Squashed by a Big Thumbprint

I buy raw milk from four different sources.

One of those sources told me yesterday that he has stopped selling raw milk because his insurance company told him they would no longer insure him if he continued to sell and produce the product.

I then told this farmer from whom I have been buying raw cow's and goat's milk for the past 18 months: "What if I absolve you of any potential liability in order to keep purchasing the product?" In other words: "Can I buy this wonderful product of yours on the side?"

At that point he said, "You don't understand."

What his insurance company told him was: "If you continue to sell raw milk we won't insure any part of your operation." In other words: no coverage on his pigs, cows, chickens, eggs, buildings, equipment, etc. No coverage - period.

Of course, this farmer has been selling his raw milk for years to dozens of satisfied customers like me. But that doesn't matter. When you've got a one-size-fits-all food system you've got to expect it will spawn its co-equals - one-size-fits-all health care, regulatory, economic, and insurance systems.

How predictable. And how dull. We are all the poorer for it - and we are no less safe. In fact, the reverse is true. Under such a regime our health is more at risk - as is our liberty.

Cholesterol - How Could We Have it so Wrong?

Cholesterol has been characterized as a killer. In fact, it's a healer; one of the most vital and protective substances in the body.

High levels of cholesterol are often signs that the body is acting to counter assaults brought on by poor diet and other stressors. Specifically, high cholesterol often signals poor thyroid function, which can, in turn, be a marker for cardiovascular disease and cancer - the number one and number two killers of Americans, respectively.

As Sally Fallon writes in Nourishing Traditions: "When thyroid function is poor, often the result of a diet high in sugar and low in nutrients, the body floods the blood with cholesterol as an adaptive and protective mechanism, providing a superabundance of the materials needed to heal tissues and produce protective steroids.

"Just as a large police force is needed in a locality where crime occurs frequently, so cholesterol is needed in a poorly nourished body to protect the individual from a tendency to heart disease and cancer. Blaming coronary heart disease on cholesterol is like blaming the police for murder and theft in a high crime area."

If You Want to Get Better Don't Go to the Doctor

The leading cause of death in America is cardiovascular disease. The second leading cause is cancer.

These observations would come as no surprise to most people, but they might be startled to learn that the third leading killer is, as reported by The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), none other than mainstream medicine itself.

In 2000 JAMA reported that 225,000 deaths per year were caused by doctors through the adverse effects of prescription drugs and surgery, errors in medical judgment, and by hospital-induced infections.

One is better off, when at all possible, avoiding mainstream medicine because its ideal patient is a chronically ill one. This person is "dis-eased." He is unable, unprepared, or unwilling to enlist his body in the healing process. And so he is trapped in the healthcare system.

This person then becomes a customer for life - and often an ideal one, as some hapless third party (you and me) ends up footing the bill.

This reality will bankrupt our healthcare system, which, in turn, will bankrupt our country.

Cholesterol - You Can't Live Without it

If cholesterol is so bad for you then why does your body make 80% of the cholesterol it contains. (Cholesterol is made primarily by the liver and secondarily by the brain.)

The fact is that cholesterol is a vital substance, essential for good health. It is integral to both structure and function within the body in myriad ways.

So why then have we so demonized cholesterol? The reason is simple: a lot of money - billions, if not trillions - has been invested over the past 40 years to convince (scare) people that cholesterol is harmful and will kill them.

One of the more obvious such bets are the statin drugs which are intended to lower cholesterol. Lipitor, for example, is Pfizer's best selling drug, representing about 15% of the company's sales.

The problem with statins is, beyond lowering cholesterol which the body depends and thrives on, they create a number of nasty side effects such as liver damage, neuropathy, muscle wasting, and cognitive impairment.

This is a tragedy. If you eat high quality saturated fat you will stimulate the production of high quality cholesterol in your body, which, far from killing you, will keep you healthy.

It's All in the Gut - the Seat of Good Health

"All diseases begin in the gut." That's what Hippocrates said some 2500 years ago. Doctors take the Hippocratic oath, but how many doctors ever tell their patients what Hippocrates advised...?

A great majority of modern day health problems stem from ingesting the wrong foods, which diminishes the body's internal bacteria community, which then disrupts the body's digestive, immune, nervous, and endocrine systems.

Aside from bad food, other degraders of the gut include: oral contraceptives, vaccines, antibiotics, pharmaceuticals, and poor pre-natal and post-natal care.

But just as bad food can weaken the gut and sicken the organism good food can just as surely rebuild the gut and restore the body to health.

It's that simple and that direct. The only problem is that doctors, generally speaking, are nutritional illiterates. Moreover, they make all their money not curing humans but managing disease by prescribing modern medicine's high-margin, low maintenance goods and services.

If you're suffering from a chronic ailment just remember that it more than likely started in your gut because harmful industrial foods are hard to avoid. But it's also in the gut where you can stop what ails you.

All you need is the willingness to embrace the right diet -and eschew the wrong "professional" advice.

The Healthcare System is Broken - Run the Other Way

America's healthcare system is broken because it manages disease rather than promotes healing.

Over the past couple of years I have unhooked myself from this system which victimizes people by taking a lot of money out of their pockets while making them dependent on its varying treatments which do little to cure the underlying conditions.

For me, short of an outright emergency, it's no more doctors, dentists, drugs, or anything else that smacks of mainstream medicine. These days I see to my healthcare needs via the following: a proper diet, sound emotional health, fresh air and sunshine, intellectual curiosity, satisfying relationships, and exercise.

If I need a professional I'll call on my chiropractor, osteopath, or yoga instructor. They know and understand the whole me.

If I get run over by a bus then I hope someone will pick me up and drop me off at the ER. Otherwise, I'll let my body do its own healing and get out of the way.

Wise Effort

My yoga teacher speaks about something called "wise effort." It's that middle ground between a careless, unthinking approach to a given task and the application of sheer (and exhausting) force.

Wise effort pushes up against what she calls your "edge," that point where "sensation" which is positive, shifts over into pain, which is not.

Life and eating are very much about wise effort. It's about eating the right foods in the right amount, neither abstaining nor overindulging. The result is good sensation - as opposed to bad pain.

The history of nutrition is that we have spent little time in this fertile zone. We have pretty much experienced, and been conditioned by, either feast or famine.

But today, for many of us here in the West calories tend to be cheap, abundant, and available. When it comes to eating perhaps we have a unique historical chance to practice wise effort.

The concept of effort we might readily grasp. As for the wise part maybe that's still a stretch.