Letter to Prospective Vegetarian

It is not my intent to beat anyone over the head with the message contained in this letter, but only to tell you what I know from experience and believe based on what I’ve researched and read.  I am aware that it may be extremely controversial and very against the mainstream arguments which validate a vegetarian diet. Please feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts.

Well, I did suspect as much as to your stance of vegetarianism and I wholly agree with you as to the badness of the meat industry and the importance of eating local, pastured meat. It sounds like the only problem is that you feel you don’t care for meat?  Really, I was the same way. I was always telling people I did not really like meat and disliked preparing it even more.

Would you believe I made fish stock a few months ago from real whole fish bodies (Ew)? You are on the coast and should count your blessings to have access to so much seafood. If you do not like pastured meat, remember you have shellfish and fish to supplement your diet. I assume you like seafood? Anyway, it’s funny how I’ve changed after changing so many other things and realizing how important meat actually is (including seafood). I can now bravely prepare fish and meat like a proper housewife. Ok, maybe not quite that good, but I’m a far cry from my squeamish self of a year ago. I guess it just helps to know you are doing it for your nourishment and not just to do it because you always have or because you feel a vague  sense that you should not knowing exactly why.  I will just share a
few points with you that I attribute to eating more meat. (Before, I was eating meat about once a week or even less often. I now try to eat meat at least once a day, only sometimes going a day or two without before having some. I always am sure to eat eggs and/or legumes on a day without meat.)

- I can go longer between meals now that I eat more meat and do not
feel the need to snack all day long and into the night.
- I am less fatigued during mid-day (actually, NO fatigue …)
- I dont’ need to eat as much food overall to feel full (ie, way less carbs)
- Whenever I realize I’m feeling sluggish and get that weak, shaky
“starving” feeling, I stop and think when I last ate meat.. more often
than not, it’s been a few days!

OK, so those are the everyday benefits. All that stuff that goes on under the surface is harder to talk about because I don’t really have a good total knowledge of the chemistry angle. One factoid from the NT book is that even a small amount of meat/meat fat with a mainly veg meal greatly improves your body’s ability to assimilate the nutrients
from your veggies.  Can you believe that?  That really floored me.

But the important thing to remember is that meat provides certain essential minerals and vitamins that you cannot effectively acquire from other sources (contrary to vegetarian doctrine). For example, with regard to vitamin D, aside from the sun, meat is your only other source (especially via liver or cod liver oil.)  Also vitamin A (the fat kind, not the beta carotene kind), B12, Zinc and I really can’t remember what else.  Vitamin D and B12 deficiencies are very common in developed nations (i have a friend with both of these
deficiencies at a semi-serious level).

It’s all very complex because each vitamin/mineral effects your body’s ability to use OTHER vites/mins. So if you don’t have enough Vit. D, you may also be deficient in other ways. This is just one example.

Meat broth is incredibly important for all these same reasons but is especially rich in minerals (Calcium, sulfur, iodine (if fish) and many others which are very bioavailable in broth (better than a multi vitamin!)…) and helps you digest the meat that goes with the broth. Vegetable broth does not have all these good things unfortunately… maybe some of it, but it is not comparable…

SO if you can’t stomach meat, I would recommend making a lot of meat stews and soups until it doesn’t bother you so much. Then also you can make sauces with meat stock to help you digest. you don’t necessarily have to eat steak every night.  I know someone who says that meat makes them feel sick and I just read an article that discussed how people who have gone many, many years on low fat and plant-based diets often develop this complication as your body (without getting into specifics that I can’t actually recall) has altered so that it is actually harder for it to digest meat when it is eaten and this can
become a vicious cycle where vegetarians are essentially forced to remain vegetarian while getting sicker. People on these diets can also apparently become very out of balance with their copper and zinc (among other vitamins and minerals) causing other serious
health problems. (Warner)

Another issue that vegetarianism presents is that you must also eliminate animal fats which are key for health as well. We’re made to use these naturally occurring fats (it makes sense that the fat goes with the meat, doesn’t it? why do we insist on removing all of it?),
not chemically processed vegetable fats which did not even exist in the not so very distant past and which present numerous health hazards. (Yes, seed and nut oils are better, but only if mechanically processed and meat fat is much cheaper!)

Traditional cultures around the world fed the richest meats and fats (fish roe, rich butter, organ meats) to those in their childbearing years, or those who had just married. This really struck me as well.

I know it’s possible to find anything out there to agree with what you want to hear and I have thought about this and these pro-meat arguments (via NT book) really do make sense with me  and I feel right about them (physically and mentally and spiritually). As a former
meat-hater, I hope it helps to support the argument here.  The physical factor (feeling more energetic and not hungry all day long) made my choice easy and the rest followed…

More Resources:

The Myths of Vegetarianism

Letter to Vegetarians (scroll down)

Vegetarianism: What the Science Tells Us

EATING MEAT IS NATURAL

Why Vegetarians are Eating Meat

High- versus low-meat diets: effects on zinc absorption, iron status, and calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, nitrogen, phosphorus, and zinc balance in postmenopausal women

Effects of replacing meat with soyabean in the diet on sex hormone concentrations in healthy adult males

Lately….

Here’s just a brief update in our life…

Dinner tonight: Coconut Fish Soup. yes, it was actually good, and very easy! Yum! A great way to use that fish stock we made a few months ago (also, not as hard as you would think!) I bought a pound of US farmed catfish pieces for only $2.99/lb (apparently, any fish can be used), cut it up in to bite size pieces add this to a pot that also had:

· 1 ½ qt. Fish stock

· 1 ½ c. coconut milk/creamed coconut

· 2-4 T. lime juice

· 1 T. grated ginger

· 1-3 minced jalapeños/chili peppers

· 5-6 chopped basil leaves

· salt to taste

· parsley/cilantro to garnish

And then bring to a simmer for about ten minutes. EASY. The flavor was unlike any other soup I’d ever had, but after about 3 spoonfuls, I really thought it tasted really good – kind of a buttery, creamy flavor. Great with some sweet potato casserole and a green salad.

Summer is officially here because I bought the first jar of pickles: Bubbies of course. Wow… are they amazing! Don’t throw away that brine either… that is good stuff. Also, Kombucha was on sale at Earthfare so I bought a few bottle! A fabulous alternative to alcohol…. In fact, Kombucha can have trace amount of alcohol due to the fermentation process giving people like me (ultra-lightweights) just the right amount of “buzz” to feel good but not too good!

I also made my first bulk order of sorts last week and it arrived a couple days ago. The big finds were raw organic nuts (especially pine nuts!) and maple syrup which are difficult to find at a half-way reasonable price. Although the cost of shipping added to the lower prices did not end up saving me LOTS of money, I feel it was worthwhile to be able to find many of these products in one location. If I am happy with them, it will be good anyway! Since I am not part of a co-op for bulk orders or anything like that, this was my next best option. The retailer is www.naturalgrocers.com. The items arrived in just under a week – not bad. The other nice thing about this place is they also sell vitamins and body care products. They have a huge selection of bulk items such as nuts, grains, flours, etc. I ordered a couple types of rice to try, some organic steel cut oats, some spelt flour, and several other items.

You may not want to hear about this, but I will share anyway, because I think it’s pretty amazing…. I am experimenting with a natural cure for a UTI (urinary tract infection) that I’ve been fighting for a while now in an effort to avoid antibiotics. It finally got quite bad and I did go to the doctor this past week. (Turns out I wasn’t exactly “fighting” it with enough of a strategy to do much good prior to Thursday). With prescription in hand as insurance, I went ahead with my new “natural” remedy which I read about on the www.earthclinic.com site. So I took my apple cider vinegar tonic and took a nap on Thursday thinking “this will never work” as I tried to ignore the uncomfortable burning sensation. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, I suddenly became aware that the burning feeling was gone. Completely gone. Wow! Now I was hooked and I did not want to give up on my plan. To make a long story (that is not over yet) shorter, I will just say that it has definitely improved … urgency has decreased and burning is completely gone although the burning has since returned and subsided again. One interesting symptom, however, is slight kidney ache that came on yesterday and has since subsided almost entirely. Overall, I am much better which leaves me a bit confused (less tired, less burning, etc.). However, the kidney thing worried me enough to go to the pharmacy today. After which, of course, I really had no symptoms except for moderate frequency. I keep putting it off…”I”ll just see how I feel after lunch…. After dinner…. Tomorrow…” So, we’ll see how long I continue with this, but it is improving and I am eating a restricted diet: NO sugar whatsoever (not even most fruit except for berries), and I’m eating a lot of raw parsley, cranberry juice (the real stuff w/o added other juices), as much raw food as possible (mostly via smoothies) and some other things like plenty of yogurt, garlic, good oils and some good fiber as well which are supposed to help along with my apple cider vinegar tonic about three times a day. We shall see… I am just really impressed the apple cider vinegar did anything whatsoever. As a side benefit, my eczema problem is also improving considerably since I began this “diet.” Interesting. (OK, ok: I did cave in big time (for me) and ordered a small, decaf iced coffee with whipped cream while we were at the bookstore today… boy, was I craving it… It was stupid, but I do get weak sometimes!)

While we were at the bookstore, I began to read The Whole-Food Guide to Strong Bones: A Holistic Approach by Annemarie Colbin. This book had some really interesting insights to this. I want to order a copy as well as one for my mom and sister… as with most websites, books, diets, etc. I can’t usually buy into all the author is saying , but from what little I read, probably the majority of it I agree with. Worth the read anyway.

So, that’s the quick and dirty update… cheers!

Grain, dairy and legumes, oh my!

What’s the big deal about soaking grains and legumes and fermenting dairy and generally spending a lot more time in the kitchen, You ask?!

WELL. I can understand your skepticism… after all, you’ve been eating all these foods without soaking and fermenting them and and you feel just fine.

Now here’s where I’m a bit of a skeptic myself. Do you really feel fine? Or have you just gotten used to feeling any of these things after you eat “normal” grains (bread, cereal, etc.), dairy, nuts and/or beans? Maybe they are just an annoyance, but perhaps they do exist for you (one or several) and you barely even notice it when it happens. The side effects I am talking about are:

• bloating
• gaseousness (you know what I’m talking about!)
• nausea or unsettled stomach
• “Stuffed” to the point of feeling kind of sick even if you did not eat that much
• cramps
• gas pains
• heartburn
• diarrhea

Do you really think this is the way you should feel after eating? I know I did for … um… let’s say, the past thirteen years. But a healthy digestive system should not have any of these symptoms after eating grains, dairy and legumes! (unless you REALLY overeat!)

Now, one thing to point out is that, of course, other ingredients that you eat with these things could also be bothering you. We won’t get into that. For now, we’ll just focus on these three things and why preparing them traditionally is actually important for you.

(And if none of this is clicking with you at all, let me ask you another question: do you know anyone who is allergic to corn, soy, wheat/gluten, dairy and/or nuts???)

Grains and Legumes

In many indigenous cultures, these items are prepared first by soaking them in an acidic solution. The food may then be cooked and eaten. These processes were “invented” LOOOOONG ago. These peoples (Fallon cites examples coming from all around the world where people soaked their grains: Africans soaked millet, North American Indians soaked nuts and ground them into a “milk”, Central American Indians and people who still live in Mexico and surrounding areas soak their corn in a lime solution, in Asia soybeans are always prepared through fermentation before eating, Fallon also said as recently as a few generations ago, there were directions on the back of the quaker oat can with instructions to soak the oats overnight before cooking. These are just a few examples from memory. Please read the book, Nourishing Traditions for many more examples from history.

So, why did they do this and why should we care? The process of soaking foods in an acidic solution helps to break down the grain so that it sprouts or begins to sprout. Doing this releases enzymes that neutralizes phytic acid in grains. This acid inhibits absorption of important minerals into the body such as calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc. Fallon writes “…sprouting also neutralizes enzyme inhibitors present in all seeds. These inhibitors can neutralize our own precious enzymes in the digestive tract. Complex sugars responsible for intestinal gas are broken down during sprouting…” (p. 112, Natural Traditions)

Wheat is one of the healthiest grains, but the gluten in the wheat is very hard for us to digest. Soaking or sprouting the wheat breaks down this protein so that all the components can be assimilated.

Not only these things, but other important changes take place: your grains actually undergo a process that renders them healthier, increasing available vitamins such as the B vitamins and sometimes vitamin C.

The above description goes for nuts and seeds and now you know why so many processed grain products are fortified with many other vitamins and minerals. Some seeds cannot be sprouted due to how they have been processed, but they still benefit from soaking because the sprout inhibitors will be neutralized.

Read my personal account (under “Coping with the Implications”) of digestive troubles cured by transitioning from raw almonds to soaked and roasted ones. And check out this article on how to “Be Kind to Your Grains.“

Now on to dairy

You are already familiar with many cultured dairy products: yogurt, buttermilk, cheese, sour cream. Well. Here’s the rub (And really, the content more suited for another blog entry) — it really depends on what KINDS of these products you’re eating as to whether or not you’re getting the full benefit. But let me back up a bit more. Yes, cultured dairy is good (we have seen all those probiotic yogurt commercials). But, more importantly, why is uncultured dairy bad? Or at least not so good?

Well, again, I will skirt the larger issues and the politics and just lay it out there: because our milk is pasteurized and because of the harsh methods used to “produce” milk from cows. For now, let’s only talk about pasteurization. This process heats the milk at high temperatures, making many proteins less available; the fats in the milk are more likely to go rancid after this process; vitamin C loss usually exceeds 50% and loss of other vitamins may be as high as %80. Some vitamins, such as B12 are entirely destroyed; Fallon claims there is some evidence that pasteurized milk strains the pancreas and may be the reason behind the linkage between drinking milk and diabetes. Oh, yes, and again, this is the reason your milk is fortified!

The relevant fact for this posting is that pasteurization destroys the enzymes in the milk. These just so happen to be the enzymes required to assimilate certain ingredients found in milk, such as calcium. (Ever wondered why so many milk drinking people are getting osteoporosis??)

Other compositional changes take place during pasteurization, making it even more difficult to digest. Without the important enzyme component found naturally in milk, what you now buy at the grocery store is a product that is essentially indigestible! (and I have given you the tame, cliffnotes version of the milk saga!)

YES, and yes, all of these problems with digesting improperly prepared grains and dairy can and are related to allergies. It is no wonder so many people now have gluten and lactose intolerance. So — here is the case for cultured dairy — many of these products are tolerable to those with dairy allergies. WebMD states “A food allergy is an immune system response. It occurs when the body mistakes an ingredient in food — usually a protein — as harmful and creates a defense system (antibodies) to fight it. Food allergy symptoms develop when the antibodies are battling the “invading” food.”

What is cultured dairy? This is a milk product that has begun to separate (the lactic-acid producing bacteria consumes the sugar (lactose) in the dairy) and it begins to ferment, hence the word “lacto-fermentation.” These foods include yogurt, buttermilk, kefir, sour cream and others. However, there are several different versions of fermented milk products found around the world and each are soured, cultured, or inoculated in slightly different ways. Suffice to say, the process of fermentation helps to break down the difficult to digest protein, casein, in the milk as well as increasing the beneficial enzymes (for example the enzyme lactase, which helps digest lactose) and vitamins in the milk product, even after it has been pasteurized. Consuming these products will also help you maintain a good balance of beneficial bacteria, helping you stay healthy and resist illness.

Please refer to pages 33-35 and 80-81 in Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon to read more and see where I liberally “stole” all this information. I also encourage you to check out the Real Milk website to really dig deeper about the milk “conspiracy” and read “The Raw Truth About Milk.“

So if you want to learn how to prepare these foods, I encourage you to explore the links to the right to learn more. And the best source I know of to really learn is the book, Nourishing Traditions. Good luck…!

Olive Oil Fraud

I have been searching for real olive oil.

Yes, it’s true, the olive oil you buy at the supermarket or warehouse store is almost 100% likely to not be the real thing. At least it is only partly real. Usually it is cut with some other lesser quality oil such as corn, canola, soybean or other.

Olive oil fraud has been labeled as even more lucrative than cocaine trafficking (Mueller – see below).  Like most problems, there is no one simple explanation (Besides greed!)  So instead of rehashing what’s already been said and explaining the logistics, I will list here several links where you can read about it for yourself. *sigh*

But I will leave you with the one authentic brand recommended in Nourishing Traditions: Bariani. I got on this quest, however because I felt sure there had to be others (read on).

Mueller, Tom. “Slippery Business” New Yorker online, August 13, 200

Olive Oil Fraud Rampant As Demand Skyrockets. NPR news story.

California Olive Oil Council (www.cooc.com) Seems to be the only place in the US doing something about this problem.  A recent bill to create stringent  standards in California passed January 2009. I haven’t explored this site fully yet… they do have a list of brands that meet their standards.

Online discussion about this issue. This forum includes several interesting facets about olive oil fraud.

Take the Olive Oil Challenge, Cheeseslave blog. This posting is what jogged my memory about this issue and really prompted me to look into it more deeply. She also recommends Adam’s Ranch olive oil.

Back to reality, oops, there goes gravity

As I am working on this blog a little here and there, I wondered if I should hit on some of the highlights of
what it is this is really all about rather than just diving into specifics as I have been. You can also read about some of the basics in the “About” page. I would also like to discuss some our psychological “issues” surrounding this admittedly unusual lifestyle/diet and how we may struggle to accept the myriad implications.

What’s the Main Idea?

So, as you can see, I don’t think there is any real consensus as to what to actually call this diet. We call it “The Diet”, but others call it the WAP (Weston A. Price diet) and I think I have seen NT (for Nourishing Traditions). Perhaps the most sensible one I’ve seen is calling it the “Traditional Foods Diet. ” And first things first: by “diet”, we mean… the way we eat on a regular basis, not a “diet” you go on and then get off of. We are not “going” on this diet. We are simply eating/living this diet!

So, here are just a few of the key principles, but by all means, check out the sources on the right hand side to read up on your own about some of this stuff from other people’s perspectives. Especially check out the Cheeseslave blog which is very comprehensive and is already doing exactly what I’d like to do here. It would be worth your while to spend some quality time perusing her site for recipes, info on vitamins, health and parenting on this diet.

The key point that we believe in is that food should be traditionally prepared in a way that renders it most nourishing. Food that is not prepared in this way harms us in one or both of the below ways:

1. It over-taxes our bodies as it works to metabolize improperly prepared food (ie, food that is not in its most digestible state)
2. It literally poisons us if it is not close enough to a nutrient to actually nourish us (in the instance of a huge variety of preservatives, heavily processed foods, chemicals, etc. that we consume regularly but that are not actually food products or so far from the original product, that our bodies cannot recognize them as food) causing all sorts of health problems (usually those that manifest over a long period of time.)

Coping with the Implications

There is a lot of baggage wrapped up in really embracing this type of lifestyle and diet. The implications of doing so are numerous and can easily turn people away from the ideas that are discussed here. In my opinion, these hard-to-cope-with implications are:

• Feeling supremely overwhelmed, dismayed and confused by an overload of new information that contradicts what you thought you knew… and what it could mean if you ignore this new information as well as if you don’t!
• The idea that we have been essentially deceived for our entire lives by the media, the government, our health care practitioners and others (resulting in feelings of frustration and anger)
• The idea that we may NOT have been eating (or feeding others in our families) healthfully (like we thought we were) and feelings that might accompany this (frustration, guilt, anger)
• Frustration at the financial cost of eating truly healthfully (compared to what we may be used to)
• Frustration and anxiety about how to manage a new lifestyle that requires more food preparation, more experimentation and learning, more research, more shopping around, etc.
• Disbelief in general — why should we believe any of this bunk!? After all, if it’s so true, why haven’t we heard about it before

I know it took us a couple months to mostly recover from our shellshock — that everything we thought we knew was wrong. How could we have been lied to (essentially) all along? I will not get into the layers of politics here, but suffice to say, you most definitely cannot believe everything you hear or read. And yes, you should test these ideas for yourself as well. As for us, the more we read, researched, pieced information, health patterns and so forth together, the more it all made so much sense. There really is no part of this diet that doesn’t fit into a sensible framework for us.

For just one example: it may not seem like you really need to soak and roast your nuts before consuming them. Many people really look at us strangely when we mention this idea. However, I knew that after eating LOTS of almonds during my ravenous afternoon and evening lapses between meals while I was going straight from work to school and not getting home until 9pm, I eventually began to suffer extreme digestive problems when eating my almonds. Once they seemed to “save the day” when I could not eat a proper dinner … now, they were causing embarrassing digestive problems and unbelievable cramping. I could no longer enjoy them. After reading about the traditional way of preparing nuts, I was excited to give it a try. Sure enough, my GI complications vanished after I began to eat soaked and roasted nuts. Not only this, but I only needed to eat perhaps half of what I used to eat in order to feel just as satisfied. Wow! There was really something to the idea after all. Our bodies are just not equipped to digest certain parts of certain foods. Sure, you can put up with it for a while, but eventually, it’s going to cause problems of one kind or another. Now I also knew why eating peanut butter would cause similar problems. Perhaps this was also why I would occasionally suffer an allergic reaction when I ate cashews.

At any rate, I am saying all this to 1. encourage the skeptics and 2. encourage you to make it “make sense” to you in a personal way. If it seems too outrageous to believe that you’ve been deceived, that you may need to re-juggle your finances so you can increase your food budget (and hopefully eventually decrease your medical budget!); that you may need to invest in some decent cookware, go to the weekly farmer’s market, etc…. check out other resources on the subject for yourself. But try to look at it from all angles. You cannot safely make a judgment if you only read literature from one side of the issue (ie. Only the government, only the packaging/processing companies or only pharmaceutical companies.) Look at unbiased information and research.

This is why I do recommend reading Nourishing Traditions. The authors incorporate a wide range of literature including historical accounts of how food was once prepared before we became so darn civilized (refrigeration no longer mandated that food stay fresh through various fermentation processes) and so darn greedy (cutting nutritional corners to save on production costs not to mention the advent of hundreds and hundreds of processed “fake” food like soda and pre-packaged foods that we have become so addicted to and regularly spend money on.)

See if anything adds up and most of all, ask yourself “Why have the media, the medical professionals (most, although, I am sure not all), the drug companies, the agricultural corporations, food packaging/processing companies and the government been sending the messages that they have been?” Only until you can believe they sadly do not really care about your well-being, but rather your influences as a consumer, will it begin to make some sense.

We encourage you to give yourself time to process any and all of this new information. It is not something anyone can change overnight. I think after doing this for nearly a year, that a safe amount of time to expect on transitioning to the WAP diet would be 1-3 years depending on the size of your family and their willingness to try new things and alter lifestyles. Good luck… leave a comment!

Traveling on “The Diet”

Here we are in Virginia traveling for a few days visiting friends. What are we going to do? we asked when it was time to pack up and go. How will we eat the way we want to for three and a half days? There are more problems as well… you don’t want to offend your hosts, you can’t bring too much food with you and the food you do bring must be kept cold during travel. What to eat on the road when the only alternatives are Wendys and Subway?

So here are our few tips… there are definitely still some gaps here, but it’s something to start with and we know it made a difference in how we felt after three days out of routine if we had not planned at all:

Beforehand:

• Collect or buy several small jars or secure tupperwares
• Collect or buy plastic utensils, napkins and
• Get a paper or plastic bag for dirty dishes/utensils and trash while on the road
• Buy a quality weekend cooler for summer travel. this makes packing the car easier and if your hosts or the hotel does not have a fridge/room in the fridge you can keep your stuff in here for a few days if you keep things cold
• Prepare some foods for the road (see below)
• Make and freeze smoothies for the road. Take them out of the freezer when it’s time to go and half way through the trip, they’ll be the perfect consistency for eating

For the Road:

Planning ahead for road snacks will eliminate those weak moments when you find yourself wandering up and down the pathetic offerings in the snack aisles in gas station centers:

• Meal ideas:
  • french toast
  • empanadas
  • egg sandwiches
• Snack ideas:
  • nuts
  • fruit
  • veggies
  • seeds
  • dried foods such as apples, apricots, meat etc.

Food for the destination:

Even a few nutritious foods can make a big difference when you find yourself eating meal after meal of “conventional” American fare. We can’t tell you how much better we felt after eating just a little of the below after a bloating meal of burgers, fries and store bought pasta salad.

• plain yogurt
• fermented vegetable (sauerkraut, etc) (this is probably the most important one!)
• nutritious bread
• butter if you don’t’ expect to find it at your destination
• teas and alternative sweeteners if you use them

• *Don’t forget vitamins and supplements if you use them. Skipping these just adds insult to injury to your system if you already expect to be off your usual eating routine for a while.
• *Depending on the destination and nature of the travel, you may also just plan a trip to the grocery store once you arrive for fresh fruits and vegetables as well.
• *Problems arise when you hope to buy hard to find items in a new location. It’s best to just bring it with you!

Being Gracious Houseguests:

• There’s no reason to feel bad about your eating choices! Talk to your hosts in advance of your destination so they understand why you are walking in the door with coolers and bags of your own provisions. Explain your new “diet” and be very conscientious of how you are coming across. Don’t explain why you have changed your diet unless pressed and even then, be very careful of sounding superior.
• We found that eating a blend of “conventional” food along with our own helped balance out the one extreme of eating everything set before us and suffering in silence and offending our hosts terribly by refusing their food entirely.
• Be proactive and suggest meals when and if appropriate. Offer to shop for and prepare meals when and if appropriate. Failing these two options, try…

Eating Out:

• Suggest going out to eat AFTER doing your own research of where might be a good location to eat that could meet everyone’s needs/wants. Some ideas that aren’t GREAT (but can be worse than alternatives are) and are usually popular all around are:
  • Local pizza restaurants (not the chains which use MSG in the sauce and the cheapest ingredients)
    • choose items with lots of veggies!
  • Mexican restaurants
    • choose items with lots of veggies and as little sauce as possible
  • Local Greasy Spoon type restaurants (especially if other fast food chains are likely to be suggested. at least the food here will be higher quality than fast food)
    • order items high in meat content and as low as possible in fried foods

In General, remember to:

• *Not be afraid to ask about ingredients in food such as MSG

• • *Order water, not soda, lemonade or iced tea from a soda machine/fountain. If you must order iced tea, request unsweet tea
  • Try and order something that will include as much of a balance as possible (ie, not all fried, not all meat, not all bread…. try to get a variety of food types)
  • Seek out vegetables! Ordering a salad with meat added may be the best bet when eating out.
  • Avoid sauces and dressings which are extremely likely to have MSG, HFCS and/or sugar. At the very least, be sure to order dressing on the side.
  • Learn to spot frauds. Don’t order items you suspect are not made on the premises.
  • Avoid fried foods
  • Avoid marinated or seasoned meats which are also likely to have high MSG content
  • If you must order a dessert, remember ice cream is your best bet

• • • Items that are typically safest when eating out:
      • raw or steamed vegetables
      • baked potato
      • quiche or other egg-based meals
      • baked, broiled, steamed fish and meat (none or very little sauce/seasoning)
      • items with a lot of cheese such as plain nachos or veggie quesadillas
      • thin crust pizza with fresh ingredients (no sausage which will have MSG). Order pizza w/o tomato sauce if it is suspect.

Overall, a little planning goes a long way and with some practice it is not impossible to travel and maintain some of your nutritious habits. Please post comments of your own tips…

You too, can kick the sugar habit…

We did it and so can you. It’s really not as bad as it sounds. You DO have to give it a chance. You DO have to experiment with other sweeteners and be willing to have sugar cravings for about two weeks. After that, it is easier. The less you eat, the less your body “wants” it… amazing!

And yes, to answer your next question, sugar really is that bad for you. I won’t use up pages telling you why except to say that research really does support how sugar is a powerfully dangerous “anti-nutrient” to our bodies and contributes to many now common diseases. Sugar has not always been with us and people who are not exposed to it in remote parts of the world do not have the same health problems we have in “civilized” nations. Why don’t you hear about it, you say? Hm… interesting question… start reading labels and the answer will become quite clear.

Oh, by the way, sugar also manifests as high fructose corn syrup — the most dangerous offender because it has been so highly processed. You may also see sucrose, fructose, etc. Artificial sweeteners are no better and may be worse, but we won’t go there today. Don’t eat them! Other sugar varieties will not help you either — for example “raw” sugar, etc… you need to skip over sugar entirely.

Instead, I will go straight to the list of sugar alternatives you can begin shopping for and using your cooking and baking. Although I hope you find this list helpful, please do not use it as a carte blanch ticket to eat as much of them as you want. You should still be very conservative with sweeteners of any kinds.

1. Maple Syrup
2. Stevia (powder or liquid)
3. Brown Rice Syrup
4. Sorghum Syrup
5. Raw Honey
6. Fruit jams

*When you are a desperate for a refined sugar substitute (for example if you must bake in large quantities), you may use rapadura / Succanat (usually found in health food stores) or pilloncillo (must be grated) which is dehydrated sugar cane juice.

For everyday sweet needs, stevia works great. I usually rotate using stevia, maple syrup, sorghum and honey in my oatmeal. The syrups are good for baking. Stevia and honey are good for hot drinks.

In time, you may even find you don’t’ need your foods to be as sweet as you once did. This happened to us and now we have a hard time eating store-bought or other people’s goodies when pressed to do so.

$ Note: pilloncillo, stevia liquid (it lasts forever) and sorghum syrup seem to be the cheapest products overall, maybe jam. Pilloncillo takes time to prepare by grating first however. Find it in the Latin foods section.

Poll for fun

Old Fashioned “Canning” Round 3…

so, enough time has passed and I’ve tried it again. This time, fastidiously clean and VERY careful. Also, fresh cabbage was the key I think. I have not had success the last two times I made sauerkraut, but I did the first time. I am determined to do it again! But I have been gun shy, so it’s taken me a while. Also, brewing up some cabbage juice tonic an beet kvass! Should be interesting!

I am sure I will find that, like most recipes in the “golden book”, proportions are wrong, timing is wrong, but once you nail it— MMMM! Outstanding!

I will let you know in a few days! Right now they are still “curing” on the countertop, undisturbed, unopened.

OH! PS, the Mayo is fantastic!!! a winner!

today: mayo and biscuits

FINALLY! I have been meaning to give homemade mayo a try for ages. I finally made it happen today. It took me 10 minutes. Seriously. Why don’t we do this? After discovering the badness of soybean oils which are in EVERY kind of mayo on in standards grocery stores, i found a safflower mayo but it really cost me. I just made homemade stuff with olive oil, eggs, whey from yogurt, mustard, lemon juice and salt. Yup. that’s it. No, it does not by any means taste like Helleman’s, but as with everything else we’ve changed in our diets in the past months, I know I won’t even notice the difference in about 2 weeks. Want to try?

food process 1 egg plus one yolk, 1 tsp. dijon mustard, 1 1/2 T. FRESH lemon juice, 1 T. whey (the liquid poured off of plain yogurt) for about 30 seconds. Use the drizzle attachment to add 3/4 c.-1 c. olive oil. I do not have a food processor, so I made a mess trying to do with with a blender and it still worked. Season with additional salt or lemon juice to taste. Pour it into a jar, cover, leave out for 7 hours while the whey does its work. This will allow the mayo to stay fresher longer in the fridge and will supposedly thicken slowly — I will let you know how long it keeps! If you don’t use whey, it will keep in the fridge about 2 weeks according to the recipe.

PS – oh yeah, i made buttermilk biscuits as well! True to form, they were not as good as Chris’ – the real baker in the family. Oh well, they are good enough to eat with strawberries and whipped cream!