Dree's Notes

My mother, who is 83 years old, has been struggling with the decision whether to have cataract surgery sooner or later. The task of educating her on reasons for or against has fallen to me because the ophthalmologists she has seen have taken the time to diagnose her cataracts and ask her if she wants to have the surgery now , but have not given her the information she needs to make an informed choice. So we had a telephone conference (she lives in another city), in which I shared with her the following points. According to The American Academy of Ophthalmology (https://www.aao.org), lots of elderly people have cataracts. Various sources list 50% or more of the senior population having cataracts, with smoking, diabetes, and high UV exposure being risk factors. According to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1120237/, there are some questions on whether cataract surgery should be performed in those aged 85 years and over, and some reasons for caution are given. Basically, t

As the autumn temperatures drop, sore throats and that achy feeling warn you that if you don't head the viruses off quickly, you're in for a few sick days. Basically, your immune system is warning you of an oncoming cold or flu. What can you do for prevention? I used to subscribe to various "throat sterilization" tactics to ward off a cold-weather virus. This would involve gargling saltwater, drinking a glass of scotch, or having some variety of hot tea. The success rate varied. I have since learned that alcohol, while pleasant, further weakens my immune system, and gargling saltwater helps a bit when a sore throat gets bad. Spice tea helps, but it doesn't boost my immune system quite enough. What has been working well these days involves pitting microbe against microbe, or at the very least, giving my immune system a bit of emergency-response training. The enemy of my enemy is my friend . When I feel like I'm catching something, I take a few probio

Neuroscience explains how botox injections not only relax your face, but change the way you respond to other people's emotions. In order to empathize with the feelings of others, you unconsciously mirror another person's facial expressions, which causes your brain to register the reflected emotions. If your muscles have been paralyzed with botox, these pathways to empathy won't work. That's not to say that you'll lose all your empathy, because there are other neurological mechanisms at work, but it's something to consider if you want to try botox for social reasons. You can watch the relevant segment of The Brain series with David Eagleman on YouTube... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6Tabh2Z5PI There are many arguments for and against getting botox, including photos of people who look either better or worse following botox treatments, and stories of people who claimed that botox either helped them or harmed them. My point is simply that if your j

Just a few days after my interest in a utilities consumer advocate position, my 83-year-old mother called me about a problem she had with Direct Energy in Edmonton. Direct Energy promises "comfort with every call." My mother called them because they sent her cheques refunding her utilities payments. She endured a long wait on the telephone before speaking to someone. Then that someone treated her like she had her head on backwards (my mother, an immigrant, has a strong accent), promised to call her back, and didn't. After mom started getting calls from Direct Energy threatening to cut off her utilities for non-payment, she enlisted my brother's help in solving the problem. Turns out, her account number had changed because of the expiry of her competitive energy service plan, and her account had reverted to a plan with her regulated energy service provider. Mom pays by ATM, and doesn't include a payment stub anymore because the ATM is set up for accoun

When it comes to utility shopping, I feel overwhelmed. Where to start? As a responsible energy consumer, I know that my choices matter. That's why our family upgraded the insulation in our home, and installed a more efficient furnace, water heater, and refrigerator. That's why we use new CFL (compact fluorescent) light bulbs. It should be easy to shop for a retailer of green energy, right? The list of competitive Alberta energy retailers on http://ucahelps.alberta.ca/retailers.aspx is certainly impressive. Depending on where you live in the province, you probably only have one choice for a regulated energy retailer, but there are 32 competitive energy retailers to potentially choose from! If price were your highest priority, there is a nifty cost comparison tool... just dig out a recent bill, enter your site ID from the top of the report, enter your electrical consumption by month and kilowatt hours (kWh) and your gas consumption by month and gigajoules (GJ). You

In life, there is good pressure and bad pressure. When a new food resource becomes available, that's good pressure that drives a population upward. Conversely, scarcity and disease apply downward pressure on populations. Within any population, there will be variations that lead to the rise of one sub-group, and the fall of another. Let's use an example that lends itself to formulating an equation. We're studying change, which happens as a result of pressure, or P . No pressure means that P = 1 and any value multiplied by 1 does not change. If there is no upward or downward pressure on a population then its level of energy utilization stays the same. Completely static situations in nature are rare, but as long as the P-value hovers around 1, there will be relative stability and no obvious changes or disruptions. If Y represents our population measured by its respiration/calorie/energy use, then if P = 1 , PY = Y . Now let's say that Y  represents energy utiliz

In this book, a mechanical engineering professor attempts to explain all of nature using a term he himself coined, the "constructal law" in which "life is movement that evolves freely, in both animate and inanimate spheres" (p. 2). Adrian Bejan sees little difference between energy flow in life and non-life. Hierarchies are good, and so are oligarchies and slavery. Forget scary projections of overpopulation, scarcity of resources and climate change, because there's a happy S-curve for every human undertaking: "Using more fuel does not mean that climate change is out of control. Humanity will adapt in order to persist, to keep on flowing, which means to live... If a new technology tends to kill us, like the trains at railroad crossings, then people invent flashing signs and build overpasses, and keep moving." (p. 145) Adrian Bejan conveniently glosses over the fact that many dominant species eventually go extinct when their environment turn

For those looking for a quick-and-easy guide to fermenting vegetables, I have created this new post. First, a quick reminder as to WHY we are fermenting vegetables instead of say, drinking kombucha or kefir... Because good microbes live on fiber! From vegetables! At room temperature or above! So a fermented drink with processed sugar as a starter isn't really going to help your microbiome, so just enjoy it for the flavour but don't kid yourself. As for yogurt and kefir, if you make it yourself and don't refrigerate it, then you may get billions of beneficial bacteria per serving, but otherwise you will only get millions of chilled and dying microbes. And no fiber.  That is why we ferment the vegetables. Fermented vegetables are NOT vegetables that have gone bad. It is an alternative way to prepare the vegetables that generates healthy probiotics, increases the vitamin content, and preserves food through a natural process similar to pickling. Aside from vegetables a

Having read that when rolled oats are cut, heat from the mill destroys phytase (the good enzyme that helps unlock nutrients), I started to wonder about muesli. I love having home-made muesli around because it's such a convenient and nutritious snack. Searching for answers, I learned that roasting grains works well for pig and chicken farmers, because the animals are healthier on 10-15% less feed. Eventually, I found some scientific articles that listed values between 20 and 60% reduction in phytic acid in roasted grains (for human consumption too!). A slow, steady temperature of 250 to 300 degrees Fahrenheit (120 to 150 degrees Celsius) works best since you don't want to char your food, just give it great flavor and make it easier to digest. Roasting improves the nutritional value of the oats, as well as the nuts and seeds in muesli. Another issue is what sort of oil or fat to use. I used to mix in a bit of canola oil with the other muesli ingredients before roasting, bu

News that common emulsifiers in processed foods are linked to health problems such as metabolic syndrome, inflammatory bowel conditions, and obesity, are not encouraging. Not if you love ice cream and chocolate. Ice cream couldn't even be good ice cream without the addition of emulsifying agents, which maintain its creamy texture and consistency upon freezing. Blending fat with water is just what emulsifiers do, improving the properties of margarine, mayonnaise, peanut butter, baked goods and processed meats. Common emulsifiers include lecithin, monoglycerides, and polyglycerol esters, but there are many more food additives that perform this function. Why most of them seem to be "bad" has to do with the effect they have on gut microbes and the mucus that lines the intestinal tract. When the mucus is thinned by emulsifiers, "good" microbes can turn "bad" and inflammation results. What about lecithin as a nutritional supplement? Isn't it sup

Vegans, beware! Although a plant-based diet is healthier in many respects, you need to be aware of food preparation methods that reduce phytic acid in beans, nuts, grains and seeds so that you don't end up with deficiencies of key nutrients and minerals. With all the talk about the health benefits of eating "raw", we tend to forget that there were some very good reasons for food preparation methods in the first place. Plants protect their next generation by locking up phosphorus and minerals with phytic acid, which also chelates calcium, iron, zinc, and other minerals as phytate. Phytate is not "bioavailable", which means you cannot digest it. Traditional food preparation methods such as soaking, sprouting, fermenting, boiling and baking developed to increase human nutrient absorption, in part by depleting phytic acid in seeds. Some seeds, such as kidney beans, are even toxic if consumed raw. How do animals get by without sophisticated food preparatio

As with most people taking courses and not working, monthly bills matter. Telephone and internet services are must-haves, but prices keep creeping up. We switched to Yak from Shaw almost a year ago, and I am writing about it today because during the switch we lost our landline phone number (thank you, Shaw!), and our kids still have a hard time remembering the new number. Which can be an issue, as with yesterday, when a child was on a field trip. (I finally wrote the new number with permanent pen inside each of their backpacks.) So, here is my review: vs. We started our subscription in 2006 with Shaw due to issues with Telus billing practices. At that time, Shaw didn't seem like big telecom - it was smaller, friendlier, cheaper. Our monthly bill was around $70 for internet, cable, and landline (we don't do a lot of long-distance). Shaw's subscription cable offerings quickly became a joke in our household. Unless you're willing to pay extra for more

Accompanying my son on a school field trip provided a unique opportunity to hear another perspective on food production (farming) and food safety. Although I grew up on an acreage with a huge garden, raising farm animals, and having farm families in our social circle, I have spent most of my adult life as a city-dweller. Boy, has farming changed. Welcome to Twin Valley Farms (http://twinvalleyfarms.ca/), where farming is now agribusiness and high-tech. Irrigation is initiated with a cell phone application. Seeders and sprayers now cover fields more or less automatically, guided by GPS. Crops such as faba/fava beans and other legumes that most Canadians don't eat are grown for consumers in India and Egypt. Canola is of the genetically engineered variety, and glyphosate is seen as environmentally friendly, reducing tillage and fuel consumption. Monsanto is seen as a friendly business partner. It's interesting to meet people who genuinely believe in their agricultural

Since enhancing diversity and maintaining populations of good species in your gut are so important to good health, it follows that one should regularly consume fermented foods. Fermented vegetables in particular, since they are both probiotic (adding good species) and prebiotic (feeding the right species). But how does one get a hold of a good variety of tasty fermented vegetables? What if you don't want to eat kimchi and the kind of sauerkraut you occasionally see at some grocery stores, all the time ? The answer is you start making your own. Enter the Ferment Your Vegetables book by Amanda Feifer. What I liked about this book is that it reassured me that fermenting veggies is safe. It explained how to identify a batch that has "gone bad" (colorful mold or a swiss cheese odor). Such problems are rare anyway, and can't happen if the PH is below 4, you use sufficient salt, and only ferment at room temperature for a week or less. (You can safely put the batc

Last time I posted, on May 25, I said I would clean and count the mealworms that evening, and change the feed of the "?GM" labelled container to suspected GM soy from China. Well, I did it. This time around, I ground the soy meal from dry beans in a clean coffee grinder, because turning dried beans into meal with a mortar and pestle last time was hard work. I have also punched holes in the containers (15 small holes in each lid) so that I can do away with the pantyhose screen and elastics. With pupae turning into beetles soon, those lids need to be firmly on! As of today, May 27, the "?GM" mealworms have been eating the non-organic soy from China for two days with no ill effects. Therefore, there can't have been any measurable amount of pesticide in the beans, nor is it likely that the soy beans were genetically engineered or modified. When I compare the wellness of these mealworms to the rapid death of crickets fed non-organic produce (the crickets were

What's been happening with the mealworms?! They're all fine. Interestingly, the non-organic (the one that I labelled "?GM") side has four worms already pupating, as you can see from the picture (bottom right corner, looking pale and contracted). The organic side looks very similar, but not a single worm has advanced to the pupal stage. Does that mean that the cheaper non-organic bulk soy is actually more nutritious, or is there something else in it that is accelerating the worms' growth? After nearly two weeks, apparently no mealworm has died from eating non-organic bulk soy. Just because the soy lacked organic certification doesn't mean you can't live off it. This suggests something generally good about the human food supply, so I am not disappointed. It means I should be able to eat the natto that I cultured from non-organic soy without compromising my diet. Tonight, I will enlist the aid of my son and lab assistant in counting the worms again

It's been five days, so it's time to clean the containers and take a mealworm count. Mealworms can be killed by mold, so I want to make sure that the pieces of carrot, mango peel, and banana peel and moistened soy meal that I have given as food and drink do not spoil. When transferring the mealworms and waste and leftover food, I learned that the moistened soy meal hardened as it dried. From now on I will not moisten the soy meal, as it will be the mainstay of the mealworms diet, supplemented by a slice of carrot. Here is a picture of the mealworms from the container being fed organic soy meal after the cleaning. Cleaning was a simple matter of shaking each container in turn, into a bowl, picking out the mealworms and putting them in another bowl, wiping the container, adding fresh food, and then returning each group of mealworms to the container they came from (labelled either "?GM" or unlabelled). While I did the cleaning, aided by my son, I supervise

To bring my notes up to date: on Day 1, last Thursday night, I added some soy meal (both organic and suspected GM) ground up in a mortar and pestle and mixed with a bit of water, to both sets of mealworms. On Friday, I added a carrot slice to each. I've checked them every day since, and both sets of mealworms look about the same. They've been eating a bit of the soy, in each container, but seem to prefer the bran and other foods.

Would you be willing to take the time and expense to avoid GM foods unless you were sure that GM food was a problem in your area? Who wants to give up all processed food and restaurant food? Most GM products end up hidden in either processed or restaurant food ingredients. We visited Community Natural Foods in Calgary to compare prices and selection against our regular stores. While I was pleasantly surprised with the costs of some items (goat milk feta cheese was cheaper at Community Natural Foods than what I'd seen at either Coop or Basha Foods ), it became apparent we'd be paying significantly more for common items. While it certainly feels good to buy organic and local, it requires commitment. So we decided to run an inexpensive experiment that would pit a suspected GM food against its organic equivalent to bolster our commitment. The experimental animals would be mealworms. (What would people think of me if I experimented on mice or rats?) The mealworms ( Tenebrio

Last night, our family watched Genetic Roulette on Vimeo. Jeffrey M. Smith is the director, and the film is promoted by the Institute for Responsible Technology. My husband and I talked about how the controversy over GMO looks a bit like the controversy over vaccines, with moms who claim that their kids have been harmed on one side and most experts on the other side. If you google the names of some writers of anti-GMO books, there are a lot of articles written by scientific authorities to discredit the anti-GMO writers. It borders on vitriol. However, one tiny bit of news caught my attention: Kaiser Permanente, the largest managed healthcare organization in the United States, advised its members against consuming GMOs for health reasons. So it's not like the vaccine controversy at all, is it? Insurance companies are incredibly good at crunching numbers - they have to be - and the data is stacking up in a big way against consumption of GMOs because of the known deleterious

Naturally, when one thinks of PHASE II , one thinks of Star Trek, but that's only because the lack of good microbiota in one's digestive tract is causing one's mind to wander. Please try to concentrate; there have been some improvements on the Microbiome Diet . Phase II is great because you only need to average about 90% compliance, so there is a little more leeway allowed without totally straying from the path. However, it's really important to continue to avoid dairy, wheat, sugar and alcohol, as before, and continue to emphasize prebiotic and probiotic foods. A daily drink of 2 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp chili sauce should help me to achieve some of the aims of the diet (boost metabolism, reduce inflammation and maintain a stable blood sugar). Here is the list of FOODS TO AVOID, in Phase II, as in all phases of this diet: Processed or packaged foods High-fructose corn syrup Trans fats Hydrogenated fats Dried or canned fruit

There's a lot of produce to consume with this diet, but so far my pipeline is feeling good! Okay, on with the do's and don'ts... DON'T EAT List: dairy, wheat, eggs, soy, sugar, alcohol, potatoes, processed and fried foods DO EAT List by Category: Highly Recommended: probiotics, prebiotics (feed good bacteria) such as asparagus, carrots (small quantities, as they metabolize to a lot of sugar), garlic, jerusalem artichoke, jicama, leeks, onion, radishes, tomatoes Include: cinnamon (balances blood sugar) and turmeric (anti-inflammatory) Apple cider vinegar (1-2 tbsps) before meals if stomach acid is low For protein: beef, chicken, fish (low-mercury only), lamb, shellfish Vegetables: artichoke, asparagus, beets, black radish, bok choy, broccoli, broccolini, broccoli rabe, brussels sprouts, cabbages, capers, carrots, cauliflower, celery, cucumber, eggplant, garlic, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce (anything but iceberg), mushrooms, onions, spinach, squash, tomatoe

My attitude toward diet books is generally skeptical. Nevertheless, in my microbiome-themed readings, I picked up The Microbiome Diet by Raphael Kellman, MD, and I must say that it is the best how-to-improve-your-microbiome-and-overall-health book so far. You can't argue with Kellman's success rate. The Kellman Center in NYC has treated thousands of patients with an enviable success rate, for conditions ranging from gastrointestinal disorders, fibromyalgia, fatigue, autoimmune disease, neurological conditions, lyme disease, thyroid issues, and they are also conducting research into ways to ameliorate cancer and autism. As with many such books, it's the usual 1-2-3: change your diet while taking steps to get more exercise and improve your emotional health by managing stress and cultivating appreciation... for your food! Kellman encourages you to take 20-40 minutes to chew your food and be grateful for all that makes your meal possible. This will help your parasympa

Robynne Chutkan looks a lot like one of my closest friends, so I was predisposed to like her book, The Microbiome Solution . She is a gastroenterologist, and her work has helped many people struggling with difficult health problems, especially those who have taken many courses of antibiotics for various infections and then find themselves getting sick more and more frequently. Clearly, depleting the most beneficial species in your microbiome with broad-spectrum bacteria-killing drugs leads to weakened immunity as there will not be a healthy microbial ecology to resist invaders and modulate immune response. Other cases include patients with irritable bowel problems, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disorders, weight problems, eczema, fatigue, brain fog, and Crohn's.  Chutkan's approach to the problem is the "Live Dirty, Eat Clean Plan" which she mentions so often that it starts to become irritating. What it eventually boils down to is that to be healthier, mo

A while back, I came across news of a new centre for microbiome research to open at the Cumming School of Medicine (U of C) in 2017 (https://www.ucalgary.ca/utoday/issue/2015-07-31/world-class-research-centre-launched-99-million-federal-grant). It's about time! The American Gut Project is way ahead of us on this one (http://humanfoodproject.com/americangut/), but if I am going to get my gut microbiota analyzed, I'd prefer to save Fedex-ing my sample to California and get it done locally instead! Besides, this is approximately what I would receive in return for $99 USD and a few more hundred in rush delivery charges: The data that you get back tells you what your most common gut species are, the percent composition of the main species overall, and compares you to a few other population groups. Although it would look gorgeous framed on your desk to show off to your workmates (!), it doesn't tell me most of the things that I would really want to know about my microbiome,