DEAR THYROID^TM

Happy holidays to those who have been celebrating them lately!,   Because we’re all busy with friends and family lately, this week, I’ve collected some “light” reading for us all (note the italicized sarcasm) — articles and information I came across and found highly interesting, or helpful, or revolutionary. I thought maybe you would too.

1. The HTKYTA thought of the day for me, this week, certainly has to come from an article written by Mr. Daniel Vitalis. Daniel is a big figure in the health and food communities. He calls himself a “Health Monitor and Longevity Strategist”, but more accurately he’s a brilliant wild food (and water) forager, food anthropologist, and herbalist. In a paragraph in his article, ‘Hunter Safety?’ Why I Am Not A Vegan, he says this: “She [author Lierre Keith] laid out so beautifully how Vegetarianism is more than just destructive for our bodies, it is destructive to our eco-system. Farming is what turned the fertile crescent into a desert, what turned the Nile Valley into sand dunes; and remember, that was Organic Farming! They did not have the ‘Commercial’ or ‘Industrial’ farming practices that we do today!” Whoa! So profound! Have agriculture and animal domestication done in both our planet and our bodies? Domesticated animal products and hybridized plants are nothing like what occurs, wild, in nature. Consequentially, has our health been compromised, even before the use of pesticides and factory farming? While our society and cultural expectations definitely won’t allow us all to live in the woods and forage for our own wild foods, could there be real implications that our industrialized living has taken a major toll on our health — being so removed from the source? I will be considering his statement the rest of my little life.
2. Donna Gates, author of the Body Ecology book (a look into the way we can either have a symbiosis with the bacteria and yeast that naturally occur inside and outside our bodies, or how they can make us sick), offers a solution to those experiencing chronic pain and inflammation. In her article, Boiling Your Vegetables: A Low Oxalate Solution to Reduce Pain, Gates explains that oxalates are substances found in certain foods like spinach, celery, carrots, parsley, olives, blackberries, figs, chocolate, tea, and others. For those who are chronically-ill, or have an inflammatory disease or condition, the problem oxalates pose is that they can make inflammation worse because they bind to calcium in the body and crystallize, which causes pain to the tissues.   In order to avoid oxalates, and eat an anti-inflammatory diet, Gates’ simple solution is to boil these vegetables, and cook the fruits. She also explores the relationship between leaky gut and oxalates, or how consistently eating raw oxalates can make candida overgrowth worse. This is important for those of us with chronic conditions or weak immune systems to note!
3. And finally, this last article is near and dear to my heart, only because, well, I wrote it (winkwink). But I’ve listed it here because it actually serves a good purpose for those with thyroid disease or chronic illness — the article, Is Gluten Intolerance Related To Cellulite?, is a basic primer in gluten intolerance, over on good Dear Thyroid friend The Cellulite Investigation’s website.   For those either with thyroid disease, debilitating chronic illness, or those who feel sick here and there but no definitive cause has been found (ie: life has lost its luster, you feel tired, you get colds often, you’re depressed or anxious, you’re overweight or underweight, etc.), read up on why gluten intolerance is a real physiological condition, and why this little grain protein can cause so much damage to the body. Maybe you keep hearing people talk about gluten intolerance, but aren’t quite sure it’s nothing more than people’s wishful thinking — a “miracle cure-all” myth that so many people are beginning to swear by. In that case, this article is for you.

Until Next Week,
Love Always,
Liz

Have a question or comment? Email me at Liz@DearThyroid.ORG; I’d love to chat.

Tags: a low oxalate solution to reduce pain, boiling your own vegetables, eating healthy for your thyroid, gluten intolerance related to cellulite, health books, healthy eating, How To Kick Your Thyroid's Ass, nutiritional books and resources, nutrition writer Liz Schau, Why I am not Vegan

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