Ok, I know this is a fig forum but we also talk about recipes and such too.  So, let me get on my soap box and talk for a minute.  The older I get the more knowledge I want!  Well, last year my wife and I went to a natural doctor in our area.  We wanted to get our blood analyzed and see how healthy we really are.  Well, the bottom line is back then (2013), I wasn't healthy at all.  And neither was my wife.  My wife had a thyroid issue and after days in the ER getting fluids, she had to have surgery to have her parathyroid (PT)removed.  Me being the "fix it" guy, I wanted to know why her thyriod was out of wack!  So, I read and researched a lot.  In my research, I found out that what cause her body to produce too much calcuim was the foods she was eating and her tooth paste!  Her parathyroid was producing extra calcium which studies have shown can cause massive heart attacks in women.  And she eats a lot of spinach salads...I mean a lot!   Even after having the PT removed, her calcuim levels were still high but not like they were before.  So, we has to do something different.  I decided to see a naturalpath doctor.

After one visit with a natural doctor and one blood analysis, we learn my wife was eating too much spinach, too much wheat, and too much floride from her toothpaste!  She works in a dental office and brushes her teeth 3 to 4 times a day!  The doctor recommended we read the following books:

1.  Wheat Belly
2.  Eat Right 4 Your Blood Type
3.  The Paleo Solution

The doctor also gave my wife a lot of off the shelf herbs to take for 30 days.  SHe also told us to stop eating wheat and to eat based on our blood type.  The biggest question I had was...WHY?  Well, the answer is in the books.  Here is what I learned----We all go to the doctor and they give us a pill and the next year, we get more pills and they never tell us the true symptoms of the problems with our bodies.  The books completely explain why we should stop eating wheat and why we should eat based on our blood type and what happens to our body when we eat the wrong stuff.  But it became very hard to change a way of eating!  But we did it!  I was concerned about my wife b/c she gets migraine headaches and can be moody at times.  Well, since she stopped eating wheat, her headaches went away, her calcium levels are normal and she sleeps better at night.  And the same is true for me.  My health is so much better!

Don't get me wrong, I love fig jam with biscuits or fig jelly and nut butter sandwiches, but my life is more important.  So, I changed my diet.  And to eat based on your blood type is another issue!  My wife is a type O, I'm type B.  For me, I had to stop eating chicken!  GO FIGURE!  I also had to give up Corn, Lentils, Peanuts, Sesame seeds, dairy, buckwheat, and WHEAT.  THe books explain why.

We live in a fast food society.  I have yet to find a fast food resturant that serves gluten free healthy food!  Better yet, go look inside a vending machine....count the number of healthy gluten free items inside.  Let me help you out----there isn't one!  So, if anyone is trying to really get healthy and feed their body the right stuff----go see a natural health doctor.  Ask him or her about those 3 books and get ready for a mouthful of knowledge. 

...and btw, you should see my nature doctor's skin!  She's gorgeous!  SHe has the clearest and brightest skin!  She's my age (52) and she looks 20yrs younger without makeup! I know I'm getting off topic here but I think you guys get my point.  Eating correctly is so important.  Society and the way we were brought up make it harder and harder to change!  If you're interested in getting back to optimum health, read the books above.  Don't let the Paleo Diet book scare you!  The book  is the first book that completely explains our bodies and how each part do their job.  It explains it all and its an easy read.

So, if you're curious about these books, go to Amazon and read the reviews on the books.

Here's to optimum health!!!!!

This is an interesting post, Dennis.  Re. the calcium issue that your wife had, were you feeding her too many figs? :)  Anyway, glad to hear she is feeling better.

Every couple of years there is are new diet books that start a movement and then it fizzles out. I'm skeptical about the books you referred to but not ready to dismiss them out of hand.  I need to learn more.  My general approach has been to keep processed food and red meat to a minimum and to get some exercise everyday.  So far this has worked well for me but there's always room for improvement.

HA HA Steve!  Nope, she also has the "Martin disease" ----she prefers the dark ones.  But she will eat a green one from time to time.  At my office, I ran into several ladies that had their parathyoid removed too due to ----too much calcium being produced.  So, I knew something was wrong.  Again, they were not eating the right foods.  Now, my sister in law has to have her PT removed too.  It's not talked about much but if you research it, you will see a trend.

The same goes for folks who have their gall bladder removed.  Once removed, a person's diet HAS to change because that gall bladder had a function to perform and something caused it to go crazy.  Doctors have no choice except be to remove it.  The books talk about this too.

I don't understand the part about too much calcium being produced. Your body doesn't produce calcium. It comes from your diet.

Steve, I did not exactly explain the PT.  But, you are correct!   Our bones need calicum which it gets from the food we eat.  Parathyroids also control how much calcium is in the bones, and therefore, how strong and dense the bones are.  My wife had too much calicum leaking from her bones into her blood stream.  In other words, one PT was failing.  For years, she did not have much energy, and was tired a lot and always achy.  Today's shes' a different woman with plenty of energy.  I'm going to get her a new set of pink gardening tools so she can help me with my fig trees.

Interesting post Dennis.  I read a book a few years ago that totally changed the way that I eat and look at food.  The book was "In Defense Of Food" by Michael Pollan.  His main argument is that it is the level of refinement and processing that most greatly impacts how unhealthy a food is.  Food in its natural form is healthy.  Food that had been processed or refined or that has additives in it is unhealthy.  Applying that to wheat, I would say that whole grain wheat, in and of itself, is a good, healthy food.  The problem is that most people consume wheat that has been milled and bleached.  And most wheat bread (even 100% whole wheat bread) contains high fructose corn syrup and other harmful additives.  If you were to make your own bread using whole wheat flour without adding any sugars or unnatural additives it would be a healthy food.  But the refined form of wheat that we consume (along with all the additives) is what harms the body.  By the way, these days I barely eat bread anymore.  Instead I use Wasa when I want to make a sandwich or have bread.  Wasa is a dried bread (cracker) made from whole grains with no additives.  Best of luck with your research into healthier living.

personally, i believe in liquid diet... the kind that comes in pint glasses.

Let's also consider the fact that most food staples are GMO majority; wheat,soy, corn, canola, etc.. See a trend here? Combined with pesticide residue and unknown on long term affects of GMO foods.

Dennis ,
I find this topic very interesting overall , but I don't think you explained the Parathyroid problem correctly.
This site below has great info and this is the doctor where a person I know had her one out of control parathyroid removed. We all have four of them and the one out of control one(usually one)pulls calcium out of the bones and puts it into the bloodstream because it won't shut off when the correct calcium level is reached. The removal of calcium from the bones also causes some of the pain these folks can experience.
http://parathyroid.com/parathyroid-disease.htm
The surgery only took 10 minutes because these doctors focus only on this and can locate which of the four parathyroids is over active very quickly.
Food sources of calcium don't matter much when one parathyroid won't shut off.
Reading this back to myself it sounds confusing , but at least the site mentioned is very good for this problem.

Somewhat related to this regarding the tooth brushing.
Colgate Total contains trichlosan, a hormone disruptor which specifically causes thyroid problems. I don't know if your wifes office gives it out but my dentist does. Trichlosan is in most everything labeled antibiotic (such as soaps) as well as in some deoderants. It used to be used as a pesticide, somewhere along the line some genius decided it would be a good idea to use it to kill germs on and in our bodies.

I'd be curious to read that eating for your blood type book. I hadn't heard of doing that before. Would one conclude that that means native diets that keep certain groups of people healthy are non-transferable to those from other ancestry? For example, someone that reads the Mediterranean diet is good for you and eats it wouldn't necessarily benefit if they happen to be of Asian decent?

I'm not exactly one that abides to a specific diet. My general eating habits lead me to get a good cross-sampling of various food groups in (what I perceive to be) good balance. I have started growing more of my own food lately, specifically heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables. I think there is something to be said for more flavorful, more colorful food. I'm also experimenting with raw milk as well. It's legal to sell here in California. Going to try it for a few months to see if I see any benefits. I've had arthritis since childhood and there are some people that say it might help (and for other autoimmune diseases as well).

If I have to give up wheat or dairy, I go off a cliff.

We read "Wheat Belly" and went off of gluten (for the most part) two years ago. Since then, I have lost about 50 pounds and feel much better. It is difficult to eat that way, unless you are cooking everything from scratch, which I do now on most days. And it is those rare lazy days where I just don't feel like cooking that prove how very badly we react to wheat. Go grab a cheeseburger; and we can feel the inflammation in our joints and the distress in our bowels. Maybe it is the genetically-tinkered-with wheat; maybe it is the processing. Whatever the case, we just cannot eat like we used to.

A warning to anyone who decides to ditch gluten, you will go through withdrawal, as if on hard drugs (the book describes this). I spent two miserable weeks with migraines, stomach aches, body aches, irritability - I was a bear to live with. At one point, I would have given anything for Methadone smeared on a big wheaty biscuit. After the weaning though, I felt like a new man.

As for GMOs "saving millions of lives," these products may have provided short-term food solutions for world populations, but they also made these peoples depend on the big seed companies and modern farming technology. By hooking them on licensed products, they effectively sent heritage/heirloom varieties to extinction. Biodiversity is lost. Our "experts" shamed traditional farmers as primitive and promoted farming techniques and products that replaced more soil-friendly practices. Sure, thanks to GMOs, they eat today, but will their children or grandchildren?

Another good book is The Perfect Health Diet by Paul and Soo Chi (sic) Jaminet. Check it out!

oh, I have that 2nd book about 4types of blood.. it's a good book. I know why I like meat so much.

Dennis, check it out, you globetrotter you, but you wouldn't have to trot far:

http://perfecthealthdiet.com/perfect-health-retreat/

John, you're right about the gluten withdrawals. I've fallen off the wagon so many time last year, wife too! It is hard to stay gluten free b/c so much food has gluten. And some folks don't even know the food they're eating has gluten. I know most folks won't make the switch...and that's OK. I just want to inform as many people I can with what little bits of information I have.

Donna, based on your comment, I just ordered a copy of the Perfect Health Diet. Thank you! I will read it.

My mother had high blood pressure, high chlolestrol, diebeties, and heart disease. She never exercised and never ate right. She had a stroke in 1996 and died. She was 66. Today, some of my past male choir members are starting to have blood issues. Two died last year in their late 40s and early 50s. I'm not sad or mad. I just want to know, "WHAT'S GOIING ON??"

As I understand it, the problem with 'modern' wheat, is that over the years it's been hybridized to increase it's gluten content. It's what gives it that sticky quality that's desired for breads, pizza doughs, etc. So we are getting gluten overload in what used to be a much healthier food.

It is amazing what has wheat/gluten in it. Just about everything prepared has it, even soy sauce. And unless you go to a restaurant or bakery that advertises as gluten-free, it is surely in there. Fortunately, I love to cook at home. But I have had to come up with my own recipe for hoisin sauce (decent but it's not the same) and we radically altered out diets. Bread is a rarity. Pasta takes longer to cook, and the gluten-free varieties can be rather gummy in texture. It is definitely not easy to maintain, especially in our fast food culture. But knowing the difference the change has made healthwise, it has been worth the effort for us. Thank goodness, there is no gluten in figs.

It's never too late to start focusing on a healthy diet. Every body may respond differently to different diets. For me I enjoy the Mediterranean diet, I don't eat meat every day and lots of fruit.

Here is another great read on the topic:
http://www.amazon.com/Real-Food-What-Eat-Why/dp/1596913428/

i am a surgeon who does parathyroid and thyroid (not the same thing) procedures.  I don't buy the part about diet and parathyroid tumors.  but I do believe the part about diet and overall health.  I agree the wheat as been changed over the years into something that no longer resembles the wheat that was the staff of life.  i have eliminated wheat from my diet, lost 20 lbs in 3 months and i feel great.  the problem with wheat is not that it is refined, but that it has been genetically modified to maximize yield and profit rather than nutrition. But it is an oversimplification to say all GMO's are bad. it all depends on the specific modifications.  without genetically modified citrus, citrus may be completely unavailable soon because of the introduction of asian pests into our environment.  as a general rule though, it is better to consume food as God made it.  not refined or modified.  perfect example: figs.

Dennis, you can take gluten out of everything else, but us Danes have to have bread.

There is a great deal of misinformation about GMO foods in our diet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_wheat
Genetically modified wheat is wheat that has been genetically engineered by the direct manipulation of its genome using biotechnology. It has also been termed GMO wheat, GMO standing for genetically modified organism. As of 2013, no GM wheat is grown commercially, but many field tests have been conducted.

I can't find a good reference, but I believe all GMO corn in the USA is used for animal feed or ethanol production.  Some did make it into the human food chain in 2000 by mistake, however. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_maize

Dennis, when I consider some books I always take a look at some of the negative reviews first.  After reading just a few of the 1-star reviews of Eat Right For Your Type on Amazon would worry me if I was relying upon this book.  The first review in that bunch points out contradictions between some of his books (i.e., plums, prunes, and cherries are beneficial for O+ in two of the books but toxinsto be avoided in a third book).