Food Reading List

Food Reading List

I've found the following books informative and compelling. Read, read, read if you're concerned about your own health or the health of a family member or even your dog or cat. We are what we eat.

The Omnivore's Dilemma – Michael Pollan

In Defense of Food – Michael Pollan

Eating Meat – Jonathan Safran Foer

The Antioxidant Miracle – Lester Packer

The Better Brain Book – David Perlmutter

Anti-Cancer – David Servan-Schreiber

Detoxify or Die – Sherry Rogers

Poisoned Nation – Loretta Schwartz-Nobel

Anti-Oxidant Revolution – Kenneth Cooper

The Meat You Eat – Ken Midkiff

Natural Strategies for Cancer Patients – Russell Blaylock

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Anti-Inflammatory Diet – Christopher Cannon

Pet Food Politics – Marion Nestle

Foods Pets Die For – Ann Martin

If this doesn't keep you busy for a while, you're either a foody like me or you have too much time on your hands. More exercise, maybe?

Basic Fatty Acids for Eaters

Essential fatty acids are so-called because they are essential to our lives. These vital fats are used by our bodies but not manufactured inside our bodies, thus we must obtain them from our food. These fats are used as building blocks for important hormones and hormone-like substances that mediate all kinds of processes. We need to acquire two basic types of fats from our diets: omega-6 fatty acids and omega-3 fatty acids.

The most common dietary sources of omega-6 fatty acids are corn, cottonseed, sunflower, safflower, peanut, soy, and canola oils. These oils provide us with linoleic acids which are converted in the body to arachidonic acid and then prostaglandin E2. Prostaglandin E2 contracts or relaxes smooth muscles (such as in blood vessels) and performs other necessary functions in the body. Too much prostaglandin E2 leads to inflammation and creates fibrosis, pain, degenerative joint disease, vascular disease, and immune system dysfunction. Prostaglandin E2 is the number two cause of free radicals in the body which facilitate the speed of aging and the development of cancers. Animals such as cows, pigs, chickens, and fish fed corn and soy as major components of their diets instead of the green food nature meant them to consume, conveniently convert the omega-6 fatty acids right into arachidonic acid so when we eat meat from them, we are one short step and a few cox enzymes away from this inflammatory molecule. Typical of our western approach, rather than fix the problem at the source, we have developed a number of cox-inhibitor drugs to stem the tide of inflammation production in our bodies and hopefully reduce the effects as well – pain and heart disease, for example.

The most common sources of dietary omega-3 fatty acids are flax, hemp, and walnut. These alpha-linoleic acids are converted in the body to eicosapenataenoic acid, or EPA. EPA is a powerful anti-inflammatory. EPA is further converted in our bodies to docosahexaenoic acid or DHA. Both EPA and DHA build brain synapses and increase the production of serotonin and dopamine. These fats help are known as the "feel good" fats because they alter our chemistry toward a pleasant mood.

It used to be that we could pretty much eat food and acquire a balance of essential fatty acids, not so anymore. We have interfered so much with the growth and production of what we like to call "food" that while it sometimes still looks like the old-fashioned real thing, it often bears little internal chemical resemblance.

According to clinical tests, most Americans have an omega-6:omega-3 fatty acid ratio of greater than 10:1 – and in many cases, much greater, while experts agree that to be healthy, we should have ratios of 3:1. To get our fats back in balance and hence lose weight, decrease or eliminate chronic pain, and lessen the chances of heart disease, cancer, arthritis, and Alzheimer's, we need to drastically cut our consumption of "6's" and radically increase our consumption of "3's." Your dog or cat should do the same to manage degenerative conditions if they already have them, or prevent them if they don't.

How to in a nutshell: Cut OUT all factory farmed meat, poultry, milk, and eggs. Find and choose instead local farmers raising animals on grass. Organic is nice, but corn and soy can be grown organically and animals fed this will still fill you full of arachidonic acid. Eat less red meat from any source. Eat less period; more calories consumed correspond with more work for the body and more free radical production, hence quicker aging and more degenerative disease. Eat a full complement of colorful veggies and some fruit every day – dark green kale, zucchini, yellow squash, red bell pepper, purple cabbage, blueberries, carrots, and sweet potatoes. Nature has given us clues – each attractive color provides a vitamin, a mineral, or an anti-oxidant we need. We don't need to know all their names; we do need to eat all those veggies.

Eat wild-caught cold water fish. No farmed fish – they live in sewer-like conditions and eat, you guessed it corn and soy meal. (Or if its shrimp farmed in China, chicken cages are stacked above the shrimp ponds; guess what the shrimp eat.)Tilapia we get is farmed – much in Central America – and has more pro-inflammatory arachidonic acid than any other meat, nearly twice that of pork and ten times higher than hamburger. You might want to give it a miss next time you eat out.

Cut, cut, cut the consumption of carbohydrates. Those you do eat, make them whole, not processed. This will dump less insulin into your system which also effects the conversion of omega-6 fatty acids into Prostaglandin E2.

Finally, when all is said and done, we still need to supplement with high quality fish oil and antioxidant vitamins. It's impossible to make good choices about food all day every day surrounded by tasty junk food. Give yourself a leg up and just swallow some darned capsules.

After two failed eye surgeries with doctors who put their hands up and shrugged, I remembered healing really is an inside job. Whether its weight or diabetes, arthritis or cancer, each of us holds the most power to change our own outcomes. For the past month and a half, I've been feeding myself as carefully as I did with Nicholai and I choke down three handfuls (and I mean full) of supplements per day. I feel great. Better yet, at my last eye appointment the doc didn't see any worrisome areas of scar tissue.

Wow. Maybe this anti-inflammatory stuff really matters. Happy eating!

Health Reform Begins at Home

It's no news flash: changes in diet during the past half century have caused marked increases in the consumption of unhealthy fats and a concurrent decrease in the consumption of healthy fats. As the foods we eat and their sources have moved radically away from nature, the incidence of debilitating diseases has skyrocketed. Obesity is epidemic in the United States, with type II Diabetes sharply increasing. We almost take for granted the looming presence of arthritis, cancer, and Alzheimer's. All of these chronic degenerative diseases can be traced to the move away from a balance between omega-3 fatty acids and omega-6 fatty acids in our diets.

It's crazy really. Back in the 80's we decided to provide generous subsidies to conglomerate farmers for corn and soybeans; subsidies we pay for with our tax dollars. To maximize profits for food corporations, corn and soy (much of the bill for these commodities picked up by you and me) found their way into every cow, chicken, pig, lamb, and even salmon, tilapia, catfish, and trout grown on farms to grace our tables. Nothing is inherently wrong with corn and soy; each has a niche where it is a beautiful and perfect food. But cows and chickens, trout and salmon are meant to eat green things like grass and algae, miraculously metabolizing them into a perfect blend of proteins and balanced fatty acids – perfect for them and perfect for those up the food chain who eat them, and that would be: us.

In addition, corn and soybeans have wormed their way into every processed food and drink likely to cross our lips in a day, thanks again to – oh, that's right, us. Obsessed with price, we check the tag on a bottle of soda, a carton of milk or a plastic-wrapped, Styrofoam-nested chunk of chicken, ignoring, forgetting, or never having known we paid already to fill this food with genetically modified, chemically polluted corn and soy. And we will pay again when our health – and the health of our families, friends, neighbors, and coworkers goes down the tubes. Health care is at a crisis point with politicians and pundits fighting bitterly over how to rein in costs and still provide the world class care we are capable of to every citizen.

For me, I can't wait for politicians to make reasoned choices. I can't wait until we, the people, elect to subsidize apples and flaxseeds and organic chickens with our tax dollars instead of GMO corn. The massive imbalance between omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids now ubiquitous in our society causes chronic states of inflammation, increasing the risk for every degenerative disease, especially arthritis, Alzheimer's, cancer, and heart disease. Yes, procuring food grown in accordance with nature currently costs a lot more at the market than purchasing processed food replicas that cause deleterious effects on body and brain. But it could – and mostly likely will – save your life. And your little dog too.

We live in world going (some would say gone) toxic. In my opinion, we simply cannot let our food go there too. And in the salvation of our very own food sources we might mend the planet as well.

Next: Biochemistry 101; The Path to and from Inflammation

Aberrant Behavior

Aberrant Behavior

Weather predictions in Portland point to possible severe weather in the upcoming days. I take these predictions with more than a grain of salt because forecasts have developed a hysterical Chicken Little tone in recent years – "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!" I find it tedious to jump with alarm every time temperatures might fall below freezing, or precipitation might be heavy, or – gasp, Oh my! – there might be snow. But today, I have to wonder.

Yesterday afternoon, my partner ran into the house decrying an aggressive squirrel. I glanced up from the computer and raised my eyebrows. "Attacking? Really?" I got up and went to check for this marauding miscreant myself. Indeed, a small gray squirrel sat atop the load of wood she'd been bringing to the front porch in a wheel barrow. When I cracked open the door, it turned its head toward me. Without hesitation, the creature leapt to the steps, darting toward me with the confidence of a household pet. I slammed the door shut and the fuzzy-tailed critter jumped onto the screen where it proceeded to scratch and claw. By now my partner was standing next to me, and Kelley – the dog – stood on hind legs staring over the back of the couch at the squirrel stretched across the screen. Undeterred, it searched for access.

We studied it as it tried to come through the screen – no foam around the mouth, coat and tail looked full, its eyes weren't wild or bloodshot, it appeared healthy."Could it have babies inside the house somewhere?" I mused out loud. Didn't seem likely in the dead of winter and besides, surely it hadn't come in through the front door if it did. I spoke that thought out loud just as the squirrel found an opening in the bottom of the screen and scurried through. In a moment, it was jumping on the doorknob. "Then again, maybe while we're away, it climbs through the screen door, picks the lock, turns the knob, and waltzes in." We laughed uneasily.

Realizing she (we decided it was a she because we couldn't see any evidence to the contrary) couldn't come through the front door; she dashed around the house and made an attempt at the dog door. Kim slid the door closed just in the nick of time. "Whoa! That's crazy! I've never seen a squirrel so determined to come in a house with people and a dog." Still, we both agreed the squirrel's behavior seemed less crazy than resolute. We wondered again about young ones hidden away somewhere in our house. Disappearing into the bushes in the direction of the feeder stuffed with corn and sunflower seeds, we assumed the episode was over.

We were wrong. Our wild rodent visitor snuck into the fully enclosed back porch while we weren't watching and proceeded to munch an apple in the hanging basket there. When surprised by Kim, she soared overhead and dived into a large plastic bag filled with other plastic bags. She could not be dissuaded by noise or prods from the broom, or even sniffing dogs, to vacate the spot and snuggled in, creating her own nest – or drey – among the plastic bags. She spent the night there, she is there still.

They say wild animals can sense weather events: drops in barometric pressure, shifts in the wind, or seismic rumblings all have caused observed changes in animal movements and actions. No squirrels have ever invaded our house, no matter the coming weather so I tend to feel something else must be going on with this one. The dogs demonstrate no concern about an upcoming storm. But then, why should they? The dogs assuredly are not wild – they own jackets and sleep under down comforters. Storm, shmorm – phooey, they don't care.

Probably this little gal is brain deficient. Or got kicked out of an over-crowded nest. Or has some dread disease. But if tonight a great whopping storm hits, I'll consider myself foretold and forewarned.

Needing Nutrients like Nicholai’s

Caring for my dogs never falls through the cracks. I know that's not universally true – dogs languish on chains in backyards alone for twenty-four hours seven days a week, or spend tedious hours in laundry rooms and crates while their people dash from one activity to another. But in my case, and the case of many dog owners I know, dogs receive world class care while owners sometimes settle for second best.

One day at my office, I saw a Wheaten terrier the owner suspected might be suffering pain due to diminished performance on the agility course. I examined the dog and he did indeed have mild issues with spinal integrity. When I looked at the owner to discuss my findings, I saw her hunched over in the chair, her face scrunched in a frown and I had to ask, "Are you alright?" She explained she'd been in a car accident, experiencing pain and headaches for days. She'd made the effort to obtain chiropractic care for her dog but had yet to make any kind of appointment for herself. Another client described feeding her dogs the best organic homemade food while she ate processed packaged food-like products purchased from discount stores. I chuckled internally at these incidents and then provided the people with the coaching they – and I – need. Take care of yourself, or as the airlines put it – fasten your own oxygen mask before assisting others.

Every day I made beautiful organic home-grown and homemade food for Nicholai. He had a diagnosis to stimulate both fear and attention – cancer. The "C" word drove me to harvest kale and collards and carrots from the garden rain or shine; to make sure I had a mix of attractive colored vegetables and fruits including blueberries, purple cabbage, red and yellow peppers, zucchini, yellow squash and sweet potatoes. I shunned processed grains and gathered eggs from our home-raised free-range chickens. Only the best food went down my dog's gullet with his terrible terminal diagnosis, while many a morning I slammed down a latte and a scone. His breakfast was a symphony of vitamins and minerals, antioxidants and enzymes while mine was a garage band of processed grain, sugar, and unhealthy fat. The nutritional richness of his food gave him life far past the best prognosis doctors had made. One morning it hit me. I could – and should – eat the same thing I fed him.

Since that flash of enlightenment over a year ago, my own breakfasts are mostly made of the scrumptious veggie and fruit blend. Though Nicholai passed away, the habit of grabbing a pile of vibrant produce and tossing it in a food processor then serving it up with organic, pro-biotic rich yogurt continues. For the dogs, I add sweet potato or yam and a fresh raw egg – shell and all for protein and minerals. For me, I add a sprinkle of organic granola. Some mornings, like today, everybody's breakfast is a swirl of veggies and yams sautéed in olive oil with a dash of balsamic vinegar and eggs scrambled in. We start the day with a full complement of antioxidant nutrients, healthy fats and protein which sets the tone for the day.

Food sources have become polluted in a hundred ways. Food variety has been shimmied down by a frightening dependence on corn and soy, produced with chemical assistance at every step, and leading to a deleterious lack of essential nutrients.

We can't settle for this, I can't settle for this. I want to live to a ripe and healthy old age. I want to still be kicking butt in the world when I reach seventy and beyond. I'm on a mission: I'm going to put top quality nutrients into this old machine I call my body every day. I feed myself as if – like Nicholai – my life depended on it.

And it does.