Off-Topic: STUFFING RECIPE — Gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free, sesame-free, soy-free, nut-free, and yummy. Oh, and vegetarian!

This is my husband’s (and probably Better Homes New Cookbook at some early point in the process) contribution to humanity for Thanksgiving. Stuffing that is gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free, sesame-free, soy-free, and nut-free! And vegetarian. cornucopia

We made this to accommodate all of the allergies at last year’s Thanksgiving dinner, and guess what?! All of the non-allergic people loved it so much better than the award-winning Sunset stuffing (I mean, the one they said they get more requests than any other recipe for), there were lots of leftovers of the Sunset stuffing and not a crumb left of this! (Sorry Sunset!) People asked for the recipe, so here it is:

Stuffing:
1 C. chopped celery (4-5 stalks?)
1 C. chopped onion (~1 medium onion – red)
1 tsp dried sage
2 bell peppers chopped (we probably used the sweet ones from Borba Farms; this year we used 1 red bell pepper and 1 poblano, it was even more delicious)
2 batches corn bread croutons (see recipe below)
2-3 C. vegetable broth (we used the low-sodium veggie broth from Trader Joe’s)
1/4 C. chopped flat leaf parsley

Saute chopped vegetables in olive oil until soft. Mix vegetables, sage, parsley, and cornbread croutons in large bowl. Stir in veggie broth until wet but not soaking. Bake at 325 degrees for ~40 minutes until browned lightly on top.

Options: Could add sausage, apples, or — if not allergic — nuts.

Cornbread Croutons for Stuffing:
3/4 C. brown rice flour
1/4 C. amaranth flour
1 C. corn flour (not corn meal)
2 Tbs sugar
1 Tbs baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 egg-equivalent egg replacer (we used Ener G), mixed
1 C. water (could use milk if not allergic to dairy, but we used water)
1/4 C. oil (olive oil tasted good)

Mix dry ingredients. Mix egg replacer separately and add to wet ingredients, then add wet ingredients to dry. Mix well and pour into 9X9X2 or 8X8X2 pan (greased). Bake at 425 for ~25minutes. Won’t make very good corn bread but is great for stuffing or croutons. Split the loaf horizontally and cut bread into 1/2″ to 1″ cubes. Dry cubes on cookie sheet at ~250 degress, turning occasionally until dry and crispy.

If you like the recipe, please consider buying my husband a cup of coffee (he is an unwilling chef!) or support of my efforts with SolveEczema.org. (Hardly anyone donates — if you do donate for the recipe, please leave a note for my husband, he’ll be thrilled!)





SolveEczema News

This is an experiment — like everything else I do, it seems — in crowdfunding, through Indiegogo.com, to see if I can find funding to focus full-time on making a medical study of the solution on SolveEczema.org a reality, write a book and start a related social business.

I tried a mini-blog-pledge drive awhile back, but I find unless people can see where the funds go, most people vastly overestimate the funds that come through blog donation links and figure someone else is donating. And…

Maybe it’s my somewhat ascetic upbringing, but I have real problems asking for … money. There. I said it! It’s why I haven’t gone the non-profit organization route, because once you go non-profit, most of what you do is keep asking people for money.

Over the years, many people have offered to help, and mostly, I haven’t taken them up on it. I’ve put up a small donation button, I’ve recently experimented a little with monetizing the blog to try to generate some passive income from recommendations I already make, but I haven’t had the time to really make much (literally) of it yet. So far, my minimal monetization efforts have made little more than change.

A medical professional once told me that my reticence to ask for or make money related to this endeavor was depriving people I could be helping of that help. He had a point. Earlier this year I spent some time deciding whether to go the social business or non-profit route, and for the above reasons, decided on social business.

Still, the first and most important goal is the medical study. And doctors are much better than I am of asking for money for their professional services. It’s hard to get money for a medical study without a doctor, and hard to get a doctor without money.

And while I am working on that, I have to find a way to make this my job. I don’t need a lot, but so long as I can only afford to do this as a hobby, that’s all I’ve been able to do.

Since putting up Solveeczema.org and this blog, parents have told me they couldn’t parent normally before they implemented the solution on Solveeczema.org, or that their children never lived a day without pain or slept through a single night because of the intense itching, or that they suffered life-threatening infections, or were ostracized by other children and adults. And they tell me what a difference it makes to really, truly see and understand where the previously random-seeming outbreaks come from and how to prevent or eliminate them, to have control over what had once controlled them. Many parents have described how asthma was ameliorated or eliminated along with the eczema, as the underlying basis would predict, and which also deserves further study.

It hasn’t been all one-sided. This endeavor has been extraordinarily meaningful for me. I never would have predicted wanting to do anything health related professionally. But now I would consider it an immense privilege to be able to do something that helps far more people. Please make a pledge if you can:

Feb 2017 – The crowdfunding is long concluded, but I am still working on the book.  If you would like to support this work, please consider a donation.  Not many people do – every bit makes a difference.  If you are in a position to truly make a difference:  the one thing that would make the biggest difference right now is funding to allow me to hire one or two people and research-grade equipment for skin testing.  I have a fiscal sponsor now, so while regular gifts are not tax deductible, when I get that set up, it will be possible to make tax deductible donations to this work.

For gifts, please take the link in the right sidebar to the SolveEczema Donations Page.

 

Unauthorized use of Solveeczema.org: Not my rant

When I first began this blog, I posted a wonderful letter of feedback by Katrina Featherston, who gave me permission to post it on my blog, which is copyrighted.

https://solveeczema.org/eczemablog/?p=363

For some reason, this post has been copied by many others on the Web without permission.

I have not authorized any of these uses, especially one particularly bad one on a web site called m e d e c i n e d o c t o r s [dot] i n f o. PLEASE DO NOT GO THERE. I would ask my readers to please not look for that site, because just your linking to it or viewing it will give them a higher ranking with Google. However, if you are using Google to look into Solveeczema.org, please be aware of it and don’t use it!

They not only borrowed the letter, they used my web site name, Solveeczema.org, then added a rant to Katrina Featherston’s letter — an anti-doctor anti-medicine rant that is neither from me nor Ms. Featherston, but the site so makes it seem so, I consider it libelous.

My husband and I couldn’t have done what we did without the wisdom our healthcare practitioners imparted and the help and support they gave along the way. I think everyone should have that kind of medical support.

People who use my site are sometimes discouraged by their experiences with the advice available for treating eczema, but I make very clear how important it is for people to have a good relationship with a doctor before embarking on any changes as outlined on the site. If people do have an antagonistic relationship, I usually ask if there is any way to switch to a doctor they could work with. There are many, many doctors out there who will work with patients, and who are wise, helpful and (necessary for working with the site) able to keep close tabs on people’s safety and personal medical situations through the changes I advocate on the site.

Although I am working on trying to see a medical study of the Solveeczema.org solution, there is currently nothing like it in the medical literature and doctors cannot be held responsible for not knowing what has not been published in peer-reviewed literature. I have even heard from doctors who used my web site to help their own families.

I don’t know what the motivation of the abovementioned web site is to steal my material and misrepresent it and me, but there is no name associated with it and no contact information for me to ask them to stop. Please realize that the site is in no way associated with me or my site, and that the rant they attached to the letter they stole from my site has nothing to do with me.

Where to Find Non-detergent Shampoo

When Solveeczema.org users ask me for choices in non-detergent shampoo, in the past, I had little to say. The best one I had tried was Cal-Ben’s. But, different people have different needs and preferences.

I just looked at the Environmental Working Group’s web site. In the shampoo category, many products listed as the safest are soap-based. The great thing about the Environmental Working Group’s web site is that ingredients are listed for most products.  I found Earth Mama Angel Baby’s soap-based shampoo through EWG’s site, and like that product as well.

I haven’t tried most of the products listed, but they are mostly castile-soap-based with very simple ingredients and thus should be safe for Solveeczema.org users.

Note: not all shampoos listed as tops in safety are soap-based, as you go down the list, some are made with sugar-surfactants (of which I’ve heard mixed reviews from Solveeczema.org users, I continue to reserve judgement for now), and as you go further, the more and stronger the product detergent bases.

In general, Environmental Working Group’s web site is a great place to look for safe products.

Solveeczema.org in Summary

Soap is not the problem, it is often the solution. Image: Sujin Jetkasettakorn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

My understanding and philosophy about eczema have changed and grown over time. I’m working on updates to the site — and working on a campaign to fund a medical study, stay tuned — but here’s what I believe in a nutshell:

First, these are my opinions — based on an extensive review of medical literature and much discussion with chemists, microbiologists, medical professionals, and many, many parents of children with eczema over the years, but my opinions nevertheless, not accepted medical views. I am not a doctor.

Based on everything I have seen and read, I believe the majority of infantile eczema results from high levels of (often unrecognized) detergents in the environment, especially the home environment. These substances affect the permeability of skin, have a startling physiological impact at even very low levels of exposure, affect people in “atopic families” more, and are absorbed at much higher rates by infant skin. Detergents increase skin permeability, antigen penetration, and thus antigen load. (I describe what I mean by detergents on the web site, it’s not what most people think.)

As children get older, their skin becomes naturally less permeable, they spend less time with their faces on their parents’ clothing and against their hair, and less time crawling across surfaces, and can seem to “outgrow” the eczema, but a lot of these children will go on to develop asthma and allergies, the so-called “atopic march”. As they go through these transitions, kids are also becoming more active, and breathing in more and more — to sensitive lung tissue, the optimal function of which depends on biological surfactant — large amount of synthetic surfactants from indoor environments (dust comprised mainly of skin cells, lint, hair, etc., all of which come with detergents in modern environments).

I have observed and heard over and over again in the years since I put up my site that:

1) When people make the changes I recommend on my site, not only are they able to get rid of the eczema, they go from thinking of it as a random problem to understanding exactly when and why their families are affected, how to prevent breakouts, and how to end them quickly if the exposures can’t be avoided.

2) Along with eliminating the eczema, people see the skin begin to heal and become more substantial, normal, and less dry over a period of about two months.

3) Because entire households have to make the changes for them to be effective, and because atopic families benefit most, I hear frequently that changes made for the benefit of a child with eczema have a marked beneficial effect on other family members’ skin problems, allergies, and asthma.

4) If someone is very focused about it, the changes can be effected for an entire household in as little as a week. People with hard water typically underestimate the impact of water hardness on their ability to make the changes (but many persist). Even if the recommendations address the sole source of the eczema, sometimes infected eczema has to be treated for the problem to go away.

5) Most people have incorrect assumptions, particularly about how green or “natural” what they are already using in their homes is, that contribute to their difficulty coming to this solution on their own. The most effective are those who read through all the information and understand it.

I do not believe environmental detergents are the sole cause of eczema. I do, however, believe that there are only a few other causes and that those causes tie in with this one. I do not believe that there are many causes of eczema, as I so often hear — there are many “triggers” when the cause is not eliminated, but I believe there are only a few causes and that they are related by an underlying biological basis.

Our bodies make detergents for various biological purposes. For lack of standard terminology, I call them biological surfactants. One of these maintains proper pulmonary function (“surfactant” in the lungs). Biological surfactants help us control skin membrane permeability. This is why I believe sodium lauryl sulfate — a chemical analog of biological surfactants — is so problematic.

Another function of biological surfactants is to denature proteins in the blood stream. I believe this is why one segment of people gets full-body eczema from ingesting certain foods, particularly protein-rich foods like milk, especially when their guts are immature (or otherwise compromised) — the “leaky gut” phenomenon may result in increased circulating biological detergent (coupled with unnatural detergent levels in the gut and on the skin from environmental sources). Skin permeability is dramatically and unnaturally increased, antigen penetration and load increases, etc., similar to when the gut isn’t a factor.

Probiotics, beneficial bacteria, have been shown to reduce eczema rates in infants if given to pregnant women. This leads some people to try them when their children get eczema and abandon them if they don’t “work”, but I think they could be used more effectively with a better understanding of when and why they sometimes work. I believe the probiotic effect ties in with the observations I have made on my web site, and with my theories about why eczema and asthma have risen so dramatically in recent decades. I won’t go into this more here, but I would note the following:

1) Probiotics, beneficial bacteria, secrete biological surfactants that help repair gut membranes (see last paragraph).

2) We have evolved to need some bacteria to turn on certain genes in infant intestines for proper digestion.

3) In the last 100 years, we have significantly altered our relationship with natural intestinal flora and with certain fungal species, particularly yeasts, which can degrade gut membrane function under certain conditions.

4) The medical literature is full of references to antifungal medications helping in some cases of very severe eczema, but somehow not curing it.

5) Fungal organisms more closely resemble human skin cells than they do other microbial organisms like bacteria.

We do know that following some viral illnesses, children especially will develop full-body eczema — and I have seen at least one research paper describing high levels of circulating biological detergent following such viral illnesses.

From everything I have seen, people can track down the cause of their eczema and solve it. I don’t mean chase after triggers their whole lives, I mean find, understand, and have control over the underlying reason for their children’s eczema.

Here is what one mom wrote to me recently (I’m perpetually bad about posting feedback, but she graciously sent photos and permission to share, I will post them soon):

“I wanted to take a moment and thank you for your reply and let you know how successful we’ve been at clearing up our daughter’s eczema. She is now 15 months and has beautiful, clear skin. It’s not just the broken patches on her skin that have cleared up- it is her complete skin tone. Previously she always had underlying red patches on her face, even those have gone now. This is really a miracle, because we’ve tried EVERYTHING (probiotics, elimination diet, olive and flaxseed oil, bleach and salt baths) since she was a few months old and would scratch herself bloody everyday. … This is what I’ve wished/prayed/cried for, for a long time. I only wish we had found your site a year earlier.”

http://www.solveeczema.org