Vegetarian no more

I took a walk through memory lane today, reacquainting myself with a few of my old posts from years ago. First thing I noticed, I am so sporadic. One page back into archives and BAM I'm in 2008 already. I mentioned being a vegetarian a couple of times. So that's when that was! My significant other had been watching too many PETA videos and, to do our part to end animal cruelty, we stopped eating meat. That lasted about a year. Let me tell you, Tofurkey is awful. I'd rather eat a block of plain tofu.

That lasted about a year. My conclusion? It's doable, if you want to do your part to save the animals. If you're doing it for health reasons though, avoid the man-made things created to look and taste like meat. They're so chemical-laden and overly processed, you're better off eating meat.

As for the animals... I'm sorry cows and chickens... I am eating you again. As a compromise though, I do my best to buy free-range and pasture-raised stuff. Less cruelty that way. I highly encourage you to do it too. Yes, it costs more, but we're supporting humane treatment of animals instead of factory-raising them. Be a good human. Be kind.

Giving chiropractors a second chance

After my first disappointing experience with a chiropractor, I avoided them for over a decade. Then one day, instead of the usual stiff neck in the morning, I awoke to pain. I thought maybe it was a muscle spasm. But the next night, I woke up several times at night to neck pain. What in the world was going on??

I didn't go see a doctor for two reasons: 1. They would probably just give me pain meds, but more importantly, 2. My health insurance has such a ridiculously high deductible, it's like not having insurance at all. So I decided to give chiropractic another try. However this time I didn't blindly see the first one that came along. I researched which ones were actually producing good results in people with similar conditions, and then I picked one.

First thing they did? They took an x-ray! This was an obvious step that somehow didn't occur to the other chiropractor I used to see. That's how they can confirm what's going on in the spine. The diagnosis: cervical spine degeneration. :-O In other words, the vertebrae in my neck were starting to degrade and form bone spurs. The cause: years and years of working at a computer and unconsciously leaning my head forward. A normal neck has a curvature of 37 degrees. Mine was down to 9. This misalignment caused some of the discs between the vertebrae to bulge and degrade. Once the padding goes, the bone starts to rub against each other and form spurs. Pain can come from pinched nerves or spurs. Based on the x-ray, they were actually surprised I didn't have numbness and tingling going on.

The chiropractor said that this condition takes 7-8 years to get this bad. The daily stiff neck I suffered from so many years ago, which had brought me to a chiropractor in the first place, was a sign of its beginning. Had she been as competent as this guy, I may not be in the condition I am today. Because it took so long to form, it will take about a year to reverse. I won't be able to get my vertebrae un-degraded, but I can at least get the curve back and stop the degeneration from continuing. The difference between this guy and the incompetent swindler, besides the x-ray, is explanation of what's wrong as well as its cause. When you can identify the cause, you can take steps to avoid further damage. His treatment plan includes teaching me exercises to strengthen and regain the important neck curve. Good practitioners will teach you how to heal and maintain yourself. Bad ones merely tell you how often you need to come back.

One final thing before I end this write-up. I finally learned the point of all the pressing and cracking that chiropractors do. I was told that these maneuvers cause micro-tears in the ligaments and connective tissue, allowing them to be healed in a slightly different position. Even if I were to stop the damaging head-forward positions, my neck would still be held at the wrong curvature by all the connective tissue. The combination of the micro-tears and exercises is supposed gradually move my neck back to where it belongs. Now this makes sense to me!

How to make your own whipped butter

Plain butter is great, but it's awfully hard to spread onto toast when it's cold. Instead of smashing your bread, you can either use room-temperature butter or whipped butter. The latter is sold in stores, but you pay more to get less butter. Solution? Make your own! It's actually not that difficult. I'm lazy, so I know easy when I see it.

What you'll need:

• A mixer (I use a KitchenAid)
• 8oz butter*
• 1/2 cup milk
• olive oil (optional)
• salt (optional)

1. Long before you want to create your whipped butter, take the butter and milk out of the refrigerator and let it sit out for about an hour (this will depend on how hot it is in the room). The closer to room temperature it is, the easier it will be to combine. I suggest you pour out the 1/2 cup of milk you need and put the rest away.

2. When the butter is soft to the touch and the milk no longer feels cold, toss the butter into the mixing bowl. Add a pinch or two of salt if you desire. It brings out the flavor of the butter, which I like a lot on toast, so I add it. Turn on the mixer and beat until the butter is no longer a brick (about 30 seconds).

3. Drizzle some olive oil in. It adds additional flavor as well as softness to the butter, so if you don't like olive oil, you can skip this step. How much you add depends on how much flavor you'd like to add. Turn on the mixer again and beat until some of the oil is incorporated (about 30 seconds).

4. Taste the butter and feel free to add more salt or olive oil to suit your needs.

5. Now add a small portion of milk. You don't want to pour it all in at once because it will splash a lot. It's messy. Turn on the mixer. The butter may harden slightly from the temperature of the milk, but it'll soften up again eventually. You'll know it hardened a bit when some of it sticks to the bowl and forms a smooth surface while the rest of it slides around in clumps. As you mix, the milk will slowly incorporate into the butter and the clumps will start to break up. Add a little more milk and continue mixing. Keep doing this until you've poured in all the milk. You'll know the milk has been fully incorporated when you no longer see liquid in the bowl, and the butter now forms peaks like a thick batter instead of clumpy butter.

6. Find a container to put your newly whipped butter into. It will be a greater volume of butter than what you started with.

Enjoy!

* I prefer to use Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter because it's grass-fed (more nutritious) and it just plain tastes better than most other butters.

Juice fasting did not help me at all

Wow I've been lazy. Looks like my last post was 3 years ago about starting a juice fast. As far as you could tell, I perhaps perished from such an endeavor. Luckily I survived, but let me tell you it was a bust, and it wasn't due to lack of willpower. I have amazing willpower when I put my mind to it. After a mere 3 days of juice fasting, I decided to reintroduce solid food back into my diet (my body didn't feel any different, and my significant other had already given up). I did it gradually as recommended so as not to shock my system. I didn't lose any weight (my weight is normal), nor did any of my skin afflictions get better. In fact, after going back to solid food, my skin rashes got worse! Nooooooo! It seems the tolerances I might have built up towards certain food sensitivities got removed. It was a horrifying discovery and I severely regretted trying the juice fast at all. I came to the following conclusions:

• Juice fasting is helpful if you've been eating crap for a long time. In other words, it's great if you're fat, sick, or nearly dead.
• If you're in good health and generally eat right, don't bother with any kind of fast.
• If you have food sensitivities, juice fasting does NOT help, and you may suffer flareups afterwards.
• If you're already a health nut, then simply add fresh juice to your diet. Don't give up solid food. It's not natural, and therefore not healthy.

If you're looking to get started with juicing and need a juicer recommendation, I like the one I'm using. It's called the Breville BJE200XL Compact Juice Fountain 700-Watt Juice Extractor. It's pretty fast, relatively easy to clean, and simple to assemble and take apart. I've been using it for about four or five years now, and it's still going strong. It's noisier than it used to be, but it still works well. It's a good middle-of-the-road juicer to get started with.