cleansing

 So. Jamie's been feeling yuck for the last few weeks... abdominal pain, nausea, burning... but his doctor is pretty much stumped as to what it could be. Me being pretty into solving (or trying to solve) health problems, I typed odd combinations of words into the search bar and came up with forums about Crohn's, Leaky Gut Syndrome, Candida, Celiac's, and so so so many more. We have a sneaking suspicion that it has to do with the beating that his digestive system took while he was on months worth of IV antibiotics. It's nice how the doctors just tell you, "eat some yogurt and take probiotics and you'll be fine." Well, it turns out there's way more to it than that. (Whodathunk?) 

Yesterday my OCD-inclined self printed out fifteen pages worth of little icons of different food and drinks and color-coded beneath them their general level on the pH scale. Something I was never taught growing up is that the human body needs about 40% acidic foods and 60% alkaline foods each day. Because of the lax diet we've been following this past year we've gotten way too okay with eating a lot of pasta, bread, juice, sugar, beer, and pasteurized dairy products.

Yeah, we still do eat healthier than many of our fellow Americans, but our gluten and sugar consumption is way out of whack and Jamie especially is paying the price by having a body that's way too acidic. (Or so we think...) With a diet like this he's also feeding all of that bad bacteria in his body and not allowing for any of the good guys to colonize. He's been downing kombucha all year like it's going outta style, but that's just not enough.

There's so much more to this, and I'm no doctor, so just go look it up yourself. The information about Candida is especially fascinating. I had no idea that it can mutate into a fungus and emit toxins like formaldehyde into your body! It's even been linked to depression, anxiety, and mood swings! We still don't know if this is the exact problem, but we're changing our diet drastically to see if it makes a difference. No sugar, no gluten, minimal fruit, no alcohol, no coffee, no peanuts, minimal dairy, and the list of do's and don'ts goes on and on. I taped the pH level icons and the cleansing diet restrictions on the inside of the pantry. It's nice to have a constant visual reminder.

So what are we eating? (Well, after I down that last box of White Cheddar Macaroni Shells tonight?)

-bone broth soups

-quinoa

-green tea

-vegetables, lots of vegetables

-brown rice

-kefir and yogurt

-grassfed milk and butter (gotta place that raw milk order!)

-grassfed meat (gotta butcher some chickens!)

-kombucha

-raw apple cider vinegar

-raw garlic and onions

-water (duh)

Fortunately this isn't a huge shift in our diet. We eat and drink all of those things in the "yes" category already. It just means being a little bit more conscious about what we put in our body. For example, I don't even want that Mac n' Cheese really... it's just easy and there. I know that it does absolutely NOTHING to nourish my body. (I still plan on eating it as a last ditch effort to make myself feel unsatisfied and be really diligent about eating better this month.) By the way, the above restrictions are supposed to last one month. At that point we'll reintroduce some of those things (like gluten) into our diet but in moderation, keeping in line with a 40/60 ratio of acid/base. We'll see how this works out...

ps. Pretty off-topic, but I'm already almost halfway there when it comes to that spinning wheel! Thank you SO much!! :)

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