Hi Carol, Amy, and nochoice101,

It's great to hear from all of you.

I had an interesting experience today—I went to see Dr. Cowan for the
first time today. He sees patients in old town Fair Oaks a couple of
days every month. I've had a health problem the last couple of
years, and I've been to doctors and specialists and none have been
much help. They only consider the body parts assigned to their area
of expertise, and they routinely prescribe drugs that mask the
symptoms but don't deal with the underlying causes. I really wanted
to see someone who believed in the WAPF philosophy, and I was
thrilled to learn that Dr. Cowan sees patients here.

My problem is not life threatening—thank goodness—but the symptoms
can be very uncomfortable. Basically, I am unable to tolerate certain
foods, mainly grains, acidic foods, and aged foods, like yogurt and
cheese. Eating these things causes bladder pain, burning sensations
on certain areas of the body, and allergic rashes. It took quite
awhile to figure out what foods were aggravating the symptoms. I'm
doing much better now, but I'm just controlling the problem rather
than solving it. I want to be able to eat normally again!!

Dr. Cowan believes it's a gut problem—I'm apparently not digesting my
foods properly, and the undigested proteins are causing my body to
react as it does. He prescribed some diet changes and some natural
medicines. One of the diet changes is that I have to eat homemade
broth one to three times a day, preferably three times—every day.
Broth is supposed to be great for healing the gut. I'm going to be
making broth constantly!! I've made chicken broth before but never
beef broth. Since I have the day off tomorrow, I'm going to make
broth. I got some knucklebones at the Co-op today, and I already had
some ribs from The Whole Foods Market. I hope it turns out well.
I'm going to have to like this stuff.

Do you guys make broth? I'd like to try fish broth too, but I don't
know where to get the fish bones. I'm currently buying ocean caught
salmon at The Whole Foods Market and ocean caught orange roughy from
New Zealand at Trader Joes, but neither contains bones. I think
salmon is too oily anyway.

I know how you feel, Amy, about not wanting to give people advice
about their diets. I feel the same, since I'm having health issues
of my own. Hopefully, I'll be the picture of health by the end of
the year. I believe 2005 is going to be a good year for me.

On the other issues, I work downtown so it's convenient to stop at
Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op to pick up a few things. They carry
some items that I haven't been able to find at The Whole Foods Market—
like Celtic Sea Salt and Bariani Olive Oil. Their beef is also grass
fed, whereas most of the beef at The Whole Foods Market is not.
However, I like the atmosphere at the Whole Foods Market better, and
I like that their meat is wrapped in paper rather than plastic.

I just started eating raw milk and dairy about two months ago. My
Mom always stressed, "Whatever you do, don't eat raw dairy." So it
took me a little while to accept the idea. I read a lot about it,
and decided it was just a corporate media campaign to eliminate the
competition from small farmers. I like raw dairy, but it's pretty
pricey. I generally buy the Organic Pastures raw butter and milk
because they have such a great reputation for cleanliness, but I'm
only using about a ˝ gallon of milk a week. If I'm cooking with
butter, I use Strauss butter.

I used to be a member of the Full Belly Farm CSA, but I was riding
the commuter bus at the time and it was kind of inconvenient having
to carry a box of produce home on the bus. One of my co-workers
picked it up for me at the delivery site. It was kind of fun getting
the box every week. I never knew what would be in it, and it was a
nice surprise. I ended up wasting some of the produce, but I eat
many more vegetables now than I did then so I don't believe I would
have that problem if I signed up again.

I'm not familiar with the native family traditions and the discussing
NT Yahoo groups, but I'm going to check them out. Thanks for the
tip.

Once again, it's great to meet you guys. It's nice to have someone
to talk to about this stuff.