Sunday, April 3, 2016
Veggies Are Going Mainstream!
Makes my veggie heart swell with joy!
Of course - never forget - we still have to be smart in the products we purchase and feed our families. While we are seeing many more products we can cook with going vegan, many of those products are also still loaded with salt, oils, sugar, fat, chemicals, etc...and those are things we still don't want to be flooding our bodies with.
Processed foods, whether vegan or not, are still detrimental to our overall health and well-being, no matter what classification they are.
Whole Foods are best - and I still stand by the premise that refined and concentrated oils are evil on the body. Use organic vegetable broth instead to cook with! Oils simply are not needed to make your foods tasty, and for many other healthy reasons!
Type 2 diabetics - sit up and take notice: Cutting oils and animal fats out of your diet (yes, that includes dairy) will help those receptors "clean" themselves out and start taking up that insulin properly. Don't believe me? Read "Program for Reversing Type 2 Diabetes" By Neal Barnard, MD.
I did it - and you can too.
Sunday, January 3, 2016
I STILL have a skin issue that no one knows what to do about it, including the specialists I've seen...and nor do they care to try and figure out what triggers these random episodes ("it's all in your head, reduce your stress") - and they STILL tell me "it had nothing to do with your allergy testing..." Really? Because I never had non-raised red spots, hives, rashes OR burning hives with pain in my skin at random times with zero warning until directly AFTER I had allergy testing done.
When I am exposed to chemicals without wearing protection (like bug spray, cleaning items, solvents, etc...),
Use of pain killers (I can never have ibuprofen or naproxen related products again - that reaction lost me my wedding ring and left permanent damage on my chest),
After eating foods with pesticides on or in them (lips swell, skin breaks out, headaches ensue...though this never happens with the same items in organic form.
So this is one BIG reason I am as non-GMO and organic as possible - that has drastically changed my skin allergy issue just paying attention to these issues alone.
Excuse me, you live with never knowing what will trigger a skin issue that you NEVER want to be up in front of a crowd speaking with! Or not being able to sleep because you have to wait for the pain and reaction to subside. Or, this is a doozie...have a doctor refuse to prescribe you an EpiPen because he believes it's "all in your head, and if you reduce your stress it won't happen anymore"...Really? I beg to differ.
My all-time favorite "what the ?" Moment though: I'm in an ER with a massive breakout all over (this one had red round spots under the skin (they were not raised) and were hot to the touch. No itching, no platelets. I had 4 docs come through, and ALL of them had to thumb through PICTURES in some large medical book and finally could come to no conclusion as to what my issue was. "We'll call it urticaria...that's about all we can tell you"...No kidding...really? I KNEW THAT. Now, tell me how to eliminate it!
Monday, June 16, 2014
Veggies, Camping and Men...
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Seriously...It's Time Small-Town Mentality Shifts Towards More Information, Less Ignorant Opinion
Ignorance is NOT bliss...not when you find out the hard unavoidable way that you could have done something had you only had the right information and made the effort to make a difference before your health or life became jeapordized. And to do that, you have to go outside your comfort zone and actually open your eyes to the realities in life. Accept that you are NOT a know-it-all when it comes to things you "think" you know everything about. Accept that everyone else are NOT "just fools that feed off the mainstream media idiots".
There is a huge world outside of the small coastal towns off the Pacific Northwest. We should NEVER be so arrogant to believe we are "armchair experts", sitting in our homes saying everyone else are the fools. No, those who spew ignorance are making themselves the fools for all the world to see. I fear for them if they ever leave that small town and venture out into the wide unknown. It will be a rude, uncomfortable awakening when they realize that they really have zero understanding of what life is REALLY like in the world, that what they thought they knew is actually all a huge misconception warped by small-town mentality, or that for once their friends are not the best source of pertinent information.
The world opened up for me the moment I left a small town and saw the world. Yes, I left the USA and went elsewhere in the world - and a HUGE world it is, with far more to it than any one person can ever imagine. Different cultures, ways of thinking and lifestyles are widespread and very diverse.
It's amazing the things you see, learn and experience when you leave that cocoon of small-town living and mentality.
My world opened up for me even more when I came back to the USA and worked hard towards a college degree. Having that degree handed to me was one of the best, most rewarding moments of my life.
The breakdown of our governmental regulatory commissions are very real. Organic standards that have been, until now, safe and trustworthy are being systematically torn apart by special interests with ties to major agro-chemical industries. FDA has been shown to be much less than trustworthy, and they have since shirked their duties in making sure our food is safe to eat.
GMO dangers are very real. There have been no studies that say GMOs are safe for human consumption or use. NONE. No matter what chem companies and regulatory commissions will tell you. And that is because they are NOT safe. They want to tell us that "in time we will see that there was nothing to worry about". That same sentence was said about smoking. And look where we are now.
But there have been many independent studies done showing GMOs are far from safe, and show alarming signs towards diseases and disorders that we have seen rise significantly since the introduction of GMOs into the food supply.
Agent Orange and the devastation that it caused both in the Vietnam War and still today is very real. We can thank Monsanto and Dow, among others, for those atrocities perpetrated on our soldiers and the Vietnamese people (and both their offspring! But that's a whole other topic...).
Chemicals like Red Dye #40, HFCS, and more ARE health hazards. Red 40 has been shown to contribute to higher levels of anxiety and hyperactivity in susceptible children. These things are NOT natural products, therefore the body does not assimilate it the same as it would if it ingested, say, cherry juice - or something similar - used as a color enhancer. Cherry juice or another fruit product used to color foods IS a natural product - Red 40 is absolutely NOT, and neither is HFCS - - again, GMO-laden products to poison the population more and more, little by little.
Grow your own food, using certified organic seeds and/or starts! COOK!!!! Ditch the processed foods and go back to COOKING for yourself.
In other countries, their citizens literally look at us Americans as mindless fools, overindulgent sloths, and more unflattering terms...(and those are terms exactly as they were said).
It's time this country wakes up, gets their collective heads out of the sand, and take some kind of initiative to take back our health, and our freedom to CHOOSE!
Support labeling GMO! At least then you'll know what your eating and can choose whether or not you want to eat real food or genetically modified food-like organisms.
And NO - labeling foods is NOT going to raise costs, put people out of jobs, raise taxes, make you surrender your first born, etc...NONE OF THAT WILL HAPPEN. Stop listening to the special interests that are only out for THEIR INTERESTS. They simply do not want foods labeled because they KNOW that then the purchasing power of the consumer will be more powerful, and people might actually *gasp!* become more educated about what goes into their foods! Oh, the horror!!! God help Monsanto when everyone becomes the dreaded "informed consumer"...whatever will Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturer's Association do then?!
When we have entire countries denying import of our foods because of GMO issues - perhaps it's time we start taking more notice to the world around us and the issues we keep trying to ignore at home. Wake up, America.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Amazing! Yes, I'm back online!
Monday, November 18, 2013
Becoming Vegan: Easy? Hard? It All Depends On How You Approach It.
Original post here - by The Conscious Vegan: http://www.theveganwoman.com/my-biggest-difficulties-in-becoming-vegan-and-how-i-overcame-them/
The four stages of learning
If you are new to veganism, it can be helpful to understand the four stages of learning that apply to learning anything.
1. I’ve just bought my first carton of soya milk.
Wahey! This first stage is known as ‘unconscious incompetence’ – you make the decision to go vegan without realising you know so little about the vegan lifestyle. This new found decision is often accompanied by feelings of excitement and lots of enthusiasm. You are going to change the world – all by yourself!!
You may feel a little (or a lot!) disconnected from non-vegans, but you don’t care. You may start preaching at and/or mocking all non-vegans at this stage too and feel incredibly self-righteous.However, preaching, mocking, self-righteous superiority, and hasty vegan tattoos saying “I hate necrovores” blazoned across your forehead are not obligatory and can be omitted according to taste…
2. I really miss [insert animal-based product here].
This second stage is ‘conscious incompetence’. You realise how little you actually know about the vegan lifestyle and may still crave some non-vegan foods. Yikes!!! You may realise with some sadness that many foods and products that you used to love are not going to be part of your life anymore. You might try some recipes that don’t work out as well as you expected (cue “vegan cake hell”), etc.
Many people feel bad about their mistakes, cravings, and screw-ups, doubt their ability to stick with it and give up at this stage. Trial and error is the most challenging but most important stage of learning. Be kind to yourself. Get plenty of support and education – The Vegan Woman is here to help!
3. I’m finding it alright, actually, this vegan thing.
The next stage is ‘conscious competence’ – you learn how to live a vegan lifestyle, but it still takes some active focus (you find yourself reading labels a lot). You are actively searching for vegan alternatives to your fave things and having successful results (cue “vegan cake heaven”!). You are learning about the ethics and far reaching impact of veganism and making many vegan connections with others. You may well feel a sense of warm and fuzzy love for your fellow vegan buddies, and the urge to slap people who ask you “where you get your protein?” is much easier to control now.
4. I’m a fully-fledged vegan hero!
‘Unconscious competence’ is the last stage. Congratulations, you are a fully-fledged vegan hero! Your vegan lifestyle is second nature, effortless, and fun! You will probably find that your palate completely changes and you no longer crave any of the foods you used to “love”. You know how to seduce omnivores with your delectable vegan delights, you can knowledgably answer questions calmly – most of the time – and you can’t believe you were ever not vegan.
Remember why you are vegan. Veganism is a constant process of education and adventure. Every step we take enables us to learn, grow, and develop in all kinds of unexpected ways.Each one of us saves innocent lives every day, and motivation to change doesn’t get any better than that.