Fructose Be Damned

Found this article which shows that recent studies have shown a direct correlation between HFCS and childhood diabetes and heart disease.

Stay tuned as I will be posting some great info about dry mouths and some health products that help moisten the mouth. Cancer, Sjorgren syndrome, medications and other issues promote cotton mouth. I wonder if medical marijuana does that too? Hope you are all well and surviving the holiday blues.

Smoothies Cover The Bases

Fruit smoothies are great for feed tubes and for those who can drink liquids. I visited Bastyr today for some nutritional guidance and they shared some great ideas and recipes that I will post here. Vitamins A, C and E are common threads in the foods they recommended. Let's start with a simple smoothie recipe that can be made with The Ultimate Meal or whey protein, which is a great source of glutathione, a core source of anti-oxidants within us. The great thing is you can add whatever fruits will serve your purpose. Avocado is a great source of Vitamin E, which nurtures the blood and cardiovascular systems. Peanut butter is another source of E and also A (great for the eyes and immune system), but I do not recommend it for g-tube users as it thickens the liquid significantly.  'Nuff science here's a recipe for a fruit smoothie.

5 fresh strawberries
1 medium banana
juice of half a lime
3/4 cup rice milk
Other enhancers like peanut butter, avocado, 1/2 an apple, etc.

Blend for four minutes and serve.

To Tat or Not to Tat

Like most Jews raised in America I was taught that tattoos were a no-no, that you could not be buried in a Jewish cemetery (hey, I'm all for cremation) and that Lenny Bruce was denied his proper resting place for just this reason. So I just googled 'jews and tattoos' and found this article which says hey it's okay - oy vey - to tat. The basic theme is a phoeniix rising from the flaming ashes of Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis (TEN). Of course there's the other premise that I will get old and my skin will sag and that's not so far off. As they say in French....we shall see.

Doctor My Eyes

My SJS/TEN peeps know the hardships of eye care. This illness causes a range of eye problems from blindness to corneal abrasion and lack of tear production. I spoke to the Boston Foundaton for Sight where I was fitted for scleral lenses in late 2007. They told me that a fitting for new lenses costs the same as the original visit. My insurance only covers the price of new lenses and the rest is up to me. This seems unfair since I spent as much time learning to install and care for my lenses on my first visit as on the fitting and I am a professional lensman now.

In the meantime I recently started using an herbal product and my eyes have really been doing well of late. I make no medical claims that this product, Advanced Eye Factors is the cure all but my eyes feel great now. The product was designed by Dr Michael Murray, who sits on the board of Bastyr University, and is produced by the Canadian herb and vitamin company Natural Factors. Factors Formula is a combination of herbs and nutrients that have been shown to help the eyes and reduce free radical damage. The formula includes the carotenoid, lutein, as well as bilberry, multi-anthocyanidins, carrot juice powder, and eyebright that fight free radical damage, one of the main reasons our eyesight deteriorates as we age.

Recipe For Success

I'm waiting for some input from the nutrition gurus, everyone has tryptophane poisoning, so in the meantime I will give you my recipe for a high calorie/high protein liquid meal. You can drink this product, The Ultimate Meal too, but it tastes like stuff inside the grass catcher of your old lawn mower. For my friends who keep Kosher it has the stamp of approval so go for it!!!!

1/3 cup Ultimate Meal
10 oz of milk or water
1 large banana
1/2 a pear, peach or orange or 1/2 cup blueberries
2 scoops of powdered Acai Berry order here
Run in blender for four to five minutes to blend all the ingredients well. It is important to break down the fruits so that the feeding tube does not clog. ALWAYS bolus your tube with water after every feeding Use a pipe cleaner to clean out the tube if particles accumulate but do it gently so that you don't damage the feeding device. Use this recipe twice a day for @ 1000 super healthy calories. Bon Appetit!

The Enemy Always Has Deep Pockets

The Corn Refiners Association has been on a media blitz this year. You know the ad where the two moms dispel the negative myths about High Fructose Corn Syrup (hereafter referred to as "HFCS") while pouring Kool Aid into cups (shades of Jim Jones, anyone?). They have a website that proclaims the virtues of corn syrup from the top of Nebraska's tallest corn stalk. But in the timeless words of Public Enemy:
"Don't believe the hype - its a sequel
As an equal, can I get this through to you..."
I will have some dietitians post on this blog a scientific perspective on the myth of King Corn, but in the meantime suffice to say that HFCS promotes diabetes, obesity and worse. It is also responsible for the death of up to a third of the bee population in the US. Here's a link to some less than sweet info about HFCS to chew on meanwhile.

My Spiel

I came out of the hospital in the summer of 2007 with a seriously damaged esophagus amongst other things. While I was still in the hospital they tested me by putting some blue dye on ice chips and having me swallow them. I had been trached as soon as I hit the burn unit so when the blue dye started dripping out of the trach hole it was determined that I was unable to swallow (dysphagia); that I ran the risk of aspiration from food and liquids. At that time I had a nasogastric feeding tube running from my nose into my stomach. There was a machine that slowly pumped food into this tube throughout the day and night and while sleeping they would tie my hands to the bed bars because I had this subliminal desire to rip the sucker right out of me. In the rehab unit they told me that they wanted to give me a gastric feeding tube and that eventually I would be able to feed myself via gastro-tube.

I asked the doctor if it hurt to put in and she said it was minimally painful. Haha, that sucker hurt to high hell when they punched a hole in my belly and used a hot poker to run a tube into my stomach. When I got home there was a stack of boxes as high as my dresser full of high fructose corn syrup-based liquid "food". I pumped about 8 cans a day which provided me with fiber and 3,000 calories a day. It took about half an hour three times a day to consume my "meals". I also went to the radiologist about once a month to see if my swallow was improving. Finally I hooked up with this hotshot otolaryngologist who performed an operation that removed scar tissue that blocked my esophagus.

He then sent me to a speech pathologist who used this bio-feedback monitor to help me retrain my swallow muscles. Needless to say I failed to improve my swallow. I had one last visit to the hotshot where he watched me swallow water while visiting professors from Peru and Poland looked on and then the three of them left the room and he had the speech pathologist call me two days later and tell me I would most likely never eat again. A dear friend steered me to naturopaths and they recommended that I try a healthier liquid food source. I bought The Ultimate Meal at a vitamin shoppe and mixed it with berries and milk and cut my intake of corn syrup cans down to 2 a day. Now I can't scientifically show that this new diet was the cause, but I did in fact begin to swallow within the next month. Then I used another "far out" therapy that the hotshot had mentioned but didn't believe in, called VitalStim which is like shock therapy for your swallow.

I weighed 149 pounds when I left the hospital and my weight continued down to 140. I looked like I was auditioning for "Schindler's List" before changing my diet and starting my new swallow therapy. Soon I was eating solid foods again. The first time I was green-lighted to eat a meal I got a stale Baby Ruth and a pint of milk from 7-11. I now weigh 190 pounds, eat most anything except really spicy foods (my tastebuds are still raw - sigh, no more kim chee) and walk around the lake three times a week to battle mid-life metabolics.

IN PROGRESS

Hello survivors, family, friends. So many people at some time in their life cannot eat food for a period of time. Perhaps they have been trached or their swallow mechanism has gone amok, they have had cancer or some other serious illness. Perhaps they are an older adult who can eat but needs to supplement their diet. Those cans of Ensure and other similar products are pure poison, a lethal mix of fiber and high fructose corn syrup. On this site I will share my knowledge of alternative liquid diets and the knowledge of naturopathic nutritionists too. I encourage others to share their experiences that we might have health and power through community - spreading the word. I will be posting my stuff this coming week and will also post recipes and ideas from my friends at Bastyr University. So bookmark this spot and more shall follow. Love to all.....David

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