Health & Wellness Investigations

When I was a kid, my older sister was obsessed with the TV Show Dr. Quinn: Medicine Women in which a Bostonian, female doctor came out west to practice medicine in the frontier. In addition to dealing with widespread sexism, lack of medical supplies and technology, and budding romance, Dr. Quinn was forced to recognize the validity in some of the Native American herbal remedies that were used in the frontier, contrary to what she’d been taught in medical school. I remember watching one particular episode where Sully, the hot frontiersman who liked Dr. Quinn, saved her from influenza using a tea made out of flowers that he got from the tribal medicine man. Wow , I thought, he’s fixing her using flowers! That’s so cool!!! I want to learn how to do that! (I also thought wow, I hope if I get married someday it’s to somebody like Sully who can throw a tomahawk and has an awesome wolf-dog . Not all dreams come true, clearly). Whole turmeric Now I’ll admit that this was a fi...

A family member has a stellar  honey lime dressing recipe that uses mayonnaise, and - since I had a butt ton of lime and lots of fresh salad ingredients, I decided that I wanted to make it. One problem: I threw out my mayonnaise because traditional mayo is basically vegetable oil in a jar, mixed with a few egg yolks. And remember, I quit using vegetable oil. Now, yes, there are mayo brands that use olive oil, and if you really like to use mayo, you should totally buy some ! But I have, like, three recipes that call for mayo. In fact, the nearly full jar of mayo that I threw out for containing soybean oil was also over six months expired. Whoops. Sidebar: Just because it says it's made with olive oil doesn't mean it doesn't have vegetable oil - Hellman's Olive Oil Mayo and Kraft Olive Oil Mayo, for example, are still mostly soybean oil. Read your labels. My point is that I didn't buy the vegetable-oil-free mayo because I use mayo so seldom. But of co...

Happy 4 th of July! In the spirit of the relaxing holiday (whole week off of work! Whoo!), I want to share a news article…it’s a few years old, but still as disturbing as it was on 2010 when it was published. http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/15/insurance.fast.food.stock/index.html Read it? Good. Now does anyone else think it’s odd that the people who make money when people are sick, also own stock in companies that make people sick, I mean, make fast food? “Food” for thought (please pardon the pun!). Take a stand today, please, and enjoy your burgers and ‘dogs…but limit your sugar and avoid those unhealthy oils!