Not This Reset

Some resets are good, but maybe not this reset. Last week, my neighbors informed me that there is an electric bed that resets your DNA in our community building. It was purportedly invented by a female scientist with some legitimate sounding credits. But my first response was still…A what?!?

Then one of the reporting parties told a story about having cardiac ablation to fix a heart rhythm problem. That made me curious what the electric bed might do to her? The more I thought, the more curious I got.

I started clicking around. Could such a bed really reset anything?

I didn’t find anything online about our resident electric bed, but I did discover “medbeds.” It appears this term can describe a medical bed or a meditation bed. Either one will come with many ideas about what it is.

With medbeds, some lines of thinking extend to the conspiratorial and far-fetched. Others lean toward holistic medicine but remain outside of mainstream practice.

A company called Tesla BioHealing (No relation to the car company or SpaceX) offers facilities in which you can experience a medbed for about $160. They also sell a home generator for just under $20,000. But what are these and how do they work?

Tesla BioHealing offers Life Force Energy makers or enhancers at two levels of strength – biohealer and generator. You simply put them next to you (or under your bed) and they provide extra life force that, according to their website, will cause cells to activate their self-repair mechanisms.

Yeah, yeah but what is this life force energy?

Interestingly, they don’t attach the words life force energy directly to anything. They do have a section that talks about biophotons. Those are defined as low-level light emissions produced by biological systems such as cells, tissues, and organisms. They may play a role in communication between cells, but the biophotons don’t seem to tie directly back to the healer or generator.

Having been down a few roads with my mother who loved fringe alternative medicine, I’m getting the same feeling I got when she took me to a dentist who put a rod in each of my hands attached to electrical wires which were inserted in small vials of water.

I was to hold the rods for a specified amount of time while my body generated, and the machine deposited into the water, whatever it would need to heal. At the time, I had just recovered from a second bout with psittacosis. I wanted answers and to be totally rid of the organism, but this was a bridge too far.

Like other quick and easy fixes, a product that enhances your “Life Force Energy” to combat many health conditions at once sounds appealing. And it’s possible that it could briefly appear to improve some conditions through the placebo effect. It may also be considered preferrable to the significant side effects of multiple pharmaceuticals to those who prefer a holistic approach to healing. But just because we’d like for solutions to work like magic doesn’t mean they do.

There are MedBeds that appear in scientific studies – they’re electric beds in the sense of positioning a patient comfortably. You know, a hospital bed.

I’m not saying it’s impossible for someone to invent something that will help cells heal – hyperbaric chambers exist after all. But I wouldn’t jump on an electric medbed right now and expect any sort of bump in life force energy.

If you’re looking for a reset, start with the basics – healthy food, plenty of water, lots of movement, and a good night’s sleep. It’s amazing how much your health can improve just from consistently making those part of your day.  

A shockingly good electric bed reset will have to come later – when one exists.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Delicious and Nutritious Raspberries

Red, purple, or gold – raspberries are always delicious and nutritious! I just ate a handful of perfectly firm, sweet red raspberries. Yum! I love them enough that I’ve decided to try growing my own.

raspberries

I’m familiar with blackberries, huckleberries, and strawberries. All of them grew wild near our farm. Raspberries did not so this experiment feels like foreign territory.

Research tells me raspberries grow well in zones 5-9. I’m in 8a so the climate should be friendly enough. I’m planting in a raised bed, but chose a variety that can also thrive in a container. It should grow to a height of 2-3 feet and width of 3-4 feet. I’m not sure whether I’ll get fruit this year, but I’ll be excited to have healthy growth this year and fruit the next.

The idea of walking out to the back yard to pick fruits and vegetables appeals to me for many reasons. The first is freshness. This seems especially relevant for raspberries. Because the torus remains on the plant, the fruit is hollow in the center. This makes the berries delicate and easy to damage. Fresh will mean a longer shelf life.

Fresh will also mean more vibrant flavor. Any fruit is best when it can fully ripen in place then be picked and eaten quickly.

Nutrition is also highest in freshly picked fruit. Raspberries are packed with nutrients. One cup contains 1.5 grams of protein and 54% of the recommended daily intake of vitamin C.

These gems also contain:

  • Manganese: 41% of the RDI
  • Vitamin K: 12% of the RDI
  • Vitamin E: 5% of the RDI
  • B vitamins: 4–6% of the RDI
  • Iron: 5% of the RDI
  • Magnesium: 7% of the RDI
  • Phosphorus: 4% of the RDI
  • Potassium: 5% of the RDI
  • Copper: 6% of the RDI

And they’re full of fiber – 8 grams per cup or 32% of the recommended daily intake for men and 21% RDI for women.

The goodness doesn’t stop there. Raspberries are high in antioxidants and tannins that may help control blood sugar and prevent arthritis and cancer.

You may not be able to eat enough raspberries to fully prevent a given disease, but including them in your meal plan has many benefits.

Grabbing raspberries off the back porch for breakfast in the summer sounds divine! And I like knowing the berries have been grown without chemical sprays.

And while I prefer eating them right off the plant, raspberries can also be enjoyed in sorbet, cookies, tarts, brownies, coffee cake, and atop yogurt, ice cream or cheesecake.

Don’t hesitate to reward yourself with a sweet, colorful treat! Raspberries are always delicious and nutritious.

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A Little Can Go a Long Way

RV living is a good reminder that a little can go a long way. It often takes a change in living situation to challenge the way you’ve always done things. The way you learned may not be the best, but it feels comfortable. Until it doesn’t.

I’m living in my RV right now. I do this periodically. I’m not an RVer who travels from park to park on weekends or even one who winters in Florida. But I do have an RV community that I call home with friends who live there permanently. Driving cross country to get to this second home presents many opportunities to get buy with less.

RVs

Due to a water supply issue, I bathed and washed dishes with only one gallon of water yesterday. I didn’t cook a full meal so there were no pots and pans. But I also didn’t use paper plates. With one gallon of water, I was able to clean my plates, cups, dishes, and coffee press, shampoo and rinse my hair, and take a sponge bath. I wasn’t limited to one gallon, but because of the circumstances I was motivated not to waste and that was all I needed.

One gallon. At my house, I would have used over 20 gallons to accomplish the same tasks. I would also have had an actual shower. That’s a huge difference to enjoy a shower. Is it worth it?

I’m not going to answer that. Each of us must decide on a given day where our priorities lie and make decisions in line with those and our values. My decision may be different than yours. That’s okay. My point is not that waste is inherently, always bad. It is that we can often improve the flow of our lives by examining our daily routine.

I know from watching people work, we often mindlessly perform tasks without first thinking through the process. This means we may never fully hit our stride or do things in the most efficient, effective way.

And even if we think through a process, it’s important to remain open to learning because we may not be able to anticipate the best way to navigate every possibility. Could there be a better way to peel an onion, rinse a plate, seal an envelope, remove a stain, dust the furniture, mop the floor, fix kids’ lunches, search the internet, mow the lawn, move things upstairs, or do the laundry?

There may be a faster, easier, less expensive or labor-intensive way to perform each of your everyday tasks. Added together this can save you significant time, reduce your stress level, and possibly save you money. The thing is, you won’t discover any of this unless you’re willing to approach things differently.

Sometimes it’s hard to get started. Then something changes and a gallon of water is all you have. A gallon of water and endless possibilities. Those can certainly go a long way.

Leave Well Enough Alone

When it comes to food, sometimes it’s best to leave well enough alone. I have a friend who tries every new superfood nutrient powder that comes along. Mostly, they buy it and it sits on the counter, but they believe this will make them healthy while eating fast food fried chicken plus some lettuce every other month.

There’s no shortage of these products. I’m confident I could find one that’s gluten-free, low histamine, and pleasant tasting. I’m also confident that it would cost more than the few cents per serving I’ll spend producing Swiss chard, arugula, lettuce, and bok choy in my garden. So why would I be tempted to opt for a powdery substitute?

fresh tomatoes

I’m not saying there’s absolutely no benefit to these products or that they shouldn’t be added to an already healthy, balanced diet. If you are creating a shelf-stable survival kit, they may be a good option. If an elderly relative has trouble chewing, they may be a good option. If you are traveling and uncertain about access to fresh fruits and vegetables, greens powder may be a good option. But for anyone who has access and can tolerate the ingredients in fresh form, a powder is not a superior substitute.

Flour that has been processed until it has virtually no nutrients left, then enriched is not better than flour that is less refined. Orange juice from concentrate that sits for months and then has flavor packets added so it will taste fresh is not healthier than eating an orange or squeezing one for juice.

Academics and food scientists have attempted to create functional ice cream that provides more health benefits than regular ice cream without the drawbacks. Along the way, some interesting things have been discovered. Dairy fat wasn’t shown to be associated with the risk of type 2 diabetes when compared with calories from carbohydrate. But replacing 5% of the dairy fat calories with other animal fat or carbohydrates from refined grains was associated with a 14% and 4% increased risk respectively of type 2 diabetes. Substituting whole grains for 5% of the calories on the other hand resulted in a 7% lower risk of type 2 diabetes. Even in this experimentation, whole foods proved healthier.

Ice cream may even reduce the risk of heart disease for diabetics. A few years ago, a Harvard doctoral student who had studied the relationship of dairy foods to chronic disease for his thesis presented evidence that eating ½ cup of ice cream per day was associated with a lower risk for heart problems. I’d like to believe this finding! I feel like ice cream has healing properties.

Even so, I’m sure homemade or local creamery ice cream without added fillers is better than commercially produced grocery store ice cream. I’m lucky to live less than a mile from a local creamery so a healing bowl of ice cream is never far away. Neither is the temptation to eat way more than half a cup.

When I was growing up, there would have been no reason for this post. The emphasis on processed and convenience food was small. Most of my family’s food came from the farm. I learned to love the smells, textures, and taste of fresh vegetables from the garden.

And my mother wasn’t keen on extra work in the kitchen. As a result, she kept things simple. That example inadvertently helped shape my preferences for healthier foods.

That doesn’t mean I’m a proponent of a raw food diet, but I do support including raw vegetables and fruits in meals every day. Why? They retain all of their nutrients. But also, I don’t think bananas, apples, peaches, grapes, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, oranges, arugula, lettuce, tomatoes, or baby bok choy are enhanced by cooking.

I don’t want to miss out on the peppery bitterness of arugula, the sweet juiciness of a fresh blackberry bursting open in my mouth, or the tender crunch a baby bok choy stem adds to my salad. I would miss all of this pleasure if they were ground into a powder.

When healthier and more pleasurable intersect, it’s best to leave well enough alone!