dying is fine) but Death
ee cummings
dying is fine)but Death
?o
baby
i
wouldn't like
Death if Death
were
good:for
when(instead of stopping to think)you
begin to feel of it,dying
's miraculous
why?be
cause dying is
perfectly natural;perfectly
putting
it mildly lively(but
Death
is strictly
scientific
& artificial &
evil & legal)
we thank thee
god
almighty for dying
(forgive us,o life!the sin of Death
When I learned about this poem in a lit analysis class, I learned something that made me love it. ee cummings cheated death by leaving off the closing parentheses. The poem is about how everyone and everything is "dying," but death (in its finality) is cold.
Today has been a day that has been strangely about death. First of all, last night we found out with some finality that we are definitely not pregnant. We only recently were trying, so it's not like I truly expected to be pregnant right off the bat, but my body played some cruel games with me in the beginning that made me think I might be pregnant. The ensuing roller coaster ride ended last night right before I went to sleep, and I woke up just feeling sad and kind of bleak. Not being pregnant was way more disappointing than I even thought it could be, and we're only at the beginning! I felt like I was grieving something I'd lost without ever having.
I had a pretty horrid migraine all day, which made it even harder. I called my mom today to talk to her about it, and learned that Travis - a guy that I had gone to high school with; an all around great guy who loved his wife and his kids and was known for just having a heart to serve people - passed away yesterday. He was on his motorcycle, and was hit by a car that turned without paying attention to where he was. He was hit while on the way to a funeral. My favorite bus driver from high school, one of my dad's friends from growing up, passed away with Lou Gherig's disease this last weekend. Doug was an incredibly talented musician. He put together a Christmas cd with my Jazz Choir in high school. I still have it. To think of Travis dying on the way to go commemorate Doug's life is just horrid. I did not even know him that well, my mom knew him better than I did, because when she went back to college (same time I did), she had classes with him and spend a good bit of time with him. But when someone you know vaguely dies, it is somehow stranger and harder to comprehend than when someone you're close to dies.
All day I felt like there was this weight on me that could not be lifted. I just felt physically exhausted, and emotionally lethargic, too. I was listening to my brother's CD (From the Depths of the Earth), and that was good, but every time I started to feel uplifted I just felt slammed all over again. Then, I came home for lunch, and I didn't really even do anything proactive in fighting off the strange feelings of the day, but on my way back to work, finally found myself smiling out of nowhere. In my head (and coming out of my mouth, as all things stuck in my head eventually do) were the lyric's to the song "Anymore (Rachel's Song)," off of From the Depths of the Earth.
Anymore (Rachel's Song)
I think it's funny how life don't quite work out like you'd hope
And it's never quite as easy as you think
And it's never quite as hard as it seems
But it's always sweeter than the dream
Peace flows like a river
I will sing for the joy of the Lord has come
Mercy flows over my soul
And I just can't maintain control anymore
A hedge about me and a shield all around me
I will take what You bring, the cup that You have for me
For You call me unto holiness
For You call me unto holiness
Peace flows like a river
I will sing for the joy of the Lord has come
Mercy flows over my soul
And I just can't maintain control anymore
Hallelujah, I will fear not, for the righteous they will not be shaken!
© Aaron Santor 2009
ee cummings did not seem to know that even in death, 2 Corinthians 1:3 will always ring true. Life has hard aspects to it, and hard moments, and some moments much harder than others. But in the midst of all of that God really longs to wrap His peace around us, pour it out over us. God is the comforter to the lonely, the father to the fatherless, and the lifter of our heads. I'm so grateful that God took my day from "dying is fine) but death," all the way to "mercy flows over my soul, and I just can't maintain control anymore."
Friday, August 14, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
Fight Back Friday - FED UP WITH MSG!!
This post is a part of Fight Back Fridays, hosted by Food Renegade.
I, like about 25% of Americans, am allergic to MSG. Not fatally so, but I do get awful migraines and upset stomach when I eat foods containing MSG.
"No big deal," you would think to yourself, "just eliminate foods containing MSG from your diet." Sounds easy enough, but is it?
I have spent a lot of time trying to make sure I know what foods do and do not contain MSG (or the fully spelled out monosodium glutamate) in the ingredients. Sure I had succeeded, I was largely eating homemade snacks for some time. Recently, though, I went away on a business trip that took up all of my weekend, too. Without my usual food prep time, I resorted to pre-packaged snacks. I got some peanut butter crackers, read the ingredients, and was satisfied that the ingredients did not contain MSG. 20 minutes or so after eating them, I had a splitting headache; complete with nausea and a migraine aura. That day I had good timing on my side, on my lunch break I read an article about MSG that came straight to my email inbox. I was appalled to learn that MSG actually goes by other names!
Maltodextrin, Hydrolyzed vegetable protein, Autolyzed yeast extract, "natural flavoring;" all of these are FDA approved names for MSG, and there are actually as many of 40 others! How can any allergy sufferers be expected to keep a list this long and all of the places they usually show up memorized?? But there have been no laws requiring that MSG be clearly marked as an allergen.
That prompts me to ask, "why?" Why is it that when otherwise innocuous substances like milk, nuts, soy, and wheat are clearly marked as allergens for the occasional allergy sufferer; a substance that 25% of Americans are allergic to is allowed to go by nicknames and assumed identities? What kind of logic is that, and who is making sure it stays that way?
Not only is MSG is an allergen, it has also been linked to obesity, diabetes, autism, ADHD, and a host of other conditions. So why is it everywhere?
We need to act NOW! We need to write our congressmen and women to give their full support to legislation promoting the marking of MSG as an allergen in whatever form it appears.
PLEASE WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMEN AND WOMEN. PLEASE REPOST THIS WHEREVER YOU SEE FIT.
Aren't you also sick and tired of having to do research just to be able to eat a package of peanut butter crackers? Tired of the fact that government FOR the people is not doing its part to protect our personal health? Tired of the fact that addictive and toxic additives can be added to our food with no warning? PLEASE WRITE!
This is the letter I'm writing:
Congressman Broun,
I am writing you today on an issue that is very important not to my own health, but to the health of many: The listing of monosodium glutamate as an allergen in food products.
I have been exhibiting allergic reactions to MSG for the last eight years or so. I thought I had finally rid my pantry of all things containing MSG, but I was still experiencing the same migraine headaches and nausea. Further research on my part revealed that monosodium glutamate does not need to be named where it is part of another food additive. Hydrolyzed vegetable protein, autolyzed yeast extract, malotdextrin, and “natural flavor” are all indicators that MSG may or may not be present. Upon further review of the processed foods we keep around the house, I’ve learned that one or more of these names were present in almost all of the ingredient lists.
My husband and I do a lot to preserve our physical health. We make a lot of our foods from scratch with healthy, natural ingredients, we eat fresh vegetables, and when we do snack, we try to eat healthy alternatives to the average available snack food. We are not the type to leave our health up to chance, yet in the case of my allergy to MSG, I am being forced to.
It is incredibly frustrating to me that even in the midst of all of our efforts to take care of our bodies, I cannot get away from a substance that is making me sick. Migraines, nausea, general upset stomach; whenever these are present I can find some ingredient in some food that contained MSG. Church potlucks, eating over at friends’ houses, eating out at restaurants; it seems like nothing is safe, because MSG in some form is present in nearly all processed foods.
Common and (except in the case of allergies) non-toxic foods are listed as allergens on products every day. Milk, soy, peanuts, tree nuts; all of these are allowed allergen status and clearly labeled on foods. I do not understand why only people who suffer from allergies to MSG have to play the food lottery wherever they go. Milk being labeled as an allergen does not make milk-lovers desire not to drink milk. People who love peanut butter are not discouraged from purchasing it because some people are allergic. I do not think it would be harmful to the food additive manufacturers to admit that some people are severely allergic. I know of others in my community whose reactions are much worse than mine. We have to keep running lists of what snack foods are msg free (very few, for the record), what restaurants we can and cannot go to, and the list keeps changing. It is not fair that health-conscious people should be wary of allergic reactions at every turn, and we are not even getting any help from the FDA like other allergy sufferers do.
We need legislation. People who are allergic to MSG need help from those who are serving our country to make our voices heard. Please help and do what you can to promote food labeling legislation that would mark MSG clearly as an allergen in all foods where it is present.
Thank you for your time.
I, like about 25% of Americans, am allergic to MSG. Not fatally so, but I do get awful migraines and upset stomach when I eat foods containing MSG.
"No big deal," you would think to yourself, "just eliminate foods containing MSG from your diet." Sounds easy enough, but is it?
I have spent a lot of time trying to make sure I know what foods do and do not contain MSG (or the fully spelled out monosodium glutamate) in the ingredients. Sure I had succeeded, I was largely eating homemade snacks for some time. Recently, though, I went away on a business trip that took up all of my weekend, too. Without my usual food prep time, I resorted to pre-packaged snacks. I got some peanut butter crackers, read the ingredients, and was satisfied that the ingredients did not contain MSG. 20 minutes or so after eating them, I had a splitting headache; complete with nausea and a migraine aura. That day I had good timing on my side, on my lunch break I read an article about MSG that came straight to my email inbox. I was appalled to learn that MSG actually goes by other names!
Maltodextrin, Hydrolyzed vegetable protein, Autolyzed yeast extract, "natural flavoring;" all of these are FDA approved names for MSG, and there are actually as many of 40 others! How can any allergy sufferers be expected to keep a list this long and all of the places they usually show up memorized?? But there have been no laws requiring that MSG be clearly marked as an allergen.
That prompts me to ask, "why?" Why is it that when otherwise innocuous substances like milk, nuts, soy, and wheat are clearly marked as allergens for the occasional allergy sufferer; a substance that 25% of Americans are allergic to is allowed to go by nicknames and assumed identities? What kind of logic is that, and who is making sure it stays that way?
Not only is MSG is an allergen, it has also been linked to obesity, diabetes, autism, ADHD, and a host of other conditions. So why is it everywhere?
We need to act NOW! We need to write our congressmen and women to give their full support to legislation promoting the marking of MSG as an allergen in whatever form it appears.
PLEASE WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMEN AND WOMEN. PLEASE REPOST THIS WHEREVER YOU SEE FIT.
Aren't you also sick and tired of having to do research just to be able to eat a package of peanut butter crackers? Tired of the fact that government FOR the people is not doing its part to protect our personal health? Tired of the fact that addictive and toxic additives can be added to our food with no warning? PLEASE WRITE!
This is the letter I'm writing:
Congressman Broun,
I am writing you today on an issue that is very important not to my own health, but to the health of many: The listing of monosodium glutamate as an allergen in food products.
I have been exhibiting allergic reactions to MSG for the last eight years or so. I thought I had finally rid my pantry of all things containing MSG, but I was still experiencing the same migraine headaches and nausea. Further research on my part revealed that monosodium glutamate does not need to be named where it is part of another food additive. Hydrolyzed vegetable protein, autolyzed yeast extract, malotdextrin, and “natural flavor” are all indicators that MSG may or may not be present. Upon further review of the processed foods we keep around the house, I’ve learned that one or more of these names were present in almost all of the ingredient lists.
My husband and I do a lot to preserve our physical health. We make a lot of our foods from scratch with healthy, natural ingredients, we eat fresh vegetables, and when we do snack, we try to eat healthy alternatives to the average available snack food. We are not the type to leave our health up to chance, yet in the case of my allergy to MSG, I am being forced to.
It is incredibly frustrating to me that even in the midst of all of our efforts to take care of our bodies, I cannot get away from a substance that is making me sick. Migraines, nausea, general upset stomach; whenever these are present I can find some ingredient in some food that contained MSG. Church potlucks, eating over at friends’ houses, eating out at restaurants; it seems like nothing is safe, because MSG in some form is present in nearly all processed foods.
Common and (except in the case of allergies) non-toxic foods are listed as allergens on products every day. Milk, soy, peanuts, tree nuts; all of these are allowed allergen status and clearly labeled on foods. I do not understand why only people who suffer from allergies to MSG have to play the food lottery wherever they go. Milk being labeled as an allergen does not make milk-lovers desire not to drink milk. People who love peanut butter are not discouraged from purchasing it because some people are allergic. I do not think it would be harmful to the food additive manufacturers to admit that some people are severely allergic. I know of others in my community whose reactions are much worse than mine. We have to keep running lists of what snack foods are msg free (very few, for the record), what restaurants we can and cannot go to, and the list keeps changing. It is not fair that health-conscious people should be wary of allergic reactions at every turn, and we are not even getting any help from the FDA like other allergy sufferers do.
We need legislation. People who are allergic to MSG need help from those who are serving our country to make our voices heard. Please help and do what you can to promote food labeling legislation that would mark MSG clearly as an allergen in all foods where it is present.
Thank you for your time.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Great Day :)
Today was a very satisfying day. I had a great workout with my friend KT this morning, and she asked how things were coming on the new house (which has needed some major cleaning before we officially move in), and then offered to come with me after work today to get some cleaning done. While trying to figure out the details (seeing if I could get Jeff to make dinner and when we would eat it) she said, "You know what, I'm putting a shepherds pie in the oven tonight, anyway, you guys should join us for dinner!"
I was so completely grateful. Not only did she help me scrub the fairly grungy walls (thanks to the former tenants), sweep and mop the floors, and such; but she also gave us the gift of hospitality, having us over and feeding us a delicious dinner!
I don't except help very readily. Partly because of the way my mind works when I approach a problem or task (something about my method makes it very hard for me to clue others in on what I'm doing and what help I need), and partly because I don't like feeling like a burden. But it was very refreshing to allow some help and get some work done. There's still a lot to be done, but I plan on getting it done Saturday. Then we'll get some of the major things moved in: Washer & Dryer, among other things.
We have a new addition coming to our family. We are adopting Joy, an American Bulldog from a kennel in central GA. I am so excited. My family has always kept large dogs, and I want our kids - when we have them - to have the opportunity to grow up with the love of a pet. Also, she's a beautiful dog! I can't wait to share pics when we pick her up!
I was so completely grateful. Not only did she help me scrub the fairly grungy walls (thanks to the former tenants), sweep and mop the floors, and such; but she also gave us the gift of hospitality, having us over and feeding us a delicious dinner!
I don't except help very readily. Partly because of the way my mind works when I approach a problem or task (something about my method makes it very hard for me to clue others in on what I'm doing and what help I need), and partly because I don't like feeling like a burden. But it was very refreshing to allow some help and get some work done. There's still a lot to be done, but I plan on getting it done Saturday. Then we'll get some of the major things moved in: Washer & Dryer, among other things.
We have a new addition coming to our family. We are adopting Joy, an American Bulldog from a kennel in central GA. I am so excited. My family has always kept large dogs, and I want our kids - when we have them - to have the opportunity to grow up with the love of a pet. Also, she's a beautiful dog! I can't wait to share pics when we pick her up!
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Real Food Wednesday: Cozy Quinoa Casserole
I was surfing the web for quinoa recipes, and I found this great one at the Men's Health website. I had no idea they had recipes there! Anyway...it called for Acorn Squash, which I have actually never cooked with before (I know, I know...how is that even possible?). So, I gave it a try. The only thing I wish I had known beforehand was how hard Acorn Squash is to cut. Otherwise, it was smooth sailing.
If you are unfamiliar with Quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah), it is a great addition to your pantry. Quinoa is a South American grain (sort of, it is not a grass plant like other names, so it is not a true grain) that is very unique in that it is a complete protein all by itself. Most grains need to be paired with some legume in order to be a complete protein. Another great advantage is that it is very low in phytic acid compared to other grains, so if you decide to soak it, it only needs to be soaked for 2-4 hours (if at all). It cooks up pretty quickly without soaking. Quinoa was grown and harvested by the Incas, who named it Quinoa because it means "mother grain." Though they may not have had the means to break down its nutritive components, they knew that eating it kept people healthy. Now we know that quinoa is very high in vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber.
Quinoa can seem expensive, but just a little bit cooks up to be quite a lot. This casserole calls for a cup, and a black bean and corn meal I do with Quinoa only uses 1/2 a cup and we have sooooo much food left over! So, while I would not necessarily say it ends up being just as cheap as other grains, it does seem a little more reasonable than it did in my first moment of sticker shock. Actually, the link posted above for the phrase "mother grain" is the least expensive place I could find it online (if anyone knows of a better price, go ahead and let me know, I'm always looking).
Without further ado, here is the recipe (as seen on this page in Men's Health):
* 1 large onion, peeled and diced
* 1 tbsp olive oil
* 6 cremini (or white) mushrooms, thinly sliced
* 1/2 C acorn squash, sliced
* 2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
* 1 lb ground dark turkey meat
* 1 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning (or dried sage)
* 1 tsp sea salt
* 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
* 1 1/2 C low sodium chicken stock
* 1 C quinoa, rinsed
* 1/4 C parsley, minced
* 6 oz reduced fat monterey jack cheese, shredded
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
2. In a skillet, saute onion in olive oil on medium high heat for 2 to 3 minutes or until translucent.
3. Add mushrooms, squash, and garlic and cook for 2 to 3 minutes.
4. Add turkey, breaking it into small pieces as it browns, about 3 to 4 minutes.
5. Add poultry seasoning, salt, pepper, stock, and quinoa and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes.
6. Transfer ingredients from pan into a 9 by 9 inch casserole dish or baking pan.
7. Mix in parsley and 3 ounces cheese.
8. Sprinkle remaining 3 ounces cheese on top of casserole.
9. Bake in oven for 30 to 35 minutes.
They also have nutritional information for the recipe on the site.
Substitutions:
We use homemade mozz instead of the cheddar they recommend, mostly because Mozzarella is a raw cheese, which means Jeff can have it, and I don't know how to make cheddar. Otherwise I made no other substitutions.
I did notice that the color washes out of everything, so you may want to sprinkle with fresh herbs on individual servings to give it a little bit of color.
Check out more Real Food Wednesday Posts here, at Kelly The Kitchen Kop.
If you are unfamiliar with Quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah), it is a great addition to your pantry. Quinoa is a South American grain (sort of, it is not a grass plant like other names, so it is not a true grain) that is very unique in that it is a complete protein all by itself. Most grains need to be paired with some legume in order to be a complete protein. Another great advantage is that it is very low in phytic acid compared to other grains, so if you decide to soak it, it only needs to be soaked for 2-4 hours (if at all). It cooks up pretty quickly without soaking. Quinoa was grown and harvested by the Incas, who named it Quinoa because it means "mother grain." Though they may not have had the means to break down its nutritive components, they knew that eating it kept people healthy. Now we know that quinoa is very high in vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber.
Quinoa can seem expensive, but just a little bit cooks up to be quite a lot. This casserole calls for a cup, and a black bean and corn meal I do with Quinoa only uses 1/2 a cup and we have sooooo much food left over! So, while I would not necessarily say it ends up being just as cheap as other grains, it does seem a little more reasonable than it did in my first moment of sticker shock. Actually, the link posted above for the phrase "mother grain" is the least expensive place I could find it online (if anyone knows of a better price, go ahead and let me know, I'm always looking).
Without further ado, here is the recipe (as seen on this page in Men's Health):
* 1 large onion, peeled and diced
* 1 tbsp olive oil
* 6 cremini (or white) mushrooms, thinly sliced
* 1/2 C acorn squash, sliced
* 2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
* 1 lb ground dark turkey meat
* 1 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning (or dried sage)
* 1 tsp sea salt
* 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
* 1 1/2 C low sodium chicken stock
* 1 C quinoa, rinsed
* 1/4 C parsley, minced
* 6 oz reduced fat monterey jack cheese, shredded
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
2. In a skillet, saute onion in olive oil on medium high heat for 2 to 3 minutes or until translucent.
3. Add mushrooms, squash, and garlic and cook for 2 to 3 minutes.
4. Add turkey, breaking it into small pieces as it browns, about 3 to 4 minutes.
5. Add poultry seasoning, salt, pepper, stock, and quinoa and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes.
6. Transfer ingredients from pan into a 9 by 9 inch casserole dish or baking pan.
7. Mix in parsley and 3 ounces cheese.
8. Sprinkle remaining 3 ounces cheese on top of casserole.
9. Bake in oven for 30 to 35 minutes.
They also have nutritional information for the recipe on the site.
Substitutions:
We use homemade mozz instead of the cheddar they recommend, mostly because Mozzarella is a raw cheese, which means Jeff can have it, and I don't know how to make cheddar. Otherwise I made no other substitutions.
I did notice that the color washes out of everything, so you may want to sprinkle with fresh herbs on individual servings to give it a little bit of color.
Check out more Real Food Wednesday Posts here, at Kelly The Kitchen Kop.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Exciting News!!
Early this morning at 8 AM, Jeff and I signed the lease on a house! We are finally going to be able to have people over, have the room we need to keep up with everything I want to be doing in the kitchen, making our own laundry soap, etc.
An added bonus is that the back yard is ginormous, and we have landlady approval do have a good sized garden! So what I need now is lots of Georgia winter gardening tips, because of course the garden won't be getting started until probably September.
We have this whole month to move, which I am really grateful for, because it will give us time to organize things as we move them without getting overwhelmed. I've never had so much time to move before...the focus is always getting everything out of the one residence and into another, and then when it is all in there, there is hardly any room to get a real organizational structure in place. This way I'll be able to organize things as they get moved in, so we won't have a room full of things that have no home, and no hope of future organization. I am really excited about an opportunity to move at a steady pace, with no mad rush to the finish line!
Now I'm off to Swag Search winter gardening in GA. If you've tried to join Swag Bucks with the widget at the bottom of the page, I think it's broken. However, you can join under me at this referral link. I know it is going to take a LONG time, but I'm trying to earn airline miles so that visiting my parents back home in NY is more financially feasible! Your joining helps me out! Thanks :)
An added bonus is that the back yard is ginormous, and we have landlady approval do have a good sized garden! So what I need now is lots of Georgia winter gardening tips, because of course the garden won't be getting started until probably September.
We have this whole month to move, which I am really grateful for, because it will give us time to organize things as we move them without getting overwhelmed. I've never had so much time to move before...the focus is always getting everything out of the one residence and into another, and then when it is all in there, there is hardly any room to get a real organizational structure in place. This way I'll be able to organize things as they get moved in, so we won't have a room full of things that have no home, and no hope of future organization. I am really excited about an opportunity to move at a steady pace, with no mad rush to the finish line!
Now I'm off to Swag Search winter gardening in GA. If you've tried to join Swag Bucks with the widget at the bottom of the page, I think it's broken. However, you can join under me at this referral link. I know it is going to take a LONG time, but I'm trying to earn airline miles so that visiting my parents back home in NY is more financially feasible! Your joining helps me out! Thanks :)
Monday, July 27, 2009
Menu Plan Monday - July 27
Last week there was no menu planning for us. Monday was my birthday and Saturday was our anniversary, not to mention getting back from a week-long business trip; so last week was about slowly getting back into our routine.
We came back to find that some friends of ours had just welcomed their 4th child into the world (Congratulations, Rachel & Josh :-D), and of course the ladies from our church are helping to prepare meals, so that got me excited. Jeff and I tried a new recipe out this spring that quickly became a favorite, and when we shared some leftovers with Josh & Rachel they were fast fans, too. So I did not even have to think to hard about what I was going to be making. So, with Wednesday figured out (that is when we cook for them), I decided to leap into the rest of the week.
Monday:
Breakfast: Kefir Smoothie and Scrambled eggs
Lunch: salad
Dinner: spaghetti a la Jeff (I had dinner planned, but I came home and Jeff said, "Can I make dinner?" I almost never say no to that)
To Do: Mill flour for bread / soak for Tuesday, Take Black Beans out of Freezer for burritos Tuesday. Buy Avocados for Wednesday (it's hard to find ripe avocados around here that aren't already too mushy, so I buy them green a few days ahead). Hardboil Eggs.
Tuesday:
Breakfast: Kefir Smoothie / Soaked Oatmeal Breakfast
Lunch: Hard boiled eggs / fresh veggies
Dinner: Sweet Potato Burritos
To Do: Bake bread, slice cucumbers into vinegar, salt, and pepper & let it sit overnight.
Wednesday:
Breakfast: Hardboiled Eggs / Kefir Smoothie
Lunch: Cucumber Sandwhiches (improvised version: also with tomatoes and lettuce on homemade whole wheat bread)
Dinner: Barley Burgers! I use hulled barley instead of pearl (more nutrients), and I soak it prior, turns out great :)
To Do: Soak Barley wednesday morning, for lunch wednesday mix butter with dill for cucumber sandwiches
Thursday:
Breakfast: Kefir Smoothie & Hardboiled eggs
Lunch: Chicken Salad sandwiches
Dinner: Date Night (Ruen Thai - one of my favs! No MSG, too :))
To Do: Make Granola
Friday -
Breakfast: Kefir Smoothie /granola / milk
Lunch: Hardboiled eggs, salad
Dinner - Leftovers (on my own cuz Jeff's working)
To Do: Soak pancake batter for morning, soak flour for Saturday bagel making
Saturday:
Breakfast: Eggs/Pancakes
Lunch: Chicken Salad Sandwiches
Dinner: Honey Garlic Chicken, mixed veggies, multigrain dinner rolls
Sunday:
Breakfast: Kefir Smoothies / granola
Lunch: Chicken Salad Sandwiches
Dinner: Quiche, (spinach bacon mushroom?)
And that's that. Find more menu planning ideas at Org Junkie.
We came back to find that some friends of ours had just welcomed their 4th child into the world (Congratulations, Rachel & Josh :-D), and of course the ladies from our church are helping to prepare meals, so that got me excited. Jeff and I tried a new recipe out this spring that quickly became a favorite, and when we shared some leftovers with Josh & Rachel they were fast fans, too. So I did not even have to think to hard about what I was going to be making. So, with Wednesday figured out (that is when we cook for them), I decided to leap into the rest of the week.
Monday:
Breakfast: Kefir Smoothie and Scrambled eggs
Lunch: salad
Dinner: spaghetti a la Jeff (I had dinner planned, but I came home and Jeff said, "Can I make dinner?" I almost never say no to that)
To Do: Mill flour for bread / soak for Tuesday, Take Black Beans out of Freezer for burritos Tuesday. Buy Avocados for Wednesday (it's hard to find ripe avocados around here that aren't already too mushy, so I buy them green a few days ahead). Hardboil Eggs.
Tuesday:
Breakfast: Kefir Smoothie / Soaked Oatmeal Breakfast
Lunch: Hard boiled eggs / fresh veggies
Dinner: Sweet Potato Burritos
To Do: Bake bread, slice cucumbers into vinegar, salt, and pepper & let it sit overnight.
Wednesday:
Breakfast: Hardboiled Eggs / Kefir Smoothie
Lunch: Cucumber Sandwhiches (improvised version: also with tomatoes and lettuce on homemade whole wheat bread)
Dinner: Barley Burgers! I use hulled barley instead of pearl (more nutrients), and I soak it prior, turns out great :)
To Do: Soak Barley wednesday morning, for lunch wednesday mix butter with dill for cucumber sandwiches
Thursday:
Breakfast: Kefir Smoothie & Hardboiled eggs
Lunch: Chicken Salad sandwiches
Dinner: Date Night (Ruen Thai - one of my favs! No MSG, too :))
To Do: Make Granola
Friday -
Breakfast: Kefir Smoothie /granola / milk
Lunch: Hardboiled eggs, salad
Dinner - Leftovers (on my own cuz Jeff's working)
To Do: Soak pancake batter for morning, soak flour for Saturday bagel making
Saturday:
Breakfast: Eggs/Pancakes
Lunch: Chicken Salad Sandwiches
Dinner: Honey Garlic Chicken, mixed veggies, multigrain dinner rolls
Sunday:
Breakfast: Kefir Smoothies / granola
Lunch: Chicken Salad Sandwiches
Dinner: Quiche, (spinach bacon mushroom?)
And that's that. Find more menu planning ideas at Org Junkie.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Our Nutrition Journey (Part 2 - From Georgia Onward)
This is continuing from my previous post, Our Nutrition Journey (My History With Food), as a part of Fight Back Fridays.
When I moved down to GA in the summer of 2007, I moved in with my brother and sister-in-law. They baked all of their baked goods with flour freshly milled in their kitchen from whole wheat. I was a little hesitant to swing so drastically into the "health food" camp (which is really laughable, if you know me now), but I decided to at least try it. What I learned is that wheat bread made from freshly milled flour has a very surprising nutty flavor to it, not at all like the cardboard taste of store bought wheat. Whether Jen is making cookies, breads, or cakes; she does that with freshly milled whole wheat flour. The more I ate with them, the less I liked white bread. In fact, most things made with white bread just tasted empty. I decided that when I was no longer living with them, I was definitely investing in a grain mill of my own. Other than that, I did not have too much planned along the lines of healthy living. As far as I was concerned, all the wonderful benefits of freshly milled flour (and there are indeed many) would be the cure-all for my health.
Meanwhile, my husband Jeff (then my friend) had a few appointments with his doctor regarding blood work less than positive results. When the implications of his current eating patterns (lots of soda and other refined sugars) became clear, his diet changed almost overnight! Cholesterol and blood sugar both were high, and the doctor was quite concerned, so all of the sudden, soda was entirely removed from Jeff's diet. The rest of this is basically just what he had recounted to me while all of this was going on. Jeff felt like he had more energy with all the sugar gone, so instead of just cutting out the sweets he switched to xylitol for a few things. That was great for uncooked foods, and it is supposed to cook up just the same as sugar, but somehow everything ended up fluffier when he used it.
When we were getting ready to get married, I was afraid I was going to have to try and convince Jeff that we should do the wheat. Little did I know that his mom had frequently made bread from scratch when he was growing up, and he preferred a heartier bread. He said to me once when we were talking about budgeting, groceries, and the like; "So, we're going to do the wheat, right?" So I ordered wheat right away when we got married, and just went around using other people's mills until we could afford our own. I knew several people who had mills, and all of them were people I enjoy spending time with, so that made it even better. It was not just a way for me to mill flour until we had our own mill, it was an opportunity snippets of quality time with people I like to be with.
We were largely drinking soy milk, because Jeff is allergic to (pasteurized) dairy. Sometimes (in order to not make a big deal of things in public and such) he would just eat/drink dairy anyway, but every time he got really sick...so I pretty much just stayed away from cheese and only cooked with soy milk. I was asking a friend for tips on milk substitutes that maybe were a little creamier, and she said, "He's even allergic to raw milk?" I totally did not understand the question. How could pasteurization affect an allergy? She explained to me that pasteurization kills an enzyme that makes casein and other proteins more digestible. I was partly excited about the concept, and partly in stunned disbelief. There was no way this sounded logical or truthful (but I really hoped it was). I stuck the idea on the back burner, not wanting to make an investment of any kind in something that might not work. Then, while we were hanging out with some family down here (aside: it's really complicated to say how exactly "family" is related. My sister in law's fun-loving family continuously grows by association, and we are included in that group. So I could say that it was my sister-in-law's sister Angie who offered us the milk, but that just sounds clumsy and way too dificult. It is easier and more accurate to just say my sister or my sister in law, that said, I'm just going to use sil for short), my sil Angie said, "I have some raw milk, do you want to try it?" I was excited, Jeff not so much. UNTIL...he tried it. Then he was astonished at how it tastes good, while pasteurized milk tastes not-so-good. Better yet, he did not get sick! So we switched.
In a fit of experimentation (those happen to me often, sometimes it works, sometimes it is not so pretty) I decided I wanted to try to make butter. My wonderful husband googled like crazy and found this incredible blog post, complete with step by step instructions and clear pictures. The butter making is not something we do all the time. We really do not enjoy the taste of our milk skimmed (and one of the benefits of raw milk is that there is no need to, health and fats wise), so we only make it when I can get cream from our farmer, too (as opposed to just milk). The experiment went well, though, and I decided to check out Lindsay's blog (see link a few lines back) to see what else she had in store.
Well, to my amazement she had all kinds of health tips, recipes, and more importantly, links to other blogs on the same topics. I began to learn about soaking grains and legumes. At first glance all I could think was, "That just seems like a lot of extra work!" But the more I thought about it, if we were going as far as to freshly mill our own flour immediately before baking to get more benefit from the flour, we were silly not to soak, when that would increase the nutritional benefit by so much! So, I started learning how to soak, but found that my off-the-cuff M.O. didn't really jive with something you needed to do 8-24 hours in advance. Then one day I accidentally stumbled onto a post on meal planning. After the meals were the steps needed to get ready for the next days meals, and I thought, "This is IT! This is how I can keep on top of things (more...not entirely, but more)."
Meal planning made things even easier, because it broke my cook time down into shorter segments. One for milling and soaking, and one for adding the final ingredients and baking. So I found it was much easer to soak grains and to plan ahead than it was for me to bake at all without soaking. This may not be the case for everyone else, but it was certainly the case for me. Once again when I thought Jeff would be weirded out by some new thing, he said, "I'm pretty sure my mom soaked her bread dough." So another smooth transition took place (Praise the Lord!).
In reading posts on soaking, I came across making your own kefir often. Now, for those of you who have no idea what it is, kefir (pronounced "kuhFEER"), it is a probiotic food. It is a lot like yogurt, except that is consistency is thinner (more like a smoothie), and it has more probiotic cultures. I was already familiar with kefir from my time in Boston. I had a housemate from Russia who taught me how to say it, and recommended it when I could not eat very much (I was dealing with stress, and have tended to take my stress out on my stomach. When I would get very anxious, I would be hungry, but would be creating so much extra acid that I was also nauseated. Kefir was the only thing I could drink when that happened, and I'd basically drink kefir and eat bread for two days until my stomach was okay again). Anyway, I had already started making yogurt, but I had no idea that you could make kefir! I was very excited about a) having it on hand again, and b) only spending just over $1 a quart, instead of $3 a quart.
The dictionary definition above lacks in one way, it only references 2 cultures. Yogurt generally has 2, but kefir usually has several. Lifeway Kefir (which I highly recommend if you can't / don't want to make your own or can't get raw milk anyway) has ten probiotic cultures in it. Homemade kefir from raw milk, I recently learned, can have as many as 28 probiotic cultures in it. The acid-culture environment of both kefir and yogurt makes the calcium in milk more absorbable (as well as a host of B Vitamins!), so I began to make kefir smoothies a part of my daily regimen (well, not much I do is planned, so it pretty much was my daily regimen). Every morning for breakfast I would make a kefir smoothie (and most mornings I would eat granola or a hard-boiled egg, too). Jeff eats the yogurt, but even sweetened, the kefir is a little too sharp-tasting for him. Sweetened with some sucanat and vanilla, I love to add it to a banana and a handful of strawberries. I have also started making our own cheeses and such. Mostly just Mozzarella and Riccotta. And straining some batches of yogurt to make "yogurt cheese" or basically, cream cheese.
We also, after much reading, switched over entirely from processed white and brown sugars to sucanat, in order to help out with Jeff's blood sugar, but also because mine had gotten a little weird. I had always tended toward being hypoglycemic, and recently had noticed that if I ate anything with too much processed sugar, I was suddenly quite lacking in energy, almost to the point of falling asleep. Knowing that reactive hypoglycemia such as that can be a precursor to diabetes (which I have a family history of), we decided to turn our little baby step of using xylitol sometimes into a leap of faith in using sucanat all the time.
I have read so many more wonderful ideas on so many blogs (such as the ones I've been linking to for Fight Back Fridays, Menu Planning Mondays, Real Food Wednesdays, and Gratituesdays - yes, they're not in order, because they didn't come to mind in order), and we've wanted to implement many more of them, but at the moment I've had to learn to be stop for a while and be content where we are. We have a small kitchen (a small apartment in general), with no room for a garden, so at this point we have had to say, "we will do this later." But I am very excited to say that with just those changes in place (raw milk, freshly milled flour, sucanat, and soaking) Jeff's recent labs were almost miraculously better, and my blood sugar is normal! Not only that, but we (who had previously been getting sick with head/chest colds 1-2 times a month) have not been sick in like six months!
Typing it up, it really sounds like a lot of changes; but adding them one step at a time was crucial! These changes, though have really affected us for the better. I was just getting to a point of getting bored with some of it (yes, it happens!), when Jeff came home and said his cholesterol had gone down 100 points in the last year (yes, if you're wondering, that is incredible to achieve with no medications), and that he was no longer borderline diabetic. Talk about news that motivates you. I regained my wind, so to speak, and haven't looked back. Our health is so much better than where it was, and REAL FOOD is largely at the root of it!
For more Fight Back Friday Posts, visit Food Renegade!
When I moved down to GA in the summer of 2007, I moved in with my brother and sister-in-law. They baked all of their baked goods with flour freshly milled in their kitchen from whole wheat. I was a little hesitant to swing so drastically into the "health food" camp (which is really laughable, if you know me now), but I decided to at least try it. What I learned is that wheat bread made from freshly milled flour has a very surprising nutty flavor to it, not at all like the cardboard taste of store bought wheat. Whether Jen is making cookies, breads, or cakes; she does that with freshly milled whole wheat flour. The more I ate with them, the less I liked white bread. In fact, most things made with white bread just tasted empty. I decided that when I was no longer living with them, I was definitely investing in a grain mill of my own. Other than that, I did not have too much planned along the lines of healthy living. As far as I was concerned, all the wonderful benefits of freshly milled flour (and there are indeed many) would be the cure-all for my health.
Meanwhile, my husband Jeff (then my friend) had a few appointments with his doctor regarding blood work less than positive results. When the implications of his current eating patterns (lots of soda and other refined sugars) became clear, his diet changed almost overnight! Cholesterol and blood sugar both were high, and the doctor was quite concerned, so all of the sudden, soda was entirely removed from Jeff's diet. The rest of this is basically just what he had recounted to me while all of this was going on. Jeff felt like he had more energy with all the sugar gone, so instead of just cutting out the sweets he switched to xylitol for a few things. That was great for uncooked foods, and it is supposed to cook up just the same as sugar, but somehow everything ended up fluffier when he used it.
When we were getting ready to get married, I was afraid I was going to have to try and convince Jeff that we should do the wheat. Little did I know that his mom had frequently made bread from scratch when he was growing up, and he preferred a heartier bread. He said to me once when we were talking about budgeting, groceries, and the like; "So, we're going to do the wheat, right?" So I ordered wheat right away when we got married, and just went around using other people's mills until we could afford our own. I knew several people who had mills, and all of them were people I enjoy spending time with, so that made it even better. It was not just a way for me to mill flour until we had our own mill, it was an opportunity snippets of quality time with people I like to be with.
We were largely drinking soy milk, because Jeff is allergic to (pasteurized) dairy. Sometimes (in order to not make a big deal of things in public and such) he would just eat/drink dairy anyway, but every time he got really sick...so I pretty much just stayed away from cheese and only cooked with soy milk. I was asking a friend for tips on milk substitutes that maybe were a little creamier, and she said, "He's even allergic to raw milk?" I totally did not understand the question. How could pasteurization affect an allergy? She explained to me that pasteurization kills an enzyme that makes casein and other proteins more digestible. I was partly excited about the concept, and partly in stunned disbelief. There was no way this sounded logical or truthful (but I really hoped it was). I stuck the idea on the back burner, not wanting to make an investment of any kind in something that might not work. Then, while we were hanging out with some family down here (aside: it's really complicated to say how exactly "family" is related. My sister in law's fun-loving family continuously grows by association, and we are included in that group. So I could say that it was my sister-in-law's sister Angie who offered us the milk, but that just sounds clumsy and way too dificult. It is easier and more accurate to just say my sister or my sister in law, that said, I'm just going to use sil for short), my sil Angie said, "I have some raw milk, do you want to try it?" I was excited, Jeff not so much. UNTIL...he tried it. Then he was astonished at how it tastes good, while pasteurized milk tastes not-so-good. Better yet, he did not get sick! So we switched.
In a fit of experimentation (those happen to me often, sometimes it works, sometimes it is not so pretty) I decided I wanted to try to make butter. My wonderful husband googled like crazy and found this incredible blog post, complete with step by step instructions and clear pictures. The butter making is not something we do all the time. We really do not enjoy the taste of our milk skimmed (and one of the benefits of raw milk is that there is no need to, health and fats wise), so we only make it when I can get cream from our farmer, too (as opposed to just milk). The experiment went well, though, and I decided to check out Lindsay's blog (see link a few lines back) to see what else she had in store.
Well, to my amazement she had all kinds of health tips, recipes, and more importantly, links to other blogs on the same topics. I began to learn about soaking grains and legumes. At first glance all I could think was, "That just seems like a lot of extra work!" But the more I thought about it, if we were going as far as to freshly mill our own flour immediately before baking to get more benefit from the flour, we were silly not to soak, when that would increase the nutritional benefit by so much! So, I started learning how to soak, but found that my off-the-cuff M.O. didn't really jive with something you needed to do 8-24 hours in advance. Then one day I accidentally stumbled onto a post on meal planning. After the meals were the steps needed to get ready for the next days meals, and I thought, "This is IT! This is how I can keep on top of things (more...not entirely, but more)."
Meal planning made things even easier, because it broke my cook time down into shorter segments. One for milling and soaking, and one for adding the final ingredients and baking. So I found it was much easer to soak grains and to plan ahead than it was for me to bake at all without soaking. This may not be the case for everyone else, but it was certainly the case for me. Once again when I thought Jeff would be weirded out by some new thing, he said, "I'm pretty sure my mom soaked her bread dough." So another smooth transition took place (Praise the Lord!).
In reading posts on soaking, I came across making your own kefir often. Now, for those of you who have no idea what it is, kefir (pronounced "kuhFEER"), it is a probiotic food. It is a lot like yogurt, except that is consistency is thinner (more like a smoothie), and it has more probiotic cultures. I was already familiar with kefir from my time in Boston. I had a housemate from Russia who taught me how to say it, and recommended it when I could not eat very much (I was dealing with stress, and have tended to take my stress out on my stomach. When I would get very anxious, I would be hungry, but would be creating so much extra acid that I was also nauseated. Kefir was the only thing I could drink when that happened, and I'd basically drink kefir and eat bread for two days until my stomach was okay again). Anyway, I had already started making yogurt, but I had no idea that you could make kefir! I was very excited about a) having it on hand again, and b) only spending just over $1 a quart, instead of $3 a quart.
The dictionary definition above lacks in one way, it only references 2 cultures. Yogurt generally has 2, but kefir usually has several. Lifeway Kefir (which I highly recommend if you can't / don't want to make your own or can't get raw milk anyway) has ten probiotic cultures in it. Homemade kefir from raw milk, I recently learned, can have as many as 28 probiotic cultures in it. The acid-culture environment of both kefir and yogurt makes the calcium in milk more absorbable (as well as a host of B Vitamins!), so I began to make kefir smoothies a part of my daily regimen (well, not much I do is planned, so it pretty much was my daily regimen). Every morning for breakfast I would make a kefir smoothie (and most mornings I would eat granola or a hard-boiled egg, too). Jeff eats the yogurt, but even sweetened, the kefir is a little too sharp-tasting for him. Sweetened with some sucanat and vanilla, I love to add it to a banana and a handful of strawberries. I have also started making our own cheeses and such. Mostly just Mozzarella and Riccotta. And straining some batches of yogurt to make "yogurt cheese" or basically, cream cheese.
We also, after much reading, switched over entirely from processed white and brown sugars to sucanat, in order to help out with Jeff's blood sugar, but also because mine had gotten a little weird. I had always tended toward being hypoglycemic, and recently had noticed that if I ate anything with too much processed sugar, I was suddenly quite lacking in energy, almost to the point of falling asleep. Knowing that reactive hypoglycemia such as that can be a precursor to diabetes (which I have a family history of), we decided to turn our little baby step of using xylitol sometimes into a leap of faith in using sucanat all the time.
I have read so many more wonderful ideas on so many blogs (such as the ones I've been linking to for Fight Back Fridays, Menu Planning Mondays, Real Food Wednesdays, and Gratituesdays - yes, they're not in order, because they didn't come to mind in order), and we've wanted to implement many more of them, but at the moment I've had to learn to be stop for a while and be content where we are. We have a small kitchen (a small apartment in general), with no room for a garden, so at this point we have had to say, "we will do this later." But I am very excited to say that with just those changes in place (raw milk, freshly milled flour, sucanat, and soaking) Jeff's recent labs were almost miraculously better, and my blood sugar is normal! Not only that, but we (who had previously been getting sick with head/chest colds 1-2 times a month) have not been sick in like six months!
Typing it up, it really sounds like a lot of changes; but adding them one step at a time was crucial! These changes, though have really affected us for the better. I was just getting to a point of getting bored with some of it (yes, it happens!), when Jeff came home and said his cholesterol had gone down 100 points in the last year (yes, if you're wondering, that is incredible to achieve with no medications), and that he was no longer borderline diabetic. Talk about news that motivates you. I regained my wind, so to speak, and haven't looked back. Our health is so much better than where it was, and REAL FOOD is largely at the root of it!
For more Fight Back Friday Posts, visit Food Renegade!
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