Book Reviews - Antiques

One of the things that I have never tired of doing over the years, is perusing books for new information that is either really new, or old and overlooked or forgotten.

I have an enormous collection of diet books, not because I ever considered practising any of them, but because I wanted to look for commonalities in the reasoning for both their successes and their failures.

I also wanted to be able to isolate, scientifically, why their mutual successful ideas were working for fairly large masses of people.

Hopefully here, I can give an overview of the various books that I found both exciting, telling and helpful for either including practises in a healthy lifestyle, or discluding them.

One of my favourite categories of books are those that show in the 'antiques' section. Why? Because the knowledge in them is often based on practical practises that are affordable to everyone, do not require large amounts (if any) of medication that may cause additional reactions and were written in a time when the giving of medication was not as acceptable as it is in this day and age, when it is handed out like mints after dinner.

And so, it is the Antiques section that I will begin with because last weekend, perusing an antique store, I came across a book that was immediately exciting to read with information that I have been looking for, for years, but never found what I thought to be, a reasonably well-rounded compilation of information in one place.

Goodbye Allergies
by Judge Tom R. Blaine (new revised edition), The Citadel Press. Secaucus, New Jersey, and Musson Book Company, Don Mills, Ontario, 1976

Most of the books that I find tremendously exciting are the ones that are written by laypeople. That is, people who live the life.

Some of these people are medically qualified, many are not. This one is not. However, since the writer is/was a judge, it suggests that he was the type of person that does not take anything at face value and will dig a little more for accurate information than most people will.

Goodbye Allergies is about the endocrine system. I have long suspected that my son's endocrine system is involved in his dilemna. And though, on our special diet, we have all but eliminated even the common cold, I still search for answers because, the minute we veer too far off our required food program, illness begins to recur.

It leaves me continuing to think that if I just keep my ears and eyes open, a more permanent and effective idea may come along that will allow him to relax the need to be perpetually aware of gluten and/or ensuring that "too much" dairy is consumed.

This was recently brought to the forefront when a new-to-us medical professional decided we should add dairy back into his diet. When I refused, based on the fact that the last time I tried this, he ended up with three weeks of severe gut pain, extended food refusal and sitting in a specialist's office whose only advice to us was, 'stop feeding him dairy'.... Children's Services was called in.

Needless to say, all's well that ends well and the social worker, after seeing my volumes of books on chemistry, diet, binders and articles, understood that this was a case of disagreement in treatment... not "denial of treatment", as the medical professional indicated.

However, it got me to thinking... what about the people who don't have time to accumulate research the way I do? And again, it seems that medical professionals are not willing to do the research required to help my son continue to improve his quality of life. And so, it has re-lit the fire under me to persist in my own personal education... and the last place I left off was with my suspicions of endocrine exhaustion.

Within the first two chapters of this book, Mr Blaine makes it quite clear that in his case, his multiple "allergies" were caused by an over-taxed endocrine system that went untreated through the 1930's, 1940's and into the 1950's.

It was at this point that his life took an incredible turn for the better after initiating an endocrine renewing diet, along with some supplements. In fact, he ended up using his experience, at times, to defer divorce litigation until it was found that this diet/supplement regimen helped the people willing to try it, to overcome tremendous energy-deficit challenges, depression and more... Cancelling out these issues, in turn improved married life, which in turn cancelled out requests for divorce!

I would say, "Colour me surprised!" but I'm really not.

And so, with this book, we enter the next part of our journey...

Life with Food Sensitivities: Nuttier Than A Nut

I found out about most of my food sensitivities completely by mistake.

I thought I was a happy, healthy 35 year old with no food allergy (sensitivity) issues whatsoever.

However, I had a son who had been ill for three years (recurrent virals and failure to thrive). No professional medical person in all the different 'specialties' that we went to see, seemed to know what to do with him. Thankfully our pediatrician kept saying the words "Celiac Disease". (Even though the pediatric gastroenterologist ruled it out without a single test - I now know that it is not possible to just 'look' at a person and be able to tell if they have celiac disease.)

And so finally, to get her off my back about food, I concocted a total elimination diet for my family. (I didn't want her to just shift to another food if wheat/gluten turned up no reaction.)

The reason we did it as a family is because my partner and I felt that:

1) children are led primarily by example;
2) it was easier for me to cook the same thing for everyone and
3) since food issues seem to be, generally speaking, inherited, it just made sense to have everyone go through the process and be done with it.

I must say, we did not expect to find anything at all. We had been eating only homemade, wholewheat bread, did not consume food colour or flavours everyday. Allowed pop and chips only on weekends, etc. On my side of our extended family, we were considered health nuts.

Well, long story short, to our complete surprise, we found tonnes of reactions! We trialled each one at least three times... some, completely by mistake, only realizing the mistake after someone had a reaction. (It became habit to root through the garbage for the package of our 'newest' food to look at the ingredient list.)

So, my son, who was one of the most health-challenged children in our pediatrician's office, became one of the healthiest... and I.... Well, my life has taken such an unexpected turn for the better that my family now thinks I am even nuttier than the health nut that I was! (Even some ground pepper has wheat that is used as a declumper, which I react to... so I don't use pre-ground pepper unless I can look at the ingredient list of the container that it came in.)

Here are the symptoms that I lost, that I had previously thought were just 'my life' and to be accepted:

Asthma (adult onset in my case)

Chronic daily headaches

Migraines

Cankar (Canker) sores

Joint pain

Chronic fatigue

Sleep issues

Mood issues (depression related)

Sore throats

Chronic infections (some of which would require surgery in order to 'get rid of' the infected tissue)

Boils (generally located on my bum cheeks - tmi I know, but they're so common yet unnecessary that it is worth mentioning)

Cellulite

Menstruation (long and heavy: 7 to 10 days full heavy; now: approx. 4 days and medium to light)

Hearing (improvement may be contributed to less brain fog - really not sure but trials really showed enormous improvement- many less "Pardon me?"s)

Weight loss (Not that I needed to lose enough to drive me toward a calorie restrictive diet. Nursing and 18 month old, I eat an enormous amount of calories per day and am of the mind that what I lost was water retention due to eating foods that were toxic to my system. I went from 5'4", 135 lbs to 110 lbs - no calorie counting because I'm just not a calorie counter by nature... After the fact, I actually did count up what I eat in a day and find that I eat far more calories than most people.)

Energy improvements (enormous: possibly due to loss of brain fog, extra 'water weight', better absorption of nutrients, ???)

So, let them think I'm nuttier than a nut! My quality of life, five years later at over 40, is SO much better (healthier/feeling good/getting things done) that I really could care less what anyone else thinks of my eating practices!

Thank goodness for our, very stubborn pediatrician!