4/15/10

Allergies? None.

I thought I should post this, because I think it is pretty interesting. When I first arrived in Jacksonville, spring of 1998, I had terrible allergies to the pollen here. Between the oak trees, the azaleas, ligustrum and many other  flowers, I just could not stop sneezing and going crazy with a runny nose. I went, at first, to the doctor, who gave me allergy medication such as Zirtac and Allegra, and nose sprays. They worked fine, but if I'd stop using them, the allergies would come back in full force. In short, I was treating the symptoms, but not the cause. So I went to an acupuncturist, and did a de-tox treatment. That helped immensely, and I was finally able to stop the medicines.
Since then, I had been able to manage the spring and all the pollen without any medication, but did sneeze a lot and get, still, some of the runny nose/itchy eye thing going.
This year, which people have been saying down here in Jacksonville, has been one of the worse for allergies, I have had no allergies whatsoever. I could chalk it up to ''good luck'', of course. Or... it could be because of a drastic change in the diet of our household that started in the fall of 2009. No more produce from the other side of the country (California) or the planet (New Zealand), and no more processed dairy, meat, poultry or eggs.
We started to eat local produce that is in season only, meat/poultry eggs from local farms only, and milk and cheese that is not processed, from local farms as well. Both milk, eggs, and meat/ poultry from free roaming animals. No hormones, no pasteurization, no processing, no vitamins added, nothing. Just plain, simple food from local farms.
And it goes without saying, a diet that is based, daily, on whole grains, beans, and vegetables. Meat/chicken happens once a week only, and the dairy intake is minimal.
This is purely anecdotal, of course, but it goes hand in hand with what traditional medicine (Chinese, Indian, Japanese...) preaches: eat fresh local foods that are whole foods ("whole" grains, "whole" milk), and don't eat processed food- simple.

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