Cake & Consequences

Easily one of the greatest offenses perpetrated by the modern medical community (and there are many), particularly where the so-called treatment of diabetes is concerned, is that it plays to the sick person's often desperate desire just "to feel normal again". 


I remember vividly how vulnerable I was, trembling behind tears as I sat in my endocrinologist's office for the first time after diagnosis. Still quite frail after 5 days in the hospital, I endured a seemingly endless onslaught of new information about what was required of me in managing my condition so that I might live well with diabetes. But can one really live well, in a state of chronic illness? Isn't illness fundamentally the opposite of wellness? "Just make the best of things, and try not to think about the future for now," seemed to be the message I was getting from my doctor. I would always be diabetic from now on, he had said. And if he could be considered mercilessly direct about anything, it was that. 


Compassionate, attentive and supportive as they were generally, however, it was never with the help of my endocrinologist or dietitian that I would learn what it really means to live with a chronic health condition. In the end, medicine has only served to prop up my ego, crutch after crutch after crutch, since the moment of diagnosis. It began with synthetic insulin and the suggestion that I substitute diet soda for regular. I was told I could still enjoy burgers and fries, so long as I didn't eat a whole order of fries all by myself. Things didn't really have to be so different, it seemed, and that was exactly what I wanted to hear. Please, oh please, tell me more about this diabetes of convenience. At one point, I had become curious about nutrition's role in health and was told by my dietitian that there was essentially no difference between organic and conventional foods. And later, when I received test results indicating elevated protein levels in my urine, I was told there was nothing I could do that would change things and that I should just take the pill that had been prescribed. 


And slowly, the truth began to sink in... Even though much of what I was being told did seem easier than changing my whole lifestyle, none of it made any sense.

Picture of Health

The truths we seek are not always the ones that find us.

Neither does help or healing always come from sources we expect. My guess is that most of us hold some picture in our minds of what we imagine health or healing to be. Probably we conjure some list of things to deny ourselves (like sugars or carbs), or things we feel should be added to our routines (like more exercise or more water). Some of us may even give our image a name - like "veganism" or "colonics" or "raw foodism". In some cases, our image is actually a living, breathing person whom we consider to be "the picture of health".

But on a subject as immediately personal and inevitably emotional as that of health, it's no wonder we come to identify ourselves so strongly with some particular method or ideal. It can become our mission, our purpose, our fight, and even our activism. Such goals may in fact be quite noble and well worth the education they can bring to ourselves and to others, but what I seem to be learning these days - both from what folks share with me, and from my own experience - is that real health and healing don't always conform to the ideas we impress upon them. And if there's one thing that health is NOT, it's cookie-cutter. (Mmmm, cookies... See what I mean?)

I bring this up now, before posting any additional blogs on the changes I've made that helped me go off synthetic insulin, because I wanted to take a moment to address something about which I had been feeling a bit awkward for a few weeks - the fact that I went from whole-heartedly consuming pretty much ALL raw foods (including veggies, fruits, meats, dairy and other unheated, unprocessed foods) to consuming only some raw foods. I must have felt convinced at some point that raw foods - and raw foods alone - would be my road to recovery; otherwise, I would not have entitled my blog what I did.

My perspective has shifted a bit now, however, and while there is much I've learned since embarking on my healing journey, I'm beginning to understand now that raw foods are to be only a part of that journey - a markedly significant part, mind you, but smaller than I had originally thought. While my healing process had mostly plateaued on an all-Raw foods diet (I wasn't ever able to come off that final 5 units of basal insulin per day), what I learned from the experience brought me hope, among other things. All the reading and experimenting I've done in the last year and a half have opened my eyes to possibilities I hadn't considered, and to truths I didn't want to see but cannot now forget. With absolute sincerity, I can state that I've no intention ever of returning to any kind of routine or regular consumption of conventionally farmed, mass-manufactured, processed foods. In fact, where they may be avoided, I fully intend to avoid them.

And even with those seeds of knowledge firmly sown for me, my having veered somewhat from my former course of an all-Raw foods diet felt, at first, like something of a betrayal. But whom or what was I betraying? The only goal I had ever really declared was healing. And having come off the synthetic insulin certainly was a big step in that direction... So what loyalty had I, then, to my former course?

The answer, I soon realized, was none. No loyalty at all... Not if I what I really wanted was to get better.

Insulin-Free Me: A Video Blog Introduction

While I'm hard at work simultaneously on about five different, new blog posts (I've got some serious catching up to do for all of you), I thought you might enjoy this little live action greeting I made especially with you in mind: 

To read more detailed information about my journey, please click the "INSULIN-FREE" tab above. For more information regarding the Hair Mineral test I mention in the video, please click here to visit the web page for Inspiring Health. Please check back under my Videos tab to view this and any other future videos I may post.

No Basal, No Bolus, No Bull

Mark this month!!! Because my insulin pump's been missing me...

I could tell by the sad little serenades emerging from the cupboard where I left it and didn't look back. For days, I slept peacefully untethered, showered freely, played in the sun and wrote away, happy as all heck to go on ignoring those tones of fear and abandonment... until at last I grew weary of its cries and finally just removed the battery.

On May 20th, the day of the new moon solar eclipse, I detached from my pump to sauna and shower, as had been my routine for weeks by then. But by the time I was ready to reattach it, the idea just didn't make sense anymore. My blood sugar was normal at 87. When it did go a little high, I had been erring on the side of under-correction. And even the insulin I took from time to time hadn't seemed to be doing much good lately.

In the preceding weeks, I had made a number of changes, to both my diet (to include more cooked vegetables) and my daily routine (i.e. food-based mineral supplementation, near-infrared sauna therapy, lots more water, coffee enemas and increased rest/relaxation as needed). At one point, seemingly out of nowhere, my numbers began to fluctuate like they hadn't done since my diagnosis four years ago. Suddenly I was experiencing serious blood sugar spikes from foods that normally didn't affect me at all. I'd have a fresh, light raw dessert I loved (sweetened with fruit or raw honey) and then get a blood glucose number an hour later as though I'd been drinking soda or eating pizza. I'd have a couple bites of raw almond butter with some raw milk and be punished as though I'd just made a meal of conventional ice cream.

Animal Farm

THE CHICKEN & EGG PROBLEM
It's not even a riddle in my mind. First came the eggs, and then the chickens who lied about them. And in the Ventura County case against raw dairy advocates Sharon Palmer and James Stewart, first came the verdict, and now finally... a public trial.

Innocent until proven guilty is just a myth in this land. And in its courts, “burden of proof” has become a crisis of faith. But don't look to the Ventura County District Attorney's office to explain why. After 18 months of fruitless investigation, god-knows how much in wasted taxpayer dollars, and three full days of useless time and testimony in court by six separate witnesses, the prosecution has proven very little in the March preliminary hearing on conspiracy charges against raw milk-man James Stewart and farmer Sharon Palmer. With 38 felony counts from which to choose, each related to allegations of defrauding farm investors, all that’s proven so far is this: A) Ventura County officials have no case; B) They apparently don’t care that they have no case; and C) They must therefore be pursuing some agenda outside that of the reasonable, albeit abstract, People.

If you’ve not yet read the full complaint, but would like to do so, you may by clicking here.

And now that you are somewhat familiar with the game and all its players, here is a fourth-grade level summary of the undisputed facts: Sharon Palmer is a farmer. In 2008, she needed help building up a farm. She and James Stewart and Larry Otting were all members of the same small health food community. By way of that community, various would-be investors learned of the opportunity to help Palmer build up the farm. With the aid of financial support from those investors, the farm (known as Healthy Family Farms LLC) was built and is currently operational, worked by Palmer and other dedicated volunteers. Still waiting for the nefarious, sordid plot to thicken? Me too...

What follows is a more comprehensive, albeit still very common sense, series of observations by this former Rawesome member on how the aforementioned chicken-and-egg game has played out so far in Ventura County court. On offense, we have Chris Harman of the Ventura County District Attorney's office and related investigators, and on defense, Sharon Palmer of Healthy Family Farms and James Stewart of Rawesome Foods.


(All photos were taken in March 2012 at Healthy Family Farms and are posted by permission.)

EGGSHIBIT A: THE FARM EXISTS.
Behold, in my hand, an actual chicken egg, from an actual chicken,
actually present at Healthy Family Farms in Santa Paula, CA.

FIRST, DO NO FARM
Perhaps you are rightly wondering already, as I am after weeks of scratching my head... If the farm exists (which it does) and still generates revenue (which it does), how could the investors possibly have been defrauded? One answer might be that they haven't. See, Palmer still is (and never hasn’t been) working to repay them. In fact, she might have had them repaid already, if it weren't for all the unwarranted attacks on her business over the years, including ruthless and unyielding slander campaigns by other community members, as well as repeated government raids on the farm which have resulted in extensive property destruction and/or seizures - all of which she has steadfastly endured.

At the hands of both Ventura and Los Angeles Counties together, Palmer has endured either a raid on the farm or a personal arrest, every year for the last five years, beginning on December 18, 2008 - just a few short weeks after the farm was finally up and running. Ventura County, she’s said, effectively put her out of the cheese business (which had been a significant chunk of her revenue) by calling every farmer’s market telling them she was not licensed. It wasn’t until two years later, she said, that they finally acknowledged that she actually had been licensed and dropped the felony charges against her to a third level misdemeanor. “They have spent millions raiding and arresting me for the last five years,” even after the (essentially coerced) ultimate dismantling of the farm’s dairy, Palmer said.

Milk-Slinging & Cookies

I shared a long emotional embrace with my dear friend, James Stewart, Friday evening immediately following his release from an unlawful and torturous week-long detention at a Ventura County jail. It was the first chance I'd had to see his face not through the dehumanizing grates of a cage, since his ambush into handcuffs during open court in Los Angeles, on the morning of Friday, March 2nd at a routine appearance for "conspiracy" charges related to raw milk. (I feel ridiculous even just typing that last phrase.)

[Left] Scanned copy of pharmacy ID-photo, taken 2 days before arrest;
[Right] Photo by me, using my iPhone w/flash, taken day of release.
Neither image has been edited in any way other than cropping and scaling.

He was visibly thinner, radically dehydrated and obviously malnourished. In fact, the last real food he had eaten was a couple of the raw, superfood cookies I'd been so proud to share with him on our way into court that morning. Knowing now in retrospect that he was about to go so long without proper sleep and nourishment, I wish I had brought more food along. Of course, had the Ventura County Sheriff's Department, who'd reportedly issued the arrest warrant a full four days prior on 2/27, bothered to alert James that they had done so (or issued a simple summons to appear) - and therefore given him the opportunity to be prepared in confronting the charges - all of this drama and nonsense could have been avoided.

Courts of Raw

Something here smells sour, and it's NOT my raw milk.

James Stewart & Sharon Palmer, 2011.
Photo courtesy David Gumpert.

A new offense is afoot in the old games of legalized persecution against folks still brave enough to exercise their rights to privately contract with one another to obtain healthy foods. In what Natural News rightly called an "ambush", James-Cecil: Stewart of Rawesome Foods, and Sharon Palmer of Healthy Family Farms were again suddenly arrested at the close of routine court proceedings last Friday, March 2nd. The two had appeared in court, along with co-defendant Victoria Bloch, to settle on a preliminary hearing date for charges related to government raids on Rawesome back in June of 2010 and August of 2011.

Palmer's bail was set for $2 Million and Stewart's at $1 Million. Apparently, the two - along with Larry Otting - are being asked to answer assorted charges relating to an alleged conspiracy to defraud farm investors. While Otting had reportedly already made bail by yesterday, Palmer and Stewart will stay a sixth night in jail tonight. They are scheduled to appear in court again Thursday (3/8) in hopes of getting their bail reduced, and then being released soon after.  (Please read David Gumpert's article for more case details.)

Victoria Bloch with Weston A Price Foundation Chapter leaders in pre-arraignment demonstration.
Photo courtesy Friends of Rawesome.