The Lady With the Alligator Purse

Shopping for Real Food

2009-10-26T12:10:10Z

Now, what do I buy? (A printable shopping guide)

So... You've put on your big girl boxers and bravely gone through your kitchen with a trash bag, and thrown away the Twinkies, the Prince spaghetti and everything containing high fructose corn syrup and red dye forty.

You now stand in Safeway, or Krogers, or Purity Supreme and... Colorful packaging cries out to you. Reaching for the Kix, you hesitate. If it's not Kix for breakfast, Peanut Butter Fluff sandwiches for lunch and Lazy Lasagna for supper, then what do we eat?

Laurie Ann, who has bravely bushwhacked her way through the overgrowth before you, will lead the way.

First, note the floor plan: We will circle the store exterior counterclockwise, ignoring the inner aisles except for a quick foray down the beans/rice/spice section and the paper goods.

So grab a big cart, and turn right.

Here, if your grocery store is laid out like most, there will be a few attractive impulse items, but peaking through, you will see... Vegetables. Fresh Fruit. Our “real food” shopping begins here.

Browse the organic produce first, but don't spend a fortune. Personally, rather than worry about organic vs. conventional, I prefer grown in USA or in native climes to I-wonder-what-they-use-for-pesticide in that Latin American country.

The important thing is: pause and buy lots here. Veggies have a bad rap as being expensive, but pound for pound, they are much cheaper than junk food, and are much more filling. If you have never lingered here before, take the time to familiarize yourself with what is available besides potatoes, carrots, celery, onion and broccoli. Some of you may have never know there was anything else!

Many stores offer exotic but easy-to-use vegetables like Napa Cabbage, tomatillos, asparagus and varieties of unpronounceable mushrooms. Pick something new to try, Think of at least one vegetable dish that you like but don't make often, or have never made, and add the ingredients to your shopping list – maybe ratatouille or broccoli salad or kimchi. You have my phone number in your mobile, and can call me to look up the recipe online.

To move ahead, you may want to just grab a couple of bags of your favorite fruit, and plan to linger by the fruit section next time, using the same process: take note of what is organic, what is grown in scary places, and what is in season.

Next, make haste to the next refrigerated section. It will probably be the dairy or the meat section.

In the dairy, we will buy cheese that has 3 ingredients: milk, salt and cultures. Orange cheese is acceptable if it is colored with annatto, but not with food dye. I've seen that often the store brand of cheese is “cleaner” than name brands. We will buy hard cheese that is sold by the pound, not processed cheese that is sold by the slice. Once again, take note of any healthy but unfamiliar food. Have you ever bought fresh mozzarella? Lots of uses for that in real food!

Ideally, of course, you have found a raw dairy in your community and will buy milk, cream and cheese there. Failing that, you will buy cheese, yogurt and butter. That's it. No “pasteurized, homogenized 2%” . If you drink cream in your coffee, buy the best cream you can and pledge to find a raw food dairy – soon.

Buy a lot of eggs. “Eggs! It's what's for breakfast!” and has many, many uses. If you need to, read up on the cholesterol hoax and the Framingham heart study (Which was a big success... but the patients died).

In the meat section, take stock. There will be a greater variation from store to store and region to region here than anywhere. Read labels and try to find meat that contains.... meat. Smart chicken, Angus beef and chemical free turkey are often available where I shop. Ring up the guy behind the glass and ask him if any of the beef is cleaner. He may know. You may want to buy one high-quality item from the fresh case, such as salmon or lamb kabobs.

- Oh, my, you are exhausted! But keep in mind: Once you find the clean food in the grocery store, shopping goes REALLY FAST! No more reading labels, or comparing eighteen brands. There is usually only 2 or 3 choices among things like butter, celery and clean ground beef.

And we are almost done.

Whip through the frozen food area and buy some “emergency rations” of vegetables, and some fruit for your morning shake.

Take some time in the coffee/tea aisle to buy some nice beverages. You are going to be slowing down and spending more time in the kitchen, so make it pleasant :b And fill the spaces where the soda, milk, juice and sport drinks used to go with some nice chai, blueblerry tea or shade-grown-fair-trade-organic coffee. A quick check of ingredients to avoid vanillin and other “artificial flavors”.

Leave your cart in the aisle, and dash down the cereal aisle and grab a box of Old Fashioned Oatmeal in an appropriate size for your family, and a bit of dried fruit, and dash back out again.

In the beans/rice/spices area, buy a nice quality of sushi or jasmine rice, some colorful beans, such as black turtle beans, and a tiny bag of organic cane sugar. Buy a big jar of raw honey, a good quality of maple syrup. If needed, buy olive oil and live apple cider vinegar. If you have a budget for it, buy coconut oil and other expeller pressed oils. NO cheap vegetable oils.

Finally, buy food storage and freezer bags, trash bags and toilet paper, and you are DONE!

Tomorrow... we will address, “What do we eat?”

Have you taken a bath lately? (Or, Calgon Take Me Away!)

2009-10-18T13:23:40Z

Fall out of bed, jump in the shower, gulp back a glass of juice (or, more horrifyingly, a can of pop) drive through at Cappucino Express and ! Boom ! your "morning toilette" is done.

While there are many things in this routine that are not-so-hotsy-totsy, skim problems, sleep problems and anxiety problems can be adressed at the "quick shower" stage.

Like many of the conveniences of modern life, no scientific research was done on what impact showering would have on the human body.

Your skin is your largest organ. It absorbs and stores or uses what it comes in contact with, oozes out air, water and toxins. Nerves react with split second timing to external stimulus, as the brain sorts the level of importance and appropriate response.

Here is some impact your shower has:
1. The oils of your body, which keep it supple and healthy, go down the drain. We run the shower hotter than a bath, so there is more impact.
2. While the heat of the water and the steam are relaxing, one is standing and moving rather that resting.
3. A large number of the poisons we use on our skin are applied at the bath stage of our day.

Worry about body odor consumes a huge portion of our budgets and of Madison Avenue advertising time. When did smelling like a human being become a crime ? <++>

One thing I have discovered is that changing my diet and drinking habits have greatly reduced body odor. If the body has sufficient clean, healthy water to wash away toxins, and is not trying to digest and use putrid processed dead food, it smells quite a bit nicer.

If you must shower daily, as modern standards dictate, at least try to add a weekly bath in to your routine.

Here are some good things about taking a bath instead:

1. Magnesium deficiency is a very common cause of various ailments, such as anxiety and improper uptake of calcium. Epsom salts, Himalayan sea salt, or other healthy mineral salts can be added to the water.
2. Young Living Essential Oil aromatherapy right in the water gives a boost.
3. It's a great time to do the Neti Pot routine.
4. The magnesium is a sleep aid.
5. The addition of healthy oils and salt in the bath cleanses and relieves skin rashes.

Add to your bath, about a "handful each"
1. Epsom salts
2. A nice mineral salt such as Himalayan or Dead Sea.
3. Baking Soda
4. Live apple cider vinegar, such as Bragg's.
And finally,:
5. An essential oil such as Young Living's Eucalpytus Blue or a blend such as Joy or Abundance.

Any or all of these will up the benefit of a relaxing bath. Beware commercially prepared bath salts, as they will most likely contain neurotoxic fragrances.

Do yourself a fava'... Take a bath instead!

Poisons And Essential Oils (Script to share)

2009-10-12T01:02:03Z

(I'm sharing this for the benefit of other Essential Oils Mavens. Perhaps others will find it of interest as well.)

There has been some interest in “30 ways to poison yourself before breakfast” and sharing the oils with people who are financially strapped. And using a bit of humor, too.

I got a great response to this thought stream in person, too, so I'll share it here:

These oils seem new, but they aren't new at all. Until about 50 years ago, people used these in their everyday lives. They put fragrant oils in their hair oil. In their clothing drawers. Fresh flowers in their homes. Where else? (right, perfumes, soaps.) When people spent time outdoors in the garden in the summer, they inhaled these fragrances.

“Essential oils” are what used to be called “perfumes” colognes, or “fragrances”. Most people didn't know they had all the therapeutic values I'm teaching you about – Why did they use them? (right – because they smelled good. ) They made people feel good, even though they didn't know why.

In the Bible we see women using these oils... Esther with the King, Ruth with Boaz. They were using oils that made them more healthy, more fertile, more attractive. The prostitute in Proverbs said, “Hey, baby, I used myrrh oil on my sheets.” (wink) Did you ever wonder about that?

What do women use now? When a college-age girl gets ready in the morning what does she put on her body? (Shampoo. Conditioner. Mousse. Lipstick, chapstick, foundation, hand cream... on and on.) What is in these things?

There's an article on the Internet called, “30 ways to poison yourself before breakfast (laugh). (http://www.eatonessentials.com/news/skincare/30poisons.htm)

Until 50 or so years ago, the pretty smells in these things would have been healing. The soap would have been made with ashes and fat and oils from flowers and herbs. Now, as often as not, these are full of petroleum products and poisons. (Most people know this, if not, have the hostess read the ingredients from some of hers!) There is smelly stuff in the bathtub cleaner, the deodorizer thing in the electric outlet... Has anyone here ever gotten a headache from the “health and beauty aid aisle” in the store?

And, (stress this) the smells in most household products themselves are now being made synthetically. They don't come from flowers, they come from labs. You can smell the difference! The lavender would have been real lavender. Now, they adulterate these smells so that they are not healing you, they are making you sick!

So, even though the name, “essential oils” is not familiar, these are oils that have been used for all of human history.

This is a lost art, and the oils I'm showing you will help you reintroduce these healing oils into your everyday lives! You can smell good, without poisoning yourself 30 ways before breakfast!