Here’s another in your face conversation between psychic medium, Kate Sitka and our boy.
Hey E! So what was it we were talking about earlier?
Health. (Burrp!)
Okay, Erik’s picking up and showing me the things I’ve been reading lately about pro-biotics, naturally fermented food and he’s showing me a pomegranate. Aside from looking like a boob (as a lot of fruit does) he raises the pomegranate up as – ha, Erik’s Fruit of the Week.
He’s wearing pink and a tall hat made of fruit, Like the Chiquita Banana Lady!
As weird an’ wild as it is to be taking health advice from someone who doesn’t have a body, I’m gonna pass it out over the winter. Why do people get sick in winter?
People want to think it’s because they spend so much time inside, and in some places it’s true – but the real reason people get sick is because their little warriors (immune system) crash out in the winter usually because of the change in diet and the TRUCKLOADS OF SUGAR you eat around the holidays.
You Canucks crank it up early with Thanksgiving in October (flashes me a cartoon image of a Beaver eating turkey which is… very weird) It’s this license to eat thing we’ve got goin’ on.
If you eat CONSTANTLY and a lot of what you eat is suddenly very sweet, your gut just can’t handle it. The sheer volume of food means your gut is constantly working and digesting crap all day long – and when the sugar content goes up WITH the volume, it makes it tough for your gut to do anything but just move that crap on through. Your gut isn’t doing its job at feeding those little warriors (immune system.)
Okay, so I need to understand what Erik’s talking about here, so I take a minute to google “intestine” and “immune system.” I was vaguely aware of this connection, but I don’t know how it’s supposed to work.
(Jeopardy Music)
Okay, here’s something: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081114185942.htm
In an article published in Nature, Gerard Eberl and his Lymphoid Tissue Development Group at the Institut Pasteur (CNRS, URA1961) give a step-by-step description of a mechanism that maintains this subtle balance between intestinal commensal flora and the immune system. In particular, the researchers demonstrate how certain bacteria trigger an immune response leading to the formation of new lymphoid tissues responsible for modulating their development.
The scientists first show that an essential component of the bacterial wall, recognized by a protein in the epithelial cells of the intestine, triggers the first step of an immune chain reaction. This reaction leads to the formation of lymphoid tissues which, in turn, secrete immunoglobulins. It is these small molecules that control the bacterial flora on the surface of the intestine.
So, to translate that for my benefit, if your gut’s good organisms are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of food and the intrusion of “bad” organisms (yeast etc.) that are fueled by a ton of sugar in all of that food, the good organisms can’t do their part of the job in the chain of healthy immunity.
Erik sucks in his cheeks, narrows his eyes and says, They ARE the WEAKEST LINK!
Here’s the messed up thing: you can think you’re eating healthy, and you still might not be supporting that gut bacteria. You know how in War of the Worlds, all the aliens died from the bacteria on Earth? Well how do you think Earth kills off excess people?
So E, what do you mean, the earth kills off excess people?
Well for the earth, we’re kind of like gut bacteria – an important part of the eco system but we can get out of hand, out of balance. Thing is, there’s a larger eco system that the EARTH is a part of, and an energetic-level ecosystem that all affects the balance in a particular point. (Erik tries to show me and my brain crashes, which is like a feeling of “zoning out” and forgetting what we were talking about.)
Ooo – sideline question. Do you still consider yourself human? Fuck yeah! I’m still cheering for Team Earth Human, I put enough time in on this planet, didn’t I??? (He’s wearing a hockey jersey with a big globe on it – and he corrects me that it’s FOOTBALL not hockey. Excuse me for getting my national sport all over you, dude!) But as a sideline answer, it’s like identifying your sexuality. You can call yourself whatever you want – I could identify as a ball of light and have all sorts of weird light sex with other balls of light, but that wouldn’t help me with (my job / my focus) which is your sorry mofos down here on Earth! (he says it jokingly). Yeah, like, nearly everyone I love is on this planet, of course I still identify as human.
It’s just interesting since we think of species in physical terms.
It’s like rock n’ roll – it’s a state of mind!
ANYWAY! My point is that your connection to the earth – your physical connection between your consciousness (soul) and your physical body is literally at this level – the relationship between your body and the earth, which is really your body’s micro-eco-system of regenerating cells and bacteria that came from outside yourself. Your body interacts with the earth every second of every day, through bacteria. By talking to bacteria.
You know that rich guy who went crazy and thought the bacteria were talking to him? Well he was picking up on *something* – he wasn’t quite right in the head though (knocks on his head) he wasn’t like a medium translating messages – he was more like a POW imagining they understand scrambled enemy code after listening to it for months.
So yeah, here’s the thing: People have this annual ritual right in the beginning of fall to systematically KILL OFF all of their awesome gut bacteria. Why do you think Flu season starts in December? Because we all commit bacterial homicide in November with Thanksgiving!
(Shows me a flu bug as a cartoon blob living on a door knob, watching a family eat and saying “Yeah, eat those candied yams, eat it! Ooo I love it, you eat that stuffing, just STUFF YOURSELF WITH STUFFING! Pie, yeah baby, where’s the whipped cream!!?!)
Would you please just eat a fucking pomegranate? And what are you doing in between leftover pie and turkey sandwiches – you’re getting fancy sugary coffees like Pumpkin Lattes or Mochas or whatever – and you’re “treating” yourself with a nice sugary dessert in a paper cup, topped off with MORE whipped cream, right before you go into the mall to do all your CHRISTMAS SHOPPING!
You have GOT TO cut back on the fucking sugar and all the fucking food this time of year. People are literally making themselves sick with the excess of food and sugar! It’s INSANE! It’s like a nation of crack addicts! Actually, it’s more like those (times in ancient Rome / Egypt ) when the slaves / working class were all given a crude beer to live off of, but also to keep them nice and inebriated so they couldn’t figure out a way to rebel before they passed out at night. But at least that beer supported the gut – most beer now is sterile (wilting willy) and full of sugar anyway. Sorry dudes, Big Beer (corporate, brand-name beer) is NOT AWESOME. But maybe look into brewing your own.
Here’s the thing I’m getting down to: It’s really important in the winter time, during “FLU SEASON” (rolls his eyes) to look at what you’re actually eating and think about how it’s helping your gut. Raw foodies are gonna get a lot of this good bacteria if they’re eating really good, local veggies in the summer – but in the winter, all those staples have to come from far away, and the carrots you get in the winter time aren’t crawling with the same earth goodies that they are in the summer.
So yeah, ferment your food. (He calls me a ‘kraut for the 100th time this week, because I’m half-German and I’ve been talking about making sauerkraut.) Cause in Mother Earth’s infinite awesomeness, all of that good bacteria you need to get into your gut is LITERALLY floating in the air around you. Most food is gonna ferment if you just add salt to it and weigh it down with a plate in brine or something, but there are a million different ways to do it – even if you can’t have salt.
You know those creepy kombacha mushrooms? Now’s the time to start giving homes to those little cupboard pets. Practice talking to them too – they get cranky if you poke them and it’s funny!
An’ Kefir. It’s not just a weird name for little kids – it’s an actual thing used to make yoghurt.
If white people food doesn’t do it for you (shows me kefir and Vikings) you can just explore other cultures. (I like kim-chi!) Everyone everywhere in the world ferments food to preserve it, in this beautiful cooperation between nature’s bounty and the earth’s ecosystem in preserving the harvest. Preserve the food, you preserve the humans.
It used to be that in late fall, people would have to start eating their preserved food – cause it’d be six to eight weeks since the harvest, the duck or ham or turkey you’d killed for thanksgiving had finally run out, and all your chickens had stopped laying eggs. You’d start to pull down jars of preserved meat and vegetables, right around the time when the dip in the daylight was causing a dip in your immune system.
But never fear! It’s YOGHURT to the rescue!!!
(Erik notes that sweet yoghurt in little plastic containers doesn’t count. It has to be “real yoghurt”. Sweet yoghurt is part of the problem!)
What about the little probiotic pills?
They’re expensive, and not as effective as eating a probiotic food – you know, food you’d have to eat ANYWAY. You can’t really get the same results with pills, because if you’re taking the pills and then eating a donut, you’re just negating the good effects of the expensive pill. If you EAT naturally fermented food, (not grocery store sauerkraut because it’s been zapped and most of the good stuff’s been killed off) you’re gonna do two things: Get more good bacteria in one meal than you’d get with pills AND get more actual nutrition out of an overall healthier meal. Because all that bacteria is needed to digest food properly anyway.
So you can eat a raw carrot from next door, and it’s got a lot of great bacteria on it from the ground. But if you eat a raw carrot in November, there are two things against you: 1. That carrot is from farther away and is dried out and contaminated with all the people touching it on its long journey to your table and 2. Your gut is so stunted from all the sugar you’ve been eating it doesn’t know what to do with a carrot anymore. So not only is the carrot itself less nutritious in winter, but your gut is going to get less out of anything it eats without the proper balance of bacteria.
BUT! If that carrot is shredded into (a jar with other winter veggies and fermented) then your food’s going to be coated with all the bacteria your gut needs to get the most from all the nutrition locked up in that carrot. It’s even better if the fermented carrot in the jar is from the local harvest and was an awesome carrot before it went INTO the jar.
And sorry, Kate, but juicing raw carrots in winter is kind of a waste of time.
I have been juicing carrots, among other things – usually with oranges and beets. Apparently, my winter carrots aren’t doing much for me.
The beets are okay, and the oranges are really good, but you know what’s better? A pomegranate, grapefruit, bananas – not mutant bananas, the good ones – or plantains they’re even better for you. LESS SWEET stuff because you’re getting all the sugar you need just by breathing the air this time of year.
You know why so many people think wheat is their problem? Because it’s SUGAR that’s REALLY their problem, and if they cut out wheat, their options for sugar consumption goes down like a – gangsta with cement boots! (Guess how many images he cycled through my head before we got one I’d write down? Five. Goes down like a – fill in the blank. Play this fun game with Erik if you want, see what he shows you.)
Ha ha, Erik & I have been debating the merits and drawbacks of coffee. For someone who is so pro-weed, it’s surprising how anti-coffee Erik can be. My partner and I owned a coffee roastery, and my partner has roasted some award-winning beans. I’m telling you, the café’s that served her coffee won awards, it’s that good. I could go on and ON about coffee, and I just don’t accept Mr. E’s anti-coffee stance, which he will soften into “once a day, okay” if you whine enough.
I like to point out that there’s actually a lot of good things in coffee, but Erik always comes back around to pointing out that coffee is usually just a vehicle for people to get their first dose of fat and sugar in the morning, and that keeping wired on caffeine makes people work through their instincts, their intuition and keeps them up later at night, ultimately contributing to an average DECLINE in health.
Thing is, Kate, most people aren’t going to special-order the best beans and roast them in their kitchen. Most people are going to buy an expensive bag of coffee from the grocery store, that’s been sitting there for MONTHS and is covered with VILE bacteria all in the oils of the rotting beans. (It’s true – once it’s more than a month old, most pre-roasted coffee is rancid inside the bag. That’s why coffee bags have those little plastic valves, because the bags would explode if they were completely sealed.)
The older it is (since it’s been roasted) the worse it is for you, and it fucks up the acidity in your gut – it doesn’t help that bacteria at all. The best, simplest thing for most people is just to QUIT COFFEE.
I’m not telling y’all to diss your grandmas and say no to those Christmas Cookies – Grandma loves you and she doesn’t deserve that shit after all her work. Just please, PLEASE eat a fucking pomegranate once in a while, and start thinking about your body like a wetland, and all the stuff you eat is gonna filter in that wetland affecting the whole balance of everything. If you can manage to make some really basic dietary changes and get that gut bacteria right up there, you’ll see there doesn’t have to be a “FLU SEASON” at all!
And as a bonus, Erik says there’s a kit you can order online to actually use to test and monitor the normal flora in your poop. I am NOT googling that, I’m too scared! I remember finding a website about a colon cleanse protocol and it has scarred me for life. Tread carefully! But eat healthy!
I think I’ll make kim-chi this weekend, and maybe some German sauerkraut.
Kate Sitka is a spirit medium and animal communicator located in Tofino, BC. To learn more about her and her work, please visit her professional website tofinopsychic.com and her personal blog psychicintraining.com
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