Exodus 16:32--- Moses said, “This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Take an omer of manna and keep it for the generations to come, so they can see the bread I gave you to eat in the wilderness when I brought you out of Egypt.’”


Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Wheat Belly

 
 
I am almost done reading this book.  Dr. Davis, a preventative care cardiologist, and author of Wheat Belly, has turned my view of wheat completely upside down.  I almost can't believe this book, but I do.  He backs up every thing he's teaching about wheat (and other foods that send your blood sugar skyrocketing) with loads of published scientific studies.  The most impressive chart/study I saw in the book was a line graph showing the rapid growth of obesity in Americans beginning right at the exact moment in the 80's when they told all of us to stop eating fat and to start eating more "healthy whole grains." 
 
Dr. Davis declares that all wheat destroys our bodies; white or wheat, multi-grain or 12 grain; he says it's all poison and it's all garbage.  WHAT??? I know.  You will be absolutely shocked at number of human ailments this doctor can pin on wheat and overall elevated blood sugar.  Dr. Davis recommends going grain free all together since the grains we consume the most, elevate our blood sugar higher than pure sugar.  Read this book if you are at all interested in repairing your health or loosing extra fat.  You've got to at least consider the studies he's gathered for our benefit.  And I do say benefit because I believe him now. 
 
If you're slim and have great balance and moderation in your diet and are, for the most part, illness and ailment free, you probably don't need to worry about wheat.  But me, I ate wheat for breakfast, wheat for morning snack, wheat for lunch, wheat for afternoon snack, wheat for supper and then wheat for a possible dessert and wheat for an evening snack.  That adds up to wheat sending my blood sugar through the roof 6 TIMES A DAY.  I doubt my blood sugar ever came down. 
 
What does elevated blood sugar do to us?  Well, the book explains it in a lot of detail, but what the ailments that stood out to me the most were:
 
-joint pain/soreness
-fatigue
-cloudy brain function
-fat stored around our middles
-Hashimotos Thyroid condition
-low iron
-dementia
 
So what on earth are we supposed to eat?  A hunter/gatherer diet like humans did before they stayed in one place and made farms and ground up grain.  OH, and today's farms and grain are not the grains of 5 decades ago, Dr. Davis says. Wheat has been so altered to be easily grown and hulled and harvested and pest resistant, drought resistant, etc., that what we're eating today is vastly different than what generations before us ate.  Here are Dr. Davis' diet recommendations from his book in case you're curious:
 
RARELY or NEVER:
=Wheat products: breads, pastas, cookies, cakes, cereals, pancakes, pita, couscous, rye, barley etc.
=Oils of the hydrogenated, poly-unsaturated, corn, sunflower, soy, grape seed, cottonseed kinds.
="Gluten-free" labeled foods since they just replace the wheat with corn or tapioca powder which both elevate blood sugar as bad as wheat does
=Dried fruits, fried foods, sugar snacks, chocolate, ice cream, fructose sweeteners, sugary condiments like jelly and ketchup.

LIMITED QUANTITIES
=Non-cheese dairy like milk, yogurt, cottage cheese
=Fruit
=Whole corn, beans, potatoes
=Soy products -- soy messes with the endocrine system and produces estrogen in the body
=Non-wheat, non gluten grains – wild rice, quinoa, brown/white rice (because they raise blood sugar fairly high but not nearly as bad as wheat, couscous, rye, barley etc.)

UNLIMITED QUANTITIES
=Vegetables except corn and potatoes
=Raw nuts and seeds
=Oils – olive, coconut, avocado, walnut, flaxseed
=Meats and eggs (the entire egg)
=Cheese
=Non sugary condiments
 
Joel and I have been slowly removing the wheat from our diets.  So far we have no wheat for breakfast, lunch or supper 95% of the time.  We've gotten rid of wheat from our snacks about 70%.  Unfortunately we haven't cut down on sugar so we haven't seen a huge amount of weight loss, but Joel and I both have lost about 10 lbs over two months with no exercise and and still eating sugar (ice cream, chocolate, skittles).  Joel has experienced great clarity of mind, his usual head aches are gone.  Also gone is his daily, almost debilitating, fatigue in the afternoons after eating a lunch containing wheat.  Joel does not have celiac disease, but he definitely has some kind of allergy to wheat.  He has loved the way he feels off of wheat.  We both have had massive improvements with our random joint and back pain.  We have both complained of joint pain: wrist, elbow, shoulder, hip, knee, ankle to sum it up between the two of us.  Almost zero joint pain for both of us since getting off the wheat.  It comes back when we slip up and eat donuts. lol. Seriously.
 
Have any of you read Wheat Belly?  What do you think of it?  Any good meal or snack tips for wheat free eating?



Thursday, October 4, 2012

Count and Smash

Are you looking for an engaging counting activity?  Here it is.  Count and Smash.
 
 
 
 
--Your child will roll one die.  Have them count the dots on the top of the die. 
--Then, from a pile of pre-made playdogh shapes, have them count out the same number of play dough shapes as shown on the die. 
--Give them some kind of object for smashing.  (Luke is using an old cocktail muddler I got from my recently deceased Grandma Iris.  It works quite well for this kind of thing since I don't do much muddling.) 
--Then have your child count out loud as they smash their play dough shapes. 
 
 
And that's it!  This activity has really helped Luke get a better concept of counting. 
 
 
We'll graduate to two dice soon, when we start counting beyond 10.