Photo by flash.proI stumbled across a blog post today on Free The Animal (courtesy of BoingBoing) that left me feeling sort of dirty ...
This blog is written by Richard Nikoley and he is what is known as a Paleo ... someone who practices the Paleo diet ...
Still confused? I certainly was! From the five minutes of research I've done the Paleo diet is, essentially, a diet in which you eat the way the hunters and gathers in the Paleolithic era did. There's a certain amount of sense in this theory ... that our bodies are genetically capable of handling certain types of food ... lean meats, seafood, fruits, veggies, nuts ... and eating those are what will keep us lean, mean hunting machines ... and it's the creation of all the crappy pre-packaged, preserved, freeze dried, and deep fried foods that are causing most of our health and weight issues ... This concept is not a new one by any stretch ... this seems to be the essence of many diets out there.
But, I digress. What caught my attention today was a blog post in which Mr. Nikoley describes what it has been like to bathe with water only for the past 6 months ... WATER ONLY ... no soap, no shampoo, no conditioner ... just water ... here's a bit of what he had to say about it:
- Took about two weeks to normalize. That is, I felt my hair was greasy and skin oily up to then.
- Even when I feel greasy/oily in the shower with just water, once everything dries out, it's always all the same -- fine; soft & dry.
- My skin & hair have never been softer. Never.
- If anything, my hair is less "greasy" than ever, yet shampoo hasn't touched it in over six months.
Once you get past the EWWWW factor it's sort of easy to see how this could work. We hear a lot about how the body has natural oils and chemicals that keeps us in balance ... and like with our diets, we've introduced a lot of new things to our systems that have a tendency to hurt us more than they help us.
Almost everyone I know knows someone who's addicted to chap stick ... they are obsessive about reapplying the lip moistening goodness at regular intervals ... but what they may not realize (or perhaps realized after it was too late) is that prolonged use of chap stick will keep your body from making it's own lip moisture ... it's a vicious cycle ... using chap stick begets using more chap stick ad infinitum.
And how often have we heard that overuse of anti-bacterial soap is not really keeping us more healthy and bacteria free ... it's just created super strong bacteria that no longer respond to contemporary antibiotics?
I have to admit that I have drastically cut down the amount of hand washing I do ... now I only wash my hands if they are visibly dirty or if I'm about to cook and I think it's made a difference. I usually get a cold at the change of every season and I have been cold free in 2009 thus far and seeing as how 2009 is about to end I think it's pretty safe to say that I haven't had a cold all year. However if you don't want to shake my hand anymore, I understand.
As much as I think that twinkies and McDonalds are things that our bodies were never meant to process and that my lack of hand washing has kept me illness free this past year ... I can honestly say I'm not quite ready to jump on the "no soap" bandwagon just yet. And even though Mr. Nikoley asserts that he is odor free I will admire his dedication and commitment ... from afar.
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aking a test post to try this drop cap idea. Hope it works as well as I think it will.]]>