Screw The Fish Oil, Eat Your Chia Pet

It’s because of the research from 2004 on the Chamorra in Guam - apparently, Alzheimers, ALS, Parkinson is much more common there, and it was linked to their habit of eating the local bat, which in turn fed off of some kind of root that had a lot of BMAA in it.

Then they considered the fact that cyanobacterial blahbla has something to do with cyano algae - so in 2005 the same group tested some forty different kinds, and BMAA was in 90% of the samples. Logic then says it might be a bad idea to eat algae.

Apparently Livsmedelsverket bought some state-of-the-art testing apparatus and followed up the issue in 2006, and in their tests they found no BMAA, they also had Uppsala University test more samples and still found none.

Couldn’t find any newer news on cyano-algae and Alzheimers / BMAA so I guess the warning is blown off for present.

Interesting mgus- thanks for the look-see. I’m going to dive into it a little.

Through the years though there have been so many “scares” with miracle health foods, and they so very frequently dissolve upon secondary testing and peer review, that at times I find them hard to take seriously.

Like the time they were feeding rats their body weights in comfrey root every couple of days and then were making toxicity claims about the herb. D’oh! Even water is a deadly poison at a high enough dose.

And some of this shit is probably less “miraculous” than water too. The bullshit splatters on both sides.

Wants,

What made you into the herbal and supplemental psychopath you are today?

Was once a real top-shelf athlete- hockey, tennis, soccer, basketball, surfing, mountain climbing, rock climbing. I remember at one time feeling that I could just run and run and run and just never stop and never tire. Going to hockey camp and running to the top of a mountain we were supposed to take all day hiking up. Stuff like that. Unlimited physical reserves is what it felt like. The highest high ever.

Then, second year at the University of Colorado in Boulder, the slide started. Spent all of that accumulated athlete’s “Jing force” or “Ching Chi” like it was money in a billionaires saving’s account. Party hearty. Don’t_stop_til_you_drop.

And all the while my body still felt like a million bucks- hangovers, acid trips, cigarette smoking, despite all of that, I still worked out, played racquetball, hockey. Hell, apparently you could rob Peter and pay Paul.

Went this way until about 23 or 24 years of age and then things finally started to go sour. The drinking, getting fucked up, smoking seemed to have caught up- shit, I could still do all of the shit I wanted to do, only now, it all hurt.

Knees, shoulders, eyesight, cardio, lean muscle mass, all of them, headed South. Quit partying, did what I knew, ate really “good”, but still, everything hurt and I just didn’t “feel right”. I totally craved that former feeling of indestructability. And now, what even frightened me more was how quickly it could all fall apart and how I really had no fucking idea what to do.

Staying in shape was one thing, repairing what was broken was totally another.

Spent two years like that, basically wallowing around and trying to use the things that are at most people’s disposal when they try to, “get better”- I did a lot of physical therapy type stuff, sports massage, whirlpool, kept the diet clean, exercised in more of a low impact range, but still, that former feeling of endless energy reserves and pain free living never returned. If anything, some shit got worse.

Then I met my buddy “H” and if “H” was anything he was a bad_motherfucker. One of those guys you could just look at and say, “hey, if anything ever goes down, I want to be on his side: 6’6” probably about 235 pounds, absolutely shredded- blazing fast, super strong, up at the crack of dawn, always a lot of energy, cracking the ladies in half, big assed smile on his face all the time, all that.

We met in a Judo class.

I had a lot of experience in Judo at the time and nobody in that class (a beginners class that I was just taking to tune up a little) could even come close to matching me, other than the teacher’s assistant who could take me maybe a little more than half of the time. So in walks this big black dude and I’m thinking, “this is gonna be good!” knowing the teacher’s penchant for highlighting how fighting skills can even the score against big opponents.

Teacher asks “H”, “you ever do martial arts before?” “H” answers, “no sir, but I’ve read a little and practiced the stuff from the books, and I’ve watched the first two UFC tapes about a million times and I really liked them and studied them as well”

So the teacher gives a knowing nod and tells “H” to get on the mat with a little dude from the class who was probably the best in there after me. Tells them to “open fight” but with no striking, chokes and locks are cool. Well “H” absolutely destroyed the guy time after time.

Then I get in there with him. Fucker cracked me like a clam. Then he demolishes the teacher’s assistant, choking him out (to a tap-out) with his gui 3 times in a row.

So much for the teacher’s lesson.

I start to hang out with “H”. I immediately see that everthing this guy puts in his mouth is bizzare from my perspective. Brown rice, Umeboshi plums, miso soup, tofu, seaweed, carrot juice, and jar after jar of “herb tea”, but the “herb tea” in his case really is HERB TEA- there’s buckthorn bark, saw palmetto, uva ursi, golden seal, nettles, poke root, stillingia, burdock, dandelion, hyssop, pau d’ arco, cat’s claw, ginseng, and etc.etc.etc.. Shit just goes on and on and on.

I tell him my woes and he makes a prescription. I’m crazy enough to try it. It works.

Before long, I’m eating vegetarian, going on juice fasts, cleansing my liver, doing a gall bladder fast (holy shit! 27 bright green gall stones get flushed out the first time I do it!), doing a colon cleanse.

Shit, I’m not just feeling better, hell, I’m walking on a goddamn cloud!

Shoulder stops hurting, knees stop hurting, eyesight starts to clear up, way more energy.

And that’s when I really get into it.

For the next 7 years I sink my teeth into anything from hydrogen peroxide therapy to spirulina to (ahem) chia seeds to macrobiotic diets to biodynamic farming to naturopathic herbalism to yadda fucking yadda.

Before long, I’ve got mad chops and I’m wildcrafting all my own herbs, making tinctures, keeping bees, shit, I’m waaaaaay off the map by that point, but the thing is, I’m fucking radiant again. I can damn near take down “H” half of the time, I’m lean as a shred of barbed wire, and I’ve improved my standing jump to 2” above my High School record.

So there it is. The proof was in the pudding. The problem has been, for me, staying on it. Now that I feel like I can deal with anything that comes up and now that I’m actually living a life beyond running around picking weeds, it’s been hard to stay at anything like that level. Now it’s my feel good crutch which I run to when I’m fucked up and not my way of life.

Like to make it that way again.

Radiant health, nothing like it. Feel sorry for those who’ve never felt it.

I assume you had the Net in the beginning for some assistance or did your burn your library card right out in a week?

Hey man, I’m interested in this if you’d be willing to help me out a little. I sent you a PM. I’m wondering where one would start with something like this. I live in MA so growing my own stuff is not feasible as it’s below freezing 9 months a year.

Kevin

Hi All.

I got the chia seeds in the post. I added water and they make a gel just as you said it would. What is the correct dosage? IE, what would the zaneblue equivalent amount be?

I have had my chia seeds for about 10 days now. So far, the best way I have found to get it into my diet is to cook 2 teaspoonfulls in with my oatmeal mix in the morning.

According to my package, one serving size is 4 teaspoons and that contains 5.2gr of ala omega-3 and 1.7gr of omega-6.

I also tried just soaking the seeds in water and drinking them down and that worked pretty well, but when I tried putting them in my morning orange juice, that was less successful as the seeds just wanted to float.

That is a lot of omega 3! No wonder we felt a bit strange. Wifey and I had a table spoon each. she said I got kind of hyper. It sounds like even one teaspoon is more than zane is recommending in fish oil equivalents.

What effects have you noticed gprent?

Eat the full bag and give us a full report.

Your math is off.

I’m not sure I can say I have noticed any effect. It’s kind of like switching from white bread to whole wheat. You know it’s healthier, but it kind of goes unnoticed.

mravg - hit me with the math, I am all ears.

marky,

You made the claim and should be eager to back it up. I was hoping to see your math!

But if you insist.

1 teaspoon = 2.5 grams seed x 34% oil x 64% omega 3 in the oil = .544 grams of omega 3 per teaspoon.

Zane recommends around 3 grams EPA and DHA (combined) per day for a 200 pound man.

To further complicate things, Chia Omega 3 is ALA, not EPA or DHA. So, if you want to get literal about it, Chia provides zero percent of Zane’s recommendation.

So, even if the Chia omega 3 was EPA and DHA, one teaspoon would be 1/6 of Zanes recommendation. Since it is ALA, I don’t think Zane has a recommendation.

If you go by the American heart association recommendation for these oils, they recommend about twice as much ALA as EPA/DHA.

If you could really say that 2 grams of ALA does the same thing as one gram of EPA/DHA (I don’t know that that is true), then you would need 12 teaspoon (4 tablespoons) per day to get into the Zane Zone.

I would be curious to know what Zane says about ALA, Chia and Flax in general, but she hasn’t been around much lately. She seems to hang out at the Huffington Post website a lot.

Reference for percentage of oil:

http://en.wikip … alvia_hispanica "

Reference for Zane’s recommendation:

http://www.hisa ndherhealth.com … pic/1/2308.html