A Proper Start to Christmas Vacation
The less frequently I post on this blog, the harder it is to return to it. So many events have gone by unrecorded and so many worthy(?) thoughts have not been verbalized. . . It's hard to know where to start. At least I'm not struggling with guilt. I decided long ago that I would never regard blogging as an obligation. I would do it at my convenience or not at all.
The first semester has ended at school, and I have just finished the first day of unwinding. The first order of the day was sleeping late. My plan almost worked. I stayed in bed till 6:00 instead of 5:30. Hiromi, who was already in bed when I got home from Christmas caroling and the requisite snack/party afterward, was the one who slept respectably late.
I got up and laid out the Christmas treats still crammed into the bag in which I carried them home from school, reading and savoring each card and gift. I also enjoyed way more candy and salty snacks than any sensible person would normally enjoy before 8:00 in the morning.
I checked my email, and recklessly deleted many of them. I studiously ignored the several-inches thick pile of papers I need to grade during vacation.
I spent the next hour or so following my nose to a link (I found it in a letter to a gardening group I'm part of.) with very fascinating information on how to grow produce in a way that boosts nutrient density. I printed out some information to share with the students in next semester's food production class. I love times like this, when the facts that have lodged in my brain from many past bunny trails suddenly all rearrange themselves into a more complete picture--agreeing with what I've learned elsewhere, but enlarging and illuminating everything at the same time.
Years ago I attended a presentation on fruit growing in Kansas. The presenters were from Kansas State University. Frank Morrison was one of them. I "met" him again last week when I was helping a student do research on the big Armistice Day freeze of 1940, which nearly destroyed the apple industry in Kansas. He had the most succinct and helpful information I found anywhere. At the same presentation, someone talked about the brix test, which is a measurement of the carbohydrate content in plant material. This test is relevant for determining the proper time to harvest fruit--when the brix reading reaches its peak. At that point it will be at the optimum stage of ripeness and sweetness.
I learned this morning that when the brix reading in all kinds of edible plant materials is at its "sweet spot," many other nutrients have also reached their peak. I remember phytosterols being mentioned, which are the raw materials of the body's hormones. Minerals are at optimum levels at the same time. The dry matter (or "bulking substance") of the edible food is largest at the highest brix levels. The food tastes best at this time.
Brix readings correlate significantly with the availability of nutrients in the soil in which the food is grown. Lean soil equals low brix readings. Fertile soil and good cultural and harvesting practices equal high brix readings.
The United States Department of Agriculture has been tracking nutrient content of agricultural products for a long time. Not surprisingly, the numbers show a steady decline in nutrient values of most commercially grown produce. Online databases confirm this. I've examined some of these databases. I've heard the same thing in many nutrition lectures through Mannatech sources. I've read about it in news media, and in books from the public library.
The High Brix Gardens site quotes Hippocrites' dictum (which I have also heard through Mannatech sources) : "Let food be your medicine, and your medicine be food." In other words, overall health and nutritious food go hand in hand.
Last night during the conversation among the adults at the after-caroling party, someone wondered aloud if gluten intolerance (Celiac Disease) is more common now than it was earlier. I thought of a whole flood of things I wanted to say about the relationship between nutrition (especially glyconutrients, which are critical for regulating immune responses) and autoimmune disorders, which everyone agrees are on the rise. Celiac Disease is an autoimmune disorder. What I've learned from many different sources tells me that there's a straight line between nutrient decline in produce, insufficient nutrition in the general population (even among--or perhaps especially among--people who have no calorie deficit), and higher incidence of many health disorders, especially autoimmune diseases. How can they possibly NOT be connected?
With more restraint than I'm demonstrating here, what I said aloud at the party was that I recalled hearing one of my college teachers (in the late 70's/early 80's) say that she had been recently diagnosed with Celiac Disease. For a long time, no one knew what was wrong, but she looks back now at her father's early death from an unidentified illness, and believes that he probably also had Celiac Disease and died from it.
Someone else said aloud what everyone was probably thinking by then: Earlier, people died from some diseases that we now have the knowledge to diagnose and cope with in a way that preserves well-being. I added that autoimmune diseases of all kinds are more common than they used to be. So Celiac Disease probably is not only more common than it used to be, but is often more readily identified when it occurs.
The Celiac-affected professor's conjecture about her father's illness seems to affirm something else I've heard from Mannatech sources and elsewhere: Many diseases involve both a genetic predisposition and a "health-stress trigger." I have no idea what the triggers were in the professor's family, but I do know what they were in several of the people in my family who have Celiac Disease. The relatively high incidence (Roughly one in ten among my parents' grandchildren.) in my family, and the father/daughter combination in the professor's family suggest a genetic component. I've been told that an adequate supply of glyconutrients in the diet helps regulate the trigger action. In other words, destructive genes can stay "turned off" if the body's cell-to-cell communication is working optimally, enabling the body's natural defenses to disarm what would otherwise become a health-stress trigger.
My early morning foray on the Internet marched right through many of my passions--teaching, nutrition, health, and gardening--then circled around, corralling everything into a neat bunch from which I will eventually sort out individual understandings. I might need them for a food production class lecture, for answering a food supplements inquiry, or for conversation at the next party.
The first semester has ended at school, and I have just finished the first day of unwinding. The first order of the day was sleeping late. My plan almost worked. I stayed in bed till 6:00 instead of 5:30. Hiromi, who was already in bed when I got home from Christmas caroling and the requisite snack/party afterward, was the one who slept respectably late.
I got up and laid out the Christmas treats still crammed into the bag in which I carried them home from school, reading and savoring each card and gift. I also enjoyed way more candy and salty snacks than any sensible person would normally enjoy before 8:00 in the morning.
I checked my email, and recklessly deleted many of them. I studiously ignored the several-inches thick pile of papers I need to grade during vacation.
I spent the next hour or so following my nose to a link (I found it in a letter to a gardening group I'm part of.) with very fascinating information on how to grow produce in a way that boosts nutrient density. I printed out some information to share with the students in next semester's food production class. I love times like this, when the facts that have lodged in my brain from many past bunny trails suddenly all rearrange themselves into a more complete picture--agreeing with what I've learned elsewhere, but enlarging and illuminating everything at the same time.
Years ago I attended a presentation on fruit growing in Kansas. The presenters were from Kansas State University. Frank Morrison was one of them. I "met" him again last week when I was helping a student do research on the big Armistice Day freeze of 1940, which nearly destroyed the apple industry in Kansas. He had the most succinct and helpful information I found anywhere. At the same presentation, someone talked about the brix test, which is a measurement of the carbohydrate content in plant material. This test is relevant for determining the proper time to harvest fruit--when the brix reading reaches its peak. At that point it will be at the optimum stage of ripeness and sweetness.
I learned this morning that when the brix reading in all kinds of edible plant materials is at its "sweet spot," many other nutrients have also reached their peak. I remember phytosterols being mentioned, which are the raw materials of the body's hormones. Minerals are at optimum levels at the same time. The dry matter (or "bulking substance") of the edible food is largest at the highest brix levels. The food tastes best at this time.
Brix readings correlate significantly with the availability of nutrients in the soil in which the food is grown. Lean soil equals low brix readings. Fertile soil and good cultural and harvesting practices equal high brix readings.
The United States Department of Agriculture has been tracking nutrient content of agricultural products for a long time. Not surprisingly, the numbers show a steady decline in nutrient values of most commercially grown produce. Online databases confirm this. I've examined some of these databases. I've heard the same thing in many nutrition lectures through Mannatech sources. I've read about it in news media, and in books from the public library.
The High Brix Gardens site quotes Hippocrites' dictum (which I have also heard through Mannatech sources) : "Let food be your medicine, and your medicine be food." In other words, overall health and nutritious food go hand in hand.
Last night during the conversation among the adults at the after-caroling party, someone wondered aloud if gluten intolerance (Celiac Disease) is more common now than it was earlier. I thought of a whole flood of things I wanted to say about the relationship between nutrition (especially glyconutrients, which are critical for regulating immune responses) and autoimmune disorders, which everyone agrees are on the rise. Celiac Disease is an autoimmune disorder. What I've learned from many different sources tells me that there's a straight line between nutrient decline in produce, insufficient nutrition in the general population (even among--or perhaps especially among--people who have no calorie deficit), and higher incidence of many health disorders, especially autoimmune diseases. How can they possibly NOT be connected?
With more restraint than I'm demonstrating here, what I said aloud at the party was that I recalled hearing one of my college teachers (in the late 70's/early 80's) say that she had been recently diagnosed with Celiac Disease. For a long time, no one knew what was wrong, but she looks back now at her father's early death from an unidentified illness, and believes that he probably also had Celiac Disease and died from it.
Someone else said aloud what everyone was probably thinking by then: Earlier, people died from some diseases that we now have the knowledge to diagnose and cope with in a way that preserves well-being. I added that autoimmune diseases of all kinds are more common than they used to be. So Celiac Disease probably is not only more common than it used to be, but is often more readily identified when it occurs.
The Celiac-affected professor's conjecture about her father's illness seems to affirm something else I've heard from Mannatech sources and elsewhere: Many diseases involve both a genetic predisposition and a "health-stress trigger." I have no idea what the triggers were in the professor's family, but I do know what they were in several of the people in my family who have Celiac Disease. The relatively high incidence (Roughly one in ten among my parents' grandchildren.) in my family, and the father/daughter combination in the professor's family suggest a genetic component. I've been told that an adequate supply of glyconutrients in the diet helps regulate the trigger action. In other words, destructive genes can stay "turned off" if the body's cell-to-cell communication is working optimally, enabling the body's natural defenses to disarm what would otherwise become a health-stress trigger.
My early morning foray on the Internet marched right through many of my passions--teaching, nutrition, health, and gardening--then circled around, corralling everything into a neat bunch from which I will eventually sort out individual understandings. I might need them for a food production class lecture, for answering a food supplements inquiry, or for conversation at the next party.
posted by Mrs. I at
4:35 PM
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