Food Freedom, Mask Mandates, COVID Strategy, and How I'm Doing (Labs)

The PRIME Act

Remember the panic buying and food shortages of 2020? When grocery store shelves were cleaned out and restaurants closed, I recommended a family farm that raised beef (previously bought by closed restaurants) to my coworkers. The PRIME Act has been re-introduced to help family farms like this. It was introduced in 2020 to remove the requirement for most livestock to be processed at a relatively small number of industrial-size slaughterhouses. Smaller, local "custom" slaughterhouses could be used instead for meat staying within the state and would eliminate the need for those animals to travel for hours in trailers. Custom slaughterhouses "must follow federal, state, and local health and safety guidelines and are periodically inspected for cleanliness and safety— similar to how restaurants are inspected," says the Institute for Justice. Critics say the PRIME Act would make the meat supply less safe, but similar laws already apply to poultry.

The Freedom to Breathe Act

Our Senator Braun has introduced a bill to "prohibit any federal official, including the President, from issuing mask mandates applying to domestic air travel, public transit systems, or primary, secondary, and post-secondary schools. The legislation would also prohibit air carriers, transit authorities, and educational institutions from refusing service to individuals who choose not to wear a mask.

COVID Strategy

What to do about the resurrection of masks, testing, isolation, etc.? Dr. Vinay Prasad recommends peaceful noncompliance: in other words, don't test. His video about this was on this blog's feed, but I've pasted it below in case you missed it. Oh--he's also remarked that masks, boosters and Paxlovid haven't been shown to be effective (for most people in the case of Paxlovid).

How I'm Doing

I've been working out twice a week for the past month or two, doing pretty well on diet, and I even lost a few pounds (along with looking and feeling like I gained some muscle). My labs were pretty good, though some measures fell short of Dr. Davis's high standards. Part of it could have been from losing weight, though I don't know if I lost enough to raise my triglycerides. I was also taking iron until recently--my ferritin level was in the normal range, but I'd started feeling hot when I took iron.

My free T4 was a little higher and TSH a little lower than last year, suggesting my strategy of taking more iodine is working. I'm taking 1,000 mcg, which is kind of a high dose. I need to start eating a Brazil nut a day again for the selenium.

Fish oil is something else I need to add every day. I hadn't been taking it because eating fat by itself used to upset my stomach. But now that I can take it, I need to remember to.

So there's nothing worrying going on and I'm in good shape for being 54: I'm within 10 pounds of what I weighed in high school, I take no medications, and, despite the name of this blog, I'm not in any pain. And I've never had COVID!

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Cigna is Making Progress

Yesterday as I put my lunch in the refrigerator at work, I noticed a bunch of unfamiliar people in the break room. One of them, Pepe, started in: they were there for the health fair, they would check your cholesterol, the sugar in your blood, your height, your weight, and it would just take six minutes. A coworker asked him if he'd ever considered a career in sales. Just for blog fodder, I participated. They really were fast, and one even found me at my desk (in an office nearly half the size of a city block) after the tests were finished. My HDL cholesterol was 65--up from 42 from a year and a half ago, and up from 57, where it was last year when I'd been three months a low-carb diet . A level over 60 is considered good. I haven't taken any medication to make this happen. I went on a low-carb diet and eliminated wheat. I also take vitamin and mineral supplements in addition to a high-nutrient diet. What impressed me more, though, was that the nurse (and Cigna) said that bl...

HHS Doctor on Hidden Camera: "The Vaccine is Full of Sh!t"

Jodi O'Malley, a registered nurse at the Phoenix Indian Medical Center (part of the Department of Health and Human Services), teamed up with Project Veritas to expose severe COVID vaccine reactions occurring but not being reported to VAERS, the vaccine adverse event reporting system, even though medical professionals are legally required to report such injuries. During the filming, a man in his thirties with congestive heart failure was being treated; the doctor believed the cause was his COVID vaccination. O'Malley says she's seen dozens of adverse reactions. "The vaccine is full of shit" and the government wants to "sweep it under the mat," the doctor says on hidden camera. We finally know what's in the vaccine. Screen grab from Project Veritas video . The video also shows a pharmacist stating that off-label medications such as ivermectin were forbidden to be prescribed on pain of termination. Project Veritas is a nonprofit organization that does ...

Thanksgiving recipes for Pumpkin Pie & Cranberries--printable!

If you'd rather read a printed recipe than watch a video, here are my recent recipes for Better than Grandma's Pumpkin Pie and Probiotic Cranberry-Apple Relish. Hat tip to Dana Carpender, whose pumpkin pie recipe inspired this one. The cranberry-apple ferment is entirely my own creation. Pumpkin Pie--no grains, sugar or emulsifiers Crust 2 cups shelled raw pecans 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon monk fruit powder* (or 3 tablespoons sugar substitute) 4 tablespoons butter, melted 2 tablespoons water Pumpkin Pie Filling 1 pie pumpkin 1-1/2 cups half and half (with no thickeners) 3 eggs 3-4 teaspoons monk fruit powder* (or 3/4 cup sugar substitute) 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice Preheat the oven to 350F. Stab the top of the pumpkin all the way through the flesh in a few places at the top. Place the pumpkin on a cookie sheet and bake for 1 hour. Let cool. While the pumpkin is baking, put the pecans in a food processor with the S blade and run until they are finely...

Fly with Reuteri

If you're planning to travel by plane and you want to keep enjoying the benefits of l. reuteri yogurt, you might have gotten sticker shock from the price of l. reuteri probiotics. MyReuteri * costs $46 to $83 for 30 capsules, depending on the CFUs (colony-forming units, or the number of viable microorganisms). If you're thinking about economizing by putting some yogurt in a sturdy container and taking it with you, you can do that. I'll break down the pros and cons and look at some alternatives. Photo from Unsplash . Cost Yogurt might be less expensive than probiotics, but it isn't free. A half-cup serving costs about 70¢ to make if you start with a previous batch. It contains about 90 billion CFUs if fermented for 36 hours. This is a lot less than $5.56 for two capsules of 50 billion CFU MyReuteri, but for a one-week vacation, you'd only save $34 by eating yogurt instead. (You can freeze any unused capsules for later.) Furthermore, the yogurt would have to go in ...

COVID Test Result is In

I don't have COVID. On the one hand, it would have been a relief to have finally caught COVID and gotten natural antibodies, especially from having a mild case of it. On the other hand, I was concerned about my dog catching it from me (he's healthy, but nine years old) and it might have interfered with Thanksgiving plans. Until I'm well, I'll stay home.

Pain, Pain, Go Away!

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