Eat Your Fat

While my wife is on the topic of food, I'd like to share some thoughts on fat. Fat is good for us, we can't live without it and we should generally be eating more. I ran across this Paleo post today...

I told my friend I was thinking about trying to have a baby in the next couple years and she asked if I’d continue eating paleo if I got pregnant. I told her that the only change I’d make would be to add a larger proportion of fat into my diet.[...]
I told her I’d be eating more fatty meats. More lard, more pemmican, more organs, more fish eggs, AND more avocados and nuts. And don’t forget palm oil, coconut oil and fish oozing with omega 3′s. It’s all good.

Really? you can't be serious, but yes: Fat is much better than simple Carbs (breads)

Our bodies prefer it [fat] as fuel over carbs. Here’s a mantra to help you work through your guilt while enjoying your un-skinned chicken legs cooked in lard: my body prefers fat for fuel, my body prefers fat for fuel. Or just try to say it five times out loud because it’s fun.

Read the whole thing: Fat, fat, fat, fat. Eat some.

Say NO to Junk Food

Farmers Market Here I Come!

Junk food - really it has plagued us this past week.  Think your doing enough with how your family eats (interesting blog)?    Take the challenge begin to eliminate the bad stuff, and see where you end up.  I find this an interesting journey that we are on as a family.  Franklin noted that this past week of bad food choices has really taken a toll on how he feels.  I have noticed he seemed a little more forgetful, and presenting with more dizzy and sick symptoms.  It is that time of year when we spend way to much time at the county fair.  Yes, the kids are in 4H at the county fair, and instead of paying those terrible prices for junk food, I paid some lower prices at Costco for junk food!  What was I thinking?  Really, the Kudos bars, licorice, chocolate chip cookies, pretzel thins, and Vegi sticks were probably not the best snack choices.  The result has been cranky kids who are going off the wall with more agitation than they normally display, and short tempers.  We need to be done with quick meals for the county fair, and onto healthy cooked meals at home.

Cheese

Here is a response to the question about what kind of cheese I purchase.

First of all I look for top of the line cheeses, because they seem to have less preservatives in them and are more naturally aged. Having information on the farm or location of where the milk comes from is important. Sometimes a company will tell you the region or location of where the milk came from, or where the cow's grazed. Look for cheese with little to no additives - including added dyes. The fewer the ingredients the better.  Try to make sure milk or cream is the first ingredient. If the milk or cream is pasteurized it sometimes will be listed next to the milk. Purchasing cheese as a solid block, instead of shredded seems to me to be more fresh, or better quality.  I also find we use less cheese as a solid.

 I enjoy the strong sharp tasting Dubliner Cheese (Ireland), found at Costco, but it is very rich tasting and not something that all the kids like. I will purchased an occasional package of Feta cheese from Costco - but again I check the ingredients.   I do not remember the name of the White Cheddar I have purchased, but wow that was rich.  I find a small slice of this good quality cheese is really all we need when we do have cheese. There have been other brands, but I haven't had time to find them again.

We used to consume large quantities of cheese at every meal.   We had the traditional cheddar or mozzarella on everything we ate.  Now we hardly ever will see cheese.  I noticed the cheese I was purchasing seemed to be covered in a powder substance and I wondered if it was moldy (Kirkland brand shredded), but now after tasting good cheese I just can't go back.

Physically I can tell the difference when we eat too much cheese. My family will want to drink tons of water all night long, and seem extra tired and cranky through the next day.  A few will get tummy cramps the next day or several hours after eating too much cheese (pizza).   I can say that when we eliminated cheese (mostly) we find that we substitute other foods for cheese into the menu's, and it seems to be fine.  I make taco's and no one complains that there is no cheese.  I make avocado dips that capture my kids attention and they fight for that instead of the cheese!  I will admit that with the purchasing of several pizza's this month from Papa John's and Jets Pizza I was able to enjoy the delicious treat that cheese can be; but did I pay for it the next day -  tired and cranky!

My friend received information from  a company called Rumiano, and she and I were very impressed with their response to her. Here is what their representative wrote to my friend...


Thank you for contacting us regarding our cheese.  Yes, all of the Rumiano Cheese producers do sign an affidavit stating that they do not inject their cows with artificial hormones such as rBST/rBGH, making all of our cheese made with No Artificial Hormone Milk.  All of our dairies are small family owned dairies in Humboldt and Del Norte counties which unique climate allows year-round access to pasture.  The cows on average spend 300+ days per year on pasture, which is why our cheese is more yellow due to the high amount of beta-carotene.  When the cows aren’t on pasture they are in the barn staying out of the rain, the typical farmer says, “if it’s too rainy for me outside, then it’s too rainy for the cows.”  We also pay our producers a clean milk bonus for keeping their milk extremely clean, and process the local milk within 12-24 hours.  The difference between our conventional and organic products are the certifications.  The organic dairies have to be certified organic, which means that the fields haven’t been sprayed with pesticides or herbicides for the last 3 years, and the barns are situated a certain way to allow the cows to be close to the calves during milking, etc...  We actually went a step further and had all of our organic dairies become Humane Certified through the American Humane Association, which made Rumiano Organic Cheese the first Humane Certified cheese in the world.  We also recently became Non-GMO Verified through the Non-GMO Project for all of our organic cheese, which was a first in the world.  We use the best ingredients in all of our cheese both conventional and organic.  For example we use sea salt for all of our salt and only Non-GMO approved ingredients in all of our cheese.  Thank you for your inquiry and please let me know if you have any other questions.  Have a great week!

Regards,

Joby Rumiano

So there it is a little start on the road to eating healthier cheese, and as my husband said the other night, "Would you like some cheese with that wine?"  - No, I was not complaining, he just simply surprised me with some cheese, nicely cut up to go with my much needed Merlot for the evening - delicious.

How are you feeling?

This is the question that I receive most often. I know that people are just concerned about me and wish they could help, but it is the question I dread the most. Mostly because I almost never know how to answer. I usually just answer the generic 'good', in the same way anyone would answer the question "how's it going?" when the question is really just a greeting and not requiring your recent medical history as an answer. So If you are one of those people I have dismissed in this manner, I apologize.

I don't know how to answer this question because 1) I don't like to complain. I never have. I don't like to air my personal struggles with others, it's just who I am, so please don't take it personally. and 2) I honestly don't really know how I'm feeling.

I believe that everyone who has late stage Lyme deals with their own unique disease and it is difficult to describe exactly what I am feeling. At times all I could describe how I was feeling 'icky' or 'awful'. I know these are not very descriptive terms the best way I could describe it was that I felt I needed to throw up at a cellular level. The intensity of this was the worst before treatment started, fortunately this feeling has been one of the areas of the greatest improvement. Also, how I am feeling changes day to day. If I am asked "How are you feeling?" do you want to know this instant? might be fairly good (or bad), but I know that will change. So my response is often 'some days are better than others' For me it can sometimes be some hours are better than others.

..but I am writing this post to answer the question despite my personal issues and the difficulty of answering it. Overall at this point (after nearly two months of antibiotic treatment) and despite ups and downs my answer is: 'Slightly improved'

I'll take improvement by degrees. I knew this would be a long (and expensive) process. I hope for continued improvement as the days,weeks and months go by. I also pray for my son who will soon be on treatment as well.

thank you to everyone who has asked me how I was feeling and please keep Zachary and myself in your prayers - it is helping.

Victory I Guess

Constant battles and waiting for victories seems to be our latest family course.  Unfortunately, we found an EM rash (we think) around an unknown bug bite on our 9 month old on Friday.  I knew about the bite on July 4, and thought it was just a really bad mosquito bite.  After seeing this bite go from bright red, hot, swollen, pea size pimple, to a flat scar like color, and then a red ring around it, I decided urgent care on Saturday was our next plan of action.  The urgent care gave us a horrible lab technician, who used an adult size butterfly needle on my babies arm.  She missed his veins in both arms, and fished for it both times.  Obviously the needle was so big it just kept pushing his vein around.  I firmly asked her to remove it the first time, and the second I told her "Stop, No fishing!"  She immediately obeyed.  Today at our clinic I had a great lab technician who took out a baby size needle, which was how I knew the other lab tec. screwed up.  I shared with them my experience and they just shook their heads.  She even told me she would never fish, if she didn't find it on the first poke she would remove it. Nothing like a confident, knowledgeable lab technician to draw blood from your precious baby.

I was given some interesting facts from my babies pediatrician today, who called to allow 10 more days of antibiotic for our baby who originally received 10 days from the urgent care doctor.  Dr. Y informed me that she spoke with an infectious disease specialist about Lyme disease, and she was corrected by this infectious disease specialist with regards to EM rashes.  Dr. Y originally believed that around "50% of cases present with an EM rash," however today she found out the "90% of all cases actually have an EM rash,"  she went on to state that most people need to just check more carefully because almost all the time there will be some rash.  Unfortunately, I strongly disagree, and they just keep thinking that those stats exist, when in reality it is closer to that 20-30% listed from published Lyme aware Doctors.

Dr. Y told me that she was confident that I would be able to find a rash, because I check my kids so well.  Oh, please!  I told her that I just completely disagreed with the infectious disease specialist, because the cases in my house with positive (lets go with them) results did not ever have an EM rash.  I only know one friend who has had an EM rash, and others who were confirmed positive with no rash.  The doctors seem to have no accurate information to go with, and constantly they seem to be questioning what they originally knew.  Our nine year old was the only one, and now baby, who have ever had EM rashes, and test results both times were negative for my older son (waiting for baby, confident it will be negative).  I really believe that we need to stay connected with educating ourselves and keeping our doctors reading as well.  My little victory for today was Dr. Y gave the extra antibiotic to bring my baby up to 20 days total for treatment, falling short only by 1 day of the recommended dosage.  I guess that is a victory.

Our legacy - Our Children

There are many directions we parents must consider when looking into the health of our children, and one of these is vaccine information.  What about the huge levels of Autism being seen across the country?  What will be the long term implications if we vaccinate, and what about if we don't?  My husband and I do vaccinate our children, but we choose to vaccinate at a later age.  We also limit what vaccinations we feel they should get.

What to do:
I decided to stay connected with Dr. Mercola, and his website, because he shares similar views on our health as we do. My children have upcoming vaccinations, and I decided to check the vaccine calculator to see what levels of chemicals are really in the vaccines I want to inject into my kids.  After contacting our pediatrician I was given the manufacturer and brand names of those vaccines that my children would be receiving.  I then went to the vaccine calculator and plugged in all our choices. I made sure to choose the safest (in my opinion) vaccine without compromising my moral beliefs - NO HUMAN FETUS CELLS.  Each child's vaccination report was then printed, revealing what levels of each harmful chemical would be given at one time to my child. I am currently NOT OKAY with some of those levels of dangerous chemicals: Mercury (non have), Aluminum 455.0 mcg (36.5 mcg is safe range), Formaldehyde exposure amount 105.5 mcg (no level is okay), Phenoxyethanol 5.8 mcg, Yeast protein 1 exposure, Bovine protein 1 exposure. Those rates are for my 9 month old baby!  The levels for my 5 yr. old, and 11 yr. old are even worse. Really, is this actually what I want to do?  Every time, no joke, that I vaccinate my children they come down with flu like symptoms, and high fevers, and aches - Is this okay?

I decided to research what the FDA reports on these vaccines, and what the risks of natural exposure instead of a temporary, poorer choice vaccination would be. I found more information on Dr. Mercola's site, but I did find information through the FDA's own listings. Now I am wondering if I should forgo vaccinations altogether.

I suggest that if you are interested in finding out what is in the vaccinations that you want for your loved ones you start with Dr. Mercola, and start reading some of his information.  The question remains, does the vaccination out way the risks of the disease in it's natural stage?  Will our children be immune for ever?  According to Dr. Mercola he addresses these questions and more through his ongoing research and findings. He said recently on a video about the Mennigitis vaccination (need to be signed into his website), that a vaccination is an inferior way of building up antibodies to these diseases, because they are manufactured and not identified by our bodies the way a true immunity would be produced in our bodies had we contracted the disease in our natural environment.

We parents need to feel we can make an informed choice when it comes to vaccinations, without the government (state) mandating what drugs must be shot into our children. This is not a money making issue for us parents, it is the life and longevity of our legacy, our children.

A Doctor, A Doctor, We are going to see a Doctor!

Keeping our blog up to date has been challenging in the midst of our busy planning for 4H and county fair just around the corner.  This past week with the terrible food (sugar), lack of sleep, and too much sun stirred up a challenging week with our oldest son who was feeling very sick (possibly symptoms from Lyme).

I prayed to God to please help our son get to the Lyme doctor now, and through the intercession of Pope JPII I asked a very specific request, 'For my son's appointment in August to get moved to an earlier date - Lord I will take anything.'  Two days after my prayer request (today) I decided I should call the clinic and ask if they have any cancellations.  God is good, because I never had to call the Lyme clinic - they called me!  Yes, that is right, my son's appointment moved to next week.  This is fantastic news for desperate parenting this past week, especially after seeing our son suffer so horribly.  Thank you Jesus for leaning your tender ear our way.  Peace be with you all.

EM Rash

Here is the photo of our son's EM rash.  Sorry for the poor quality.