Here is a list of the common ingredients found in most commercial detergents, although there is no law in place at the moment which forces companies to list every single ingredient that may be in the powder:

1. Alkyl benzene sulfonates or ABS (also linear alkyl benzene sulfonates or LAS, linear alkyl sodium sulfonates)(can cause skin irritation),
2. Alkyl phenoxy polyethoxy ethanols (also nonyl phenoxy ethoxylate or nonyl phenol) (are slow to degrade in the environment have implicated chronic health problems),
3. Artificial fragrances (do not degrade in the environment, are toxic to fish and cause skin and eye irritation),
4. Diethanolamines (also diethanolamine, triethanolamine and monoethanolamine) (potential carcinogen),
5. EDTA (ethylene-diamino-tetra-acetate) does not readily biodegrade and can release heavy metals contained in underwater sediment,
6. Optical brighteners (toxic for fish and irritates the skin which is exposed to sunlight),
7. Petroleum distillates (also naphthas),
8. Phosphates contribute to significant eutrophication of waterways and create unbalanced ecosystems by fostering dangerously explosive bacterial growth. For these reasons they are banned or restricted in many states.  Products containing phosphates should be considered unacceptable. Note: The major laundry detergent manufacturers no longer usephosphates in their formulations),
9. Polycarboxylates, 
10. Polyethylene glycol (also PEG),
11. Quaternium 15 (toxic)
12. Xylene sulfonate.

from here

Can you imagine all those ingredients coating your bed linen and then you lying on them for up to 10 hours every night whilst your body sweats and absorbs the chemicals directly via your skin? These chemicals will then naturally accumulate in your liver, kidneys, colon and lungs – during the day your clothes have the same effect.

So, I have started using plain old washing soda for my clothes. It is quite simple, I pour a scoop into my washing machine and set the temperature as high as I can for whites, using one setting lower for coloureds. If the program has a prewash, I add white vinegar to the compartment (which softens the water). So far, no stiff towels and very white tea towels. I always line dry my laundry outside in summer and in winter hang the laundry on a clothes horse near to a radiator upstairs (soon to be hanging in the stairwell).

WARNING – PLEASE READ! Multinationals like Unilever or Proctor & Gamble tell us that their products allow us to ‘wash at lower temperatures’, which they say is better for the environment. This is not true. The contents of the laundry detergent (that allows us to lower the temperature) is far, far more TOXIC to the environment than heating up the water to wash the clothes with, it is also far more COSTLY to us as consumers and far more profitable for them. The maxim: ‘Washing at lower temperatures’ is a cleverly fashioned SCAM to convince you to use their detergents. There is nothing wrong with using soap-based cleaning agents and washing as hot as you can set the machine. This applies to dishwashers too, better still: wash the dishes/clothes by hand.

Anyone still use a mangle?

That was six years ago and every so often I take a p.H. reading: my saliva is always spot on 7.25, my urine spot on 6.25, with hardly any fluctuation during the day.

The whole idea of balancing alkalinity in the body had aways baffled me, as I assumed different organs are bathed in different p.H. values and therefore the body could not possibly be either acid or alkaline in totality and furthermore it was near impossible to measure it. So, when I discovered the paleo diet, p.H. testing quietly went out of the window as I was eating so many acid-forming foods (meat and dairy) anyway and felt relatively good, I decided that there was no truth to the alkaline-forming diet after all.

But that is not quite the whole story, there IS something in it, but not in the way I had initially thought: the truth is, we are individuals and therefore need an individual acid/alkaline diet; some of need acid forming foods, some of us need to alkalinise. I found this out this morning as I read an interview with New York metabolic typist, Dr Gonzalez:

RC: There are many books in health food stores which say that the underlying cause of disease is that we are all too acid, in large part because of a meat-based diet, and need to push our body towards a more alkaline state by eating more fruits, vegetables, almonds, millet, etc.

NG: That is absolutely incorrect. Sympathetic dominants tend to be more acid, parasympathetic dominants tend to be too alkaline, and balanced people tend to be somewhere in between. Sympathetic dominants do well on alkalinizing foods like fruits and vegetables. Parasympathetic dominants need acid forming foods, of which red meat is the most powerful.

Since discovering metabolic typing at the end of 2011, most of my world view has completely changed. For the first time in a long while, actually since I started my journey into nutritional research, something makes complete sense at last. The confusion has been replaced by growing joy that I now have a way to pinpoint exactly what I should be eating according to my body’s needs, not groping around in the dark.

I looked up Dr. Gonzalez after being told by a close friend that her sister-in-law was making trips to New York from the UK twice a year to visit him. She had been diagnosed with bone cancer and after three years of following Dr. Gonzalez’s metabolic diet, which was created specifically for her (with supplementation and cleansing protocols included), she was in remission, 5 months pregnant with her first child AND in the best of health. Here’s more from the interview:

RC: How do you determine which part of the nervous system is dominant, and why is that important to your therapy?

NG: Because out of that we are able to determine which diet and supplements will suit the patient best. Their sympathetic or parasympathetic dominance tells me what kind of program they need.

RC: Let’s say a person comes to you who is parasympathetic dominant, and you put them on the wrong diet, will you make things worse?

NG: You can kill them.

RC: Even if it is a vegetarian diet that is low in fat?

NG: Parasympathetic dominant people need red meat three times per day. Putting them on a vegetarian diet is like raising a lion on hay.

RC: Are there personality types associated with these different types of autonomic dominance?

NG: Sympathetic dominants are aggressive, type A businessmen that get up at six and get more done by noon than the rest of us do in the whole day. They are very ambitious, smart, and energetic in the morning. Parasympathetics would like to sleep until noon, and are very creative. Artistic ability tends to be in the parasympathetic side of the nervous system.

from here

I guess we have a little bit of a mutual appreciation society going on here and it is great.

I recently went to a life coaching course, not because I really thought I needed it but just because I was quite intrigued to find out what exactly happens on life coaching courses. Well, amongst other things (other fantastic things, which I found out I actually needed) I was reminded of the fact that gratitude makes us happy. People who are in a happy relationship or marriage and who are contented with their lives are less likely to suffer from a heart attack, I just read the other day.

And then we have the end of the day bedtime thing – the ‘I love you because….’ kind of thing. It really works; it is so powerful to be grateful. But it only works if we really mean it, it does not work if we are saying it to benefit ourselves. The true way is the selfless way.

During one of the life coaching sessions we sat and told each other one by one what we admired about the other person. We were all women and we knew each other before the coaching group and we all spilled our hearts out to each other, it was wonderful. Every time I think back to that morning, I feel uplifted and ecstatic. Why does this not happen more in our lives? It is a crime. It is a crying shame that people go through life not knowing how wonderful, how radiant, how sparkling and joyous they are. I make sure I tell my children how wonderful they are regularly. It should be mandatory for our friends come together and tell each other what they admire about each other. We should all have the right to know and we should all have the right to be thankful for our lives, we should all have the right to thank other people.

I am thankful for my husband, my family, my health, my sparkling body, my new house, my mountain friends, my two rabbits, my fresh water running from the tap. I am thankful for the dawn I wake up in, the dusk I go to sleep in, the brilliant sunshine I play in. I am thankful that I can see the stars at night, that I can run barefoot in the rain and I have a warm body beside me in bed. I am thankful that I wake up again and again and again every morning. I am thankful for having this chance to dance, to love, to laugh, to find fascination in everyday things. I am thankful that I heard the cries of my two newborn babies. I am thankful that I stroked my father’s hair on the day he died.

I am thankful that I am thankful.

The smile on my daughter’s face as she hurtled down the ski slope in full control.

The coconut rice I made for the evening meal which was PERFECT.

I want to reset my internal clock so that my body knows what time of day it is, what time of year. So many experts concentrate on what to eat nowadays – yes, of course, junk food is out, some diet regime or other in, but how many of us stop to think about the time of year and what is actually available out there on the land?

I have some idea that animals and plants produce exactly the right nourishment for our bodies at exactly the right time of year, according to the optimum health of the environment as a whole, including nutrients in the soil, strength of the sun and temperature, it is all done in a perfect balance of fats, proteins, carbs and micronutrients but we go ahead and flaunt nature’s wisdom by eating bananas shipped in from The Dominican Republic and kiwis from New Zealand in winter where the season’s requirements are so very different from our own.

We may actually crave bananas in the winter however and this may be because our eyes hardly see daylight from one day to the next, stuck as we are inside, behind glass, under electric lights, our bodies have no sense of what season we are living in, no idea of the slant the sun is taking or what phase the moon is in. If this is the case then how do we then know what we are supposed to be eating?

Our eyes are complex and subtle organs, they are the gateways to our bodies. For that reason, about two years ago I threw my sunglasses away. I now live with no eye protection by the beach in summer and on the snow in winter. This was originally to improve my eyesight, which, at 40 I detected was deteriorating slightly, but since researching into the benefits of sunlight, I have realised that covering our eyes all year round, as many people do nowadays is perhaps a mistake. In addition to sunlight and vitamin D and wellbeing, I now know that receiving natural (not artificial) light in the eyes is crucial for setting our metabolic and hormonal patterns during the day.

Eating according to the season is also crucial for our finely-tuned bodies, as long those bodies know what season they are in.

If I have to use the computer after sunset or before sunrise, I have installed a program called f.lux, which turns the screen orange (cuts out the blue light) during the hours of darkness and mimics daylight during the day. Most of the time, I try not to use the computer when it is dark outside and I try to dim the lights after sunset, so that my body can wake up at the right time or get ready for sleep.

In spring we are replacing the windows in our house. I have already begun searching for full-spectrum glass to insert into crucial windows in the kitchen and living areas and after dark I have been using candles to light the rooms. Reading recently about the dangers of petroleum-based candles however, I have looked into buying battery powered candles and eventually want to make candles from beeswax from my own hives.

It is now 8.16 a.m. and sunrise was five minutes ago, so it is time to get out for my morning walk! A sunrise and sunset calculator can be found here.

These herbs should be taken for a period of 20-30 days and they help dissolve all kinds of kidney blockages including oxalic acid, phosphate and amino acid stones. Three tablespoons of the herbs should be soaked in two cups of water overnight and then brought to the boil in the morning and the liquid should be strained and drunk throughout the day.

Believe me, it tastes really bad (to start with), but then incredibly, by the time the first cup is finished, the herbs start to taste very sweet. How is this possible?

After three days, the only change I can detect is that I smell just as bad as the tea. Really bad. I can only assume that because I am now completely infused in the herbs and even sweating them out of my body, my kidneys must be having a good spring clean.

I bought the kidney tea herbs from here. They have been prepared by Andreas Moritz himself and feature in his book: ’Amazing LIver and Gallbladder Flush’. He recommends that the kidney tea be drunk before a liver cleanse is carried out.

I read that it is best to eat a large meal close to 12 noon, I also read that it is best to eat breakfast and supper with nothing during the day. I read that a low carb diet is the perfect solution for optimum health and I also read that 100% vegan is the ‘only’ way of staying healthy. I remain somewhat confused about all that but certain in my own mind of my own situation.

My own gut tells me that our bodies are exquisitely linked to the land we live on and minutely synchronised to the sun, moon and the change of seasons, even though our modern brains override these connections practically all of the time. THAT is the first thing I absolutely know. I also know that the human race moves around a heck of a lot nowadays and we as individuals may find ourselves mismatched with the original landscape we were hard-wired to live in. Essentially, we may have lost track of our original tribe through migration and interbreeding.

That is why I have found out my metabolic type and that is what I try to live within the cycles and rhythms of the earth’s region which corresponds to that type, no matter where I am living right now.

Just as important as recording each and every morsel of food I eat, is noting down the mood I am in from hour to hour. THis is the key to bio-feedback and improvement. I have one column per page for food and another column for mood. I note what my mood, energy, hunger and emotional state is before I eat a meal and 1-3 hours afterwards. At the bottom of the page I note other things too: the amount of sleep, sunshine and exercise I have had, what kind of bowel movement I have had and what supplements I have taken.

For a month now I have been able to refine my eating patterns to a very specific prescription that will change slowly (within my type) over the next few months leading up to the summer solstice and which then should move back to base again in winter.

I know that a very heavy breakfast is not good for me (due to lethargy an hour afterwards) I know that a high protein evening meal eaten before 7 pm is very good for me and I know that I must eat a substantial, yet light lunch in order to make sure I do not get irritable between 4 and 5 pm.

Experts may say, “well my research indicates that you should be doing so and so for maximum health”. Yes, but your research may have been done on yourself and that is not ME. Equally that is not YOU. Only your body knows what your brain needs to understand and because of this, I listen to my gut. I write a food journal and I make mental notes of what works and what doesn’t.

What you feel like eating does not mean it should be what you are designed to eat.  What you can eat safely, does not mean it should be what we are designed to eat either.  What we are designed to eat is the answer to where our ultimate health really lies.  When we choose to eat in spite of our biologic directives this is when illness, disease, or bad feelings tend to crop up and cause confusion to the patient.  The best way for you to solve this situation is to think.  I want you to think about the message your neolithic mind is capable of delivering to your paleolithic genome on a daily basis.  Most of us are completely unaware of this biologic mismatch.  It is my belief that it underlies much of what currently ails most of mankind today.

- Jack Kruse

Even though Kruse is a staunch paleo meat-and-fat man himself and recommends a VLC diet, (with higher carb intake during the summer) which I personally (because of what I have read about metabolic typing) believe will only work for high protein types and possibly some mixed types, his writings on the way we should be eating is spot on.

For many years I have been trying to eat within the seasons and within the locality and because I live in the mountains, winter can be pretty limiting but I feel good this way. I never really gave it much thought though, other than that is what we have been designed to do, but now Kruse puts some hefty scientific weight behind the ideas.

His basic ideas are as follows (if you want to read about the science, I suggest you go to his site because quite frankly, I do not really understand it):

• Eat a carb-based breakfast (containing some protein) 30 mins after waking
• Be active between 9 am and 4 pm
• exercise between 1 pm and 4 pm (preferably out in the sunlight)
• eat a light lunch, or nothing at all
• do not snack
• your carb intake will change throughout the year; lowest around 21st Dec, highest around 21st June
• eat a protein orientated meal in the evening (before 7 pm in winter and before 8pm in summer).
• dim the lights an hour after sunset
• go to sleep no later than 10pm in winter and 11pm in summer

Looking at greater depth into these points we see that eating around the seasons of the year and according to the rhythms of day and night would have been the ONLY thing our ancestors could have done; ancient people would have been completely tied to the land they lived on and that is the only way it possibly can be in order to ensure habitat sustainability. So, in this day and age, why should we do any different? Just because we now have UNLIMITED food choices all year round, doesn’t mean to say that we should eat whatever we want, whenever we want to.

The metabolic types denote regions of the world where certain foods would have been available. The protein type would have predominated in areas of snow and cold, where the harsh landscape would only have permitted meat eating throughout the year, the carb type would have lived nearer to the equator where plant matter would have been available all year round and the mixed types would have been in the temperate zones with defined seasons of protein and fat eating and carb eating.

Within these cycles, as Kruse mentions, more carbs would have been available during the summer (peaking in late summer with fruit ad berries) and would have held true for all regions of the world to a certain extent, with greatest variability in the temperate zones.

I feel it is crucial to find out our metabolic type first (which gives us some indication of our ancestral diet) and then work seasonally and daily with our type. There is a time for sleeping, eating and exercising and these times change gradually over the course of the year. It is up to us to follow these cycles faithfully – in a sense, we need to respect our ancestry and grow closer to the original wisdom the earth holds to again become well.

To summarise, before the advent of electricity, the rhythm of the day would have been controlled by these two celestial bodies, and before the advent of international air freight, our bodies would have been tied into the land around us. In truth, our bodies have not forgotten these facts even though our minds may have done.

I am not sure whether the things that Buxton writes about in the book are true. The details of his gruelling apprenticeship along the path of pollen such as killing a stag with nothing but bee pollen, flying on broomsticks and being buried alive seem very far-fetched but truth or fantasy – it does not matter, the fact is that the tradition of wild and imaginative shaman’s stories were (and still are) told to draw the listener deeper and to take us further into the ‘other’ realms. And this book certainly succeeded in doing that to me.

I was drawn along by the story and it worked its way into me quite slowly; it seemed that I could not put the book down and read it easily in one sitting. I think that this continuity helped with the overall feeling of immersion in his world I experienced; the world of the bee shaman master. I have never been gripped by any narrative like I was gripped by the last chapter in this book – I felt suffocation, despair and claustrophobia in the space of a few short minutes, so much so that I had to literally lift myself off the page to disconnect from the drama. I think Buxton draws the reader into that last traumatic test slowly and carefully so that you can literally ‘be there’ with him underground. It was very effective. The relief I felt at the end was quite something.

There’s an interview with him here and was so interested to read that other men have gone through similar initiation rites into the bee cultus. Do I find this shocking? Yes in a way, but only because it’s an underground movement and it is hard core and it is happening in the UK, not South America or Siberia. It involves intoxicating substances and journeys and meetings with strange beings, half-human, half-bee, yes, but it is not so different from every other ayahuasca experience I have read about.

Shamanism nowadays can be so wishy-washy, like anybody who can follow a drumbeat can ‘do it’. The real practices of ‘shamanism’ – if we are even allowed to call it that – are dark, secret, gruelling and close-to-death, of that I have no doubt. The popular journeying of modern day practitioners have nothing to do with these ancient rituals, which have carried on undisturbed for millennia, nothing can be written about it that does not negate it in some way immediately. That is why I found it strange that Buxton has written a book about the bee cultus in the first place. At least the women’s side of the story still remains undisclosed.

And then there is the sex. It is fantastic that someone can write so openly about it. We are all so Victorian in our attitude towards sex these days, it is obvious that it has magical powers. Why are some people so quick to call others who are open about sex perverts? That I do not understand. In this book sex is everyday yet mythical, alchemical yet suburban and always in the context of sacred ritual, yet it is never made more of than it actually is. This down-to-earthness turns Buxton into quite the the opposite of a pervert – actually an amazing character with huge integrity. I tell you something, I would like more ritual sex in my life, I would like to tap into its transformational and inspirational qualities – I am guessing we could all do with some of that.

I have been deeply affected by this book and that is why I wanted to write something about it here today. I have been touched by its intimacy, by its breadth and by its very subtle power – I have been touched by the power of the bees.

Congestion of those organs equals a cold.

When a cold hits us we must – and what I am making sure I do this week in particular, with so many bugs flying around – clean the body, keep the channels clear. We must NOT load it up with drugs, more poisons that tax the system even more. We must try to eat organic food to avoid pesticides, come off shelled nuts, bakery goods, commercial fruit juices and mouldy fruit to avoid aflatoxins (which put our organs in a state of elimination crisis) wear less cosmetics and use less shampoos and deodorants (to avoid ethanols, aluminium and other chemicals being absorbed into the body). Basically we must try to keep the body as free from overload as possible, keep it warm and do not stress it out with heavy exertion. Drink soup made from bone broth, which is loaded with vitamins and minerals (if made in the right way), drink lots of warm water and get plenty of sunshine.

Tomorrow I start Andreas Moritz’s kidney cleanse, which may cause me to get a cold, but at least I understand that this is nothing but old toxins being released from the kidneys and flushed out of the body. Colds from other people? They can keep them.