Dietary Dirt

So those who know me personally know that I am absolutely fascinated by nutrition and exercise. And due to my fascination, I spend a lot of free time researching health things related to nutrition and fitness and affect on performance and health etc.  So this has led me to try a great deal of things that most people have never heard of, things such as Diatomaceous earth, the inspiration behind the title of this post and one of my favorite food related words.

So I thought I’d give some little reviews and information about some of the things that I have tried and/regularly eating that modest people find odd. So let’s begin!

Diatomaceous earth

So what is this and why the hell would you want to eat it?  Well my friends, it’s edible dirt, and I admit when my dad’s cousin first told me about it I was skeptical at first, but as you’ll see, I’m a big fan of ‘don’t knock it till ya try it’. So basically, diatomaceous earth is made from and ancient kind of algae that fossilized and formed deposits in lake beds that we humans now grind up into powder.  

Bear with me guys, I’m not making this shit up.  It is almost pure silica and can be used in 3 main ways depending on its grade, as a food (which will be what I talk about), a pest control (sprinkle it around and it sticks to bugs and dehydrates them to death, baller I know), and a pool filter (which is boring so I’m going to ignore).

So as some may know, Silica is a main ingredient in a large quantity of health and beauty products due to the fact that silica is a main component in your bones, teeth, skin, nails, and hair.  Fun fact, a common reason people start to go bald is silica deficiency!  Another fine reason to give it a go is that there is a ton of research proving that silica promotes better bone and joint growth and dietary silicon is highly connected to bone density, something especially a young person with a job that puts them at risk for broken bones should care about.  So shout out to any osteoporosis sufferers, this is a great addition to your diet.

However great these benefits may be, the main appeal to me was as a detoxifying agent and parasite cleanser.  I happen to have a deathly fear of 2 things, ticks and parasites.  Thanks to my 10^th grade marine bio teacher and our month long study of all the AWESOME parasites you can get and die from (yaaaay) that’s one thing I just can’t handle the thought of.  So when I came across this article,
“Eliminating the Parasites That You Almost Certainly Have and Curing Lupus”, I was sold.  IT explains how diatomaceous earth is the best all around parasite killer and even kills blood born parasites, I’m not a hypochondriac, but I see no downside to eliminating any potential freeloaders.   

The way it works is that the particles of DE look, as one website so eloquently put it, like chex cereal, and it cuts through any exoskeleton and dehydrates the little buggers to death.  Is it bad that I find joy in that?  It also acts similar to an antioxidant and attaches to free radicals and toxins, making it very effective at removing heavy metals with a special affinity for aluminium.

So basically, I add a teaspoon to my protein shake every day (PLEASE NOTE YOU CSN ONLY EAT SPECIFICALLY FOOD GRADE NOT JUST ANY KIND).  Have I noticed any huge difference?  Not particularly, but nothing negative as well and all of the things I just talk about sound pretty damn good to me so it can’t hurt and I intend to continue doing so!

Camu Camu Powder

Now this is a fun one that no one has heard of.  The wonderful camu camu powder, or camel powder as my boyfriend like to tease me about and my Spanish exchange partners have panic attacks over (you try explaining to a non native speaker what it is and then watching them react when they think  they’ve figured it out and you’re talking about powderized camels).

Camu Camu is a shrub that grows berries in the Amazon rainforest.  TO be brief, 100 g of this stuff has 2145 mg of vitamin C (3575% of your daily value), 2.1 mg of manganese (106% DV) and 355 mcg of carotenoids which are basically super antioxidants that are highly beneficial to physical and mental health.  So sorry vitality bowl, it kinda kicks acai berries little asses.

So rapid fire facts about vitamin c: boosts serotonin (makes ya happy and happy people don’t murder people), blocks free radicals and bad things from entering your system, drastically helps out your liver in all of its liver duties, slows aging.

Other fun things it does is help with macular degeneration, inflammation, gum disease, and basically it’s just quite good for you.

So which of these reasons is the reason I take it?  I think it tastes really good in my oatmeal….

Matcha

So this one is becoming quite mainstream now days but I am addicted so I thought Id share some info anyways.  All it really is is ground up green tea leaves that you can make tea with or add to foods.  I’m addicted to tea, so I make it as tea.  I think it tastes amazing, which is my reason but for the purpose of hits blog I’m pretending that I’m just super healthy.  So it is very high in catechins, which is great because those fight cancer, effects of pollution, radiation, chemicals and other things that damage cells. 

It is also extremely high in antioxidants, some sources saying one cup of matcha has as many as 10 cups of green tea (guess eating the whole leaf makes it better?).

Another fun property is that it aids weight loss by increasing your metabolism and burning calories without raising blood pressure or heart rate.  It has been proven to increase thermogenesis from around 10% to almost 40%...

Since it originates from Japan, an interesting thing to note is that it was originally used to help monks meditate by keeping them alert but relaxed, and this has now been validated because it is high in L-Theanine which is a type of amino acid that helps relaxation, memory, and learning ability.  Now it must be noted that it does contain caffeine, but the L-Theanine acts almost as a counteragent to the jittery coffee feeling (and it doesn’t have as much caffeine as coffee).

Lastly, it's also high in chlorophyll which helps detox, and the combination of all the above reasons have led to studies that prove significantly increased physical endurance.

Alright I can feel myself getting bored now because of the similarity of the benefits of a lot of these.  If I type “high in antioxidants” one more time I’m done so I shall just give a much speedier version of the next few thing I eat that I’ve been told are ‘weird’.

Bone Broth

Yup you guessed it, broth made from boiled bones.  Don’t judge, it tastes amazing.  I tried this because I have had stomach issues in the past and this is rich in gelatin which helps digestion by restoring the stomach lining, growing probiotics, resisting food sensitivities, and keeping any inflammation down.  And again, sounding like a broken record, good for skin, hair, joints, rich in protein and all that jazz, moving on.  This one I will say I believe has made a difference.  The addition of this and kimchi to my diet has seemed to help me immensely.

Inositol
As with the bone broth, this is one that I do find has made a huge difference for me.  Inositol is technically a pseudo vitamin, and its role is to keep fats from accumulating in the liver.  It is used for a huge variety of things, most notably for insomnia, ADHD, OCD, PCOS, and depression.  I personally have some anxiety and at times a few OCD tendencies, so that was why I decided to try it.  Believe it or not I can actually see a big difference when I add this to my diet as opposed to when I don't.  Clearly I have tried a great deal of things and I am fine admitting that normally I don't see a notable difference (the main differences I feel are in my dietary food structure, wait for M for more info on that), so I pride myself on being fairly realistic about placebo effects.  Out of all the things I talked about in this blog, if I had to pick one to continue with not just because I think its yummy (this is tasteless), it would be this one.

Nutritional Yeast

Also called nooch, which I find hysterical, and it is one of my new favorite things.  It’s like brewer’s yeast but not exactly.  It’s vegan, contains this

·         180% Daily Value B1 (Thiamine)

·         160% Daily Value B2 (Riboflavin)

·         70% Daily Value B3 (Niacin)

·         140% Daily Value B6 (Pyridoxine)

·         40% Daily Value Folic Acid

·         40% Daily Value B12

·         3 grams protein

·         1 gram fiber

AND IT BASICALLY JUST TASTES LIKE THE CHEESY POPCORN SEASONING BUT IS GOOD FOR YOU. So there ya go.  I love it; personal favorite is to put it on spaghetti squash, heaven.

Tangy Tangerine 2.0’

This one is just kind of fun, as their website states,” 2.0 Citrus Peach Fusion contains a base of Majestic Earth Plant Derived Minerals blended with vitamins, amino acids, and other beneficial nutrients. Building on a foundation of our famous Beyond Juice Fruit and Veggie formulas, we've added even more nutrients to make this a balanced and complete daily supplement.”  So it’s just a fancy vitamin but still.  Pregnant deer lick the gerund to get nutrients, and this vitamin has a lot of those, good enough for me, if it’s good enough for gestating cervidae its good enough for me (bet you didn’t know that was the scientific name for deer eh? :p)

TADA! So there you have it, some fun facts, hopefully I didn’t bore anyone all the way to tears, I’ll accept watery eyes and a yawn here and there but no tears I hope.