Never let them see you sweat(?)

As we have evolved into the highly sophisticated, urbane people that we are, we have decided as a whole that certain human bodily functions are abhorrent. Flatulence, excess body hair and yes, perspiration are on that list (among others). Well, I must tell you, the way in which we deal with some of these could be hazardous to our health. The more I learned about health, the more I realized that the human body has its own internal cleaning mechanisms, one of which is perspiration. The body also has different sides for the intake and output of things. Traditionally the right side is the input and the left side is the output. You will find more of the lymph nodes that handle the filtration on the left under your armpit than on the right. And, it also follows that the majority of breast cancer found is also on the left side. When understanding that the body needs to sweat to release toxins, I began a search about a year ago for just a deoderant without an antipersperant. In the women's aisle, I found zero, zilch, nada. Evidently someone somewhere deemed women no longer needed to sweat and it had become so distastefull that we would eradicate it from the earth. If you were a man however, it is evidently very manly to sweat and we can manufacture deoderants to as to mask some of the odor without eliminating it altogether. That was perplexing to me. I did find a mineral salt crystal. It is all natural and changes the PH so that even when you do sweat (which is healthy and necessary) the bacteria does not get produced which actually causes the odors of perspiration. So that is what I started using. The more people I spoke to about this all seemed to caution one thing, if you do continue to use antiperspirants, choose one without aluminum. Here is an article about this topic for further reading:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/38619.php

I have gotten over some of my fear of going antiperspirant-less. My mindset is that of more concern for my health and less for the social impact of some body odor. Does that mean I want to be recognized as the stinky girl in the neighborhood? No....but I realize that sweating is a part of being human and a necessary thing. So I have said goodbye to the traditional antiperspirants until I find one that is a safer alternative. Yes, I know, I live in Arizona and it gets hot. I am not a fan of sweating but oh well, it has to happen. Sometimes you do need to let them see you sweat!!

More comments on cleaners

I just got this email from Dr. Mercola, it talks about cleaners and the influx of "natural" and "eco-friendly" products on the market today. If you want some additional info, well here it is:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/05/24/how-safe-are-green-cleaning-products.aspx?source=nl

It just means more research and more reading labels. This is especially true with these cleaning products since ingredients are not required to be listed on the labels. I think the ingredients of EVERYTHING should have to be listed, but that is a different gripe. Happy cleaning, hahaha.

Teacher appreciation week

I had been working on these clipboards since the beginning of the year. But at that time, Matthew was just in the SPICE class which consisted of 1 teacher and 2 aides. Then he went to the integrated class and gained another teacher and 2 more aides plus I wanted to do something for the speech pathologist too. I decorated them with paper, made die cut flowers and letters for their names and tied ribbons to the top. Then I wrote a little poem and clipped it to the clipboard. Here's what they looked like:

An interesting article on vitamins

I get the email newsletter from Dr. Mercola and one of his recent topics was vitamins and the media hype and sensationalism. Read the top article and then scroll down for his take.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/05/06/can-vitamins-shorten-your-life.aspx

It goes to show you how "supplements" and natural foods really can get a bad rap for nothing. The point is choosing the right, high quality supplement and of course the key is to try and get the bulk of your vitamins and nutrients from raw fruits and veggies. Certain things need the vitamin or mineral in raw form for it to be absorbed in supplement form. I love that Dr. Mercola advocates raw foods. I want to promote our juicer yet again! Having small children, I cannot always get them to eat all their veggies. Now, my kids get between 6 - 8 ounces (which equates to a lot of whole food) of raw fruit/veggie juice. I am using spinach, kale, celery, carrots, grapefruit, apples, etc. I need to pick up more parsley too, that is a great for key nutrients and is a natural chelator (takes metals out of our systems). I give them 2 ounces at breakfast, lunch and dinner. They still get fresh fruit throughout the day and of course LARA bars (which are all raw with great natural oils and good fats from the nuts) as healthy snacks. My kids appetites have increased which is a reaction to the great enzymes they are getting from the fresh juice. They are also requesting more healthy snacks, Emma has been asking me for walnuts and raisins! I would encourage everyone to look more at juicing for health. There are tons of resources on the web and you can learn more about why this is so beneficial. My husband and I also drink the juice. I think it is definitely helping with weight loss so far. So, if you are like many who have a problem getting all your fruits and veggies in, juicing may be a great way to get that raw nutrition into your system! Salud!

Great bread!

If you shop at Sprouts you probably have seen Alpine Valley breads. If you were to make your own bread, yours would have all the things these have in them: Whole wheat, water, salt, yeast. No hydrogenated oils, no dairy, no MSG, no corn syrup, no coloring to make them look brown and therefore healthy, just great, albeit dense, bread. But, the cost is about $4.49 per loaf. Well, the bakery is here in Mesa!! It is on Southern, just west of Country Club. The best part is, they sell their breads for 2 for $1!!!! Yes, you read that right, 50 cents a loaf!!! Talk about a bargain. If you have an extra freezer then you can (and should) take advantage of this. I know it may be a drive but for that price, I will make that trip every few weeks and stock up. The bread I got had a date of April 24th and it was the 20th so it is towards the end of its shelf life, especially without all the preservatives! I got 4 bags of bread for $10 but that included a yummy chocolate chip loaf that was not marked down ($3) and a bag of Lay's chips as a snack for me which was probably $1. I got whole wheat hamburger buns, some honey oat, some 9 grain, a few sourdoughs and an awesome foccaccia type bread with rosemary and olive oil which we sliced in half and grilled on the George Foreman grill and made Panini's with, YUM-O! So for about the price of 2 loaves I got 4 bags full of bread. I brought them home and popped all the ones for future use in the freezer. I keep my bread in the fridge here anyways. With the heat and no preservatives, the bread just goes bad so fast. So, hot deal alert for anyone wanting great bread at a great price!

School lunches

As I made a quick trip to Sprouts today, I noticed a billboard car as I call them. It was a car completely decorated with a company's logo and info. The more I read, the more I was intrigued. It was a school lunch program that was all organic. It is called Fresh Gen Kids (www.fresgenkids.com - yes it is missing the "h" in fresh). I briefly looked at the website, unfortunately they do not do GFCF diets but, maybe in the furture if Matthew's gut gets healed and dairy and wheat are not such a big deal we can look then. Definitely for Emma I will be looking this company up! It brings up the topic of school lunch quality that I have been meaning to blog about for a while. Thanks to Amie for forwarding me this email which stunned me:

Tell USDA: Stop Allowing the Torture of Downed Cows to Feed Our Schoolchildren

Dragging cows too weak to stand. Shocking them with electric prods when they can't walk. Ramming them with forklifts. Even forcing water down their throats -- right out of the manual on waterboarding.
Our shocking undercover investigation revealed these and other abuses of "downed" dairy cows -- those who are too sick or injured to walk -- at a Southern California slaughter plant. And The Humane Society of the United States’ investigation also discovered that the meat from these tortured animals gets fed to children through the National School Lunch Program! Please watch our investigative video, and then take action today to stop this cruelty.
Our video of the cruelty is very difficult to watch. Even worse is the thought that an outfit like Hallmark Meat Packing Company got away with this kind of abuse every day, without proper oversight from the USDA.
Urge the USDA to tighten its lax enforcement of the downer rule and to close the rule's loophole -- so that cows who are obviously in no shape to walk are not taken to slaughter in the first place.
Don't forget to tell your friends and family how they can help, too.
Thank you for all you do for animals.
Sincerely,Wayne PacellePresident and CEOThe Humane Society of the United States
P.S. You can find the full details of this shocking investigation on our website or in a recent Washington Post story.

It was shocking to watch the video they referred to. And, I also heard that they will start allowing cloned meat into the school lunch supply. I know there are plenty of people that don't care about eating cloned meat but I do. I just don't think there is enough info out there about the genetic changes that may be occuring with cloning (if any) and what our consumption of those animals may do to us in the future. So, I am totally against them being able to slip that stuff into my child's school lunch. And, right now the offspring of cloned meat have already made their way into our food supply, without requirements for labeling. I personally plan to push our legislators to make it mandatory for the labeling of cloned meat on the packaging. We should know what we are eating and be able to make that choice or not. So, for those of you with school aged kids who may be less than thrilled with the school lunch offerings, you may want to check out Fresh Gen Kids!