Pain, Pain, Go Away!

If you're looking for a low-carb sweetener with no aftertaste, no franken-ingredients, and that doesn't upset your stomach, try monk fruit (also known as luo han guo). This is what Quest bars were sweetened with when they first came out. Monk fruit is Dr. Davis approved. You can buy monk fruit in powdered or liquid form; both are super-concentrated. They might seem expensive, but you use the powder by the spoonful (even in baking recipes) and the liquid by the drop. The baking recipes I've made with the powder have turned out well. Available from Amazon . Beware monk fruit sweeteners with erythritol.  The package of powdered monk fruit sweetener I bought says, "Use 1/8 teaspoon to create the same sweet taste as 1 teaspoon of sugar." But it's so sweet that I use 1/10 the amount. To replace a cup of sugar, I would use 5 teaspoons of monk fruit sweetener. Tip: hand-stir this in before using the beaters. It's such a fine powder that it flies up and out of the ...

My glasses had never fogged up in the summertime until last week. T he heat index (temperature with humidity) was 100 to 115 F , or 38 to 46 C. Hospitals saw an increase in heat-related illnesses last week , and even with a reprieve on Saturday, the glass doors to the grocery store had so much condensation, they looked like someone sprayed them with water. Hopefully, the knuckleheads who think the heat warnings are just climate change propaganda have had the sense to come in out of the sun. Or the moon: even at 10 PM, it felt like a sauna outside. Photo from Pexels.com .  For an easy meal and to avoid heating up the house even more, I made a charcuterie plate of sausage, bleu cheese, pâté, hummus and avocado and a salad and had a glass of magnesium tea . For dessert, I made  frozen yogurt . I also picked up a chicken at the store. Read ingredient lists when you buy sausage or roast chickens--some contain carrageenan (a sickening thickener). Or roast chickens can taste like ted...

After adding some new blogs and YouTube feeds yesterday, I added Dr. Davis's podcast feed  so that readers can simply click and listen to his latest episode. Just to be clear for email subscribers, all of these are on my site ( https://relievemypain.blogspot.com/ ) and the three bars at the top right (where you can click to see feeds and other features) are for people with smaller screens. If you have a bigger screen, you should be able to see all the feeds on the right side of the page.  If you'd like to put some YouTube or podcast feeds on your site, leave a comment and I'll reply with instructions since there's no widget in Blogger for putting them in and the RSS feed widget doesn't work. Nor does the podcast player from Elfsight. At least, I couldn't get them to work.   * * * * * Quest bars used to be a great snack--they were one of the first healthy, low-carb protein bars out there. Ten years ago, the ingredients were   Protein blend (whey protein isolate, ...

 After suffering with heart-pounding palpitations for eight years, I finally have an answer: endotoxemia brought on by emulsifiers, which thin the mucus in your digestive tract and allow toxins in your gut to get into the rest of your system. I finally realized the cause (emulsifiers in food) and Dr. Davis suggested the effect (endotoxemia). He said in the Zoom meeting last night that was probably the cause, and that endotoxemia was a big factor in heart disease.  Since cutting out emulsifiers like guar gum, gellan gum, lecithin, locust/carob bean gum and even palm oil (used in almond butter to homogenize it), the palpitations have gone and so have my puffy face, neck pain and TMJ pain. I'm sleeping better, feeling better and thinking more clearly. Did I mention it's been eight years since I felt this well?  Victory! Photo from Unsplash . You know how you feel after you've had a very long day--or several in a row? That's how I felt for five days. It was such a relief t...

Since ditching the guar gum and erythritol, I feel like I'm 41 again. It was the age I started doing low-carb and had the energy I should have had in my 20s. The problems I had until recently--the pounding heart and breathlessness--are gone.  With this newfound energy, I dug up a boxwood bush and a juniper and potted them for a focal point among my raised beds, having dismantled the fire pit and put the stones along a border by the garage. Tonight I moved some of the beds a few inches to make room for pavers. The spaces between the beds have a thick mat of weeds, thick enough to make weeding a major undertaking, but not thick enough to stop erosion. Back in Denver in a dry, shady part of my yard, it took me years to win the battle of the goatheads in the driveway reclamation area. I'm not going to win such a battle in lush, green Indiana where my weeds are inches from rich soil of raised beds.  "Use gravel for paths!" people say. "Use wood mulch!" "Use ...

I'm interrupting this delta variant/Afghanistan nightmare/vaccine passport/Australian lockdown/throw-the-unvaccinated-under-the-bus mess to bring you some late summer joy. A butterfly enjoys the asters in my back yard. A monarch butterfly caterpillar munches on milkweed by the driveway. A praying mantis sits on the garage, mugging the camera.  Summer harvest from my garden: ox heart slicing tomatoes, roma cooking tomatoes, Anaheim chiles, jalapeños, and a Right Stuff bell pepper. Biggs caught and killed the rat that was eating the tomatoes--good dog! Pickled peppers. Don't you love it when the lids go "tonk"? Only three grams of carb per quarter cup--should you want to eat that much! Three-herb marinara, made with tomatoes and herbs from the garden. No pesticides or funky ingredients, and just 13 grams of carb per half-cup serving.  The canning recipes are from the Better Homes and Gardens Complete Canning Guide, 2015. The three-herb marinara is a favorite of mine, b...

What if you could take a flamethrower to everything that was wrong with 2020: the lockdowns, the riots, campus speech codes, chokeholds, the endless emergency orders by fiat? The Indiana assembly has all that and much more in its sights this season . Isolate Grandma? She should soon be able to see a caregiver she's related to. Caught rioting? Three hots, a cot and no government job for you. States of emergency? Not without permission from the legislature, and they're in no mood for mission creep . Speakers you disagree with on campus? Grit your teeth or head for a safe space. Defund the police? LOL, the assembly is looking to repeal the law requiring licenses to carry handguns by persons not otherwise prohibited from doing so.  Also on the agenda: prohibition of conversion therapy , civil forfeiture reform , a ban on police chokeholds, decriminalization of marijuana, body cams and dash cams for the police, allowing pharmacists to prescribe and dispense birth control pills and p...

Expert advice for Thanksgiving was to stay home. But I've been ignoring most experts' health advice for ten years and enjoyed good health for it; we'll see in a few weeks if this latest decision was sublime or ridiculous. I drove 300 miles to Cleveland. I hugged my cousin and finally met her husband. I ate food I shouldn't have. The three of us went to restaurants and attractions. We didn't do anything ridiculous or illegal--we all wore masks in public places and none of us were sick. Nobody I encountered seemed ill and nobody formed a crowd. I hung out with people for the first time in almost a year, relaxed and slept nine hours a night. It was health food for the soul and I'd do it again.  Sublime? Ridiculous? It can be hard to tell. Photo from Amazon . The day before I left, I made vegetarian collards from the garden and low-carb pumpkin pie. My cousin is a vegetarian, but she cooks meat for me when I'm there and I bring vegetarian food when I visit. I al...

How soy makes me feel. Fatigue, puffiness, hunger--these have been keeping me from getting much done the past few weeks. It was discouraging after I felt so well at the end of August. But when I took a look at what I was eating (Atkins bars), I saw they were full of soy protein. Soy is a thyroid inhibitor--just what I don't need. So I quit the Atkins bars and ate more real food, but got a few things from the deli. Hey, more fatty food is good, right? Not when it gives you...more fatigue, puffiness and hunger. The broccoli cheese soup and cole slaw were made with soybean oil. Into the trash they went. I was careful about what I ate today, and I'm feeling better. One good thing about COVID has been working from, and eating at, home. I had scrambled eggs and coffee for breakfast, leftover coconut curry chicken and a green salad for lunch, and the same chicken, some homemade lentil salad and homemade low-carb chocolate chip cookies for dinner. Coincidentally, someone on a chat site...

By popular demand due to meat packing plants closing, the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association has published a list of ranchers selling directly to consumers . In other news, Texans put "Welcome to Texas" signs around Oklahoma so that Californians will move there instead . Is it Texas? Is it Oklahoma? Photo from Pixabay .

Due to COVID outbreaks at meat processing plants, the supply of pork is down 25% and the meat supply is down overall according to an Associated Press article . I haven't been to the store in weeks, but my last shopper didn't offer any substitutions on the hamburger I ordered. Maybe it was all gone. However, I was able to buy hamburger, bacon, sausage and lard this morning through a family farm in my state. If I'm not well by the pick-up date, I'll have someone else get it for me. I've ordered from this farm many times. Even a big order fits in the freezer section of my normal-sized refrigerator. You can search for farmers selling directly to the public through eatwild.com . The site lists farms in the US, Canada and a few international locations. Note that there may be a minimum order and you'll probably have to go somewhere to pick it up.

"Stores will stay open throughout the days the lie ahead. We were told that hours may be reduced for cleaning and to re-supply, but Americans can be confident your local grocery store's gonna be open, it's gonna be well supplied, and they specifically asked us to encourage Americans, just buy your weekly needs in groceries."

Not only that, but t he stuff in aerosol cans can explode . 

Or butter, ghee, bacon grease or coconut oil--not something out of a spray can. Eight people have allegedly been injured by exploding cans of cooking spray (like Pam) when putting the cans near a stove . When's the last time you heard of shrapnel from exploding lard? Besides, humans have been eating animal fats for millions of years, and butter and coconuts for several thousand, suggesting we're well-adapted to those foods. Industrially made oils used in Pam, not so much. If your lard comes from a pastured piggy (not a blue box on the grocery store shelf), it'll have lots of vitamin D and no hydrogenated oil. Find a farmer near you that sells lard. Sources I've purchased from and recommend here in central Indiana: Fischer Farms ( bulk orders of their meat, eggs, lard, etc. only) Smoking Goose Source: " 8 People Allegedly Disfigured by Exploding Cans of Cooking Spray Sue Conagra " by Zlati Meyer. USA Today, May  7, 2019.

My year-and-a-half-long love affair with take-out is over. It started when I was selling my house in Colorado: take-out kept the kitchen clean. After I got to Indiana, I started out working part-time and didn't have much human contact at work. Getting take-out brought me some human contact. I was tired of cooking, too. My weight crept up to the point on the scale where I don't let it go any higher. Even though I ordered food that sounded low-carb, the restaurant information showed 20, 30, or 40 grams of carbohydrate per dish. One Sunday night recently, I made too much chef's salad and took the rest to work the next day. I kept going--I brought my lunch to work every day for a week. Five pounds fell off. Packing my lunch hasn't been that hard--I was just tired of doing it and then fell into another habit. Now, I usually make a big dinner and take the leftovers to work, along with a low-carb dessert. What if I don't feel like packing a lunch (or making dinner)?...

Readers know I've had a stressful 18 months: family problems, a root canal that took three rounds of antibiotics to clear up, a move across the country, and a job change. My job back in Denver saw me going at ramming speed, spending two hours a day commuting, and dealing with a couple of vile coworkers. House cleaning and repairs took up my weekends and evenings for a few months, my realtor wildly overpriced my house, and I stepped on a nail a few days before I moved. I ate a lot of take-out while my house was for sale and figured I'd get back on track when I got to Indiana. It's taken five months to get back to normal. My stomach and skin were a mess from the antibiotics--I had cystic acne and just thinking about eating a lot of fat turned my stomach. I couldn't stand for long without a backache. I was so exhausted when I got here that it was a few months before I felt like working full-time again. Probiotics really helped my skin and stomach. I started taking two...

With some help from my frugal Internet friend Galina, I've figured out how to live within a $29-per-week grocery budget, which is what some people get as part of SNAP:   calories price $/100 calories 12 eggs            852   $     3.00   $              0.35 2 chickens, whole         4,280   $     8.40   $              0.20 head romaine lettuce            106   $     0.99   $              0.93 pound butter         3,240   $     5.00   $ ...

Here's what $33.58 will buy--that's pretty close to the $29 a week challenge some people have taken lately in sympathy with people on the SNAP program. (The maximum amount you can get on SNAP is $194 per month according to the USDA, which comes out to $44.77 per week.) The grass-fed angus was inexpensive ($3.90 per pound) because I buy it in bulk--and it's an odd cut (cheek meat). There are a lot more calories here than in the rice, beans, tortillas and vegetation others have bought on the challenge. Nevertheless, what you see here amounts to only 5,397 calories, or 771 calories a day. calories price $/100 calorie 12 eggs 852 $3.00 $0.35 4.75# beef 3,629 $18.53 $0.51 2 cans sardines 400 $6.98 $1.75 head cabbage 218 $1.62 $0.74 avocado 227 $0.88 $0.39 red bell pepper 37 $0.88 $2.38 English cucumber 34 $1.69 $4.97 Total 5,397 $33.58 $0.62 To eat such a diet for a week on 1,500 calories per day would cost $65. You might get more calories for less mone...

People tend to complain about the cost of grass-fed beef and other high quality food, but I recently bought aged, grass-fed Angus from Sun Prairie Beef in Yuma, Colorado for $3.60 a pound. The catch: it was the bits box. The bits box--my order was for back ribs, cheek, tongue, shank and soup bones--has actually been a great deal. I've cooked everything but the soup bones, and it's all been better than supermarket beef. In fact, my new favorite cut is tongue--a favored part for hunter-gatherers and a delicacy in some cultures. I threw it in the pressure cooker for an hour with water, tamari and pepper and had a wonderful dinner an hour later. Just peel off the skin when it's done; it has the texture of meatloaf and tastes like a roast, but moister. I had leftovers, too: the tongue weighed 3.11 pounds. And it made the best beef broth I've ever had. The cheek had a unique texture--the fat turned soft and creamy in the pressure cooker. It tasted a little gamey, but so...

The owner and operator of Denver Urban Homesteading, a small farmers market where I shop, opposes the proposed food labeling law: Obviously Denver Urban Homesteading and its farmers do not support the use of genetically modified food. And we support the concept of labeling. However, this law has no exception for small markets. We will have to follow the same rules as multi-billion dollar supermarket corporations what with labeling, keeping affidavits, etc. AND WE CANNOT DO IT! Anyone who has come into our market knows we operate on a shoestring, and we fear that the shoestring will break if we are forced to hire another person to make sure we comply with this law. Or maybe we should just give up the free Chicken Swaps, Honey Festival, etc. so I can spend my time labeling instead. Additionally, a violation is a criminal offense. That's a lot of risk for a husband-wife team. Those who have followed our travails know that we challenge government over raw milk is...