The Vaulted Files: Infestation??? Horrors!!

Tags

head lice, Logic Products Group, natural lice remedies

I have a rather insane storage vault of unpublished posts, both for this blog and for my life and love ramblings over at DomAndLori.  Some of them are not just unpublished, they are unfinished.  But I intend at some point to publish them anyway. Here is the first to come out of the vault: 

 

Let me be honest at the start, here: this is not something I want to be talking about.  For the second Christmas holiday in a row, my family is battling head lice.  Go ahead and gag now.  I’ve made a morning of it, myself.

I truly had hoped that we would be done with all this nonsense once the kids got out of elementary school.  Oh, sure, I had seen many a note come home in their backpacks about a lice sighting in their wee years’ classrooms, and I was smugly grateful that it never struck us personally.  Until 2012.  There we were, minding our own business, settling into the new home, enjoying Christmas and BAM!!  We were hit with a one-two punch.  Vic and me.  E-gad!  This is what I get for snuggling my kids?  I took roughly five days off of work to deal with 1) the infestation of those little unseen buggers and 2) my personal trauma/embarrassment/failure as a parent.  Overdramatic much??

To debunk any misconceptions of the nastiness that surely must exist in my home and on my person, I learned the following during that horrific week of wanting to claw my own eyes out:

1. Lice attaches itself better to clean hair.  Yes, folks, contrary to popular belief, you do not have to be a filthy person to suffer the injustice of head lice.  Clean hair holds the eggs better, so I guess, Yay, we’re clean!
2. You don’t just have to share hairbrushes with someone or sleep on their pillow to get head lice.  Lice are sneaky, creative travelers and sometimes where it came from and how you got it is only a guess.
3. There is a proliferation of chemical-laden treatments on the shelves of our local pharmacies.  None of them are natural or holistic, and very few of them are safe for repeated use.  Granted, I almost don’t care if it burns my scalp off, I want to use whatever I can as often as I can to make the hell pass more quickly.

Last year as I was confessing the horror to a coworker, she knowingly stated, “It doesn’t matter how natural and against chemicals you are, once you are dealing with head lice, you will practically douse your kids in gasoline just to get rid of it.”  Omigosh, having now been through it twice, I can tell you…truer words were never spoken.

For months afterward, any time either of my children itched above the neck they would run to me and blurt, “Check me!!” and I would commence to combing through their hair to make sure they were not infested again.  And fortunately, they never were.  But there I was this morning, unassumingly stroking my son’s hair as he slouched on the bathroom floor, nauseated from what we would determine four hours later to be the flu.  The flu, people.  My son is wrestling the flu and I’m thinking out loud, “We need to cut your hair soon, sweetie.  Wait a minute, what’s this in your hair? WHAT THE %$#@! IS THAT?!!!!!!!”

But I knew exactly what it was.  And I was nearly sick right beside him.  Within minutes I was checking the Hubster, my daughter and myself, determining whom to treat and whom to all-out quarantine, practically in tears with the memory of last year.  But I sniffed the tears back, grabbed my keys and a ponytail holder and sped off to WalMart at 6:30 in the morning to begin my journey:

Step 1: Drop well over $100 on every kind of lice treatment on the shelf.  Throw in some homeopathic cough meds and several packs of Ricola, and hope something gives the kid some relief.

Step 2: Treat every head with gawdawful pesticides while Hubster strips beds down and begins the laundry cycles.  I love the Sanitize feature of my washing machine.  It’s great for making sure my stuff is clean when we’re dealing with crap like this.  Forget that it takes four days to wash two loads.  Sheesh!

Step 3: Send text messages to family members whom we have been around during the holidays.  Pray that they don’t have it too.  This brings up a touchy point:  Yes, it is highly embarrassing to admit to someone that you have head lice.  I get that.  I’ve had it twice now and sharing the news hasn’t gotten any easier.  You will feel like a pariah.  But hear me on this one thing: You must let others know so that they can treat and/or prevent the malady in their own households.  Yes, it sucks to call someone up and say, “Hey, great seeing you the other day! I’m so glad we got to spend those eight hours together!  By the way, we have lice, so check your heads.”  There’s no easy way to do it.  But you have to.  And when that person you’ve called is dealing with head lice later, hopefully he or she will remember your honesty and pay it forward.

Step 4: Run to the pediatrician’s office for flu test on a Saturday morning.  Thank God they are open on weekends!

Step 5: Take a moment to actually breathe and read the label on the spray can for the furniture.  I had forgotten why I didn’t use it last year.  Dear goodness.  We would have to sit all four of us plus the dogs outside in the cold while the stuff dries on the furniture, then ventilate the cold into the house so that we can once again breathe indoors.  Who the hell created this stuff?  Monsanto?

Having two dogs and one flu-ridden son prevents me from opening windows and spraying toxic chemicals in my home on a December day.  So I took to the Internet, hoping something somewhere would provide some measure of treatment for my furniture and non-washables.  Vacuuming, steaming and scrubbing just doesn’t seem like enough.  In the five days I took off work last year last year I wiped down, scrubbed and cleaned every surface to the best of my ability.  I was exhausted.  I’ll do it all over again out of necessity, but I’d like some help.

And so I stumbled upon the Logic Products Group, founded by a mom just like us.  She too dealt with the horror of head lice and discovered that there were no natural, safe treatments available.  She has remedied that.  I ended up on her site because of her household spray, which is reported to be safe for repeated use around pets and people, unlike any of the spray products you will find at the pharmacy.  I ordered a bottle straight from her site and another bottle from Amazon with my Prime membership.  Unfortunately, I won’t have the product until next week, so I’ll be vacuuming and scrubbing until then.  Without the benefit of trying the products yet, I am impressed by what I see on their site.  They have general products for the home as well as flea and tick treatment for pets. (Update: I purchased the furniture spray and the lice shampoo.  I sprayed everything down and was pleased with the spray, but did not have the opportunity to use the shampoo, as it arrived a week after the trauma had ended.)

The Nourishing Gourmet also wrote a great post on natural treatments of head lice.  Neem oil and tea tree oil are top choices for treatment and prevention in her post.

So – quick recap – we have head lice, flu and now (oh joy!) a puking dog.  There simply is not enough wine in this house.  I seem to recall a bottle of tea tree oil in my bathroom cabinet, so I’m off to mix that into some water and spray on all our heads for good measure.  Hey – better than gasoline!

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Why No Wheat?

Tags

diabetes, glycemic index, Grain Brain, no grains, paleo, pre-diabetic, wheat, Wheat Belly

I had the “wheat-free” conversation with two friends recently, which prompted me to write this post.  Over the course of the last year and a half whenever I tell someone that I try to follow the Paleo lifestyle for eating, they always ask why I don’t eat grains.  I suppose sugar is a no-brainer for most people, as it was for me, but I didn’t always have a ready answer on the grain part.  I had only vague “grains are anti-nutrients” statements that I could not support with any memorable scientific notes.  Not being one to try to force people to my way of thinking, I’d shrug and let it go.  What’s right for me isn’t necessarily right for someone else.  Hadn’t I learned that already in my own household?

Last autumn when my husband was diagnosed as being pre-diabetic I read through the literature his doctor sent home with him.  It recommended low-fat foods, fruits, vegetables and lots of whole grains.  Ugh.  But I nearly lost it when the literature encouraged diet soft drinks and sugar-free candy.  ENCOURAGED!!!   I read the absurdities out loud and then tossed the literature across the table.

“Will you help me eat right?” my husband asked.

“I don’t agree with that crap,” I said, pointing to the literature endorsed by the American Diabetes Association. “I can’t even explain to you exactly why I don’t agree with it, but I can’t stomach the idea of medical professionals telling people whole grains and Aspartame are good for you.”

“Then we’ll throw those papers away.  Will you help me eat right?” he asked again.

How could I say no?  He was placing more trust in me than in his doctor, and I wasn’t about to let him down.  I jumped back on my Paleo bandwagon with both feet.  Dom immediately cut out grains and sugars.  His blood sugar, which we tested daily, normalized at once and over the course of the next three months he lost 20 pounds.  Even better than those awesome health benefits, we were enjoying cooking dinner together almost every night and sharing lunch at home during the workdays.  I decided to make it my mission to find out why this grain-free life was treating us so kindly.

Two of the books I have read in my quest are Grain Brain and Wheat Belly, both written by physicians and chock-full of science.  Admittedly, I sometimes found myself zoning out from all the scientific references, but two things caught my attention and held it: 1) Both doctors referenced cases of various illness and disorders which other doctors could not specifically diagnose – all alleviated with the elimination of grain from the diet; and 2) the scientific trials referenced in both books included tens of thousands of individuals – large scale research.  Conversely, I overheard our local news recently touting a health study in which 200 individuals participated.  Wow…a whole 200 people?  Please.

Even though I had already given up wheat and other grains, these books reinforced my resolve to avoid them.  Some basic facts that strengthened my understanding are:

• It’s not my great-great-grandmother’s wheat.  The wheat we eat today has been so genetically modified in order to produce larger crops and greater profitability that it no longer resembles the wheat of our ancestors, and it wreaks havoc on the body in ways that ancient grains simply did not.
• The inclusion of grains as the basis of our food pyramid (not to mention the sheer proportion of grains compared to other foods in our “recommended daily nutrition”) is not based on any scientific evidence.  It was pretty much decided by a group of politicians in the 70’s (who were likely trying to support corporate agriculture) and simply never challenged.
• Genetically engineered wheat (roughly 99% of all wheat world-wide) can not survive in a natural environment.  Originally created to produce higher yields in an effort to offset world hunger, these grains were propelled into our food supply without any studies on their health effects.
• From a blood glucose standpoint, a slice of whole wheat bread whacks out your blood sugar more than a Snickers bar.  (NOT that I am advocating you dine on Snickers!)  To be precise, a Snickers bar has a glycemic index (GI) of 49.  A slice of whole wheat bread has an average GI of 71.  This information alone makes me furious that the ADA literature I referred to earlier actually promoted wheat products and whole grains for people wanting to manage diabetes.  I guess I should just be happy that they didn’t advise we have a Snickers bar with our diet soda.

I looked at the American Diabetes Association’s website explanation of GI on various foods.  They list the GI of a piece of whole wheat bread as “medium GI (56-69)” while stating white bread has a “high GI (70+).” Conversely, according to the Harvard Medical School, whole wheat bread averages a GI of 71, the very same as white bread.  Surprising to most, a “healthy” bowl of instant oatmeal averages a GI of 83.  I looked extensively at various groups’ food GI charts and came to my own conclusion:  given the extensive varieties of food products available to us in the stores, the data pretty much can be expressed in any light to support any claim.  But I have to marvel at the fact that a whopping 79 million people in the U.S. are “pre-diabetic.”  From my standpoint, it’s easy to see why.

Okay, so I gave up bread (and oatmeal and crackers and cereal and donuts and… you get the picture).  Wanna know what else I gave up?  My ever-growing list includes joint pain, cramps, blemishes and skin oddities.  Dom gave up antacids entirely.  Just a little slip (which we made on two separate weekends) brings back symptoms we would have otherwise ignored in our former selves.  So many health inconveniences were just accepted as a part of life and aging.  But the elimination of wheat (and likely sugar too) has proven that life and aging can be so much better than we had been trained to accept!

So, what do I eat?  Well, lots of eggs, uncured meats, cheeses, whole milk (I’m “paleo plus dairy” 🙂 ) fruits, nuts and vegetables.  We drink red wine with dinner.  No sugars, no starches.  I rely on sweet potatoes for an indulgent carb boost and paleo “treats” for my occasional sweet tooth.  (See Living Healthy with Chocolate and PaleOMG for some awesome treat recipes!)  I don’t worry about calories, fat or cholesterol for many of the reasons cited in the two books referenced above.

And no, quitting wheat cold-turkey was not super-easy.  I actually did it three times before it stuck.  This last time, with Dominic’s health at stake and armed with much more information, I walked away from wheat and didn’t look back.  But I know how hard it can be… after all, I made an Italian give up pasta.

I’m no doctor and I don’t pretend to be.  I don’t know your personal situation and cannot guarantee any results for anyone, including myself.  But if you’re dealing with an ailment no one can identify, or you’re simply just wishing you could feel better, try eliminating wheat and grain from your diet.  Give it four weeks and see how you feel.  It may work for you; it may not.  I’m betting that it will.

I found a quote on Facebook the other day that stated, “Every time you eat or drink, you are either feeding disease or fighting it.”  (Credit: Heather Morgan, MS, NLC.)  I have learned that I’m a fighter.  How ’bout you?

I wish you health and peace.

Where Did I Go Wrong??

Tags

aspartame, headache, wrigley's gum

That’s a rhetorical question, of course. I know exactly where I went wrong.  No need to rub it in.

It all started a little over a week ago when Victoria popped a piece of Juicy Fruit gum in her mouth.  Wow…Juicy Fruit.  I used to LOVE that gum when I was little.  My immediate reaction, though, was “That’s not a gum I approve, you know.”  Oh, she knows. My comment made little difference as she smacked away on it and tucked the remaining pack back into her purse.  I reasoned to myself that a stick of Juicy Fruit was certainly not the end of the world, high fructose corn syrup be damned.

Fast forward to last night at the grocery store, where as I am sliding my debit card back into my purse, Victoria is slapping not one but TWO packs of Doublemint gum on the counter behind me, cash in hand.

“What’s in that gum?” I ask.  She shrugs and emphasizes the fact that she’s buying this contraband with her own money.  Fair enough, I reason. I try to give my kids freedom in spending their own money while encouraging them to make smart choices along the way.  How else will they learn, right?

I pick up one of the packs and flip it over to the ingredients list. Corn syrup, no surprise.  Guar gum, gum base, yadayadayada.  Holy crap: Aspertame.  Acesulfame K!  BHT!!  I feel my own head exploding as I announce the evil ingredients.  “Vic!!  This stuff is horrible!!”

“I’m not going to chew a whole pack in a day, Mom!” she protests.

“No,” I reply, “you’re going to poison yourself a little at a time over the course of the next week, rendering your entire nervous system defenseless against the tiny, steady onslaught of toxins.  My God, you might as well start drinking Diet Coke!  I mean, really, what if you want to have children when you’re grown up?  Is that pack of gum worth ruining your chances before you’re even old enough to want them?!”

Yep. There it was.  Did you see it?  I became THAT mother.  I didn’t say anything I don’t believe, but I said it in a way that I can’t stand, and worse, in front of people who don’t understand.  I could feel the eyes of the cashier upon me as Dom bagged up my slew of organic, unprocessed, non-GMO groceries.  I know she was thinking, “Oh, poor kid!”

Truthfully, though, for reasons I couldn’t readily explain to anyone, I felt like a dagger had been driven through my heart.  Aspartame and BHT were two of the first ingredients I identified as dangerous back in 2010.  Everyone understood their harmful effects.  Didn’t they?  Or had the passage of time and priority weakened our commitment to safe and healthy eating?

Our commitment.  Was it really ours?  Or was it just mine, forced on my family because 8 and 9-year olds don’t have as much buying power as (the now) 12 and 13-year olds?  It was a really low moment for me.

In the car on the way home I tried to reiterate to Victoria what Aspartame and BHT do inside the body.  I ran a short litany of side-effects.  At the mention of headaches, light bulbs switched on for both of us.  Vic had been having unexplained headaches for about the past week, complaining at least every other day.  We had estimated causes to be the change in weather, change in hormones, not enough sleep.  It didn’t occur to me to ask, “Have you chewed any crappy gum lately?”  It’s not labeled as sugar-free, because there is corn syrup in it, so I would have never guessed that Wrigley’s made its gum with the artificial sweetener Aspartame.  But now we know.

Part of me feels that she’s still young enough for me to control what she has access to.  And I do not mean to give that up entirely, lest you think I’m okay with her touring crack-houses as a hobby.  But another part of me feels that she has to learn some things on her own.  She has to be allowed to make choices, even those that I don’t agree with.  My part in this stage of her life is to keep her alive and safe and make sure she can match the effect to its cause in any circumstance and learn from the experience.

I just pray that I have the grace to not be such a jerk about it.

How Healthy Living Impacts Hearing

Tags

healthy living, Hearing

I’m thrilled to have been approached again with a guest post! John O’Connor writes about speech and hearing issues, and he shares information on how living a healthy lifestyle can benefit our auditory systems. I have to admit that I never considered how hearing ties in with all the positive changes we have implemented in our lives, but it makes complete sense! Check out John’s post here, and then check out his website where he recently started blogging and offering advice for sustaining our hearing health. (You can bet I’ll be cranking up the Vitamin C and turning down the ear buds a notch now!)

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Your ears are designed to pick up sounds, processing them and send them to your brain to help you hear clearly. When any part of your ears are not working properly, your ability to hear can be adversely affected. Living a healthy lifestyle is an integral part of keeping your hearing healthy.

Eating a healthy diet is essential to maintaining good health. Nutritious foods keep our bodies strong and vital, which is important to warding off viruses and infections that can cause hearing loss. Ear infections often occur when we become sick with a cold or the flu. Untreated allergies can also cause ear infections to develop. People who eat a diet rich in complex carbohydrates, lean protein, healthy fats and dairy products are less likely to become sick with ear infections. Chronic or untreated ear infections can cause hearing loss in children and adults. Taking vitamin supplements such as vitamin C, may also prevent infections. Babies infected with cytomegalovirus or CMV, often have hearing loss. Infection occurs before birth, while babies are still in the womb. The Center For Disease Control states for every baby born with CMV, 1 in 5 will suffer serious hearing loss, total deafness or other disabilities. Pregnant women who eat healthy foods, exercise and receive proper obstetric care are less likely to have babies infected with this serious disease.

You can take other steps to keep your hearing healthy. Keep your ears free of excess earwax, as this can lead to hearing difficulties. Avoid cleaning your ears with cotton swabs, as this can lead to ear infections that could damage your ears. Avoid listening to loud music, especially when wearing headphones. Repeated exposure to loud noises can lead to hearing problems later in life. If you enjoy shooting sports or hunting, wear earplugs to protect your ears.

If you have difficulty hearing or are concerned about hearing loss, consult your doctor for a hearing screening test. These tests will provide accurate results that may help your doctor diagnose your hearing problem. If you have hearing loss, there are many devices available today that can help restore your hearing. Devices such as hearing aids and cochlear implants help many people who suffer from hearing loss.

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Thanks, John, for bringing this issue to my blog. 🙂

Helloooo, July! It’s Sooooooo Good to See You!

Greetings from the road to recovery!  We have actual, reportable progress on so many of my most stressful issues that I just gotta share…

First, I am finally healed from my first tumble.  The doc determined that I did not fracture my elbow and he downgraded me to a sprain, which made me very happy.  Unfortunately, that news was not even twelve hours old when I fell AGAIN right at three weeks ago.  Despite bruised ribs, a gashed up knee and a face that made me look like a volunteer punching bag, I am finally healing – again.  Only in the last week have I actually felt like myself.  I accomplished tasks at work (yay!), cooked dinner, and even did a little more packing.  Oh, and I managed to sneeze without feeling like my ribs would be blown to the four corners of the earth.  For the win, right?

Next, while I was laid up in bed whining over my wounds and snorting Lortab (not really…well, maybe…) we got an offer on our house.  Which, of course, we accepted.   Which means we sold our house.  Which means that we have to get ready to get the hell out of Dodge…for real now.  Aaaaaaaaand, we closed on our construction loan and broke ground on the new house.  Next we move in with my parents.  (And their world will never be the same…)

On the Food Front, I have to thank you all for your support and wonderful comments with regard to me changing our diets for Aaron’s benefit.  It has not been an easy change, and we have had several nights that tried everyone’s patience at the dinner table.  But Aaron is a trooper, and even though he abhorred many of the things we made him try he DID try them, and even found some new things that he likes.  I had to throw in one or two cheat days to keep everyone sane and chugging along with me, but that one night of sundaes and DQ Blizzards was worth the tummy aches we all had the next day, if for nothing more than strengthening our morale (as well as our resolve!)  We are tweaking Paleo to work for us, and in the end I think that we will each have a better ability to make proper decisions about our own nutrition.  The kids have really embraced all this change better than I imagined they would, and I am so grateful to have such earnest learners, even when they are begging me relentlessly for Southern Maid donuts.

Finally, I think the biggest change is once again happening within me.  I’ve learned that falling down is easy (too easy, thankyouverymuch!) but getting up is where you grow and learn.  I learned am learning to slow down – to not rush through these days of change and uncertainty, but rather to embrace them and try to appreciate something different about each day.  Last week as I walked across the parking lot, realizing that it feels so damn good to be “me” again, I found myself hurrying.  And then I realized that hurrying is exactly how I got injured in the first place.  I will make a conscious effort to slow down, physically and mentally.  Because as stressful as I know these days ahead may be, I don’t want to miss a single thing about these events and the opportunity to see my family through them safely.

Mama Drama and a Month of Mammoth Change

I will spend this post sharing more than I am comfortable sharing, and half of you will start the reading thinking that I am crazy or cruel, or both.  By the time I’m done, the weights will have shifted and the other half of you will be convinced that I’m crazy or cruel, or both.  This is not a post in which many of you are going to applaud my maternal actions.  Just know that I’m okay with that.

Also know that before I published this post, I let my son read it, and I got his express permission to share his story.

Oh, and this is a really long post, by the way.  Consider yourself warned. 😉

I had a single recurring nightmare when I was pregnant with Aaron, my firstborn.  I would dream that I had birthed the baby and come home with him.  Like, days ago.  Suddenly I would realize that I had not yet fed the baby.  And I would PANIC because I had no idea if he was going to survive since we had been home ten days or so and he had not been fed even once.  I would wake up in a sweat, grateful that I was still pregnant and had not yet earned jail time as a new mother.  I bet I had that dream six or so times during the pregnancy.  It freaked me out every. single. time.

Contrary to my nightmare, Aaron ate well as an infant and a toddler.  It wasn’t until he turned two and was off of “baby foods” that he started refusing normal table food.  He drank milk.  Lots and lots of milk.  The dream was haunting me.  So I did what any regular, worried, American mom would do: I talked to my pediatrician.

Here’s my disclaimer:  I really, really love my pediatrician.  I do.  I think he is the most gentle and good-hearted man.  When my children are sick and I can’t cure them, he is the only person I want to see.  I wish, though, that I had already come to the realization that physicians are not demi-gods, and that they are not necessarily smarter than I am about me and my children – they just went to school longer and paid more tuition and can explain things about the human body that I cannot.  But that’s about it.  I still respect doctors and I mean none of them any slight.  But now I listen to my own instincts first.  Now, I think Conventional Wisdom may not be so wise.  However, in 2002, I did not have this presence of mind.  I took a doctor’s words as gospel.

My dear pediatrician explained to me that Aaron was getting practically all the nutrients he needed from the milk, and what was not in the milk, I could add as supplement via the miracle of (drum roll, please) Ovaltine.

And that, my friends, is how I addicted my son to a liquid diet of chocolate milk.

Aside from Bob the Builder fruit chews (which would not be allowed in my grocery cart today, much less my home) Aaron subsisted on Ovaltine and milk.  And since the doc said that was all good, by golly who was I to question it?

Ten years later, I can say I really wish I had ignored my pediatrician.

I wish that I had instead listened to people like my dad who said, “The boy’s not gonna starve! Put the meat and veggies in front of him, tell him that’s dinner, and be done with it.”   I thought my dad was so extreme!!  (And now that I write this, I realize that’s twice I have ignored my father’s advice.  Regretted it both times.  Dammit!!)

When Aaron entered pre-school, the teachers told me that they were concerned because he flat would NOT eat lunch.  They asked what he ate at home.  By this time, our culinary tastes had expanded to include the all-holy Cheerio.  The teachers suggested that I pack the cheerios in his lunchbox and they would make sure he was eating.  For the rest of the year, I packed him cheerios and milk for lunch at school.  He ate the same for dinner at home.  We eventually expanded to PB&J sandwiches when he entered kindergarten.  And puffy cheetos.  Woo hoo!  With five items on our son’s menu, we were making progress!!

All the while, our toddler daughter was eating everything Dom and I ate – up to and including crawfish etouffee.  A teacher at my children’s school approached me one day and said, “You have night and day at your house, don’t you?” noting the unmistakable personality differences between my offspring, who otherwise look like twins.  I dropped my shoulders and replied, “Ohhhhhhh, you have no idea!!”

For the next five years, Aaron continued to eat Cheerios and PB&J sandwiches.  He outgrew the Ovaltine, going on a multi-year self-imposed hiatus from chocolate.  (Is he really my son?!!) We flavored the milk with Strawberry Quik.  (Yes, really.  I gag just thinking about it!) Sugar, grains and milk were his steady diet.  We managed to work in plain pasta, and he preferred the whole wheat versions, to my immense satisfaction. And somewhere in the middle of all of this, he fell in love with Whataburger chicken strips.  Other chicken strips get snubbed; Whataburger’s chicken apparently rocks.

During this time we also had a few trips to the pediatrician for tummy troubles.  He was diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome and we were told to add Benefiber to his milk and not worry that he only consumed pale-brown and white foods.  The symptoms came and went, the Benefiber brought hit-or-miss results, but for the most part he seemed to do okay.  He was growing, after all, and aside from random tummy issues wasn’t ever sick, so what did I really have to worry about??

But then in 2010, I went down the rabbit hole and dragged everyone with me.  It has taken two years to secure foods and snacks that are “Lori-approved.”  Ingredient lists have to be practically virginal before I will buy a food.  Allowing no petrochemicals or partially-hydrogenated oils in my pantry meant many of my kids’ favorite cereals and snacks got the boot.  Cheerios remained, for their lack of the preservative BHT (where other cereals failed us).  Only a few brands of bread survived my inquisition, and as you know I started baking much of my own.

I considered bread to be foundational not only on my dinner plate, but in life around me.  I naturally therefore considered grains to be wholesome, pure and body beneficial.  “Living on Cheerios, crackers and bread is not completely awful,” I would protest.  “At least he gets plenty of fiber!”

This is the point where many of you have already been shaking your head, and you are now chastising me because I feed my child such poorly chosen foods.  No veggies, no greens.  Chicken, of all animals, and not even the eggs!!  Yes, I have heard it all before… “make him eat different foods.  He won’t starve!  You have to force it on him.  Be strong!”  Folks, I tried.  I got all mean and big and bad and threatened to not let him leave the table until he had tried whatever I had cooked.  You know where that put us?  Back at the doctor’s office with chronic upset stomachs (“brought on by stress”) where I was told his dietary preference was simply not that big a deal.  I clung to that and convinced myself that he was going to be just fine, despite all the personal stories I knew of people who had lived on a similar diet and suffered digestive distress as adults.

My choices have never been perfect.  They never will be.  I am still learning.  I am still reading…a lot.  And I am still making changes that affect my whole family.  We are still in the rabbit hole; we just found another tunnel within it.

I’ve been talking to my kids about the things that we don’t need to eat, a list which has very recently expanded to include grains, sugars and starches – the very basis of the foods they love.  Dom and I have switched to a new food lifestyle where we eat primarily meats and veggies.  I say primarily because I still incorporate fruit, coffee and occasional wine into the lifestyle.  And a tiny bit of soft cheese and bittersweet dark chocolate.  (If I ever give those things up I will be totally surprised.)  But here’s where most of you will revolt…I’m making my kids do it too.  My kids who eat sandwiches, cereal and everything sugary are about to go paleo with us.  Oh-Em-to-the-double-Gee, right?

I realize you can’t quite agree with me yet because you have not yet wrapped your mind around why in the heck I would promote and follow something so quirky.  So I will explain…

In my reading and research I have learned that our bodies are not really meant to digest grains and use them for the body’s benefit.  Go figure.  If you have seen Food, Inc, think of the grain-fed cows and the vet/scientist guy who was explaining that cows are not meant to digest grains, so when factory farms feed them grains instead of grass, their digestive systems get all whacked out.  Their bodies still function, but not as efficiently, and certainly not as they are meant to.  This is one of the many reasons to buy grass-fed beef.  It’s better for the animal’s health, better for the quality of meat, and that in turn is better for the person eating it.

In my opinion, the same principle works for humans.  Our bodies were not meant to digest grains because, as Mark explains so well on Mark’s Daily Apple, grains are meant to be planted.  Grain’s natural defense when eaten is to pass right on through so that it can eventually land in fertile soil and grow.  So on its way through our body, it wreaks havoc on our digestive system, leaving virtually no nutritional value in its wake, filling us only with cheap and empty calories.  We cope and we medicate and we deal with all the symptoms that our minds don’t automatically connect to our consumption of things like dinner rolls and oatmeal, but there we are anyway with aches and pains, reflux and gastrointestinal issues.   (These are not to all be totally blamed on grains, by the way.  That’s why we avoid sugars, dairy and starches as well.)

An overwhelming number of Mark’s readers chimed in with testimony to their own health benefits after giving up grains.  All I could think of was my son, destined for a life of tummy troubles if I did not intervene.  Suddenly every doubt and wonder that had crossed my mind over the last decade – What if I’ve been doing it all wrong? What if I don’t listen to the doctor? – came crashing back down on me as escapees from their prison of my own insecurity and self-doubt.  Every what if suddenly had an answer.  And the answer was: I’ve got to change it and I’ve got to change it NOW!!!

The gist of it is that I am taking away all the cereals, breads, pastas – GRAINS – from my children’s diets.  Dom and I have already removed them from our own food choices, so it’s not like I’m forcing something on my kids that I’m not willing to do myself.  They are not insanely giddy over the idea, don’t get me wrong.  But as I started this journey back in 2010 I shared with them everything that I learned and explained the reasons behind the changes I was making.  It is no different now.  I have shared the reasons and the potential benefits I expect to see.  If we do this for a month and the kids don’t notice positive changes in their own bodies, then I will concede to the food pyramid and take back all the nasty things I have said about grains and the FDA.  I can say that because I totally doubt it will come to pass.  My biggest battle will be the attitudes and the wills of my children.  But because I believe so strongly in their health, I will not be deterred until we have clear results – and answers that do not exist only in my head.

Ironically, you know who was freaking out the most when I told them of my plan?  Victoria. (I’m ruining EVERYTHING, you know!!)  Aaron, on the other hand, asked if he could try some scrambled eggs for the first time.  He said he wanted to eat better and feel better and, even though it was scary, he understood what I was doing.

I love that boy.  I love him so very, very much.

Starbucks Stall-Out

A few weeks ago I gave up caffeine.  Please understand that I never planned on giving up caffeine, as I really didn’t consume all that much of it.  Except on Fridays.  On Fridays I went all Venti on the caffeine.  (“Venti” is “large” for those of you who do not speak Starbucks. Twenty ounces. Ohhhhhh yyyeahhhhhhhhhh)

See, what ha’ happen’ wuz…

One night the evening news (which I hardly ever watch because of my inherent disdain for sensationalized tragedy and inaccurate weather forecasts, but which Dom likes to fall asleep watching) had a story on the effects of caffeine in the brain.  Basically, we all know that caffeine restricts the blood vessels, raises blood pressure, etc.  But this news story was worth watching.  The reporter had an MRI performed pre-coffee, then drank a Grande coffee beverage (medium) and had another MRI done.  The difference in brain activity before and after the coffee was astounding.  Brain activity was reduced to 40% after drinking the coffee.  The medical doctors interviewed in the report stated that after a while, the brain will learn to function with the reduced blood flow.  As in, the 40% becomes your new normal.  Yikes.

And that is also why when you have gone without caffeine after being so dependent on it, you will experience a “caffeine headache” because the blood vessels are returning to normal size, thus allowing a whole lot more blood to flow into the brain and resulting in the pounding in your head.

The key, it would seem, is getting your internal highway system accustomed to full traffic again.  I believe blood to the brain is a good thing.  Which means that after hearing that report (not once, but three times during the night because the television in my bedroom was left on) I decided to ditch the caffeine.

It had only been a couple of weeks since my Lenten sacrifice of customized Starbucks beverages had ended, and I hated the idea of giving it up permanently.   I decided that one custom beverage a week wouldn’t hurt.  I’d switch to decaf and be completely happy.  Riiiight??

(Yes, I vividly recall all my concerns about decaf coffee and the chemicals used in the process of removing the caffeine.  I’m trying really hard to strike a balance here, folks.)

Around the same time, I decided to try out this paleo lifestyle which excludes (among other things) sugar, dairy and soy.  Damn.  No coconut milk at Starbucks?  What’s a lost soul to do??  Again, believing one custom beverage a week was no big sin, I dropped my Venti down to a Grande, further reduced the sugar syrup pumps, and asked for decaf.

Three times I have done this.  Three times I have finished my cup with a dull headache.  Make sense?  Not in the slightest.   Could it be that three separate times, at different Starbucks locations, they spiked my beverage?  I don’t think so.  But something is amiss, and I aim to find out what.  Especially since I talked with another Starbucks junkie who said she recently started having reactions to her custom coffee beverages.  She switched to tea and is fine.

My issue could potentially be all the other changes I was making in my diet.  With the elimination of grains, starches, dairy and sugar (except for the occasional splash of agave nectar in a cup of hot tea) I have noticed several positive changes which I plan to detail in another post.  So I wonder…could the sudden influx of milk and sugar whack me out so much as to induce a headache?  It’s totally possible.  And if that is the case, then there’s all my reason for staying the course with the paleo lifestyle.

I have one experiment to perform before I turn in my Starbucks badge.  I got a card in the mail for a free drink – I hit my “Free 15” (yes, I’m that committed).  I’m going to redeem my card for a full-caf grande and see what happens.  If I still have the issues, then I’ll know the culprits are the milk and sugar.  If I don’t have issues, I’ll know it’s their decaf.  Either way, I should have my answers, and an era of coffee-house devotion will come to an end.

C’est la vie…

PSR, Porch Lights and Prayer

As I write this, one of my religious education (PSR) students, a second-grader, is lying unconscious in an intensive care unit with fluid mysteriously pooling in his brain.  I went to visit him yesterday with Kim, my dear friend and PSR director.  The doctors drained fluid Wednesday night and again Thursday morning.  As far as I know tonight, there are still no answers.

When I think of what this child’s parents are going through, I am embarrassed to admit that I spent most of Wednesday stressing over why my daughter has field trip anxiety.

Of all things.

Wednesday night I came home from PSR exhausted and upset.  I shared the news with the Hubster and my own children.  Then I ceremoniously turned off the porch light and slowly headed up the stairs.  It struck me how simple that little act is – turning off the porch light.  When it is turned on, it is done so with little thought to what all will transpire while it burns, what the day – or night – will hold.  But turning it off – that has always held significance for me… like the closing of a book, the lowering of a flag, or the kiss goodnight.  It means the day is done and we are all safe at home together.  Wednesday night our home ended the day whole, unscathed.  Another family’s did not.

So while I still inwardly reel from recent news of potential legislation that protects the pesticide industry over human health, I hope you will forgive that I just don’t feel like talking about it today.  While this issue is important, my political soapbox is not my priority right now.

If you pray, may I ask that you add my student to your list next time you talk to The Big Guy?  For his family’s privacy, I am not sharing his name here.  “The busy little boy with the big smile” will identify him just fine.

May your family be blessed, may your children be safe, and may all your prayers be answered.

Medicine Cabinet Mayhem

One night last week, Victoria had an upset stomach and woke me in the middle of the night complaining that she was nauseous.  Instead of propping her up in the bathroom and crawling back into bed myself (which I seriously considered…aren’t I compassionate at 3 a.m.?), I offered to go downstairs and find something to settle her stomach.  I remembered that I had bought a medicine specifically for nausea a while back.  Surely this would do the trick.

Now, fifteen months of reading labels apparently has a subconscious impact because even though I had no contacts in my eyes and was rummaging through my own cabinet, I clumsily grabbed the bottle and flipped it over to read the label – out of sheer habit.  And am I ever glad I did!!  Having purchased this medication prior to my knowledge of ingredients, I am unsure how it escaped being dumped during the last medicine cabinet cleansing.    What I read made my groggy eyes spring open and my mind race into action.   “FD&C Red #40,” “Methylparaben,” “flavorings.” (Seriously? They call “flavorings” an appropriate ingredient listing????) These things have no place in my home, much less my child’s body.  I tossed the bottle into the trash and returned to tell Vic that we were S.O.L. on tummy meds.

I don’t know where her nausea came from, but it was gone by mid-morning.  With no meds – thankfully.   And I vowed to reclaim my medicine cabinet so that minor medical maladies creeping up at ungodly hours of the night can be resolved without me going into a fit of rage aimed at the Food and Drug Administration.

Because, really…who wants to go back to sleep thinking about the FDA?  Eewww.

Last summer I ditched a whole slew of medications because they contained the certified artificial colors (the ones with name and number) that I was avoiding in our foods and products.  I can’t help but think of the irony…petrochemicals are dangerous to our health – maybe not in the supposed 0.2% maximum recommended/allowed by the FDA in a single specific product, but the cumulative impact of multiple products is never addressed.  I believe the consumption (orally or topically) of these chemicals is responsible for a significant amount of our health woes in the first place.  Is it not ironic that our protective agencies allow those same petrochemicals to be put in the formulations of our medications whose purpose is to heal?  Is there not something fundamentally wrong with this picture?

Weighing In On Childhood Obesity

Good Morning America ran a news report last week that addressed whether or not excessively obese children should be taken from their parents.  I watched the report with suspicious interest and a you-have-got-to-be-seriously-HIGH look on my face.

Let me get this straight…People really think it’s okay to split up an otherwise functional family because of a child’s size??

We are high.

Weight issues aside, here is what ultimately irks me about the whole darn thing:  It’s not the parents’ fault.

Yes, I get that overweight children can face more harmful health consequences.  I believe with all my heart that parents set the example that their children will follow.  I believe the parent is the primary educator of the child and is responsible for how that child grows.

But I absolutely in good conscience CANNOT blame childhood obesity on parents who are trying to live the day-to-day, buying FOOD and products that are 1) produced to be unhealthy, 2) marketed to cost-conscious consumers, and 3) directly responsible for our nation’s health problems, obesity included.

For any group, government or otherwise, to promote the idea of taking children away from parents who are simply buying what is allowed to be marketed as sustenance, when that same group refuses not only to admit that our food supply is basically oil and antibiotics but also refuses to hold the food industry accountable for the crap they are selling us is not only asinine, it is inhumane.

I want to slap people over this.

Consider, please: I was one of those people – a mere year and a half ago –  who scoffed at organic, let my children eat Skittles and drink sugar-free beverages, went through bottled water like toilet paper, and rolled my eyes at everyone I deemed a “nutjob” who told me things like, “Chicken is the nastiest animal you can eat.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pass the McNuggets, would ya?

The problem is not that we don’t care; the problem is that we are not informed.  I believed the words on the front of the package.  I thought the food companies were the good guys.  I thought the FDA protected consumers from carcinogens and toxins.  And I thought I was doing just fine.

One children’s obesity expert is cited in the news article as saying “In severe instances of childhood obesity, removal from the home may be justifiable, from a legal standpoint, because of imminent health risks and the parents’ chronic failure to address medical problems.”  This makes me want to spit nails!!!

We all want to look at fat and sugar and blame them for our lots.  So we lower the fat and the sugar, but then the food tastes different.  Not bad, but different.  In a society that has been trained to hold dear a singular, constant taste this can be detrimental to sales.  So we add in all sorts of synthetic ingredients that won’t affect fat or sugar, but still manage to “beef up” the product so that it tastes no different from the fat-and-sugar-laden items.  It is these synthetic ingredients that do us the most harm.  In my opinion, fat and sugar should be ingested in moderation.  Synthetic ingredients should not be ingested at all.  So when a parent reaches for a low-sugar version of the real thing, thinking that he or she is making a healthy choice, and the (immediately-) unseen result is more damage to the family’s health, can you honestly say that the parent is to blame?  I can’t.

And what about the people who aren’t reaching for low-fat and low-sugar items?  The synthetic ingredients and the corn products and the hydrogen-inflated oils are cheaper to make and use. (Yes, pump oil full of gas – what happens?  It expands.  Wow, look!  Now we have MORE for the same price!)  This means that we can market “foods” (geez, I use that word loosely!) to sell at lower prices while keeping the food industry’s profit margins high.

Look, I can sell you a mud-pie full of sugar and call it a chocolate cake.  And my icing will be made from used motor oil.  The motor oil version will be cheaper because I’m going to drain it right out of my car, and this way I can call it “fresh.”  Oil is a natural product of the earth’s structure, so I can now advertise my cake as “made with fresh, all-natural ingredients!”  I’ll have to add a lot of ingredients you’ve never heard of so that I can make it taste just like real chocolate, but when I’m finished with it you won’t be able to tell the difference.  It will be sold right next to more expensive “real” chocolate cakes, but you will buy my cake because of the buzzwords on the package, and the lower cost.  Oh, by the way, some scientist in Switzerland knows that consuming the ingredients of this cake eventually makes children grow a second head, but his report will never reach your ears as long as I make sure our legislators keep the FDA impotent.   But that two-headed kid of yours?  Probably gonna see foster care against your will.  After all, YOU bought the cake!

What say you?