Month: April 2010

Clean, Green and Lean by Dr. Walter Crinnion. Guest post. Review. Giveaway.

Mary Dr. Walter Crinnion, FSB Associates, Giveaway, Review


Clean, Green, and Lean

An Apple a Day Won’t Keep the Doctor Away — Unless It’s Organic
By Dr. Walter Crinnion,
Author of Clean, Green, and Lean: Get Rid of the Toxins That Make You Fat

The EWG recently studied extensive USDA and FDA testing that measured pesticide residues in produce and then ranked the most commonly eaten fruits and vegetables in this country on a scale from most toxic to most consistently clean. I strongly encourage you to take the list of the “dirty dozen” to the grocery store with you. If your produce manager isn’t stocking organic versions of all of the following, you may want to enlighten him or her.

The Dirty Dozen (highest in pesticides)
Apples
Bell peppers
Carrots
Celery
Cherries
Grapes (imported)
Kale
Lettuce
Nectarines
Peaches
Pears
Strawberries

What a conundrum. We know we’re supposed to eat our fruit and vegetables because they have crucial nutrients that other foods don’t, but here on the dirty dozen list, some of our favorites are covered with the most toxic agricultural chemicals out there. So do yourself and your family a favor and buy these twelve only if they’re organically grown. And eat a good variety, because they all contain different antioxidants.

If you can’t find organic and you’re determined to eat the forbidden fruit (or vegetable), the nonorganic varieties can sometimes be made less toxic by peeling them (great for apples and potatoes, not so great for lettuce and strawberries). Their toxic content can be further reduced by soaking and scrubbing them in a tub of 10 percent vinegar (also not so great for lettuce and strawberries). And regardless of whether it’s organic or nonorganic, wash it. Whatever it is that’s keeping the bugs at bay at the supermarket is also surely settling on the surface of the produce.

Avoiding the nonorganic versions altogether is the best strategy, though. A study in Seattle showed that when the most toxic fruits and vegetables were removed from preschoolers’ diets (along with almonds) and replaced with organic varieties, the kids’ pesticide levels went way down. Their levels of key pesticides dropped to essentially zero and stayed undetectable until they started eating conventional foods again.

So now that you know what not to eat, what should you eat? You can start with the flip side of the dirty dozen: the clean dozen. Not all nonorganic versions of fruits and vegetables pack a toxic punch, and these twelve have virtually no pesticide levels. These are the nonorganic varieties you can buy without lying awake at night regretting that you’ve made your toxic burden worse.

The Clean Dozen (lowest in pesticides)
Asparagus
Avocados
Cabbage
Eggplant
Kiwis
Mangoes
Onions
Papayas
Pineapples
Sweet corn
Sweet peas
Watermelon

While it would obviously be best to buy organic varieties of all of our foods, when it comes to these twelve fruits and vegetables, you can feel safe buying the commercial varieties. So unless you have a big grocery budget that allows you to buy nothing but organic foods, use your organic allowance to buy organic apples instead of organic broccoli or bananas.

Detoxing Nonorganic Produce

If you can’t find organic varieties, use these methods to reduce your toxic exposure:

  • Use a vegetable peeler to remove the skin from commercial varieties of apples, pears, nectarines, and potatoes. You’ll probably need a paring knife to peel peaches.
  • For bell peppers, apples, and celery, use an acid wash:
    1. Fill a large bowl or a plastic food storage container with water.
    2. Add a cup of distilled vinegar.
    3. Let the produce rest in the tub for ten to twenty-five minutes, and then use a vegetable scrub brush to scrub each piece for about sixty seconds.
    4. For grapes and cherries, just let them soak for about sixty minutes.

The above is an excerpt from the book Clean, Green, and Lean: Get Rid of the Toxins That Make You Fat by Dr. Walter Crinnion. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Reprinted by permission of the publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., from Clean, Green & Lean, by Walter Crinnion. Copyright © 2010 by Walter Crinnion.

Author Bio
Dr. Walter Crinnion is one of America’s foremost authorities on environmental medicine. A naturopathic physician, he is the director of the Environmental Medicine Center of Excellence at the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine in Arizona and chair of the Environmental Medicine Department. He is a close colleague of Dr. Peter D’Adamo, author of the monumental bestseller Eat Right 4 Your Type.

For more information, please visit www.crinnionmedical.com and www.wiley.com.



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My thoughts:

Clean, Green and Lean by Dr. Walter Crinnion is a book that aims to show readers how to:

* Stop new toxins from coming into the body.
* Get accumulated toxins out of the body.

The ways to accomplish these goals are simple, too:
* Clean up your diet.
* Clean up your home environment.
* Use toxin-fighting supplements.
* Improve elimination.
(page 6)

Dr. Crinnion, a naturopathic physician, explains how to clean up (and out) your body and your home. This book is packed with information that is easy to understand. There are charts listing the most toxic fruits, vegetables, fish, and meats. There are lists of hidden sugar sources and high sugar foods. Having a sibling with celiac disease, I appreciate the amount of information on foods with gluten. There is a chapter of Clean, Green and Lean recipes that is followed by a Fourteen-Day Menu Plan.

This is just a glimpse of Clean, Green and Lean. There is so much more information. I think anyone who’s serious about cleaning up their body and home will find this book to be a valuable resource.

Review copy from FSB Associates

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Giveaway:
Giveaway closed

I’m offering my review copy
You must live in the US
Leave your email in the comment
I’ll use Random.org to decide the winner
Ends Friday, April 30 (tomorrow), noon eastern time


Waiting On Wednesday – April 28

Mary WoW

The Bellini Madonna

May 25th 2010 by Picador USA

Thomas Lynch, a disgraced, middle-aged art historian, goes in search of a lost masterpiece, a legendary Madonna by the Italian master Giovanni Bellini. Insinuating himself into the crumbling English manor house where the painting may be concealed, Lynch attempts to gull the eccentric and beautiful women who live there—though he himself seems to be the pawn in this elaborate game. A Victorian diary draws Robert Browning into the painting’s complicated provenance.

Interlaced with complex clues and hidden jokes, The Bellini Madonna reels from the lush English countryside to the sternly lovely hill towns of the Veneto, from the fifteenth century to the twenty-first.

Sunday Summary – April 25

Mary Sunday Summary

 

I had one of those weeks when I enjoyed everything I read. Sheila Roberts’ new book Small Change is timely and entertaining – typical Sheila Roberts. I really liked it! The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom is so good. It’s a dramatic look at plantation life in the 1790s and early 1800s. Marriage and Other Acts of Charity is a wonderful memoir by Kate Braestrup. I listened to the audiobook and that only enhanced the experience of the book. It’s going on my keeper shelf.
 
 
Books read/reviewed:
 
Small Change The Kitchen House Marriage, and Other Acts of Charity
 
 
 
After the Fall
 
 
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* **
II
I’m giving away my ARC of Small Change by Sheila Roberts
My review is here
It’s a quiet giveaway (only mentioned here)
 
open to US residents
leave your email in the comment box (a must!)
Enter by 11pm eastern Monday April 26 (that’s tomorrow)
 
I’ll announce the winner on Tuesday April 27
I’bookfan-mary.blogspot.com/2010/04/small-change-by-sheila-roberts.html
Small ChangeI’m

Show Me 5 Saturday – The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

Mary 2010 Reading from my shelves project, Kathleen Grissom, Show Me Five


1. Book title: The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

2. Words that describe the book: Historical fiction

3. Settings or characters:
* Tall Oaks plantation owned by Captain James Pyke
* Lavinia McCarten, orphaned on the voyage from Ireland to America and taken home with the Captain to live at Tall Oaks.
* Belle Pyke, daughter of Captain Pyke who lives in the kitchen house because her mother was black. Lavinia lives with Belle.

4. Things I liked/disliked about the book:
* I liked that the story was told from the perspectives of Lavinia and Belle.
* I thought the story was completely enthralling
* I thought the book wrapped up a bit too quickly
* I’d love to read a sequel (which is a sign of a good story)

5. Stars or less: 4/5 stars

The Kitchen House: A Novel

From the back of the book:
Orphaned while onboard ship from Ireland, seven-year-old Lavinia arrives on the steps of a tobacco plantation where she is to live and work with the slaves of the kitchen house. Under the care of Belle, the master’s illegitimate daughter, Lavinia becomes deeply bonded to her adopted family, though she is set apart from them by her white skin.
Eventually, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction, Lavinia finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds. When she is forced to make a choice, loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare, and lives are put at risk.
The Kitchen House is a tragic story of page-turning suspense, exploring the meaning of family, where love and loyalty prevail.

(giveaway win from Passages to the Past)

Small Change by Sheila Roberts

Mary Blog Tour, Pump Up Your Book, Review, Sheila Roberts, St. Martin's Griffin, Women's Fiction


Small Change

Small Change is about three women – Rachel, Tiffany and Jess – who are friends and neighbors. For different reasons they find themselves on the same financial boat and it is beginning to sink. Rachel, a divorced working mother of two, is coming to the end of a long-term substitute teaching job and can’t find another job. Tiffany works at a salon and has a shopping addiction that she tries to hide from her husband. Jess, housewife and former stay-at-home mom, has a jobless grown son living at home and a husband who is about to lose his executive job. These women need money. Yesterday.

Sheila Roberts’ latest novel holds a mirror to an issue faced by many people these days: financial difficulties due to job loss and related fall-out. Trying to compete with her ex, Rachel spends money on her children for things they really don’t need because she feels guilty saying “No” to them. She realizes that the unnecessary spending has to stop when she sees the end of her paychecks looming. Tiffany loves finding a bargain and she finds herself in trouble when she can’t pay her credit card bills – the cards she promised her husband she wouldn’t use anymore. She’s at the point of hiding purchases from her husband. Jess has a boomerang kid who sleeps until noon, surfs the web for a few hours looking for a job, and then heads out for the night to party with friends. That drives her husband crazy and results in shouting matches between father and son. On top of that, her husband’s bank has been bought out and he’s about to lose his job. Talk about stress!

In the past Rachel, Tiffany and Jess would meet weekly to make a craft, talk, share a bottle of wine, etc. In light of their financial situation they turn the weekly gabfest into brainstorming sessions for ways to bring in more money and improve things at home. There are moments of tears and lots of moral support as they start to figure out why they spend and begin to work their way out of their money troubles. It’s not an easy journey but the three women cheer each other on as they face the challenges along the way.

I think everyone can identify with at least one of the characters or knows someone just like one of the women. Because of that, Small Change would be a great selection for a book club. In typical Sheila Roberts style it is entertaining while addressing a serious topic. Roberts offers her characters (and readers) suggestions for cutting expenses and how to live well on a budget. I’m looking forward to trying a couple of her ideas myself!

Visit Sheila’s Website: www.sheilasplace.com

Review copy provided by the author

Marriage and Other Acts of Charity by Kate Braestrup

Mary 2010 Reading from my shelves project, Hachette Audio, Kate Braestrup, Memoir, Reagan Arthur Books Challenge, Review
Marriage and Other Acts of Charity

I listened to the audiobook read by the author. Kate Braestrup’s gentle, reassuring voice tells the story of her first marriage and what happened after.
Near the end of the book Braestrup repeats something her father once told her:

If an experience is good, it’s good. If an experience is bad, it’ll make a terrific story.

That’s what this memoir is. We hear the good but also the bad and how Braestrup came through the experiences. She is now a chaplain for the Maine Warden Service where she is called upon to help people at the time of injury or death of a loved one, a job she’s well-suited for since she was on the receiving end when her first husband, a Maine state trooper, was killed in a car crash while on duty.


I appreciated Braestrup’s discussions of caritas and where God is when tragedy strikes. A lot to think about, a lot to strive for. This would be a wonderful selection for a book club.

Audiobook was a giveaway win from all about {n}

Waiting On Wednesday – April 20

Mary WoW




From Library Thing:
In her page-turning fiction debut, neuropsychologist Kylie Ladd delivers a searing portrait of two marriages united and betrayed by friendship.

“I had been married three years when I fell in love,” begins Kate, a firecracker of a woman who thought she’d found the yin to her yang in Cary, her sensible and adoring husband. For their friend Luke—a charismatic copywriter who loves women and attention in equal measure, and preferably together—life has been more than sweet beside Cressida, the dutiful pediatric oncologist who stole his heart. But when a whimsical flirtation between Kate and Luke turns into something far more dangerous, the foursome will be irrevocably intertwined by more than just their shared history.


After the Fall by Kylie Ladd
Doubleday
On sale: June 15, 2010

Show Me 5 Saturday – Pieces of Sky by Kaki Warner

Mary Kaki Warner, Library Copy, Pieces of Sky, Show Me Five


[SHOWME5.jpg]
now hosted by Jenners at Find Your Next Book Here


1. Book title:
Pieces of Sky by Kaki Warner

2. Words that describe the book:
Western, suspense/romance

3. Settings or characters:
* Jessica Thornton – a long way from her home in England, she’s seeking a new life and hoping to find her brother.
* Brady Wilkins – a cattle rancher who runs the RosaRojo ranch.
* The New Mexico desert location

4. Things I liked/disliked about the book:
* liked the author’s descriptive writing. I could imagine the gorgeous sunsets and the odors and aromas of the ranch.
* Jessica and Brady are opposites so it was fun to watch the attraction grow. The pace of the story was great.
* I liked that the minor characters (passengers on the stagecoach, for example) didn’t distract from the story. They were a bit over the top but they served a purpose.
* I’ve never read a historical western novel so I wasn’t sure how I’d like it. I really enjoyed it and look forward to the second in the Blood Rose Trilogy.

5. Stars or less: 4.5 stars

Library copy

Pieces of Sky

Goodreads synopsis (not my review):
On a stagecoach traveling through New Mexico Territory, Jessica Thornton is a long way from the cool mists and lush gardens of her native England. An authoress and milliner, she carries the weight of a scandalous secret-a horrible shame that has brought her to the West on a desperate search for the only family she can trust: her brother.


No one prepared Jessica for the heat and the hardships. And no one prepared her for a man like Brady Wilkins. For, despite the rancher’s rough-hewn appearance and her own misgivings, Jessica must put her life in his hands after their stagecoach crashes. And she begins to see the man behind the callused hands and caustic wit. A man strong enough to carve out a home in the wilderness, brave enough to fight for his own, and passionate enough to restore her faith in herself-and in her heart.

Review: 21 Simple Things You Can Do To Help Someone With Diabetes by Cherie Burbach

Mary Blog Tour, Cherie Burbach, Pump Up Your Book, Review

21 Simple Things You Can Do To Help Someone With Diabetes

One of my children was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when she was six. She’s now in her early twenties. When I saw the chance to review Cherie Burbach’s book 21 Simple Things You Can Do To Help Someone With Diabetes I signed up. Ms. Burbach has lived with diabetes for many years which gives valuable first hand perspective. In the introduction she states:

This book is:
* a source of encouragement
* a prompt for education
* a starting guide to diabetic etiquette
This book is not:
* a medical reference book
* a substitute for a nurse, doctor, or other medical professional

Three of the 21 topics addressed are:
* Learn about the disease
* Don’t view insulin as a cure
* Retire from the diabetic police force

The author points out if you take the time to learn basic facts about diabetes you’ll find that much of what you thought you understood to be true is simply not true. For instance, one gets Type 1 diabetes from eating too much sugar. Wrong! The fact is the pancreas ceases to function properly. When my daughter was diagnosed the medical professionals at our wonderful clinic (at a top tier children’s hospital) made the point of saying insulin is not a cure, it is life support. That drove home the point. It keeps one alive but it doesn’t cure the pancreas. The Diabetic Policing issue is ongoing for someone with diabetes. Ms. Burbach is right about that. In our extended family there was always someone who would look at my daughter’s plate and say “can you eat that?”. Probably asked with good intentions, but really quite rude and unsupportive.

In straight-forward terms Ms. Burbach explains how to be there for a friend, co-worker, or relative who has this chronic disease. My daughter also read the book and said it made some great points but also thinks it might be asking too much of some friends and co-workers. This reminds me that everyone has her own perspective. I wish 21 Simple Things had been around when she was newly diagnosed. I would have given it to relatives, teachers, coaches, etc. I think it would be an excellent resource for people who have someone in their life who is living with diabetes. I also think diabetes clinics should have it on hand for the newly-diagnosed and their families.

You can read Cherie Burbach’s guest post here.

You can buy the book here.

For more information, please visit Cherie’s website: www.cherieburbach.com

Review copy from the author


Guest Post by Cherie Burbach

Mary Cherie Burbach, guest blogger


Today I welcome author Cherie Burbach to Bookfan. Cherie wrote 21 Simple Things You Can Do To Help Someone With Diabetes (my review will be posted tomorrow).


Cherie Burbach

Type 1 Diabetes: Myths and Hope

I’ve been a Type 1 diabetic for about twenty years now, and if there’s one frustration I have about the disease, it’s a bit misunderstood. There are a lot of myths about the disease from society, and even at times from other diabetics. Here are some myths about Type 1 diabetes.

You Only Get it When You’re a Kid

Type 1 used to be called Juvenile Diabetes because it generally hit when you were under eighteen. But now, people of all ages can get the disease. While it still affects children, others (like me) can get it into their 20s and beyond.

You Get Diabetes When You’re Unfit

I got Type 1 diabetes when I worked out like crazy, was thin, and in great shape. Athletes, like swimmer Gary Hall Jr., can develop the disease. Anyone can get it.

Insulin Cures Diabetes

Insulin the greatest invention ever because it helps diabetics live. It doesn’t cure the disease, however. Every once in a while I hear someone say that diabetes isn’t worth paying attention to anymore in terms of research and funding because it’s “cured.” It isn’t. We need to keep working for a cure.

Diabetes and Hope

While the disease isn’t cured yet, scientists and medical professionals know more about the disease now than at any other time in history. Will a cure happen? I’ve heard for a long time that it’s possible, but we can get lax in research just because we’re close. Still, it’s exciting to see the knowledge that exists today, and to see how far we are towards better management.


Cherie Burbach is an author, blogger, poet, crocheter, and geek. She loves football and is obsessed with anything having to do with the Green Bay Packers or Tudor history.

A passionate diabetes advocate, Cherie has written the book, 21 Simple Things You Can Do To Help Someone With Diabetes.

Cherie used her experience with meeting her husband online to pen At the Coffee Shop, a humorous look at the world of Internet dating. Cherie went on over 60 coffee dates in just six months. She met lots of great people and one of those turned out to be the guy she would marry just one year later. Cherie’s new dating book, Internet Dating is Not Like Ordering a Pizza is available now.

She is a staff writer for b5media, and also the author of three poetry books, including A New Dish and The Difference Now. Her latest, Father’s Eyes, has received the 2008 Editor’s Choice Award by Allbooks Review.

Readers have resonated with Cherie’s honest and inspirational “This I Believe” essay, which is the second-most popular out of over 40,000 entries on the NPR website. For more information, please visit Cherie’s website, www.cherieburbach.com, her personal blogs, or follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/brrbach.