What are you doing for National Stress Awareness month, which is celebrated each year in the month of April? Sacramento, California, and national HMO, Kaiser Permanente is running a radio ad, which can be heard in Sacramento on radio station KSTE during afternoon driving time in which cooking therapy is mentioned as having therapeutic benefits, such as culinary de-stressing through cooking. You cook to relax. Also check out the uTube video, "Healthy Cooking for Families: Advice from Kaiser Permanente Dietitian Nora Norback."
Foods in the video emphasize couscous, broccoli, salad, and over-baked crusted chicken that tastes like fried chicken but is not fried or cooked in oils or fats. April is Stress Awareness Month. Cooking/culinary therapy helps to relieve stress. The process also brings people together to eat or to help. But cooking therapy can be for one person a stress reliever when it is believed that too many cooks spoil the soup and aggravate the cook who may be seeking to get away from being critiqued.
Cooking for yourself is a stress reliever for some people, especially for people who really feel well when they eat alone. And for others who energize by bringing people together, cooking is another way to get people together to eat at the same table as you, unless you de-stress by eating quietly alone in silence or with soft, slow music to savor your meal. Cooking therapy also is used to rehabilitate people with specific illnesses. It all depends on what cooking therapy is supposed to achieve--relief of tension and stress, or simply finding a reason for people to gather together and eat at the same table.
The therapeutic aspect of cooking therapy being like a form of meditation also has been suggested by health care professionals along with dish washing therapy, that it is relaxing to wash dishes by hand if it's done at your own pace. The warm water on your hands is a form of relaxation and meditation.
An advertisement from Kaiser Permanente went on the radio today emphasizing cooking as therapy. Is cooking relaxing for you? Interestingly, a few weeks ago on the Dr. Oz TV program, the subject brought up focused on therapeutic exercises to help you relax. One of those tasks mentioned was dishwashing as therapy.
Cooking therapy for some has been a form of relaxation for generations. For example, kneading the dough for baking bread is one type of workout that can be relaxing, kneading the dough instead of kneading your stomach muscles with resentment or anger. It's a form of release to cook for some who find kneading dough relaxing or even muscle-building.
Do you find any aspect of cooking or washing therapeutic? On another note, the poor man's cancer 'cure' is said to be baking soda. Does it work? That's for researchers to look into.
Baking Soda Therapy?
If you search the web for cancer cures using foods, or ingredients that might go into foods, you'll find more than 400 so-called cancer cures, but the question is whether any actually work? And do people who have exhausted all convention medical means of getting rid of their problem turn to foods as a last choice? Of these so-called 'food' cures, what's the rate that any of these people have been helped in the long term?
Why are people walking away from conventional medicine when it no longer works and trying everything researchable in the field of natural allopathic medicine? And how many people are getting into trouble for exercising their right to free speech versus offering educational information that isn't supposed to take the place of a physician? But what happens when a physician diagnoses someone who goes through treatments and isn't responding?
Do people turn to food as a last resort, as a last hope? And are some of the foods discussed online as cures or treatments based on research? What's safe when it comes to using food as medicine? Let's look at one interesting so-called 'cure,' online with the objective to alkalize your body with baking soda. It's called the baking soda cure.
And in the past some of the doctors who used baking soda to 'cure' cancer got into real trouble with the law. But is the theory behind using baking soda to alkalize a part of your body have any real cure rates? There's one interesting article online to explore,"Bicarbonate of Soda Used to Cure Stage Four Prostate Cancer," by Paul Fassa, published on Nov. 13, 2009. See the website, Bicarbonate of Soda Used to Cure Stage Four Prostate Cancer.
You might want to take a look at other articles discussing the miracle-type 'cures' of baking soda to see whether they have worked for many or few people. The idea behind using baking soda is that when you take it, the result is supposed to be that your pH level is supposed to go into the alkaline range. Cancer is supposed to grow in mainly an acidic environment in your body. So the so-called 'cure' is to alkalinize your body.
You might want to check out information about how Dr. Mark Sircus refers to oncology`s use of bicarbonate of soda in conjunction with chemotherapy to help protect vital organs from that poison. He asserts that all chemo patients would die without it. Dr. Sircus prefers using drips to get bicarbonate solutions into cancerous areas. Check out the article, Sodium Bicarbonate, article by Dr. Mark Sircus. Also see the website, articles by Dr. Mark Sircus, and Sodium Bicarbonate Dosages and Treatments – IMVA. And check out, Treatments for Nuclear Contamination | Dr. Mark's Blog, and Bicarbonate of Soda Used to Cure Stage Four Prostate Cancer.
According to the IMVA publications website, "Dr. Mark Sircus, one of the most prolific writers in medicine, holds the honorary title of doctor of Oriental medicine and was one of the first nationally certified acupuncturists in the United States. He was trained in acupuncture and oriental medicine at the Institute of Traditional Medicine in Santa Fe, N.M., and in the School of Traditional Medicine of New England in Boston. He served at the Central Public Hospital of Pochutla, in Mexico.
"For many years he has been researching into the human condition and into the causes of disease. His primary focus in recent years has been the study of environmental toxicity and iatrogenic diseases. He has written extensively on the poisons in the environment, in our foods, medicines and dental practices. Dr. Sircus is the director of the International Medical Veritas Association (IMVA), which is advocating radical changes in orthodox medicine.
"His research and writings bring forth information that others wish to be hidden and he is without doubt “a flame of wonderful insight” and many are thankful for his wisdom and courage. Some people think him a genius in his own right and “his methods of attacking chronic disease beautiful and to the point.”
Is there really a poor man's treatment?
Is the FDA or the government going after anyone in any given situation who even talks about the so-called poor man's cancer treatment using natural foods? What about people who use not just baking soda but also magnesium as cures for a variety of health issues? Do any of these food-cures really work? Has anyone been cured for many years?
You might want to check out the book, Sodium Bicarbonate - Rich Man's Poor Man's Cancer Treatment (IMVA). It's listed on Amazon.com. But what good does baking soda do if you eat it? It only will touch your digestive system as it passes in small amounts. Baking soda does have anti fungal action. But what's in the baking soda that cures--the anti-fungal agent? If cancers are growing in Candida yeast overgrowth in the body, does the baking soda get rid of the yeast growths? Also, the yeast cell is very close to what a cancer cell looks like. Is Candida the cancer`s source? And does getting rid of fungus, also get rid of cancer?
Interestingly, a lot of doctors got in trouble in the past for using so-called cures that the government didn't approve of, even if the cures were made from food. For example, how many doctors in the past lost their licenses or were 'punished' or 'fined' for telling patients to use certain types of enemas from foods of various kinds? When it comes to baking soda in small amounts, scientists have found it helped people with kidney disease.
How Baking Soda Helps Prevent Worsening of Kidney Disease
Also view the article, "Baking Soda Prevents Kidney Disease, Renal Failure and Kidney Dialysis." The study indicates that baking soda prevents a worsening of kidney disease and renal failure in patients already with kidney disease. Baking soda has been shown to slow the decline of kidney function in CKD, according to a study published in the current issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN).
In that study, scientists studied 134 patients with advanced CKD and low bicarbonate levels, a condition known as metabolic acidosis. One group of these patients was treated with a small daily dose of sodium bicarbonate in tablet form, in addition to their usual care.
As a result of the small daily baking soda dose, the rate of decline in kidney function was dramatically reduced in these patients. According to the study, "overall, the decline was about two-thirds slower than in patients not given sodium bicarbonate."
Interestingly, in patients taking sodium bicarbonate, the rate of decline in kidney function "was similar to the normal age-related decline." Perhaps this study also shows how the human body reacts to the difference between one type of sodium, (sodium bicarbonate also known as baking soda) and sodium chloride found in common table salt.
The Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN) reported that a small daily dose of baking soda could prevent kidney damage and chronic kidney disease. See the abstract of the study, "Bicarbonate Supplementation Slows Progression of CKD and Improves Nutritional Status."
For those without kidney conditions, a small daily dose of baking soda also can come by way of brushing your teeth with it. See: "Baking soda can clean your teeth, clear your complexion and act as a natural antacid."
Can a very small amount of baking soda prevent kidney disease in some? For further information on the study with baking soda and kidney patients, see the article, "Baking Soda Prevents Kidney Disease, Renal Failure and Kidney Dialysis."
Diet soda may increase heart disease risk, according to new study
Speaking of a very different type of 'soda', also see the articles, "Study Indicates Diet Soda Increases Heart Disease Risk," and the February 14, 2011 article, "Soda increases chance of heart attack, study shows." The 'sodas' these studies discuss have nothing to do with bicarbonate of soda also known as baking soda. Instead, these new studies focus on soda pop. So maybe with all this new information coming in daily, cooking can be very therapeutic if you know how what you'll be eating will affect your health. And after the meal is over, do you volunteer to wash the dishes by hand?
Dish washing also can be very therapeutic, if you enjoy the warm suds over your hands and take your time to look at cooking and dish washing as expressive arts therapy, well, somewhat akin to kneading bread dough to work out your muscles and keep from sitting down. How you make dish washing and cooking therapeutic is to put on ambient or other relaxing music in the background, slow music, or music that makes you want to dance as you cook. But be aware of what you're doing while cooking or washing dishes.
Culinary/Cooking Therapy Sites
Cooking therapy helps rehabilitate handicapped patients
Gerson Therapy Nutrition - Diet and cooking for cancer patients
Cooking is therapy: Making meals helps to reduce stress
S.O.S. Kitchen Therapy«Italian Food Lovers
Culinary Therapy - Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine– University
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