I woke up today to some serious white shit falling out of the skies. I know! I was appalled too. It fell pretty hard and steady for a few hours leaving at least four inches of snow on the ground. Thankfully it stopped and the skies lightened up and became blue. But still, who really wants to see that, most especially in March.
Recently the doctor diagnosed me as being sensitive to wheat. That's kind of a round about way of saying that I am allergic to the stuff. Who'da thunk it? Not me. Not Miss Carb Junkie. Anyway he said no more wheat/gluten and recommended that I read a book called, Wheat Belly, which I just finished. WOW! It blew me away. I had no idea how bad "whole grains" were for the average carbon based, bipedal creature. According to, Dr William Davis MD, who writes this book, pretty much every single modern day disease can be linked back to how bad wheat/gluten is for you. Celiac disease for sure, but IBS? Crones? Cancer? Diabetes? Dementia? Autism? Arthritis? The list goes on and on. Of course I am sort of sceptical about taking things at face value these days so I Googled a bunch of stuff on the subject. WOW! There is like this whole other world of information out there which I knew nothing about. I ended up the night watching a few clips of Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride on You Tube and was just floored. I honestly cannot believe how ignorant of this stuff I have been.
So here at the official headquarters of the Old Shoes and Tea Club we have now begun to change our lifestyles. Yes, every single both of us. That's because I do most of the cooking around here. Today I made a spinach salad and haddock breaded in quinoa flour and flax seed. Yummy. Today is also the last day for the meds that the doctor has me on, good thing too because I woke up at 3am puking my guts out. Not good. The only thing worse than puking your guts out is knowing that you won't be able to eat cake again. I love cake. I should have made it more often in the past few decades.
Oh and I promised the kidlet that I would put a picture of my brand, spanking new, dining room set. It is around four and a half million times more comfortable than the one we inherited with the shack. We have stored it away for her use.
Yah see...the thing is that although I have to admit that there are some things these folks talk about that make some kind of sense (particularly the business about how food we eat is *processed* and enhanced and otherwise screwed around with) I'm still hesitant to accept that they've found the holy hand-grenade of modern health woes. Yes, I too recently saw a doc about the ties to gut flora and autism but that mostly seemed to point at really crappy choices people make with food (and the whole culture of how food is foisted on us). 'Balance' still seems like a rational approach and although I must confess I'm too fond of the bread family I suspect there would be plenty of room for it in my diet as long as it gets joined by all the other stuff on the palette (although I admit I'm pretty sure I could do with less). Anyhow...the problem is that people who come across as authoritative and knowledgeable have to be vetted just a vigorously as anyone else. The autism thing is a good example of something that needs more serious investigation (vis a vis it's relationship to intestinal flora) but people who have the *answer* really need to back that up with solid evidence. Because people react in wildly different ways to very similar (if not the same) stimulus I can't help but wonder if what the hell is really going on. I'm inclined to suspect a bit of column A and some of column B (which is to say revealed information like Gluten man and Gut Woman and actual medical information that has well tested and repeatable results).
ReplyDeleteAnyhow...blathering. Nice dining set.
I think it was him I heard in an interview on CBC some time back, I think it was on the Current. While I agree that all science needs vetting and testing, I was particularly interested in hearing this particular fellow (assuming it's the same doc) discuss how some of his patients had managed to find locally grown heritage grains (or breads made from same) and the ingestion of these did *not* cause whatever symptoms the other generic grains had been - even if they were wheat. It reflected a position I've been more and more firm on in the last few years: the way we process stuff is hurting us. We use chemicals to process peanuts - look how many people are allergic to peanuts, and wheats and milk and so many other things. Of course the causes could also be the amount of growth hormones and drugs in the meats we eat as much as how the non-meats have been processed, but we haven't quite gotten to the meta research stage for that yet. The research about the causes of autism (another very good documentary is on the autism Canada website called the Autism Engima)may very well lead us in that direction.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting a pic of the dining set for me!! It's so nice. I can't wait to sit at it and be an official part of the club. Which may need to be renamed Hippies, Old Shoes and Tea.
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