I took this picture before I scarfed it all down. Unfortunately Brandon decided to start his spring detox 2 days before his birthday so I had to come up with something that was relatively detox-friendly yet still a treat! So I came up with a lovely pie-type thing which actually came out great. It was the first time making a “raw” crust so now I’m thinking those yummy raw fake cheesecakes at Whole Foods are going to be eliminated from my shopping list. Anyway, here’s what I did. 
 
Crust: 
1/2 c walnuts, almonds or pecans, soaked in water for 1-2 hours  
1/2 c walnuts, almonds or pecans 
2-3 farmers market deglet noor dates, pits removed 
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg 
Coarse sea salt 
 
Put dried nuts in food processor and process into a fine meal. Remove and set aside. Drain soaked nuts well and process into coarse meal with dates, vanilla extract, nutmeg and coarse salt. Add the ground dry nuts and process until crumbly but slightly sticky. Press this into ramekins or pie plate. 
 
Filling 
1 can organic coconut milk 
1 tablespoon raw honey 
2 teaspoons agar agar 
 
Bring to a boil then simmer for 5 minutes or until agar has dissolved. Remove from heat. Allow to cool slightly but not to room temperature. Pour into ramekins or pie plate lined with crust. Cool to room temperature and refrigerate. I actually added tangerine zest when I took the mixture off the stove which isn’t exactly according to the detox plan so omitted this from the recipe here.
 

According to a new study, it depends. Actually the study didn’t really look at organic foods, it looked at crop yield and nutrient composition. They found that the higher the yield, the lower the nutrient composition. What that means is that even if you are eating organic, it may not yield more nutrients than non-organic foods. Of course you don’t get the pesticides and so forth so that’s a big plus for your health, but this is where wild crafted foods are probably going to be healthier because they are not forcefully concentrated. Even with organic farming we have biointensive gardening and other techniques to get high yield, but from this study, more is not better for nutrition. The study found up to a 40% loss in nutrition with higher yields.  
 
Of course there are ways around this and if you want to learn about them, we are having a bio-intensive gardening class at ECCM with Darren Butler, so you can learn about ways to grow a lot of food that stays nutrient rich.
 
HortScience 44: 6-223 (2009)

A New study found that homocysteine and MTHFR (a gene involved in folic acid metabolism) are risk factors in developing Down Syndrome. We discussed both of these in our lecture on improving ovarian reserve and how to reduce homocysteine and improve folate metabolism. The standard treatment is simply to take B6, B12 and folic acid, but the type of B6, B12 and folate are important. These are also important to prevent your own cardiovascular risk factors, so if you are trying to get pregnant, its very worthwhile to get these checked.

Zhonghua Yi Xue Yi Chuan Xue Za Zhi. 2007 Oct;24(5):533-7.

Thanks to our nutritionist Steve Gomberg for sending me info on this. A new study found that almost a third of the samples of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) were found to contain measurable amounts of mercury. This really emphasizes what we have been saying for so long: You can’t trust ingredients, you have to find companies you can trust. In other words, you have to do a lot of research to find out which products are tested thoroughly and are made responsibly. This is true of everything from vitamins, vegetables and fruit to things as simple as the flour or sugar you buy.
 
This is just one of the many unbelievable findings that have inspired us to make our webstore so that we can help patients get products that are good for them and that we have researched very carefully. For our herbs, we also do independent random testing in addition to the testing done by the herb companies. It is buyer beware in today’s day and age, the FDA can do very little to protect consumers. How do all those tainted products from China and elsewhere get to our shelves if the FDA is really able to monitor things. Why are they suppressing incidences of mad cow disease in the US? There are so many examples of this. At any rate, back to HFCS. Here are a list of products they found had mercury in their HFCS:
 

* Quaker Oatmeal to Go bars
* Jack Daniel’s Barbecue Sauce
* Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup (which by the way also had lead in it in samples that ECCM sent to a lab for testing).
* Kraft Original Barbecue Sauce
* Nutri-Grain Strawberry Cereal Bars
* Manwich Gold Sloppy Joe
* Market Pantry Grape Jelly
* Smucker’s Strawberry Jelly
* Pop-Tarts Frosted Blueberry
* Hunt’s Tomato Ketchup
* Wish-Bone Western Sweet & Smooth Dressing
* Coca-Cola Classic: no mercury found on a second test
* Yoplait Strawberry Yogurt
* Minute Maid Berry Punch
* Yoo-hoo Chocolate Drink
* Nesquik Chocolate Milk
* Kemps Fat Free Chocolate Milk

 
Environ Health. 2009 Jan 26;8:2.