Exit Strategies: Emunctories

I woke up to another odd email yesterday morning. I have a friend who left his job in the corporate suit-and-tie world to become a nutritionist. While I'm not sure how he generates an income, every so often I get little tidbits on health, nutrition and other things that sound hard to do in my inbox. Yesterday's email was about something I had never heard of until Google helped me out: emunctories which my friend defined as "a new word that refers to all the ways stuff exits our bodies." So basically it's a lab report on how well your body's "exit strategy" works. To give a bit detail:

When one’s diet is poor, the ph-balance is off and the system cannot excrete bacteria and viruses and toxins. The environment is ripe for overgrowth of organisms and the inability of the lymph to do its work. A diet of fruit, vegetables, good quality of protein, and low carbohydrates are important. Sugar or coffee or alcohol will create a disease-producing environment. It is said that one teaspoon of sugar will decrease the immune system efficiency by fifty percent.
(from "Detoxification and Homotoxicology")

Ok. The arguement of diet affecting health is sound; however, I wanted to know what would happen after a lab tech poked through my poop. Naturopath clinics recommended tha "drainage" follow the analysis. Though this drainage is described as "gentle," I can't help but question the delight of a high colonic.

Do I want to have this done? Or was this part of some weird detox diet/liquid cleanse where I would have to miserably drink some magic potion that tasted like cat's urine and be within ten feet of a bathroom for two weeks? Purging diets sounds fairly extreme and a life without red wine is not a with worth living, in my opinion. So I went back to see who (or what company) were behind emunctories.

The term was generated by a Germen doctor Hans-Heinrich Reckeweg, who moved to New Mexico with his naturopathic company HEEL after WWII. Most of the articles about Reckeweg and HEEL-BHI are written by fellow alternative medicine sites so I went to Wikipedia for some (hopefully) basic information on the good doctor and his company. Though the entry glazed over Dr. Reckeweg's years in Germany from the mid-1930s until post-WWII, his company HEEL-BHI took off after the war and he moved to New Mexico a few decades later. Though the company labels itself as bridge between homeopathy and conventional medicine, a few articles I found mention issuess that HEEL has had with the FDA and IRS.

While regulartory issues don't mean that emunctories aren't effective, I think I'll hold off between I let my inner content be expelled. Like going through Goodwill, there might still be some gems in there among the all that crap.

What exactly is High Fructose Corn Syrup?

I was watching tv awhile ago when I saw this commercial with two mildly attractive (if you're into the "mom with the tucked in pants"-type) women talking about high fructose corn syrup. The ad looked to be a well-financed commercial endeavor unlike most political ads, but the bitch factor was high. One mom accused the other of not caring about her kids by letting them drink colored juice-like product that had high fructose corn syrup which was met by a retort of "do you know what high fructose corn syrup even is?"

Oh, snap!

But the sassy momma's comeback stung. In truth, I didn't know what high fructose corn syrup was and had just assumed like anti-matter or New Coke, I didn't to really understand it to know that it wasn't good. And I also wanted to know why the Corn Refiners Association was spending nearly $30 million to convince me that I shouldn't abandon their product  Unfortunately the ad didn't reach an important demographic - executives of huge corporations - as companies like Pepsi and Snapple in the past  year have moved to distance their product from HFCS.


Here's that industry-paid-for commercial on You Tube

What the heck exactly is HFCS?
My journey began on the internet. And it turns out that tons of smart people - some with "doctor" in front of their names! - had already researched and written on HFCS! Specifically one Dr. Will, whose delicious bars I have sampled at many cyclocross events, had a good article breaking down the difference between corn syrup and High Fructose Corn Syrup. High fructose corn sweeter is both a sweetener and a preservative for foods making them cheaper to produce and easier to transport. The process of creating HFCS sounds as simple as creating cold fusion in your bathtub, a complex chemical breakdown that starts with basic corn syrup and ends with product about as "corn" as Heidi Montag's new plastic body. Quoting from a 2006 article in the New York Times, Michael F. Jacobson, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest,"says that unlike sugar molecules, which reside in the stalks of sugar cane or the beets that are used to make sugar, high-fructose corn syrup is artificial because it is not found anywhere in corn." Dr. Will's blog noted that they use corn syrup in their product as opposed to high fructose corn syrup to provide a "health risk free sweetener."

What the heck does HFCS do?
More specifically, what does HFCS do to me? Michael Pollan called out sweeteners like HFCS back in 2002 for links to diabetes and obesity among other health issues. Since then, research has proven some of Pollan's claims to be true, like this 2008 study linking a diet high in HFCS to obesity in rats. While the Corn Refiners Association has toted the  "all things in moderation" tagline for HFCS, a $30 million ad campaign coupled with somewhere between $40 to $200 billion in government subsidies over the past twenty years seems to suggest otherwise.


After all I've read, HFCS sounds about as appealing as a Heidi Montag album. While it might be good for some huge food corporations, I'd think I'll go through my refrigerator and make some edits.

Life on the cheap

Is there anything more satisfying that saving yourself some money? Unless you're the Canadian hockey team and just waking up from your Molson Ice-gold medal hangover, probably not. And I just saved myself some money this weekend. Here's how:

Cheap Car Repair 101:  I live in a place with a lot of rain. I only like to be wet when I'm outside and/or racing cyclocross. I do not like to be wet in my car. So when my car rack started to wear through my weatherstripping (which kind of sounds like the name for a hippy stripper), I was not happy. No one likes to be wet in their car. No one should be wet in their car. And so with a swiftness and decisiveness that would make the Obama administration jealous, I found a quick and cheap fix as opposed to buying and installing new weatherstripping.

Solution: old bike tubes. I might not have created cold fusion but I found a use for my old bike tubes and reinforced/repaired my weatherstripping.

Cheap Coffee 101: I'm new to drinking coffee. It was only in the past couple of years that I discovered the manic wonderfulness of being caffeinated. But there's a recession going on and creamy lattes are only for those getting Goldman Sachs-type of bonuses. A barista filled me in on how to enjoy frothy coffee on the cheap.

Solution: French press lattes. With instant coffee or French press coffee, some flavor (if that's what your into) and milk, you can make a decent latte. Heat up the milk, add it to the French press and froth. So easy. So cheap. Other people might have figured this stuff all about before me but I am pretty darn pleased.

 

Not bad, matey?