Healing through Local Food

Today's post is going to be about supporting your local farmer’s market and reaping the many benefits of purchasing and consuming local food. You will develop a sense of community and begin your journey to a healthy mind, body, and soul – all by supporting your local farmers!

Thank goodness farmers markets are (slowly) starting to make a comeback!

Back in the good ole days when most humans lived in small farming villages, people worked together to feed their people. We cared about our neighbors. We farmed with our neighbors and we ate the bountiful harvest our hard work produced as a community.

Today, it's a little different. We sit on the couch torn away from our neighbors watching “Dancing with the Stars” and relying on supermarkets to supply us with food. Our bellies have gotten fat, our health has taken a turn for the worse, and, in my humble opinion, it seems as if an unnatural proportion of our nation’s population suffers from frequent irritability and/or mild depression. According to multiple web sources, one out of every ten U.S. citizens is clinically depressed.

Why are we so unhealthy/fat/depressed? I believe that the primary cause is that, as a country, our sense of community is largely nonexistent. We are so separated from our fellow man and our land that we have lost who we are as humans. By and large, no longer do we buy milk from the milkman, fruit from the local produce stand, or meat from the local butcher. Instead of associating the faces of our fellow townspeople with the goods that we purchase, as was likely the case with many of our forebears, we associate brands and retail chains with our purchased goods.

You don't know the chicken you are eating tonight for dinner. We don't thank the chicken for giving its life to us so we can have a warm meal. We just eat it totally oblivious to the fact that this little chicken was a creature with a life. Same goes with plants. Everything we eat had a life (unless it's crap artificial GMO over-corporatized Satan food!) I'm sure you are thinking, “Wow, you're getting a little hippy on me right now….” But think about it.

When we start pulling away from the fundamentals like farming together, knowing our neighbors, knowing our farmers, and our farmers loving their animals, we become a self-absorbed, unilateral, and an ultimately diseased society. Food is our foundation. Humans, as heterotrophs that depend on the persistence of other consumable organisms, have a connection to the soil and land that, when interrupted, shakes us to our very foundation. We used to thrive because we farmed together in communities. Everyone pulled his/her weight in these mostly bygone societies, and the type of slovenly lives that many Americans lead would never have been tolerated.

Communities have been squashed. We go to the grocery store to get all our food (from God knows where) with our interaction consisting of nothing more than a small nod from the overworked and underpaid associate who is slaving away under harsh florescent lights in an over-sterilized, austere environment.

Who wants food from these places!? How terrible has it gotten! PLEASE find information about your local farmer’s market. I promise there is one near you. The experience is almost spiritual. You socialize with real people in the fresh air who LOVE what they do and LOVE the animals they are raising. You see pictures of the local farms, and each farmer is PROUD of his/her farm. You meet their families and you bond the way people are supposed to when dealing with something so sacred and important as food. And best of all, you receive food that locally-grown and healthy.

So please find a farmer and support him/her. Let’s get back to the basics. Even if it is just getting meat from a local farmer, that is a start! YOU can really make a change if you just take small steps.

I GUARANTEE you will begin to feel better when you buy local fruits, veggies, meats, and milk from farmers in your area. That is the way to freedom and health. That is what humanity is all about.

Heal yourself. Buy local.

All about the HAIR!

So this post is more about my crusade against chemicals. I hate all the nasty chemicals they put in deodorant, shampoo, conditioners, cleaning supplies, carpets, clothes, everything! We are literally saturated in toxins! No wonder 1 in 3 people will develop cancer at some point in their life!

Lizzy, what does this have to do with hair? Recently in my anti-chemical thinking I did some research and I read that shampoos and conditioners can be very dangerous. So many nasty chemicals that your body actually sucks in through your scalp! Yikes! That lead me to pursue alternative ways to cleanse the doo! The only one that really caught my eye as having a good chance in working was the baking soda (shampoo) and apple cider vinegar (conditioner) substitute.

As a little side note, I have been OBSESSED with growing my hair...I seriously have tried everything (chemical and non-chemical) and the only things that really worked were:

• Cutting off all the damaged ends (that means everything with artificial color)
• Changing my diet (see specific carb diet post), 
• Washing my hair no more than about 3-4 times a week
• Small trims every 2 months. 
• Just a little help if you are looking to grow your hair out!

So back to the baking soda and apple cider vinegar! What I do with the baking soda is put some in a plastic bag and bring it in the shower. I  wet my hair and rub the baking soda in until the scalp is pretty well covered in baking soda, then I start the scrubbing! I make sure to really clean the scalp with the baking soda. Finally, I rinse all the baking soda out.

Next, I take the apple cider vinegar and put some in a plastic bottle. I fill it a little less than half way, fill the rest with water and give a good shake! This obviously isn't an exact science and you will find what works for your hair. You may prefer more or you may prefer less. After I finish with the baking soda rinse I proceed to rinse the hair with the apple cider vinegar water. All you do is pour about half the vinegar water on your hair, let it sit for a min or two and then shower it out.

Initially you will smell the apple cider vinegar, but it goes away once the hair is dry!

So what did you do by not using shampoo!? You didn't pollute the water supply more, you didn't drench yourself in chemicals, you are saving money, and best of all you aren't supporting evil greedy corporations that put junk into their products!

Little steps that you take to back away from toxic consumerism is not only going to help you and your family, but it will help our planet as well!

Specific Carbohydrate Diet

Thank God for the Specific Carb Diet. This diet is one that truly helps people with digestive disorders. The gut is allowed to heal and your body totally switches to enjoy REAL food. What is the specific carb diet? This diet seems strict at first, outlawing processed sugars, all wheat, barley, rye, rice, certain legumes, ect. I highly recommend the book called Breaking the Vicious Cycle by Elaine Gottschall. This book breaks it down and tells you all rules. It seems overwhelming in the beginning, I personally got angry at the fact that so many foods (mainly crappy, mineral and vitamin deficient foods) seemed to get cut out of my diet and I resented it the first, but stuck to it because it SLOWLY was starting to help.

After about 4 months I started to see big changes. I was having more energy. My symptoms began to get better and I was having more normal bathroom visits. Also, my hair also started growing! My hair had literally been the same length for about 3 years. Yeah...3 years! I was trying with all my might to grow it out and it just would not grow. After starting this diet though, my hair was growing like crazy.

I will not sugar coat my experience for the first 3 months. I was moody and tired. I seemed winded and my symptoms actually got worse. I was always hungry and I was craving sugary snacks like a mofo! It was not fun. But I knew I needed to do something drastic if I wanted to stay off the cancer causing medicine the medical community was so apt to inject me with. So I stuck it out and finally when I felt like I was going to give up and throw in the towel, I got better. I didn't have cravings. I wasn't moody. The routine of fixing food didn't seem so daunting and frustrating. I liked eating healthy and my body seemed to not reject the diet any more!

Then about 8 months into the diet I slipped one day and went out to eat. Interestingly enough, I didn't have any symptoms. I wish I would have though because eating out that one day put me back into crappy eating mode. Not all at once, but slowly I started to eat little naughty snacks here and there. Eating out more and more and BOOM! It struck. All the symptoms returned and I was back at square one. I had to restart all over again, and granted it didn't take me 4 months to get better, I did have all the cravings again like the first time.

So the moral of my story is if you are having digestive issues try the specific carb diet! More importantly, stick to it and don't go astray because you will regret having to start all over again.

The human body doesn't need all the crap we put into it! We need pure fresh veggies from the soil, healthy grass fed animals and wild free fish for our bodies! Nothing more. Anything else will just slowly kill you.