Just re-read this and it reminds me of a line from an old Neil Diamond song "Except for the names and a few other changes, you could say the same about me. The story's the same one". You're absolutely on the right track. Food is the disease. And the cure.
Lisa, do you have any recommendations for a postpartum patio garden? I’m currently taking a multivitamin but don’t love it for all the reasons discussed. It’s arguably better than nothing // highly artificial protein bars or something (?) but I’ve been either pregnant or breastfeeding for 2.5 years and I’m sure my nutrient depletion is so real. Would love to hear any thoughts if you have them?
Great question, Sara! I grow these herbs right outside my back door (off the kitchen): lemon balm, oregano, marjoram, thyme, sage, mint, and lavender. I read a long time ago that just getting into the habit of including these fresh herbs in your cooking on a regular basis can do a lot of good, as they all contain highly beneficial nutrients. I think "food medicine" is one of the best ways to improve our health. All of these same herbs can be dried and saved for winter use as well. They'd work great on a patio, where you can contain them if needed, as especially mint and oregano can spread easily. As a bonus, pollinators swarm them when they flower. :)
To quote an old Neil Diamond song: "Except for the names, and a few other changes, you could say the same about me...the story's the same one...".
I too, eliminated all supplements (and medications) except Thyroid medication, and I have been working with my Primary and have currently reduced my thyroid medication from 150 mcg to 75 mcg and plan to go lower. I have currently added back only Vit. D and use a liquid version that is Vit. D + Olive oil as the only ingredients. I'm trapped in a building all day at my job and get very little sunlight most days. I also plan to include this in an upcoming VERY LONG SERIES called My HyperParathyroid Journey.
You also had a very astute observation about oral absorption of Glutamates. I like your approach of carefully and thoughtfully experimenting on yourself. Again, much like my journey has been. As I like to say "No-one cares more about your health than you"!
FYI: I have also found ways to be able to eat out at a few restaurants successfully, but it is still dependent on the crew and management working at the time you are there. Very few of them have a clue about this problem, and have to be given precise instructions. It also irritates me to no end that I have to call it an "Allergy" to get results instead of "Toxic Poisoning" which is what it really is.
Looking forward to hearing more from you on this subject.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate the recognition and am glad to hear this resonated and meshed with your own experience. I'll have to look into that olive-oil vitamin D.
Thanks for the links, too. I got the Truth in Labeling link from you previously, read Samuels' book, and actually reached out to them with further questions but haven't heard back. The other list is helpful, though I'm confused why ancient grains like einkorn and emmer are on there. I've had a lot of success baking with my own wheat and buckwheat sourdough, using high-quality grains I believe are unadulterated. Thoughts?
I buy super clean potato chips - two ingredients: potato chips, olive oil. I accidentally picked up the same chips but with jalapeño. The ingredient list was immense! I thought, “why, why would you do this?” Why create a healthy simple product and then follow it up with trash? I assume it is because it will sell. People won’t read the label and assume it is clean. Then they will get the MSG kick.
Jul 31, 2023Liked by Anthony C Valterra, Lisa Brunette
I love reading personal stories like this. I feel like I'm surrounded by people with all sorts of ailments who are constantly looking for answers and relief. They also are eating completely shit food yet make absolutely no connection between their illnesses and their diets. And most doctors don't even ask about diet. Even people who attempt to eat well are sabotaged by hidden additives. So glad you're feeling better! Hope it continues.
Thank you so much, Lynn! I know exactly what you mean. So many in my family struggle with the same thing, and then I go to a gathering, and I have nothing to eat because there's not a dish on the table that doesn't contain processed food. They make a lot of excuses for the convenience factor, and I totally get it. But I'm convinced the only way to see a change is to be vigilant about all this crap in our food, though the corporations invent ingenious ways to sneak and hide it... my favorite is "natural flavoring" that is anything but natural.
Stephanie, I think you're spot-on. But I hate feeling helpless. Can you think of ways to circumvent, at least? Does our content here at Brunette Gardens help? We're both doing this on the margins of busy FT jobs, and we're in our 50s, and we only have 1/4-acre of land. It's worth it for the joy the garden brings me, despite all the failures, and for the taste of a home-grown carrot.
Jul 31, 2023Liked by Anthony C Valterra, Lisa Brunette
My mom takes a million supplements,,,and then goes to Walmart and buys some of the cheapest food she can find. She has it backwards, and it is not helping her physically, though it seems to give her some sense of security. One of the reasons I have such a big garden, so I have access to as much whole food veggies as I can eat. That and wild venison and fish. Living with my parents, I also buy food, especially high quality, local dairy, eggs and meat.
Supplements are mostly to make people who are chronically ill feel like if they didn't take supplements they would be dead.
Wow, that's a challenging situation you have there with your mom. Is she at all inspired to follow your example? Or eat what you're growing, at least? Walmart has one of the worst produce departments I've ever seen. Sigh.
Jul 31, 2023Liked by Anthony C Valterra, Lisa Brunette
She eats more veggies I grow than I do. But most of the rest of the year it is a lot of Walmart. She was a refugee, coming to America when she was 7. Growing up in poverty, her mind still seeks to save money buying food, but that thinking does not extend to supplements. As for the supplements, as I think Paracelus said, the older one gets, fixes to extend life pile up.
That's interesting the commitment to supplements. I have to admit being guilty of the same thing, honestly. It took a lot for me to question their use and then remove them from my diet. Our culture is very pro-supplements, too, from MDs now down to your community herbalist. I've had both prescribe them.
Jul 31, 2023Liked by Anthony C Valterra, Lisa Brunette
I take supplements because of the ubiquitous nutrient depletion of the soil. As much as we want to believe we can get our nutrition from food, the food supply, including meat, is deplete upon harvest and continues to lose nutrition in its journey to your kitchen... Of course the exception perhaps being that it's grown by you or someone else who uses regenerative practices and has successfully regenerated the soil.
Jenna, you've articulated exactly my rationale for taking supplements all these years. Unfortunately, though, what I'm discovering is that the supplements a) might be causing more harm than good in the form of mast-cell reactions that trigger a host of painful symptoms and b) our bodies might not absorb them in pill and powdered form the way we hope. So my entire impetus for gardening and eating out of the garden (and filling in the gaps with farmer's market fare) rests on trying to replace what's been depleted by our failing food system. I wish you the best of luck in doing the same!
Jul 31, 2023Liked by Anthony C Valterra, Lisa Brunette
“Taste free” diet.. 🤣.
Wow, that’s a miserable issue you’ve been dealing with.
I question a lot of autoimmune diagnosis, because the label gets applied to reactions from unidentified external causes. That’s more often allergy and hypersensitivity, not autoimmune.
Lots of people have reversed health conditions by adopting clean diet. That’s going to damage corporate pharma. You can see the corporate push towards all processed food.
I think you’re on the right track to cut out highly processed foods and supplements.
Also, the liver breaks down histamine. Keeping a happy liver will help. It’s not too hard to grow a supply of local weeds that nourish the liver. They practically grow themselves.
By the way, "autoimmune" was actually a lot more helpful for me after DECADES of trying to track down exactly which foods caused "allergy" or "sensitivity." Turns out after all this time and slowly shifting to a whole-foods diet that none of the actual foods in their unadulterated versions trigger anything. When I began to take additives out of my diet, especially manufactured free glutamates, that finally made the difference. So you're right that might not be truly "autoimmune," but I'm not allergic to peanuts, for example, or gluten-sensitive, either. It's the processed junk IN the peanut butter and loaf of shelf-stabilized bread that caused the reaction. Does that mean I'm sensitive to them? Or maybe I'm the canary in the coal mine, and they're not good for anyone; my body's just better at letting me know this isn't good for me!
Jul 31, 2023Liked by Anthony C Valterra, Lisa Brunette
Could be you are the canary. I think it's way better for people to eat less processed food.
Also, it helps just to have issues acknowledged and the inflammatory processes addressed.
With allergy and autoimmune issues, the feeling and inflammation can be similar, the immune system is screwing you up, but the causative mechanisms (exactly what causes the attack is different. Self vs. non-self. And sometimes the non-self stuff causes the immune system to see self components as antigens.
Jul 31, 2023Liked by Anthony C Valterra, Lisa Brunette
I was gonna do a 6 month post. But I just snapped pics of a happy liver weed because of your post. You probably know dandelion, milk thistle, burdock and the one coming up😎.
People make vast quantities of money from the instinct to “detox”. Lots of the regimens are insane.
Weedom says: eat real food, and incorporate a bit of happy liver weeds in your diet, and don’t OD on all these funky detox regimens.
The only detox I know of that grows here in profusion is cleavers, which I harvest and use fresh in spring and then as a dried tea component the rest of the year. Looking forward to your upcoming post! By the way, are you going to use the elderberry stuff I sent you? Ours are ripening as we speak.
Yep. Thought 2nd or 3rd week of August would be about right for U.S.A. elderberry use. Almost all our elderberries bit the dust because they bloom earlier, plus we had 3 unusually dry months. (Blackberries are also not productive.) But I have pics from a couple years ago when we got a bunch. Sending an email.....
Jul 31, 2023Liked by Anthony C Valterra, Lisa Brunette
I am more and more compelled to return to a whole food diet, but without space for a garden, it feels impossible. Farmers markets can only provide so much.
Stephanie, I feel ya! Anthony and I struggled with this during our long stretch of apartment-living in Seattle. Do you have a balcony you can use to begin developing those skills? One thing I do right here on my kitchen counter top is grow pea shoots. It's really easy to do in Ball jars with a mesh lid. This adds a daily dose of DAO to my diet, which helps me break down histamine.
Stephanie, it's diamine oxidase, and the two main sources are beef kidney and pea shoots. So if you can tolerate kidney and get a clean source, that's one option. The other is to grow pea shoots in a jar on the counter, which is pretty easy. I keep two going, staggered in stages, so I always have a supply.
I tried the kidney, even mixed in with ground beef, and the taste was too metallic for me. I wish I'd grown up eating them to acquire the taste, but it's hard to teach this old dog some of these new/old tricks!
Jul 31, 2023Liked by Anthony C Valterra, Lisa Brunette
It even helps to stick mostly to the outer ring of the grocery store, and frozen plain food is usually better than canned. Grow lights and sprouts can be fun.
Great advice! When I still lived in an apartment and started moving toward whole foods, that's what I did. And you don't even need grow lights for sprouts; we've done both broccoli sprouts and pea shoots in a simple canning jar with a mesh lid. They don't even need direct sunlight; in fact, it's better if they get indirect.
Just re-read this and it reminds me of a line from an old Neil Diamond song "Except for the names and a few other changes, you could say the same about me. The story's the same one". You're absolutely on the right track. Food is the disease. And the cure.
Thanks for taking the time to share that encouragement! And also, thanks for the earworm, LOL. I'm glad you've hit on the cure, too.
Lisa, do you have any recommendations for a postpartum patio garden? I’m currently taking a multivitamin but don’t love it for all the reasons discussed. It’s arguably better than nothing // highly artificial protein bars or something (?) but I’ve been either pregnant or breastfeeding for 2.5 years and I’m sure my nutrient depletion is so real. Would love to hear any thoughts if you have them?
Great question, Sara! I grow these herbs right outside my back door (off the kitchen): lemon balm, oregano, marjoram, thyme, sage, mint, and lavender. I read a long time ago that just getting into the habit of including these fresh herbs in your cooking on a regular basis can do a lot of good, as they all contain highly beneficial nutrients. I think "food medicine" is one of the best ways to improve our health. All of these same herbs can be dried and saved for winter use as well. They'd work great on a patio, where you can contain them if needed, as especially mint and oregano can spread easily. As a bonus, pollinators swarm them when they flower. :)
Thanks! Love this list!
OUTSTANDING piece, Lisa!
To quote an old Neil Diamond song: "Except for the names, and a few other changes, you could say the same about me...the story's the same one...".
I too, eliminated all supplements (and medications) except Thyroid medication, and I have been working with my Primary and have currently reduced my thyroid medication from 150 mcg to 75 mcg and plan to go lower. I have currently added back only Vit. D and use a liquid version that is Vit. D + Olive oil as the only ingredients. I'm trapped in a building all day at my job and get very little sunlight most days. I also plan to include this in an upcoming VERY LONG SERIES called My HyperParathyroid Journey.
You also had a very astute observation about oral absorption of Glutamates. I like your approach of carefully and thoughtfully experimenting on yourself. Again, much like my journey has been. As I like to say "No-one cares more about your health than you"!
Here are two good sources on Manufactured free Glutamates (which supplements and commercially prepared food are full of) ((https://www.truthinlabeling.org/names.html ) (https://nourishedblessings.com/where-can-glutamate-be-found/ )
FYI: I have also found ways to be able to eat out at a few restaurants successfully, but it is still dependent on the crew and management working at the time you are there. Very few of them have a clue about this problem, and have to be given precise instructions. It also irritates me to no end that I have to call it an "Allergy" to get results instead of "Toxic Poisoning" which is what it really is.
Looking forward to hearing more from you on this subject.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate the recognition and am glad to hear this resonated and meshed with your own experience. I'll have to look into that olive-oil vitamin D.
Thanks for the links, too. I got the Truth in Labeling link from you previously, read Samuels' book, and actually reached out to them with further questions but haven't heard back. The other list is helpful, though I'm confused why ancient grains like einkorn and emmer are on there. I've had a lot of success baking with my own wheat and buckwheat sourdough, using high-quality grains I believe are unadulterated. Thoughts?
I’m not sure why the other grains are on there either. If they haven’t been processed in some way, I wouldn’t see a problem with them.
Best of luck in your food journey. I’m so glad for the connection with someone having similar experiences.
I buy super clean potato chips - two ingredients: potato chips, olive oil. I accidentally picked up the same chips but with jalapeño. The ingredient list was immense! I thought, “why, why would you do this?” Why create a healthy simple product and then follow it up with trash? I assume it is because it will sell. People won’t read the label and assume it is clean. Then they will get the MSG kick.
Yeah, that one kinda put me off the whole brand, honestly.
I love reading personal stories like this. I feel like I'm surrounded by people with all sorts of ailments who are constantly looking for answers and relief. They also are eating completely shit food yet make absolutely no connection between their illnesses and their diets. And most doctors don't even ask about diet. Even people who attempt to eat well are sabotaged by hidden additives. So glad you're feeling better! Hope it continues.
Thank you so much, Lynn! I know exactly what you mean. So many in my family struggle with the same thing, and then I go to a gathering, and I have nothing to eat because there's not a dish on the table that doesn't contain processed food. They make a lot of excuses for the convenience factor, and I totally get it. But I'm convinced the only way to see a change is to be vigilant about all this crap in our food, though the corporations invent ingenious ways to sneak and hide it... my favorite is "natural flavoring" that is anything but natural.
Thanks for all the comments so far! This seems to have touched a nerve. Any theories as to why?
Possibly because we know corporate farming is killing the land (and us) but we feel helpless to fight it.
Stephanie, I think you're spot-on. But I hate feeling helpless. Can you think of ways to circumvent, at least? Does our content here at Brunette Gardens help? We're both doing this on the margins of busy FT jobs, and we're in our 50s, and we only have 1/4-acre of land. It's worth it for the joy the garden brings me, despite all the failures, and for the taste of a home-grown carrot.
My mom takes a million supplements,,,and then goes to Walmart and buys some of the cheapest food she can find. She has it backwards, and it is not helping her physically, though it seems to give her some sense of security. One of the reasons I have such a big garden, so I have access to as much whole food veggies as I can eat. That and wild venison and fish. Living with my parents, I also buy food, especially high quality, local dairy, eggs and meat.
Supplements are mostly to make people who are chronically ill feel like if they didn't take supplements they would be dead.
Wow, that's a challenging situation you have there with your mom. Is she at all inspired to follow your example? Or eat what you're growing, at least? Walmart has one of the worst produce departments I've ever seen. Sigh.
She eats more veggies I grow than I do. But most of the rest of the year it is a lot of Walmart. She was a refugee, coming to America when she was 7. Growing up in poverty, her mind still seeks to save money buying food, but that thinking does not extend to supplements. As for the supplements, as I think Paracelus said, the older one gets, fixes to extend life pile up.
That's interesting the commitment to supplements. I have to admit being guilty of the same thing, honestly. It took a lot for me to question their use and then remove them from my diet. Our culture is very pro-supplements, too, from MDs now down to your community herbalist. I've had both prescribe them.
We are encouraged to not trust our imagination, our will and our body. Trust the media, the government and corporations.
That's sadly true.
I see this all the time!
I take supplements because of the ubiquitous nutrient depletion of the soil. As much as we want to believe we can get our nutrition from food, the food supply, including meat, is deplete upon harvest and continues to lose nutrition in its journey to your kitchen... Of course the exception perhaps being that it's grown by you or someone else who uses regenerative practices and has successfully regenerated the soil.
Jenna, you've articulated exactly my rationale for taking supplements all these years. Unfortunately, though, what I'm discovering is that the supplements a) might be causing more harm than good in the form of mast-cell reactions that trigger a host of painful symptoms and b) our bodies might not absorb them in pill and powdered form the way we hope. So my entire impetus for gardening and eating out of the garden (and filling in the gaps with farmer's market fare) rests on trying to replace what's been depleted by our failing food system. I wish you the best of luck in doing the same!
“Taste free” diet.. 🤣.
Wow, that’s a miserable issue you’ve been dealing with.
I question a lot of autoimmune diagnosis, because the label gets applied to reactions from unidentified external causes. That’s more often allergy and hypersensitivity, not autoimmune.
Lots of people have reversed health conditions by adopting clean diet. That’s going to damage corporate pharma. You can see the corporate push towards all processed food.
I think you’re on the right track to cut out highly processed foods and supplements.
Also, the liver breaks down histamine. Keeping a happy liver will help. It’s not too hard to grow a supply of local weeds that nourish the liver. They practically grow themselves.
By the way, "autoimmune" was actually a lot more helpful for me after DECADES of trying to track down exactly which foods caused "allergy" or "sensitivity." Turns out after all this time and slowly shifting to a whole-foods diet that none of the actual foods in their unadulterated versions trigger anything. When I began to take additives out of my diet, especially manufactured free glutamates, that finally made the difference. So you're right that might not be truly "autoimmune," but I'm not allergic to peanuts, for example, or gluten-sensitive, either. It's the processed junk IN the peanut butter and loaf of shelf-stabilized bread that caused the reaction. Does that mean I'm sensitive to them? Or maybe I'm the canary in the coal mine, and they're not good for anyone; my body's just better at letting me know this isn't good for me!
Could be you are the canary. I think it's way better for people to eat less processed food.
Also, it helps just to have issues acknowledged and the inflammatory processes addressed.
With allergy and autoimmune issues, the feeling and inflammation can be similar, the immune system is screwing you up, but the causative mechanisms (exactly what causes the attack is different. Self vs. non-self. And sometimes the non-self stuff causes the immune system to see self components as antigens.
That meshes with what I've been learning about this. Thank you.
Do tell me more about these liver plants ... I take baking soda in water ever morning to help tell my liver to do its work.
I was gonna do a 6 month post. But I just snapped pics of a happy liver weed because of your post. You probably know dandelion, milk thistle, burdock and the one coming up😎.
People make vast quantities of money from the instinct to “detox”. Lots of the regimens are insane.
Weedom says: eat real food, and incorporate a bit of happy liver weeds in your diet, and don’t OD on all these funky detox regimens.
Weedom is right.
The only detox I know of that grows here in profusion is cleavers, which I harvest and use fresh in spring and then as a dried tea component the rest of the year. Looking forward to your upcoming post! By the way, are you going to use the elderberry stuff I sent you? Ours are ripening as we speak.
Cleavers and green tea - excellent combination.
Yep. Thought 2nd or 3rd week of August would be about right for U.S.A. elderberry use. Almost all our elderberries bit the dust because they bloom earlier, plus we had 3 unusually dry months. (Blackberries are also not productive.) But I have pics from a couple years ago when we got a bunch. Sending an email.....
Yeah, blackberries were a bust for us as well this year, though our elderberries look promising. My post photos are from last year, FYI. Thanks again!
I am more and more compelled to return to a whole food diet, but without space for a garden, it feels impossible. Farmers markets can only provide so much.
Stephanie, I feel ya! Anthony and I struggled with this during our long stretch of apartment-living in Seattle. Do you have a balcony you can use to begin developing those skills? One thing I do right here on my kitchen counter top is grow pea shoots. It's really easy to do in Ball jars with a mesh lid. This adds a daily dose of DAO to my diet, which helps me break down histamine.
I sent you a picture on Twitter. :)
DAO? Anything to break down histamines!
Stephanie, it's diamine oxidase, and the two main sources are beef kidney and pea shoots. So if you can tolerate kidney and get a clean source, that's one option. The other is to grow pea shoots in a jar on the counter, which is pretty easy. I keep two going, staggered in stages, so I always have a supply.
Thank you. :) Pea shoots it is. I don't do organ meats.
I tried the kidney, even mixed in with ground beef, and the taste was too metallic for me. I wish I'd grown up eating them to acquire the taste, but it's hard to teach this old dog some of these new/old tricks!
It even helps to stick mostly to the outer ring of the grocery store, and frozen plain food is usually better than canned. Grow lights and sprouts can be fun.
Great advice! When I still lived in an apartment and started moving toward whole foods, that's what I did. And you don't even need grow lights for sprouts; we've done both broccoli sprouts and pea shoots in a simple canning jar with a mesh lid. They don't even need direct sunlight; in fact, it's better if they get indirect.
Yaaaaa, true the sprouts don't need much light. Microgreens need more.