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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.
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.
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.
I just signed up over at Nourished Kitchen for the 28-day Real Food Challenge. I could use some encouragement (couldn’t we all, sometimes?) staying the path when it gets difficult. There are times that I lose heart from one too many complaints about the very different meals we eat, one too many raised eyebrows from friends and relatives, or one too many unplanned surprises (Rats! I forgot to soak the rice AGAIN!)
The challenge is a very simple process. Each day in February you’ll receive an email challenge. Try the challenge and comment each Monday on the Nourished Kitchen site, Nourished Kitchen’s Facebook page or in your own blog about your successes, failures or experiences with each of the challenges. Piece of cake raw milk cheese, right?
So, wander on over to Nourished Kitchen and read a little more about the challenge and then join me! Then, check back each Monday in February for my updates! See you then!
I’ve been wanting to add more coconut oil to my diet for a while now. I cook with it almost exclusively and add it to the occasional smoothie. But from what I’ve seen from the literature, I need to start at about 2 tablespoons a day, and increase slowly up to about 5 to get the maximum health (and weight loss) benefit. I calculate I’m getting a good 1/2 tablespoon a day just from eating what I’ve cooked in it.
When it was time to put the Christmas decorations away for the year, I found the plastic mold from a box of Advent calendar chocolates hanging around. Although I like the flavor of coconut oil, it is difficult for me to eat plain because the texture just doesn’t feel right. One thing I can always eat plain, though, is butter! Yum! So, I melted equal parts of butter and coconut oil, washed up the mold and poured the delectable solution into the little hearts. Isn’t it cute? Each heart holds about 1/2 a tablespoonful of mixture. Can I eat two of these a couple times a day? Oh yes, I certainly can!
I’m still considering going grain-free. Anna commented on my Low Carbing It post with some really fascinating info that I’ve been researching. The more I study this issue, the more I think I need to cut out the grains. Totally at first, at the very least for a few weeks. But I’m pretty chicken about asking my family to go down that road with me. Funny, I didn’t think twice about offering them a raw meat meal, but a meal without bread just seems beyond the pale.
So, I’ll start with my coconut oil treats and see what happens.
This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays, hosted this week by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
In 2007, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis created an amazing documentary called King Corn. They bought an acre of land, planted it with corn, did some research and tried to follow “their” corn into the food supply. They learned a lot during the process, and shared with us the staggering facts via some very cool stop-motion photography using among other things, a Fisher Price Little People farm set. (I loved that as a child!) I reviewed that movie here. The scene where they try to make high fructose corn syrup in the kitchen will stick in my mind for many years.
Well, Ian and Curt are back. This time, they are looking at what happens to the surrounding environment when “their acre” is planted, cultivated and harvested. It’s called Big River: A King Corn Companion. You can watch the trailer by clicking the link. You can order DVDs on the site, or attend a screening this spring. Here’s a blurb from their literature:
Big River is a follow-up to the Peabody Award-winning documentary King Corn. That film, which aired on PBS and played in theaters across the country, told the story of two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that enabled a fast food nation. In King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the East Coast, moved to the heartland to learn where food came from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, nitrogen fertilizers, and powerful herbicides, they planted and grew a bumper crop of America’s most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when Ian and Curt tried to follow their harvest into the food system, what they found raised troubling questions about what we subsidize, and how we eat.
In Big River, Ian and Curt return to Iowa with a new mission: to investigate the environmental impact their acre of corn has sent on to the people and places downstream. In a journey that spans from the heartland to the Gulf of Mexico, the two friends trade their combine for a canoe and set out to see the big world their little acre of corn has touched. On their trip, flashbacks to the pesticides they sprayed, the fertilizers they injected, and the soil they plowed now lead to new questions, explored by new experts in new places. Half of Iowa’s topsoil, they learn, has been washed out to sea. Fertilizer runoff has spawned a hypoxic “dead zone” in the Gulf. And back at their acre, the herbicides they used are blamed for a cancer cluster that reaches all too close to home. Big River is 30 minutes in length. Visit www.bigriverfilm.com to see the trailer.
I am very excited about this new film and can’t wait to see it for myself. It looks like it has the same humor and educational value as King Corn. I’ll be back with my review once I get to see it.
GMO CORN by illuminating9_11, on Flickr
From a recent news article:
Health Canada is proposing an unorthodox way of combatting a food ingredient suspected in some cancers: It wants to let manufacturers put small amounts of a cancer-fighting drug into potato chips and similar foods to curb production of the harmful chemical.
When some food is heated at temperatures over 120°F, a chemical process takes place which creates acrylamide. While there is some good evidence that acrylamide is carcinogenic, testing provides a required dose 900 times greater than what would be an average consumption.
The drug being considered for addition to food is Asparaginase. It is a chemotherapy agent, currently being used to treat leukemia and mast cell tumors. On the surface, this might seem like a good idea: treat the food so you don’t have to treat the cancer later. But is it?
Asparaginase’s main side effects are allergic reaction, pancreatitis and clotting problems which can lead to stroke. It can also change the way your body synthesises proteins. Let’s talk about a couple of these very briefly:
Allergic reactions to foods are already on a sharp rise. Emergency room visits for food allergic reactions are up and more children (especially) are suffering more frequent and more severe reactions.
Pancreatitis is inflammation of the pancreas, the organ which malfunctions in diabetes. Diabetics are warned to immediately seek medical help if they experience symptoms similar to pancreatitis because it can be life-threatening for them. Diabetes is on the rise, which means more people would need to be monitored much more closely for pancreatitis. All statin drugs carry pancreatitis as a side effect, and the population is being prescribed statins at an ever-increasing rate.
Of course, the food and medical industries are in favor of the addition, not so much for health’s sake to be sure, as for profit:
Manufacturers “fully support” the move suggested by Health Canada, Derek Nighbor of Food and Consumer Products of Canada said in a statement provided by the industry group yesterday.
Manufactures create products that make money. If a new procedure is going to cost them money, they are normally unanimous in their rejection of it. Full support indicates to me that these food manufacturers have found a way to make it pay.
“It’s been a big, big problem,” Prof. Yaylayan said. “Not so much in the public eye, but behind doors, the companies keep having meetings, having scientific symposia and seminars.”
Clearly they’ve been thinking long and hard about it. We should, too.
By far the wisest statement in the article was:
The “downstream effects” of using asparaginase to counter the chemical should be studied carefully, advised Dr. Mucci.
I would agree heartily with Dr. Mucci.
The idea that we should be drugging our food sends a chill up my spine. I can sigh, roll my eyes and write blog posts about “nutritionism” and the mistaken theory that by adding a little science we can improve upon the foods put here for our enjoyment and health. But if Big Pharma and Big Food ever marry, their children will be frightening aberrations capable of sickening and killing many more than they help.
Let’s not rush headlong into yet another trip down the “cure is worse than the disease” onramp to disaster.
This post is part of Prevention Not Prescriptions.
Cows in a feedlot laying in manure by Socially Responsible Agricultural Project, on Flickr
Rockin' The Suburbs by Jeff Power, on Flickr
Brought to you from your friends at Cargill, a vaccination for e. Coli! Not a human vaccine, thankfully, but a bovine vaccine. Of course, there are a few hitches:
In their own tests, the Nebraska researchers have found greater than 90 percent efficacy against colonization, but not the 99.9 percent effectiveness federal regulators want.
The two existing vaccines that have won approvals to date require multiple vaccinations or re-vaccinations, which some see as problematic.
Cargill’s involvement in the tests is seen as important because only a “top-down” vaccine program will be effective, according to observers like Smith. He says that if only a handful of producers use vaccines, the effectiveness will be lost by the time cattle are co-mingled at the slaughterhouse.
So, e. Coli is reduced some, but grass feeding reduces incidence of e. Coli even more. Great that some of the beef will have fewer pathogens, but unless all industrial beef producers use it, the end product still won’t be as safe as it needs to be. It’s great news for Cargill that multiple injections are required, because they need all the financial boost they can get out of this after that 59% profit drop last quarter. And with that hefty profit loss, you know they’ll be pushing multiple injections and asking for legislation making their vaccine required.
Both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety & Inspection Service (FSIS) were involved in this issue before jurisdiction was determined to be under the USDA.
The vaccine isn’t even viable yet, but there is already confusion over which regulatory agency is in charge.
Right now, our political process doesn’t really understand the ways in which small producers of grassfed beef differ from large CAFOs. When this vaccine is mandated for large, industrial feedlot operations, it’s a good bet that it will also be required of your local grass farmer’s beeves as well. Which would be a shame: for the farmer because of increased costs, and for the diner, since this vaccine will likely be rushed into production without “downstream” testing. What differences will there be in the composition of the meat and how will that affect your body? Your children’s bodies? Your grandchildren’s bodies?
Industry can usually manage to tweak a solution for the problems they create. But the best solutions are not always industrial. Taking the cow out of the CAFO and returning it to grass has many advantages for the environment, the food supply, the humane treatment of the animal, the quality and nutrition of the beef produced. Even TIME Magazine knows it.
It all comes down to “meet your meat” and “know your farmer” again.
This post is part of Fight Back Fridays, hosted by Food Renegade.
Hi, I’m not here today, but you’ll see me at Kitchen Stewardship. Katie has put together a really cool festival in which more than two dozen real food bloggers answer questions about our real food experiences. She pairs us up, so our answers can be seen side-by-side. It’s a really exciting format and I was humbled and honored to take part!
It’s my turn today to go head-to-head with Hartkeisonline! Kimberly and I have had similar physical struggles, and similarly amazing results from our real food diets. I’ve always admired Kimberly’s edgy blogging style: she sure doesn’t pull her punches!
Hope to see you there!
Author Robert B. Parker by bradsearles, on Flickr
Robert B. Parker died yesterday, sitting at his writing desk in Massachusetts.
I grew up believing that time spent reading fiction is time wasted. It won’t teach you anything, it’s just fairy stories. My wonderful husband introduced me to the books of one of his favorite authors, Robert B. Parker, early in our marriage. I was laid up with knee problems and going just as stir crazy as a girl can go. He brought home a little paperback of The Godwulf Manuscript and I was sold. I had watched Spenser for Hire on TV in the 1980s, and had a huge crush on Robert Urich, so hubby knew the path to my heart had already been blazed.
I was hooked. Between his old-fashioned “code” of right and wrong, his struggle with the women’s movement, the steamy scenes with his committed girl Susan and his prowess at the stove, Spenser became a real person to me. Every new book was like meeting an old friend for drinks. Many of the books were read aloud to me by my ever-so-patient and velvety-voiced husband while I was in labor with one child or another. We joked about how we hoped the new book would be released before the next child was due! I eventually read and enjoyed most of his other novels, including Appaloosa, from which the 2008 movie of the same name was made. But Spenser was my first love, and played no small part in my culinary education.
From Early Autumn:
I cut the eyes out of the pork chops and trimmed them. I threw the rest away. Patty Giacomin appeared not to have a mallet, so I pounded the pork medallions with the back of a butcher knife. I put a little oil into the skillet and heated it and put in the pork to brown. I drank the rest of my Schlitz and opened another can. When the meat was browned, I added a garlic clove. When that had softened, I added some juice from the pineapple and covered the pan. I made rice with chicken broth and pignolia nuts, thyme, parsley and a bay leaf and cooked it in the oven. After about five minutes I took the top off the frying pan, let the pineapple juice cook down, added some cream and let that cook down a little. Then I put in some pineapple chunks and a few mandarin orange segments, shut off the heat, and covered the pan to keep it warm. Then I set the kitchen table for two. I was on my fourth Schlitz when the rice was finished. I made a salad out of half a head of Bibb lettuce I found in the refrigerator and a dressing of oil and vinegar with mustard added and two cloves of garlic chopped up…
“You cook this?” he [Paul] said.
“Yes.”
“How’d you know how to do that?”
“I taught myself.”
“Where’d you get the recipe?”
“I made it up.”
He looked at me blankly.
“Well, I sort of made it up. I’ve eaten an awful lot of meals and some of them were in places where they serve food with sauces. I sort of figured out about sauces and things from that.”
“You have this at a restaurant?”
“No, I made this up.”
“I don’t know how you can do that,” he said.
“It’s easy once you know that sauces are made in only a few different ways. One way is to reduce a liquid till it’s syrupy and then add the cream. What you get is essentially pineapple-flavored cream, or wine-flavored cream, or beer-flavored cream, or whatever. Hell, you could do it with Coke, but who’d want to.”
“My father never cooked,” Paul said.
“Mine did,” I said.
“He said girls cook.”
“He was half right,” I said.
“Huh?”
“Girls cook, so do boys. So do women, so do men. You know. He was only half right.”
This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays, hosted by Cheeseslave, because real food takes place in fictional kitchens, too.
The Dark Side of Fat Loss
