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I spend quite a bit of time each week answering comments on my blogs, both old and new. I love answering comments and no question is ever a “dumb” question in my book. The only dumb questions are the ones that never get asked!
That being said, there are always a few comments each week that really grab my attention for whatever reason.
Here are the ones in the spotlight this week ….
Brilliant Comments
This comment from Cassandra, at Metaphysical Mama regarding the post Ditch That Protein Powder:
“Wow I wonder if the lack of vitamin A contributes to tongue tie? The frenulum is supposed to recede before birth and is technically considered a malformation, but the question is if it falls in the same category during development. Poor diet can affect the ability to breastfeed in so many ways! Fat chance (hah) of getting most of the women concerned about tongue tie to listen to that advice though. I just tried talking about homemade formula and hoo boy, the backlash.”
Cassandra, I have seen no research on this, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the increasing frequency of tongue tie in newborns isn’t somehow related to Vitamin A deficiency. It does seem to be related somehow to cleft palate and other malformations of the jaw and mouth.
This informative comment from Amy at Real Food Whole Health regarding the post Nanites With Your Pizza Sauce?
“Whole Foods will usually take any non-perishable food back without a receipt, and they will generally refund you for any produce that was spoiled (or that didn’t last long), meat that wasn’t at its peak (I’ve had to buy grassfed meat at WF on occasion in a pinch and once it wasn’t good-at all) and any products that you didn’t care for. I don’t think most people exploit this, so they are able to offer excellent customer service (as they should for the cost of things there!) It is nice to know that if I buy a natural care product I don’t like, I can bring it back, and not waste $15.”
Amy, I never knew this! Thank you for sharing this information. It really does take the risk out of trying something new particularly in the personal care section.
This very to the point comment from Emily in reference to the post Fish Eggs: A Superior Source of Vitamin D:
“We buy our shrimp, fish, fish heads, and oysters directly from a family-owned seafood market that has their own boats and we’ve seen the boats and spoken extensively with the family. Since you can’t rely on labeling, meeting the source is the only way I feel comfortable buying seafood.”
Emily, I couldn’t agree more. Knowing the source of the food you put on the table for your family is really the only way to truly know what you are serving. Labels are increasing deceptive if not downright false in a number of cases. I’ve written a lot of blogs about this in the past. Getting fresh, whole food directly from the source that doesn’t pass through the industrial food complex and require a label- organic or not – is a very wise decision.
Boneheaded Comments
I had one person on last week’s Weekly Comment Spotlight request that I not call any comments “Boneheaded” but instead “Not Yet Enlightened” or something of that nature. I want to respond to that request publicly as this is an excellent point.
Calling a comment boneheaded does not mean the person making the comment is, in fact, a bonehead. Just the comment itself is boneheaded and the label is not intended in any way as a personal affront to the commenter. We all make these types of comments from time to time, don’t we? I prefer not to call these types of comments something less than what they truly are as watering stuff down and being politically correct is not what this blog is about.
With that, let me reveal the most boneheaded comment from this past week. Once again, a closed minded dentist takes the cake commenting on the How I Healed My Child’s Cavity post:
“I exclusively see children in my practice and mothers like you make my job beyond difficult. Because of you a mother isn’t going to have one of children’s cavities restored believing that she can ‘heal it’. Rest assured I will eventually see that patient who has a true cavity when it has caused an abscess to form. My hope is at that point it has not become a life-threatening cellulitis. Perhaps more research into the ramifications of untreated dental decay might curb your missed placed enthusiasm for out-dated research. Children die EVERY year from untreated dental decay for reasons such as access to care. Please do not let a child die because you think oil capsules actually work. Are you SO SURE that you would gamble with a child’s life all because you ignorantly thought a wedged piece of lettuce was on your child’s tooth was a cavity? If you would, Sarah, you have no soul. Tell me since you believe dental research from 1930′s with little regard to updated information do you still believe medical research from 1930 as well? Should we not use gloves, should we not test blood products before transfusion, should we only provide whiskey for anesthetic, should medical instruments be washed in this magic oil you speak of instead of sterilized? I’m sure I can find some quacked-out research that supports all of that, too.”
Mmmm …. a child might die from taking fermented cod liver oil and butter oil to heal a cavity? I think the amalgam fumes have somehow affected this dentist’s ability to think clearly.
By the way, my son had a dental cleaning only the other day and got a clean bill of health from a dentist just like you, sir. NO CAVITIES whatsoever. And, yes – there was most certainly a hole in that tooth only a few weeks ago. I saw it and my husband saw it. I put a rubber tipped probe right into it. It wasn’t a piece of food and I wasn’t imagining things.
The hole is gone and this is clearly due to fixing nutritional deficiency just as Dr. Weston A. Price DDS wrote about long ago. Nutrition works and it works FAST – in my son’s case, about 3 weeks. There is no risk to trying nutrition and it is silly and boneheaded to suggest this! But there might be a big risk to dentists losing a few patients and a bit of $$ from not filling as many teeth, now isn’t there? I’m sensing that perhaps this is the real thrust of your comment.
That dentist obviously missed this part: “I will still be taking him to the dentist to have a check-up but there is no doubt that there is nothing wrong with that tooth any longer.”
You scheduled an appointment to have it filled. The dentist moved it. You still took him in but it happened to be gone.
The dentist needs to get over it.
I had a cat with feline cavities and discovered a Weston Price-oriented veterinarian who told me what I had suspected all along — that it is possible to heal pets’ teeth if they are not too far gone. (The standard vet recommendation for feline cavities, called feline odontoclastic resorptive lesions, is extraction as the only solution.) She especially recommended adding a small amount of coconut oil to his diet, for the medium chain fatty acids. I also added a few drops of fermented cod liver oil. Pets often suffer in silent pain from cavities, so adding these things, along with slowly introducing raw foods, is a wonderful idea as a preventive measure.
Although I utterly disagree with what the dentist had to say, I do kind of understand why he is in such denial…
My husband is an interventional cardiologist (the kind that opens up the heart vessels from a heart attack with a stent.) For 20+ years of medical school, residency, fellowships he was told that dietary cholesterol was the culprit of those blockages that he had to open up in those life-threatening situations. So, when I first introduced traditional foods into our home, he was in denial. How could everything that I was taught, and everything that I was telling my patients be false? Lo and behold, he himself lost 45 pounds and lowered his own cholesterol by about 20 points by eating a traditional diet including PLENTY of saturated animal fats. Still it a constant struggle for him to convey this message to his fellow physicians…they think…if what you are saying is true then you are tearing down a multi-billion dollar industry of cholesterol medications and challenging the entire cardiology field. So, yes, it is all about the $$$.
I sometimes remind my husband that as long as there is still McDonald’s, Wonderbread, and Twinkies around, he will always be in business =)
I recently read that there are children, one in February, who died from infection from cavities left untreated – that is the important distinction . It boggles my mind what dental work costs. I have a wonderful dentist who I first met when he started in practice. He was the only one who helped me with a TMJ problem after almost a year of searching for relief. However, I can no longer afford to see him as his services are so outrageously expensive. I wonder what the dentist who made the comment about you having no soul charges for his services. If the main concern of dentists was to care for their patients, dental work would not be out of the reach of most people. Lower income families who depend on Medicaid and such are at the highest risk, as was this child who died.
Link to the story of the 12 year old who died:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Dental/story?id=2925584&page=1