Juzeza's Journal

[eveheart]

Sometimes the career path gets glamorized, and folks think that they have failed if they don't land a choice job right out of college. My first fulltime job was in a similar financial slump as we have today, and I took what I could get. After that, I took what I could get again. Truth is, I didn't have a clear picture of what I wanted to do when I grew up. Somewhere along that path, I started defining myself and getting ahold of my own steering wheel. Then, I started getting jobs that matched my skills and my passions. My life has followed the organic route that you described.

I believe in the saying, "Do what you love and the money will follow." One detail that must be added: make sure "what you love" doing is a career. I've talked to a lot of people who "did" what they loved, but it was not anything of service to society. Money represents goods and/or services, so make sure you're in goods/service mode.

A book I like is Fail Up by Tavis Smiley. My own career path has been about failing better each time, until I finally "made it." I first had to become the person who deserved success and who stayed buoyant with each failure. 

I wish you good fortune. That's all I have to say. I hate old ladies who get all long-winded with advice.

[zeno]

I'm interested in committing myself to something but I'm not quite sure what at this point in my life--perhaps agriculture (like a bison rancher), perhaps something more closely related to my urbanite upbringing (like a teacher). I feel a sense of urgency pressing me to make the decision about not only my professional career, but my future as well, and now. Moreover, I not only feel compelled to satisfy my needs but as eveheart notes, my choice should also be valuable to society--that balance is difficult.

I suppose I need to relax and make some compromises for the time being because I'm quickly draining my savings.

The most frustrating part about all of this is that I feel if the world weren't so violent, chaotic and complex, I would be able to fit right in (I'm sure plenty others would agree these days). But now with all the stress of modern life, I would prefer to just abandon it and this diet has only increased that urge. 

Lately, I've been so fixated on reaching some point of satisfaction that when I don't find the satisfaction I was searching or aiming for I become overwhelmed with futility and frustration. I've forgotten that in life experience is based on perception. All I can focus on his how I've gained so much knowledge in the past few years of my life and I have nothing to show for it, which says quite a bit about my understanding of "knowledge" and "truth".

I just seek more from life than the average job may provide and I haven't come to terms with the idea of making that sacrifice. I don't want to be like my father, hating everyday of his life and waiting impatiently for retirement to find out that retirement is empty and just as unsatisfying as employment. I believe that he and I both suffer from not being able to realize that we are the master of our destinies; if we are unsatisfied we only have ourselves to rely on to either change our situation, or change our perception to appreciate our situation.

[zeno]

Hunger
After eating less than a 1/4 lb of fat and 1 lb of stew meat, I ate more fat and another 2 lbs of frozen ground beef this afternoon and I still felt a hunger--or thirst rather. I feel that while eating raw animal foods is amazingly savory, I hunger for something that frozen ground beef cannot satisfy. I'm determined to experiment with a raw, fresh food source soon. I believe there is something to the idea of devouring as much of an animal as possible to receive the full benefits of this diet, rather than just eating steaks everyday.

[zeno]

Grains
The other day I volunteered at the local food cooperative in the morning stocking foods. I stocked the bulk foods. When I stocked the long grain brown rice I took a big whiff of the rice and was disgusted by the smell of the rice. My sense of smell has become much more sensitive to grains.

I used to love the smell of grains, or at the least not mind them, but this odor truly was the opposite of appetizing. Strange...

[zeno]

Cooked Food Encounter

This weekend I visited a friend and enjoyed a breakfast meal together, which included: fried and microwaved bacon, pan-fried vegetables and eggs, fruit and yogurt, tea and condiments. I had already eaten a raw meal that morning and was quite full, then on top of that I stuffed myself again. The reaction I had was terrible. I produced the most noxious gas throughout the day; felt bloated; couldn't think clearly because my body was trying to digest the chaos of the cooked food and terrible combination of food; and to top it all of, I wasn't able to sleep at night.

This meal, though, provided a great revelation: for when I was a vegetarian, I ate just as these people did. The insomnia I suffered from was akin to the past when I was eating cooked foods. I now know that it wasn't necessarily insomnia that I was suffering from, but indigestion which caused insomnia because my body was working so hard to digest the food I had eaten. In the meantime, because I thought I needed a ton of food as a vegetarian, I was overeating constantly, which made matters worse.

The improvement in my sleep alone demonstrates the improvement and ease of assimilation of raw foods over cooked foods.

I'm glad to have an experience which reaffirms my decision to stop eating cooked foods.

[zeno]

Difficulty of Assimilating Meat

As much as I'm glad to have moved to a raw diet, I still feel uncomfortable eating the large amounts of meat that I do. My carbohydrate intake is still quite low and I feel that meat may be causing my body to be too acidic. In general, I feel that I don't digest meat well and therefore it is difficult to tell when I'm sated, leading to overeating and then feeling quite terrible.

Lately, I've been drinking blood and digest it fairly well which leads me to believe that my cravings for milk are a sign I should head. Since I began this diet I've craved fat but haven't experimented with a fluid fat source (such as milk), only a solid fat source (suet).

After reading through Macfadden's text, The Miracle of Milk, and Brady's account on the milk diet I hypothesis that I'm not quite ready yet to ingest solid foods. I'd prefer something that is easier to digest. I recently found a source for raw milk and will begin experimenting with raw milk.

Gratitude
I'm thankful that I've been able to learn of this diet. The insomnia I experienced when I was eating cooked foods haunted my every moment. I was surprised I hadn't fallen over and died from the lack of sleep.

Now that I've made a small improvement by removing cooked foods, I find another discovery which may lead me to a healthier existence at which point I will be able to consume raw animal foods as easily as most others do.

It seems that my condition is much worse than I could have imagined, or that the diet I had before was so nutritionally devoid and devastating that I slowly was deteriorating. I can see now the progression of improvements that I've made (and that most make over time): first cutting out poor quality, cooked proteins and fats; then removing processed foods; and then removing cooked foods. The next step may be removing solid foods for a short time.

[zeno]

Comparing the Student Body of the University of Nevada, Reno in Photographs
I remember walking around the UNR campus and admiring the beauty of the students photographed over one-hundred years ago. The students show stunning health compared to the students of today.

1900


1989


2011


Photographs such as these demonstrate how malnourished (obese and underweight) we have become. Our state of health is truly deteriorating quite rapidly; even just a few decades ago people showed a greater vibrancy on average than we do now.

[zeno]

Raw Dairy: Day 1
I'm feeling great after a day of raw milk! With meat, I always felt that I was getting too much of certain things and not enough of others. With raw milk, the nutrition is more balanced. I can drink (sip, rather) several servings of milk and feel plenty nourished! I don't need pounds and pounds of meat. Perhaps in the future, after I've nourished some deficiency through milk.

Raw milk may be just the thing to build oneself up in order to be able to handle raw meats just like the other people who thrive on them. I remember when I first ate raw meat after being a vegetarian and vegan for quite some time, that I exploded with great vitality and force. After a while of a diet high in meat, I was realizing that I was missing something else. I hope to be able to thrive on a low carbohydrate diet such as others do.

Perhaps, a primal diet (one that includes more carbohydrates in vegetables, honey, and dairy) would be better suited for me. Rather than just raw milk, or mostly raw meat, all of these things combined would be best.This seems quite balanced. Enjoy everything in its raw and pristine state: foods from the sea, foods from the sky, foods from the earth and foods from the water (lakes and rivers). This is the way Native Americans survived, too.

Consumption of Raw Dairy: Technique of Sipping
The natural way all mammals imbibe milk is through sucking on a teat. Macfadden stresses that dairy is not to be drunk but sipped. I cannot stress this enough. Although I desire to drink milk heartily, the moment I do I produce gas and I can feel large curds forming in my stomach. Sipping that imitates the sucking of a teat is the only way dairy should be imbibed. This observation by Macfadden is tantamount.

[zeno]

Necessary Tool for the Milk Diet
After reading The Miracle of Milk and drank my first glass of raw dairy (and first glass of dairy in years) I realized the importance of sipping the milk. Upon pondering the consumption of milk more, I realized: Well if newborns suck the teat of their mother in order to draw the milk, then sucking at the lip of a cup seems silly when  baby bottles were invented for just such that purpose.

As ridiculous as it may seem I decided to buy a baby bottle in order to most properly imitate a newborns suckling at a teat. The bottle has been amazing in maintaining a small curd size as I ingest the milk and actually creates a sweeter flavor of the milk through the sucking action. (On top of that, the bottle makes measuring out 8 oz. of milk convenient.) Foolishly drinking milk like water or other liquids would be disastrous due to the large size of curds that form in the stomach. Moreover, that milk is a food for newborns it only makes sense that the consumption of milk such imitate the way in which newborns consume milk.



It may all seem crazy, but its working. Besides the awkwardness and inconvenience of this diet, I'm really enjoying constantly drinking milk.

[RawZi]

    Zeno, is that bottle made of glass?  Plastics, well,  not as paleo lol.  Sucking from a woman's areola/nipple or an animal teat, the head would be in a different position than from a regular bottle.  Also, a breast doesn't get air in it, as many bottles do.  It could make a difference, not to mention a regular bottle you make an mmmm suck, while with teat or areola/nipple you make a LLLLL suck.  Maybe you'll check additional nipples/bottles out http://pregnancy.about.com/od/babyproducts/tp/tpbottles.htm I haven't myself, I just drink my milk slow, when I drink it.

[jessica]

well  i hope that is only a temporary part of your healing and that, like an infant, you move on to solid food...

[TylerDurden]

well  i hope that is only a temporary part of your healing and that, like an infant, you move on to solid food...

  Yes, I always think of cutting out milk from a person's diet  as "weaning"!   

[zeno]

Thanks for the information on milk bottles! The bottle I bought was a BPA-free plastic bottle although I'd like a nice amber glass bottle ideally.

I'll try to find a bottle nipple that would allow for me to suck with my  lips and not my tongue. I noticed that I do suck more with my tongue using a nipple. How did you know the difference between sucking on a nipple and sucking on a bottle? 

I think I'll eventually wean myself both from using a bottle and excessive raw dairy in the future. I'd like to try to maintain this diet for at least one month. The only reason why I wanted to experiment with the bottle is to see if there was any value in it. Besides, sucking on the rim of a glass was tiresome and uncomfortable. Sucking on a nipple is so comforting! I feel like I'm re-living my childhood!   

[zeno]

Macfadden on Sipping
Just for convenience, here is what Macfadden wrote about sipping milk rather than drinking it:

"The milk should be sipped slowly. It is very important that the milk enter the stomach in small amounts. The smaller the sips the smaller the curds in the stomach and the better the digestion. If taken as one drinks water, large, difficulty-digested masses are formed. The preferred and, in fact, the ideal way to take milk, and the manner that more nearly simulates the nursing baby’s way, is to close the lips very tightly over the rim of the glass, the edges of the lips barely covering the rim of the glass, with a very small opening. This plan necessitates a vigorous sucking in order to draw the milk into the mouth and this sucking produces a contraction pressure upon the salivary glands, forcing their secretion into the mouth and in contact with the milk, to dilute it and to help produce smaller curds when the milk passes into the stomach. Besides, the milk tastes better when taken in this manner, and both salivary and gastric juices flow more freely. This naturally favors more nearly normal digestion of the milk."

[RawZi]

How did you know the difference between sucking on a nipple and sucking on a bottle? 

    I had to breastfeed 3 or 4 babies.  Also calves have sucked on my hands and feet.  The tongue squishes the udder or nipple against the roof of the mouth.  With a bottle suck with lips, and squirt larger amount down throat.  Breastfeeding instead it bathes the mouth, and comes out the slowest usually.  With the lips it's yummmm, with the tongue squishing to roof of mouth it's Lalalala.

...Besides, sucking on the rim of a glass was tiresome and uncomfortable. Sucking on a nipple is so comforting! I feel like I'm re-living my childhood!   

    No one in my lineage used a plastic, rubber or polyurethane nipple.  I guess if I shall ever get nostalgic about nursing, I'll have to find a woman.  I think sniffing an armpit should be enough though.  I was nursed.  Olfactory stuff sticks with me more I think.

[zeno]

With a bottle suck with lips, and squirt larger amount down throat.  Breastfeeding instead it bathes the mouth, and comes out the slowest usually.  With the lips it's yummmm, with the tongue squishing to roof of mouth it's Lalalala.

That's a great description. I observed that the nipple squirts the milk down my throat if I use it the way its intended. I opt to just suck on the end of the nipple.

[zeno]

Birth Defect
I'm not certain what my birth complications have to do with my present health, but my Mother told me I was born with jaundice. However, I was breastfed--which I'm very thankful for.

I know nothing about jaundice. Perhaps research into this disease might shed some light on possibilities of abnormality.

From Wikipedia:

"Jaundice (also known as icterus;[1] attributive adjective: icteric) is a yellowish pigmentation of the skin, the conjunctival membranes over the sclerae (whites of the eyes), and other mucous membranes caused by hyperbilirubinemia (increased levels of bilirubin in the blood). This hyperbilirubinemia subsequently causes increased levels of bilirubin in the extracellular fluid. Typically, the concentration of bilirubin in plasma must exceed 1.5 mg/dL[2] (>26µmol/L), three times the usual value of approximately 0.5 mg/dL,[2] for the coloration to be easily visible. Jaundice comes from the French word jaune, meaning yellow.

Jaundice is often seen in liver disease such as hepatitis or liver cancer. It may also indicate obstruction of the biliary tract, for example by gallstones or pancreatic cancer, or less commonly be congenital in origin."

This suggests my suspicions of a poor digestive system could be related to this birth defect.

[zeno]

Bowel Movements: Transition
My most recent bowel movements have been deep red and extremely dense. I most recently ate goat meat, goat blood, and sauerkraut regularly until I began the milk diet. However, at the tail end of my last movement faded to green and was a comfortable density.

I suspect the sauerkraut fortified the feces to be extremely dense and fibrous while the blood effected the pigment. Those last movements required a lot of force--except for the end of the second movement. I'm curious to see what the future holds on this milk diet.

[eveheart]

my Mother told me I was born with jaundice. 

See neonatal jaundice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonatal_jaundice

[TylerDurden]

Whenever I eat raw sauerkraut, I always find that my stools are much, much bigger than before.

[RawZi]

Birth Defect
I'm not certain what my birth complications have to do with my present health, but my Mother told me I was born with jaundice. However, I was breastfed--which I'm very thankful for.

I know nothing about jaundice. Perhaps research into this disease might shed some light on possibilities of abnormality.

    Where were you born?  At home?  In a hospital?  Was your mother awake at your birth?  Were there any medical supplies around or personnel?  Were you actually jaundice at birth, or did it start a few hours later?

[zeno]

I was born in a hospital in Munich, Germany in 1988 after the Chernobyl incident, because of which, I'm not allowed to donate my blood (it's "tainted"). My Mother was awake at my birth and I had jaundice at birth. After my birth I was moved to a phototherapy chamber shortly there after.

My Mother would have to travel a great distance from the maternity ward to where the incubators were located to breastfeed me but she did so successfully.

[zeno]

I'll have to ask my Mother about how I was cured of jaundice, whether a bili light was used or not.

From Wikipedia:

"Light therapy is used to treat cases of neonatal jaundice[30] through the isomerization of the bilirubin and consequently transformation into compounds that the newborn can excrete via urine and stools. A common treatment of neonatal jaundice is the bili light.

"A bili light is a phototherapy tool to treat newborn jaundice (hyperbilirubinemia) which in higher levels causes brain damage (kernicterus), leading to cerebral palsy, auditory neuropathy, gaze abnormalities and dental enamel hypoplasia. The therapy uses a blue light (420-470 nm) that converts bilirubin so that it can be excreted in the urine and feces. Soft eye shields are placed on the baby to protect their eyes from damage that may lead to retinopathy due to the bili lights."

The bili light sounds intense and damaging...

So, I've learned that jaundice is caused by increased levels or accumulations of bilirubin in the blood.

"In neonates, jaundice tends to develop because of two factors - the breakdown of fetal hemoglobin as it is replaced with adult hemoglobin and the relatively immature hepatic metabolic pathways which are unable to conjugate and so excrete bilirubin as quickly as an adult. This causes an accumulation of bilirubin in the blood (hyperbilirubinemia), leading to the symptoms of jaundice."

It seems that jaundice could be misunderstood easily as well and then patients are simply placed in a phototherapy box and if the color of the eyes and skins normalizes then the patient is assumed healthy. This is especially possible since the high rate of neonatal jaundice:

"This condition is common in newborns affecting over half (50 -60%) of all babies in the first week of life.[2]

"Severe neonatal jaundice may indicate the presence of other conditions contributing to the elevated bilirubin levels, of which there are a large variety of possibilities (see below). These should be detected or excluded as part of the differential diagnosis to prevent the development of complications."

Here is a simplified explanation and definition of jaundice:

"Jaundice is a condition characterized by the yellowing of the whites of the eyes, the mucous membranes, and the skin. It is often caused by dysfunction of the liver. The yellow coloring comes from bilirubin, which is caused by aging red blood cells. The accumulation of excessive red blood cells within the body results in jaundice."

This is enlightening. This suggests all my concerns of poor assimilation and liver function could have been caused by neonatal jaundice. I doubt that I still have jaundice (or, high levels of bilirubin in my blood), but it is possible that I may be suffering from some effect of a weak liver at birth.

Perhaps a blood test would be enlightening. I haven't seen a doctor in years...

[zeno]

Milk Diet: Day 3
I slept poorly last night. Insomnia occurred just as if I had eaten cooked foods. I even had a nice bowel movement before sleeping which I thought would have relaxed me considerably. However, I tossed and turned all night which disturbed my assimilation of the food I had consumed during the day. Bummer.

Hopefully this will not occur again and was caused because I was becoming accustomed to consuming so much raw dairy. Hmmm...

[RawZi]

My Mother was awake at my birth and I had jaundice at birth. After my birth I was moved to a phototherapy chamber shortly there after.

My Mother would have to travel a great distance from the maternity ward to where the incubators were located to breastfeed me but she did so successfully.

    Did your mother tell you whether your jaundice got worse before it went away? Did anyone let you have any sunlight to treat the jaundice?  How old were you when they released you from phototherapy care?  When did the jaundice go away?  Your liver may be fine now.  There are various types of jaundice in newborns.  Some are too rare for doctors to mention, or because they willingly won't talk about it, unless you already know, and even then .. I'm wondering if you had a different kind.