Great Comments on the Thyroid Posts

Sorry, I KNOW thyroid affects women disproportionately to men but I couldn't resist this "back view" of the thyroid.

Some really enormously helpful comments on the thyroid post, 'Roid Rage, so while I'm trying to figure out how to file my posts in some kind of a system (Blogger doesn't have a category system, and I barely can turn on the computer--hackers, help!!), anyone having trouble losing weight, cold hands and feet, already on thyroid meds that suck, click here.

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Synthyroid

Treehugger's FAVOURITE GREEN of the week

Hey Fertility Buds!

We were picked as one of Treehugger's Favourite (oooh, love that European-ness) Greens of the week along with our friends at Eco-Chick. I'm so honored!!! If you don't know about Treehugger.com, you should. Check out the rest of the Greens here. What a weird coinky-dink, a bunch of us are going to see An Inconvenient Truth tonight.

Cottonfield Organic Underwear

The urgency behind wearing organic undies has even hit Ladies Home Journal. I just read one of their innumerable tips in the current issue that urged readers to wear organic undies to (in their inimitable LHJ way) protect "sensitive areas."

Cotton is one of the most pesticide-y crops (chemical insecticide used on cotton crops account for 25% of global consumption--ick), which is why you should try to avoid all the foods (mostly snack foods and bad salad dressing) that use cottonseed oil. This oil is cheap because it's extracted as a byproduct from cotton, which is technically not a food, so they can spray it will all the really bad non-food-grade pesticides. When people jibe me for spending so much of my limited writer's income of organic products, I like to retort, "Well, think of how much $ I'll save in chemotherapy." It really is a matter of You get what you pay for. Health--of selves, and respecting and conserving the earth--is priceless!

Pictured are organic, non-toxic-dyed cotton undies from Cottonfield USA. Here's a quote from their website: Likewise, many followers of holistic lifestyles, such as Macrobiotics, also believe that organic cotton is beneficial for healing when a person is in a weakened physical condition [These guys have non-latex elastic for you allergic types].

I like them because the covered elastic seams are extra-comfy, nice line esp. for low-rider jeans, kudos to Yeumei Shon for designing such a great looking and wearing product. I can already tell from one washing these will last a loooong time, which actually makes them a smarter buy than the 99-cent undies I used to buy that fell apart in a few washes. There are many other styles to choose from, and don't forget the MAN FERTILITY. If you need any more reason to look organic, follow this link to an article on genetically modified Frankencotton and all the weird things it does to a person.

Extra points: these guys are local to the Boston area, and maintain a blog about Bostony goings-on.

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Ask Da Fertilityb*tch!

I keep getting some cool questions: will the gluten-free diet make my skin look great? that I would love to answer, as much as is in my power. I'm not a medical professional, but think of me more as the neighbor blabbing away over the cyber-fence. Please send mail Subj: DEAR FERTILITYB*TCH to greenfertility@gmail.com.

And...congrats to all the preggers peeps who participate in the blog!!

Raw Convenience Food: GOOD STUFF = yum!

Raw food, as you can see, takes a bit of advance planning. Seeds and nuts need to be soaked/sprouted beforehand to rev up the amino acids.

There is an awesome company, GOOD STUFF BY MOM & ME, that makes ready-to-eat raw snacks that are made from organic, germinated, raw ingredients and they taste great (and are GLUTEN-free, yippee).

This Pecan Pie bar (pictured) is something I'd loooove to indulge in any time. Many, many bonus karma points that it's just organic pecans, almonds, dates, flax, lemon Celtic sea salt, natural extracts. Great granola and their Lemon Walnut Crunch is good enough for company. The mom and daughter also look to be extremely healthy and vital...no false advertising there.

For stores near you: http://www.gimmegoodstuff.com/FindUs/findUs.htm

Wikipedia has a pretty good entry on sprouting whys, wherefores, and basicsSprouting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Cashewwwwww Cheese--Gesundheit!!!

Of course I am thinking I am sooo clever because Gesundheit means "health" in German. Ja!

Sorry, the picture didn't turn out so great but the cheese DID. I scraped off some of the top so you can see what it should look like if you don't use seaweed. This stuff is milk-free and raw and full of beneficial bacteria, a.k.a. probiotics, mostly lactobacillus, same stuff that makes yogurt good for you. It tastes pleasantly sour and a bit buttery.

Recipe for Cashew Cheese

(this is done the Korean way, with approximations, because you never know how much stuff you're going to have)

2-3 cups raw organic cashews (size of small tub from Whole Foods, etc.
sea salt OR kelp or dulse flakes (dulse gives it a nice red color, above)
1/4-1/2 cup Rejuvelac (see below)

Soak the cashews overnight or 24 hours, drain.
Combine with sea salt to taste and/or seaweed in a high speed blender, food processor, or Vitamix. Add Rejuvelac and set blender on high and go to town.

If you prefer a firmer cheese, you can drain water out of it by putting it in a colander lined with a muslin cheesecloth. I don't think it's worth the trouble. I just pack it into a nice glass or ceramic container, cover it with something permeable (e.g., pantyhose, papertowel) and let it ferment for about 24 hours. It should NOT grow fuzzy mold, as the probiotics in the Rejuvelac should colonize the cheese, but if it does sometimes mold can fly in through the air, that's why you keep it covered), just scrape it off--maybe it's penicillin. The mold is NOT harmful and will not poison you.

Then refridge and eat. I like to stick salty-salty olive bits on it for even more taste. Enjoy!!!!! It's great on sunflower burgers, if you miss the cheese.

How to Make Rejuvelac:

most recipes use sprouted wheatberries or rye, all of which have gluten. I used quinoa, which is not only faster sprouting, it is a "super" food that has all the essential amino acids.

Soak about 1/4 cu (or less) quinoa in a clean jar covered with NON-chlorine water (e.g., filtered, spring) about 12-24 hours, or overnight. You should see the beginning of white, sprouty looking things in the morning.

Drain into a seed sprouter, or just put some pantyhose (clean, please!) over the glass and drain out the water. Rinse these guys at least 3 times a day with the same non-chlorine water.

When the sprouts get to be about 1/4"--this can happen in 24 hours if it's hot out, stuck them back in a clean glass cover with plenty of water and let sit out 24 hours or longer. When it gets cloudy and tastes sour (use clean spoon to swig, don't introduce your bacteria into this!), it's done. If it smells rotten (this has never happened, but I heard is can) throw it out and start over. This is your gluten-free Rejuvelac, strain the sprouts out, use it, drink the rest as a refreshing probiotic punch.

As a vegetarian, I used to get all my bone-building calcium (so I thought) from cheese. Here's an article from BBC about a study that followed a group of committed Raw Foodies and found them to be slim and healthy with great bones. Even the guy from the National Osteoporosis Society (which I'm sure always wants more members) had to admit the Raw Foodies showed NO signs of osteoporosis PLUS they had way MORE vitamin D than average, which is additionally interesting because most people are already low on Vit D, which is why they stick it in milk in the first place. Obviously, something they are doing is nurturing their Vitamin D uptake, and milk might not be the best vehicle. (n.b. The FertilityBitch has been telling people to lay off on the sunscreen and get naturally from sunlight).

raw food, organic, gluten, dairy, food and drink

Me, my yam, our 1000-year-old stove

Look! I found a yam. Next to the yuca (sic), something called a batato, and a display of generic salt in a grocery store in the "ethnic" part of town, i.e., far far away (for RI) from Brown.

I tossed 'em with a little olive oil and curry and lime juice and then found out our 1000-year-old oven had died (a smaller, very environmental auxiliary oven died a few months ago--maybe it's like those elderly couples when one goes...). The broiler still worked, so they came out a little, uh broiled, probably with more high-heat free radicals than I liked. But with some organic hot sauce, they were pretty tasty. Starchier than sweet potatoes, they'd make great fries I bet. We're actually officially trying to conceive (ttc, if you like acronyms), so I'll definitely let you know 1. if I get pregnant 2. if they are twins.

Yams and Fertility

I was at the Brown library the other day and stopped by a display of these fertility totems and was interested to read that the Yoruba of Africa have some of the highest fertility rates, including that of having twins.

Fern Reiss' Infertility Diet also recommends eating yams, that they are sort of nature's Clomid and help trigger the release of the egg (or eggs). They are particular recommended if you have a short luteal phase. Anyway, they taste good, so why wait until Thanksgiving?

Please note that "garnet yams" and "Jewel" yams, like you'll see at Whole Foods are NOT real yams, they are sweet potatoes. True yams look like a hairy log of firewood and are all gucky and mucilagenous when you slice them. You can often find them in Carribean markets. Here's more on an About.com recipe site.

WARNING: true yams are poisonous if you eat them raw.

Okay...okay...about the CASHEW CHEESE, it's almost done. Probably will post tomorrow. It turned out pretty tasty using the thyroid-enhancing seaweed seasoning.

Raw Foods: Enzyme power!

Raw food conjures up gnawing on some huge daikon you just pulled up from the ground. But actually, it's part of a new movement, that even the very non-hippie-ish Charlie Trotter uber-chef, subscribes to. It's a little odd to hear a celebrity chef go on and on about how raw food is better for you, but he does say this, and Raw Foodies believe that cooking kill's the food's vital enzymes. Some people swear they have tons more energy if they follow a raw-only diet (this can include meat). If you don't want to do that, at least some raw in your life would probably be good for you.

Here are some raw foods you might already eat:

o pesto
o guacamole
o kimchi

See? Not so bad!

When I was in Minneapolis, I ate at Ecopolitan, a restaurant that ONLY does raw food, so they try to be creative about it. I'm not sure how I feel about one thing trying to pretend it's another (e.g., raw food Pad Thai), but they had this cashew "cheese" was actually pretty rich and spreadable and yummy (okay, can't compare to a drippy brie or a slice of pizza...but...)

So I cruised for some recipes, but they all use this stuff called Rejuvelac for the fermenting; it's made of WHEATberries, so of course it has gluten read here why giving up gluten/wheat may be an easy way to clear up your thyroid and/or digestive problems). I've done a little experimentation and come up with a nice cashew cheese that isn't too hard to make. I have pictures, too. Stay tuned.

Stem Cell Hypocrisy-- Tell Frist to Cut it Out!

The FertilityBitch is back!

I'm so sick of this fake piety by Bill Frist, the guy who used to kidnap cats in his neighborhood and practice surgery on them while the were still alive. He's clearly a sick man.

Now because he wants to be Prez, he's prostrating himself before the religious right with this mealy mouthed opposition to stem cell research. I say, we'll save many more "lives" by cutting off all in-vitro fertility procedures because in basically the same process, they result in gazillions of fertilized embryos that GET DISCARDED instead of harvesting potentially lifesaving stem cells from them. But no one wants to mess with the fertility options for all these parents-to-be (many religious, rich Republicans) including a number of rabidly pro-lifers I personally know who were okay about discarding what, in front of Planned Parenthood they'd be calling "sacred life" thereby bending their own moral principles into a temporary pretzel so they can have their bay-beeeeee, but not 5 of them at once.

Plus, fun fact! The MMR vaccine (the rubella portion, at least) is a "live" virus that comes from (I'm quoting from my physician father's copy of the Physician's Desk Reference, here) "live attenuated rubella virus propagated in WI-38 human diploid lung fibroblasts." Where did they get these living cells? From a 3-month-gestation fetus,. Rubella, Hep A, chickenpox, and rabies (eeek!) are all made from human diploid cells, which have to come from intentional abortions, not miscarriages, because miscarriages may stem from infections, have chromosomal damage, etc. Every so often the Catholic church makes feeble noises about aborted human tissue in vaccines, but it's probably easier and more fun to go after Planned Parenthood.

Stem cells have SO much potential for helping Alzheimer's, Parkinsons, diabetes, spinal cord injury... How skillful the propagandists are, making it sound like taking cells from a 4-day old fertilized egg/blastocyst is unholy murder, but creating a bunch of embryos for IVF specifically to make babies but discarding the "leftovers" is completely benign and morally A-OK.

Let's call them on it--Sign the Petition! http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/655813624?z00m=90692

You can also add comments. Here's my angry screed:

If Frist is so against stem cells, why isn't he against using ABORTED FETAL TISSUE for vaccines, particularly the MMR? They can only use tissues from ABORTIONS, not miscarriages, because those would be infected, DNA problems, etc. He is a physician and can read all about this in the PDR! http://www.whale.to/v/fetal.html

Inulin Helps Calcium uptake

Most humans lose their ability to digest milk as they get older, which is thought to be an adaptive behavior because milk--despite the claptrap the ads with the milk moustaches tell you--isn't that great for you.

When we put our kid on a dairy-free diet, even though we saw immediate results on the diarrhea and tummyache front, our pediatrician got on our case: WHAT ARE YOU DOING???? THAT'S DANGEROUS!!!! HE WON'T GET ENOUGH CALCIUM!!!! To which we replied, How do you think cows get their calcium? The larger proportion of the world does not drink/eat milk. Koreans have survived over several thousands of years eating 800 vegetables and myulchi, these teeny tiny fish with teeny tiny bones.

There is also INULIN. It's a carbohydrate found in asparagus, leeks, garlic, onions, artichokes, banana and chicory (n.b. chicory is also packaged a healthy coffee substitute for those who want to avoid coffee for fertility reasons...). An onoing study at the Baylor College of Medicine's Children's Nutrition Research Center found that inulin helped growing kids absorb more calcium and build more bone. Our child luckily already eats many of these foods and he's even taller than some of his older cousins, even with all the nasty spinal surgery to remove his cancer, which also removed some of his vertebrae and, we were told, will curtail his height.

Here's what MY gluten and dairy free kid's t-shirt says (there's a pic of a rice cooker on the back):

Greenpeace Report: Yes, All those Chemicals ARE killing our fertility

Okay, before you slap on that chemical-laden suncreen or spray DEET all over yourself and/or your kids, please take a moment to check out the new comprehensive report from Greenpeace, Fragile: Our reproductive health and chemical exposure. Basically, the post-WWII bring-'em-on! chemical use is is catching up to us.

n.b. Rachel Carson, in Silent Spring, warned of the increasing prevalence of pediatric cancer, which was once almost unheard of. We are using exponentially MORE pesticides than we did since the book came out (shame on us), not to mention all the chemicals and plastics., etc.

Was it any wonder, then, that the ocology ward, when our son as in the hospital, was packed full, including with babies (he was 18 months old)??

Some fertility highlights:

. A dramatic decline in sperm counts over the past 50 years in many countries.

• Significant increases in testicular cancer.

• Infertility is thought to affect 15-20% of couples in industrialized countries compared to 7-8%
in the early 1960s.

• Girls are reaching puberty at a disturbingly early age in many parts of the world.

• The incidence of endometriosis in women has become alarmingly high in some countries.

Please remember, too, that even if one DOES manage to get pregnant, all these things that affect fertility/cause cancer can also affect the fetus,

Thinking 'bout....thyroid....goiter....food

(photo of an actual human brain is courtesy of BODIES...The Exhibition)

While I was in NYC to watch my friend operate, I also took my little reporter's notebook to
BODIES...The Exhibition, which features preshttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.giferved cadavers, with many of their organ systems on display.

They also had some yummy exhibits of pathologies, like a smoker's lung. Plus, a couple truly amazing cross-sections of some hu-u-u-u-ge goiters, which are caused when the thyroid does not receive enough iodine. Because of iodized salt, goiters are not particularly common today. However, those who use SEA SALT should probably make sure to eat something else that contains iodine, like seaweed. Thyroid, as always, is a key player in fertility.

I was thinking of that exhibit as I was experimenting with a cashew cheese recipe for which I substituted dried seaweed bits to provide a nice salty flavor instead of salt. Seaweed happens to be a favorite snack of Koreans everywhere (when roasted and salted, even better than potato chips!) as well as mortal enemy to the disfiguring goiter.

This is not the most appetizing segue, goiters to cashew cheese, but the recipe, if successful (still fermenting), shall be posted soon. About the kimchi recipe: because of global warming (this is what the clerk at Whole Food said, honestly!) causing some drought in California, there's a real lack of organic nappa cabbage [n.b. cabbage is notoriously pesticidey--it would kind of negate the health benefits of kimchi to use non-organic, I think]. I know some readers are patiently waiting for the recipe...and I am, too. Kimchi-making is a little tricky, like artisanal cheese, so I plan to post step-by-step photos. Hope they get some cabbage, soon--it's definitely fermenting weather. Stay tuned!!!

Birth watching

I was recently BACK in the hospital (a different one, this time) watching my friend, an OB/GYN do her stuff in order for me to research the last little details for my next novel.

I actually got to suit up in scrubs and follow her around all day; plus the staff there was so nice (not to mention the mothers), I actually ended up seeing a LOT more than I'd imagined or intended: a C-section, a stint in the ER, and a beautiful, midwife assisted birth...uh, somewhat also unexpectedly assisted by me (another pair of hands was needed and I gladly gave up my notebook scribbling to participate)!

Such a vivid reminder that ALL children--biological, adopted, step, etc.--come into the world this way. A powerful thing.

Pesticides Keep Us Safe from Organic Slavery

Okaaay, so the New York Times lets me write on their op-ed page, but they won't publish my letter on how my kid's autism looks scarily a lot like vaccine damage [pause for appreciation of Sour Grapes] but they WILL publish this letter from the "Crop Protection Research Institute":

Michael Pollan (The Way We Live Now, June 4) gets it right when he writes that organic agriculture's future production will be outsourced to countries where it is cheaper to grow crops without chemical inputs. The reason growing organic crops is cheaper in other countries is the availability of workers at cheap wages to pull weeds by hand out of crop fields. Pollan suggests that tens of thousands of organic corn acres would be required to meet the needs of a world thirsty for corn syrup. He's wrong there. Tens of millions of acres would be required. A vast expansion in organic acreage will sentence millions of low-paid workers around the world to a life of drudgery pulling weeds so that Americans can sip an organic drink. Seventy years ago, almost a quarter of the U.S. population lived on farms and millions of people hoed weeds all summer. Thanks to herbicides like atrazine, those days are long gone. In the U.S., chemical herbicides do the work of 30 million laborers. Without a vast infusion of migrant workers and a significant lowering of the wage rate, growing crops with organic methods has a very limited future in the U.S.

Leonard Gianessi
Director, Crop Protection
Research Institute
CropLife Foundation
Washington

Questions? How about the atrazine? Who's making it? And where does it go after it's sprayed on crops? Does anyone care about the workers who will also inevitably get sprayed? Also, read this excellent article in the Washington Post on how atrazine was causing (remember?) all those Frankenfrogs with the mixed-up gonads and how it's carcinogenic in rats and men who worked in the Atrazine factories had higher levels of prostate cancer than other men in the state (at least they weren't out in the clean dirt pulling weeds!), and, oh, it's been banned in Europe for all those reasons.

Another thing to keep in mind: more and more studies are showing that growing food without pesticides makes the plants healthier and therefore more nutritious, i.e., when they don't have to fight off pests, the plants get lazy and fat. Gerry Potter, a researcher at Leicester's De Montfort University, and his team are close to finding a treatment for cancer that works by using a compound to activate one of the body's OWN enzymes to eat up the tumor (see "Cancer Drug Raises Hope for Cure" on the BBC). What's interesting is that this compound naturally occurs in ripe ORGANIC fruits and vegetables, it's a phytoestrogen called a salvestrol. The plant, as ripening nears, produces salvestrols to protect itself from fungus, and if we eat these plants intact, they get to work on fungus-like diseases in our own bodies, including cancer cells. If the plants are artificially ripened, we don't get squat, just like you don't get omega-3s from farm-raised fish.

So...the irony is, we'll have to use these plant sterols that the pesticide wipes out in order to fight the cancer that the pesticides will eventually give us.

Today's NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/18/magazine/18letters.html?_r=1&oref=slogin and as usual, feel free to use my account:

USERNAME: Greenfertility
PASSWORD: Greenfertility
secret clue: soylent green

Peas May Impede Fertility

Even in our humble urban house with virtually no yard, I've been so proud of being able to raise some sugar snap peas in a pot, using chopsticks as supports for their little tendrily vines.

But Fern Reiss, in The Infertility Diet, her well researched and thoroughly annotated book, says that peas

have been linked to infertility; they seem to contain a national contraceptive (m-xylohydroquinine) which interferes with estrogen and progestrone: In a study of rats fed 20% of their diet in peas, litter sizes were reduced and 30% had no offspring.

Sometimes when I eat peas, I get a weird scratchy feeling in my mouth--this happens to my mom, too. Maybe it's just my body telling me to avoid these kinds of things altogether...

Mind Fertility: 13 Ways of Seeing Nature in LA

There is a neat article in The Believer Mag called"Thirteen Ways of Seeing Nature in LA" by awesome environmental writer, Jenny Price.

You're thinking nature? LA? But Price writes, "...the City of Angels feels like a distinctly honest place to seek and write about nature." The article is full of surprises: the trip a mango makes from orchard to the Beverly Center Mall, the river (!) that runs through the city, and how our attempts (esp. those Californians) to be out in nature and commune with it are a lot more complicated that it seems.

A nice outside-the-box romp, with coyotes, mallard ducks, ocean air, Aaron Spelling's mansion, Gore-tex (please don't wear that, Jenny! It's teflon!)...all in a glorious, free (in every sense of the word) essay that'll make you realize nature's where you find it, and maybe you've been missing a lot of it all this time...makes ya think, don't it?

More Hope: Organic Tea from Today Was Fun

Here's Harubang and Hello Kitty posing with the (organic) Teastack from Today was Fun, a company whose motto is, Share your toys. Drink more tea. Make everyday fun. The Teastack, which was nominated for Gift of the Year 2005 had Happiness, Friendship, Inspiration, and Sleepiness teas, interesting looseleaf blends of caffeine free herbs, and I could not help but notice the teas inside were wrapped in a nice non-endocrine-busting cellophane (not plastic wrap!!!). I swear, I really became inspired by Inspiration (lemongrass, orange, peppermint). They also have Expectancy, a pregnancy tea--hmmm? They're a U.K. company, a country that really knows its tea. Plus, the CEO is super-nice. I sense good karma.

There is Hope...

Okay, if you read the report from the Breast Cancer Fund, your head must be about to explode--basically everything causes breast cancer.

The list of hormone-disrupting cancer-causing plastics was particularly scary. Reading that, it seemed like even those so-called healthier Nalgene bottles are deemed seriously un-fertile. Take heart, though--here's the Harubang (the Korean fertility god) next to a GLASS BOTTLED sample of toner from Dr. Hauschka...gotta love a company that watches out so that even the samples avoid the icky plastics. I think we can count on the "Doc"!

Report Finds Half of Breast Cancer Causes May Be Environmental

Okay, can we all be crazy? While no one seems to be willing to consider a cause or catalyst for autism other than the safely murky "it's got to be genetic," our friends at the Breast Cancer Fund have released a State of the Evidence 2006 report that draws on nearly 350 studies linking breast cancer to synthetic chemicals and radiation exposure.

The report is very thorough and therefore rather large, but this paragraph stuck out at me:

Patterns of breast cancer incidence indicate the importance of environmental exposures. Women who move from countries with low breast cancer rates to industrialized countries soon acquire the higher risk of their new country. The largest study ever conducted among twins found that environmental exposures unique to those with breast cancer made the most significant contribution to the development of the disease.

The statistics in this report indicate that breast cancer rates have been climbing steadily since the 1940s, which coincides perfectly with the post WWII chemical-pesticide-pharma age. It's striking to me (getting back to my "favorite" subject) that in a series of well-researched investigative reports, UPI reporter Dan Olmsted was unable to find the 130 autistics that should (according to epidemiological statistics) be residing in Lancaster County among that genetic-malformation hotbed that is the Amish, who,incidentally are allowed a religious exemption to not vaccinate and also don't traditionally use a lot of chemically cosmetics. The first time, he didn't find a single case. After some dogged digging, he unearthed a measely three autistic kids: a fully vaccinated Chinese adoptee (China is moving at hyperspeed to mass-vaccinate, and using vaccines preserved with mercury), a child who had a documented vaccine reaction, and a nonspecific third. All the children were under ten--could it be just a coincidence that while the older generation did not traditionally vaccinate (hence, the exemption), that because of pressure public health officials, some of the younger Amish parents are beginning to vaccinate their babies? Hmmmmmm?

Ooops, sorry I got a little off topic. Back to breasts. FertiltyBitch also finds common ground with her BCF sisters in their cautions about plastics, crap (particularly phthalates) in cosmetics, mercury...and SUNSCREEN, which may contain some estrogenic and lipid-loving substances on top of the mysterious ways it also alters thyroid function (see previous post, How Suncreen Screws Up Your Thyroid).

When you read this report, please don't try to suffocate yourself in a bag of marshmallows in despair--which was my initial impulse. Obviously you can't protect yourself from everything, but by keeping yourself informed, you can start eliminating some of the big things.