Super Bowl Sunday food

February 10, 2010 in Everything Else, Nourishing Traditions, Recipe Redux | Leave a comment

Caviar, lemon, creme fraiche - Smoked salmon entree - Guillaume at Bennelong - by Julia by avlxyz, on Flickr

Even though we had started our Real Food journey last year at this time, this was our first real food Super Bowl. Last year we still “splurged” on snacks and got all the things we normally would for this special event. Chips, dip, candy, all the worst processed food has to offer.

This year I wanted to still have fun food, but I didn’t want to stray quite as far nutritionally. I picked up some exotic Terra chips and some Flat Earth cheddar chips, still chips but a half step up the nutritional ladder. Maybe not even that with the canola and soy, but still I felt better about getting them. Both bags had hardly been touched when I put them away. Instead, most everyone chose carrot and celery sticks for crunch.

I was separating a gallon of milk for curds and whey earlier this week and let it sit too long before I strained the cream. I was heartbroken. “What am I going to do with soured cream? I don’t know what to do with…wait. Soured? Like sour cream??” Hello! Although it was more sour and not thick like the locust bean gum-added version at the store, once I added some herbs and made a ranch dip for the veggies it was yummy.

We had a contraband box of crackers I was supposed to store with the emergency food in the garage (but never moved.) I put that out with some cream cheese, smoked salmon and caviar. The kids absolutely demolished the crackers. Rose, my salt fiend, loved the caviar and John, my pickiest eater, ate most of the smoked salmon. Huh.

For the main course, I made a huge pot of chili using the Red Meat Chile recipe from Nourishing Traditions. I used two quarts of sprouted, cooked kidney beans, but used a pound of ground goat and a pound of ground pork for the meat instead of beef. The goat tasted much like lamb. Hubby said it was the best chili I’ve made for a long time. I guess it must have been, because the pint that was leftover was eaten by someone for breakfast before the sun was up. I can’t believe there are no leftovers of that huge pot!

I don’t know what’s gotten into me, but I’ve been craving weird foods (read: nutrient dense) lately. Just last week at the store I picked up smoked salmon, a tiny jar of inexpensive caviar, some oysters, a tin of anchovies and ordered a beef liver from my farmer. I also have a bit of mystery meat (mysterious only to my family until they eat and enjoy it, then I might share it’s source) scheduled for later this week. I don’t know what’s gotten into me, but those foods sound really good right now.

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday, hosted this week by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

Whole Foods Market

February 8, 2010 in In the News | 5 comments

I received a press release today from the Weston A. Price Foundation, of which I am a member. I’ll post the entire press release below, but first “my story.”

As you probably know from reading various posts and my About Local Nourishment page, my family has struggled with health problems including osteo and rheumatoid arthritis, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, food allergies and food and chemical intolerances, dental problems, obesity, eye problems, blood sugar regulation problems, high blood pressure for one of us and low blood pressure for two others, and many more problems. I followed a vegetarian diet for a time, even went vegan for a while, and every one of my physical problems worsened. Most pronounced was a deep, dark depression that was chemically treated for several years.

After coming off the vegan diet and returning to the Standard American Diet, most of my health issues did not improve. After one year eating truly nutrient dense foods like butter, cream, raw milk, cod liver oil, fresh-caught fish, coconut oil, kefir, lacto-fermented vegetables and fruits, soaked and sprouted grains and legumes and fresh, organic fruits and vegetables, all but a couple of our physical challenges has eased, many have disappeared completely. If I had known it was this easy (and tasty!) there is no way I would have struggled so long with a tasteless fat-free, soy-heavy diet.

Whole Food Market has it wrong. I applauded John Mackey’s statement last August in which he vowed to purge the junk food from his health food stores. I didn’t entirely disagree with his “alternative to Obamacare” editorial (although his “plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat” agenda was mentioned there—an early warning sign.) I believe the decision to grant a greater employee discount for team members meeting BMI criteria is a poor policy; discriminatory in nature, and destructive to an emotionally healthy corporate culture. But creating a new food-rating scale based on arbitrary data which has little bearing on true health is just…wrong.

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey by JOE M500, on Flickr

And now, the press release I received this morning:

WHOLE FOODS PROMOTES MILITANT VEGETARIAN AGENDA
Has the Upscale Market Outlived Its Usefulness?

WASHINGTON, DC. February 3, 2010:  Whole Foods Markets has launched a nationwide “Health Starts Here” marketing scheme that endorses a low-fat, vegetarian diet, with promises that the diet will “improve health easily and naturally.” The plan promotes the books and private business ventures of Joel Fuhrman, MD, and Rip Esselstyn, both of whom worked with Whole Foods to formulate the new guidelines. Customers now receive a pamphlet urging them to adopt a low-fat, plant-based diet and to cut back or completely eliminate animal foods.  Many Whole Foods stores no longer sell books advocating consumption of meat, eggs and dairy products.

The plan will feature new Aggregate Nutrient Density Index (ANDI) labels for foods in the store; the index is designed to make plant foods to appear “nutrient dense” by favoring various phytonutrients in plants and ignoring many vitamins and minerals essential to health. “Whole Foods has stacked the deck against animal foods by choosing ANDI parameters that do not include a host of key nutrients, such as vitamins A, D and K, DHA, EPA arachidonic acid, taurine, iodine, biotin, pantothenic acid, and vital minerals like sodium, chloride, potassium, sulfur, phosphorus, copper, manganese, boron, molybdenum and chromium,” says Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation. “Many of the phytochemicals that Fuhrman includes in the index he developed for Whole Foods play no essential role in the body and may even be harmful.”

“Animal foods like meat, liver, butter, whole milk and eggs contain ten to one hundred times more vitamins and minerals than plant foods,” says Fallon Morell. “Plant foods add variety and interest to the human diet but in most circumstances do not qualify as ‘nutrient-dense’ foods.”

“For years before becoming deathly ill, I followed the dietary suggestions in the Whole Foods plan,” said Kathryne Pirtle, author of Performance without Pain. “I ate large amounts of organic salads, vegetables and fruits, lots of whole grains, only a little meat and no animal fat. I had chronic pain for twenty-five years on this diet, then acid reflux, then a serious inflammation in my spine followed by chronic diarrhea. Without switching to nutrient-dense animal foods, including eggs, butter and whole dairy products, not only would I have lost my national career as a performing artist, I would have died at forty-five years old! I am not alone in this story of ill health from a low-fat, plant-based diet, which does not supply a person with enough nutrients to be healthy and can be very damaging to the intestinal tract.”

“Consumers can send a message about Whole Foods’ misinformed scheme by voting with their feet,” says Fallon Morell.  “Most major grocery store chains now carry basic organic staples and a larger array of organic fruits and vegetables than Whole Foods markets. And citizens should purchase seasonal produce  and their meat, eggs and dairy products directly from farmers engaged in non-toxic and grass-based farming. It’s not appropriate for Whole Foods to promote a scheme that has no scientific basis and that bulldozes their customers towards the higher profit items in their stores.” The local chapters of the Weston A. Price Foundation help consumers connect with farmers raising animal foods in humane, healthy and ecologically friendly fashion.

“The growing emphasis on plant-based diets deficient in animal protein also serves to promote soy foods as both meat and dairy substitutes,” says Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN, author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food.   “Soy is not only one of the top eight allergens but has been linked in more than sixty years of studies to malnutrition, digestive distress, thyroid dysfunction, reproductive disorders including infertility, and even cancer, especially breast cancer.”

“Low-fat patients are my most unhealthy patients,” says John P. Salerno, MD, a board certified family physician from New York City. “The reason we are spiraling into diabetes and obesity is because of the low-fat concept developed by the U.S government decades ago. Low-fat diets have a low nutrient base, and phytonutrients in vegetables cannot be properly absorbed without fat.”

Fallon Morell cites recent studies from Europe showing that low-fat diets promote weight gain in both children and adults, and also contribute to infertility. A meta-analysis published January, 2010 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found no significant evidence that saturated fat consumption is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

“Whole Foods CEO John Mackay has stated that eating animal fats amounts to an addiction. But in fact, animal fats are essential for good health,” says Fallon Morell. “The nutrients in animal fats, such as vitamins A, D and K, arachidonic acid, DHA, choline, cholesterol and saturated fat, are critical for brain function. In the misguided war against cholesterol and saturated fat, we have created an epidemic of learning disorders in the young and mental decline in the elderly.”

“Perhaps the vegetarian diet has affected the thinking powers of Whole Foods management,” says Fallon Morell. “It’s time for the stockholders to insist on leadership devoted to increasing customer base, not promoting a personal vegetarian agenda.”

Comments about the Whole Foods Health Starts Here scheme can be emailed to customer.questions@wholefoods.com.

The Weston A. Price Foundation is a 501C3 nutrition education foundation with the mission of disseminating accurate, science-based information on diet and health. Named after nutrition pioneer Weston A. Price, DDS, author of the book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, the Washington, DC-based Foundation publishes a quarterly journal for over 12,000 members, supports 400 local chapters worldwide and hosts a yearly conference. The Foundation headquarters phone number is (202) 363-4394, westonaprice.org, info@westonaprice.org.

CONTACT
Kimberly Hartke, Publicist, the Weston A. Price Foundation
703-860-2711, 703-675-5557 press@westonaprice.org

28-Day Real Food Challenge: First week update

February 8, 2010 in Everything Else | 1 comment

We’re through the first week of the 28-Day Real Food Challlenge. Here’s what we did:

Day one’s assignment: clean out pantry – check (except hubby’s cereal and sugar for culturing kefir, stored up high)

Day two: shop for healthy stuff – check. Of the suggested foods, those that weren’t already in my pantry were on my weekly shopping list anyway.

Day three: Improve your grains – easy, have mill for making my own fresh flour and well in the habit of soaking grains for pancakes and breads. I’m still looking into a no-knead sourdough recipe, I hear one of the Real Food Media bloggers was working on one…

Day four: Sourdough Starter – not quite check. We were supposed to start a sourdough starter today for use next Thursday, but I don’t have a starter. I could start the recipe from Nourishing Traditions and just be a week behind on this goal, but opted instead to send away for the sourdough started Wardeh blogged about at GNOWFGLINS. I’m sure the family is in no hurry for me to accomplish this goal because other than the barely-soured bread we buy from Twin Forks, no one but me really likes the flavor of sourdough.

Day five: Sprout your grains – check. There’s always something sprouting in the kitchen. Sometimes beans or grains, so I started some wheat. I made double what I expected to use because our guinea pigs just love wheat grass to munch on!

Day six: Milling your own sprouted grain flour – check. Drying and milling sprouted grains is something I don’t do as often as cooking the sprouted grains. Once dehydrated and milled, a quart of grains only makes about a cup of flour, so to make enough sprouted grain flour for my large family’s use, I’d have to have several large pans sprouting and drying continuously, something we just don’t have physical space for.

I do love how the sprouting and drying process brings out a sweet flavor in the grains, and I often use sprouted wheat flour when just a few tablespoons of flour is called for, like coating a piece of fish, or for a crumb muffin topping. I’m down to about 1/2 cup of sprouted wheat flour left in my supply, so I imagine I will be drying and milling this batch of sprouts.

My mill balks at sprouted grains too. The engine is quite happy to grind them, but the “tails” on the sprouts frequently jam the opening, so before I run them through the mill, I’ll rub the grains between my hands. That makes them go through much more easily. All the grains and the rubbed-off tails go through the mill easier that way and I don’t have to sit by the mill unjamming the little tails!

Come join us at Nourished Kitchen and follow along! If you haven’t started yet, you can start day one anytime and benefit from all the comments of those of us already past the days you start!

Jenny’s terrific cholesterol numbers…and why!

February 4, 2010 in Health is Beautiful | 4 comments

Jenny and her daughter

I don’t now about you, but I just love Twitter. On it, I find new friends almost weekly. Some are very different than I am, others share a similar outlook on life or interests. I have farmer friends, pig rancher friends, fisherman friends, columnist friends, tree-hugger friends, crunchy granola mom friends, Republican, Democrat, Independent, Libertarian and “other” friends…many more types of people than I would otherwise run into in the course of my daily life.

Now, it’s true that Twitter offers a very limited conversation level. I mean, 140 characters for someone as chatty as I am just doesn’t go very far. But, some of us take our conversations to email or Facebook for more in-depth discussion.

My friend Jenny and I chat mainly over Twitter. But she came home from the doctor with some amazing cholesterol numbers that I had to ask about. Here’s what she said in an email discussion:

“I grew up on a very processed diet.  Not low in fat overall, probably, but very low in animal fat, and high in vegetable oil, particularly the partially hydrogenated kind!  I was born in 1979, so I grew up in the mad heyday of trans fats, artificial sweeteners, food dyes, etc.  Real food was a rarity in the late 1980s, and my mom embraced convenience foods—she loved them.

“I must say I got pretty addicted to junk food.  To this day, I have to stay away from conventional grocery stores because I am very comforted by processed, packaged snack foods.

“I continued to eat a lot of that stuff until two years ago, when I read Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food, and it really shed a light on the unnaturalness of our food system here in the U.S.  I had also just lost my 60-year-old mom to cancer, and had a baby. My interest in living a healthy lifestyle was very high, so it was a great time to make a change.

“Over the past two years, we have given up processed food and other “junk.”  We make almost everything we eat from scratch—even the beer we drink!  We don’t eat baked goods, for instance, unless we make them.  We’ve stopped eating industrial meat and dairy, and try to eat almost exclusively locally.  We get our eggs and chicken from one guy, our beef and pork from another, etc.  We go to the farmer’s market twice a week, the health foods store once a week, and a regular grocery store only when mandatory!

“Our diet now is very high in fresh vegetables and fruit, and grassfed butter and pastured eggs.  My daughter and I drink raw, organic, grassfed milk, and the whole family eats pastured beef/pork/chicken about twice a week.  We eat some grains, mostly in the form of homemade bread, but tend to get most of our carbs from fruit and veg.  We don’t really snack, but eat very lovely, indulgent meals!

“As of this week, my LDL is 91 and my HDL is 70.  My doctor (a cardiologist) was blown away by my HDL.  He said it was the best he’d seen in a very long time.  I thought about telling him it was probably due to my steady diet of butter and eggs, but didn’t feel like hearing him dispute me!

“We still eat refined sugar in our coffee and baked goods, and refined flour. I’m afraid a brownie just isn’t a brownie when made with whole wheat flour.  I would like to drink more raw milk and start eating my egg yolks raw more often.  I would also like to totally give up eating dairy outside the house, as we did with meat.  It’s just so hard to go to restaurants now!  Why can’t there be more restaurants serving real food?  Also, I will always love Coca-Cola…we drink it once every few months and eventually that needs to stop, too.

“Another change I’ve noticed since changing my diet was my weight. In high school I weighed 125 lbs (at 5′6″), which shot up to 145 when I went to college and adopted the non-fat, vegetarian diet that was in vogue.  As I added more fat and meat to my diet, my weight went down to around 130, but it wasn’t until I made the switch to a high-fat (good fat) diet that I went back down to 125.  What’s funny to me is that I eat absolutely WHATEVER I want, whenever I want, and I’m at my ideal weight.  The key is that I’m not eating the absolute junk I adored for so many years—the calories I eat now are mostly really nutritious.  I’m sure I eat less food, overall, but I’m not making an effort in that direction.

“I’ve noticed that when you limit yourself to the highest quality animal foods, eating them becomes a celebration, not a routine.  Every time I spread grassfed butter on my toast or carve into a grassfed roast beef, I feel very, very lucky, and very, very pampered.  I’m so grateful to the animals, the farmers, the earth.  I value my food so much more, and I’m sure that contributes to my overall health, as well.”

I hope Jenny’s story encourages you to not fear healthy fat. Her 1.3 ratio of LDL to HDL is outstanding. Real food is good food, trust your palate!

This post is part of Fight Back Fridays, hosted by Food Renegade.

Coconut Greens

February 3, 2010 in Meal Planning and Recipes, Veggies | 3 comments

So, between the broken toe and the chicken pox, you can see we are eating a LOT of dark, leafy greens. I thought I’d share with you my very favorite recipe. It works just as well with collards, kale, spinach, mustard greens or anything else in the greens family, and leaves them slurpfully delicious!

Coconut Greens
1 pound organic dark, leafy greens of your choice
sea salt
2 tablespoons coconut oil
1 small organic yellow onion, diced
3/4 cup coconut milk
1 tablespoon lemon juice
pepper to taste

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil while you stem and roughly chop the greens. Toss the greens in and cook about 5 minutes and drain. Set aside. In the same pot, heat coconut oil over medium heat. Add onions and cook until softened and translucent, about 5-7 minutes. Add the reserved greens, coconut milk and lemon juice (I don’t measure this, I just squeeze half a lemon into the pot) stir well and simmer. The greens will be tender in about 5-7 minutes, but I like to let it cook until the coconut milk gets really thick and boiled down. Serve with the knowledge that you are feeding yourself some of the healthiest food on the planet!

I also like to make this by sauteeing the onions first, stemming and chopping the greens while they cook. I wait until they are chopped to wash them and toss them in the skillet with the onions. The water that adheres to them after washing is just enough for cooking, but you could also dry them and toss a tablespoon of homemade stock in the pan. Cooked covered on medium, they are ready for the next step in about 5 minutes. This method leaves the greens slightly firmer than boiling them, and the “green” flavor is slightly stronger. Another super-yummifying option is to substitute saved, strained bacon fat for the coconut oil (reduce the salt at the end). Oh man, is that good!

For another way to use kale that’s even more kid-friendly, check out my Green Smoothie recipe.

This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays, hosted this week by Cheeseslave.

Real Food Challenge: Day one

February 1, 2010 in Everything Else | 2 comments

Welcome, February! It’s the first day of the 28-day Real Food Challenge, and Jenny over at Nourished Kitchen has given me quite a challenge, indeed! Of course we would start with cleaning out the pantry. It only makes sense. Here’s a photo of my pantry right now:

As you can see, there are some very definite “contraband” items there. Lots and lots of storebought bread. Organic cane sugar. Crackers. CRACKERS?? Yup, this is the ugly truth. I didn’t even straighten the shelves before taking the photo. Five hungry kids can do a number on an organized pantry in about 30 seconds anyway.

But here’s the thing: we live in the part of the country recently paralyzed by a snow storm. We are just now (three days later) able leave the house because of ice on the streets. We were warned that power outages were extremely likely, and this is an all-electric house. I have NO alternate cooking sources, so I had to plan some foods that we could eat which would not require cooking. I planned very carefully, cooked ahead with all the advanced notice I received, and then bought some emergency food like bread and crackers. The crackers will go downstairs to our emergency food shelves in the garage where, I’m sure, they will live happily for many years, or until the next time the power goes out. (Or until I figure out how to make hardtack for long-term emergency storage.)

See the cereal there on the top shelf? That’s my husband’s cereal. He will not part with it and I’d be risking banishment to outer darkness to even suggest it again. Yes, we’ve made homemade granola. Yes, even soaked granola. It all gives him horrible digestive problems. Boxed cereal doesn’t. And being an insomniac, he relies on boxed cereal if he gets hungry at 2AM. Yes, I’ve read about the horrible things they do to the grains and how extruded cereals are awful and all that. I buy the best cereal I can find, lowest sugar, no preservatives, organic, etc. but it’s non-negotiable. It’s also the #1 reason he probably won’t go grain-free.

I need some sugar to make water kefir, so I’ll box, label and store the small supply I require on an inaccessible shelf. But I’m not willing to sacrifice the strides we’ve made with our allergies by doing without kefir right now.

What I will do, though, is move “his” sugar and “his” cereal all up on the top shelf and then put a sign on that shelf that those of us participating in the challenge may not eat anything on this shelf. I’m sure hubby will enjoy having “his” food all to himself!

Another of the challenges is to throw away any pantry item with more than one ingredient. Sorry, but I’m NOT tossing my fish sauce! It’s a recipe from Nourishing Traditions, so I call “exempt” on that one. Other than that, I think I’m okay. I’ll check in again next Monday with how I did through the week on this challenge.

Nutritional therapy for chicken pox

February 1, 2010 in Health is Beautiful | 7 comments

Kale by Another Pint Please..., on Flickr

Just as the neighbor kids were ready to go back to school after their holiday break, we were hit by a snow storm. In Tennessee, storm = half an inch of snow. Schools closed the day before the storm “just in case” and were closed for three days after, until the streets were completely cleared. Having lived in snow country, I just rolled my eyes and sighed. But, there are no snowplows, sanders and salt trucks here, so I can (sort of) understand the concern.

One of the kids’ public schooled friends came over to play. We don’t get to see her much and it was great to catch up with her and what’s going on in her world. The kids hung out together for most of the three days, and on the third day, they came home and said, “LaBelle has chicken pox.”

I called, and sure enough, she started getting blisters on the second snow day, but LaBelle was too scared to tell her mom. She had received the chicken pox vaccination, so we had a 50/50 chance that this could be a new strain to which none of us were immune. We have all had chicken pox except our two youngest.

Not being a vaccinating family, we adhere to strict quarantines when we are exposed. So, I told the kids they would not be able to leave the house for the length of the incubation period (up to 21 days) and on day 19, they both bloomed. Because chicken pox is communicable two days before blisters appear, there was no way to know if we were contagious any time during that 21 days.

Our nutritional therapy includes the following vitamins, minerals and nutritionals: (Please keep in mind that some nutritional sources might be better, but we are attempting to stay seasonal and local even in the midst of illness.)

  • Beta-carotene: Sweet potatoes and winter squash are good sources, as are (you’ll hear these a lot) dark leafy greens like collards, turnip greens, kale, spinach and broccoli.
  • Vitamin A: We’ve upped the cod liver oil dosage during this illness. Beef liver is an excellent source of vitamin A, but I can’t get the kids to eat it. I have been able to successfully hide chicken livers in our food, and those are also a very good source. Raw milk, cheese made from it, and pastured eggs are also excellent sources of vitamin A and so easy to add to our meals!
  • Vitamin C: Oranges, of course, which help for the dehydration that accompanies fever, but even better are Brussels sprouts and broccoli and those dark leafy greens again.
  • Potassium: More winter squash, broccoli and (can you guess?) dark leafy greens.
  • Zinc: I’m too chicken to try oysters, the very best source, but we’re eating alaskan king crab, pork, crispy cashews and almonds and raw milk cheese.
  • Vitamin E: Crispy almonds and sprouted sunflower seeds are wonderful sources of vitamin E, along with (say it with me now) dark leafy greens.
  • Shiitake mushrooms are easy to add to meaty dishes and have antiviral properties.
  • Licorice root’s antiviral properties target a different set of viruses than shiitake, making it a good complementary aid.
  • Aloe vera juice cools and soothes the blisters.The girls tell me that it works better than calamine lotion in the tests we’ve run.

This post is part of Prevention, Not Prescriptions.

Nutritional Therapy for a broken toe

January 31, 2010 in Health is Beautiful | 2 comments

Broken toe by dearanxiety on Flickr

On New Year’s Day, I broke a toe on my right foot. I break toes often. I don’t know if I’m naturally clumsy or if my corrected eyesight doesn’t judge distance well, but at least once a year I will run into a piece of furniture or a wall hard enough to break a toe. It’s a painful for four weeks before I can walk comfortably and takes six weeks to heal. This year’s exercise goals have been put off until February.

Winter is a great time to break something (if there can be a good season for such a thing) because a lot of the foods that help bones heal are in season! The following vitamins, minerals and amino acids are very important to bone healing: (Keep in mind there are other food sources that might be better for some nutrients, but we are trying to stick to as much local and seasonal food as possible.)

  • Calcium – I upped my intake of raw milk slightly, and tried to fit either leafy greens or cheese into two meals each day
  • Lysine – Also available in milk and cheese, and in good quantities in the pastured red meat, wild caught fish and pastured eggs we eat regularly.
  • Vitamin C – Oranges, Brussels sprouts, kale, kohlrabi, broccoli and leafy greens are all in season and good sources of vitamin C.
  • Vitamin K – More leafy greens here with spinach, chard, broccoli and kale leading the pack.
  • Boron – Adding crispy almonds, crispy hazelnuts, dried apricots and raisins to my diet was a cinch.
  • Silica – Wild caught fish is a great source of silica, as are brown rice and root vegetables.
  • Zinc – Alaskan king crab, pork, cashews and almonds are good sources of zinc. I wish I was brave enough to eat oysters, because they are a zinc powerhouse, but, I’m chicken.
  • Collagen also helps mend bone tissue, and that is plentiful and easily absorbed from my bone broth. And with the root veggies, leafy greens and rice to cook, I am using more of it than I ever have.

I have a comfrey ointment that I put on my toe a couple times a day. It has comfrey for its bone healing properties and arnica for inflammation.

Next up, nutritional therapy for chicken pox.

Treats for the Shopper’s Helper

January 29, 2010 in Shopping | 6 comments

Until the last several months, there was no way I could shop, walking around on cement floors, carry bags of food up the stairs to the house, and put things away. My knees just wouldn’t stand for it. So, my kids became my helpers—much needed and well paid. I have needed much less help lately, although I do make sure everyone gets a chance to help in exchange for a treat.

Here’s my tip: they can choose anything they want from the produce department. It doesn’t have to be organic, it doesn’t have to be local, it can be exotic like rambutan, something we used to eat that we don’t anymore like a banana, or something as common as an apple. It’s their choice. I’m always amused, but frequently shocked by their choices. One week, my teen was having serious mushroom cravings and picked a box of enoki mushrooms! My youngest is a real adventurer, not only choosing the most exotic item she can find, but coming home and Googling it to see what it is and how to prepare it! My middle girl is enticed by “convenience” so it’s the already-prepped fruit salad for her. My son almost always gets a small bag of grapes.

I didn’t originally plan it for health reasons, it was more a budget thing. In the produce department you can get single-servings of food. On the cookie aisle, the packages are much larger. But as I became more aware of the ingredients, I was so glad we started this habit. The kids aren’t tempted by the candy at the checkout, I don’t have to hear the “gimmes” and they are experiencing unusual, but real food!

This post is part of Fight Back Fridays, hosted by Food Renegade.

Unlearning a lifetime of misinformation

January 28, 2010 in Health is Beautiful, Newbism | 4 comments

EKG by rwk, on Flickr

Some changes come easily, some come with great fear and trembling. Choosing healthy fats falls into the second category for me. Being a kid in the 1960’s, a teen in the 1970’s, a young adult in the 1980’s, a parent in the 1990’s and middle aged in the new millenium has taught me some very loud, insistent lessons, one of which is:

ANIMAL FATS ARE BAD

“They will make you fat! You’ll have a heart attack! Your arteries will clog up and you’ll fall down dead! Your cholesterol will choke your heart and your blood pressure will skyrocket and you’ll have a stroke! Eat our margarine and cook in our canola oil, it won’t kill you, it’s safe! See? Look at this evidence, examine our numbers!” I had forty years of this drilled into my head, most of it coming from newspapers, television and food wrappers, but a good part of it coming from the authoritative man in the white coat.

When I married my husband, I had no idea the health challenges the men in his family had endured. It wasn’t until the last few months I’ve discovered that his father was only 38 years old when he had his first heart attack, and had a quadruple bypass before he turned 50. And it was only this week that I learned his grandfather died after suffering a heart attack in his 50’s.

This week, my husband’s younger brother was admitted to the hospital in cardiac emergency. Tom is only in his 40’s. The doctors say he has one artery 90% blocked, has a weak heart and is being evaluated for a defibrillator.

My first reaction was: (if you know me this will come as no surprise) panic. All that good-oil-bad-fat propaganda came rushing back to me and I was terrified that I was headed for a certain future as a widow with six growing children. It took several minutes for me to regain my calm and remember the “new/old” lesson I’ve learned in the last 12 months. I can summarize it in one, rational, calm thought:

Heart disease is new. Plant oils are new. Animal fats are old. How did man survive thousands of years eating animal fat if it’s such a “killer?”

That one truth brings me back from the edge of terror every time.

We are doing many things to help my husband overcome his heredity. Eating real food including animal fat and coconut oil is one of those things. When his blood pressure became dangerously high, we did agree to some (old) meds for a limited time. He exercises daily and strives to get enough sleep. He doesn’t smoke or drink and is managing his stress level. He takes fermented cod liver oil every day. He even enjoyed a cup of kefir soda pop the other day! Is there more we can do? Yes, we need to curtail sugar and grains. Maybe that should be where I channel my anxiety.

I wanted to share this story with you because I really do understand how scary it can be to make changes. I’m fully invested here, not just promoting a cause to have something to do.

What Came Before



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