My Mom’s best friend has a terrier mutt named Robbie. Whenever the two of them travel together, Robbie stays with us. They just returned from 11 days in Florida, and the house seems kind of empty without the sweet little doggie.

The last time I dog-sat for Robbie, I used him as my inspiration to take more walks. At least once a day, I’d grab the leash and go for a walk with him. Things worked out differently this time. I got sick a couple of weeks before he came, and the coughing and fatigue are still lingering. I simply haven’t had the energy to take walks daily, especially not with the cold weather we’ve been having.

I took a walk with him to the corner mailbox the first day he came. My daughter needed me to mail some important letters and I didn’t want to leave him home alone the first day he came. I also wanted to take him for a walk to help him get settled in. That’s the routine we developed the first time I dog-sat; his “Mommy” left, he was sad, we went for a walk together, and he came home feeling happier and more settled in. Between the brisk weather and my state of health, that short walk to the corner was quite a workout for me!

I was simply too worn out to go for a walk the next day. Jack took him around the block a few times during this visit, but the only other time I took Robbie for a walk was Saturday afternoon. All 3 kids were away for Shabbos, so it was just me and Robbie in the house. I enjoyed the quiet time, but I still figured it would be good for me to get outside at least once that day, so I made sure to take him for a walk around the block.

Instead of walks, I usually put him on the cable in the backyard when he needed to go out. While that setup gives him far more exercise than it gives me, I’m still required to walk down the steps, bend down to hook him up to the cable, go back upstairs, and then repeat the process when I hear him barking to come in. Sometimes I’d go down the stairs before he was ready to come in and have to repeat it all a few minutes later. Sometimes I could get one of the kids to do this, but I still found myself up and down the stairs several times each day. Additionally, he needed his harness taken off at night and put on again in the morning. He resists getting the harness on, and it usually required two of us to get on- one to hold him and one to actually put the harness on. I got one of the kids to help me, but I never got two of them to do it without me!

Plus there’s the activity that’s part of my life even when Robbie isn’t here: grocery shopping, carrying items up and down stairs, doing laundry, and cooking and cleaning. I haven’t done any formal exercise for a while, but I’m certainly staying active!

Saturday I took a friend who lives in San Antonio out to lunch for her birthday. I had read on the internet about a Hawaiian restaurant called Aloha Kitchen. It is a tiny restaurant in a strip center; probably more of a café than a restaurant. I had expected to find lots of tropical fruit and coconut on the menu. Instead they serve a variety of meat and rice dishes with oriental sauces which celebrate the blend of cultures in Hawaii today.

I ordered a combination plate with Huli Huli chicken and Draggin' Meat. I chose mixed squash and a spring roll for my two sides. Everything was delicious.

I had told our server that we were celebrating my friend's birthday. They hung leis around her neck and sang Happy Birthday in Hawaiian, accompanied by a ukulele, of course. Then they brought her a piece a guava pie. I ordered a slice of mango pie. What a perfect way to end an unusual lunch.

On the drive home, I turned on the radio and listened to a show about GMO foods. I confess I was ignorant about the subject. The two things that caught my attention were a list of ingredients to avoid if you wanted to stay GMO free and a list of ailments that some research associates with high intake of GMO products.

The radio guest said there were eight foods on the GMO watch list. Corn, soybeans, canola, cottonseed, sugar beets are almost always GMO. In addition some papaya and a small percentage of zucchini and yellow squash are also GMO.

I really don't eat the first five on the list. Corn is avoid for Type Os. Soybeans are toxic for Hunters and Gatherers. There are so many beneficial oils, that I don't waste my time with canola or cottonseed oil. I sweeten with agave, honey, or turbinado sugar, not beet sugar.

The radio guest was particularly concerned about high fructose corn syrup. I agree with her about avoiding any product with corn syrup on the ingredient list, though our reasons are different.

The radio show emphasized a French study that was released in the fall of 2012. I read some more about it when I got home and was disappointed. They fed the rats in the study GMO corn, and gave them water mixed with Roundup herbicide. The rats developed lots of problems particularly breast tumors and organ failure. The results lost their impact on me because two potentially dangerous variables were used.

Making rats drink water mixed with herbicide is cruel, and I'm not a bit surprised that it led to health problems. How am I to know which problems were the result of the GMO corn, and which were the result of drinking herbicide?

As a Christian, I believe that the closer we eat our food to the way that God created it, the better off we will be. So I am skeptical of GMO in the same way that I am skeptical of any processed food.

I'm glad to have a short list of GMO foods to watch out for, and glad that none of them are foods that I often eat. But I do not approve of the scare tactics used by the French study or the radio show guest.

Since Aloha means both hello and goodbye, I'll say hello fun Hawaiian food and goodbye GMO.

La principal causa y la prevención del cáncer (celebrando el día mundial de la lucha contra el Cáncer)

El cáncer es la consecuencia de una alimentación antifisiológica y un estilo de vida antifisiológico. La dieta basada en alimentos acidificantes y el sedentarismo, crea en nuestro organismo un entorno de ACIDEZ. La acidez, a su vez EXTRAE el OXIGENO de las células...
La falta de oxígeno y la acidosis son dos caras de una misma moneda, coexisten.
En cambio, las substancias alcalinas mejoran la captación del oxígeno a nivel celular.

Las células sanas tienen una necesidad absoluta de oxigenación, pero las células cancerígenas tienen la habilidad de vivir sin oxígeno y multiplicarse - una regla sin excepción. Los tumores o formaciones de cáncer se caracterizan por dos condiciones básicas: la acidosis y la hipoxia (falta de oxígeno). Las células cancerígenas son anaerobias (no respiran oxígeno) y NO PUEDEN sobrevivir en presencia de altos niveles de oxígeno. En cambio, sobreviven gracias a la GLUCOSA siempre y cuando el entorno esté libre de oxigeno.

Una vez finalizado el proceso de la digestión, los alimentos de acuerdo a la calidad de proteínas, hidratos de carbono, grasas, minerales, aminoácidos, vitaminas, etc, que otorgan, generaran una condición de acidez o de alcalinidad, de acuerdo a cada fisiología y variables, etc.

Analizando la alimentación promedio:

Alimentos que acidifican al organismo:

#Azúcar refinada y todos sus derivados (sin ningún contenido ni proteíco, ni graso, ni mineral, ni vitaminico, es solo hidrato de carbono refinado que estresa al páncreas, osea altamente acidificante)
#Sal refinada (o sal de mesa convencional, con alto contenido de dextrosa derivada del maíz transgénico)
#Harina refinada y sus derivados (pastas, galletas, etc.)
#Productos de panadería (la mayoría contienen grasas saturadas, margarina, sal (no marina) , azúcar refinada y conservadores)
#Margarina (grasa transgenica saturada)
#Refresco
#Cafeína
#Alcohol
#Tabaco
#Medicamentos
#Todo lo que contenga conservadores, colorantes, aromatizantes, estabilizantes, gomas, etc.
En fin: todos alimento envasado.

Constantemente la sangre se encuentra autorregulándose para no caer en acidez metabólica, de esta forma garantiza el buen funcionamiento celular, optimizando el metabolismo. El organismo debería obtener de los alimentos las bases (minerales) para neutralizar la acidez de la sangre y así mantener un equilibrio metabólico, pero todos los alimentos anteriormente mencionados, carecen de todo, y contribuyen a desmineralizar al organismo.

Hay que tener en cuenta que en el estilo de vida moderno, estos alimentos se consumen 5 veces al día los 365 días del año!!!

Curiosamente todos estos alimentos nombrados, son ANTIFISIOLOGICOS!!...Nuestro organismo no esta diseñado para digerir toda esta basura!!!

Me gustaría detenerme un instante y hacer incapie con respecto de dos grupos de alimentos que la gran mayoría de los 'expertos en PH' gustan agregar a la lista de alimentos que 'acidifican':
#Carnes (todas)
#Leche de vaca y sus derivados
Desafortunadamente dichos 'expertos' en ningún momento se han puesto los 'lentes multifocales del
Dr. D'Adamo', los cuales identifican y determinan las diferencias fisiológicas únicas de los grupos sanguíneos. Su terrible miopía (de dichos 'expertos en PH') me preocupa!

Alimentos Alcalinizantes:

#Todas las verduras Crudas y cocidas en su punto (algunas son ácidas pero dentro del organismo tienen reacción alcalinizante, otras son levemente acidificantes pero consigo traen las bases necesarias para su correcto equilibrio) aportan oxigeno, no se diga cuando estas se fermentan, aportan encimas a nuestra flora intestinal.

#Frutas, igual que las verduras, pero por ejemplo dentro del organismo tienen un efecto altamente alcalinizante (quizás el mas poderoso de todos). Las frutas aportan saludables cantidades de oxigeno.

#Semillas

#Cereales integrales: como el mijo, todos los demás son ligeramente acidificantes pero muy saludables en cuanto a su contenido de fibra!

#La miel

#La clorofila de las plantas (el áloe vera para algunos tipos, la clorella para otros)

#El agua es importantísima para el aporte de oxigeno ya que la deshidratación crónica es el estresante principal y causante de las enfermedades degenerativas.

#El ejercicio oxigena todo tu organismo, el sedentarismo lo desgasta

Todas las muertes mal llamadas 'naturales' no son más que el punto terminal de una saturación de ácidez del organismo. Contrario a lo anterior seria imposible que un cáncer prolifere en una persona que libere su cuerpo de la acidez, nutriéndose con alimentos que produzcan reacciones metabólicas alcalinas y aumentando el consumo del agua pura; y que, a su vez, evite los alimentos que originan dicha acidez, y se cuide de los elementos tóxicos. En general el cáncer no se contagia ni se hereda…lo que se hereda son las malas costumbres alimenticias, ambientales y de estilo de vida que lo producen.

Exceso de acidez e inflamación crónica son la causa de todas las enfermedades degenerativas. Cuando se rompe el equilibrio y el organismo comienza a producir y almacenar más acidez y desechos tóxicos de los que puede eliminar, entonces se manifiestan diversas dolencias.

La quimioterapia acidifica aun mas al organismo, a tal extremo, que este debe recurrir a las reservas alcalinas de forma inmediata para neutralizar tanta acidez, sacrificando bases (minerales como Calcio, Magnesio, Potasio) depositadas en huesos,dientes, uñas, articulaciones y cabello. Es por ese motivo que se observa semejante degradación en las personas que reciben este tratamiento, y entre tantas otras cosas, se les cae a gran velocidad el cabello. Para el organismo no significa nada quedarse sin cabello, pero un PH ácido no tiene buen pronostico. Por lo tanto, el cáncer es un mecanismo de defensa de las células para continuar con vida en un entorno ácido y carente de oxigeno.

"Que el alimento sea tu medicina, que tu medicina sea tu alimento" (Hipócrates)

En su software SWAMI, el Dr D Adamo ha factorizado con complicados algoritmos y cálculos todas las variables y las diferencias fisiológicas de acuerdo a las variables de cada paciente y arroja un reporte personalizado nutrigenomico tanto preventivo así como curativo y reseteador de la carga genética que se tiene.

Aprenda a alimentarse correctamente, manteniendo un organismo alcalino y oxigenado, de acuerdo a sus variables, fisiología y genética personales!!
Contáctenme quien tenga interés en lograrlo y desee su reporte personalizado nutrigenomico! Escriban la palabra 'happy' antes de enviar, por aquello del antispam, vale?

It’s been nearly three years since I first found out I had Lyme disease (and other Tick borne infections). I’ve come a long way in those three years and I’m still hopeful that I’ll improve enough to have a somewhat normal life again. But it takes a really long time to get well depending on how long you’ve been sick, (at least 15 years for me) how old you are, (I’m 54) and how many different kinds of infections you have (I have at least four). I hear numbers like 3 to 5 years, but there just aren’t that many accurate statistics out there. This disease, like most I’m sure, affects your emotions as well as your physical health. And right now I’m very depressed. I had been doing really well (relatively speaking) in the late summer and early fall. But I’ve been going downhill lately and I’m not exactly sure of the cause as there are a few different factors to choose from.

1 – This healing process has always been two steps forward and one step back. So maybe this is just my one step back.

2 – My Dad was injured last October. He had been living in Washington with no one living close enough to care for him. So my family had to figure out what to do so he could get the care he needed. This was very stressful as I don’t get along well with a couple of my family members and I’ve been so worried for my Dad. We ended up moving him, last December, into an Assisted Living apartment about three hours from me, which means he’s finally close enough to visit. The drive and staying overnight is still incredible hard on me, but I haven’t seen much of my Dad in the last 30 years so I’m going to take advantage of this as often as possible. Which was twice in December, not a smart thing for me to do, but after all he is my Dad and I've been missing him so much.

3 – My expenses increase by $400 a month last October, so I had to cut way back on my supplements, medicine, treatments, and Doctor visits. My Dad was helping me financially, but now that his circumstances have changed that’s not really an option anymore.

4 – I had just gone through a really tough six months at work. My boss retired (in March) and I took on some of his tasks as they didn’t replace him, which at the time was easy and fun to do. Then the upper level manager got cancer and was gone a lot, so it was chaotic at best at work. Late in October that manager died, it was a great loss, and I miss him so very much. But we finally replaced the boss that retired and some of the stress was removed from me. But like a good little B blood type, did I just collapse because the “emergency” (of the last six months) was finally over for me?

5 - I got a bad case of the flu in early January. It's the one that starts out like a cold and in my case very quickly moved into a sinus infection. Believe it or not, it's actually good news when a Lyme patient gets a cold or flu. I haven't had a cold in many years! Usually our immune systems are so low our body doesn't even try to fight the new virus at all. But I'm in that in between stage, where my immune system has started working again but not quite well enough to take care of the job. I had to use some sinus sprays and other medication to clear up this new infection.

It’s so discouraging to have these nights again where I’m up all night long with pain and other uncomfortable symptoms. I’ve started to have trouble concentrating again and having memory lapses. The depression of course doesn’t help matters, but it’s actually one of the symptoms, so it’s not so easily overcome. Only time will tell what the cause of this set back is. My guess is it’s a combination of all five of the factors above. Here’s hoping last Friday night is as bad as it gets and I start moving back in the “right” direction soon.

The past week has been unusually warm, and I took advantage of it by going for a bicycle ride.

Oh my! I discovered muscles that have been neglected for nine months. I had so much fun doing water aerobics and tubing last summer that I didn't ride my bicycle much if at all. I usually ride a lot in the fall, but between two mini vacations and HH's Mom being in rehab, I don't think I ever got the bicycle out of the garage. So I haven't done any consistent bicycling since last spring.

I have not neglected exercise. I work out at the fitness center twice a week. I still do the line dancing class once a week. I hike with the hiking club and with my husband. I run when the weather is not too cold. Each form of exercise uses different skills and different muscles.

As soon as I got on the bicycle I knew I had neglected my biking muscles. The most embarrassing and frustrating moment was at the end of the ride. There is a hill right before you get to our house. You come to it at the end of a ride, when you are already tired. Five years ago when we moved here, I had to walk my bike up that hill. Gradually, as I got stronger, I could traverse the hill and ride all the way to the top. Then came an exciting day when I rode straight up the hill. What a great feeling, physically and emotionally!

This week, I approached the hill with confidence. About half way up I thought, "I'm not going to make it." I peddled harder, countering my negative thoughts by saying aloud "Yes I am!" As HH often says - reality will prevail. I could tell that I was about to stall, and I did not want to risk a fall. I hopped off the bike and walked it the rest of the way.

If the weather stays mild, I'll give those unused muscles another chance next week.

Something happened his week that took me back to my college days. My roommate Alice and I had moved out of the dorm and into an apartment. Both of us copied favorite recipes from our Moms and we were excited about cooking in our own kitchen.

We were also both on a tight budget. One day Alice told me to come home prepared for a delicious dinner. She had found a great deal on chicken and was going to make one of her Mom's best recipes - Chicken Diablo. When I got in from class the apartment smelled wonderful. But when we sat down to dinner we realized the great deal on chicken had been on a package of wings and backs. We had a fabulous sauce but almost no chicken. Wings are mostly bone and skin. Backs are just bone. It was a poignant lesson for two young women.

At least I thought I had learned the lesson. I guess I needed a refresher course, because last week I found a great deal on frozen cod, and I bought it.

I decided to make my Mother's seafood Creole recipe. She made it with shrimp, but I was going to use the cod. I started the sauce first. It wasn't long before the kitchen smelled wonderful. I opened the cod. Oh my! I did not know fish could have gristle. I had a package that was mostly bone and tough connecting tissue. By digging and scraping I eventually found a respectable amount of cod, which I mixed in with the sauce.

I served the Creole over steamed brown rice. HH thought it was delicious. It was delicious...but it would have been so much better if I hadn't skimped and tried to save money on the fish.

When we moved into this house 7 years ago, there was an electric range already in place: oven and stove in one unit, with a fancy glass-top on the stove. I've been using electric stoves for my entire adult life, and adapting to the glass cooking top took no effort at all. Besides using it for cooking, I quickly found myself using it as “extra counter space” in my small kitchen. We routinely put clean dishes onto the stove top after washing, especially if we were washing meat dishes and the tablecloth was already set up for dairy.

A few weeks ago, I put the clean, dry dishes away on a Sunday morning and noticed a crack in the glass. I soon realized that the crack spread along both left burners, rendering them unusable. I wasn’t even sure it was safe to continue using the burners on the right, which were far from the crack. I settled on a compromise: I still used the burners on the right when I absolutely had to, but I minimized their use.

I still used the stovetop to make scrambled eggs and omelets, when I was watching the stove the whole time. Instead of making a soup that simmered on the stovetop all day, I made soups in the crock pot. Instead of cooking meatballs in a frying pan, I cooked them in the oven. Instead of boiling water on the stove constantly, I kept my hot water urn filled and plugged in. I made ghee in the oven instead of the stovetop- and managed to over-cook it, because I couldn't walk past the kitchen and see it, and the smell of the finished ghee was reduced since it was inside the oven.

It took me a while to get the stove looked at. The crack occurred a few days before Christmas, and our handyman is Catholic. I didn't want to disturb him a few days before his holiest day of the year, since this wasn't an emergency. Then, of course, the next week was New Year’s. He was finally able to come the first week of January. He figured out that the replacement part for the stove was nearly $400, not counting labor. There would also be no guarantee that something else in the range wouldn't break shortly afterwards- the range was, after all, at least 9 years old. A new electric stove, without the fancy glass top, was under $450. It made no sense to repair the old stovetop.

But before replacing the stove, we did some research. Mom has a gas stove downstairs, which means the house has a gas line. What would it cost to extend the gas line upstairs and replace the range with a gas oven instead of another electric? Let’s not buy another stove until the plumber can give us an estimate for that. The plumber couldn't come right away- and then the estimate was too high. OK, we’re definitely getting another electric range. The first day Mom was available to go stove-shopping; I was home with a sick child. He was still sick the second day she was available. Finally, he was back in school and we went off to the appliance store, even though I was starting to get sick. Amazingly, they were able to deliver the stove the very next day, which was a Thursday.

Now I found myself quite sick, with a brand new oven and stove to figure out how to use, and it was nearly time to prepare for Shabbos! I kept the hot water urn on for a few more days- my throat was too sore for cold drinks, so I was using much more hot water than usual, and it was a bad time to make new habits, or even to resurrect old ones. Soon I would go back to using the hot water urn just for Shabbos, and boil water in a teapot during the week. This allows the electric urn to last a lot longer.

It’s been nearly a week with the new range. I've found that the oven cooks almost exactly the same as the old one, but the stovetop cooks differently. Instead of a few different sizes of burners, I have two big ones and two little ones. I’m not sure if they actually burn hotter than the old stove did, or if it’s just that the “big” burners are larger than the “medium” burner I used to use for simmering soup all day. Or maybe it’s the way I have to center the pot on the burner for stability, and can’t have it partially on/partially off the burner so it’s not quite as hot. I need to put things on “2” when I used to cook them on “3.” I haven’t actually burned anything, but quite a few things got over-cooked: a soup and yet another batch of ghee.

Maybe I’ll manage to make a batch of yellow ghee in February.

Fried chicken is a Southern classic. Chicken Fried Steak is a Southwestern version of that Southern classic. Pre BTD I loved Chicken Fried Steak. I was never particularly good at making it, but I ordered it every time I could in a restaurant. After the BTD it became one of those foods like pizza - it wasn't really good for any blood type. The beef was bad for my husband, and the flour was bad for me.

I didn't miss it a whole lot, except when we would eat out with our Strong Son. He would smile as he enjoyed his Chicken Fried Steak and say, "Now Mom, you know I don't eat as much wheat as I used to, but I'm not taking this diet as seriously as you do." My mouth would water.

Last week I bought a package of turkey cutlets. Usually I cook the cutlets with barbeque sauce in the oven. I live in Texas so naturally there are 25 - 30 choices of barbeque sauce in my grocery store. Of those, 2-3 are free of high fructose corn syrup and other avoid ingredients.

Since my New Year's resolution is to try a new recipe every week that both my Type A husband and my Type O self can eat, I began to think what else I could do with the turkey cutlets. If Chicken Fried Steak was good, I wondered what Chicken Fried Turkey would be like. Back in the days when vegetables were popular and people ate at the cafeteria every Sunday after church, Luby's Cafeteria made some of the best Chicken Fried Steak. They had published a 50th anniversary cookbook, and I had bought one. Sure enough their Chicken Fried Steak recipe was in the cookbook. Here is the recipe - with my BTD changes.

3 large eggs
1 cup milk (substitute almond milk)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp seasoned salt
1/2 tsp pepper
3 cups flour (substitute rice flour)
2 1/2 pounds of round steak cut in pieces (substitute turkey cutlets)
Oil (I used light olive oil, but it smoked too much, next time will try grapeseed oil)

Whisk together eggs, milk, salt, seasoned salt, and pepper.
Place flour in a shallow bowl.
Pound the meat with a meat mallet to 1/4 inch thickness. Coat with flour. Dip into egg mixture, then again into flour.
Heat 1/8 inch oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook meat 3 - 4 minutes on each side or until browned and cooked through.

Except for the smoke from the light olive oil, this recipe was a big success. It tasted delicious. My Honorable Husband said, "Great dinner."

I will probably use less milk next time. There was too much of the egg milk mixture left over. When I warmed up the leftovers, the coating was not as crisp as it was the night I made them. Next time I will refry them just a little in oil so that the leftovers will be as good as the original.