Nutrition and Chronic Disease
This past month I have been trying to solve my nasal issue. It's been a chronic issue I have
had since birth. Recently I have not been able to smell anything at all and I was fed up with the
issue.
Just to give you an idea of what this is like, it means food has only textures to it, no complexity, just salt,
sweet and sour.
You can't smell beautiful things such as perfumes from blossoms or taste a delicious fruit pie. There is anupside I could not smell my son's smelly diapers (nappies). The only way I could smell something was by getting very close up to it and sniffing intensely. Sometimes that did not work either and recently I found I could not
smell anything at all.
This issue had affected many areas of my life and considering I was in the wine trade for 10 years and I know a tremendous amount about taste and smell, it was a great disappointment to me that I could not enjoy so many beautiful foods and wines. This was one of the primary reasons I left wine the trade, there were many times when I could not smell anything, and my ability to smell and taste was the instrument of my trade.
So as a META-Medicine Master and Master Trainer - What was the cause of my chronic issue? Was it food related? An allergy? A shock or was it a combination of all of these things?
The problem with my nose has been an issue for me since I was born. I have pictures of me when I was 2-3 with a bib under my chin which is covered in watery mucous. Apparently I almost drowned in my own snot when I was 2 months
old. I had surgery at age 7 and 10 to resolve the problem and this included removal of tonsils and adenoids. This helped to a degree. I no longer had the mucous but my nose has been continuously blocked with minutes now and again of having an unblocked nose and being able to smell. So there has always been a problem.
In an effort to resolve the problem I went to my trusted META-Medicine Health Coach and we worked on the trauma issues behind the problem. I knew this was to do with the strained relationship between my father and mother and how their marriage 'stank'. They ended up separating when I was 6 years of age. I knew the emotional clearing had to be done before anything else and I was no surprise to me that, the emotional clearing work did not solve the issue. From experience I knew I had to address other environmental issues as well if I wanted to get my sense of smell back. The issue had been around a long time after all and I knew my body needed extra work to complete the process.
So I approached my local, very skilled homeopath called Dorothy Wood. I have had success working with her on my right ankle issue which I wrote about in the revised addition of my book. She prescribed probiotics and some special 'channelled' homeopathic remedies called UNDA, these all seemed to address my mucous issue from a dietary point of view. I took the course and my nose started to clear up and as a bonus so did the stiffness in my body that I have also been suffering from for many years. This stiffness she described was related to my nasal issue as well and the problem with mucous all stemmed from my digestive system as it affected the production of the mucous in my body.
She also prescribed a change in my diet. This involved removing wheat, dairy, coffee and refined sugar from my diet. Luckily this was very easy for me since I rarely touch any of those things and it required a simple adjustment of my diet to make the changes. But I had removed all these things before and it had not affected my sense of smell or my stiffness. So was it a combination of clearing the trauma's; I did this , assisting my body into what to do next through the homeopathy and changing the internal environment of my body with probiotics and a change in diet that changed everything?
It was then that I started to look into nutrition in a little more detail. How important is changing diet in resolving chronic issues? Could I have solved this issue without changing my diet?
It was during this time that I have befriended a lovely lady at our local 'Farmers Market' here in Grimsby, Ontario, Canada, where I live. Her name is Michelle Seaborn www.silmarilfarm.ca. She runs a farm and I buy my eggs and chickens from her at the local market. You can see her store here with her friend Rosalind Bailey serving. Michelle's eggs are fantastic and one of her chickens feeds us as a whole family for a week! The meat is amazing. That got me thinking even more about the questions about nutrition and health that I have been exploring for many years.
.jpg "Grimsby Farmers Market, Ontario Canada")
Grimsby Farmers Market in Ontario, Canada
Why does this type of locally produced food taste so good? why don't we eat this type of good food all the time? Why do people buy so much processed junk and fast food? What are we really being served in our supermarkets? Is there something sinister happening to the food in our food chain? Could mass produced foods be making our chronic symptoms worse? Could fast food be the cause of many chronic diseases? Could clearing shocks, eating well and assisting the body to heal be a major factor in resolving chronic issues?
I wrote to Michelle about this: - What follows is a little of our correspondence. Plus I made a link to a great film called Food Inc, www.foodincmovie.com which is all about how food is no longer something we believe is sacred and designed to feed us all as a community. But, instead is has been turned into a commodity that makes a handful of people extremely wealthy at the expense of the masses. The film is based on food production in America; but I am certain the same is happening in Europe and other continents. Here is my email to Michelle followed by her reply.
(The whole Food Inc movie comes in 11 parts. Buy a copy from their site.)
"Hi Michelle
Here are two interesting articles by Dr Mercola on eggs. (Dr Mercola is a well informed American doctor whose website is read by millions worldwide. He is a great advocate for researching and pushing integrative approaches to wellness. - Ed)
Jeremiah Cunningham explains the Mother Earth News nutritional results showing why pastured eggs are so much better than free range.
Where your supermarket eggs come from? Taken from the Channel4 program Dispatches - Supermarket Secrets. Highly disturbing.
....and Organic eggs and salmonella.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/09/14/are-organic-eggs-safer.aspx
I am sending you these articles although I am sure you probably know this stuff already, it’s what people are reading that’s important. As a example my wife’s mother still buys eggs as cheaply as she can. Crazy. And she takes my son to McDonald's as a treat! I get brushed aside when I challenge her. My wife's father also is very opinionated about food, and even though he has had a triple bypass operation he believes what McDonald's offer, as food, is good quality.
Have you seen Food Inc? The movie. Scary stuff. www.foodincmovie.com. Education for the masses. I am going to give my wife's Mum a copy. (I have since found out she has seen it - Ed) Would you like to watch it?
But here’s the thing that interests me, even my wife, who watches, listens and sees what I am researching into through me, she is still tempted by cheap food. Note: we don’t buy many processed foods, we are very careful with what we eat. What to do? When even the educated are swayed by savings and commercialism? Are we turning into this society that wants everything as cheap as possible without considering the long term consequences of our actions?
It’s everywhere, not just in food. A new survey (housing estate) being built on the mountain just around the corner from you to make some individual rich - we don’t need a survey on the mountain – leave that land for farming. The town letting Tim Horton’s (a mass drive through coffee chain, like a McDonald's but for coffee and donuts) rip down a beautiful house, a part of our Grimsby heritage, they could have built anywhere else and torn down something useless along that road.
Frankly it p%*$^s me off.
In the UK we have seen what happens when you focus on 'THE NOW' and don’t think about the future, at least in the UK we have had good planning practices in place since the 1960s that would not allow those types of things to happen. But my point is the UK copies America and so do Canada in many of their practices.
Especially when it comes to getting everything in 'THE NOW' and that applies to cheap food. America may be powerful but they will fall, if they have not already, if they keep up these unquestionable, unhealthy, living practices. I wanted to know what your thoughts are and any ideas on how we can educate the local population to buy locally produced and well made food. This is the Niagara peninsula after all. This whole area should be able to produce all the food we need to sustain a healthy diet and promote wellness. The link between good food and wellness is undeniable now. We all have to stop looking towards a quick fix for 'THE NOW' and instead we need to act for the future bearing in mind the consequences of our actions.
Richard"
Here is her reply which surprised and encouraged me: -
"Hi Richard
Well, I have just spent an interesting hour going through all the articles that you sent to me. I have not seen Food, Inc, but will seek a copy now that my interest is peaked.(I have given her my copy - Ed) I enjoyed the "articles, Mercola" site as well and followed a few of the threads - some of them get pretty hotty. It is amazing what people's perceptions are. I have worked in many areas of the food industry, I have a BSc in Agriculture and an MSc in Animal Nutrition and Sciences from the University of Guelph which gave me a pretty good idea of what goes in, what comes out, and the value of everything in-between. Perception is reality for many people. If they perceive that a product is a good product, then to them it is. Price is a major factor - people are sometimes forced to buy lower costing food. I was amazed a few years ago when I first went on the Weight Watcher's program and learned how to eat properly. I found that I was spending the same amount of money each week for good food because I no longer filled my cart with empty calories!
I also spend a lot of time "educating" customers at both the farmers market and the farm about the differences between "organic" , "natural fed", "free range", etc. Many shoppers know the key words but I am not convinced that they understand the difference. I had a vendor (not at our market) claim that he raised free range organic chicken eggs. He lived on a small farm surrounded by corn and soy bean fields. Now, in order to be organic, the animals (or plants) have to be a minimum of 400 feet away from any chemical sprays. I am not sure that a bunch of chickens that are picking away in an adjacent corn field that has been sprayed with Roundup and a variety of pesticides can be called organic - free range definitely, but not organic. Our chickens, turkeys and lambs are natural fed - that means appropriate feed (commercial in the case of poultry) that is free of animal by-products, no growth promoters, no hormones, no antibiotics. The chicken feed is a pelleted feed of soy bean, corn, wheat, and vitamins and minerals. The layers also get a bit of oyster shell as grit and for shell quality. Sheep are fed whole corn grown locally and hay that I produce.
Most farmers understand that to do it well means to do it right. No farmer is going to spend thousands of dollars on needless sprays or trips through the fields. Minimal spray programs have been the norm in Ontario for years. Canada has the highest standards for chemical safety for farm products. There are a huge number of sprays and chemicals that are used in US and overseas operations that are banned in Canada - they are simply not deemed safe. Canada has the highest quality food in the world, and in many cases the cheapest.
We do not have million hen operations in Canada, nor the huge factory farms that you see in the US. Most of the large US farms are owned by multi-million dollar corporations that push production in order to make money. In Canada, several of our livestock productions products are governed by a quota system, a licensing system that allows farmers to produce about 95% of what the Canadian population will use. The other 5% is imported. These products include eggs, chicken, turkeys and all dairy milk products. The price (supply and demand) is set for these products and farmers can expect a fair market return. In the US, and other countries without this system, every day that the animal stays in a barn costs the corporation money. If they can grow a chicken to maturity in 49 days, the same chicken that takes a small farmer (like myself) 70 + days to grow, then they stand to make money. The use of growth promoters in the chicken and turkey industry is huge, even in Canada. While these products are "safe" for human consumption because they only interact with the animal and are not passed through the final meat product (????) people still don't like the idea of having these foreign products in their food. You are what you eat - that goes for the chicken or turkey as well! In the US, without price guarantees, and production limitations, the farm that can get a chicken out the fastest, in the fewest number of "in barn days" stands to gain. The profit margin on a US chicken may only be a few cents, therefore, time and quantity are real important.
I seem to be rambling here, and for that I am sorry. It is a strong point with me, can you tell? In summary, buy local, eat local, get to know where your food is coming from. Niagara, Ontario, and Canada produces the safest food out there.
Cheers,
Michelle"
In conclusion, the answer is to buy local, research what you eat. Organic, natural fed and free range are at least a start in the right direction. But we are seeing that even the big multi-nationals are getting their hands into these pies.
The answer is pause before you buy something. Do your research and you will be surprised at what you can buy, for less, that is just around the corner from you. (Michelle's eggs are $3 a dozen. Organic eggs from the supermarket are $5 a dozen.) And don't believe what you read from the large multi-national corporations, that includes supermarkets and large multi-national fast food chains. They are in it to make money and they are not in it to feed you, good wholesome food.
Eating healthily is not just about salads and eating greens anymore, its about where you source your food, ask your butcher where he gets his/her meats. Buy fruit and vegetables that are in season from local producers and ask them where they get their seeds and how much they spray. Don't buy cheap, instead buy well and you will find you will buy less and spend less. Spend the time doing this and it will pay you back in how much energy you have and your overall health, ten fold.
And as regards my nose. I have had a lot of success and I plan to carry on with more treatments through Dorothy to complete this process. I can only describe what being able to smell again is like, by getting you to imagine you had grey filters covering your eyes and then someone took them off. You could suddenly see clearly. Its the same for my sense of smell. I can now smell a lot more than I could 2 weeks ago. Right now I can smell what my wife is cooking, locally sourced sausages and delicious locally grown vegetables, in a stew. All cheaper than the supermarket's food. Delicious.
In conclusion - Our long term health requires us to look at every aspect of our lives. Clearing the shocks that cause traumas to occur may be enough in some instances but we also need to look at our environment and what we are eating. Our guts hold a lot of information and that affects every part of us. You are what you eat as Michelle puts it.
Don't believe the marketing literature shoved down your throats through multi-national advertising campaigns by large food corporations; they are the ones with the money that can afford to pay for these advertisements, and they carry out skewed research projects that prove their food is safe and healthy - when clearly it is not. See the movie Food inc for more information regarding this statement. Or just look up Aspartame on Doctor Mercola's site if you don't believe me. (Aspartame is a sweetener commonly known as Nutrisweet and is in over 90% of diet drinks.)
And if its cheap there must be a reason. Research and educate yourself and your family if you want to live a healthy, energetic, chronic disease free long life.
