Nattoking.com

So I love Natto. The first few times I had it, it only really stood out as being slimy and a bit unappetizing to the western palate. But now I find myself craving the stuff. Natto is a fermented soybean dish. Soy is a rather controversial "health" food.

It contains phytoestrogens which are plant estrogens. People say this may either help or exacerbate hormonally influenced cancers such as that of the breast, prostate, and other issues. But phytoestrogens also tend to be weaker than say, BPA, and are also more natural in our hormone binding sites than those made of petrochemicals. For this reason soy milk may be recommended or shunned by some. These are of supposedly lesser concentrations in fermented soy dishes (soy sauce, tempeh, natto) while other beneficial compounds are present in natto.

The compound is, namely, nattokinase. This enzyme can help you digest food and in vitro studies is able to dissolve blood clots so could be recommended for people with high cholesterol or blood pressure. You can now buy the enzyme as a supplement! However, I say, why not fill yourself up with this common Japanese breakfast food, get some protein-enzymes-and gentle probiotics--keep yourself regular (both in your guts and in your veins) and eat natto!

Despite sensitivities to some probiotics, I've found that the small portions that natto is served in does not cause any bother to my digestive system and it's darn addictive. In the U.S. it's likely to be available at only asian specialty markets, and is sold in small styrofoam containers. So my love natto is generating a lot of plastic waste! I found Nattoking.com today doing a search on how to make it myself, and considering that it takes me 24 hours to defrost the natto I buy at the asian market, only 24 hours of fermentation and 24 hours of aging is needed to make delicious natto at home. why not give it a try. You can also bypass the MSG that is added to most commercially produce natto (although I have found brands that don't contain it)

See www.nattoking.com for the method. I'll let you know if it works to make good natto.

Support Responsible Agriculture: Demand Federal Subsidies Reward Responsibility

This is real. Humans actions are changing and damaging the Earth and I don't care who argues that it's false. Our Earth and life is resilent, however, humans' resilency may be nothing compared to other life forms. The planet should be respected.

Support responsible agriculture. I wish that responsible family farms, too, could receive the subsidies they deserve unlike the farms depicted in that video.

Organic vegetables are not falsely expensive so much as the polluted, GMO staples of GMO corn and soy are artificially cheap. When will enough people demand that common sense be used when bringing food to the table?

I don't know what to do about these problems, seems the only thing is to get the word out. The way I vote is with my wallet. I can't afford Coach purses or a lot of fancy clothes, but at least the food on my table is honest, real, and not posing so much of a risk to the planet.

One More Girl Documentary Will Be Made!

http://www.prlog.org/11435516-funded-one-more-girl-exposing-the-other-side-of-mercks-one-less-hpv-campaign.html

The PR Release link is above.

People believe enough in the "anecdotal evidence" to back this film. So if you are a mother, or a daughter, or a woman affected by this vaccine they are now looking for females to show in the documentary. I would, although my own experience is with only one dose of the vaccine and my side effects relatively mild. Thank goodness I realized something was rotten with the vaccine and didn't accept any subsequent doses. I hope girls will continue to refuse this vaccine and/or subsequent doses if they are experiencing side effects so they do not have to experience what the worst affected have.

I'm looking forward to the documentary.

Hypochloridia

Thank-you Truth About Gardasil group! This is the most interesting article I have come across in a long time and it explains a lot!

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ISW/is_2001_Oct/ai_78900837/?tag=content;col1


Hypochloridia, or low stomach acid. This is a contender for explaining all the problems! Luckily right now I'm pretty healthy, I'm digesting my food well, I'm going to ballet class multiple times a week, and coping pretty well with everything in general and have time to hang out with friends, but during the dark times it definitely was not so much this way. Anyway, the article is fascinating and can explain hypochloridia much better than I can in my own words.

Anyway, it's kind of impressive because the acupuncturist told me that I had a stomach yin deficiency and my stomach most markedly was abnormal according to eastern diagnosis.

Maybe it's always been a problem for me... I always experienced heartburn and nausea episodes as a kid. Maybe it led to some of the phenomenon described in the article (high levels of detrimental ions, aluminum, zinc, cadmium etc...) and then the sensitivity to the Gardasil shot. So maybe it's an underlying problem. This is the only condition I have ever seen that explains the waxing and waning severity of geographic tongue. I always wondered about that.

I don't think that hypochloridia is uncommon at all, seeing as how overmedicated for "excess acid" people are these days.

That was interesting. A part of me will always be interested in science.

___________________

If you think you may have low stomach acid (I'm sure it's fairly common) I've been thinking of what you can do to fix it.

1) Eat small, frequent, meals. You will better digest your food, it is better for your sugar metabolism which may be compromised because of the condition, and have time to regenerate and digest everything more effectively.

2) Don't drink too much water with meals. It will dilute what acid is in your stomach. Wait until a little while after your meal to drink.

3) Eat unprocessed foods. Try to avoid refined flours, sugars, etc. This is a good step for all health conditions.

4) Betaine HCl (to supplement the HCl which is the acid for your stomach): BUT be cautious with it. Sx of hyperacidity and hypoacidity are really similar. Start out with a small dose, monitor its effects carefully. This is a good site about Betaine HCl
http://www.modernherbalist.com/betaine.html

I'll add more as I think of them.

Center for Science in the Public Interest

With freedom and innovation comes responsibility to know what it is, what's safe, and what's not. Organizations like the Center for Science in the Public Interest are just helping laypeople such as myself and the rest of us to understand the ingredients of modern life. It's a good website for families and concerned everywhere.

http://cspinet.org/index.html

________________

Also for anyone who uses shampoo, toothpaste, and personal hygeine products of any kind, the Skin Deep Personal Product safety database is useful, although sometimes I don't agree with their ratings.

http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/

Cockatiel: Tapping Foot Dance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhjbazNuqvs&feature=related

OK... so they disabled embedding but I will forward people to this awesome cockatiel foot tapping video anyway.

Enjoy.

Something I Feel Strongly About: Modern Lifestyle and the Planet

Just a movie for today folks. Watch it, consider it, imagine some changes you can make in your daily life to reduce your waste.

_____________

I feel like I caught a bit of a cold so I'm taking it easy tonight.

Doing Low-Carb in Japanese Cuisine

My favorite Bento-Cooking Site:

http://www.justhungry.com/japanese-food-and-beverages-diabetics-and-low-carb-eaters

This blog is for those out there who just don't feel good on carbs or suffer from a variety of metabolic syndromes such as Diabetes, Insulin Resistance, PCOS, and general syndrome X issues.

Since I just returned from Japan, my experiences are fresh in my mind. I've been studying for so long there are not many cultural things that are shocking to me anymore, but one thing that shocked me (that did not shock me during my youth when I did not realize that carbs were negatively effecting how I felt) was the amount of carbs and in the inaccesibility of proteins that complicated folks such as myself need. Meals are large and abundant in noodles, rice, and starches without having much for someone who needs a cushioning protein in order to make energy. So I'm leaving this post here to help me and others who have this issue survive in Japan. It is possible but you have to get creative, and I will surely continue to loose weight as the heaviest staples in Japan give me crazy sugar spikes and the scary low-blood sugar crashes that surely contributed to my feeling insane the last time I went. With my new awareness of how these foods affect my system, I did just fine this time.

So that is a link I would like to rely on and keep stock of protein choices I have found in Japan.

Protein choices:

-tofu

-egg (hard boiled, tamagoyaki)

-fish cakes

-meats (hot dogs, ground meat patties, sizzled meats, ham)

-katsus aren't bad

And that blog was really good for talking about carb choices for those of us (considering even the buckwheat options probably contain a portion of white flour) who are a bit sensitive to white flours and white rice. It's like putting jet fuel in my system. It's hard to find a carb that looks like it recently came from a plant without being pulverized into refined flour.

Vegetables can always be relied on for your main carb, when coupled with small portions of rice.