Missed Anniversary and Letter-day; Blog Accountability; More on the Great Health Debate; Mountain Dragon

Missed Anniversary and Letter-day

Perhaps it's not surprising that I missed my blog's first anniversary, given that my parents don't remember their wedding date and we don't even know my mom's actual birthdate for certain (they never quite got clear on converting the date from the Jewish lunar calendar to the western solar calendar). But there it is: in the midst of all this discombobulated to-ing and fro-ing between here and Anchorage, February 1st, the anniversary of this blog's beginning, came and went unremarked. So, happy belated birthday, little blog!

I don't have much to add to that today, but over the next week or so, I will offer some reflections on what this year of blogging has allowed me to offer, what it has brought me, where it came from and where it's going.

Another milestone that came and went this week was my completion of a second 12-week chelation cycle. This is the end of a huge detoxification procedure that began with the removal of mercury fillings last April and May and hopefully leaves my body largely free of the mercury and lead with which she was riddled. Which means that the coast (or tract) is clear for some effective yeast cleansing--on with the rollercoaster and more dietary tweaks coming up soon. 

Chelation involved taking capsules of DMSA, a sulfur-based compound that escorts metals from the body, following each week of this with a Vitamin C IV and then a rest week of mineral replacement. It's a harsh process (nausea, paresthesias (weird physical sensations), crankiness, constipation, mood swings), which I mitigated by sweating in the steam shower--that seemed to help me not to feel quite so lousy. I have to say, though, that the last couple of cycles really were not so uncomfortable and nauseated. This was probably due largely to diminishing amounts of toxic metals mobilizing out, but the addition of starch to my diet and resultant improvement in general 'motility' may have helped too.

I want to get on to talking about The Great Health Debate, so I'll table the post-chelation talk too, but I believe that it's important to celebrate the end of this arduous process.

The Great Health Debate and Blog Accountability

Since my last post, we've heard David Wolfe and Daniel Vitalis, both of whom I know personally and am very familiar with, and Drs J. E. Williams and Alan Goldhamer, both of whom I hadn't heard of before. Tonight, it's Mark Sisson and Frederic Patenaude--I know Frederic and have worked with him (but years ago now) and am at least somewhat familiar with Sisson's work. Two more nights to go after this!

It's probably not at all surprising, but I confess that at this point I'm feeling very confused about diet and nutrition! Just to help that confusion, I've recently been making dietary experiments on my own account, between decreasing PUFAs and adding starches, so I was hardly on firm ground to begin with. However, Tina recently talked on her blog about feeling grateful for the feeling of accountability it engenders and I'm with her on that. When this whole Great Debate is over, after I've summarized what I see as the most important points, I'll talk a bit about my personal dilemmas. 

For now, though, I'm going to continue offering selected observations about the last two nights of talks, as objectively as I can. 

The last two nights were an interesting foursome of talks indeed: a nice contrast for me in that the first pair were very familiar to me and the second totally unfamiliar.

Wolfe and Vitalis

Wolfe and Vitalis share a keen interest in wild plant and fungal foods (superherbs) and their nutritional and vibrational importance, as well as the recognition that it is difficult to acquire adequate calories from these alone: they address this shortfall in very different--opposite ways. Vitalis' approach is atavistic: a return, as near as possible, to 'our ancestral diet,' turning his back on farmed, mass-produced, altered foods: a local, all-wild-food diet, which inevitably means going to animal foods for caloric bulk. Wolfe, instead, turns to the state of the art that modern technologies can offer, bringing the ultimate distillations of the most powerful foods from all over the world. He agrees on the importance of local foods, but eschews animal products to avoid the karmic implications of eating them. I appreciated this spiritually-oriented approach: spiritual karma is really the other side of the physical fact of toxin accumulation associated with eating higher on the food chain. Just because it's spiritual/non-tangible, it's not to be dismissed.

I love David Wolfe's charisma and dedication to creating positive energy: however, a lot of the time I wish that he had his facts straighter! As a Classical Linguist, I find many of his etymological and historical excursions very frustrating, and the inaccuracy contained there tends to make me doubt the credibility of some of his other assertions. I wish that I'd gotten in his face back when I was a regular in the kitchen at his events and asked him to have me edit for him! His comments on chocolate were a whitewash, for sure. He simply dismissed the notion that it causes a problem for anyone (which already makes his claims suspect, because so many have experienced trouble) and insisted that in historical studies, together with olive oil and honey, it's the number one longevity food! (Now, where do those three coexist? I can think of many places where honey and one of the others coexist locally, but where do olives and cacao both grow? I've seen some olive trees on the Kona side in Hawaii, but marginally...)  Something else that David said about which I'm somewhat dubious is that it's a scientific fact that Caloric Restriction creates longer lifespan. Now, as a diehard restricter, you'd think I'd be all over that! But from the research that I've been looking at lately, I'd have to say that the CR hypothesis remains that and is not an established fact at all. But the overall message of increasing your vibration, seeking out the best, doing your best, is always delightful.

Daniel Vitalis is also a very charismatic and persuasive speaker, and his points about the equation between agriculture and deforestation, between cultivating and diminution of potency, are very thought-provoking. The contrast in vigor, speed of growth and herbal properties between wild and cultivated greens in climates as diverse as Hawaii and Alaska has always frustrated me as a gardener and provoked a lot of thought about the value of cultivating at all. I also loved that he made the point that if you're going to eat meat, you should use the whole animal, both from the 'karmic' and from the nutritional perspectives. I strongly believe that if someone is going to eat meat, they need to pay attention to that. I think that like David, however, his silver tongue allows him to get away with some assertions that may not be totally accurate: for example, his discussion of our anatomy versus that of our primate relatives left something to be desired. And while he addressed epigenetic decay and deformity, he did not address the glaring possibility that epigenetics means that we have physiologically evolved to a modern, agrarian diet and may not be able to simply reverse all the problems by reverting to a putative atavistic diet.

Williams and Goldhamer

Drs Williams and Goldhamer shared a focus on whole foods but were very different in personality and approach. Dr Williams, who has been described as 'The Indiana Jones of nutritional research,' was so personable and easy to listen to. Dr Goldhamer was more bombastic and insistent and came across as more of a zealot, somewhat as did Robert Young. 

I really appreciated Kevin Gianni's gracious appraisal of Young's zealotry as being due to the fact that he works mostly with people with very serious ailments and the frustration of working with such people and having them be non-compliant. I suspect that the same is true for Dr Goldhamer, who runs a fasting retreat center and has had some amazing successes with reversal of serious illness through fasting and moving patients onto a no-sugar, no-salt, no-oil high-raw vegan diet. However, I mentioned my wariness of Dr Young's apparent total discounting of the role of pleasure in nutrition. Dr Goldhamer goes even further in this: his main book is called The Pleasure Trap and he alleges that sugar, salt and oil trigger an addictive dopamine response in everyone, causing repeated bad food choices and downwardly spiraling health. Fasting, according to him, is perhaps the only way to cut through this pattern and restore sanity to the palate. 

Now, I have an 'austere' part as big as anyone's, and this kind of reasoning would seem like an obvious hook for me. Which is why it may be a good thing for me that I'm married to Phil, Mr Eat-anything-and-everything-and-remain-pretty-darn-healthy, and have been reading Matt Stone's work, encouraging a more abundant and accepting approach, moving away from demonizing common foods. Because I wasn't totally hooked by this: I had to note that obvious dopamine junkies, like my own husband, are not dying of their habit, and would probably trade extra pleasure for extra years of life. As I said in my last post, wouldn't it be good 'to be able to transmute some of the gray areas and rough edges of perfection with grace and gratitude, to let pleasure and appreciation round out the nutrient levels?' I should also note that my experience with the dopamine-triggering foods that make me feel compulsive (sugar, artificial sweeteners, sometimes chocolate) is very definitely not one of pleasure: it's a compulsive, dirty, unpleasant-turn-in-the-rollercoaster feeling. Icky, not pleasant at all. But maybe that's just me.

I respect Dr Goldhamer and am glad that he provides the service that he does: it sounds like he has really helped a lot of people. However, with respect, I didn't agree with everything he had to say. For example, he placed oils in same the 'deranged-excitement-causing' spot as refined sugar and alleged that as refined, processed foods, lacking in fiber, they give no satiation indication and lead to overeating and that whole doomed road. I used to believe this: I used to avoid anything with any oil in it at potlucks--even olive oil on a salad--let alone eat any at home! But nowadays, I eat a lot of coconut oil and even without fiber, it sure does have a satiation index. Sometimes, if I'm way too hungry, I just pop a little piece of coconut oil and it usually keeps me stable until I can eat something. My experience is that fats generally add satiation. 

I should also say that he was explicit that the health challenges that his center most often addresses are the 'diseases of civilization' like heart disease, hypertension, etc, as well as the autoimmune diseases. In my ND's parlance, I would guess that his patients are mostly 'disease of excess' patients, whereas a 'disease of deficiency' person like myself might not benefit so much (I have to say this, for myself and for any other recovering compulsive faster)!

Dr Williams is so interesting, especially because of his decades of experience with indigenous peoples. He has spent time with Bering Sea Siberians, walrus hunters living almost entirely on animal foods, a very high-fat diet, and with Q'ero Indians near Cuzco, Peru, who lived almost entirely on starchy plant foods. Both peoples were very healthy, as healthy as one another despite the extreme difference in their diets, until they moved to cities and started eating processed foods, pointing up the fact that what their very different diets had in common was the absence of any processed foods. This is, no doubt, a familiar story, but hearing his first-hand experience both as a doctor and a human being, really brought it home.

This experience is perhaps what allows Dr Williams to exude such a sense of balance. He recommended a largely vegetarian diet, but had had the experience of seeing some vegetarians failing to assimilate plant-based protein, even though they were taking in an adequate amount, and had remedied that with small amounts of animal proteins in certain cases. He still came across as recommending predominantly plant-based nutrition, but with caution and circumspection. I really appreciated that he made the distinction between taking in enough nutrition and actually assimilating it once you've eaten it. This is such a crucial issue and I've been surprised that it hasn't received more attention as yet.

I don't want to go on too long, so I'll leave it at that for tonight and come back in a day or two with some comments about the next few speakers.

I forgot to share this in my last post: on the beautiful drive to Anchorage, I look forward to this particular view every time we take the turn up into the mountains. 

Do you see the dragon head? I think I managed to capture it.

I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts on the Great Health Debate. And if you're not listening in, is my analysis helpful so far or is it too abstract?