“When I let go of who I am, I become who I will be”—Day #1

“I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed.” -Lloyd Dobler (Say Anything)

When I was a little girl–the words “become a professional and don’t expect someone else to take care of you” were gently and repetitively etched into my head. I think that is why I aspired to become a doctor. I didn’t want to do law, I have no passion for rules. A business owner seemed too processed for me. I wanted to help people.

When I was in college after already committing my life to become a doctor, I became terribly ill and landed a spot in the hospital. My doctor at the time told me “You are not going to die” That phrase I will never forget because at that moment–I felt like I might. I was then forever indebted to becoming that person who would reassure a patient that their darkest hours were not at hand. I studied hard and abstained from activities my peers were engaged in only to persue my dream. Eleven years ago my dream came true and I was finally the doctor starting practice and ready to change the lives of many. I was trained to treat every disease with the best of medicines and could conquer any patient’s complaint. Unfortunately, those concepts drastically changed as I continued to evolve as a person and was touched by each patient that I met. After ten years of medicine I could feel myself beginning to change but I wasn’t quite sure just what the change was. Then the day Susan came in I began to have a greater focus.

A few years ago, Susan, a popular vet in the local community with 4 boys, came to me tearstricken and upset. She had developed an autoimmune disease seven years before that had debilitated her to the point that she was unable to function as the woman, mother, and wife that she had once been. Tears welled in my eyes during that annual visit as I noted her spirit and life’s luster being eroded by the burden of her disease. I told her … “I am no superwoman, I have no answers for you.” We could only pray together that things would change.

The following monday morning she called and said “My pastor pulled me aside after church on Sunday and told me he had dreamt I got a second opinion and was healed.” I immediately called a physician who I had not seen since residency. He was leaving for a mission trip to Haiti the next day and the only way he could see her was if she could be there in thirty minutes. Ironically, she had no patients scheduled that day, had a babysitter for her kids, and was already having lunch in the area. He told her that it wasn’t a disease, it was an allergy. He hadn’t a clue as to what she might be ingesting that would cause this severe reaction. Eventually, she discovered that she had to eliminate red dye # 40 from her diet and she is 100% healthy now.

I have spent countless hours walking in the woods and enjoying my own family. Yet, I continue to watch many other patients struggle with their inability to share the same pleasures in life. I have now realized that I have been on the wrong track. We dont need to cure and treat disease–we need to prevent it!
All the years of training to to heal people have proven that I have been coexisting with them. I must shift my role to help them before the diseases takes hold. I must help my patients change themselves. I realize that the best way to change the world is to change yourself.

Thus—I will simply become who I am by letting go of what I thought I was and hope to do the same for those who come to me for help.

Posted on September 3, 2012 by Angela in Diet, Family, Humor, Mind, Nutrition, Spirit, Whole Food Leave a comment

Organic Chicken

Dee–after I watched Food INC, something connected in my tiny little brain. If Tyson is injecting all their chicken with penicillin, why am I giving it to my daughters that are allergic to penicillin? If they get hives, vomiting, and diarrhea when they take that antibiotic, why aren’t they getting physically sick from eating that chicken? Well, they are-by eating very small doses regularly they don’t immediately have a reaction because they are young and healthy. However, if I keep feeding them that for the next 10 years–they are going to be sick! They will develop diabetes, heart disease, arthritis or even worse, an autoimmune disease. That inflammation created at my dinner table is eventually going to make my babies sick! Ignorance is bliss, until you educate yourself and find out you are poisoning your own kids!

Dee tried organic chicken and lived! Read today’s post—

A few months ago, I was on my way home from work and had to stop for something for dinner. The grocery is not on my direct route home, but a natural food store is so I stopped to find something. I bought a package of organic chicken that looked disgusting. It was vacuum-sealed so the packaging was wrinkled and the chicken itself was darker than what I usually buy, and smaller. When I cut it up, I noticed that the texture was strange, it was much more tender and didn’t need trimming. I decided to put it in a skillet with no oil and just salt and pepper. Even though the chicken breasts were smaller, they didn’t shrivel up like other chicken. I later learned that it’s because most chickens are plumped with water that cooks off when heated. The taste is like nothing you’ve ever tasted, it’s delicious! I have since taken the time to spread the word to people about the difference in the taste of chicken without hormones or antibiotics. One time (sorry in advance for the insensitive remark) someone rolled their eyes and said, “but it’s so expensive” and I replied “so is chemo.”

Interested in learning why organic chicken matter? Watch Food Inc. through this LINK

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Angela in Body, Diet, disease, Family, Green Living, Guest Blog, Nutrition, Organic, vegan, Weight Loss, Whole Food Leave a comment

Pink Slime and the 26 Ingredient School Hamburger

A big thanks to Jamie Oliver from The Food Network for finally raising some public attention and encouraging us to be savvy in inspecting the ingredients in the foods we are eating. I have to say that I have been just as ignorant as the rest of the public about what I’m actually putting in my body! Nutrition isn’t taught in medical school. Unfortunately, I have had to go back and relearn everything about healthy eating that I wish I would have learned as a child. I hope these posts are shocking but helpful so that you don’t have to spend hours seeking out the right information.

The Following Foods Contain over 25 ingredients!

Combos, Chocolate Cereals, Cheez Whiz, Frozen Waffles, Snicker’s Peanut Butter, Pringles, Breakfast Bars, Lunchables, and Big Mac Sauce

Dear Lunchable,

Sidney and Emma are breaking up with you! You are taunting them like candy from a rapist van! Stay away before I really have to go all mama bear postal on you!

Keep your nasty ingredients to yourself!

Cherry Flavored Water Beverage With Other Natural Flavor: Water, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, sucralose (Splenda brand sweetener), natural flavor. Cooked Ham–Water Added–Chopped And Formed–Smoke Flavor Added: Ham, water, contains less than 2 percent of sodium lactate, potassium chloride, modified cornstarch, sodium phosphates, sugar, salt, sodium diacetate, sodium ascorbate, flavor, sodium nitrite, smoke flavor. Pasteurized Prepared American Cheese Product: Milk, water, milkfat, milk protein concentrate, whey, whey protein concentrate, contains less than 2 percent of sodium citrate, salt, lactic acid, sorbic acid as a preservative, cheese culture, enzymes, oleoresin paprika (color), annatto (color), with starch added for slice separation. Artificially Flavored Candy: Sugar, invert sugar, corn syrup, modified corn starch, tartaric acid, citric acid, natural and artificial flavoring, yellow 6, red 40, yellow 5 and blue 1. Crackers: Unbleached enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate [vitamin B1], riboflavin [Vitamin B2], folic acid), whole grain wheat flour, soybean oil, sugar, partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, salt, leavening (baking soda and/or calcium phosphate), whey (from milk), soy lecithin, natural flavor

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Angela in Body, Diet, disease, Nutrition, vegan, Weight Loss, Whole Food 2 Comments

The Red Flags of Food Additives

Okay, I’ll admit that only recently I have started reading food labels. To be honest, I just don’t have the time to read labels while shopping because I’m rushing. Frankly, the people cluttering the aisles reading ingredients just annoy me. It’s not worse than the texting driver holding up traffic to complete the text. I have learned that labels can be deceiving. Here are a few of the stealth Gluten Red Flags to watch!

Gluten Free does not always mean gluten free. Definitely avoid wheat, wheat gluten, barley, and rye. However, malt or hydrolyzed vegetable protein are also enemies! Be especially careful of cereals, pastas, cakes and cookies. You can substitute with rice or potato flour. Substitute rice noodles for traditional pasta.

“Food Allergy and Food Intolerance” by Dr Jon Brostoff is an excellent resource in understanding food intolerance symptoms and has a large index of buzz words to watch for when reading labels.

Dee had a similar experience yesterday:

Sorry to pick on a brand name, but this is such a perfect example of why we need to read labels. I bought some things for a health fair at my work, and smoothies in a bottle were specifically requested. So I loaded my shopping cart with apples, bananas and Frusion. The first thing that caught my eye was 4% juice. As I was unpacking groceries, I decided to try one. Quickly glanced at the label without my reading glasses and saw 180 calories. My non-dairy coconut and almond milks are about 100 so when you add fruit I thought that sounded normal. Just now, I put on the glasses to see that — sure enough — high fructose corn syrup is item number four on the label, after yogurt, water and sugar. There are 33 grams of sugar. For comparison, Kool-Aid (pure liquid poison) has only 25. Fresh fruit is loaded with fiber but the drink has none. Here is a better smoothie option: 8 oz. rice milk (120 calories + 11 grams sugar) and 1 cup strawberries (65 calories and 12 grams sugar) plus 4 oz. Greek yogurt (65 calories + 4 grams sugar). Even though the calories are higher, the sugar is much lower and it doesn’t contain high fructose corn syrup. It also has some great protein from the milk and yogurt and complex carbs from the fresh fruit. One real smoothie starts the day off right, no hunger until lunch. Even though processes and packaged foods are convenient, you always are better off with whole foods in their natural form. Remember that one very helpful website to use for learning about the nutritional benefits of most foods is www.calorie-count.com.