There are lots of food tips out there to control food cravings – my all time favorite was one that was supposed to address the craving for crunchy, salty snacks. This was during my Potato Chip phase. I read somewhere that that particular desire was driven by the need for crunch. So all I had to do was to replace those salty, crunchy, chippy things with something that satisfied the crunch – like celery or carrots.

Really?

I was skeptical but I tried it. I’ve always been one to initially concede authority to someone who’s done more work on a particular issue than I have. But right away I could see a flaw in the theory: without a doubt carrots were absolutely out. When the mouth wants salt, giving it sweet – like unknowingly biting into a handful of warm buttery Kettle Korn – causes a momentary break between the autobiographical memory chip in your brain and the perception of reality you’ve been used to up to that point in your life. It’s like seeing turquoise rain.

So that left celery. I thought I would be smart about it and adapt the solution by appeasing the other part of the craving. So I sprinkled it with salt. I’m not saying it wasn’t a nice enough snack. But all in all the experiment was a failure. The watery, salty crunch of celery does not begin to approximate the salty, crunch of oily potato chips. It didn’t stop the desire for chips and I never developed the craving for celery.

So here’s a tip for real people. This addresses the possible psychological drive to a particular snack. What do we want? Think about it. From the time we’re pre-teens on the playground starting to notice the opposite sex, or the fact that our older brother gets to stay out till midnight or that the two comfy chairs in the living room are reserved for mom and dad, isn’t there always an allure to what we cannot have? Whether it’s a fact of life or a rule we’ve imposed on ourselves.

So, Tip #1 for real people says: Take the mystique out of the snack. Give in sometimes. If you’re compulsive, plan it into your day – that way you can shelve the craving till you get home at 4:00. You can plan how much you’ll have and perform whatever ritual will honor the fulfillment of a human need. Sit in the chair that’s reserved for you, lower the lights, focus on the food and enjoy something you enjoy. If you can have it occasionally, it might dispel some of the desire.

I’ve had my share. There was a time beginning when I was a teenager when the Potato Chip Girl inside ran my world more often than I like to admit. When I was in my twenties I surmised that heaven was a room filled with Lay’s potato chips and me in the corner munching my way, guilt free, fat free and never full, towards the door.

Recently I had a small bag of plain Lay’s – my long-ago favorites – to which I can honestly say “Meh.” Is it possible I’ve gotten enough calcium or chloride in my system that I don’t crave them anymore? Or did my taste buds age moving on to more refined and flavorful needs?

When I was very young I craved sour. Dill pickles and their juice. I was young during the time when dad’s came home from work, loosened their ties and mixed a martini. More times than not, my father would find the tall, thin jar of olives that was full only yesterday now empty but for the two I would save him. That’s what he used in his daily martini. I would drink the juice and leave the olives and no one knew how those two called to me from their spot on the door of the refrigerator.

When I was twelve a girl moved in across the street who shared the same strange taste for sour. Having a quarter between us didn’t mean we’d cash in on candy but we’d buy two enormous dill pickles and sit on the short concrete wall between the plaza and the park and munch and suck and chew the dilly afternoon away. She and I used to drink vinegar. We imagined that’s what whiskey tasted like and we’d throw a shot down, slam the glass on the table and wince like the toughest guy on TV.

That need for sour lasted about thirty years and was followed by five years or so where I was repulsed by the thought of sour. The last jar of pickles I bought before the craving left me stayed in the back of my fridge for years where it didn’t spoil but just radiated its intrinsic green-ness. The pickles didn’t make my mouth water and I couldn’t reach for the jar without something inside turning green a little bit on its own. In a cleaning frenzy I finally threw them away.

Now I occasionally eat pickles or use dill relish. I have found that green olives from the olive bar at the health food store add a nice touch to a salad. But my mouth doesn’t salivate at the thought of sour, I don’t find myself digging a forefinger into that tall, thin jar or raiding the apple cider vinegar. What’s up with that? What do people have food cravings? Where do they go? Can you control them? Or do they control you?

What do you crave? Stay tuned while I try to answer some of these questions in the next few blogs about Food for Real People – Food Cravings.

Acupuncture is an effective means of controlling weight and appetite. Acupuncture releases endorphins which may help to balance out cravings. When endorphins are released the stress hormone cortisol can be neutralized. Cortisol is the hormone that can adversely affect metabolism.

Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine takes a whole body approach to health. The body produces and uses energy that flows in river-like meridians around the body. When that vital energy, called Qi (pronounced chee) is not balanced or if there are persistent blockages that stop the flow of Qi the body responds by developing symptoms of disease. Weight gain can be one of them. There are many root causes for weight gain: the metabolism might be impaired, glucose resistance might be a factor, early signs of disease might also be a factor. An acupuncturist or Traditional Chinese Medicine Doctor will consider all factors that might have led to weight gain including lifestyle, emotional and mental well-being as well as diet.

The whole self contains the solution so having a doctor to treat the whole self is the answer. Acupuncture is a partnership in health. Some ways to support yourself in your weight loss journey are making sure you’re getting both aerobic exercise to burn fat and weight training to build muscle that will burn fat. Look at the foods you eat. Not only calories make the difference. Is the food unprocessed and organic? Do you eat whole grains and vegetables?

Measuring the stress in your life might give you and your acupuncturist a clue to your weight gain too. Breathing, meditation, yoga and stress relieving exercises might help you lose weight more easily and stop the habit of overeating or responding to food cravings.

At Whole Health we take a whole body approach. We have acupuncturists, massage therapists, meditation classes, exercise and cooking classes.

• What are you willing to learn or change in order to have a life where your diabetes is a fact but not the determining factor?
• If following a customized program offered you the ability to stop the damage being done to your cells and allow you to live in what is defined by western medicine as “diabetes-free,” would you do it?

The answers to these questions seem obvious, but perhaps only to those who don’t actually have diabetes. Changing your lifestyle can be a challenge if your focus isn’t on recapturing the best quality of life you can while you still have it.

Recently I interviewed one of our patents, Gary, who has been successful in getting his blood glucose levels under 100 and his HbA1c down to below 6. After participating in our Whole Health diabetes program, he is about to go off medication. He feels better. He’s committed to his health.

But Gary told me stories of other patients he knows who are not as committed as he is. Someone he knows who is severely affected by her type 2 diabetes controls her sugar intake by eating sugar and following it with insulin. A woman I had breakfast with not long ago told me her doctor said her blood glucose was high but she isn’t diabetic. She was eating a cinnamon sugar scone. When I asked her what the level was she said it was well over 100. “It was 160, I think,” she said. She is not on medication and hasn’t been formally diagnosed.

Other diabetics Gary told me about are not educated on what exactly sugar is doing to their cells. They are not focused on the fact that as long as their blood glucose levels and their HbA1cn levels are high, they are doing irreparable damage that will deteriorate their health and severely limit their life expectancy while creating a host of other diseases and illnesses they will likely die from.

Type 2 diabetes – avoidable and preventable. But is it reversible? The damage to the cells can never be reversed. However, in a case like Gary’s where he was on medication and his levels were high enough that he was beginning to show the side effects of having diabetes, and now he’s not, can we say he reversed his diabetes? Or is it perhaps more accurate to say, he’s made his diabetes irrelevant?

He won’t ever be able to eat three donuts for breakfast and cookies after a fast-food lunch and pie for dessert every night. But Gary’s ok with that. Every time he sees his grandchildren, he’s reminded just how ok it is.

This is a sales pitch. What we want to sell is the quality of the rest of your life. And the number of years you have to live it. If you have type 2 diabetes or prediabetes, just what are you willing to do to change the prognosis?

If you don’t want to be beat by this insidious disease call Whole Health Centers and see what we can do to improve your world.

Every seven seconds.

This meeting is a sign of hope for the millions of people who suffer from diabetes. Yet it’s a sign of despair too. Peliminary reports indicate that heavy lobbying by tobacco, alcohol, food and drug companies may slow or skew the adoption of action.

Let’s face it diabetes and other noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are big money. Managing chronic conditions are growth markets for drug companies. Tobacco, food and alcohol have a stake in keeping their global market growing, too. A marriage between drugs and consumables virtually guarantees their businesses will boom in years to come while people in developing countries and people right here in our own country continue to die.

Praise belongs to the UN for tackling the issue. This is only the second UN meeting on health in history. The first one was in 2001 on Aids. Talks are starting. The problem will be acknowledged as a problem. Solutions will be proposed.  Solutions that revolve around increasing healthcare, tracking statistics to compile better data, monitoring outcomes, strengthening communication etc are all necessary and welcome changes.

Education and research for alternative methods to control and reverse diabetes are paramount. Realistic guidelines need to be adopted. At Whole Health we see patients whose doctors have told them that a blood glucose reading of 140 is what they should shoot for. Some say 180. In reality anything above a 100 still leaves the patient at risk for complications due to diabetes.

We are having success with patients lowering their glucose levels to a safe number (under 100). Studies are surfacing that show products that have beneficial effects in lowering blood glucose and cholesterol. PHatea is one of them.

With a world focus on noncommunicable disease, those of us in the US who have been involved in this issue need to advise: We can’t just do what we’ve been doing and expect that anything will change. Adopting the action items listed in the meeting brochure is a start, but the epidemic requires more than that. Stop the big money from controlling the disease. Look for alternatives. Educate everyone. Fund studies for alternative sources and above all, acknowledge that it is possible to reverse the condition.

Acupuncture is based on the idea that life-force energy, called Qi (pronounced chee) is created and flows through the body, protecting from illness and pain. Qi flows along meridians somewhat like rivers throughout the body, connecting organs and different areas of the body into systems. The quality, quantity and balance of Qi or life-force energy is what determines how healthy a person is.

If you think of Qi as flowing through a river, sometimes it gets disrupted. It can get backed up or restricted by other forces that injure the body. Some potential culprits to blocking Qi are

• Physical and emotional trauma
• Stress
• Lack of exercise
• Poor diet
• Accidents
• Excessive activity

If the body is otherwise healthy these upsets are dealt with naturally and the body heals itself. However, if the upset is prolonged or excessive or the body has been weakened by surgery, injury or emotional stress, the body doesn’t heal itself. Disease sets in as the energy bogs in certain places or flows to a trickle in others.

A skilled acupuncturist can determine where the blocks and imbalances of Qi are in the body’s systems. Acupuncture is a safe and painless treatment to help Qi circulate stronger and more freely throughout the body. Most people experience a sense of well-being and lots more energy after an acupuncture treatment due to the now free-flowing energy in their body.

Acupuncture can eliminate pain, restore the balance of energy flow and increase the body’s ability to heal itself.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes acupuncture as safe and effective treatment for healing many, many conditions.

At Whole Health Centers we practice Traditional Chinese Medicine and Five Element Acupuncture.

Fibromyalgia Symptoms

Fibromyalgia affects two percent of the population. Of those, ninety percent seek alternative health treatments to relieve the symptoms of the syndrome. Because the syndrome has a long list of symptoms and because treatment is so individual, western doctors can only prescribe medication by trial and error. Medicine designed to manage the pain, the possible IBS, the difficulty sleeping, the headaches and jaw pain that may characterize each individual’s experience. Those ninety percent seeking alternative health treatments are likely turning from the handful of drugs they need to take to manage the syndrome.

Fibromyalgia Treatment

Oftentimes medications are prescribed to dull the pain. This is a short-term solution and does nothing to correct the problem. Pain is the indication that there is a problem in the body. Unless you address the problem, the pain is not going to go away.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine pain of any sort is the result of the disruption of the flow of Qi (pronounced  chee) in the body. The body has systems that produce and use energy and meridians where the energy flows from one part of the system to another. All systems need to be in balance for production and use and blocks need to be removed so energy flows smooth.

Fibromyalgia is a disharmony of the liver, spleen, kidney and heart systems. With a syndrome so unique, treatment should be unique. Acupuncture is a whole body treatment. Traditional Chinese Medicine believes that given a balanced mind, body and spirit, the body can heal itself. When the disruption of Qi is not addressed over a long period of time or if you are in a weakened state, Qi is restricted and pain develops to signal something wrong.

Traditionally acupuncture has been widely used in the management of pain. Acupuncture can alter the brain chemistry changing the release of neurotransmitters that stimulate or inhibit nerve impulses thereby changing information about external stimuli and sensations. In effect when patients in pain have an acupuncture treatment, their tolerance is increased.

A 2006 Mayo Clinic study showed that fibromyalgia patients can relieve anxiety and fatigue for up to 7 months with an acupuncture treatment. A 2007 Mayo clinic study confirmed the earlier results.

At Whole Health Center we treat patients with chronic pain, fibromyalgia, IBS and insomnia. If you have fibromyalgia or know someone that does, urge them to seek alternative health treatments to restore the balance in their health and their lives.

There are more than 80 autoimmune conditions currently identified. When our immune system isn’t working properly the potential to develop a chronic condition exists.

The immune system protects the body against invaders like bacteria and viruses. When we are bombarded by a foreign substance, the immune system is activated and attacks that substance, keeping your body healthy. When an autoimmune condition is present, it means your body can no longer tell the difference between your own cells, tissues, organs and hormones and the foreign substances that have invaded. Now you begin to attack yourself. That attack causes inflammation which leads to autoimmune conditions.

Autoimmune diseases are difficult to diagnose, in part because their symptoms and progression are different for everyone. Autoimmune responses may target one organ or one system in one person and another in someone else. Symptoms can come and go as autoimmune conditions go into remission then flare up, sometimes after years. Or the symptoms can be persistent. There may be symptomatic progression as the disease gets worse; sometimes the disease can become disabling.

That is why management is never a one-size fits all. Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) can help with autoimmune management by working with your symptoms, your body and your immune reactions to help you manage your health.

It is believed that there is a genetic component to autoimmune diseases. Since women are more likely to develop autoimmune diseases, hormones may have a larger role in health than we know right now. Medications can help relieve symptoms but may also have side effects and cause more harm than good.

Because acupuncture and TCM are a holistic health care practice they can take a whole body approach to healing and health. Based on the idea of Qi (pronounced chee), a vital energy that is produced and flows through the body to all organs and systems, treatments focused on Qi can keep you healthy and contain your symptoms. Focused on balanced energy flowing freely through your body, TCM and acupuncture will improve your overall health and lessen the symptoms of your autoimmune responses. Acupuncture and TCM can increase your energy levels, reduce inflammation and relieve the side effects of medication.

Learning what works for you is part of any disease management. That may mean trying new diets or different kinds of exercise. It may mean medication and frequent testing. Adding acupuncture and TCM into your health-care system can make everything work together, lessen your stress an allow you to live the life you want to live, even with an autoimmune condition.

Acupuncture is a whole body, natural approach to health. When one of the systems in your body isn’t working, acupuncture can balance the energy your body produces and uses. Blocks and problems producing energy are what cause the symptoms that are diagnosed as disease.

Type 2 diabetes affects the way your body gets, stores and uses energy. When food is digested it is converted into glucose (sugar) which enters the bloodstream. Your pancreas produces a hormone called insulin. Insulin moves glucose into your muscles, fat cells and liver cells.

When you have type 2 diabetes one of those systems doesn’t work properly. Either your pancreas doesn’t produce enough insulin or doesn’t respond to the glucose properly so you end up with high levels of sugar in your blood.

When you have too much sugar in your blood you can develop complications of diabetes like blindness, heart conditions, stroke, kidney failure, nerve damage and the need for amputations. Type 2 diabetes has an impact on all the systems of your body and it only makes sense to take a whole body approach.

Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) can work in conjunction with Western medicine to improve your pancreatic function, protect your kidneys and heart and lessen the symptoms of an imbalanced body. Diet and exercise can change the amount and the way your body handles sugar.

Traditional Chinese Medicine aids in the production and the flow of Qi (pronounced chee). Qi is vital energy that protects the body from illness and provides the “fire” we use to live. Qi flows through meridians in the body and provides energy and nourishment to all organs and glands. When there is a block or an imbalance, symptoms occur.

In TCM, type 2 diabetes is known as the wasting and thirsting disease. It is caused by an imbalance of Qi and Yin. The body produces heat which both drains and consumes body fluids. Symptoms that are related to heat appear – thirst, itchy dry skin, dry mouth, swollen gums.

Having needles stuck in your body can restore balance, relieve symptoms, improve pancreatic function and control glucose levels. An acupuncturist can also determine and relieve other blockages and symptoms. Coupled with diet and exercise, many people at Whole Health not only lowered their blood glucose levels and, of course, felt better, but some have gotten off medication and gotten their levels low enough that they are no longer considered diabetic.

In western medicine that is not supposed to happen.

Our bodies are not a collection of separate functioning parts. Our bodies are a collection of systems that work together in harmony, balance and good health or they are a collection of symptoms that are out of balance and struggle to work, compensating, weakening and leaving you vulnerable to disease.

Allergies are a sign that something more may be the issue. They may occur from causes like:

• Stress
• Poor diet
• Constitutional weakness
• Pollutants
• Environmental toxins

When you are sneezing and congested, it’s a signal that your body is out of balance. The longer imbalances remain in your body the more they affect the functions of the Organ Systems. Some Organ Systems are involved in the Fire element and are responsible for producing Qi (pronounced Chee). When Qi is strong we are healthy. When your supply of Qi is inadequate you are vulnerable to foreign invaders that cause allergic symptoms.

A Doctor of Acupuncture may address the symptoms to give you some relief. But more importantly, the Acupuncturist will diagnose the underlying weakness in the Organ System. They will begin a course of treatment to strengthen the body and render the allergens ineffective.

When Qi flows the way it should through your body, your symptoms of allergies should at least be reduced if not eliminated.

Some acupuncturists combine their treatments with herbs, dietary changes, massage and/or exercise. All are aimed at getting the body to heal and balance its systems, increase the production of Qi and smooth the flow throughout the body. Acupuncture for allergies is a safe, effective, natural and drug-free choice to control or eliminate hay fever, allergies or even colds.

There is good news here. With a change in diet, exercise and overall health women can heal their bodies and still have children.

Acupuncture can help. People have been using acupuncture treatments for infertility for more than 2000 years. Acupuncture improves heals a woman’s whole body, preparing her body for health and childbearing. When used alongside other reproductive techniques, acupuncture can be the treatment that makes the difference.

Acupuncture can:

• Increase blood flow to the uterus
• Reduce stress and the hormones that are produced when the body is under stress
• Normalize the systems that control ovulation, especially for women with polycystic ovarian syndrome
• Regulate menstrual cycles
• Strengthen the relationship between the hypothalamus, pituitary and ovaries

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, infertility is a result of an imbalance of Qi (pronounced “chee”). When Qi is balanced and flowing effortlessly through the body, the whole body can function better. Disease and chronic conditions occur when there are blocks in the body stopping Qi from flowing properly.

At Whole Health Center we have assisted many patients with fertility issues. Here are some testimonials from happy patients

• Three miscarriages, natural pregnancy, healthy baby
• Thank Dr Lin for helping make this miracle happen
• Letter from New Jersey – Testimonial for Dr. Wenying Lin
• Letter from a happy mother – Testimonial for Dr. Wenying Lin
• My journey with infertility started in 2006

What is the difference between Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Western medicine? Besides the fact that insurance companies routinely pay for Western Medicine and rarely for TCM, there are some differences in philosophy that it would be wise for consumers to pay attention to.

For the most part, Western medicine specializes; diseases happen in isolation; individual symptoms are addressed and attended with drug therapy or surgery. The body is a separate entity from the life it lives.

As I write this, I’m thinking, “Can that possibly be a true statement?” I’ve not asked a Western Medical Doctor. So surely I’ve oversimplified.

But then I think back on my own medical history. Though it seems impossible that an entire industry and an enormous professional community believes in the separatist theory of medicine, well, the fact is, even if they don’t, they practice as if they do.

Where Western medicine believes in separating specialties, symptoms and curatives, TCM looks at the body as a more holistic system. An interplay of energy and matter that is in balance and working or out of balance and dysfunctional.

To be fair, I suppose is it possible that because the Western Medicine is so entrenched in its processes, specializations and history, there’s no way out. They are locked into a compartmentalized way of healing and unweaving the entrenched beliefs or opening antiquated minds just isn’t going to happen in my lifetime. So where does that leave those of us who need medical options?

To anyone who has followed any kind of alternative or natural healing, this is not a groundbreaking concept. It’s an argument that shouldn’t need to be argued. Yet if everyone knew what we know, everyone would have acupuncturists and TCM doctors assisting us with our health. And it would be paid for by insurance.

So let’s take this one step at a time. Let’s talk about functional medicine. Here is where TCM is far ahead of Western Medicine. Recently my thyroid hormone was increased by my endocrinologist. I’m on thyroid hormone because I was prescribed it long ago – though I’ve recently found out I actually didn’t need it when they prescribed it, but I do now and will need it for the rest of my life because I’ve been taking it for so long.

Anyway, for the first time in years, with my increased dosage, I feel better. I think I feel the way I’m supposed to feel. The way a healthy person feels when they are eating right, getting exercise and are reasonably happy. When they make a change in thyroid medicine they will test you about six weeks out to see how the new dosage is working. My six-week test came back “toxic,” meaning the new dosage was too high. They wanted to lower my dosage back to where it was. I said no and asked for another test in two weeks time. Again, the test came back toxic. Again I refused to change. Functionally I feel fine. But according to the ranges I am toxic.

I began to question the normal ranges that tell me I’m in the toxic range.

Do you know how ranges are defined? Do you know that ranges increase, the sicker the population?

What? Really? Yes, really. Normal range is defined as the average of maximum and minimum tests in a geographic area. So for thyroid, the data that puts me into toxic range is the average of a compilation of testing done on other people. Never mind that I might feel good, or bad, that normal for me turns out to be not normal for anyone else.

As I pushed the nurse practitioner about ranges and just what happens when I’m defined as toxic, she began to tell me that for my particular condition, it’s actually better to be right where I am. I run less risk of my immune system getting engaged and attacking my thyroid. She gave me symptoms to look out that would signal I’ve fallen further down the toxic hole and left my med prescription where it was – where I was functioning better than I have in years. Had I not been so stubborn….

In TCM, they don’t use ranges, they look at the body as a system. They don’t separate the life lived from the body that lives it and they take into account the connection between mind, body and spirit. With TCM I wouldn’t have been given drugs in the first place. Instead they would have addressed the blocks to my energy balance. So now, I work around the thyroid issue, accepting what is for what is. But I see an acupuncturist for the blocks that created the condition in the first place. And I turn to TCM first when I need healthcare.

The Science

With 1800 vibrations per minute vibration training machines cause 30 muscle contractions per second. When you work out on a vibration platform the vibration gets to intrinsic muscles we don’t normally work out. It works the muscle you’re flexing, the surrounding muscles and the muscles of your core.

The platform works on the theory of controlled instability, oscillating in three dimensions. Your core is always engaged while the rest of your muscles are working to re-stabilize.

The result is an accelerated workout.

The Anecdotes

You can get the benefit of a 60- to 90-minute workout in 30 minutes. Working with vibration fitness improves blood circulation, muscle strength and flexibility, metabolism, eases fluid in joints, results in an increased oxygenation, lymphatic draining, detoxing and improved sleep.

The benefits to some forms of health challenges have been marked – like Multiple Sclerosis, Osteopenia, Arthritis, Parkinson’s and chronic back aches. With the increase in metabolism and detoxing, it accelerates weight loss as well as improves muscle tone, overall fitness and shrinks cellulite.

There are conflicting stories about how and where vibration training got its start. Someone says the Germans developed it. Someone else says the Russians were tinkering with vibration technology during the 1960s. During the space race NASA noticed their astronauts were losing bone mass in space travel. In their experiments the Russians saw changes in bone mass with their subjects so they began applying the technology to their athletes.

Wherever the technology originated, it’s available now for athletes, fitness buffs and people with special needs.

The Challenge

It’s not too late to sign up for Whole Health Center’s Lose 10 lbs in 4 weeks challenge. Or to simply have a session on our Power Plate^® with Jack Lambiotte, join one of our circuit training classes that uses Power Plate^® as one tool in our fitness arsenal.

See KWGN’s story about Power Plate^® featuring Whole Health Centers in Lone Tree. Please call Whole Health Center in Lone Tree for more information 303-470-1995.

See KWGN’s video on “Acupuncture for Kids” featuring the Whole Health Center. http://bit.ly/children-acupuncture

The obvious issues would be how to get a child to take the needles? The rapport between the acupuncturist and the patient is critical. Making the treatment free of fear, maybe even fun, but certainly relaxing is equally critical. Building trust between the practitioner and the child is the focus. Typically the first session will center trust-building and alleviating whatever fears there may be as well as answering all of Mom and Dad’s questions.

The practitioner may use needles on a stuffed animal or Mom and Dad might offer to get a needle to assure the child that it’s painless and safe. If you’ve ever had acupuncture you will know that the hair-thin needles don’t hurt, especially the pediatric ones.

While medical doctors have not yet embraced treatments that have been working in China for thousands of years, many parents are finding out for themselves that acupuncture can help with conditions that aren’t being cured by pharmaceuticals and western medicine. As the base of people who use acupuncture as a regular health treatment grows in the United States, so there are more children who are exposed to acupuncture as a resource for health.

It’s very encouraging to see a generation of children growing up with experience and an open mind to alternative or complementary treatments. Acupuncture has shown success in treating many conditions like colic, acid reflux, eczema, ADD or ADHD, asthma, allergies, pain, acne, anxiety and a host of other conditions.

Alas, there’s only so many ways to kid yourself. And only so many times you’ll fall for outrageous weight-loss claims. That’s why we’re offering something different.

I know, I know, you’ve heard it before. But this really is different.

Is it possible you’ve been struggling because you’ve been adapting to any of the one-size-fits-all weight loss programs out there? What if you could have a trainer, a nutritionist and an alternative healer to work with you individually and show you how to lose that 10 lbs? At the end of the four weeks not only will you have lost 10 lbs, but you’ll have gained the knowledge about what works for you.

Isn’t that what it’s all about anyway? Knowing what works for you. We all have different nutrition needs, different exercise abilities, our bodies require different vitamins and minerals. While it’s possible to make generalizations, I have to ask – how’s that been working for you so far?

Especially when it comes to weight loss. Is there anything more disheartening to struggle on a diet only to gain all the weight back and more? You duplicate the diet plans, the menu plans, the exercise plans and you’re not quite as successful as the testimonials (which have the requisite caveat that ‘results aren’t typical’ next to picture of the girl who lost 100 lbs).

Well our program has the caveat that if you follow it completely for four weeks you will lose 10 lbs or more. If have followed the program completely and you don’t lose 10 lbs, you can continue for free until you do – guaranteed.

Let us teach you about your body and show you what works for you. Healthy people are happy people. Healthy includes making peace with your diet and knowing how your body loses weight.

Join Jack Lambiotte, certified personal trainer, for a free talk on our program – Lose 10 in 4 – on Wednesday, August 3, 2011 from 6:30 to 7:30 in the Bamboo Room at the Whole Health Center in Lone Tree.

We’re located at 9075 Forsstrom Drive, Lone Tree, CO 80124. Call 303-470-1995 to reserve a spot.

Tension headaches are the most common headaches, and generally cause infrequent mild to moderate pain, but in a considerable number of patients, tension headaches are so frequent that they require treatment. Migraine headaches, on the other hand, can be disabling and severe. Accompanying symptoms can include nausea, vomiting and sensitivity to light.

Treatment for tension-type and migraine headaches typically consists of over-the-counter or prescription medications, respectively. The aim of the systematic reviews was to determine whether acupuncture is also an effective treatment option for these conditions.

The reviews appear in the current issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates research in all aspects of health care. Systematic reviews draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing trials on a topic.

Acupuncture involves penetrating the skin with thin, metallic needles at specific points. It is one of the main medical treatments in traditional Chinese medicine, where it came into being more than 2,000 years ago.

Lead reviewer Klaus Linde of the Center for Complementary Medicine Research at the Technical University of Munich said the therapy is popular in his country.

“In Germany, acupuncture is frequently used for headache,” he said. “Most private health insurances, in fact, reimburse for acupuncture, although they cover only about 10 percent of the population.”

The practice has also gained popularity in the United States. A 2002 National Health Interview Survey of complementary and alternative medicine use found that about 8.2 million U.S. adults had ever used acupuncture in their lives, and an estimated 2.1 million had used acupuncture the previous year.

Brian Berman, M.D., director of the University of Maryland Center for Integrative Medicine in Baltimore, confirmed that acupuncture is definitely becoming a more popular treatment option for Americans.

“There is more evidence coming out showing acupuncture is safe and often effective and should be considered as part of a multidisciplinary approach for chronic pain,” he said.

The first Cochrane review by Linde and his colleagues focused on acupuncture for tension headaches. The researchers evaluated 11 studies that investigated 2,317 participants. The studies compared participants who had undergone acupuncture therapy with those who had no treatment except painkillers for acute headaches, or had a sham therapy, which mimicked “true” acupuncture. Researchers followed the patients for at least eight weeks.

Two large studies that investigated whether adding acupuncture to treatment with painkillers found that those patients who received acupuncture had fewer headaches. Forty-seven percent of patients who received acupuncture reported a decrease in the number of headache days by at least half, compared with 16 percent of patients in the control groups.

Six studies compared true acupuncture to “fake’ acupuncture in which needles were either inserted at incorrect points or did not penetrate the skin. Overall, these studies found slightly better effects in the patients receiving the true acupuncture intervention.

“The response to acupuncture in general seems to be large and clinically relevant,” Linde said.

Berman agreed with the review findings and said patients at his clinic seek acupuncture for the relief from tension headaches and some experience good outcomes.

“I have seen some patients do very well, but not everyone,” he said. “Often, the intensity of the headaches and number of headaches are reduced.”

In a second review, Linde and colleagues examined acupuncture for migraine treatment and reviewed 22 trials with 4,419 total participants who had received a migraine pain diagnosis with or without aura.

Six studies compared acupuncture to no treatment or routine care (with painkillers) only. After three to four months, patients who received acupuncture had fewer headaches.

“The effect over no prophylactic [preventive] treatment and also compared to prophylactic drug treatment proven to be superior to placebo is clearly clinically important,” said Linde.

The Cochrane reviewers concluded that there is consistent evidence that acupuncture provides additional benefit to treatment of acute migraine attacks only or to routine care. They also concluded that for migraine patients, placing the needles in the correct points did not seem as relevant, which is contrary to what most acupuncturists believe.

“On average, the studies do not show an effect of acupuncture at correct points over acupuncture at incorrect points,” Linde said. There appeared to be some benefit of pain relief regardless of the insertion points.

The reviews disclose that Linde has received travel reimbursement and twice received fees from acupuncture societies for speaking about research at conferences. Other review authors reported a variety of honoraria and reimbursements related to acupuncture lectures and speaking engagements.

The Cochrane Collaboration is an international nonprofit, independent organization that produces and disseminates systematic reviews of health care interventions and promotes the search for evidence in the form of clinical trials and other studies of interventions. Visit http://www.cochrane.org for more information.

Linde K, et al. Acupuncture for tension-type headaches. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2009, Issue 1.

Linde K, et al. Acupuncture for migraine prophylaxis. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2009, Issue 1.

From www.medicalnewstoday.com

(Health.com) — Scientists have finally confirmed what the rest of us have suspected for years: Bacon, cheesecake, and other delicious yet fattening foods may be addictive.

A new study in rats suggests that high-fat, high-calorie foods affect the brain in much the same way as cocaine and heroin. When rats consume these foods in great enough quantities, it leads to compulsive eating habits that resemble drug addiction, the study found.

Doing drugs such as cocaine and eating too much junk food both gradually overload the so-called pleasure centers in the brain, according to Paul J. Kenny, Ph.D., an associate professor of molecular therapeutics at the Scripps Research Institute, in Jupiter, Florida. Eventually the pleasure centers “crash,” and achieving the same pleasure–or even just feeling normal–requires increasing amounts of the drug or food, says Kenny, the lead author of the study.

“People know intuitively that there’s more to [overeating] than just willpower,” he says. “There’s a system in the brain that’s been turned on or over-activated, and that’s driving [overeating] at some subconscious level.”

In the study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, Kenny and his co-author studied three groups of lab rats for 40 days. One of the groups was fed regular rat food. A second was fed bacon, sausage, cheesecake, frosting, and other fattening, high-calorie foods–but only for one hour each day. The third group was allowed to pig out on the unhealthy foods for up to 23 hours a day.

Not surprisingly, the rats that gorged themselves on the human food quickly became obese. But their brains also changed. By monitoring implanted brain electrodes, the researchers found that the rats in the third group gradually developed a tolerance to the pleasure the food gave them and had to eat more to experience a high.They began to eat compulsively, to the point where they continued to do so in the face of pain. When the researchers applied an electric shock to the rats’ feet in the presence of the food, the rats in the first two groups were frightened away from eating. But the obese rats were not. “Their attention was solely focused on consuming food,” says Kenny.

In previous studies, rats have exhibited similar brain changes when given unlimited access to cocaine or heroin. And rats have similarly ignored punishment to continue consuming cocaine, the researchers note.

The fact that junk food could provoke this response isn’t entirely surprising, says Dr.Gene-Jack Wang, M.D., the chair of the medical department at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, in Upton, New York.

“We make our food very similar to cocaine now,” he says.

Coca leaves have been used since ancient times, he points out, but people learned to purify or alter cocaine to deliver it more efficiently to their brains (by injecting or smoking it, for instance). This made the drug more addictive.

According to Wang, food has evolved in a similar way. “We purify our food,” he says. “Our ancestors ate whole grains, but we’re eating white bread. American Indians ate corn; we eat corn syrup.”

The ingredients in purified modern food cause people to “eat unconsciously and unnecessarily,” and will also prompt an animal to “eat like a drug abuser [uses drugs],” says Wang.

The neurotransmitter dopamine appears to be responsible for the behavior of the overeating rats, according to the study. Dopamine is involved in the brain’s pleasure (or reward) centers, and it also plays a role in reinforcing behavior. “It tells the brain something has happened and you should learn from what just happened,” says Kenny.

Overeating caused the levels of a certain dopamine receptor in the brains of the obese rats to drop, the study found. In humans, low levels of the same receptors have been associated with drug addiction and obesity, and may be genetic, Kenny says.

However, that doesn’t mean that everyone born with lower dopamine receptor levels is destined to become an addict or to overeat. As Wang points out, environmental factors, and not just genes, are involved in both behaviors.

Wang also cautions that applying the results of animal studies to humans can be tricky. For instance, he says, in studies of weight-loss drugs, rats have lost as much as 30 percent of their weight, but humans on the same drug have lost less than 5 percent of their weight. “You can’t mimic completely human behavior, but [animal studies] can give you a clue about what can happen in humans,” Wang says.

Although he acknowledges that his research may not directly translate to humans, Kenny says the findings shed light on the brain mechanisms that drive overeating and could even lead to new treatments for obesity.

“If we could develop therapeutics for drug addiction, those same drugs may be good for obesity as well,” he says.

When you go for a medical check-up, the doctor listens to your heart with a stethoscope.  Emotional health and physical health go hand in hand. (In Chinese medicine, the heart is known as “shen,” which rules mental and creative functions.)

 We sometimes try to ignore emotional pain and distress.  Pain can be a teacher to tell us what part of our life is out of balance and needs attention.  In other words, “We cannot heal what we do not feel,” or, “What we resist persists.”  Emotions are signals and guides that can lead us to healing and change when we listen.

 My hope in these paragraphs is to increase your emotional awareness, provide new ways of thinking about emotions, introduce strategies for emotional health, and provide guidelines for seeking help. 

 Emotions are chemical signals in the body that alert us to what is happening.  The signals travel to the brain in the area called the limbic system.  People at times are unaware of what they are feeling.  Some people describe being “numb,” lacking joy or energy.  Others describe being overwhelmed with emotional reaction such as anger, panic, and depression.  In grief, we may experience “normal feelings,” such as shock, sadness, or anger, yet also be overwhelmed. 

 Identifying our feelings is important as it helps us be more effective in our self-understanding.  It improves our ability to cope and make decisions and communicate in a non-reactive stance.

 Babies and children accept feelings without judgment.  Babies coo and cry.  They do not evaluate emotions as good or bad, positive or negative.  We begin learning in our families of origin which feelings are allowed or taboo, which feelings are safe or unsafe.  We need to evaluate how these messages impact us as adults in the here and now.

 Both dialectical behavior therapy and mindfulness practice teach the concepts of non-judgment and radical acceptance.  Each of these concepts is worthy of its own discussion.  Often, we seek to control our emotions or block them.  Radical acceptance is recognizing what we do and do not have control over, tolerating something without trying to judge or change it.  Acceptance is saying “it is what it is.”  Acceptance does not mean we like what is.  It is not resignation or giving up on a situation that happens to us.

 Learning new coping thought can be beneficial.  Our thoughts influence our feelings.  Judgmental and critical feelings about our selves and others can trigger overwhelming emotions.  If we are in distress and think “I can’t stand this, I may as well give up,” we will likely feel helpless.  An alternative coping thought might be, “My anxiety/fear/sadness is uncomfortable and I can still deal with the situation.”  We can also choose not to deal with the situation or take a break as needed to calm ourselves.

 One of the things I like about practicing psychotherapy at Whole Health Center is that the other practices and techniques I recommend to clients for maintaining good emotional health are available in the same setting, i.e., acupuncture, massage, chiropractic, and movement therapies.  Seeking help can be beneficial when we experience an ongoing pattern of overwhelming emotions, or a lack of joy or emotions.  Additionally, if our emotions are impacting our work, health, relations, or life goals, we may need some help.  We may benefit from support while facing life changes, grief, or relationship problems.  Cognitive behavioral therapy has long been recognized as an effective treatment for mood disorders.  Dialectical behavior therapy and mindfulness strategies are newer successful evidence-based treatments, as well.

 Healthy emotions, like water, can replenish and nourish as they flow.  Overwhelming emotions can flood us, and blocked emotions can leave us feeling frozen. A therapist can provide an assessment of these situations and make recommendations for treatment and paths to change.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 yellow bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tomatoes, peeled and seeded, then diced
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon paprika
4 cups chicken stock, vegetable stock or broth
1 1/4 pounds red snapper or sea bass fillets cut into 3/4-inch cubes
1 cup thinly sliced white mushrooms
2 tablespoons tahini
1 tablespoon finely chopped preserved lemon or grated lemon zest
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh flat-leaf (Italian) parsley
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh cilantro (fresh coriander)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and bell pepper and saute until soft but not browned, about 8 minutes. Add the garlic and tomatoes and saute until the tomatoes are tender, about 3 minutes. Stir in the cumin and paprika and simmer for 1 minute.

Carefully pour in the stock, raise the heat to high and bring the mixture to a boil. Add the fish and mushrooms. When the mixture returns to a boil, reduce the heat to low. Simmer until the fish is opaque throughout, about 3 minutes.

Stir in the tahini, preserved lemon, parsley, cilantro and salt. Ladle into warmed individual bowls and serve immediately.  Can also serve with rice or bulgur. 

from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/healthy-recipes/

WASHINGTON Tue Oct 16, 2007 5:35pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The use of acupuncture before and during surgery reduces patients’ post-operative pain as well as the need for pain-killing medication, researchers said on Tuesday.

Researchers at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina analyzed the results of 15 clinical trials on the effectiveness of acupuncture — a practice that originated in China of inserting thin needles into specific body points. They concluded that it is valuable for pain control in surgery patients. The 15 trials showed that patients getting acupuncture before or during various types of operations had significantly less pain afterward than patients who did not get acupuncture. These patients also required less morphine or other opioid pain medication after surgery, which reduced the side effects like nausea and vomiting from these types of drugs, the researchers said. In terms of pain-drug side effects, the acupuncture patients experienced 1.5 times lower rates of nausea, 1.6 times fewer reports of dizziness and 3.5 times fewer cases of urinary retention compared to the other patients, the study found. These findings augment a growing body of evidence on the value of acupuncture in improving the surgical experience for patients, the researchers said. For instance, the National Institutes of Health says that acupuncture has also been shown to reduce nausea after chemotherapy and surgery. “The use of acupuncture is still very under-appreciated,” Dr. Tong-Joo Gan, vice chairman of Duke’s anesthesiology department, said in a telephone interview. “Western doctors are typically not trained (in acupuncture) and they really are not familiar with how it works,” Gan said. “I think practitioners such as surgeons and anesthesiologists need to have an open mind.” He said numerous studies have looked at acupuncture to reduce post-operative pain, but many of them were not very well done. Gan said his team identified a group of well-controlled studies to judge how well acupuncture worked. “I do it all the time,” Gan said. “You give patients the acupuncture about half an hour before surgery and continue during surgery. It can reduce post-operative pain.” According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, scientists do not fully understand how acupuncture works, believing it might help the activity of the body’s pain-killing chemicals or affect the regulation of blood pressure and flow. “I think it is generally applicable to a number of different procedures,” Gan said. “In the studies, we looked at abdominal procedures, orthopedic procedures, gynecological procedures.” The research was presented at a conference of the American Society for Anesthesiology in San Francisco.

A child’s functioning is the product of many contributing factors.  At any given time, a child’s experience and behavior is affected by family composition and functioning, adjustment to life changes, genetics, physiology, and past experiences.  Many times, it is the parents’ perspective and belief system that is the most influential force on the child’s behavior.  Every child has a phenomenal ability to adapt and overcome adversity and stress.  A parent can unknowingly impede their child’s psychological development and growth.  Taking an objective look at the ways we affect our children is not always easy or comfortable.  Our concern and love for our children make it uncomfortable to consider how we could be supporting our children better. 

Managing a child’s behavior can be overwhelming and emotionally draining. This experience can lead to decisions that are drastic.  Medication is an important way to address behavior and emotions, but they are never the only option.  When an emotional or behavioral difficulty is addressed through changes in individual or family functioning, the result is positive development and adaptation.  This is an approach that targets the problem by encouraging emotional growth, rather than by addressing symptoms.  Medication need to be considered as a piece of the larger treatment picture.

Many times, the best way to address such a problem is not clear.  There are many options to consider, including individual therapy for the child or parent, family therapy, and parental consultation.  Talking about new perspectives and solutions is a great way to empower yourself as a parent.  Sam Dwyer offers a brief consultation free of charge.  Call (303) 470 1995 to schedule your consultation.

It’s an issue that has been increasingly attracting attention from many quarters. One very important sector that has begun to vocalize their concerns is the medical community.

While many physicians may have only recently jumped on the sustainable-food bandwagon, Dr. Preston Maring, Associate Physician-in-Chief for the Kaiser Permanente East Bay Medical Center in Oakland, California, has been patiently working throughout the last seven years to help bring a healthy diet to society at large.

Dr. Maring fully understands the impact of non-nutritious food on the cost of healthcare. “I think if you look at the healthcare of the nation, it is sort of a pyramid,” Dr. Maring told Organic Connections. “At the base of the pyramid you have primary care, and at the top of the pyramid you’ve got the complicated care. Our healthcare system struggles to find enough money to pay for all of the care throughout that pyramid, but there doesn’t seem to be enough money to cover it all. I believe that if good food were solidly under the base of the pyramid as a foundation, and if our people were able to eat healthier food throughout their lives, there would be enough money to pay for healthcare, because we would reduce the disease burden of those at the base of the pyramid who otherwise wouldn’t get as sick and require as much complicated care at the top.”

For food quality to be attracting attention from the medical community, something must be very wrong-and it is. As the quality of our diets has deteriorated over the last 50 years, certain diseases have become rampant. “Directly related to food, you hear a lot of talk about obesity-related problems in terms of diabetes, coronary artery disease and high blood pressure, and those happen in both men and women,” Dr. Maring said. “Those are the general categories of ailments; there are also many specific diet-related disorders.”

“Conventional” Food

The health risks of our food system are not simply the result of lower nutritional values. We also have many chemical compounds used in food production today that have become part of our bodily environment.

Dr. David Wallinga, Food and Health Program Director of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, sat down recently with Organic Connections to discuss this.

“Given that we’ve created a society with around 80,000 industrial chemicals, there’s  a lot to talk about with regard to food-borne pollutants,” Wallinga said. “Many of those chemicals end up in the food chain one way or another, through drinking water or because they are intentionally put into food packaging or because they are pollutants that accumulate up the food chain. Being at the top of the food chain, we often get the most exposure to these pollutants.”
Dr. Wallinga is a medical doctor who has, for the last nine years, been involved in examining the health impact of consumed food and how it is grown and produced.

“Most of the ‘conventional’ produce that we eat now is contaminated with residues of at least one and often many different pesticides,” he continued. “There are also many issues with meat and poultry. We did a study years ago showing that perhaps as much as 70 percent of the chickens grown in this country are routinely given a form of arsenic in their feed-not because they need it but just because it makes them grow faster. That’s a practice that was never approved as safe in Europe.

“Antibiotics are used heavily in the raising of farm animals. Anytime bacteria are exposed to antibiotics, it tends to make them more resistant to these drugs, which is true whether the antibiotics are used in hospitals, in communities or on farms. The problem is that the bacteria don’t really respect the boundaries between those places, so they travel from farms to people to hospitals. And so the scientific consensus now is that with the overuse and misuse of antibiotics in the farm setting, we’re helping to create drug-resistant superbugs that affect humans.”

Do We Need More Technology?

“There seems to be a big focus on how we need more technology to help fix some of the problems in agriculture, and I don’t think that’s true,” Rebecca Spector, West Coast Director of the Center for Food Safety, told Organic Connections. “We don’t need genetically engineered crops. We don’t need food irradiation to get rid of E. coli. We need to clean up our farms and clean up the way our food is processed to get rid of E. coli. We want to fix the real problem; we don’t want to look to band-aid solutions, such as irradiation, to try and fix some of the problems in our food system.”

The Center for Food Safety (CFS) is a national non-profit environmental organization with a goal to ensure that the US has a healthy and safe food supply.

A Better Food Future

With all that has gone on with our food system in the last 50 years, all three of these experts believe there is indeed a bright future ahead and see numerous ways to bring it about.

“I definitely think one of the key parts of the solution is that we need to focus on education,” Rebecca Spector remarked. “We need to help people make the distinction between real food and processed food so that they understand what actually makes healthy food, and to show them how to prepare real meals and incorporate cooking and family mealtimes back into their busy lives.”

CFS has a program through which they are not only educating people on the choice of sustainable food but also increasing their awareness of food processes and what can be done about the harmful ones. “We have a membership of about 85,000, and we send them regular information on new food technologies that are being proposed, opportunities to comment on food legislation, and opportunities to write to both federal and state agencies,” said Spector. “We’re really trying to empower people to express their concern about these issues.”

Dr. David Wallinga sees a good amount of positive change occurring in agricultural methods. “The one thing that you can’t really get away from is that agriculture is inherently ecological. To pretend that in the long term you can grow food without really thinking about its impact on soil erosion or on the quality of ground water and its pollution with heavy metals is just folly. I think that the people in public health and medicine and other health sciences are waking up to this fact. For example, the American Medical Association recently passed a new policy concerning sustainable food. It’s pretty good. It talks about finding ways to produce food without squandering antibiotics, as well as ways that contribute less to climate change.

“They’re not the only organization; both the American Dietetic Association and the American Public Health Association have something very similar.”

With a view much like Rebecca Spector’s, Dr. Preston Maring sees the problem as primarily an educational one. He first considered it a problem of getting out nutritional, sustainably grown food so that people would know it was there-a problem he began solving by opening a farmers’ market right next to the very medical center where he worked. The program has become an integral part of Kaiser Permanente’s operation, and there are now 37 farmers’ markets at Kaiser locations around the country. The food is purchased by staff, visitors and patients and taken back to neighborhoods and kitchens throughout their communities.

Dr. Maring also believes in simply teaching people to cook. “I think the first priority is to just help and encourage people to get started cooking fresh foods, even if they’re grown using conventional agriculture,” he said. “You then encourage people to eat sustainably grown local produce. I’m getting more and more convinced, as time goes by and I talk to people in various groups, that probably the best thing we could do for public health is to teach people how to sharpen a chef’s knife and how to use it, and have a couple of cutting boards and salad spinners. That could transform the whole experience for people of preparing good food at home.”

In conducting this education, Dr. Maring takes time to demonstrate the economy of making your own meals-such things as replacing a three- or four-dollar jar of salad dressing with 25 cents’ worth of garlic, red wine vinegar, olive oil, Dijon mustard and chopped parsley; the remainder of the money can then be spent on some good fresh fruit or fresh vegetables. “A little bit of simple instruction about how to mince garlic, how to dice onions, how to pan-sauté some foods, and it would be easy to show people how to put together a meal for 4 to 15 bucks instead of spending 30 or 40 or 50 out at a local family restaurant,” Dr. Maring said.

It even comes down to competing with fast food. Not long ago, Dr. Maring was talking to a group of 30 or so high school students at his local farmers’ market and asked them how much they spent, for example, on a bag of potato chips. One student was able to answer immediately: $1.29. Based on the actual potato content of the chips, Dr. Maring calculated the cost of potatoes for the bag to be about $16 a pound, and he took the students over to one of the stands where he found red potatoes for $1.50 per pound. He then advised the students on how to roast potatoes. Pointing out the $10 to $12 price for a pizza, he next talked them through how to make a pizza for half that cost-with wholesome ingredients.

Dr. Maring concluded with a story that truly brought home the point. Recently he spent the day at the Kaiser Permanente Center in Watts, Los Angeles-one of the most economically depressed neighborhoods in the nation. “While I was there, a little boy came up to me and asked, ‘Sir, what’s healthier, white or green asparagus?’ I said, ‘You know, I think they are both really healthy, and it’s just important every day to eat multiple different colors.’ Then I said, ‘Listen, I’m going to do a cooking demo; would you help me?’ He said, ‘Sure.’ This boy was probably 10 and had never used a chef’s knife before. I taught him how to mince garlic and how to mince a shallot, how to make a vinaigrette and how to chop some parsley. He made a red wine vinaigrette and put it on a little tiny salad he’d prepared and served it to the various people coming to the market. He was thrilled, and at the end he said, ‘Thank you very much. You’ve opened a new door for me.’ It’s a day I’ll never forget.”

In the end, it’s our healthcare system and our country, and while a growing number of us are shopping for fresh, local and organic food, the majority of Americans who end up in our healthcare system are not. Thus there is always a need for constant outreach and education.

 from Organic Connections

1 cup dried adzuki beans, rinsed and drained

2 bunches green onions, white and green parts chopped separately, divided

½ cup dried shitake mushrooms, crumbled

¾ lb. small red potatoes, quartered (2 cups)

1 ½-2 Tbs. miso paste

1. Soak adzuki beans in 4 cups cold water for 5 hours, or overnight.  Drain and reserve soaking liquid.
2. Coat large saucepan or Dutch oven with cooking spray and heat over medium-low heat.  Add white parts of green onions, sprinkle with salt, and cover.  Cook 5 to 7 minutes or until onions are soft.  Add shiitake mushrooms and adzuki beans.  Add enough water to soaking liquid to make 4 cups, and stir into bean mixture.  Cover, and bring to a boil. 
3. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer 45 minutes, or until beans are beginning to be tender, adding a little water if necessary.  Fold in potatoes, cover and cook 15 minutes more, or until potatoes are tender and beans are soft, but not mushy.
4. Ladle 1 cup broth from bean mixture into measuring cup.  Stir in miso paste with fork until dissolved.  Stir miso mixture into bean mixture, and simmer 2 to 3 minutes more, or until heated through.  Sprinkle with chopped green parts of green onions before serving.