HANGOVER CLASSIC

So for the last few days I was working on a client's Bar mitzvah. No expense was spared when it came to the great event. Despite how rude I may have appeared I still felt it was essential to find out if any of the food was organic. At this juncture I felt it was better to starve than to put crap back into my body.

On the first night the restaurant I went to with my client was offended that I would think that their food was not of the highest quality. On the second day I stepped out of the party to buy a stash of organic cheese and nuts that I scoped while riding in the car on my way to the Bar Mitzvah. As I reentered the party the server I initially asked if their food was organic said that the food they had for the kids was organic, but the adults was not. I thought that was a really odd statement. I decided instead of being all out rude about the situation that I would trust the server and risk eating the food. They had quail eggs with a truffle center, lamb skewers, all kinds of chocolates, endless alcohol......all so very tempting.

Before the end of the night I had a throbbing headache (only consumed water). When I got back to my client's apartment I pulled out the cheese and nuts hoping to settle my stomach.

The next morning when I awoke I felt as if a truck had run over me. I have never had a hangover, but if I did this would probably be the closest feeling to it!!!
That horrible feeling lasted two days!!!!

Moral of the story is I highly doubt that the food I ate at the event was organic. Someone had a field day with me. I NEVER thought I would feel so bad after eating food. I have an allergy to wheat so I know what a food allergy is like, but this one takes the cake!

The question is what was in that food?!!!!

ALL DONE

I'm officially off the cleanse and back in action. The Clean cleanse was not for me. Not only did I not lose weight, but I gained a couple of pounds. I don't know if it was because I couldn't eliminate my waste properly or if it was because it slowed down my metabolism in the end.
I do know that I'm just glad it's over and I can now get on with my full organic eating.
Even though my one meal a day was organic I just felt like my body wasn't getting nourished properly. My nails are the worst! They are splitting left and right! I have a lot of lashes missing as well.
The thing I missed most about my cleanse were my supplements. No matter how clean and pure we eat our soil is quickly becoming depleted of minerals which are vital to the body. Without minerals (which our bodies do not produce) our cells can't function properly. Our bodies are only going to grow more out of balance.
By the way my colleague on the cleanse did not fare well either. We both had elimination problems. We also drank a couple of gallons of water a day each. Guess we'll both mark this one off of the list!
I was never a big fan of cleanses anyway and after my organic detox experience in the beginning I already fell like I've been on a cleanse anyway!

STILL CLEAN

So I'm still plugging away on this cleanse. The first week was basically a breeze however not to get into too much detail I usually use the toilet more frequently and this cleanse seems to be doing the opposite in so many ways. Never thought I would have to break down and buy castor oil yech!

I'm also writing to say that I will be taking a break from posting on this blog (NOT FROM EATING ORGANIC). One of my companies, MS APOTHECARY will be debuting at The Makeup Show NYC. We want everything to be perfect and we're running out of time!

I'll be posting again as of May 18th with more interesting info.

In the meantime thanks for being such loyal followers.

xoxo Mary Schook

FO FARMS

It's all about FO Farms (not Faux Farms)! There's nothing fake about this farm.

Fair Oaks farms is a dairy farm that I discovered driving between Chicago and Louisville in February. The whole point of that drive was to see how many farms I could pass that carried organic. Sadly they were the only one.

At first I was wary because for miles they were advertising the farm with 3-d cow signs. It seemed a bit six flags over dairy to me. I drove up to the store located next to the farm and walked in to find an array of different cheeses. None of the signs said organic or even hormone free. When I asked the staff if the cows were hormone free they said yes. "And what about their feed?" I said. They said yes. Then I replied back to the cheese lady that there's no signs saying their cheese was free of antibiotics and hormones. She responded back saying that it was on their website.
After a quick stare down I decided to trust the cheese lady. She let me try some samples and I have to say they were divine.

I left the store with my cheddar curd, sweet swiss cheese, and colby in tow to bring back to my family in Kentucky. It was absolutely divine! The family loved it too. When I got back to NY I still couldn't find anything on the site that stated that the cows were hormone or Antibiotic free!

I decided that further investigation was required. Eventually I was put through to the CEO, Gary Corbett. He was quite lovely and forthright to speak to and full of great information. My first question to him was if you don't use antibiotics, feed your cows organic feed, and don't use hormones then why isn't your dairy organic? Gary said that the cows have to graze a certain amount of time in the pasture. For 30,000 cows to efficiently produce a sizeable amount of milk that's a difficult task.

He also said that when the cows are pregnant they are put through a dry period (that means the cows are not milked). Not all farmers do this by the way. When pregnant cows are milked they secrete hormones that we ingest and cause us problems. Milk and dairy with these hormones are suspected to be one factor in adult acne.

Gary went on to give me many other facts like all of the manure that the cows produce is recycled into gas which powers the entire plant and will soon fuel all of the dairy's delivery trucks. In addition they are working on getting wind towers to put on the land so they are also generating electricity to put back into the grid. They are basically creating a negative carbon footprint AND producing award winning cheese and other dairy to boot!

The price of the cheese was less than what I would pay at the grocery store for any 'ol cheese and tasted better than most of the cheeses I have ever tasted.

Fair Oaks Farms is open to the public to tour. You can even watch the cows give birth in a special birthing room. Gary brought up a good point. At one time we all somehow directly knew a farmer. Now we are detached from what happens to our food. We're about 8 generations away from knowing a farmer.

So in this case I am not particular about organic. Organic is just a label. Fair Oaks has a fine, quality product with full integrity and I'm proud to be one of the 400,000 people a year to come and visit.

Gotta get me some more of that cheese!!!