It's just your life.

Hello and welcome to your life.  You get to pick your path (within reason) and fly with it.  I was just speaking with someone this morning who has arthritis, and I suggested the unmentionable: that they reduce or eliminate sugar (as well as taking turmeric/curcumin with black pepper and maybe a little tart cherry juice.  Yeah, for real, try it.).  But that’s the thing, if sugar (crack) makes you happy, and you don’t mind that you can’t walk or exercise, then go with that.  I don’t even mean that in a snarky way, I mean it literally.  You’re the only one who is going to pay the price in your own body for your decisions (although your death will affect your family and friends, so go ahead and be a selfish pig if that’s how you roll.).  You get to live with the chronic pain and debilitation, your spouse can’t feel it, your doctor can’t feel it, and your friends will either feel sorry for you (poor baby) or think you are a bozo for wimping out on their antics (hey Nancy!).  

 

HEY! Is this you?

But do pardon me, because I am inclined to convince you otherwise.  Here I go.

I can see how it seems to be the easier way to eat whatever you want, smoke whatever/whenever/how much ever you want, sleep whenever you want, work out only if you feel like it, but, oh, the price of that life!  

 There was a study that wasdone in Potsdam, Germany, on 23,000 adults over the course of several years.  They asked them four (somewhat) simple questions:

       1.  Do you smoke?

2.  Do you eat well (this sounds really nebulous, but there were specific guidelines that included things such as eating a certain amount of fresh fruits and veggies, eating clean meats, not eating processed foods, etc.)? 
3.  Do you maintain a healthy weight? 
4.  Do you exercise regularly?

People who answered with four healthy responses (no smoking, yes, I eat well, yes, I maintain a healthy weight, and yes, I exercise regularly) cut their all-mortality rate (this includes all the biggies - cancer, cardiovascular disease, the whole 9, etc.) by 80% against those who answered with four unhealthy answers.  Okay.  I know you didn’t hear me because you are not freaking out.  Let me repeat myself.  You can cut your risk of death by EIGHTY percent.  I don’t know if you know this, but 80% is some pretty darn good odds.  If you had an 80% chance of winning a kajillion (a jillion jillions) dollars, I’d say you might take it.  If you wouldn’t, well fine, I will. 

Kinda like this, but multiply the intensity by a kajillion.

If you think about those questions for about two and a half seconds, you realize that 3 out of 4 of them are your own choices, and the fourth follows two others (in general).  This makes me want to reach out of your screen right now, grab onto your shoulders, look you deep into your eyeballs, and tell you (probably in a highly spaztastic voice), “You are a main player here!  You can make decisions to elongate your life, enhance your lifestyle, and improve your quality of life!  You can do this!  Why wouldn’t you?”  And then you’d be all, yeah, I know, it’s cool, I should exercise, but that’s just to shut me up and pacify me because I’m jumping up in down in front of you still holding onto your shoulders.  Well, guess what, homie?  I ain’t letting go because you cannot be hearing me if you want to continue to pursue your death.

Excuse me, is this your dinner?

So what’s your excuse?  You like to eat crap?  Crap tastes so dang good that you wanna go with that in your swan dive off of the cliff to your death?  ERMERGERSH, just stop it.  I promise you that if you start eating well, your tastes will change.  You will crave what’s real.  If you can break up with sugar, you can look at a pile of ice cream and think of it as disgusting.  (It takes a while, but it’s f’rizzo.) 

And while I’m on that soapbox, sugar is worse than crack.  Do you want some inflammation?  Do you want to grow cancer?  Do you want to blow up your strep throat?  Do you want to stay sick longer?  Do you want to have horrible cholesterol numbers?  (Hint, big sugar has money and they love it that you think it’s because of fat.  They’re laughing at you right now.)  Do you want to be addicted?  Get your IV sugar on, baby.  Light up your brain like a crack addict.  

In fact, a study was done on rats that caused them to be addicted to IV crack and sugar and let them make their decisions on what they wanted to get high on, and they picked sugar eight times more (read it again, I said IV crack vs. sugar.  IV CRACK!!  Holy crap!  Eight times more!  That is freakin’ nuts!).  They even picked sugar when they were being electrically shocked.  They were receiving physical punishment and they went for it anyway.  Does that sound like you?  Oh.  Sorry.  Don’t mean to step on your inflamed, sick toes.  Wait, yes I do.  I want you to think about it.

Pick better.  

If you need a hit, may I suggest exercise?  It has its own crackalacka ways (well, I suppose minus those bothersome times of spending days and nights strung out under trailers in abandoned garages in the middle of Detroit).  Once you get into a good groove, you can become addicted to the endorphins that are released as you work out.  Instead of all of the negatives that come along with the horrors of sugar, you can trade that in for a healthier heart, a happy body, better sleep at night, an ability to maintain a healthy weight, and an increased libido amongst feeling generally awesome (I haven’t even mentioned how you will actually be awesome, too).  

May I recommend swimming, running, and biking?  Perhaps a little weight lifting?  Perhaps a few (hundred) pushups (doing them on glass shards to increase your toughness is completely optional)?  If you can’t feel the motivation, sign yourself up for a race.  Perhaps the sheer horror you would feel at being last would inspire you to dig deep and get your exercise on.  Please tell me that you have some inkling toward competition.  Please.  If you don’t, well, take your sad sack self and do your pushups anyway.

It is not rocket science.  If I told you I had a magic pill to make you live longer, better, and with a clearer brain and vigor, I guarantee you little druggies would be eating it up like crack candy.  Well hello, it is available to you!  You have to change (shriek!), but it’s really worth it.  Well, if you’re into living longer and better, I guess.  (Maybe that’s not your thing.)

Oh, just do it already!  (I’m still hanging on to your shoulders.  Can you hear me yet?)

Peace, love, and live, dang it, LIIIIVE!
Ms. Daisy

Mary Jane's Farm

As you have heard, Martha Stewart dumped me.  I am now in the quest for exploring new magazines, and oooh la la, I've found a doozy!

It's called Mary Jane's Farm and my aunt passes it along to me when she is finished with it.  They've got a lot of interesting articles, one of them included the idea of "Glamping" - glamorous camping.  These ladies go out with lace pillows, prom dresses, the whole 9 and get those totally adorable and awesome looking 50's tin trailer bubble RV's and glam them up.  If it didn't get my prom dress dirty, I would be all over it.  As long as it had extreme heat capabilities also.  Cold = yuck.


A new book by Mary Jane - Glamping!  The cover says it all.

They also feature organic gardening, doing-it-yourself stuff, health news, how to be non-toxic, etc.
I read an article in there that I enjoyed so much, I wanted to share a piece of it with you.  The author, Mary Jane, was bitten by a cat when she was in her twenties and actually got "cat scratch fever".  The real deal.  Ow.  A doctor she visited suggested the right way to go was to have her lymph nodes removed.  She knew better than to do that.
But that's the whole deal with the modern thought in medicine.  It's most invasive first, then down to least invasive.  It's surgery first before lifestyle change.  I think that's messed up.

In her article, she quotes from a man named Dr. Lundell (a heart surgeon).  Here is a quick quote:

"Dr. Lundell's argument is that chronic inflammation, not cholesterol, is the bad guy when it comes to heart disease.  In a recent article on PreventDisease.com, he even goes so far as to say that the current treatment of cholesterol-lowering medications and a strict low-fat diet 'are no longer scientifically or morally defensible."'

Hey.  Do you have high cholesterol?  Have you been taking meds and avoiding fat like the plague?  Well... maybe you don't need to do that anymore.  Actually, I would go so far to say as that might not even be the right thing to do at all.

Dr. Lundell has operated on over 5,000 patients, all of whom had inflammation in their arteries.  He says, "Without inflammation in the body, there is no way that cholesterol would accumulate in the walls of the blood vessels and cause heart disease."  Did you hear what he just said?  Read it again!  Inflammation, not cholesterol, is the real problem.  Cholesterol is produced by our bodies to help us.  It helps fight stress and is a natural substance.  When we get things out of whack by eating improperly (and I don't mean you ought to eat a low-fat diet; I mean you ought to be avoiding quasi-foodlike substances as if your life depended on it.  Oh wait, it does.), you irritate your insides!

 
Mary Jane's article states, "Our bodies work to protect us.  Cholesterol is something your body produces to help fight inflammation. So, the more inflammation you have, the higher your cholesterol will be - as it should.  Inhibiting the cholesterol without easing the inflammation creates a cycle that may be doing more harm than good.  Inflammation is not always bad.  Like with my swollen lymph nodes. It's one way your body defends itself.  Dr. Lundell believes the problem is chronic inflammation caused by the typical American diet, notorious for highly-processed foods with an excess of sugar and vegetable oils.  He says, 'The human body cannot process, nor was it designed to consume, foods packed with sugars and soaked in omega-6 oils.'" (Health & Wellness News section, Mary Jane's Farm - August/September 2012 issue, p.37)

I've read articles about Big Sugar that show that the sugar industry has actually pointed its crack-laden finger at cholesterol in an effort to remove the reputation for clear and obvious danger from itself.  The research is out there.  Dig.  F'real.  You just might save your life if you get it right.

And if you just need some straight up entertainment on that sugary subject, go check out this youtube video from 60 Minutes.  The video itself is not entertaining per se, the entertainment comes when the interviewer is speaking with the Big Sugar dude who is probably a zillion-jillion-ga-billionaire.  The dude dresses up and pretends to be a FARMER and makes sure to interview in a barn with a tractor behind him so he can look exceptionally wholesome.  The very best part of all is when Mr. Sugarfakerbillionaire looks perplexingly, nay - seemingly dumbfounded! - at the suggestion that sugar could perhaps not be good for people and stares off into space as if he is pondering something he has never ever heard before.  It is especially entertaining as he is not really a good liar/actor and he pulls a slimy politician thing and avoids the question completely with nonsensical answers.  Raise your hand if you're shocked!  Oh.  Yeah.

Anyway, if you want some more infotainment, go get yourself a subscription to that cool magazine!
Peace, love and don't hate on your cholesterol,
Ms. Daisy

Butter is your friend

Have I told you lately that I love...food?  Not in a piggish, gluttonous way, but in a way that I am just totally amazed at what God has created to help us to function in the best way possible.

Side note: if you haven't read Nourishing Traditions (Sally Fallon) or Food Is Your Best Medicine (Dr. Henry Bieler), you better get your hands on a copy of those things.  Seriously, mind = blown. (insert blow up noise)

Now then.  Today, for your infotainment, I will be bringing up the delicious and controversial subject of (bum ba da daaa!!) BUTTER!  Isn't butter delicious?  Isn't it wonderful?  Isn't it the stuff dreams are made of?  (Okay, yes, I may have slightly gone a little be overboard on that one, but you get the gist.  My dream was something about cleaning out an outdoor pool that had a bunch of gross leaves in it.  Dreaming about butter would have been way better.)  

But oh!  The sad days butter has had!  Remember when (for like 20 years) poor old simple, sweet butter was demonized as a murderer?  A killing machine, ready to suck your heart out, stomp on it, do an evil laugh and drown your face in cholesterol?  Poor butter.  

It's making a comeback as people do more research on the horrors of partially hydrogenated poisons oils.  I was reading a bit on the history of margarine.  Some French dude in the late 1800's came up with a way to make a "poor man's butter".  You'll be delighted to know that Napoleon III was personally involved with making sure this came about - with the decline of means through the Franco-Prussian war, it was necessary to find a cheap way around it.  Originally, margarine/oleo was made of tallow and was composed of animal and vegetable fats.  Today, we're just straight up making some hideous chemical concoction that is sure to cost less than butter initially and just make up for it later when you're dying and you have to pay horrendous medical bills.   Excellent.

I remember the time when my parents switched our family from butter to margarine in the era of evil cholesterol.  I used to stick my finger in the butter dish and eat it plain.  When my sweet butter dish was sadly filled with this new margarine, I took a lick at it once - and never did that again.  Ew.  Sick.  If you're totally disagreeing with me right now, do me a favor: lift your right hand and slap it on your forehead.  Repeatedly.  Then look in the mirror and ask yourself what kind of morbid torture you must have endured to believe such painful lies. Then go buy yourself a pound or twelve of butter and eat a stick.

Do you know that your body needs fats (good yummy fats) to absorb the goodness out of things like veggies?  A smart chef indeed it is who does such things for the palate and the body of their mouth-watering eaters.  

We would be remiss if we were to abandon some histories of butter, so if you don't mind, I shall share some with you.

In A Diet of Tripe, Terence McLaughlin says this (quoting William Harvey's writings):
  "Old Par, [an English peasant] who lived to the age of 152 years and 9 months, existed and even thrived on a diet of 'subrancid cheese and milk in every form, coarse and hard bread and small drink, generally sour whey, on this sorry fare, but living in his home, free from care, did this poor man attain to such length of days.'"

What.  Aren't you eating enough subrancid cheese?  Apparently you shouldn't knock it until you've tried it?

S. J. Connoly in The Oxford Companion to Irish History states: 
     "Butter also formed an essential part of the daily diet.  People ate fistfuls of rancid butter rolled in oats, spread butter on oatcakes and even ate butter on its own.  The importance of butter is indicated by the practice of burying stores for future consumption in cool, damp bogs."

HECK YEAH!  I wish I had a damp bog!  Oh, yeah, I just use a fridge.  I still like their fistful  idea, though.

One more.  For now, anyway.

Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD, in The Cholesterol Myths says this interesting little ditty:
   "On average, Finnish peole have the highest cholesterol in the world.  According to the diet-heart idea's proponents, this is due to the fat-rich Finnish food.  The answer is not that simple, however.  This was demonstrated by Dr. Rolf Kroneld who compared inhabitants of the village of Inio near Turku with those of North Karelia and in southwest Finland.  
  "Apparently a health campaign had struck Inio.  There the consumption of margarine was twice as great and the consumption of butter only half as what it was in the other places.  Also, the people of Inio preferred skimmed over more fat milk; the residents in the other places did not.  But the highest cholesterol values were found in Inio.  The average value for male Inio inhabitants was 283, in the two other places it was 239 and 243 mg/dl.  Regarding women, the difference was still greater."

Two things: Finnish Suomi people are awesome.  If you don't believe me, ask one of them and I/they will plainly tell you.

Secondly, and this may totally freak you out because of the high level of brainwash that has been poured out gallon upon gallon in this regard, but LIKE OH MUH GAWSH, newslflash: eating cholesterol does not cause you to have high (bad) cholesterol.  I know, you're all repeating back to me what you've heard - well, when diet and exercise aren't enough...  What are you, a freakin Lipitor commercial?  If you were, you'd need to go on for about forty-five seconds spewing side-effects like liver damage, yellowing of the eyes, loss of limbs and death.  Or other such fun things.

I am just suggesting that perhaps you might want to consider and question what you have heard.  What if it helps you to do your own research?  Yes, people think you're crazy, but HEY, take it from me, it's not all that bad.  You can still be awesome (almost as awesome as a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omBQ5hR4Rag&feature=fvwrel Finnish person  - see 2:33 - warning: sassy bad language just prior to 2:33).

Okay, totally lied.  One more.  It's quick.

William Campbell Douglass, MD, in The Milk Book tells us what he thinks, "Man has been eating meat and fat for thousands of years, but hardening of the arteries is a new disease.  My father, practicing medicine in Georgia fifty years ago, rarely saw a heart attack.  Heart attacks have only become common since the advent of homogenized pasteurized milk, oleo-margarine, and the increase consumption of polyunsaturated vegetable oils."

Butter was given to people during their childbearing years because in wise old societies; they believed it significantly promoted fertility.  

All I'm saying is - look it up.  It's yummy, it might even be GOOD FOR YOU.  

Now go on, go imitate Kristen Wiig in her Paula Deen SNL skit with Seth Myers where she rubs butter on her hair and licks it like a lolly.  Well, or, no.  But you could.  It wouldn't be bad for you.  

I'll say it loud and say it proud: I LOVE BUTTER!!!

Peace, love and buttery goodness,
Ms. Daisy