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If you haven’t noticed already, I highly recommend Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, with Mary Enig. This book is available at my local library, it just might be available at yours.
This book opened my eyes to a lot of things. But I must say that the first time I checked it out, I was overwhelmed and didn’t even read it. It is so thick. Then I learned that it is mostly recipes. The portion on nutrition is only the first little bit, maybe 60 pages. That was doable to me. I have read that portion, now, over and over, each time gleaning new information.
The authors cover everything you need to know on the subject of fats, carbs, protein, vitamins, minerals, and enzymes, and more.
This is a general resource that everyone should check out, whether you’re just starting to eat healthy, or you grind your own wheat and make your own bread. 
I grew these pickling cucumbers this year specifically to make homemade pickles. I’ve been making them for a couple years now, but I always bought cucumbers from Conrad’s in the past. These are so easy to make and SO good for you. Looking for more ways to get probiotics in your diet? These are for you.
These are naturally fermented pickles. They will not be canned. Canning is a way to preserve your garden bounty, but the process of heating will kill all the beneficial enzymes, vitamins, and friendly bacteria.
If you’re new to naturally fermented foods, you may be thinking, “Ewww, I don’t want to eat something fermented!” But lots of food you already enjoy is fermented–vinegar, sauerkraut, kimchi, wine, beer, cheese, yogurt, miso–to name a few. Even more food was fermented back in the days before canning. It is a natural way to preserve food. This is how people back in Bible times kept food from spoiling without refrigerators. Fermenting actually increases the vitamin content of food. Eating some fermented food every day aids digestion.
I like to use a cross between a recipe from Wild Fermentation and Nourishing Traditions.
You will need:
-filtered water
-sea salt (If Celtic, make sure to sterilize, like I mentioned here.)
-dill seeds or fresh dill heads
-mustard seeds (optional)
-few garlic cloves
-cucumbers, either whole, sliced, or cut in spears
-whey (optional)
-glass jars or crock
-something to weigh down and keep the cukes submerged (see photo)
I mix 6 tablespoons of Celtic Sea Salt with 8 cups of filtered water, stir to dissolve.
Place a couple cloves peeled garlic in each jar, add seasonings, dill and mustard, if using. Add cucumbers to the jar. If you are using whey (this just gives them a little kick-start on fermenting, it’s not essential), add a couple tablespoons to each jar. Then cover with brine. If you need to mix up more brine, do so with the above ratio. You will need enough brine to cover the cucumbers and you will want to leave about an inch of head room.
Now for the important part–you need to weigh your cucumbers down so that they stay submerged. Any part of the cucumber that is above the brine level will rot and have to be thrown out. If you’re using a big crock, you can use a plate to weigh them down. I use mason jars (see above picture), so I use little plastic containers filled with dry beans as my weights.
You will now leave these cucumbers out at room temperature to ferment. I do mine for 5 days. The bigger your cucumbers the longer the ferment. If you leave your cucumbers whole, it will take longer. I always slice mine, like you see in the picture.
You will see the liquid turn cloudy (that is good!) and the cucumbers turn from bright green to the darker pickle color. Cover your container with a cloth to keep flies away. After they are done fermenting, store in the fridge (with lids on the jars).
Now at this point, your germaphobia may be telling you that you can’t leave cucumbers out on the counter for 5 days! But this is wrong. Bacteria and mold cannot survive in certain conditions, salt and acid are two of those conditions. The brine you made is very salty, nothing bad can live in it, that’s why we have to keep the cucumbers in that brine. If they poke above the liquid, they aren’t protected and will mold and rot. In the process of fermentation the sugars are turning to acids and that keeps baddies from growing, too. Good bacteria are multiplying and keeping bad stuff at bay as well. If you want to learn more, click here.
Oddly enough, even though the brine starts out very salty, it changes during fermentation. These pickles are not too salty. If your’s taste too salty, let them ferment longer.
You will need to check on your pickles every day and skim any mold that is growing on the surface. It’s not essential to get all of it, just do your best. Again, I know this sounds weird, but don’t worry, the pickles in the brine are safe. This is how true kosher pickles are made. This is how pickles were made in barrels for hundreds of years. Unfortunately all pickles sold in regular grocery stores are only vinegar-soaked, not truly fermented, and so they don’t have the same health qualities. In addition, store pickles are then pasteurized/heat sealed, which kills them. These pickles are a living food and will last for months in your fridge.
If you are concerned with how these will taste, you can buy Bubbie’s at Whole Foods (sold in the refrigerator section, next to the cheese and yogurt). They are made the same way I have detailed. Bubbie’s are spicier, though.
Also, an added bonus–you will have pickled garlic–a wonderful, natural antibiotic. The garlic takes longer to pickle than the cucumbers. Typically the garlic is ready when the pickles are all gone. If the garlic taste like a pickle, you know it’s done. If it still tastes strong, like garlic, then you know it’s not done and you can just leave it in the jar, in the fridge. I beat colds and flu with garlic, but it’s much, much easier to eat when it’s pickled! My kids will eat it, too, and love it! Occasionally, I will drink some of the pickle brine, too, since it has lots of good stuff, good acids, good bacteria (probiotics), probably some essence of the garlic, etc.
These are easy (probably takes me 30 minutes or less), but they require a little patience (you don’t get to eat them for a few days), but it is SO worth it! Hope you enjoy!
I am making homemade buttermilk this week from my raw milk. I let my starter go, so I’m starting over from scratch. I like to keep buttermilk on hand for pancakes, biscuits, etc. Plus it’s a great way to keep from wasting my raw milk. Once it’s cultured, it lasts a long time in the fridge.
You can use store-bought buttermilk as a starter, but I found that it only works well for a handful of times. When I start it from scratch myself, it lasts longer (the culture, that is).
Click on this link to see just how easy it is to make buttermilk at home.
If you need more information, check out this link.
Also, you can use this same method to make sour cream. Once you have a starter, either store-bought or homemade, use it to culture your raw cream. If you want it ultra-thick, you can strain some of the whey out (I use a coffee filter, basket-style).
The benefit of both these products, is that they are live foods, without any added junk. They contain necessary probiotics, and even if you are using the buttermilk to bake with, there is evidence that dead probiotics still benefit us (the heat will kill the probiotics)!
Other articles on live foods that you may enjoy:
In the last installment, I posted a link that answered the question of why I drink raw milk. I should add that the number one reason is because of my motto–if God created it, it is healthy; if man has adulterated it, it is unhealthy. Pasteurized milk is one of our most processed/adulterated foods (that everyone thinks is healthy). Now on to this week’s topic.
Celtic Sea Salt
You may have noticed that I call for this in most of my recipes. Specifically, my Curried Sweet Potato Soup and my Molasses Sourdough Bread.
Why?
Let’s go back to the beginning.
I first heard of Celtic Sea Salt when reading Nourishing Traditions. Sally Fallon calls for it in all her recipes. So I bought some so I could try making homemade sauerkraut. It was quite expensive, I think I paid about $6.00 for a one-pound package.
So I made some sauerkraut and then left the salt up in the cupboard and didn’t dare use it for anything else, since it cost so much!
Well, one day I was talking to a friend and she told me that she had started using Celtic Sea Salt and it tasted so much better than regular salt in her food. My package had been in the cupboard for quite a while at this point. I figured I should start using it.
So I tried it out and she was right–it tasted great. But another very interesting thing happened. An issue I had been dealing with cleared up. Around the time I had my daughter (she’s 3 and a half now), I started having dizzy spells. They weren’t like anything I had ever experienced before. It wasn’t lightheadedness, like low blood sugar–I knew what that felt like. It wasn’t full vertigo, the room didn’t actually spin, but it was just a very weird feeling. My legs would feel weird and my stomach would feel weird and I would just close my eyes until the feeling passed–it usually lasted a few seconds. Well, these episodes started happening more frequently and were becoming longer in duration. I am the type of person that only goes to the doctor in emergencies, but this was starting to concern me.
When I started using Celtic Sea Salt on my food the dizzy spells stopped! I was thrilled! This told me that it must be some sort of mineral deficiency causing them.
I used up the bag of salt that I had and didn’t rush back out to buy more since it was so expensive. After a bit, the dizzy spells returned, so I ran right back to the health food store to buy more salt. I didn’t care how much it cost now, this was medicine to me! As long as I keep using the Celtic Sea Salt, the dizzy spells seem to stay away. And interestingly, the RLS I had for many, many years is almost non-existent!
Celtic Sea Salt is an unrefined salt. Therefore it has a range of minerals that are not present in regular table salt or even other sea salts. You will notice that it is gray, that is because of all the minerals.
It comes in coarse or fine. I have found that the fine salt is more expensive. I just buy the coarse and grind it in my food processor.
You will notice that it is moist when you buy it. Dr. Hulda Clark recommends sterilizing it in the oven (400F) on a plate for 5 minutes, to kill mold. I did not know this for a while, but a batch of my ferments molded, so now I am taking this precaution.
I do keep Hain Sea Salt on hand for certain things, to keep in the salt shaker, but I use Celtic Sea Salt in all of my cooking.
So why use Celtic Sea Salt? It will help supply your body with needed minerals, it is unrefined (therefore in line with my motto), and it tastes great!
I am going to start a series called Why? In it I will select a few things I do/supplements I take/food I eat and explain why.
While I was mulling over things to include in this series, I ran across this post on Cheeseslave – Top Ten Reasons to Drink Raw Milk. This post is wonderful! It includes all the reasons why I love raw milk. I love all the Powerpoint slides, especially the one regarding food-borne illnesses. Thank you, Ann Marie, for putting this together!
You can make this with raw or pasteurized milk, but raw milk will give you more benefits. This makes a nice, mild yogurt, not too sour. My daughter and I eat it plain, my son prefers some all-fruit jelly added to his. You could also sweeten with raw honey. Yogurt provides us with beneficial bacteria and protein. Plus, yogurt is very low in carbs!
This recipe is really easy; I think it takes be about 40 minutes at the most. Just read through the entire recipe before starting (and check out the pictures at the end of the article). Last time I made it, I also folded a load of towels at the same time J. I do this once a week to keep us supplied. It will make almost 2 quarts.
For the starter, I use Dannon Plain whole milk yogurt. Some say you can always save some of your yogurt to start another batch, but I have heard that it will not set up as firm each consecutive time. I buy a container of Dannon yogurt and then freeze it in an ice cube tray for later batches. I use ½ cup fresh yogurt or 4 yogurt cubes as my starter.
I pour 6 cups of milk into a two-quart saucepan and heat over medium heat on the stove until it reaches 180°F. I stir frequently (or rather, I whisk) and use a meat thermometer to accurately test the temperature.
Then I turn the heat off and cool my milk down to 110°F. You will kill your starter if you add it to milk that is heated to 115°F or higher. To cool down quickly I set my pan over a plate of ice and constantly stir or whisk it. When the temp is at 110°F, I then stir in the starter (see above). This will bring the temperature down a bit. If I’m using the yogurt ice cubes I will actually add them at 120°F, since they will bring the temperature down quite a bit. You want the temperature to be 100°F when you are ready to pour into your jars. If it has dropped below this, just put it back on the stove and gently warm it, stirring constantly. If it’s a little about 100°F, don’t worry; it will cool when you put it in the jars. Now you are ready to pour into quart jars and put on the lids.
You need to keep this warm for 6 hours. Some people will put them in the oven with the light on. I don’t think my oven stays warm enough for that. Some people will put them on a heating pad and wrap them in towels. I put mine in a little cooler. Before I start the process I will fill the cooler halfway with hot water to get it warm. Then I dump the water out right when I’m ready to put the jars in. I will put the jars in and pack a few hand towels around and on top of them to insulate even more. Then I set the timer for 6 hours. When it goes off I take the yogurt out and chill it overnight before we eat it.
Homemade yogurt has more of a custard-like texture than store-bought yogurt (I am speaking of plain store-bought, not fruit flavored). This is because the manufacturer has added powdered milk to thicken it up. Store-bought plain yogurt is not a food to avoid, but it is a compromise food; homemade is ideal. Powdered milk is processed milk and you know what I say, “If God created it, it is healthy; if man has processed it, it is unhealthy.” According to Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon, “commercial dehydration methods oxidize cholesterol in powdered milk, rendering it harmful to the arteries. High temperature drying also creates large quantities of cross-linked proteins and nitrate compounds, which are potent carcinogens, as well as free glutamic acid, which is toxic to the nervous system. (pg. 35)” So powdered milk is something you want to stay away from. Powdered milk is added to skim, 1%, and 2% milk to give it body, also to yogurt to thicken it, and many other packaged food items.
I like thick, creamy yogurt, so I strain some whey out of mine. Plus I need the whey anyway; I use it in my oatmeal, pickles, sauerkraut, and more. You can place some cheesecloth in a wire strainer set over a bowl and fill it with yogurt. Cover it and place it in the refrigerator for an hour or more (I usually leave overnight). I buy unbleached coffee filters (basket-style) from Whole Foods and use them instead of cheesecloth. The longer you let the yogurt strain, the easier it will be to turn it out of the cloth or filter. I strain some of the yogurt and then mix it with some that is unstrained. You will have to play with it to get the thickness you are looking for. I usually end up with a little more than half the amount I originally made. But it’s worth it, to me. It’s oh so creamy and delicious! If you want to make dip out of it, just strain more whey out of it. Some use strained yogurt in place of cream cheese, too.
If you are just now joining this blog, you will want to read Part 1 and Part 2 of My Food Journey.
Here I pick up with what I learned from my research into lowcarb dieting. I learned many things. I learned about how our body releases insulin and about the insulin rollercoaster. I learned more about how important protein is. I learned about the glycemic index and how we can lower the glycemic index of the carbs that we eat by including fat and/or fiber. But the thing that was most enlightening was that fat is not evil!!! This thrilled me, to say the least—I do love my butter! I learned that there are good fats and bad fats and I learned what trans fats are.
This information made me feel great that I was raised on the good fats, butter, cream, and red meat, so I wanted to know more. I picked up a book called, Know Your Fats, by Dr. Mary Enig. This is the definitive guide to fat. I learned about Omega-3s, Omega-6s, saturated, polyunsaturated, and monounsaturated oils; and much more. Everything you wanted to know about fatty acids can be found in this book. Dr. Enig was pushing the FDA to include trans fats on food labels YEARS before they actually did. She is a champion of healthy fats. It was all starting to make sense to me. As a child I was told that hydrogenated oils were bad, but now I was learning why.
This started an obsession for me. I kept reading and researching and learning, I couldn’t get enough! This is the point that I started to make changes to my diet. I threw out all the margarine, Smart Select butter, shortening, trans fat peanut butter (Skippy, Jif, Peter Pan), and starting scrutinizing labels. At this point trans fats were not labeled on food labels. I checked out the book, The Trans Fat Solution by Kim Severson and Cindy Burke. This is a really short informative book that tells you why trans fats are bad, but also how to tell if food contains it. With this knowledge, now I know the REAL way to tell if an item has trans fats in it and guess what? It’s not by looking at the gram listings.
Some time after this I found the book, Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. This book is really big, most of it being recipes. The first time I checked it out from my library I just read the nutrition information, it was really eye opening. I kept checking it out from our library and kept reading new things in it. After borrowing it from the library about ten times I decided it was time to buy it. This book opened my eyes to phytates, the substance that is in grains that leaches minerals from our bodies. I then started playing around with whole-wheat sourdough. I learned all about raw dairy in this book and then quit buying pasteurized dairy products and started making my own yogurt. From this book I learned how important animal protein is so I started making my son eat meat at dinnertime. He never liked meat very much and I convinced myself he was healthy if he had peanut butter and eggs. Not so after reading Sally Fallon’s book. (He enjoys most meat now.) J
About a year ago I joined the Yahoo group discussingnt; these are all folks that have read Nourishing Traditions. This really helped me along in my changes. I started making a lot more changes when I joined that group. There is something to be said for support, whether that is a friend, or an Internet discussion board, or even a private journal (this at least helps with accountability). Anyway, I saw that there are so many real foods that we’re missing out on because of mass marketing. According to FDA safety guidelines, food must be sealed in order to be shipped and sold on a mass scale. This is good because it prevents rotten food from being sold, but the bad news is that this process kills the nutrients in those items. (Moral: We should be getting our food locally.) So I started making my own naturally fermented sauerkraut, dill pickles, ginger carrots, and beet kvass. When these items are let to naturally ferment and then stored in the refrigerator instead of heat-sealed through traditional canning methods they are alive and full of nutrients and beneficial bacteria. Also while I was a part of that discussion group I started making Kombucha and still drink it practically every day.
Other changes I have made include less cooking with olive oil, I do use it on salad, on pasta, and to dip bread in. It is a very healthy oil when it is cold, but it will get damaged when heated. I do most of my cooking with butter and some with coconut oil. When I switched to lowcarb eating I learned to like a lot more veggies, since veggies have a lower glycemic index than breads and pastas. Thankfully when my husband went on his diet we cleared the cupboards of the snack cakes and boxed macaroni and cheese. He had quit drinking soda and Kool-Aid many years before. He switched to Baked Lays in his diet days and I have since got him to switch to plain corn chips (Baked Lays are about as processed as you can get). I have since got him off the granola bars; I now make him muffins to take to work for breakfast. I now make our own lunchmeat from boneless, skinless chicken breasts, rather than buying processed lunchmeat. He lost his weight by really watching his portion intake and cutting most fat out. Since I learned all about healthy fat, I now feed him lots of fat in his meals and he hasn’t gained any of the weight back. He still watches his sugar intake. I take coconut oil daily now. I started taking cod liver oil last fall. I occasionally take a probiotic supplement, but I feel I am getting a lot of beneficial bacteria from my homemade yogurt, Kombucha, and naturally fermented veggies. I started making my own sour cream and buttermilk (more beneficial bacteria). I have switched to aluminum-free baking powder (Rumford). About a year ago I stopped using commercial shampoo, conditioner, bar soaps, shower gels, lotions, and facial cleansing products (I’ll give more details in a later post) because of the chemical content. I switched from drinking distilled water to filtered water (spring is best, we’re just not there yet). And I use plastics a lot less now, I’m not completely away from them, but I am taking my babysteps.
Now keep in mind that all these babysteps I took were over a period of years, this really all started about 6 years ago. I’m just hoping that my list will inspire you and encourage you in your changes.
Looking back over my food journey shows me 1) I ate pretty good as a child, but there was a high level of phytates, which I think accounts for my dealings with mineral deficiencies now and 2) it is SO important to teach your kids about healthy eating and why you choose to eat what you eat. I wasn’t taught and had to educate myself as an adult after eating poorly for about 10 years. It may look like I have come full circle and now eat the way I did as a kid, but there are a few differences. I watch my carb intake; I don’t eat a lot of breads and pastas. Even if you’re choosing all whole-grain bread products you can still go overboard, remember, balance is key. We ate a LOT of grains in our family; my blood sugar just can’t handle that now. I feed my kids more carbs than I eat, but I do make sure they are getting animal protein every day.
The journey doesn’t end here—it goes on and on. We all should never stop growing, never stop learning, and never stop changing!
Update: I forgot to mention that I have started soaking some grains, we eat soaked old fashioned oatmeal once a week and soaked multi-grain pancakes on occasion.
I feel like people don’t think that most of what they have in the pantry is that bad for them. I see people in the grocery store with their carts full of bright colored packages of processed foods. Kids today live on snack foods, but parents feel secure because the packaging assures them that there is nutrition in those snacks. Then it struck me the other day – the mere presence of Nutrition Facts labels on packaged food is deceiving people into thinking that there is ACTUALLY nutrition contained in that package. We can thank the FDA for this. I’m sure it started out to let people know about the bad stuff, like sugar grams or fat grams (no, fat is not bad, but the FDA wants you to think it is), but it has evolved into something that says, “Eat me, I’m healthy!” Let me tell you folks, nothing could be further from the truth! This has been a light bulb moment for me. So now that I’ve had this epiphany I think I can address the issue properly. Let me show you a couple of example of why processed foods are unhealthy. We all know ice cream and cookies are unhealthy, but what about these…
Breakfast Cereal
The label says it’s made from whole grain, it’s low in fat and it provides 100% of your daily vitamin and mineral needs. The problem is that it will raise your blood sugar very quickly, causing a crash soon after, leaving you hungry for more. (The whole insulin roller coaster is a topic for another day.) The whole grain that is used is processed beyond recognition. There are different levels of processing, from simply grinding the grain to grinding, mashing, and extruding under very high pressure. Just because a study says that whole grain is beneficial does NOT mean that whole grain in ALL its forms is beneficial. Processing destroys those benefits. Grains have a substance in them called phytic acid that binds with minerals in your body and carries them away, leaving your body depleted. We can take measures to neutralize this phytic acid, but certain processing actually makes that phytic acid more potent. Extruding is one of those processes (this is how we get those neat little shaped Os and stars and such, by high pressure extrusion). There was a test done on boxed cereal and mice. Three groups of mice were tested. One group was given the breakfast cereal and water, one group was given the cardboard box and water, and the control group was fed rat food and water. The rats in the control group stayed healthy. The rats eating the box became lethargic and eventually died of malnutrition. This is the interesting part, the rats that were eating the cereal died BEFORE the rats eating the box! Before they died, they exhibited schizophrenic behavior, threw fits, bit each other and finally went into convulsions. The processing done to grains to become breakfast cereal actually makes them toxic. If that isn’t enough, the vitamin and mineral content on the box is very deceiving. The manufacturer knows that the processing is destroying the grains, so they have added SYNTHETIC vitamins to sell you on it. These vitamins are not recognized in our bodies, doing us no good. Make your family good old-fashioned oatmeal for breakfast, or better yet, eat some eggs – God’s wonder food!
Flavored Yogurt
Yogurt has received a lot of attention in the last few years in the media because of the probiotics (like acidophilus) it contains. Here again, like the breakfast cereal, just because a study says yogurt is healthy does not mean that all FORMS of yogurt are healthy. The typical yogurt consumed is the fruit-flavored variety. I used to eat a lot of these myself! So what’s so bad about them? Let’s start with how they are made. First the milk is pasteurized, which kills almost ALL the vitamins, ALL of the enzymes, reduces the availability of it’s minerals, and damages the fragile proteins. Then the milk is homogenized which makes the fat particles so small they will stay mixed into the milk, but also makes them very susceptible to oxidation and rancidity, contributing to heart disease. Then the milk is usually thickened with powdered milk, which contains oxidized cholesterol, which is harmful to our arteries, and potent carcinogens, like glutamic acid (due to the high temperature drying process), which is toxic to our nervous systems. Then the sugar is added, often high fructose corn syrup, coloring (read here to see where the red comes from, surprising!), fruit and artificial flavors. Don’t think that the sugar-free varieties are better, they are even worse, artificial sweeteners of ALL types are dangerous chemicals.
What about the benefits of yogurt? Do they outweigh these negative aspects? In short, no, the probiotics are there to help fight off the bad bacteria in your gut, but the sugar in the yogurt is actually FEEDING the bad bacteria in your gut. Plus your body can’t absorb the calcium because the vitamin D has been destroyed (it’s often supplemented with synthetic vitamin D, which your body just eliminates as waste) and the fat has been damaged or is absent.
So the bottom line is that flavored yogurts have NO nutritional value. I’m not saying don’t eat them; just know that you are eating a dessert. You will be much better off eating plain full fat yogurt (sweeten with some raw honey, if you like) or better yet, make your own from raw milk.
Granola Bars
As I heard Dr. Roizen say once, “These are just candy bars.” Ingredients are listed in descending order so when you see sugar listed second it means there is a lot of sugar in this product. (Nature Valley Oats ‘n Honey) Red flag number two is the third ingredient, Canola Oil. I have mentioned this oil before, it is one of the worst oils for you, very, very high in the wrong kind of Omega-6 and the Omega-3 is damaged. Next is crisped rice, this is overly processed rice like the kind in breakfast cereal; we just talked about why that is so bad. The fifth ingredient listed is a very deceiving one, soy protein. We have been conditioned to think that soy is very healthy, but let’s explore this ingredient and decide for ourselves. The real name of the ingredient is soy protein isolate and it is made by removing the fiber from the soybean in an alkaline solution, then the beans are put in large aluminum tanks with an acid wash. This acid makes the soybeans absorb aluminum, which remains in the end product (big culprit of Alzheimer’s and dementia). After the acid, the beans are treated with many other chemicals including nitrates, which are linked with cancer. Soy is a goitrogen, which means it reduces thyroid function; low thyroid function in kids includes abnormalities in brain development and maturation. Soy is very high in phytates. This is what we talked about with the cereal; phytates actually remove minerals from our bodies. Soy contains natural phytoestrogens (act like estrogen in our bodies), this may be good for menopausal women, but certainly not for kids. Many doctors are now linking the consumption of soy with the early puberty development that has become the norm for young girls. So, as you can see, soy is not our friend. The next three ingredients are sugar, not good, then salt, then soy lecithin, another soy product, need I say more. After some baking soda comes some natural flavor. Now this sounds good, something natural. Ha! Often MSG is included in ingredient listings as natural flavor. Why else would they need to list a natural flavor unless it was a chemical? You have oats and honey listed, you certainly don’t need to list “oat flavor” and “honey flavor”, we can already see they’re there, so this tells me it is a chemical product. Then some nut flours. So to sum up, I agree with Dr. Roizen, these are just candy bars. This goes for energy bars as well. Do your family a favor and make some homemade muffins, even if they aren’t 100% whole wheat, you can avoid the soy, high fructose corn syrup, and chemical flavors at home.
Reading over this post, I really sound like I’m ranting and raving, but I do not apologize. I whole-heartedly believe that packaged food is THE worst thing for your health. There are a few packaged food items I eat from time to time, and I certainly won’t look down my nose at anyone else eating them, but I don’t want you to be deceived into thinking that you are partaking of some nutrition. Think of these items listed above as dessert and nothing more. I could list many more processed foods that masquerade as nutrition, like Lean Cuisine, Baked Lays, Whole Wheat Triscuits, Campbell’s Soup – but I think I’ve made my point. This goes for food items at the local grocery store, but EVEN at the local health food store. The bottom line is that packaged, processed food should not be such a big part of our diet. Things like canned, diced tomatoes or frozen veggies are okay because they have had very minimal processing. It seems to me that the more processed a food is the more advertising is on the package convincing us it’s a healthy food that we should buy. We must be ever conscious of marketing ploys at the grocery store!
So please don’t be overwhelmed by this new information. Take your babysteps; pick one packaged food item at a time to cut out. I will be including more recipes in the future to help you substitute the packaged food for REAL food.
I’m wondering why we’re not always told the whole story. These are some examples that come to mind.
We are led to believe that cavities and tooth decay are caused by things that sit on our teeth, food that isn’t properly brushed and flossed away that rots, BUT Dr. Weston A. Price, DDS showed us back in the 1930s that the biggest factor in decay was what goes into our bodies, specifically processed foods. The people groups he studied all over the world had no signs of decay or crowding until the Western diet was introduced, he had the chance to study them before and after. Why isn’t this knowledge widely known? It’s not in the best interest of the packaged food industry or the toothpaste and floss industries that we know this information. Hmmm. Read more here.
We hear a lot about the benefits of tea, especially green tea, that it has anti-cancerous properties, BUT did you know that non-organic tea contains very high levels of fluoride; much higher than the government thinks is safe for our drinking water. For some reason tea leaves store up the fluoride that comes from the polluted ground, so if you want to drink tea, you are much better off with organic tea. Read more here.
We hear that we need to eat whole grains, whole wheat breads, pasta, crackers, and cereals to get our daily intake of fiber, BUT did you know that grain contains an anti-nutrient called phytic acid that actually robs your body of minerals when you ingest it? We can treat our grains and/or sprout them to eliminate the phytic acid, but we should also be getting the bulk of our fiber from vegetables and fruit. Ezekiel Bread is an example of a sprouted bread. Read more here.
We have been led to believe that saturated fat and cholesterol clogs the arteries, BUT the plaque removed from arteries contains very little cholesterol and mostly unsaturated fat, 74%, in fact. (Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon pg. 84)
We are told that Canola is a wonder oil because it provides Omega-3, BUT it contains twice as much Omega-6 which we don’t need AND the Omega-3 it contains is damaged. Don’t be conned by packages that claim their food is a good source of Omega-3, Hellman’s Mayonnaise is a prime example.
We are led to believe that skim milk helps keep us trim, BUT farmers feed skim milk to their pigs to fatten them up! (Nourishing Traditions, pg. 212, quoting The Milk Book by William Campbell Douglass, MD)
We are led to believe that we need to get our daily supply of dairy products in order to get enough calcium, BUT if you are consuming pasteurized dairy, your body can’t use the calcium it’s getting! In the pasteurization process many of the vitamins are destroyed, the enzymes are destroyed and the fat is oxidized (rancid) and then synthetic vitamins are added. Unless you get enough real vitamin D and fat, you can’t use the calcium. Milk, it does a body good? Don’t be conned by marketing campaigns! The calves should give us a clue – when they are fed pasteurized milk, they do poorly and many die before maturity. Read more here.
Merck has developed a new vaccine for young girls to help prevent the spread of cervical cancer, BUT cervical cancer is an avoidable disease, if you know how to avoid it. A virus that is sexually transmitted causes it. If these girls were just educated on how cervical cancer is contracted and what they can do to prevent getting it (abstinence), then we wouldn’t have such an epidemic. Read more here.
Many of us buy “Cage Free” eggs at the store because we feel they are healthy and we have visions of chickens roaming free on lush green fields, BUT unfortunately the US Department of Agriculture defines “free-range” as chickens that have “access to the outside”. How much time do they spend cooped up? How much time do they really go outside? Are they eating their natural diet or some cheap feed that allows the farmers to profit more? The best eggs to get are local; know how the chickens are treated and what they are eating. Read more here.
We believe that organics are healthy, BUT did you know that many organics have little or no vitamins and minerals?!? It is great that the farmers are committed to growing produce free from dangerous chemical fertilizers and pesticides, but unless they are feeding the soil, they are not producing a quality product. Plus when you pick a fruit or vegetable before it’s ripe and ship it halfway across the country, it won’t have much vitamin and mineral content. This is what most of us have access to, so-called organics that come from far away. It’s unfortunate that “organic” is a buzz word now and marketers are using that to their advantage.
So, hopefully I have given you some food for thought. I am sure there are numerous more examples of this that we can think of. It pays to do your homework, always question and expect the truth!
I love books! Here is a list of my favorite books and movies on the subjects of cooking and health and a few I want to read/watch. These are some great last minute gift ideas or just more things for you to check out from your local library.
Books on Cooking
The Joy of Cooking – a great basic cookbookI recommend this for new and experienced cooks. It covers every category and every food type. I like to pull this off the shelf and just read it sometimes. It has more than just recipes, but explanations and techniques.
How to Cook without a Book by Pam Anderson
Learn techniques, not just recipes. This is a great cookbook for the new cook or the cook that wants to get away from packaged food. Watch out for a couple of packaged food ingredients, but overall it’s real food.
The Perfect Recipe by Pam Anderson
I love all Pam Anderson’s books. She used to work for Cook’s Illustrated magazine (another favorite of mine). She will test every possible way to prepare an item and then present you with the best version and also explain why.
How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman
This is another great basic cookbook, for new and experienced cooks. It’s not as expansive as The Joy of Cooking, but covers a lot of ground. In this book are recipes for popcorn, hot cocoa, and much more. Mark Bittman shows how easy it is to prepare food from scratch; there are no packaged items in his recipes.
Magazines on Cooking
These are my favorite magazines. I LOVE that they don’t include advertisements (Fine Cooking includes a few, but nothing like Bon Appetit!), and they show you how to cook real food! Gourmets insist on fresh, real ingredients, like butter and cream so these recipes are going to be healthier than packaged food.
Fine Cooking
Cook’s Illustrated
Cuisine
Books on Health
The Maker’s Diet by Jordan Rubin
Ignore the word “diet” here. This is a book about healing. Jordan Rubin has an awesome testimony of healing through whole foods.
Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Dr. Mary Enig
An excellent source of nutrition information from an unbiased source including lots of recipes for foods prepared in traditional ways, the way our ancestors prepared their food. At last, a successful challenge to politically correct nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats!
Eat Fat, Lose Fat by Sally Fallon and Dr. Mary Enig
A very well written book about how wrong we have been to avoid fatty foods, with concise information about why we need fat. Includes lots of whole-food recipes. Great for someone needing healing or needing to lose some weight.
The Untold Story of Milk by Dr. Ron Schmid
Fabulous information about the dangers of pasteurization and the wonders of raw milk.
Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz
Recipes for everything fermented, from sourdough bread to beer to pickles. These items are fermented naturally so they retain their enzyme and vitamin content. I made his pickles and they were awesome!
Living the Low Carb Life by Jonny Bowden
This is the book that started it all for me. When I quit nursing my first baby I started gaining weight. That nursing really uses up the calories for me. The weight kept creeping up so I tried to eat as little as I could and cut out as much fat as I could. I not only kept gaining weight, but I was STARVING all the time! My blood sugar would drop and I would reach for something lowfat to bring it back up (like a granola bar) and then an hour or two later it would drop again. I felt miserable and I craved food all the time. So I turned to lowcarb eating. The pounds starting coming off and I was feeling good, but my thoughts were, “all this fat can’t be healthy.” So I started my research. I read lots of books, Atkins, The Zone, Suzanne Somer’s food combining book, and more. I stumbled upon Living the Low Carb Life at my library. This book compared all the low-carb diets out there and gave great information about how fats, sugars, and protein react in our bodies. I recommend this to anyone that wants to learn!
Clean House, Clean Planet by Karen Logan
This book is great if you want to cut down on those toxic household-cleaning products. Karen Logan gives many different recipes for natural inexpensive cleansers you can make at home. She also talks about how we kill those germs without toxins. This was the selling point for me, germaphobe that I am.
Movie on Health
Super Size Me – Morgan Spurlock decided to document himself as he ate McDonald’s for every meal for a month. He visits a dietician, and various medical personnel during the month and they chart how badly his health declines. Even though I knew McDonald’s was unhealthy I was shocked by his results. The only downside I saw was the movie’s emphasis on both the fat and sugar as the culprits. I would really like to see the same study done just isolating sugar. Sugar is our real enemy, folks. The fat at McDonald’s is the wrong kind, but too often all kinds of fat gets lumped together as the bad guy. If you want to watch this with your kids, please check it out at www.kids-in-mind.com first.
Wish List
These are books I really want to read and movies I want to watch, when I find the time.
The Cholesterol Myths by Uffe Ravnskov
Traditional Foods Are Your Best Medicine by Dr. Ron Schmid
Life Without Bread by Christian B. Allan and Wolfgang Lutz
Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes
Whole Food Facts by Evelyn Roehl
These are documentaries. Please not that I have NOT watched them yet, so I have no idea as to the quality of the content.
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