Tuesday, June 15, 2010

I hear angels singing

Okay, so maybe not... but for those of you who have gone on any outing with me that involves food will know of my many, limiting food allergies/intolerances. Those of you who haven't, let me get you caught up. ;)

All my life I've struggles with just feeling healthy and good. Whenever I had a cold or allergies, I would get a secondary infection. When I was little, I was always on some form of antibiotic for my ear infections. I then realized how prone I was to whatever decided to hit me when my lymph nodes became infected... My energy levels were never where they should've been - if you asked me how I was doing, my normal response was 'tired.' When I entered the teens years, I had many skin problems (acne and ecxema (sp?)), and I started getting frequent, random stomach aches and severe migranes. These eventually culminated into a constant, migrane-intensity headache and stomach aches in my Junior year in highschool. 'Conventional' doctors didn't prescribe anything that helped, and I was becoming doomed to live a sick life.

Then some friends of ours directed us to a natropath about and hour away (really depends on the traffic), and we scheduled an appointment. The natropath did a simple blood test to find out what my food intolerance was - fruit/sugar and potato. These food intolerances were 'the root' of my health problems - everything stemmed from them.

It took about 3-4 months befre I felt well enough to do anything (my summer was spent on the couch watching decorating shows and cooking shows. My brother says that my cooking greatly improved after that summer). Even then, I would have to frequent to the natropath's for lingering problems...

I finally felt well enough to live again, although it was nothing like how I lived before. Because of my food intolerance (mainly potato - it's in everything, believe me), every outing and trip had to be well thought out to account for very limited food options. As time went on though, new problems started to arise even though we were keeping to the strict diet. Believe me, that is very frustrating to put so much work into keeping something out of your diet and have new problems pop up.

Then another friend pointed us to a natropath (much closer too!). She doesn't treat things as an intolerance (a sort of genetic issue - you don't create the enzymes needed to digest the food), but as a treatable allergy. o_O She found that I had more food limitations that previously thought. On top of the potato - no wheat, chocolate (what?!?!?!?!), lectins, etc. The list is still growing, but it is also shrinking at the same time. Through a strange process of pressure points, molecules, and accupressure called NAET, you can correct the nervous/immune system to accept these sustains once again.

You may be asking, then how do you develop allergies in the first place if you can treat them too? The natropath says that many things are part of it - the (way too many) vaccines that are given (they even contain mercury - if it's such a deadly element then why is it in there?!), GMO foods (they have been genetically altered so much that the body does not recognize it as an edible food-therefore it is a toxin that the body just wants to get rid of and builds an 'immunity' to it), and the stress, chaos, and worry-ness that our culture has created. Apparently the body doesn't neccessarily register emotion, it just nows about the chemical reactions that are going on and reacts accordingly. If your body is under stress, anger, any bad feeling, it will take whatever you happen to be eating as the source of its 'not feeling good' and build an immunity to that. This is probably why so many people are coming up positive for being allergic to the so called 'comfort foods'. Do you ever wonder why so many people are finding gluten problems and celiacs? Breads are one of the first foods that we reach for when we feel under the weather.

Anyway back to the story (we have to get to the climax, don't we?)-
I had my first potato last night in two years. And with lunch today, I had a couple of potato chips. Now the steamed potato wasn't exactly what I remember (you know when someone dies or something is taken away from you - it becomes glorified?), but the potato chip - that was an experience. The satifying CRUNCH + the wonderful saltiness = BLISS! I'm pretty sure that I heard angels singing when I took that bite.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

A story of the city hen and the country hen

Who said that the grass is greener on the other side?

Just over a week ago, some friends of our purchased a used chicken coop for their chicks, and it came with 2 free chickens. They really had no use for the fully grown, reliable laying hens, so they asked us if we would like to take them in. What's the harm in bringing two more chickens home when you have more than thirty already and the neighborhood coyote likes to stop by for dinner every night? So we picked up the little ladies and integrated them into our flock.

When we went to bring fetch them to their new home, a good family friend from out of state joined us. He could not get over the humor in going to the city to pick up some chickens. The whole 'chicken in your back yard' has become quite the novelty in the area, and there is quite the movement towards growing your food in the area. Stores have opened up that charge some outrageous prices for some basic neccessities, just because it is the 'chic' thing to do. (yes, the cheesy pun was intended)

Anyway... We bring the new girls to the country coop, and they moved in quite nicely. They even started laying eggs! But a couple of days ago, one of them found themselves flying over the fence that divides our property from the neighbor's dogs. Unfortunately, we only discovered her over there just the other day, and it wasn't until this morning that we were able to get her back to our side of the fence. So I grabbed a shovel and some grain. This chicken is coming back home.

To get a chicken back onto your side of the fence (the fence is too tall to jump over) you must do the following:
1) Dig a small hole under the fence big enough for the chicken to get through
2) Put down a small line of grain to 'bait' the chicken to your side of the fence
3) Patiently wait for the hungry chicken to fall for the trap
4) Quickly fill in the hole once the chicken is through. You don't want her to go back.
5) Attempt to catch crazed chicken and get her back into the coop where she belongs.

Follow these fool-proof steps and your chicken will rarely have to spend more time than is neccessary on the wrong side of the fence.

No seriously... I bet those girls had quite the 'culture shock' when they moved out here. ;)