My Purpose and My Prayer

I am thinking back now to the last eight months of blogging.  Wow!  I really had intended on posting my favorite passages from all the various books I have read, just a way of passing on information to my friends, but this has turned into more than that.  I didn’t think I would actually be thinking of my own articles and researching information and following an outline.  This process of writing has really helped me form some philosophies and gel some things together in my mind.  Lately I’ve been asking myself what exactly is my purpose with this blog.  Why do I take my time with this?  Is it because I think everyone should eat the way I do?  Do I think I am the enlightened one and must tell everyone to change his or her ways?

As I have been thinking of this, a scripture came to my mind.  III John 2 says, “I pray that you will prosper in ALL things and be in HEALTH, just as your soul prospers.”  This answers my questions; this is where my purpose lies.  First, I want to educate you on how to have a prosperous soul/spirit, and second, I want to educate you on how to have physical prosperity and health.  Your eternal destiny is far more important than your bodily health, but you also can’t fully do the work of the Lord unless you walk in physical health.  Do you know where you are spending eternity?  Do you know what God is calling you to do?  I want to help you realize the answers to these questions.  For me, this is the big picture and I’m really glad I took some time to think about it.  I truly believe that I am held accountable to God for the influence I have on others, so I want to make sure I am using that influence properly.

 Above all, I want this blog to bring you freedom!  Freedom from being a slave to sickness, disease, disorders, aches, and pains.  I want to meet you where you’re at and help you along the way to make changes in the right direction.  I look around me and try to learn from other’s mistakes.  I see people in the health community taking sides against one another on health issues and bringing condemnation, or telling people that they have to change X, Y, and Z in order to be healthy.  I am not here to bring division and condemnation and it is certainly NOT my place to tell you what you need to change.  It is your job to pray and seek God.  Ask Him what He wants you to apply to your life.  To obey is better than sacrifice (I Sam. 15:22).  You can sacrifice everything in your life, but unless you are obeying what God specifically has for you, you won’t have peace.  None of us need to get caught in the comparison trap, myself included (II Cor. 10:12).  All of us are at different places in our growth, have different motives, different goals, and will reach a different place.  Romans 8:1 says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”  If you are listening to the Spirit of God and letting Him lead you in your decisions, rather than listening to the flesh, then there is no condemnation.  If God is leading me to implement something in my diet, but He is not leading you to it, I cannot condemn you.  If you never switched to a complete diet of whole foods, 100% of the time, you would not disappoint me; I only want you to do what God is calling you to do!

 Now don’t use this as a cop-out.  “Shannon said I didn’t have to change!”  That is not what I am saying here.  I am saying that you should seek God and His will for you in ALL areas of your life, diet included.  I can think of some examples where it would be practically impossible to eat well.  The most important thing is, are you fulfilling God’s purpose for your life?  He will provide the way for you to have physical health.  I hope you get the point.  Please don’t slip into making excuses, if you feel that God is leading you to make changes, ask Him which changes you need to make and ask Him to provide!  He will!  Trust in Him and do NOT lean on your own understanding.  (Prov. 3:5).  If I present information on here that overwhelms you, put it on the back shelf of your mind, maybe it’s not God’s timing yet or maybe it’s just not something that He wants you to change.

 So thank you for continuing to read my humble blog, I pray that you will all prosper and live in HEALTH (III John 2), that you experience the peace that surpasses understanding (Phil. 4:7), and that your life will be filled with the joy of the Lord (Neh. 8:10)!

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Need a quick breakfast or snack? Instead of reaching for a granola bar, keep these on hand. Refer to the Epiphany article to see why you don’t want to eat granola bars. I feel like I’m always the bearer of bad news, but I have to tell you that muffin mixes in the boxes or pouches have trans fats in them and/or they call for unhealthy vegetable oils. Making muffins from scratch is just as easy; it may only take 5 extra minutes. On a side note, please know that I don’t tell everyone to make things from scratch to be like a Martha Stewart. I wasn’t raised to eat packaged, processed food, but I easily slipped into eating them all the time once I was on my own because I was not educated about why we ate whole foods at home. Now that I have educated myself I am on a mission to educate others and show how making things from scratch is easy, but also much better for you.

I make one batch of these each weekend for my husband to take for breakfast in the car on the way to work. He thinks they taste like Twinkies, I suppose that’s a compliment?! I can handle them with less sugar. If you want, you can try 3 tablespoons of each sugar. Muffin recipes (quick-breads) are really easy to tweak.Preheat oven to 400°F. Butter a muffin pan. You can make 12 small muffins, 8 med-large muffins, or 6 extra large muffins that really hang over the top (I make 8). Note: I use a stoneware muffin pan, so cook time may vary slightly.

Mix together in a large bowl:
2 Cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup white sugar
¼ cup dark brown sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder (I prefer Rumford, it’s aluminum-free)
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon

Melt 4 tablespoons butter, let cool and set aside.

In a smaller bowl beat 1 egg and add:
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
¼ cup milk (preferable whole)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or almond is good, too)

Then slowly drizzle in the melted butter as you are whisking the liquid ingredients.

Then pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir just until combined. Spoon into the muffin pan and bake for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

If you want to make these healthier you can replace half the flour with whole-wheat pastry flour (soft wheat), anything more and they will be dense, but feel free to experiment. If you want a more natural sweetener, I suggest Sucanat or Rapadura (one and the same). Sucanat/Rapadura is REAL sugar; click the link to see how this sugar differs from the refined product we’re used to. It is unrefined, truly a whole food product. I like to use it in muffins and especially oatmeal, mmm! It is a stronger flavor, since the molasses isn’t separated out, but it also retains its vitamins and minerals, unlike refined sugar. Take your babysteps, make these muffins, then try them with less sugar, then try them with a little whole-wheat flour and then try a natural sweetener. Don’t try to jump too far ahead, too quickly.

Part of the advantage these muffins have over granola bars is their fat content. (I even eat these with more butter spread on them.) If you haven’t read my article on fat, you simply must, it is a foundational point. Fat will give you energy for longer and will help slow the absorption of sugar and carbs into your bloodstream, thus keeping your insulin at a steady level. When your insulin spikes up, it comes back down rapidly, causing a crash and making you feel hungry, irritable, tired, lightheaded, headachy, and sometimes nauseous. (We especially don’t want our children to experience this, can you say cranky? Yet, children eat these foods all the time, perhaps they would behave better on healthier foods?) So you typically reach for another carb item to snack on and go through the whole roller coaster again. This blood sugar roller coaster is one I knew all too well and now take precaution to avoid (now that I know how). My secret weapon is fat. Fat does not make you fat and if you are eating healthy fat, like butter, it will not harm your heart or arteries, either. A few years ago I heard a nutritionist, at a meeting, say that we should NEVER eat sugar without fat. I took that message to heart and it has cured me of the blood sugar roller coaster. (Keep in mind, too, that by sugar I mean ALL carbs, because they are made up of different sugars or are broken down into sugars during digestion.) If I have a carb, even fruit, I HAVE to eat fat with it. If I eat an apple, I eat it with peanut butter or cheese, or else I will be starving in an hour (often with lightheadedness and nausea). If I eat a dessert, I choose richer desserts, like cheesecake, etc. I have found, too often, that if I eat a dessert with little or no fat it will make me feel terrible. I have also discovered that I can eat really small meals if I want (usually lunch) as long as I include a healthy portion of fat. This way I can keep on top of my weight and that’s always an added plus!

Marinara Sauce

Updated 1/8/09

I hope that the font size does not bother anyone.  I have formatting issues when I post recipes so I have to revert to this format and I don’t like the small font.  You can change the text size on your Internet browser temporarily to make it more readable.

As promised, here is a recipe that you can easily whip up to substitute for commercial spaghetti sauce.  I grew up in a house where everything was made from scratch, there were no packages to open, so when I got married I knew how to make marinara and did for many, many years.  Then when I had a child, I succumbed to the convenience of the jar variety, and my family got very hooked on it.  I finally cut that out last year, as I do not want to consume things that have HFCS in them.  So I came up with this recipe.  There are plenty of good marinara recipes out there; this is what my family will eat.  Please tweak it however you like to your family’s liking.  If you have questions, please let me know.

I do add some sugar to it to cut the acidity of the tomatoes.  Some say you can add some stewed apple or pear to accomplish the same, but I haven’t tried that.  I figure 2 tablespoons of sugar spread out over 1 quart of sauce isn’t going to make much of an impact.  Two tablespoons of sugar equals 24 grams of sugar.  If you have a half-cup serving then you are eating an extra 3 grams of sugar, minimal to my mind.  At this point, my family won’t eat it any other way because I let them eat the jarred variety for so long and they want that slightly sweet taste.

But I digress; let’s get back to the recipe.  You can use this sauce for spaghetti, you can add ground meat for a meat sauce, you can use it for lasagna, stuffed pasta shells, manicotti, cannelloni, I even use it to top my meatloaf and as a dip for our meatloaf instead of ketchup.  Ketchup is so full of HFCS, but meatloaf is the only meat that I have to have ketchup with, so thankfully this sauce now takes that place.  When we do meatless spaghetti, I like to add some cream to this sauce; it’s a wonderful variation.

This recipe will make a little more than a quart.  I like to keep it in a mason jar in the fridge.  I suppose you could make a large batch and freeze it, you might allow for some expansion room in the jar.

1 med. onion, diced

1 Tb. coconut oil

2 cloves garlic, pressed or finely minced

1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes (I like the petite cut)

1 28 oz. can tomato sauce puree (I now use puree because it doesn’t list any other ingredients. The sauce lists some objectionable things.)

2 Tb. sugar

1 Tb. dried basil

1 Tb. dried Italian herb blend (I’ve been using 5^th Season brand)

salt to taste (I probably use ½ teaspoon)

Optional:  I have been adding about 1 – 2 teaspoons Balsamic vinegar lately, I’m not sure if it enhances the flavor, but I’ve had this bottle in the fridge for so long I feel I need to use it in something.

Place oil in warmed pan over medium heat.  Add onion and sauté till clear, 5 to 10 minutes.  If your family doesn’t like onions you can chop them really finely in a food processor and then sauté them for longer, till they are caramel color, they will disappear in the sauce.  This is what I have to do.  But you really don’t want to omit the onions as they add sweetness to the sauce.  When the onions are done, add the garlic and sauté for 1 minute.  Add the diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, sugar, basil, Italian herbs and salt, and vinegar, if you are using it.  Bring to a boil and then reduce and let it simmer (remember this is not on the lowest temperature, you want to see a few bubbles) for at least 20 minutes, uncovered.

This is a quick easy sauce to make, but I know it’s not as convenient as opening a jar.  You may need to think ahead some if you need spaghetti to be a super quick meal.  I plan my meals out by the week and sometimes I will make the spaghetti sauce on the weekend if I know it’s on the menu for the week.

Enjoy!