A Daily Dose

Supplement.

I write and think a lot about food, nutrition, and food and as a primary medicine but I I decidedly avoid the topic of vitamins.  Vitamins and minerals are, of course, and essential part of our health and vitality; and yes, we should be able to get all the vitamins and minerals we need from our regular diets. I believed this for a very long time. And then, in my late twenties, I had health problems. I was regularly exposed to toxic chemicals in my environmental cleanup work, and previous illnesses had left my immune system weakened. When I finally found a health care practitioner that prescribed vitamins I was dubious. I thought that the vitamin industry was mostly just scamming lazy people that couldn't be bothered to eat right.

Then I started taking targeted vitamins at specific dosages designed to address my deficiencies. And I felt much, much better.  I also started catching less colds and flu bugs and getting over them faster.  The right vitamins have helped fight leg cramps, improved my mood, and gotten me through some big-time cold seasons. Now, I have a daily dose that changes with the seasons and makes me feel noticeably better when I take it regularly. I am grateful for this. Sometimes it's worth testing our own assumptions and paradigms. You never know what your truth might be. 

The FDA's website about vitamins:

http://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/consumerupdates/ucm118079.htm

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Photograph Courtesy of:

http://www.medicaly.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/The-benefits-of-vitamins-for-pregnant.jpg

Take Care of You

Heal.

There are some illnesses and injuries that are neither life threatening nor particularly treatable.  In these cases the frustrating answer from health specialists is rest, eat good food, and, in general, take good care of yourself.  Recovery never seems to be as fast as we would like it to be.  I do however enjoy the side benefit of being forced to create new, healthier habits and hopefully drop some old, less healthy ones.  Try as we might we all have vices, proclivities, weaknesses, and things we simply just don't like to do.  But when it comes down to it, our day to day choices are the single most important thing for our health, make them good ones.

Michael Pollen's Resources for Food and Eating:

http://michaelpollan.com/resources/

Like what you are reading?  Then support the Kickstarter for my book Girl Gone Wild- On Being a Woman in the Wilderness.  Thanks!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1731666363/girl-gone-wild-a-guide-to-being-a-woman-outside?ref=city

The Heat of Summer

Fever.

Every couple of summers or so I pick up a summer flu or infection of some kind that knocks me onto the couch and under blankets.  Though summer sicknesses never seem to linger the way a winter bug will, it always feels somehow worse than in other seasons.  I know that this is entirely psychological.  Summer is the season of fun and vacations and running around outside, not the season of tea and cuddling up in the early evening, being sick isn't in the plan.  What is valuable though, is the reminder that true illness or injury, major accidents, cancer, diabetes, is never in the plan, they have no convenient season.  While spending a day or two watching movies and sipping soup might be a summer in the sunny season, days of doctors appointments, treatments with debilitating side effects, and week to months of recovery is far worse.  Losing even a day or two, seeing how quickly we fall behind in life, how much there is to miss, is a really good reminder to take good care of ourselves.  Prevention is a practice that is entirely within our control, even if it's not something that is fostered by our dominant culture.

Be well.  Stay healthy.  Make good choices.