stephbg | Discipline Schmiscipline

Fall down go boom a bit today, although did manage a half day at the office. Am continuing to read up on the RPAH Elimination/Failsafe diet and keep coming across the warnings that you can't do "your own version" of the diet, or eliminate selected groups of chemicals and not others.

Which is what I've been trying to do. With some success, I might add, but I've become greedy for health and so I'm going to step it up a notch. So, it's time to sacrifice bananas and chocolate and fetta cheese, and no more sneaky carrot in the cabbage. Somehow I will need to find a source of freshly slaughtered meat. Perhaps I can train the cats to bring in young beef cattle instead of crickets.

Hmmm *has visions of Wile E. Cyote moments chasing a sheep across the landscape*

Given how radical the first changes have already been I'm not too concerned that I wasn't able to go "all the way" straight up. I may yet not be able to do it - the complete program involves avoiding chlorine!

Off to the clinic tonight for the sleep study. I hope to take pix (or rather have them taken) of my electrode-encrusted lab-rat self.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Are there any public salt water pools?

I'm curious about those - iirc, salt is made up of chlorine and sodium (NaCl)? And doesn't that make it impossible to avoid chlorine, as it dissolves so easily in, say, tap-water?

It's the strong smell that seems to be the problem (the elimination diet includes avoiding anything with a smell), but since I don't get asthma attacks per se I'm hoping I can get away with it. I'm certainly going to make it a last resort to drop swimming from the agenda!

No, the ocean is not an option.

oh, poo, I didn't know about the chlorine.

From the RPAH Failsafe site: "Swimming baths containing chlorine or chloramines can be problematic for failsafers, a subset of which are chlorine sensitive. Chloramines have been found to trigger asthma attacks in children."

The pool I go to now (Kingsway Zest Health Club) is much less eye-smarting than some I've been to, so I'm hopeful this won't be a problem. It was just another one of those read-and-panic-briefly moments the internet is so good for:-)

Yup the internet is a big scary place like that :-)

Chlorine pools tend to be smelly. However I've found Claremont Pool to be hardly smelly at all. Its outdoor, geothermally-heated, and chlorinated (and so un-smelly that I just phoned to check about the chlorine).

Hope the sleep-over is useful btw. Yay photos!

Have a chat to your local butcher and find out which day they have the freshest meat. Explain that you want to buy meat less than 14 days from when it was slaughtered. My butcher was most accomodating, and also thought I was a bit of a fruitloop. So be it.

Butchers think a lot of people are fruitloops, but they prefer the kind who eat meat :-)

EDIT: BTW, can't eat fruitloops ;-)

Edited 2008-01-24 11:35 (UTC)

Just thought of a couple of things that took me a while to work out/find out. You might find them helpful:

- Philadelphia Cream cheese. Tubs of it have a nasty additive, but blocks of it are Failsafe. Of the blocks, the reduced fat one is 'spreadable' and is good for sandwiches. The full-fat one can be grated and is good for cooking with. Found chunks of the full-fat one really good in quiche. Gave better flavour than grating.

- Panadol has nasty preservative (Sorbate I think), but Herron brand is Failsafe.

- If you are sensitive to salicylate then chances are you are sensitive to benzoates. My understanding is that benzoate reactions tend to be more extreme compared to a sals reaction. Benzoates frequently found in sunscreen and liquid medicines. With sunscreen - Megan Gales Invisible Zinc is the only one that I know of that is free of benzoates.

- Have you discovered Chokoes? Took me ages to track down a source for them. I found them rather yummy. Personally I think they are best eaten raw and only 'OK' steamed.

From Splanky's sister

I had to google chokoes a couple of days ago to find out what they were! The Burke's Backyard site (Rosemary Stanton) suggests stir frying, but I haven't tried them yet. Tips much appreciated, ta.

Yep, I use them in stir-fry too. Raw they have a similar flavour to cucumber, but are crisper ... like an apple's crispness. Steamed I liken them to steamed zucchini, kind of watery and not much flavour. To prepare them you need to peel them and cut out the core. Be careful when you peel them - they seem to leave a slippery residue on your hands. That can be a problem when you are peeling many as they becoming increasingly slippery.

They seem to be quite seasonal and sometimes hard to come by. I get mine from Limes on Leach Highway. Have also got them from Freo markets. They are easy to grow and meant to be really hardy. To sprout one, leave it in your pantry for a few weeks. When it is sprouting, toss it in the ground. I think they are meant to be planted so the sprout is coming out from the side rather than from the top. They are climbers. I was growing one, but lack of water killed it (oops).

Apparently chokoes are great in curry as they take up flavours really easily. Non failsafe idea and consequently haven't tried it.

Discipline Schmiscipline

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Fresh beef

Re: Fresh beef

Some tips

Re: Some tips

Re: Some tips