Rebuild from Depression Blog

If you found this blog via the Pest or Dinner? contest posts, welcome. It's been good for me to have something to laugh about during what's been a bad couple of months around here.

Winning Entries

You all are sick and twisted. Choosing a winner is like choosing whether to eat a palmetto bug or pillbug for dinner. Well actually, I got a big kick out of all of these and next time I think we'll need to do a poll so that I don't have to choose.

Hammy. Carey nominated Hammy way back in January, worthy of a prize in itself. The video trick was a very nice touch and the discussion of Hammy's level of Omega-3 fatty acids made me laugh out loud. Yesterday Carey also managed to find a nutrient profile of a hamster. It never occurred to me that zoos would need this information. Thanks Carey! (Though I hate to calculate whether Hammy actually is a depression buster.) And for those who have emailed me about poor Hammy's fate, you can see from the comments on the Hammy post that Hammy is still among us.

Margaret's Cats. The cats are not the pests, the squirrel is. But those cats make the picture. You know that they are dreaming of dinner in any case.

The Cockroach. Kathryn entered the "palmetto bug" and her emails had me laughing until I cried. The idea of sneaking cockroaches into a child's lunch was beyond even my imagination.

Missy. Missy entered both the pillbug and the triops, both of which spun off their own little series of posts. Who knew they would be so content-rich.

Ladies, send me your mailing address and I'll put you on the free book list. It's still a few months out.

Strange Searches

March brought about 1,500 people more to this site than usual, partly due to a series of "strange" internet searches. If you came via one of these searches, you are likely long gone. But if you've stuck around, it's good to have you here.

What kind of a blog would get such strange traffic? (Who's in charge here anyway?)

Seven people got some advice on making a white sauce with pillbugs when they searched in Google for the phrases:

halibut and white sauce recipe
halibut with white sauce recipe

I don't think they found what they were looking for.

Quite a few people found their way here looking for information on pillbugs. Not one appeared to be trying to eat a pillbug themselves. Some wanted natural pest control treatments and one person was looking for information on pillbug compost. Another sought information on feeding pillbugs to a tarantula. All landed on the pillbug nomination page. Perhaps they will use the white sauce recipe.

Three people landed on the fried grasshopper nomination actually looking for information on fried grasshoppers. One landed on the fried grasshopper page looking for information on "bakersfield okie." (If that was you dad, I can just give you a business card to find the site.)

Someone landed on this site, likely very confused, looking for information on:

stuart halliday 1970s rock band

Perhaps they will enter the contest Rock Group or Depression Buster?

And I'm always glad to be of assistance in providing unusual information. The person seeking

palmetto roaches as dinner

found what he or she was looking for, thanks to Kathryn who entered the palmetto bug.

And the person searching for ground squirrel recipes at least found out the nutrient profile of squirrel.

More on Pests

Send in a pest any time. I'll throw it on the blog. Whether you laugh, are disgusted, or use one of the recipes, it's all good. Send recipes if you have them.

Future Contests

We'll have at least two more contests on this blog before the summer is over, again looking for foods with depression-fighting nutrients.

-->Rock Group or Depression Buster. In this contest, it's not so important that your nomination be a rock band, just some type of music. I have received the first entry for this contest for the performer "Captain Beefheart." No pictures are necessary but you need to provide some comment to me on why the entry may be a depression buster. The Captain Beefheart entry talks about the nutrient density of the organ meat. But frankly, if the entry is funny, you can talk about anything at all. I am not particular.
This contest will probably begin in a month or so.

-->Roadkill or Depression Buster: Just when you thought the contests on this site couldn't get more demented, it will. I am not sure where this contest idea came from, but I already have one entry, so we'll go for it. I believe that the first entry pictures a squirrel and Cynthia who has made the entry even provided a "caption" for the picture. This contest will require a picture. It will likely take place in the summer, so you have plenty of time to plan.

Easter has snuck up on me once again. It is a shock that it's April, but it is a relief that it is sunny. We don't have a strong Easter tradition around here, but this is a good week for us nonetheless for at least five reasons.

1) The Eggs.

I've never really cared for those plastic Easter eggs that open up primarily because they usually have something very ordinary inside. My son just got a pink one, wrapped in more plastic, with a green Jolly Rancher inside. That seems like a lot of plastic for a Jolly Rancher.

When I was a girl, I used to get a big chocolate egg from See's Candy here in California. That was a treat, but it was always a little much and now I need it like a hole in the head.

In my opinion, the best Easter eggs are actual eggs.

If you can find some brown eggs, white eggs, and even green eggs then when you dye them, the range of colors is really cool. We have a variety of hens and get a whole range of egg colors, so the Easter egg dying is even more fun than usual.

The yoke under that colored shell is also loaded with Omega-3 fatty acids because our hens are allowed to range and eat bugs. Commercially, the Omega-3 eggs you find in stores from hens fed flax or algae are a good bet too.

2) The Chocolate.

I am always skeptical about research that links some sort of dessert to improved health. My dad tells me regularly that ice cream helps his depression. And once when I did a depression buster pizza makeover (important book research of course), my dad ate a bite or two and said "I know I feel better already. It does help my depression."

Well, Dad doesn't really have depression and just enjoying a food isn't really enough to make something a depression-buster.

But chocolate does have some properties that make it stand out in the dessert category. It is a good source of depression-fighting magnesium and it affects your serotonin levels. My friend Terri recommends raw cacao for this purpose. It will be a far sight better than the Easter chocolate available at the quick stop this week.

4) The Dinner.

Holidays are always a great opportunity to hone cooking skills. Easter is great because that meal can be just about anything we choose. I choose beef over ham and turkey because of its nutrient content. Beef also fills my freezer after the recent slaughter of my steer, so it is an economical choice in this house.

This year is actually even better because we will be doing more eating than cooking. We are traveling to southern California to spend the holiday with my family.

3) The Sunshine

I know some of you are up to your eyeballs in snowflakes this week. Our weather has been so glorious that I've gotten almost nothing done on my computer. My garden gloves are leaving tan lines on my forearms as evidence of my activity this week.

Sunshine on your skin will raise your levels of vitamin D, a deficiency many implicate in Seasonal Affective Disorder (winter time blues). Light entering your eyes, unprotected by sunglasses, will increase your levels of melatonin and help you get a better night's sleep.

5) The Family.

As much as sunshine feels like the highlight of the week since I have had a few great days outside, I will tear myself away and make a five hour trip for a dinner. It feels like a big chore given the sunshine here, the many weeds that need pulling, and the satisfaction I feel with getting things done outside. But I know that the schlep will be more than worth it. We have a great family and do not see them often enough.

"I better not see it on the blog."

"But do you even read the blog?"

"No. I'm a busy person."

"If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it matter if it gets posted on the blog?"

"I better not see it on the blog."

"But it would make such a great blog entry:

Back in the summer of 1983, he learned two things in Boy Scout Camp. He learned about the coming of age of a young girl named Margaret, thanks to novelist Judy Bloom and a fellow Boy Scout named Charlie. And he learned how to shoot a 22.

And I could write about your drive to Bakersfield for a gun cabinet that was cut short by that car load of wet clothes, the successful repair of the washing machine, and all of your Boy Scout merit badges. I already wrote about our gun cabinet shopping."

"I didn't win a merit badge for shooting, his name wasn't Charlie (who is your fact-checker anyway?), and I better not see it on the blog."

"But it's funny."

"I think I should start reading that blog."

"I know you're busy. Really, there is no pressure."

I've spent a lot of years working on my skill set.

In my 20s I got far more schooling than any reasonable human being needs. The schooling came with some of those very general skills like writing and analysis. But I got some very specific skills as well that most people have never heard of. Most of my research data was survey data and required statistical models for categorical dependent variables such as the multinomial logit model. Back in the day, not only did I walk ten miles in the snow to get to my classes, I actually wrote programs to create the graphic representations of these logit models.

Somewhere around here I have a published paper using some sort of times series technique to model what I called the "extraordinary politics" in Poland in the early 1990s. And my friend Burt and I did a paper on the effect of variation in district magnitude in countries with an urban/rural cleavage.

Stop laughing because these issues are very important to academics and actually have important policy implications should anyone ever read them.

So I was struck by the irony of all of this Tuesday when my dad came up to help me reconstruct what may be the world's most interesting domestic sandbox.

"Hey Dad, I need to put holes in that wood to secure it to the ground with rebar."

My dad looked through the workshop for a drill bit. He explained:

"Look at this one, it's for metal. This one is for wood. Do you see the difference?"

Of course I could see the difference, but I don't remember the difference now.

And after a rather long hunt for drill bit I said,

"This is all well and good but what in the heck do you put on the other end of that bit to make it drill a hole?"

I wish I had documented the look on his face but these sorts of moments are not all that predictable.

It was far better than the time I told him I used the circular saw to cut some wood. I was quite proud that I did it without help and that I knew the name of the saw. He looked a little shocked and said "remind me to show you the rotary arm saw you have."

"What in the heck do you put on the other end of that bit to make it drill a hole?"

His look was mostly astonishment.

"You used the drill the other day."

"No, I drove screws in the other day."

His look turned into amusement.

Back when I was in graduate school a common discussion among students was that the program did not prepare students for "the real world." Discussions were too philosophical, research did not have strong policy implications, research designs were too quantitative to capture real-world processes, and research designs were too qualitative to capture real-world processes.

No one ever pointed out that none of us knew the bit end of a drill. My guess is that about ten percent of the men in the program had used power tools. The percent of women with such experience surely approached zero.

I wish I could say that "All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Graduate School," but the real school came later. It came when a planned and much anticipated pregnancy turned my life on its head and apparently it's still coming. In this month alone I learned to use a drill, a chainsaw, a circular saw, and a rotary arm saw.

I am in the middle of a very busy work season in my data analysis work. Add to that the Easter holidays, a festival next weekend, and my son's 5th birthday party the following weekend and I have a very busy month.

I came back from Easter dinner looking and feeling a bit like a water melon, so I administered a bit of some figurative shock therapy and did a three-day juice fast last Tuesday through Thursday. While fasts are always hard, by Friday I had much more energy and was ready for a very big weekend.

It's hard to believe that was just two days ago. I have accomplished far more than I had imagined possible.

While I don't usually do fasts (and frankly don't usually need them quite like I did after Easter), I always try to follow a few diet-related principles as I head into a busy season.

Cut the Caffeine

I have spent my life either weaning from or becoming re-addicted to caffeine, so I consider myself an expert in this department. I have found that the groggy feeling I have in the morning that says "give me coffee" will go away if I stop drinking it. I even wake up bright-eyed. Who knew.

And then at the end of the busy week or busy season I don't have that feeling of "ugh, who poured slime all over me?"

As a struggling addict, I try to cut caffeine deliberately before a busy season. That way when the craziness is on, any caffeine I do have will pack a bigger punch and my total cups consumed will be fewer. Today, in fact, with a very large workload, I had 1 ½ cups of black tea. That ain't bad. I believe this time last week it was more like four cups of coffee, but like I said, I needed that juice fast very badly.

Drink Other Energy Drinks

Three drinks work for me as an energy booster: a yogurt-like dairy drink called kefir, a fermented juice concoction called water kefir, and a particular type of lemonade.

Milk kefir is cultured milk, but it is more runny than yogurt. It can also be more sour, so I use it in smoothies. It can work as a meal replacement too when you are busy and definitely gives me an energy kick. You can make it easily at home if you can find someone with the starter. There is a community of people here who share their grains.

Water kefir is a variant on the milk kefir. It's actually a different grain than the dairy grain and creates a juice drink that's a bit fizzy. I ferment a combination of water, sugar, and juice for a day or two or more until the sugar levels are reduced to my satisfaction. It is a refreshing drink that brings energy to a sit-down job or to a day of physical activity. This drink is harder to find information about, so I'll write some more here soon.

The lemonade I found when doing (or attempting to do) "the lemonade diet." This drink comes from a cleansing fast, but I also find that if I make a quart of this, I can cut my desire and need for a cup of coffee or tea. It definitely gives me a boost.

Easy Healthy Foods

When I am busy, my brain has a hard time even remembering what easy foods I might be able to eat. What I am going to do is make a list of ten-minute meals and to put on my refrigerator and I'll keep some of those ingredients around. A simple omelet, for instance, takes less time to make at home than it does to run out and get take-out.

My easy food for this particular crazy weekend has been soup and salad. Yesterday morning I put on a put of broth according to my mom's instructions for broth (she has a vegetable broth page too). By dinner, the broth was ready. I took some out of the pot, warmed it a bit more, and added a raw scrambled egg and some spices. This is a basic egg-drop soup and it is fantastic.

Salad was some of that bagged lettuce dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, loosely following my mom's salad dressing instructions, topped with canned salmon, pine nuts, and tomatoes. I should have topped it with leftover Easter eggs. Like I said, I should have a list going.

Today's food looked a lot similar except I ran out of bagged lettuce and haven't wanted to fight the rain to harvest some lettuce from the garden. I'll eat extra soup.

A Food Supplement

I have written about the effect of liver and brewer's yeast in increasing your ability to handle stress and giving you more energy. In these busy times, I take extra freeze dried liver tablets. I have more energy, I am generally less grumpy, and I keep a clearer head.

~~~

I use these four tools regularly and have used them diligently in the last few days to get through this weekend. I will need to stay diligent for another two weeks or so and I should be in pretty good shape.

So far, so good.

I have slain a lot of dragons just this weekend. It makes the next two weeks seem do-able, albeit a little bit crazy.

We have treated ourselves to the best pizza I have ever tasted, all inspired by my idea to "makeover" some traditional comfort foods.

We went with a seafood theme since seafood fills the list of depression buster foods. Shrimp and iron-packed clam were the features.

We try to reduce the processed foods we consume in this house. Fresh, whole foods come with all of their nutrients intact. They have not been cooked at high temperatures, extruded, canned, or frozen, all of which will reduce the nutrient content to some degree. But the irony in my kitchen is some of my kitchen practices that are probably much harder on my food than are some of the commercial processing techniques.

As you spend your valuable time cooking your food so that you ensure an abundance of nutrients in your diet, consider some of these cooking techniques that will be much easier on those foods than some of your current practices.

Increasingly people are learning about the benefits of grass fed beef. Grass fed beef is more lean, it has higher levels of the beneficial fats CLA and the Omega-3s.

Grass fed beef is pretty much as the name implies. Steers eat fresh growing grass in open pastures. Many steers that hit the supermarket are grass fed until their last three or four months when they are sent to a feedlot to be "finished" on grain. They get fatter and the nature of their fat changes. Grass fed and finished beef moves from the pasture to slaughter. He is never fattened on grain and the nature of the fat is never changed.

When a steer is finished on grain, the level of depression-fighting Omega-3 fatty acid declines, Omega-6 fatty acids increase, and, in general, the health benefit of the steak or burger declines as well.

I know that as a health food type, I shouldn't have the word "hot dog" on this blog. However, I found a really good one. If you need a hot dog, this is most definitely the hot dog to buy.

Applegate Farms makes a dog that is nitrate-free and comes from grass fed and finished beef. The grass fed beef used to make the hotdog means that the dog is going to be higher in Omega-3 fatty acids than a regular dog.

I have tasted "healthy" hot dogs before and really don't know why people bother. This one is special. It's juicy, rich, and has the flavor of an actual hot dog. It is lower in fat, according to Applegate, and to its credit. When you bite into the dog, the juice that bursts out is just filled with good flavor. No fat runs down your lips and your chin. I don't mind a bit of fat, but I believe that the lower fat version actually improves the hot dog eating experience.

I don't eat hot dogs or other processed meats often because the processing does reduce the nutrient value of meat. For the same calories, I can get more nutrients from a steak from my freezer. But the hot dog is a nice treat.

Have it on a whole grain bun or whole grain bread.

I purchased mine at Whole Foods.

I haven't paid a whole lot of attention to the organic dairy industry. I buy my milk from an area source. It is organic (and actually raw). It's good milk and I am happy to have it. I've read research on organic versus non-organic milk, pasteurized versus raw, but it is yet another thing to familiarize yourself with the functioning of the industry.

Since I live in the west coast headquarters of the dairy industry and we have shenanigans around here like the tagging of the Milk is Milk billboard, the workings of the industry has become more interesting to me.

In the middle of a very busy work month that continues to keep me exhausted, I have been anticipating the 4th Annual Fresno BabyFest. I have intended to attend each of the past three years and just haven't gotten around to it. Just before the first BabyFest we moved to our current location which is about two hours from Fresno.

This year I decided to attend in a big way and be a vendor. Of course, much like with this website, I was planning mainly to vend information. Booth #54 was my assignment and I was ready with 600 mini-muffins packed with depression fighting magnesium and beautiful tri-fold four color brochures on nutrients and depression. Considering I rarely leave this desk of mine and only occasionally speak to another adult, I was ready to talk.

What we found at the BabyFest was awfully cute but not at all what we expected. Frederick enjoyed a tree at the Discovery Center and two other children played "ladybug" to keep themselves dry.

The BabyFest was rained out and rescheduled for this coming Sunday. This coming Sunday is also Frederick's 5th birthday party, so we will be having our own little ChildFest in Visalia.

If you are in the area of Fresno, California this coming weekend, you might want to check out what sounds like a very cool event.

Who knew we would have so much excitement here in Tulare County that I would post a cast of characters. Well, excitement is relative, and things move very slowly around here, so perhaps I just have too much time on my hands.

The Places

Pixley, California would be easy to miss. With a population of 2,586 in the 2000 Census, it is about 40 minutes north of Bakersfield and one hour south of Fresno on the Highway 99 in Central California.

This week is the 5th anniversary of the birth of my son Frederick. They say that motherhood changes you but I really was naïve about what was in store for me five years and nine months ago when I got that positive pregnancy test.

We worked to get pregnant and then in the pregnancy, my life began to fall apart slowly. It started as extreme fatigue early in the pregnancy. The fatigue lessened about halfway through and my mental health began to decline. By January of 2002, I was unable to function in my work and unable to interact with people even in a casual manner.

Earlier this week Reuters reported the findings of some surprised researchers: add some tequila to your juice to increase the antioxidant levels.

Antioxidants are critical in cancer prevention, but some Jack in your orange juice for breakfast just doesn't seem like the very best path we can take to increase the antioxidants in our diets.

It is always a trick to make something that children recognize as dessert and adults recognize as healthy. Custard-based desserts are a good bet, but so are these muffins. Oh, I mean "cupcakes."