Chicks at two and a half months - new big cage

 

Mark and Esme had put together these fence panels to make a new larger cage for the chickens.  We had needed to go to town and get more chips because I didn't have enough left from cleaning the cage last week to fill the bottom of this up.  We put them in and they are quite happy, especially with their new longer perching stick - but hope it will be warm enough in the garage for them at nights.  They are now two and a half months since we bought them at probably less than a week old.  They have really feathered out and changed colors - originally there were five 'yellow and brown chipmunk' colored ones and one dark grey (maybe not the same breed, we are still uncertain if she got put in that bin by mistake).  So far, it still seems they are all hens, as they were sold to us.  We have the thirteen hens and two roosters out in our big coop outside - but these will need to spend maybe another month or so inside before they are big enough to compete with those out there.

 Charlotte dog still has to watch - she had to be calmed down a little because she got very very excited and was beginning to whine.  Esme petted her ears and then we told her it was time for her to go in the main house.  She has been out there a few times, when we have, to check on them.

  

Esme calming down our blue heeler mix, Charlotte, who thinks all baby chickens should be hers to herd

 

  

 Melody goat and Minion cat

This morning I put some new garden soil in one of the raised beds, and checked on different things.  The strawberries are beginning to have berries on them.  Melody goat and Minion cat were sunning themselves on the edge of the fenced yard - and I interrupted them.  I have kale and beans and beets (growing for the greens) and sweet peas coming up, and have transplanted my summer squash plants out to the bed where a few more and some cucumbers were finally germinating.  I want to get some marigold plants and then some tomatoes and peppers.

 We went through all of our spices today - there were one or two that I had been holding on to that weren't any good.  I threw the tarragon out months ago after it had sat untouched for most of a year - and the starter for cleaning out the rest today was that I had ordered some samples of a place's spices that included tarragon and a few other things.  Out of everything there is now one box of things I rarely use but don't feel need to be thrown away, a box that only I use but not often, a box of things that are mostly only used by me but are used commonly, and a small section of shelf of what Mark and I both use on a regular basis.   

I've been studying mostly French - and started Portuguese from French on my phone.  The last few nights, I've dreamt some in French or been asked to translate some things into French.

 

I'm still having some trouble with the jaw on my left side hurting where they took out teeth years ago, made to pop up again perhaps because the denture plate is causing some pressure and infection in the upper plate area.  It isn't anywhere near as bad as when they first gave me the plate, though - for weeks my face was too painful to touch - all over the cheek and nose etc.  

 

Now, it hurts a little here and there and quite a bit right in that jaw place which has no pressure from the denture plate.  The one thing I can't quite get myself to do is to not sleep on that side - the denture plate is out and in a cup for the night so that it doesn't cut - but with hEDS just the pressure of sleeping hard on that side - and for some reason I do sleep HARD on that side when I do - makes anything else that is wrong with those tissues worse.  

 

I've been taking an ibuprofen or two a day and that helps some - and eating as much anti-inflammatory as I can, along with the fat needed to process it.  I will say here though that I have also lost some weight in the past 6 months, not that I probably didn't need to - but it is noticeable enough I have to wear a belt with these jeans now or I am pulling up the pants all day long.   There are many things I just do not want to even try to eat anymore - which again, isn't all that bad mostly.  I just have to watch it that I don't let that get unhealthy.

Golden Beets and their Greens

Golden Beets : I thought they were just so pretty - even before cutting them up, and they had a long and thick plume of greens attached to them.  They are a bright golden color on the inside (See below).  Also, the leafy tops are more like the Siberian Kale than the darker tops that are on the red beets.   I cut all the green bits off of the stems and chopped it coarsely to put in a freezer bag.  A whole bag of greens AND beets for the price of a bag of spinach.  And the goat and chickens got bits of all the bits I didn't want, so none of it really went to waste.

And I got to show Esme how to prepare them - she says it is interesting to see the process and then how they are cooked.  Of course, then I also show her what vitamins are in them and tell her what foods and/or spices it goes well with.  I've told her that cutting up vegetables seems to be one of my favorite hobbies, which goes well with but does seem to live in a space all of its own beside the gardening and the cooking.  I also said that even though the produce wasn't perfect and the rest of what was on the shelf with it was bordering on sad - I would have been proud of that bunch if I had grown it myself.

Here are the bottoms, scrubbed but not peeled, then sliced somewhat thin, put a bit of water in the bowl so that the pieces were not sitting directly on the bottom, sprinkled olive oil over the top, added spices, and then drizzled some honey over the top.  Covered, in a 400 degree oven for probably a bit over a half hour.  We ate it with mandarin oranges, and she had about five slices on her plate.  I had twice that - and the leftovers in a small quart jar to use up tomorrow.  Mark made hamburgers for her and for himself, and I used up a bit of the sausage and egg rice I had made last night and added curry, ginger paste and green onions to it.

I will add the frozen beet greens to other fried rice and soup type meals just like I do kale and dandelion greens. 

bits and bobs

 Got up this morning and did the dishes, some laundry, gave Charlotte a bath.  Several of the animals were commenting on how the dog blankets smelled like Daphne still, Loki was curled up in one for a good while today (he's a cat), but Sweetie gave herself 'a sad' as Mark said, and I gave her a new blanket and we washed the ones that were in front of the heater.  I had not felt Daphne was healthy enough to be lifted in and out of the big bathtub the past week - and thus, Charlotte hadn't gotten a bath, either, as we usually did them at the same time.  So, she needed one and got it today, while it is still warm enough to not be freezing afterwards.  Then I played a few too hours too many of the Sims game that I finally got working again with the update packs on my computer.  Not sure how to categorize this, but playing games is one of those upside-down curves for me - it's fun to a point and then well, I know that time could be used better somewhere else and I feel like I've wasted time with nothing to show for it... and the Sims is doubly so on that, because of all of the household tasks the Sims get either annoyed at or happy about finishing... it's kind of like a box within a box effect.  

It's mixed feelings - - I'm having a 'fun leisure' day in real life, but using it playing a game, which 'gets nothing done'.  I get annoyed that the Sim on my screen is 'making progress' but I have wasted four hours that was supposed to be fun, and maybe it was, maybe it just kept me from doing other things I should have done.  Should I have cleaned?  Should I have baked?  Should I have learned Japanese for an extra hour?   It was a bit too easy to do the game for the extended period of time that could have done many things in real life otherwise.  The game was lower-energy expenditure than many of those things, but that is only a benefit when I consider something like I could overwork my muscles cleaning or etc. instead of resting.  And for being lower-energy, it is almost zero output.  And this is why I rarely play games that are more than a few rounds of Tetris or Duolingo.  Duolingo IS a game, but I do feel that perhaps I get something out of it that I can bring elsewhere, in translating the languages.  Whether or not my Sim learned how to make food without burning their house down is not an accomplishment that transfers much.  Mark and I have talked about that is something that was hard on our generation and that the younger generations don't have it as much - we were taught 'if you're having fun, something has to be wrong' and also lots of pressure put on productivity and 'monetizing time and hobbies'.

I did do some Japanese language learning.  And I already hurt from 'something' the past few days that I haven't put my finger on.  Not sure if it is sitting in my chair wrong playing the game, sleeping in, much grocery-shopping on Friday, climbing the stairs, the rainy weather outside or the postal route coming back at me from yesterday - but my hips definitely hurt today as well.  I did the yoga routine two nights in a row but skipped last night because I had already done so much on the postal route.  I've stretched a little today, and have climbed the stairs many many times of course, but I told Mark 'It's like I'm getting old'... one definite thing about hyper mobility is that you benefit most from variety of movement.  And, counter-intuitively perhaps, repetitive things, even 'sedentary' things like sitting slumped in a chair wrong or tensioning your leg muscles constantly while sitting forward, all of that adds up in weird ways.  

The yoga type is 'restorative' or 'vinyasa 'flow'', style - for spine and flexibility.

some of the lesser known signs of cataracts in younger people

 If I had known these were cataract symptoms - I would have pushed harder for them to diagnose and treat them.  But, it took me nearly two years of rapidly declining vision, among all of the other anxiety-causing and terrible upheavals in my life, for them to finally 'see' that problem.  And now, after all that time, I am reading my screen again without a magnifier - and with black text on white background.

The signs I missed (and they did, too)

Everything seems dark or dim - even when you have the lights on!  You seem to need to a lot more light for everything, and especially direct or 'sweet spot' light on what you are doing.  Going outside is amazing, things are sparkling beautiful colors, but as the months progress - it produces a 'London Fog' type effect that makes it very hard to see long distances.  

Anxiety - You have a definite sense something is wrong, but you probably ascribe it to other things.  You probably have been adapting to doing things differently, but your body knows something is up, even if you're ignoring it.

Small text was hard, and now is nearly impossible. Up until now, your closeup vision has been what is mostly affected, but you're getting older, right?  It should be 'natural' in your thirties or forties to need stronger and stronger glasses to see small text.  But, every three months or so your prescription isn't good enough, anymore.  You need magnifiers over your glasses or small magnifying glasses to see phone numbers, mail and magazines.  You didn't need these last year - and even bifocal glasses only help at some distances with 'most' type.  You may feel depressed, or incompetent, or both. Everything has gotten harder, paying bills, reading recipes, checking receipts, cleaning up and sometimes when you set paperwork down on the desk or table you have trouble finding it later without looking closely at every item.

Clear shapes in your vision:  The one that confused my ophthalmologist the most?    I was complaining of these 'clear overlays' like patterned glass that would show up in my vision.  Some people might call these artifacts - but they are not the typical type.  They were not 'floaters' or strands of white blood cells like most people describe.  These were bullseye patterns, small triangles, bumps and circles like pixels that would appear and then 'travel' with my gaze across my line of sight.  They would be there worse in some lights, and disappear in others.

Polarized or Fishing sunglasses help some : I would put on polarized glasses towards the worst part here and the London Fog would diminish a lot.  I couldn't see a person on the other side of the room before I put them on, if fluorescent lights were on overhead. The polarization stops certain wavelengths of light from getting to your eye, which cuts down on the interference overall. But, those clear overlay patterns were STILL there.   That was because they were caused by light reflecting wrong inside the eye, through and bouncing between the separated layers.

You want Dark Mode for everything, even in the daytime.  Dark mode on facebook and tablets and readers helps SO much - you can read small type in white on black background fine, but not the other way around. 

Night Driving is difficult or impossible:  Every car that drives by in the opposite lane fills your eyes up with the headlight glare, and it doesn't go away for several seconds.  You find yourself having to slow down for every oncoming car, and/or weaving off the road and missing turns.

Streaming Eyes : Your eyes seem dry a lot, but then at other times they stream for no reason.  

partial Double Vision : You may see 'double vision', partial double vision, or one and a half vision, especially when focusing at near distances but not far.

You keep getting a new prescription, but it only lasts a few months.  It gets worse and worse as the months progress

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I was diagnosed with posterior subcapsular cataracts (PSC) in January, after noticing changes for more than a year, and only getting new glasses which failed the solve the problems.  I was told they are VERY hard to see, and if they aren't thinking that is the problem, they might not look for them in the right places under full dilation.

They can also progress VERY fast.  At the beginning of the year it is just a magazine that is difficult but possible with a magnifying glass.  By the end of the year you can't see yourself in the mirror (but can still see the road to drive, but not read the street signs or exit signs!) or read your own handwriting or phone screen.

They are becoming much more common in younger people, but the medical profession has not yet started looking for them as routine in these age groups.

What Causes This?

They can be caused by diabetes, genetic conditions (like collagen disorders, yay me), any condition that causes excess inflammation or has trouble with healing, those that have been regularly prescribed steroids for lungs or other conditions, or the result of head, eye or face trauma.  They can also be caused by lots of UV exposure, stress or past alcohol abuse.  Put any of those together and it increases the risk.  It sounds like they're still sorting out what 'really' causes it, and how to identify it early - but a little knowledge to the public can only help.

The layers of the back of the lens get separated for some reason (you might not even register it as a real injury or think 'I'm fine' - because this takes months to years to develop the initial condition, and then it begins to grow & change exponentially after that like a nick in a windshield that one day begins to crack all the way across...), and the cataract forms as a 'bubble' in between these layers, in the back inside of the lens, where the problem can only be seen 'through the axial lens'.  

But - won't I know?   It's obvious, right?

It's invisible to the naked eye, and hard to find even under dilation by the eye doctor.  So, no, you probably won't know, and their job is to get you glasses - so that is what they will try. One of your first signs in the office will be that the little floating balloons or Aladdin swirling lights machine - the spectroscope - will try and fail to get your prescription.  Your ophthalmologist may or may not say anything at all about it, or may brush it off - 'that's weird, this never happens', 'you can't trust the machine, it's just there to get a basic reading', etc.  That machine works by bouncing light into your eye and measuring how fast and at what angles it comes back to measure the shape of your lens.  If your lens has bubbles or clouded areas in it that is not going to work as expected.

So, how does your Ophthalmologist recognize it early?

If you see these symptoms listed above, you need to tell them, or they'll just keep up with glasses until they can't match you up any more.  Enough warning signs, we hope they will look, but nowadays everybody is in a rush and they have to have enough reasons to look and check everything.  That is what finally alerted them that I had a 'real' problem.  The vision machine - spectroscope - could not read the worst eye.  The problem was already progressed quite a bit, but at that point they still hadn't identified it.  

They failed me on the vision machine with the floating balloons twice.  I failed the reading test in the chair as well.  Then - they gave me another dilation and looked hard and detailed at my eye, and found the problem after looking back and forth through the lens across my optic nerve and cornea for several minutes checking and rechecking.  This occurs on the inside back of the lens and can only be seen by looking at the 'axial' or side of the lens and realizing you are seeing the problem in the lens - like a spot on your glasses when you keep trying to wipe your computer screen.  

After seeing this finally, the eye doctor referred me to the specialty clinic, which also had to go through all the same things, including the spectroscope confusion.  But, the specialist doctor knew what he was looking for, any and all types of cataract.   As a note, there is a cataract in my OTHER eye, as well, but not as large, and they were still able to get prescription on that one.  

Why does cataract surgery fix it?

I was a bit pessimistic, after all this, that it wouldn't be entirely fixed.  I thought the overlays would still be there, because they were there even with the polarized glasses.   But they remove the entire lens, and replace it with an artificial one.  This problem is in the bottom inside of the lens- if it was a plastic cereal bowl and you placed it upside down on your counter, it would be a separation in the layers on one side near the countertop, flaking upwards.  They remove all of that - not just the top section of the lens, and put a new 'fake' lens in, that reflects light properly.

Will they come back?

Once upon a time, I've been told, they used biological lenses, donated from cadavers to replace the lens after cataract surgery.  These lenses were susceptible to the same stresses, fractures and cloudings as the original lens you were born with.  So yes, THEN they did come back.  Now, with artificial lenses, they should not come back.  But, you do have to protect your eye from UV much more with an artificial lens, to protect your retina from macular degeneration.  The retina is in the back of the eye, and with improper diet, dry eye or blocked eye drainage or other genetic conditions, it can be damaged even more by UV exposure after cataract surgery.  This is why most people after cataract surgery will continue to wear sunglasses outside whenever possible.

Will I still need glasses?

Maybe. But they won't be able to tell until a week to four weeks after your surgery, because the new lens has to settle and your focusing power (your eye bends the lens to see near or far) will be different for each person.  Once your eye has settled, any prescription you get should be the one you will have the rest of your life.

The outcome for me:

With the cataract gone from the left eye - I am reading with no glasses at all, and I only did the basic replacement because of insurance, not the fancy ones.  The ever-stronger prescription in my glasses was not because of 'age' only - as we often think of it - but because the specific cataract type disrupting the light reflecting in my lens.  Cataracts can come with age, but this type specifically can hit anyone of any age, if the conditions are correct.   

I've tried to hit as many of the keywords and search terms as I can in my text that I was looking for when I was going through this problem in the beginning.  Maybe, it will help someone.  If I could go back to the 'everything is dark - turn on the lights' stage and whisper into their ear - it might be a posterior subcapsular cataract.. I would.  I would definitely tell myself it wasn't that I was suffering from depression and anxiety - my dad had just died, I had quit a soul-sucking job .. all of that -- But I wish I had known it was possible that it was a physical problem with my eye, and it needed to be taken care of.

Honey, herbs and spices

I use a lot of herbs and spices every day, sometimes just because I crave the taste of that one today, other times because I want a benefit that herb or spice is purported to have.

This is a bit of a ramble, and not to be taken as medical advice - but as a springboard for studying these things on your own.  I am not a doctor, but I do 'doctor' myself, because with hEDS a lot of medications do not work in my body, or work 'oddly'...incompletely or for reduced time periods.   I've kind of just learned to listen to what my body is saying 'to me' and follow some certain rules.  I got deep into old apothecary books and Foxfire type things to find the things that worked for me.

It is important to eat a balanced natural food diet when you can - and to try to keep your blood pressure and blood sugars balanced naturally and without medications.  There are many vitamins and nutrients that are not present in processed foods or are reduced in their quality by processing.  Many people do not know about the benefits of pairing certain classic foods to improve their effectiveness and usefulness in our body - there are reasons tomatoes and beef and olive oil were used together for sauces in classic Italian recipes  There are reasons for lemon and fish and greens, and for peas and onions and carrots etc etc...

Honey is also a natural substance that has lots of great benefits.  The problem with honey is that a lot of what is sold in stores is processed, mixed with sugar and corn syrup water and nowhere near the actual original substance.  It can be very hard to tell the difference - and price is a good indicator, but not the only one.  You will want to look for a dark golden brown, fluid substance that moves in the bottle in a 'certain way'... and a small jar will probably cost upwards of ten dollars.  The more local you can get - the better.  If you know someone who actually pulls honey from their own hives in your area, get in and get their number - and you will have the very best source that you know is real.

Honey is a natural antibacterial, and contains lots of vitamins as well.  It is a 'drying' agent, so mixing it with teas and broths will help to dry up congestion and mucus that has developed in the body.  It can be applied to wounds or abscesses with a q-tip to draw out infection, but must be washed off the tooth and out of the mouth immediately after the treatment.

Mint is also good for opening up airways, and for settling stomachs.  Ginger is good for inflammation and for settling stomachs.  Turmeric is a bit of an antiviral and good for inflammation, you will find it as the yellow color in curry powder.  Garlic is a great antibacterial, can be applied raw to an infected tooth (but I warn you, it hurts, but it helps as well) and will give many benefits in broths and soups against sinus infections.

A bath with eucalyptus or peppermint oil will also help relax the muscles and open the lungs with the scented steam.  Lavender oil is good for relaxing the muscles and releasing tension.  Almond oil is great for soothing irritated or intermittently dry skin.  Shea butter is a great thing to rub on dry, wrinkled or stretched skin (like a pregnant belly) to help against skin problems.  It is also a great addition in soaps or bath oils.  Oatmeal helps against itch and oatmeal water in the bath can help soften the skin.  A paste of (cooled!) oatmeal can be applied to poison ivy or other skin issues and let to dry to suck out the irritants.  If you have a bee sting though, use baking soda and vinegar paste to do the same thing.

Sinus infections need to be attacked from several directions at once.  Pea soup and lentils offer zinc to help break up the initial cold virus or otherwise that has caused the infection.  Garlic and/or onions help to ease the lungs, expectorate the mucus and reduce inflammation.  Licorice tea can be harmful in large amounts to people with heart conditions - but a bit of it mixed with mint or ginger tea can help expectorate mucus, as well.  Especially when a large tablespoon of honey is stirred into the hot tea, then cooled to taste, and drank down all at once while warm.  You will want to take the honey two to three times a day with this mixture to help fight the bacteria that is causing the sinus infection.  Curry powder with turmeric, garlic and cayenne pepper all help ease inflammation and infection - and can be mixed with chicken broth to make it tasty and easy to drink.  This is best drank warm as a beverage just before a period of rest.

Cinnamon helps with inflammation and also is being studied as helping to break down fats in the body.  Pepper has piperine in it, and it is a powerful anti-inflammatory and helps with pain from chronic conditions when combined with the proper 'helper' spices, like turmeric and garlic (which, coincidentally, are the key components of curry spice).  There are reasons ancient people went 'ga-ga' over spices and took long ocean voyages to get their hands on them.  

The above type regiment should be mixed with consumption of oranges, strawberries, blueberries, fresh tomatoes or other natural Vitamin C.  You will have to make sure that the Vitamin C is not 'cooked' out of being effective, heat can destroy its properties.  Most vitamin C supplement pills are not as easily absorbed as the foods we eat.  Think about the recipes that include 'the juice of one lemon, squeezed on just before serving', or a diced garnish of fresh tomatoes and onions.

Combine the vitamin C with a dose of iron from peas, beans, beets or meat.  Vitamin C helps the body use iron, zinc and other vitamins to fight inflammation and rebuild tissues if they are available at the same time in your system.

Also some vitamins require a fat source eaten with them in order to be absorbed - fat soluble vitamins, and you will find them in classic pairings like I mentioned above.   Vitamin A should be consumed with a good dose of butter or olive oil or fat like a fish or vitamin E containing things (eggs, nuts) to do its best work in your body. 

Vitamin A is rich in some vegetables like pumpkin and carrot, as well as in egg yolks and sweet potatoes.  Vitamin D can be gotten from eggs, fortified milk, fresh dark green vegetables and fish.   Vitamin B-12 is important for brain and anxiety health - it can be found in breads and meats, liver and some fish, eggs, milk, yogurt and cheese.  B12 is not easily absorbed from supplements.

Vitamin K helps with blood problems, and is from fresh dark green vegetables.  Vitamin E helps with collagen, skin and muscle issues and is present in sunflower seeds, almonds, fresh spinach and some fish and olives, and good olive oil, if you have it.

Fish is also a great source of omega threes, which are important for brain function.  As an American society, we have shunned fish and beans in our diets when they are actually great sources of important nutrients.  The same goes for garlic and onions.  We are losing those benefits by determining that food is 'smelly' to eat or has bad aftereffects with gas - and our bodies are hurting for it.  Beans help regulate blood sugar, provide iron and vitamin A, fiber and folates, which are important for rebuilding tissues.  Their protein is processed slower over the course of the day and keep you from snacking on sugary things and having blood sugar spikes.

When America decided that beans were not an 'elite' food somewhere in the fifties we lost a great dietary resource.  Same with the mercury scare on Fish - it became less a part of our diets because of worry, reduced to recommendations of 'once a week at most' by the FDA, and we have lost the important brain and fat regulation qualities that eating fish in your diet can provide.  The vitamins and nutrients in fish is very easily broken down and used by our nervous and tissue rebuilding systems, much easier than many other sources of meat.  It can also help improve mood in the winter with high amounts of Vitamin D, which counteract the lack of sun.

The big scare about fats and sugars was also not a 'complete story'.  We were given only what the big companies wanted us to hear - eat margarine, drink diet soda, avoid fat but sugar is A-OK.  No.  Fat is important to the brain and muscles and helping to create at a cellular level everything in your body.  There are societies that learned to subsist on mostly fat - and their bodies made  evolutionary changes based on this, and worked in healthful ways for millennia, until they met with new societies and began to consume large amounts of sugar again, and then began to have health problems (Arctic peoples like the Inuit, there have been many studies).

There has not been a single society that evolved to only eat mostly sugars - because our bodies cannot work that way.  Our brains are made of FAT.  We were made to eat fat, and to seek sugar where we can find it - because it is supposed to be rare and special, like in the fruit off a tree or berries in the meadow.  If you actively reduce your consumption of sugar for a few weeks, you will begin to taste again the sugar in sweet potatoes, cooked kidney beans, a good ripe tomato.  It will taste just as sweet as the most syrupy drink.  Our taste buds get 'mellowed' though, by constant consumption of high doses of sugar.

It is consuming the healthy fats with large doses of sugar that makes our bodies put on weight.  I've read this again and again recently in new books - and I really think they have something there.   Our bodies see this as a 'once in a lifetime chance' to store this bounty we have found.  But then it happens tomorrow, and the day after that -and the switch in our bodies doesn't just turn off.  Most people's metabolisms do not kick up in this situation, and help them burn more fat.  Even if they increase their exercise they will simply consume more to keep up with the exertion and their bodies will try to hold on to the storage for as long as possible - making them hungrier and hungrier, encouraging them to seek out more food for more stability.

So I am not anti-sugar, but it should be eaten in smaller quantities, and replaced with long-process foods such as beans and vegetables.  The sugary things, including bread and potatoes, should be kept to a minimum beside the meal.  No meal needs pasta, bread, potatoes and rice...(no matter what those combo meals tell you)  those are all high carbohydrate 'easy sugar' things - and should be limited to a few per meal (unlike the food pyramid suggests).. and sugary deserts added on top of that is just compounding the problem.

I'm not talking about fruit, it contains lots of fiber and a natural sugar, but fruit juices are mostly just the sugar and not the fiber, so count them as a treat.   And treats should be just that, once in a while, limited to a few times a day if that.  There was a reason it was 'dessert'... served at the end, and usually a very complicated recipe for a very small item.  Think about that - when we as a culture moved from the small slice of cake or a few tablespoons of fruit cobbler and ice cream as a 'big dessert' to eating half a plate of cake or a huge sundae every day for dessert?  It was an image thing, in magazines.. of opulence and wealth.. but it said nothing about health (or maybe it did.. the kid always had fat cheeks!)

Also, eating smaller amounts through the day and eating what you have cravings for if available will help you deliver what your body needs when it needs it.  I'm not talking about a craving for a candy bar, or a cheeseburger (mostly, although a cheeseburger is fat and iron!)... If you retune your taste buds you will begin 'tasting' cravings for  vitamins and nutrients that your body needs, like suddenly wanting a grapefruit, or spinach, to have fish tonight, or a dessert with berries or a handful of nuts.   And you will begin to eat less in sheer quantity when the quality and 'correctness' of what your body needs is in balance.  Cravings for eating large quantities of food are also a body signal - vacuum in as much as possible hoping that we can get the right amount of the nutrient we need.  When we hit that spot with a concentrated punch of the nutrient, the cravings for more and more food cease.

I am pro-butter, and olive oil, and fish, and eggs (not fed antibiotics).  These are healthful oils and fats and eaten with the rights fruits and vegetables will help rebuild your body every time it needs it.  And if you eat all of the above in variety and moderation AND reduce the sugar it should be actually processed by your body instead of stored in your arteries and excess weight.