The Language of Health – Part I

If we’re going to talk about food, let’s define the terms of the debate. It may have occurred to you that the same words can mean very different things, depending on who is speaking. If you think all Milk is the same or that all Eggs are now suspect, then get ready for a surprise (which may or may not be pleasant, depending on where you stand). There are so many hot topics nowadays, I’ll let this post serve as a tentative first draft for the introduction to the book I’m planning.

Salt Allow me to be blunt. When it comes to hypertension and cardiovascular disease, I believe refined Sodium Chloride, “table salt,” as we see here, plays a prominent role. This salt, as well as all other salts that retain their crystalline structure and their full complement of trace minerals, are innocent.

It’s a common thread that will run through all the definitions and clarifications that follow, but a traditional process that was once carried out slowly, exclusively on a small scale, has been subverted in favor of global exploitation of a substance that is essential for human health. People are looking for flavor in their food, and one of the most common ways to add flavor is with salt. And the more pure, refined salt we add to our food, the more disease we will create. Sadly, I predict we’ll be seeing a lot more “innovations” like this in the years ahead, as industry tries to walk the tightrope between balancing flavor and contributing to degenerative illness.

You guys can have your tightrope, I’ll take true flavor with no risk of illness, thank you very much. Picture a mountain landscape, similar to the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee. You see mountains in the foreground, then another set of mountains beyond that, and then another, and another, until the color of the highest peaks far off in the distance merge with the sky. It’s a beautiful landscape, you could gaze at it forever, and you can’t wait to climb down from the lookout and hike among those rolling hills. The impact that this scene has on the senses, that’s how your body responds to unrefined sea salt. “More please!”

Now picture an immense spire, stretching high into the sky. You tilt your head back, but you cannot see the top. It just goes on forever. The spire is smooth, so there’s no way you could climb it. And it takes you less than a minute to walk around the base. “Even if I could climb to the top, the wind up there must be outrageous!” And the spire is to massive, there’s a real risk it might fall over. That’s about how the body reacts to industrial, refined salt, which is almost pure Sodium Chloride. With absolute Horror.

And yet we have been taught that all varieties of salt are equally detrimental to health. Odd.

Beta-Carotene Here, the confusion comes from a completely different direction. I want to shout this from the mountaintops so everyone can hear… ahem… Beta-Carotene is not the same thing as Vitamin A, never has been, never will be! Ah, that felt better. I think it’s hilarious when the nutrition panel for a raw vegetable lists Vitamin A with a non-zero value. Or when a supplement manufacturer states that their mutli-vitamin formula “contains 5000 IU of Vitamin A, 50% of which is Beta-Carotene.”*

I want to laugh, but it’s tragic at the same time. Don’t get me wrong. Beta-Carotene can be beneficial for human health, to be sure. That is, if you have enough real animal fat in your diet. If you consume large amounts of Beta-Carotene without the fat, you might just turn orange. Seriously.

Vitamin A is not Beta Carotene. Vitamin A is fat-soluble, and you may also know it as Retinol Palmitate. See how “Retinol” looks a lot like “Retina,” which is the part of our eye that contains all the photoreceptors? It’s not a coincidence. When people say to consume more yellow and orange veggies for eye health, think twice. They think Vitamin A and Beta Carotene are the same. They aren’t. And in this case, wishing doesn’t make it so. I once asked my optometrist what I could do to increase the amount of Vitamin A in my diet. She recommended I take a multi-vitamin. She didn’t say which one, so her advice meant nothing. I was looking for another answer, and she whiffed. I was hoping she’d surprise me; too bad. We’ll get to the surprise below.

The body can make Vitamin A out of Beta Carotene about as easily as I can make an Origami Swan out of a piece of cardboard. The process is not easy, and it requires the presence of several other nutrients, which we usually don’t have enough of in the first place. Like real animal fat. That’s why carrots cooked in butter AND served with butter taste so much better than chomping on raw carrot sticks. And it’s why raw carrot juice with raw cream is heavenly, but raw carrot juice alone… uhhhh… looking a little orange today, are we?

The surprise answer that I was hoping my optometrist would know… is LIVER. My liver, your liver, the liver of every animal on this planet MAKES Vitamin A. The liver has an impressive resume, and making Retinol Palmitate is what it does best. So then, the way to get more Vitamin A…. is…. to eat more Liver. Simple. Notice I did not say mango. Every animal on this planet does not have a mango inside of them churning out Vitamin A. Mangos and Pumpkins and Carrots make Beta Carotene. Only LIVER makes Vitamin A. And please, do your body a favor. When you shop for Liver, make it 100% Grassfed Liver. Part II of The Language of Health will cover the two different versions of the word ‘cow.’ One has a healthy Liver, the other does not. (Hint: the one standing knee-deep in manure is not healthy.)

Sure, there are other sources of Vitamin A besides liver. Raw Butter and egg yolks from pastured chickens come to mind. Incidentally, the definitions of these also need clarification (but that’s for Part II). But when it comes to Vitamin A, Liver is King. Also, notice how all of these foods are rich in fat? Meanwhile, the foods we are told to take for Vitamin A, like carrots, are practically devoid of fat. Remember the nutrition panel from before? We see a respectable Vitamin A content of 11% RDA. But Vitamin A is fat-soluble, and I don’t see any fat listed, so that means someone is either ignorant… or lying. Either of which means that we are being lied to.

Part II, which will cover Eggs and Whole Grains, is coming soon.

*I took stab in the dark and actually came up with two misleading statements for the price of one! 50% is Beta-Carotene (which is not Vitamin A), and the other 50% is Retinyl Acetate (which is synthetic and doesn’t behave like Vitamin A in the body).

My Name is Andrew Rhodes, and I Drink Raw Milk

I drink Raw Milk because I am an athlete. Any physical exertion of the body damages the proteins that make up muscles and connective tissue. The more you workout, the more you stress these tissues. If you want to restore your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones to their best, you need a source of high-quality protein. By its very definition, Pasteurized Milk is not high-quality. Pasteurized Milk is Milk that has been – let’s admit it, OK? – killed. Think you’ll be able to restore life to your body with a dead food? Really? Think harder.

I could also go on and talk about how Vitamin C is one of the primary nutrients required for the production of collagen, a fundamental building block of connective tissue and bones. Vitamin C is extremely heat-sensitive. Raw Milk is an excellent source of Vitamin C. Any Vitamin C left in Pasteurized Milk has been crippled by the heating process. I don’t want to be crippled after a workout. That’s why I drink Raw Milk.

How many times have you heard, “Drink your milk to get calcium! Calcium for strong bones!” It’s true, calcium is one of the primary minerals found in bone. Exercise produces micro-fractures in bone, and you need calcium to repair these fractures. Think you’re getting enough calcium? One of the tests dairy plants use to determine if milk has been ‘successfully’ pasteurized, is the absence of the enzyme phosphatase in the finished product. Without phosphatase, the body cannot absorb calcium. This is independent of homogenization, which degrades the fats in milk to the point that they are much less effective in aiding assimilation of this essential mineral. Pasteurizing cuts milk off at the knees, and it is just as harmful to whoever drinks it. That’s why I drink Raw Milk.

I drink Raw Milk because, someday, I am going to be someone’s father. Raw Milk has nourished humans around the world for thousands of generations. Raw Milk is the first food a child takes in after it emerges into the world. This is no coincidence, and it points to Raw Milk’s completeness as a food. The fact that Raw Milk can give a child everything it needs for the first 18 months of its life (or more), fills me with awe and an incredible sense of respect. Knowing all of this… how would I explain to my child that I chose to drink Pasteurized Milk in the years leading up to their conception? Whatever I put in my body, today or at any time in the past, will in some way end up in my children.

When I was growing up, I knew nothing about the sanctity of Pure, Nutrient-Dense Foods. I drank two glasses of Pasteurized Milk with dinner every night. My parents didn’t know about Raw Milk, and I didn’t know any better to ask. There is no way to determine how my health would have been different, had I gained this knowledge at an earlier age. My parents and I fit neatly into two of the last generations on Earth to fall for the myth that Milk must be Pasteurized to be healthy. I can’t change what I did in my past, but I can change what I do right now, and this moment will change every moment to come. For my own health, for the health of my children, I drink Raw Milk.

I drink Raw Milk because it is a Political Act. Know any good aphorisms about the persistence of truth amidst falsehood? Use them here. We don’t need Laws to tell us which foods are good for our health. We need perspective, and perspective has a long, tragic history of being corrupted by legislation. When did we stop looking to earlier generations for guidance? When did we give up our power of choice? If you don’t make a choice, sooner or later your ability to make that choice will disappear. Many people no longer associate specific foods with better health: for most people, what you see is what you want is what you get. And what we see, by a wide margin, is Pasteurized Milk.

Ask. Ask why. “Why has our Milk been Pasteurized?” “What does Pasteurization do to Milk?” “What does Pasteurized Milk do to my body?” In all but a few rare instances, our elected officials are not asking these questions. We must ask these questions first. But it’s not enough to ask. We must act even as we ask. If you believe in the heretical notion that health is more than a state of not-being-sick, then you owe it to yourself to find out why so many of our foods are fundamentally altered before they are offered to us as the only choice for nourishment.

I’m inspired by Mark McAfee at Organic Pastures and Ron Schmid, author of The Untold Story of Milk. And I’m inspired and MOTIVATED by the farmers from whom I purchase Raw Milk products.

My Name is Andrew Rhodes, and I Drink Raw Milk.

If you like your Milk Raw, do more than just tell your friends about this post. Tell them why you drink Raw Milk! And then tell me why you drink Raw Milk, and leave a link to your blog.

Success, Defined

The menu read like a foodie’s telegram.

Country Ham.
Yellowtail Gravlax.
Spot Prawn Fritters.

Chicken Spleens?

I experienced some trepidation, of course. Mostly because my previous experience with eating spleen involved bison spleen, which I do not care to repeat. Bison spleen has the texture of a tough, fibrous net. And it doesn’t make for good eating.

If a restaurant is actually serving spleen, I thought, they must think it’s amazing. Serving a dish that absolutely no one will like is a waste of time and energy. Serving a dish that everyone will love brings joy to the entire table. And if you’re going to spend so much time preparing a food that not one of your diners has ever eaten before, then you must think it’s worth sharing.

“So, I’m curious about the Chicken Spleens,” I asked my waiter. “What do they taste like?”

“Like Chicken Liver.”

Makes sense. “I’ll have the Chicken Spleens.”

They were better than Chicken Liver. And once I realized that every spleen came from a different chicken, I appreciated each bite even more.

I asked a waitress what she thought of the dish.

“Yeah, aren’t they good? No one wants the spleens, so we get them all.”

If we can find value where others cannot – or will not – then we have just removed the last obstacle to success. If a restaurant can introduce its patrons to a food they would never see anywhere else, and they enjoy it, then that restaurant has just discovered a new way to succeed.

Naturally, it means doing your homework. Everyone who worked at this restaurant was confident that they understood their patrons. So confident, in fact, that they put Chicken Spleens on the menu on opening night.

Chicken Spleens will be on the menu for the next few weeks, at least. Here’s my vote that they keep serving them for a long time. Everyone deserves a taste of success.

We Interrupt this Blog for a Slice of Reality

I let it happen.

A change in employment, a new living situation, and the responsibilities of homework and tests requesting more of my time and energy… I was putting out Vitamin T as fast as I was taking it in. I felt like I was neglecting fundamental parts of my life in favor of more novel responsibilities.

This is new for me… a full time job plus a difficult college-level class, and moving across town into a place of my own. I’ve been wondering how I’m going to do it, how I could possibly manage to excel in all areas at the same time. Then I take a look around the table in my class, and it kind of brings me up short. Most of my fellow students in Anatomy and Physiology are women, and many of them have full time jobs as well…. and children.

The additional level of commitment that comes with being a great parent, on top of being a student, exceeds anything I’ve done up to this point. And it has only made them stronger.

When faced with any great challenge in our lives, many might ask themselves, “Can it be done?” That leaves us open to doubt. One word makes a world of different: “How can it be done?” I didn’t make this up, but it suits me for now.

I have a new crockpot to go with my new place, and I’m getting back into a bone-broth-making rhythm. All the paintings I’ve collected oveer the last few years are up on my walls, and it’s starting to feel like home.

One day at a time, we’re writing our own future. May we go from strength to strength.

Grassfed Ghee are You Kiddin’ Me?!?!

I was all set to follow my last post with Livin’ on the Edge, Part II, but this deal is too good to pass up. The Nourished Kitchen, in partnership with Pure Indian Foods, is giving away almost half a GALLON of Grassfed Ghee! Split up into many tiny jars, of course.

I got the chance to try some of Pure Indian Foods’ newest flavors of Grassfed Ghee at the 10th Annual Conference of the Weston A. Price Foundation last November, and I was extremely impressed. Yes, it’s true: your fearless author took upon himself the audacious task of sampling ultra-premium ghee infused with either cinnamon, garlic, or Herbes de Provence all afternoon. The lengths I go to… for you!

Enjoy the butter, revel in ghee, and thank the holy cows which bless us every day.

And fear not, brave readers! Livin’ On the Edge, Part II is just around the corner…

Livin’ On the Edge – Part I

Pardon me if I go out on a limb for this post, but that’s where all the fruit is.

And let’s start with fruit. I mean real fruit, the kind with seeds. Any botanist will back me up: every piece of fruit is simply an ovary for that particular plant. The ovary contains the hope for the next generation of apple trees / watermelon vines / raspberry bushes / etc. Keep that in mind as I digress for a bit.

When it comes to my choices in food, some may call me eccentric. Some may call me just to find out what I’m having for lunch. It happened just a few short weeks ago. I remember it as if it were yesterday… (Insert Dream Sequence Music here)

I had purchased a duck at the farmer’s market in Hollywood. Healthy Family Farms in Santa Paula… wonderful people and an excellent farm. The process of disassembling a duck, chicken, or other bird before cooking it is very meditative for me. There are certain steps that gently request your attention to their appropriate order, or else you might miss out on all that the bird has to offer. My primary motivation for taking the duck apart, instead of just tossing it in the oven and living off leftovers for a week, was that I wanted to make soup with the carcass. To get to this point, I wanted to remove the skin and as much of the meat as possible. My experience was confirmed by what we learned in class this week, that most of the fat in the body is right beneath the skin. Anatomy meets Nourishing Traditions, you could say. I planned to cut up the skin in little pieces, toss that in the oven, and voila! Duck cracklins and pure duck buttah.

Are you still thinking about my fruit-as-ovary introduction? I hope so, because the duck-fat-beneath-the-skin reference ties in beautifully, just wait.

First, I cut along the vertebrae and the breastbone, and then made transverse cuts to either side, so that I could pull off the skin. This was actually a lot easier than I thought, but a bit messy (so no pictures this time). This is the meditative part, because removing the skin took MUCH longer than cutting off the meat. Finally, the pieces of skin were crisping up nicely in a 250 degree oven (Fahrenheit, mind you). About 2 hours in total, and the smell is outrageous (in a delicious way, the kind that induces salivation).

Imagine my surprise when I measured out more than ONE CUP of rendered duck fat! I’ve done this with so-called ‘free-range’ chickens, and never gotten anywhere close to even half a Cup of schmaltz for the same amount of effort. Happily, Healthy Family Farms doesn’t ship. If you want to try this, best seek out someone who’s doing it right closer to your neighborhood.

But duck cracklins…. ahhhh.. that’s the real prize. Melt-in-your-mouth, crunchy, blessed duckness. If you haven’t seen homemade cracklins, you will have no idea what they are, in the event that, oh, I don’t know, some guy were to take out a jar containing said cracklins out of his bag and start snacking contentedly on handful after blessed handful, just across the table from you.

That’s me. I’m that guy. Snackin’ on cracklins.

Or rather, I was that guy. And the emotions that played across my fellow students’ faces during our Anatomy class were a mixture of… what? Shock? Amusement? Bewilderment? Perhaps I flatter myself by thinking that everyone would immediately want to try some. They asked what I was eating, and I answered… but no takers.

OK, here comes the punchline, the first of several. Ready?

One of my friends in the class, whose expression was an unidentifiable blend of horror, anxiety, and anticipation (waiting to see what would happen to me once I finished eating, perhaps?), asked me quite pointedly why I was so interested in the skin.

I pointed out to her that we had just learned all about the different layers of the skin in the human body. How one of the skin’s primary functions was protection of everything beneath. What I was trying to impress upon her, and everyone within earshot (which included our professor by this point), is that Nature is too smart not to employ multiple redundancies in her defense strategies. Meaning that the skin of a human (or a duck, or a piece of fruit), is far more than simply a mechanical barrier to invaders.

The skin of a piece of fruit may serve to protect the hope of the next generation, but the skin of a duck protects both this generation and the next.

That’s why I’m so interested in the skin.

But this is only the beginning. More surprisingly-delicious snacks – for both the mind and the palate – are coming up soon, in Livin’ On the Edge, Part II.

Mise en Place

In cooking, at the beginning of a recipe, you will sometimes see these words: “Mise en Place.” It’s French for “Everything in its Place.” Meaning, if you are about to make a stir-fry, don’t turn up the heat until you have chopped all the vegetables into their correct sizes, and arranged them in the order in which they are meant to be added to the wok. This also hearkens back to the mother sending her child next door for a cup of flour and an egg; you can’t make a cake without them.

If “Mise en Place” is not observed, then the success of the recipe is in doubt. Sometimes you can fake it: turn down the heat, leave out vegetables that will only be tender by the time other ingredients will have been cooked into mush. “Mise en Place” is about timing, of course, but it does not force us to blindly improvise. It invites us to see into the future, and allows us to plan accordingly.

This post is not about cooking. Your whole life is “Mise en Place.”

Rarely in life do we have the same kind of awareness of what lies ahead as we do when preparing a recipe. Yet if we know how to live, just as we know how to call on spontaneity in the kitchen, we will have the ability to face any challenges that may arise. I realize this is a big ‘if,’ but think about that for a moment. We are always ready to face what lies ahead. Our whole lives have brought us up to this moment. What will we create to show for it in the next moment?

If we were only talking about a recipe, then we might point to the quality of certain ingredients, or the craftsmanship of our favorite kitchen gadgets, as standards by which we might predict our success. But the keys to immaculate presentation, delectable flavor, and high nutrient content depend, at heart, on our passion, awareness, confidence, and a host of other intangible factors. How do you know when you have enough confidence to make a souffle for the first time? How do you know when your passion for preparing the perfect vichyssoise will translate into the real thing?

Quite simply, we don’t. We cannot “know” ahead of time exactly how the recipe will turn out. But “Mise en Place” allows us to venture beyond our comfort zone in the hopes of greater benefit. Don’t know how to make a souffle? Find a trusted recipe, one written by someone skilled with all aspects of French cooking. Read the recipe once, twice, ten times. Look up the words you do not recognize. Talk to people who have made good souffles before. Educate yourself on precisely which techniques are used, and their exact method of application. You’ll never be completely “ready,” but you’ll be as close as anyone can be.

Now cross out “make a souffle” and write down “nurture a relationship” in its place. Try this again, except this time insert “build trust.” Then do it with “communicate clearly.” I would be the last one to suggest that replacing “souffle” with “relationship” can be accomplished “quite simply.” But in both cases, we cross an invisible line as soon as we take that first step into the unknown. Where is the invisible line which separates knowing from doing?

We have come to this invisible line by taking thousands of steps in the right direction. We wouldn’t even consider making our first souffle unless we had come into contact with what we considered to be a great souffle, sometime in our past. The journey up to that line takes awareness, effort, and a hefty dose of Vitamin T. Unlike a souffle, loving relationships are prepared and tasted simultaneously, continuously. What an incredible opportunity! “Mise en Place” is happening all the time.

I don’t know anyone who makes a souffle for themselves every single day. But I look around at all my friends and loved ones, and I see fulfilling relationships and trustworthiness being created every moment. Every moment we are learning more about what it means to collaborate and connect, and putting what we learn into practice. We return to “Mise en Place” and venture out of our comfort zone with every action, always in the hopes of greater benefit.

Think of the best cookbook you’ve ever read. It probably read more like a novel than a list of equations. Guess what? You’re writing it at this very moment.

Oh! My alarm just went off. Time to check on that souffle.

And Now for Something Completely Different

Say Hello to Aaron Paige:

Aaron and I both attended Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut at the beginning of the last decade (2000-2002). I wish I had known way back then that he was destined for greatness… then I would have finagled my way into serving on stage crew for this video.

Who are We Feeding?

I was faced with a mind-twisting choice the other night. On the one hand: Leave the house early so that I would have enough time to put gas in my car and arrive at class in time to receive a few hour’s instruction on the form and function of the human body. OK, got that? Adding liquid to an engine, motivated by learning more about how the human body works.

On the other hand: I had the opportunity to make a delicious bowl of soup and pack it in my thermos to be enjoyed a few hours later, during class. I risked arriving late to class with this option, but at least I wouldn’t go hungry. Plus, this was soup-from-scratch, the most healing, delicious soup possible, able to improve the efficiency of all bodily functions.

So the choice came down to…

Adding liquid to an engine, motivated by the desire to learn how the human body works.

vs.

Adding liquid to an engine, to help the human body work better.

I chose the first option.

Fortunately, these are choices we make every day. I say ‘fortunately’ because it’s a true choice, every time. I was in no danger of losing my seat in the class. And I did not lose out on my chance to make soup. What I’m most concerned about is the contrasting energies which bubbled up in this situation: “Oh! I have to feed my car! Oh! I have to feed myself!” I don’t know whether to be thankful that I have this choice, or concerned that this is even an issue.

If I had to do it again? I’d skip the high octane gas in favor of spicy cream of cauliflower with cumin, coriander, and coconut.

School of Rock

It’s Back to School time, but I’ve been waiting for this class my whole life: Anatomy and Physiology. When I was in grade school, I used to think how nice it would be, if each of us were born with our own personal guidebook to our bodies. Last night’s class confirmed everything I’ve learned since grade school: the body is the guidebook. We can learn much more about human endurance, adaptability, and strength by paying attention, than we ever can by just reading books. Ahhh, but if we do both…

About three times week I head out to my local climbing gym. Though I’d definitely prefer to go bouldering outdoors, it’s been raining a lot in Southern California recently. I’m grateful for a dry spot where I can workout in peace. I skipped it last week, but this week I was back on Monday, and soon my body was reminding me – gently – just how strenuous climbing can be. Every time I go, I climb in a different way, sometimes like ballet, sometimes in mincing steps, just trying to stretch as many different muscles as possible. On Monday, it was a lot of twisting of the trunk, long stretching of the legs, and more reaching for holds behind my head than usual. I was sore all over on Tuesday, but most of this faded by mid-morning, with the exception of my left arm.

“That’s hypertrophy,” my professor said last night, accenting the second syllable. There are two ways the body grows: either by forming new cells (hyperplasia), or by stimulating existing cells to grow larger (hypertrophy). “Different parts of the body grow in different ways. Muscle cells grow by hypertrophy; when you work out, your body doesn’t add new muscle cells to the ones you already have. Those original cells just get bigger.” Suddenly the soreness of my left arm was no longer an annoyance: my body was growing! I had heard that it was only during rest that muscles grow, and I’ll probably learn this in the next few weeks. But hearing “hypertrophy” so soon after climbing gave me a sense of connection that has been rare since that first thought of a ‘guidebook’ in grade school. To peer within the body and understand what is happening at any given moment, that’s the kind of awareness I’m looking for.

I’m going climbing again today. Class is in session.