It was the life most of us only glimpse in gossip magazines. The charismatic producer with dark movie-star good looks and magnetic smile, under contract with a major studio, living in a beautiful home in the Hollywood hills with Tinseltown sprawling at his feet. In 1986, thirty-three-year old Brandon Elliot had it all. He had a glamorous social life. He had maintained the physical edge he had cultivated in college as a competitive swimmer. An accomplished equestrian, he owned and trained thoroughbred horses. Competing in horse shows was a focal point in his life.

Then he was diagnosed with the human immunodeficiency virus—known simply by its acronym, HIV—that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS. A virus is a minute parasitic organism that is incapable of growth and reproduction apart from living cells. In simplified terms, HIV is referred to as a retrovirus because it invades a type of cells called T-Cells, which are part of the immune system that combat infections. Once inside the T-cell, the HIV virus infiltrates the cell’s ribronucleic acid (RNA) which controls protein production in these and all living cells. The HIV virus is able to convert the RNA into its own DNA—an acid that carries genetic information. This ability to switch from RNA to DNA accounts for HIV’s moniker “retrovirus.” In addition, the HIV virus replicates within the cell. As more T cells are invaded and more HIV virus is replicated, T cell count falls. The immune system is weakened and eventually destroyed.

Stephen Hosea, M.D. is in private practice, specializing in infectious diseases and is associate director of the internal medicine training program at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara. Dr. Hosea said, “I like to think of the helper cells like the conductor of the orchestra. The conductor tells the other cells that are in the orchestra what to do resulting in a symphonic immune system. When the conductors aren’t there, it’s just noise and none of the other cells know what to do. They can’t work together to create an effective front to fight off infections.”

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed a system of categorizing the progression of HIV to AIDS: 1) Primary infection. Symptoms of the primary infection start approximately two to four weeks after exposure. The illness is acute and lasts for about one to three weeks. There may be signs of an acute nonspecific viral infection with fever, malaise, rash, joint pain, rash, sore throat, swollen lymph nodes and headache. 2) Chronic phase. Patients convert to HIV positive, which is marked by the absence of the signs and symptoms just described. For the majority of individuals this chronic phase can last anywhere from seven to ten years. There are always exceptions—people who convert from the primary infection to the chronic phase in six months to full blown AIDS. Typically the chronic phase lasts for years while the virus causes the destruction of more and more T cells and replicates more HIV. This results in a progressive loss of immune function. 3) Full blown AIDS phase. When a syndrome of opportunistic infections occur—such as thrush (a fungal infection of the mouth or vagina), herpes simplex (a viral infection of the mouth, genitals and anus), or Kaposi’s sarcoma (a skin malignancy)—a person is considered to have AIDS.

When Brandon was diagnosed with the HIV virus, he assumed he would be just another statistic in an epidemic of inexplicable, acute suffering and swift death that was sweeping the globe. His physician wanted to put him on AZT, which had just come out. AZT belongs to a class of drugs called HIV protease inhibitors that are designed to lower the amount of HIV in the body—referred to as the viral load—thus increasing the number of functional disease fighting T cells. Brandon flatly refused. Instead of going on AZT, Brandon took steps to clean up his lifestyle, eliminating caffeine, alcohol, processed foods, recreational drugs and other toxins. He ate only organic foods, avoided stress and got more rest.

Eight years later, in 1994, at forty-one years of age Brandon was at the height of his career. He was nominated for producer of the year by the Producer’s Guild. A Hallmark television movie he had produced that year received five Emmy nominations and won three. Despite being HIV positive, Brandon’s future seemed paved with gold. Physically he had never felt stronger. He was running, lifting weights and swimming. He was feeling somewhat impervious to the HIV virus. But the turning point would come suddenly and without warning. “I had intentionally lost ten pounds of fat. I was what they call ‘ripped,’” he said. “One day at the gym, I looked at myself and thought, you know, I really do look incredible. In fact I was in such great shape that I thought I’d start training for a triathlon. The very next day I collapsed and couldn’t get out of bed. I knew my T-cells were dropping, but I never thought that in twenty-four hours the virus would take over my whole being.”

In an industry where heterosexual marriage is an essential component to image, and where movie stars and studio executives enter into marriages as arrangements to create an acceptable persona, being gay was one strike, being gay with HIV was anathema. The next four months Brandon worked at home and laid low in an attempt to hide his illness from his associates at the studio. When a new studio head was hired, Brandon was called in for a face to face meeting that he could not avoid. By then he was deathly pale and had begun to lose muscle mass. “I borrowed some makeup from my mother and tried to make myself look healthier,” Brandon said. “She drove me there and waited while I went in for the meeting. I thought I did okay and that I had gotten away with it. But after that, everyone knew.”

Brandon managed to hang on until his contract ran out at the end of the year. But he could not continue the pretense any longer. His hair had begun to thin. The gum tissue supporting the bone around his molars had receded, exposing the roots. He had eight molars pulled. He had lost all control over his life. “The ill effects of the virus kept gathering like moss on a stone,” Brandon said. “Once I was headed downhill this illness kept getting bigger and bigger and faster and faster until it rolled over me.” He knew that when the disease went into full swing nothing could stop it. Instead of renegotiating his studio contract, Brandon did his best to put on a brave front explaining that he had been there long enough and that it was time to move on.

Brandon’s immune system had begun to fail. He remained in a self-imposed solitary confinement in his Hollywood hills home for several months. His horses languished in their stalls. He had no energy to devote to his dogs. In the spring, his attorney helped him move to Santa Barbara, a resort town one hundred and fifty miles north of Los Angeles. Brandon settled into a cottage where his horses were corralled right off his bedroom, his dogs were at his side and he had a view of the ocean. His focus shifted to finding good homes for his animals while he steeled himself for imminent death. But he was terrified.

One month after moving to Santa Barbara, Brandon awoke with an intense headache. Slick with perspiration, his heart racing wildly, he crawled on his hands and knees out to his car. With his head lobbed to one side against the window, he drove himself to the nearest hospital emergency room where he was diagnosed with meningitis and admitted to the hospital. Dr. Hosea, Brandon’s attending physician, started him on anti viral medications and explained that after they cleared up the infection, he wanted to start him on the cocktail—the colloquial term for a combination of three or more HIV drugs that work in concert to lower a patient’s viral load with the least amount of toxicity.

According to Dr. Hosea, the newer drugs were much less toxic than AZT alone and the cocktail had proven to be more effective in prolonging life while preserving the best quality of life. “The virus replicates so quickly that it can become resistant to a single drug. It is more difficult for the virus to become resistant to three drugs.” The object of the cocktail was to slow down the replication of HIV so that the T cells, which are constantly replicating, could build back up, which correspondingly builds up the immune system. There is much evidence to support the use of HIV drugs. “I have seen a fair number of patients who had close to zero T cells, who now have normal numbers of T cells because the drugs have successfully suppressed the virus,” Dr. Hosea said.

Brandon did not go on the cocktail at that time, but went home from the hospital to recover from meningitis. He returned two weeks later, this time by ambulance, struggling to breathe and running a temperature of 105. He had developed pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, one of the dreaded diseases of HIV. Brandon was given an antiinflammatory drug to treat the inflammatory complications of pneumonia, and prednisone to bring his fever down. Prednisone is a synthetic steroid similar to cortisone that is used as an antiallergic, immunosuppressive, and anticancer drug and as an anti-inflammatory agent.

The prednisone brought Brandon’s fever down, but not without severe side effects. “My tongue split open from a reaction to the prednisone. So that I could eat, I had to use this glue stuff [which was denture paste laced with cortisone] that I’d squirt on the split on my tongue that would keep it sealed for an hour so I could get food down.” He soon found that he could not discontinue the use of prednisone without suffering from severe muscle ache, chills and fever. “There were times when I had to be held down, I was convulsing so violently. It was like having exorcism.” But nothing else could be done to keep his fever below 105 and he was forced to keep taking prednisone.

Dr. Hosea is a spiritually minded, empathic man who is committed to helping the terminally ill and dying. Brandon’s confidence in Dr. Hosea combined with a feeling of having nothing left to lose gave him the incentive to agree to go on a cocktail of Crixovan, AZT and 3 TC. It was November of 1996; Brandon was forty three.

Eight months into his treatment on the cocktail, Brandon had a realization that was to be a turning point. “When you’re so traumatized your mind shuts down. You’re just not aware of anything. One day, I was having a moment of clarity and looked at myself. There was no doubt that the virus had affected me, but the drugs had completely destroyed any health or vitality I had left. The insides of my cheeks were ripped open as if someone took razor blades to the flesh. I had a quarter sized hole in the back of my throat. My jaw was swollen on one side to the size of a half a baseball. I had gone from a having a muscular body to cellulite. My waist had gone from a thirty one to thirty-eight inches, so I looked pregnant. My eyes were sunken and swollen. My hair was falling out in clumps. My skin was itchy and scaly. If I scratched, the bumps would bleed and spread, like leprosy. ”

The youthful, athletic and dynamic film producer Brandon had once been was a dim memory, replaced with a depressed, ravaged man who had barely the energy to navigate the triangle from his bed, the bathroom and the living room. It was true that his T cell count was improving and that the drugs were saving his life. But it was not enough. “I started contemplating suicide,” Brandon said. “I just didn’t have the energy or the gusto anymore to live.”

A combined treatment plan of Western drugs and Chinese herbs

While Dr. Hosea has seen firsthand the benefits of HIV drugs, he is realistic. “One of the problems with the AIDS drugs, is that they get approved soon after they show any efficacy, before we understand the toxicities associated with them.” One of the fundamental problems with many Western drugs are the side effects. Although Western pharmaceuticals developed from herbology, as Western medicine became more focused on technology it became less concerned with side effects. Since World War II, more drugs have been made by chemical synthesis—they are chemical imitations of plant medicines. These isolated, pure and extremely concentrated ingredients are highly effective, but also come with side effects. In spite of efforts by researchers to combat them, side effects can often be an intractable problem. Medication errors and serious side effects accounts for some 7,000 deaths in the U.S. each year.

Western pharmacology has constantly searched for an isolated pure substance with the highest degree of potency that will not cause side effects. This ideal has proven to be elusive. What has proven to be true is that the higher degree of purification, the higher degree of side effects. Two thousand years ago, Chinese had an advanced knowledge of chemistry and made efforts to isolate certain ingredients from natural substances. This stage of Chinese medicine reigned for a couple hundred years and then eventually died down. Doctors came to a consensus that mainstream Chinese medicine was to continue to use natural substances in their whole state. The exploration into isolated active ingredients ended there. Natural substances used in their whole state have fewer side effects. Natural substances in their whole state contain ingredients that are meant to interact synergistically and to counteract potential side effects.

As Chinese herbal medicine gains more attention, researchers are turning toward these drugs to isolate their active ingredients. Isolating active ingredients from herbs runs counter to Chinese medicine’s basic philosophy of wholeness. An isolated active ingredient does not have the synergistic and buffering properties that it has when it remains in the whole form of an herb. Isolated active ingredients cause side effects and side effects are not tolerated in Chinese medicine. In fact, if side effects occur, the treatment is considered a failure even when the treatment is effective. By using whole herbs Chinese medicine can avoid and alleviate most side effects. To elaborate: A natural plant can contain dozens of active ingredients that all have chemical or physiological effects on the human body. At the same time, the plant may contain some ingredients that have no effect on the body. Within these ingredients are complex interactions. Take the simple saying, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” The truth in this saying lies in the fact that the many active ingredients within the apple interact within the body. We do not completely understand the synergy that occurs with these active ingredients. But we do know that if we isolate all of the active ingredients from an apple and ingest them individually, we will never get the same health benefits as eating the real apple. It is one of the wonders of nature.

Instead of isolating active ingredients, Chinese medicine takes a holistic approach in using natural substances. In other words, Chinese medicine looks at the overall property of a natural substance. For example, if you have cold symptoms and you eat ginger and you feel better, then ginger must have a worthy property. One does not have to know the exact properties of each active ingredient within the ginger. Herbalists need to know how ginger interacts with other herbs because when herbs are put together in a formula there can be many interactions. Because of these interactions, Chinese medicine relies heavily on experience accumulated over thousands of years.

Part of the art of herb combining is controlling and minimizing side effects. The undesired aspects of herbs are canceled or balanced out by another herb. In addition, when herbs are combined there can be certain aspects that are not desirable for the particular treatment purpose. However, when properly combined, these aspects are balanced out by other herbs and the desirable aspects reinforced.

While it is extremely dangerous and inadvisable to self-diagnose and treat with Western medicine, Chinese medicine is more forgiving. Even if you are wrong, there often is no harm done. Taking the wrong herb or combination of herbs may not solve your problem, but most of the time it will not hurt you.

Brandon’s case presents a classic example of how people who would have otherwise quickly perished are being kept alive as a result of the technological advances of Western medicine. Brandon’s case also demonstrates how vital the quality of life is to our existence. Chinese medicine gives quality of life issues top priority by focusing first and foremost on improving or maintaining a patient’s sense of well being.

In July 1997, Brandon learned about Chinese herbs from an AIDS volunteer and sought out treatment at a clinic where Dr. Han was consulting.

Dr. Han recognized that Brandon’s illness had been caused by the External Cause HIV virus. The HIV virus is considered Wen Yi—a highly contagious External Cause. Given his advanced state, his External Causes and the medical conditions they had caused had deeply altered Brandon’s Energetic systems. He was severely Kidney Energy deficient. Kidney Energy in Chinese medicine provides the most important part of vitality. Kidney Energy has two sides, Yin and Yang. The Yin side is the cooling, calming, nourishing side, and Yang is the warming, active, functional side. Brandon’s Kidney Energy was deficient on both sides. Nearly all his Energetic systems were depleted, and on top of that there was a tremendous amount of Toxin stagnation. Part of the stagnation was from the virus, but part of it was clearly from the side effects of the medications he was on.

“Dr. Han gave me herbs to ‘cure my fever,’” Brandon said. “I thought, oh sure. I’d been to every top doctor on the West Coast and nothing was going to shake this.” To his great surprise Brandon began to immediately improve. “I could feel the fever lifting and I cried with joy. I started feeling stronger every day.” During this time, Dr. Han also weaned Brandon off the prednisone. Three weeks after beginning the herbs, Brandon’s Shen became strong enough that he accepted an invitation to a party—where he met his current partner. Brandon began living again and his Vital Energy returned.

Dr. Hosea learned about and was convinced of the benefits of Chinese herbal medicine through the positive experiences of his patients. “My personal approach is to support anything that helps my patients,” Dr. Hosea said. “With AIDS, we can treat the pneumonia and the meningitis, but we can’t effectively treat the nausea, the diarrhea or the other side effects of the medicine. I clearly remember when Brandon began the herbal medicines. He tolerated the medicines better, looked better and he was gaining weight.” Dr. Hosea is one of the many Western doctors who have learned about the benefits of Chinese medicine from their patients and who are now beginning to consult and work together with Chinese doctors on their patients’ treatment plans. “My patients have taught me the benefits of Chinese medicine. It is something we are just not taught about in Western medicine at all. I have been pleasantly surprised to find out that patients have sought out herbal medicines and are getting good results from it when I wasn’t able to help them with Western medicine.

“Chinese Medicine has been around a lot longer than Western medicine and they know a lot more about dealing with symptoms than does Western medicine. Western medicine often uses a hand grenade to kill a fly. Eastern medicine does a much better job of paying attention to the subtleties of symptoms and dealing with them to get people back into balance. It is the integration of Chinese medicine and Western medicine, of meditation, or prayer that creates a holistic picture.”

Throughout Brandon’s illness, a belief in a higher power and purpose stayed with him. Before his HIV progressed to AIDS, he had attend retreats at a Buddhist temple. “I found myself feeling good while I was there, but I knew that my good health was not going to last forever,” he said. “On one visit to the temple, I picked up a book in my room. In it was a newspaper clipping from India, dated July 1895—which was the same month I was there nearly one hundred years before. It said: Dear Sir, We feel bad about your illness, and we know it’s considered terminal. But we know that hope is on the Horizon, and we know that you will be well. A cure is being developed. Don’t hold any fear. Know that we are all thinking about you and that you will be fine. Throughout my illness, even when I couldn’t get out of bed that message stayed with me.”

Brandon and his partner recently bought a ranch in Santa Barbara. Against the window-framed backdrop of the cloudless sky and deep blue Pacific Ocean, Brandon looked very much the athletic, dynamic Hollywood mogul. Instead of producing, Brandon has turned to writing screenplays which allows him more free time. “When I was really low, I would go to the market and people would step in front of me to reach for something, or push their cart in front of me, or beat me to the checkout line. I was aware that the world was moving so much faster than I was, and I no longer felt like part of the world. But the down-and-outers, the alcoholics, the drug addicts, the old people, the really sick people, were on my frequency. They would be the only ones who would smile or talk to me. Like little voices of the underworld. As soon as I started getting healthy, they disappeared. During everything I went through, it was as if voices were telling me I had more to do with my life. I promised that if I got healthy again, I would do what I could to help people who have fallen through the cracks.” Several days a week, Brandon volunteers as a counselor to the homeless. “I see people that are in the shape that I was in. All they need is just a little bit of assistance to get them to that next place where at least they can function to go to the next step.”

Six years after Brandon began Chinese herbs, he looks healthy and vibrant—having gone from the brink of death to balance and vitality on a combined treatment plan of Western drugs and Chinese herbs. He also works to raise funds for herbal treatments as part of the recovery process. “Herbs were the major part of my recovery and I want to share that with others.”

Ways to boost your immune system if you have HIV/AIDS
Do not make any changes in your health program without consulting your doctor. If you are seriously ill, you need to see a health care professional to work with you and follow your healing progress. People with HIV/AIDS have varying degrees of sensitivities and must be carefully supervised.

•    Stool, hair and blood tests can determine if you have 1) high levels of accumulated heavy metals in your system, 2) sensitivities to foods, and/or 3) dysbiosis, which is an imbalance of the healthy and unhealthy bacteria and yeast in the gut, any of which may be weakening your immune system and draining your energy. If you test positive for any of these factors, your health practitioner can treat you on an individual basis.

Modify your diet.
•    Take extra care to cook foods well to defend against salmonella and E-coli bacteria.
•    Many AIDS patients can benefit from the extra phytonutrients, probiotics and electrolytes from fresh vegetable juices and/or super green food. However, raw vegetable juices can be too stimulating for weakened digestive systems. If you use raw juice or super green food, do so under the supervision of your doctor.
•    Detoxification can be hard on the body. Detox with spirulina, chlorella, cilantro, and parseley.

The following herbs/foods have been shown to have either anti-viral and/or immune system strengthening properties or to help treat the symptoms of AIDS.

Anti-viral foods
Aloe vera
Asparagus
Bitter cucumber
Dandelion greens
Fava beans
Garlic
Ginger
Mung beans
Seaweed
Small Chinese red Beans
Tumaric

Immune system enhancing herbs/foods
Astragalus
Chinese yam
Condonapsis
Lycium fruit
Poria mushroom
White woodear mushroom

Herbs/foods that have both anti-viral and immune system enhancing qualities
Pearl barley
Shitake mushroom
Water lily

Herbs/foods to treat the recurring diarrhea and digestive weakness commonly seen in AIDS
Kudzu root
Lily palms
Lotus seed
Pearl barley
Poria mushroom

Herbs/foods to treat the weight loss and dehydration of AIDS
Asparagus
Mung beans
White woodear mushroom

Herbs/foods that treat the loss of appetite associated with AIDS
Hawthorn berry
Bitter cucumber
Lotus palms

Eating coconut to reduce your viral load
Mary Enig Ph.D, an internationally recognized biochemist in the field of fats and oils and an authority on transfatty acids reports that eating coconut is thought to reduce the viral load of HIV. Coconut oil contains lauric acid, which is converted by the body into monolaurin. Monolaurin is thought to solubilize the lipids in the envelope of the virus, causing the disintegration of the virus envelope. According to Dr. Enig’s research, some of the pathogens inactivated by monolaurin include HIV, measles, herpes simplex virus, cytomegalovirus (CMV), influenza virus and pneumonovirus, as well as several bacteria. Dr. Enig suggests a diet rich in lauric acid would contain about 24 grams of lauric acid daily for the average adult—based on her calculations on the amount of lauric acid found in human mother’s milk. To obtain 24 grams of lauric acid, you may eat 3 1/2 tablespoons of coconut oil, 10 ounces of pure coconut milk or 7 ounces of raw coconut per day. Since allergies to coconut are caused by the proteins, if you are allergic to coconut you can safely eat coconut oil.

Chinese herbs and Western supplements
•    Human growth hormone (hGH) is now being used by some Western doctors to prevent muscle mass wasting and to rebuild lean body mass in HIV patients. Discuss using human growth hormone (hGH) injections with your Western doctor.
•    Deer Velvet Antler, is an important Kidney Yang tonic that enhances strength and rebuilds lean body mass in HIV patients. Deer Velvet Antler must be used under the supervision of a Chinese doctor. Discuss using Deer Velvet Antler with your Chinese doctor to stimulate the natural production of hGH to rebuild wasted muscle mass.
•    Find a health practitioner to give you vitamin B injections or intravenous vitamins such as vitamin C, or a “Meyer’s cocktail,” which is a combination of calcium, magnesium, vitamin C and B complex.
•    Routinely, three times a day, 30 to 45 minutes before breakfast, lunch and dinner take 1,000 milligrams free form amino acids.
•    You can use Chinese medicinal herbs in recipes to boost your immune system. See chapter 21 for recipes. You can also take Chinese herbal formulas and Western supplements specifically formulated for HIV.

Nancy’s Alkalinizing Tomato Soup
Makes 3 Quarts

1 eight-ounce jar sun dried tomatoes in olive oil
1 large yellow onion, coarsely chopped
12 ripe beefsteak or heirloom tomatoes, washed and scored into quarters
water to cover
2 large bunches fresh basil, washed, hardest stems removed
2 tablespoons freshly grated nutmeg
cayenne pepper, to taste
sea salt and pepper, to taste
whole cream, optional

In a large soup pot, over medium-high heat, heat the sun dried tomatoes and all of the oil. When the oil is hot, add the onion and sauté until soft, about five minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add tomatoes to pot, cover with water and cook over medium heat for one hour, until very mushy. Turn off heat, add basil whole, and cover. You want to allow the basil to wilt and infuse soup with flavor, but not cook. When completely cool (or soup will splatter out of the blender), purée soup, about 60 seconds per batch, until very smooth. Rinse pot and wipe dry. (You may strain the soup for a smoother consistency if desired.) Return soup to the pot. Season with nutmeg, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper. Ladle into bowls and pour cream into the center of each bowl.
Freezes nicely for 1 week.

I ran 2 miles, then did a P90X workout…..felt great!

I ran on my mini-trampoline for 45 minutes, finished with ab work. Felt GREAT!
I did a combo POWER (weight) class mixed with interval spin training on a stationary bike. Pilates tomorrow.

carido 40 minutes, weights then steam room (my Zen). Love that feeling

Followed a yoga cd and later will walk
TRX Suspension Straps. This builds major strength without the danger of injury from pounding your joints.

45 min flow yoga class….loved it!

wii tennis! im a tough competitor, and went shopping for two hours! walk, climb steps, movement is the key word!!

Rode by bike to work 10mi this morning. rode back home at the end of the day…

I went to a Bikram Yoga class..taught by a guest instructor, world Champion in Bikram yoga. I also took the kids on a walk. I love to work out!! It helps me sleep so well!

I did a 3 mile jog in 54 minutes with my average heart rate 126 and a peak of 152,
And it was hot out there but always feels so wonderful to move – and it’s mind over matter for this 56 year old polio/post polio survivor.

1km swimming at 8 this morning before work…!

Gym thrice a week, cardio once a week

I shovel manure and walk long distances with the wheel barrel to the pile to dump it. I do this about 4 hours 3 times a week. (job…work with horses)

Today was a four mile jog followed by an hour of blueberry picking! I love summer!

It seems like a lot of things to think about but all you have to think is a balanced diet of REAL FOOD.

I am not a mother of humans and I’m not a medical professional so please read the disclaimer at the end of this blog. I checked my opinions with a registered nurse who worked for over a decade in pediatrics and pediatric ICU, who is also a mother and a grandmother.

Your very first consideration in our sugar-crazed world is to seriously consider never giving your baby sugar. If your baby doesn’t get sugar in the first 3 years of life he/she will likely never develop a taste for it. Unless you give your baby sugar, he/she isn’t going to be in the kitchen at 3 a.m. making a hot fudge sundae at 8 months old. You are in the driver’s seat when it comes to sugar—at least now. And children’s tastes for food are set in stone by age 3. So it’s up to you.

Another issue if factory food. It’s poison for adults and extreme poison for babies. I may come off as a total lunatic but I’m going to come right out and say my true opinion that feeding babies and children factory food is child abuse. A reasonable person wouldn’t feed say, chocolate to a dog, as chocolate is poison to dogs. So why would you feed McDonalds, Trix, Coke, or any of the other thousands of poisonous substances to your children? When I read “kids menus” in hotels and restaurants I really feel sad. I also feel infuriated. So that is all I’m going to say for now on this subject.

But I do want you to relax. Babies all over the world eat hot curries, insects, and all sorts of weird stuff. If you’re relaxed and casual about feeding your baby a diet of real whole food, he or she is going to accept that diet, and you’ll be setting your baby up for a lifetime of good eating habits (desires).

Food makers were able to put MSG in baby food until 1969 and now the medical community is wondering why there is so many neurological problems in the boomer generation. Even though MSG is not in baby food anymore, don’t feed your baby jarred food. It’s dead.

Just as you would eat yourself, feed your baby historically eaten foods—foods that were consumed 150 years ago.

For baby’s brain, immune, and endocrine development, you want to make sure that your baby eats nothing but real food, and especially real, healthy fats (butter, coconut milk, olive oil, cod liver oil, butter fat from whole milk, whole plain yogurt, eggs, meat, small fish). The brain is 60 percent fat and will be made up of any fats you put into it. So if you feed your baby crackers, then his/her brain will be made up of the hydrogenated or even in the very best case, the damaged vegetable (usually soy) omega 6 oils in those crackers.

Wouldn’t it be neat to make a baby and then develop that baby’s brain on nothing but real, healthy fats? I think it would.

Brain development explodes in the first 3 months of life. It’s crucial for breastfeeding mothers to eat healthy, organic fats during this time so that baby’s brain gets the fats it needs for development.

Raw whole milk (that is milk that isn’t pasteurized) contains abundant omega 3 fatty acids, which is going to contribute to a healthy, happy, optimal brain. Butterfat is also the richest known source of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which fights toxins, and regulates metabolic rate. (Unenlightened doctors will flip out at the idea of mother’s or infants drinking raw milk. Of course you should only buy raw milk from a reputable raw milk producer. They are all highly regulated by the government and their milk has fewer bacteria raw than commercial milk has pasteurized).

Never ever give your baby any type of soy. A bottle of soy formula has the same amount of estrogen as a birth control pill. Soy has many problems that you’ll read about in Death by Supermarket and Survival Guide. Suffice it to say here, that it is extremely toxic to babies causing everything from cognitive problems to reproductive problems (public hair and breasts on 2 year old babies, for example).

It’s a good idea to wait until your baby is 6 months old before giving her or solid food as well as her usual milk. After 6 months breast-milk on its own doesn’t give your baby everything she/he needs, in particular iron.

Start with simple puréed or well-mashed foods. Give baby a balanced diet of real, whole food and a variety from the four main food groups:

Proteins
Fats
Nonstarchy vegetables
Carbohydrate

Baby’s shouldn’t eat commercial grain products because they are made with GMO grains. Instead make your own baby cereal, using short grain brown rice, amaranth, grits, millet, maize, or steel cut oatmeal. Put dry grains into a food processor and pulse until powder, then follow this basic recipe:

1/4 cup powder
1 cup water

Bring water to boil in saucepan. Add the powder. Simmer for 10 minutes, whisking constantly. Allow to cool before mixing in breast milk. You never want to heat breast milk as it destroys the enzymes.

With cereal, try offering baby 1 or 2 spoonfuls of the following:

Mashed or puréed vegetables, such as cooked carrot, parsnip, potato or sweet potato, with organic butter for brain, immune and endocrine development.

Mashed or puréed fruit, such as banana, cooked apple, pear or mango. Easy on the fruit as it will develop your baby’s taste for sugar. Always mix with veggies. Just think, if ripe banana is your baby’s first food then SUGAR is going to be the first food he/she tastes.

You can offer food to your baby before or after a milk feed, or in the middle of a feed if this works better.

It may take your baby a while to get used to these new flavors. Don’t be surprised if she/he rejects the food or spits it out. Just try again later, or the next day. You can make the food a little blander by mixing it with a few teaspoons of your milk or organic cow or goat milk.

As your baby becomes used to fruits, vegetables and cereal, add a variety of other foods. Then gradually increase the number of times a day that she/he has solids. By the time your baby is about 7 months old, she/he should be eating solids 3 times a day. A typical day’s intake could include:

Breastmilk

Cereal.

Vegetables: potatoes, parsnips, broccoli, cauliflower, sweet potato, spinach and butternut squash.

Small amounts of pureed grass fed, organically raised meat, poultry, fish, whole plain yogurt, hard boiled egg, well-cooked lentils, and organic cheese.

Don’t give your baby brie, stilton and other mold-ripened or soft cheeses.

Fruit

Use a tiny pinch of sea salt in cooking for natural minerals.

At about 7 to 9 months, most babies are ready for finger foods cut into bite-sized bits. Ideal finger foods for this stage are:

Tender cooked carrots and sweet potatoes
Ripe bananas
Melon
Apples
For teething you can make your own teething biscuits.

1 cup steel cut oats pulsed to coarse oat flour
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon or ginger or cardamom
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 overripe bananas, mashed
2 organic egg yokes
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbs butter or coconut oil

Mix dry ingredients, add bananas, eggs, vanilla and melted butter or melted coconut oil. Drop by the spoonful onto a baking sheet greased with coconut oil. Bake 12 to 15 min at 350

To avoid brain damage, never give your baby city water or commercial juices as they are made with city water. City water is contaminated with arsenic, mercury, cadmium, fluoride, lead, aluminum, pharmaceutical compounds, herbicides, fungicides, industrial solvents such as vinyl chloride, dioxin, benzene, acrylamide, and polychlorinated biphenyls.

You should also not give your baby (even home squeezed) fruit juices in a bottle as this can lead to “bottle mouth,” a condition wherein your baby’s incoming teeth rot and can jeopardize his/her adult teeth. If your baby wants to suck on a bottle have him/her get accustomed to drinking distilled water, which is the cleanest water. I am researching water filtration systems for distilling for my book Survival Guide.

Also never give a baby or child rice or nut milks as they are also made with city water. Nut milks are particularly dangerous for children as nuts contain natural toxins (inherent in the plants to keep predators from destroying the entire plant).

Keep all toxins (especially chewable plastic and vinyl toys) away from your baby. Use organic detergents and soaps. Use your head. If it’s got chemical gobbledygook words in the ingredients, it’s poison to your baby’s brain. Keep your cell phone away from your baby’s head. Get rid of that stupid microwave!

Enjoy your beautiful baby and watching your baby grow into a healthy child. Om Shanti.

Om Shanti, Nancy

Grandma Gone Granola Blog
Simple, Inexpensive Tips for Healthy Living from Becky Lyles

How to Grocery Shop
June 23, 2010

For years, health experts have suggested we shop the outer rim of supermarket shelves—where unprocessed food items are usually located—and avoid the inner aisles as much as possible. The counters and coolers along the perimeter of most grocery stores include fresh fruits and vegetables, seafood, meat, eggs, dairy products, and sometimes raw grains, nuts and seeds.

“Elizabeth Ward, RD, author of The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to the New Food Pyramids, says we should fill our shopping carts with fruits, vegetables, whole grains, dairy, lean meat, fish, poultry, beans and nuts. “Be adventurous; aim to try a new fruit or vegetable each week.” http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/guide/10-tips-for-healthy-grocery-shopping

“When buying or eating food, always remember that the more processes a food has to go through before it gets to you, the quicker you should decide against buying and eating it. The more devitalized and processed foods you eliminate from your diet, the healthier you will be.” (Stormie Omartian, Greater Health God’s Way)

“…factory food is designed to make you want to eat more. And wanting to eat more is the polar opposite of being satisfied. How does the factory food industry get you to want to eat more? The primary addicting ingredient is sugar, but the deal clincher is the flavor enhancer monosodium glutamate (MSG).” (Death by Supermarket by Nancy Deville)

Avoid factory food addiction. Eat real food. Happy shopping! Becky

If you haven’t read Death by Supermarket: The Fattening, Dumbing Down, and Poisoning of America, it lays the ground work of education for Survival Guide. Then Survival Guide is the program of diet, sleep, supplements, HRT, meditation, much more.

If you’re curious about what people are saying about Death by Supermarket, you can read Amazon comments here.  I also received this Google Alert this morning from a Gastric Bypass site with even more reviews.

Death by Supermarket is great summer reading. I hope you have a fabulous summer!

Om Shanti!
Nancy

READ AN EXCERPT OF DEATH BY SUPERMARKET

Get your copy now of the first edition of Death by Supermarket: The Fattening, Dumbing Down, and Poisoning of America [Paperback] at the crazy discounted price. TOTAL WITH SHIPPING ONLY $10. Buy now they are going fast!

My primary goal every day is to begin the day with meditation. I find if I don’t meditate immediately then fires take control of my schedule. If I do meditate then I’m better able to extinguish fires during the workday. I don’t need coffee to wake up so I meditate before I leave the bedroom.

I schedule exercise (usually yoga) on my calendar. If it’s not on my calendar then when something comes up it might bump yoga off my day, and I don’t want that to happen. Because I’m a health and wellness writer I factor yoga into my work day with impunity!

I work every day, even on the weekends. I rarely skip a day. I may not work the entire day, but I get something done. I frequently work the entire weekend. Fortunately I’m in love with what I do. But I don’t always write. I would like to write every day, but I’m an industry of one so I have to do everything, including grocery shopping, bills, cooking. In the spirit of disclosure, I do have a housekeeper who comes once a week, an assistant who runs errands for me once a week, and now that one of our dogs is too old to give me a workout, a dog walker comes 5 days a week.

When I have time alone on the weekends I don’t “work,” I write. That is pleasure and those are wonderful stolen hours.

Every week begins with a To Do list. This list runs the gamut from personal to business. It’s all mixed up. The To Do list would take over my writing schedule if I didn’t create artificial deadlines. I know exactly what trajectory any given project is on and what state it needs to be in by a certain date. Then I set another deadline. This works well for airline travel because I have edited all of my manuscripts on airplanes. But you have to plan ahead and have the manuscript in a prepared state.

Because I create deadlines there are days when I simply have to devote the entire day to writing just to make progress. I have to read a manuscript through in total quiet without interruptions so that I can gauge its flow and continuity. That takes scheduling. On those days bathroom breaks and food runs to the kitchen are the only interruptions allowed. But it’s so much fun.

I only make business calls during the day. I’m not a phone talker by nature and don’t enjoy talking on the phone so I generally keep calls to the point and move it along. The phone can chew up a lot of a writer’s day. The same is true with the Internet. It’s very easy to get caught up in emails and Facebook.

Because I’m doing FB videos now, that takes a lot of my time. It requires “stage” makeup or I’m washed out. So just getting myself organized, and the camera set up with acceptable lighting takes a lot of time and then it takes time to upload the videos to YouTube. So I generally turn back to whatever I’m writing while the video is uploading. This sounds a lot like mult-tasking though it’s not. I’ve come to the conclusion that multi-tasking doesn’t really result in the optimal completion of tasks. You get stuff done but not in the spirit of excellence.

Right now I’m working on my proposal for Survival Guide. I’m thinking about it all the time, when I wake up and when I go to bed. I take the last draft with me to bed and read and edit it before I go to sleep. After I meditate, I take my laptop to the kitchen for breakfast and download emails and FB messages. I blow through them as fast as I can. Then I eat breakfast and I’ll work for several hours on my writing. I attend to emails and FB messages in between writing when I want to clear my mind of what I’m working on so I can have a fresh look at it.

I don’t go out very often at night. That would probably not appeal to a lot of people, but I like to go to bed early so I can be fresh the next day. I’m dedicated to my lifestyle of work and accomplishments. I haven’t been much of a vacation taker since I started my writing career. That needed to change for my health, sanity, and productivity, so the last few summers we’ve spent 4-6 weeks on Martha’s Vineyard. Last summer was a near total bust. I started working on my memoir Hippie Chick but mostly I goofed off the entire time. It was OK and it didn’t make me paranoid because I knew that I would crank in September. And since that time I have not stopped. But if that kind of slacking derails you, then I wouldn’t recommend it.

Because of my dedication to my work, I’m not a crazy social animal. I love entertaining, but I keep it to a reasonable amount of time. Socializing is a reward for work done, but at the same time there are times when I can’t stand the sight of my laptop.  So socializing purges me of any pent up discontent.

Every single social, travel, or extracurricular event, book, magazine, newspaper, TV, movie, play, or opera is fodder for my writing. I never stop making mental or actual notes. Keeping my mind active saves me time because I never have to think, now what? I have so much creative stuff at my disposal that sometimes it builds up to a toxic level and that’s when I can’t sleep. So I have to monitor my drive a little.

One detail that I have always given priority to is making connections. I spend time networking regularly. I spend a lot of time sending review books out, scheduling radio interviews, preparing for interviews and talks and rehearsing. And in the beginning I always wrote thank you notes (on real stationary not emails) to agents who rejected a manuscript. They took time out of their busy schedules to read my work and I felt an acknowledgement is only polite. Now I don’t really get much information on who reads what because my agent does it for me. But if there is an instance where I have direct contact with a person who gives me any amount of time, I thank that person with a real note.

As I write I’m getting a pedicure. It’s taken me 45 minutes to write this. I planned it that way. I plan my entire work schedule. So I guess in a nutshell my time management strategy is all about planning.

Om Shanti.

The roll appears after years of stress and carbohydrates. As I’ve explained in videos:

When you are stressed your adrenals secrete cortisol, which breaks down your lean body mass (muscle and bones) to provide sugar as fuel to use during this time of stress (not trekking across the desert looking for food, but staying up till midnight Xeroxing something for your boss). But still. Now you have too much sugar in your bloodstream and sugar is damaging to cells so your body doesn’t like that situation.

Another way is by using stimulants (tobacco, caffeine, drugs (prescription, OTC, or recreational)—all of which result in the release of cortisol.

The third way you get too much sugar in your bloodstream is by eating too many carbs.

When you have too much sugar in your bloodstream insulin is secreted to store that sugar away into cells. After years of stress, eating too many carbs, using stimulants, your cells are filled to capacity with sugar and your body has not other choice but to convert any incoming (nonused) sugar into fat and it stores that fat, guess where? Around your waist first. I do not know why. I agree it’s unfair, but it’s just the way it is.

The way to achieve your optimal body weight and empty those cells of fat and sugar is to focus on overall health.

Stop eating factory food
Eat a balanced diet of real food
Reduce stress (remove yourself from stress if possible, practice meditation)
Cut down on or quit all stimulants (caffeine, tobacco, alcohol, prescription, OTC and recreational drugs)
Avoid toxic exposure
Drinking plenty of water to flush poisons from your system
Indulging in mind-clearing playtime
Go to bed as early as possible (preferably by ten) and get eight hours of rest
Exercise

In Karma, my character Dr. Meredith Fitzgerald uses survival breathing to keep a clear head. Inhale for 4, exhale for 4. But would you be surprised to know that slow, even, modulated breathing can actually lower your blood pressure? There is a device you can buy that will help you keep track of your breathing. It’s called “Respirate,” and it really works. But if you don’t want to drop $150 on that little gadget, you can do it yourself but you have to be disciplined. Just sit quietly and watch the second hand on a clock. It doesn’t matter how long your breaths are as long as they are even. So if you breath in for 7 seconds, then breath out for 7 seconds. Do this for 10-15 minutes a day every day for 2 weeks and your blood pressure will drop.

Fat was vilified by the medical community and the government, but they got it so wrong and in the process led a lot of people into the bad health zone.  Once you are in a bad health zone it takes a monumental amount of effort to pull out. So I want to help you by telling you about fats. This blog would be miles long if I went into the whole story behind fat, so I hope that you’ll order Death by Supermarket on Amazon. It’s a cheap little book that will save you zillions in health costs down the line. Why? Because bad fats, which are endorsed by the medical community, are so dangerous and such killers that the sooner you understand which fat to eat and which to avoid, the better.

Polyunsaturated vegetable fats are said to be healthy by the so-called experts. These are corn, cottonseed, peanut, safflower, sunflower, soy, and canola. They are the fats that are lined up in gleaming bottles in your supermarket. These oils have been processed with heat and chemicals, and are exposed to oxygen all of which oxidize the fragile polyunsaturated molecule and create free radicals (which lead to cancer and every other degenerative disease). Adding to the problem is the fact that they are omega 6 oils.

But this doesn’t mean that you should avoid polyunsaturated fats altogether, because naturally occurring polyunsaturated fats are health giving and will contribute to your achieving brain neurotransmitters balance and your genetic gifts.

Within the polyunsaturated fatty acid are omega-3 and omega-6. Omega-3 and omega 6 are essential fatty acids, which means they are required by the body but can only be obtained through eating the right foods.

Omega-3 promotes lean body mass, which means that including omega-3 fatty acids in your diet will help you burn fat and build muscle. Omega-3 fats are essential to cellular health. Without omega-3 you will likely end up with dry skin, premature wrinkles, thin, brittle hair and nails, depression and other neurotransmitter imbalances, chronic constipation and a malfunctioning immune system, leading to muscle and joint pain and arthritis. Of course with omega-3, you will enjoy the opposite effects.

The ideal and traditional ratio of omega-3 and omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids omega-3:6 is about 1:1. Today Americans consume a 1:20 to 1:50 ratio. And this is not good, as an imbalanced omega 3:6 ratio has been shown to be a major contributing factor in the development of cancer and other degenerative diseases.

So let me try to be really simple because fatty acid biochemistry is totally confusing and has made my own head spin around like Linda Blair’s in the Exorcist.

Omega 6 is found in meat—but unfortunately it’s too high of a ratio now that factory raised animals are fed an unnatural diet. Like humans, they are what they eat, so when we eat them, we’re eating too many Omega 6’s. I hope that’s clear.

Omega 3 is especially important now that researchers have identified what Dr. Russell Blaylock (a former neurosurgeon who is a leading alternative medicine expert) calls “smoldering inflammation” as the cause of most disease. Omega 3 can be found in cod liver oil, whole grains, fruit, veggies, fish, olive oil, and garlic.

Omega 3 becomes gamma-linolenic acid in your body (you’ve heard of it—GLA) which reduces inflammation. And you can actually supplement your diet with GLA producing omega 3 oils like evening primerose, borage, and black current seed oil (please keep them in the fridge).

The balanced diet of real, whole, historically eaten foods that I talk about in Death by Supermarket provides a perfect balance of omega 3:6. The typical American diet, like I said above is killer on the Omega 6 side.

Omega 3 is so important to brain health that if you are depressed or you kids are tearing the house apart in rage and/or suffering from ADD try giving them (encapsulated so they don’t rebel) flavored cod liver oil.

Examples of healthy polyunsaturated fats are cold-water fish such as cod, herring, mackerel, salmon and sardines and their oils, eggs, butter, cream, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds and oil, sunflower seeds, walnuts, wheat germ and wheat germ oil and flaxseed oil (experts recommend cod liver oil over flaxseed oil, as flax tends to go rancid more quickly). Sesame oil is the only polyunsaturated oil that can be used safely in cooking.

Other fats you know about are saturated and monounsaturated, which are also healthy and I will write more about these fatty acids in future blogs.