HEALTH = WEALTH INTRODUCTION
CONNIE'S HEALTH STORY

It seems like we hear something scary every day about the general health of Canadian and American citizens, and we ask "Why are so many people so ill?" Lots of reasons are given. Research is quoted and misquoted, and a lot of it is contradictory. Who are we to believe?

As I've listened to and read the available material, I have come to a simple conclusion. Most illness and disease is caused by poor diet and lack of exercise! Our bodies are wondrously created organic machines, and like their mechanical counterparts they rely on good fuel. If we put premium fuel into our machines, they function at peak efficiency. If we use cheap, low-grade fuel, they start coughing and spluttering and wear out quickly. It comes down to GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out.

Good health and long life are promoted by eating the things that God created for man to eat in the Garden of Eden--but people cannot or do not follow God's clear command. Even when we do try, the quality of available food is not the best. Most can't afford expensive organic food, relying instead on white bread, pasta and potatoes to fill them up. We'd rather have beautiful lawns than productive gardens--but then who's got time or energy for gardening, anyway? To the extent that we indulge in things that are not good for us and do not eat the necessary variety and quantities of fruits, vegetables, leafy greens, whole grains, nuts, and seeds, we suffer the consequences.

Tips for improving your diet and overall health

In the Health = Wealth section of our website, I hope to offer you some great tips for improving your diet and overall health. Read Connie's Health Story below for a brief history of how I learned to eat better. Check the left column for links to pages containing health articles and recipes.

A huge part of our problem is that we have been conditioned from birth to eat...well...what we eat. Our parents fed us what they were taught to eat, and what they could afford, and we learned about all kinds of junk food from that source of much evil--the TV. Our taste buds have been taught what to like and they assume anything else must taste bad. Even though our brains may learn better, our bodies resist like their lives depended on maintaining the status quo. Changing our eating habits is really hard! And trying to change the eating habits of our families is extremely hard; it's like trying to pull a train uphill with a rope over your shoulder while all the influences of the world entice its occupants to pull hard on the brakes. What I hope to provide you is a little motivational information. Perhaps you can learn from my experiences.

CONNIE'S HEALTH STORY

When the Lacelles were preparing to move to Sudbury in 1997 we had heard about all the mosquitoes and black flies that were up here. Well, the informants were right--there were tons of them! I have learned since then that you can avoid most by staying in the house at certain times but in 1997 I was ignorant of that fact, so I got bitten--lots. My arms and legs were covered in mosquito and fly bites. I’m embarrassed to say that I picked at the scabs over and over and over again whenever my arms were exposed, so the sores became infected and the sores stayed there for years! Yes, I did try to stop that bad habit with varying degrees of success. Most of my success was in the winter when my arms were normally covered with long sleeves. But when the summer came again, I would start picking…

Learning to eat fruit

Anyway, in 2000 some friends stayed with us for a few days and taught us (among other things) to eat fruit for breakfast. I jumped on the bandwagon and began eating 4 or 5 or more fruits every morning when there was a big variety at the store, 2 or 3 when there wasn't. Several things happened. I noticed immediately that my bowels moved regularly when I ate my fruit, very irregularly and with great difficulty when I did not. That factor alone motivated me to eat my fruit every morning. Later on I noticed that the sores on my arms had healed up--finally! I knew it was because I was putting into my body the fuel it needed to heal me--raw fruits.

Dropping dairy products

In 2001, I dropped dairy products from my diet (although I do eat pizza and ice cream occasionally) and my health improved immensely. (The intense pain of several gall-bladder attacks and subsequent surgery helped motivate me!) The scabby condition that covered the back of my arms from elbow to wrist and drove me crazy with the itching almost totally cleared up, and I am convinced that if I didn’t indulge in the occasional pizza and ice cream it would go away altogether! Coincidentally, my daughter’s breathing problems almost totally cleared up as well--so that the only time she needed her puffer was when she ate dairy products!

Adding more vegetables

In 2002, I joined the Christian Vegan Cooking e-group and began collecting plant-based recipes because I wanted to change the way my family ate. Now we were eating a bigger variety of vegetables than we ever had, and eating meat much less often. Our health was improving. Mike looked great! He lost lots of weight and was looking very attractive. I was losing some weight and looking better, too, but needed to lose more.

Eliminating unclean meats

In April 2003, I was convicted that I should be keeping the Sabbath (Saturday) and therefore studied Scripture diligently to find out why God wanted me to do that. By the end of the year I had learned that there were many more things that needed to change in my life--including what meats I ate and fed to my family. I came to understand that God wants all of His people (Jew or not) to eat things that He has approved, and to avoid things that He has not approved. If we follow these guidelines we will be healthy! (Or at least as healthy as we can be in a world that has polluted itself so thoroughly!)

I learned that what God calls food is anything He has approved for the human diet--these things are called "clean." Anything that God calls "unclean" is not food, even if we do like its taste! And anything that He says is His (like fat and blood) is also not food for us. We need to search the Scriptures (start with Leviticus 11) to find out what God wants us to eat and not turn a blind eye and say those rules were only for the Jews! If an animal is unhealthy for a Jew to eat, it is just as unclean and unhealthy for a non-Jew! Fortunately, we can also search the web for kosher recipes such as those found at Kosher Express Kitchen.

I read a book called "God's Key to Health and Happiness" by Elmer A. Josephson in which he explained how to live a healthy, happy life. My eyes were opened to the truth that such things as pigs, shrimps and oysters (all of which were family favourites) were never intended to be food for people. They are scavengers that eat the rotting garbage and dead carcasses they find; their job is to help keep the earth clean. Their food transforms into flesh very quickly--in the case of a pig, which will eat anything including its own excrement, in only three or four hours! When you slaughter and eat a pig, you are potentially eating flesh that was only four hours earlier some rotten, dead, disgusting thing lying at the bottom of the pigpen! No wonder so many people are sick today!

By contrast, the animals that God calls food for people eat a plant-based diet and digest it thoroughly. Think about cows, chickens, turkeys, lambs, fish with scales and fins. What do they choose to eat? (Don’t get me started on what people are putting into animal feed and forcing their livestock to eat these days, yuk!)

Trying to go vegan

I have no problem with people who choose to eat no meat at all--I think it is a very wise choice in today’s world, if you can manage it. If you’d like to try doing that, I suggest you visit the Hallelujah Acres website. I tried putting my family on a vegan diet and couldn’t do it--we love our meat too much! So I opted to reduce our meat intake to alternate days, and then only to one small serving of a clean meat. After a few months of doing this I noticed that I stopped having sick headaches whenever I didn’t get enough sleep. Unfortunately, Mike and I had two wonderful holidays in the summer of 2004 in which meat and rich food was abundantly available and so, of course, I indulged (clean meat only, of course). Then I caught a cold and reverted to needing a minimum of 10 hours of sleep again. The moral of this story is--don’t eat too much meat and dessert!

Life is in the blood

Scripture tells us that life is in the blood, and we are to respect life. When we kill an animal for food, we are to be humane about it. The kosher way is to slit the animal’s throat and drain all the blood out. We are not to eat things that have been strangled or killed in unacceptable ways (like in highway accidents). I wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised to find out that things like Mad Cow Disease and Bird Flu can in some way be directly attributed to the inhumane way we treat and slaughter the animals that God has put into our care.

I have learned to cut off the fat and drain away the blood before cooking clean meat--since God says it is His, not ours. We know that fat, at least, contributes to heart and other diseases so I assume that is one reason why God has claimed it for Himself. I assume it's the same for blood. How many diseases have we been told are carried by blood? Have you learned to be especially careful around wounds?

You can remove most of the blood from raw meat by covering it in koshering salt (I use coarse pickling salt) for a little while; the salt draws out the blood. Another helpful method is to freeze the meat first, then allow it to thaw completely before cooking--and discard the bloody melt-water. This is the best I can do for now, but eventually I hope to find an inexpensive source of kosher meats.

Falling off the wagon

At the end of May, 2005, Mike was finally able to have "his own business." Radio Shack had decided to aggressively recruit its managers for a "Joint Venture" program in which the company would share ownership of individual stores with participating managers. Mike opted to take the Radio Shack store a few blocks from our house. Because Mike now "owned" the store, he was able to hire whomever he wanted--including family members. To reduce expenses, he hired me to work at the store. Now I was a working woman again!

As a result, I gained a whole new appreciation for the problems of eating healthy while employed or studying away from home. It's tough! When I worked the morning shift, I made my fruit salad as usual and took with me whatever I had not had time to finish eating. But lunches were not so easy. I may have been able to walk to work and back, but lunch breaks were only half an hour--which didn't allow time for food preparation. Carrying affordable and healthy but interesting food was not easy, so lunch usually ended up being an apple and some cheap frozen microwaveable entré. I did purchase the occasional salad from a mall vendor, but that was too expensive to do all the time. Also, I must confess that I gave in to temptation far too often when I smelled the fragrance of burgers and meal specials wafting from the nearby deli!

And then of course there was the fact of being "too tired" to prepare a healthy dinner when I got home. Jonathan was also working for Mike, and the three of us were often on different shifts. On top of that, the kids were developing their own interests and away from home a lot. So we all started eating whatever, whenever and wherever. If Jennifer and I were the only ones home and the weather was suitable, I got into the habit of taking her out for dinner--using the excuse that we were having some rare together time. If Mike happened to be home, I'd get him to take me out or pick up takeout food. Since the kids were making their own money, they started buying their own stuff and sometimes treating us to pizza or KFC. Mike started buying big bags of chips on his way home from work several times a month and we started eating a lot of popcorn with butter and parmesan. By the time Mike's Joint Venture ended (we quit it at the end of January 2007, more in debt than ever) I had lost all momentum toward healthy eating.

I even got tired of preparing my daily fruit salad in the morning. I had fallen off the healthy food wagon, with no complaints from anyone--they liked all the tasty junk food we were eating!

Focussing on raw food

After I "retired" again, I went back to work on creating this new website (which has been a long labour of love, with a very steep learning curve). Knowing that my Health = Wealth section needed serious work, and my family needed serious help, I subscribed to a number of e-zines and read articles on all kinds of health issues. Since Jennifer's asthma had flared up with a vengeance and I developed tendonitis and arthritis in my right shoulder, my attention was drawn most often to those subjects. (For example, I learned that drinking "Purple Pectin" every day was "grandma's preferred treatment" for arthritis! To make "Purple Pectin," stir 1 tablespoon of Certo pectin into an 8-ounce glass of grape juice. It really does take the edge off the pain!)

The common denominator of the articles and websites that appealed to me most was--you guessed it--raw food. It makes perfect sense that if raw foods are the healthy things God provided for a steady diet in the Garden of Eden, then a return to raw foods should help reduce or eliminate health problems today.

There are numerous providers of raw food supplements and information in the world today, and there is lots of wonderful information to be had. Unfortunately, it seems like most of the professional "raw foodists" are into some strange kind of spirituality. As a result, although I would love to share with you some of the best websites I found in this arena, I am not going to--because I do not want anyone to associate me with strange spirits.

Green smoothies

I do want to tell you about something specific I learned, however. Did you know that chlorophyll is very similar to blood? It carries a significant amount of oxygen, which is critical for a healthy body. So the more chlorophyll you consume, the more oxygen (among other essential nutrients) you feed your cells, and the better you feed your cells the healthier you will be. The more oxygen there is in your cells, the less likely it is that cancer can get a foothold. I learned this from Victoria Boutenko, at Raw Family. The story of how she healed her family's serious health problems by going raw has impressed me considerably. So I purchased her books "Green for Life," "12 Steps to Raw Foods: How to End Your Dependency on Cooked Foods," and "Eating Without Heating." Each of them contains a number of raw food recipes that I've been trying out (along with our regular foods, because I have to work into this gradually with my gang).

Victoria is known as the "green smoothie" lady. She figured out that the best way to get enough greens into our bodies to fix all that is wrong with them is to blend the greens with fruit and enough water to make a palatable drink. By rotating through as many different kinds of greens as possible throughout the year, you can get many essential nutrients that would otherwise be missed. If you use a different kind of green leaf every day along with different fruits, you don't have to get bored. Use beet tops, the feathery fennel/anise leaves, bok choy, spinach, red lettuce, radish tops, fresh parsley, fresh dill, romaine--pretty much any green leafy thing you can find at the store.

These green smoothies can be quite tasty. When you are starting out, you might want to use more fruit than greens (say 60/40) and then work up to 50/50 and then 40/60. I don't know that you'd want to go any farther than that! The first smoothie I tried was made of peach and spinach, and it was delicious! The next day I tried frozen raspberries and bananas with romaine. Then I tried strawberry, banana and collard greens. Not bad, but the collard was very strong. Pineapple and kale is delicious! Actually, although I am not crazy about kale I've discovered it makes awesome smoothies. Pineapple makes any smoothie taste wonderful. Oranges work well--as long as you remove all the pits and white stuff. Frozen bananas or any frozen fruit makes smoothies nice and thick.

You can make savoury smoothies, too. I thoroughly enjoyed one I made with fresh parsley, dill, dried tomato, garlic and lemon. Carrot tops make good smoothies, but you have to discard all the stems and cut the leaves quite fine before subjecting your blender to them. I made a smoothie with carrot tops, red onion, garlic and dried tomato. (Although I think a fresh tomato would have been better.) One day I made something called raw tomato soup from a recipe. It included avocado and tahini--very nice! I don't recommend you use red cabbage, and the smoothie I made with cucumber was awful--although it's recommended a lot. Maybe you would like it.

Most of the raw foodists seem to recommend the VitaMix blender, which is very expensive. That's probably a wise choice, though, if you plan to do a lot of blending. We can't afford to buy one and it would not be cost-effective for us until my whole family is ready to eat mostly raw. So far, I've managed with a small 2-cup personal blender that I bought at Mike's store. We all love it!

Nut milks

Speaking of things to drink, I've learned you can make your own milk. "Milk" doesn't have to come from a cow; cow's milk is for baby cows! We stopped buying dairy products years ago and switched to soy milk for use on cereal and in cooking. (We tried several brands before settling on one that we like.) Soy milk is just a form of nut milk, but when commercially made is full of preservatives and other things you don't need to be consuming. You can make your own soy milk, though I've never tried it.

I have made nut milk, though. It's really easy! Just soak some nuts that you like for a few hours or overnight, and then blend and strain them. If you want, you can blend in a bit of honey or a couple dates for sweetening. I really like almond milk, and have purchased a couple of nut milk bags to make straining out the residue easier. The bits of nuts leftover after straining can be used in baking, or dried so they can be sprinkled onto cereal or salad some other day. No waste, no preservatives, and lots of healthy nutrition!

(By the way, those nut milk bags are also great for straining the pulp out of green smoothies for someone who really doesn't want to deal with it. Don't waste the pulp; just add it to someone else's smoothie, or add it to a soup or casserole.)

Sprouting

I also recommend you start sprouting a variety of seeds. Within 3-6 days you can have a crop of fresh young sprouts at their highest nutritional value. Put them in smoothies, on sandwiches, in salads. Some people even put them in casseroles and soups! Store your seeds in the fridge or freezer; it won't hurt them. (Let the seeds sit at room temperature for a couple hours before planting or soaking them.) I have mine in a Tupperware celery-keeper in the back of my fridge where they're out of the way but relatively easy to get to, and where they're also helping to keep my fresh produce from getting shoved into the too-cold zone!

I've even learned that the beans and grains you use in cooking and baking are more nutritious if sprouted first or even just soaked a few hours! If you cook them at a low temperature, so much the better. For example, I learned that I can cook rice on the stove without burning it. Imagine that! Just put the rice and water into a pot and bring it to a boil, then reduce heat to minimum and leave it for 30-45 minutes (depending on what kind you are cooking). No more microwaving rice, halleluyah! Since I've learned this method, I have also started cooking barley for the occasional meal. Barley doesn't have to be relegated to soups! It makes a delicious side dish or salad component.

There is nothing like having freshly grown food from your very own kitchen in the dead of winter! The Sprout People have an awesome, everything-you-need-to-know website and a very helpful e-group at Yahoo! If you want to buy online from a Canadian source, visit Mumm's, a Canadian supplier. I happened to buy my Mumm's seeds at my local health food store.

Outdoor crops

My next project, I think, will be to take a course on how to recognize edible wild plants. The time is not too far away when that will come in very handy--even if only to reduce grocery bills. I bet I'm growing some healthy stuff in my back yard that's just going to waste! At the very least there has to be good food growing in what we fondly call "the outback," an uninhabited green area behind our property. Blueberries grow everywhere around Sudbury and you can pick them free. Every year we see people out there picking blueberries and selling them to vendors, who sell them at high prices to consumers. What's growing in your vicinity? Why not collect it yourself?

Pick-your-own farms are great, too. Raspberries and strawberries in season...yummy! Ah, that raspberry jam I made was DELicious! Got rhubarb in the back yard? Use it!

We must get back to gardening! If you have land, use it for food instead of lawns. Use tiny strips around the house if that's all you've got, and raise tomatoes, radishes and green onions for your salads. Find some half-barrels and put in herbs. It's not difficult to dry those herbs for use in the winter, and they'll be oh-so-good for you! Try square-foot gardening, or fill your patio with planters. Everybody can do something!

Recipe for success

Eat lots more fresh raw fruits and vegetables, greens, whole grains, seeds, and nuts. Don’t rely on vitamins to do it for you--you need the nutrients that are in whole foods! God put the nutrients in various combinations in fruits and vegetables for a very good reason--they work together!!

Drink lots of water. Avoid dairy products as much as possible. If you must eat high salt and high sugar treats, do so much less often. Switch to celtic sea salt. Avoid refined foods (flour, sugar, salt) and unhealthy fats. Learn to effectively read food labels so you can identify the sneaky ways these are put into the things you are tempted to buy at the store. If you are going to eat bread and pasta, switch to whole grain versions--and try making your own! Try some new grains like spelt, millet, quinoa, kamut, and buckwheat. Eat whole grains like barley and brown rice instead of white rice. Eat much less and only clean meat. Eat no blood or animal fat. Add beans, peas and lentils to your diet--sprouted, if possible.

I do hope that I have learned these things early enough to avoid developing debilitating health problems in my final years! I’m sure there is much more for me to learn, and as I do so I will pass on the news--because I want you to be healthy too!

If you need further information about anything, please contact me by e-mail or contact form!

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