Food & Diseases
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What you eat will impact the health of your grandchildren!
It is commonly known that what a pregnant mother eats can impact her growing baby. What we don’t often consider is the nutrition the expectant mother had as a child–and what her parents and grandparents ate before her. Do these foods impact the health of her unborn child? What about that child’s future children? If Dr. Francis Pottenger’s Cat study applies to humans, then yes, what the generations before us ate matters when considering the health of our children and grandchildren. When I first heard about Pottenger’s Cats, honestly, I wasn’t all that interested. I care about nutrition and studies in nutrition, I just don’t care about cats that much.…
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Want Crohn’s? Buy milk and beef from the grocery store.
We just purchased a second Jersey. My husband met the previous owner at the vet, where he had testing done, and where he was able to ask a lot of questions. One particularly big concern in buying a dairy cow is Johne’s Disease (pronounced Yo-nees). It’s a disease that is identical to the human disease Crohn’s. Just like a human with Crohn’s, a cow that has Johne’s Disease will have a lot of diarrhea and will not absorb minerals properly. Johne’s Disease comes from the bacteria Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis, which is abbreviated as MAP. It is, according to our vet, tuberculosis in the gut. Johne’s Disease in a…
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Kids have allergies? I blame Wonder Bread. And Twinkies. And Fruit Snacks.
If you’re a parent of 2 or more children, I am guessing that at least one of your children has allergies. Or asthma? Your kids have asthma, don’t they? Or at least, you know someone (or a lot of people) whose kids have allergies. I’m right, right? 🙂 I was dining out with 2 of my friends recently, and we were talking about our kids’ allergies. 2 out of 3 of us have kids with allergies. One of my friends has kids who do not have any allergies. I have a theory about why this happens, so I asked my friends the following question: “What did you eat as a…
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Drinking too much water: My Story
One time I drank too much water. Let me explain. 🙂 I was pregnant, and I was heading in to the doctor’s office for an ultrasound–the ultrasound, you know, the big one. I had been told to make sure to drink 4 8 oz glasses of water before my appointment. I mentioned in this post that I don’t naturally crave a lot of water. This task seemed next to impossible to me. But I wanted to see my baby, so I did it. My bladder was SO full. On the way to the doctor’s office, it seemed like there was construction everywhere, and roads were bumpy. It seemed to take…
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What my 9 year old thinks about the Paleo Diet :)
This is Farm Boy 2 after he went down a huge slip ‘n slide at Camp Revolution, a Nancy Thomas camp that we recently went to (an attachment camp for our adopted kiddos that was AMAZING!). I love asking my kids questions that they might not know the answers to, just to see how cute their answers are. 🙂 This is my 9 year old son, Farm Boy 2. Quick bio: he’s a hard worker, pretty responsible, sometimes silly and creative kid. While most kids would prefer to play, he wants to be in the kitchen helping us with the dishes because he loves talking to us. His name means “bold…
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WFH Book Club: Nutrition & Physical Degeneration
I went to the Weston Price Conference last year. I love Nourishing Traditions. I’m a member of the Weston Price Foundation. And yet, I have not read all the way through Weston Price’s book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. What I did read was absolutely fascinating, so I don’t know why I didn’t finish the book! Well, it’s time to read the whole thing through, and I’d like to invite all of you to join me! This book club will begin Monday, July 9th (I will post a reading schedule that day). I will be posting about the book as we read, and I invite all of you to comment. I…
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The Belly is Back & How I’m Gonna Fight It
The reason for this post: I don’t want to look like this. 🙂 I am going to be really real in this post. Beware! I shared here how I had lost a bunch of weight on GAPS. I also got a flatter, but not totally flat belly (a little pooch just never went away, but I could still wear jeans with no muffin top). I’m going to talk numbers here. Don’t hate me for my numbers. 😉 Keep in mind that I am 5’2″. Before I started GAPS, I was 142 lbs and a size 10 or 12. I lost it and went down to 104, and size 2, 1…
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Healing a Bicuspid Aortic Valve?
{photo credit: Skinned Mink} My two biological sons were born with a Bicuspid Aortic Valve. There are 3 “leaflets” on the Aortic Valve, and in utero, there was no division formed between 2 of the leaflets. This can lead to complications, and eventually, they may need a valve replacement. Every 2 years, my boys go up to the children’s hospital for an echocardiogram and an EKG. They enjoy it, because they get to lay down and watch a movie while an ultrasound tech looks at their heart. 😉 Two weeks ago, Farm Boy 2 had his appointment. The doctor said that there was no change. It wasn’t any worse, and…
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How do you know if your baby has GAPS?
This was Farm Boy 1 not long after he came home from the hospital (he was 3 months old here and about 5 lbs). He was a GAPS baby. How do I know? Because GAPS babies live their lives something like this: While they are getting Mommy’s breast milk, they might be mostly ok. Or, they might have: acid reflux colic vomiting other digestive symptoms Farm Boy 1 had acid reflux and would vomit whenever I gave him liquid vitamins (recommended by the hospital) or his acid reflux medications. Still, he started getting a little chunky on breast milk (supplemented with formula, for calories). One month later, look at my…
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Are Potatoes Healthy?
{photo credit} The potato leads all other vegetables in worldwide production. More potatoes are consumed in the United States than any other vegetable, around a third of a pound/150 gm per person per day. ~On Food and Cooking But are they healthy? This is a big question! I have read many different studies on the potato, and I want to share with all of you what I have learned. First, the nutritional properties of a potato: What Good is there in a Potato? 1 medium potato contains: Protein (digestible) 2 g Potassium 926 mg Phosphorus, 121 mg Magnesium, 48 mg Calcium, 26 mg Iron, 1.87 mg Sodium, 17 mg Zinc,…