Rebuild from Depression Blog

There are different types of Omega-3 fatty acids. The form found in plants (ALA or alpha linolenic acid) is the only form considered essential, but researchers are finding EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) to be the key Omega 3 fat therapeutic for depression. There is no question that the best food source of EPA is fish, other seafood, and fish eggs. However, if you are allergic, seafood and the fish oil family supplements themselves are a very bad idea.

If you are allergic to fish but need to improve your Omega 3 fatty acid status, you can take a three-pronged strategy:

Our hens produce an assortment of egg colors because we chose a variety of hens with that outcome in mind. There are few things more beautiful in my opinion than a variety of eggs in a bowl ready to be eaten.

I was browsing the store the other day and found this company that sells two types of organic eggs -- one white and one brown. The brown is packaged in what is probably a higher-cost plastic egg carton. I could not resist but buy both. I paid about thirty cents more for the brown eggs.

When I got home I took this picture of the cartons and then cracked one egg from each carton into the same dish. Lo and behold, there was no difference in the yolk color.

It's the yolk color that matters, not the shell color.

Hens grazing freely on weeds and bugs will produce eggs with darker orange yolks. The Omega 3 eggs from hens fed flax or fish meal will also have darker yolks. The higher Omega 3 content will improve your Omega 3 levels.

Don't pay thirty cents more for brown eggs unless you really like the color. But you might consider spending a buck or so more on eggs that actually have more color in their yolk.

Summer gardens are slowing down but many of us are still bombarded with summer peppers, squash, and tomatoes. The only reasonable thing to do with the bounty is to preserve them in some way.

For the sake of nostalgia or simply to be able to say you've done it, you may be tempted to can your bounty. Tomatoes lend themselves to canning because of their acid content. But as I watched my mother can a few jars of tomatoes a few weeks ago, I thought "That is the perfect example of nutrient loss in our own kitchen."

She could not get the cans to seal and cooked those jars for hours before they were done. Cooking is a known adversary to nutrients. Cooking a jar of tomatoes for hours may make a tasty winter sauce, but it is not your nutrient solution.

Women who have been pregnant receive fair warning from obstetricians and midwives that they need to watch their iron intake. Hemoglobin levels get monitored in pregnancy. And though the poking and prodding gets old if you are the pregnant woman, the importance of iron in pregnancy and in nutrition in general cannot be overstated. Most women do not consume nearly enough iron in a day. Add pregnancy to the picture, where her body is required to produce more blood to support the uterine lining and placenta, and iron deficiencies become quite common.

The western diet is in a large part responsible for our low iron status. Foods low in iron such as white flour and potato chips have replaced higher iron whole foods such as whole wheat bread and legumes. Meat consumption has been on the decline as well which would be a good source of iron in an otherwise processed-food diet.

If you have read this blog for any length of time you know of our on-going laying hen angst. We lost a bundle a year ago to a predator, bought a dozen chicks whose lodging in our very home kicked this blog off late last fall. Those chicks grew and became dinner for the bob cat I love to hate, the animal that has finally inspired me to learn to shoot. (That's going well, by the way.)

That same bob cat finally got Henny Penny and Harriet, the two three-year-old hens who decided to live out their final days roosting in trees rather than in the safety of their hen house.

Henny was particularly special to all of us. She was the official favorite, a bit ditzy looking in part because of her small frame and her somewhat uncoordinated nature. No one else talks about this, but I expect she was our favorite because she reminded us of our long-ago cat, Marietta. Marietta was also white, skinny, and uncoordinated. You would think nature would get these sorts of animals first, but both long out-lived any projections, a sign that they were not likely ditzy after all.

With the activity of the bob cat this summer, we bought a new batch of chicks that proceeded to get eaten by a neighborhood cat. We had all but given up on any more birds when we found one remaining Rhode Island Red chick wandering around outside, three days after the cat attack. She needed friends.

Anything you are deficient in may cause or aggravate your depression, but there are the usual suspects. In the many nutrients that keep our brains healthy, some have a much more direct impact than others. There are also nutrients that we are simply much more likely to be deficient in and, thus, end up high on the radar of researchers (Omega 3 fatty acids and iron are a good example).

Research comes out regularly on the link between Omega 3 fatty acids and depression. If you are depressed and have not made a concerted effort to improve the content of Omega 3 fatty acids in your diet, the easiest first step you may make to alleviating depression is to buy an Omega 3 fatty acid supplement. Read more on this site:

The biggest threat to our home here in the Sequoia National Forest is a forest fire. I post about my property clearing "exercise" on occasion. My work continues on these five acres. We have been lucky this season. We got through one more season it would appear. We are not threatened here by the October Santa Anas like southern California is. July and August heat are our biggest enemies.

Not to be overly grim, just to be realistic about our circumstances, the fire season ending for us about now puts us a season closer. Forestry people here continue to say "It's not a matter of if but when." I do not let this fact cause me fear and dread. I use the information to take some control over our lives by doing things such as brush clearing. I have used it to face another of my big fears - chainsaws. I had not touched on until this past February when I received it for my birthday. This is a big step for a person who grew up in the era of the movies "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Some of you know what I am talking about. ;)

This topic is obviously on my mind because a good friend lost her house on Lake Arrowhead yesterday. Her family is safe and had about ninety minutes to evacuate. She has been spear-heading our high school reunion planning and that reunion happens in about ten days. She actually put the table decorations for the reunion in her car but lamented that she forgot her reunion dress. She was obviously the right person to take charge of the reunion for both her planning abilities and her attitude.

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You know, I really thought I was the one who was crazy living in the Sequoia National Forest, talking about the breast size of chickens, and taking pictures of highway art by raw milk enthusiasts. But there is some serious madness in the government here in California. On October 8, Governor Schwarzenegger signed a law that will effectively end the commercial sales of raw milk.

The bill is politically crazy because it was passed without the consultation of raw milk consumers. It is scientifically crazy as well - it has no scientific legs.

Crazy Politicians
Citizens in this country are increasingly concerned about food safety as food recalls make the news weekly. California law makers decided to do Californians a favor and protect them from raw milk.

The new law limits the coliform count in raw milk to 10 or fewer per milliliter. Coliform bacteria are a diverse lot, E. coli 0157:H7 (that pathogenic form of E. coli that is making the news so much lately) is a coliform. There are a lot of other coliform strains as well. Researchers have found that coliform Enterobacter asburiae reduces the growth of E. coli 0157:H7 on lettuce. Citrobacter freundii competes with Salmonella. So this group of coliform bacteria is a mixed bag.

What makes the coliform requirement particularly crazy is that there are tests available for pathogens. Lawmakers concerned with food safety could just test for those. Testing for coliforms, when more precise tests are available, is simply bizarre. I expect a high coliform count could make my milk spoil faster, but I cannot see why anyone is concerned about the flavor of my milk.