A few weeks ago a facebook event popped up that was sponsored by the White House Historical Association that caught my eye. It was a presentation by author, Adrian Miller, about his book The President's Kitchen Cabinet. I was so impressed I chose it as my next selection on audible. I finished listening to it today and totally enjoyed it. I learned many things I did not know and felt the information was presented in an interesting and easy to understand format. The book includes recipes and they sound amazing. The history of the people who prepared and served food to our first families is a fascinating one. I highly recommend this delightful book. It would make a wonderful gift. Any book group would find plenty of discussion material spring boarding from reading this as a selection. Please click on the book title and author's name above to follow the link to more information. And enjoy the video that follows.
Today I finished listening to the audio book "Never Be Sick Again" by Raymond Francis. I have mixed feelings about this non fiction book. I think it has a great deal of really good information. In order to avoid disease and remain healthy one needs follow quite a bit of the advice presented. And the author explains his points in a very clear manner. Anyone can grasp the concepts and gain a better understanding of some sound practices of good health by reading this book. Raymond Francis was a chemical engineer who through his work was exposed to a large load of chemicals throughout his career. He was born in 1937 and by 1985 at age 48 was extremely ill. In fact his doctors had given him a fatal prognosis. Being a scientist he began to research and found a way to reverse his chemical over load. In this book he explains how he did it. Raymond Francis passed away in 2020. I have not been able to find out online what caused his death. But whether it was an accident, foul play or a disease his body could not longer avoid by age 83, with the steps and measures he learned and applied he was able to live an additional 35 healthy and productive years beyond the time that was predicted. During those 35 years he thankfully was able to leave behind a body of work that will help many people today and in generations to come.
Still I have problems with a few of his opinions. One area I disagree with him on is how critical he is of doctors. While I agree that it is best to remain healthy and make lifestyle choices that prevent illness, when I am sick I am very grateful that I have a doctor to turn to. I agree with Raymond Francis that our western doctors mostly treat our symptoms. But I would venture to say that is consumer driven. With our system of medical care being for profit and patients choosing where they go, the providers are going to give patients what they want when they can. And often what patients want is symptom relief. Doctors would, no doubt, be very glad if patients chose to make healthy life style choices. I am sure they would often make diet and exercise suggestions if they thought their patients would listen. The second area I disagree with Raymond Francis about is his opposition to vaccines. I am not an "anti-vaxer". In my opinion, with any thing we consume or inject into our bodies there is always a chance of running into a problem. But when it comes to vaccines if you weigh the risk verses the benefits I am on the side of getting one's vaccinations. I do think whether or not to get vaccinated is a personal choice and medical procedures should not be mandatory. Lastly, I think his strong language that we choose health or illness is a bit extreme. It is true that we predispose ourselves to some diseases. It is true that poor choices are not healthy. But we don't control everything. And we only have so much self discipline and self control. Besides sometimes a person can do everything right as rain and still get sick. Also we need some enjoyment in life. As long as we don't have a steady diet of junk food the rare ding dong is good for the heart.
The rest of the book is pretty spot on except that it is, in places, rather alarmist. I agree that our food choices as a whole are pretty bad and we need to work on that. Both education and better choices are needed for most people. I agree with the author that we are exposed to a lot of chemicals and that they probably accumulate. But our bodies are equipped to detox and as long as we work to minimize our exposure we will hopefully keep ahead of a chemical over load. I agree that the chemical exposure is a type of poisoning. Avoiding what we can and consuming antioxidants is a good thing. But it is impossible to avoid everything and there is no reason to stir up a bunch of anxiety about it. It is what it is.
All in all it is a good book for people to read to get ideas for healthy lifestyle choices and to raise awareness about the importance of making good decisions. If anyone is interested in the personal care and cleaning products I use that are natural and don't contain the problem chemicals referred to in the book click HERE. There are also high quality supplements available at the proceeding link. It is a fine company that I am proud to be a part of. There is a large community of support and education for those that choose to become involved. One of the people I interact with through this group of people is an ICU nurse who talks about two sides. The illness side where she sees people who are on her unit in the hospital. And the front side or pre illness side. She is all for people working to stay on the pre illness side as long as possible and I agree with her that it is the goal not to get sick to begin with. Sometimes once we get sick it seems like there is a snow balling of worsening problems caused by the solutions to the first problems. It is best to stay out of the cycle as long as we can.
If you click on the book title and the author's name at the beginning of this blog post you will follow links to more information. Below find a video of the author explaining his concepts and ideas. Also find two trailers of documentaries about these health and wellness concerns from other sources. There is another source that has a documentary too and it's trailer can be found at this link - HERE.
Health and wellness is a topic that is fluid. There is always more to learn, trends evolve and there are various theories and ideas. The one thing that Raymond Francis stresses that I think is very important for us to do is to accept responsibility for our health. We need to read and study and make the best choices that we can for ourselves. We need to dust off our critical thinking skills and do our personal health education homework. We need to be smart consumers. Certainly we need to follow our doctors advice. But to stay as heathy as possible between trips to see our health provider is a good thing and making as many healthy choices as we can is a step in the right direction.
Every once in awhile a book comes along that will stay with me and in creating the novel, The Weight Of Ink, author Rachel Kadish has crafted such a book. It is set partly in the 21st Century, partly in the 20th Century and partly in the 17th Century. The time periods overlap along with three love stories creating an experience like vintage overlays for overhead projectors. History, philosophy, literature and ethics are intertwined throughout the story lines. It is a marvelous book. After obtaining the novel free from Prime Reading I was not expecting much as the books I have read in the past from Amazon's free list have not been impressive. But this award winning book was a immense surprise. The characters were became people I rooted for as they went through the events that were involved the story. This book would be an excellent reading group book because there is so much springboard to discussion. For those that enjoy historical novels and are up to thinking through some difficult concepts I highly recommend this book. If a reader is looking for fluff, I suggest they look elsewhere. Please click on the author's name and book title above to follow the links to more information and enjoy the videos that follow. One video is an interview with the author, one video is an explanation of Sephardic Jewish heritage (as opposed to Ashkenazi Jewish heritage) , one video tells the story of the Siege of Masada, and one video is a biography of the philosopher Spinoza. Each of the videos feature events or people referred to in the novel. And if you are ready for a really special story, read this book.
