Nell Stephenson's Blog, page 103

No Need to Go Gluten Free?

“Unless you  have celiac disease or a doctor’s diagnosis of a gluten intolerance, gluten-free is a difficult diet that’s not necessary”, said assistant professor of medicine at NYU, Roshini Rajapaksa, MD in a recent issue of Health Magazine (incidentally, why that publication is called “Health” is beyond me, but I’ll try to keep from going off on a tangent…for now”.

There are so many things wrong with that statement.  If I had listened to all the GI specialists I’d seen before I learned about Paleo who counseled me in the same manner, I’d likely still be experiencing horrendous abdominal pain and GI distress on a daily basis. None asked what I was eating.  One reluctantly tested me for Celiac, for which I came back negative and was then told there was no reason to eschew gluten, as it would also omit many important nutrients in my diet, were I to go gluten free.

I’m very proud of not having settled for a lifetime of pain and pain pills, thank you very much.

The frightening issue, though, is the number of docs who are dispensing this very advice.

Gluten free is not remotely difficult.  Yes, it involves reading labels (but we are not meant to be eating things in packages anyway, so the amount of food we eat from boxes or cans should be extremely minimal anyway) and asking questions… so does that make for the equivalent of ‘too difficult’?

Why and how this is acceptable is beyond me.

Later on in the article, we are told to try anti spasmodic drugs if we have IBS (love that catch- all diagnosis) as well as anti depressants (pardon me?) for associated pain.  We’re also advised to try proton pump inhibitors for heartburn, such as Prilosec and that we should not eat more than a single 3 – 6 oz serving per week of red meat as it will make us far more likely to develop colon cancer.  It goes on to say that it’s normal to be flatulent throughout the day (um, no, it’s not… ) and that if constipation is an issue, it’s Colace to the rescue.

It’s a joke that’s not remotely funny.  This is just one of many publications that who knows how many readers across the US are gobbling up without so much as a question or a second thought.

We’ve got to ask more questions of those who are providing ‘health care’ for us and take it upon ourselves to become self educated on the matter.  If you’ve never considered doing so because ‘you’re not a scientist’ or ‘you don’t like biology’ well, guess what?  You have a body, don’t you?  Shouldn’t we all learn how it really works and how to maintain it properly?  We do that with cars, appliances, even toys, yet for so many, proper maintenance of the body falls by the wayside.

And there’s only one for each of us.

Think.

The Nestle Meat Debacle

Nestle ‘has increased testing in its pasta meals after the discoveries of horse meat in British foods and traces of horse DNA in two products made with beef supplied by a German company‘ according to an article in the NY Times on Wednesday.

If you’re in the US, though, don’t worry, as the meat in this country’s Nestle products doesn’t come from the potentially affected European meat.  Plus, it’s ‘not a food safety issue, but the mislabeling of products‘ issue.

Huh?

First of all,  how have we gotten to a place where buying processed pasta meals from what was once a chocolate company is something we do without a second thought?

Secondly, I completely agree that the meat needs to be labeled as what it is, and in particular if we consider anyone who cannot eat certain meats due to religious reasons, but I find it odd that people get more up in arms about eating horse meat than all the other, far worse things one might find in a package of Buitoni Beef Ravioli (which happens to include: EXTRA FANCY ENRICHED DURUM FLOUR (DURUM WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, FERROUS SULFATE, THIAMINE MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), SEASONED SHREDDED COOKED BEEF (BEEF, NATURAL FLAVOR), EGGS, BREAD CRUMBS (FLOUR, SUGAR, YEAST, SALT, SOYBEAN OIL), WATER, CANOLA OIL, ONIONS, REDUCED LACTOSE WHEY, PARMESAN CHEESE (CULTURED MILK, SALT, ENZYMES), BEEF FLAVOR (MALTODEXTRIN, SALT, BEEF EXTRACT, RENDERED BEEF FAT, SESAME OIL), SALT, SPICES, DEHYDRATED GARLIC).

I’m not saying I’m a huge fan of horse meat in particular but I’d rather eat that than flour, cheese, bread crumbs, soybean oil and yeast.

Finally, when might Nestle increase ‘testing of consumers who develop diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol and high blood pressure after consuming their products for years‘?  I already know the answer- never – but of course, one can’t help but dream!

Since When Did Cooking Become Such A Chore?

And why do people comment that they ‘can’t believe I actually cook dinner every night’?  How come some women have even asked me didn’t I think it went against women’s rights to prepare dinner for my husband?

Um, really?

Call me old-fashioned, but I like having a lovely dinner waiting for my husband when he comes home after a hard day’s work.  

Of course, many of us have a schedule so tight for time we feel like we are always running from one appointment to the next, but how and when did the act of preparing a meal and eating it become anything less than a top priority?

We need to eat, we need to sleep; these are basic human needs yet many of us underestimate the importance of both and eat a diet made of horrendous non foods and barely get enough sleep.  You may feel you can ‘get away with it’ for a while, and certainly there are times when there doesn’t seem to be another option other than burning the candle at both ends, but at least think about what you’re doing and see if you can’t juggle things around at least a little to accommodate these two little things- eating real food and sleeping- and give them a bit more attention.

A comment to the editor of the NY Times’s Dining section in regard to an article in the previous week’s edition stated:

“Why is it ok for people to complain about chores like laundry or cleaning the bathroom but not cooking?  To me, cooking is another kind of chore, a claim on my time to produce something not very good“.

Is that it?  Are people frightened to try cooking?  Or do they collectively see it as something that robs time better spent doing something else more important?

How is eating real food, which is at the very foundation of our health, not that important?

If you’ve never cooked in your life, don’t worry- it’s never too late to start.  Cooking is fun.  I learned to do it years before I ever went to culinary school, just by having an interest in nutrition and food and reading cookbooks.  Unlike baking, it’s much harder to ruin a dish.  Think of it as an art project!  (I go into more detail on this in Paleoista, so if you haven’t read it yet, please do!).

Anyway, it’s not like you need hours per day to slowly peruse the farmer’s market and then spend the entire evening making a feast.   If you have the time, fantastic, but most of us don’t, and you don’t need too much.  Ever hear about my Hour in the Kitchen?   

A busy schedule should not be a reason to not eat real Paleo food or an excuse to eat junk.  

Make time for  your health, for goodness sake!  If you don’t eat food, and don’t move you simply cannot reach your healthiest potential.

Choose to make the time.

And, I must add, cooking is so not in the same category of cleaning bathrooms.

On The Subject of Paleo Dogs…

The other day, after returning from a trip out of town, I picked up Daisy, my Weim, from the ranch she stays when we travel.  While I waited for her in the lobby, one of the kennel techs came in to announce that one of the dogs was ready to eat, therefore her ice cream would need to be taken out of the freezer to thaw for a few minutes before dinner.

I thought I’d misunderstood what I’d heard, so I asked the receptionist if there was really a dog there who eats ice cream.  She confirmed that yes, one of the dogs boarding there only eats if her food is mixed with ice cream.

How on earth does that happen?  What would possess a human to train their dog to only eat food if it has ice cream with it?   Is the person someone who is eating for the wrong reasons, like as an emotional soothing buffer, and thinking their dog needs the same thing?

Seeing a fat or unhealthy dog is so saddening to me, as it’s completely preventable.  Unlike humans, a pet dog’s diet is almost completely  under the control of the person caring for  him or her (and I only  say almost because of the small chance of the dog eating a rodent while running on the trails or something of the like!).   To intentionally feed a dog something like ice cream is, in my opinion, despicable.

Let’s look at another interesting, but perplexing idea:  addressing your dog’s diet only after he or she gets sick (Sound familiar?  How many humans do the same thing?).  I’ve heard countless tales of people saying that their dog was suffering from joint pain, being overweight, having a dull coat, having  bad breath, not eliminating frequently enough, having a bad temper (just to list some of the maladies), but once they stopped eating kibble with fillers and switched to raw dog food and eating gluten free (why would you ever give corn to a dog anyway?), they became healthy.

Um… hello?

Why is this surprising?

Even more confusing is when the very same people put two and two together for their dogs, who then become healthy, yet they themselves keep eating crap?

When, oh when will everyone see what is right in front of our faces?

None of us, not humans nor dogs or cats (just listing two of the more commonly seen pets who need meat) are meant to be eating dried-out fillers lacking in any form of nutrition and toxic to our bodies.

 

Health Food?

Health food is a term that we’ve all seen before.  We can go to a health food store, venture down the health food aisle in many a grocery store or veer off to the health food section even in chain pharmacies like Duane Read or Rite Aid.

The term rolls of the tongue without a second thought.

But it shouldn’t.

It should actually be an oxymoron; after all, the definition of food is “any nutritious substance that people or animals eat or drink, or that plants absorb, in order to maintain life and growth.”

Most of what is eaten by people these days, like it or not, would not be considered, therefore, food.

Aside from that, the mere fact that we have to classify certain things to eat as being health food makes everything else, by default, not only not health food, but not food, period.

Add this all up and it’s a very succinct (and very sad) way of looking at the state of what most of the country is eating these days.

Even if we consider someone who has no clue about human physiology or how the body works, don’t we all at least know we should be eating food and not be eating things that are not food?    We simply cannot put things in our body that we are not supposed to be eating and then be surprised at the negative outcome.  On top of that, we cannot expect to continue doing this without consequence simply because we add more things into the mix (medications to fix what becomes broken due to ingesting the non foods) and continue ingesting the non foods.  Hello, band-aid.

Please, just eat real food in the first place.

 

Teeth Like A Caveman

How’d you like to have teeth like a caveman?

Admittedly, the phrase does not exactly bring an image of shiny, pearly whites to mind.

Not surprisingly, though, a new study which was pointed out to me by a blog reader in the UK illustrates how our modern day diet is helping to cause tooth decay and to generally, as per the article, ‘wreck our teeth’.

The online publication, The Age, states that “Our mouths are now in a permanent state of disease because the refined modern diet has dramatically decreased the diversity of oral bacteria.”

Is anyone remotely surprised about this?  

It goes on to explain that “After studying 34 prehistoric human skeletons from northern Europe, an international team of researchers has established for the first time that the DNA can survive within the calcified plaque, known as tartar, for more than 8000 years. That DNA trapped in the tartar reveals that the meat-dominated, grain-free diet of the hunter gatherers gave our ancestors much healthier mouths.”

According to Nature Genetics, the research shows declining oral health can be pegged to major changes in the way humans lived and ate, with the start of farming in the Neolithic age and the industrial revolution being key turning points. The arrival of farming in Europe about 8000 years ago and the industrial revolution in the 1800s each increased the amount of refined carbohydrates and sugars humans consumed, which led to our mouths being dominated by cavity-causing bacteria.“

Another perfect example of why what most people are eating today is not what they’re genetically meant to be eating.  It’s not just kids eating candy and not brushing their teeth who have it wrong.  It’s every person who is eating what essentially is refined sugars which can coat our teeth and break them down, as well as cause varying degrees of halitosis.

And it’s not just humans.  While I wouldn’t expect my dog to have fresh, minty breath (don’t tell her I said that), because she’s a Paleo dog and doesn’t eat any grains or other junk found in many pet foods, her breath doesn’t really smell like anything and her teeth are shiny and white, despite her almost 14 year age.  If your dog’s mouth stinks, that’s not any more normal than if yours does!

Cut the grains, the beans & dairy and bring on that Paleo smile!

iwantveggies.com

No, it’s not a real URL, yet, but why not start the conversation?

It dawns on me that if we can all be more vocal about asking for veggies, maybe our voices will begin to be heard.

Consider this not to be a Paleo post; if we take a step back and look at all the different types of diets or manners of eating that all of us have, the one commonality in nearly all that I’m aware of is that at the very least we can all agree that eating fresh, local, in-season veggies is a good idea.

While die-hard Atkins followers might disagree about the importance of including veg, think about the many other approaches including, but not limited to:

Paleo
Vegan
Vegetarian
Low Fat
Kosher
Gluten Free
Low Sodium

There really aren’t any valid arguments that anyone can conjure up for why we shouldn’t eat veggies, so let’s start asking!

Using a small scale example, imagine if every single customer that came into a cozy, local eatery asked politely if steamed broccoli might be an option as part of an entree rather than the rice pilaf.   I’d be willing to bet that the owners would at least be made aware of the growing demand and  would likely figure out a way to begin offering the broccoli.

Now take it to the next level.   How about if customers began asking for the same at larger, nation wide franchises?

It’s such a small, easy thing to do that has enormous potential.

Far more likely than restaurants becoming Paleo, this is one thing all of us can do, no matter how we feel about the rest of what we eat, in unison with no reason to waver about whether or not it’s right or wrong.

If we all ask, and the demand goes up and we begin consuming less of the refined, processed stuff, big change can occur.

Every little bit…

Thank You, Hu

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to eat lunch at what felt like something Paleo dreams are made of.

HU Kitchen, in NYC’s Union Square, is hands down, the most Paleo friendly place I’ve eaten at to date.

I’d been introduced to HU and its founders by a client months earlier, but hadn’t been in town to try their food for myself until this Valetine’s Day weekend.  Without being remotely ‘in your face’ Paleo (which would’ve been fine by me, but I could completely see how for those who aren’t Paleo, it might be a bit off-putting), it’s all about real, fresh, unadulterated food.

Their tag line says it all: Get Back to Human.  On their site, they state that one of the tenets of their philosophy is to create ’unequivocally delicious food that also happens to be unprocessed and good for you.’

We went in after a long workout and therefore, with a big appetite.  Add to that the fact that I felt like a kid in a candy store and these two contributing factors meant I was going to have to sample at least a little bite of most of their offerings.

Free range roast chicken, cauliflower puree, sauteed kale and broccoli, Brussels sprouts and spaghetti squash all proved to be delicious, clean fuel that I could easily have had again for dinner and again today for lunch.

We perused their to go area as well and found such goodies as raw chocolate bars, dehydrated kale chips, and an all green smoothie to go.

If only I had any room left I would happily have partaken of their mash bar, a concept that HU founder Jordan explained to me stemmed from trips he used to take to Whole Foods after a workout to assemble ‘a little of this and a little of that’ (sounds like my own version of the concoctions I make!). Picture a Paleo version of a yogurt bar, but the bases are decadent options like coconut cream or raw chocolate pudding.

The icing on the proverbial Paleo cake is that the price point makes it welcoming to the student population living in and around the area.

Bottom line- this is a must-eat-at place for anyone Paleo, anyone interested in healthy eating, anyone interested in good food and anyone human!

Hats off to you, HU!  See you next time!

 

Easy Takes the Stage

I’ve heard it time and time again.  Easy, fast and quick options far too often become the choice when the rubber hits the road.  

Most clients get it.  They understand why dairy, grains and legumes are a no go and the harm they do to our bodies.  They do a great job at staying Paleo, ‘when they have time’.  

When they don’t have time, though, watch out.  

From the mildest slip like having vinegar on their salad (which I personally feel is is far less offensive than having ‘just a little bread’) to saying  ’the heck with it, bring me a pizza’, precious time spent on other things takes precedence and eating clean fuel gets stuck on the back burner.

This is not to criticize clients; while we all certainly need to take responsibility for what we put in our own mouths, we also all need to collectively demand that more healthy options become available wherever we go.

Can you imagine if all office break rooms just naturally had steamed broccoli in their fridges and sliced free range turkey, rather than ten kinds of microwave popcorn and candy?  Or if the doctor’s office handed out apples instead of sweets?

It might seem like nothing, but even a friendly little comment to the receptionist like, “Oh, it would be great if you had a bowl of apples in the waiting room” or having a casual conversation with the office manager about adding a fresh salad bar to the cafeteria offerings can add up to a big deal, if we all do our little part.

Ask, ask, ask and maybe we shall receive the wish of having more actual food on hand?   How easy would it be then?  Let’s get started!

But They Won’t Cover Acupuncture…

I read earlier this week that some health insurance policies at twenty-odd universities across the country will now cover, or partly cover, costs for students who elect to undergo gender reassignment surgery.

First off all, please note that this post is in no way meant to be any sort of judgement call on that.  I strongly feel that if someone opts to make that call, it’s completely their prerogative and I don’t feel it’s anyone else’s business to say it’s good or bad, wrong or right.

What I have a huge issue with, though, is how that’s going to be covered while I can’t even get reimbursed for acupuncture or massage.   Those are considered ‘alternative’.  

Since they’re brand new modalities?  No, that couldn’t be the reason; those techniques are thousands of years old.

Rather than get bodywork to keep my muscles fluid and performing as I want them to, I could let them get sore and get prescriptions for pain killers.  And instead of acupuncture for balance and keeping centered, I could allow myself to become anxious and procure a script for anti anxiety meds, which would also be covered.

Can we possibly become more upside down?