this was me almost exactly 1 year ago volunteering for several weeks (the hardest work of my life for sure!) up in Vermont, USA. I never thought the pig feeding duties in the morn and night would be what I wanted to get sent on…pretty cool hanging out with those mammas
Hey UC’ers,
I really hope you all are doing well in your post world cup 2014 lives.
A family friend passed an email to my dad a few days ago and then it was forwarded to me. My dad’s friend thought that the readers of the site here would possibly be interested in this topic so I wanted to get it out to all of you to read over in-case you missed this news/study that came across the wire recently.
The general idea has to do with a very real possibility that by growing up on a farm in our current day and age may very well reduce the possibility of coming down with IBD (Crohn’s and Ulcerative Colitis) later on in life.
I know most of you aren’t farmers, or maybe the farmers simply didn’t come clean(or dirty) when we took a poll of what UC’ers do for work…
But again, this might be interesting to read into, especially if you’re interested in some of the ideas of how our immune systems develop with regards to bacteria exposure.
So, here’s the link to a recap of the study:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140711101347.htm
And, if you want to read the full study results as they were published, the link for that is right here:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10654-014-9922-3/fulltext.html
To get you excited, here’s a quote from the summary of the study:
The incidence of inflammatory bowel diseases is rising sharply — particularly among young people. However, new research indicates that growing up on a livestock farm may have a protective effect.
Some of you may remember mention of the “Hygiene Hypothesis” from the Gut Bacteria videos I shot several years ago with the scientist Les from Stanford University’s Microbiology and Immunology department(back when my video skills were just as horrible as they are today:) Well, that same idea comes up a few times in the full version (2nd link above). And if you are interested in reading more on that specific topic, make sure to read the references at the bottom of that same study. There are loads of pretty cool links to more related info. Much of that is from the international PubMed directory which you for sure should know how to use by now. If not…read this PubMed How To Use post I wrote…:)
I wish you all the best no matter how your UC is doing at the moment. (And let’s make sure to give Graham a HUGE congrats for being the first person to write a story on the site which has reached an AMAZING 500 comments today! That’s right, his Extra Virgin Olive Oil(EVOO) story is what everyone’s talking about once again! YaY Graham. his EVOO story link is here
– Adam Scheuer
PS: For those of you who are interested in maybe getting out on a farm and doing some good hard work, I’d for sure recommend it. Who knows, you might really enjoy seeing and doing what your ancestors very well may have been doing for years. Although my body is probably not cut out for the hardcore physical grind (and super long hours) that most farmers are required to put in daily, it was a major highlight of last summer for me…(not so much for Michaela on the other hand). So here’s some pictures to maybe give a little idea of what farming might look like if you do give it a try:
I like hanging out with these guys alot. We had to keep moving the herd every two days or so to a new patch of fresh grass. The migrational grazing techniques this farm used was super interesting, but required us to constantly be moving the electric fences and soon enough you forget somethings hot and…zap zap (not so bad though)
Michaela getting her pig water and feed on
you have about 500 best friends when its morning or afternoon feeding time with the chickens…when they see you walking over the electric fence with a feed bag they mob you like crazy. you literally have to start kicking at em to get them to move or you’ll be tripping all over the place(and if you drop the feed bag, they start pecking at it and sometimes poking holes in it….
now, if you look really close, you’ll see some brown sludgey stuff on the bottom of the water bucket. I’m not sure what that was exactly, probably a combination of dirt, maybe cow poop and whatever else…but for sure must be some good bacteria in that bowl ehh….and it was my job to get some grass, and scrub that crap out daily and then refill to keep things as clean as possible…so maybe this study ain’t too far off in terms of bacteria exposure…
this was my favorite cow, always wanted to get an extra long scratching on the nose area
I started site shortly after being diagnosed in October of 2008 with severe pancolitis (when my whole colon was inflamed).
For me, it was a very rough start with severe symptoms. Getting bounced from medication to medication was not easy or too helpful. But, I did meet another UC’er, changes several parts of my diet, and of course the rest is history.
Leave a comment, ask a question, take advantage of our past experiences here, use the search boxes, they are your friends to0:)
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