Chicken Lady

Posted on March 15, 2013 by lkaholistichealth

Did I ever tell you the one about the Chicken Lady? No, I don’t think so. This actually happened a few years ago, shortly after I graduated from nutrition school. I’m quite fascinated with the idea of medical intuition. I was determined to be more conscious in my observations of people to see if I could discern anything health related just by looking at them. The problem with this approach is that you may well pick up on something but unless you can verify it, you might never know if your observation was correct.

Sitting at a swim meet at my daughter’s school, I was observing the mother of another swimmer. I got the image of a chicken, clucking and nervously pecking in the yard. She even looked physically like a chicken to me. Since I was acquainted with her, I decided to be bold. I asked her if she ate a lot of chicken. Her immediate and expected response was, “Why are you asking?” In my most polite way, I said I was practicing my health intuition skills and just had this very strong sense that she was perhaps over-consuming chicken. She confirmed that she did, in fact, eat mostly chicken as her choice of protein in response to a desire to keep slim and avoid the darker, fattier meats. She was astounded that I could have gleaned this just by looking at her. We talked about it a bit more and I offered that maybe she should consider adding some other proteins, like fish if she found the idea of red meat repugnant. She thanked me but never quite looked at me in the same way after this chat. I’m sure that she was dying to ask me what I observed that made me so sure she was consuming an inordinate amount of chicken. :)

Two weeks later, while sitting at an outdoor cafe in Southern California, I noticed a man sitting nearby. I said to my husband, “Pork.” He turned to look, smiled and said, “You’re right. He looks like a pig.” I didn’t ask.

The moral of the story is that you most definitely are what you eat and drink. And it is observable…Pig 3 (1 of 3)Pigs, Stone Barns

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The “New” Mediterranean Diet

Posted on March 14, 2013 by lkaholistichealth

The press was all aflutter over the latest diet study out of Spain last week showing that olive oil and nuts within a healthy Mediterranean diet including vegetables, fruit, and fish, can have positive effects on individuals with heart disease.  Well, yes, this should not have come as much of a surprise, though it’s always good to have a scientific study to back up what has been obvious to many.  Except many doctors.

Perhaps the bigger surprise was for the doctors themselves who have been prescribing low-fat diets to their heart patients for decades based on the outcomes of other scientific studies that are now being cast into doubt.  Without much training in nutrition, doctors have been winging it, often times based on what THEY read in the press.

Unfortunately, medical trials and studies are often flawed and skewed by those that conduct them.  Since the Spanish government funded the latest Mediterranean Diet study, we might wish to believe there are no financial strings attached.  Unless, maybe, they have a reason to promote Spanish olive oil.  It’s a low blow from me, I know, but I can’t help being the skeptic on drug and nutrition studies.  I find that following the money trail usually yields important information on trial results.Olive Oil:Nuts

That being said, I welcome the study’s findings, though I think that there are no magic bullets – not olive oil and not nuts.  Staying healthy requires a much bigger plan involving an entire way of eating and socializing, avoiding toxic exposures, and dealing with what might be today’s number one toxin – stress.  Unfortunately, many people read the results of this kind of study and think they can ameliorate their health woes with a few tablespoons of olive oil a day. Highly doubtful.

The best news to come out of this study is that doctors are reading it.  And for many, it will be proof positive that diet and nutrition can be constructive in disease prevention and control.  If that opens a few medical minds in the process, it will all have been for the better.

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Not Just Chicken Feed

Posted on January 13, 2013 by lkaholistichealth

An article in The New York Times on December 25, 2012, “In Hopes of Healthier Chickens, Farms Turn to Oregano”, reports that Bell and Evans chickens are now consuming oil of oregano in their feed as a way to diminish the need for antibiotics.  Although the article states that there is no evidence supporting the use of oil of oregano, there have been some studies showing it’s efficacy as an antibacterial agent against such common pathogens as Staph, E. coli and Listeria.  And Scott Sechler, Bell and Evan’s owner, has experienced first hand that the oil of oregano is working for his flocks.

 

Mr. Sechler was able to read the public’s growing demands for cleaner foods and creatively looked for ways to improve the health of his chickens.  The article states that, “…nothing he had used as a substitute (for antibiotics) in the past worked as well as oregano oil.”  Sechler should be applauded for his creativity and willingness to look at healthier alternatives to antibiotic use.

 

However, chickens raised in pastures also have no need for antibiotic treatment.  Nor oil of oregano treatment. What is unnatural is raising chickens in crowded conditions that spread bacteria rapidly among the flocks. Growing up on pastures delivers far more health benefits, too. Chickens are meant to hunt and peck for bugs and seeds along with their vegetarian feed. Pastured chickens have higher amounts of Omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins C, E, and beta-carotene. They are hormone, antibiotic and drug-free.  They are arsenic-free.  Commercially raised poultry have arsenic added to their feed to stimulate their appetites.

 

If you think “free-range” means that chickens have been raised in open fields, think again.  The term free-range only means that the chickens are not confined in cages and can roam the barn freely. If, in fact, a barn crowded with chickens allows much room for roaming…  The term free-range also implies that chickens have access to sunlight on enclosed porches.  All that is required is access.  Whether they take advantage of such access is highly questionable.  An afternoon on a sunlit porch would be lovely except that chickens don’t read the exit signs to said porches and rarely go out to them, unless they accidentally happen to be near one.

 

A chicken is a chicken is a chicken you say?  Nope – not all chickens are created equal.  Go for the best if you want good health. Expensive you say?  Well, yes.  But the more demand there is for pasture-raised chicken, the more farms will do it the old fashioned way. And that would bring the price of excellent chickenImage down. You affect the food supply by voting with your dollar. It would do us all some good to eat less/eat healthier. Look for pasture-raised chickens at better markets and health food stores, and at your local farmer’s market. 

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Walmart, The Good Guy?

Posted on February 2, 2011 by lkaholistichealth

Walmart recently announced that they will be reducing the sodium, cutting out added trans fats, and reducing added sugars in their store brand packaged foods while asking their suppliers of brand name foods to do the same.  They’ve also vowed to sell fresh produce at reduced prices so more people will have access to healthy foods.  And they’ve said the reduction in prices on produce will not be passed on to the farmers but absorbed by Walmart, resulting in lower profit margins for them.

This is good news and Walmart needs to be applauded for taking these steps to try to reverse the food trends in this country that have contributed to an astounding rate of obesity and chronic illness.  Of course, Mrs. Obama, with her Let’s Move campaign, played a major role in “convincing” them to undertake these measures.  She must have been very persuasive.

Some of the reasons people love to hate Walmart is that they have been known to choke their suppliers, small local shopkeepers who can’t compete on price, and their own employees. So regardless of these new initiatives, I will still refuse to enter a Walmart store.   But not just for those three issues.  The whole idea of Walmart in their role as the primary force behind commercialism and over-consumption in this country makes them entirely objectionable to me.  There has been an insatiable appetite in the U.S. for more plastic toys and housewares, more cheap, nutritionally devoid manufactured foods, more electronic paraphernalia  – more of everything.   When people have more “stuff” than they need and if it was acquired cheaply, they have little respect when the stuff no longer holds any allure, or breaks.  Then where does it go?  It goes into the garbage.  And where does the garbage go?  You should know, you should care. Our environment is becoming more and more toxic and certainly a large portion of the problem is what to do with all the discarded stuff.  To see a great video about over-consumption and the problems it causes go to: http://1degreetv.com/1degree/2010/12/the-story-of-stuff/

I hope the lousy economy of the last 2 years was enough to wake people up.  Over-consumption, credit card debt, mortgages that people can’t afford – we have an opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the past.  Going back there should not be an option.  When a store, like Walmart, promises huge savings, one really must question what they are saving.  You don’t save anything if you spend money on things you don’t need, no matter how cheap they are.  You save money when you don’t buy, buy, buy but instead put that money into savings.  The days of putting aside some money in the sugar bowl seem unheard of today.  But my mother-in-law put a down payment on a house with her sugar bowl savings in 1953.  Let’s re-gain our values.  Let’s live with less stuff.  An economy based on consumption is a house of cards.

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Kid Talk

Posted on May 3, 2010 by lkaholistichealth

Interesting conversation with my daughter and her friend, Jackson, on the way to school this morning.  Kids have a way of saying the craziest things.  A little knowledge can take them way over the top.

My daughter is a Darwinist.  Survival of the fittest is her mantra.  The subject of fast food and processed, packaged food came up for discussion.  In a reference to the movie “Idiocracy” that takes us 500 years into the future, the population has “degenerated into a dystopia where advertising, commercialism, and cultural anti-intellectualism run rampant and dysgenic pressure has resulted in a uniformly stupid human society devoid of individual responsibility or consequences.”  (Wikipedia)  The premise of this movie is that the cultural and intellectual elite slow their birth rate down while the “intellectually challenged” population continues to reproduce at a high birth rate, eventually leaving only a stupid population.

Lily and Jackson took it one step further.  What if the exact opposite happened?  What if all those “challenged” types became extinct from eating too much junk food?  Over time, the lack of nutrition would make them sterile so they could no longer reproduce, and further, lead them to higher rates of chronic illness that killed them off.    All the while, those smart enough to eat nutritionally sound diets would reproduce without problems and live long, healthy lives leaving us a world in which only creative, intelligent people survive.

Well, that’s just silly kid talk.  I think.

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Farm Boy

Posted on May 1, 2010 by lkaholistichealth

We just got back from Bloomingdale’s.  We went to buy a new toaster oven.  Carol, in the small appliances department, was very helpful. She asked what exactly we used our toaster oven for – I said, “Toast, mostly.”  And to warm up foods rather than use a microwave.   I was puzzled by the question.  Carol enlightened us.  She said most customers buy the toaster oven to “cook” foods.  In those cases, she points them to the more sophisticated models with convection ovens and large enough to hold a 12-inch frozen pizza.  She said that in many cases, this is the only appliance people use.  They don’t cook from scratch but pop frozen chicken nuggets into the toaster oven and that’s dinner for the kids.  Oh dear.

I guess the problem is more pervasive than I thought.  Who is watching the Food Network if no one is cooking?  If you want to be healthy, you must cook.  Or be able to afford to hire a cook.  Because the only way to control the quality of the ingredients that goes into your meals is to buy them as close to the way Mother Nature intended as possible.   You really have no way of knowing what went into your processed food but you can be quite sure that in the interests of making a profit, quality is not at the top of any food manufacturer’s list.

Speaking of chicken nuggets, I’m reminded of the time I brought my daughter and a boyfriend to a Stone Barns Farmer’s Market.  As we turned into the farm’s driveway, the chickens were out in the pasture to our left grazing and pecking the way chickens were meant to graze and peck.  The boyfriend turned green, truly feeling sick at the sight of these birds.  Farm Boy had never seen a live chicken in his life.  He was 18 years old at the time.  Dan’s idea of chicken was the little nuggets that came tidily packed in plastic and cardboard and popped into a toaster oven!  He didn’t want to know what his food looked like before it came neatly packaged from the frozen food aisle.  He didn’t want to know where it came from.

And that is precisely the point – when you buy a package of chicken nuggets, you don’t know where that “food” came from.  You don’t know how that chicken lived its life, whether it was humanely treated, able to roam freely in a pasture in natural sun eating the food a chicken is meant to eat.  Since the chances of the aforementioned scenario are quite rare these days, you can pretty much count on the chicken in your packaged chicken nuggets to have lived in a small, crowded cage, having had his beak clipped to keep him from pecking at the other birds sharing his abode.  The cages are crammed together in a barn with some bare light bulbs and an exhaust fan as the only clue that there is some fresh air  and light.  The chicken is fed an unnatural diet, even sometimes cannibalizing the remains of other chickens that didn’t survive their cruel and inhumane treatment. Antibiotic use becomes necessary as the crowded conditions under which these birds are raised means disease is more rampant. And the chickens are fattened up to go to market as soon as possible, meaning their skeletal systems have not matured enough to carry their own weight.  Many succumb before they ever get to be slaughtered.

Of course there are folks that don’t want to know about this.  They’re able to put on the blinders because it’s easier not to know or to care.  Until we get sick.  And we’re flabbergasted that some horrific chronic ailment has befallen us.  What we saved in food dollars on dubious food items, we pay in spades on the other end with health care dollars.  The next time you question whether an organic vegetable from you local farm is too expensive, think about the cost of one prescription for drugs, one doctor visit, one hospital stay.  When it comes to food, go for the gold.  You ARE what you eat.

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