December 13: Today’s prepping is a review of our car emergency kit for traveling. Getting ready to go to see son’s family in about a week, which involves a 12-hour trip over mountains. So I’m reviewing everything. Decided we need a few more space blankets, a better shovel, the addition of a bag of sand, and at least 3 days’ worth of food. Hope that does it. Will finish gathering it all this weekend. Still need to put together a travel menu, with daughter’s help. I wish I weren’t working 12 hours a day right now. I am a freelancer in the medical research field and everyone is trying to get certain things done before the end of the year – I just want it to stop. It leaves no time for the really practical stuff – or a life L
So right now I am planning on the pieces of paper I keep beside me at the computer (during the week), writing things down whenever I get an idea – and then practical stuff on the weekend, I hope. This weekend it will be finalizing the car kit, Christmas shopping and putting up a shelf in front of my living room window for the aloes.
When daughter was in optimal ketosis (read: cancer-killing body condition), she told me there were two things she was craving. One was bitter greens, and the other was mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris). Evidently that happens to people sometimes when they are fasting – they start craving things they actually need (NOT sugar).
So husband went out and got a bunch of dandelion greens. Tonight I cooked them based on a recipe in Patience Gray’s “Honey from a Weed” – a beautiful cookbook/food ethnology study about southern Greece, Corsica, etc. By the way, the so-called “Mediterranean Diet” that gets touted here in the US is a joke. Two facts – Orthodox Christians in this area of the world (most of the people there) fast for about 1/3 of the year. That means no meat, and sometimes no dairy, wine or olive oil (vegan low-fat). The other 2/3 of the year is a pretty high fat diet, including animal fats from FULL fat cheeses, lamb and pork. And they eat an unbelievable amount of “weeds” (like the dandelions) at all times of the year. That is, if they are still living a traditional lifestyle. The edible weeds might come from the family vineyard, unless they’ve started using pesticides. This fasting-feasting cycle can be found in the “Typicon”. I dare you to find these facts in any book touting a Mediterranean diet. But I digress…
When daughter mentioned mugwort, she didn’t know much about it. We are both avid investigators of plant medicine and it’s benefits, but mugwort was not on our radar. She was just thinking, for some reason, that she wanted mugwort. I said, OK, let’s see if there’s any good clinical studies on mugwort and what it does. Lo and behold, one of the most recent articles we found on PubMed was this one:
“Herbal extract of Artemisia vulgaris (mugwort) induces antitumor effects in HCT-15 human colon cancer cells via autophagy induction, cell migration suppression and loss of mitochondrial membrane potential.”
So trusting your body isn’t a bad idea sometimes. Ordering mugwort tonight.