How to HALVE your oxygen needs: suppress breathing and become immortal.

Did you know that every time you BREATHE you create DEADLY FREE RADICALS within your TINY DEFENCELESS CELLS?

It’s high time you nixed that disgusting habit – inhaling long and deep, ageing by the second – and tied elastic bands around those gluttonous airbag lungs. The entire cast of Game of Thrones is doing it, adopting the new Oxy-low diet & living long enough to see out 70 more profitable seasons.

Read on to learn how you too can cut your oxygen requirements IN HALF and live a protracted, semi-conscious life.

Absurdity.

Surprise! There is no oxygen diet. I’m lying through my teeth. But! There’s a point to be made.

Oxygen is necessary. Breathing is sacred. Yet we barter with existence with every inhalation; for what sustains us will ultimately ruin us. Oxygen fuels cells (via chemical reactions) and simultaneously ages us (via oxidation).

But we certainly don’t skimp on the stuff. We suck it in gratefully, mindfully, sometimes with a melodious whistle. And consider the trade-off worth it.

Yet this is the grotesque logic of low-calorie, hunger-denying diets. Taking something as natural as EATING and calling it the enemy. Suppress! Lower! Ignore! Chew gum! Anything but honour your bodily cues.

The only thing you’ll lose when dieting is your will to live

I’m in a flap about this because I was thwacked with the {above} and {below} advertisement in a women’s magazine yesterday.

Ridiculous. Incomprehensible. Irresponsible.

When did hunger become a super villain?

We need energy input to survive. To function, feel human.

Amazingly, the antidote to many common health complaints is: eat enough food, get enough sleep, enjoy ample sunlight. Start there and work backwards. Whittling the bare necessities down to the thinnest wafer of possibility is only hurting us (physically, mentally, gastronomically).

Magazines that propagate the notion that the answer lies in eating less and scurrying through life in an interminable caloric deficit are answerable to millions of confused, semi-starved readers.

This is the damaging social stitching we desperately need to unpick.

And it starts with laughing at these sorry advertisements. Go on, open them up in a big ole window and laugh and cackle and let a snort or two rip and tell the dieting industry that it ain’t gonna fly.

Because we deserve to eat and feel satisfied and settle at our natural weight without being berated by each and every media source.

The end. It’s dinner time.

The dangers of BPA and how to avoid it.

Get rid of your plastic gurrrl.

I was painting someone’s shabby old house extension the other day in the most horrific shade of mucoid yellow and I decided that painting may just be the next best career choice after Naturopathy. Because for ten hours of cathartic wrist-flickery, I pumped scientific podcasts from my boombox and learned on the job.

There was a theme, as I teetered atop a clumsily erected metal scaffold inhaling dust particles and an alphabet of fumes. The theme was: toxins in our environment. Specifically, the unsettling link between low-exposure BPA and major health risks. Low-exposure. At levels deemed fine/dandy by the powers that be.

Why we should consider the broader implications of toxin exposure

The authorities assert that ‘BPA does not have demonstrable negative effects under exposures of 50 micrograms (one millionth of a gram) per kilogram of bodyweight per day’ (while the $375 billion plastics industry nod their heads as vigorously as rabid ponies).

And we all breathe a sigh of relief because, hell, we could exceed the ‘limit’ by ten and nothing bad would happen. Because they’ve tested it on rats. And rats are selfless little serfs who live to buttress the medical knowledge of their human oppressors.

But there’s a voice that squeaks – yeah, but? What about the sheer magnitude of it all? We don’t just come into contact with one isolated toxin once per day; we’re flapping about in a soup of hundreds, thousands of various compounds.

This is echoed in the podcast I listened to with Dr. Karl & guest Julian Cribb (author of ‘Poisoned Planet’). They remind us that the human body is being inundated by an unprecedented amount of weirdo non-natural influences. And what of the cumulative effect?

A prime offender – Bisphenol-A

So. Instead of embarking on a python-length list of toxins to avoid, today I’m focusing on one – perhaps the most pertinent given a new integrated review of its effects even in the low, ‘non-harmful’ range.

Let me introduce you to BPA (Bisphenol-A) – a compound used in the creation of hard plastics and linings.

Most commonly found in: canned vegetables, canned tomatoes, canned beans, canned anything, plastic water bottles, plastic baby bottles, cans of baby formula, cans of drink. It also crops up in all kinds of medical implements, DVDs & CDs, eye equipment and one I’m particularly spooked about: cash register receipts.

By now, I feel people are awake to the treachery of plastic. However, it pays to know the facts. If only to reinforce our commitment (I’m including all of you in this oath) to shun them forever and ever amen.

Back to the scientific review: it examined hundreds of publications on the low-level effects of BPA and synthesised the lot. Casting a huge net; drawing conclusions in the macro. Irrefutable stuff.

Here’s the gist of what they had to say: there ARE measurable, reproducible effects of BPA at levels 1-4 times LOWER than the industry recommendation, that can be considered adverse. (You can read the full text here).

In fact, check out this official nugget about BPA:

A recent study by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and US National Toxicology Program (NTP) assigned BPA the third highest Toxicological Priority Index (ToxPi) score of the 309 chemicals examined based on its ability to interact with a number of signaling pathways. (Reference: here & here)

Yikes.

BPA is appearing more and more delinquent by the minute. But how exactly does it effect human health?

Health effects of BPA

• It mimics estrogen. This means that it can bind to receptor sites for sex hormones (also thought to do the same for thyroid hormone, androgens and proliferative receptors) and exert an effect – though, not always the same as a bodily hormone. Because it’s not.

• This action has been found to promote breast cancer cell growth (reference) and decrease sperm count in rats.

• From Chris Kresser:

– A 2008 review found an association between higher BPA exposure and cardiovascular disease, diabetes and elevated liver enzymes. (6) 

– A study published in 2012 found that maternal exposure to BPA decreases thyroid hormone levels in male (but not female) babies at birth. (7)

– A 2013 study demonstrated an association between postnatal urinary concentrations of BPA and asthma in children. (8)

– Another 2013 study found a relationship between urinary BPA concentrations and childhood behavioral and learning development. (9)

Kids and BPA

But I reckon the most worrying implication is for our children, and their children, and so on to infinity.

Because the hormone-like effects of BPA are most consequential in times of growth and development. We’re talking unborn babies, children & adolescents.

Pair that with the ubiquity of BPA in children’s toys & bottles. Then consider that tiny people have much higher circulating levels of toxins on account of their smallness (and lowered tolerance).

Urinary tests carried out by the CDC show that 93% of individuals included in the study tested positive to BPA (aged 6 to 85). Children had higher levels than adolescents, who in turn had higher levels than adults (reference).

And while wee people are developing is when things go awry. They’re receiving alien input; their hormone-dependent tissue is vulnerable, malleable. Could BPA be a factor in young girls beginning menses years and years earlier than their mothers & grandmothers? Or little boys with boobies? Or any number of hormonal disruptions that plague young people today?

Oh, did I mention that when BPA plastics are heated (formula being microwaved in bottles, anyone?) the rate of leaching increases exponentially?

A 2009 study showed that students drinking from plastic bottles for one week had 69% higher in their urine than that of the control. The researchers hypothesized that this number would increase considerably if heat was applied (formula being microwaved in baby bottles? Anyone? Yeah? Did I say that? Please don’t do it!).

Practical advice on plastics

Look, there are more reasons to avoid plastics than I can rant about in one blog post. Icebergs of debris choking our seas, landfill, the throats of innocent porpoises, is motivation enough to find kinder alternatives. The sheer energy required to create packaging, ship it, wrap it & dispose of it; it’s waste on a monstrous scale. And for your health, for that precious horcrux we possess and defend, try to apply the following:

• An obvious one: don’t buy groceries swaddled in plastic. At the supermarket, take your own reusable bags and containers and be that kooky person packing mixed lettuce leaves neatly into a BYO pyrex.

• Take a stainless steel or glass drink bottle with you wherever you go to avoid the dreaded plastic water bottle. Make it your MISSION to never purchase one again.

• Avoid canned foods. Create new traditions and cook batches of passata in summer when tomatoes breed like rabbits and store them in glass jars for the year. Buy lentils and pulses in bulk, dry, and prepare them as needed – by soaking & slow-cooking.

• Eat as much organic, local & pesticide-free food as possible. This will reduce your toxic burden and turn down the volume on overall exposure.

• Refuse receipts at the register, or handle them as little as possible.

• Swap your plastic tupperware and storage containers for glass – Pyrex is a favourite.

• Transition your household cleaning products from chemical to natural, lightening your toxic load.

• Avoid coated and non-stick pots & pans. Use ceramic instead.

• Get rid of plastic glad/saran wrap. Use glass jars, bottles, Pyrex or recycled parchment paper instead. A plate fitted over the top of a bowl works nicely in the fridge, too.

• Take your own mug or safe keepcup when grabbing coffee out. Often, takeaway cups can be lined with plastic.

• Breastfeed your baby – or buy natural powdered formula that isn’t sold in cans.

• Don’t use plastic toys or bottles for your children – try glass & stainless steel options that can be sheathed in a soft, protective ‘jacket’.

One final word: be wary of ‘BPA free’ claims. Recent studies have shown that BPS – a common substitute – has similar negative hormonal effects to BPA. Even with the promotional advantage, BPS remains a silent nasty. Stick with plastic avoidance, I’d say.

And over to you – what do you to limit your exposure?

 

The most important rule for health – part one.

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Are you expecting me to lecture you on the virtues of drinking 3 liters of alkalized lemon water each morning? Or perhaps getting serious about your daily cup of joe and administering it up the bum, enema-style?

No, and no.

Although, any coffee is good coffee.

Nope. What I’m about to offer is so simple it hurts.

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Buy (or grow) the best quality produce you can. You’re only as healthy as the food you eat.

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We have the modern luxury of being able to depend on others for sustenance. Unless you’re a fringe-dwelling rabbit-shooting rebel, we’ve become effectively removed from the practicalities of feeding ourselves. Which is pretty lush, really. No more milking Daisy with frostbitten fingers or watching an army of slugs obliterate the veggie patch.

Our priorities have become sourcing cheap, convenient, hyper-palatable food – food that was grown somewhere else by someone else in ways we trust are natural.

And we pick up the bag of gloriously reflective apples from the fruit & vegetable aisle and push on with our trolley.

But this shift in responsibility has created problems. We‘ve inadvertently created problems. By saying said Yes! to cheap & easy food, we’ve been provided with more cheap & easy food. More than we can humanly handle. Farmed in increasingly novel ways that defy the production capacity of nature.

This is where things become dodgy.

The illusion of the carrot

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While we assume we’re buying a carrot at the supermarket – those orange things that everyone knows contain eyesight enhancing Vitamin A (this is a nutritional myth, by the way – they actually contain carotenes – precursors to Vitamin A but ineffectively converted. Preformed Vitamin A is found in animal foods) the same carrot you uprooted in the garden as a kid and munched on, grime and all – while we see, hear and taste the original vegetable of our childhood – what we’re purchasing is vastly different.

Because the carrot is only as good as the soil it was grown in, what was done to it between seed & edible commodity.

A carrot you purchase at Coles or Woolies may have been grown alongside thousands of others in a field with soil so poor from tilling and planting and spraying that it had to be beefed up with man-made fertilizer simply to support life. And then, because there are so many carrots growing in the one place (a monoculture) pesticides are deployed against hungry little critters whose eyes light up when they spy a great expanse of one. single. species fanning out before them – a vista rarely viewed in nature.

And, thanks to these same fungicides and pesticides, before the carrots are even ready to be stacked on shelves, they enter quarantine for a while to ensure the chemical compounds can break down enough to be deemed safe for human consumption.

And then, and then! that anemic, spiritually withered yet deceptively polished carrot ends up in your trolley and you think – hurrah! I’ve got a delicious vegetable to add to my stir-fry and it’s healthy and I’m bloody well healthy too.

But the truth is, this is a shitty carrot. Not the robust, knobbly, soil-encrusted specimen of your youth. Did it have the chance to assimilate any goodness from the soil at all? Or were the conditions so hostile to healthy growth that now this thing that kinda resembles a carrot is more like an elongated, starchy and nutritionally empty cone?

The soil & health

 …all animals get their food directly or indirectly from plants, and all plants get their food from the soil. Therefore, mineral-deficient soil may be one of the greatest original sources of disease in the world today. According to D. W. Cavanaugh, M.D., of Cornell University, “There is only one major disease and that is malnutrition. All ailments and afflictions to which we may fall heir are directly traceable to this major disease.” Simply stated, food crops grown on depleted soil produce malnourished bodies, and disease preys on malnourished bodies.
               – Empty Harvest, 1990. Bernard Jensen

Hell yeah, Dr. Jensen.

This brings me to the point of today’s post.

It matters WHERE you buy you food. What happened before you spied it dewy & glistening on the shelf. It’s not enough to ‘eat vegetables and be healthy’. We have to take it up a notch, interrogate our sources.

At the risk of providing an overwhelming chunk of information, I’m going to elaborate in the next article on:

– more reasons why buying quality food matters

– what does healthy farming look like?

– what to buy and where to find it

Ice cream is healthy? Say what now?!

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I called this website Ice Cream Is Healthy because it captures my simple hope for human health. The hope that we can ditch the black & white, moralistic thinking about what constitutes wellbeing, and lighten up. That we can peel ourselves from the sticky wall of marketing, labels and sensationalist claims and see food for what it is, or what it ought to be.

Because the truth is, ice cream SHOULD be healthy.

The ingredients are inherently healthful, if we select the right ones. The problem is, we have a vocabulary that fails to distinguish between grass-fed and feedlot, grown with compost or grown with chemicals, something whole and unadulterated or processed to oblivion. Thus, asking ‘is <such and such> good for me? offers little insight.

We need to reclaim foods tarnished by improper processing and additives; make the words ‘ice cream’ refer to something consisting of four wholesome ingredients: whole, organic milk, pasture-raised eggs, natural sugar and recognisable flavourings (fruit, quality chocolate etc.) not, a horror list of 20 unrecognisable by-products of industrial farming.

The question shouldn’t be ‘is <such and such> good for me? Better, ‘is <such and such> a quality, natural, thoughtfully produced thing that the human body recognises?’ If we alter our thinking, we can all scream for more ice cream with smug satisfaction and a smear of chocolate on our upper lip.

Because choosing to eat joyfully, colourfully, seasonally, with attention to our cravings is possible. We don’t need to fear fats, sugars, carbohydrates, proteins, red meat, cholesterol, cheese. We need to fear shitty production and thoughtless farming. Processing techniques, additives, chemicals and dietary dogma. We need to be flippin’ scared of shunning nourishing, traditional foods in favour of industrial seed-oil crackers and oxidized diet shakes.

A world without ice cream is tragedy enough to make Shakespeare wince.

{Girl wants ice cream. Girl denies herself ice cream and embarks on a lifetime of guilt and avoidance. Girl carks it believing she needed to eschew all those foods that once made her happy. Ice cream, her soul mate, her spurned lover, wishes he could have saved her. For he was the best of edible men. He was made with whole milk from pasture-raised cows, emancipated eggs and stress-lowering sugars. He was replete with all the nutrients she needed, but was eternally misunderstood.}

And that’s why we need to reframe our thinking. We need to ask questions, demand better answers. Take the prevailing ideologies about nutrition and lifestyle with a shrug and the squint of Sherlock. Because things aren’t as they appear in the world of health. Mostly, they’re tastier, easier, common-sensier than you ever imagined. Go on, grab yourself a bowl and embrace true love.