Wednesday, October 06, 2010

(Justified?) Cheating

Today's breakfast and lunch were totally legit.  I repeated the same breakfasts and lunches from the last two days, to keep it simple: super scramble, bacon and milk, and then salmon roll-ups, carrots, celery, kefir and kvass.  I even started my dinner out on the right foot: leftover lamb curry.  But then I gave in to something I had been thinking all day.  That I wanted to eat something whole grain that had NOT been soaked, sprouted or sourdoughed.  And I wanted to do it on purpose to get rid of the heavy metals I had been feeling build up in my body the last few days.  Let me explain.

The point of soaking grains, beans, nuts, and seeds is to reduce phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors (this is true for nuts in particular).  Here is a good "how to" on soaking.  And here is one on sprouting.  If you don't soak or sprout your grains, then the phytic acid doesn't allow your body to properly soak up nutrients in the grains, like trace minerals including calcium, magnesium, etc.  It also can pull these good minerals from your body.  You can become depleted of calcium, and have problems with your teeth, for example.  Like me!

I am to the point where I never consume a grain, legume, nut or seed without preparing it properly.  My body takes too much of a beating if I don't follow this rule.  I have been suffering from adrenal fatigue this year, and my body has been hormonally out of whack ever since I conceived E.  I have noticed that the more real food I consume, the better I feel.  I'm not as tired, I have more energy, my emotional ups and downs are manageable, I'm happy.

I have recently started to oil pull every morning.  Oil pulling help pull toxins out of your body.  It helps keeps your teeth strong and plaque-free.  It helps with adrenal fatigue.  Since I suffer from the fatigue and poor tooth health, I committed to oil pull daily.  I learned later, however, that if you have silver fillings oil pulling can cause them to leak heavy metals, like mercury.

I noticed last week that one of my silver fillings was very sore.  I stopped oil pulling for a couple of days, and the pain went away.  I started oil pulling again and the pain returned.  So I decided two days ago to stop for good.  Once my silver fillings are replaced with white ones, I will take up oil pulling again.  The pain was my indicator that my fillings were being affected.  Only after that did I realize that I had been feeling very fatigued the last several days.  I have been affected by this extra heavy metal dose in my body the last few days.

So that brings me back to eating non-soaked whole grains, on purpose, to pull the mercury out of my body.  So I did.  After I had my bowl of curry, I had a bowl of multi-grain Joe's O's with raw milk and a spoonful of rapadura.  Maybe it's the placebo effect, but I have already been feeling better.  I am hoping the phytic acid in the oats and wheat of that bowl of cereal gives me a boost to get the excess mercury out of my system.  Then tomorrow morning I can start afresh, following the meal plan, and not needing a nap. :)

3 comments:

sandi miller said...

You are so ON IT! Back in the late '90's, i soaked, i ate mostly raw food, i even properly food combined. And i had all my amalgam fillings out. Oil pulling is a new term for me...i'm going to have to look into that. But truth be told, i've gotten way too lazy to keep up with the good health habits. :o\ Maybe your good habits will rub off on me!

k said...

Oh! That reminds me that I didn't link to the oil-pulling definition! That's so cool that you used to soak, eat raw, etc. It's making me feel pretty good.

GG said...

ok, here's the post to leave this on. The pectin (type of fiber) in fruits pulls out heavy metals - Cranberries are great!
Here's one list
http://www.pickyourown.org/pectin.htm
Citrus are high in pectin as well, but it is a different type and may not do it - Ponoma's pectin is from citrus and uses calcium to set up while the typical jam pectin is from apples and such and uses sugar to gel up.

Also, Cilantro (according to Nourishing Traditions side panel) pulls heavy metals out of the nervous system - it needs to be raw/fresh. I believe they saw results when it was everday and high amounts.