Raw Milk Revolution: Codex Alimentarius Dec 31, 2009

Reviewed By Susan Schenck

The Raw Milk Revolution (Chelsea Green Publishing/ Nov 2009) deals with our most basic health right: the right to choose the foods that we feel and know are healthiest for us.

I love a good, documented, research-based book that shows the truth, and the truth is often (usually) the opposite of what we have been brainwashed to believe by the media, government and corporations.

David Gumpert takes us on a journey of truth as an unbiased reporter. He shows both sides: the parents who lost their children (or their children lost use of their kidneys) allegedly due to contaminated raw milk, and we are also shown that raw milk was never conclusively shown to be the culprit. (However, it probably was in at least a few cases—in which case I would say don’t feed kids raw milk unless their immunity is very strong from a nearly 100% raw organic diet. Kids’ immune systems are not as strong as those of adults.)

We are also shown the side of the raw milk advocates, and testimonials of people finally being able to drink milk without digestive issues. People’s immune systems also improve from the friendly probiotics, and the good bacteria found in raw dairy. In some cases, raw milk took away people’s heartburn, asthma and allergies.

This book is filled with shocking info, such as the fact that sushi is 30 times more likely to make a person sick than raw milk, and even deli meat is 10 times more likely to be a contaminated food. The statistics on raw dairy making people sick show that it is not a big issue—in fact pasteurized milk is about as likely to make someone sick! So why is the government only going after the raw dairies, and not the producers of bologna? We are led to the inevitable conclusion that it is corporate profits. Pasteurizing dairy extends the shelf life by many weeks, thus enabling them to make more money in a day and age in which food is transported and kept on grocery shelves so much.

As for the issue of raw milk being a viable option, the bottom line is sanitary conditions: Raw milk from factory farms in which cows are living in poor conditions is probably going to be much worse than where the cows are pasture fed. Another point made is that the milk doesn’t get infected from inside the cow—rather, something with bacteria touches the milk that has been taken out of the cow!

This book covers just about everything, including the history of why milk became pasteurized in the first place. In the 1800s some of the earliest factory farming took place as cows were fed leftover fermented grains from the production of vodka and whiskey. The cows became diseased, and lived in an unsanitary environment, so quite naturally milk became a breeding ground for tuberculosis  and other bacteria. The book covers the debate between Pasteur (whose theory led to a war on germs) and Bechamp (who believed the immunity or internal environment was what we need to focus on for health). It covers the battle in California to keep raw dairy legal, the health benefits of raw milk, and the importance of getting it from a good source.

By the way, don’t buy queso fresco (unless from a good source). The author explains that this is raw Mexican cheese in which the milk to make it is typically purchased from factory farms under the table, and made in unsanitary conditions (hence called “bathtub cheese”). This is one of the culprits in the raw dairy problems—showing that it is the unsanitary conditions that are at fault, and not the raw milk itself.

I appreciate being able to consume about 5% of my calories from raw kiefer. It has boosted my immune system with friendly bacteria. We need to keep raw food legal. The battle to keep raw dairy available is just a foreshadowing of Codex Alimentarius (which is supposed to happen Dec 31, 2009!) in which ALL food will be irradiated, and no raw food available unless you forage for it in the wild or have the tiniest of gardens (anything of substance will need a permit). At some point we have to take responsibility for our health and just say no to these government policies. Freedom is very important, especially if you want to be healthy!

Book Review: The Daylight Diet By Paul Nison

Susan Schenck is author of The Live Food Factor

Copyright © 2006-2010, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved.

Book Review: The Daylight Diet By Paul Nison

Reviewed By Susan Schenck

In raw food leader Paul Nison’s new book, The Daylight Diet, I found some exciting new pieces to the health puzzle: Don’t eat anything after sunset! Never eat when it is dark. Eat less food, and only two meals a day. If at all possible, eat breakfast in the third hour of daylight (usually around 8 to 9 AM) and have your last meal six hours later, at the ninth hour of daylight (usually around 2 to 3 PM). Give up that bad habit of snacking. What this does is give your digestive system a long rest between meals. Then after your late lunch/early dinner, you have about 17 or 18 hours of fasting, which enables your body to cleanse and heal, doing its house cleaning. You also get a much, much deeper sleep when your body is not trying to digest food while you rest.

Paul explains that there is a direct connection between the optic nerve and digestion: “When sunlight hits the optic nerve, electrical impulses are transmitted, activating many processes of the body, including digestion. Nerve impulses send messages that tell the body to produce certain enzymes, gastric juices, and other processes of digestion.”

“Regardless of the food you eat, if you consistently eat when it is dark outside, your health will never thrive,” insists Paul. He evens states that “it is far worse to overeat even high quality food, than to consume low quality foods in small amounts. In other words, it’s the quantity that does far more damage than the quality.” He explains that he used to eat 7,000 calories a day (yet only weighed 150 pounds, so obviously calories didn’t count—some young men can get away with that!)

In order for this to succeed, you will need to cultivate new habits. You can start by not eating after 6 PM and gradually reduce it till it is earlier. Paul realizes this is difficult for those working graveyard shift, but explains that it is thus called for a reason, and you should try to work days if at all possible. You will also have to eat high nutrition, since you will be consuming less food. Paul gives a formula for figuring out the exact best times for you to eat, based on his years of experience with this diet.

For the early eating and two meals, Paul cites historical health teachers, including Dr. Dio Lewis from 1850 and Luigi Cornaro from the 1500s. He quotes many others on the benefits of eating sparsely with high nutrition. (Actually there have been hundreds of studies since the 1930s that support this claim.) He cites the historical customs of eating this way in Europe until the 1600s and goes into the history of how meals evolved. As you may imagine, the Industrial Revolution was a major setback in our eating routines.

You think it’s hard to eat less and earlier? Wait until you hear this: Paul also wants us to give up TV, computers and video games for the last three hours before we sleep. (OK, food yes—but the Internet? And night TV is when I do my trampoline, yoga and facial exercises!) Paul explains how TV, sugar, caffeine and computers create adrenal fatigue and also interfere with sleep.

In addition, there are chapters with information on the daily detox, monitoring your health, how to deal with social situations, and a plan for how to get started.

I have already gone 7 months without eating after 6 PM, and have noted great health and sleep benefits! But this book is inspiring me to make it 5 PM and later 4. I am always looking for ways to get to the next level of superior health and found this book very inspiring. Great work, Paul!

Paul Nison is an author, lecturer, and raw food advocate. You'll find him online at www.paulnison.com

Raw For Dessert: These Recipes Will Make Cooked Counterparts Seem Tame

Susan Schenck is author of The Live Food Factor

Copyright © 2006-2010, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved.

Book Review: Macrobiotics For Life By Simon Brown

By Dr. Joseph S. Maresca

A main premise of Macrobiotics For Life is that good food, moderate exercise and bodywork are conditions precedent to good health. Body healing should happen through the skin, organs and the digestive system.  Death literally may begin in the colon.  So, eating foods rich in fiber are helpful in promoting colorectal health.

There are a number of psychological aspects to maintaining good health; such as, self love, a willingness to change in a constructive manner and commitment to worthy goals.

The author mentions specific foods which promote health, as well as foods that simply don't .  We should consume sea veggies, tofu, hummus, olives, herbs, mild spice, water and herbal teas.  We should limit junk food and foods which promote a high glycemic index. Low glycemic foods are apples, hummus, cashews, carrots and yogurt. These low glycemic foods correlate with lower inflammation markers in the blood chemistry.  Improvement in the C-reactive protein is associated with a lower glycemic index, and by extension, lower glycemic foods and a reduced danger of heart disease.

A strength of the book is that the author provides sample meals that are easy to prepare like hummus. Watery veggies are the calming foods which are high in soluble fiber.  The soluble fiber is good for the digestive system and/or the gastrointestinal tract.

Exercise, breathing deeply, meditation, yoga and walking also promote health. Food impacts the pH in our saliva.  Ideally, the saliva should have a pH of 7.4.   The 7.4 statistic is only .4 beyond amphoteric (7.0) which is neither acidic or basic.

Above 7.0 brings us into the basic range of pH.  When we die, our pH rapidly approaches zero.  Therefore,  the pH is a good measurement of our health amongst other statistics like blood pressure, a 550 or above expiry rate on a pocket peak flow measurement device and clear urine.

A thorough understanding of macrobiotics will lead to a lifetime of optimal health given whatever limiting factors are uncontrollable in the proximate environment.

The book is well researched with over 25 contributing websites.  The acquisition is highly recommended for health buffs, as well as medical providers.

Simon Brown has been a macrobiotic practitioner for nearly thirty years. He is the chairperson of the Macrobiotic Association of Great Britain. He also runs a thriving macrobiotic clinic. The author of several bestsellers including Practicing Feng Shui and Feng Shui in a Weekend (more than 50,000 copies combined sales), as well as the popular Modern-Day Macrobiotics. You'll find Simon Brown online at www.chienergy.co.uk

Macrobiotics for Life (North Atlantic Books/ 2009) by Simon Brown

Copyright © 2006-2010, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved.

Book Review: Spice Up Your Life By Bindu Grandhi

Reviewed By Susan Schenck

Who doesn’t love Indian food? To show you how much I love Indian food, I even married an Indian man—my first husband—who was a great Indian cuisine chef on the side. He taught me how to make aloo gobi and matar paneer. (Isn’t it really the case that the way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach? Isn’t she the one that is wined and dined?) When I went raw 7.5 years ago, Indian fare is what I missed the most. So I finally figured out a few simple tricks to make raw versions of my favorite ethnic food.

Spice Up Your Life's diet is based on flexitarianism, which the author explains “is a primarily plant-based diet composed of grains, vegetables, and fruits, which also occasionally includes protein from lean meat, fish, poultry, or diary. This diet is low in saturated fat and high in fiber…Studies show that people using this approach generally weigh less and reduce their risk of hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, and prostate and breast cancer.”

The recipes are whole-food, made the traditional way from scratch, using light olive oil, fresh produce and Indian spices. Modern research has shown the benefits of turmeric, which is found in curry and garam masala. Turmeric is an anti-inflammatory and has been shown to reduce the incidence of Alzheimer’s, cancer, arthritis, and many other diseases.

The chapters are divided as follows: appetizers, side dishes, and chutneys, sauces, dips and raitas; breads; vegetarian dishes; chicken dishes; seafood dishes; drinks; and desserts.

Some of the dishes I look forward to making raw versions of include the lassi drinks, chai, smoothies, cauliflower and brussels sprout curry, broccoli and carrots with coconut, chickpeas and spinach, mint chutney, seasoned kale, pumpkin soup, broccoli soup, spiced carrot and sweet onion, cashew curry sauce, coleslaw tempered with coconut, and many, many more!

Bindu Grandhi developed a passion for flavorful flexitarian cooking in her early 20s. Her knowledge of good health and nutrition comes from her mother, Vasantha Prasad, author of Indian Vegetarian Cooking from an American Kitchen (Random House) and her father, Balasa L. Prasad, a physician and author of Stop Overeating For Good (Avery). You'll find Bindu Grandhi online at www.theflexcook.com

Spice Up Your Life: The Flexitarian Way (Cedar Fort Inc./ 2009) by Bindu Grandhi

Susan Schenck is author of The Live Food Factor

Book Review: The Whole-Food Guide To Strong Bones--A Holistic Approach

Copyright © 2006-2010, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved.

Book Review: The Whole-Food Guide To Strong Bones--A Holistic Approach

Reviewed by David M. Kinchen

What you eat can contribute to bone loss and osteoporosis -- especially in post-menopausal women -- says Annemarie Colbin in The Whole Food Guide to Strong Bones: A Holistic Approach (New Harbinger Publications, Oakland, CA, 257 pages, $21.95).

Thanks to relentless advertising using celebrities like Sally Field, many Americans are convinced all you have to do is take expensive prescription medicine and your bone-loss worries are over. In a telephone interview, Colbin said that prescription bone density medications have many adverse side effects and often build brittle bone density.

She told me that the emphasis on being thin to the standards of starved fashion models has contributed to bone loss, adding that the commonly used Body Mass Index (BMI) often results in people dieting to a point where they are endangering their health. A little extra weight -- not obesity -- is a good thing, Colbin suggested. People who are slightly overweight rarely get osteoporosis.

In the book -- which includes 85 easy recipes to maximize the bone-building effects of whole, natural foods -- Colbin says that the population with the greatest access to pharmacological products [the U.S. and Canada and Northern Europe] "also appears to have more osteoporosis than those who still rely mostly on traditional and native diets we now call alternative or complementary medicine."

Colbin, a maverick nutritionist and health educator, says that exercise and establishing a personal balance, believes that certain foods, like "nightshade" vegetables -- potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, green peppers and chiles -- actually work against the body's efforts to build bone mass. She also believes that milk is for infants and the calcium in dairy products is not as good as that in leafy green vegetables.

Eating the right kind of vegetables and fruit on a daily basis can improve your health and prevent fragility fractures, menopause-related bone loss and osteoporosis, she says.  How maverick is Colbin; she's definitely not on the soy bandwagon, for one thing. "I suggest that they completely avoid soy," she writes, although a little tofu won't harm most people. A person seeking to avoid bone loss should quit smoking, avoid soda drinks -- including diet drinks -- and avoid drinking coffee and tea. It's better to eat an orange than to drink orange juice, she says.

In a very readable book written in down-to-earth language, Colbin presents several case studies involving people who've experienced bone loss. In the case of "Nina," she cites a four-step program of holistic treatment:

*  Physical, including exercise, accupressure, dietary changes, herbs and hormones

*  Mental, with stress reduction

*  Emotional, focusing on solving only solvable problems

*  Spiritual, meditation

On Page 141, she provides six strategies that create a plan that works for you:

1) Avoid sugar and other refined sweeteners, white flour, hydrogenated fats, soft drinks, caffeine and excessive amounts of nightshade vegetables. Don't pursue a low-fat or fat-free diet. And eat sardines or other fish cooked with the bones in. Soft fish or chicken bones help build density in your bones.


2) Go easy on dairy products and if you use them, use organic ones.


3) Every day, eat some greens and vegetables, healthy fats, whole grains, nuts and good sources of protein such as animal products and beans.


4) Always cook with good quality stock.


5) Get some exercise on a regular basis. Walk and lift things, stretch or do weight training three or more times a week -- or, better yet, do all three. She also advises moderate but regular exposure to sunlight.


6) Take a look at the rest of your life. You are the person best qualified to determine what may be missing.

Colbin's suggestions and her recipes sound like good advice for everyone, not just people worried about bone loss and osteoporosis. With the unhealthy abundance of over processed foods with harmful substances like high fructose corn syrup in them -- and you'll be surprised at how many foods contain these additives -- you have to read the labels carefully and avoid harmful foods in your food shopping trips.

The book's foreword is by Mark Hyman, M.D., the author of The Detox Box, Ultraprevention and other books. He's  the medical director of the UltraWellness Center in Lenox, MA,  and believes, after twenty years of treating osteoporosis, that it is a completely preventable lifestyle disease and that Colbin's regimen of whole foods, exercise and the right supplements works better than medication.

Annemarie Colbin, Ph.D., is the founder and CEO of the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts in New York City. She writes a column "Food and Your Health" for New York Spirit magazine.

Gluten-Free: Rice Meets Pizza

Copyright © 2006-2010, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved.