Preventative Medicine

[mike_belben]

You can pay the farmer, or you can pay Pharma,  which one do you think tastes better every morning?





That drive thru is only offering you a buy 1 get 1 disease folks.  Misery is on the way if you are living on caffeine, sugar and processed everything. 

[newoodguy78]

Makes one wonder how many of those pill bottles are counteracting the effects of the one before it. Or at least it does me. 

[Don P]

"Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food"
attributed to Hippocrates, but probably someone else's.

[jimbarry]

You can pay the farmer, or you can pay Pharma,  which one do you think tastes better every morning?





That drive thru is only offering you a buy 1 get 1 disease folks.  Misery is on the way if you are living on caffeine, sugar and processed everything.

Don't eat processed food much. Maybe once every couple years, just to remind ourselves how bad it is. Coffee now, welllll, been drinking 6 cups of instant with milk for about 30 years. And sugar, that's kept to home baked goodies, no chocolate bars, chips, or candy. 
Two out of three ain't bad I guess.  

[Crusarius]

We have tried for the last several shopping trips to get some more wegmans bbq chips. no such luck. Another shortage thats going to cause price jump.

[newoodguy78]

You can pay the farmer, or you can pay Pharma,  which one do you think tastes better every morning?





That drive thru is only offering you a buy 1 get 1 disease folks.  Misery is on the way if you are living on caffeine, sugar and processed everything.

Don't eat processed food much. Maybe once every couple years, just to remind ourselves how bad it is. Coffee now, welllll, been drinking 6 cups of instant with milk for about 30 years. And sugar, that's kept to home baked goodies, no chocolate bars, chips, or candy.
Two out of three ain't bad I guess.

I'm with you there eat very little processed food, next to zero sugar filled snacks. Coffee however has a pretty firm grip on me. Only use cream or whole milk. Every time I try to cut back someone hands me a cup  :D think they're trying to tell me something 

[mike_belben]

I quit my coffee/splenda milkshake habit  maybe a month ago, switched to mudwater which is really expensive and strange at first but becomes appealing in time. Now that i dont crave coffee im drinking tea with raw honey, molasses and milk and dont feel like im missing anything.  

Im not the sick one but all the research ive been doing has me changing my ways.  None of those meds fixed anything but dietary changes have shown immediate results.

[SwampDonkey]

I do like a sandwich for night time meal, you gotta have something before bed. For that it is generally got a slice of Swiss cheese, minimally processed meat. For instance no hormones in the critters and no carageenan injected into the meat. Onions, peppers and lettuce. Home made bread to hold it together. ;D
Coffee I can take it or leave it. Gotta have some form of liquid in the morning to down by natural peanut butter sandwich. ;D I wouldn't drink orange juice if they gave it away, that's the most doctored up substance going. :D I can't drink processed apple juice either, I can drink cider. I make my own juice. Otherwise I find a juice without all of the chemicals imaginable added in, just water and sugar is all I allow. A good swig of kambucha never hurt no one either. :D

My Sunday dinners during winter are usually a home made pizza with real ingredients and no Chinese mushrooms, I buy Canadian. The cheese is real Parmesan, not that sawdust filled stuff from shaker bottles, good heavens. :D

[doc henderson]

my brother doing construction would stop at a quick shop for coffee.  put in 4 pkts of creamer, a pack of hot chocolate, and sugar.  his triglycerides were over 600.  he stopped that and they came down to almost normal

[mudfarmer]

Don't go to town much but when I do, can't help but notice the folks lined up at the feed trough around dinner time. McD's, KFC, Taco Bell, lines in the drive through out into the roads, blocking traffic. Probably on a fist full of pills a day too :-\

[SwampDonkey]

Don't go to town much but when I do, can't help but notice the folks lined up at the feed trough around dinner time. McD's, KFC, Taco Bell, lines in the drive through out into the roads, blocking traffic. Probably on a fist full of pills a day too :-\

You ain't got a Tim Horton's. :D And drivers watch out for those hurrying to get there from down the road. I've had people 30 feet away on side streets shoot out in front.  "Yep, I know where she's going!!" A 95% confidence level in those predictions. No stopping the crazed and deprived. :D Lordy, beer cans along the ditch don't out number the Tim's cups. Drunk or crazy take your pick. : You'll never see me in a Tim Hortons.

[thecfarm]

Automation is driving on fat too.
You guys all ready hit drive thru windows. No reason to get out of the vehicle to get fat.  ;D
Than all the automation with cars too. Don't even have to roll down the windows anymore.
I work at a grain/hardware store. I load the grain into vehicles. No reason to get out, just press a button and the back door will open and close. Or just press a button to release the trunk.
I do know some people have mobility issue and that is great. But for others they will have the same issues too.  
Turn off that TV and put down the phone for a while.  ;D
I listen to other people talk. They know what is on TV any day of the week.
I know where the deer are at 8 at night.

[HemlockKing]

If our governments really wanted to cut down on disease and death they would address the food industry and educate more. They jam pack sugar and sodium in everything, a simple glass of milk has 13g of sugar, 13g of sugar is a mini mountain of powder all in one little cup. China has actually been addressing this issue and are trying to get their population more healthy, it's getting out of hand. 

[mike_belben]

so i have been running an experiment on myself for a spell now.. Eat a few days of real clean, and then a few days of junk. 


A few cheap entemanns chocolate donuts makes my joints ache.  Knee is killing me right now.  Knuckles all feel swollen. Hip and spine will hurt all night and keep me up.  


We were not designed to break down polyunsaturated fats.  I guess its because the double carbon bonds are highly oxygenating which somehow wreaks havoc.  I dunno, its over my head.  What i know is refined wheat, refined sugar, fake sugars, soy, lecithin, corn syrup and "vegetable oils" make me feel like crap.  No im not allergic per se.. I can function, i can eat anything and have an iron stomach..im not queezy or breaking out in hives or anything, but there is no question after quitting processed food then going back i can feel inflammation and arthritis pain now dramatically increase by a spat of crappy factory food.  

We were designed to consume saturated fats.  That is white,  solid at room temp  animal fats. From grass fed animals.  Meat animals store stuff in theirnfat and a beef aint finished until there is intermuscular fat within layers of muscle tissue so theres no trimming this off. Fat permeates a good piece of meat. 

 Both seed oils ("vegetable oil") and grain fed animals are full of omega 6 and deficient in omega 3.  Omega 6 to omega 3 needs to stay in a ratio that is perfect in deer but outta wack in feedlot burger from tacobell and dinty moore. 

 The private research and very long term data is totally out there that correlates omega 6 to all the problems that marketers told us came from lards back when proctor and gamble built the american heart association from nothing, into a massive ad campaign group urging people to switch to crisco which is a canned disease. Its chemically cracked, bleached and blended diesel fuel that is adding to our sickness and i can now genuinely feel it. 

I can eat all the potatoes and onions fried in lard that i rendered from a wild pig and feel good.  Make fries in vegetable oil and i hurt.  I can down all the raw honey, molasses or backyard maple i want. But corn syrup and aspartame, no good. 

Sadly harvard, mayo clinic and other big names appear to be well paid to keep telling us omega 6 is good for you against many many indendant studies showing it is the root of sickness. Something about oxidizing and free radicals.  

Every society that lets mcdonalds in gets sicker.  If you havent ever watched 'supersize me' that dude poisons himself before your eyes in a month on mcdonalds.   

[mike_belben]

Chris A. Knobbe - Omega-6 Apocalypse: From Heart Disease to Cancer and Macular Degeneration - AHS19 - YouTube

Omega-6 Apocalypse 2 - Chris Knobbe (AHS21) - YouTube

[Southside]

a simple glass of milk has 13g of sugar

If it's actually milk, as in from a cow, then at least here in the US that sugar is not added to it, it's simply a natural product.  Now if it's "oat milk, soy milk, dairy milk product" or any of the other things that aren't milk that are sold with the word milk in the label - then all bets are off.  

I have yet to see a soybean milking parlor, must be a rotary robot type with 5,000 stalls, but here is a multiple generation, grass fed, organic, almond milking farm for you to see.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJCTIPWPNtw&t=97s

[Ianab]

If it's actually milk, as in from a cow, then at least here in the US that sugar is not added to it, it's simply a natural product.

Correct. 
Mammal milk naturally contains Lactose, which is a type of sugar. 

Cane Sugar is Sucrose, while most fruit have mostly Fructose. 

Now Coconut milk / cream  is actual juice squeezed out of a coconut. It's mostly saturated fats, so maybe not the best for you, But the 1.4% sugar is from a coconut. 

[SwampDonkey]

The only sugar that is any benefit to you is glucose.  If your cells don't get glucose to metabolize into pyruvate, to then combine with CO2 to make acetyl-CoA and ADP for the energy, your cells are dead. This involves citric acid and 8 other compounds along with a number of enzymes for it to happen. None of them other sugars are part of it, they have to be dealt with by the liver, broken down into other useful stuff or stored in fat.

The Krebs cycle. It's been a few years since I was in high school biology class, so I'm a little rusty. If it ain't in your high school biology text book, run.... :D

Berries are roughly half fructose and half glucose, the glucose is the only one of any benefit to cellular respiration. Basically your liver has to deal with fructose to replenish glycogen and triglyceride and break down a portion into usable glucose. You only get a net benefit of 10% of your calories from fructose because it consumes energy to convert it into useful stuff.

Contrary to what some may think, honey is mostly fructose.

[Ianab]

Glucose is the simplest sugar, and basically what cells actually use for energy. More complex sugars get broken down into glucose by your body so they can be used for energy. Starches are more complex molecules, but again get broken down into sugars, and eventually glucose.

Now our bodies are evolved to handle a certain amount of sugars. Grog the Caveman would have eaten fruit and berries he found, and dug up starchy roots and roasted them on the camp fire. Even raided bee nests if he was brave.  But overall sugars were in short supply in the stone age, and we are genetically predisposed to grab them when we can. Lots of other animals are the same, they love ripe berries / honey etc because it's concentrated energy. 

Now we still have the Caveman body. but the supermarket is loaded with sugary goodness... We aren't evolved to handle those riches. 

My 4X great grandmother was basically a stone age Polynesian. They had sweet Potatoes and fern roots, plus fish / birds shellfish, and some assorted salads to eat. Sugar was konini berries that they gave their kids as a treat. (BTW, they are still very nice bush tucker) 

[mike_belben]

i have done some digging into molecular structures but cant really keep up.  AK lectures on youtube is an overwhelming whiteboard explanation of the molecular processes.  im still full of confusion but have come to conclude from broad consensus in sources, is that pantothenic acid is an important part of coenxzyme A which is critical to breaking anything down.  carbs, fats, amino acids et al.

and that sugars being stored as fat isnt killing us, but oxidation and free radicals from polyunsaturated fats really, really is.  i can recite the stuff but still cant explain the whole system.  it doesnt run on 303 or diesel fuel so its out of my comfort zone. 

[goose63]

If people were to see what gos on the in the plants that processe some the food thy would fighting the cows for the grass. 

 I pulled a reffer trailer for 30 years some of those plants realy smell bad 

[SwampDonkey]

I hear ya Goose. I've been in the back of a few of them trucks loading spuds. You could smell what was in the last load. :D

[SwampDonkey]

I remember one time the store had fiddleheads in the springtime. They sprayed some kind of poison on them in the store. Never buy fiddleheads in a grocery store unless you like drinking poison. What a mess of garbage, I even doubt a worm would eat it.  :D

[Roxie]

It's my opinion that the way that food is stored and prepared has an enormous impact on your body. 

No plastic containers for me. No plastic bags. No Teflon coated cookware just old fashioned cast iron and stainless steel. 

Don't get me started on how wrong it is to get your water from plastic bottles. 

[SwampDonkey]

I here ya, especially on water. What a crock of nonsense. Now it's 'Smart Water'. It's not working!! :D

[BradMarks]

Being raised with the "you are what you eat" conditioning, it is the best medicine available to stay healthy. I do take ibuprofen occasionally when aches and pains become too much (many surgeries - elbow, back to name a couple).  But no other meds or dietary supplements. 

[HemlockKing]

Will be interesting in another 20 or so years when we see the long effects of all these people drinking 2-3 red bulls everyday and Dorito chips everyday. Mostly don’t drink water either so all their water comes through those drinks. I sort of think life expectancy might have peaked around now and is going to go down a bit… maybe not though 

[mike_belben]

life expectancy has started to decline.  and we have a new first. malnourished obese people. so massively overweight, and deficient in basic nutrients. 

[mike_belben]

theres a lot of benefits to blueberries, a 'superfood'


Wild blueberry proanthocyanidins shape distinct gut microbiota profile and influence glucose homeostasis and intestinal phenotypes in high-fat high-sucrose fed mice | Scientific Reports

[SwampDonkey]

Land of blueberries and bog cranberries up here. Grandfather and I used to go to the burnt lands, after about 5 years when the bushes were all matured enough and find an old spruce stump beside a bunch of tall bushes and fill a 3 gallon pale all around that stump. That was on rain days, dry days we were trout fishing. :D

There's a 3rd berry in that group, the creeping snowberry. About tiniest leaves and flowers of any fruit you'll fine. Berries the size of a wild blueberry though. Too meticulous and sparse to pick though, but good berries.  Scale is in inches.





Look how tiny the flowers are. :D :D Barely 1/16".

[mike_belben]

this one is on coenzymes

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/coenzymes

[HemlockKing]

I never knew the science behind it but I knew blueberry were a super food or a "anti toxin" as what I was told, I can eat blueberries by the fist full and I can not stop until they are all gone, anyone else have this problem ? lol 

[Southside]

My bigger concern is what happens after you eat all of those berries. Especially the really big, juicy, tasty, wild Blackberries that grow along ponds in western Oregon that are a long, very uncomfortable walk away from the picnic area facilities. 

[mike_belben]

They never bother me.. I eat tons of blackberries around the yard.  

Its anti-oxident. Theyre full of all sorts of good stuff.  Polyphenols, flavinoids and other sciency mumbo jumbo

[SwampDonkey]

I juice a lot of berries:blackberry, raspberry, black elder, concord grape, Canada plum and even rhubarb. Cracked open another bottle of rhubarb yesterday. 8)

My uncle used to say, "You suppose it's the fruit"? Think about it. ;)

Uncle was a character and a half. He could get the most sour faced human to laugh. :D :D

[mike_belben]

I have blackberries, little wild blueberries and elderberry here. Plus wild lettuce.   I aim to continually increase production and use of them all going forward. 

[newoodguy78]

Wild lettuce? Never heard of it. Is it something that is in the northeast too? To be honest I'm not as buffed up on native plants as I wanna be but working on it. 

[HemlockKing]

 Yup, I got "wild lettuce" too  ;D ;D :D

[doctorb]

My brother is a botanist.  I'll have to ask him about that stuff!  Very cool!

[SwampDonkey]

I forget the species, but it's actually a problem at some tree seedling nurseries up here. It takes over the containers. I've had some spruce seedling containers with them covered in the stuff. It's the Borg. Deer will eat it. It's a lichen on most any mature red maple up here. :D

But wild lettuce that Mike is talking about is a true plant, not a lichen. We probably have 3 species of it up here, including rattlesnake root and tall white lettuce. They are in the aster family.

[mike_belben]

lactuca seriola aka prickly lettuce will give you lots of images.  its got a milky latex inside that blocks pain receptors like dope without being addictive or getting you high.  you want the milk.  put some vodka in a mason jar and go around to the ones youve identified in the brushy weedy regen line, tear or scissor off leaf and stalk chunks and toss them in quick.  the plant bleeds more at each chop and thats what youre after. it wouldnt be as effective to grab big pieces or to try storing a plant. later summer when the thing has flowering is highest production.  i have probably a hundred of them in my yard head high from demo fill dirt. prolific seeder, itll cover a field easy. 

i keep the jar of medicine booze in the freezer and pour a splash into whatever beverage when my fused spine is hurting me. works good, better than just booze. 

[mike_belben]

i think lactuca canadensis is the other variety.  there are two common prickly lettuces and probably similar quality in many other plants milk.  southside has one i cant remember for itch or bee sting.. was it dandelion ?  ribwort plantain?

[SwampDonkey]

Just don't juice milkweed, or it may be your last trip. :D :D :D Indian hellebore, same. My uncle used to call it skunk cabbage, but it's not. We don't have skunk cabbage in NB. I've seen it in BC though, peculiar plant.

Baneberry to, and not advised to even try. They have glossy berries, a white and a red variety. The white ones look like small eye balls. :D

Up this way, jewel weed (aka spotted touch-me-knot) cures stinging nettles. They usually grow together, which is good. :D But I picked fiddleheads one time along a river and didn't realize it was nettles between the road and them ferns, that was head high. I burned for 3 days, it's like you're a pin cushion with needles prick'n ya. :D

[Southside]

Broadleaf Plantain. Instantly stops insect pain, bees and cattle forage on it too. 

[mike_belben]

The importance of the ratio of omega-6/omega-3 essential fatty acids - PubMed

[HemlockKing]

My area has one of the highest age expectancy(quite a few cenitarians), along the south shore, I attribute it to the omegas fattys from all the fish we eat, because everyone has it. I don't even half to pay for haddock or lobster, I can get it free from family that work the plants.

[SwampDonkey]

I blame it on genetics, diet and medicine, in that order. Without blood pressure pills a lot of them would be dead. :D But good nutrition helps keep away the nasty stuff with a C, certainly improve your chances. ;) Mom's 77 and never took a pill up until 2 years ago and a low dose one. Dad's uncles on grandmother's side all right up there, one over 100. My oldest relatives still kicking around in their late nineties are on that side of the family. But my aunt (by marriage) up the hill is around 92, living at home with assisted living with a grandson and his wife. Lots of widow women here in their nineties. There is an old school teacher still alive down town, taught my father and I had her in grade 4. She's outlived a lot of her students. Those orange peelings she always ate in class was her secret. :D Old Gert up the road was over 100, I seen that old woman in her 80's paint her two story farm house. She was tough. Lots of garlic, window in the bedroom up in winter and stove down stairs just a glowing hot. ;D She had her whole building lot full of perennial flowers, there was no lawn, just flowers and paths. :D I never knew anyone that didn't love old Gert and her flowers. She was a hoot. Good memories.

[HemlockKing]

SD, garlic has been used for century's even longer as a natural medicine, believe it to help with inflammation mostly. I diced up a couple cloves with my tuna sandwiches

[mudfarmer]

dock/yellow dock/some relatives are also good for soothing nettle itch and they often grow near each other

[mike_belben]

https://riverview.org/blog/uncategorized/top-10-anti-inflammatory-foods/

Quick list of stuff we should strive to incorporate into our diets.

[SwampDonkey]

And strawberry rhubarb or it's juice:

anthocyanins; blood pressure and anti-canker properties
Vitamin k
calcium
Vitamin C
potassium
manganese
magnesium

8) 8) 8)

[Ed_K]

 Blue berries an Maple Syrup   ;) .

[mike_belben]

William Davis - Germs, Muscle, and Pac-Man: Exciting New Concepts in... - YouTube

this guy is a cardiologist, and the creator of "wheatbelly" educational series.  basically his story is people are coming to him on the brink of heart failure and he cant do anything because theyre also diabetic, so first he has to cure the diabetic condition which is obviously nutritional/dietary.  

this vid above is about a lot of things, most prominent is the scientific evidence of massive health benefits not just from cutting wheat, grain and sugar (the wife and i are also about to remove all seed oils to get her MS and my arthritis under control) but of adding lactobacillus rhuetari from home made yogurt as a growth culture.  

the guy is an advocate for self care, and is not at all a fan of pharma or what western medicine is doing for chronic illness.  he also has the nerve to call out by a name a group of harvard medical doctors and the american heart association for advocating all the worst things for us.  thats how i found him.  ive been studying research literature for months on all sorts of conditions now and a broad consensus is coming to light on lots of dietary evils, that  the AHA and harvard always seem to be advocating.  digging into the AHA makes it pretty clear theyre just a trusted advertising agency.  you want their stamp on your wheat product, just pay the fee. im taking it as a sign of what not to eat these days.  their cash donor list is filled with pharma money. 

[mike_belben]

https://drdavisinfinitehealth.com/2019/10/what-metabolic-endotoxemia-means-to-you/

[mike_belben]

Claire Fraser - The Human Gut Microbiome in Health and Disease - YouTube

this one starts slow but covers a lot of ground, from university of maryland i believe.  

so we are trying to make the leap off of grains but its not easy.  what has been easy is broadening my intestinal biodiversity by feeding my gut tons of hippie things that i wasnt raised on.  mom left when i was little and dad was working his tail off so it was an industrial processed for life for me. i have never ever had problems digesting this, and i can eat anything.  no allergies and am healthy at a glance though not the wiry stud i was out of bootcamp that id like to be.  my heartrate gets as low as 55, my labs are flawlessly centered in the midrange, and everything organ wise is great.  bp, cholesterol, testosterone, thyroid, blood sugar.. all excellent at 42.  but my joints are all pain all the time.   i am becoming convinced that its not just injury and wear, but an intestinal dysbiosis from that lifetime of crap "food" causing inflammation in every joint.  ive got spurs and stenosis and degenerated discs and torn tendons and fat knuckles just like grandma.  its getting harder to work hard every year and im trying to make a change while itll still count, with all this new info.


have been flirting off of grains and sugar and will feel pretty good.  i also noticed after quitting most caffeine and all coffee, switching to a variety of junk in a hot cup of tea, i get more done.  i dont feel any kind of boost.. just that i look back at the end of a long day and suprise, theres 2 days of work done and i didnt need a pot of coffee to do it. or pee 35 times.

so the vid i just linked im pretty sure is the one that explains humans cannot digest fiber.  but the bacterias living in your large intestine can.  they can convert fiber into something blood soluble that benefits the host.  if you dont have this bacteria, fiber will blow right out of you.  if you do have this bacteria and you stop feeding it fiber, it will eat the mucous layer that protects your epithelial lining and this is a component in many peoples GI issues.  so eat fiber.  

i know that things are changing in my gut because before a few prunes and id have to visit the can.  other day i ate had to be 20 of those delicious things and didnt even fart. so all of a sudden fiber is staying in me and being converted to nutrient. i take it to mean i have increased the microbial colony that is designed for fibrous digestion.  the first few months of raising chickens i slowly worked them up to eating almost nothing but fermented greens.  not all of them did well on it at first but in time the ones that are left have done great.

now when i go back to eating normal .. just whatever, a big pile of that bread, granola, saltines, cereal, especially some boxed up processed rice saucey dinner side.. i actually feel it kinda uncomfortably parked in my stomach.  something has changed because i was raised on that junk and it now gives discomfort. which is good since it makes it easier to turn down i guess.  the inflammation of grains and vegetable oils is now very clear to me.  if i avoid them i hurt less and my gut is unnoticeable.  eat it and awareness of something not feeling good comes creeping in. then a knee or knuckles or whatever will keep me up with pain. turns out chronic inflammation is shared in almost every incurable disease we are plagued with as a nation.  stress and inflammation, both killers. 

the cost of eating right in winter when the garden is down and i dont have any stores left is really depressing, i will up my canning and freezing game this summer.  lot of work and time but id like to think a day will come when i can say the effort to change was worth it. just avoiding heroin has given me a pretty big advantage over far too many of my deceased contemporaries so the bar is getting lower on longevity im afraid.

[mike_belben]

Scholarly paper on how inflammation works, how NSAIDs work, and alternative anti-inflammatory foods.

Natural anti-inflammatory agents for pain relief

Mind you i suggest that the foods be your primary cure.  NSAIDs are bad on your kidneys, stomach and intestine.  Dietary fiber is critical to keep intestinal bacteria from eating your mucosal lining and causing inflammation.

In the short term NSAIDs will block inflammation and make sense for an accident injury or tooth removal, but long term chronic use will promote inflammation and other problems.

[mike_belben]

 a note for myself here. 

For probably about 10 days now ive eaten really "clean" as organic foodies tend to say.  Nothing processed, no vegetable oils, no grains, corn syrup, cane sugar or fake sugar.  No caffeine either.  I have eaten my fill of deer stew, eggs, sausage, real fruits and veggies.  Tons of fiber, lots of honey, milk and water.  

Digestion is excellent, and my joint pains were the best i can remember in the last decade.  2 days in a row i had salad with ranch made from canola oil.. And my right knee is absolutely killing me for no other reason i can come up with.  

[mudfarmer]

Soluble fiber also helps to slow the absorption of sugar into the blood and moderate/improve blood sugar levels. First heard about this from a book -- "The Sugar Solution" The Sugar Solution: Weight Gain? Memory... book by Ann Fittante The synopsis there makes it seem like a self help book with the whole "An easy-to-follow, drug-free program that can bring blood sugar into balance in just one month." thing, maybe it was I really don't remember but at the very least it had solid and helpful info like "soluble fiber helps to moderate blood sugar levels", info about glycemic index, and it has never hurt me yet to read a book.

[mike_belben]

Ive read the same story about blood sugar and fiber but im not sure how the system works.  

Gave blood few days ago and heart rate was 52.  HGL and BP were great. 

Took 2 acetominophen for my knee this morning and it cleared up in 20 mins. 

[SwampDonkey]

Some health books are good (I can't name any) , and some are scams for book revenue, like Trudeau's. Pretty much the only remedy he reveals is cider vinegar, after reading 100's of pages. He mentioned coconut oil a time or two, but sorry to disappoint, that was debunked a long time ago. It's nothing but dehydrogenated coconut (veg) oil. Any veg oil turned into a block of white soap isn't any good. Then he went on to write a book on financial independence. :D :D

[mike_belben]

i prefer to watch medical lectures at conferences where everyone there is a doctor and a quack with a sales pitch would be walked out the side door.  when a group of doctors extend an invitation to a doctor to lecture to them at an event i consider it a form of peer review.  


the same in soil biology.  when youve got guys who are 20, 30, 40 years into doing what commercial ag says cant be done without buying their product, and they invite someone as a keynote speaker.. thats the crowd i wanna listen to.  i havent done it im not a doctor or a farmer, but if they all have then i trust their vetting.  they wouldnt fly across the country attending conventions to listen to morons when there is a serious business to run back home.

[SwampDonkey]

Yeah, for the most part that is safer than one guy preaching to a laymen audience. For which PBS is known for in the past. James Randi pulled support of PBS when too much quackery was given an audience during fund raisers. :D

[mike_belben]

i guess ive been eating really "clean" for 2 weeks now.  tons of fruits and veggies, vitamins, minerals, fish oil and now krill oil at nebraskas suggestion.  no grains, no processed anything, i dont think any cane sugar or corn syrup, avocado has been the only oil. a tremendous diversity of food, although i am getting into some boredom as i run out of creativity/time lately.  

anyways i dont feel like im 20 yet, but i do know i am feeling better. less joint pain and swelling, maybe a little better sleeping. i think i mentioned the ranch dressing incident (vegetable oil) where my knee was hurting significantly right after.  it has not returned once i got strict again.

 i got over the grain craving hump for the most part by 8 days in or so and have felt more satisfaction between meals.  previously satisfaction was "i feel full, time to stop eating" not that i was eating chips soda candy etc.. but i could crush a whopper or footlong sub or 2 ham n cheese sandwiches at home and 3 hours later ready to do it again.  pretty much always hungry.  i dont feel all that hungry anymore.  which is almost strange because after a lifetime of doing it, you just eat out of habit. i never stop moving and have never been a fat guy, 5'11 tall 190 to 200.  i wear 36s but was a 34inch waist out of bootcamp so ive not gone too far off track at 42 though id love to be 180 and in 34s again. 

so yesterday i finally said i know how eating right feels.  lets experiment again with eating wrong and see if this is all in my head or if its for real. i ate one sandwich.  double decker processed meat mayo.. normal sandwhich.  starting about a half hour later, my upper abdomen kinda hurt.  not a sharp pain, not rumbling or gassy or any of that.  just a low level discomfort that causes mental awareness of ones guts. that i am used to feeling.  all my life is has been known as "hunger."  

oh man, i gotta eat or im gonna be sick is how i always answered this feeling.  so i went from so hungry i feel sick, to full, to back to so hungry i feel sick.  for as long as i can remember anyways.  i know now that it is not hunger.  i hadnt noticed it missing until now, because this came on right after eating and was defintely a case of digesting something unpleasant.  

another piece of the puzzle is urine color.  the only time ive peed clear in my life for extended periods of time was bootcamp.  they fed us industrial food and a decent amount of it but you were hungry every minute because it was such an intense life for every minute of 13 weeks.  double rations wouldnt have been enough.  anyways, we all whizzed right past each other in those stainless wall troughs elbow to elbow in a frenzy any second they let us, which was rare, and if one dude wasnt drinking enough water 5 recruits were calling him out on it.  but this was only accomplished by forcing a tremendous volume of water into us.  an amount no one can really hold, you always had to pee. 

so when eating really well, i am hydrating pretty good but not much different than normal, and yet i am whizzing pretty close to clear.  2 extra glasses of water and itd be clear.  

well when i ate that sandwich, back to my normal yellow almost immediately. that tells me one sandwich has plenty of stuff the body says uht uh mister... thats a toxin, we dont want it. 

today, back to pale almost clear without any substantial water addition. 

my hemoglobin went from 15.7 (aug 2020) to 16.7 (jun 2021) to 18.3 this week.  i am hoping the doc will send me for the same extensive fasting labs i had in 2020 for a comparison.  the jun2021 labs had a few things out of range, low ferritin at 33, slightly high cholesterol at 205 and LDL cholesterol at 134. slightly low alkaline phosphate was 33.  back in 2020 my random non fasting glucose was 101.  

be interesting to see the changes that come from a brief exclusion of processed foods. 

[mike_belben]

forgot to include my 2020 labs were a few months after i quit trucking which was excessive road food despite my best efforts to keep fruits and tuna and stuff well stocked, tough without a fridge. 

my resting heart was 67 (highest of my life) and BP was 123/86

that page is missing on my fasting lab from 2021

blood donation this week i had a BP of 117/82 and a 52 resting heart rate which is a few thumps lower than most of my life.  ive always been a 60 or less. 

[SwampDonkey]

During winter, I have dinner at noon here and never eat bread with a dinner meal, unless its a biscuit with beans. ;D  Hard to eat a sandwich without bread, and that is usually for supper, most times peanut butter between with the real oil in it. And sometimes a slice of ham with pepperoni, all minimally processed and not full of a lot of chemicals. Never yet figured out why plain stuff costs more than stuff full of big long chemical names. :D :D  Breakfast is a grain cereal and fruit, both fresh and dried. Doing good. And also, exercise from walking or snow shoeing. Been mostly walking 4 miles, snow conditions have been poor for shoes.

Got the grow tent going and stuff is up, soon be eating fresh greens. Lettuce is old seed and slow coming. Everything else going gang busters, just planted Friday.

[mike_belben]

as my wife shakes worse and loses tremendous amounts of hair with every shower, i am forced to dig deeper and deeper into the human immune system, disease, microbiome and DNA/genome on my own because the medical system has zero solution for her unravelling.  they just refer you to someone else who is booked for 4 months and they dont help you either. 

sooner or later i think most of you readers are gonna find yourself or someone you love in the same boat due to the western diet and the sweeping activation of covid.  if you are silently reading along with me, two names you cannot afford to neglect are Dr Ken Ford down in pensacola, founder of the IHMC which is on the absolutely leading edge of figuring this mess out... and Dr larry smarr who is a supercomputer astrophysicist nerd who got sick himself and seems to be making the connections.  terry wahls is another doctor who got sick and cured herself. 

hang in there and dont lose hope.

[snobdds]

Stay away from seed oils:

Soybean
Corn
Cottonseed
canola
rapeseed
sunflower
sesame
grapeseed

Stick to

Animal fats
Butter
Coconut oils
Olive Oil
Avocado Oil

[SwampDonkey]

I'd scratch coconut oil from that list. ;D

[Hilltop366]

I watched a British show a year or two ago that tested different oils and their health benefits or harms, although I don't remember all the technical terms and some of the specific oils and fats I do recall that a basic rule of thumb was that if in it's natural state it was a solid at room temperature it was better for cooking and if it was a liquid at room temperature it should not be used for cooking. An example was that olive oil was good for you in its natural state how ever if used for cooking it not only lost its health benefits it was harmful to your health where the excessive consumption of animal fat (lard) was harmful it was ok to use for cooking.

I will try to come up with the name of the show.

A personal observation of some people diagnosed with MS or MS type symptoms that I know is that a lot seem to fall into categories of occupation that include the frequent use of solvents, thinking of a few guys I know, one did lots of auto body repair/painting over the years (ever notice there are not many old auto body repair people out there) another did furniture stripping and refinishing, another did a lot of wood finishing and lawnmower repair.

Also I will add that I was reading a news article recently that was talking about a possible connection between the virus that causes mono and MS.

[mike_belben]

The seed oil issue is the ratio of omega 6 (inflammatory) to omega 3 (anti inflammatory).  We are avocado oil and backyard lard at present.


My right knee tells me when ive found something bad now.  ranch/mayo (corn oil) do it consistently.


My wife started having symptoms of MS after covid.  Well. Severe symptoms. It took quite a few more months to get a diagnosis of "a demyelinating disease" from vanderbilt.  Anyways covid seemed to distinctly turn the issues on one after another, lots of them. In hindsight the subtle symptoms came before covid but i wasnt paying attention.

  Researchers at osaka iirc correlated disease activation to viral infection around 2008 i believe.  


Chronic inflammation is at the heart of all these diseases, and western diet is extremely inflammatory thanks to omega 6 about 20x too high on average.  Not everyone gets sick enough to do anything about it, just gets old.  this appears to involve the DNA as well as microbiome inherited mostly from mom at birth. I dont grasp it but can recite that cytokines interluekin 17 and TH17 are involved and i guess this can be mapped by dna analysis now.  

The bacterial dominance of MS is also different from healthy guts and the same as other MS patient samples.  Gut bacteria definitely involved somehow.

I dont think its entirely hereditary. the environment appears to contribute to microbiome disbiosis as well.  I think my wifes medical job which forces continual hand sanitizing is not helping her at all with that.  If you kill the good bacteria with long term sanitizers, antibiotics, boozing etc you give the bad a foothold to proliferate. And it produces low level toxin.

Another factor is dietary fiber and epithelial mucosa in the gut.  Low fiber leaves the fiber loving microbes to eat the mucus lining which triggers an immune response.  Then theres the "tight junctions" of the gut lining that i guess also may play a role.  Its a lot for a normal schlub to sort out for himself.  Makes my head hurt.  

I have hope that scientists are on the brink of discoveries that lead to healing. 

[Mooseherder]

I hope she finds relief soon Mike.

[Hilltop366]

The name of the show is "Trust me i'm a doctor series 4 episode 3" unfortunately I the only copy I can find is not complete, it ends at ¾ of the way through the show, it also has a glare to it that looks like someone recorded off of a TV.  

[mike_belben]

Thanks moose.  I really hope so.


If you wanna see someone get a disease started in a month watch supersize me.  Guy gets inflamed day by day, you get to see him just inflate and get ill.  Thats corn oil's 46:1 omega 6 to 3 ratio. 

[HemlockKing]

Dang when did that even come out 15 years ago? I remember watching it and it did lower my rotten ronnies appetite

[mike_belben]

Been a spell.  2000s i guess

I do miss whoppers.  Not had one in months.  To be sure i wouldnt, i gave my $25 BK card to some scabby meth head carrying all his posessions in trashbags on a rainy day.  I told him he could ride in the cab and he kinda looked at me and said ehh.  Ill ride in the bed.  

I guess he thought i was the crazy one  :D

[HemlockKing]

Been a spell.  2000s i guess

I do miss whoppers.  Not had one in months.  To be sure i wouldnt, i gave my $25 BK card to some scabby meth head carrying all his posessions in trashbags on a rainy day.  I told him he could ride in the cab and he kinda looked at me and said ehh.  Ill ride in the bed.  

I guess he thought i was the crazy one  :D

A&W is my favorite fastfood but there isn;t many around me. Mcdonalds and tim hortons and subway is all I got in my town. I go to mcdonalds for coffee typically sometimes I will get a egg mcmuffin. The fries are good too, but as I age they take more of a toll on my stomach, can only stomach medium or small frys now. They are just tough to break down. have you ever left mcdonalds food out in the open and found it awhile later? it looks the same except it lost some moisture so it shrunk a little....nasty.

[newoodguy78]

I very rarely eat fast food. When I do McDonald's is never on the list. Their food does not agree with me at all. It goes through me so fast it simply can't be good. 

[SwampDonkey]

I avoid fast food 99.99% of the year. Used to like a southwestern chicken sandwich once in awhile at McDonald's but they ruined that now, not real chicken breast for the last 4 years. : No idea what it is suppose to be, I bet no one there could tell either. It must suck working at McDonald's. Youtube is full of McDonald's job advertising for the desperate, down and out. Besides that Superstore grocery has chicken breast perpetually on sale on there, every week. That not get a grin out of ya? Don't be a sour puss. :D :D

[mike_belben]

Id been a very good boy for a few days.. Yesterday afternoon had cheese and crackers.  Ive been up since 4am with swollen knee pain. and my lower abdomen aching in the normal "this must be hunger" way i have spent my life feeling.   

Its not hunger.  Its something in those crackers that dont belong in my intestines. And theyre not worth it.  I feel soo much better on real, unprocessed food.

[Chuck White]

What brand are the crackers you're eating?

There are at least a dozen different brands available!

[mike_belben]

Doesnt matter they all have the same ingredients.  Its the same feeling i get when i eat anything with refined wheat flour and vegetable oil.  A sandwich will do the same thing.  

Mayo or ranch will just hurt my knees. 


Im gonna try oatmeal again soon to see what happens but we dont have any right now.  I miss it.  plain unsugared greek yogurt loaded with fruit, nuts, ground flax and chia seeds, honey and mollasses has become a good satisfying replacement.  Sorta my bowl of icecream now. 

[snobdds]

Are you sure you don't have gout...food shouldn't have that big of an impact on joints. 

[mike_belben]

Not gout.  Arthritis.  Been positively linked to the immune system which starts in the gut microbiome. 

[Magicman]

You apparently are allergic to "gluten"??  We have a granddaughter that is.

[snobdds]

Not gout.  Arthritis.  Been positively linked to the immune system which starts in the gut microbiome.

Gout is a form of Arthritis...only it's more closely aligned with diet.  

[mike_belben]

sure, but i dont have it. 

[SwampDonkey]

Like MM says, it could be the gluten intolerance or possibly celiac disease.

[mike_belben]

I know people with both very well and i have neither.  I can eat anything i want and not be sick or running to the bathroom like them at all. I can eat a straight loaf of bread. Actually i have eaten many on the road and felt "fine."

My definition of fine has changed.

Until quitting i couldnt tell that its not good for you.  If any of you guys quit grains, processed foods, refined sugar and seed oils you will feel completely different too.  Then dabbling back to "normal food" will make you notice the old normal coming back, because inflammatory food was the cause.


I may have early stages of Rheumatoid arthritis perhaps.. that i aim to nip in the bud. I was born with a fused spine and have many X rays showing bone spurs and skeletal degeneration. All my joints ache.  Knuckles, digits, wrists, elbows, shoulders, knees, whole back, hips etc

RA is when the immune system is triggered to launch an inflammatory attack in the joints.  MS is when it inflames the brain stem. Optic neuritis is when it goes after your optic nerve.  IBS is your gasto system.  Either way these all have an immune system response at their root.  omega 6 fatty acid excess causes that. A lack of fiber leads your fiber loving gut bacteria to eat your epithelial mucosa barrier for lunch, also launching a widespread immune inflammatory scenario.    Simple cure, fix your omega 6 overdose and eat fiber.  Inflammation goes away.


The normal food stuff causes me to go back to feeling "normal" aches and pains that i finally got relief from.  Thats what i am documenting here hoping others will make a change to get their health back.

[mike_belben]

Cell death and mitochondrial dysfunction induced by the dietary non-proteinogenic amino acid L-azetidine-2-carboxylic acid (Aze) - PubMed

Sugar beet agriculture makes up 30% of the sucrose supply.  There is an amino acid in it designed to poison competitive plants and kill animals that consume it.  This is toxic to humans.  The beet pulp routinely goes into the animal feed ration. So this means our non natural sugar supply and our cheap beef contains a low level of toxin..

And.. sugar is clinically addictive.
Fat Chance: Fructose 2.0 - YouTube

Thats why its hard to quit sugar and fast food.  Now that im off it, one little taste andi can instantly feel the pull to want more.  

This has been a very good resources for choosing what foods to buy, as it graphs satiety and ranks foods in order of their mineral composition and content if you do some clicking through the 8 parts.

Protein for Weight Loss: How Much You Need and Why it Works | Optimising Nutrition


The link above is about satiety data.. How quickly your brain is told 'stop eating, youre full' by the ingredients you eat.  Fat and sugar say eat me til you puke, and have no nutrition. 

now that the food is so expensive we literally have to choose between this or that.  It really helps me decide between say pecans or pistachios. Both outrageously expensive and great for you but one is gonna help you be satisfied eating less and still have all the nutrition needed.   High nutritional density per dollar is a requirement for me nowdays.

Milk is the only liquid i buy now. Otherwise its just water.  Boring, but for the best.

[mike_belben]

Canavanine is another of these poisonous amino acids that mimics another one and is accidentally incorporated into proteins.  its in many legumes.. Be sure your beans and peas are well cooked. 

Im not sure if soy based cattle feed can pass this on to the consumer.

[Walnut Beast]

Gulp some high stimulant pre workout 🏋️‍♀️ down and in about a half hour when it kicks in put your headphones on crank up some music like this Aldo Nova Fantasy https://youtu.be/miSMxBP42W0 and start moving some iron. Get a good workout in and drink a post workout shake