Food; The Miracle Medicine

"If someone is depressed the first thing you can do is say that it's okay to be depressed, if you're malnourished you should be depressed. So don't do that any more. Go eat good food."

~Professor Ian Brighthope, M.D., M.B.B.S Professor of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine



There are thousands of chemical reactions that occur in the body every day in order to keep a person alive. These chemical reactions are fueled by macro-nutrients such as proteins, fats, carbohydrates as well as micro-nutrients such as vitamins and minerals, all of which come from the food that we eat.

A deficiency in any one of these components, will result in deficient chemical reactions associated with said component, which over time results in disease. It is easy to incorporate the macro-nutrients into our diets especially fats! But it is not so easy to get the micro-nutrients.

Even if you think you are eating healthily, by avoiding the processed junk in the middle isles of the grocery store and spending most of your time and money on the produce section, here's a very unpleasant wake-up call.

Not only are those shinny apples and vibrant green spinach leaves traveling thousands of miles to your grocery store (especially when they are out of season) they are also being preserved in the process. Then by the time they reach your  shopping bag, they may have been sitting in the store for several days. More importantly, if the produce is not organic it has been exposed to pesticides. Pesticides that cause the two headed toad in our local streams and other mutant critters. And we are eating this stuff!Now on top of this, we bring it home and store it in our fridge for possibly another couple of days. Then when are ready to eat it we throw it in a pan and cook it. The minute a fruit or vegetable is picked the vitamins, minerals and enzymes start loosing their potency. Light destroys vitamin A and heat denatures proteins. 50% of protein in meat is lost during the cooking process. In other words, by the time produce reaches your plate, it is nutritionally deficient.

Organic produce, on the other hand is pesticide free and is grown in good soil. The only draw back is that it is  basically twice as much as non organic produce. But think of it as preventative healthcare. Think of it this way, if you want your car to run the best you put high octane fuel in it and high efficiency oil, otherwise it breaks down quicker.

Conventional medicine is great when it comes to the emergency room, plastic surgery, bionic limbs, but when it comes to disease it has failed miserably. It believes that there is a "pill for every ill." The problem with prescription drugs is that they bandaid symptoms they do not fix the root of the problem, thus causing more problems in the process.

If you listen to the medication commercials on TV notice that there is always a list of adverse side affects. These commercials mid as well say, "take this pill and it will reduce pain in your joints but cause skin lesions, blistering, impotency, and heart failure!" My favorite is the one for Cymbalta.

If you nourish the body it will heal itself because it has it's own healing mechanism.

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” 
― Hippocrates

Queen of the Throne

A lot of people have a hang-up about letting loose in the public restroom. Take my brother for instance. We were sitting in Paparazzi as a family when he started to complain that he has to go number 2, which up until this point had never occurred in a public restroom. Much to our surprise we were able to coax him to go drop his nuggets off in the public porcelain. About ten minutes passed and out walked my brother pallor and shaken as he collapsed into our booth. Apparently he had chosen a stall in which to "sink his steep" but it was also the one with the broken lock.  So in walked the next guy and just as my brother was laying his first chocolate egg, his stall door swung open. "Sorry man," was all the guy said.

Another time, back in high school, I heard vassalva-maneuver-like sounds coming from the stall next to me.

(Valsalva's maneuver is a term that describes  the increase in pressure in the lower abdominal region due to the contraction of the diaphragm which occurs when you sneeze, guffaw, cough and defecate.)

Clearly the girl was doogying and she could care less. While I was washing my hands in walked the school troublemaker. Before there was any verbal exchange between us she looked at the noisy stall and shouted, "Eww, Poop at home!!" then looked at me with a smirk before she zipped out of the bathroom most likely leaving skid marks herself. As the dust was settling and the smell of burning rubber lingered I stood there jaw agape and eyes blinking as toilet flushed.

I've heard of girls falling into open seats, sitting on pee covered lids, realizing after the fact that there is an empty cylinder of cardboard but these things are all avoidable.The fact that you make noise when you poop is not.

So what is the solution?

Well, many have resorted to silent pooping.

All silent poopers follow these steps:

A. Decide to go to the restroom

B. Enter restroom and note stalls that are occupied
   
               I. Restroom is empty (go to step C)

               II. Restroom is occupied (go back to step A)


C. Choose stall

D. Poop

E. If someone walks in  time valsalva's maneuvers to coincide with the other people flushing the toilet, blow drying their hands, or pulling paper towels down.

F. Wait till all people have exited the bathroom before exiting your stall

G. Exit restroom

H. Let out sigh of relief.

Silent poopers also play the game "Queen of the throne". This happens after you've walked in, chosen a stall and gotten down to business but are then cut off by another person who also needs to poo. There is a terrible yet inevitable standoff that takes place. The woman who just walked in believes that the other will chicken out and leave at which point she will be able to do her business, while the original woman believes that the newcomer will realize there is already someone doing paperwork and will surrender by exiting the restroom to find another throne to conquer (step BII.) 

So the only way you're going to be able to let loose and take a load off was by being ok with making a little noise in the process.

Guys Who Shave Their Arms

I think there are two types of people...those that like to sweat and those that don't. I would also be so daring as to say that sweating naturally cleans the body of course when it is followed by a rinse in preferably cold water. I am still not convinced that you need shampoo and conditioner, after all mankind got by without it for the better part of 50,000 years. Yeah yeah they didn't look as pretty as us today...but we would still look like our neanderthal relatives if we stripped ourselves of all of the personal care products we cake on our bodies. A little more natural and a lot more hair. I mean these days I know of real men that shave their arms who are not wearing speedos and padded shorts on the regular. Why do we try so hard to change the way we look?

But I digress. This is the cycle, a person doesn't sweat, leading to stagnation of the skin which eventually dries up and flakes off. But don't fear we have anti-dandruff products that will mask the sweat-free life you lead....just a thought.

They have shampoo for dry, colored, wavy, curly, straight, hair. There is shampoo to make your curly hair straight and give your limp hair bounce. what about getting to the root of the problem and changing your diet? People of Asian descent have some of the most beautiful hairs. It is dark, straight and shiny. Asians who have not become Americanized have a steady diet of fish and seaweed.

After a month of eating pasta and stewed tomatoes from a can, one because I am now living on my own and two because it's cheep and fast, I came to the conclusion that eating like that was not sustainable so I decided to change my diet. I referred to my trusty Anatomy and Physiology text from college and found in the nutrition section that most of the vitamins that promote health hair skin and nails come from fish and green leafy veggies. Fact. So it is no wonder that Asians have the best hair in the world.

Initially I was turned off by personal care products because of the lack of regulation and because of the laundry list of chemicals jam-packed into the bottles. The effects that most of these chemicals have on the body is unknown but all of them get absorbed into the body. Are you willing to sacrifice a healthy neanderthalish physic for hair with the ultimate shine and bounce? We are all guinea pigs taking part in a scientific experiment called the effects of personal "warcare" products on the modern-day human. Thus began my quest to be product free...starting with shampoo. I've tried just water, vinegar, cornstarch...(don't ask), hibiscus leaves. Yes, after talking to my chemistry professor from India, I went to the nursery and bought a hibiscus plant for $60 dollars (talk about expensive shampoo that's not even FDA regulated!), and every couple of  days I would soak the leaves in warm water, grind them with mortar and pestle, strain and lather. I've tried olive oil and honey (BIG mistake) and just recently I've experimented with lemon juice which is pretty amazing and makes your hair really shinny. It's pretty fun being your own personal guinea pig and you get to leave ethics up to yourself.

So in summary these are my thoughts on shampoo/conditioner: it's not necessary, it's most beneficial to those that don't like to sweat, it's harmful to the body and it makes you smell pretty.

So I've rambled a lot but the common theme is that you don't need herbal essence just uncommon sense.

Did you ever think that the masking of one's own natural sent could be the reason for the rising divorce-rate?

Check out this websit: http://100777.com/health/shampoo for the truth about shampoo.