Last summer, I was living in a house that was barely one step removed from the outdoors and developed a big painful inflamed lump in front of my left arm hollow, which I naturally assumed was a spider bite. I tried to squeeze it, put tea tree oil on it, put hydrogen peroxide on it, and just generally waited. Two weeks later, however, it was still as red and angry as before. If anything, it was getting worse. I went out with a sun dress on, with this nodule projecting out the top left side like a third nipple, when a friend’s friend, who worked for a dermatologist, saw it and became alarmed. “Is it hard?”, she asked. “Yup.” “Is it warm?”, she asked. “Yup.” “You really need to have that looked at. It doesn’t look good.”

With my shyte Anthem/Blue Cross $3500 deductible insurance, I’m not getting anything looked at unless it’s grapefruit-sized or makes me pee blood. Thus, I turned to my ever-helpful friend, EarthClinic.com, and looked up “spider bites”: http://www.earthclinic.com/CURES/spider_bite.html Follow the link and you may notice the prominent red warning:

Earth Clinic Warning: People are frequently mistaking MRSA-related boils for spider bites. Turns out that some doctors are making the same misdiagnosis as well! If you are not 100% sure that you were bitten by a spider, please make sure to read our Boil Cures page.

Holy crap!  I immediately went to the boil cures page, because I was not being completely honest with myself.  A week after I developed the “spider bite” in front of my left arm, I noticed a solid nodule the size and shape of a hazelnut in the center in my left armpit.  After reading up a little, the diagnosis was likely a staph infection, probably MRSA.  Thankfully, the most popularly suggested remedy was simple: turmeric.

After researching other effective and beneficial supplements, I devised this concoction, which I affectionately dub “Turmeric Tea”:

TURMERIC TEA

• 8 oz warm water
• 2 tablespoons turmeric
• 1 pinch black pepper
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1 teaspoon coconut oil

I drank this beverage two times per day for five days and both growths were gone.  No shit.  I’ve been into natural remedies for a long time, but this seriously blew my mind.

About a month ago, my boyfriend said his cuticle hurt and showed me his finger, which had a huge red lump lining half of the cuticle.  I knew right away it was staph, because I had the same exact thing on my finger in 1999.  At that time, I called the doctor and described what my finger looked like and the nurse said, “You need to get in here STAT.  You have a staph infection, and it needs to be drained right away.”  Within two hours from that moment, they had drained it and my hand was wrapped up in bandages and perched in a sling.  I recounted my tale to him and he said, “That’s what I’m going to do!  I get this from time to time.  I just wait for it to come to a head and then I squeeze it out.”  I said, “ARE YOU CRAZY???  You can’t just do a home squeeze-out on staph!  It could spread and you could DIE!!!  If you won’t go to a doctor, I beg you to try out my home remedy before you put your hands on it.”  The next day, I brought him the ingredients, and just in the nick of time, too; by that time, the thing was like a white teat hanging off of his finger.  Aaaaagh!

A few days later I realized he hadn’t mentioned anymore about it, so I asked how his finger was.  He said he’d been drinking the beverage and the growth was almost gone.  He showed me his finger and I said, “Is that even the right finger?  I hate when you mess with me!!!”  But indeed it was.  My Turmeric Tea had eradicated his staph infection in three days.

This is not my man's finger, but this is what a staph infection on the finger looks like.

Yup, I’m a believer, and you should be, too.  Instead of having a scar like I do on my finger, and a huge doctor bill to show for it (I believe my insurance was charged just under $1000 for the finger incident, of which I had to pay $200 or so), grab some common turmeric and make this fairly pleasant beverage.  But don’t bother with the little supermarket jars – using two tablespoons twice per day will empty it in no time and be a waste of money indeed. Instead, get a large amount like this 1 lb. package from amazon. It’s a muuuuuuch better price, and you won’t run out for a very long time.

Also, don’t forget the coconut oil. This is the brand I use:

fOk the medical establishment. Fix yourselves.

Donate one of these and prove vegans do it better.

Description:

This research study is about how the lipid composition of blood is affected by
one’s diet. We hope to learn how vegan diets affect the lipid content of blood,
which can have an impact on a person’s health. This can lead to insights into
possible diet-related susceptibilities to heart and brain-related disorders.
This information will be especially useful in studies aimed at diagnosing and
treating childhood neurodegenerative disorders caused by defects in lipid
metabolism, such as the Zellweger syndrome spectrum of peroxisomal disorders.

We are recruiting healthy individuals over the age of 18 who have kept a vegan
diet for at least one year.

If you would like to participate, please call us at (323) 442-5433, USC Health
Science Donor Center (located in Health Science Campus of USC, near the County
Hospital). We only need one 7ml tube of blood for the study, but we will also
give you an option to help us save lives by donating a Whole Blood or Platelet,
if you are eligible.

Incentive:

As a Thank you, we are giving each participant a gift card (Trader Joes or
Jamba Juice).

Thank you again for your support of our efforts. We have only had about 15
participants and need close to 50 for the researcher. The study will be
published and will be available to all participants who are interested in their
contribution.

Thanks again and look forward to seeing you donate!

Maria Muniz

Mine was not this pretty.

Ingreds:

Soy sauce and sesame oil – starting to salivate.  Amazingly, I had all the ingredients on hand except for the cucumber, so I went full steam ahead.  If you are not a lazy ass like me, you will just walk down to the store and get yourself a cucumber.

Here’s what you do:
1. In a small mixing bowl, combine soy sauce, sesame oil, olive oil, black pepper and seasoned vinegar. Whisk well.
2. Assemble the mozzarella cheese, cucumber, tomato and basil on a platter.
3. Drizzle saucy mix on top of the vegetables and cheese before serving.

The verdict?  It’s f*cking awesome.

Incidentally, you have to get one of these:

I have killed every one of my basil plants except the one my man planted for me up in here. You can plant all sorts of things in it, not just strawberries. It’s totally righteous.

What do you do? Do you get takeout, which means spending a lot of dosh and feeling like bag full of assholes afterward?

OR do you make like Smarty McSmartersons, dust off your food processor/blender, and whip up a batch of cantaloupe carrot gazpacho in less than 5 minutes?

1/2 cantaloupe
1 medium sized carrot
Handful soaked almonds/cashews
Freshly grated ginger (to taste – I added a lot)
1 T of lemon/lime juice

These ingreds are also in the original recipe, but I didn’t have coconut milk handy and I killed my mint plant:
2 T of coconut milk
1/2 bunch of fresh mint leaves (to taste)

I like Smarty’s choice.

Eat this in the comfort of your air conditioned home.

Do not despair!  You can brew kombucha yourself at home like I do.  Here’s the recipe: http://www.happyherbalist.com/kombuchaquickrecipe.aspx.  It’s so easy, it practically makes itself.  Get yourself a SCOBY and you’ll be ready to go.

Put your scoby in the brewed tea and you're ready to go!

I also belong to a Kombucha makers’ Yahoo group: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/original_kombucha/?yguid=351881601

Did I mention brewing your own is cheap?  Like, making your own tea from a tea bag cheap.  So get on with it, ya hear?

So good for you, you can have one every day!

Ingredients:

• 8-12 oz unpasteurized OJ (I used tangerine, same deal)
• 1 frozen banana
• 1 packet Isogenix vanilla shake
• 1 packet VidaCell (optional)
  

It’s that freakin easy!  I should mention that I’m full right now.  This is actually a meal.  A tasty, tasty meal.  This is the fastest breakfast ever!

Anywho, some notes about the ingredients:

JUICE: I do not approve of conventional “pasteurized” juice.  Pasteurization is the process by which certain foods are heated to slow down microbial growth.  It’s this process that kills the enzymes in living foods, making them less useful for our bodies.  While pasteurized orange juice is little more than a sugar bomb, unpasteurized orange juice and all of its lovely vitamins and minerals are easily assimilated into our bodies.  How can you tell if the juice you’re buying is unpasteurized?  Usually, by location and price.  Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and other health stores sell it (I get mine at TJ’s for about $5.69 for a half-gallon).  If you go to a restaurant or farmer’s market that is serving “fresh-squeezed” orange juice, you can be confident that it is not pasteurized.  Large chain supermarkets will not have it.

ISAGENIX: If you are substituting another brand of shake, make sure it has a similar nutritional profile.  I am an ardent fan of TJ’s, but none of their shakes have this level of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids, and its enzymes are active, which means they can be easily assimilated by the body.

VIDACELL: This is another product I use to speed nutrition directly to my cells, but it doesn’t change the flavor.

I think I’m gonna have one every day!  DANG that was delicious!

Green Lemonade Recipe (makes about 16 oz):

* 1 romaine heart
* 5-6 large kale leaves
* 1 whole lemon – peel, seeds, and all (i cut in half so it fits in my juicer)
* 2 sweet apples, cored. that means no granny smith.
* 1-inch knob ginger
* one radish (supplies iodine for us thyroidal folks)

I also add these ingreds if I have them around. They don’t change the flavor much and add a lot of nutritional benefits. These items are:

a few sprigs of parsley for the chlorophyll
a few sprigs of cilantro to remove bodily impurities
one clove garlic for the antioxidant properties

If you have a juicer yet can’t be asked to make this at least once/day, well…you will just be sick and I won’t!

This is your medicine

The smaller rat is 20 days old and born of a mother fed GMO soy. The larger rat is 19 days old and has been fed non GMO.

Mind you, when people are afflicted with such maladies as cancer, autism, or an underactive thyroid, we are often told that these things just happen, but that is most definitely untrue.  If a person puts dangerous material in their body three times a day, unpleasant things will surely occur.  Many people miss the forest for the trees and say they eat what they want and are just fine.  Sure, they might not have cancer – YET – but do they have allergies?  Acid reflux?  Bad skin?  Cellulite?  All is not well, my friends, but worse is yet to come.  Read here to get the dirt on GMOs and what they will do to your poor body, but in the meantime, sign this petition to stop the US from forcing this stuff down our throats.

Fast forward a couple of weeks: I’m still fat, tired, plagued by allergies, and generally miserable. Thus, I increased my medication. No change. So I increased more. Still no change. So I increased again; over two times my regular dosage, to be exact. After a couple of weeks of this, finally, a change: racing heartbeat, fever, nausea, soul-crushing headaches, and body aches, YET STILL FAT. Not really the kind of changes I was looking for.

I laid off the Armour entirely for four days until my heartbeat slowed down to something approaching normal, because I clearly had too much medication built up in my body. If I exercised during that time, my heart coulda blown and I would’ve died of heart failure like Billy Mays and Peter Steele and everyone would’ve thought I was a chronic cokewhore, and I would’ve been too dead to refute it.

Before the internet, peeps such as myself would’ve been left to wonder what the heck was wrong with them, but thankfully, through groups such as the Coalition for Natural Desiccated Thyroid, I know that other peeps have been having similar problems as well. A likely culprit is that the cellulose filler is blocking absorption of the medication.

Coincidentally, the day after I got the medication from the doc in Covina, I got an unexpected delivery from Advanced Compounding Pharmacy. Two months ago, I’d asked for natural desiccated thyroid compounded with acidophilos instead of crappy cellulose, but ACP said they needed the old hag from the clinic I’d been seeing to sign off on it. Since I had more chance of regrowing my dang thyroid then getting that old bat to agree, I found the Covina doc. Then, the morning after the Covina appt, it showed up at my door unannounced, along with a receipt stating they charged $40 to my credit card on file. ANNOYING. Though I could return it, I came to see this new arrival as fortuitous. Thus, a new cycle of experimentation has begun. Will this new compounded be better than the new Armour? Will I ever fit into my size 2 jeans again? Please, Baby Jesus, please make it so!

Will Baby Jesus make me hawt again?

.

Jesus Juice contained within

It seems a shame to throw away the lovely coco after slaking my thirst with the drink within, so I always keep the empty coconut in the fridge and say I’m gonna do something with it.  Then it sits there for a month til it is well and truly rotten, after which time I finally throw it away.  But not this time, Buster!

I recalled that one of my fave health blogs, Renegade Health, posted a recipe a while back for egg salad without the eggs, so I got out my tomato butt remover
and scraped out all the meat (AKA white stuff that is not shell) and popped it into the recipe below.  Pulse it all up in your food processor and serve over a bed of greens or roll some up in a romaine leaf.  Redonk.

Raw Food Not Egg Salad

Meat from 2 Fresh Coconuts
2 stalks of celery, chopped
3 stalks of scallions/green onions, chopped
3 TBSP Raw Vegan Mayonnaise, or Olive Oil and a pinch of mustard powder
1 tsp turmeric
Pinch of sea salt or to taste
Pinch of pepper or to taste