Tag Archives: autoimmune

Spectacularly Missing The Point, Twice!

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Oh for the love of goodness!  I just read this article on the BBC News website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19785006

In it, James Gallagher, the BBC’s Health and Science Reporter, says that scientists have genetically modified a cow so it produces milk that reduces allergic reactions. Flamin’ Eck!  He goes on to say that the poor thing was born without a tail. Really!  Then, as the beast hadn’t yet became pregnant, they pumped it full of hormones to kick-start milk production. Eeeeh Gads!

At this point, I was disgusted and interested all at once.

Now, I’m no fan of dairy.  I stopped eating/drinking dairy products a year ago.  Since then, I have dabbled and experimented with bringing dairy back into my diet.  If I do have any, it gives me a sore head and I break out in various itchy rashes.  I am now even less of a fan.

Cows make milk for the same reason as humans make milk – to feed their babies.  As a race, we understand that human breast milk is absolutely the best thing for our children and we have Government sponsored and charitable/voluntary organisations to help, encourage and support new Mums in doing the right thing.  Respek!  We do, however, treat new Mum cows with no respect at all.

Calves are taken away from their Mums after about 3 days, they’re fed milk substitutes and are either slaughtered for veal or allowed to develop into adults.  Mum cows are then milked intensively for about 10 months and then inseminated all over again (they have 2 months off to let their udders recover).  Sounds nice, eh?  This is highly unpleasant, especially when the bond between a cow and her calf is very strong and will last until the calf reaches adulthood.  A bit like us, then.

This intensive milking has some nasty side effects too, other than making the poor cow go a bit mad! Lameness, mastitis among other horrible things.  While we treat mastitis in humans, we just kill the cows.  Nice human people!

Right. I’m in danger of ranting, back to the BBC.  They go on to say………..

Cows milk contains beta-lactoglobulin.  Human milk doesn’t.  Beta-lactoblobulin causes an allergic reaction ergo Lactose Intolerance.  Hmmm, doesn’t that tell us something?  The researchers have said, “It’s not surprising that it constitutes a major milk allergen.”

Now, isn’t this just missing the point?  It’s only an allergen because it’s not designed for humans, it’s for cows.  Would we feel just as comfy drinking a hippo’s milk, a domestic cat’s milk, a dog’s milk?  Of course not!  Those animals make milk for their own babies, don’t they and, anyway, that would be disgusting!

We have already genetically modified our bovine friends to produce LOADS AND LOADS of milk satisfying our voracious need for sustenance.  So, we’ve done it once, we can do it again, tail or no tail!  That’s humanity for you – superior, arrogant and doing stuff just because we can and missing the point to boot.

Missing the Point 2.  I’ve had a busy week.  Well, the truth is, I gave myself a busy week!

My band were playing at a wedding on Saturday.  Weddings are hard work.  At a party, club or pub, we’d normally start at about 9/9:30, play for 1hr 15mins, have a break, play for another 1hr 15mins.  At a wedding, start times are typically earlier, clients want certain songs learned and played, bands have to mindful of the demographic and build the set around that.  The reality is, you have to play for longer, need more songs up your sleeve and you need to pay attention to the crowd and change the set list on the fly.

That meant dusting off quite a few songs we haven’t performed in a long time and adding a few more that we hadn’t done at all.  So, we rehearsed a bit more than we would normally in the week leading up to it.  I also made a new riser deck.

What’s a riser?  It’s a wee platform that gets the drums off the floor so I’m at eye level with my muso chums.  It also makes the band look much more professional.  It has nothing at all to do with being a show-off and being seen, you understand.  Nothing!

I have a riser deck already, but it was too big for this gig so I needed one that was small, fitted around a smaller kit and could be set up in a corner.  Now, as my wife pointed out, I didn’t really NEED to build one, especially as the bath panel is still at the top of the stairs and there’s other shit to do in the house.  She’s right, of course!  But it is BRILLIANT being on a riser (thanks Ringo) and I really WANTED one for this gig.  I had from the Monday to the Thursday to make it – pressure was on!

I did myself in.  What with work, cooking, ferrying the kids to various places, 2 band rehearsals and just getting through life, I really didn’t have time to do this.  By Wednesday, I had sore hands, my right elbow was playing up, my knees and feet were sore, getting through a 3 hour gig on Saturday was looking shaky and, worst of all, I had pissed off my wife!  Thoughts of injecting myself with my drugs crossed my mind – and not just for the arthritis!

I reminded myself that I was missing the point of what I’m trying to do.  I want to be drug free and prove that you really are what you eat!  So I didn’t.  By Friday (gig setup day) I was feeling OK.  By Saturday evening, I still had a sore elbow but nothing nearly as bad as Wednesday and I was feeling good.

We played, in total, for 3 hours and 20 minutes on Saturday night.  I have never played for so long – this is Bruce Springsteen territory – or been so bloody knackered!

Did I last the pace?  Absolutely!  AND I had more to spare.

Did I suffer the following day?  Not at all, I felt brand new.  Nothing hurt and I was up early and back at the hotel to tear down the gear.  I have chronic rheumatoid arthritis, I’m thinking this isn’t too shabby.

I have been feeling a bit off colour since, though, but I think it’s just because I’ve not caught up with my sleep.  I still haven’t resorted to injections and I’m determined not to miss the point again!

Nuff said.

Why Bread Really Isn’t Good For You……

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…..and yoghurt too!

“Bloated, inflamed, stiff joints and a bit sore” is how I’d describe myself today.  Oh, so your diet isn’t working after all then, Scott ya big liar?  Actually, yes it still is – if I had stuck to it!

The family had some excellent fun on Saturday visiting my sister’s place – it’s always a houseful, loads of kids, a lot of noise but great craic when the family is together.  One big draw is the food.  My sister and her husband are great cooks and Indian cuisine is their forte.

This time, though, we were being treated to something a bit different – tandoori chicken and homemade nan cooked in their new wood burning tandoor oven.  This thing is a beastly, massive, heavy thing that sits about 4 feet high and can get up to 500°C.   When I stuck my hand in it – well, you have to really – it was a mere 320°C.

Why on Earth would anyone stick their hand in this?  Well, one has to get the dough into it somehow and I hadn’t had a shot.  After losing most of the hair on my right arm, I had a good few nans cooking beautifully inside the tandoor, as you can see….

Now – and this is where I put my stupid hat on – you can’t go through all of this without trying the stuff you’ve had a hand in cooking.  So I did.  3 actually.  AND some raita (yoghurt based condiment in case you didn’t know – I didn’t know what it was called until I looked it up just there).

So there’s me, paleo, clean, eating primally, feeling great and stuffing my face with the kind of food I know is very bad.  My wife did warn me – several times!  Even the youngest of my children drew an audible sharp breath when she saw what I was eating.  “I’ll be alright,” I said, “You just pay attention to your own food!”  There was no alcohol involved, this was my sober decision.

And now I feel like crap!

I was very busy all day Sunday too.  My band were having a technical rehearsal as we have a new mixing desk – always a good idea to spend some time getting to know the equipment (especially important stuff like the mixer) before getting to a gig and realising you can’t work it!  Anyway, it took about 5 hours to do everything and we ended up playing quite a lot.

This is when I noticed I wasn’t feeling so good.  I was a bit lethargic, a little sweaty after very little effort, slightly out of breath  and my right arm was getting quite sore.  My right elbow is my barometer.  If that’s sore, I’m generally under par.  It was sore.  I was way under par and not in a good golfy sort of way.

My skin was itchy too.  That’s what the slightest sniff of dairy does to me.  By the time I returned home from the rehearsal, I was completely knackered, feeling bloated, etc, everything I said right at the start.  Why?  Because I ate shit that’s no good!

Wheat inflames the gut.  People generally don’t notice this – but loads of people complain about feeling bloated after eating bread.  And it feeds your pleasure centre, releasing endorphins and making you want more.  Ever found a really nice loaf, french stick or speciality bread that you simply MUST HAVE MORE OF?  That’s what wheat does.  All we do is keep our guts inflamed.  Makes us fat too, but that’s another story!

In people like me, predisposed to autoimmune problems, an inflamed gut can trigger the autoimmune response.  Rheumatoid arthritis in my case.  So, cut out the crap food and reverse the disease – that’s the plan anyway.

Or it would be if I stuck to it – which I generally do, to be fair!

Dairy, on the other hand, is just simply perverse!  I have a memory from about age 5 when I thought, “It’s very odd that we drink another animal’s milk.”  Surely – this is me back to the present day now – we are designed to drink our mother’s milk up to a certain age and then never have milk again.  After all, our paleolothic ancesters didn’t milk cows and they lived during the time when the modern human genome was fixed.

We’re the only animal on the planet that does this AND we’re not genetically designed to take milk – no-one can argue that our genetic makeup has caught up since we started farming and milking livestock between seven and ten thousand years ago (depending what you read).  It’s a good source of protein, though, and it’s sustainable and available!  But, anyone who cuts out dairy for any length of time and goes back to it will have a bad reaction – end of.  Why would that happen if it’s so good for you.  The slightest sniff of dairy gives me a sore head and makes me want to have a wee barfamundo!

All of this nonsense that we call ‘healthy food’ is just making us sick.  Coeliac Disease, Lactose Intolerance, Vitiligo, Eczema, Rheumatoid Arthritis.  None of these would exist if we ate what we were designed to AND can you imagine what that would do for our crumbling healthcare system?

Well, my healthcare system is going to benefit from me.  My treatment costs upwards of £12,000 each year.  If I’m drug free and well, the NHS would save that money and I’d be WELL into the bargain!  Just by eating the right stuff.

So, no more wheat, dairy or anything else that’s not natural.  I will be drug free by the end of the year.

I will.