Money, arm pits and animals.

Hello!  So I did my fundraiser on Saturday and I'm happy to say that we did between $7000 and $8000 in 6 hours!!  We will have the final numbers this week and I will update when I get them, but isn't that great?!  I'm super proud of myself!!  =)

I will go on to say this:

The person we were raising money for has cancer.  She has been on a diet ever since she was diagnosed: no animal ANYTHING (eating animals is actually very bad for us - being a Vegan is the healthiest thing you can do), and she is eating ONLY alkaline foods (which I was just talking about).  Acidic food is also bad for you.

The smartest thing you can do is stop eating animals.  Seriously.

Last update on my armpits... I will never wear deodorant again.  Alcohol works better (yes, it actually works better and feels better.  OH!  And there is no white marks on my clothes!) and it isn't full of chemicals that I can't pronounce.  =)

Last subject for the day... It's a sad one.

Captain was a big story last week in our local news.  You can read about him here and see how his story turned out here.

I can't handle the animal abuse that goes on in this world, it makes me sick.  We treat them in unimaginable ways and most of us are OK with it.  Why is that?  Why is it that you can beat and torture an animal and walk away with a "slap on the wrist"?  People that can hurt any living thing can and often do move onto children and other people.

Here is a read on animal abusers.

Pretty scary to think that we could have stopped some of those people if only we had better laws and better enforcement.  I judge people based on how they treat animals; I will never trust anyone that can harm an animal in any way (or that doesn't like The Beatles).  If you are reading this and agree with what I'm saying, please write your government and tell them how this needs to stop.  Write potential candidates and tell them you will vote for the party that gets serious about animals.

I'll leave you with this:

Albert Disalvo (better known as the Boston Strangler) used to trap dogs and cats as a child and then shoot them with arrows.
Edward Emil Kemper lll was convicted of killing eight women, one of which was his own mother. When he was thirteen yrs. old he would kill neighborhood cats and put their heads on poles. Kemper killed his own cat, decapitated it and then cut it into small pieces. This is the same thing he did to his own mother!
David Berkowitz was convicted of thirteen murders and attempted murders. He used to abuse the neighborhood dogs. He shot one neighbors dog because according to him, the dog was an "evil force" that compelled him to kill.
Ted Bundy was convicted of two murders though he was suspected of at least forty! Bundy used to watch as his own father tortured animals. Eventually, Bundy did the same.
Andrew Cunanan was the man who killed designer Versace and was suspected in the murders of five other people. Cunanan used to gather crabs and then burn their eyes out with a lighted match. He would watch their eyes sizzle then turn them loose.

One of the healtiest choices you can make (IMO)...

... Is getting a pet.

Here are 27 reasons why.

I know I've said before that my dog has gotten me off the couch more often then I care to admit, but there are other things she does for me too.  She may help with my blood pressure, keep me from being depressed and she gives me something to care for and my cat might be keeping my heart healthy!

If you have children, studies show that if they grow up with pets they are less likely to develop allergies - this might be why I have none.

Your overall health is important and I really think having a pet is a big help with that.

Can't have a pet?  I've been there!  You can volunteer to be a dog walker at your local SPCA or shelter - exercise for you and the dog gets out of his or her cage for an hour.  I volunteered before we got Layla and I found myself going every single day, this is why we went and got our own dog.  =)

Seriously, go down to your local shelter right now and volunteer to walk dogs or play with the cats OR adopt one!  There are 1000's of animals waiting for their forever homes right now (some of them won't make it) so don't shop, adopt!  And get healthier while you're saving a life.  <3

Are you Alkaline?

So I woke up today to find this in my news feed on Facebook, obviously I read the entire thing before I even got out of bed.  This is info I've been reading more and more about as of late and so I did a little research today... Here's 3 lists I came up with (and by I, I do mean the internet):

"Alkaline Foods List: Foods to Eat Freely..."*

This an Alkaline Foods List Showing Alkaline "Ash" "Ash" is a term used to describe the waste product of certian foods after it has been metabolized through the digestive tract. The following is a list of common foods with an approximate, relative potential of acidity (-) or alkalinity (+), as present in one ounce of food.

Vegetables

Brussels Sprouts

+0.5

Barley Grass

+28.1

White Beans (Navy Beans)

+12.1

Peas, Ripe

+0.5

Soy Sprouts

+29.5

Granulated Soy (Cooked

Asparagus

+1.3

Sprouted Radish Seeds

+28.4

Ground Soy Beans)

+12.8

Comfrey

+1.5

Sprouted Chia Seeds

+28.5

Soy Nuts (soaked Soy Beans

Green Cabbage, March Harvest

+2.0

Alfalfa Grass

+29.3

Then Air Dried)

+26.5

Lettuce

+2.2

Cucumber, Fresh

+31.5

Soy Lecithin (Pure)

+38.0

Onion

+3.0

Wheat Grass

+33.8

Cauliflower

+3.1

Nuts

White Cabbage

+3.3

Root Vegetables

Almonds

+3.6

Green Cabbage,

White Raddish (Spring)

+3.1

December Harvest

+4.0

Rutabaga

+3.1

Seeds

Savoy Cabbage

+4.5

Kohlrabi

+5.1

Sesame Seeds

+0.5

Lamb's Lettuce

+4.8

Horseradish

+6.8

Cumin Seeds

+1.1

Peas, Fresh

+5.1

Turnip

+8.0

Fennel Seeds

+1.3

Zucchini

+5.7

Carrot

+9.5

Caraway Seeds

+2.3

Red Cabbage

+6.3

Beet

+11.3

Rhubarb Stalks

+6.3

Red Radish

+16.7

Fats (Fresh, Cold-Pressed Oils)

Leeks (Bulbs)

+7.2

Summer Black Radish

+39.4

Olive Oil

+1.0

Watercress

+7.7

Borage Oil

+3.2

Spinach, March Harvest

+8.0

Fruits

Flax Seed Oil

+3.5

Chives

+8.3

Limes

+8.2

Evening Primrose Oil

+4.1

French Cut Green Beans

+11.2

Fresh Lemon

+9.9

Marine Lipids

+4.7

Sorrel

+11.5

Tomato

+13.6

Spinach (Other Than March)

+13.1

Avocado (Protein)

+15.6

Water

Garlic

+13.2

Spring, Mineral, or

Celery

+13.3

Non-Stored Organic

Ionized Water

varies

Cabbage Lettuce, Fresh

+14.1

Grains And Legumes

Coconut Water

+9.04

Endive, Fresh

+14.5

Buckwheat Groats

+0.5

Cayenne Pepper

+18.8

Spelt

+0.5

Straw Grass

+21.4

Lentils

+0.6

Shave Grass

+21.7

Soy Flour

+2.5

Dog Grass

+22.6

Tofu

+3.2

Dandelion

+22.7

Lima Beans

+12.0

Kamut Grass

+27.6

Soybeans, Fresh

+12.0

"Alkaline Foods: Foods to Eat Sparringly*... This a Chart of Food "Ash" pH "Ash" is a term used to describe the waste product of certian foods after it has been metabolized through the digestive tract. The following is a list of common foods with an approximate, relative potential of acidity (-) or alkalinity (+), as present in one ounce of food. Fish Non-Stored Grains Fresh Water Fish -11.8 Brown Rice -12.5 Wheat -10.1 Fruits (In Season, For Cleansing Only Nuts and Seeds Or With Moderation) Wheat Kernel -11.4 Rose Hips -15.5 Walnuts -8.0 Pineapple -12.6 Pumpkin Seeds -5.6 Mandarin Orange -11.5 Sunflower Seeds -5.4 Bananna, Ripe -10.1 Macadamia Nuts -3.2 Pear -9.9 Hazelnuts -2.0 Peach -9.7 Flax Seeds -1.3 Apricot -9.5 Brazil Nuts -0.5 Papaya -9.4 Orange -9.2 Fats Mango -8.7 Sunflower Oil -6.7 Tangerine -8.5 Coconut Milk -1.5 Currant -8.2                                   Gooseberry, Ripe -7.7 Grape, Ripe -7.6 Cranberry -7.0 Black Currant -6.1 Strawberry -5.4 Blueberry -5.3 Rasberry -5.1 Yellow Plum -4.9 Italian Plum -4.9 Date -4.7 Cherry, Sweet -3.6 Cantaloupe -2.5 Red Currant -2.4 Fig Juice Powder -2.4 Grapefruit -1.7 Watermelon -1.0 Coconut, Fresh +0.5 Cherry, Sour +3.5 Bananna, Unripe +4.8 "Acidic Foods: These are Regarded As Acid Foods That Make You Fat and Tired." Food "Ash" pH Chart* The following is a list of common foods with an approximate, relative potential of acidity (-) or alkalinity (+), as present in one ounce of food Foods You Should Never Eat! Root Vegetables Sweets Stored Potatoes +2.0 Artificial Sweetners -26.5 Chocolate -24.6 Meat, Poultry, And Fish White Sugar -17.6 Pork -38.0 Beet Sugar -15.1 Veal -35.0 Molasses -14.6 Beef -34.5 Dr. Bronner's Barley Ocean Fish -20.0 Malt Sweetner -9.8 Chicken (to -22) -18.0 Dried Sugar Cane Juice Eggs (to -22) -18.0 (Sucanat) -9.6 Oysters -5.0 Barley Malt Syrup -9.3 Liver -3.0 Fructose -9.5 Organ Meats -3.0 Milk Sugar -9.4 Turbinado Sugar -9.5 Milk And Milk Products Brown Rice Syrup -8.7 Hard Cheese -18.1 Honey -7.6 Quark -17.3 Cream -3.9 Condiments Homogenized Milk -1.0 Ketchup -12.4 Buttermilk +1.3 Mayonaise -12.5 Mustard -19.2 Bread, Biscuits Soy Sauce -36.2 (Stored Grains/Risen Dough) Vinegar -39.4 White Bread -10.0 White Biscuit -6.5 Beverages Whole-Meal Bread -6.5 Liquor -38.7 Whole-Grain Bread -4.5 Wine -16.4 Rye Bread -2.5 Beer -26.8 Coffee -25.1 Nuts Fruit Juice, Packaged, Natural -8.7 Pistachios -16.6 Fruit Juice Sweetened With Peanuts -12.8 White Sugar -33.6 Cashews -9.3 Tea (Black) -27.1 Fats Miscellaneous Margarine -7.5 Canned Foods Corn Oil -6.5 Processed Foods Butter -3.9 Microwaved Foods So... I want to hear your thoughts on this.  Can food prevent disease?  Can it kill cancer?  Are we being told things that aren't true when it comes to our health?  What do you think?

I don't stink!

I gave up deodorant this weekend after my last post about what was in my "natural" deodorant and I started using Alcohol and guess what?  It works.  I have zero smell.  I even went out on Friday night and nothing.  So I gotta tell you, so far I'm very happy with this little experiment. 

Now I gotta stop and say this:  Boob is back from Alaska today.  What does that mean?  It means I'm still at home (at 11:00am) because I faked another headache this morning so I didn't have to deal with him.  I also have a few things that I had to take care of with my lines (you know, the ones I'm responsible for and make commission on?  Yeah... The ones that my job depends on).  Had I gone into the office this morning he would have had a list of his jobs that needed to be done (you know, the stuff that has NOTHING to do with my job?  Or the company for that matter) and I wouldn't have got my real work done.  It's funny because even when I tell him "Boob, I have a ton of stuff to do for Line A and Line B today, do you think you could look up the golf course and book your own tee time today?"  And instead he will write out (that's right!  Instead of turning on his computer and using 'google' himself - which I've showed him a few times now - he will write out everything he wants me to google for him and then put it on my desk for when I'm finished my real work.  Then he will let it sit there until the end of the world while he sits at his desk writing out more things for me to do rather then just doing his own stuff himself).  So now I've started telling him I'm busy all the time, I'm making up work so that I never have time to google the car repair shop he wants to take his car to, all the while telling him that 'he knows how to google, it would be faster for him to do it himself' instead of writing everything out and letting it sit on my desk when I have no time to do it.  Guess what his response is to that?  "Oh I know how to google, it's just easier for me to have you do it."

How nice.

So here I sit dreading the moment that I pull into my parking space and see his car there.

Back to my underarms!

If there is anyone out there that is trying the Alcohol and Baking Soda deodorant, PLEASE comment below and let me know what you think of it.  If there is a different natural deodorant you are using I'd also like to hear about those too. I'll be doing alcohol morning and night until this Friday (that will have been a week) and then I'll be using Baking Soda in the mornings and using Alcohol (hopefully) once or twice a week.  I will continue to update on this as the weeks go by.

What's in your deodorant?

Do you ever think about what's in the products you use?  What chemicals are you putting on your body every single day?  Is it safe?  I'm on a quest for health - not weight loss - health.  That includes the products I use: Make-up, Shampoo, soap, moisturizer and toothpaste.  Today I'm going to talk about deodorant.  This is something we all use everyday, some of us use it a few times a day, and I want to know what exactly is going onto and eventually into my skin.  I have 2 different brands that claim they are completely natural so I'm going to do a little digging on: Jason and Toms of Maine.

The First one is Jason:  On the label it says "Natural Pioneer since 1959", "Pure natural deodorant stick" and "No Aluminum, Parabens, Phthalates or Propylene Glycol"


Pretty good start...

But I should point out that there is no where on here that says "No animal products", although it does tell me they don't test on animals.


Let's google the ingredients to see what really is in here:


Propanediol: This is what I found -
Propanediol may refer to either of two isomeric organic chemical compounds:

• 1,2-Propanediol (Propylene glycol)
• 1,3-Propanediol (Trimethylene glycol) 

(Source)

 So which one of the 2 chemical compounds are actually in this?  Why doesn't it tell me which one?

The first (of the 2 options) is this - Propylene glycol, also called 1,2-propanediol or propane-1,2-diol, is an organic compound (a diol or double alcohol) with formula C₃H₈O₂ or HO-CH₂-CHOH-CH₃. It is a colorless, nearly odorless, clear, viscous liquid with a faintly sweet taste, hygroscopic and miscible with water, acetone, and chloroform.

(Source)

Chloroform?!  That stuff is HAZARDOUS!!! "Chloroform was discovered by three researchers independently of one another. Chloroform was reported in 1831 by the French chemist Eugène Soubeiran, who prepared it from acetone (2-propanone) as well as ethanol through the action of chlorine bleach powder (calcium hypochlorite).^[9] The American physician Samuel Guthrie prepared gallons of the material and described its "deliciousness of flavor."^[10] Independently, Justus von Liebig also described the same compound.^[11] All early preparations used variations of the haloform reaction. Chloroform was named and chemically characterized in 1834 by Jean-Baptiste Dumas. "


(Source)


I don't want that going into my body!!!

The second (of the 2 options) is this - 
1,3-Propanediol is the organic compound with the formula CH₂(CH₂OH)₂. This three-carbon diol is a colorless viscous liquid that is miscible with water.<sup>[2]

(Source)


Seems OK...

But later in that same article I see this:</sup> 1,3-Propanediol does not appear to pose a significant hazard via inhalation of either the vapor or a vapor/aerosol mixture

<sup>And that gives me a bit of a warning... it doesn't say definitely that it is or isn't harmful - I say avoid this.

So I didn't get past the first ingredient and I already want to throw this away.

It goes on to say: Aqua, Glycerin, Sodium Stearate, Zinc, Ricinoleate, Polyglyceryl-3 Caprate, Aloe Baradensis Leaf Juice, Citrus Grandis (Grapefruit) Seed Extract, Allantoin, Behenyl Alcohol, Ethylhexylgycerin, Glyceryl Stearate, Silica, Sodium Bicarbonate, Sucross Cocoate, Tocopheryl Actetate, Zea Mays (Corn) Starch, Benzoate, Hexyl Cinnamal, Fragrance (Parfum).


The second one is Tom's Of Maine: The front says "aluminum-free" and "natural"


The back tells me this is "Cruelty Free" (yay!), "Giving Back" (double yay!) and "Sustanable Practices" (triple yay!!)


Here's what's in it: Propylene glycol - Hold the phone! That's the first ingredient in the last deodorant!  I'm outta here!


Clearly I need to make my own, I found this video that says to try alcohol and baking soda.  Off to the store - I'll let you know how it works!</sup>

RIP, Lennox

 BOYCOTT IRELAND

Let them know how you feel!

Asking for help...

We spent the evening driving around North Vancouver to go to local businesses to see if they would donate anything for the fundraiser I'm doing.  I'm looking for anything they can donate for a raffle that will be done at the car wash/bottle drive for Chelsea next weekend (you can read about Chelsea here and watch her story in the news here).  We hit up about 20 places including Restaurants, pubs, a spa and Canadian Tire asking for anything they can donate to us.  We are going to do a minimum $5 donation for a car wash with the option of donating more to get tickets in our raffle ($10 = 3 tix, $15 = 5 tix and $20 = 10 tix).  I'm hoping to raise around $10,000 for Chelsea and her family through this event and to be honest, I'm getting a little stressed out over the whole thing.  It's turned into a pretty big event with news teams planning to be there, newspapers advertising for the event and even the amount of people on Facebook getting involved - it's pretty overwhelming.  If there is anyone out there reading this that wants to volunteer time or donate anything, please get in contact with me, it would be greatly appreciated. =)

Now onto some food!

Since we left as soon as we got home from work today, we ate on the run.  Jeff ate Burger King (yuck) and I ate Subway.  My sandwich had no cheese (it's processed), no meat (I'm a vegetarian), no salt (It's in everything, why add more), and a bunch of veggies.  I know these veggies were picked awhile ago and have no nutrition because I'm already hungry.  I can eat a fresh salad with no bread or anything BUT veggies and be full for 6-7 hours, but the Subway left me feeling hungry an hour after I ate it.  This, to me, is the same as eating McDonalds.  I just got NOTHING but empty calories and zero vitamins from my "healthy choice" dinner and that means Subway is now banned.

It's funny how you don't notice these things until you start paying attention.  I've started paying attention to my body, my moods and how food makes me feel. 

After my post yesterday about the food that the world throws away I need to make some serious changes to what I eat and where I get it from.  The most difficult thing about wanting to do this is Jeff.  He couldn't care less about any of this and that is effecting the respect that I have for him.  How can he listen to the things that I'm telling him and still not care about anyone or anything but himself?  I get that bacon tastes good, but do you know what goes into that bacon you insist on eating?  Preservatives.  Do you know how that pig was raised?  How he/she was treated?  What he/she was fed?  What penicillin they gave him/her?  How he/she was killed?  How scared he/she was when he/she was killed?  How can you care so little about your body and health and care so little about the life that you are eating?  I just can't stomach a person that is given this information and still only cares about them self.

I want to plant a garden and have chickens in my backyard so I can have fresh eggs, I want to shop at local farmers markets and use home made products.  I didn't realize how hard it would be to share a life with someone that doesn't.