Enjoy your health it means so much to you and those around you. Take it in during this holiday with love and peace. Notice what happens to your energy with choices you make. Take a yoga class. Have some oxygen for breakfast.
Best wishes to every single one of you!

“Introduction
Blue green algae such as Spirulina species contain C-PC (C-PC).
C-PC is a blue photosynthetic pigment that has both nutritional and
medicinal properties. It has been reported that phycocyanin has
antioxidant, antiinflammatory, hepatoprotective, radical scavenging
properties and neuroprotective effects [1–6]. There is an inverse
relationship between the antioxidative status and the occurrence
of human diseases [7,8]. Therefore, identifying antioxidant compounds
has been an important research topic…”
(Artitle title: C-phycocyanin from Spirulina maxima protects hepatocytes against oxidative damage induced by H2O2 in vitro
Pages 8-11
Authors: Yu Ou, Shan Zheng, Lin Lin, Qian Li)

One thought: if your body is not dealing with a complicated food well for whatever reason, you wouldn’t necessarily then say, well what other complicated food can I eat in its place. You might say I am going to try sticking primarily with simple foods, that have not been manipulated or complicated.

IgG-mediated allergy: A new mechanism for migraine attacks?

Julio Pascual and
Agustín Oterino

+ Author Affiliations

University Hospital Marqués de Valdecilla, Spain.

Julio Pascual, Service of Neurology, University Hospital Marqués de Valdecilla, 39008 Santander, Spain. Email: juliopascual@telefonica.net

Despite recent advances offered by modern neuroimaging and genetic techniques, the pathophysiology of migraine has not been fully clarified. As pointed out by Selby and Lance 50 years ago, a relevant proportion of patients report that their migraine attacks are usually precipitated by dietary items (1). In a survey analysing the prevalence of dietary migraine in 500 new migraine patients, Peatfield et al. found in 1984 that 19.2% of migraine patients reported sensitivity to cheese, 18.2% to chocolate ad 11.1% to citrus fruit (2)….One of the obstacles to acceptance of the dietary hypothesis is the lack of a clear scientific explanation of the mechanisms implicated in the development of migraine attacks supposedly precipitated by food. The first obvious proposed mechanism was an allergy mediated by IgE antibodies…

Citation of another interesting article:
Two Common Mitochondrial DNA Polymorphisms are Highly Associated with Migraine Headache and Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2982.2008.01793.x Cephalalgia July 2009 vol. 29 no. 7 719-728 authors: EA Zaki,
T Freilinger, T Klopstock, EE Baldwin, KRU Heisner, K Adams, M Dichgans, S Wagler and RG Boles; Author Affiliations

Division of Medical Genetics and the Saban Research Institute, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
Department of Neurology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München, Germany
Friedrich-Baur-Institute
current address Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California Los Angeles
Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome Association, Milwaukee, WI, USA
Department of Pediatrics, Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA

Division of Medical Genetics, Box 90, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90027, USA. Tel. +1-323-361-2178, fax +1-323-361-1172, e-mail rboles@chla.usc.edu

While we are at it, may as well remind ourselves to be weary of salad bars that don’t look well kept, see an 2011 article on this at Food Science Central.

Also recently ported are the tragic cases of deaths from eating cantaloupes (see FDA). Good for Costco for taking a stand, see New York times article on this. Costco is an awesome way to get a TON of cheap and great produce!

You can always subscribe to RSS feeds from the CDC to get the latest on outbreaks. Or get FDA e-mail updates.

You may want to see the Wikipedia entry on listeria: “The two main clinical manifestations are sepsis and meningitis…Antibiotics effective against listeria species include ampicillin, vancomycin (unclear effectiveness), ciprofloxacin, linezolid, azithromycin.

Mixtures of bacteriophages have also proven effective in the treatment of Listeria.”

Sorry none of that was fun to read. Maybe it beats reading about issues involved with effectively cleaning surgical tools exposed to mad cow disease.

Fill up on the greens daily; that is the high nutrient, low calorie way to bring lightness to your being. Enjoy the amazing forest in your bowl. Each leaf has its own flavor, each is unique. Each leaf was grown and selected for your box. Invite each leaf and tomato to contribute to the nourishment of your life and those around you.

The ingredients:
Apple slices (provides delicious light sweetness)
Sunflower seeds (just a few)
Kale (one of the ultimate foods of all time)
Radicchio (I’m a bitter lover so I LOVE radicchio)

There may have been vinegar added; I didn’t see or taste a single drop of oil anywhere – it was fantastic and light – I was SO impressed! They also had a delicious marinade dish of celery, green and black olives, bell peppers, banana peppers.

Check out those delis. Experiment, taste test a few, see if some are the same price as if you had made it yourself. Sometimes items are vegan – you may have to ask. I have complained countless times over the years when everything on the deli/salad bar has mayo, meat, cheese or noodles. It is like – wait are there any green foods without bacon flecks? I was so happy to find some gems out there. It’s a great way to treat yourself!

See (in Discussion) :
“Our findings are consistent with those of other investigators. High vegetable intake was associated with a slower rate of cognitive decline in the Chicago Health and Aging Project [32]; high intake of β-carotene, flavonoids, vitamins C and E, thiamine, and folate from dietary fruit and vegetables was associated with a lower risk of AD in the Rotterdam Study [33] and with better Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) scores [34]…Our observation of associations of higher intake of vegetables and of higher MUFA:SFA and (MUFA + PUFA):SFA ratios with a-MCI is interesting and raises questions about the role of dietary factors in the pathogenesis of MCI and AD.” (read the article: at Pubmed)

Some people love not chewing. Popular foods are often (not always) mushy foods, think about it. Fast foods and comfort foods are often mushy. Some people hate mushy foods. Some like both.

One day my partner kindly told me why eating raw greens just isn’t her bag. And I never would have guessed the answer because I love chewing and crunching foods (like snap peas, kohlrobi, carrots, celery, etc.). I love the sound, the bursting of flavors, the whole feel of the whole interaction. However like a lot of people, she hates it when it gets all stuck in between her teeth and she has to get it out and just hates knowing that is going to happen. If its not cut small the dressing can get on your face. Many don’t like tearing through fiber and all those “sticks” and strings.

Over many years, we found solutions, for example: green smoothies (high-speed blender), juices (centrifugal juicer), salsas (food processor) and foods like saag (lightly steaming the greens, then blending). A high speed blender will literally spin the nutrients out of the cell walls making them more bioavailable.

Ultimately it’s not so relevant why we dislike a food. What is interesting is when we kindly get in touch with what’s blocking us from a particular vegetable and move on by using creative solutions. Sometimes it’s simple like, I had no idea how flavorful that vegetable was, or how to eat it, or gee my tastes have changed! Pick a vegetable and see if you can peal back its layers, drop the story lines and discover it for yourself. Feel free to leave a comment sharing your story, I’d love to hear your stories.

Tip on getting greens in your life:
So far this summer we have inherited literally pounds of greens from friends with CSAs. CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) often have lots of left overs they want to give away. At one point our house was the pickup point for the neighborhood CSA and whenever someone couldn’t pick up their box that week, we inherited. This year, our CSA is completely paid for by a health insurance benefit. The many pounds of greens that enter our house weekly (what a blessing!) are many more than our household will chew up in one week. However we can juice them, so they don’t go to waste. Juicing is the quickest way to get them into your system.

There are so many discoveries to make. I have so much to learn. The other day a friend of ours pulled an onion right out of the ground, I never saw that before – it was beautiful! We never grew onions in our veggie garden. Green onions are my favorite addition to a salad, now I can picture them growing. She also introduced me to kohlrobi and some variety of a mild radish that was delicious raw.

May you also be able to openly, honestly and kindly find your hang-up with a particular vegetable that has been holding you back. And then, if possible find solutions that work for you and open new doors of nutrients for your miraculous body that carries you through this amazing life.

Peel with a peeler (like your peeling carrots only a little trickier, persist, don’t be a perfectionist).

Toss into food processor or high-speed blender. If you are using the blender add water.

Spoon into ice-cube trays. Place frozen cubes into zip-lock bag in freezer.

Now they are ready to toss into any recipe; if you spooned in 1 tsp for each that can be handy. My fav these days: ginger, lemon, honey tea. ahhh Enjoy the beautiful life in this beautiful body that you have right now, in this moment.