The Next Time...

I was having a great conversation with friends over at Gabrielle's vegan lunch about how often when the free-range vegan goes out to eat at a "normal"restaurant, their friends and family often say between mouthfuls of KFC,

"Man, I don't know how you do it! You're really missing out!"

While I really appreciate the sentiment and understand that this is an attempt to reach out from beyond the animal by-product veil, please know that I always eat beforehand and always have a few bars in my bag to nosh on if I get hungry, so I am actually fine.

That being said, I'd like to share this list... truly magnificent... Even though I can't actually eat any of this food anymore, I really appreciate the innovators who make them. To quote the philosopher Willy Wonka, you are the music makers, and you are the dreamers of dreams.

Presenting: The OMG 30,000 CALORIE BURGER and other delights!

And in honor of this totally mindblowing list, I'd like to share a recipe...

THE SINFUL SANDWICH

A Sandwich by Becky Paxton

4 slices of Bunny Bread

1/2 stick butter

1 beef stick

8 slices sharp cheddar cheese

No vegetables. Not even onions.

Butter your Bunny Bread on each side of the slice. That should be 8 sides, fully buttered. Make sure it's a thick coat so it doesn't stick to the pan. Slap the remaining butter in a cast-iron skillet and heat so that it forms a hot puddle. If it starts smoking, you've burned it, and you've got to chuck it. Burned butter gives you cancer. That's assuming you survive the sandwich.

Briefly pan-fry each slice of bread until they show the faintest glow of golden brown. The merest suggestion of deep-fried crust. I would pull aside the two slices that are the least "done" on one side and use that side as the respective top and bottom side of the sandwich to avoid burning.

Stack:

Bread

Cheese

Bread

Cheese

Beef

Cheese

Bread

Cheese

Bread

Pan-fry everything. If it isn't golden, oozing, or crisping, it needs to be fried again. Possibly separately.

I am proud to say that this sandwich is in my past. It doesn't even sound appetizing to me anymore when I think about it stripping my intestinal villi like coke from the hood of a car. It would be the dietary equivalent of seppuku.

Living Large

I've been doing a lot of macrobiotic reading lately, and I read a quote on Marisa Marinelli's blog that I loved and wanted to explore tonight...

Let's start with: What's Macro? I usually get a response from people "Macro like Big?"Yes! I'm talking Big, Great, Larger than Life. How about a GREAT-LIFE! How about we talk about Macrobiotics, in standard definition meaning "Living a Great Life."

I had the pleasure of meeting Marisa a few years ago at a macro event, and the energy and enthusiasm in her posts was definitely reflected in the person! :) I think that when you start healing, you have to start getting bigger than physical health. Food is the foundation of the macrobiotic lifestyle, but I've learned this year that diet is the minor leagues, and healing is the game. I realized that healing my life and healing my health were related. May I present...

Three Ways to Live MACRO!! That Have Nothing To Do With Cooking

1. Practice acts of charity.

I always thought that by practicing charity and helping others, God would be somehow "coaxed" closer to me. It was as though serving the disadvantaged and giving financially were somehow currency by which I could purchase healing and closeness from God.

I had it backwards. Christ doesn't come to know you when you do good works... You don't somehow begin to beep louder on the Righteousness Radar when you pony up and serve a few meals at the soup kitchen. You come to know Christ through your good works. Good works are the only way to make out the sort of person who Christ is. In the same way that you can share closeness and understanding by learning things your friends like to do, you can share closeness to God when you show interest in his interests. And Christ's interest is service and charity.

I think charity can take lots of forms... I understand that many of you are sick and weak and bogged down by medical bills. I'd just like to share a quick experience I had recently.

I took my formerly bloated Starbucks budget and donated a (probably embarrassingly small) percentage of it to a non-profit I didn't know much about. As I began to follow the good works of this organization, I felt an incredible sense of peace and happiness knowing that I was doing something to help them. That's organic free-range chicken soup for the soul.

2. Be Good: Nobody's Watching

This is about all the dumb little things that nobody sees that make you a person of integrity. I confess... I've rung up French Horn mushrooms as Shiitake mushrooms about 100 times. I've done it before. I'll probably do it again. I do it because they're expensive, tasty, the machine doesn't know any better, and because the CEO of Whole Foods probably sleeps on a mattress made of money. Don't lie... you do it too. Don't tell me there hasn't been that one time you rang up that organic lemon as conventional because it would knock $3 off your total purchase.

Today, I rang my lemons up full price. Nobody was watching. I did it because I would know I rang it up as conventional. So here's my logic. Guilt = Weight. Weight = Mass. Mass = Bloating. Bloating = Looking like a Whale in my Bikini. I feel fitter already.

3. Speak your truth

This is a phrase I had never heard before entering the healing community, where I hear it all the time. A lot of life-long macrobiotic (or even, as I'm reading in a Seventh Day Adventist guide to healing, faith-based healing) practitioners say that the root of illness is often based in our inability to speak our own truths. It's something between "Don't lie" with "Don't conceal your truth or identity."

I'm going to be real-- this isn't exactly second nature to me. I come from a long line of pro-fibbers and skillful exaggerators. It's looking like my baby's going to come out of the womb telling me some whopper about how they received adequate TV reception through the uterine wall and are disappointed in the creative direction in which this season of Desperate Housewives is heading.

Best of luck to you in your truthfulness!

Eating My Feelings. Because I Just Have So Many

Good, Bad, and Ugly "Cry It Out" Eating

There's a common macrobiotic saying... "Feelings buried alive never die." In my own life, it's looked a little bit like this...

When I'm stressed, I turn to crappy, "get-up-and-go" foods like coffee, sugar, ramen noodles, nachos, and pizza. It's human nature to turn to quick and easy sources of energy high in fat, sugar, and calories when we're under stress. From an evolutionary perspective, it helps you get away from the unholy prehistoric beastie trying to pick its teeth with your femur. The grease from that pizza would probably sustain you through those irksome month-long yak rides through the tundra.

Unfortunately, our brains and bodies are unable to truly distinguish the difference between doctoral thesis all-nighters and dawn-of-time Iberian migrations. Junk food companies (Dominos comes to mind... I've thrown it up for the last time!!) have got their fingers on the pulse of these cravings, and in addition to providing us with sugar-laden, fatty, carb-filled snacks, have loaded them with preservatives so that their ingredients stay fresh from their beginnings at manufacturing centers until end times.

So there are two main problems here:

1. We're not crossing the Iberian Peninsula. Even though our bodies read stress as a need for calories, most of us are never going to use that excess energy (except to feed our anxiety more!), so the fats and sugars are a waste. The kind of stress that comes from danger and the kind of stress that comes from responsibilities are different requests. They shouldn't get the same answer.

2. Even if we were crossing the Iberian Peninsula, how exactly does BHT protect me from the hostile predators? It doesn't. Basically, while the excess fats and sugars from these foods are putting their own crimp in your macrobiotic balance, your body often has the additional pleasure of attempting to break down chemical preservatives. I read a statistic recently in the paper that says that the average human body takes three times longer to decompose now than it did in the 1960's due to all the chemical preservatives ingested during life. We're embalming ourselves... that's something that the big packaged food companies probably don't want you to think about while you're eating those cute little cookies shaped like bears.

So what do I do when I'm stressed and reach for the tea and cookies?

Don't ask me. I'll let you know as soon as I do. Right now I'm investigating a shock collar or one of those little anklets like Lindsay Lohan has...

Sorry For My Absence

Gentle Readers,

Sorry I've been absent this week. On Wednesday I accidentally ingested gluten, so this week has been kind of crazy. I'm trying to calm my system down, but it is slow going and definitely requiring LOTS of work and concentration to do this without medicine.

Things that have saved my health, comfort, and sanity this week:

-Umeboshi Plums. No, actually. I'm so serious. I woke up at 5 AM Thursday morning so nauseated and in so much pain I didn't think I could handle it, but the plums calmed my stomach faster than any anti-emetic ever has.

-TLC. This channel is no-frills entertainment.

-Kuzu. My intestines have been painful and inflamed, and I've been soothing them with kuzu.

-In Harmony. I just discovered this healing center out in Leiper's Fork Tennessee, and it has been truly a blessing.

-God's love! The Lord is providing for you, even when things are painful and uncertain. I know that God is showing me the love and mercy of a father to his daughter and opening doors right now... I am living in that truth and know that what was intended for evil, God intends for good. Things are painful right now, but knowing that the worse things seem, the bigger God's plan makes me so thankful.

God has worked more healing this year through my struggle with celiac disease than I could have ever imagined. It's funny... two years ago I was so alone and mentally broken that I couldn't see how there was ever a way out. And I'll be real... this illness has been the biggest storm I've ever faced in my life, but through finding macrobiotics, my mind and spirit have found a calm and centeredness that I've never had in my life.

That being said, I ask you guys to please send your thoughts to healing if it's not too much trouble. I'm really struggling with pain and inflammation this week, and I really need the strength to steer away from sweet and inflammatory foods to healing foods. Thanks,

b

Day 2: Doing Things I Like To Do

Today was Day 2 of my Macro Cleanse. I would say that today I ate a little bit more widely than I would ordinarily eat as far as sugar and spices go, so I've decided to extend my simplification exercise for two more days.

I decided to focus on doing things that are emotionally centering today, because emotional and mental stress wear on the body just as much as physical stress. I could tell today that my whole system had undergone a lot of stress because heat and pain were coming off the usual suspects for me... under my arms, the sides of my feet, and the small of my back. A lot of this has alleviated as I write this, so I'm dead chuffed.

Today I began with a large, centering bowl of my morning miso, as well as a little bit of Erewhon Gluten-Free Brown Rice Cereal, cause let me tell y'all, just miso doesn't cut it for me. I snacked heartily on nut bars (guilty on three charges), and then ate some amazing food from a cooking class.

The cooking class was great for several reasons. Nuts and bolts first:

1. SEA VEGETABLES- It was a great wake-up call that I've been slacking on some of the most delicious, nutrient-packed, and most of all easy-to-cook foods out there! I am a firm believer that seaweed makes you beautiful, so you should eat it with deep appreciation! We tried a new kind of seaweed that I was pretty unfamiliar with, dulse. Dulse is a red seaweed from the United States (Maine) with a salty, robust flavor.

2. COMMUNITY- I don't know about a lot of y'all, but sometimes healing can be really isolating. I find myself unable to go out late, to drink and party like I used to, and in general, I feel many of the limitations of being in a healing "zone." It sounds super cliche, but I believe that food is only one leg of the healing table, and that going to fun, health-supportive events in a great environment can strengthen the healing process. I'll write more about that experience soon.

I've done my face steam, and am now having my pores sucked at by the green clay mask. Sorry this post was so straight-forward. I'm wiped out and am going to recover tomorrow. And I secretly wish that somebody else would do the cooking.

And Forgive Me the Chocolate, For I Am Weak and Bend Easily Under Pressure

Olive and Sinclair vegan, gluten-free chocolate bars have been STALKING me. They are sold where I work. They are sold where I buy groceries. They are sold where I find books. They are sold at the mall, where I go to pretend to spend money and really just look and treat the whole place like a museum. They are sold at the little coffee shop where I go to write about my dietary transcendence.

I swear, I tried to be good. Apparently I suck at trying, because I ate three in 48 hours and ended up with a crazy ear infection that made my jaw swell up.

I am an emotional eater. I got stressed, I PMSed, and I turned to the chocolate because I deserve nice things. I deserved that ear infection. Food is currency, and in this case I got what I paid for.

So here I am, trying to root out this ear infection by going on a 72-hour healing cleanse. I did this when I had a really severe sinus infection and it was a phenomenal help. I cleared the infection without turning once to antibiotics, even in the height of allergy season here in the Crud Bowl. So here's what my 72-hour alkalinizing cleanse will look like:

DAY 1:

Daily Personal Goal: DO NOT EAT CRAP

Breakfast: Miso soup with onions, carrots, bok choi, sea vegetables, and fresh daikon from the garden

Snack: Not crap. 11 AM is my morning crap fix. This is the time when I usually eat a half... okay-lie, a whole cup of tofu chocolate pudding, possibly with a friend or two in the form of KIND nut bars. While this sounds fairly harmless, it is a 100% sugar fix and not good if your body is showing signs of being too acidic.

Lunch: Quinoa with beans and chickpeas, and fresh steamed greens from my garden.

Dinner: Sprouted Tofu Burger with tofu cheese and stone ground mustard. Steamed watercress. Some sort of whole grain.

Cleansing Rituals:

AM and PM body scrubs, and a steam if I can snag one.

No makeup or hair spray for the next 72 hours. Eeek.

Macro Rewards that Won't Sink Your Battleship As You Cleanse:

Exfoliating facial:

Steam with lavender and calendula blossoms in hot water to open pores. If you want, add a drop or two of geranium oil to the steam bath. It calms redness that can appear during facials. These blossoms can be obtained for literally $1 at Whole Foods Market. Try not to burn your face. It's unsightly.

Do a green clay mask or some other sort of exfoliation product. Origins claims that their "Modern Friction" scrub is comparable to microdermabrasion. That's a load. Nothing found in a jar is the equivalent of tiny flecks of diamond sanding the top layer of skin off your face, rendering you unable to tolerate the raw glare of the sun for three days. And sure as shooting nothing that can be sold for $16 in a jar. Take it from me. Modern Friction is fine. $800 of microdermabrasion under the hands of an angry Soviet is better.

Moisturize as the redness and swelling in your face subsides. I like to use avocado oil. Usually while I do this, I'll do an olive oil mask in my hair, because really, once you have that kind of oil on your face, you're pretty much going to look like you brushed your hair with a pork chop... don't fight it.

So that's my favorite macro treat when I am making a concerted effort not to eat my pain. peace!!

becky

NETI: My Own Himalaya

Conquered. You can't even measure my progress in base camps, cause I climbed that business all the way to the TOP.

I finally got the hang of the Neti Pot. I really like it. It's done wonders to help my ear infection, and I find that my sense of smell, which had been dulled a bit during my last sinus infection, has been steadily improving.

My Next Dessert Endeavor...

As soon as this infection clears, allow me to share with you all my next dessert effort, courtesy of Martha Stewart Weddings...

Chocolate Cups with Cream and Berries!

*link*

My plan is to use a dark chocolate (locally made in TN) to pipe these shells, and create a vegan cream for the inside, with fresh berries on top. Alternatively, I'm thinking about making three different kinds and throwing a garden tea party when I'm done... They'll be:

-Dark chocolate shells with mint chocolate chip creme

-Espresso chocolate shells with coffee creme

-Milk chocolate shells with peanut butter mousse filling

SO GOOD!

Strained Relations with the Neti Pot

This is a Neti Pot:

A neti pot is an Ayurvedic (I don't know what that is) way of clearing the sinus passages to reduce the frequency and severity of sinus problems.

I bought myself a neti pot because it was recommended to me by a friend who hasn't had healthy sinuses since the Reagan administration.

I went to the local Whole Foods where it wasn't too expensive despite being a pretty attractive piece of pottery. The pot told me to get special "Neti Salt," but since that was $20, I told the pot to stop being so elitist. I went home and filled it up with warm water, and on a commercial break from TLC's "Toddlers and Tiaras," I headed to the bathroom to give it a go.

It was traumatizing. It was like being on the beach when you fall and the salt water fills your nose and mouth and then you get hit in the face by a Boogie Board. I tried to keep going, to keep drowning myself with iodized table salt and backwashed flood water, but it was overwhelming. Additionally, by this point, I had already missed the Glitz portion of the Miss Southern Junior Maison de Paris Pageant on "Toddlers and Tiaras." I wasn't willing to sacrifice Photogenic or Talent for the sake of mucociliary clearance, so I decided to wait for another commercial break.

Then it started working. Which was equally devastating. Water starts flowing freely out... the other nostril at an alarming rate. I was too afraid to stop. Stopping hurt. Stopping led to drowning. So I just let the water keep flowing, and in two minutes, I had cleared the pot.

All in all, it was like being water-boarded.

Food and Love

I'll post about my birthday tomorrow because it was so awesome that I'm still reveling in its awesomeness tonight.

I will say this, though:

I always feel a bit toolish reflecting on any year that occurs when I'm younger than fifty (well, thirty-four if you're counting in Eat Pray Love years), but today I lived in the truth of one of the natural healing tenets.

I received as gifts two incredibly thoughtfully prepared dishes. In addition to being almost criminally delicious, the people who gave them to me went to great lengths to make sure that they were things that my body would tolerate.

Ginny Harper, a gifted macrobiotic healer and a great mentor to me, relayed in her book a story about how her grandmother wanted to cook a meal for her, but she was afraid that the meal might not be well tolerated by her healing body. Her mentor told her that if the meal was prepared with the love and good intentions of her grandmother, that her body and spirit would thrive eating the food.

As potentially cheesy as it sounds, I ate these dishes and was filled with such a feeling of love and thankfulness that I felt amazing after eating them. I can't even say how much it means to me to have a life filled with such kind, thoughtful, and generous people. I feel like food can heal the body, and good friends and family can heal the spirit.

peace --b

Genuine Article Kinpira

I've read several different macro recipes for kinpira, which when served according to these recipes is incredibly healthy and strengthening. I studied abroad in Japan in my younger years and was disappointed upon eating these recipes to find that the dish tasted very little like the dish I regularly enjoyed in Japan.

I thought that surely there must be a way to make the Japanese preparation (pretty darn unhealthy) a lot more macro, and that there must be a way to make the macro dish a little more snackrobiotic.

Below, the happy union:

KARMA NEUTRAL KINPIRA

2 burdock roots, peeled and matchsticked, then soaked for 1/2 an hour.

2 large organic carrots, peeled and matchsticked

3 tbsp. GF tamari

3 tbsp. brown rice syrup, plus more to taste

4-5 tbsp. mirin rice wine

2 tsp. sesame seeds

2-4 tbsp. olive oil

I like to do the burdock peeling and 'sticking and soaking an hour or two before I do the rest of the dish. I also make my bed every day and have a killer manicure, so that tells you a little bit about me.

Make the sauce. The trick is to get the right balance of salty and sweet, with just HINTS of the mirin. If it tastes too strong in any direction, play with it a little. Also, make sure the brown rice syrup is fully mixed with the tamari. It tends to sink, making taste-testing inaccurate.

I do the carrots while the burdock is soaking, and like to lay a damp paper towel over them so they don't dry out while I'm cooking the burdock. You can't cook burdock long enough. I've had the greatest success when I've cooked it in a deep sauce pan for about 20 minutes. If you're concerned about chewiness, you can water-saute the burdock for 10-15 minutes and THEN pan fry it for about 10 minutes. That will be super soft. After you pan-fry the burdock, as you get towards the last 5 minutes, add the carrots and stir fry.

Pour the sauce on top and cook for an extra 5-7 minutes. Sprinkle the sesame seeds and enjoy!

The $4 Macro Lunch

Get thee to a Whole Foods.

Grasp the Recycled Corn Chalice with thy left Hand and I tell thee Beware! the Dearth of Lids. Lidf. Lids. For I Testifie that ftuff fpills Every Where.

Look below the Fneeze Guarde (photographf forthcominge) and Behold the Quinoa.

With thy right Hand raised on High and the Fpoon clutched Firmly in thy Palm, Take Generously of the Quinoa.

Mix not with Bulgar Wheat or Couf Couf, for these Grains will make thee Vomit until thou pleadst for Death's cool Sickle. Which Hopefullie though it Be a Sickle haf not been Used upon Wheat laytely.

I know knot which Bean thou then choosest, but I know them to be Low in Price and Grown in Mexico. My fpoon dips Often and with Gusto in the black beanf and chickpeaf. For I am Sicke to my Hart of sushi. Fufhi.

At last, let the Dressing Rain like Gentle Tears of Olive Oyle and Vineygar unto thy Salad and get thee to a cashier Right Quick.

And if it Rings for more than $4.00 Then He is a Knave and the Fcale is Furely Broken.

Eat Well and Don't Break the Bank!

The hardest part of a macrobiotic, vegan, and gluten-free diet is that all three diets are MUCH easier if you've got disposable income to work with. Ironically, foods that take the least processing often cost more than foods that have been doused in chemicals, injected with synthetic dyes and preservatives, smashed, boiled, pasteurized, and treated beyond recognition. If you want to know why, I recommend the film Food, Inc.

That being said, it can be EXTREMELY difficult to do the diet on a limited budget. I do believe that Community Supported Agriculture memberships, Chinese/Asian grocery stores, and farmers markets make things a lot more affordable, but there are several "splurge" items that can eat up quite a bit of your food budget. That being said, let me tell you from personal experience that health is most definitely a pay now or pay later thing. And often by the time "later" rolls around, what you've lost is priceless.

Things that I no longer pay for:

Advil, Aspirin, and Tylenol for menstrual cramps- Between $4 and $8 per month

Alka-Seltzer, Tums, antacids and antiemmetics- $20 a month

Steroids for recurring sinus infections- $45 a month

Prescription drugs- Between $30 and $150 a month

Doctor's appointments to treat celiac/sinus infections/various random issues- $65-$200 a month

Medical bills accumulated in 2009- $3200

TOTAL 2010 SAVINGS: $3320, and that's using the low estimates. If you divide that over 12 months, that's an extra $276 per month I could have spent on groceries. I then subtract the amount I spent getting macrobiotic healing (intensive) for a month, and it still comes to about an extra $126 per month.

So here's my list of...

WORTHWHILE MACRO COOKING SPLURGES AND THEIR APPROXIMATE COST:

Food Staples and Condiments

Umeboshi Plum Paste (Mitoku) - Approx $7

Cold Pressed Flax Seed Oil - $9

Tamari Wheat-Free Soy Sauce - $6

Powdered Kuzu Root - $7

Twig Tea - $4

Umeboshi Plum Vinegar - $3

Brown Rice Vinegar - $2

Sesame Oil - $4

Brown Rice Syrup - $7

Equipment

Pressure Cooker - Between $40 and $100

Bamboo Steamer - About $5

Quality Chopping Knife - Around $50-300. But there's probably a deal to be had if it's ever been seized by law enforcement authorities.

Good VEGAN cutting board - $20-25 ***CROSS-CONTAMINATION NOTE: Match your cutting board with a knife. I tag mine with bright electrical tape to match sets. Make sure the veggie knife and veggie cutting board are ONLY used for vegetables and grains. If you are gluten-free, establish a GF set. I have a special cutting board I only use for fish, and a special fish knife. This helps prevent illness.

New "Medicines" I Take

Oona 2- About $5/month Amazing for menstrual cramping, bloating, and acne. The pau d'arco/ "cramp bark" is amazing to address a host of female issues from pain to over-bleeding to candida overgrowth (yeast). When I imagine what this plant must look like in the forest, I imagine a vagina tree.

Some Stuff My Acupuncturist Gives Me- $10/month It's mostly magnolia extract, which has worked famously on curing up my sinus weaknesses. I would put the name down, but it's in Chinese, which I've never quite been able to get the swing of.

Umeboshi Plums- $15 a month I take a plum every couple nights or so if I've eaten "widely" that day and want to recenter my digestive tract. I soak the plum in hot water for about fifteen minutes and find it quite calming before bed.

Conclusion: I would say that $30 a month is definitely cheaper than $300 a month.

Win.

Summer Greens and Skin Problems

I plan to start cooking with some of the wonderful summer greens that have popped up in our gardens. We're growing collard greens right now, which should be good because I have epic acne from all the chocolate I've consumed this week.

Your skin is the canary in the mine as far as internal balance goes. If you have a blemish and are able to cure it through eating, it's a good sign that things are progressing internally.

To get this beautiful skin, I really push the dark leafy greens. A lot of people put dressings (pumpkin seed, umeboshi) on their greens which is fine and macro, but I like to live dangerously. Also, too much flax seed oil makes me weird.

I got this and many other techniques from Martha Stewart Living and adapted it to fit macrobiotic cooking. This is a wonderful way to put a subtle but lively twist on your summer greens, and the presentation is beautiful! I can't find a picture at the moment, but I saved this technique in "The Bible," which I'll tell yall about later.

SUMMER GREEN STEAMER

1 lemon, sliced into 1/4 inch rounds

5-8 basil leaves which are GARDEN FRESH in the summer!

1 bundle dandelion greens

1 bundle hydroponic watercress (probably not garden fresh, which is good in my opinion. People with hydroponic grow operations are super shady.)

Place water in a deep frying pan and add lemon slices and bamboo leaves to the floating water. Place bamboo steamer in the water, and on the bottom shelf add your dandelion greens. Place the watercress on the top shelf. As the water heats, the essence of the basil and lemon will infuse your greens with a wonderful, light summer flavor with a technique that is perfectly macro, and best of all, the whole process takes less than ten minutes from the first slice of the lemon to the first bite of the greens!

Rehabilitating: I Was a Southern Teenager

Being a Southern teenager, my diet pretty much consisted of BBQ, fast food, Cracker Barrel, and cold pizza for breakfast. As a result, my face basically looked like my breakfast, and now I have a lot of scarring from acne.

My skin and hair have become much softer since I introduced more wakame and kombu into my daily diet. Some studies have shown that eating lots of these delicious sea vegetables results in an increase in collagen elasticity later in life... I noticed when living in Japan that pretty much all the women aged PHENOMENALLY. My host mother was 50 going on 25. I really do believe that this is because they eat a much greater amount of sea vegetables. Look younger, and don't let people stick needles in your face!

Another thing I love is French Green Cosmetic Clay. This stuff is amazingly powerful. It is crazy cheap (I get mine from Mountain Rose Herbs), free from a lot of the run-of-the-mill cosmetic chemicals, and will literally suck the toxins out of your face whether you want it to or not. Not a joke, it feels like an octopus is on your face, sucking in time with your pulse.

Tip: Don't use this stuff right before leaving the house. Give yourself a few hours to gussy up and recover, because your face will look like an infectious rash for about two hours following. I made the horrible mistake of doing this mask 30 minutes before my freshman homecoming in high school. Bad scene. Pictures to follow.