Archive for the 'Jaw pain' Category
PRESCHOOLERS IN SURGERY FOR A MOUTHFUL OF CAVITIES
There is no firm data on the number of young children undergoing general anesthesia to treat multiple cavities. But some research and media sources that have done interviews have noted that the problem is widespread.
There is a huge increase in kids going to the operating room for aggressive dental care. How come? We know how to prevent dental caries (cavities), so how come little kids are getting them at all?
There isn’t a simple answer. Some people still subscribe to the idea that since the baby teeth are going to fall out anyway, why worry about them? Some people find it messy and difficult to brush their child’s teeth, so they don’t reinforce the habit.
“Let’s say a child is 1 ½ and the child screams when they get their teeth cleaned, said Dr. Jeb Best, a pediatric dentist in N.Y. “Some parents say, ‘I don’t want my little darling to be traumatized.’ The metaphor I give them is, ‘I’d rather have a kid cry with a soft toothbrush than when I have to drill a cavity.’ ”
Dentists offer a number of reasons so many preschoolers suffer from extensive dental decay. Though they are not necessarily new, they have combined to create a growing problem: Endless snacking and juice or other sweet drinks at bedtime, parents who choose bottled water rather than tap water for their children and a lack of awareness that infants should, according to pediatric experts, visit a dentist by age 1 to be assessed for future cavity risk, even though they have only a few teeth.
Dental decay often starts with a dull ache that may be mistaken for teething. Parents don’t realize their child’s teeth are infected until they break or the pain becomes so acute that the child cannot sleep.
With a cooperative child, a cavity – or even many – can be treated in a dentist’s office with an injection of local anesthesia.
If the child is uncooperative, dentists have to turn to more invasive methods, recommending general anesthesia for preschoolers with extensive problems, particularly if they will not even let x-rays be taken. The cost for this is very expensive in money, but general anesthetic is always dangerous and could be even more expensive in health outcomes. Using general anesthesia on healthy children has risks, including vomiting and nausea, and, in rare cases, brain damage or death. Using anti-anxiety drugs to relax a child coupled with local anesthesia for pain has risks too, including an overdose that could suppress breathing.
If parents refuse anesthesia when extensive work needs to be done, children may have to be restrained on a papoose board to immobilize them from head to ankle with straps. This is traumatic for the child and for the parent. I bet it doesn’t lead to good adult compliance with regular dental maintenance care either!
Of course, lack of money or insurance can be an issue, but the most effective dental care is prevention and that happens on a daily basis with brushing and flossing at home. Brushing teeth twice a day used to be nonnegotiable, but not anymore. Some parents say that since their child doesn’t want their teeth brushed, they’ll wait until the child is more emotionally mature. It’s baffling – who’s the adult here?
Snacking is another problem. Parents rationalize their preschoolers’ almost continuous snacking because they don’t want their child to ever suffer from hunger. So instead they lay out a continuous buffet of snacks, often things that stick to the teeth and convert to sugar in saliva. Goldfish? Cheerios? Fruit bark? Raisons? The truth is that going a little hungry is not a bad thing for anyone – in fact our bodies handle starvation better than overfeeding. I’m not advocating starving your children, but missing a meal, let alone not eating something because you feel a pang, will not kill anyone.
Children are pacified with a sippy cup all day and the cup isn’t filled with water, but with juice. I’ve even heard children say they don’t “like” water – what’s not to like? It doesn’t have a taste! And don’t get me started on pop. Sodas are not beverages – either for children or adults – they are treats. They should be treated like holiday foods only served at Christmas.
When your child does eat something sweet, brush their teeth as soon as you can. That way sugars don’t have a chance to start the road to decay.
Since good dental health is linked to good over all health in all humans, starting early is one of the best preventions there is. You end up with not only a beautiful smile, but are less likely to develop diabetes, heart disease, ulcers and a host of preventable diseases.
CMCC Run/Walk for Chiropractic Education and Research
Dr. McCallum is again walking in the Annual CMCC Run/Walk for Chiropractic Education and Research in Toronto on April 29th.
Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College is considered the top chiropractic college in the world and is renowned for rigour and innovation. It is a private institution and receives no government funding, but relies on membership, tuition and donations. If you’ve been helped by Chiropractic, or know someone who has, please give generously. Just go to www.cmcc.ca/dorotheamccallum and follow the steps to donate online.
We are as close as the CanPages online. Please feel free to refer your family and friends using this link:
www.canpages.ca/page/BC/abbotsford/mccallum-chiropractic-at-the-bay/4270514.html
Dr. Dorothea McCallum is an Abbotsford back painrelief doctor who looks at so much more. Your back is connected to every organ, cell and tissue in your body by the nervous system. Find out how chiropractic can help you live a longer, fuller life.
Dr. McCallum’s office is located upstairs in the Bay SevenOaks, 32900 South Fraser Way, Abbotsford, BC. Call 604-864-8232 to book an appointment. We love helping people regain and maintain their good health.
Happy New Year!
HOW DOES MY BODY WORK?
An analogy will help start this explanation. The power company supplies energy to run our homes and offices. That energy travels to our homes by way of wires and cables. Once that energy gets to our location, it allows our appliances to run the way they were designed. If, for some reason, there is an interruption or lessening of the energy coming to us, our lights would be less bright, or perhaps our appliances would fail to operate. The same is true of our bodies.
Let’s use a similar analogy. Let’s say you have a dimmer switch (rheostat) installed in your dining room. As long as the dimmer switch is set all the way up, the lights burn very brightly. Now, let’s turn the dimmer switch as low as it can go and still see a light bit of light. If at that time, you replace all the bulbs with the absolute best, state of the arty, light bulbs, would the bulbs be any brighter than the previous set? Of course not! The reason is the electrical energy travelling through the wires of your home is being stopped by the dimmer switch. Now if you slowly start increasing the switch to allow the energy to increase, the bulbs will increase in brightness. The light is a metaphor or analogy for how our body expresses it health. The better the flow of energy to the vital organs and tissues of our bodies the better our bodies can perform. Therefore, better health!
Now, let’s take this one step further. There are 31 pairs of spinal nerves in our spinal cord. These nerves travel from every organ, cell and tissue to the brain and then back down from the brain and exit the spinal cord at very specific areas. For example, the nerves that control your small and large intestines, kidneys, sex organs, as well as the nerves that control your lower back and legs exit the spinal cord in the lower back region. That is shy many patients who enter our office for lower back pain also tell us that they have constipation or diarrheal problems, or perhaps menstrual difficulties. This is very common. Another example is a patient who has neck pain, but often complains of headaches or sinus difficulty. That would make sense because the nerves of the neck innervate those specific areas. When nerves are interfered with or irritated, you can expect symptoms in the areas they supply. This is why good spinal health is so important. It’s not just about back or neck pain – it’s about your body’s well being and function.
Think about this. Would you expect your teeth to operate properly if you never brushed or flossed them, or never visited a dentist to clean or correct them? Why is the spine so different?
Well, our spine is covered by skin and muscles so we can’t see it. If patients could see their spine to the same degree they see their teeth, many patients would be horrified by how badly they have allowed their spines to deteriorate.
In chiropractic offices the first thing you can expect is to have your spine evaluated. This is an important step in evaluating your health level and in fact is what differentiates chiropractors from other types of physicians.
Accidents, falls, tension, stress, overuse and other factors can prevent the spine from working within its normal range of motion. This can cause minor displacements of the segments of your spine. If this displacement irritates spinal nerves, various malfunctions can occur in your body. These displacements are called subluxations. Various studies have shown that subluxations can cause improper function of the organs and tissues of the body, leading to increased susceptibility to various conditions, including chronic disease. Logically, this should make sense. If for example, the brain cannot control the stomach or intestines because of nerve compression or interference, would it be hard to imagine the body having less ability to digest and absorb nutrients from the foods you eat? And, if you are getting fewer nutrients would a lower level of heath be that farfetched? Think about each organ of your body. Let your mind ponder what would happen if each vital organ or tissue was working at only 50%. What impact would that have on your health over the short or long term? It is this observation that leads many people to begin giving their spine the attention it deserves. Ask your chiropractor. Open up your potential to a whole new level of health awareness for you, your family and friends.
Happy New Year!
Start the year out right – get a spinal tune-up! Just phone the office and set up a check-up. Remember, when your spine’s in line, you feel fine!
The Office reopens for regular hours on January 3, 2012. If you reach the answering machine, please leave a message – it’s a lot easier for us to call you back!
Dr. Dorothea
Our office (inside the Bay) can be viewed on our CanPages site: www.canpages.ca/page/BC/abbotsford/mccallum-chiropractic-at-the-bay/4270514.html
If you’re looking for a holistic chiropractor Abbotsford is the place to look! Dr. Dorothea McCallum has been practicing drug free, surgery free, hands on chiropractic for over 20 years. Dr. Dorothea McCallum provides General Chiropractic Care for people of all ages, Pre and Perinatal care for Moms and babies – Webster Technique Certified, Wellness Care and Coaching – Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner (CCWP) and Custom Corrective Orthotics.
Dr. McCallum’s office is located upstairs in the Bay SevenOaks, 32900 South Fraser Way, Abbotsford, BC. Call 604-864-8232 to book an appointment. We love helping people regain and maintain their good health.
Push a cart down the aisle of any local supermarket and you might start believing in miracles – well – miracle foods, anyway.
Let’s see, there’s grape juice for your heart, frozen carrots for your eyes, vitamin-packed water for your immune system, probiotic yogurt for your insides and milk for your bones and brain.
Down every aisle there are foods and drinks to help your heart, lower your cholesterol, trim your tummy, and coddle your colon. Use these foods and you might feel better, you might even live longer.
Or not. The question is, are these products really healthy, or are they just hype?
Read the labels on these foods carefully and you’ll notice something. The manufacturers of these foods don’t actually claim that their products prevent or cure diseases. Such declarations go against consumer laws. Instead they promote these “functional foods” as having health promoting or wellness maintaining properties. Such claims are perfectly legal, provided they are backed up with some credible science.
So, when you see heart-healthy red hearts on your box of Quaker Oats cereal or that can of Planters Peanuts and that happy-colon yellow arrow on the tub of Activia Yogurt, it’s just part of the marketing of functional food.
Beware – many packaged foods that scream health on their labels are no healthier than many ordinary brands and government officials have been cracking down on products that make dubious or exaggerated claims.
Shoppers are being bamboozled by slick marketing. Read your labels. Many people grab products with healthy claims on the front of the package and overlook crucial nutritional information, like calorie counts and what the food actually contains.
For example. Quaker Oatmeal Squares cereal, made by the Quaker Oats Company has a label that proclaims in large print “Oatmeal helps reduce cholesterol!” This is true and generally, nutritionists and other scientists agree that the fibre in oatmeal can be beneficial for cardiovascular health. When you read the fine print, though, you’ll notice that one serving of this cereal contains about a third of the soluble fibre needed daily to help reduce the risk of heart disease. In other words, you may have to eat three bowls of cereal daily – 630 calories’ worth, without milk, to benefit.
How about this one? Welch’s 100% Grape Juice. The label is emblazoned with a red-heart certification from the Heart Association and it says it contains no fat. Well, of course grape juice doesn’t have any fat, it is naturally fat free. What isn’t clear is if grape juice has any other properties that make it inherently healthier for hearts. What we know for sure is that an eight-ounce glass has 36 grams of sugar; a regular sized Snickers, by comparison, has 30. And we also know for sure that too much sugar is deadly for your cardiovascular system and heart.
2,500 years ago Hippocrates said “Let food by your medicine and medicine by your food.” We’ve always know that some foods are better for us than others. However, a little science and a lot marketing has turned this concept into a multibillion dollar industry.
Today, companies promote all kinds of processed foods that have been loaded with vitamins and nutrients, or contain a potentially beneficial ingredient, as wellness aids. For many, these healthified foods have become the new health food. Many people are willing to pay a premium for ready-to-eat, ready-to-heat and on-the-go foods that seem to promise shortcuts to healthier living.
No matter how clever we get at processing food and packaging it the truth is that there are no short-cuts to nutrition. The bottom line is; eat food. The closer to the source the better. That means, the less processing, the less packaging, the more the dirt clings to it, the better. The better for you, your local food producers and the environment. I personally think it’s crazy to live in a house with a lawn and to grow no food in your yard. I don’t think you need to grow acres of potatoes to last all winter, but at least some herbs. Anyone with a balcony can grow a salad.
If you’re looking for a holistic chiropractor Abbotsford is the place to look! Dr. Dorothea McCallum has been practicing drug free, surgery free, hands on chiropractic for over 20 years. Dr. Dorothea McCallum provides General Chiropractic Care for people of all ages, Pre and Perinatal care for Moms and babies – Webster Technique Certified, Wellness Care and Coaching – Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner (CCWP) and Custom Corrective Orthotics.
Visit our office on-line by seeing our video on CanPages! New Patients always welcome www.canpages.ca/page/BC/abbotsford/mccallum-chiropractic-at-the-bay/4270514.html
GOOD Mental Health
Part of Total Health Part 3
In Part 2 of Good Mental Health we talked about ways to stay mentally healthy. Here’s some more that have to do with balance.
Do you find it difficult to balance work and the rest of your life? If so, you’re not alone.
58% of Canadians report “overload” as a result of the pressures associated with work, home and family, friends, physical healthy and volunteer and community service.
Signs of work-life imbalance include:
- Feeling overwhelmed, like you’ve lost control of your life
- Feeling guilty that you’re neglecting areas of your life
- Difficulty concentrating
Here are some ways to make your work more effective and your time with family and friends more enjoyable:
- Schedule brief breaks for yourself throughout the day.
- At the end of each day, set your proprieties for the next day. Be realistic about what you can achieve in the time you have available.
- Respond to emails only once or twice a day. Then close or minimize your email program to avoid being distracted as messages come in.
- Make a distinction between work and the rest of your life. Protect your private time by turning off electronic communications. Don’t be available 24/7.
- Take all your vacation time. You’ll return to work refreshed and more productive.
- Create a buffer between work and home. After work, take a brief walk, do a crossword puzzle, or listen to some music before beginning the evening’s routine.
- Create and follow a household budget.
- Manage expectations. Be clear at the outset how much time or support you can contribute to community organizations or your children’s school events.
FACT: Burnout costs Canadian business an estimated $12 billion every year in health claims, lost productivity and absenteeism.
WHAT EMPLOYERS AND MANAGERS CAN DO
Without good work-life balance, the performance of both employees and employers suffers – productivity drops and rates of absenteeism increase.
The best thing you can do, for your health and that of your staff is to model good work-life balance yourself. Restrict overtime hours, limit electronic communication during non-working hours and take your vacation time. Encourage staff to stay home with sick children or elderly relatives when necessary. Try to provide flexible hours to help employees balance their responsibilities at work and at home.
ARE YOU IN BALANCE? Take the Work-Life Balance Quiz at www.cmha.ca
Part of achieving good mental health is having good boundaries – that is knowing what is you and what is not you, and what you are responsible to and for. Almost all relationship problems in your personal and business life are caused by boundary issues.
There is a great course offered by many churches called Boundaries. It is presented by two psychologists, Henry Cloud and John Townsend and is an effective and safe way to learn about what boundaries are, how to establish them without losing all your friends and family, or losing your job. You don’t need to be a church goer to attend.
At McCallum Chiropractic we are always looking to enhance your health through easy, effective choices. Choose Chiropractic.
NOTE
BC day is just around the corner. The office will be open Saturday, August 30, but will be closed on Monday, August 1.
The office will also be closing at 3:00 on Thursday, August 4 and open again on Tuesday, August 9th. Dr. McCallum is taking a little vacation to Williams Lake and Quesnel. See you when we get back. Remember, you can email us for an appointment at mcchiro1@gmail.com or call and leave a message at 604-864-8232.
Do I Need Vitamins? (or Not)
Last week we talked about some of the reasons why supplements are not always a worthwhile investment. One thing I forgot to mention is that because most supplements are hard for the body to use because of missing co-factors is that most of them are eliminated in the urine. So, you end up with pretty expensive pee. If you over-supplement and the body can’t eliminate the nutrient easily, you can also end up with kidney stones or other deposits that cause trouble of their own. People who’ve just started taking supplements often report feeling a LOT better, but it’s usually because they’ve been so deficient that the body hungrily absorbs what it can, but when it can’t process the amounts and it can’t balance the supplement with all the other things it needs, you lose that good feeling and most people stop.
There are some nutrients that you do need to supplement with. These are things that are very difficult to get in most modern food in adequate amounts – either because we can’t eat enough calories to get them given our activity levels, or because of production methods and processing they do not exist in the food where they used to come from. The following are things you need to supplement:
1. Omega 3 Essential Fatty Acids. There are three fatty acids that are necessary in a human’s diet: Omega 3, 6 and 9. Omega 6 and 9 are over-abundant in a modern North American’s diet, but Omega 3 is hard to get – even though you will see it added to all kinds of food in the grocery store – don’t fall for it – most amounts are too small to make any kind of difference. Omega 3 is needed for the immune system and for mediating the inflammatory response, as well as for proper structure and function of the nervous system. You need to take at least two tsps of good Omega 3 oil per day. Innate Choice is an excellent oil from clean, natural sources, it’s been microfiltered so there’s no mercury in it and it hasn’t been over processed. If you take this oil every day, nearly every aspect of your health will improve. Make sure that everyone in your family is taking it too.
2. Vitamin D. This is not an essential nutrient in lots of other places, but in Canada because of our Northern latitudes and the resulting angle of the sun’s rays and especially on the “Wet Coast” of BC where it is overcast and dark for long stretches of time, we are sunlight deprived. Also, because of increased skin cancer risks, people have become afraid to get sun exposure, so we don’t produce enough Vitamin D. We need Vitamin D for many things, but one of the most important is Calcium absorption and retention in our bones, and for the nervous system and our affect. Affect is how we feel. Feel lousy? Feel like you need a vacation in Hawaii? You’re right, but what you actually really need is Vitamin D. There are some great Vitamin D products on the market right now. I have one where all you have to do is put a little tiny drop on your finger and lick it Done! It even tastes good.
3. Probiotics. These are the bugs that live in our intestine. They digest almost all the vegetable matter we eat. If we don’t eat a lot of vegetable matter, they die and yeast and less friendly bacteria take over. We end up bloated, constipated, sick all the time because we catch everything that is going around, we gain weight in the wrong places (that’s everywhere, by the way), we have really smelly farts, we get indigestion, our skin gets bad, we burp, we get crabby, we get diarrhea and we smell bad. Do I need to go on? Innate Choice makes a good probiotic supplement, and if you don’t want to order it off the internet, you can get Garden of Life, Primal Defense at the Health Food store. Eating a live culture yoghurt is an option, but remember that you are eating a dairy product and usually these have sugar in them (which defeats the purpose of the probiotic) and the probiotics in it are really good for cows. People do better with dirt based probiotics which are in the ones I’ve recommended.
The moral of this story is – eat food. Not fake food. Not processed food. With every piece of food you put in your mouth and chew, ask yourself if this is providing your body with the materials it needs to build you – and will it poison you in any way? Only swallow if the answers are the right answers.
If you’re looking for a holistic chiropractor Abbotsford is the place to look! Dr. Dorothea McCallum has been practicing drug free, surgery free, hands on chiropractic for over 20 years. Dr. Dorothea McCallum provides General Chiropractic Care for people of all ages, Pre and Perinatal care for Moms and babies – Webster Technique Certified, Wellness Care and Coaching – Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner (CCWP) and Custom Corrective Orthotics
Do I Need Vitamins?
People often come into the office all excited about taking a new supplement that’s really helping with some symptoms they have. Often they’re puzzled with my lack of enthusiasm. It’s hard, though, to condense years of learning about nutrition and its role in health into the short time we have together in the office. Because it’s pretty impossible to teach this kind of thing in an office visit or two, I’ve run classes on nutrition – but they’re not well attended. The problem always is that no one really wants to know how to eat for optimum health – what they want is a formula that will allow them to lose weight, get all the nutrients they need without cooking or planning meals and they want to keep eating the way they always have.
People get enthusiastic about their supplements and diet plans because they see this as a quick start and hope that once they reach a goal, or start to feel better they can go back to what they did before; but eating for good health is a lifelong, lifestyle change. That doesn’t mean that it has to be awful or that you have to give up everything you really like, or even that you have to feel deprived all the time.
The biggest barrier to eating properly for optimum health is actually in your head. Part of the problem is that most people don’t know anything about food except that they like it and that it tastes good and they like feeling full. That you can actually choose foods based on what your body needs in order to function properly and still accomplish the above things is not something that most people even think about. And if they do, they think that supplementing one or two nutrients that they hear about on television, or read about in a magazine or saw on Dr. Oz will do the trick.
Food is more complicated than that – and a whole lot simpler. What do I mean? Well, when you pull foods apart and start taking the “nutrients” out and taking them as supplements, you’ve just removed the nutrient from context and made your body work harder. Now your body has to identify what the “nutrient” is, where it’s supposed to go and what it’s supposed to go with. Since it doesn’t come with the co-factors it needs to do its job right, the body has to try to match it up with the co-factor, and if that co-factor can’t be found, the “nutrient” can’t be used and is eliminated.
If you leave the “nutrients” in the food and eat the food, your body has a much better chance of being able to use the nutrient appropriately. In whole foods – like vegetables and fruits, everything you need to be able to use the nutrients is already included.
Another problem with supplements is the amounts. Your body knows what it needs, but a vitamin pill contains what fits neatly into a pill that can easily be swallowed. The amounts in pills have nothing to do with what your body needs. You take a multi-vitamin thinking that you’re covering your bases and getting everything you need because you might not be eating really well – right? Actually, multi-vitamins contain a list of vitamins in no particular balance with each other and some of them contain vitamins and/or minerals that compete with each other for absorption (so neither gets absorbed). If you want to get lots of vitamins and minerals in meaningful amounts with co-factors, I advise you to get a juicer or better yet a Vitamix. Make juice or pulps from vegetables and add some fruit for flavor. Not as convenient as a vitamin pill, but way better for you.
I know you think you feel better when you start taking vitamins, but it’s because you’ve been deficient and your body is so happy to finally get some of what it needs that it improves. But once it starts getting tired of sorting out what it needs and having to eliminate the rest, you’ll stop taking your supplements and they’ll just get dusty in the cupboard.
Next week, I’m going to talk about the supplements you DO actually need, so stay tuned!
Hope you’re having a great summer. Remember to send your friends to the Canpages for a glimpse of our office.
If you’re looking for a holistic chiropractor Abbotsford is the place to look! Dr. Dorothea McCallum has been practicing drug free, surgery free, hands on chiropractic for over 20 years. Dr. Dorothea McCallum provides General Chiropractic Care for people of all ages, Pre and Perinatal care for Moms and babies – Webster Technique Certified, Wellness Care and Coaching – Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner (CCWP) and Custom Corrective Orthotics
Note:
The office is closed over the Canada Day Long Weekend, Thursday, June 30 until Tuesday, July 5. Dr. McCallum is taking a short vacation! Please phone if you need an appointment when I am back, and we’ll book you as soon as possible.
Not All Milk is Created Equal
Last week I was writing about Bakerview Ecodairy:
Back to the cows. As we were touring the dairy, some of the cows came over to say “hello” and give us “kisses”. My, cows have long tongues. Since they are not tied up, they can stroll around and one of the places they stroll to is the Automatic Cow Brush. Since they’re not outside, they don’t have any nice bushes to go and rub up against, so there is the Cow Brush. They just stand underneath it and it turns on and twirls around and moves up and down along their bodies giving them a nice massage and keeping them very clean. They are the cleanest cows I’ve ever seen.
This isn’t the coolest part though. Milking is entirely automatic and is done in the cow milking robot. When a cow is ready to be milked (she decides – it takes two days to train a cow to know what to do) she mozies over to the milker and walks in. The computer determines if she is indeed ready (sometimes a cow tries to get milked when she’s not ready because she gets a treat), the machine tests each teat for mastitis (infection) and then washes the teats individually, attaches the milking machine and milks the cow. If the cow has an infection the cow is milked (they obviously have to be) and that milk is rerouted to a different tank and the lines are sterilized for the next cow.
This place is like a cow spa.
Bakerview EcoDairy has their milk processed at a nearby organic dairy. They do not sell skim milk because they believe that some fat is needed for the milk to be really healthy, (I agree). If you take the tour (I highly recommend it) you get to try a sample of milk at the grocery store also on the grounds. They give you a glass of 2% that is about as thick as whipping cream and tastes richer than whole milk from any commercial dairy. The yoghurt is divine. Don’t worry about the fat content – its healthy omega 3 rich fat, important for your cell health, nervous system, and the anti-inflammatory systems in your body.
The Bakerview EcoDairy operation has a grocery store where they sell locally sources foods. There are vegetables, grass fed meats, their own eggs, local cheeses, a deli with sandwiches and other treats. They also have a picnic area where you can bring your family and enjoy the amazing scenery and a great lunch.
The Bakerview EcoDairy is a non-profit BC society with four mandates:
- To create a platform for advances in agri-technology and promote agritourism
- To provide opportunities for education of dairy farming practices and products.
- To focus on green energy conservation and nutrient management
- To offer a fun and experiential learning environment for the public.
A portion of gate revenues is used to support scientific research and education in agriculture.
We are blessed to live in one of the world’s most beautiful places and where they produce some of the world’s finest foods. Bakerview EcoDairy is just one of the places on the Circle Farm Tour in the Fraser Valley where you can see how your food is produced and buy right from the people who put care and love into producing it for you.
These are just a couple of suggestions for you and your family to visit this summer.
If you have any other questions about nutrition and how to achieve better health by being pure and sufficient by eating real food, remember Dr. McCallum is a Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner. Please send your questions, and we can answer them for you here on the blog.
Remember, you can refer your friends to the office – Every Body needs chiropractic. Just go to Canpages online directory to see a short video about the office.
In the Abbotsford chiropractic office of Dr. Dorothea McCallum, you’ll enjoy expert care that goes beyond sore backs and headaches.
Reminder: Dr. McCallum is in Toronto at CMCC’s Convocation and Board Retreat June 16 – 19th. Please call if you need an appointment – Deb will be here to answer the phones, and you can leave a message if the office is closed. We appreciate it when you leave a message. I sure hope it cools down a bit there because it’s been REALLY hot (and that means humid, too!)
Not All Milk is Created Equal
If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you know I’m all about achieving and staying healthy through natural means. One of the most important means is good food that supplies what you need and that doesn’t supply preservatives, pesticides, poisons and overly processed things that your body doesn’t need.
You’ll also know that I’m not a big proponent of milk and dairy. Humans are the only mammals that consume another species’ milk after weaning. Most adults lose the ability to properly digest dairy after childhood. The milk board is right when they tout the high calcium content of milk, but what they often leave out is that milk products have an acidic effect in your body that actually draws calcium out of your bones to buffer this acidic effect. Milk consumption can lead to osteoporosis.
However, one of the reasons that modern cow’s milk has this effect is because of how we produce it. All milk is not created equal. I have to admit that I like some milk products and I think that you can have some now and again without ill effect. I’m not going to argue for raw milk here in this blog – that’s another story, although when I was growing up, my Mom always found a raw milk source and that’s what we had. There’s nothing like real cream off the top of the milk! I firmly believe that taking the milk apart and putting it back together like we do is not so good for us. I have to admit that I have a real weakness for butterfat, I think cheese is a great flavor enhancer and I think that the fat in real milk is good for you and helps your body absorb the nutrients in the milk.
All Milk is Not Created Equal
One of the neatest things to see is when modern technology and concern about food content and integrity come together – when you see farmers and food producers marrying nutrition, wholism and health with cool machines. Organic, healthy food doesn’t need to be produced in old fashioned ways.
The other week I had a fun experience. I went to Bakerview EcoDairy in Abbotsford. This is a neat place. What caught my eye was the goats on the roof – I don’t know if goats like being on the roof, but it does catch your eye! 
They have a petting area with miniature horses, a donkey, little goats, little pigs and turkeys (can you pet turkeys?). The building is constructed of salvaged pine beetle lumber and built with Leeds technology. The roof is metal and all the rain water (yes, we get a lot of rain) is collected in a cistern and that water is used to water the grounds.
Inside the dairy, you can go on a tour with some videos that explain the principles behind the business and then you get to visit the cows. Almost the entire operation is automatic. The cows have a really nice barn with rubber floors, windows that open and shut automatically depending on the temperature and weather. There is special organic feed placed along one side of the barn and the cows, who are not tied up or otherwise confined, can go and eat whenever they want. Their feed is a special blend that helps the cows produce milk that is high in Omega 3 fats - the kind you want. They have a nice raised platform in the centre where they can lie down to chew their cud. Along the floor is an automatic floor cleaner that scrapes the inevitable poo into an area where it is collected and sent to the anaerobic cooker.
What is an anaerobic cooker, you ask? Well, the poo is put in the cooker and heated for a particular period of time (I’ve forgotten exactly how long). This cooking produces a solid product that is sterile when it is extracted and used as bedding for the cows so they can lie on a nice soft bed to chew their cud and rest if they like. The gases produced are used to heat the building, the cooker and power some of the machinery used at the dairy. The liquid fertilizer that’s produced from the rest of it is used to fertilize the grounds and once the cooker is at full production, you’ll be able to buy it for your garden.
Isn’t it amazing how you can build something so that all these systems fit together and work without using extra resources, helping to keep the neighbourhood and the planet clean? How come we can’t build housing developments like this? Actually we could if we would start thinking differently about what we need.
Next week we’ll get back to the cows! More on the Bakerview EcoDairy and how all not all milk is created equal.
Good food is only one part of good health. Movement is also key – it’s like food for your nervous system. The best way to keep moving smoothly and without damage to your joints is to see your chiropractor regularly. Want to tell others about how you’ve been helped by chiropractic? Now you can send them to the online Canpages directory. Just tell them to look up McCallum Chiropractic in Abbotsford and they can see a short video of the office.
Dr. Dorothea McCallum is an Abbotsford back pain relief doctor who looks at so much more. Your back is connected to every organ, cell and tissue in your body by the nervous system. Find out how chiropractic can help you live a longer, fuller life.
Some Myths About Weight for Women II
Lifting weights defeats the purpose if my goal is weight loss.
Lifting weights and building muscle actually fast tracks weight loss results. Women often want to put off strength training until they’ve lost a few pounds, when actually picking up a dumbbell or barbell will help those pounds off even faster! The more muscle we have built the more our resting metabolic rate (RMR) increases. That’s why the common saying “Muscle burns more calories than fat” is true. As you increase your lean muscle mass your body becomes a more efficient fat burner – even when you are not exercising but at rest. For every pound of lean muscle mass you build, you burn 35 – 50 calories per day. It creates efficiency.
Building muscle means I can’t eat carbs or fat
A healthy rule of thumb for making changes to our lifestyle is balance. Making sure you get a balance of protein, fat and carbohydrates is key to staying healthy. Just losing weight and being thin, does not mean you are healthier. Muscle is active tissue and needs nutrients from all sources to be able to function at its best. What is important to remember about carbohydrates is that vegetables are carbohydrates. They are complex, full of fibre, vitamins and minerals and a whole host of nutrients and are extremely healthy. The Carbohydrates to watch out for are the simple ones that break down into simple sugars and increase your glycemic index, leading to diabetes and heart disease. These carbohydrates are found in grains and white foods (including milk but excluding cauliflower).
Contrary to what you see in advertising and what has become a kind of 
urban myth, all fats are not bad. We need fat to have healthy nervous and immune systems, but we need good fat. Good fat comes from vegetable sources, and grass fed meat and non-carnivorous fish sources. When a fat occurs naturally in a food, it should be left there. Since food processors started taking the fats out of foods and marketing such foods as “healthier” the population has become fatter and fatter. Fat provides flavor, a good “mouth feel”, and stimulates the satiety centres in the gut and brain. Therefore you are likely to eat less. Plus, when food is processed and the fat removed, it doesn’t taste very good, so sugar and salt are added to make it more appealing. Fat free and “lite” food is a lot less healthy than whole food and is more likely to lead you to eat more of it, to develop diabetes and heart disease and get fatter.
My motto is that the less you mess with your food the better. Buy and eat as close to the source as possible. It’s a lot more trouble being sick than it is having fun sourcing, cooking and eating good food that is good for you.
If I don’t work out my muscle will turn to fat.
This is anatomically IMPOSSIBLE! If you don’t brush your teeth, they won’t turn into hair! Fat and muscle are two completely different tissues. You can take charge and change the size of the fat cells in your body through regular fitness and proper nutrition and you can build muscle and keep it up through consistent workouts but your muscle cells cannot be converted into fat cells.
Another thing you may not know - except for damage and injury, you cannot change the number of your muscle and fat cells once you are out of infancy. Therefore, when you gain weight, all you are doing is expanding the size of the fat cells you have by storing more and more fat in them. When your muscles become larger and harder due to working out, you have merely increased the strength and bulk of the cells you already have, you are not growing new muscle cells.
If you think about this for a moment, it is a really good reason not to overfeed your babies. Babies can increase their cell numbers, and if you overfeed them, you are setting your children up for a lifetime of battling their weight. Don’t be concerned if your infant is not in the top percentile for weight for their age. You want your baby to be in the middle. A top percentile baby is a fat baby who may have a fat future.
Notice:
Dr. McCallum will be in Toronto for CMCC’s Convocation and Board Retreat next week. The office will be closed on Thursday , June 16 and Saturday, June 18, reopening on Monday, June 20th at the regular time, 9:30.
Deb will be here to answer the phone and take care of you on Thursday and Friday. If you get the answering machine, please leave a message so we can call you back and book your appointment.
Thank you for sending people to this blog and to our office. When people hear you talk about how you’ve been helped by chiropractic they’re more likely to try it themselves. Chiropractic is safe, drug free and one of the most effective pain reliefs without dangerous side effects. Even better, it gets to the cause of the pain and fixes it. If you want help referring people, send them to the online yellow pages to look at our short slide show. They can see what the office looks like and all the information about how to get ahold of us is there.
At McCallum Chiropractic we are always looking to enhance your health through easy, effective choices. Choose Chiropractic.
Some Myths About Weight for Women I
Muscle Weighs More Than Fat. True or False?
False
Fact: Muscle does NOT weigh more than fat!
Five pounds of fat and five pounds of muscle each weigh exactly the same amount. The difference is that muscle is denser than fat. If you put a pound of fat beside a pound of muscle the difference is in the volume – ie the amount of space they take up, not the weight. Muscle takes up far less room than fat, which means that you can weigh exactly the same as someone else and if you have more muscle than they, your shapes will be entirely different. It also means that you can build muscle and decrease your fat and your shape will change.
Myths about Muscle
Muscle weighs more than fat
A pound is a pound. Often what happens is that as a women start to build muscle, the number on the scale goes up by a few pounds. They stop strength training, thinking this is not the way to lose fat. Even though they may feel stronger and their clothes may feel more comfortable, they still place the emphasis on what the scale says, rather than on the change in their body shape.
The latest in physiology research shows that weight training is a good fat burner, and in fact may be the healthiest way for women over 35 to achieve cardiovascular, as well as strength fitness. Because you are working the large muscles in your body and stressing them with weight training, you get increased circulation and increased fat burning.
Another bonus is that you are keeping your legs fit and this will help keep your legs strong throughout your life – no canes or walkers for you! It also helps maintain bone density and you are less likely to break a hip when you are old if your bones stay strong.
More muscle means less flexibility
The only way to become less flexible is to stop moving, bending and stretching. If you sit a lot and you don’t balance that out with some exercise, stretching, sports, vigorous housework, or the like, you will become very stiff. You have to use it or you lose it. Movement nourishes and lubricates your joints and if all the joints in your body don’t go through their full ranges of motion every day, they begin to decay and develop osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis is a result of no movement or wrong movement in joints and is almost 100% preventable.
Your muscles also shorten and grow stabilizing cross fibres, much like the cross braces on a bridge, that stiffens and keeps the bridge from falling down. Once this fibre is in place, in order to get your original stretch back into our muscles, you have to break this fibre. Muscles that can’t stretch aren’t strong. A long, relaxed muscle is always stronger than a shortened stiff muscle.
Building muscles means I will look bulky
Women are genetically incapable of building bulky muscles. You have to follow a very strict diet and supplement regimen, and work out specifically to build VERY big muscles. With weight training women will develop great tone and strength, but not bulk.
When you see a woman with very defined arm muscles (think Madonna or Jennifer Aniston) what you are seeing is the result of a lot of weight training and very little body fat, therefore the muscles stand out more.
There’s more on this topic coming next week, so stay tuned.
Our business grows because of referrals from our patients. Not sure how to explain what happens at the chiropractor’s office? Send your friend to the online Yellow Pages for Abbotsford and look up McCallum Chiropractic. Our short video gives your referral a glimpse into the office and all the information they need to book their appointment.
If you’re looking for holistic chiropractic Abbotsford is the place to look! Dr. Dorothea McCallum has been practicing drug free, surgery free, hands on chiropractic for over 20 years. Dr. Dorothea McCallum provides General Chiropractic Care for people of all ages, Pre and Perinatal care for Moms and babies – Webster Technique Certified, Wellness Care and Coaching – Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner (CCWP) and Custom Corrective Orthotics.