Tomorrow night, you’re welcome to attend a free green smoothie class and demo I’m doing in Spanish Fork with a book signing afterward:
Beehive Health Essentials
Thursday, September 24th
7pm
846 Expressway Ln
Spanish Fork, Utah
Phone: (801) 794-9912
With winter coming up, I know many of you have kids who get strep or ear infections or any number of other illnesses we have come to think of as “normal.” When my family quit eating processed foods many years ago, we eliminated any need for asthma drugs and antibiotics.
In Europe, antibiotics are used to treat ear infections only when patients experience recurrent drainage or pain, because infections resolve themselves over 85 percent of the time. One study shows that 75 percent of childhood ear infections are caused by viruses. One study followed 168 children with ear infections where antibiotics were prescribed only if the child had a history of meningitis or subsequent serious infection, or if the illness involved a high fever or profound weakness. Antibiotics were recommended for only 6 percent of the children. No serious complications were observed in the others, who recovered fully. Another very large international study showed that antibiotics did not improve rate of recovery in ear infections in nine countries.
Mothers who breastfeed have the highest chance of avoiding the ear-infection cycle that many are in today—the best preventative measure you can take, according to multiple studies.
More than 75 percent of patients seeking help with sore throats are given antibiotics by their doctors, when only 10 percent are caused by bacteria (or 30 percent in children). Even half of those who test positive for strep are positive because they chronically carry the bacteria even though it doesn’t make them ill. (I am one of them. When I had my last baby, they tested for Strep A and came rushing into the room demanding I be put on a “preventive” antibiotic because I was positive—fortunately, the baby came out before they could try to inject me.)
Doctors provide antibiotic prescriptions often even though they know they are unnecessary, because patients want a prescription. You are more educated than that. The scare tactics of “you must take this antibiotic or your child may get scarlet fever” are highly overrated (these complications are very rare and even most bacterial infections resolve themselves thanks to the human immune system).
My mother put me on antibiotics every time I got strep as a child; consequently, I got strep every few months. I spent 15 years trying to recover my immune system from so many courses of antibiotics. The last time I got strep, 15 years ago, I refused to take antibiotics and used goldenseal instead (an herb that kills bad bacteria without killing good bacteria, and it can also be effective against viruses). The strep went away and I never got it again. (In combination with the herb, I was changing my diet at that time and becoming much less susceptible to infections and have never had one since.) None of my children has ever had strep. One of my children had chronic ear infections as a baby, but I never gave her antibiotics and used natural remedies instead, and I did have tubes put in her ears.
On the other hand, risks of antibiotic use are significant and should be considered as well. Joel Fuhrman in Disease-Proof Your Child quotes a large study published in JAMA showing that women who used antibiotics fairly frequently had twice the breast cancer risk compared to women who took no antibiotics (over a 17-year period). Other medical studies show that children getting multiple rounds of antibiotics early in life are more prone to asthma, hay fever, and eczema. Killing the beneficial bacteria in your gut as antibiotics do (they can’t discriminate between good and bad bacteria) also means you have little defense against the next virus or infection to come around.
I use Anti-Plague (by Dr. Christopher or by master herbalist Charlene in my local group buys), colloidal silver, oregano oil, and lots of alkaline water (email Jenni about the status of our current group buy on ionizers). I’ve never had to go to antibiotics. I much prefer methods of fighting infection that work WITH the immune system rather than against it.
Dear GreenSmoothieGirl: I would like to get better prices on the whole foods you recommend than my small-town health food store provides, and I wouldn’t mind making some money for my effort. But I don’t know how to start. Help!
Answer: Organizing a co-op is a great idea for anyone wanting to save money and eat right. It’s especially great for stay-home moms who like to interact with people, get good deals, organize, focus on preparedness and nutrition, and (if you want) earn some money and have a long-term, repeatable source of income. There’s a lot of job satisfaction in it, because you see people building a high-nutrition food storage and getting prepared against emergencies, and you make good friends along the way. Because some of them know a lot about nutrition, you can learn much from them.
You may know someone who might want to form a co-op in their area to forward a link to this blog entry that contains tips about forming a co-op.
Yesterday I got a call from Sally in Portland, who has a 3,000 lb. almond order in advance of our kicking it off. When I called her back, having this question on my mind, I asked her what advice she would have for you. What she said, as I’ll summarize here, is my experience, too, although she was smarter and more hardworking than I was, starting my co-op. Actually I didn’t even set out to start a co-op, and I’m sure other co-op organizers who read this blog will relate. I just got some friends to go in with me on something I wanted to obtain at a low cost with group buying power. The group just kept getting bigger and bigger!
Sally said she doesn’t even make any profit in her co-op, just likes helping people and getting better deals for herself. (I did the same thing.) She started hers as a preparedness group, tapping into that group of people, which, incidentally, is the entire base of LDS (Mormon) people in your area. Some LDS folks will make an announcement about a group buy at church and put it in the printed bulletin. Then, she said, with high-nutrition items like the truly-raw (unpasteurized) almonds, she has tapped into a second group, the raw foodist / earthy-crunchies, a group that my web research proves is growing massively.
A lot of people on her list in the beginning weren’t even interested in nutrition any more than the average person. Sally educated them! She is going to have an almond party and teach people how to soak/dehydrate them and make fun snacks. (She has also done this with quinoa and other items in her group buys.) She makes handouts and sends emails with great information. Some people in her co-op live too far away to regularly buy with the group, but just want her information! I told Sally she’s welcome to use a 12 Steps or Crunchy Snacks recipe collection recipe to hand out to her buyers (anyone reading this is welcome to do this—all I ask is that you credit the source).
Sally says, “People who care about eating right or preparedness FIND ME.” My experience parallels Sally’s. I have, however, never tapped into the “preparedness” people. I have never tracked down people to join my list, but you could certainly start that way by just asking around and finding people.
Sally said, “Every time I do a buy, my list doubles.” I agree with that as well. She started her organization a year ago and has a few hundred on her list now.
Sally is rather ambitious, educating people as well as providing them healthy food at low prices. I know other GSG.com readers who promote the products we do in our group buys with local craigslist ads, and who talk to their neighbors and people at the health food store to build a list. As Sally said (I second this, as well, with my observation that people want to be led toward a healthy lifestyle), “Eventually people have come to just trust me, and they buy whatever we offer in group buys.”
If you want to automate, make a simple web site with an order form. Take checks received in advance of your placing the order, or (these will charge fees) make it really simple by taking credit cards using authorize.net. (You get a discount by being referred by another authorize.net account, and you’re welcome to use GreenSmoothieGirl.com.) And you can take PayPal. Just a tip: more people have credit cards than PayPal accounts.
For the raw almonds, I suggest reselling them for $4/lb. That way if your order is 1,000 lbs., you will earn $1,000 for your efforts. Last week in this blog, I listed all the other items and prices that we are adding to the buy this year, including raw honey and raw agave.
Sales tax (but no shipping) will be assessed for Utahns in the local buy. Shipping (but no sales tax) will be assessed for everyone else. If you send a check, only ONE check per order, please. (Last year I had a nightmare to keep track of a dozen checks for one order, sometimes!) So if you are doing a group buy, have people make checks out to you, and you make a check out to GNGB. (That’s GreenSmoothieGirl Nutrition Group Buys.)
We’re getting tons of emails wanting the details on the group buy of raw almonds and 15 other items (raw agave, other nuts/seeds, coconut oil, etc.). I’m sorry that getting the order form up on the new site has taken longer than expected (lots of variables, and my webmaster hasn’t learned how to use the new applications yet).
But we’re close. I hope to have it up sometime this week. (The whole GSG store will also be new–and better.)
One thing that’s different is that you’ll be able to buy in 50# increments rather than 100#. That should make those who want to buy ONLY for their own use (especially single folks or small families) happy. However, the $3/lb. starts at 100#. 50# will be $4/lb., still an excellent price.
Co-op organizers, remember you will need to enter a name of the recipient for each 100# so we meet California law.
From Jenni (GSG admin):
Hello everyone! Just a note letting you know that if you like the GreenSmoothieGirl blog, you can vote in “Best of Utah Valley” in Utah Valley Magazine, for “favorite local blogger” in the People category at:
http://blog.uvmag.com/contest/
Or, you can email your favorite things to uvmag.com through this link:
http://blog.uvmag.com/contact-us/
There are a lot of different categories to vote on ( from restaurants, to grocery stores, to radio stations). Just read the contest rules and submit away!
We thank you all for commenting on the blog and helping make Robyn’s blog a great place to learn! Have a great day!
I am so confused. I have been drinking green smoothies for about 7 weeks now, which have replaced two of my meals because they are so filling, so delicious and full of such great stuff. But I’m really not losing weight, and I had so hoped eating this way would cause my weight to start burning off. I’m post-menopausal, about 65 pounds from my goal weight. I don’t snack anymore. I’m not cheating. Everything I eat is healthy, and my portions are right. My smoothies have plenty of greens in them. I drink lots of water, recently bought a portable alkaline water filter that I keep on my desk at work and refill all day long. My thyroid has been tested and it is fine. I’m moving some, and will move more, but even without it, I *should* be losing weight, and I’ve lost about 5 pounds in 7 weeks — hardly worth cheering about. These 65 p0unds are the same 65 pounds I have gained and lost dozens of times, and most of them were by unhealthy methods (stimulants, starving, over-exercising, etc.) I wonder if my body is so wacked out from that abuse that it doesn’t know how to lose weight unless it’s done the same old, unhealthy way. That certainly seems to be the case, which is very disheartening.
And what is the best way to lose weight? Low acid? Low glycemic? Low calorie? Low carbohydrate? Low fat? Low inflammation? Raw? Vegan? Macrobiotic? Body type? Maker? Grains/no grains? Blueberries/no blueberries? Almonds/no almond milk? Walnuts/no walnuts? AAACCCHHHH!!!
I am thoroughly confused and deflated. Is there anyone here who is middle age, had lots of weight to lose, and found a way to do it that is healthy?
I made Robyn’s Teriyaki Almonds for the first time this week, and they are awesome!!! but both my daughter and I had the same reaction when we first tasted them: whoa they’re salty. Followed the recipe exactly (yes, I used raw absolutely positively unpasteurized almonds, soaked overnight). Maybe my taste buds have changed since doing green smoothies and I no longer can handle a strong salty taste. Is there another way to make these, another flavor perhaps, that isn’t so salty? (aside from the candied almonds) And — just asking — how is it possible that all the nutrients, enzymes etc. aren’t baked right out of those suckers after drying them out for nearly 36 hours?!? That I REALLY don’t get.
Hi Robyn,
Can you clarify your opinion about using salt once again please?
I’ve just read the post from Debbie Took http://debbietookrawforlife.blogspot.com/2009/09/salt-pt-1-sodium-pinch-or-ten-of-salt.html and I’m totally confused.
I am new to the green smoothies. I am drinking about 20 oz. for breakfast. What are some lunch/dinner ideas to help me stay healthy and lose weight?
My son is turning two in just a couple weeks. We have moved to the whole foods lifestyle as a family now. I have no problem breaking the rules on occassion, the problem is that my son cannot handle white flour. It consitpates him beyond words, he got that honest from Momma!
So, I am looking for an alternative to the normal birthday cakes. We tried one some time back that was a store box mix, but from Whole Foods and made with whole wheat flour. It was aweful! It was likely rancid, which would account for the really strange taste. We are used to whole grains, but I am sure the less than fluffy cake was a shock to our taste buds.
I was thinking maybe I could even make a whole grain banana bread and figure out some type of frosting to put on it. Would anyone have a recipe that would fit the part? Or any other ideas???
Thanks,
Kari
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