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Volume 3 Number 9 | ||
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Natural Health Techniques Dr. Denice Moffat |
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December, 2007 |
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*What’s in a Health Claim? *Updated Sign-up Form *Adding to Lists *Stamps.com *Price Increase Support *New Year’s Resolutions Alternative *Carrots Movie—The Ultimate Gift *When is it acceptable to give our dog leftovers? *Help for Epicondylitis. Tips and Tricks for a Healthier Life: *Carrots and Glycemic Index *Headaches and Walnuts. *Love your website but can’t afford a consult. *Cranberry Marmalade *12 Support Groups We Need in Life. *Jacquie Lawson Cards *Life is a Game of Boomerangs *Big “money saving” ideas gone bad. *I got a new desk January 12th Animal Totem Workshop
(Please note that full names are never used in this newsletter or on my website without the full consent of the sender or client. Some cases also encompass groupings of cases with similar symptoms and suggestions for healing in an attempt to educate the general public.)
What’s in a Health Claim? Health claims sell food. . .but are the claims true? In September 2006, Hannaford Brothers, a New England chain store with 158 supermarkets in five states developed a system called Guiding Stars that rated the nutritional value of nearly all the food and drinks at its stores from zero to three stars. Of the 27,000 products that were plugged into Hannaford’s formula, 77 percent received no stars, including many, if not most, of the processed foods that advertise themselves as good for you. What? No stars for V8 Juice? Campbell’s Healthy Request Tomato soup? Lean Cuisine and Healthy Choice frozen dinners? No. They have too much sodium to qualify, so are considered nutritionally flawed. And forget about any flavor yogurt but plain. They have too much sugar in them to get any stars. Most fruits and vegetables earned three stars and so did salmon and Post Grape-Nuts cereal (gee, I thought that was pretty sugary myself). Even the low-sodium version of V8 got no stars under the Hannaford system. So, what IS this scale and how does it work? Well, the scale evaluates a 100-calorie serving of each product using only the information that is available on the “nutrition facts” panel and the ingredients list. A product receives credit for vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber and whole grains, but is docked points for trans fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, added salt and added sugar. “Many products that are marketed as healthy received zero stars from Hannaford because they contain too much salt or sugar or not enough nutrients,” said Lisa A. Sutherland, an assistant professor of pediatrics and a nutrition scientist at Dartmouth Medical School who was part of the advisory panel that developed Hannaford’s formula. Of course these companies are aligned with the government’s “very stringent” definition of what healthy is. Hmm. Maybe we should raise those standards? This last month I read several articles touting the health benefits of chocolate. Maybe they are talking about chocolate when used as a condiment. . .not as a meal substitute! The Hannaford scale is an example of third party standards that are higher than our own Food and Drug Administration. It bothers me that so many foods and drugs seem to get onto our shelves when the marketing campaign is all that is driving it. I routinely cull out products that I call the “herb of the month” as my clients present them as the newest, latest, greatest product available that will heal anything it touches. Is the public so naïve that they believe all this marketing hype? Well, some people do. I recognized fairly quickly in my career that I could never own or operate a health food store. I just can’t bear the thought of selling someone one of these fad products that turns out not to work (and some actually cause harm in the long run.) And lots of supplements sound good and go in phases—I know this after culling $2,027 worth of expired supplements and homeopathics off my shelves this month. It’s not like I can put those products on sale. Bummer, eh? Well, that’s just the cost of doing business. It’s all a balancing act. Hannaford’s scale is an attempt to offer guidance to shoppers who want it. Hannaford’s nutritionists acknowledge that their system is more stringent than the guidelines used by the F.D.A. The food agency sets standards that food manufacturers must use when they define a product as, say, low in fat or high in fiber and companies may use those designations even if the product is loaded with less desirable ingredients. And if they just use a tiny amount (under the GRAS amount—Generally Regarded As Safe) they don’t have to list it on the label. Or if we sell chemicals illegal to use in this country to a third-world country who use it on their orchards and sell their products back to us (like DDT) we don’t have to put that on the package either. Gee, this just does not seem right. Shouldn’t they have to list the poisons on the package as well? Shouldn’t there be full disclosure? Or do we have to know each and every farmer supplying us with food? It’s something to think about. Nutritionists and food industry analysts said that Hannaford’s findings highlight some unpleasant truths about Americans and their eating patterns. People want to be healthier but do not want to change their behavior. I’ve found this to be true, but it seems like year after year food items get sweeter, saltier or more inundated with fake chemicals to make us think the item has flavor. When I was in undergraduate school taking classes for my Animal Science degree they were running all kinds of experiments to find ways to use whey, a waste byproduct in overabundance from the dairy industry. We were trying to figure out how much of it could safely be incorporated into pig diets before it had negative side affects. I can see this was unnecessary because now they put whey into everything to make things sweeter and we also use whey as a protein supplement! Gives me phlegm. To read more about the Guiding Stars system and delve into recipes using the foods that actually have passed this stringent analysis, go to: Hanneford's Guiding Stars
Adding to the Lists portion of the website: My new friend Zheng is helping me to build some lists that will help a lot of you. I’ve had a book of lists for years that I’ve used during my consults to determine specifically what people have challenges with and what they are allergic to. The problem was that often the lists were photo copies of indexes. Zheng volunteered to type up a few for us. Thanks Zheng. You can see the updated lists here: http://www.naturalhealthtechniques.com/ExamForms-MedicalIntuitive/exam_forms_list.htm Updated Sign-up form: A few of you have emailed saying that my sign up form for the newsletter was not working correctly. I rebuilt the form. Hopefully it works now. Please let me know if it does not and I'll try again! Stamps.com: Would you like fries with that? Stamps? Overnight for just $50? Rotten fish? Booze? I just couldn’t take standing in line any more at the post office let alone all the extra questions, so I broke down and learned a new program. It’s called Stamps.com. I can purchase postage on line and print mailing labels (most of the time) with my home printer. I was mailing 2-8 packages/day all hand-done, writing out the labels over and over and we were spending 10-50 minutes driving to and standing in line at the post office sometimes twice each day. Oh my Gosh! I can’t believe how easy this is and I figured it saves us more than 150 hours of standing in line each year. Do you realize that this is over three 40-hour work weeks in time we save? Imagine. Notice of Price Increase as of 1/1/2008: (The last increase was over 4 years ago!) MY NEW FEES WILL BE: First Consult (in person or via phone) $85 Follow-up Consults $65/hour Recheck Supplements over the phone $20 Recheck Supplements On Line $25 Supplement Prices will remain unchanged A big thanks to my clients for supporting me in this! You’ve been telling me for years that I have not been charging enough. Oh, I knew that. Thanks for all those extra tips. I wish you all health and wealth in the upcoming years. Love Denice From the peanut gallery: Oh, good job. It's about time! That lady I saw in Orlando just about killed me when she all but drained my account. I have a friend coming your way. Her son has a peanut allergy (along with other outside allergies.) She told me the doctor said "he's an inside boy." I told her that was a load and EVERYONE needs to be outside. Take care. Have a PEACEFUL Holiday. Amy Good for you, for giving yourself a raise. Skeeter
An Alternative to Resolutions (This isn’t exactly a Case of the Month, but it’s an important technique used to shift your consciousness—and most of us need that at times, so I’m using it instead of a case this month.) I know most of you don’t like making New Year’s Resolutions because you can’t keep them. But have you ever just CELEBRATED what you have accomplished the previous year? We do. Every year around this time we have a mocha at Starbucks and grab our appointment books and calendars to glance through to find our accomplishments. We focus on these areas: Physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, business, career, community, family, relationships, projects, home, celebrations, and Random Acts of Kindness. Sometimes we have to remind each other how we’ve touched other people’s lives in positive ways because neither one of us is that big on “tooting our own horns”. It takes us a couple of hours, but it’s worth it. Thought you’d like some ideas for your own lists, so here’s mine for 2007: 100 Things I Accomplished in 2007 (to read the full list, click here or download Printer Friendly Version) 2. Drank more water than in 2006. 3. Took off at least 14 “Days of Joy” to do whatever I wanted to (on Sundays). 4. Hired a housekeeper (OK, so I didn’t keep her, but I’m in the process!) 5. Got all of my amalgam fillings removed. 7. Volunteered at several vaccine clinics. 10. Tithed time generously to answer questions from people who I knew would not make appointments due to funding issues. 11. Spayed/Neutered 982 animals this year. 15. Enjoyed several short trips with Michael to look for our dream property in the country with a 12-month babbling brook. 19. Had a fabulous vacation in Victoria Canada with mom and Michael. 22. Started meditating routinely and daily starting Sept. 25th with the Holosync program (www.centerpointe.com ). 29. Became a doctor to doctors this year (dentists, chiropractors, osteopaths, medical doctors). 30. Did more consults for more horses than ever before this year. 33. Started a Roth IRA. 36. Paid down my school loans (approximately $4000 to go!) 38. Put up over 75 new pages on my website. 39. Read 2 books on money (fulfilling my yearly quota). 40. Socialized 6 times (four over my yearly quota). 43. Started taking credit cards using Total Merchant Concepts (http://www.totalmerchantconcepts.com ) using (www.PayTrace.com ). 44. Learned how to use Stamps.com (www.stamps.com) to process my packages starting in December (LOVE it!) 45. Received 1.4 million hits/month on my website. 46. Celebrated when nearly 1000 people signed up for my newsletter. 52. Explored a few raw food recipes that Michael cooked (and actually ate some of them). See Grawnola Ambrosia. 58. Had most of the house re-plumbed with PEX tubing (Michael did this). 60. Finished half of the basement with my brother Jerry and Michael. 65. Figured out how to have an Out of the Office email auto-responder. (It’s amazing the instructions you can get just from typing into the search box what you’re looking for!) 67. Kept up with QuickBooks in all account until September (3 more months better than last year). 68. Filed “Bills Paid” paperwork and kept up until November (6 months better than last year). 70. Went mushroom picking for the first time in my life. 71. Processed 500 appointments. 72. Paid all taxes ahead of time. 75. Made yearly payments instead of monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly payments for three bills. 76. Paid all credit card charges in full very month. 77. Completed two postcard advertising campaigns with www.vistaprint.com postcards. 78. Went to a Tongue Diagnosis seminar as part of my Naturopathic Continuing Education credits. 79. Completed my goal of writing over 100 online articles with www.ezinearticles.com . 80. Had 94,000 people click/read my ezine articles so far. 81. Had my articles published 1,748 times. 82. Had over 19,647 views on my parasite article! (Holy crap! I used to tell my veterinary technicians “Pus is our friend. It makes us lots of money and helps to give you a paycheck.” I’ve changed my jingle to “Crap is our friend!” Wondered why I was getting so many emails about parasites! Parasites—How Do You Know if You Have Worms and What to Do About Them. 84. Celebrated that my www.alexa.com ranking went up more than 100,000 rankings from last year. 85. Processed and mailed 417 packages of supplements (most all within 48 hours.) 86. Did almost 80% of my business via the telephone and email this year (my goal is 100% so I don’t have to clean my house every time I see a client.) 87. Did phone consults for clients in England, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and Uruguay. 90. Was interviewed by Adrienne Vincent for a KRFP (www.MoscowFreeRadio.org) Radio Talk Show. 96. Reorganized all inventory in stock and culled $2027 in expired homeopathics/supplements. 97. Laid linoleum tile in the kitchen, bathroom and closets and put 5 coats of wax on the finished project. Thank you God! And so it is. . .
Product of the Month: Carrots! Compare the ingredients of a typical multivitamin/mineral with that of what is in a carrot. (Thanks to Standard Process Labs for providing this info. I’ve been trying to locate this handout for two years now to show you!) “Complete” Multivitamin purchased off the shelf of a retail store:
People often ask me if there isn’t just a pill that they can take that will make their diet better. I don’t think they appreciate it when I tell them they need to focus on whole foods and better eating habits. The health benefits of fruit and vegetables are additive and synergistic combinations of phytochemicals. That’s one reason why we use high-quality food-based supplements and organic whole herbs when we can. Here’s one example: What’s in a Carrot?
Gee, a bit more stuff in a carrot than in vitamins off the shelf. Helpful Links and References:
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Question:
Why can’t I just take an Allium capsule to get the benefits of that particular
chemical that garlic and onions have? Why do I have to eat the vegetable?
Wouldn’t the capsule be better since the Allium is more concentrated that way?
Answer:
There is WAY more than just Allium in garlic. All the components in whole foods
work together synergistically. That doesn't happen when only one component is
concentrated, except perhaps to rebuild deficiencies or to replace a specific
nutrient that the body is using up faster than all the rest. Let me give you an
example:
Say we want to build
a house (this represents our body) and we have all the components to do so. We
want to go faster, so we purchase an extra truckload of power tools
(vitamins)—only there are no workers (representing enzymes) to work the power
tools. Allium would be the power tool. Raw foods supply the enzymes (workers).
Understand?
Herbs and
supplements come into and go out of vogue every month depending on someone's
expert hands at writing a compelling paper that entices you to purchase their
supplements. There is no substitute for whole foods.
Denice:
Help me out if you have time. Every once in a while Rory will give Colby (our
dog) a plate to lick sitting in the TV room or at the table after he is
finished. He insists that "it is only a few scraps". Now I have no problem
with giving Colby scraps, but feel that she should always be feed on the back
porch, so she doesn't learn to be expecting or silently begging for handouts.
Correct me if I am wrong, but what is your opinion?
Dear Debbie:
As long as she eats AFTER the alpha pair (that’s you and Rory) everything should
be fine. It's up to the alpha to tell her when she can eat and to correct her if
she starts to beg. So, she needs to be in her spot or lying down until it’s her
turn to have leftovers.
One really great
resource I think you'd like is a book called, The Dog Listener by Jan
Fennell. I did a book review on that once. (See
May, 2006 Newsletter) Jan explains the process quite well. Seems to work at
our house!
And as a side note?
Fatty scraps are never the best choice. Dogs should get only lean meat scraps.
No chicken bones, rib bones, or cooked bones that will splinter and puncture the
gut. Raw and cooked vegetables and some raw fruit a few times each week will
also keep your dog healthy so she/he will live a long life. And if your dog has
any skin problems, most dogs can eat 2-5 eggs/week (cooked) which will help
gloss up the coat.
Hello!
My name is Carla and I signed up to receive your newsletter. I have been
reading all of the incredible information on your web pages as well! I just
have to keep returning to read more! I wanted to ask a question: Is there
anything that would help treat epicondylitis? The doctor said this is
what my husband has that is causing his left arm pain. Any advice for this
problem would be very much appreciated. Please Help! Thanks for your time.
Carla
Dear
Carla:
I’m sure there are some supplements that would help your husband and if you’re
ready, we can set up and appointment for him. The next best bet though would be
a Nikken Elbow Elastomag wrap. I think the cost would be around $120 plus
shipping. You should be able to find a distributor locally. One of my best
friends had that and actually became a distributor because it worked so well.
Read about magnets on my site here:
BasicsofHealth/Magnetic Field_Repair
Sometimes I notice that the head of the radius is slightly subluxated (this
happens a lot with massage therapists) and over time can cause some inflammation
of the elbow. If this is the case, a chiropractor would be in order to reset the
bone.
And
some people are greatly helped by just having their workplace evaluated by a
trained chiropractor who knows about Ergodynamics. These types of practitioners
can tell you what height to sit at, where to place your keyboard and evaluate
what the person is doing to cause a challenge like what your husband is
experiencing and if it’s work-related.
Of
course you usually have to work without a cat on your lap so heavy that she
makes your butt fall asleep and a dog at your feet that is preventing you from
setting your feet flatly on the floor. Guess Ergodynamics doesn’t work too well
at our house. I’ve got to get up and stretch now. I hope the blood goes back
into my feet. To read more about Ergodynamics, go to:
http://www.ergodynamics.net
Movie Review: The
Ultimate Gift (2006)
A story that just keeps giving.
Michael and I liked
this 4-Star family movie on the gift of giving Time, Talent, Love and Dollars.
We love it for the great morals/values kind of movie that it is.
When his wealthy
grandfather dies, trust fund baby Jason Stevens (Drew Fuller) anticipates a big
inheritance. Instead, his grandfather, Red Stevens (James Garner) has devised a
crash course on life with twelve tasks – or “gifts” – designed to challenge
Jason in improbable ways, sending him on a journey of self-discovery and forcing
him to determine what is most important in life: money or happiness.
Emily (Abigale
Breslin), age 11 has cancer but it is not evident to Jason. One of the gifts
Jason has to accomplish is to have just one friend who loves you with no strings
attached. When asked how long she intends to stay friends with Jason she tells
the attorney (Bill Cobbs) in charge of the project, “I intend to know him my
whole life!”
Brian Dennehy (love
this guy) plays Gus, an old time friend of Jason’s grandfather. One of the gifts
involves Jason putting in a fence for Gus. Gus goes to pick him up one day and
says to Jason, “I wish I had a dollar for every fence post I ever set. . .as a
matter of fact, I do!” As the camera pans his miles of acres with hundreds of
miles of fence posts, Jason “gets it” that it sometimes takes hard work to get
where you want to go. (You can see this scene on the YouTube called, Rude
awakening for Jason segment here):
See the Trailer:
http://www.theultimategift.com/movie.php?cid=1560810621&cat=movie
Based on the best-selling book "The Ultimate Gift" by Jim Stovall,
Directed by
Michael O. Sajbel
Tips and
Tricks for a Healthier Life:
Carrots and their glycemic index.
I’d put this one
under Ask Dr. Moffat, but I never get this question. Mostly people with sugar
challenges tell me that they stay away from carrots and potatoes because
they are high in sugar. But when I ask them what they eat for breakfast, lunch,
dinner and snacks and what they drink, I can see that they don’t understand the
concepts of the glycemic index! For example:
Three large “sugary”
whole, sliced or grated carrots have a volume of about 3 cups. The sugar content
(and glycemic load) is equal to:
·
1 ½ pieces of
Bread or ¾ of a small Bagel (not even a whole sandwich)
·
15 French
fries (not even a small order of fries)
·
3 Graham
crackers
·
¾ of a plain,
small Donut (not sugar coated, filled, or decorated in any way)
·
1 ½ ounces of
Granola (a scant ¼ cup) (Most people eat about a cup—then add
milk/sugar!)
·
¾ of a small
Muffin (not a large Costco muffin, just ¾ of a small home-made one)
·
¾ cup
Pasta or Rice of any kind (I don’t know how you eat, but 2 cups of pasta is
a meal size for me. I then add sauce which is more carbs and often have a piece
of bread and/or some wine with that meal!)
·
¾ of a
Hamburger Bun or Hot Dog Bun (Most people don’t throw out the top half of
their bun I’ve noticed. Plus, they order fries and a large drink!)
·
½ cup of
Ice Cream (That’s one small scoop, not a whole bowl with toppings.)
·
1 ½ cups of
Wine or 4 ½ ounces of Hard Liquor
·
1 Mocha
Latte (12-ounce—the smallest one available)
·
10 ounces of
Soda Pop (less than one whole can)
·
1 whole
Banana
·
1 flour
Tortilla (10-inch diameter)
·
¾ of a 2
ounce Candy bar
·
1 ½ ounces of
Chocolate
·
3 Beers
(12-ounce)
·
6 teaspoons
of Jam or Jelly
It’s pretty easy to
combine a carrot with some other low-glycemic foods to make a whole satisfying
meal. On the other hand, ¾ of a small muffin just does not fill me up. What
about you?
Many of my clients
tell me they can’t eat as much food as I suggest (fruits and vegetables they
mean). They say their stomach is too small. The trick is to cut out some of the
above items and add in more of the good stuff.
Now, picking the
lowest glycemic load foods and comparing them to three carrots (or the list
below that), you’d have to eat:
·
12
Artichokes< |
