Category Archives: Vitamins

Whole Food Plant-Based Diet and vitamins

Romanesco Broccoli — Fractal Cauliflower

About 30 years ago, I became fascinated with fractals. I had a brand new IBM PC with a CGA monitor, 256KB of RAM and a 5MB hard drive (which seem so huge that I couldn’t imagine using all that storage!). My friend, Gary brought me a disk with a program called “Fractal Magic” on it. I installed the program and started it running.  After three days of processing it produced an amazing image on my screen – of course there was no way to print it, but it was beautiful! And mainly, I was hooked. Over the years I have generated thousands of fractal images. And now I can even print them!!.

OK. I’m back from that little walk down memory lane and ready to tell you about the thing we call it “Dinosaur Broccoli” around our house. The first time I saw it in our local health food store I stopped, dead in my tracks. I was mesmerized by the shape! Right in front of me was a perfect replica of computer generated fractals.

I was face to face with a real, (presumably) live fractal! I could only assume that it was edible because it was with other vegetables. The little tag identified it as Romanesco Broccoli” debated awhile and decided it looked way to weird to eat! (more…)

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Ginger–Don’t leave home without it!

I get sick with a cold or the flu once a year if I need it or not. This year it was the stomach flu. Probably not technically the flu but some norovirus that acts like the flu.

Whatever it was, it was a very nasty invader. At first I thought it might be food poisoning because of the nausea, vomiting and general intestinal distress. But I couldn’t come up with any foods I had eaten that would have poisoned me.  Two things convinced me it was a virus: a fever and David having exactly the same thing.

The point of that whole shaggy dog tail is ginger:  for 24 hours the ONLY thing that made me feel any better was a home-brewed ginger tea. (more…)

Posted in GERD, IBS, Medicinal plants, Vitamins, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Heart Disease, Diabetes and A Plant-Base Diet

Here is the beginning of my husband David’s story about his retreat from heart disease and pre-diabetic condition. He used only natural methods and diet to regain his health. Sit back and enjoy

imageLiving in a simple world is easy.  All you have to do is ignore reality, which is annoyingly complex most of the time. I am, in fact, guilty of using this coping method. I’m telling you this before Genene can take up the subject and tell on me.

I am the one in this household who after having a stent placed in my left anterior descending artery to my heart gained  thirty pounds of unneeded lard. Probably some of which was deposited in my arteries. (more…)

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The Year of Being Vegan: 2012 Lessons Learned Part 4

I have always been a plant-based eater; a vegetarian. Over the last year David and I decided to become vegans. It has been an incredible learning experience! Between now and the end of the years I will share some of the things I learned.

Advanced Label Reading

I was shocked at the things that end up in “healthy” vegan foods. I guess this is really an expansion on unhealthy vegan diet choices.

I started reading labels many years ago when I quit sugar. Over the years I had gotten a little sloppy about really reading labels. I would check for sugar content and if there wasn’t any that seemed good enough. When David discovered that he was wildly reactive to MSG in all it’s forms, I started examining labels again and was shocked at all the forms of MSG that end up in our foods. Follow through on the two MSG links in this paragraph to get more info. (more…)

Posted in additive-free food, diary-free food, Food Additives, GMO foods, processed food, vegan, vegetarian, Vitamins, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Of Chia Pets and Chia Seeds

chia petI can’t remember where or how I came across my first Chia Pet.  I think was some time in the late 70s.  What I do remember is how amazed I was that people would actually buy one of those things!   I probably should not have been, since I was around for the whole pet rock thing.  Chia was promptly relegated as a tagline to several lame jokes. (more…)

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