Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life

A Painting of George Catlin

One of George Catlin's paintings of Native Americans

Shut Your Mouth And Save Your Life (1870)

George Catlin was an American Painter who lived around the time of the American Civil War (born 1796, died 1872). I had not heard of him before reading this book, but when I mentioned him to my mother she recognized him as a famous painter. Catlin began his life amongst modern (for that time) Americans but moved out west living amongst the American Indians after the Civil War. By the time he wrote this book, he claims to have more experience with Native Americans than any living person at that time. One of the things which struck him most about the natives was their freedom from the ailments of modern society. He wrote this book to teach modern people how they could become healthier.

George Catlin was a very feeble man during his younger years. He probably considered himself average amongst those living and felt lucky to be alive (not dead). He worked as a lawyer and then at the age of 34 in 1830 began his travels in the Western United States. Living out of doors was a shock for his body. A mouth breather, he often woke up with inflamed and bleeding lungs and his sleep was miserable. He managed to make himself a nose breather and dramatically turned his health around. When he wrote this book he was at the healthiest and strongest of his life and had no aches and pains. The purpose of this book was to convince Americans back home how to make the same changes he did and to inform them that many of the hard parts of life are not necessary.

At the time Catlin wrote, half of all children born in major American and European cities died before the age of 5. Half of those who survived died before the age of 25. Those who lived to adulthood often had deformities (approximately one half percent of the population had the problems of being a hunch back, an idiot, or deaf). I don't know what the rates of these diseases are now, but we place most of our young boys on Ritalin and our special education classes are overflowing. Those who lived to adulthood in those days usually had bad teeth. I think we are far better at treating the symptoms of our illnesses today, but the same underlying problems still exist.

When Catlin met the Indians he was struck by their fine physical features. At the time most whites thought the American Indians were sick and disease ridden, but Catlin says only the Natives living in close contact with Whites were sickly and diseased. He refers to several major plagues which swept across America but stopped when they hit the Native Americans who had not yet started drinking whiskey. The Natives did not loose any children to sickness or childbirth. When Catlin inquired about childhood deaths, Chiefs would relate a couple instances of children drowning or getting bitten by a rattlesnake. That was all. Caitlin does say that the Indians living in close contact with whites were sickly. He is not sure why this is but he seems to attribute it to whiskey consumption.

In the book Catlin explains his theory about why nose breathing is healthier than mouth breathing. The nose is especially designed to filter and warm air before it his the lungs. The mouth is not designed to filter air so the cold dirty air flows directly into the lunges without an safety mechanisms in place. The mouth is supposed to be an aqueous environment, but breathing through the mouth causes it to dry out making the teeth less healthy. Catlin had noticed that animals die quickly if they are forced to breath through their mouths and hypothesized that people do as well. Catlin also marveled at the fine ordering and lack of decay in the Indians teeth. He attributed this to the Indians habit of keeping their mouths closed at all times. The one time an Indian opened his mouth was to speak and that did not happen often.

The last part of the book is devoted to convincing people to take up nasal breathing and teaching to them how to do this. Catlin advocates making the switch through conscious thought. He recommends keeping your mouth closed at all times while awake and thinking about keeping your mouth closed as you fall asleep at night. He motivates people of all ages by reminding them of their friends who have died and urging them to consider the effects it will have on their future health, marriage prospects, and career.

The Vitamin Code by Massoud Arvanaghi and Mike Yorkey

The VITAMIN CODE The Breakthrough Discovery That Will Change The Way You Take Vitamins Forever

The Vitamin Code tells the story behind the Jordan Rubin's Garden of Life raw vitamins. The book is written in three sections giving the reader an understanding of why vitamins are needed, the story behind the development of these vitamins, and an analysis of the vitamins on the market today. Jordan Rubin has been endorsed in the past by the Weston Price Foundation, so I am inclined to believe that he is selling a legitimate product. I do not take nutritional supplements myself: I have other areas of my diet to work on first. However, I learned a lot about nutritional supplementation from this book. In any case, I like Garden of Life's method of trying to sell their product by educating the consumer.

Part I: The learning curve

The medical community has consistently denigrated nutritional supplements but is slowly being forced to change. Today even the Journal of the American Medical Association recommends taking nutritional supplements. The history of vitamins begins in 1747 with James Lind discovering a cure for scurvy and continues with Eijkman discovering a cure for Beriberi in 1886. Both cures involved nutritional supplementation although not using synthetic vitamins. Vitamins were finally officially discovered by Funk in 1912 and synthetic Vitamin C was first produced by Szent-Gyorgyi in 1931.

There are two categories of vitamins: fat soluble and water soluble. Fat soluble vitamins include A, D, E, and K. Excess levels of these vitamins can be stored in fat for future use, and these vitamin levels will be depleted by a low fat diet. The B series of vitamins are the primary water soluble vitamins. The body flushes out excess levels so they cannot be stored and must be replenished regularly.

Part II: Cracking the code

The second part of the book tells the story of Endre Szalay who started the Grow Company which produces the vitamins sold by Garden of Life. Szalay is a Hungarian pharmacist who avoided serving in the Second World War because he is part deaf. His freedom spared, he managed to survive the warfare and rampaging armies which rampaged back and forth across his country during the war. He became a successful pharmacist after the war but was worried about being denounced to the communists, so he escaped to the United States.

Once in the US, Szalay's genius demonstrated itself. He began at the very bottom level of the pharmacy profession and but he rose up the ladder to become the Vice President of three different pharmaceutical companies. Giving up the lucrative positions, he retired and invested his own money to follow his passion and create the Grow Company which grows vitamins inside of living organisms--yeasts. These vitamins contain all the necessary factors for the body to use them because they are constructed by a living organism. The Grow Company does not sell directly to customers it only sells to other companies, so Jordan Rubin approached Szalay to begin making nutritional supplements. The rest is history.

Part III: What the vitamin code means

There are five different levels of vitamins according to the authors of this book. From worst to best they are

1. Isolated Vitamins and Minerals: These are the cheapest and most common form. They often contain lots of sweeteners and the body has a difficult time absorbing them.
   
2. Isolated Vitamins and Minerals with Food Powder: These are the same synthetic vitamins as before but they contain some food powders which make them slightly easier for the body to assimilate.
   
3. Food Concentrates: These are vitamins extracted from healthy foods such as grasses. They were popular during the 1930s but were driven from the market by the cheaper isolated vitamins and minerals.
   
4. Fermented Vitamins and Minerals: To create these vitamins a food concentrate is mixed with a pro-biotic such as friendly yeasts. The fermentation makes the food concentrates easier to absorb.
5. Raw Food Created Vitamins: These vitamins are grown inside of yeast using the Grow Company's process which is described in more detail in the second part of the book. They are kept at low temperature to avoid denaturing from heat.
   

The World of Hair by John Gray

The World of Hair Colour (Hairdressing and Beauty Industry Authority)

online version

Hair is an indicator of health, a large part of a woman’s identity, and has played a large part in many famous stories (Samson, Rapunzel ...). Knowing the importance of hair is only a small part of the puzzle. It is important to know how hair works, what the signs of healthy hair are, how to care for your hair, and what dangers to avoid.

While researching hair I came across a good resource: an e-book called The World of Hair by Dr. John Gray. This book represents conventional science, so it must be read with a grain of salt. Its intended audience seems to be hair stylists, so it covers both the theory behind hair and how to care for it. I will summarize what I feel are the most important points of this book.

Hair Structure:
The two parts of a hair are the follicle which is below the surface of the skin where hair grows and the shaft which is outside of the skin. New cells are created in the follicle and pushed outwards to become the shaft. Hair pigment is created in the follicle. The shaft is composed of dead cells and lubricated by sebum which is secreted from the follicle. The center of the shaft is called the cortex and gives hair its curl and elasticity. It is made up of keratin and contains the in hairpigments. The outside of the shaft is called the cuticle is composed of between six and ten layers of cells and takes the form of a layer of scales covering the cortex. The cuticle gives hair its shine.

Hair Statistics:
People generally have between 100,000 and 150,000 hairs on their head. The number of hairs generally peaks around the age of 16 years old while the density of hair decreases throughout life. A baby will have around 1,100 hairs/cm2; a 25 year old, 600 hair/cm2, and someone 40 or older 300 hair/cm2. Hair usually grows at the rate of 1cm/month. Consequently shoulder length hair has usually been growing for 3 years and waist length hair for 7 years.

Hair Life Cycle:
Hair has three stages to its lifecycle. Anagen is the first phase in which the hair grows; this stage usually lasts between three and seven years. Catagen is the second phase lasting two to four weeks. During this phase hair stops growing and becomes ready for shedding. Telogen is the third phase; here a new hair starts to grow and the old hair falls out. This final stage lasts three to four months.

Hair Types:
Asian is the first of the hair categories based upon genetics. Asian hair is black and very straight. The straightness is due to the straightness of the keratin bundles. The shaft of the hair is round and thick. Its diameter can be more than 120 microns.

Caucasoid is the second type of hair. It is possessed by Europeans and Indians. It can be wavy or straight and has a wide range of colors. A mix of straight and wavy keratin bundles is found in the hair. The shaft is usually between 57 and 90 microns in diameter and oval in cross section.

The third type of hair is African. African hair is black and very curly. It is flatter in shape and the cuticle has many kinks in it.

In healthy hair the cortex or central part of the hair shaft is undamaged and the cuticle or covering sheath of the shaft is intact. Keeping hair in this state is easier said than done because once hair leaves the scalp it cannot be repaired. Hair needs to maintain its pristine conditions for a long time: 3 years for shoulder length, 5 years for waist length, and 12 years for hair long enough to sit on.

Since not everyone owns a high power microscope to examine their hair for damage, it is important to be able to tell hair’s healthiness through observation with the naked eyeball. Here the useful correlation between health and beauty aids us because we can recognize healthy hair instinctively. This explains why men are attracted to hair even though most men know almost nothing about hair. Properties of healthy and beautiful hair include glossiness, cleanness, amount, and volume.

The glossier hair is the more light it reflects. This is the most obvious property of healthy hair. Dark hair is generally glossier than light hair (this does not mean dark hair is better) because of the contrast between the shine and the natural hair color. Hair’s glossiness depends on the state of the cuticle. If the cuticle is mostly gone or highly damaged, hair will not reflect much light.

Clean hair is free of debris and has a proper level of natural oils. Hair naturally produces oil and should have some; however, it should not be excessively oily. There should not be debris or caked hairspray in the hair. Dirty hair is not as glossy as clean hair.

The amount of hair depends on the diameter of the hair shaft and number of hairs. The diameter of a pony tail can vary by more than 100% based upon the diameter and number of hairs. Both number of hairs and diameter of hair shaft are related to genetics and healthiness of lifestyle. Even though modern science says that both of these are fully genetic, it admits that in the case of starvation or high stress hair is lost and changes color. The amount of hair varies with length as well, but most of the time people do not grow their hair to its limiting length.

Volume is amount of space hair takes up. It is dependent on “thickness” as described in the previous paragraph but not entirely so. Hair properties such as stiffness, curvature, cohesion, and friction play a large role in determining hair’s volume. These cause hair to flow and hold itself in ways that hold more air inside and make it look bigger. While the amount of hair depends on ones long term health (of yourself and your ancestor), volume can be vary from day to day based upon treatment and weather conditions.

Next I will discuss general Dr. Gray's ideas about hair care and not specific techniques. First I will discuss styling and then cleaning. Hair styling is temporarily or permanently altering the shape of hair. Temporarily changing the shape of hair involves setting and changes weak bonds between hair while permanent altering either “perming” or “relaxing” chemically changes the shape of hair. Cleaning hair involves both the method of cleaning hair as well as the materials used.

Setting or temporary styling involves drying hair into place. This needs to be done every time hair is wetted. This is the safest way to style hair and everyone does it without thinking. Having a good haircut can make this easier. Avoid is back combing. This can increase the friction of hair leading to more volume, but it pushes up scales on the cuticle damaging the hair. Be careful about blow drying hair. Everyone agrees that air drying is optimal, but this takes a long time. Heat damages hair, and if there is a lot of water remaining in hair when it is blow dried, the water on the hair can boil seriously damaging the hair. For this reason towel dry and air dry as much as possible before blow drying. Hair can also be temporarily colored; this colors the hair with pigments which will eventually wash out. I would guess that this is not healthy [but more healthy than permanent coloring] because the pigments will also be absorbed into the scalp.

Permanent styling of hair changes the structure of hair through chemical processes. Usually a chemical is applied to the scalp which alters the structure of the hair chemically and a physical force is used to reshape the hair either curling (perm) or straitening (relaxing). After a period of time a neutralizing agent is applied counteracts the original chemical and locks the hair into its new form. Hair may be permanently colored as well. Here the pigments in the hair are neutralized and permanent dyes are used to change the color of the hair. Conducting these chemical causes permanent damage to hair and the author repeatedly emphasizes the need to determine what treatments hair has already received before applying new treatments so that hair is not too heavily damaged. There are many pictures in the book captioned by a statement along the lines of “this extremely beautiful hair has never been touched by any chemical treatment.”

A shampoo and possibly a conditioner is used to clean and care for hair on a regular basis. It is important to know your hair type in order to pick the correct shampoo. A shampoo removes grease and dirt from hair while a conditioner prevents tangling and protects the cuticle. Dr. Gray says that hair is washed much more often now than it had been in the past because shampoos are not as harsh as they used to be. I infer that you do not need to wash your hair nearly as much as we do.

Let your hair hang naturally and not pile it on top of your head while washing. Piling the hair will causing tangling and other problems. Do not scrub the hair too vigorously either. Shampoo should be applied mainly to the scalp while conditioner needs to be spread evenly throughout the hair