It's the End of the World as we know it...part 2.

Ah, my non-existent readers, I am giving up, yet again, on educating the world on delayed-onset allergies and food/health issues.  I've moved on to a camping blog, hoping to be less of a buzz kill, but not really feeling like writing anything.  Ah well, maybe 2014.

Meanwhile, I've got to publish a blog book for 2012 so that when I'm old and senile I can have someone read it to me and tell me what I did.  To that end (literally) here is the annual holiday missive.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

And I feel fine.  So it's Decembeer 26, 2012, and my Mayan calendar is no longer working.  That giant round hunk of plaster with the paper clip hanger in the back that I painted gold in second grade is finally out of date.  It's a paper weight.  Dang.  It outlasted every other calendar I've every had.  You gotta give it to the Mayans for making a fine product.  But now it's done.  The whole universe was supposed to implode, I guess, because the Mayans didn't make their calender go past the winter solstice of 2012.  Really, people.  Personally, I'm impressed that the Mayans got that far.  Good for them. So now what?  More of the same I guess.  Unless there's another Y2K or Mayan calendary fiasco around the next corner, we'll have to wait for the rapture to liven things up a bit.  

Where was I?  Oh yeah, rainbows and unicorns.  Just when I was on the train to Happy Town, we made an unexpected stop at BummerVille.  Just before Thanksgiving, while visiting family in the midwest, I got word that my mother, who lived here in Phoenix near me, had passed away.  There went my ticket to Happy.  I've got some distance now, and it really was a good thing (mom had suffered from Alzheimer's for many years and was literally wasting away in private care).  She is truly at peace now, so I'm happy for mom.  But man, when you're looking for Happy, Funeral Week is not where you want to be.  On the brighter side, these things happen,  and without sadness, happiness has to reach pretty lofty heights.  So sad balances out the happy -- it's the yin to Happy's yang.

Once I got past the funeral/grieving process, we were already deep into the insanity that has become An American Christmas.  Basically, the day after Halloween, you have to start shopping for Christmas decorations and gifts and planning parties and trips.  And that shit doesn't end until after New Year's, when you have to pack up all the pointless ornaments, socks etc., recycle (hopefully) all the wrapping and gift boxes, and sweep up all the dead pine needles.  Not the greenest holiday there is.  So this year, I opted out of some of the cray-cray.  I decided to spend some of my shopping money on a good thing for the planet, and let my friends (who really don't need anything) get over it.  I considered donating animals to people who need them for the milk or wool, or eggs, etc., but then I decided that was really selling some poor animals into slavery.  I thought about animal preserves and legislation to protect animals, but I wanted something with even broader effect.  So I went with trees.  Yes, oxygen.  I figure it's not only good for people and animals, but also for the entire planet and its ecosystems.  Deforestation, climate change, it can all be helped by replacing some of the trees that we've been destroying at an alarming pace for the last few centuries.  Anyway, that's it -- I planted 1,000 trees in Venezuela.  And instead of feeling broke and frazzled, I feel good.  Yes, it's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.  Maybe even a little better than fine.  I'd like to see world peace, an end to animal cruelty, and no more deforestation or pollution, but baby steps.  Right now, I feel like I've done something good with my Christmas cash.

Breathe.

You're welcome!

Rainbows and Unicorns.

You know what this blog needs?  More happy.  It needs pretty photos and uplifting sentiment.  It needs rainbows and unicorns.  

But I just haven't been feeling very colorful or perky lately.  Or even this year.  What up with that?  As healthy and happy as I am (when I'm not giving myself rashes), I should be having more fun. Right?  I think so.  So why so serious?  Why am I not having as much fun as I should?

Well, I don't know.  Maybe because the price of healthy has been deliciously decadent foods like, say, pizza.  Or cookies.  Or burgers.  Maybe I'm bummin' because I miss me some cheesy orange deliciousness in a certain blue box?  Maybe I'm resentin' the heck out of spinach, kale, and lentils?  (BTW, I think I'ma have to share my latest healthy culinary effort -- a spicy lentil soup recipe that I stole from another blogger.  Surprisingly hearty and tasty.  "LENTILS!  They're what's for dinner!"  Not to mention breakfast and lunch for the next 3-4 days.)  Maybe I'm just pissed that I'm a social pariah at every happy hour cheese-and-cracker-fest, and every dessert-dominated holiday party.  No one wants to hang with the biggest buzz killer of all time.  They want to stuff that piece of pizza and then have a cookie or three without my judgment.  Yeah, I get it.  But I judge because I CARE people!!!

I had been feeling bad about feelin' blue, and then I came across a prescription for happy.  Yes, Reader's Digest was apparently ON to something -- laughter really is the best medicine, whether you're in uniform or not.  (What happened to RD?  They need to start publishing again, if only for those crappy holiday trees and angels crafted from their pudgy little pages.)  Anyway, I found a prescription for happy in a surprising location: a book.  No, the book part's not a big stretch.  But a book on dermatology by a dermatologist.  WTH is a real doctor doing telling people to have fun?  This is thought provoking.  Or at least blog provoking for me.  Lucky you.  (I love that I think someone other than myself actually reads my crap.  There's my belly laugh for the day!  I am crackin' myself up.)

I continue to read lots and lots of boring stuff on health and nutrition.  (Hmmm, maybe THAT's what's bringin me down?)  I just finished Linus Pauling's book "How to Live Longer and Feel Better," which has been on my bedside reading pile for more than a year now.  I highly recommend it to anyone interested in health and nutrition.  Linus Pauling was a brilliant Nobel Prize-winning chemist.  But when he DARED to suggest that vitamins, especially vitamin C, should be used to treat disease instead of drugs/chemicals with side effects, he was not only marginalized, he was flat out ridiculed and maligned by the medical establishment.  Sadly, that continues to this day, as doctors who have never read his work, refer to this two-time Nobel Laureate as a "wacko."  True story.  His book on the use of naturally-occurring vitamins instead of dangerous drugs to treat disease is fascinating and well-worth a read.  But that was last week.

I transitioned this week right into the dermatologist's book, Stop Aging, Start Living.  (Yes, it's a crappy idiot mass-appeal kind of name, but I guess that's what you have to do to sell books.  Or at least that's what book publishers THINK you have to do.)  I needed to get my face back after the aloe vera debacle and my continuing inability to get rid of the permanent allergic bumps that I tend to get.  Jeanette Graf is a dermatologist who started out as a research fellow with the National Institutes of Health (one of the stodgy medical establishments that refuses to give credence or funding to ANYTHING remotely new, because they believe they already know everything medical there is to know and only want to fund research that proves they're right) and now has a thriving private practice in NYC.  I don't recall exactly how I wound up with her book -- I was searching for something on Amazon and found this.  Why not?

Dr. Graf says that pH controls your health, or at least reflects your health.  Your average human bear is slightly alkaline, and that is where you need to be for optimum health.  Your internal pH is based on what you consume.  Since I'm a big believer in diet as a cause of disease or health, I was willing to look at this whole pH thing.  Apparently this is not new and she's not the only believer.  I'm told by my friend Lori, that if you go to any seminar on health, they talk about pH.  Well, this is new to my little world.  Or maybe not.  Because it turns out that things like vegetables are good for your pH and things like sugar are bad for your pH.  Okay, you had me at no sugar.  So basically, once again, the author says to stay away from sugar and baked goods and processed foods and factory-farmed meats and non-organic fruits and vegetables, and eat organic fruits and vegetables.  This is consistent with everything else I've read in all my many books on nutrition.  And I'm already doing most of that.  Sign me up.

Dr. Graf gives more detail in terms of what you should eat and avoid, and even gives you a very specific 24-hour kick start, or a slower 2-week start up plan, outlining every meal, snack, etc.  It would be really challenging for most people.  Indeed, it is proving difficult even for me.  But I had broccoli for dinner last night and a green juice drink this morning (Yup, it's not pretty.), so I'm mostly compliant, for today anyway.  But my skin already looks a bit better and I got compliments just this morning.  So even 24 hours worth of being good has made a difference, just as she says it will in her book.  The difficulty is actually having the will power to eat so healthily for two weeks, or even 24 hours.  Like I said, even I have difficulty with this, and I'm a no-sugar, no-wheat Nazi.  What?  No Corn Nuts?  You gotta be kiddin me!

In addition to diet advice and recipes, Graf includes specific advice for caring for your skin -- a morning and evening routine with advice re cleansers and moisturizers, etc.  And a few supplements, like a probiotic (already on board with that, baby) and green powdered dehydrated veggies (I will have to do a whole blog on this nasty stuff -- they added stevia to make it taste "good" = sickeningly sweet), because most of us just cannot consume as many veggies as we ought.  So you've got food, supplements, skin care, and...happy.  Yes, her last component for beautiful glowing skin is having fun and relaxing.

This surprised me a bit.  Talk about integrative medicine.  (I think that's what integrative medicine is, right?  O.K., I looked it up.  It's a combination of traditional western med and "alternative" medicine.  I guess this qualifies.  Frankly, I have a problem calling eating healthy and exercising "alternative."  Whatever makes you healthy is what I want my doctor to recommend.  But I digress.)  Integrative or just straight up western med, the happiness prescription surprised me.  The diet and exercise are expected.  The recommendation to have "fun," not so much.  I thought doctors gave you pills for that, right?  "Are you depressed?  Here, take two of these and try not to commit suicide, because that's a side effect we might forget to mention." 

Graf recommends having fun on a regular basis.  Watching funny movies.  Playing games.  Getting out and doing things that you enjoy.  And relaxing -- meditating, getting lots of sleep, deep breathing (that's a whole other blog post), etc.  And I see her point.  Happier = healthier.  That's an established fact.  Just petting an animal can physically lower your blood pressure.  So it makes sense, I've just never seen any doctor recommend it for making your skin glow.  Kudos to Dr. Graf for taking such a comprehensive approach and sharing with the world what she has learned through her own extensive education and research and what she applies on a daily basis in her own life.  Sometimes I wish I was a doctor myself, so that I could share what I have learned about diet and health and not be called a wacko (although I am in good company, thank you Linus Pauling).  I'm glad that there are more and more doctors out there who are recognizing that our health is dependent on what we are exposed to, and that food is our biggest exposure -- that if we consume FrankenFood and things we are not designed to process, our bodies will eventually pay the price.  And that our bodies and our health are so much more complex than we know, even today, when we think we know everything.  That we need to fight the causes of disease, not suppress the symptoms with dangerous drugs and chemicals.  And Graf's book attempts to do that with a comprehensive whole-life approach.

I recommend it, and I'm going to try to implement it in my own life.  Will it work for everyone?  No idea.  But it can't hurt to eat more organic vegetables and relax and have fun.  And you'll make the world a happier place for everyone in the process.  I'm going to try to have more fun while eating nothing but salads!  Well, mostly salads anyway -- I'm sure there'll be some Corn Nuts.  I'ma go watch a comedy.  And I'll let you know how it works out.  :-)

Peace.  Love.  Understanding.  Rainbows.

And, of course, unicorns.

XOXO

Atopic Adventure #59: 'Ello Aloe!

Well, I've done it again.  Went and slathered myself with an allergen.  Yup, I'm an idiot.  Fortunately, it was just my face.  And my neck.  D'oh!

I was trying to rid myself of some bumps around my jaw line.  Yes, I'm sure everyone will just think I had zits and am trying to call them something else, but really, at 50, I'm not getting lots of pimples.  I am, however, getting lots of stupid skin reactions, and I get these little bumps on my face that never seem to go away and if I mess with them (because how can you effin NOT?), I create a scratched-open red bump.  I wanted to make them go away.  And I had a giant aloe leaf laying around doing nothing after the yard guys accidentally knocked it off. 

Genius that I am, and knowing that I've gotten itchy and bumpy and several other dwarfs from aloe in the past, I harvested the aloe.  (I'll have to post how to do that someday, because it's quite easy and aloe is NORMALLY quite good for healing the skin and wounds and rashes.  But that's for normal people I guess.)  And then, being the slow learner that I am, I put this aloe mixed with a little witch hazel all over my jaw line and most of the rest of my face.  Several times.  And when I didn't see an immediate crazy reaction, I did it some more.

That was over the weekend on Saturday and Sunday.  By Monday morning I had the crazy bad reaction that I had looked for on contact.  My delayed reaction was a sea of little bumps, some itchy, most not, covering the regions in question.  Sigh.  Live and frickin never learn.  

It will all go away in a week or two.  Meanwhile I'm trying to hide in the house as much as possible.  Lining up some Halloween movies, like Tucker & Dale Versus Evil.

Hives -- the other allergic reaction.

Well, the testing continues.  When last I posted, I explained the unfortunate results of giving in to bread in France.  This week, I gave in to dairy, wheat, AND egg all in one delicious allergy-fest and wound up with hives.  Not immediately.  No, for the first couple of days I just had a lot of random itchy bumps on my legs and arms that seemed like they were bug bites.  Then I went out to dinner two nights later and came home with hives.

Here's the deal.  I decided to go off the allergy-reservation on a Saturday morning while camping and have a delicious home-cooked egg and cheese sandwich.  Yes, it was SO good.  Man, I miss cheese and egg.  So I think I'm okay, because my colon is not releasing contents prematurely.  I'm just getting random spots that I attribute to bug bites.  I'm thinking that I have escaped unscathed.  Because according to Hidden Food Allergies, and Dr. Braly, if I don't have any of the allergen for four days before or after an exposure, the IgG antibodies disappear and I am fine.  So two nights later (this makes it Monday night), I meet friends for dinner at what appears to be a very organic, local, fresh, veggie friendly restaurant that I've always wanted to try.

I am giddy with the ability to order more than one thing on the menu, so I order three different entrees.  I get chicken strips dipped in garbanzo beans instead of wheat flour, chicken fantasia with rice and marinara, and tamales with hummus and olives and beans...it all seems really good.  And it is all supposedly allergen free.  No dairy wheat or egg.  But by the time we're ready to leave -- two hours later -- I'm starting to itch.  Why am I starting to itch?  My right forearm is already in trouble.  Little bumps and definite itch all over.  Argh.

By the time I get home, my right forearm is a red sea of inflammation awash with little itchy bumps.  An hour later the left forearm is fully involved and matches the right.  Allergies suck.  

So why?  I still don't know.  I even emailed the restaurant to see if they could tell me what it might have been, but either they don't know, or they're not sayin'.  Maybe it was just coincidence, but I don't think so.  This attack happened almost exactly two hours after dinner -- that's just about when stuff normally starts happening to me.  So I think it's unlikely that this was the result of allergens ingested 2.5 days earlier, and most likely there was something in the food.  Maybe even as simple as the fact that they fried the chicken and the fries in the same oil they used for foods with wheat on them.  Wow -- hope I'm not that sensitive.  But it is what it is.  Again, allergies suck.

On the up side, I got to test vitamin C as a treatment.  I downed 10 grams of C and a Benadryl and was able to get some relief and sleep for half the night.  The inflammation lingers (it's Wednesday night now, so it's been two days), but the itching is gone and if I don't re-offend for a week, I'm sure my skin will go back to normal.

Oh, and I just ate the leftover chicken strips and fries.  Oops.  My bad.  We'll see if I'm rashing out in two hours!!!  I'm a genius.

Oh those Frenchies and their fries.

Yes, Virginia, there is too much of a good thing.  I'm talkin' bread.  "Pain" (pronounced "pan"), as the French like to call it.  And for me it was, indeed, a major pain.

I have been wondering for many months now, just what would happen if I tried eating dairy/wheat/eggs again after abstaining for about 1.5 years. I found out last week in the Southwest of France, after a bit of a birthday bread binge.  I had been in France (with slight detour to London for 2 days to see Olympic fencing -- F'n awesome, that's all I'm sayin') for more than a week.  Apparently the French consume nothing but bread with coffee, bread with tomato slices and a pinch of deli ham and cheese, and bread with more cheese.  If you don't like that, you may have steak with pommes frites aka French fries.  (Okay, they also had lots of foi gras and seafood.  Which I won't eat, because I just don't like 'em.)  Needless to say, I was chock full of steaks and fries after one week.  So, on occasion, I stole bites of bread.  Yes, it's terrible, but I totally forgot to fill my pants with those carrots I meant to take everywhere.  The day before my birthday, our little group of 9 stopped for sandwiches for lunch.  Not good for me.  And there were no other options.  I was expected to eat tomato slices and a nasty piece of deli "ham" while everyone else happily munched on enormous loaves of bread containing similar stuff.  So, I'm getting hungry and I start stealing bites of bread.  Then on birthday night, I order , no wait, someone ELSE orders for me, a steak and fries (sigh) without telling me they are ordering for me or asking me how I'd like my steak, which in France, comes out extra-moo rare, always.  The result is that I cannot eat my expensive steak and am not willing to sit there with nothing to eat while they take everything (including the fries I'm busy inhaling, because it's 10 pm and I'm hungry) back to the kitchen to spit on my steak and burn it to oblivion, or at least shoe leather.  So I resort to bread.  Because it is delicious and because there is nothing else to eat.  I ate several large chunks.  And LO, it was yummy.  I understand why we like it so much -- it is dee-licious.

And everything was fine until I started home a couple of hours later.  I had to drive for an hour fighting stomach cramps and severe fatigue.  I'm sure all the wine wasn't helping, but no, alcohol was not the problem.  By noonish the next day, I had cleaned out my colon/intestines and was dealing only with the most extreme fatigue I believe I have ever suffered.  It was bizarre -- I felt like I just couldn't move.  So I spent a day in bed, instead of touring more vineyards around St. Emillion.  Bummer.  But I was fine the next morning and lesson learned.  Now I know.  It's not just itching if I backslide.  It is the Big D (and I don't mean Dallas) and extreme fatigue.  I'll have to re-read Hidden Food Allergies, but I believe this is pretty much what Dr. Braly laid out.  I was getting away with a few bites of bread here and there over a few days, but when I did that for several days in a row and finished with a big bunch of bread, the party was over. 

So, there you have it.  The results of birthday binging on an allergen, such as wheat?  An unplanned colon cleanse and one lost day in France.  The good news is that, unlike a hangover, no headache was involved. 

Anyway, I'm back now, and eating Fritos and refried beans and all the other non-dairy/wheat/egg crap I want.  Food other than bread and cheese abounds once again and I can relax knowing that I have options.  I must say, France made me appreciate the variety of foods available at U.S. restaurants, even though I think we have too much dairy and wheat even in the U.S.  It's all relative, and just thank goodness I don't live in France.

I'm off to start a slow roast of chicken breast with carrots, potatoes, onions, and celery.  Now THAT's gonna be YUM for dinner.

Blog? What blog?

We don't need no stinkin' blog!  Apparently, I have run out of things to say.  Yes, I've got nothin.  Ab, so, lute, ly, nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  Zilch.  Zero.  Ne rien.

Hmmmm.  So why am I wasting my time and yours?  I really don't know.  I'm working through that as I type.  So far, I'm toying with the idea of comparing HFCS and table sugar.  Because it amuses and appalls me that now that we all agree that HFCS (gasp and shudder!) is bad for us, we seem to think that sugar, good old-fashioned table sugar, is not bad for us.  I kind of laugh when I hear this.  I had a conversation with friends yesterday who were really avoiding HFCS, but not table sugar, and avoiding gluten (as far as I know, these guys have no sensitivity to gluten), but not baked goods made from other highly refined grains.  They've jumped on the anti-HFCS and the gluten-free bandwagons (both VERY popular right now), but don't seem to understand the "why" of either one.

So let me give a teeny bit of why, as I understand it after a few years of reading and research.  Why not sugar?  Well, what I did not understand until reading up on sugar and other sweeteners, is that sugar, regular old made-from-cane sugar, is 50% glucose and 50% fructose.  Demon HFCS can have as much as 95% fructose, but the standard garden variety HFCS is 55% fructose.  WHAT?  Yes.  The difference between sugar and HFCS is 5% fructose.  Not as huge a difference as I had thought.  Aside from the proportions of fructose and glucose, the other difference is that sugar is a disaccharide, which means that the fructose and glucose are bonded together, whereas the HFCS has separate glucose and fructose floating around freely.  

Glucose, which is found in starches like potatoes and in regular corn syrup, does not taste sweet and is not really bad for you (but don't go chugging a bottle of straight Karo syrup -- you should eat whole foods).  Fructose, however, IS bad for you.  It all has to be metabolized in the liver, which can't handle it (technical discussion omitted) and it ends up as fat in your blood stream, in your tissue, in your ass, thighs, and belly.  Not pretty.  Not healthy.  Good Morning America!  And welcome to obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.  So yes, HFCS is really bad for you.  And, guess what, so is frickin' sugar.  You should not be consuming either one.  But Americans are addicted.  There's a candy bar around every corner.  And we just don't want to hear it.  It is not FUN to eat vegetables for breakfast.  I know, because I'm doing it.  I just had salad for breakfast.  Not so yum.  But it is worth it to me to have my health, and to have my health, it needs to be a lifestyle.  You can't just eat healthy occasionally when you're being "good."  It doesn't work that way and it can take days to get your body back into fat burning ketosis.  (I recommend more books on carbohydrates, like The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living to understand fat-burning ketosis.  This book explains it in a way that was understandable and motivating to me.)

Now, there are some who say that sugar is better than HFCS because the fructose and glucose are bonded together and processing takes longer.  Well, that is certainly possible, and I'm willing to say that's 100% true.  So what?  Is fructose suddenly healthy?  No.  Any advantage sugar may have over HFCS is marginal at best and is completely wiped out by the fact that it's still frickin terrible for you!!  I recommend Good Calories, Bad Calories, by Gary Taubes, Suicide by Sugar, by Nancy Appleton, or any number of other books out there explaining how sugar and other sweeteners and/or carbohydrates affect the body.  If you don't want to invest that much time, at least watch this video of Dr. Robert Lustig speaking on the effects of sugar.  It is the best 1.5 hours you can spend on your health.  Do some research for yourself -- there isn't anything out there (unless maybe the sugar industry's got some publications, which I'm sure they must) showing that sugar is good for you.  And there is LOTS of information, good information, showing that sugar is bad for you.  That's how they sold us HFCS in the first place, remember?  It's ALL bad for you.  Don't eat or drink sweet shit, stupid.  (Sorry, now I'm getting worked up.)  But how dumb are we that we KEEP eating and drinking it and wondering why we are sick and fat?  Stop it.

Okay, so on to gluten.  I happen to be allergic to wheat, and the allergy is likely to the protein in wheat, which is gluten.  I'm not allergic to all gluten (which is found in wheat, rye, barley, and kind of oats), just wheat.  So I don't eat it, because I'd like to be well and not sick and inflamed.  Is everyone allergic or sensitive to gluten?  No.  Some people tolerate it just fine.  But there are a lot of people who do not tolerate and/or process gluten well (my reading indicates maybe even more than 50% of the population, but no one is certain), and people have discovered this, and they feel better when they don't eat gluten, so gluten-free has become very popular.  I'm fine with gluten-free, it's not a bad thing.  Climb aboard the gluten-free train.  That's cool.  BUT, that does not mean it's a good idea to load up on gluten-free bread, crackers, cookies, pasta, etc.  You're just substituting one evil for another.  I admit it, I did it too.  When I had to stop eating wheat, I went for all the substitutes that I could find -- anything to try to maintain my "normal" eating habits -- cereal or bread for breakfast, pastas and pizzas for dinner, crackers for parties -- you know, the usual.  I've got boxes of rice crackers and quinoa pasta right now.  So I understand.  I shouldn't criticize -- I've been there myself and it took me a few years to work through it.  Hell, I'm still working through it (meat has me in a bit of a tailspin).  But here's the deal.  Highly refined/processed carbohydrates have basically the same effect on the body as sugar.  (See the books mentioned in this blog and in my atopic library blog.)  It's not as bad as shoveling sugar into your pie hole, but it's not good either.  So if you are giving up gluten, good for you.  Just don't replace it with a bunch of the same shit made from other highly-processed grains, usually corn or rice.  These grains, even if whole (which they are not -- they are highly processed by the time they get into cracker condition), do not have the nutrients that you get from eating your vegetables and whole foods.  Yes, I'm quite the Debbie Downer.  I'm sorry.  But go easy even on the gluten-free stuff, and frickin' stop eating anything sweet people!  Nothing good can come of it.  It's not worth it.  (Screaming, crying, wailing, gnashing of teeth.  Does anyone gnash anymore?  Just me?)

So, who's ready for some more salad?

P.S.  I forgot to mention that I'm off to Paris, London (get to see some Olympic fencing matches!), and then Bordeaux in SW France for my big 5 oh!  I'm excited/scared.  Okay, giddy.  I've got to take pants with large pockets for large bunches of carrots in case they run out of "bio" meat and veggies in Europe.