Hi, folks! Ima Frawde here!
Congratulations on your decision to embark on a career in quackery! It’s perfect for you! No education required, no investment required, no intelligence required. All you need is the cunning to realize that there is a boatload of money to be made by promoting pseudoscience to gullible lay people.
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We are surrounded by visible and invisible toxins that cause cancer, autism, ADD/ADHD and chronic fatigue syndrome. There are toxins belched into the atmosphere by greedy corporate moguls, toxins in vaccines, even toxins produced by own bodies. That’s why everyone needs to vigilant in refusing anything that isn’t 100% natural, and to constantly detoxify using preparations/supplements/guidebooks you can buy on this website.
Step 2: Invoke a conspiracy.
Any product that is not 100% natural is part of a huge global conspiracy by doctors, Big Pharma, Big Business, or doctors colluding with Big Pharma and Big Business. Every medication is unnecessary, ineffective and TOXIC! With the information on this website, you won’t be manipulated and fooled by these giant conspiracies. The knowledge you glean here will set you free.
Step 3: Flatter the reader.
Why do those people with fancy pants degrees think they know more than you? Sure you never attended college, maybe even dropped out of high school, but we both know that with your incredible native intelligence and the education you get at this website, you’re far more educated much than those stupid doctors, scientists and public health officials.
Step 4: Explain that intuition is far more important than knowledge.
Don’t forget! Your incredible native intelligence is supplemented by your extraordinary intuition. If you feel that a toxin is making you sick, then that’s what’s making you sick. If you feel that my herbal preparations/supplements/guidebooks are making you well, then they are making you well. Pay no attention to your extraordinary weight loss and the pleas of your oncologist. There’s no need for chemotherapy when you have my preparations/supplements/guidebooks!
Step 5: Insist that no one knows more about a disease in his or her body than the person him or herself.
No one knows more about preventing, diagnosing, and treating any disease in your body than YOU do.
Step 6: Aver that you have no other motivation than to share your knowledge with the uninformed.
I’ve learned the secrets to avoiding any and all diseases, and it’s not just proper diet. My herbal preparations/supplements/guidebooks will help you avoid all diseases, too.
Step 7: Explain that Big Pharma and Big Business don’t want anyone to know the information you are about to disclose.
Cancer, autism, ADD/ADHD and chronic fatigue syndrome can be prevented or cured, but Big Pharma and Big Business don’t want you to know what I’m about to share with you. It’s in their interest to pretend that vaccines prevent disease. But if you send $14.95 (plus S&H), I’ll send you a guidebook that will explain that vaccines CAUSE disease. It’s in their interest to pretend that an expensive chemotherapeutic agent is the best treatment for cancer when the truth is that for only $24.95 (plus S&H) my preparations/supplements/guidebooks will cure you faster, with fewer side effects for lower cost.
Step 8: The big finish.
My preparations/supplements/guidebooks can both prevent disease AND cure it! The environment may be filled with toxins spewed by Big Business, but you’re protected. Your body is constantly producing toxins, but I’ll show you how to get rid of them. Big Pharma is hiding the cures for all diseases, but with my preparations/supplements/guidebooks you will outwit their evil efforts.
It doesn’t matter that you have no education in science or statistics; I don’t either. Education is totally over-rated. With my preparations/supplements/guidebooks, you’ll learn something better — how to access your intuition. No one knows your body better than you. No one knows better what it needs to stay healthy and what it needs to recover from illness.
Just send your money today and I’ll send you the secrets of my financial health. Defy the evil medical establishment, thumb your nose at Big Business, learn the information they are hiding from you and cure yourself. At only $24.95 (plus S&H), it’s a steal at twice the price.
This piece first appeared in October 2011.
I just had the questionable pleasure of watching a CPM on TWO different facebook groups bitching that her PEP process and NARM certification weren’t being counted toward admission to advance-practice nursing program. She feels her chosen school is unfairly discriminating against CPMs. Well, no dear, because you have no nursing training whatsoever, and they do have a right to expect students in their program to have certain competencies….
They seem to misunderstand what a prerequisite is. Just because your midwifery school counts every life experience and thing you have done toward your CPM education doesn’t mean a real school has such a low bar.
Even better if you can work guns into it…sigh…
The one item I really can’t understand is the “Doctors don’t want you to know…”
What? Like my best friend, the doctor, who is the kindest, smartest person I know? The one who is always studying, always reading and evaluating research, and is intelligent and knowledgeable enough to understand it? The one who I would stay up late with, typing papers and dissertations. Is *she* keeping life-saving medical information from me, from her family? Not from her husband, who is also a doctor, obviously. Do they have pillow-talk about how they’re keeping the cure for cancer from us? “Ha ha! They will never know!”
Shhh, keep ur logick away frum us!
OT: My cousin recently had her baby. She lives in a small town, so she went to the biggest city around to have her purely elective C-section (so much about the argument with “not having the hospital that would let me give birth all naturally!” self-pity fest. They went home a few days afterwards, only to go back when the only two pediatricians in their town couldn’t fit them in and her baby was becoming startingly yellow and crying. My mom’s reaction (on the phone): Is he fed? From their end: He nurses well. Now, he’s being supplemented and surprise, surprise, he isn’t crying his head off any more! Anyway, the point was that when you might not have the most competent providers around, you might find yourself on your frantic way to the bigger faculty closest to you. Why would you risk to find yourself in my cousin’s situation, but not with a yellow baby but something urgent… and only a midwife around? And DEFEND it by explaining that there’s only a midwife around?
Everyone is fine now, thankfully. Yesterday, there was a picture of him lying against the leg of the teddy turtle I sent him. He looks so tiny in comparison! So pleased with my present, aren’t I! And the turtle looms over him as if guarding him. They were adorable.
Why risk any other outcome?
A few weeks ago I had a nasty cold and my MIL, who is *obsessed* with young living essential oils had me apply some kind of minty oil behind my ears that she absolutely swears by for curing colds. My cold didn’t go away any faster but I ended up in urgent care with a rash behind my ears…turns out I’m allergic to it! Should’ve known better…
I have that problem with hemp oil.
An all-natural fragrance I tried (lavender and black pepper combined) caused my first migraine in years. Bleh.
Essential oils are some of the best proof that natural does not equal harmless. They can be very harsh on the skin when not properly diluted. Or even when very diluted. A friend of mine put a few drops of cinnamon oil into her bathwater, and ended up with burning welts all over her skin. It took a few days and a lot of lotion for her skin to calm down. She was not allergic to cinnamon.
Pro tip: do not, ever, under ANY circumstances, pour peppermint oil into a bath.
You will not be able to get warm for a very, very long time.
Ask me how I know…
OUCH–was the result best described as “sticky ice water”? I like how peppermint is tingly and cold in some kinds of chapstick and candy, but the latter description isn’t something I want in a bath!!
Couldn’t stop shivering even while showering under as hot water as I could stand. I eventually could think clearly enough to use body wash, but even that didn’t take it all away. I was going through a natural/organic phase as a college student, so I decided to dump a bunch of essential oils into a bath. Never mind that oils float, and so will inevitably get all over your skin when you stand up…
I love the smell of essential oils and like to put a few drops on a cottonball to sniff. Eucalyptus is nice when one is stuff. But these oils are concentrated, they shouldn’t be put on the skin directly (even then I’m leary), or egad (!) taken internally as some people do.
Someone on Facebook went into preterm labor after a lady at her church doused her in “Thieves” oil to show how “relaxing” it is.
Oh no! Are mum and bub okay?
From what I understand, she went to the hospital and they were able to stop her labor. It scared her so much. When I looked at the oils that are in the particular blend, I can’t imagine that something that strong would relax anyone (rosemary, clove, cinnamon AND eucalyptus).
That would have been terrifying! So glad they were able to stop it.
Yeah, that wouldn’t be my pick for relaxing. Waking up, sure, but definitely not relaxing. Watch as some CPM/DEM decides to start using it for induction :/
Well, cinnamon, she would probably try it for PPH.
In the suggested location? OUCH.
That poor mom and kid!
I refuse to buy it because ethics, but I must admit that I rather like the smell of Thieves. Wouldn’t describe it as “relaxing” by a long shot, though.
I didn’t know what the oils were in it until I googled it, I used to be really into essential oils but it was a long time ago before everyone was an “expert” in it and they got so mainstream.
I do like the scent of lavender and have diffused it around the house, but it’s usually to cure “cooking smells” and I am not afraid to use other interventions ( air fresheners) to help.
I have asthma. Essential oils trigger attacks for me. You would be surprised by how many RNs think these things are benign.
A friend put straight OnGuard oil on my daughter’s nose once. My daughter has eczema and very sensitive skin. The instant the oil hit her skin, she SCREAMED bloody murder. I was livid, and more or less yelled at her for not diluting the oil.
I’ve tried bathing with orange oil in the tub. Holy rash on my legs batman!
I’m very cautious about oils nowadays, needless to say.
My father in law must have doused himself in it when he came to visit us. It was so strong in the bathroom and the room he was staying in. Thankfully, it didn’t hurt anyone but it sure did bother me. It is so sad because he was never like this until he moved to Utah. They seem to be the worst offenders and people at my church are very much into it as well. I can’t stand it. It is such a crock.
You hit the nail on the head. Even though (I think) this post is written tongue-in-cheek, almost everything said here could have come directly from the mouth of the all-natural family I know…right down to the references to “incredible natural intelligence” and motivation to “share your knowledge with the uninformed.” If anything, it depresses me that they became spokespeople for quackery out of their genuine fear of being unable to protect their kid from evils in the world.
Apparently becoming a professional quack can be pretty expensive though:
http://www.naturopathicdiaries.com/price-of-naturopathic-education/
That poor lady. Got to give her props for integrity.
The sad thing is how very many otherwise intelligent people fall for nonsense like this. I really, really have to bite my tongue when I’m in Germany because homeopathy is ingrained in the culture there. Even real doctors will prescribe homeopathic remedies to their patients – pediatric patients included. Germans generally don’t appreciate my sarcastic comments about “sugar pills and magic nothing-water.” Happily, my own German (the one I married) realizes that homeopathy is quackery. His mother, a nurse, once gave him some homeopathic pills (along with real medicine) when he had a fever, but he just refused to take them.
I was commiserating with a German scientist I work with about both homeopathy and anti-GMO in Germany.
Oh yeah, the level of anti-GMO sentiment over there is insane. Activists frequently destroy GMO test fields. Being pro-GMO can make you a social pariah in many circles, particularly on the Left. Another thing I have to keep quiet about.
Ugh. I don’t get why people are so anti-GMO. There’s no evidence at all that it’s harmful. I think they’d be shocked to see what fruit that isn’t generically modified looks like.
Similarly, I have to laugh at all the evidence coming out that indicates the organic movement is a big scam.
Many people actually are anti-Monsanto and apparently they think that GMO=Monsanto. To be honest, I’m vary about possible effects of GMO crops from environmental point of view – excessive herbicide use, unknown threats to ecosystems etc. whereas I’m convinced that there are not direct threats to health if GMO foods are consumed.
I don’t know about organic food regulation in USA but in EU it’s rather strict so these products are safe, fresh, tasty and also their cycle of production is much more sustainable that conventional agriculture (I’m working in field related to nature conservation, so it’s a huge concern for me personally).
I can agree with you about the environmental part. Roundup is pretty nasty.
Roundup is one of the safer herbicides out there – much safer than most ‘organic’-approved herbicides.
A lot of “organic” herbicides are based on nicotine- talk about poison.
And look at me, learning something new today! Yikes.
“excessive herbicide use”
What about GMO crops leads to excessive herbicide use?
It’s practically a religion: Nature is perfect, nature would never hurt us (except for arsenic, cyanide, those red spotted mushrooms you shouldn’t eat, deadly nightshade, earthquakes etc.). And organic potatoes, tomatoes, wheat, and pigs all sprung out of the womb of our Mother Earth fully-formed, completely free of the human folly of genetic tampering (Ha ha ha ha, and double ha!).
http://www.businessinsider.com/foods-before-genetic-modification-2015-8
That’s a great link.
The problem is that ‘organic,’ in an agricultural sense, is as poorly/arbitrarily defined as ‘GMO.’
I just saw an OTC remedy for sale that was listed as Homeopathic but had real, measurable active ingredients. And now I’m rightly confused. Can they just call anything homeopathic these days in hopes that the real effects of the *real medicine* will be credited to homeopathy?? Can someone who knows from this world shed any light on this?!
I’m speaking from the USA. The problem with homeopathy is that it’s not regulated by the FDA. Vitamins, etc. can basically say whatever they want. I studied biotechnology for a few years in university, and we did an analysis of several brands of Vitamin B, an the spectrophotometer showed all of then had nuch, much less of the vitamin than they claimed. Chances are good that this remedy had similar claims. But I’m curious, what was in it?
Edited because I got click happy.
It was a boric acid yeast infection remedy, which I’ve seen as a real thing on reputable-seeming sites (including here in the comments from skeptics/science-loving people), but when it came time to see how one might acquire it I was like, wait, why am I back in the woo *now*?
If you are in the US, you can have your doc send a prescription for boric acid vaginal suppositories to a compounding pharmacy. Not sure about elsewhere in the world.
Someone fairly recently told me that homeopathy was all the not-doctor prescribed nostrums. Who needs consistent definitions?
Companies are labeling their products this way to avoid regulations.
When in college, I once came across a new definition of Hell. Went to visit friends in the middle of nowhere, and was idiotic enough to go to a suspiciously empty local Chinese place. (Hint: if it’s a Friday night and this is one of two places in town, there’s a *reason* it’s empty.) Violent food poisoning followed. Once I got everything out *ahem*, I was still heaving so badly, though there was nothing left to bring up, that I threw my back out.
My hosts only believed in naturopathic remedies, no actual anti-nausea/anti-emetic medication. Trapped in the middle of nowhere, not able to get to a drugstore, and surrounded by people who thought that .000000001% of arsenic or something in a sugar pill would be far more healthier and effective than a damn Pepto-Bismol tablet.
Yuck! That is the definition of Hell.
I wonder if pepto is allowed for the pregnant. So little is
Pepto Bismol is technically category C so I wouldn’t, though I’ve known some docs who ok it for after first trimester.
*snort* baby strength Tylenol, prenatals, and warm water. And tiny meals consisting of vegetables and saltines the first trimester and whole grain oats or quinoa the other 2. For dessert, an apple or a handful of organic berries.
There are plenty of good meds for nausea and vomiting that are safe in first tri. Call your doc and I’m sure they can help. My friend only functioned during first tri because of Zofran. I hope you are feeling better soon!
Thanks, but morning sickness has faded now. I do still have a lot of aversions. Mostly I’m joking about the crazy levels of what not to put in your mouth when you’re pregnant, both from doctors and from helpful old wives.
When I was pregnant with DD, a friend who was waaaaay into the All Nacheral stuff started telling me off for not eating what she thought I should eat and for eating what she thought I shouldn’t. (All of it, I should add, perfectly fine with my OB.)
I rather dryly, trying to diffuse the mood, said that if I followed everyone’s advice on diet in pregnancy, I’d find myself sitting in a room padded with organic bamboo, eating nothing but boiled-for-hours organic chicken and lima beans while drinking thrice-distilled water.
*shrug* I thought it was funny. She was so unimpressed by this comment that it was the second-to-final straw in her breaking off our friendship because I was putting my baby at risk. The final straw was in not purchasing $20/pound wild-caught salmon and paying to have it shipped to me. Apparently if I didn’t eat the stuff, my kid would be certain to be autistic or something and she ‘hoped I wouldn’t live to regret my decision.’ Le sigh.
I’m not generally crazy about meds in pregnancy but I usually recommend a category B if it’s available over a category C. I’m glad you’re feeling better.
And FWIW veggies would’ve *made* me barf in first tri. 🙂
Haven’t the faintest. Perhaps someone here could chime in?
It is very strange. My german friend was visitng and got a bad rash from a plant she brushed up against. She was disappointed to learn that the doctor could not (even if he was inclined to, which he certainly wasn’t) prescribe ‘homeopathic stuff’. In the end he sent her off for calamine lotion, which did the trick.
A couple of weeks ago, my 18 month old had a cold, and I was in Target and took a look to see if there were any cold meds for babies. I was looking at all the Tylenols and whatnot, and discovered that a bunch of BS homeopathic “remedies” were shelved right next to the real meds, but the labeling was very misleading with teeny, tiny fonts.
I was so mad about where they were shelved! I pondered a sternly worded email to Target’s corporate HQ, but I didn’t write it.
I realized that there probably aren’t any OTC cold meds for my kid, so I gave him warm water with honey and lemon, which he seemed to enjoy. Cheaper, and just as effective!
There aren’t any. And they’re only a mild help in adults, from what I’ve read on Science Based Medicine.
NyQuil helps me sleep at night.
Or in the day, if I take it then.
The “Sniffling, sneezing, coughing, how the hell did I get on my kitchen floor?” medicine.
My favorite is the “alkaline diet.” Apparently lemon juice, with a pH of 2, is “alkalizing.”
Especially since the human body needs to be within a very narrow pH range to function, and has several natural mechanisms to regulate this. Very bad things can happen with acidosis and alkalosis.
I was hospitalized for 3 days with acidosis. It sucked. I didn’t even realize how sick I was at the time.
Not that the woo-y would listen to me after I tell them I suspect that breastfeeding contributed to causing my acidosis.
The most outrageous thing is that many doctors in my country have bought into this pseudoscience and suggest “alkaline diet” to their patients (and in women’s magazines) – not to mention wide range of self-proclaimed “nutritionists” and “health coaches” who embrace it and peddle whenever possible. Of course, if you eat lots of vegetables and avoid sugar and simple carbs you will lose weight and improve health, so people tend to believe this nonsense about “alkalinity”. Fortunately, few go as far as to replace real medical treatment with baking soda etc., but there are some websites full of this and other quack treatments and for laypersons they may seem convincing.
Over lunch, we had a talk on H pylori localization, and on the chemoattractants and chemorepellants for them. Watching a real-time video of those buggers scurrying away from an acid gradient made me very happy to be swilling a diet Coke. They _love_ it when the stomach gets more alkaline…
Wait, H pylori? (not a doctor here) isn’t that the bacteria that’s typically responsible for the majority of stomach and duodenum ulcers?
So this alkaline diet fad is basically a recipe for stomach ulcers if your gut is colonized with the little suckers?
That’s the bug. Well, it’s complicated… many people get colonized and do just fine. The exact reasons why some people get ulcers and some get stomach cancer while others are just fine is the subject of research. Generally, colonization of the SI-proximal part of the stomach leads more to ulcers, and colonization of the more central part is more associated with cancer… fun fact, antibiotic therapy is usually given with proton pump inhibitors. It raises the pH and makes the bacteria flow more freely into the lumen, where the antibiotics can do their work.
My daughter had a holiday in a place that had recently been flooded, then a year of crippling stomach pain, all the symptoms of kidney infection except cloudy urine, appendix out, 13 hospital admissions in 12 months, and ultimately a scope that was going to prove it was all in her head, that instead showed h.pylori. One $30 box of antibiotics and proton pump inhibitors later, she was cured.
Oh gawd. 🙁 So sorry she had to go through that.
It would be if they had any clue how pH worked. But they don’t.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/0a/0c/50/0a0c50a36b95f8aaab5a3d503a9dbdf1.jpg
Not only do they not know how pH works, they don’t know how the body works, including the fact that your kidneys, lungs and buffers work very hard to keep your pH between 7.35 and 7.45.
The quickest way to induce alkalosis would be to hyperventilate – must be why panic attacks feel so good!
Lamaze?
When my grandmother had her first child, there was no anesthesia available for several hours (rural community, the only doctor was otherwise occupied). She said she hyperventilated and almost passed out trying to “breathe through the contractions”.
I like that lemons and limes are listed as pH 10. And that stress is pH 3. I didn’t realize that abstract concepts could have a high concentration of hydrogen ions!
What pH is banging my head against the keyboard?
I can’t understand why so many people believe in the alkaline diet. People who believe in it must have failed every science class they ever took.
My mom put my poor roommate in college through an entire half hour explanation about this idea. She even printed out a whole list of things I was not supposed to eat to help my acne. Basically, I could not eat much. My mom is into every single new trend that pops up. This drives me insane because even at a young age, I did not believe in any of it.
Well, I was pretty proud of my c-plus in physics 11 : )
Tried the alkaline diet when I was struggling with infertility, which is precisely why this stuff is so pernicious. They prey on your desperation and willingness to blame yourself and believe you must be doing something wrong.
A C+ in physics is damn respectable. I doubt I would have done that well. My B in physiology and chemistry did make me raise my eyebrow when my midwife recommended alkalizing myself with acidic lemon water. I bought into much woo, but the alkalizing diet was one that gave me pause and planted the seed of doubt. That and the advice about inserting garlic cloves somewhere that they certainly didn’t belong.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “have you checked your diet? Maybe that’s why you’re sick.”
They don’t even realize how insulting that is. That’s right, I’m INTENTIONALLY making myself sick (with some connective tissue disease that won’t cooperate to solidify into lupus, sjogrens, ra, etc…so for now it is just Undifferentiated connective tissue disease).
Yup. The food I eat, which is no different than the food YOU, the person telling me food is causing my nerve damage and joint swelling, eat is totally making me sick.
It’s so hard not to tell them to go to hell. SO HARD.
my dad and his girlfriend are convinced that vinegar was why some sore on his leg wasn’t healing. Especially the girlfriend. She’s a retired nurse. sigh.
I wonder if it might have healed faster if they poured vinegar on it? It has some bacteriocidal properties, no?
Acid keeps wounds open.
In fact, one of the old Catholic monks who claimed to have stigmata was discovered have been using phenol as the acid to keep the wounds open.
Aha–so the sore might be free of bacteria, but the acetic acid would also prevent normal healing processes. Good to know. (not that I was ever planning to pour vinegar on sores.)
When I was a med student I saw a man who became obsessed with the idea that a little freckle on his leg was cancerous (there were some mental health issues involved). He treated it himself with a paste made out of aspirin and grapefruit juice. Over the course of a year, he burned a hole in his leg which was about the size of a saucer and deep enough to see muscle.
ouch! Honey on the other hand might work, of course they used it in ancient times as they didn’t have much else to work with…
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3609166/
Anything hypotonic will have antimicrobial properties, as bacteria just plain get lysed in it – hence why sugary jams and preserves are a Thing. They’d keep fruit good in the absence of refrigeration.
I thought it had to be Manuka honey, specifically for the wound healing, though.
Hey, if you are pouring vinegar on a sore, I can imagine that it might cause some problems. Acid and all that.
But I doubt that is what she was talking about.
More like no more salad dressing or pickles. The crap she’s been reading. 🙁
What is it with woo and cutting out the delicious? No gluten, no pickles, no sugar…
*dry* salad? oy
My theory is that if it tastes good, it’s probably bad for you.
My mother would disagree. Somehow her half Jewish side comes out when we get sick.
Case in point, she turned up at my house with Ben&Jerry’s, chocolate brownies and a lasagna, because she doesn’t think I’m eating enough!
Could your mom adopt me, please? Pretty please?
Me too?
Weird, the woo I’ve seen is that fermented vegetables are the best thing ever.
I thought pickles were too banal? It has to be kimchee and kombucha and other things that make white people feel ‘exotic’ and ‘eastern.’
My dad’s a huge woo lover, and he’s into both kombucha and what I guess are lactic acid pickles, since he’s making them with just vegetables and salt brine. I have IBS so I’m scared to try them for fear of spending the next day or two glued to the toilet, and I don’t know how much money you’d have to offer to get me to try the kombucha, but it would be at least enough that I never have to work again for the rest of my life.
8 days last time I tried a trigger-food. I love coleslaw in summer but it certainly doesn’t love me.
Mine isn’t anywhere near that irritable, I’m just constantly cycling between normal poo and diarrhea, and often normal poo with the frequency of diarrhea. At least the constipation has removed itself from the cycle.
But still, no sense tempting fate by eating home fermentation with no idea what kind of cultures living in it.
I hope mine settles down to that point, it’s still fluctuating wildly.
“But still, no sense tempting fate by eating home fermentation with no idea what kind of cultures living in it.”
Exactly, you never know what kind of interesting things have made it in and are happily breeding in there.
They taste soo good. I am experimenting with red miso pickles, and love rice vinegar pickles, and the ones I make are getting better with practice.
And they help to balance out the deep fried tonkatsu pork fillet on white bread that I like to eat at the same time.
Isn’t “deep fried” tonkatsu “pork” redundant? :p
And I prefer mine with sauce or chutney, something both sweet and tart.
That’s probably right, my grasp of japanese is very sketchy. I made a batch of the sauce to go with it. To make a meal we do miso soup, the sandwich and some pickled veg.
I don’t know the language, but I do know a few of the dishes, since I have a Japanese cookbook. Tonkatsu is always a deep fried pork chop.
Sugar is a big one. Refined sugar is definitely making me worse. /sarcasm
What is interesting is I had gastric bypass 11 years ago and lost and kept off 100 pounds…except after my daughter I gained some back (still pretty small) and I couldn’t get it off no matter what. Last year, I started throwing up a OT and it would come and go and I ended up almost not eating at all for weeks (crackers, small things like fruit when I felt good, etc). I ended up losing about 30!pounds (so now back down to 150 lbs and stable thank god).
Since then, I’ve stopped eating most sugar things. Dumping syndrome because of the gastric bypass. I get really sick (I pass out for like 30 minutes). I drink mostly seltzer water (love my soda stream…I just drink fizzed up water). Eat lots of fruit and vegetables. In other words, I eat GOOD food now and pretty much live on a diet like someone who fairly recently had weight loss surgery lives on, except I had mine years ago.
And I’m not any better when it comes to my AI disease. I wonder why that is…
The woo is all about that base
‘Bout that base
No acid!
But I thought apple cider vinegar cured everything? Most of the woo types in my neck of the woods swear by apple cider vinegar. Bragg’s is the preferred brand. A lot of the popularity of the remedy is based on a book Folk Medicine: A Vermont Doctor’s Guide to Good Health, by Dr. D.C. Jarvis. He recommended vinegar and honey, either alone or in combination, for everything.
It reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Bart is asked if he knows the difference between an acid and a base, “Of course I do!” says Bart, right before he blows up the chemistry lab. It seems a lot of holistic folks are as badly confused as Bart by the entire question of acid/alkaline and what its significance is, or isn’t.
The one with the cocoa oil hair treatment? She’s got quite the imagination!
coconut. Yes. They’ve also posted a lot about how President Obama is really Kenyan and Muslim and shouldn’t be president, despite having an American mother. Dad told me “if it’s not true, how come it’s all over the internet?” Seriously, Dad?? Seriously?? You disdain chiros and faith healers and are falling for this nonsense??
Ugh, that’s so obnoxious. Have you gotten the “You just aren’t thinking positive enough?” That’s one that drives me nuts—because negative thoughts cause cancer, infertility, autoimmunity and god-knows-what else.
I’ve heard it all. It really is obnoxious. It’s as if I’m not trying hard enough to be well. It’s hard to not wish my pain on them (I already do wish it on my doctors…sorry doctors who are here…if you are empathetic, I do not wish it on you…if you think I should magically poof myself better without treatment because you can’t figure out what to give me, which I understand but then don’t expect results from nothing, then yes, live my pain for a day, please).
I also have undiagnosed chronic pain, although it sounds significantly less serious than what you’ve got going on. I find that many doctors will simply dismiss pain, like we’re being wimps or drug-seeking. Lay people can be even worse.
I wish I had the option to see some of the doctors that comment on this blog, lol!
Yep. Never told all-natural friend about my dad’s prostate cancer diagnosis. The smug condescension in her voice when she told me she understood how hard my hypothyroid diagnosis must be told me everything. I just didn’t try hard enough to eat well or will my thyroid into working properly, unfortunately.
And never mind that we obviously didn’t drink enough of her husband’s cancer-fighting juicing recipes.
People like that, if you’ll forgive me for going all Gilbert and Sullivan for a moment, go on my little list.
Lol – do tell what you do with your list! 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-_m6EZ1SUk
Looove “The List”.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the operetta “The Mikado?” In it, the Lord High Executioner rarely, if ever, actually executes anyone, but at one point he reassures the audience that if the need to execute someone ever comes up, he has a little list of appropriate people to execute.
Koko (Lord High Executioner):
As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,
I’ve got a little list — I’ve got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed — who never would be missed!
There’s the pestilential nuisances who write for autographs —
All people who have flabby hands and irritating laughs —
All children who are up in dates, and floor you with ’em flat —
All persons who in shaking hands, shake hands with you like that —
And all third persons who on spoiling tête-á-têtes insist —
They’d none of ’em be missed — they’d none of ’em be missed!
(Chorus:)
He’s got ’em on the list — he’s got ’em on the list;
And they’ll none of ’em be missed — they’ll none of ’em be missed.
(Ko-Ko:)
There’s the banjo serenader, and the others of his race,
And the piano-organist — I’ve got him on the list!
And the people who eat peppermint and puff it in your face,
They never would be missed — they never would be missed!
Then the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone,
All centuries but this, and every country but his own;
And the lady from the provinces, who dresses like a guy,
And who “doesn’t think she dances, but would rather like to try”;
And that singular anomaly, the lady novelist —
I don’t think she’d be missed — I’m sure she’d not he missed!(Chorus:)
He’s got her on the list — he’s got her on the list;
And I don’t think she’ll be missed — I’m sure she’ll not be missed!
(Ko-Ko:)
And that Nisi Prius nuisance, who just now is rather rife,
The Judicial humorist — I’ve got him on the list!
All funny fellows, comic men, and clowns of private life —
They’d none of ’em be missed — they’d none of ’em be missed.
And apologetic statesmen of a compromising kind,
Such as — What d’ye call him — Thing’em-bob, and likewise — Never-mind,
And ‘St— ‘st— ‘st— and What’s-his-name, and also You-know-who —
The task of filling up the blanks I’d rather leave to you.
But it really doesn’t matter whom you put upon the list,
For they’d none of ’em be missed — they’d none of ’em be missed!
(Chorus:)
You may put ’em on the list — you may put ’em on the list;
And they’ll none of ’em be missed — they’ll none of ’em be missed!
Lyrics are often changed based on the locality of the performance and in order to suit the audience. Here in Texas, for example, when it was done in Houston, “the idiots who sent a shuttle to New York” got added, and resulted in a standing ovation and demands that it be done over again three times. (Houston was more than a tad bitter about getting passed over for a shuttle in favor of New York.)
And here’s a video, for reference…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlOb0XMxt84
I saw this production in Spring 2012 at Georgetown Law School (they have an awesome GS group) and they had these awesome lyrics (remember that at the time Sandra Fluke was a law student there)
“Those blue book grammar Nazis with their ifs and ands and buts/and radio republicans who call young women sluts”
It was incredible. Orchestra had to stop playing because of all the cheering
I do so love G&S’ patter songs! They’re infinitely adaptable.
I love it – thanks so much for the great explanation! 🙂
I know it was crazy long, but I couldn’t really shorten it, either. Glad you enjoyed! 🙂
I’m singing that in my head now.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the operetta “The Mikado?” In it, the Lord High Executioner rarely, if ever, actually executes anyone, but at one point he reassures the audience that if the need to execute someone ever comes up, he has a little list of appropriate people to execute.
Ko-Ko:
As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,
I’ve got a little list — I’ve got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed — who never would be missed!
There’s the pestilential nuisances who write for autographs —
All people who have flabby hands and irritating laughs —
All children who are up in dates, and floor you with ’em flat —
All persons who in shaking hands, shake hands with you like that —
And all third persons who on spoiling tête-á-têtes insist —
They’d none of ’em be missed — they’d none of ’em be missed!
(Chorus:)
He’s got ’em on the list — he’s got ’em on the list;
And they’ll none of ’em be missed — they’ll none of ’em be missed.
(Ko-Ko:)
There’s the banjo serenader, and the others of his race,
And the piano-organist — I’ve got him on the list!
And the people who eat peppermint and puff it in your face,
They never would be missed — they never would be missed!
Then the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone,
All centuries but this, and every country but his own;
And the lady from the provinces, who dresses like a guy,
And who “doesn’t think she dances, but would rather like to try”;
And that singular anomaly, the lady novelist —
I don’t think she’d be missed — I’m sure she’d not he missed!
(Chorus:)
He’s got her on the list — he’s got her on the list;
And I don’t think she’ll be missed — I’m sure she’ll not be missed!
(Ko-Ko:)
And that Nisi Prius nuisance, who just now is rather rife,
The Judicial humorist — I’ve got him on the list!
All funny fellows, comic men, and clowns of private life —
They’d none of ’em be missed — they’d none of ’em be missed.
And apologetic statesmen of a compromising kind,
Such as — What d’ye call him — Thing’em-bob, and likewise — Never-mind,
And ‘St— ‘st— ‘st— and What’s-his-name, and also You-know-who —
The task of filling up the blanks I’d rather leave to you.
But it really doesn’t matter whom you put upon the list,
For they’d none of ’em be missed — they’d none of ’em be missed!
(Chorus:)
You may put ’em on the list — you may put ’em on the list;
And they’ll none of ’em be missed — they’ll none of ’em be missed!
Lyrics are often changed based on the locality of the performance and in order to suit the audience. Here in Texas, for example, when it was done in Houston, “the idiots who sent a shuttle to New York” got added, and resulted in a standing ovation and demands that it be done over again three times. (Houston was more than a tad bitter about getting passed over for a shuttle in favor of New York.)
And here’s a video, for reference…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlOb0XMxt84
Meant to post that to Bugsy…duh! Sorry!
I have a facebook friend that vehemently swears that frankincense oil will cure cancer. It is be sheer force of will that I have not told her to go to hell.
So why isn’t it in widespread use then? Would she say that “THEY don’t want you to know about it?”
I mean, if it did work so well, you’d think that the Evil They would want to patent it, restrict its sale, and jack the price by a million percent, not just let it lie around.
Or didn’t follow the super strict diet and cut all the acids out of your life. That is the other one that drives me bonkers about the whole “you can heal your life” way of thinking.
The family’s father that I used to babysit through high school and college in our neighbourhood got throat cancer. My mom went down there and talked all about how he could cure cancer with juicing or something along those lines. I have never been so embarrassed in my life. I felt so bad for them to have to listen to my mom while they were dealing with this. He eventually died and left a wife with three young kids. My mom always has the best intentions but does not realize where she crosses the line.
My guess is that well-meaning intentions are true with a lot of the all-natural thinking, in line with the “Aver that you have no other motivation than to share your knowledge with the uninformed” mantra Dr. Amy mentions above. If they genuinely believe they have a more enlightened knowledge that will improve (and perhaps extend) one’s quality of life, of course it needs to be shared with those who aren’t as informed.
And its corollary, “You must have needed to create this for a reason; there must be something you need to learn from it,” which is typically offered in a smug tone by someone who doesn’t have the problem.
Have you tried the lemon juice and wheatgrass juice cleanse, followed by a course of breastmilk yogurt, cultured with your own vaginal flora and smoothies made with kale and your placenta? Obviously, your body is trying to heal itself by attacking itself for missing micronutrients/minerals/beneficial microbiome, so you need to start consuming products made from your own body. That way, by providing the missing nutrients, your body will stop trying to kill you and you can start the process of TRUE HEALING! *sarcasm, major sarcasm*
Rcas
*turns green*
That’s it. I’m never eating yogurt ever again.
And marijuana oil, because marijuana cures everything!
^^ Little known fact *THEY* don’t want you to know
I kicked my sugar habit and my health HAS improved.
Don’t forget to use acedotes instead of data. Who needs controlled studies when you can testify something worked for you or your kid or a neighbor? That it didn’t work for 99% of people who tried it is immaterial.
Right. Continuing on from my short rant below, these helpful people who try to tell me that gluten is making me sick (despite the fact that I don’t have a gluten intolerance) always have a friend who cut xyz out of their diet, and they got SO MUCH BETTER, doncha know?
Omg I want to kill them. If I thought food was making me sick, I would totally change my diet. But it’s not. It’s just not. My BODY is making itself sick because it is broken.
I did the FODMAP exclusion thing in solidarity with my daughter a couple of years ago, and learnt that if I eat less gluten I feel better. Also, nuts to excess upset my stomach. I still eat both, but I’m mindful to not, say, have bread at lunch and pasta at dinner, and my stomach (and so the rest of me) feels better for it.
And when you look at what manufactured food happens to have gluten in it, it’s no wonder ‘cutting out gluten’ helps with weight loss and general well-being. Cake twice a week rather than every day can’t be bad for weight loss or general health.
My friend bought over some ‘gluten free’ hommous yesterday. How gluten would get into hommous in the first place is beyond me.
I presume the gluten free label on the hommous means that it was made in a facility which doesn’t use gluten containing products and therefore isn’t at risk for contamination. Some people react to tiny traces.
From personal experience, when you use your coeliacs as an excuse to bake your own cakes, it’s not so good for weight loss. 🙂
That’s a thought. It does say ‘traces of nuts’ in tiny writing.
And yes there are some very fine gluten free cake/sweet/baking opportunities out there…
My biggest success so far has been gluten free churros- according to my husband they were better than most of the gluteny ones he’s eaten.
“Step 3: Flatter the reader. Why do those people with fancy pants degrees think they know more than you? Sure you never attended college, maybe even dropped out of high school,”
ETA: And if you DID attend college or even have a graduate degree, then there is *absolutely* no excuse for experts to act like they know more about their areas of expertise than you do. After all, if you had really wanted to get your doctorate in something boring, concrete and rote like [fill in their field of “expertise”] rather than in the vibrant, demanding field you did choose then you certainly could have.
OMG those people are the literal worst. “I didn’t go into this, but I assure you that you will never measure up to the work I could have done had I chosen to pursue that field.”
It just makes me want to punch things.
Things like *them*?
And then there’s the experts in one field who’re sure they’re experts in another. I know someone with a doctorate in psychology who was trying to convince me of the too-many-too-soon fallacy about the vaccine schedule. Thanks, but I’m going to stick with the CDC and my kid’s pediatrician on this.
“And then there’s the experts in one field who’re sure they’re experts in another. ”
Duesberg and HIV, Pauling and megadoses of vitamin C, Tesla and all of the crap he got into, Kary Mullis and everything other than PCR, that dude with the doctorate in theology who wrote the book about how 9/11 was an inside job…
Oh, Linus Pauling! My father is a surgeon, and he made us take massive doses of Vitamin C when we had colds, because Linus Pauling said so, and look, he lived to be 93 so he must have been doing something right. Right?
No one is immune from this sort of thing.
I love Linus when he’s talking about chemistry, but roll my eyes about the vitamin c thing.
My little victim of too many too soon got his second set of vaccines yesterday. He’s shown absolutely no ill effects so far and is kicking at his jungle gym thing and smiling away.
My bigger victim is done but for flu shots for a while. 🙂
“Pain relief drugs are bad! (except when I’m taking them, then they’re actually needed) I’m an OT so I know all about how diet and exercise will cure you, and I know more about anything than any expert ever. You need to not be on any meds and should be taking garlic and chili oils to cure your severe aortic stenosis.” – how my mother is behaving, now that her mother is in hospital.