When I first read that the Canadian company Upaya Naturals provided online customers with raw food delights, I wondered what kind of idiot can’t just buy a raw carrot from the local food store and eat it.  Even if you are a shut-in, local stores deliver, so where is the market for Upaya Naturals?

Silly me. Upaya Naturals provides online shoppers with hard to find, all natural, vegan cheeses and ice creams that actually taste good while providing lots of nutrients.They arrive on ice to your very doorstep, where you can be waiting, crackers in hand, or spoon in fist, in eager anticipation of the yummy, delectable treats that are being delivered to your home. 

Cashew-based Ice Cream. It tastes like dairy ice cream, without the guilt.

If you find the wait too exciting, be sure to order aromatherapy essential oils that calm the nerves, and smell divine.

Get all of your favourite blender recipes at the ready also. Upaya Naturals carriesVitamix and Blendtec blenders, the cadillac of blenders/juicers on the market today. You can prepare bread mixtures, and soups, as well as smoothies and ice creams, without having to fiddle with numerous attachments. Push a button and you are off to the races.

The Vitamix Deluxe 5200 is touted as the best blender on the market, but the following videos offer conflicting evidence in this regard. You can also buy Vitamix at your friendly neighbourhood Costco store, if interested. You can save yourself the shipping fees that way, as they are presently on sale, and therefore cost the same as ordering from the company online. Ask for a demo before you buy.

The Vitamix Blendtec Kitchen Aid Challenge. You decide. The facts in these two videos conflict. Kitchen Aid is far less expensive and appears to do the trick.

The Vitamix Blendtec Challenge. 

 Why pay for Blendtec or for Vitamix if Kitchen Aid is just as efficient, if not moreso?  And it’s half the price at $199.00 How do they all fare with breadmaking? We want more tests please, before we take a Vitamix home!

Upaya Naturals also carries Superfoods, Greens etc. that are vegan-friendly. Power up so that you will have th strength inyour arms to lift that spoonful of healthy cashew-based ice cream to your lips, over and over again. After all, you have many delectable flavours to try. You need muscle mass.

So please, do yourself a favour and check out Upaya Naturals’ website.

I can hardly wait to try the cashew-based ice creams. I have never tried them before, but everyone says that they are great. I know that there are some almond and soy-based ice creams that are out there these days that are absolutely delicious. I wonder if the cashew-based ice creams give them a run for their money?

And don’t forget to brush your teeth! Yep. Upaya Naturals carries healthy,  flouride-free tooth cleansers also. And skincare products. And the kitchen sink. Okay, everything but.

Speaking of the kitchen sink. Upaya Naturals carries one of, if not the best, water filtration systems on the market today: Wellness Kitchen S-III Filtration. This countertop water filtration system can also be easily mounted under the sink with the purchase of an adapter kit. What is most wonderful about this Wellness filtration system is that trace mineral that we need for our health are added back to the water supply after filteration has occurred. If you are concerned about pharmaceuticals, heavy metals and fecal matter making it into your drinking and bathing water, this filtration system will give you the quality of water and the peace of mind you need.

Unless, of course, you enjoy all those pharmaceuticals in your water!

Perhaps we could just bottle it and sell it ourselves to those chronics residing in families that have purchased water filters.

Hmmm.

Just an evil, entrepreneurial thought.

Pat.

Get the lead out, Moms and Dads!

And Grandpas and Grandmas.

                                                    Check paint, plastic, pottery, plasticine.

Children absorb 52 % more lead over the blood/brain barrier than do adults exposed to the same sources and levels of lead.

Lead poisoning happens to children in the home far more often than from any other source. You are their front line of defence, but since lead poisoning also happens to adults, perhaps the resulting brain damage is what is preventing you from acting on your children’s behalf.

Get a household lead test kit, and check your bathtub enamel, your silverware, your ceramics, and your plastic sippy cups and painted surfaces and kids’ paints for lead. There is absolutely no use in filtering lead out of your drinking water if you are putting it right back into your mouth by eating acidic foods and drinks off plates and and cutlery that are leaching lead. Some faucet plumbing is still legally being sold that is full of lead, despite EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) efforts to get it banned. Again; what is the point of putting in water filters at the point of entry to the home, if the lead is put back in at the faucet?

The best household and professional lead test kit on the market today is LeadCheck by Hybrivet. It is sold, in slightly different packaging, to parents and plumbers alike. Hybrivet has given Homax the distribution right to the consumer 2-stick pack in North America, retailing for U.S.$7.99. The packaging claims that the sticks will only do up to two positive tests each, but that has never been my experience.

The United States government has endorsed the LeadCheck lead test kit as the best kit on the market in North America for the past fifteen years. Canada uses the US. stats and endorsements for its own guidelines. Canada also relies on the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA for short, for its independent, publicly funded assessment of the safety of consumables in North America. The EPA also encourages you to be the lead police in your home.

I distribute the LeadCheck kit for Homax here in Canada, and the two-pack will do up to 14 tests per stick, as long as they are stored in a cool, dry place.

Come on people; that is around 50 cents a test. I am sure your family is worth it. Laboratory tests run around $35.00 per test. Who can afford to test all the kids’ toys, mini-blinds, knapsacks, paints and costume jewellery and candy at that price?

Call me, at National Lead Test. I’ll tell you how to get more than two tests per stick. It’s easy, and accurate.

And far less expensive that way.

My agenda is prevention first, profit second. There is no need to use one stick per test in many, if not most, instances.

Call me for the how-to.

           Lead is in 68 per cent of bathtub enamel installed before 1978.  Stand alone old tubs are also full of lead.

My name is Pat Franczyk.

My number is 905-478-2722.

My e-mail is patcakes@hotmail.com.

Lead poisoning causes ADHD, anemia, rage, brain cancer, brain damage, damage to motor functions and cognition, and nephritis (kidney disease). I might write humorous blogs and dedicate humor-riddled pages to the topic of lead poisoning, but lead poisoning is no laughing matter.

Silica-based fluoridation has made the problem even worse. Not only does lead cross the blood/brain barrier, it now crosses the blood/gut barrier. Cases of ADHD and ADD have gone up 600% in townships and villages in New York State that changed over from sodium-based flouridation in the public water supply to silica-based flouridation. The American Dental Association announced, on its website in 2002, that they had made an error in endorsing flouridation and are promoting calcium-based treatments instead.

Cavistat is the name of the product they now endorse. The American Dental Association has not made a big fanfare out of the decision due to fear of class-action lawsuits.

Check it out for yourselves. Meanwhile, drop the flouride. It makes teeth brittle, causes bleeding gums if used excessively, and actually kills people if swallowed by the tube. People, of course, meaning children, as they are the only ones, other than starving or stoned adults, who would ingest it in the first place. Even small amounts of toothpaste eaten while brushing one’s teeth, can result in the proverbial night-time tummy pain that many children complain about.

Try Tom’s of Maine, non-flouride toothpaste, or any other flouride-free toothpaste on the market today. Well.ca, Herbal Remedies.com and Solay.com, all carry flouride-free toothpastes and powders that taste great and are effective.

Solay products are rated the safest products on the market by the Environmental Working Group (EWG). The EWG is another independent watchdog organization that tests and reports on the chemical constituents in thousands of consumables.

A strong back. Excellent posture. Good bone and muscle density. Strong, healthy joints. How to maintain this state of affairs as time and traumas march on. That is the key.

Exercise of a reasonable nature obviously factors into the equation. Reasonable, of course, depends upon what traumas you have indeed experienced to various parts of your anatomy. Diet, also, is an obvious consideration. Muscle building proteins and anti-oxidant rich, vitamin-packed foods and/or supplements, all can contribute to the maintenance and repair of the human body at any stage in the game. Adequate rest and stress management are also essential to good health, as we all know.

I cannot begin to tell you how much assistance my family, friends and I have personally experienced  over the last twenty years, from magnetic insoles and magnetic mats. And that is no bull.
Magnetic fields can have anti-inflammatory properties. Asthma and muscle and joint pain all lessen in their severity with magnetic therapy. Colds heal faster. So do ‘flus. I am not going to try to convince you. Try magnetic insoles and a magnetic sleeping mat for yourself. You will be amazed at their effectiveness.

I personally do not sleep on a magnetic mat or wear magnetic insoles all of the time. Some people swear that magnetic insoles and mats can be utilized all of the time, and the body does not get “immune” to them, but I am not willing to find out if that is true or not, since they work so well when I need to use them sporadically when my immune system feels compromised, or when I need my joints and spinal muscles to be amazingly strong for periods of heavy lifting and carrying demanded by my workplace.

Magnetic fields can assist in detoxification, so if you are sleeping on a magnetic mat, it is wise to drink extra water, as magnetic fields may also have a dehydrating effect as they compell the body to get rid of any toxic build-up it may have. Many people find that they sleep like a baby on the magnetic mats. At other times, attempting to sleep on the mat is almost impossible, as one is charged with excess energy. That is when one no longer needs to sleep on the mat. Whatever was making you sluggish has been resolved, and you can put the mat away until you need it again.

Generalising from my personal experience and that of many people that I know, magnetic fields help sprains heal faster, and if applied prior to the stress, they can actually prevent sprains and strains from ocurring in the first place. Hence the usefulness of the magnetic insoles.

Magnetic insoles are like wearing an extra kidney belt or knee or wrist brace, in my extensive personal experience with these products. And you truly can jump higher and throw further with these inserts on than without them. When you go to lift up a heavy box, your back remains straight as a board, and your knees never waiver. The sensation in incredible. And a lifesaver. Try arm wrestling while wearing insoles, and then without. A huge difference.
Unless you have a pacemaker, I highly recommend that you give magnetic insoles a try. And the magnetic mat. Nikken makes both. Magnetico makes an amazing mat. Magnetico’s sleeping pad is designed to be safe to sleep on all of the time, whereas it is not recommended to use Nikken’s mats fulltime, as sleeping on them for more than two weeks can undo any of the good they have performed due to the nature of their design.

Check the literature out on both of these magnetic mats for yourself. Check with you alternative health practitioner and your doctor for their advice on the use of magnetic mats and insoles for your personal situation.

Magnetics have been a godsend for my family. They might prove to be just that for your’s also. Magnetico mats can be found at:  http://www.magneticosleep.com. 

Best wishes, Pat.

Check this guy out. A man after my own heart. Alright, a child after my own heart. An extremely impatient, tantrum-throwing, German-expounding, motherboard-punching creti…young man.   (test lead paint)

His mother should check for lead poisoning. Lead poisoning is often the undiscovered cause of severe rage issues. Every guy in maximum security in the U.S. in the mid 1980’s, convicted of murder, tested positive for elevated lead levels. Lead pipes in their respective neighbourhoods, and lead dust in the workplace were the suspected sources of lead contamination.

I kid you not.            (test lead paint)

So test for lead contamination in your home, before your kid grabs you by the throat and throttles you because you forgot to pick up his favourite chocolate ripple ice cream. Your only hope will be that his motor skills have already begun to deteriorate and the short attention span kick in so that you can simply duck and then distract him with his favourite lead-filled candy bar made in Mexico, or made in any other country that permits lead solder to be used in vats used in the production of foodstuffs.

Children absorb 52 per cent more lead over the blood/brain barrier, than do adults exposed to the same amount of contaminant. He or she will therefore think about killing you before you think about killing them. Give yourself a break, even if you don’t like your nasty child, and check for lead. Your child could be nasty, anaemic, suffer from ADD or ADHD behavioural symptoms, have poor motor skills, low I.Q., and even die from childhood lead poisoning.

The home is where the lead is, apparently, moreso than outside sources.

Kids put everything in their mouths (except vegetables), and lick their fingers etc. Your dinnerware, plastic cups, silverware or stainless steelware, costume jewellery, and plastic straws and sippy cups are all suspect.So is your bathtub enamel. 64 per cent of bathtubs put in before 1978 leach lead like crazy. That will make your kid crazy. Or anaemic. Or sick with kidney disease. Or all of the above. So get a reliable home test kit and test away people! Homax LeadCheck household lead test kit is the best one on the market in North America. The U.S. government says so. It has been assessed as the best lead test kit by the U.S. government for the past sixteen years.

Drop me a line and I’ll send you one. They are $7.99, I believe, and the literature in the packaging claims to do only two tests, but each of the two sticks actuially does around ten to 14 tests. Check my Get The Lead Out page for the simple instructions on how to get more  bang for your buck. And considering that laboratory tests are around $35.00 per test, 14 tests for $7.99 is well worth the money.

And so are your children.          (test lead paint)

Stuff is constantly arriving in North America full of lead, and we, as parents and grandparents need to be the first line of defense for our families. Time to step up to the plate, the dinner plate that is, and make sure that it is not full of heavy metal.

Send a comment, and I’ll send you a kit. Or e-mail me at patcakes@hotmail.com.

Once again, please note that the phrases in parentheses are traffic generating necessities. Thanks for putting up with them.

Pat.

Get the lead out of your coffee! Usually that refers to the caffeine in today’s colourful vernacular. But actually, the phrase is quite literal also. Check your household ceramics for lead content. It is simple, inexpensive, and very necessary. Only a person whose head is already full of lead wouldn’t see the sense in checking for this mind- and body-crippling element. Too much lead is a very bad thing. And too much lead is actually measured in parts per trillion. How insane is that?

Insane, but apparently true. So get rid of it.

Unless you are prone to sucking on paint chips from old houses or from pencils from China, you, the adult North American, are most likely to get lead poisoning from someone who hates you and gave you cheap cutlery or ceramic dinner services for an anniversary present. Or expensive, colourful, Italian ceramics, since the Fall of the Roman Empire due to lead poisoning doesn’t seem to have had any effect on the way their pottery is produced today.

Lead poisoning is accumulative, and leads to any of a number of serious conditions. These include ADHD, nephritis (kidney disease), anaemia, rage disorder, cognitive damage, poor muscular control, and death.

Children absorb 52 per cent more lead over the blood/brain barrier than do their adult caregivers, given exposure to the same level of contamination. So you might not mind being stupid and belligerent since no-one will put you to bed early and stop you playing with the other kids, but that pasta sauce is sucking the lead out of your grandchild’s plate and putting it directly into your grandchild’s future.

Please buy an inexpensive, yet reliable lead test kit from a company called Homax LeadCheck, and get the lead out of all of your lives.

Lead leaches from bathtub faucets and enamels. Children drink bathwater. Lead is in plastic sippy cups and play jewellery. Lead is in candies and wrappers from any country that allows lead to be used in the soldering on vats used to make food and confections. Lead dust can still be found in mini-blinds and other plastic products that break down in the home. Lead is found in the tap faucet since it was not banned by the U.S. government for one little essential piece of household pumbing, although it was banned for soldering water pipes. Duh. The EPA is up in arms about it, but no-one is listening. So if you have a filter on your water anywhere behind the actual tap, chances are you are sucking back lead.

Be the front line of defence for your family. Check for lead. LeadCheck has been touted as the best household lead test kit on the market, by the U.S. government, for the last sixteen years. I sell the two-pack here in Canada. The manufacturer claims that it will only do two tests , but not so Derango, it does up to fourteen tests per stick if you keep the kit away from extreme heat. I’ve used it for twelve to fourteen test per stick, and it works like a charm. At a retail cost of $7.99 American, plus shipping and handling, that works out to be the best and the cheapest test on the block.

If you would like to know how to get more tests out of the kit, and it is easy, just drop me your e-mail address in my comment response section and I will send you a kit with instructions for the same price as HomeMax sells its LeadCheck kit for. I believe that is still $7.99 American.

Did you know that one third of all cosmetics include at least one ingredient known to be carcinogenic? And these are not trace elements, but base elements, as the good folks at Skin Deep are quick to point out.

These researchers have done their due diligence on behalf of us all, and have taken an unbiased look into what goes into our skin creams, nail polish, shampoos, toothpastes, mouthwashes, eye drops, nasal sprays, hair dyes, lipsticks and mascaras. They have rated the products, based upon the safety of their ingredients,  on a  stoplight  scale, red being full of known carcinogens or heavy metals in harmful amounts, yellow, less of the same, and green. Green, one would think, would mean totally safe, but the people at EWG go one better, and rate this category from 0-2.

All of your favourite brand names are listed here, as well as more obscure, so-called “alternative” brands. These brands are the ones most often rated Green 0. But not always. The EWG also rate companies on their willingness to conform to international safety standards that have been set, and by their stand on the use or non-use of animals for testing.

Did you know that all of our favourite, name-brand toothpastes are full of known carcinogens and suspected pathogens? Why don’t we have simple, safe toothpaste?

We have mascaras made with mercury, which can travel into the eye and onwards to the brain when we wipe away tears, or mercury-laden mascara dust.

We still have Grecian Formula hair dye for men full of lead.

Please see my pages on the very real dangers of lead.

They are listed at the top of the homepage, in case any of you missed them.

I am not going to name any more names here, because I would like you to check out the EWG website. They do accept donations. They are like the EPA of the cosmetic industry. We need to support them.

So, as I have said, for the straight goods on what is safe and what is definitely idiotic to use, check out  the Environmental Energy Workers’ Skin Deep cosmetic safety database.

How hard can it possibly be to make a safe toothpaste? Why are these dangerous products allowed to be on our store shelves? What are we, nuts? They most certainly are for launching such products on a trusting public. Who do they think uses these products, evil enemy aliens from a dark planet, or our own beloved families? I was going to say kids, but everyone matters, not just children.

Goodbye Colgate, my old friend and excellent teeth-whitener. It turns out that you are evil.

Hello safe, Green 0 toothpaste powder.

Hey! They should make a brand of products called Green 0 !

“Buy what is safe, and works. Stick to Green 0 !”

Check the massive list.

The EWG researchers have done this research for you.

Meanwhile, I’ll check out brands that pass the Green 0 muster.

“Safe toothpaste for all!”

That will be my new rally cry.

So far, it looks like Solay Wellness Incorporated fits the bill.

I’ll be checking the Skin Deep cosmetic safety database list for the status of Solay’s vegan-friendly products.

See you next post with the results!

Pat — the person that loves you!

Be safe.