Making Soup from Scratch is Easy

We make soup stock all winter long by saving chicken bones and pieces of vegetables in a bag in the freezer. You know those ends of carrots, green peppers and other veggie bits you don’t eat? Well, don’t toss them. Save them up and then once you get enough, put them in a pan and cover with filtered water and simmer for a few hours on the stove or in a slow cooker. Then strain it and you’ve got the basics to make a great soup. Keep in mind, for best flavor you probably want to keep cruciferous vegetables to a minimum when making stock since they tend to give up off odors when boiled for a long time.

Soup stock made this way contains minerals like magnesium and potassium that are very easy for your body to absorb. Since many of us are deficient in magnesium this is a good thing. And you also have control over what goes into it. You add the salt, avoid MSG (aka yeast extract and many other names) and make it with organic ingredients. Plus it does not cost anything but the power to cook it!

The soup pictured below has a stock made from chicken bones, celery bits, carrot ends, red pepper tops, bay leaves, fresh rosemary from my garden and a few other vegetable bits. Once I strained the stock (and tossed the solids) I added celery, zucchini, tomatoes, chard, garlic, salt and other seasonings. You can also add meat. In this case I had some beef sausage from the farmers market that I cooked in a pan.

If you start making soup from your own soup stock, you’ll be pleasantly surprised how good it can be.

Vegetable and Chipotle Beef Soup

Tortilla Pan Pizza

A tortilla can make a thin crust pizza. I used a spelt tortilla and topped it with spaghetti sauce (low sodium), cheese, mushrooms, black olives, zucchini and chopped arugula. Then I cooked it on low heat in a cast iron pan. Not bad!

Spelt Tortilla Pan Pizza

Making Dried Kiwi

It’s not easy to find dried kiwi with no added sugar. After a friend told me how much she likes it, I decided to make her some. I bought the kiwis, let them ripen for a few days and then peeled and sliced them. In my food dehydrator they take about 16 hours at 125 degrees.

 

           Kiwi ready to enter dehydrator

Autoimmune Disease Facts and Figures

In the last two years, I’ve noticed that autoimmune diseases (AD’s) are affecting people I know and I’ve read their incidence is increasing in the United States. I’m concerned why so many people are getting these diseases, how these various forms are connected and how nutrition and lifestyle can prevent and heal them. Below are facts cited (in italics) from the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association, Inc. (AARD).

( https://www.aarda.org/autoimmune-information/autoimmune-statistics/ )

• The National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimates up to 23.5* million Americans suffer from autoimmune disease and that the prevalence is rising. We at AARDA say that 50 million Americans suffer from autoimmune disease. Why the difference? The NIH numbers only include 24 diseases for which good epidemiology studies were available.
• Researchers have identified 80-100 different autoimmune diseases and suspect at least 40 more diseases of having an autoimmune basis. These diseases are chronic and often life-threatening.
• Autoimmune disease is one of the top 10 leading causes of death in female children and women in all age groups up to 64 years of age.
 • Commonly used immunosuppressant treatments lead to devastating long-term side effects.

Patients face critical obstacles in diagnosis and treatment.
• Symptoms cross many specialties and can affect all body organs.
• Medical education provides minimal learning about autoimmune disease.
• Specialists are generally unaware of interrelationships among the different autoimmune diseases or advances in treatment outside their own specialty area.
• Initial symptoms are often intermittent and unspecific until the disease becomes acute.
• Research is generally disease-specific and limited in scope. More information-sharing and crossover among research projects on different autoimmune diseases is needed.

• According to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Women’s Health, autoimmune disease and disorders ranked #1 in a top ten list of most popular health topics requested by callers to the National Women’s Health Information Center.

Autoimmunity is not yet considered a category of disease by most doctors, perhaps because it affects so many organ systems and so many doctors are specialists. Research is beginning to show that various autoimmune conditions (rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, MS, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and many others) are related because they are caused by a similar abnormal reaction of the immune system toward the body. In order to effectively treat these diseases, we need to look at causes, rather than just the symptoms.

 AD’s tend to run in families, but they often show up as different conditions. It appears that there can be genetic susceptibility and then there are environmental factors that turn on the “switch.” The mother in a family may have Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, while a daughter has alopecia and a cousin has Crohn’s disease. Genetics may account for about 50 percent of the risk that someone will get an AD. Then there are environmental triggers that are not well known or understood.

Here’s a list of the many autoimmune diseases: http://autoimmunediseaselist.com/a-to-z.php

Women and AD’s

Women account for about 75 percent of all AD’s and this may be because immune responses in females are generally stronger than in males. When young women report symptoms, doctors often don’t take them seriously and think the woman is a complainer, being over reactive or emotional.

In one AARDA survey, they found that it takes most autoimmune patients up to four and a half years and nearly five doctors before receiving a proper autoimmune disease diagnosis. One must wonder if a thorough family health background check and open mind would cut this process in half.

Clearly, the entire population needs to learn more about AD’s since they are so prevalent. If one is not affecting you, it is very likely someone you know is suffering the effects of one now.  My next blog will deal with how patients have used self-care to reduce or eliminate symptoms of autoimmune conditions.

 

Solar Cookers Can Help Nepal and the World

Most people hear mention of a solar cooker and they think it must work like the solar panels seen on roofs. No, not quite the same idea since it does not generate electricity, but heat instead. A solar cooker reflects sun light to create heat inside of a pot to raise the temperature to cook food or pasteurize water. A cooker can be made with cardboard and aluminum foil, or with metal reflectors and glass surrounding the pot. The resulting condition, ironically, is akin to the green house effect.

I learned about solar cookers several years ago and started cooking with them regularly. Typically we use them for soup stock, beans or rice. They save energy and our house does not heat up from turning on the oven or stove. The point is, these cookers work really well and I enjoy using them.

Imagine you are in Nepal now, living outside and have no money for fuel to cook, even if you have some food. Someone drops off a solar cooker with a pot, and you are able to use it to make your water safe and cook your simple meal. This is what a little organization called Solar Cookers International can help make happen.

I have supported SCI for the past few years since I realized all the ways that solar cooking can help our environment, along with people’s health and safety. About two weeks ago, I went to their Shine On fundraiser and met some of the five employees that work together in a tiny office to do their BIG work. I saw how dedicated they are to spreading solar cooking around the world.

For more information about SCI, visit the link below. I think what they do is really important.

http://www.solarcookers.org/about/mission.html

How I Tamed My Seasonal Allergies by Supporting My Adrenal Glands

For the past 15 years or so, I’ve been dealing with spring allergies in March and April. During the first couple of years, I thought I had a cold. But when I realized I went to the doctor over the same week in April with a cough and chest tightness, I realized it must be a reaction to pollen.

As the years went by, I would try various over the counter medicines with varying degrees of success in countering the congestion that would sneak up on me. I would be miserable for about 6 weeks, waking up tired and often cranky and irritable as the day wore on.

More recently I turned to “natural” products to alleviate my symptoms. I tried adding quercetin in my smoothies and flushed out my sinuses with salt water using a neti pot. These measures brought some relief but I was getting very tired of the routine and still feeling cruddy. I recall last April I was really feeling tired, wishing I had just left the area for a month to escape the offending particles.

As I drove to my blogging class with my friend last spring, she noticed how I was suffering and reminded me how important it is to make sure my adrenal glands are in good shape. At the time, I did take some herbs to support my adrenals but had not been very diligent about it.

Then as winter of 2014 arrived, I started thinking about how spring was around the corner and how I was dreading my birthday month (April) because that meant I would be tired and cranky for weeks. So I decided I would do two things: see an allergist about finding out what I was reacting to so I could pursue desensitization shots, and start taking herbs to support my adrenals at least three months before April.

In mid March, I visited an allergist. He tested me for many pollens and I did not react to any of them! I was a little disappointed. He said I was either allergic to something really unusual that he does not test for, or I have something called non-allergenic rhinitis, which was somehow related to my nervous system. I left the office thinking that I was going to have to continue the same old routine, using the neti pot and the herbal pills with quercetin and nettles.

Happily,  something different happened this year. As the season progressed into late March, then mid April and past the dreaded April 20th mark, I noticed that I felt better than I had in 15 years. All that I was doing for allergies was taking my adrenal support herbs every day for several weeks as planned.

The supplement I’ve been taking is Adrenal Support Complete Care, by Innate Response. It contains Vitamin C, Pantothenate, Magnesium, Sensoril Ashwaganda (a special patented form of Ashwaganda), L-Serine, Rhodiola Extract, Holy Basil Leaf, Cordyceps Mushroom, Reishi Mushroom, Astragulus Root, Shisandra Berry.

There’s one other herb, hibiscus, that could play a part in this. I’ve drunk it as a tea twice a day for about six months. I have not heard that it helps allergies, but it is always possible it lowered inflammation in my body which in turn reduced my body’s response to pollen.

I’m relieved I’m feeling better this spring. I hope this information is helpful to you or someone else you know.

How High Dose Vitamin C Works to Fight Infections and Toxins

Have you ever wondered how Vitamin C and other antioxidants benefit health? I recently took notes on a talk by cardiologist Thomas Levy, who wrote a book in 2002 called Curing the Incurable: Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases, and Toxins. I thought his information was very interesting and pertinent to a time of antibiotic resistant bacteria and negative health effects from antibiotics.

Here’s my notes Dr. Levy’s talk on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpptUsJFCEY), with some of my thoughts in italics.

Vitamin C’s discovery is attributed to Albert Szent-Gyorgi, a Nobel Laureate. His hypothesis: the electron flow theory of disease and health.  He postulated that health is a state of high electron flow, disease a state of low electron flow.

Antioxidants, like Vitamin C, supply electrons to pro-oxidants (free radicals). Free radicals always take receive and take away electrons. Both toxins and infections are pro-oxidant.

The prominent antioxidants are Vitamins C, E and A, n-acetylcysteine and alpha lipoic acid. They all donate electrons but there are different clinical effects depending on  bioavailability. Alpha lipoic acid is fat soluble, vitamin C mostly water soluble and vitamin E is fat soluble.  Some concentrate in high levels in particular organs or tissues but vitamin C eventually gets in just about any tissue and is the most effective antioxidant in varying conditions, especially at high enough doses.

Infection Facts

• Always strong promoters of oxidation
• Increased laboratory evidence of oxidative stress or presence
• Associated with decreased levels of antioxidants in affected tissues, body fluids and blood
• Associated with scurvy and the electron depleted state of acidosis

So this means when an infection is severe, there is a large consumption of antioxidants and often the result is clinical scurvy. This is rarely recognized as scurvy because scurvy is normally recognized in its chronic state.  But when scurvy is induced dramatically and quickly you mostly see hemorrhage.

An example of this extreme scurvy hemorrhaging is in Ebola infections where it is likely that patients were already very low in vitamin C. Once the infection takes hold,  antioxidants are used up very quickly. Toxins (from the environment or produced by infections) will also cause scurvy if potent enough. Acute scurvy is often the cause of death.

Vitamin C and Infection Facts

• Absolute virucide (Klenner, 1953)
• Strongly microbial in general (Klenner, 1953)
• Although often highly effective as a properly administered monotherapy, vitamin C will reliably augment the effects of other more traditional antimicrobial agents such as antibiotics and interferon.

The only times you have clinical failure with vitamin C is when not enough is administered or when you have a chronic infection such as Lyme, hepatitis or HIV. In chronic cases the virus is hidden and not accessible by the vitamin. In these cases, the treatment must be long enough and the dosage high enough so that you eventually reach the virus after all the immune cells turn over to new immune cells.

There was much more information in this talk. What I found most interesting was to learn more about how vitamin C works with electron donation in the body and how acute scurvy is present during acute infections.

There were examples of how intravenous vitamin C treatments have helped people overcome many serious conditions such as:

• Polio (Klenner, 1949)
• Hepatitis (Dalton, 1962; Klenner, 1974)
• Measles (Klenner, 1953)
• Mumps (Klenner, 1949)

Vitamin C also works as a non-specific antitoxin for conditions such as carbon monoxide poisoning, insect bites, mushroom poisoning and spider bites. Dr. Klenner (mentioned above) had a policy in his office where he would start with vitamin C treatment  and then take the patient history.

Dr. Levy (the source of the information compiled here) has treated two West Nile virus patients and their recovery was quick. He feels that nobody should die from this virus.

I believe that all of us should consider knowing a doctor that would be willing, able and knowledgeable to administer high doses of vitamin C when we are seriously ill with an infection or toxin.  Dr. Levy suggestions about its administration:

• Dose (multigram always)
• Route (intravenous with oral best. Oral gets gut endotoxins)
• Frequency (according to symptoms)
• Type (avoid calcium forms for chronic dosing)
• Adjunct therapies (not usually necessary to avoid)
• Some precaution with preëxisting kidney disease (Levy 2003)
• Rebound (If taking high amounts and suddenly stop after surgical stress you can get a scurvy reaction)

I found this talk interesting and am amazed to learn how powerful vitamin C is and how acute scurvy is a cause of death. I hope this information has been useful for you as well.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), EMDR and Tapping

In the last several years we have heard a lot about PTSD in regard to veterans returning from Iraq and Afganistan. I am not qualified to treat or diagnose it, but I do know someone who had it and found an effective treatment.

This morning I was listening to a podcast and they talked about a treatment that is widely used at VA hospitals. This reporter, who had PTSD, said that they put him together with a good, caring therapist and she had him talk about the events, in detail, that caused his PTSD. He had to tell the stories dozens of times in the hope that eventually they would lose their charge and he would get to the point where telling each story would feel like it happened to someone else. For this reporter, the multiple times of retelling the stories did not provide relief and the process made his body repeatedly go through a stress response. The treatment did did not resolve his PTSD.

I was disappointed to realize that EMDR and Tapping (EFT) were not mentioned as possible remedies. This is because I have a friend went to a therapist who knew how to do EMDR and in just a few sessions, he felt much better. He did not have to spend hours of time talking about the incidents over and over and getting stressed out many times in the process. The treatment worked very efficiently in less than six sessions.

While I don’t know anyone personally who has used Tapping to treat PTSD, I have heard that it is often very effective. It is easy to learn and does not require a lot of training like EMDR. A person can do it with a therapist, alone or with a friend. I have read that it was used to relieve the suffering of families who lost children in the Newtown, CT shootings.

I wrote this article today to help spread the word on possible remedies for a condition that is seriously affecting the lives of millions of people (not just veterans) all over the world. Below are a couple of links that might be of interest.

http://www.emdrhap.org/content/what-is-emdr/

http://stressproject.org/

 

How to Reduce Acid Reflux and Indigestion

One of the most common complaints affecting adults is acid reflux, otherwise known as GERD. When reported to a doctor, he or she is likely to prescribe an acid blocker, like Tagamet, Nexium or Prilosec because of the assumption that the person is producing too much acid. But hold on a second, do we really know that too much acid is the likely culprit ?

Recently, I was with someone who gets indigestion or acid reflux from eating all sorts of foods just about every day. So I suggested she try a Betaine HCL tablet with each meal to help her stomach produce more acid. Guess what? Just one tablet helped reduce her digestive problems.

We are learning that the symptoms of too much stomach acid, and too little stomach acid, can be similar. A lack of stomach acid (which contains HCL) can cause GERD, burping, heartburn, gas and a heaviness in the stomach after eating. In fact, as many as half of adults over the age of fifty produce too little stomach acid which can then reduce the tone of their esophageal sphincter and allow acid into the esophagus. If you think about it, reduced production of HCL makes sense as a condition in older adults since all organs tend to secrete less enzymes and hormones with age.

Stomach acid is essential for the proper breakdown of protein, absorption of minerals and nutrients  and efficient functioning of enzymes that break down all of your food. It also helps control the number of bad bacteria in your intestines and prevents food poisoning. Blocking production of stomach acid content over long periods can seriously hamper your immune system, nutrient absorption and overall health.

Below are factors that affect or improve digestion:

• Eat slowly and chew your food well. Chewing and saliva are the first important steps toward proper digestion.
• Eating while stressed negatively affects your digestion and can shut down your stomach’s digestive juices and blood supply.
• Whole foods, especially fresh vegetables and fruits, are better for your health and digestion than processed foods.
• Salt encourages HCL production while sugar tends to shut it off.
• Bitter greens, such as arugula and chickory, support digestion.  Apple cider vinegar can help as well. Try adding one tablespoon of vinegar to eight teaspoons of water. Increase to two tablespoons and 16 teaspoons of water if needed.
• Swedish Bitters, an extract of genetian and other herbs, has long been used to increase HCL.
• If you want to try Betaine HCL tablets to increase stomach acid, try one 500 mg dose with each meal. If you don’t feel improvement,  try two with each meal the next day. Keep increasing the number (up to 5) until you feel a slight burning sensation in your digestive tract. At that point you know you should back off by one tablet the next time. See a doctor first if you have any significant digestive issues like IBS, ulcers, Crohn’s or gastritis.
• Moderate liquid intake while eating so you don’t dilute your digestive juices.
• Food sensitivities increase digestive disturbances. Common triggers include gluten, eggs, chocolate, fried foods, garlic, and tomato sauces.
• Being overweight and/or a smoker increases the incidence of GERD.
• Melatonin tablets at bedtime can eliminate acid reflux. It may take a few weeks to notice improvement. Take three to six milligrams each evening.

Iodine for Thyroid and Breast Health

Most people have no idea what iodine does and if they do, their awareness is usually limited to the thyroid. But guess what? It is really important to helping fight breast cancer too.

Years ago iodine was added to table salt to prevent goiter, which is an enlargement of the thyroid gland. And for many, that was all that was needed to prevent goiter and the majority of people never gave iodine supplementation much thought again.

But now researchers are beginning know more about how important iodine for breast health and are noticing that many of us don’t get enough. Why are many of us deficient? Well, here are a few reasons:

• Salt Restriction: Some people have been using less salt under doctor’s orders to treat blood pressure problems so they don’t get as much iodine from iodized table salt.
• Increased Popularity of Himalayan and Sea Salt, which don’t have added iodine.
• Chlorine and Fluoride in our water supplies: Chlorine and fluoride are similar in structure to iodine. When the thyroid is low on iodine, these other substances can be taken up by the thyroid and hinder the production of thyroid hormones.
• Bromines/bromides in commercial foods: Iodine levels began to fall in the 1970’s when commercial bakers started substituting bromide (used in dough conditioners) for potassium iodate. Bromides are also similar in structure to iodine and can end up blocking iodine absorption. They are also added to Mountain Dew soda, citrus drinks and are used in pesticides on strawberries.

So what is the breast cancer connection? Well, it is pretty important because we are discovering that iodine is toxic to breast cancer cells. It also helps your body produce antioxidants that protect cells from damage that could lead to cancer. Plus iodine suppresses the start of benign and cancerous tumors. A study published in 2001 by a Japanese researcher found that wakame sea vegetable caused breast cancer cell death and stopped the growth of tumors more effectively than a commonly prescribed chemo and yet did not cause regular cells to die.

The recommended dose of iodine for adults is 150 micrograms per day, which is probably a minimal dose for many. A teaspoon of seaweed contains about that amount. Contact a doctor before taking iodine supplements, especially if you have Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. High intakes of iodine of more than 800 micrograms per day can cause side effects.