Thu 20 May 2010

What is the truth about tooths?

Posted by Michael under Body Experiment, Cleansing
[4] Comments

Why don’t dentists tell the truth about how teeth will heal themselves? If you know exactly why teeth get cavities (it’s not sugar), and you know how to support the remineralization of the tooth structure, then you get to keep your teeth forever. So why, why, why? aren’t they telling us? I think it’s because they don’t want to know. Or it’s too empowering for their clients.

Anyway, this thought stream came out of a short conversation with a friend. She said, “well, my cavity didn’t heal itself.” And yeah, from what I’m learning, cavities won’t heal themselves if the conditions that created them are still present.

The truth is…. what?

It’s just germs that cause cavities, not sugar, and the specific germs are called Streptococcus mutans and Lactobacillus acidophilus.

If a dentist doesn’t help you to understand the root issue, help you to minimize the germ colonies, help you to understand how to remineralize the tooth, then yeah, cavities will grow and the dentist will take the easy, expedient way out and fill the cavity. They also make a nice profit from it, so why would they want to change their mental model when doing so would be more work for them? Not to mention have to swim upstream against the common “wisdom” of dentistry?

The truth is is that teeth are living, evolving material and cavities and other bone issues can heal themselves completely if you know how to do it. It’s not hard to learn. Just different.

I want my teeth, dammit!

It’s too bad my young friend had to go through the ordeal of having a cavity filled. I’ve had enough cavities filled and now I’m saying, “enough” and educating myself. But that’s just where I’m at.

I’m learning all this from the life’s work of a forward-looking doctor named Dr. Nara and an e-book I bought at http://mizar5.com/. More people need to find this stuff. It’s clear and conscious and backed by years of research. The website may look like ass, but don’t let that turn you off; the e-books are solid.

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Tue 11 May 2010

Ever wonder what foods are more powerful than others?

Posted by Michael under Food
[4] Comments

My favorite grocery store, Capers in Kitsilano, recently did something that made me take notice: they posted big signs that listed the nutrient density of various foods. So for example, you could see what foods would give you the most powerhouse bang for the buck. The amazing thing is that those foods don’t have the highest profit margins. How odd.

Turns out they took the list from one of my more respected health people, Dr. Fuhrman. You can find that list on this page.

A few things are interesting to me about what’s on it. First is that kale is at the absolute top in terms of nutrients. It ranks at 1,000 out of 1,000 points. This doesn’t surprise me as I’ve intuitively felt to include kale in my daily diet as the main greens in my salads; I just feel good eating them.

The other thing is that the list doesn’t care about arbitrary distinctions like veganism or not–just the nutrient scores. So I can know that eggs are at 27 on a scale of 1,000 points. I was surprised that nuts and beans scored relatively low, like walnuts at 34 out of 1,000. But that’s still double than Swiss Cheese at 15.

The only thing that I’m curious about is what score hemp hearts are because they’re so packed with proteins, essential fatty acids, carbs and fiber.

Well, check out Dr. Fuhrman’s nutrient score list; it’s fascinating!

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Tue 9 Mar 2010

Cleansing the Machinery of Your Body Will Save Your Life

Posted by Michael under Body Experiment, Cleansing, Food
[2] Comments

I’m a bit stunned. I’m just finishing the parasite cleanse part of my Blessed Herbs cleanse and I’m taken aback at just how many parasites were formerly taking up residence inside Chez Moi. Once out, these looked like little grains of rice, but the best part is how much more alive I feel.

I feel gooooood. No… I feel excellent.

Unleash Your Inner Ferrari

Before it was like my body was an okay Datsun, just making it down the road. Now it feels like I have an exotic sports car that is firing on all its cylinders, king of the road.

The interesting thing is that I gradually forgot this feeling from my last cleanse and now it’s back again. It’s like I’m remembering what it felt like to be a kid when I had so much energy. Food doesn’t make me tired; instead it gives me a thrilling boost of energy that radiates from my abdomen.

I’m still not finished with the cleanse, as it has several more organs to clean out, and I can’t wait until I get to the lymph because that’s last. The rest of the body will have been scrubbed, and when the lymph is flowing, my God, it feels good to be alive. Like when someone asks, “How are you?”, my response is invariably, “Fantastic!”

You’re a Bit Strange To Do This

If anyone is thinking, “You’ve done a lot of cleanses. Just how many of these cleanses do you have to do?” Once all of the noticeable physical deposits are gone, then it will be a different story. But for now I have come to see this as an absolute necessity.

The first week of my Blessed Herbs cleanse was to pull out the rubbery plaque lining the insides of the intestines. That it pulled out about 3 feet of the stuff tells me that I’m still not done there. (I kept saying “Oh my God! Oh my God!” as it came out–the instant release of this highly toxic mass from my body was cathartic though painless.) My previous liver flush pushed out about 200-300 pea-sized “stones” that were formerly blocking my liver ducts, blocking them from doing their job. That tells me I’m not done there either.

Well, Why Not?

I want everyone to have this clean, physical high of an experience, though few sincerely desire it, and only when their body is in dire straights.

I get that. I didn’t want to take responsibility for my internal hygiene until I was on my death bed. But, damn… I know that once anyone experiences how the body is supposed to feel, then there will be no doubt that this needs to be done.

Maybe if I say:

  • “You will have clear skin” or…
  • “You won’t need coffee to pick you up” or…
  • “You belly will disappear when the pounds of mucoid plaque leave” or…
  • “People will compliment you on how well you look” or…
  • “You will feel lighter in your body” or…
  • “Your cognitive abilities will be faster, clearer” or…
  • “Your brain chemistry will improve and your mood will be brighter”

…would you be interested in cleansing the machinery of your body then???

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Sat 13 Feb 2010

The Cognitive Power of Garlic & Popcorn

Posted by Michael under Body Experiment, Food
[2] Comments

What simple, everyday foods will actually clear your head? And why?

Well, two that I’ve noticed are garlic and popcorn. Yeah, really. I know, I know! It doesn’t make sense, but bear with me!

With garlic, it has the effect of mopping up the gut, re-balancing the good intestinal bacteria, and making digestion quick, snappy, and happy. I am literally jumping out of bed in the morning because my gut and head feel so good.

With popcorn, the roughage acts like a broom moving out the gut crud. That’s a scientific term, by the way. Any mental fatigue just… goes away and I’m naturally alert and quick.

So what does this have to do with cognition? It turns out that there is a direct relationship between the brain’s ability to function clearly and the functioning of the gut. Slow gut, slow mind. Don’t believe me? Try it out for yourself. However, I’ll let you in on some tips that I’ve learned that will make the difference more pronounced. If you try it half-assed, then you’ll be more likely to go, “pfft!”, and write me off as a flake.

With garlic, you need to eat it as a raw clove two hours after the last meal. Yes, it tastes something fierce, and it burns, but it is a natural antibiotic, and gets into all the crevices that harbor parasites, fungus, and yeast. It helps to rebalance the good bacteria in the gut. Do this once a night for two weeks and notice how dramatically better you feel every morning. (I am basing this off of Mikhail Tombak’s powerful cleansing work in “Can We Live 150 Years?“)

With popcorn, have it 2 – 3 hours after eating so as to give your digestive system some room. I keep my popcorn simple and light and yet super tasty with just melted coconut oil, nutritional yeast (so tasty!), and some Himalayan salt.

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Tue 2 Feb 2010

Trainspotting “Cult Recruitment 101”

Posted by Michael under Cults vs. Spirituality, Food
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Ever get blindsided by a friend or person, blink a couple times, and think, “what the bleep just happened here?!?” after they’re gone?

A once revered friend came over to drop something off, but it turned quickly into Cult Recruitment 101 for an upscale “health drink” multi-level marketing scheme. She wanted me to join, and out came the bully tactics of insults, comparisons, and speculative judgment. It was a rapid one-two-three punch.

Oof!

Wasn’t expecting that from someone I trusted. But since I’ve done a similar type of recruitment when I was in my spiritual cult, I could see the identification with the group, the lack of listening without an agenda, the threat that questioning creates. In my instance, it was an escapism-based agenda. In her instance it’s a greed-based agenda. Doesn’t matter the root cause. Same dirty playbook.

There’s nothing that can be said to someone who’s in a cult. Nothing. Don’t even bother. Why? Because they get too much out of it. They think you’re the loser for not being in it, and the longer they’re in their cult, the the more they absorb clever positions to counter anything that questions The Way Things Are.

Now my job is to not get sucked into the abusive verbal recruitment drive should I meet this friend again and just love her where she’s at. I now admire the few remaining friends who did that for me when I was in my cult and waited me out. It’s a little sticky as she’s a sometimes client of mine, but we’ll see. Wish me luck.

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Sun 31 Jan 2010

Just how dedicated & disciplined are monks, anyway?

Posted by Michael under Cults vs. Spirituality
[4] Comments

Someone recently commented to me their concept of monk-dom:

Any monkhood takes dedication & discipline.

It’s such a common perception, that I had to share this with you:

Not all monks are dedicated & disciplined. Actually, it wasn’t until I left the monkhood that I became more dedicated & disciplined. There’s always the tendency to want to place responsibility for one’s growth on the teacher or on the motions of the path. Monkhood can just be another badge of self-importance & avoiding one’s responsibility, even the “mundane” responsibility of LIFE which can be a bigger teacher than living in an artificial bubble. Really, monkhood is what I chose to get out of it, a uniquely personal thing. When I see people posturing in front of and making monks to be important or special, I know better now 🙂

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Sat 14 Nov 2009

A Saving Grace in My Life

Posted by Michael under Fasting
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Just finished a 3 1/2 day fast to let my body accelerate some deep healing that needed to happen in my gut. The duration was pretty easy as I’m used to fasting by now and I wasn’t hungry. However, this was one of the rare fasts where due to its length, I had juiced carrots and beets to get nutrients and sugars into my blood stream. Normally, I fast for one day a week, but this time I noticed this wound needed some extra time. Actually, the hardest part was a newfound awareness of my addiction to eating!

So all the torn stuff in my belly is feeling about 95% better, my skin is soft, the tension around my eyes is relaxed, my back muscles feel calm and limber, and my head is clear.

I’m continually awed by how quickly my body will heal itself now that I’m smart enough to get out of the way. It works so effectively because eating takes about 35% of the body’s energy to digest, process, assimilate and then eliminate the constant barrage of food. Removing the burden of all that kicks the body’s natural healing machine into super duper high gear. The trick is to understand all of the little feelings and thoughts that are unfamiliar when fasting so as not to freak out. That wouldn’t help at all. No…

When I tell friends about fasting, their fears kick in and I get a lot of “well-meaning concern.” I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t have some grounding.

What convinced me was this e-book I read on-line that was the life’s work of Dr. Isabelle A. Moser & Steve Solomon. It’s called “How and When to Be Your Own Doctor“.

I loved it because it chronicled her journey through the almighty medical profession, how she questioned the rigid, insane beliefs of the system, and how she came to find the simplest solutions–fasting and cleansing–could cure anyone that came to her, including cancer. I loved her candor, her willing to disclose her pitfalls, and her self-honesty. Such self-aware people are rare to find, and I enjoyed every word of the book.

Do yourself a favor and read the first chapter and see if it resonates with you. If it does, it’ll give you the self-reliance and understanding to know how to heal yourself. If it wasn’t for her… man… I don’t like to think how I’d be in the hands of the medical profession, my gut cut open and mutilated, no better for it in the long run.

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Tue 10 Nov 2009

The Belly Is Not a “Magic Bag of Holding”

Posted by Michael under Body Experiment, Cleansing, Fasting
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Do you associate that really full, bloated feeling after a meal with having gotten your money’s worth at a restaurant? Or at dinner? The stomach is actually at a point of dysfunction and cannot do its job when it’s that way. So as super-tasty as my food has become, and as excited I am to explore new tastes & textures, I am learning–no, forced–to think differently. I realized why I have been gorging myself since I have become a vegan. Because prior to the switch, I wasn’t able to eat that much; my belly couldn’t digest so well. It was frustrating when well-meaning women would say, "You’re skinny–you need to eat more!" Well, duh. I’d like to eat more too. It’s just that I couldn’t. Now I can, thanks to all the cleansing and the cleaner burning fuel I’m running on. However, it feels like I’ve been waiting to be ultimately satisfied with food now that I can eat again… and then I’ll slow down. But I see the foolishness of that. There is no slowing down. Just more, a sure sign of unconsciousness. If I had seen it before, I would’ve averted the personal disaster this past summer where I:

  1. over-ate
  2. under hydrated
  3. was in the midst of a Blessed Herbs cleanse
  4. and went for a sub-jog (a sprog?)

My belly went into a pain spasm that took two excruciating weeks to heal, and left me foggy for another two weeks. And I’m still recovering from the cascade of repercussions to my personal life three months later. Now I continuously remember the Karyn Cabrese‘s comment that the stomach is the size of a fist, which reminds me to stop and pay attention to the quantity that I think I can stuff into my belly.

Update: I found a blog post called Full Belly Syndrome that better articulates what I was trying to convey.

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Mon 9 Nov 2009

The Holy “Chocolate Avocado Mousse”

Posted by Michael under Food
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I get requests for this recipe all the time, and with good reason: it’s so creamy, so chocolatety, so comforting, so easy to make, and from plants to boot!

People have come to associate this recipe with me, as if I invented it… no… I’m just the messenger. It’s from the book, “Health By Chocolate“.

Even though after yesterday’s discovery about chocolate not being the “super food” as it was touted to be by marketers, I still have a soft spot for it. I’m even thinking of making a surprise batch for a friend’s birthday present.

What is it? It’s called “Quick Creamy Chocolate Avocado Custard”, or as I’ve been referring to it as my “Chocolate Avocado Mousse”. (Click for the full size view)

One of my *favorite* treats

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Mon 9 Nov 2009

Nooooooooooooooooooooo!

Posted by Michael under Food
No Comments

My heart sunk…

I started to read that chocolate isn’t a superfood as was claimed to be, by marketers, of course. That it wasn’t healthy. That it is actually a toxin for the liver, a stimulant for the heart.

Bleah.

But I read it all, and took it in, starting with Paul Nison’s post, “Raw Chocolate–Harmful for Your Health“, that goes into details.

Bleah.

Well, I have been going at the chocolate powder added to my daily plant-protein puddings pretty hard lately. Like 3 Tbsp a day. Plus some unsweetened callebaut chocolate that I like to transmute into my own nightly treats, as I’ve blogged previously.

It’s said that chocolate makes it harder for the body to detox, and so what I’m going to do is kick the chocolate, substituting carob instead, and see how I feel, and if my head gets sharper in the meantime.

I also discovered that agave nectar, one of my favorite sweeteners, isn’t what I had thought it to be due to its high fructose content. So I’m going to drop that too. See if I can find some good stevia, not the white stuff which I had been taking before, and also some honey, and play with sweet fruits more.

Maybe this will help me to get “The Thrilling” feeling back…. but damn… chocolate… wonder if I’m addicted to it…

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