Robyn’s Blog

This is from Dr. B’s interview with Mike Adams, one of the last he gave before he died in his late 70’s.  We should realize more signs and symptoms of being low on water than just dry mouth.

“The human body manifests dehydration by a series of symptoms and signs, perceptive symptoms of dehydration — in other words, brain senses dehydration, or tiredness when you haven’t done a good day’s work, or first thing in the morning when you want to get up out of bed and you’re tired, you can’t get up — that is a sign of dehydration.

Then anger, quick reaction, depression, these are all signs of dehydration, when the brain has very little energy from hydroelectricity to cope with the information or take action. These are some of the perceptive signs of dehydration. Then the body has its drought management program, which are allergies, hypertension, diabetes, and also immune diseases.”

Robyn here again.  I’ve been made fun of for the weird, even obnoxious fact that I bounce out of bed in the morning like the Energizer Bunny while others need an hour to clear the fog.  I wonder if that’s because I drink lots of water and therefore am not low on hydroelectric energy like Dr. B speaks of?  Worth a try for you—let us know if you notice any differences, increasing your water consumption.

Dr. B’s plain, simple, commonsense advice to drink 1 ounce of water for every 2 lbs. of body weight reminds me of another story.  In the Bible, Naaman was a captain in the Syrian army, and he was very ill with leprosy.  He went to Elisha the prophet, the introduction having been made by the kings of Syria and Israel.  Imagine his surprise when Elisha, rather than receiving him, sent a messenger out to tell Naaman to simply wash in the River Jordan seven times.  Naaman was indignant.

In 2 Kings 5:13, Naaman’s servants say to him, “If the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it?  How much rather then, when he sayeth to thee, wash, and be clean?”  Naaman follows the simple advice and is healed.

The simplest answers are sometimes hardest to believe.  Sometimes, especially in this age where we’ve come to expect whiz-bang, high-tech miracles, simple answers are the last ones we consider instead of the first.  Doctors don’t often start with the most simple answers, like chronic dehydration.  They go right to pharmaceuticals.  So we have to try those simple answers ourselves.

Let’s all do this from today forward.  Are you drinking 10 glasses daily?  How can you find a way to fit this habit into your schedule?  For me, a very important part of that involves drinking about 16 oz. immediately upon waking up.  I drink another 16 oz. after my workout in the morning.  The rest I fit into my day, avoiding drinking water right before or after meals (wait 2 hrs. after meals to avoid diluting gastric juices).  When I was a first-time nursing mother, a friend told me, “Never walk past a sink without drinking a glassful.”  This was very helpful advice.

(Yes, sorry, I’m aware “effect” should be “affect,” but that’s the search phrase people use according to my research assistant, Steff:  how does dehydration effect the heart!)

Dr. B studied over 3,000 peptic ulcer patients and found that all of them responded favorably to being hydrated.  Though his theories have gained much traction thanks to his doggedness, since the 1980’s, still so many of us are calling “liquids” or “fluids” our hydration, and we’re not drinking much water.  Dr. B says absolutely nothing stands in the place of pure water. In fact, sugar or caffeine in a beverage have their own agendas that compete with water’s agenda.  To put it very simply, they not only confuse the body’s signals that it needs water, but they defeat water’s purpose.

Now, in 2008, one or two fringe voices are telling us, hey, water’s not that big of a deal.  Go ahead and count your soda as “fluids” for the day.  Beware of these voices; they have no real evidence, that critical “reliability” standard in research.

Dr. B’s research showed that chronic pain involved in a number of “disorders” can often be treated easily and without drugs or expensive diagnostics, with water.  Those include dyspeptic pain (for instance, heartburn, gastritis, duodenitis), rheumatoid arthritis, anginal pain, low back pain, intermittent claudication (leg pain when walking), migraines, hangovers, colitis, and constipation.

I am revising Ch. 1 of 12 Steps to include an additional focus, as well, on drinking water (while we’re eliminating soda).  I believe this will help with the cleansing reactions that some have while incorporating intensively excellent good nutrition in the form of green smoothies, as the body recognizes that no more acid soft drinks are coming in, and outstanding building materials are taking its place.  Lots of water is critical in getting through any cleansing reaction you may have as you undertake a whole-foods lifestyle and abandon the toxic foods you were eating before.

My husband and father-in-law are both former college football players.  My FIL was told, while playing football, “Don’t drink water!”  My husband was told by his own coaches and trainers in the 80’s, “Don’t drink too much water!”  Every year a college or high school football player drops dead in the August heat during what every football player knows as “two-a-days.”

We have been collectively rather confused about water, for a long time.

F. Batmanghelidj, an Iranian medical doctor, was a true pioneer, ahead of his time, and probably the main researcher behind changing attitudes towards water.  Football coaches know better, now, than to give the advice my DH and FIL got.  Dr. B spent over 30 years of his life trying to get the attention of the National Institutes of Health, the FDA, and medical journals to take note of his documentation of free, life-saving cure for common ailments.   He addressed a phenomenon every bit as common as constipation in our culture: DEHYDRATION.  (And dehydration is related to our chronic constipation problem, too.)

Dr. B’s teachings have often been repeated with the slogan, “You’re not sick, you’re thirsty.”  But we are still dehydrated and unaware of the many symptoms and problems that occur from not being hydrated.

Dr. B’s first experience as a young doctor reminds me of Dr. Colin Campbell’s paradigm shift studying cancer in children in the Philippines—and, for that matter, many great discoveries, like Ben Franklin, the kite, and electricity.  That is, it was accidental and totally contrary to what he expected to find based on conventional knowledge.

Dr. B was called to tend to a young man curled up in the fetal position from a peptic ulcer, in acute pain.  The young man was lucky his ulcer didn’t perforate, as he had eaten an entire bottle of antacid with no relief.  Having no medication, Dr. B gave him two glasses of water, and the boy began to recover.  Twenty minutes later another glass of water was given, and the boy was up walking around the room, pain free.

From Iran, Dr. B was wrongfully incarcerated after medical school and nearly executed when they discovered he was a doctor and could help in the prison.  During his stay of execution, he found an “ideal stress laboratory” in which to test his water hypothoses.  He presented a paper to his executioners and they dropped the 32 false charges so he could continue his research.  His discoveries about water were published as an editorial in Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology and in The New York Times.  The Journal of Anticancer Research published the essence of his first book on pain relief and water—all in the 1980’s.  The vast majority of his efforts to get the attention of the medical profession and policy makers were completely unsuccessful.  But I believe the public is now much more aware of the importance of drinking water primarily thanks to him.  You can read his theories in his books Water Cures and Drugs Kill and Your Body’s Many Cries for Water.

This is the email I received from my legislator, Rep. Steve Sandstrom (haven’t heard from Sen. John Valentine, president of the Senate, yet).  Write him at ssandstrom@utah.gov and tell him thanks and encouragement for his commitment to sponsor a bill to help our kids.

Robyn,

I would whole-heartedly support or sponsor such a bill.  We do not eat junk-food in our own household and our kids are healthy and thin.  I believe we need to push this issue, because childhood obesity is an epidemic.

I am actually in Sweden right now picking up my son who has been here playing hockey for the last two weeks.  It is very noticeable that the kids and adults here are not obese and they eat healthy.  We need to help the children in our state make good decisions for their own health.

 Anything I can do to promote this and get it passed, I am willing to do. 

I will be back in the States on Sunday and I will get in contact with you.

Thanks,

Rep. Sandstrom

Please sign this GreenSmoothieGirl petition to Utah’s legislators and school officials, and encourage health-minded friends to do so, too!

http://www.gopetition.com/online/20779.html

I am just learning how to do this BLOG thing. It is cool. Comments are easy but when you have a question or topic that is not up yet it is different.

My question got placed under another topic so I am doing it here to see if more of you will have some input for me.

So…

Even though I am new to the whole GS thing, as a strict vegan for three yrs now, I am at the point of expanding my uses of and knowledge about live foods. I have done some sprouting for about the last year and a half and have loved what it has added to my overall well being.

I got my VitaMix this year when my KitchenAide blender finally died. There was only me so it did okay for a few months of smoothies (I just chopped all the green leafs before it went in & ran the stalks through the juicer and adding that to the mix) but of course, I love my smoothies much better with my VitaMix.

Naturally, now I was thinking that I was ready to look into dehydrators, with Christmas around the corner and all. I was on the Excalibur web site and the trays are no longer Teflex. They are “FDA-approved polycarbonate trays”. I do Very Poorly Indeed with polimers (tongue gets raw sores if I have anything that has touched them while it was hot) and was thinking these trays might not be a good thing for me… this brand anyway. Does anyone have any information as to this composition material?

Feel free to leverage any part of this letter in your own effort to be heard on this important issue of our children being fed junk food in school, and even the districts making money on feeding the childhood obesity epidemic:

Hello Rep. Steve Sandstrom:

I’m one of your constituents in Lindon, supported you in the last election,

and heard you speak at Jim Ferrin’s home.  I am a charter school founder and

parent.  I also have a nutrition web site geared toward helping families eat

whole foods, with a mailing list and readership of thousands:

www.GreenSmoothieGirl.com

On the front page of today’s Daily Herald, an article documents how Utah

tops the nation in junk-food vending in our public schools.  I have written

the Daily Herald in the past, in support of the anti-junk-vending bills that have

come before the legislature.  I write to ask if you would work to pass a

bill in the face of this appalling finding that we are leaders in feeding

the childhood obesity epidemic.  Utah should lead out in clean and healthy

values, not earn the distinctions of feeding kids the most chocolate,

high-fat snacks, and sugary sodas of any state in the U.S.

I would be happy to help!  If you know of bills already being sponsored for

this legislative session, please let me know if you will support it/them.  I

think timing is right with release of this study to make a change to help

our kids.  The former surgeon general Richard Carmona said that childhood

obesity is a more present danger to American lives than terrorism.  We can’t

be asleep at the wheel on this issue.

Before I post a blog entry (and possibly send out a mailing to my whole

readership) urging Utahns to write their newspapers, school districts, and

legislators, please let me know what your commitment level is so I can

comment on that.  Please let me know of any legislators supportive of these

concerns.

Many thanks,

Robyn Openshaw-Pay

www.GreenSmoothieGirl.com

According to Ace Stryker of the Daily Herald, Child Nutrition Supervisor Jenilee McComb in Provo District is working on a policy for this fall that imposes a 300-calorie limit on vending machine goods.  This is well intentioned, but plenty of nutrition free, acidic, processed foods can be sold in portions lower than 300 calories.  This is an easy policy to end run around.  Kids can still eat plenty of junk—it’ll just cost them (and us) more.

Ronda Bromley’s statement in Alpine District (where I live) is that they are addressing the problem “slowly” over several years and high schools have “lagged behind.”  Unimpressive.  Nebo District’s supervisor of food services Bill Vest is imposing a 250-calorie maximum and has removed candy and gum and states that the legislature will likely impose more controls in the coming years.  We can only hope!

Utahns, please write a letter to the editor, your state legislature representatives, your school district’s superintendent, and go to my online petition about junk-food vending in the schools, sign it, and send an email to health-minded friends who love kids.

Letters to the editor: dhletters@heraldextra.com

Find your representative in this list: http://www.le.utah.gov/house/members2005/membertable1add.asp

Find your senator in this list: http://www.utahsenate.org/perl/roster2007.pl

Tomorrow I’ll post the letter I wrote to my legislators, the day after that the letter I got back.

Please sign this GreenSmoothieGirl petition to Utah’s legislators and school officials, and encourage health-minded friends to do so, too!

http://www.gopetition.com/online/20779.html

In July 20’s Daily Herald (Utah Valley), reporter Ace Stryker gives these infuriating statistics from a 2006 study by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where my home state of Utah leads the nation in these categories:

83 percent of Utah schools are selling chocolate in vending/school stores

versus

40 percent nationwide

76 percent of Utah school offer fatty, salty snacks

versus

47 percent nationwide

86 percent of Utah schools offer students soda and other sugary drinks

versus

65 percent nationwide

As usual, Utah, with its strict liquor control laws, seems to overcompensate for that strictness by being ridiculously lax regarding other unhealthy habits: sugar and junk food.  Just because we don’t drink and smoke doesn’t mean we’re healthy, and at a minimum, we should be teaching our children good habits.

Making money at the expense of our children’s health by selling them foods guaranteed to make them ill and fat is criminal.  And my own experience showing support for anti-junk-vending bills in the Utah legislature has been that our legislators haven’t historically cared about this issue.  Every bill has been defeated.

Several years ago, I wrote letters to the editor of the Herald for its ridiculous stance on a bill (to be defeated) limiting junk food vending in public schools.  The editorial editor had written a ludicrous op-ed piece making, among others, these arguments against the bill (and he was being serious, not facetious):

(1)   We shouldn’t limit junk food consumption by kids because the teachers themselves eats loads of junk, so we wouln’t want to be hypocrites.

(2)   Not all the ingredients in junk food is bad—for instance, corn.  And peanuts.

More tomorrow about the reaction of school districts, as quoted by the Daily Herald.  Please sign this GreenSmoothieGirl petition to Utah’s legislators and school officials, and encourage health-minded friends to do so, too!

http://www.gopetition.com/online/20779.html

Hello my friends,

I’m off to Europe with my family tomorrow for 18 days: Italy, Spain, and France, and hopefully a one-day adventure in Serbia/Croatia.  I’ll miss y’all, but you won’t miss me, because my assistant Steff will be posting blog entries I wrote, the whole time!  And maybe I’ll miss you so much that I’ll get online and comment a few times while I’m there.

And, please celebrate INTERNATIONAL GREEN SMOOTHIE DAY on August 15 with me–if I can do it in Paris, you can do it, too!  (I know, it’s a rough life, but someone’s got to live it!)  The Raw Divas contacted me and asked me to spread the word, so here’s the link to register and get their instruction manual and support:

http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?Clk=2507726

Much love,

Robyn