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Monday, November 22, 2010

Tis the Season

The wind and the wet are finally back.  I always did like the cloudy grey look, and now I can finally put my spiffy new winter coat to good use.  Unfortunately, it also means the ants have been flooded out of their own homes and are running amok in the bathroom.  Being the same chronically disorganized California ants I remember from last year, they aren't good enough to march in straight lines, so I have no idea where they're coming in.  Standing by, with a bottle of Windex.

David was adamant that there would be no hint of Christmas festivities in the house until at least the first Sunday of Advent, despite the rest of the neighborhood.  That seemed reasonable to me, but when I explained that decorating the tree was a family affair and that he'd better get his homework done early, he decided the preceding Saturday would be just fine.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Jumping the Gun

I remember when the Bearenstain Bears were complaining that the Christmas season seemed to start earlier and earlier every year, even as early as the day after Thanksgiving.  Gasp.  Well, apparently somebody abolished Thanksgiving some time ago, because now it's Christmas as soon as the shriveled jack-o-lanterns go to compost.

It seems the importance and/or general impact of any holiday is directly related to it's marketability.  The grocery stores and caterers still have a special place in their hearts for Thanksgiving, but the rest of the retail forces have relatively little seasonal merchandise to peddle in November.  There are a few endcaps for the turkey napkins and paper plates, orange plasticware, and the occasional autumnal votive candle.  There are no Thanksgiving carols, no Thanksgiving gifts, no Thanksgiving candy.  This is probably a blessing in itself, but in practical terms it means that Santa is fair game two months in advance.

I love Christmas.  I've been waiting for months to unveil our awesome tree and play Charlie Brown music. But even I'd feel silly doing it this early.  The radio hasn't actually started playing carols yet, but the Christmas commercials fill the gaps.  Even the PX is starting to sneak instrumental renditions of The Twelve Days of Christmas over the intercom, sandwiched in between the usual non-seasonal selections.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Pick Your Poison

I just watched a remarkable documentary via Netflix last week called "Food Matters."  If you don't currently enjoy a Netflix subscription, visit their website.  It really makes you rethink health, chronic illness, and what we take for granted every day.  For those short on time, here's the trailer and a long list of bullet-point highlights.



It begins with the premise that the human body is able to fight disease on it's own when given the means to do so, and that the root cause of almost all chronic disease is basically malnutrition.  The medical establishment is very necessary and useful when it comes to emergency conditions, short-term conditions, trauma, etc., but drops the ball on chronic conditions.  Different chronic diseases are caused by different nutritional deficiencies.

Food is nutritionally deficient because the soil is depleted.  Fertilizer generally replaces nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, but neglects the other 49 minerals required for healthy produce.  The plants are weakened, vulnerable to fungus and pests, and so are treated with chemicals.  The end result is food that is both deficient and toxic.

Whatever is left in the deficient and toxic food is destroyed by cooking it.  Try raw vegetables now and then.  Have a salad; enjoy the enzymes.  For whatever reason the immune system reacts to a diet of cooked food as if it were a toxin (digestive leucocytosis), causing unnecessary stress.  It was proven as early as the 1930's that a diet of at least 51% raw food would prevent digestive leucocytosis.

The "2:30 feeling" is a result of the chronic malnutrition and toxicity of the body in the modern age.  Don't suck on an energy drink; take your vitamins.  Vitamin deficiencies from the day, week, or year before cannot be corrected by overcompensating later.  Each day is about not creating new deficiencies.

Less than 6% of graduating physicians in the USA receive any formal training in nutrition.

Vitamin C in high doses can cure much more than the common cold.  This was apparent as early as the 1940's, but goes unnoticed by the majority of the medical profession.

Vitamin C is an anti-toxin, an anti-histamine, an anti-viral, helps regulate blood sugar and elevate mood.  Vitamin E is very good for healing heart disease, burns, and preventing epileptic seizures.   One vitamin can cure a variety of illnesses because a deficiency of those vitamins can cause those illnesses.

The recommended daily allowance of vitamins are simply a general estimate of the minimum required to prevent a deficiency related disease.  More won't hurt you, and will probably help.

Stress requires high levels of vitamin C in order to handle adrenaline.  A vitamin C deficiency combined with a high stress environment causes damage to the cardiovascular system and leads to heart attack.

CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE CAN BE ARRESTED OR REVERSED WITH DIET AND NUTRITION, which can be much safer and cheaper than surgery, drugs, and side effects.  But it does require a lifestyle change.  Unfortunately, most cardiologists have no idea this is the case, and of course the drug companies don't advocate it.

Drugs for pain management serve a purpose, short term drug regimens such as antibiotics serve a purpose, but drugs for chronic conditions are usually problematic, especially since all drugs are liver toxic.  It's difficult to be well nourished when the body is crowded with toxins.

Dangerous side effects, or adverse drug reactions, kill approximately 106,000 Americans each year when properly prescribed and taken as directed.  These were side effects that were expected and accepted as a risk of using the drug.  That would be 2,438,000 deaths in 23 years, during which time 10 deaths were allegedly attributed to vitamins.

A great deal of research has been completed and published regarding the possibility of treating and curing chronic disease through nutrition therapy, but this research has been systematically blacklisted by the United States National Library of Medicine.

SEVERE CLINICAL DEPRESSION CAN BE SAFELY TREATED WITH NIACIN (VITAMIN B3), even suicidal depression.  Take as much as required to see improvement.  Bill Williams, founder of Alcoholics Anonymous tried it with great success. Two handfuls of raw cashews are the therapeutic equivalent of a prescription dose of Prozac.  No side effects.

Mercury fillings are toxic, especially after long-term exposure, but dentists are not legally allowed to admit it.

Drinking lots of water first thing in the morning will greatly help the body to detoxify effectively.

Cancer treatments and medications generally cause great amounts of damage and kill the cancer at the expense of the rest of the body, if they are effective at all.  70% of cancer patients die within five years, regardless of the stage at which conventional treatment began.  However, Dr. Max Gerson, in the 1940's and 1950's, had a 50% cancer cure rate using nutrition therapy.  Malignant melanoma responds especially well to nutrition therapy, also non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.  Medical school, however, refuses to teach the Gerson Therapy.

In order to be an official "cancer survivor" and inflate the official survival rates, one only has to survive  for five years after the initial treatment.  Die three days after those five years are up, and it has no bearing.

It remains ILLEGAL in most countries to treat cancer with nutritional therapy.  Sounds to me like somebody is truly hell-bent on selling radiation therapy.  If I come down with cancer, pack your bags, we're going to Mexico for a vitamin C drip, which has been proven to be a very effective chemotherapeutic agent.  Inexpensive and safe at doses as high as 200,000 mg daily, it certainly looks like an attractive alternative, selectively toxic to cancer cells.  No nausea, no hair loss, no other cell damage.

The moral of the story is that most food these days is little better than crap, and if buying all organic isn't an option for whatever reason (as it usually isn't) take your multivitamins!  Give chewables to the kids.  Drink water.  See if a little B Complex will keep you happy, and whether a some vitamin C on the side will help you feel great even outside flu season.  Get off the drugs that aren't a life and death matter.  You'll live longer and be healthier.

Halloween Bust

Nobody seems to enjoy the good old childhood traditions anymore.  Admittedly, we had a less than $10 budget for Halloween this year, but we did trick out the house with candles, organ music, and the smallest jack-o-lantern known to man.  In all fairness, there was a Halloween substitute party at the chapel called "Light the Night," but this neighborhood is crawling with more than enough kids to go around.  We had a grand total of two callers all night, and now we're swimming in an unexpected surplus of Raisinets and Milk Duds.