After burning out from a double major in biochemistry and linguistics and a year of medical school, Adam Lake took a year off to travel through Central and South America studying permaculture and herbal medicine. In 2008 he returned for his second year of medical school at Temple University in Philadelphia and helped start their alternative medicine interest group. Aside from medicine, Adam is interested in economics, rock climbing, wilderness survival, and all things food related.
After learning of Adam’s adventures with fermentation, I asked him if he would use his medical knowledge and practical experience to write a short article on the medical value of unpasteurized fermented foods. –Didi Pershouse
“Hey Adam!” my roommate Steve calls to me while looking in the fridge. I turn from the pile of dishes built up in the sink form a day or two of bachelor-pad living, and see Steve holding up a half-full container of milk. “Do you think this went bad?” Cautiously I swirl the jug a bit looking for obvious lumps. When nothing awry appears, I take a distanced whiff…but it smells more like sour cream than rancid milk.
“Huh,” I say, glancing over at the several bubbling jars next to the sink, “It’s not really bad…it’s soured instead. You could still drink it.” I take a sip to back up my guess. Nothing thrilling, just sour milk, on its way to becoming yogurt or some new cheese. The common bacteria that would tend to make milk rancid appear to have been out-competed by tastier lactobacilli , and I suspect the sourdough and lacto-fermenting oat cultures next to the sink are the cause. I make a mental note about that, as this is the first kitchen I’ve lived in with so many fermentation projects going on.
A few months prior, I had run into a book by Sandor Katz called Wild Fermentation, which appealed to me for several reasons. (more…)
When I tell people that I have moved into my former office and created a home-office type situation, a lot of them look a bit sorry for me, and many of them ask “Why?” as if they can’t think of a single reason why I might do that. I elaborated on many reasons in my last posting on the subject, but now that I have tried it out for two months, I am realizing that consolidating my life by moving into my clinic has turned out to be one of the best moves I have made. Not only does it simplify things for me in a multitude of ways, but I now get to live in the village, something I have wanted all my life.
Tonight I was at a co-counseling meeting. One of my neighbors was there, and, knowing that I lived right next to the village green, he suggested that we take our dogs for a late night dog walk and continue the counseling session. It was nice and quiet and we sat in the gazebo while our two dogs raced around madly. “Doggie Discharge Session.” I call it—as the two dogs run and growl and bark and wrestle, discharging all that they have been holding in during the day while behaving according to human social rules. Humans need to do something similar to that to stay healthy and happy, but we don’t often get the chance. In co-counseling, people do a lot of laughing and crying and hugging and sometimes even wrestling to let out all the stuff we’ve been holding in while trying to behave according to social rules.
When I walked back to the house at 10 p.m., I remembered (more…)
The community acupuncture days are working beautifully here in Thetford Center. Word has spread like wildfire that people can get acupuncture for $20-$45, and the phone is ringing and the emails are coming in (the current going rate in the Upper Valley is $70-$125 for a private session.) This is clearly the right business model for the new economy. Alternative health care just has to become affordable, whether or not it is covered by insurance. For acupuncture to really work, people usually need to come at least once a week, and sometimes twice, and the treatments usually need to be continued for at least a couple of months. That means the treatments have to be affordable.
I found that when I was only offering private sessions at $75 an hour, or even back when they were $45, $50 or $60 an hour (I’ve been doing acupuncture for 15 years), people often came with the hope and expectation that one or two sessions should cure them. That’s fine if you are a healthy unmedicated person who has an acute shovelling injury (that’s what we get around here in the early winter when we are out of practice). But if you are coming with allergies, infertility, digestive problems, fatigue, depression, arthritis or any other chronic condition, chances are you are going to need weekly or biweekly treatment for at least a couple of months. When I was only offering private sessions, I was often hesitant to even let people know that they needed to come for longer, knowing how hard it would be on their finances. So I would say “Come for a few sessions, and then we’ll talk.”
Community acupuncture makes it possible for people to get the treatment they need, for as long as they need it. It also means people can stay and relax for as long as they like, since I am not trying to free up the treatment room at the end of every hour, there are extra spots available, so no one has to rush out.
I have two tables set up in one room, and a couch and two big comfy chairs in the next room. I am currently scheduling a new person every 20 minutes. Many community acupucture clinics schedule a new person every 10 minutes, and can drop their rates even lower. I am not that streamlined yet, nor am I sure that I want to be. I think 15-20 minutes of personal attention gives a little time to remember we are human and have some fun together.
To schedule an appointment, call 802-785-2503 or email me through the contact page.
Didi Pershouse, CCH, LAc.
Gary Null has given permission to reprint this article, which has circulated fairly widely and received much applause as well as ample criticism. The authors acknowledge up front that there may be some overlap in the counting of certain statistics, however, even if you go with the lower numbers, many of which come from mainstream medical journals such as JAMA (the Journal of the American Medical Association), the un-sustainability of our current system of medicine is shocking.
For researchers looking for citations of studies looking at iatrogenic illness, go to Medical Errors and Adverse Drug Reactions. (more…)
After burning out from a double major in biochemistry and linguistics and a year of medical school, Adam Lake took a year off to travel through Central and South America studying permaculture and herbal medicine. In 2008 he returned for his second year of medical school at Temple University in Philadelphia and helped start their alternative medicine interest group. Aside from medicine, Adam is interested in economics, rock climbing, wilderness survival, and all things food related.