RichardMcDonald

2022-12-12T14:47:00.005-07:00

Notes on Health & Wellness

Question:

How does anyone counter the slick advertising that constantly fills the media and airways about pharmaceutical creations sold as “cures” for ailments that don’t actually work, but only hide the symptoms of the health problem while the problem itself persists, though seemingly less severe.

There are hundreds of centuries old cures for most ailments that are categorized as herbal cures, that the pharmaceutical companies label and classify as nonsense or bogus cures and then spend millions of dollars promoting their own actual bogus cures and the public believes every word they say.

Just try to convince a friend or relative that an herbal cure that is proven for centuries to work and has no side effects is a superior way to cure their ailment than a lab created artificial drug that is less effective and is loaded with side effects and see how far you get. And you will get nowhere at all. Especially if a medical doctor prescribes the lab created drug to keep up with his or her quota requirements outlined for them by the pharmaceutical manufactures and dictators.

When I first began studying herbal healing and nutritional healing I assumed that everyone would want to know how to heal themselves and get to optimal health with that knowledge. How naive was that? Turns out, very few have even a twinge of interest in natural healing. If the “cure” is not prescribed by a medical doctor in a white lab coat, then the information is bogus. When in most cases the information and prescriptions issued by the medical doctors is what is bogus. The patient will twist themselves in knots to justify doing what ever the pharmaceutical trained doctor says to do.

And as the side effects of the first drug proscribed by their medical doctor take hold, there comes more drugs to curb those side effects. Eventually, the patient is taking 5-7 drugs a day for life. Obviously, if the drugs actually cured the original ailment, they would not have to take the pharmaceuticals for life, would they?

December 2022

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Notes on health issues that seniors face

2019-05-08T15:20:00.006-06:00

Some of the most common issues that folks over 50 who live in North America commonly have that your family doctor will most likely ignore:

Dehydration

Mostly due to caffeine consumption.

Low stomach acid

Stomach acid production slows as we age causing a multitude of low-grade problems because the nutrients we eat are not completely digested and absorbed. The often resulting ‘indigestion’ or gas, is often treated with over the counter acid neutralizers, making the problem worse.

In areas where hard water is present (Southern Utah for example), we consume alkaline (an acid neutralizer) every time we drink water or consume drinks made with the local water. This alkaline also reduces our stomach acid. Strengthening stomach acid will increase nutrient absorption and mostly eliminate the ‘indigestion’ problem.

B vitamin deficiency

Many of the foods we eat contain blocking agents that prevent the absorption of vitamins and nutrients. One blocking agent is anti-thiamine (thiamine is vitamin B1) which prevents the absorption of thiamine in the body. Thiamine is also the gateway vitamin that allows some of the other B vitamins to be absorbed. Without it, some of the B vitamin complex as well as vitamin B1 are not absorbed.

Vitamin B12 deficiency is quite common in seniors. Vitamin B12 is found almost exclusively in animal products and requires strong stomach acid to be absorbed. Brain fog, constipation, and digestive problems, tingling in the limbs and fingers, as well as other problems, are displayed. Some seniors think they are in the beginning stages of dementia when it is actually a B12 shortage.

Phytic acid (or Phytates)

Also called anti-nutrients, which block the absorption of the minerals and nutrients a seed or bean possesses In some cases every other mineral or nutrient that is eaten along with those seeds or beans is also blocked from being absorbed. In many cases, slow cooking of beans and seeds or sprouting them will remove the phytates. Soy has more phytates than any plant foods studied to date and cooking does not remove all of the phytates. Even sprouting a soybean does not make it a safe food to eat. Fermenting the soybeans changes all of that and allows the many benefits present in the soybean to be absorbed by the human digestive system.

GMO (genetically modified organisms) food

Many foods sold in supermarkets are now genetically modified. For plant products such as soy and grains, this allows the plant to withstand more frequent and harsher herbicide and pesticide spraying. Those chemicals remain on the plant or are absorbed into the plant and remain all the way through processing and are ingested by the end consumer.

Genetically modified animals such as salmon create an animal unknown to nature and our bodies do not recognize it as real food. Food growers and producers are currently lobbying the federal agencies so they do not have to identify GMO food products on their labels.

Inadequate levels of Vitamin D

Sadly we have been fed so much misinformation about sunlight and vitamin D it is almost criminal. The FDA has quietly admitted that it has miscalculated the stats on vitamin D by a factor of 10 for the past 50 years. This means that their suggested requirements for sunlight on the skin have been incorrect by a factor of 10. The chemical companies who manufacture sunscreen have been happy to provide us with their not so healthy products to block out sunlight from reaching our skin.

Humans have always needed vitamin D directly from the sun. Our skin, however, has become sensitive to sunlight because of inflammation from malnutrition and chemicals we have consumed. Correct your diet to remove the chemicals and increase your nutrient intake and get plenty of vitamin D from the most important and complete source- the sun. Twenty minutes a day for fair-skinned folks, longer for darker-skinned folks, then cover up for the day.

Collecting electrical energy from Electro-magnetic fields all through our homes and in the air.

Concept malfunction

It seems that one of the more difficult concepts for folks to accept is the idea that the diet you maintained several years ago affects your health today. And the food and diet you maintain today affects your health condition several years from now.

Because some foods have immediate repercussions such as gassy foods or high carb foods it is easy to apply that quick result concept to all foods we consume. For example, when we consume too many sugar-laden foods we may feel anxious or sleepy soon afterward. When we eat gassy foods we often get flatulence soon afterward. So it may seem that all the food we consume has an immediate effect on our body and health.

While many have no difficulty applying long-term conceptual planning to vacation planning, retirement plans, finances and long term investments those same folks seem unable to apply that concept to their diet and long-term health.

Entries are the works in progress. The finished work appears under 'Categories' or in the Pages Bar. All content on this blog is the copyrighted original work of Richard McDonald.

Let The Buyer Be Wary

2019-02-20T13:35:00.001-07:00

Let The Buyer Be Wary

Today in America we can buy almost any food made and packaged for breakfast, lunch, and supper along with all the snacks we can eat. All we have to do is open the package, sometimes heat the contents and eat. But what are we eating? Perhaps my purchase of a very simple food can illustrate: recently I purchased a package of tortillas. No problem, right? Well, maybe there is a problem.

Tortillas are about as simple a food as one can have to eat. If you make them yourself you only need flour, water, shortening or oil and a touch of baking soda or baking powder and salt (if desired). Not counting the water that is a maximum of four ingredients, right? Trick question. You only need four ingredients if you make it yourself. But then no one is doing any self-making in most kitchens in America these days.

So, how many ingredients do you need if you want your tortillas to be able to sit in a package, on a grocer’s shelf for say, eight weeks (or 8 months if necessary) and still look good enough to eat? Upon reading the ingredients of two different brands the answer is a minimum of nineteen ingredients. So, if four ingredients are necessary to make a tortilla what are the other fifteen ingredients? They are, it seems mostly dough conditioners, preservatives, and miscellaneous chemical additives- so the tortillas look good for a very long time on a shelf. And that count of nineteen does not include the individual names of the vitamins that are added to the mix to make white flour into enriched white flour.

Just what is it that we are eating? In this case, the four ingredients and nearly five times that number of additives, conditioners, and preservatives, so the food does not mold, turn in color or begin to break up when the package is handled for several weeks or months by prospective buyers.

When we purchase the prepared and processed food with its many conditioners, preservatives, and additives we are entering into an agreement with the food producer. What we are saying by buying their food products is that we are willing to eat any chemicals and additives as well as sweeteners they want to put into our food that will preserve their food and make it appear edible for long periods of marketing time and in many cases, make it taste good as well. We are saying that we do not care what else they add to our food supply so long as we can purchase and eat it without any effort on our part in its preparation.

I bought one of those packages of tortillas and took a single tortilla out of the package for a taste test. Didn’t really taste like a home-made tortilla so, re-sealed the wrapper and left the entire package in the frig for a full six months. And what do you suppose the tortillas looked like after all that time? Perfect! Not a spot of mold. No dried edges or discoloring. No signs at all that this ‘food’ product was half a year old. I even felt a tad guilty when I dumped the package in the garbage, it seemed as if I was wasting real food.

And we consumers choke down similarly processed foods many times each day. So long as they require little or no preparation and taste good, little else matters, right? But, after we have consumed fifteen to twenty of those chemically altered foods a week for say, 25-35 years or so, we may develop cancer or any number of other chronic inflammatory illnesses. And then where is the blame placed- high-fat diets, of course- it is so simple and believable that the average citizen need look no further.

Entries are the works in progress. The finished work appears under 'Categories' or in the Pages Bar. All content on this blog is the copyrighted original work of Richard McDonald.

Kelsey Grammer & Kayte Walsh Compatibility

2019-02-16T14:05:00.001-07:00

Kelsey Grammer and Kayte Walsh Compatibility

Kelsey and Kayte have a rather average relationship but they also possess the very best tool for assisting in relationship difficulties- excellent communications about intimacy. This will be the tool they will need to learn to use well if they are to overcome their difficulties.

In their specific compatibility analysis, we find that their Overall Practical Value (OPV), which is the value each places on the other, comes in with a C grade. Their Suitability Factor (SF)for long-term marriage rates a C. So, they think somewhat well of each other and are mildly well suited for marriage. Their Long Term Sexual Experience (LSE) as well as their Love Bond (LB) both earn a C grade. This shows us that their attraction to each other and their commitment to love is pretty much average.

The Harmony (Har) between them, which is the harmonious rhythm they generate, gets a C+ grade. Their Synergy (Syg) measures the willing cooperation between Kelsey and Kayte to increase each other’s effectiveness- theirs measures a B-. Their Function (Fnct) category rates how well they perform and function in each other’s presence and as a unified couple, comes in with a D+. When the Synergy and Function grades are more than a single grade apart, and one of the grades is negative, as they are here, neither category can perform well. This brings stress to their peace in the home.

When we look into the aspects that predict their duration or longevity, we find their Longevity (Lg) category, comes in with a C grade. Endurance (End), which measures the elasticity or brittleness of the relationship, gets a D. Their Stability (Stab) grade is a B, which tells us that emotions between them are constantly trying to smooth out and stabilize the stress and anxiety they have. And finally, their Marriage (Mrg) grade, which measures how well these two will function within the confines of the complex structure of marriage, comes in with a C.

In the relationship between Kelsey and Kayte, these kinds of results can turn out well, if they work not to behave as so many Hollywood types do. They may just endure. The relationship will require work; something not popular in Tinsel Town relationships. Right now, they are newly in love, so several years may pass before some of their stress points begin to fester and erupt.

First posted in June 2011

Entries are the works in progress. The finished work appears under 'Categories' or in the Pages Bar. All content on this blog is the copyrighted original work of Richard McDonald.

Obnoxious Barking

2015-08-15T10:39:00.000-06:00

My wife and I were riding the bus home after a long work day. We were thinking warm thoughts of the supper we would soon be enjoying when suddenly this older woman pushes her way in to sit between us and begins talking, “I'm Jan and I have C.O.P.D.,” she says, “and that makes it hard to breath. . . .” We didn't know this lady and we had no interest in her medical issues. Besides that, we had not invited her to share our bus seat.

Clearly she does not care that she has intruded and she pulls out her Ipad and begins to show us videos of her and her dog; her and her grand children and her blowing out candles on a birthday cake.

“Since I started with Spiriva, I feel much better. . . . “

We didn't really care about her favorite drug. We just wanted to get home to our supper.

“Ask your doctor if Spiriva is right for you, she says just before she finally gets up and leaves.

We're pleased she is gone, but then a few minuets later she returns, pushes her way between us again and begins as if we had never heard her spiel before.

“I'm Jan and I have C.O.P.D. and that makes it hard to breath. . . .”

Finally, our stop comes up and we leave her going through her pitch to no one in particular. The next day was similar. This time it was an older overweight man who pushes his way between us. “I'm Mike and I have Diabetic Foot Pain,” he says. He too, pulls out his Ipad and begins to show us videos of him playing golf.

We try to tune him out, “. . . Ask your doctor if Lyrica is right for you,” he says as we look away. That pattern repeats every night- night after night.

Oh, wait! We're not on a bus in the city on our way home. We're sitting on the couch in front of our TV at home in a small desert town in Southern Utah, waiting for our supper to warm in the microwave.

A thin looking woman in a white lab coat comes on the screen. She's walking around talking to what appears to be her patients. Then she speaks to the camera, “I have dry eye . . . .” That's when I push the mute button.

Entries are the works in progress. The finished work appears under 'Categories' or in the Pages Bar. All content on this blog is the copyrighted original work of Richard McDonald.

The Evils of Tessa

2014-09-19T21:09:00.000-06:00

We have a dog. A very evil dog. Her name is Tessa but we call her Tessie. She is a yellow lab mix and weighs around forty pounds- a beautiful short hair pale yellow dog with black eye liner.

She was eight months old when we adopted her and in the beginning we thought she was the sweetest of all dogs. We have now learned the truth. As she began to learn about mastering exploration and how to navigate the desert mountain landscape where we live, we could see that she had intellectual abilities far beyond simply sniffing out carrion and eating it, although we were very quick to learn that food was an exceptionally powerful motivation for her.

Before she came to live with us, our other less mischievous dogs were quite satisfied to search the hills and valleys for animal treasures they could bring home. And for awhile, it seemed, Tessie was also content with these prizes, but she needed more of a challenge, it seemed..

Our nearest neighbor in the valley below is approximately a half mile away, and there are two restaurants at the highway intersection three quarters of a mile away. In the summertime there are occasionally hikers who sometimes camp on the Federal land nearby.

None of this has quite explained where Tessie, one fine summer day, got the unopened loaf of bread she brought home, nor the stick of butter she carried home a few weeks later. None of these places has quite explained where Tessie got the half pound of cottage cheese, the packet of burnt toast, the partially eaten hot dog in a bun, the opened medium sized bag of potato chips, the prepackaged sliced beef with mashed potatoes and gravy lunch, the partially eaten cheese and cracker snack packet or the shrimp salad in a sealed Tupperware bowl, the half pound of very moldy cheese or the large partially eaten sweet peach.

Granted, these things have appeared in the warmer months when there could be work crews somewhere out on the Federal landscape. We have also come to suspect that Tessie has visited the restaurants or our neighbor during their family cook outs, or workers camp sites as well as the campers camp sites where she has managed to wriggle her way close to the food by worming her way into the hearts of the unsuspecting victims with her considerable charm and beautiful eyes. Then, just when the folks have let their guard down- bam-O! She strikes, grabs the food and runs off for home. We guess that this would often take some careful calculations on her part in order to carry out her escape from the scene of the crime without being thwarted and forced to drop her bounty. The source of these food gifts that appear on our deck just outside the back door of our house has puzzled us for years.

Just the other day Tessie demonstrated her ability to calculate her careful timing for dastardly deeds and how closely she could manage her time for crime. It went down like this: we have a barn cat. His food is placed on the floor in the same spot each morning and evening. The dogs and I often go into the barn and pass by the food dish. Sometimes there is uneaten food still in the dish. Tessie knows that she is not to go near the food dish and she diligently walks around it. If the dish still has food in it more than an hour after putting it down for the cat, we will move the dish to a bench top where he can eat it later on. Sounds like a nice plan, right? It is a nice plan and it works well. Except, the other day, when Tessie suddenly stopped short right in front of the food dish. I turned just in time to see her puttting a steady look on me. She looked down into the full food dish and back to me. Clearly, I was too far away to pull her out of the dish if she should attempt a snap and gulp maneuver. In that frozen moment I could see Tessie calculating her time sequence and suddenly, like a dog possessed, with me yelling for her to stop, she violently thrust her mouth into the dish and gulped down two huge bites. She had calculated the timing perfectly. The time it took me to cover the five feet to get to her was enough time for her to frantically empty the dish. She knew I would not physically hurt her and she was willing to suffer my yelling and ranting about what a bad girl she had been- all for the glory of the cat food trophy.

In the six years since we adopted her we have never seen her be quite so brazen or disobedient. She had gotten the food down in record time- my yelling could not change that. Once she had downed the food she did act as if she were sorry for her evil deed. Well, for one or two minutes anyway. She was, after all, a hardened criminal.

It is this sort of precision timing we have come to believe that she uses to continue to succeed in her reign of crime. She could steal the food right out of your hand so long as it was a surprise attack and she was sure she could make her escape.

Even with this knowledge it doesn't look as if we are going to stop her sly evil deeds any time soon. What can we do? She is our Tessa, and we love her dearly.

Entries are the works in progress. The finished work appears under 'Categories' or in the Pages Bar. All content on this blog is the copyrighted original work of Richard McDonald.

A Fly In The Night

2013-08-16T11:25:00.000-06:00

Here we are again, three weeks after the monsoon rains and thunder storms and we are in the thick of fly season. And they are everywhere, especially if you have any kind of animals- dogs, cats, horses, llamas, alpacas, livestock, etc.

At our house we have dogs, cats and llamas. The llamas like most to hang around the house, though they have acreage upon which to roam. They hang out near the house- don't even venture down the hillsides where the sweet and tender bark and plant shoots are. Nope, they wait for their daily dose of 'four way' grains in a plastic dish and their staple- hay.

This concentration of animals creates a picnic ground for the flies. And those little flying creatures explore every animal that appears on the landscape. When I am outside working I have to remember to keep each bare skinned limb moving lest the flies find my flesh worth exploring. Once they land they often find that a sample bite is justified to see if I have begun to rot yet. There is some comfort in knowing I am not the only animal they want to survey. They do the same to the faces of the llamas and the dogs especially around their eyes and mouths.

Not to worry, though, in a few weeks they are gone. Where they go I have no clue, but they diminish rapidly leaving only a few of their numbers to sustain their presence and to remind us, who are not flies, that they are still here; still a presence in our lives and that they will return in force next year.

I have recently discovered that flies do not see in the dark. Not that I had ever been curious about the night vision of flies, but there it was. Evidence as solid as a stone wall. It was an accidental discovery I admit. I had turned out the lights with a fly or two in the room. One landed on my bear leg, which caused a tickling sensation which I felt compelled to rub. Viola! I ended up rolling the fly under my fingers and against the skin of my leg. The poor critter had failed to dash off into flight as they do when they can see.

It may seem odd, but I felt as though I had made a major breakthrough in my ongoing quest for fly knowledge. I had also defeated the usually elusive and dastardly fly. I had caught him, killed him without squashing his delicate body and had his carcass as a trophy. For just a fleeting moment I felt like a mighty hunter who had out smarted the enemy. I felt superior. Dominant and proud. Sadly, I fell asleep and in the morning he looked like just another expired fly. My proof of superiority had vanished in the morning light and I was again just another animal who found flies annoying.

Entries are the works in progress. The finished work appears under 'Categories' or in the Pages Bar. All content on this blog is the copyrighted original work of Richard McDonald.

A Breakfast Guest

2012-12-11T21:49:00.000-07:00

It was slightly gloomy for a desert summer day. I was returning from my morning shopping and was carrying the bags of apples and oranges I had bought.

When I approached the deck stairs I could see this guy, this roadrunner, on the railing. He seemed a rather presumptuous bird. I hadn’t seen him before but there he was, sitting on the deck railing looking all puffed and proud as if he owned the place.

He watched me ascend as if I were the intruder, then without so much as an introduction, he began to tell me all about his adventures from the previous afternoon. I guessed he was a bit lonely from the way he spoke, as if we were friends. I expected him to fly off when I reached the front door, since we were only a couple of feet apart, but he stayed put.

I’m afraid I may have been a bit rude to the poor little guy. I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before and kept tossing and turning thinking something horrible was going to happen once I got up and started my day. Besides that, he had a squeaky voice that was not pleasant to listen to and my arms were full of grocery bags. Just as I went to set one of them down to open the door, the bag split and the apples crashed onto the redwood deck boards.

“Crap!” I blurted out. “Why the hell, can’t they make these bags strong enough to get my groceries into the house?” He stopped babbling on long enough to look at me with his head jerking about, almost as if he had a nervous tick. I was a little embarrassed at the way I had yelled, so I just looked away and knelt down on one knee to collect the apples that had bounced and rolled away.

Mr. Roadrunner was not impressed with my apple chasing skills.

“As I was saying,” he said slowly, as if to emphasize that I had interrupted him, “I was walking across the rocky ground near a cactus patch, minding my own business, when this big stupid looking dog comes running up to me the way dogs always do- you know, in their usual menacing way. Of course,” he said with a laugh, “I had to take flight and leave him standing there looking like an idiot.

“In the air I was trying to decide where to go from there. The next thing I knew, this huge dust cloud blew up out of nowhere, so I dipped down and landed near some scrub brush and small trees right over there.” He pointed with his beak to a green patch near the house.

All of a sudden he stopped talking. I was a bit relieved when the silence came, since I didn’t know him and I wasn’t interested in his story. Besides all of that, I was still crawling around on the deck trying to collect my apples.

When I looked up, his body had become still and his head stopped jerking around. He crouched for a moment then extended his wings. “See ya later?” he said with a glance back to me as he took flight. “I do believe breakfast is calling.”

I never saw him again. I have no idea where he came from or where he might have gone. But, since that day, I have been unable to locate my eight legged friend, Toni, who had come out of her spider hole earlier that morning to greet me on my way to my brisk morning walk. We don’t see each other every morning, so I didn’t become concerned until a week had passed without her showing. When I checked, her spider hole had been damaged- caved in around the edges. She would have fixed it if she was able. I can’t help but think that that audacious visitor had something to do with her absence.

Entries are the works in progress. The finished work appears under 'Categories' or in the Pages Bar. All content on this blog is the copyrighted original work of Richard McDonald.