Dr. Arturo M. Volpe

The issue here is that lithium has a terrible but undeserved reputation. At huge prescription doses, lithium remains the most effective way to control bipolar disorder. The fact that a natural mineral can be so effective is, in itself, a remarkable thing. However, such enormous doses – usually exceeding 900 mg of lithium carbonate – can be toxic and cause permanent kidney damage with long-term use, and this is where the bad reputation comes from.

At doses that are about or more than 1,000 times smaller, lithium is a natural trace mineral supplement with no known toxicity or other side effects. In fact, minute amounts of lithium occur naturally in our diet and, even though this mineral is not considered essential and there is no RDA for it, studies have shown that it plays an important role in human nutrition. According to one study, people with diets deficient in lithium have higher rates of hospital admission for a wide range of mental disorders (1). Other studies have correlated lithium deficiency with aggressive behaviors in both humans and animals (2).
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It is known that many types of autoimmune disease ñ including lupus and rheumatoid arthritis ñ occur in a disproportionately high number of women in comparison to men. This has led some investigators to wonder if estrogen, or an imbalance in estrogen, might somehow be involved in causing these conditions.

In a study reported last November (J Nutr 2003; 133 (11): 3,610-3), researchers examined mice that had been genetically engineered to develop lupus and gave some of them the supplement indole-3-carbinol (I3C).

I3C is a natural food component found in vegetables of the brassica family that includes broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage and a few others. Whether ingested as food or as a supplement, I3C has a powerful balancing effect on estrogen levels, promoting higher levels of healthy estrogen and lower levels of a dangerous type of estrogen that has previously been linked with hormone-related cancers. I3C and a closely related compound called DIM are commonly a vailable as dietary supplements.

Even though this mice study is a far cry from the human study that is badly needed, the researchers concluded that I3C could both prevent the onset or improve symptoms of existing lupus. As they stated, “Dietary modulation has the potential to prevent or ameliorate systemic lupus erymathosus (SLE). These findings demonstrate a profound effect of dietary I3C.”

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In spite of all the talk about mercury and phasing it out from vaccines, it is still being used legally as a preservative in many vaccines and other medications, some of which are available over the counter.

To find a complete list of medications containing mercury see http://www.fda.gov/cder/fdama/mercury300.htm

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The food industry bombards our children with wonderful bright colors, exciting characters, and products that are actually quite addictive. Everywhere you look these days you see horrible excuses for food, marketed directly to our children. There are shocking pink and electric blue drinks (can you imagine how much dye shocking pink takes?). There is oatmeal in easy-to-use individual packets containing treasures or dinosaurs that actually pop up when you add water and heat it. (Be very wary of the nutrition labeling on these products. One says 6 grams of sugar per serving, but the serving size is only 1/3 of an individual bag. That is a whopping 18 grams of sugar per packet, not to mention the added flavors, colors, and other chemical additives).

The garbage contained in boxes of cereal for kids is astonishing. We wonder why seemingly typical children have behavioral issues. Look at the way we start their day: breakfasts that include toaster pastries, cinnamon rolls, and chocolate chip waffles, just to name a few. Even many of the natural organic cereals (which at least don’t have partially hydrogenated oils, artificial flavorings and colorings) are loaded with evaporated organic cane juice (a fancy name for SUGAR). And in all reality we, as parents struggling to make a healthy diet, are at a disadvantage. So, I guess it is time to fight back.

Let’s be honest, the packaging of most health foods leaves a lot to be desired in the minds of young children. Especially when in the other aisles there is a cool cheetah wearing shades on a brightly colored bag of snack chips. And let’s be real: does the oatmeal that you sweetened yourself with just a little honey and cinnamon stand a chance against bright-colored dinosaur magic?

Quite simply, the answer is “yes.” As a responsible parent you are the expert on your child, not the advertising departments of these food companies. Be your own marketer. Promote the healthy food you make for your family. Take that box of plain oatmeal and some small baggies. Hit the Dollar Store and invest in stickers of your child’s favorite characters. Also pick up some tiny toys, maybe a pack of assorted dinosaur figures. Decorate the bags differently so there is plenty of variety to choose from. Then measure out one serving of oats, cinnamon, raisins (or any other dried fruit they like – remember, you are the expert!) and maybe a sweetener like Xylitol (a naturally sweet substance that can be used exactly like sugar, but is not digestible and actually has the added benefit of being a natural antibacterial) into each bag. Throw in a toy dinosaur – you know, the prize-in-the-cereal-box way of thinking – to make it even more exciting.

The great thing about having all-in-one individual bags is that your child can select the bag they want, pour it in their own bowl, retrieve their prize, measure the water with a measuring cup, and then let you microwave it for them. If your child is on a gluten-free diet, try this idea with Cream of Buckwheat cereal. In order to balance out this fun bowl of carbohydrates, make sure to include protein. Add a side of all-natural nitrate-free bacon or sausage, or an egg.

Use your imagination and creativity to fight back. They are your children. When health problems arise later, the Big Food industry won’t be there to help, and it will all be up to you.

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There are many different types of seizures, and many diagnoses that go with them. Different seizure disorders can have different causes, ranging from high fevers to trauma, infection, and chemical intoxication. In some cases the precise cause may be elusive, but most seizure disorders have one thing in common: they can be managed entirely by diet.

If you think this is just another one of my controversial statements, think again! The diet in question, known as the ketogenic diet, was developed in the early decades of the 20th century under the aus pices of the American Medical Association. It has continued to be researched to the present day in such meccas of mainstream medicine as Johns Hopkins Hospital. A history and a detailed description of the diet can be found in the book “The Ketogenic Diet: a Treatment for Epilepsy” by John Freeman, MD.

A parent’s report in the foreword to this book is quite revealing: “After thousands of epileptic seizures, an incredible of array of drugs, dozens of blood draws, eight hospitalizations, a mountain of EEGs, MRIs, CAT scans, PET scans, and one fruitless brain surgery, Charlie’s seizures were unchecked, his development delayed, and he had a prognosis of continued seizures and progressive retardation. Since we started the diet Charlie has been virtually seizure-free, completely drug-free, and a terrific little boy ever since.” So what is the ketogenic diet, and how can it be so effective? The major feature of this diet is that it severely restricts sugar and all other carbohydrates until the body’s metabolism switches from burning sugar for energy to burning fat. When this happens, benign compounds known as ketone bodies are produced. They circulate in blood and can be measured in urine with so-called ketone sticks. Positive readings on ketone sticks indicate that the diet is being implemented correctly, and so the diet itself has come to be known as ketogenic or ketone-inducing.

Our brains require relatively enormous amounts of energy. In fact, the adult human brain represents only 2% of total body mass but accounts for 15% of total energy needs of the body (Guyton, 8th edition, p. 684). The brain will always burn sugar for energy, as long as it’s available; but when it runs out, the brain adjusts easily and very efficiently to burning ketones.

Although there would seem to be a benefit to the brain from burning ketones, this benefit is not nderstood and we don’t know exactly how this diet works to control seizures. Another and perhaps overlooked aspect of this diet is that it completely eliminates sugar and severely restricts all carbohydrates. I have observed consistent behavioral and attention-related improvements with only moderate reductions in sugar and carbohydrate intake. Could it be that the complete elimination of these items has even greater brain-healing benefits for these severe cases?

Not only is this diet effective, it is completely safe. Studies have found consistently that children, even infants, on this diet develop normally. A recent study looked at the safety of the diet in infants as young as 3 months old without finding evidence of any detriment in terms of general health or growth and development (Pediatrics, 2002; 109 (5): 780). While it is known that protein and fat are essential to human life, we apparently do just fine without carbohydrates.

So why haven’t you heard about this diet from your neurologist? The answer to this question may lie primarily with a medical bias towards drugs and surgery. According to medical standards of care, the diet should only be considered in severe cases when drug therapy fails. Although I disagree with this policy, it does provide further evidence of the diet’s effectiveness.

From what I hear, in everyday practice the diet is rarely mentioned, even when drugs don’t work. In one case, when the mother of one of my patients asked her child’s neurologist about the diet, she was told with a smile that “yes, the diet could work in theory but it’s just too difficult to follow.” The neurologist’s recommendation in that case was experimental brain surgery.

In reality, the medical textbook description of the ketogenic diet makes it unnecessarily complicated and difficult to implement. A simpler version of this diet is the Atkins diet. The Atkins diet is also ketone-inducing, plus it has the added benefit that most people have a basic familiarity with it and there are books in every bookstore telling us how to follow it. Could it be just as effective?

This is exactly what a recent study performed at Johns Hopkins Hospital found. Researchers concluded that the Atkins diet is a “well-tolerated alternative to the ketogenic diet for treating medically-resistant epilepsy” (Epilepsia 44 Suppl. 9: 282 (Abst. 2. 310), 2003).

Now, you may be thinking that the Atkins diet is for weight loss and your child would wither away on it. However, it has been shown that carbohydrate-restricted diets have a “weight-optimizing” effect and it is just as likely for underweight people to gain weight on these diets as it is for overweight individuals to lose weight. For a more comprehensive discussion of the weight-optimizing effects of low-carbohydrate diets, see “Life without Bread” by Wolfgang Lutz, MD.

When implementing the Atkins diet, it is important to make healthy choices, avoiding man-made fats like margarine and the low-carb “fake” foods that are now becoming prevalent in restaurants and on grocery store shelves.

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If, like many of us these days, you have a problem with wheat and other grains containing gluten, and if you feel better when you avoid them, the problem may have started with a course of antibiotics.

In a recent article in The Lancet (Vol 361, 2003: 2152-4) published as a “medical hypothesis,” researchers studied the proteins on the cell surface of the yeast Candida albicans. They found that many of these proteins have striking similarities to gluten, a protein in wheat and some other grains.

Antibiotics are known to lead to an overgrowth of yeast, including Candida albicans. This overgrowth, in turn, leads to an immune response directed against the yeast. But since the yeast protein is so similar to gluten, the immune system could easily become confused and start attacking wheat thereby causing a variety of health conditions that can only resolve when gluten is avoided.

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There is yet another study that shows a positive therapeutic relationship between diet or dietary supplements and ADHD. Supplements contain nutrients that are – or at least should be – found in our everyday diet. Therefore, if supplements can somehow help lessen the severity of or even correct ADHD, this proves that there is a causal link between food and attention deficit/hyperactivity.

In a study I reviewed a few months ago, some children were given Ritalin and others a long list of vitamins and other nutrients. This was a shotgun approach whereby children taking the supplements were given everything under the sun instead of specifically what they needed. Nevertheless it worked, and the study found similar improvements in both groups (1).
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A recent study on antibiotics was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (“Antibiotic use in relation to the risk of breast cancer” (JAMA, 2004; 291: 827-835).

The study concludes that antibiotic use is associated with an increased rate of breast cancer, although researchers could not identify a specific mechanism through which cancer might be caused.

It is interesting to note that this study relates to all antibiotics and not to a specific type. Considering the huge differences in chemical makeup between different classes of antibiotics, it is likely that cancer is a result of something all antibiotics do to the body, and not of a specific chemical they contain. In addition, it would seem odd that antibiotics cause breast cancer, a hormone-related cancer, and not other types of cancer.

This study especially captured my attention because of information contained in the book “The Circadian Prescription” by Sidney Baker, MD. Dr. Baker is a respected authority on integrative medicine and founder of Defeat Autism Now! (DAN) and his book, published in the early 1990s, offers a precise explanation of how antibiotics can lead to breast cancer and in Dr. Baker’s opinion prostate cancer as well.

To understand Dr. Baker’s explanation it is important to know that all of us were “designed” to host a dense population of bacteria often referred to as “healthy flora” or more simply “good bugs” in our digestive tract. The numbers of these inhabitants of our digestive system are astounding. We used to hear estimates of billions, or hundreds of billions, but then it was trillions and hundreds of trillions. Apparently, the latest consensus is that they number in the quadrillions! Considering that our entire bodies are made up of one hundred or so trillion cells, there are clearly more bacteria in us than human cells.

These bugs are not just casual residents in our bodies; they play important roles and contribute in a very significant way to our overall health. We rely on them to produce certain
vitamins and other nutrients that we need but which are not contained in sufficient amounts in our food.

It’s a perfect relationship: the bugs live on fiber and other parts of our food that we cannot digest and, in turn, they produce fatty acids and vitamins (such as biotin) that are essential
to our health. Some of these bacterial substances also help regulate our hormone chemistry and thereby protect us from hormone-related cancers.

But what happens if the “good bugs” are somehow turned into “bad bugs?” Now we may harbor bacteria and also possibly yeast that, instead of working for us work against us, waging chemical warfare on our bodies and even our brains. Instead of producing vitamins for us they produce poisons. Instead of helping regulate our hormones they harm them, introducing hormone-like substances in our bodies that can wreak havoc with our own hormones and increase our risk of cancer, including breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men.

In a nutshell, antibiotics are the prime cause of damage to our intestinal flora. Antibiotics are designed to kill bacteria, but in addition to killing their intended targets, they also kill the
bacteria that contribute to our health, thus enabling opportunistic “bad bugs” or yeast cells to take their place.

According to Dr. Baker, just a single dose of antibiotics can damage our flora to such an extent that it could take months or years to recover, even if we are taking specific action to
promote such recovery.

We all know that antibiotics can be lifesaving if used appropriately, but knowing their darker side helps us understand why they should be used only when strictly necessary. When they must be used, Dr. Baker recommends consuming plenty of fiber to limit the damage by feeding the good bugs, plus yogurt containing live “healthy” bacteria. If damage is thought to be extensive due to long-term or frequent use of antibiotics over the course of many years, more drastic corrective measures may be needed and it would be advisable to work with a doctor or a nutritionist experienced in this area.

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This may sound like a dream come true! If you hate vegetables, or if your child stubbornly refuses to eat any, just take a pill or a flavored powder and get the same benefits. I hate to always be the one to give out the bad news, but I don’t think this is a good idea.

First of all, one of the main benefits of vegetables is what they are not. Vegetables are not junk food, so if you eat a vegetable you are not, at least at that moment in time, eating junk food. But if you take a pill.

Vegetables are also not starches. If you’ve been a reader of this newsletter for a while, you know that I am no friend of excessive starches or carbs. One way to moderate starch intake is to increase the amount of vegetables in a meal.

Let’s take broccoli and rice to illustrate this point. A cup of cooked broccoli contains 45 calories, 4 grams of protein, no fat and 8 grams of carbohydrate (raw broccoli contains less). In contrast, the same amount of cooked rice has 185 calories, 4 grams of protein, also no fat, and 42 grams of carbohydrate. In other words it would take five and a quarter cups of broccoli to match the carbs in a single cup or rice.

And what about the good things actually contained in vegetables that you would not get from a pill? The first of these is water, and to go back to our example broccoli is 90% water. This means that vegetables also help hydrate the body, something no pill will do.

The water in vegetables also forms a complex matrix with minerals and other nutrients, thus enhancing their absorption. This matrix is broken when vegetables are dehydrated and processed to make them into pills. Also, it is unclear to me if and to what extent nutrients are preserved during the process.

The next important component of vegetables missing from a pill is fiber. Our cup of broccoli contains a respectable 4 grams of fiber, not as much as found in prunes, for example, but well in excess of the 0.7 grams in a cup of white rice. Brown rice is a good source of fiber but still comes in at only 3 grams per cup. Fiber is completely eliminated or at least drastically reduced when vegetables are concentrated to make them into pills.

Finally, consider that vegetables sometimes contain bad things as well, like pesticide residues. If the manufacturer of a vegetable extract does not guarantee an organic source, it is likely that these chemicals are concentrated in the final product after the water and fiber are removed.

Some vegetables also contain naturally occurring anti-nutrients. For example, spinach is rich in calcium, but also contains oxalic acid that prevents us from absorbing that calcium. Cooking inactivates oxalic acid and thereby makes th e calcium available to us. Of course other nutrients, like vitamin C, are lost in cooking, which is why I recommend eating a mix of raw and cooked vegetables.

My point is that these vegetable pills or powders are always promoted as preserving the goodness of raw vegetables but no reference is ever made to the downside, like the lack or fiber and the presence of anti-nutrients found in raw vegetables but not in cooked ones.

Now that you know that vegetable powders or pills are not a solution, what do you do about your child who still refuses to eat any vegetable? Unfortunately this is a complex question that I cannot answer in general terms, but one that I have been working on, many times successfully, with individual families. Realizing that there are no quick and easy solutions is a good place to begin when developing a successful strategy.

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Before beginning this discussion, it’s worth mentioning that mercury is the single most toxic non-nuclear element known to man. To get an idea of how toxic it is, consider that adding 1/70th of a teaspoon of mercury every year to a 25-acre lake will pollute it in just a few years to the point of making the fish in it hazardous for human consumption (1). A well-recognized safety threshold for mercury in human blood is 5.8 parts per billion, a minuscule amount.

In infants and small children, mercury interferes with normal neurological development and is suspected of causing a broad range of disorders from autism to ADHD and dyslexia. In
adults, its effects are non-specific but it can play a role in causing a multitude of conditions including depression and anxiety, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia and immune system disorders.

Nevertheless we continue to pour mercury into our environment, primarily from coal-burning power plants that, according to estimates, spew 40 tons or 80,000 lbs of mercury into our environment each year in the U.S. alone (2). Mercury has now been detected everywhere in our surroundings, including in New York snow and rain at levels far above those considered safe (3). This mercury then flows to lakes and oceans, where it accumulates in the fish we eat.

We have also been operating on the premise that adding a little mercury here and there isn’t going to hurt anyone, and so we’ve put it in vaccines and other medications as the
preservative thimerosal. We also use it to make dental fillings known as “silver” or amalgam fillings, which are 50% mercury, even though it has been shown to leak from these fillings (4).

The results are beginning to be revealed. Studying levels of mercury in umbilical cord blood, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently concluded that as many as 630,000 babies are born each year in our country at risk of lowered intelligence and learning problems due to exposure to mercury in the womb.

This finding doubles previous estimates by the EPA. In earlier studies, the agency only evaluated levels of mercury in women’s blood, considering 5.8 parts-per-billion (ppb) to be the threshold for danger.

Looking instead at umbilical cord blood, the EPA came to the realization that a fetus has no means of excreting mercury, so levels as low as 3.5 ppb in maternal blood lead to a
dangerous buildup in newborns. The EPA estimates that 1 in 6 women in our country has blood levels of mercury above 3.5 ppb (5).

Another astounding piece of the puzzle comes from a recent Institute of Medicine press release relating to an independent review of vaccine safety data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) (6). Analyzing pre-existing data, investigators concluded that children who receive three vaccines containing mercury as the preservative thimerosal are 27 times more likely to develop autism than children who receive the same vaccines without thimerosal. By comparison, men who smoke have a risk factor for developing lung cancer of 22 times over men who do not smoke, while for female smokers it is only 11 times more likely.

I have not seen any official denials of the EPA’s conclusions but I understand they are still under review. If confirmed, they are likely to have momentous repercussions. These findings clearly point away from genetics as a cause of neuro-developmental disorders and towards environmental causes. However, genetics do play a part.

In a seemingly unrelated study, investigators focused on genes that encode for glutathione-s-transferases (GSTs). GSTs are enzymes that detoxify the body from environmental poisons. Mutations in these genes are common, occurring in up to 20% of the human race, and result in a reduced ability to excrete toxins, eventually leading the toxins to build up in the body.

In the past, the presence of these mutations would not have made much difference to human health. But now, with increased levels of pollutants, these individual differences are becoming critical to the body’s ability to detoxify itself and can be the difference, for instance, between those children who withstand mercury in vaccines with little detriment to their neurological development, and those who don’t (7).

Additional research was conducted by Richard Deth, PhD, of Northeastern University and will be published in next month’s issue of Molecular Psychiatry (8). It shows that exposure
to toxic metals, including mercury, aluminum and lead, can cause adverse effects on methylation reactions in the brain and elsewhere in the body.

In simple terms, methylation reactions are basic processes whereby tiny compounds containing a single carbon atom are transferred from one molecule to another. They can be thought of as power switches used by the brain and other parts of the body to turn many critical processes on or off, including DNA function and gene expression.

If methylation is disrupted early in life for instance as a result of exposure to mercury this can affect development of the brain and lead to conditions like autism and ADHD.

One molecule that must be methylated to become active is vitamin B12. Basically, if the brain cannot methylate efficiently, any vitamin B12 that is there is useless and cannot play its fundamental role in orchestrating brain activity. This explains why regular injections of a methylated form of vitamin B12 (MB12) have produced such major clinical improvements in a majority of children with autism. These injections might repair (we hope) or may just compensate for damage previously caused by mercury.

MB12 injections have also been used for some time in Europe and in the U.S. by forward-thinking physicians in the treatment of fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple
sclerosis, and other conditions that may be partially related to mercury exposure in adults (9).

These many findings on mercury also give us a better understanding of why chelation a treatment approach to remove mercury and other toxic metals from the body has been such a major help for many children with autism and ADHD.

Chelation generally involves tak ing a product called DMSA on a rotating basis. Once inside the body DMSA acts as a magnet for mercury, lead, arsenic, and other toxic metals, safely shuttling these poisons out of the body through the urine. According to data collected by the Autism Research Institute (ARI) and DAN (Defeat Autism Now), when children can be shown to excrete metals while taking DMSA they almost always improve, sometimes dramatically.

Although DMSA is safe, some may not be able to tolerate it and can experience side effects (none serious or lasting). In these cases there are other detoxification approaches that show a great deal of promise. One of these involves a type of vitamin B1 called allithiamine, generally administered in cream form and absorbed through the skin.

A type of algae called chlorella has not been recommended for detoxification because much of the chlorella on the market is compromised at the source. Since chlorella has an
enormous affinity for mercury it binds to it in the ponds where it is generally grown and is therefore already contaminated before it’s even harvested.

However, certified uncontaminated chlorella deserves a closer look as a valid, safe and cost-effective option for removing mercury from the body. Like DMSA, chlorella is a magnet for mercury and other toxic metals. It is milder than DMSA and therefore better tolerated by some individuals. While it is true that chlorella is easily contaminated from external sources, there are types that are pure. In Germany, chlorella is grown for medical purposes in enormous glass tubes that create a completely isolated environment where contamination is virtually impossible (10).

References:
(1)
(2) and
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7) Lancet, 2004 Jan 10; 363 (9403): 119-25
(8) Molecular Psychiatry 2004, Volume 9, advance online publication doi:10.1038/sj.mp.4001476. For further information contact Christine Phelan, Northeastern University, Pharmaceutical Sciences, 716 Columbus Avenue, 5th floor, Boston, Massachusetts 02120; phone: 617-373-5455
(9)
(10)

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from Going Against the Grain by Melissa Diane Smith

1-1/2 cups raw almonds or hazelnuts or 2 cups raw pecans
7 eggs, separated
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp dried basil leaves
? tsp each of dried garlic powder and parsley flakes or 2 tsp of caraway seeds (optional)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Farenheit. Lightly grease a jelly roll baking pan. Grind nuts, half a cup at a time, in a food processor. Whip egg whites until soft (this works best with an electric mixer. If you don’t have one, beat vigorously with a whisk or blender; you’ll get an acceptable bread but it will slightly flatter). In a separate bowl, beat egg yolks, seasoning and ground nuts together. Beat egg yolk mixture into one quarter of the whipped egg whites. Then fold this mixture into the remaining whipped egg whites. Pour into the pan and spread it evenly. Bake 20 minutes or until brown. Allow to cool, then cut into bread-sized slices. Layer slices with parchment paper to prevent the bread from sticking together and store in a covered container. Refrigerate or freeze.

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from The Mood Cure by Julia Ross

Delicious in smoothies, or with chicken or vegetable broth or water for a soup base. Great in hot spicy herb teas or with fruit instead of whipped cream (it solidifies in the refrigerator) or diluted in any recipe that calls for milk or cream. Look for first-press (full-fat) canned milk without preservatives.

Thai Kitchen coconut milk is one of the best available in stores. Find it online at www.thaikitchen.com.

From scratch:
Method 1: Break open a fresh coconut and pour the clear milk into a blender. Remove the coconut meat, chop and place in the blender. Add enough hot water to bring the level to 4 cups. Blend at high speed for 3 minutes. Strain, pressing pulp to get out all liquid (this can be done in cheesecloth). Return pulp to the blender, just cover with hot water, and blend on high speed for 2 minutes. Strain, press again to remove all liquid from pulp, and discard. Refrigerate or freeze.

Method 2: Soak dehydrated full-fat coconut (unsweetened) overnight. Strain and press as above.

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from Janice Welch

2 cups almond flour (or any raw nut ground into flour except peanuts cashews are delicious)
1/6 cup melted ghee
2 tsp Frontier brand non-alcohol vanilla flavoring
1/4 tsp Frontier brand non-alcohol pure orange flavoring
1 Tbsp pure maple syrup
1 egg
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Combine flour with baking soda and salt, set aside. Whisk together ghee , vanilla flavor, orange flavor, maple syrup and egg. Pour into dry ingredients. Mix with spoon until combined. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper, and drop dough by spoonfuls into cookie sheet. Cook for approximately 12 minutes. Recipe yields 20 cookies (keep a batch on hand in the freezer they even taste good frozen).

Note: you can reduce the carbohydrate content of this recipe if you replace the maple syrup with Xylitol or use a combination of the two.

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1-1/2 cups almond flour
1/2 cup cashew butter
1/4 cup melted ghee
2 tsp Frontier brand non-alcohol vanilla flavoring
1 Tbsp pure maple syrup
1 egg
1 tsp Featherlight baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine flour with baking powder and salt, set aside. Mix together cashew butter, ghee, vanilla flavor, maple syrup and egg. Mix into dry ingredients. Mix with spoon until combined. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Form dough into balls and place on cookie sheet, flatten with a fork making a crisscross pattern. Cook for approximately 10 minutes. Recipe yields 24 cookies (this cookie is very crumbly not good for lunchboxes)

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from Janice Welch

2 1/2 cups of almond flour
1/3 cup melted ghee
1 large zucchini
2 tsp Frontier brand non-alcohol vanilla flavoring
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp vitamin C crystals (non buffered)
3 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare loaf pan with ghee and dust with almond flour. Combine flour with baking soda, salt, and vitamin C crystals in a bowl and set aside. Grate zucchini in food processor and change blade to the processing blade. Add the ghee, vanilla, and eggs to the zucchini and process until smooth. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix well. Spoon into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for approximately 50 minutes. Remove from pan and transfer to a cooling rack. If you will not be using very quickly, slice loaf in half, store one half in the refrigerator, the other in the freezer.

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from Janice Welch

1-2 cups almond flour
1/2 cup light buckwheat flour
Pinch of guar gum
14 ounce can of coconut milk
1 egg
1 tsp Frontier brand non-alcohol vanilla flavoring
1 tsp pure maple syrup
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp vitamin C crystals (non buffered)
1/2 tsp sea salt

Combine both flours with guar gum, cinnamon, baking soda, vit. C crystals, and salt. Set aside. Whisk egg, add in coconut milk, vanilla flavor, and maple syrup. Pour into dry ingredients. Mix until well combined. Lightly coat a nonstick griddle with coconut oil (it will not need to be re-coated after every batch). Heat over medium heat. Spoon batter onto heated griddle. Turn over after surfaced bubbles have popped. Pancakes are done when each side is well formed and lightly browned. Yield: 16 pancakes

These pancakes are sturdy and work very well in lunch boxes, they also freeze very well.

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from Janice Welch

This recipe is very easy and very good! The recipe makes only one serving, so adjust accordingly.

12 pecan halves (ground; you can use a parmesan cheese grater for pecans – they don’t get too oily)
1 egg
1/2 to 3/4 tsp honey
1/2 tsp Frontier brand non-alcohol vanilla flavoring

Prepare griddle on medium heat with a little melted ghee. Mix all ingredients together and drop by spoonful onto griddle. Cook till golden brown on both sides. Makes about 6 silver dollar pancakes. (They are not fragile and pack well in lunch boxes)

The recipe on the internet used Brazil Nuts. If you use them, use about 9 whole ones substituted for the pecans.

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from Janice Welch

1 1/2 cups almond flour
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup water
? tsp sea salt
1 tsp basil
1/8 tsp to 1/2 tsp garlic powder

Combine all dry ingredients then add water. Form dough into a ball and plop on parchment paper. Cover with another sheet of parchment paper and roll as thin as you can (1/16″). Remove paper from top and score into pieces with pizza cutter. Place the parchment paper with the crackers on a baking sheet and bake at 325 for 30 minutes. These crackers also freeze well.

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You can make flour from almonds and other nuts at home or you may order almond flour from www.almondsonline.com.

Pure buckwheat flour, free of gluten and other grains, is available from Jim Benedict at Spring Meadows Farms at 717.665.6004.

If you would like to get off antidepressants or other psychiatric medications, the first step is to talk to your psychiatrist. The website www.pharmacyconnects.com contains detailed information on the correct procedure to taper off different medications. In my experience physicians are not always informed of the best way to do so.

For non-toxic pest control, see www.getipm.com.

To find natural products for the home go to Janice’s Natural Products at http://216.147.71.201/ (an odd website but it works). Also see www.kbcottonpillows.com and www.livingsource.com.

To learn about issues surrounding vaccines, including your rights, see www.909shot.com and www.vaccineinfo.net Then if you want to become an expert on thimerosal and other hidden sources of mercury go to www.testfoundation.org.

For information on natural parenting see www.babyreference.com and www.naturalfamilyonline.com.

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It’s hard to miss the fact that Americans are diving into low-carb diets by the millions. Even large restaurant chains are now advertising “Atkins-approved menus” (whatever that means).

Considering that I have promoted carbohydrate restriction for years, when everybody else thought that low-fat was the answer to all human ailments, I should be pleased to see this trend; but the way it’s being implemented is loaded with pitfalls.

Recently a mother brought a box of pasta to my office and asked if it would be OK for her child, who is on a restricted-carb diet. The label did read “low-carb,” and it took me a while to understand what seemed at first to be a contradiction in terms: how can pasta be low-carb?

The two major ingredients in this pasta turned out to be wheat gluten and soy concentrate. It cannot be denied that gluten is actually a protein, not a carb, that is found in small amounts in wheat and other grains. In this case the manufacturer separated the gluten from the starch in the wheat and concentrated it to make high-protein pasta.

The only problem is that gluten is the single most problematic food component in our diet. It is very difficult for our digestive systems to break it down completely, and partially digested gluten has been implicated as a trigger for hyperactivity, auto-immune disease, intestinal disorders, autism, schizophrenia and more.

In addition, many of us have a relative intolerance to gluten. This means that we can stand small amounts of it, but we develop symptoms when we exceed our individual thresholds. So concentrating gluten to make “Atkins-approved” pasta is one of the worst ideas I have seen in a long time and one that is likely backfire on Americans’ health in a significant way.

The second ingredient in this “low-carb” pasta was soy, which is loaded with problems of its own. Soy is also very challenging for humans to break down, especially if it is not fermented (as it is usually found in traditional diets in Japan). In addition, soy has been found to inhibit enzymes in the brain that produce neurotransmitters. Soy also contains high levels of naturally occurring estrogens that can disrupt hormone development in children and can be a factor in hormone-related disorders in adults. These estrogens also inhibit the thyroid, and may be implicated in the current epidemic of hypothyroidism. To read more about soy and its dangers go to www.westonaprice.org/soy/tragedy3.html.

My idea of a low-carb diet has always been one based on natural protein and fresh vegetables, with grains and fruit consumed in small amounts. It would seem that the food industry has quite a different view of things. One thing is very clear: when food industry giants get involved, there’s likely to be trouble ahead.

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