Food & Diseases

  • Food & Diseases,  GAPS Diet & Nutrition

    Registered Dietician vs. Certified Nutritionist?

    What are we being told is healthy? Does this look healthy to you?? I just got off the phone with a registered dietician, whom I have talked to off and on for the last several years regarding Farm Boy 1’s weight. After his endocrinology appointment about a month ago, I requested an appointment with her again, just to make sure we’re doing whatever we can to help him grow. This dietician is reasonable and promotes real food. I like her. 🙂 She looked up the GAPS Diet and went over high calorie foods that are *on the diet* with me and had no problems with that. She looked at his…

  • Food & Diseases,  GAPS Diet & Nutrition

    Does your location impact your health?

    Do you know a lot of people with lung cancer? Children with Autism? People with Asthma? For the United States, the CDC has state-by-state information on most of the common diseases. Do you know where your state falls in the statistics? I analyzed the data (because I’m a geek, and I like this kind of stuff!). 🙂 I made a spreadsheet, with the states going down the left, and the diseases going across the top. I gave the rates of disease a number score (based on low, mild, moderate or high instances), added up the total for each state, and divided it by the # of diseases I had data…

  • Food & Diseases,  GAPS Diet & Nutrition

    The Story of Farm Boy 1: The Boy Who Barely Grows

    This is Farm Boy 1. He’s got a growing problem. He’s had it his entire life. When he was born, he was 1 lb 12 oz and had to live in the hospital for 3 long months. When he was 1, he was still pretty tiny in his high chair. He would eat baby food really well–and then vomit his entire meal. His vomiting was unpredictable, but often. He had severe constipation and we used suppositories on him. One doctor even told us to give him mineral oil in every bottle–which was the dumbest thing she could have said. Mineral oil would coat the gut and make nothing absorb. If he…

  • Food & Diseases,  GAPS Diet & Nutrition,  The GAPS Diet

    Alcoholic behaviors without drinking a drop

    Have you ever known somebody who acted like an alcoholic, but they didn’t drink at all? This person may: have stomach and/or digestive problems that increase over time play the blame game–every problem in their life is someone else’s fault have poor concentration be addicted to their work or hobbies and spend very little time with their children or spouse commit adultery, maybe even repeatedly lie easily purposely push others’ emotional buttons be a perfectionist. Everything in his or her world has to be just so. be impulsive have a “poor me” syndrome going on have a sense of injustice. Nothing is fair, everyone is against them, in their mind.…

  • Food & Diseases,  GAPS Diet & Nutrition,  Health & Beauty

    What to do if you are low in Iodine

    I posted yesterday about how to find out if you are deficient in iodine. Now, let’s say that you find that your body needs iodine. What do you do?   Dr. Natasha said that you can keep painting iodine on your skin and let your body absorb it as it needs it.   I say, it probably doesn’t hurt to focus on eating foods that are naturally rich in iodine. Note that I said naturally rich, not foods that are supplemented with iodine. The great thing about our body is that if we need iodine rich foods (and we’re not full of “bad bacteria” and yeast), our body will crave…

  • Food & Diseases,  GAPS Diet & Nutrition,  Health & Beauty

    Testing for Iodine Deficiency

    I have heard mixed messages about iodine from different doctors and medical studies. There is a massive amount of research available on what can happen in the body when a person is deficient in iodine. If you are not getting enough iodine, you could face: Thyroid Dysfunction Grave’s Disease Thyroid cancer Impaired intellectual and neuromotor development Mental impairment Osteoporosis Difficulty in getting pregnant and staying pregnant Loss of pregnancy (stillborn baby) Low birth weight Neurological damage to your baby (mental retardation, etc.) Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (S.I.D.S) Increased risk of breast cancer, endometrial cancer and ovarian cancer Depression Increased risk of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease   And yet, when I…

  • Food & Diseases,  GAPS Diet & Nutrition,  The GAPS Diet

    Diarrhea is not normal

    I know you all love my poop posts. I want to talk about this, because I think this is a big deal. A lot of people are suffering from diarrhea, or constipation (which is also not normal). Going out to eat, going to people’s houses, going to the mall, going camping–it’s uncomfortable. You never know when you’re going to have “issues.” You begin to hate public restroom toilet paper (you know what I’m talking about, right?) and you consider carrying a roll of squishy, soft Charmin with you everywhere you go (or maybe you already do?). Have y’all heard of the Bristol Stool Chart? Please look at it and determine…

  • Food & Diseases,  GAPS Diet & Nutrition,  The GAPS Diet

    Sensitive to Tomatoes?

      {photo credit} We ate some awesome little Sungold tomatoes in a salad tonight. I was munching on them before and after dinner, as well. I have 4 10′ rows of tomatoes growing in my garden right now. I love tomatoes. The funny thing is, 2 years ago, I didn’t plan to plant any tomatoes in my garden, because I got sick off of them so easily.  Every time I ate tomatoes, my face would flush bright red. I was all of the sudden sensitive to every noise around me. And then the digestive issues would start. Eating tomatoes meant diarrhea for me…. I thought it was all related to…

  • Food & Diseases,  GAPS Diet & Nutrition,  Real Food

    Why I am Anti-Soy

    The GAPS Diet does not allow soy (because soy does not help when you are trying to heal your gut), but I was anti-soy before GAPS. Why am I so against this supposed health food?    I highly recommend reading this book for more details:     Soy is touted as a health food, and people are eating it in place of meat. The assumption is that because Japanese people eat soy, we should too–and then we’ll be healthy!   Here are the problems with that:   In Ancient China and Japan it was known that soy was a poison if it was not fermented. I just confirmed this with…