about the dangers of high-fructose corn syrup (labelled “glucose/fructose” in Canada). Soda pop is the most prevalent source of HFCS in the North American diet, but be warned that other commercial products are full of it: baked goods, sweet snack foods, ketchup and barbecue sauces, fruit-flavoured yogurts, sports drinks, breakfast cereals, candy, fruit drinks that are not “100% juice,” ad infinitum. Especially foods that are aimed at children and teens are loaded with this questionable alternative to sugar. Please take note, before we go any further, that about 85% of the corn grown in the US today is genetically modified, so there should be concerns about any corn product from the get-go.

From www.globalhealingcenter.com comes this list of five ways in which HFCS can negatively impact our health.

1) A Princeton University study found that when HFCS was fed to rats, they gained weight three times as fast as those fed equal or larger amounts of sugar derived directly from fruit. In particular these rodents gained abdominal fat, a hallmark of obesity.

2) Consumption of HFCS increases the chances of developing diabetes.

3) “There is a strong link between the irresponsible consumption of high fructose corn syrup and elevated triglyceride and HDL (bad cholesterol) levels. Together, these can cause arterial plaque build-up and lead to heart problems including hypertension, heart disease, and even stroke.”

4) HFCS is “especially destructive to your liver. When combined with a sedentary lifestyle, permanent liver scarring can occur. This greatly diminishes the organ’s ability to process out toxins and, over time, can lead to an expansive range of other negative health concerns.” Studies link HFCS with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and cirrhosis.

5) High fructose corn syrup can contain mercury: In various studies, between 30 and 50% of samples of HFCS contained this toxic metal. (The mercury comes from a compound, caustic soda, used in separating the cornstarch from the kernel. Some caustic soda is made using mercury-free technology; other is not.)

The producers of HFCS originally promoted it as a “natural” sugar; however this claim had to be dropped when there was a tremendous hue and cry from the sugar lobby, including lawsuits charging false advertising and demanding financial compensation. Far from being natural, the corn-based sweetener is highly processed, made by chemically altering the starch molecules that occur naturally in corn. Fructose is then added, in varying percentages. Says http://blog.friendseat.com/high-fructose-corn-syrup-vs-sugar/: “As a result of the manufacturing process for high-fructose corn syrup, the fructose molecules in the sweetener are free and unbound, ready for absorption and utilization. In contrast, every fructose molecule in sucrose that comes from cane sugar or beet sugar is bound to a corresponding glucose molecule and must go through an extra metabolic step before it can be utilized.”

In this way, fructose behaves differently in the body from sucrose (white sugar). It uses a different metabolic pathway, in that it skips glycolysis (normally the first step in breaking down sugars). The Princeton University research team concluded that this omission of glycolysis is why excess fructose in HFCS is being metabolized to produce fat. Glucose, on the other hand, is largely being processed for energy or stored as a carbohydrate, called glycogen, in the liver and muscles.

Another characteristic of fructose is that it does not stimulate insulin secretion or require insulin to be transported into cells, as do other carbohydrates. Also, fructose ingestion is linked to insulin resistance in rodents, suggesting that human physiology may respond the same way.

One of the truly alarming things about HFCS, especially as it relates to obesity, is its effect on the hormone leptin. According to www.diabeteshealth.com, “Leptin tells your body to stop eating when it’s full by signaling the brain to stop sending hunger signals. Since fructose doesn’t stimulate glucose levels and insulin release, there’s no increase in leptin levels or feeling of satiety. This can leave you ripe for unhealthy weight gain.” Also, fructose does not suppress ghrelin, a hormone that works to increase hunger.

The Corn Refiners Association continues to make the (false) claim that our bodies can’t tell the difference between sugar cane and their own product. The cat is apparently out of the bag, though, regarding health concerns of HFCS, as reflected by a serious drop in demand in the past couple of years. The Association has been doing PR damage control, seeking permission from the FDA to change the name of their sweet gold mine to “corn sugar.” And although the ruling is still pending, they are freely using this misleading moniker in their advertising.

* * * *

This was the end of the article as I submitted it to the Pipestone Flyer. Then coincidentally, very early the next morning, there was a new post from Health Sciences Institute in my inbox that caught my eye. I've copied it here verbatim.

Last year, the FDA told the Corn Refiners Association (CRA) that food packaging could not list high fructose corn syrup as "corn sugar."

No way around that, right? CRA's long-standing request hit the FDA brick wall. End of story.

Well... No. Hardly.

Turns out, it's the FDA with hands tied. Not CRA.

You might have noticed that CRA is still running TV commercials that call HFCS "corn sugar."

How do they get away with it? Easy. The FDA doesn't regulate commercials. That's the FTC's job. And so far, the FTC hasn't called out CRA on their easy use of the phrase "corn sugar."

According to The Consumerist, the agency isn't likely to rule on this issue anytime soon. Two reasons...

1) The ads use "corn sugar" almost as if it's a slang term. Nobody is saying it's the "official" designation for HFCS.

2) HFCS isn't a product. You can't go to the store and buy a jar of HFCS. So the ads aren't trying to sell you "corn sugar."

But something is for sale. The ads are trying to sell all of us on the IDEA of corn sugar.

So when they show a handsome farmer dad and his adorable little girl out walking in a cornfield, stay strong! Resist the rise of warm-n-fuzzy emotions!

All they want to do is get inside your mind and plant the simple deception that "corn sugar" is the same thing as cane sugar.

It's not. Don't buy it.

To Your Good Health,

Jenny Thompson
HSI

47. Side Effexor to Be Expected

As I woke up on the first day of the New Year, I thought of my dear friend who was turning 60 that day. Because I was out of town, I decided to give her a call. But when I turned on my phone, I promptly received a text informing me that she was in the hospital.

She has been weaning off Effexor, an antidepressant. On December 31, five days after her final dose, the “brain zaps” she had been experiencing were getting worse, and the fear and anxiety were terrible. She went to the hospital; they gave her a low dose of Effexor and sent her home. That evening she experienced diarrhea, cold sweats, and strange feelings. She came to on her kitchen floor and realized she’d passed out. A neighbour, an RN, came over and checked her blood pressure. It was 88/49. In the middle of the night, my friend began passing blood from her intestines. In the morning she was taken back to the hospital where they admitted her for a couple days to do some tests.

This friend has been on and off antidepressants for years. In 2005 she was experiencing heart palpitations. Her doctor told her it was anxiety. He put her on Effexor, and she’s been on it ever since. In September, she began to experience strange flashes of light and colour inside her head. Convinced that it was a side effect of the drug, she became determined to get off the meds. With a new doctor’s supervision, she reduced the dosage slowly, titrating from 150 mg down to 37.5 over a period of several months. As soon as her final dose wore off, everything started to go haywire.

When I talked to her on her cell phone, she was feeling terrible and couldn’t discern what was withdrawal and what was her nasty chest cold.

“Well, I can see the headache and emotional stuff being from the withdrawal, but surely not passing blood?” I postulated.

“I don’t know,” she said, “but maybe it is.”

Well, that’s exactly what I found out, after I promised to do some reading online: blood in the stool is just one of the 85 known withdrawal symptoms. The most common ones are brain zaps (electric shock-like sensations), dizziness, sweating, nausea, insomnia, tremor, confusion, nightmares, and vertigo.

Incidentally, if the title of this article made no sense to you, read it like this: “Side Effects Are to Be Expected.” Pharmacists will tell you that Effexor is very difficult to get off; side effects are to be expected should you ever try. And what about possible side effects while you’re on the drug? I counted no less than 185 symptoms, which can even include depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and suicidal thoughts. Great! Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Here are a few quotes from “recovering addicts”: “I experienced a full week of rapid/skipped heart beats and extremely high blood pressure. I went to the ER and was admitted overnight … found that it is a symptom of the Effexor. … I have also experienced the joint pain, weird dreams, and headaches that others have posted about. I am not going back on the drug, no matter what. I am now taking bio-identical hormones, which have pretty much wiped out the depression. I just need to live thru the side effects of weaning off Effexor.”

“I have been off it totally for one month now. The flu symptoms have gone but I am left now with a dodgy stomach which gives me agony, swelling up, constipation, etc. … I cry a lot, get tired very quick. Not able to exercise yet as I am still very weak. I have awful thoughts when alone. Emptiness creeps over me a lot and I just have to stand it. I am hoping that the body will eventually settle down and that there is no permanent damage.”

Some doctors are even prescribing this drug for hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms, “as an alternative to hormone replacement therapy.” With what I’ve learned of Effexor in my reading, I think such prescribing is horribly irresponsible. The cure is definitely worse than the kill. Yes, it provides symptomatic relief, for various things, and so “win us with honest trifles, to betray us in deepest consequence.”

If you need help getting off a medication like this, check out this site: www.theroadback.org.

As for my dear friend, I couldn’t bring myself to wish her a happy birthday. But I do wish for her, as well as all of my readers, a happy and healthy New Year.

___________________________________________

Go to Nancy's Life Lessons blog: www.ogdenfish2.blogspot.com

(You may have to copy and paste this into your browser.)

46. Stop the Pop

There is a class of beverage that has been with us for enough decades that most people seem not to question whether it belongs in our lives. I’m talking about soda pop. These soft drinks have a long history, going back to Paris in the 1600s when street vendors carried on their backs tanks of lemon and water sweetened with honey, dispensing cupfuls to thirsty passersby. A lot has changed since then, and the changes have not all been good.

It was in the 1830s that the concept of soda fountains began to take hold in American pharmacies. Carbonated water had caught on as a “health drink,” and druggists began adding medicinal herbs and fruit extracts to the previously unflavoured mineral water. In the 1890s, a pharmacist developed a special flavour by adding sugar, vanilla, rare oils, pepsin, and cola nuts. If you're really sharp, you may guess that this was the first version of Pepsi Cola.

Sugar then reigned supreme in soft drinks all the way to the 1970s. At this time, a cheaper, sweeter solution, manufactured from corn, burst upon the industry. Several articles ago, I made a comment about high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), saying that it had turned the health of a generation upside down. My statement demands some clarification.

I first had cause to seriously zero in on the subject of HFCS several months ago, when my sister Pauline, who has lived in England for many years, sent me a link to a documentary that was produced over there. It is a series totalling about three hours, called “The Men Who Made Us Fat.”

We’re hearing all the time in Canada and the US about the obesity epidemic. It’s a serious problem, and experts are vague about the exact cause and what to do about it. But the British documentary had plenty to say about HFCS and its link to obesity—and a host of other related health problems.

Back to the soft drink industry: when they recognized that this corn syrup was sweeter and cheaper than sugar, and that it didn’t compromise their brand-name flavours, it caught hold like an old wooden house on fire. Cheaper was great, and sweeter should have meant that they could use even less of it than of sugar, resulting in cheaper yet. But they found that the sweeter they made it, the more of it people drank, so it was well worth their while to use even more of the HFCS than they had of sugar.

Up until that point in time, the national (US) average had reached about 365 servings of pop per year per person. Since then, consumption has increased to 600 cans. I find this hard to fathom. When there are people like me who average zero cans per year, it means theoretically there are those who are tossing back 1200 servings annually.

I had a conversation recently with a dear friend in his mid-thirties, who has some problems with hypoglycemia.

“Do you eat a lot of sugar?” I asked him.

“Not really,” came the answer, “but I drink two cans of pop a day, so, I don’t know, would you consider that a lot of sugar?”

Bingo, I thought, there it is, the North American average. Most people are more like him than like me, and it pains me deeply that multitudes are unwittingly sabotaging their health. I am especially grieved at watching children guzzling the stuff down, even at an age when they’ve barely learned to walk.

Dietary habits are established young, and they run deep. The pop habit is, I believe, truly an addiction in many cases. Society may look down its nose at alcoholics, yet it is blasé about a super-sized soft drink. But ironically, a devastation is slowly taking place in the body of the chronic pop drinker that is almost identical to that in the alcoholic. It’s called non-alcoholic liver disease, and it leads to cirrhosis and liver cancer.

Soda pop made from sugar was bad enough—we’re beginning to understand that large amounts of sugar help to fuel our diabetes epidemic. But the use of high-fructose corn syrup is much more destructive to our bodies. It will take at least another article to explain a little more about its effects. While I’m working on that, why don’t you stop and assess how much pop you’re drinking, bearing in mind that even a little bit does you absolutely no good with its nutritively void calories? Could you consider just walking away from the stuff for the rest of your life? Just say no? Boycott this wealthy, unhealthy industry? Or are you too addicted?

45. Further on Fraudulent Flavours

The other night, shortly after I'd sent in “Unnatural Natural Flavours” to the newspaper, my son Ben brought up the subject. So I gave him the spiel of all I had just learned, namely, that chemical components are isolated from real foodstuffs and then mixed to come up with a taste that human senses interpret as appetizing. I gave the example of ethyl butyrate being used to flavour pasteurized orange juice, and that this chemical is extracted from the peel of oranges.

Ben said, “Well, then, if the flavour comes from real oranges ...” and I immediately saw that many people would skip to the same easy justification in their minds when confronted with artful promotional semantics.

So here is an analogy that I hope will put it into perspective. Let’s say we have a piece of writing by Shakespeare. It’s an original creation put together by an undisputed master. (An orange, also, is an original creation put together by a Master, however sometimes disputed.) Someone comes along and breaks that piece of poetry into a list of words, some of which he then breaks down further into a stockpile of letters. Then he uses those words and letters to put together some writing of his own. He may technically be a good writer, but what he writes will definitely not be Shakespeare. And supposing he chooses to write pornography, for instance, something vile, something unhealthy. And still he tries to insist that this is original Shakespeare, because all the raw components he used came directly from a creation of the bard himself.

But if you agree that what he has written must indeed be Shakespeare, then you might also say that the natural flavour added to fruit juice is natural.

In digging a little further on this subject, I stumbled upon a lot more disturbing stuff about orange juice, and juice in general. From http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2010/09/08/f-whats-in-it-orange-juice.html comes the following information. “Once the juice is pressed from the fruit, it’s pasteurized.... Juice for concentrate is then heated in an evaporator that boils off much of its water but also burns away bitter oils from the orange peels, oils that can contain pesticides and degrade the juice’s taste. So-called ‘fresh’ juice, however, has to have those oils removed mechanically. It also has much of its oxygen stripped in a process called de-aeration. This is to prevent spoiling because the juice will spend up to a year in million-gallon vats before it’s packaged, sold and consumed.”

Does it say “filtered water” in the ingredients? “Under Canada’s Food and Drugs Act this can mean ... also water that contains fluoride or chlorine.”

Even if the product claims to contain only pure juice, “manufacturers can also add a variety of things ... including ... various kinds of sugar ... [and] preservative.” The article’s bottom line was to suggest that we simply buy whole oranges instead of juice.

But back to flavour fraud per se, did you ever hear about the scandal a couple of years ago when PepsiCo was accused of using aborted fetal matter in the flavouring process of their iconic soda? It caused several right-wing and pro-life groups in the US to boycott all Pepsi products.

It took some careful reading to figure out just what was hysteria and what was fact, but what I eventually found was that no such grisly ingredient was in the beverage itself. Stranger than fiction though, researchers had discovered that the kidney cells from a fetus will react to different flavours. They’ve learned to read the responses and can use them to predict what flavourings will achieve the “wow” factor with their consumers. These kidney cells all originated from one little fetus back in the ’70s, and new generations of these cells continue to be cultured in a lab.

The website of internationally recognized biotech company Senomyx (one of whose clients was PepsiCo) puts it like this: “Using isolated human taste receptors, we created proprietary taste receptor-based assay systems that provide a biochemical or electronic readout when a flavor ingredient interacts with the receptor.” They fail to tell the public where they get the cells to produce those receptors. Their process gives insight into how a flavourist figures out just what chemical combinations will “work” with their customers.

Last spring the boycott was lifted when PepsiCo changed their policy and declared that they would no longer “conduct or fund research that utilizes any human tissue or cell lines derived from embryos or fetuses.”

One of the boycott organizers, after expressing his appreciation for the new policy, added a personal comment: “I’m glad I can begin buying Tropicana Orange Juice, that was always my favorite!”

He probably enjoys the natural flavour.

44. Unnatural Natural Flavours

Living a week or two at a time out in Vernon, BC, so that my husband can enjoy a home-cooked meal when he comes home from his jobsite in the evening, I have taken up intermittent residence in a motel kitchenette. In contrast to our country home in Alberta, where I am 25 kilometres from the nearest grocery store, here I am less than 200 metres from Save-On Foods. Instead of shopping once in two weeks, I take a jaunt across the main drag once or twice a day. If I find I’ve forgotten something, I can literally be there and back and have my boots untied and pulled off, all in five minutes.

I was over there the other day looking for some good fruit juice. “Good” fruit juice, in my books, means that (besides, of course, having no added sugar) it has no “natural flavour.” For years, I was like most of the reasonably health-conscious populace: I would see that ingredient on any product and say, “Cool—it’s natural.” And I would buy it.

Then something I read one day made me suspicious, and I phoned the 1-800 number at SunRype to ask some questions about exactly what these natural flavours comprise. I came away unsure exactly what it all meant. The story was that, because fruits vary in flavour from crop to crop and because their customers “expect a uniform flavour experience,” they might add a little of this or that kind of different fruit juice to tweak the flavour. Well, I’m sure that’s true with some juices, because I have seen ingredient lists that, after the main juice or juices, will say, “May also contain juice of (this, that, or the other).

But I had heard that because MSG is derived from natural sources (seaweed), it qualifies as a “natural” flavour. When I put this question to the Sunrype girl, she said, “Everybody asks that. No, there’s no MSG in our juices.” She asked me for my address, saying that she would be sending me some coupons for their juices to thank me for my interest in their products. However, I had already decided that I wouldn’t be buying that brand anymore until I could learn something more conclusive. Since then, I have simply stayed away from any juices that mention natural flavour, but they are getting harder and harder to find.

Back in Vernon at the Save-On Foods, there I am cruising down this whole long aisle of juices, and I can’t find a single one without this dubious enhancement—until I come to the brand I usually buy now: Oasis. Even with this company though, you must check the ingredient list, because only four or five of their varieties (as far as I’ve seen) are pure in this sense. So I chose a carton of “Exotic Mango” and came back to our little motel room to peruse awhile on Google.

In a nutshell, there are two kinds of food flavourings: natural and artificial, and they are both produced by the same elite chemical companies. Artificial flavours are combinations of chemicals, mixed randomly until a “flavourist” finds a promising taste, a mix that gives the desired “sensory impression.” These chemicals are procured by “fractional distillation and additional chemical manipulation of naturally sourced chemicals, crude oil, or coal tar.”

What a turn-off for any thinking consumer! The word artificial is bad enough; look a little closer and you’d never want to buy it. And so enters the “natural flavour” industry. Drawing from natural, edible substances (according to US regulations, “from a spice, fruit, … vegetable, … yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf …, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products”), chemical components are isolated by “physical, microbiological or enzymatic processes” and then once again the flavourist goes to work mixing his chemical concoctions. The longer process costs the companies a little more, but the resultant flavours can be called natural because the original source of their ingredients is a natural product. (Quotes from Wikipedia)

The pasteurizing and storing of juices destroys their flavour. “Juice companies therefore hire flavor and fragrance companies, the same ones that formulate perfumes for Dior and Calvin Klein, to engineer flavor packs to add back to the juice to make it taste fresh. ... Those in the industry will tell you that the flavor packs ... resemble nothing found in nature. The packs added to juice earmarked for the North American market tend to contain high amounts of ethyl butyrate, a chemical in the fragrance of fresh squeezed orange juice that, juice companies have discovered, Americans favor” (ttp://consumerist.com/2011/07/oj-flavor-packs.html). Yet the FDA has no problem with this fraud because the chemical components were originally extracted from an orange.

43. The Last Post

The last time I sent out an email announcing a new blog post, I included a little slice-of-life kind of story that I called "The Last Post." So many people wrote to comment on it that I thought I should put it in the blog where others could enjoy it too, instead of deleting it from my "Sent" file and exiling it into outer cyber darkness forever.

But as I considered adding it to the blog, I had to take into account that this site is now visited by guests from over 60 countries, most of whom would have no idea of what I was talking about. So here is a little glossary up front:

Remembrance Day: On the 11th of November every year, countries in the Commonwealth observe the time when hostilities in World War I officially ended in 1919: at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. We honour members of the armed forces who have died in the line of duty, then, and since then.

The Last Post: This is a melody usually played as a trumpet solo right at 11:00 a.m. A minute of silence follows, and is then broken by the trumpet playing Reveille (translated "wake up"). Wikipedia says, "The two tunes symbolize sunset and sunrise respectively, and therefore, death and resurrection."

The Poppy: Every year at the beginning of November, artificial poppies are made available to wear as a sign of respect and appreciation for our vets. In Canada, monies donated for these little emblems amount to $16.5 million annually. All poppy money collected by a Legion branch stays within that local community and pays for medical equipment, home services, and long-term care facilities for ex-service people in need of financial assistance.

The poppy became a symbol of remembrance through a poem by John McCrae, a Canadian poet, physician, author, artist and soldier. The poem, In Flanders Fields, was inspired through the loss of a dear friend in battle. McCrae himself, in charge of a field hospital, succumbed to pneumonia in 1918 at the age of 45.

When I was in grade school, I and my fellows students were required to memorize the poem. It's amazing how easily it still springs from the memory:

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scare heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.

With this rather lengthy intro, here is the story I sent out with my last email:

The Last Post

Greg and I jump out of bed at 5:45 in our motel room. He is hustling to meet his crew for breakfast; I need to fix the first meal of my day and then go back to bed for a couple of hours. The room is a little chilly, so I slip on my cosy, short grey robe. My youngest helped me pick it out at La Senza. It’s probably a couple of decades too young for me with its double row of sassy ruffles around the bottom, but I like it.

Below the ruffle hangs the hot pink print of my nightie. My legs are still bare, so I rummage in Greg’s dresser for his pyjama pants, a subtle blue-and-grey plaid flannelette. I pull them on and bunch the ample waistline up in the front, securing it with a ponytail elastic. Socks, black, to keep my feet from getting cold.

I’m still not warm enough, so I add my go-everywhere black fleece vest with the fake leather shoulders and collar. The plunging neck of the robe is letting in the draft, so I grab the scarf I was wearing yesterday, a bold block plaid of black, rust, and grey, and I sling it around my neck. Shortly thereafter I catch a reflection of myself in the full-length mirror. I’m quite a sight.

“Hey,” I say to Greg, “how do you like my look this morning?”

He pauses in his hurried morning routine and gazes at me for several long seconds. “Stunning,” he says.

Stunning. I guess that would explain the stunned look on his face.

“Halloween is over,” he adds.

“I know,” I tell him, “and so is Remembrance Day, but I still have my poppy.” I lift the collar of my vest to show him the brilliant splash of red.

I got the poppy at the Edmonton Airport just before catching the plane to Vernon. It was Armistice Day and somehow I had thus far missed picking up one of the little fake flowers with the deeply emotional symbolism. I inquired of a group, each of whom was wearing a poppy, and they directed me to where they’d got theirs. Soon I had mine pinned to my vest.

As I checked through security, I heard bagpipes coming from somewhere. I thought it was live at first, and my flesh rose in goose-bumps and tears started in my eyes, as always happens to me at this time of remembrance. I soon realized that the sound was coming from a large flat screen TV in a sports bar/restaurant.

I was sitting at my gate when I heard an airline personnel tell a passenger that there had been a gate change for the flight. I stood and gathered up my belongings to move along when suddenly the strains of the Last Post floated through the airport. I checked my watch. Eleven o’clock. I closed my eyes and bowed my head and waited while the trumpet sounded its mournful solo.

Give them a moment of remembrance; they gave us their lives.

But as I listened, I was aware of other sounds. A lot of other sounds. People chatting on cell phones, announcements over the PA, luggage wheels rolling on the hard floor. There didn’t seem to be another soul nearby who had paused for or even noticed the solemn salute. I was already sobered by the sacred moment; now I was saddened as well by the lack of attention it received. Perhaps most people now think that the Last Post only refers to the most recent blog entry.

Which brings me to mine.

It’s called Xcellent Xylitol, and it takes a look at this wonderful natural sweetener that I’ve just recently learned about. Check it out below.

42. Xcellent Xylitol

A little while back, I wrote an article (Blog #34) about the devastating effects of eating a dessert and how I was several weeks getting over it. Shortly after that, I happened to read about a new kind of sweetener, coconut palm sugar, made from the nectar of the tree flowers.

Further reading revealed that this kind of sugar, named xylitol, was discovered at about the same time by both French and German chemists, late in the 1800s, and became popular throughout Europe as a safe sweetener for diabetics. During World War II when sugar was in short supply, xylitol became a popular substitute.

What we now know about this sugar is that it has a very low glycemic index (GI). If you haven’t heard of GI before, Wikipedia explains it as “a measure of how quickly blood sugar levels rise after eating a particular type of food, … relative to consumption of pure glucose. Glucose has a glycemic index of 100.” The GI of sugar ranges from about 60 to 70; xylitol is 7 to 13.

As you look into GI information, you will find much discussion on the difference between “glycemic index” and “glycemic load.” However, for my purposes in this article, and in my kitchen where I have longed for a real and healthy alternative to sugar, I am concerned only with substituting the one straight across for the other, so GI is all that matters. Xylitol has the same sweetness as sugar, so it is used in the same amounts in recipes. With Thanksgiving coming up, I was looking forward to trying it in my pumpkin pie recipe, hoping that maybe I could indulge a little along with my family, without suffering a debilitating crash.

Well, I mixed up my pastry, which I make with half whole wheat flour and half unbleached white, using butter as shortening because I refuse to have “may-be-hydrogenated pig fat” in my home. And into the shell I poured the spicy blend of pumpkin et al. And was that pie ever good! I carefully limited myself to a half-serving and braced myself for the fall. But it never came.

The next afternoon I phoned Greg, who was already on the road again, and told him that in spite of the pie, I was feeling really good. In fact, I said, I felt better than usual.

“So what do you think?” he asked.

And I replied, “I think God is telling me I need to eat more pumpkin pie.”

He was quick to concur. He knows that if I am to eat more pie, I have to make more pie, which means that he will get more pie.

The xylitol I bought was, as I mentioned, made from the coconut tree. It’s rather coarse, and brown in colour, so best suits recipes calling for brown sugar. But now I found a white xylitol, made from birch trees. And when Greg next came home from his project in Vernon, with a box of huge apples from his client, I made the first apple pie that our household has seen in over 15 years. Hubby was ecstatic. He thought it was the best apple pie he’d ever eaten. And I ate lots, with no ill effects.

There are other sources for xylitol being investigated, including corn, but these might best be avoided, due to the GMO question. Coconut as a source is considered to be the most sustainable, being harvested from the flowers. Birch, on the other hand, must be cut down to extract the sugar, so responsible management here is really important. But a great asset of the birch product is that it has the most significant dental benefits of all the xylitols.

Yes, according to Wikipedia, with xylitol in general, “recent research confirms a plaque-reducing effect and suggests the compound, having some chemical properties similar to sucrose, attracts and then “starves” harmful micro-organisms, allowing the mouth to re-mineralize damaged teeth …. (However, this same effect also interferes with yeast micro-organisms and others, so xylitol is inappropriate for making yeast-based bread.)”

At www.xylitol.org is this information: “Use of xylitol raises the pH of saliva in the mouth. When pH is above 7, calcium and phosphate salts in saliva start to precipitate into those parts of enamel where they are lacking. For this reason, use of xylitol has demonstrated not only a dramatic reduction in new tooth decay, it also has shown the arrest and even some reversal of existing dental caries."

Bring on the pie!

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An addendum, July 4, 2013: Subsequent, to my publishing the article above, a vet friend wrote to tell me that Xylitol will kill a dog, in fairly small amounts. I googled a bit about it and put those thoughts on hold for a while. Recently I looked into it a little more and I decided I don’t want to use this sweetener anymore. It’s an alarmingly complex process, “refining” this “sugar” from birch and coconut trees, and there are reasons to be wary of using this product. Here is the article that set me back on my heels: http://www.naturalnews.com/022986_xylitol_health_sugar.html
Please read it and make your own decision.

41. Don’t Put It on Your Skin – Part III

So what do I put on my skin, and why? I mentioned previously that I start by washing my face with as pure and simple a soap as I can find. Then I spray with either colloidal silver or copper, in place of an astringent. Silver kills bacteria, viruses, parasites, and fungi, so this is a gentle but effective way to prevent or treat various skin problems. Silver also has amazing healing properties that promote regeneration of healthy, normal cells. Terrific for sun burns too.

Copper has a similar, gentle antiseptic effect, but its real claim to fame is that it enables the skin to keep on (or resume) producing collagen and elastin, provided there are also sufficient resources of Vitamin C and zinc in the body. It is deficiency of copper that causes the skin to sag and wrinkle as we age. With its claim of restoring resilience and flexibility, I even suggested to one customer that she try spraying a little on her husband’s attitude.

Copper also is responsible for helping the hair follicles produce melanin, which is what gives hair its natural colour. Loss of copper leads to greying hair. For this reason, when people buy colloidal copper from me, I suggest that in addition to spraying it on their face, they likewise apply it to the scalp.

After one or the other of these skin “fresheners,” I spray on a 50/50 mix of organic glycerine and rosewater. People with oily skin have found a heavier percentage of rose water to be helpful; conversely, those with dry skin increase the proportion of glycerin.

The rose water I buy is from 100% steam-distilled fresh rose blossoms, picked in the world-famous Bulgarian Rose Valley. It is a pure, undiluted, food-grade product, containing no preservatives, additives, or synthetic ingredients. This is what they say about their product: “Rose water is one of the all-time best and most traditional facial cleansers and has multiple skin-care uses. [It] is used to treat acne and skin irritation. Rose water is also added to bathing water and is used for moisturizing the body after bath. It balances skin pH level ... [and] has anti-aging and rejuvenating effects.”

The glycerin that I mix with the rose water is an organic vegetable product. Glycerin, also called glycerol, is present in all natural lipids (fats), whether animal or vegetable. It is a “skin-identical ingredient,” meaning it is a substance found naturally in our skin. It is a humectant, that is, it attracts water. When applied to the skin, it seals in moisture that might otherwise escape. It also draws moisture from the air and from the deeper layers of tissue. With the use of glycerin, the skin takes on a healthier, more attractive appearance and a softer, more supple feel.
Glycerin helps maintain the outer barrier and prevent dryness or scaling. It is used not only in cosmetic and but also medical applications. For example, it fights the effects of skin conditions like psoriasis.

I’ve used glycerin and rose water products off and on since I was a little girl. Now with all organic ingredients, I feel confident that I have the best mix yet. Not only do I use it on my face but for an all-body moisturizer as well.

The final product I use in my facial regimen is organic coconut oil, something that’s getting a lot of press recently. Not only is it an excellent edible oil, hair tonic, and massage oil, but it’s a wonderful balm for the skin.

Comprised of healthy saturated fats, coconut oil keeps skin smooth to the touch and helps it retain moisture. It naturally contains certain fatty acids having effective disinfectant and anti-microbial properties. As a result, coconut oil protects skin from infections. Coconut oil is rich in proteins, which keep skin healthy and rejuvenated on the surface as well as deep down. It is loaded with anti-oxidants so it doesn’t go rancid, a real plus whether it’s used as a food or for skin care. You can use it as a lip balm and make-up remover as well. On a warm summer’s day, I’ll often find my little jar of coconut oil has become liquid; in the winter it’s more like refrigerated butter: I scoop some out and rub it between my hands until it’s liquid and will smooth easily onto my face.

At first I used it plain, but when I discovered the healing benefits of frankincense, I began to add a few drops of that essential oil to the coconut. Frankincense oxygenates cells, improves elasticity and reduces wrinkles. An added bonus, it’s recently been proven that breathing the fragrance eases anxiety and depression. Go ahead: put it on your skin.

40. Don’t Put It on Your Skin – Part II

A health regimen is a work in progress, continually evolving. It’s only two weeks ago that I first wrote about skin care, and now I’ve already changed my mind. (It’s a prerogative of my gender.) I said that I washed my face with Pears soap or good old Ivory. But it seems that Pears, the lovely clear amber bar whose packaging boasts that it is “a 200 years old brand” is quite up to date ingredient-wise, in its use of sodium laurel sulphate and a long list of other chemicals. And Ivory’s old recipe, sadly, is recently replaced with one new and not-so-improved.

Sodium laurel sulphate (SLS) and its shirt-tail cousin sodium laureth sulfate (SLES) are harsh, inexpensive chemicals that cause our soaps, shampoos, toothpastes, and detergents to foam up in that pleasing way that makes us feel the product is really doing its job: i.e., effectively cleaning. It’s the identical agent that is used in car washes, and even in garages for degreasing car engines. Heavy duty stuff.

These chemicals are extremely drying to the skin and hair. It can cause permanent eye damage in infants and young children, and the exposure need not be directly to the eyes but even indirectly through the skin. It is retained in the tissues of the body, for as long as five days after using a single drop. It can cause damage to the hair follicles, leading to early balding. It denatures skin proteins, causing irritation and also allowing other environmental toxins to gain entry to the deeper and more sensitive layers of the skin. In this light it may be implicated in cancers of the skin.

Once it has been absorbed into the skin, one of its many effects is that it mimics estrogen. This can have all kinds of health implications, including PMS, menopausal symptoms, male infertility, and increased incidence of breast and others female cancers.

Long story short: I went hunting and found a very gentle, natural soap containing only three things: saponified olive oil, sea salt, and natural fragrance. Saponification is the process whereby lye is combined with vegetable oil or animal fat, causing a chemical reaction that produces soap and glycerin. Interestingly enough, many of the commercial, mass-produced hand soaps on the market today have had the naturally occurring glycerine with its inherent moisturizing properties removed to sell as a separate commodity, generating higher profits.

As you are inspired to read labels before buying personal care products, there are some ingredients (in addition to SLS and SLES) to watch out for and avoid:
Petrolatum, also known as petroleum jelly, is a semisolid mixture of hydrocarbons obtained from petroleum. Its presence in skin products reduces oxygen absorption and suffocates the skin, causing the death of skin cells and thus premature aging. It increases acne and causes skin irritations and rashes. It causes skin photosensitivity and promotes sun damage. Petrolatum may also interfere with the body's moisturizing mechanism, leading to dry skin and chapping, some of the very things it’s used to combat.

Mineral oil is made from petrolatum, therefore I think we can safely assume that the foregoing side effects apply here as well.

Parabens are preservatives used extensively in personal care products and even foods. They are implicated in breast cancer and also adversely affect the secretion of testosterone and the function of the male reproductive system.

Phylates or phthalates are used as plasticizers or solvents. They are found in nail polishes, deodorants, fragrances, hair gels, and sprays, and hand and body lotions. They are endocrine disrupters, wreaking absolute havoc on the hormones especially of boys and men. For a sobering and frightening video on the subject, check out the following link: http://archive.org/details/TheDisappearingMale-CBC.

This list of must-avoid chemicals is by no means exhaustive. And as bad press leaks out about a given ingredient, companies work overtime to replace it with another unknown chemical so they can get back below the radar. So my rule-of-thumb will remain, “If you don’t know what it is, don’t put it on your skin.”

39. Don’t Put It on Your Skin – Part I

If you wouldn’t eat it, don’t put it on your skin. This is an adage I’m learning to live by. Ever since I began to use bio-identical hormones, I’ve rethought what I use on the outside of me. Some of the hormones I take are applied transdermally (via cream on the skin), and it’s made me realize that a lot of what I put on the outside ends up on the inside. That’s a pretty scary thought when you look at the list of chemicals on some of the cosmetics, skin creams, and shampoos on the shelf. And I don’t care if you bought it for two dollars at Walmart or forty at a spa, if you can’t pronounce the ingredients or you don’t know what they are, don’t put it on your skin.

I was recently at a dermatologist to whom I’d been referred after breaking out in strange lesions on the side of my face, back in early June. By the time I’d seen three doctors and waited to see a specialist, it had all but disappeared, thanks to my trusty iodine (Lugol’s Solution) and, due to a timely tip from an acquaintance, frankincense oil. Still, I kept the dermatologist appointment because I had four or five other spots that I’ve wondered about and this was a golden opportunity to lay my mind to rest about them. The doctor, after looking me over quickly and thoroughly, assured me there was nothing of concern. She fried two of the spots with her liquid nitrogen. Then she said brusquely, “Remember, protection is key,” and handed me a sample of SPF 30 sunscreen before bustling out of the room.

Although I’d smiled and nodded at her counsel, I left the sample sitting on her desk. Call me crazy, but I just can’t bring myself to put that stuff on my skin. I’ll call you crazy as you slather it on. Okay, on the rare occasion that my husband and I have found ourselves on a tropical beach somewhere, I have made an exception to extend the tolerance to sun and surf. But generally I cover up with light clothing when I think I’ve had enough sun and I spray with colloidal silver when I’ve had too much. It’s a terrific healing balm for a sun-burn.

In all likelihood, we will eventually discover that skin cancer is rooted in nutritional deficiencies. My guess is that Vitamin D is a big player here, along with generous amounts of other antioxidants, via food or supplements. Enter Lugol’s solution, again.

So what do I do for skin care? I’ve always been a fan of glycerin and rosewater because that’s what my mother used. Tritles, it was called. A pretty, clear pink lotion in a hand-pump bottle or white frothy cream in a jar. I was so disappointed when they stopped manufacturing it fifteen or twenty years ago, as this was my staple for hand and body cream. But now I realize anyway that the nice pink colour was probably not a good thing and that what made the white cream so frothy was probably sodium laurel sulphate.

Regarding facial care, for thirty years I was a faithful customer of a well-known multi-level skin-care and cosmetic company. More recently I have seen these products sized up on a site that rates personal care products for safety health-wise. I have since stopped using all that stuff too.

This is where I stand today. I buy organic vegetable glycerin from one website and organic Bulgarian rosewater from another. I mix them 50/50 and put the clear mixture in a glass spray bottle. It’s terrific for face, hand, and body moisturizer, and a smaller spray bottle carries handily in purse (or shaving kit, in my husband’s case). One is perfectly assured of its safety on the skin, because both of the ingredients are safe to eat. In fact, the rosewater comes with a little pamphlet that includes a couple of recipes for using it in exotic desserts.

I wash my face (and body) with good old Ivory soap or glycerin-based Pears. After rinsing thoroughly, I spray with colloidal silver, in place of a mild astringent or skin freshener. Then I spray lightly with my glycerin and rosewater mix and gently rub it in. Finally I smooth on some coconut oil that has a bit of frankincense essential oil mixed in. I’m trying to find Vitamins A, E, and D in a pure oil form to add in, as these are all very good for the skin. I may eventually make this skincare “set” available at the Farmers’ Market; then if customers would like, I can tell them how to source and mix the ingredients themselves.

38. To a Healthier Halloween

When we were kids, Halloween was the most exciting night of the year. I remember the time my brother John wanted to be a ghost. So Mom cut a hole in a big white sheet to stick his head through, leaving yards and yards of white fabric cascading down from his shoulders to flutter around him as he moved. That part was relatively simple. But la pièce de la résistance was the head. Mom carved a jack-o’-lantern, cutting a hole in the bottom (instead of in the top) of a huge pumpkin, and fitted the opening wide enough to slip right over his head. And off we went. I don’t even remember what my older sister and I were wearing—John’s costume was too exciting.

Well, we didn’t even get beyond our own neighbourhood before John, unable to see properly out the features of his giant pumpkin, tripped on his flowing sheet going down some concrete stairs and, like the proverbial Jack who went up a hill to fetch a pail of water, fell down and broke his crown. Big chunks of shattered pumpkin were all the remained of the masterpiece, and John went home crying, leaving the serious gathering of candy to his big sisters.

That’s what Halloween was really about for us: precious hoards of chocolate bars and candy, along with the more disappointing offerings of popcorn, apples, and peanuts. It is little wonder that we frequently came down with colds and flus in the week following Halloween. Sugar whacks the immune system a terrible wallop, especially in high, continuous doses following a cold, late night.

In more recent years, as we were raising our own kids, I often would make homemade treats for that special night and slip my name and phone number into the wrap so that parents could trust their children weren’t being poisoned by some whacko. Now that our kids are grown, when Halloween rolls around and I can’t come up with a good excuse to be gone for the evening, I pick up some treats to have on hand in case a few little ones show up at our rather remote location. But last year, I carefully read the ingredients on these little bagged goodies and was aghast that there were no longer any recognizable components. Not even any (not so) good old sugar. It’s been replaced, wholesale, by high-fructose corn syrup, a genetically modified abomination that is turning the health of a generation upside down. Add some chemical concoctions to give it fake flavour and colour, then some preservatives, and you have candy.

Although I still bought a package (because I didn’t want to be the “mean old lady up the road who doesn’t give out candy,” I felt that I was bestowing a very mixed blessing as I dropped handfuls into bags held by eager little hands. So it was with great interest that I read an article my daughter Rachel forwarded to me just ten days before Halloween.

It was about a young fellow named Nicky Bronner. Two years ago, when he was thirteen, his parents took away all his candy after Halloween, saying that it was not good for him. (They sound a lot like me.) But although he was initially angry, he let his anger motivate him to better things. He first set out to prove that candy wasn’t as bad as his parents said. But he quickly discovered that they were right (“for the first time ever,” says Nicky) and that it contained all kinds of junk. “I just didn't understand why it had to be this way. If candy was made with only real chocolate, real peanut butter, real caramel, and other real foods, couldn't it taste even better and be better for us?” So the young man started a company to make healthier candy. He partnered up with a creative chef and the brand Unreal Candy came into being.

To date there are five different confections available from this now 15-year-old entrepreneur, modelled after five all-time favourites: peanut M&Ms, regular M&Ms, Milky Way, Snickers, and peanut butter cups. But the difference is, “all five candies are made without corn syrup, hydrogenated oil, artificial flavors, GMOs, and synthetic colors. So while the candy still contains chocolate, natural sugar, caramel, and other ingredients, they are arguably somewhat healthier than other candy bars. … Even the dyes used to make the coloring for the M&M-like candies are natural ... ‘like red from beets [says Nicky] and blue from purple cabbage, to get the great colors on (our) candies.’”

Good luck to this young man on his mission “to unjunk the world,” and here’s to a healthier Halloween.

37. Serious About Supplements

If you saw the number of supplements that Greg and I have in our kitchen cupboard, you’d probably think it was ridiculous. Many people are still of the mind, “I don’t need to take vitamins and minerals; I get everything I need from my food,” but we stopped believing that a long time ago. I know that if you read my articles, you could easily think that iodine is the only supplement I take, but I try to cover all my bases.

My nutrition regimen morphs as I go on learning. A few years ago, I was faithfully using a good quality all-in-one vitamin-and-mineral supplement by a company called Adeeva, at a cost of about $30 for a one-month bottle. They are available in most health food stores; also online, where you can buy several at a time and save a little. A product like this is a good place to start for those who are overwhelmed with the thought of trying to figure out exactly what they need. (I don’t recommend using the complexes marketed by the big pharmaceutical companies: often the forms of vitamins they use are not fitted for our bodies, plus there are tough coatings on the caplets to extend shelf-life, so absorption is poor.)

This particular supplement that I was using contains Vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B6, B12, C, D, E, folic acid, biotin (generally classified as a B-complex vitamin), D-pantothenic acid (B5), calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc, copper, chromium, manganese, selenium, molybdenum, citrus bioflavonoids (essential if Vitamin C is to be fully metabolized and utilized by the body), lycopene (an antioxidant compound that gives tomatoes and certain other fruits and vegetables their color), and lutein (a plant carotenoid deficient in most western diets; important in eye health). This is a good pedigree and contains fairly generous amounts.

However, I still needed to take extra calcium and magnesium, because I’ve learned over the years how much I need, so I had to buy those separately. The citrate forms of these two minerals are well-absorbed. I’m currently using Jamieson brand: inexpensive but effective, and available in large chain stores. (Magnesium in particular is so important, yet there is wide-spread deficiency of this mineral. It promotes heart health, calm nerves, better sleep, regularity, and all kinds of other things. Try to see that you get at least 400 mg per day.)

Then I recognized a greater need for vitamin D and bought that separately, to boost my intake from 400 IU to anywhere between 2000 and 6000 IU, depending on the time of year. (If you find yourself prone to depression during our long dark winters, try upping your D intake. Seasonal affective disorder: they don’t call it SAD for nothing! It’s believed to be caused by lack of natural sunlight on the skin, which is how we normally get vitamin D.)

Then a couple of different practitioners told me I needed to increase to 3000 mg of Vitamin C a day, first for some issues with platelets and white blood cells, and then for the voracious need of my adrenal glands.

And I needed to buy some salmon oil too, so that I was getting my essential fatty acids. (Buy wild salmon oil; farmed salmon is raised in questionable conditions and given antibiotics.)

As I got into taking iodine, I found out that it works hand in hand with selenium for a healthy thyroid and also to keep heavy metals moving out of the body. My supplement contained only half of what I needed. So I bought some of that and increased my dose to 200 mcg a day. (You can take up to 400 mcg a day of selenium.)

My adrenal issues also demanded 800 IU of Vitamin E, not just the 400 I was getting, so I bought some of that. I learned, too, that many brands of Vitamin E are in the form of “d-alpha-tocopheral.” It is the most inexpensive to manufacture and therefore the most profitable. However, what we need (especially with adrenal issues) is a “mixed tocopherals” form of E, containing also beta, delta, and gamma. I checked my bottle of Vitamin E and, happily, found it was “mixed.” That’s what my mother would call better luck than good management.

I buy most of my vitamins at Nutter’s (Leduc and Wetaskiwin readers may appreciate this tip): they have a great selection and the prices are good, especially on the last Tuesday of every month when everything is 20% off. That’s where I buy my psyllium husk too—an easy way to be sure you’re getting enough fibre. I take a tablespoon in juice every morning, and it really gets the job done. (Sorry!)

As you can easily understand, I eventually dropped the “all-in-one” supplement from Adeeva. But it’s a great place for you to start if you need a new health regimen. That brand was available at Nutter’s, last time I checked, and it’ll be discounted $6 on “Power Tuesday.”

36. Get the Lead Out

It’s what we used to say when we were kids, if someone was walking too slowly: “Get the lead out!” It’s taken on a whole new meaning for me now. When the results came back from my heavy metal toxicology test, it showed that my lead levels were 3.5 times the reference range (the average healthy population). So my goal, and that of my naturopath, understandably became “Get the lead out!”

As the doctor explained how he would do this, I was busy wondering where my exposure had come from. I thought back to my childhood and how Dad had a fascinating sheet of pure lead on his work bench that we kids and our neighbourhood buddies loved to play with. It was so soft and flexible, we could easily cut it into strips and shapes with the big tin snips that were there and then bend it into all manner of interesting things. Health authorities today would take a dim view of such entertainment for children.

Then I thought of how when Dad was filling the car with gas, we kids would stand around imitating the sound the pump made each time another gallon went in (“Dingit! Another fifty cents!”). And I would stand as close as I could to the nozzle and inhale deeply, because I loved the smell of that raw, leaded gas. I remember Dad noticing this one time, and he rebuked me, saying that it would eat out my brain. (He was a doctor—he oughta know.)

And not just raw gasoline, but the exhaust as well. When Dad’s car was idling out front of the house, warming up as he got ready to go, I would squat behind the exhaust pipe and inhale. I don’t think he ever knew that I did that, but I don’t recommend it. Kneeling behind vehicles that are running can be hazardous to the health, and not just because of what you’re inhaling.

Back in the present, my naturopath was saying that he would like to do a series of chelation treatments, where an agent called EDTA, administered intravenously, would stir up the lead deep in the body, even in the bones and brain, bind to it, and carry it out through the various channels of elimination. He suggested 10 treatments. I elected to do them monthly: at $136 each, I wanted to spread the expense out over a year.

This summer, as I was approaching the end of the treatments, I got a random email from someone who reads my articles, saying that the Celtic sea salt I’m always touting is dangerously high in lead. So I asked him for his sources and did some checking of my own. I find that it’s very hard to nail things down. The main problem is that one brand’s analysis may only measure down to what is considered an “acceptable level” and another may calculate the exact content. So in a comparison of, for example, Celtic sea salt and Himalayan, the first measures in at < (less than) 0.0004% and the second at exactly 0.00001%. You simply can’t compare figures like that. It’s also hard to discern whether such information is just a scare tactic: marketing techniques of competing companies.

I talked it over with my naturopath. How crazy would this be if I was taking in lead as fast as he was taking it out? I’ve talked about how much salt I ingest, given my adrenal challenges: up to 4 teaspoons daily. I seriously need to know if I’m poisoning myself. The doctor suggested I go to my regular GP where I could get a urinalysis done without paying out of pocket. This would measure recent exposure—within the last couple of weeks. Given also that I take lots of iodine and a good dose of selenium daily, and that these two elements are known to keep most circulating heavy metals moving out of the body, I felt sure that any lead in the salt would show up clearly. Well, I did the test 19 days after a chelation treatment so there was lots of salt and water under the bridge in the meantime. And the results came back showing that I was safely below the reference range. So at present, I rest assured that there isn’t a problem with the salt I’m using.

Having now completed my 10 chelation treatments, the next step is to do a round of chelation as the provocation for yet another urinalysis. This will give a picture of lead at a much deeper level than the soft tissue provocation of a year ago and will show whether I still have lead in the bones and brain.