Mustard greens are too spicy for me, how do I mask the taste?
Archive for January, 2011
Range free eggs at Sam’s Club
I was able to buy range free eggs at Sam’s Club……Thought you would want to know.
If you saw what I see….part 2 of 2
If you make it even to 60 eating the Standard American Diet, without chronic health issues, you have dodged a bullet and you’re an exception to the rule. Your parents and grandparents degenerated the DNA you inherited, with their lousy diet. (They didn’t know better. You have more data and options, in 2011, so you have fewer excuses.)
(The fact that your mother’s father chain-smoked his way to age 103? That may be as useful and relevant as a glass eye in a keyhole, as my dad would say.)
(I’ve no clue what that means either.)
Let’s turn this thing around BEFORE an x-ray shows lesions on your nerve column in the spine and your right arm goes numb. Let’s change habit BEFORE cancerous cells become a diseased organ that you really need.
Let’s start supplying your body vibrant, living reds, greens, yellows, and oranges as fuel — instead of dead, chemical-preserved foods fried in toxic refined oils.
You can totally do it. Many people have, and are.
It’s an exciting revolution. Back to our roots. Living in the modern world with all its abundance but skipping the past century’s love affair with plastic-food addictions. It’s like straddling ancient and modern worlds, picking the best of both. It’s an exciting time to be alive—if we can be selective!
I stayed with my film crew after Thursday’s class, to film segments in the Good Earth, of the products I buy in health food stores. We also filmed the class; we’ll edit it and offer it on the site, soon, for those who live away or want to share the message with others who can’t attend.
If you saw what I see…..part 1 of 2
I wish you could be me for a few days, and talk to the people I talk to. It’s rather motivating in ways both negative and positive.
In the last week and a half, I’ve done 6 intro classes locally, several of them with over 100 in attendance. (Photos below of the last one in Sandy, UT, last wk.) About 30 usually stay after, to talk. This is what I learn from them, as well as many who write us on the site:
People are suffering.
Not just elderly people, but many in their 20’s and 30’s. On Thursday, I talked to a very young mother of babies who has just been diagnosed with nerve lesions and probable multiple sclerosis. She began to cry as she told me about it. An uber-fit weightlifting young mom who can barely function through the day and falls asleep in the car waiting to pick her son up from school, because she has no energy. Another gorgeous 30-ish mom of four whose husband died of a prescription drug reaction.
Help with anxiety
[posted by a reader]
I am going through some major problems in my life right now, out of my control. I am suffering from major anxiety and I am having panic attacks. I am tempted to start medication because I need a quick fix, something like Xanax to take the edge off. This is very uncharacteristic of me because I never use medication and follow GSG, but I am desperate right now. One of the sad things is, is that it will be cheaper to get medication. I need help. The only time I have felt free of my anxiety is when I eat 100% raw food, but I have a very hard time keeping it up. Any suggestions?
p.s. to yesterday’s blog
I had this phone convo with my dad yesterday:
Me: Dad, remember how you sprayed pesticides in your grampa’s cherry orchard when you worked for him, and a few times you got sprayed right in the face with no mask?
Dad: Sweetheart, I got sprayed many, many times in the face, not a few. Occasionally I’d tie a bandana around my face, but then I’d get hot and take it off and end up with chemicals in my face AGAIN.
[He tells a long story about how his uncle was once adjusting a nozzle and turned, as the pesticide was in a solid, high-pressure stream, and hit my dad in the face when Dad's mouth was open. He swallowed lots of it.]
Me: Wow. Okay, I was thinking the pesticide was Malathion. No?
Dad: Well, we did use Malathion. But no, the main ones we used were DDT and Parathion. Both of them have been banned for many years.
[Side note: The muckraking book Silent Spring linked DDT to massive human endocrine damage as well as wildlife devastation. The resurgence of the near-extinct bald eagle is linked to DDT being pulled from the market in approximately 1970, and the uproar over the chemical gave rise to today's environmentalist movement.]
Dad: All that pesticide I breathed and swallowed and soaked through my skin, for years, is the reason your mom thinks I’m gonna die before I turn 70.
Me: No you’re not! I need you around until you’re at least 90.
Dad: Well, the life my dad is living isn’t a life I really want. And my mother’s side….nobody lived to 60!
[He goes sideways with a long story about my grampa, 91 and senile, a recovered alcoholic/chain smoker who lives in a rest home. My brother Glen, named after my grampa, called him on his 90th birthday and said, "Hi Grampa, I'm Glen Openshaw, your grandson." And my grampa said, "Glen Openshaw?! That's MY name!"]
Me: You should read the China Study, about how cancer can be turned on or off depending on the fuel you choose to eat. Your heredity doesn’t doom you. Neither does toxicity exposure. Eat lots of plant food, okay Dad? Especially greens.
Dad: I have taken a lot of supplements and done a lot of detox to eliminate heavy metals. And yes, I eat a LOT of greens. Your mom makes green smoothies that you could cut with a knife. But yesterday the one she made was so good, I had seconds. Today I ate a huge salad at Texas Roadhouse Grill.
Me: Go you! Better than a steak! And, just add water to that smoothie.
Dad: The two guys I was with had a steak.
Me: Just one of the reasons you’re my hero, Dad. You go out to eat with GUYS, to a STEAKHOUSE of all places, and you order a salad! You’re the bomb.
[My dad then tells me about how he has questioned God for a long time about why He allows someone like my Grampa to far outlive his ability to progress. Dad believes it's so that all the people who interact with Grampa get an opportunity to prove who they are, with the way they treat him. For instance, the night employee at the rest home, who can choose to sit and watch TV, or provide love and care when no one is watching, to a lonely old man who doesn't appear to know the difference.]
I thought about that all day. My dad is so dang cool.
Does your heredity dictate whether you get cancer?
I saw my friend Glenn at the gym yesterday, hadn’t seen him in a long time. He’s a former BYU Marriott School of Management colleague (he’s still there—I’M former). His daughter has been Tennyson’s girlfriend since first grade even though they broke up for a few months in fourth grade when he decided she was “bossy.” Their only kiss was once when my kids and I were at Glenn and Angela’s house: Anna wrestled Tennyson to the ground and managed to fire one off on the top of his head.
I stopped to chat with him about Ten at the biggest game in Marriott Center history the night before—when Jimmer Fredette scored 43 points to help BYU beat #4 ranked San Diego State. I’d asked Ten, “What do you think it feels like to hear a sold-out crowd chanting, ‘YOU GOT JIMMERED!’” And Ten shrugged and nonchalantly said, “I dunno. I’ll tell you in a few years.”
(LOL! Maybe some “bossy” could do the kid some good!)
So Glenn said to me, “Hey, I’ve got a bone to pick with you! My wife went to your class last week and now I’m eating all this weird stuff! Green drinks! Seriously?!”
I said, “It’ll do you some good! Now you’re tenured, life is good—stick around for a while to meet all your grandkids and travel the world!” Glenn shook his head and said, no, my family is LOADED for cancer. All his grandfathers dead in their 50′s. (Interpretation: I’m screwed.)
I hear this a lot. It’s defeatist. I believe the China Study documents for us that risk factors we can do nothing about are only a small piece of the puzzle. Cancer is far from a foregone conclusion, even if your family, like mine and Glenn’s, has a lot of cancer. That is, it’s not foregone if you’re willing to change your diet and lifestyle.
My dad didn’t even wear a mask, spraying MALATHION in his grandfather’s cherry orchards as a teen and young adult. Sometimes he got accidentally sprayed full in the face, by his brother, with that deadly pesticide banned long ago in the U.S.! Why does my nearly-70 father still run 4 miles a day and has no cancer or any other health problem? (And his brother DOES have cancer.) I theorize it’s his long history of a 95% plant-based diet. My parents do kefir, alkaline water, grow their own produce, and eat very little sugar/white flour.
Campbell’s team injected groups of mice and rats with aflatoxin, a well known carcinogen. Only those who ate 20% animal protein got cancer. Those who ate 5% animal protein didn’t. (Remember, those eating 5% were injected with the deadly mold, too!)
Then his human study in China, tracking 6,500 people, showed very similar results. Those who ate 20% animal protein (like the average American) gained weight and acquired the modern diseases. The usual suspects: cancer, heart disease, auto-immune diseases. Those eating meat “sparingly” (5%) were lean even if they ate 200 calories per day MORE than meat eaters—and they didn’t get diseases.
In the rodent studies, the researchers switched the diets and watched fat, cancerous mice switched to a low-animal-protein diet get lean and TUMORS SHRUNK AND OFTEN DISAPPEARED.
My point? There’s always hope. Starting now, you can radically change your health. (I love repentance. Don’t you?)
RETREAT 2011!
I’m so excited to announce the 2011 GreenSmoothieGirl retreat, Overthrowing the Standard American Diet, One Family at a Time!
Come meet my posse of amazing nutrition-superhero friends—parents, authors, and chefs, all of them!–at Noah’s in Lindon, Utah, this April 21-23. We will instruct and inspire you in a direction that can profoundly change your life for the better.
My staff will cater meals featuring each author’s favorite recipes. We’ll be doing demos, workshops, panels, and all kinds of other fun stuff like yoga and mini-massages and meditations! The group will be small enough that you can meet and ask questions and get your books signed by any and all of the participants.
Bring the kids so we can change their paradigm too and let them rub shoulders with other kids and families who care about health and nutrition! They’ll visit an organic indoor farm, tour the healthy parts of a grocery store, and learn in lots of ways to cook and enjoy healthy food.
We have only 200 adult seats at the retreat, and all the other six authors participating will be announcing to their folks in a few days. You’re hearing it here first, so please grab your seat now.
If you register before Feb. 15, you get fun giveaways worth over $150 from EVERY ONE of the 7 superhero authors: tons of recipes, meal planners, gluten-free info, and support! Check it all out HERE.
Can’t wait!!
Who is GreenSmoothieGirl?
I did an interview with Leslie Smoot, and I’m posting it in 9 chunks over the next couple of weeks. Here’s the first one, where I’m asked, “Who is GreenSmoothieGirl?”
Babe says: It looks like S, it smells like S, it tastes like S
That’s what she called her friend and said, when she first started drinking green smoothies. (I am not recommending this as a method of winning your friends over to the habit. But that’s what she said.) It’s what she announced to 100 people in Riverton Friday night.
Still, I think it’s better than compressing whole leaves of kale and chard and swallowing them as fast as possible—minimally chewed—which is what you are seeing here, with my new friend Babe, the wisecracking massage therapist.
