The Doctor Cooks

Power of Food

This article originally appeared in the Kansas City Wellness Magazine.

Here’s a story about how Leann learned about the power of food.  Leann came to me so fatigued she spent most of the day in bed.  A battle over a family business had sapped her of her health.  I counseled her on the SOUL approach to eating—seasonal, organic, unprocessed and local, advised her to stop all dairy products and wheat, meditate and practice hatha yoga a little every day and prescribed her some bioidentical hormones. 

One year later, Leann was well enough to take a job in France.  She spent a year working in the countryside, where food is still grown on small farms with little use of chemicals.  Leann shopped for food daily, just like the locals.  She ate mostly fresh fruits and vegetables.  When she ate meat it was mostly duck, the traditional food of the area and beef from Argentina on rare occasion.  Argentinean beef is grass fed, instead of grain fed as is U.S. norm.  The meat of grass fed animals is leaner and healthier overall.

Within a few months, Leann’s shoulder pain disappeared completely.  She lost weight without trying.  It wasn’t long before she started to feel overdosed on her bioidentical hormones and began lowering the amounts she took.   Then due to a mistake on her visa renewal application, she suddenly had to return to the U.S.  Before she left France, she was taking only small amounts of the hormones I had originally prescribed to her.

Within 12 hours of her arrival in the U.S., her shoulder pain returned.  One and ½ months later she began to feel depressed.  That’s when she showed up in my office.  She denied feeling stressed, since she was being paid while her visa application was being straightened out and her life was otherwise going well.

“It’s the food,” I surmised, with anger and amazement.  “There is something wrong with our food compared to the food in France!”

“You think so?” asked Leann.

“You bet!”  I exclaimed.  “You need to take additional hormones to offset the load of hormones and hormone-like chemicals in our food and in our environment.  Your body can’t do it on its own.  Our food is too processed overall.”

Leann is already feeling better by increasing her hormone doses.  And she is now committed to eating 100% organic plant foods and pasture-fed, chemical-free animals. 

This story is an amazing illustration of the power of whole clean food to heal us.  But it also makes me angry because whole clean food is a human right we don’t get in this country.  As another patient asked me the other day, “Why is it so hard to eat healthy in this country?   Total junk food is dirt cheap and everywhere!”

Exercise your human right to whole clean food.  March is CSA sign-up time.  CSA stands for community supported agriculture.  The members subscribe for a fee and the farmer in turn delivers just picked fresh produce every week.  Learn more about CSA at www.thedoctorcooks.com.  The Farmers Community Market at Brookside opens mid-April and the KC Organics and Natural Market at Minor Park opens in early May.  Both markets specialize in organic produce.  You’ll feel better for it!

What Your Refrigerator Says about Your Health

This article originally appeared in the May 2008 issue of Kansas City Wellness Magazine.

If I could, I would look inside every patient’s refrigerator and pantry.  It would speak volumes about their present and future health.  The more packages, bottles and jars and the more brightly colored and busy their labels, the more ominous the prediction.  I whole heartedly agree with Michael Pollan, author of the best-selling books, the Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, “clear your home of any food your great-grandmother would not recognize.” 

But there are a few packages in my fridge and pantry.  I’d like to share with you a few healthful and delicious foods that your great-grandmother would have enjoyed.

This kitchen do-it-yourselfer just can’t bring herself to juice wheat grass--yet.  Last year I discovered Evergreen Wheatgrass Juice.  It is 100% organic, outdoor grown, expeller pressed then immediately frozen.  It comes in an ice cube tray-like plastic package.  The plastic tray is easily separated into individual cubes with scissors.  Simple remove the plastic seal and pop out a cube.  The cubes can be soaked in warm water to melt while still in their packages.  I love these in smoothies and in my morning glass of fresh veggie juice.  Wheat grass is good for every disease type, but especially for the slow metabolism types.

I discovered Lydia’s Organics last fall at D’Lish, a fantastic vegan/raw restaurant in Sedona, AZ.  Three of their grainless, gluten, sugar and oil-free products grace my pantry.

Grainless Apple Cereal is a delicious mix of organic dehydrated apples, sprouted sunflower seeds, sprouted almonds, raisins, soaked walnuts, figs, sprouted flax and cinnamon.  ½ cup with warm rice milk keeps me humming all morning without the energy drain I often feel from wheat.

I recommend people eat their nuts and seeds raw instead of roasted to avoid denaturing the omega-3 fatty acids and the resulting advanced glycation end products.  Known as AGE’s, these fierce oxidizing agents indeed age you.  The biggest complaint I get from patients about raw nuts is that they miss the crunch.  Well you can have health and the crunch, too with Lydia’s Organic Savory Trail Mix.  She dehydrates sprouted sunflower seeds, sprouted pumpkin seeds, sprouted almonds, and seasons it with wheat-free tamari, dulse, cayenne and Himalayan crystal salt.  A palm-full of Savory Trail Mix is a regular afternoon snack for me.

You would never find crackers in my pantry until now.  Lydia’s Organics makes these amazing crackers from dehydrated vegetables, sprouted seeds, soaked nuts and seasonings.  Two is all I need with a bowl of soup or topped with pumpkin seed butter for a quick snack.

Because Lydia’s products are dehydrated they are not the best for disease of lightness and dryness.  They are a more healthful alternative to plain nuts and seeds for disease of oiliness.  I’ll continue my series on the disease types next month.

Whole Foods Market in Overland Park sells Evergreen Wheatgrass Juice.  I buy Lydia’s Organics products at www.naturalzing.com.  This website features a full line of dehydrated nuts and seeds for you crunch-seekers! 

Lose weight, rid yourself of health problems and end your dietary confusion by living according to your disease type.  Bethany Klug, D.O. is now offering disease type consultations in person or by phone.  Make an appointment by calling 913-642-1900.  Learn more about disease type and restoring health with holistic medicine at www.bethanyklug.com and simple healthy cooking at www.thedoctorcooks.com.

STUDY FINDS THAT ORGANIC & SUSTAINABLE FARMING INCREASES YIELDS BY 79% OR MORE

A new study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology indicates that low-income farmers in developing nations who adopt sustainable organic farming practices increase crop yields by an average of 79%. In addition, the healthier soil allows the crops to better withstand drought. Sustainable farmers save additional money by using less water, eliminating pesticides and chemical fertilizers, and by avoiding high-priced genetically engineered seeds. The study adds to the ever-growing body of scientific evidence that sustainable farming practices are key to feeding and preserving decent livelihoods for the 40% of the world's population who are still farmers or rural villagers. Learn more>> 

ENDING BOTTLED WATER WILL SAVE MONEY & ENVIRONMENT

BOTTLED WATER ISN'T NECESSARILY CLEANER: According to the San Francisco Chronicle and lawsuits from the Environmental Law Foundation, 40% of bottled water is really just repackaged tap water. Maybe that's a good thing, considering federal standards for tap water are actually higher than those for bottled water.

BOTTLED WATER AND OIL: Supplying Americans with plastic water bottles for one year consumes more than 47 million gallons of oil, according to the Container Recycling Institute. That's enough to take 100,000 cars off the road and 1 billion pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Add in the additional amount of oil it takes to ship the bottles thousands of miles from extraction source to recipient, and your drink of H2O could be categorized with the "Hummers" of the world.

BOTTLED WATER AND BIODEGRADABILITY: Buddha's bones turned to dust a long time ago. But if he had been a bottled water drinker, that plastic would still be laying around. It takes two minutes to drink a bottle of water, but it takes thousands of years for that piece of plastic garbage to go away.

SOLUTION: Buy a water filter and a non-plastic water container of your preferred size. Fill it up in the morning before you go to work or school. Do a quick online search, and you can also find affordable portable water filters for when you are traveling. You'll save yourself and the environment a lot of expense.

MOST POPULAR "FRUIT" PRODUCTS BEAR NO FRUIT

A recent study by the Prevention Institute found that the majority of products with images of fruit on their labels actually contain little or no fruit at all. The study assessed 37 heavily marketed "fruit" products and found that 51% had absolutely no fruit and another 16% had minimal amounts of fruit (less than 10%). Products that ranked among the worst in the study included Smuckers Jam, Fruit Rollups and Froot Loops.
Read the full study>>>

What's Up with the FDA?

There appears to me a clear trend by FDA and USDA to limit our access to pure, clean food or at least make it impossible to tell if it is pure and clean.  Please read this edition of Organic Bytes, and consider supporting the work of the Organic Consumers Association.

Foiled in MO, GMO Rice Moves to KS

Organic food producers and concerned citizens prevented Ventria Bioscience from bring GMO rice to Missouri.  Now they've crossed the state line and are attempting to bring this rice to Kansas.  GMO manufacturers emphasize benevolent motives behind genetically modified organisms.  But the impact of GMOs is clearly unproven.  The companies themselves have stood in the way of this by using patent rights to prevent research institutions, such as universities, from conducting experiments to prove GMO safety.  Learn more>>>

Organics: Are They Worth It?

Here's one of the more thoughtful articles comparing organics to conventional that I've found.  Author Peter Jaret asks all the right questions.  Learn more>> 

Eating Green

This article originally appeared in my January 2007 column in the Kansas City Wellness Magazine, www.kcwellnessmagazine.com.

Eating green means more than eating your vegetables.  Your food choices can go a long way to shaping a sustainable, health promoting and humane food system.  Here’s how:

Go Organic

It’s clear.  Organic is better for all concerned, you, farmers, farm workers and the environment.  Concerned about the cost of going 100 % organic?  Lately the price spread between organic and conventional has narrowed.  If you still need help deciding where to spend your organic dollars, check out the Environmental Working Group Shoppers Guide to Pesticides in Produce at www.foodnews.org.

Unhappy Meals

Last week, I excerpted from a recent New York Time's article by Michael Pollan, the author of the bestselling book, The Omnivore's Dilemma.  Here's the entire article for your enjoyment.