2018 - Barbara Byrge

28 Dec

Cake: 8 ingredients or 80? Support your local Bakery!

In the quest to avoid soy, (which gives me sudden violent diarhea) I’ve had to give up almost all store bought baked goods. Damn that soy lechtitin, soy flour and soy oil. Last week I ate a pastry with all 3, the trifecta of death, and I didn’t make it halfway through the thing before I was rushing to the bathroom. When I saw the half eaten danish sitting on the counter after the hell bowel that ensued, I actually considered finishing it. I love danish that much. Would the same food bother me without soy? Could I eat a danish and finish it without running to the toilet? Can I find a healthier for ME pastry? That’s when I discovered the answer: my local bakery!

Pastry is not a health food, lets be clear on that. Most people agree that donuts are the dietary devil, and while the sugar and fat bomb inherent in a donut is less than ideal dietarily speaking, not all sweets are made equal. In particular I’m talking about the length of the ingredient list. If you ask your local friendly bakery they will tell you what ingredients are in their food (if they won’t, don’t eat there). The one I consulted had no problem opening their books and showing me the things they use in their food, things like flour, sugar, eggs, butter, yeast, baking soda, vanilla, that sort of thing. The kinds of things you’d expect. I toured their whole book and found the average ingredient list to be about 5-15 ingredients. Sadly some things did have soy in one form or another, but you know what they didn’t have: monosodium glutamate, mono and diglycerides, and a multitude of other many long named chemicals that I can’t begin to know.

I walked across the parking lot to Costco to get a cheap cake for my son’s birthday party. The cult of the inexpensive called me like a siren. I braved costco, went to the cake department to make the big choice: chocolate or vanilla. That’s when I saw the ingredient list and recoiled in horror. It had something like 80 things on it, many of the things were questionable in terms of their edibility. Weird stuff to make it colorful and shelf stable longer. They probably add something to give the buttercream that crisp texture that burns your mouth. No wonder I feel sick after eating that garbage. My jaw dropped and I left in horror. You could not pay me to feed that to my kid anymore. Now that I know. (uhg).

So I dragged my butt back across the parking lot and paid nearly twice as much for nearly half as much cake,and was never happier to do so. We make cupcakes at home (with short ingredient lists) and fed those to the kids whose pallets are not so discerning, while the adults indulged in the whipped cream iced, raspberry filled gorgeous vanilla cake made of a handful of simple ingredients. The adults all felt indulged, and why shouldn’t we, we were braving an 8 year old’s birthday party.

So great, I’m ruined for Costco cakes for life. Next time you’re in there, take a gander at the ingredient list. If you have the patience to read the entire thing out loud, go ahead and buy that cake. But if just reading the label exhausts you, imagine how exhausting it is to digest that shit. For me anyway.

By Barbara Byrge Food Happiness
15 Dec
Vintage For Christmas – The Case for Buying Used
Dear Family and Friends,

I won’t be giving any new gifts this year. Which is weird to some. There is an unspoken taboo that you can’t give a gift that is used. The thought that you grabbed something off your shelf, slapped a bow on it and gave it as a gift is so offensive, the presents have to be new in package, just to prove you didn’t do that. People even buy Tiffany boxes empty for top dollar, just for the illusion that the jewelry being gifted is new. But you know what is more offensive than getting a used gift? The thought of loved ones going into debt to buy gifts for me, or the expectation that I do the same. Lets give the planet, our wallets, and our expectations and break and just not do the thing where we go out and drop 3-4 figures at the shopping mall.

I’ve given up completely on giving NEW gifts and here’s my top 5 reasons why:

Eco Friendly! Buying used means you aren’t creating a demand for new goods to be manufactured. Less consumption is a great thing!

Unique! Some things you just can’t buy new. So that vintage aloha shirt or dress from 1960 is certainly used, but you can’t buy one new if you wanted to. No one else at the Tiki bar will have the same shirt as you!

Thoughtful! If you’re buying vintage and used things, you have to try a little harder. You can’t just grab some soap baskets on deep discount and decide later who is the stinkiest of all. You have to think about what that person might like out of the limited stock you will run into. You may even have to stalk their social media for ideas.

Economical! If I buy used gifts, I can average about $10 per gift instead of $50+. If I have ten people to shop for, I’ve already saved $400. Time is money, and I certainly don’t want my loved ones slaving away for hours to buy me a gift. I bet yours don’t either.

High End! That’s right, if you accept gently used gifts, you may find yourself in a sweet pair of lulu lemon leggings or Ralph Lauren (new old stock) sheets! I can’t afford designer brands off the shelf, but sometimes I run into a dazzling deal on my treasure hunts! If you can get over the fact that its gently used, you maybe be getting a Hermes Paris scarf!

Now, all things considered vintage gifts can suck just as hard as new gifts. My advice is to not expect anything from your Christmas gifts. If you really want something, go buy it. Save up for it. Don’t put pressure on your loved ones to fulfill your Christmas destiny, and don’t feel like you hvae to fulfill theirs. Just keep it simple, inexpensive and thoughtful and your gift, new or used, will be from the heart and that’s what its all about afterall.
By Barbara Byrge Happiness
15 Dec
Dear Family and Friends,

I won’t be giving any new gifts this year. Which is weird to some. There is an unspoken taboo that you can’t give a gift that is used. The thought that you grabbed something off your shelf, slapped a bow on it and gave it as a gift is so offensive, the presents have to be new in package, just to prove you didn’t do that. People even buy Tiffany boxes empty for top dollar, just for the illusion that the jewelry being gifted is new. But you know what is more offensive than getting a used gift? The thought of loved ones going into debt to buy gifts for me, or the expectation that I do the same. Lets give the planet, our wallets, and our expectations and break and just not do the thing where we go out and drop 3-4 figures at the shopping mall.

I’ve given up completely on giving NEW gifts and here’s my top 5 reasons why:

Eco Friendly! Buying used means you aren’t creating a demand for new goods to be manufactured. Less consumption is a great thing!

Unique! Some things you just can’t buy new. So that vintage aloha shirt or dress from 1960 is certainly used, but you can’t buy one new if you wanted to. No one else at the Tiki bar will have the same shirt as you!

Thoughtful! If you’re buying vintage and used things, you have to try a little harder. You can’t just grab some soap baskets on deep discount and decide later who is the stinkiest of all. You have to think about what that person might like out of the limited stock you will run into. You may even have to stalk their social media for ideas.

Economical! If I buy used gifts, I can average about $10 per gift instead of $50+. If I have ten people to shop for, I’ve already saved $400. Time is money, and I certainly don’t want my loved ones slaving away for hours to buy me a gift. I bet yours don’t either.

High End! That’s right, if you accept gently used gifts, you may find yourself in a sweet pair of lulu lemon leggings or Ralph Lauren (new old stock) sheets! I can’t afford designer brands off the shelf, but sometimes I run into a dazzling deal on my treasure hunts! If you can get over the fact that its gently used, you maybe be getting a Hermes Paris scarf!
By Barbara Byrge Uncategorized
06 Dec

Soy Free Junk Food!

We are all on different diets. I for example am not on a low fat low calorie diet as many are. I’ve had a bowel resection, and constant diarhea, so I need more calories than the average person of my size, because what I eat is not being absorbed completely. So this post is not about low sugar health food. Its about tasty foods that I love to eat that don’t contain my personal food demon: soy.

The Diet I AM ON is a soy free diet. I have discovered that soy makes me very ill, and in its many forms (oil, flour, beans, etc) in EVERYTHING, particularly anything processed. Anything that comes in a box or package is likely to have soy. Nearlly ALL chocolate has soy, WHY GOD? It certainly isnt’ because it makes things taste better. Its a cheap filler, an emulsifier and a dough conditioner but it serves no taste purpose in most cases! Just to really light you up, the term ‘natural flavors’ is often soy based something or another. So if you’re like me you need to avoid soy that means avoiding ANY label that says ‘natural flavors’. Ha haha hahaha. I try. Just take note of what you eat that says ‘natural flavors’ it will blow your mind.

Damn, that is hard!!! I’m here to help.

If you search, hunt, read labels, frequent health food stores, and spend a helluva lot of time, you can find foods that are premade but made with simpler and fewer ingredients. I’ve done that work, and continue to do it, so here’s my post to share some of those packaged foods with shorter ingredient lists, and some that tastiest soy free packaged foods there are out there!

So here’s what I can’t have. Stroopwafel.

Why? Because Ingredients:

IngredientsWheat Flour, Glucose Syrup, Palm Fruit Oil, Sugar, Brown Sugar, Whole Eggs, Soy Flour, Molasses, Butter, Maple Sugar, Sea Salt, Natural Flavor, Oat Fiber, Soy Lecithin, Baking Soda

A trifecta of SOY!!!! Why!? This is not asian cuisine, soy really doesn’t seem neccesary here. Uhg. Also noticed they snuck the ‘natural flavor’ in there too. Since ingredients are listed in order or quantity, ‘natural flavors’ is usually listed last, so just a dash. But this time it is listed before the fiber filler, the bulk, so there must be a lot of ‘it’ in there. I mean wtf is ‘it’?

My answer: Strooperior Waffle

Trader Joes Butter Waffle Cookies = 6 ingredients of delicousness + Fleur De Sel Caramels = 8 ingredients.

Take the soft caramel and flatten it, then place it between two waffle cookies. Eat it with your eyelids half open moaning ‘mmmmmm’ (or just try not to!).

It is a REVELATION of delicouness, and resonates stroopwafel for sure! Best of all, after I ate this I didn’t run to the bathroom 🙂

Stay tuned, I’ll add more soy free yummies here soon!

By Barbara Byrge Food Uncategorized
09 May

Surprises in The Dark….

This joke was sent by Dad via text as a response to my sister’s message saying that she was going to have to have another surgery. I can’t make this shit up!

Sometimes humor helps. Do you girls remember the joke about the man who picked up a nice looking girl in a classy bar. After a long evening of wining, dining and dancing the night away they ended up in a high class hotel room. The man disrobed quickly, being in an aroused state. The girl was kind of stalling. He asked what was wrong. She replied, well, I am shy because I had a mastectomy. He was a bit taken aback but rallied and encouraged her. She resumed disrobing for a couple of minutes, then stopped again. He said “what now”. She replied despondently.. I also have a prosthetic arm. The guy was really annoyed, but decided to follow through. So she unscrewed the arm and laid it by the bed. The guy reached for her again, and once again she stopped him.” well, I have to tell you one of my legs comes off”. The guy lost it completely and screamed at the girl ” WELL. GODDAMMIT, YOU KNOW WHAT I WANT, JUST UNSCREW THE SON-OF-A-BITCH AND TOSS IT OVER HERE!” Laughter is the best medicine.

By Barbara Byrge Uncategorized
02 May

This is my post

I want to write things on my post!

By Barbara Byrge Happiness
20 Mar

Allergy ELIMINATION. Can You Become UNALLERGIC to peanuts?

If you are allergic to peanuts, the only thing you can do is avoid them. There is no treatment. You vigilantly avoid anything that might have even touched a peanut or peanut butter, you carry that epi pen around and you hope you don’t get exposed, and if you do you can inject yourself fast enough so that your throat doesn’t close, then you get your buns to the ER.

That’s it. That’s the only thing your traditional doctor will do for you.

Now consider altnerative treatments. Firstly, there are hundreds of them. Some involve exposing yourself to your allergen. That one in particular I’m not down with, and I would never consider for my child, given the potential risk.

But what if I told you a massage would CURE your allergy? Would you even be willing to consider this data as relevant? I would not have a year or so ago. Not if it hadn’t worked for me! Check out my western dr’s allergy test results, sure enough, I’m UNALLERGIC!

I was once allergic to peanuts, and now I am not. Also was allergic to wheat, soy, canola oil and so much more! I am no longer allergic.

So I’ll be writing many more posts about this allergy ELIMINATION technique, how it works, and spreading the word. If your brain is titalated, and I hope it is, check out this study. Start wrapping your mind around the idea that people can be treated for allergies and become UNALLERGIC. Then we can start redifinig what ‘allergic’ means. You may find radical health improvements by getting treatment for things you never knew you were ‘allergic’ to! But that is a blog post for another day!

https://www.naet.com/pdfs/peanutAllergy.pdf

By Barbara Byrge Health NAET Treatments
06 Mar

Placebo = Brain Power!

People are cynical about altnerative treatments, and even when you have proven results, they may say ‘oh, that’s just a placebo effect!’ OK, fine, but its still effective! You keep saying ‘just’ the placebo effect, but what IS the ‘placebo effect?’

In nearly every clinical study that’s ever been conducted, some people will be healed even with no treatment. They create a group called a control group and give them a sugar pill or other PLACEBO to make them think they are getting a treatment.

So now we have two groups, the people getting a treament, and those getting placebo. In both groups, some people will heal.

We focus on and study those healed by the drug, but I might suggest this approach is bass ackwards. We should be studying those who experienced healing without a drug. HOW ARE PEOPLE HEALING WITH JUST THEIR MINDS? That is what we need to figure out! Because its not just about ‘my back feels better’ subjective stuff. People have actually REGROWN HAIR simply because THEY BELIEVE they were taking Rogain, when really they were taking a sugar pill. This seems like emphatic evidence that we can heal ourselves with our mind, and it’s been proven over and over again! The how is the thing…

Psychologists have studied factors that contribute to the placebo effect. They’ve shown the power of engaged healers, human touch, and other factors that could influence the perception of healing, and also real measurable healing. Yet we don’t have cuddle clinics, and most of my western doctors do not touch me during a visit, and are about as engaged as a hooker in Dubai. Guess there’s no money to be made there, no big business to promote that so it dies.

My point here is that many people have experienced healing through placebo alone. It is not up for debate, it is scientific fact. I think we need a new word to describe this phenomenon. One that doesn’t compare this self contained healing to drug effectiveness, and describe the drug as ineffective. The connotation of ‘placebo effect’ is NO effect, when really its a powerful effect we ought to study as thoroghly as we do drugs.

We need a word to make the idea stick. A word that is catchy and popular and conveys a very common idea: people CAN heal with the power of their mind alone. This is not a new idea, but that word ‘placebo’ takes away the magic! Its describing the phenomenon in terms of a drug not working instead of a brain and body that IS working. So, I’m ready to hear suggestions! For me, I think I like the term mind meds. Or brain gains. How about mental medicine?! What are your suggestions?

By Barbara Byrge Cultivating Calm Health
26 Jan

A Little Naiveté

I once asked someone who had accomplished a great thing ‘what advice would you give to someone who wants do what you’ve done, what do you think they’ll need?’ and her answer was ‘A little naivete! If I had known from the beginning how hard it was going to be, I never would have done it.’

At the time I was a mid-twenties career broad type. I had a degree, worked in technology, and was president of the Professional Women’s Association and I was quite frankly shocked. Was she really preaching ignorance as a good thing? How would I even take that advice. ‘Just start’ she said. Well, fast forward to late thirties Barbara, and I really get what she meant. I mean deep down in my soul do I resonate with the idea that you do not need to know how tough your row is going to be to start hoeing. There have been so many dreams I stopped dreaming because they just weren’t practical, and I finally listened to what everyone said.

‘I want to climb Mount Everest!’ someone shouts.

And we all say ‘What? It is too hard, too cold, and you could die!’

Why? Those things are all true, sure. It is hard cold, and you could die! Why do we instinctively caution others and dissuade them from risk and poor decisions? Close relationships ok, it affects us directly, but we do this with even strangers, coworkers and conversations on public message boards and in many cases where it really wouldn’t affect us at all. What’s with the Hermoinie complex? Is it a know-it-all thing, or maybe a hero thing ( ‘They were going to die, but my words of caution saved them!’)? Perhaps it is because we see ourselves as being good mentors, so we must ment!? Is it because we think they don’t know the risks, or won’t find out? I mean, we live in the google age, my assumption is that people do not need me as a reference guide. Why do we assume our fear is appropriate and something we should convince others of? Perhaps we need to flip that record, and automatically think of all the ways their risky plan COULD succeed. All the lucky and wonderful things that may come as a result!

I like to think it is because we have so much love and empathy for these strangers, that if they hurt, we suffer along with them. So many of us do this, me included, but I’m changing that! We just have to let our lovies mess up sometimes! I’m not going to let you walk off the deep end, but if you jump in the freezing cold pool, maybe, just maybe it is not MY job to tell you you are going to get sick, catch a cold, and die. Maybe if I jump in, and make that bad decision, you could just find me a towel since you know so much about how cold I’ll be. Don’t bubble wrap me from the suffering, just help me band aid up afterward. I’ll make some mistakes, but some things have to be learned the hard way. In Liberia they say ‘if you can’t hear, you can feel!’

So if I, or your kid, or someone you know starts on an big challenging task, like climbing a huge mountain, or going back to school, or getting pregnant at 40, or walking the journey of a million miles, or opening a special school for children who learn differently, don’t hit them with the knee jerk ‘you’re feet will get tired’ and ‘there’s too much paperwork.’ Lets make a conscious choice to encourage our people, even though we know their path will have struggles. Because believe me, they know they will have struggles. Of course there are loads of cases where its appropriate to caution our loved ones. We do it daily, and its correct much of the time. I’m just suggesting that there are times when giving a long list of reasons why things won’t work out, or listing every potiential pitfall along the road, is not the best idea, and asking us all to think about what my wise friend Janet told me about accomplishing great things. That when you begin, you should do so with a little naiveté!

By Barbara Byrge Cultivating Calm Happiness Health
21 Jan

Words Rock! Rock the Words!

Writing things on rocks, or artwork, or anything at all is a very powerful neurolinguistic device! It keeps the word and concept booted up somewhere in your brain. Writing words like ‘luck’ on a rock is a great idea, because we seek what we find, and I believe if you look for good luck you find it! It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Its fun to try this out on your kids too. But that’s another blog post.

This post is a vignette about my former white board and what it taught me about words you see in writing staying in your brain forever. Visual memory + written word = powerful brain candy.

‘There is a snapware thief…

in the building…

somewhere’

I worked at a place where we all had whiteboard inside our cubicles fashioned so everyone walking by could see. The above is the phrase my coworker had written on her board for months. You can’t look at a word without reading it, so I read them. And I processed them, four or five times a day, everyday when I’d walk past her cubicle to get to mine. ‘There is a snapware theif… in the buidling.. somewhere’ One night I was sitting on my couch and found myself muttering ‘there is a snapware thief… in the building… somwhere’ (I always paused at the ellipses while mentally reading it). What was happening to me? I didn’t want to pay attention to this, but there it was, clogging up my brainspace. And so I got pissed that her word worm had permanently crept into my brain!

Everytime I walked by it I felt bad. I felt bad for her dishes, and bad that i had to suffer along with her, even though the dish incident actually occurred before I was employed there. So I finally confronted her. ‘Shirley! Why don’t you write something new on your board!’ and a spirited convo ensued about how she was still genuinely upset, many moons later, about how someone had stolen her dishes. I learned a few things from this conversation. 1) snapware is tupperware, its expensive and those who love it can’t do without it 2) some people can hold a grudge a really long time 3) getting her to erase this was not going to be a one conversation thing.

So I decided to control what I could, which is what was written on my own board. My cubicle was on the way to the bathroom so I felt it was a community service to gift my coworkers with some awesome ear worms. So I would write things like ‘Smiles inc’ and guess what, people would smile at me! One day I wrote ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy!’ which is of course also a catchy song lyric. I noticed things. Fun coworkers would sing or whistle when they walked by. The old guy who talked your ear off would be on the topic of happiness (rather than who left dishes in the sink, etc). On bad days I’d write lyrics that seemed upbeat but were actually secret cries for help. This also amused me and helped me get out of a fun. One day I wrote ‘I was looking for a job, and then I found a job!’ which is another song lyric (Morrissey, yay!) which follows with ‘and heaven knows I’m miserable now.’ This is kind of an inside joke with me and a friend, about how some people just can’t be happy in any circumstance! It was a reminder to myself that I’d really wanted this job, so don’t be a downer. It also just made me happy to be salty for a minute. Most people thought I was happily working that day, and I totally found two new tribe member coworkers when they gave me the wink and the nod as they passed by. I handed out candy too. Highly recommended activity for keeping happy at work. Or anywhere really. Just hand out candy like a mom with a purse.

Finally Shirley asked me what was up with my board, and all the daily whitticism. I told her the truth about her snapware earworm, and to be honest it is still permanently etched into my brain. Hence this article. I offered to buy her a complete new set of snapware if she erased it. She finally had mercy on my mortal soul and erased her board! I quit that job some months later, and don’t have a white board anymore. So now I write things on rocks.

I have rocks all over the porch and garden that say ‘well calm’ to remind me that we heal when calm, and to not get too fight or flighty. Its also a pun for ‘welcome’ and I find brain teasers like this get stuck in my head even more! They are shiny and fascinating and whimsical. Some of my favorites are ‘Zen and Zeal, Lovey Lucky, and Do You.’ Others are thoughtfully artsy, like ‘Crave Brave’ and ‘Health Wealth’, with health over the wealth, which of course lends itself to metaphor. I paint these rocks bright happy colors and gift them to friends. Sometimes I let them choose what they want to attract into their lives, other times I will have made one especially for them, to attract what I think they would enjoy.

One of my all time favorites is ‘will work 4 love’. When we love others, we do WORK for them, its the ultimate love letter! Perhaps we go to work and get money to house them, perhaps we clean and cook for them, or drive them around, wipe their chin when they have mustard, but most people do the work they do for the ones they love, without people to love and work for life is empty. I think all of our labor should be ‘labors of love’ working to strengthen who and what we do like in this world. And with that I sign off to grab a paint brush for my new rock ‘Labor for Love’

So go write some stuff down in an artsy visual way, place it around where you are everyday, and the seeds for your new brain candy will be planted! You will scan the universe fulfiling the prophecies you declare! So go ahead, conjure up some joy, some art, some work, whatever floats your boat! Find a thought that mkes you smile, write it on some rocks, and enjoy the yummy thoughts!

By Barbara Byrge Brain Power Cultivating Calm Happiness Health