Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Drinking

Ouch! I drank wayy too much last night. ..this is a rare thing for me but I thought I should talk about drinking and being raw - this is an interesting topic!
Many people who go raw choose to avoid drinking altogether.. and that was basically what I did for the first few years - except maybe a once a year party.. but for the past few months I have been drinking wine occasionally.. sometimes when going out for dinner, but more often lately it's been with my husband.
Not to get too into my personal life but we split up in November. The oldest - two boys live with him and our daughter goes back & forth. & On Sundays I usually go over for a family dinner.. and it often ends up with me having a glass or two of wine with Jim. Well today is our anniversary (19th) and we went out for dinner last night (he gave me an anti-versary card & present - he's quite creative! ; ) and we had a bottle of wine with dinner and then ordered a 2nd bottle - I just wasn't thinking and was drinking it like water, we were talking lots - and only realized how it affected me a bit later.
I realized today that it was like when I get a virus or something like that - now that I am raw what seems to happen is that toxins in my system seem to affect me very strongly at first but wash out of the system quite quickly.
I was in really bad shape last night - woke up in the night, head hurting, this morning I thought in the shower that I was going to be sick - but I made it into work - and got busy and soon realized that I was fine. Felt a bit tired and slightly headachy but nothing serious - I went strong all day with maybe 2 - 5 min breaks.. it went much better than I thought 1st thing this morning!!
ok, lesson learned but it was much better than it could have been.

A couple times since I have been raw I have gotten a cold but it's interesting because it affected me so differently than before I went raw.. its like you could watch the progression of the virus in your system in high speed. I would get a tingle in the throat in the morning - not even a big deal, nothing like those really hurting throats I remember and then after around noon maybe get a bit stuffed up.. by night it would be the cough for a bit and that would be it - I remember once I got it it lasted 1 day and another time it lasted for about 2 days.. it would just wash through your system quickly and lightly.
& I know lots of raw foodists who have a very pure diet and claim never to get sick - a few having lived 20 years or close to that without ever getting sick. I believe it!
As for me. I'm getting there.. and my headache is gone, but I'm getting a good night sleep tonight & am back on track taking care of myself as usual.

Cheers, To your Health!!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wine-yeast makes alcohol to kill-off the competition
Friday, 1 August 2008by Katie Lee

Cosmos Online

Yeast wars: Wine grapes growing in a vineyard. Many species of yeast grow on the surface of grapes, but only one survives the fermentation process.

Credit: Wikimedia


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BRISBANE: The yeast that ferments grapes into wine, first evolved the ability to make alcohol to engineer its environment and poison its competitors, says a new report.

The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae makes up only a small proportion of the yeast on grapes while growing in the vineyard, but it comes to dominate natural fermentation processes by producing alcohol and heat.

Together, these make the environment toxic to most other microorganisms, and while not ideal for S.cerevisiae either, the food freed up gave the species an evolutionary edge that more than compensated.

Niche construction

Environmental engineering, or niche construction, has been observed by experts before, but the study reported today in the journal Ecology is the first to quantify the benefits of the strategy.

"It shows how the here and now actions of organisms alter the selection pressures they are exposed to," said Matthew Goddard, author of the study and a wine scientist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

To make the discovery, Goddard sampled yeasts from grape juice at a winery, and identified them by DNA analysis. He tracked alcohol levels and temperatures in fermenting barrels, and also measured how fast each species could grow at different ethanol concentrations in the laboratory.

The results have revealed that during fermentation S.cerevisiae has a seven per cent advantage over its competitors.

About ten species of yeasts can be found on grapes, but only S. cerevisiae can complete the wine-making process, Goddard said. It ferments the grape juice to produce ethanol and heat even when it would be more efficient for it to respire and produce carbon dioxide and water.

"Improving flavour profiles"

In place of adapting to the environment around them, organisms can opt to modify their environment to adapt to them instead, said Goddard.

"This concept is not new – Darwin's final book describes how earthworms alter the soil around them," he said. "Humans might be the extreme example – think of how we have changed the planet."

Microbiologist Paul Henschke, of the Australian Wine Research Institute in Adelaide, said that the findings would be interesting for ecologists, and could also aid winemakers in improving the flavour profile of wine.

Keeping grape juice artificially cool in the early stages of fermentation could encourage flavour development by other yeasts, he said, and then allowing the temperature to rise would help S.cerevisiae beat its competitors and finish the process.

Robin 'Keiko' Gregory said...

Oh, I am so glad that is over.. its a rare thing to not feel so great.. and that was definitely one of them!
I really should have known better - just got caught up in the moment and the talk and emotions etc.. but hey, thats life. ..it just keeps moving on, such a beautiful thing