Managing Healthcare Costs Done Right --

Here's a great article from The Atlantic's web site, "The Quiet Health-Care Revolution," that is a must-read. It shows how the California group CareMore became a small powerhouse in excellent managed care for elderly patients -- with astounding reductions in costs. All this because of the integrated, early-intervention model pioneered by Dr. Sheldon Zinberg, the man who dove into a problem instead of retiring to avoid it.

Sorry posts are irregular --

-- but the loss of my BBediting system with Firefox has really hurt me. "Make Link" has its uses, but it takes the page you are on. So if I bring a link from somewhere else to paste into my Live Journal, the system changes the link to my Live Journal "Make an Entry" page before I can paste it in! Or this has been my experience.

My attempt to upgrade with the newer BB version leads to an add-on that is packaged in an extension my machine doesn't recognize. Attempts to remedy this took over an hour and did not result in the machine acknowledging the extension. I just don't have time for this -- I'm still ramping up to the fast pace life demands right now, and now my father's health tanking has really complicated things.

So -- there will be posts this week before I hit the road, on numerous topics. Just not quickly.

Let the Gluten Go -- #3) You Can Eat the World

This article is based on a one-month “test diet change” plan I concocted for a friend back in January 2011 and posted at www.blog.bookviewcafe.com. Here’s a tweaked version for my personal blog readers.

How food, diet, and dieting affected my writing and my life. And maybe effects yours…

Okay, eating the world may be an exaggeration, but not by a lot. There are a ton of foods out there for the gluten sensitive individual to eat, and most of them you’ve probably never given a second glance. But they are waiting for you, bursting with flavor.

The easy stuff is this: Food in its unadulterated form (I.E. raw, no seasonings, no marinades, no sauces) is where you can start. You can grill meat for yourself – but you must make up the hamburger paddy yourself, and put the ground pepper and salt on it. And read those salt and ground pepper labels, because a lot of salt/spice mixes have gluten in them, in some form.

So – Okay food includes:

Real meat
Real poultry
Real fish
Real shellfish (fake shellfish may be processed with gluten)
Real fruit
Real vegetables
Real nuts (read the package for exposure to gluten -- it may have been packaged on machinery that also packs gluten items.)
Real seeds (Ditto above.)
Real dried fruit (Ditto above!)

Take the advice of Ray Audette, the author of Neanderthin – if you can pick it off a tree or bush, or stick a stake in it, it’s probably safe. (This assumes it’s already designated as food fit for human consumption – don’t start experimenting in the back yard, now!)
( Lots more for the curious )

Next time – foods where hidden gluten lurks.

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Katharine Eliska Kimbriel is currently working on a new Alfreda book, a contemporary fantasy series, and a Nuala short story.