Thursday, April 25, 2013

Victory Garden

This year I am putting in a raised garden, actually I am taking part in the Victory Garden Initiative in the greater Milwaukee area. A group of volunteers will come to our yard and put in the raised garden. There is a fee associated with the garden, not too much in my estimation, and they fill the raised garden with organic soil. They even offer mentors to new gardeners, or old gardeners who need some advice.

Here's the link if you're interested. You have to sign up by May 4, so hurry on over if you want to get in on the action.




I think I may have mentioned this before, but we've gone Gluten Free at our house. It all started just over 3 years ago when my right hand started to hurt when I tried to open jars, hold the steering wheel of my car or even write. I rested, iced, compressed and elevated to no avail. I even quit knitting for over a year, no help. Then my doctor advised that I try eliminating inflammatory foods from my diet. What are those? Sugars and Gluten can cause inflammation in some folks. Other foods that may trigger inflammation are dairy and nuts. So I jumped in and did a 21 day cleanse, eliminating all of the above along with meat and fish for the first 10 days. Besides getting immediate relief in my hands (4 days in) my daily heartburn went away. I also found I had lots more energy and I was sleeping through the night.

After the 21 days I brought back dairy first, no reaction. Then nuts, no problem there either. I decided to avoid sugars as much as possible even though I do not have a reaction to sugars either. It was gluten, the very first time I tried gluten my heartburn returned and the soreness in my hands soon followed. That sensation left me within 24 hours, but I didn't want to go back. Daily pain is...you know...a pain.

So we cleaned out house out of gluten foods. We read every label and found gluten aka WHEAT in weird stuff, like soy sauce, ketchup along with the foods that are composed out of wheat like noodles and breads.

We eat a lot more veggies these days and we are happier. I'm excited that we are putting in a garden so we can pick our own produce.

I will post pictures as we go along.

~mpr