Monthly Archives: June 2014

New Moon

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The new moon was this morning. This is a good day to begin a new project or put in motion something you’ve been planning. As the name suggests, the new moon is perfect time to start something new. This is because the energy of the moon moving to fullness will influence the flow and fruition of your project.

moon over strongholdThere is no place better to witness the effects of the moon than in nature. Both low tides and high tides are at their maximum during the new moon (as well as the full moon). The moisture levels in the ground also fluctuate in response to the moon. The new moon drawing more moisture up to higher levels in the ground. Because of the increased moisture and the energetic aspects of creating fullness, the time between the new moon and the full moon is perfect for planting seeds.

I find that seeds germinate faster when the moon is moving towards fullness. You can plant on the new moon, but really anytime between the new and the full moon is fine. In fact, for seeds that only take a week to germinate, I’d recommend just a few days before the moon is full. I once seeded out some basil, which typically takes 5 to 10 days to germinate, and I was seeing sprouts in under 48 hours!

Last week I prepared my garden bed (See June 21 post) and  installed a mini-sprinkler line  Now I’m ready to plant.  So what do I plant?

When I first came to Phoenix I relied on the Urban Farmer’s Low Desert Planting and Harvesting Calendar.  I was new to this climate and needed all the help I could get picking the right plant for the season.  However, I’ve found that some of their recommendations are not right on for me.  For instance, squash and pumpkins planted in the summer never produced for me, but the tomatoes I planted in August did great.

I’ll try the squash again.  It would be nice to have pumpkins in October.  Although I’m thinking an August planting might be a better idea.  I suspect corn will do great as well as the sunflower.  And I’ll put out some watermelon.  They will look good climbing up the fence.  I already have some volunteers in the back yard.  I even ate my first watermelon a couple of weeks ago.  I saw a packet of Nasturtium in my collection, but found via a quick internet search I will have to wait for it to cool down to plant those.

If you want other ideas – basil is fantastic all summer long (but I have so many volunteers I wouldn’t dream of planting that).  In fact if you want some nice lemon basil, just stop by!  Let me know what you like to plant in the summer…

 

Cholesterol and Coconut Oil

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High cholesterol, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease run in my family.  Both my mother and father have had coronary artery bypass operations as did my paternal grandfather.  Being interested in health and knowing my predisposition, I have followed my cardiovascular risk markers with interest.  I believe that improper diet and inadequate exercise play a significant part in the development of heart disease as well as in cancer, type 2 diabetes and many other diseases.

This year, my fiftieth year on the planet, I checked in with blood pressure 110/70, an unremarkable echocardiogram, and total cholesterol at 201 (just a point above the desirable range).  However, a closer look at the cholesterol readings showed that my HDL, the cholesterol that has the beneficial role of acting like a scavenger in the body, was off the chart at 75.  The standard range for HDL is 40 to 59 mg/dl. It was my elevated HDL level that actually put my total cholesterol slightly over range.

My first question was – what does it mean to have HDL way above normal?  Naturally, I did a Google search.  What I found was when HDL is higher than normal it is actually considered protective.  My risk for cardiovascular disease was actually lowered!  (Trumpets sound here!)  All the energy I devote to living a simple, healthy lifestyle paying off.

I then began to wonder – what caused my increase in HDL?  When searching on that question I bumped right into the answer:  Coconut Oil.  Researchers have found that coconut oil consumption is associated with higher levels of total cholesterol and HDL.  (2011)

Every morning for breakfast I have a cup of germinated brown rice with some type of legume dish, typically chili or lentil soup. For years, I adorned the rice with Spike (a salt seasoning blend) and about 1 to 2 teaspoons of flaxseed, hempseed, or other oil high in essential fatty acids.  Then I discovered coconut oil.  It has such a lovely flavor that I started using it on my rice.

Now one of the things about me, the thing that makes my experiment with right diet for a healthy heart so daring, is that I don’t buy into the mainstream ideas.  For instance, when they said eggs were bad for my heart, since they were high in cholesterol, I defied the mainstream ideas and had two or three a day.  When people were switching over to margarine, I was still eating salted butter (I like it plain…).  They think salt raises blood pressure?  Great, I eat as much of it as I can.

Now “they” were saying coconut oil was good for my heart because it increased HDL.  My reaction?  I immediately cut back and started eating more flaxseed oil again.

Yes, I understand that HDL is associated with lower cardiovascular risk, but that is HDL that is naturally high.  My HDL was being artificially elevated by increased intake of coconut oil.  This doesn’t mean that it is beneficial.  It also doesn’t mean it is not beneficial.

This is the mistake people made with eggs.  They thought “eggs have cholesterol,”  then, “Cholesterol is bad” and finally decided “eggs are bad”.  I knew coconut oil raised HDL and I suspected that it has a place in my healthy diet, but I wanted to see some direct evidence about whether it was really beneficial.

To achieve my objective I had to move away from the mainstream news and information websites and into PubMed for primary literature.  I wanted to read, first hand, what scientists had found.

The first thing I discovered was that a 2009 research study reporting on the effects of dietary coconut oil consumption in women with belly fat was being misrepresented by some major health information websites.  The study showed after 12 weeks women that added coconut oil (vs soybean oil) to their diet had a significant reduction in waist circumference.

The first misquote I found said the reduction was after only one week. However, the biggest issue I have was that the reduction was not “real world” significant.  The women using soybean oil (2 Tablespoons (30ml) a day) had a drop of 0.6 centimeter (about a quarter inch) while the women using coconut oil dropped 1.4 cm (just over half an inch).  We are talking about a 1/4 inch difference (technically it would be 5/16ths of an inch) between the two groups. Anybody out their measure their waist lately?  I would say the error in measurements would be greater than a quarter inch!

Next study I looked at was from 2012.  Nice research that investigated what happens to atherosclerotic plaques when people living in Kerala, India switch from the coconut oil they’ve used all their lives to sunflower oil because they have cardiovascular disease.  Well designed study –  but the fact they found 71 people that had used coconut oil all their lives and were undergoing coronary artery bypasses suggests that coconut oil is not a miracle cure nor a miracle prevention for heart disease.

Their results?  The switch to sunflower oil for at least a year didn’t change the composition of the plaques at all.  Here we have a situation where the details of the study are more interesting than the results.  It is interesting to me that the researcher found a population of long term coconut oil users with heart disease. In addition, many of the participants had diabetes and hypertension as well as coronary artery disease.

The last study I looked at was perhaps the most negative regarding coconut oils benefits.  Completed in 2006, it revealed that six hours after a meal (carrot cake and a milkshake made with about two ounces of oil) HDL from people ingesting coconut oil made the cells that line blood vessels more inflammatory than the HDL from safflower eating people.

There were some limitations to the study design and other researcher have published comments suggesting that the differences observed were due to safflower oil having a greater concentration of Vitamin E rather than the fact it is a polyunsaturated oil.  Christopher Masterjohn says,

Compared to coconut oil.. safflower oil contains 77 times the alpha-tocopherol, more than 100 times the gammatocopherol, and 73 times the total tocopherol.

This suggests if you normalize for vitamin E there may have been no difference between coconut oil and safflower oil.  In other words:  their results are inconclusive.

All this said, I’m still looking for evidence regarding the benefits of coconut oil in cardiovascular disease.  In the meantime, it is remains a tasty addition to my morning rice on occasion.

REFERENCES
Asia Pac J Clin Nutr. 2011;20(2):190-5.
Lipids (2009) 44-593-601
J Am Coll Nutr. 2012 Dec;31(6):392-6.
J Am Coll Cardiol. 2006 Aug 15;48(4):715-20. Epub 2006 Jul 24.
J Am Coll Cardiol. 2007 May 1;49(17):1825-6. Epub 2007 Apr 16.

Before Dawn

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A few times this week I’ve woken up around 4:15 am.  Intellectually this would be a good time to get up – no harsh sun and temperatures in the low 80’s.  Yet, I invariably fall back to sleep for another hour or so.  Today I decided to just try getting up and staying up.

I went into the kitchen and put my breakfast on.  This morning it would be cauliflower chicken curry and my usual cup of germinated brown rice.   I put the two into a small cast iron pan and turned the electric stove on low.  Breakfast would be warm in about 20 minutes and would not burned even if I became preoccupied and did not return for an hour or more.  When it was time to eat, I’d add some oil (flax or coconut to the rice) a dash of Spike (seasoned salt mix) and two raw large carrots.  I used to microwave my food, but this slow heating alternative pleases me.

My mind noted that this morning it felt like winter.  I was surprised by the thought and realized that it had been winter the last time I was up before dawn.  I am up before the sunrise almost everyday, but to be up while it was still dark and the stars were still shining was rare this summer.  Interesting that my body and energy associated this “being up while it was still dark” with “winter”.

I proceeded outside to do my morning practice of chi gung and tai chi.  My objective is to be 100% present and in the moment when I practice.  Although I have a body memory of the movements, and can go through the form on automatic pilot, I focus on my body and how the energy feels moving.

I noticed how wonderful the morning was.  It was getting lighter, but even the birds were still and quiet until about 15 minutes into my routine.  I was outside and it was early morning in the desert.  Absolutely spectacular!

I remembered my first trip to the desert when I was a teenager.  I took a course called the Natural History of Anza Borrego.   On the trip, I decided to sleep out away from the group at a location that was sure to get the first rays of sunrise.  The memory of the trip and the dawn’s first light brought me pleasure.

I continued to think about how I’d like to wake up like this every day and the best way to do that was to sleep outside.  When I sleep outside I am more in rhythm with the planet and my subconscious notices the changes in the environment leading up to dawn and awakens me.

I began planning where I’d sleep, how I’d hang my mosquito netting, what type of bedding I’d use, and alternates to all these ideas.  I was wondering how long before the nights became too hot to sleep outside comfortably.  I thought some about my plan, then have a memory of the past, connect the two and then focus on the smooth even flow of my tai chi movements.

Eventually I noticed that much of my thoughts were not in the moment doing tai chi.  I was in the past, remembering.  I was in the future, planning.  I was also a very good multi-tasker because my mind would flip back into being with the birds or the movements of my body, the now, before it would be swept away by another idea.  Indeed, it is possible for me to have part of my mind in the present moment and part of my mind planning or remembering.

It is really cool how the mind works.  I traced back the mindstream until I found the point of major deviation.  I found that the pleasure of being in the desert before the dawn triggered my mind to try to capture it and keep it.  Instead of fully enjoying the moment, I was figuring out how to have that moment every day.  Logically, if I liked what was going on, I would focus more on the moment.  Yet, I have the illogical mental habit of planning. Perhaps, I enjoy planning more than I enjoy the experience of spontaneous life.

I have been noticing recently how I think certain thoughts repetitively.  For instance, after several years of living on savings, I finally have work that pays my bills.  I tend to think about this with appreciation over and over.  It is like I’m using the thought to create a certain feeling.  I suppose I have a very subtle financial insecurity that this thought alleviates.  When I observe the thought and my body’s reaction very closely, I can almost feel a surge of some “pleasure” chemical being released.  Even if I don’t have financial insecurity, I am “using” the thought to produce pleasure in my body.  Does this mean I’m addicted to the thought and the chemical it produces?

The practice of introspective and extrospective awareness, sometimes referred to as mindfulness, allows me to know what I am doing,why I am doing it and the consequences of my actions.  This awareness can then inform my actions.  I am finding, through this practice, that I have many habitual mental habits that don’t appear to be useful.  It appears that my mind is awakening, but that it is still before dawn.